The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-04-10
SOME OF THE LESSER BREED

Danglar'S wife.
 SOME OF THE LESSER BREED Danglar's wife! It had been a night of horror; a night without sleep; night, after the guttering candle had gone out, when the black ness of the garret possessed added terrors created by an imagination which she could not control. She could have fled from it, creaming Tn panic-stricken hysteria but there had been no other place as safe as that was. Safe! The word seemed to reach the uttermost depths of irony. Safe! Well, it was true, wasn't it? She had not wanted to return there; her soul itself had revoIted against it; but she had dared to do nothing else. And all through that night, huddIed on the edge of the cot bed, her fingers clinging tena- cfously to her revolver though afraid for even an instant to relfn- quish it from her gasp, listening, lis ening, always listening for a footstep that might come up from that dark hall below, the footstep that would climax all the terrors that had surged upon her, her mind had kept on re- iterating, always reiterating those
 
 Nan is Danglar's wife,
 And they were still with her, those words. Daylight had come again, and passed again. and it was evening once more; but those words remain ed, insensible to change, immutabIe in their foreboding. And Rhoda Gray, as Gypsy Nan, shuddered now as she scuffled along a shabby street deep in the heart of the East Side. She was Danglar's wife-by proxy. At dawn that morning when the gray had come creeping into the miserable attic through the small and dirty win dow panes. she had fallen on her knees and thanked God she had been spared that footstep. It was Strangei She had poured out her soul in pas Sionate thankfulness then that Dang lar had not come-and now she was deliberately on her way to seek Dang lar himself! But the daylight had done more than disperse the actual. physical darkness of the past night; it had brought, if not a measure of relief, at least a sense of guidance, and the final decision, ,perilous though it was, which she meant now to put into execution.
 There was no other way-unless she were willing to admit defeat, to give up everything, her own good
 
 it all and live henceforth in hiding in some obscure place far away. branded in the life she would have left behind her as a despicab1e crim- inal and thief. And she could not, would not, do this while her intui- ton, at least, inspired her with the faith to believe that there was still a chance of clearing herself. It was the throw of the dice, perhaps-but
 
 and those with him, were at the bot tom of the crime of which she was held guilty. She could not go on as she had been doing, merely In the hope of stumbling upon some c1ew that would serve to eXonerate her. There was not time enough for that. Danglar's trap set for herself and the Adventurer last night in old Nicky Viners room proved that. Ana the fact that the woman who had originally masqueraded as Gypsy Nan as she, Rhoda Gray, was masquer- ading now-was Danglar's wife, prov ed 1t a thousandfold more. She could no longer remain passive, arguing with herself that it took all her wits and all her efforts to maintain her self in the role of Gypsy Nan, which was all that stood be- tween her and prison bars. To do so meant the certainty of disaster sooner or later, and if it meant that, the need for immediate action of an of fensive sort was imperative.
 And so her mind was made up. Her only chance was to find her way into the full intimacy of the criminal band of which Danglar was apparently the head; to search out its liar and its personnel; to reach to the heart of it; to know Danglar's private move ments and to discover where he lived so that she might watch him It surely was not such a hopeless task, True she knew by name and sight scarcely more than three of this crime clique. but at least she had a starting point from which to work. There was Shluker's junk shop where she had turned the tables on Dang lar and Skeeny on the night they had planned to make the Sparrow their pawn. It was obvious. therefore. that Shluker himself. the proprietor of the junk shop. was one of the or sanitation. She was going to Shlu- ker's now.
 Rhoda Gray halted suddenly, and stared wonderingIy a little way up the block ahead of her. As though by magic a crowd was collecting around the doorway of a poverty stricken, tumble-down frame house that made the corner of an alleyway. And where but an instant before the streets jastling humanity had been immersed in it's wrangling with the push-cart men who lined the curb, the carts were now deserted by every one save their owners. whose caution exceeded their curiosity-and the crowd grew momentarily larger in front of the house.
 CTo Be Conttnuedl