Breaking away from the crowd, she snatched a paper from a boy, flung him a half-dollar, then hurried to the corner, where, beneath an arclight she read the astounding news. Again it seemed that her senses would desert her. With an effort she made her way to a restaurant where a cup of black coffee revived her.
For a time she sat in a daze, utterly oblivious of the figure she cut—a well dressed, handsome young woman in opera cloak and silk gown, seated at the counter of a cheap restaurant.
Johnny Thompson alive, here in Chicago, arrested for conspiracy? What did it mean? Could it mean that Johnny had been a deserter, that he had become involved in the radical movement which, coming from Russia, seemed about to sweep the country off its feet? She could not quite believe that, but—
Suddenly a new thought sent her hurrying into the street. Hailing a taxi, she ordered the chauffeur to drive around the block until she gave him further orders. Her thoughts now were all shaped toward a definite end: Johnny Thompson, her good pal, was not dead. He was in Chicago and in trouble. If it were within her power, she must find him and help him.
Studying the newspaper, she noted the point at which he had been arrested. "Wells street bridge," she read. "That means the Madison Street police station."
Her lips were at the speaking tube in an instant. "Madison Street police station, and hurry!" she ordered. "An extra five for speed." The taxi whirled around a corner on two wheels; it shot by a policeman; dodged up an alley, and out on the other side, then stopped with a jolt that came near sending Mazie through the glass.
"Here you are." She thrust a bill in the driver's hand, then raced up the steps and into the forbidding police station.
A sergeant looked up from the desk as she entered.
"Johnny Thompson," she said excitedly. "I want to see Johnny Thompson!"
"I'd like to myself, miss," he said smiling. "There never was a featherweight like him. But he's dead."