“White dress, yah!” echoed Rogaum, and then the fact of her walking with some one came home like a blow.
“Did you hear dot?” he exclaimed even as Mrs. Rogaum did likewise. “Mein Gott, hast du das gehoert?”
He fairly jumped as he said it. His hands flew up to his stout and ruddy head.
“Whaddy ya want to let her out for nights?” asked Maguire roughly, catching the drift of the situation. “That’s no time for young girls to be out, anyhow, and with these toughs around here. Sure, I saw her, nearly two hours ago.”
“Ach,” groaned Rogaum. “Two hours yet. Ho, ho, ho!” His voice was quite hysteric.
“Well, go on in,” said Officer Delahanty. “There’s no use yellin’ out here. Give us a description of her an’ we’ll send out an alarm. You won’t be able to find her walkin’ around.”
Her parents described her exactly. The two men turned to the nearest police box and then disappeared, leaving the old German couple in the throes of distress. A time-worn old church-clock nearby now chimed out one and then two. The notes cut like knives. Mrs. Rogaum began fearfully to cry. Rogaum walked and blustered to himself.
“It’s a queer case, that,” said Officer Delahanty to Maguire after having reported the matter of Theresa, but referring solely to the outcast of the doorway so recently sent away and in whose fate they were much more interested. She being a part of the commercialized vice of the city, they were curious as to the cause of her suicide. “I think I know that woman. I think I know where she came from. You do, too—Adele’s, around the corner, eh? She didn’t come into that doorway by herself, either. She was put there. You know how they do.”
“You’re right,” said Maguire. “She was put there, all right, and that’s just where she come from, too.”
The two of them now tipped up their noses and cocked their eyes significantly.