That little touch did the business. He begins pacin' up and down his cell, wringin' his hands. About the fourth lap he stops.
"If I only could take her to Australia," says he, "and get her out of—of all this, I would be willing to—to——"
"That's enough," says I. "All I want is your O. K. on any terms I can make with Mrs. Murtha."
"She's a hard woman," says he. "And she doesn't come by her money straight."
"Nor lose it easy," says I. "She wants it back. Might talk business, though, if I could show her how——"
"Anything!" says Allston. "Anything to get me out!"
"Now you're usin' your bean," says I. "I'm off. Maybe you'll hear from me later."
Course I didn't know what could be done, but I 'phones Piddie at the office to tell 'em I won't be in before lunch, and then I boards an uptown subway express. Easy enough findin' Mrs. Connie Murtha too. She's just finished a ten o'clock breakfast. A big, well-built, dashin' sort of party she is, with an enameled complexion and drugged hair. She's brisk and businesslike.
"If you've come to beg me to let up on that sneaking English butler," says she, "you needn't waste any more breath. He's going to do time for this job."
"But suppose he could be coaxed into tellin' where the loot was?" says I.