"No, it's not the police. He's been shanghaied, if you know what that means."
"Crimped? It's thrue for ye, I know; 'tis twice before he's been, but who done it I never could tell. Av I thought anny av my folk that's afraid av his silly tongue wud do that dhirty thrick—" she stopped short, her strong face working.
I was rather angry myself. "Well, Sheila, I don't believe they had anything to do with it before; but it was Doctor Reid who had it done to-day. I was there, but it was over before I understood what was going on."
"Reid? I shud ha' known 'twas Reid, the shamblin' scun he is, an' small good them that loved him best ever had av him! Now, the divil hould his dhirty little pinch av a soul! For why shud he harm my man?"
"That's what I want to know," I said. "He's afraid of what Antonio says about him, and you know—"
"As far as his story ever goes it'll harm no man," she burst out, "they know well he's all bark an' no bite, if they weren't all crazy-afraid together, an' a truer man anny day than that blagyard body-snatchin' pill-roller. His own guilty heart it is, whisperin' over his shoulder, an' me poor lamb that he married an' murthered, and the child av his own body on the one day! An' the poor mother they're callin' crazy, with the soul av the daughter she cudn't let free standin' between her an' the sunshine. Crazy she'll never be until they make her so, with their doctors an' questions an' whispers, an' that death-fetch Reid grinnin' before her face, with the blood not dhry on him!" She paused for breath, walking up and down the room and twisting her hands.
"Sit down, Sheila," I said, "you know this is absurd. I'm trying to get a little truth about people we both care for; and if you say things like that, how can you expect me to believe anything?" But my knees were trembling as I spoke.
"Mudhered it was all the same," she said sullenly, dropping back into a chair nevertheless. "When a docthor with all the learnin' that goes beyond the knowledge av a woman lets his wife die an' an innocent mite av a new-born baby go down to the grave with her, 'tis black murder it is, no less. How could she rest quiet after that, an' half her life callin' to her, an' the mother that wouldn't let her go, an' had the power to see? 'Tis no docthor she wants, but a priest, an' no medicine but a handful av holy wather, like my own sister's cousin Nora that used to sit an' talk with her lad that was dead evenin's by the byre wall, an' Father Tracy came behind an' sprinkled the two av thim, the one he could see an' the one he could not see."
"Who was it that died?" I asked sharply. "Was it Miriam? Did Reid lie to me when he said so, or did Carucci lie when he said that Reid was married to Lady?"
She grew suddenly quiet and cautious, as if she had said too much already, and must weigh her words.