The Girl from Farriss | Page 3

her or another of any criminal responsibility for the man's death, yet he made a mental note of the effect his words had had upon her.
Had she not been an inmate of the house at the time the thing occurred? And was it not just possible that an excellent police case might be worked up about her later if the exigencies of the service demanded a brilliant police coup to distract the public's attention from some more important case in which they had blundered?
For a moment the girl was silent. How badly he had frightened her with his threat Mr. Doarty had not the faintest conception, nor, could he have guessed the pitiable beating of her heart, would he have been able to conjecture the real cause of her alarm. That the policeman would assume criminal guilt in her should she allow her perturbation to become too apparent she well knew, and so, for the moment of her silence, she struggled to regain mastery of herself. Nor was she unsuccessful.
"It wouldn't get you anything," she said, "to follow that lay, for the report of the coroner's physician shows that Mr.--that the man died of heart disease. But, cutting out all this foolishness, I'll swear to a complaint against Farris if you want me to--if you think that it will get you anything. Though, and you can take it from me who knows, it's more likely to get you a prairie beat out Brighton way--there's many a bull pullin' his box to-night out in the wilderness who thought that he could put one over on Abe Farris--and Farris is still doin' business at the old stand."
As they talked they had been walking toward the street and now Doarty crossed over to the corner with the girl and pulled for the wagon.
"What did it stand you to forget the guy's name?" he asked, after they had stood in silence for a time awaiting the wagon's tardy arrival.
"They offerred me a hundred," she replied.
"An', of course, you didn't take it," he ventured, grinning.
The girl made no response.
"The newspapers sure suffered an awful shock when they found the old bloke was one of the biggest stockholders in two State Street department stores," continued Mr. Doarty reminiscently. "They say his family routed the advertising manager of every paper in the city out of bed at one o'clock in the morning, and that three morning papers had to pull out the story after they had gone to press with it, and stick in a column obituary tellin' all about what he had done for his city and his fellow man, with a cut of his mug in place of the front page cartoon--gee! but it must be great to have a drag like that."
"Yes," said the girl in a faint voice.
Faintly in the distance a gong danged.
"Them guys is sure takin' their time," observed Mr. Doarty.
A little crowd had gathered about the couple at the police-box, only mildly curious, for an arrest is no uncommon thing in that section of town; and when they discovered that no one had been cut up, or shot up, and that the prisoner was scandalously sober they ceased even to be mildly curious. By the time the wagon arrived the two were again alone.
At the station the girl signed a complaint against one Abe Farris, and was then locked up to insure her appearance in court the following morning.
Officer Doarty, warrant in hand, fairly burned the pavement back to Farris's. It had been many a month since he had made an arrest which gave him as sincere personal pleasure as this one. He routed Farris out of bed and hustled him into his clothes. This, he surmised, might be the sole satisfaction that he would derive, since the municipal court judge before whom the preliminary hearing would come later in the morning might, in all likelihood, discharge the defendant.
If the girl held out and proved a good witness there was a slight chance that Farris would be held to the grand jury, in which event he would derive a certain amount of unpleasant notoriety at a time when public opinion was aroused by the vice question, and the mayor in a most receptive mood for making political capital by the revocation of a few saloon licenses.
All this would prove balm to Mr. Doarty's injured sensibilities.
Farris grumbled and threatened, but off to the station he went without even an opportunity to telephone for a bondsman. That he procured one an hour later was no fault of Mr. Doarty, who employed his most persuasive English in an endeavor to convince the sergeant that Mr. Farris should be locked up forthwith, and given no access to a telephone until daylight. But the sergeant had no particular grudge against Mr. Farris, while, on the