To Florence, save for one condition, this prolonged downpour would have seemed nothing short of a catastrophe. She was shut away from her beloved out-of-doors, but this only gave her more time to spend with that fascinating person, the lady cop.
The lady cop had become all but a pal to Florence and Tillie. Every evening, after the day’s work was done and darkness had blanketed the water, Tillie came stealing over to the mystery cabin.
And she never lacked a welcome. She gave the lady cop many a needed bit of information. With her aid, the lady cop had so far progressed in her investigation that she whispered to them on the second day of the rain that soon she would be ready to wire for reënforcements. When these arrived she would spring the trap.
“And then?” Florence breathed.
“Then the three rubies will be in my hands. And someone will go to jail.
“But let’s not talk too much,” she added. “The best laid plans fail often enough.”
The hour of the day that Florence and Tillie loved best was the one which preceded the lady cop’s shooing them out for the night. At that hour, after brewing herself a cup of coffee and drinking it steaming hot, she spun weird tales of her adventures as a lady detective.
An only child of a police captain, at the age of eighteen she had seen her father brought home dead, shot in the back while assisting in a raid on a notorious gambling house. Over her father’s dead body she had vowed that she would take his place.
When the time came, when she was of age, her mother, having no boys to give to the great service of protecting humanity, had smilingly, tearfully, given that which she had, a girl. And to the city she had already proved herself a priceless gift.
Working her way secretly into places where no man could ever have entered, she had brought to light places of vice and crime which for long years had remained hidden in the dark.