San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-04-18

| got to your landing, and then
that blasted little drudge popped
up. When I'd got through
the wall into here and written my
little bit" she flicked back a
page of the daryl went down.
stairs and found Block logged in
the basement-doped stiff"
81 cannot imagine whence he
obtains the stuff.
"No more can |, and it's the
one thing We'll never find out from
him. You could torture him and
he wouldn't say. l told him just
now if it happened again he'd
have to go. And-between our
selves-he'll go whether it hap
pens again or not"
"Go?" Mr.. Brummelton looked
at her, surprised. go? But
-"
He would have reminded her,
had he dared, that if she turned
Block off she violated one of her
own first principles. How often
had he not heard her state it!
Keep the gang as small as pos
sible and don't let one of 'em go.
If you don't need a man for
bit, keep him and pay him till you
do. If he doesn't give you the
value he ought, keep him and pay
him and pay another man to stand
behind him. Once you let one of
'em get sore and drift off, he'll
drift into Scotland Yard soon OF
later; but pay him a bit for doing
next to nothing and there's
chance he'll keep his mouth shut
when you want him to-"
She was smoking furiously again
and; believing her thoughts to be
elsewhere, he did not hope for an
calculation; nevertheless he re-
ceived one.
"T'm not going back on anything
I've ever said about all hanging
together. Block won't get the
sack the way he thinks-the way
that he could open his mouth
against us when it suits him. He'll
go where he can't open his mouth
at all-nor his eyes nor his ears.
See?"
Mr.. BrummeltOn saw. He had
no plea to enter on behalf of
Block, whom he dctested, but he
was opposed, as always, to break
ing the criminal law unnecessarily.
"Of course, do not know what
is in your mind" he ventured,
"but-"
an tell you what's in my mind
Just wait, though, while
| bring my news up to date"
He waited deferentially while
she returned to the diary. Below
the last line of his entry she left a
blank space and then began her
own contribution. Without pause
for reflection or correction she
wrote on and on in her small,
mean hand-the only flaw Mr.
BrummeltOn had ever been able
to discover in the masque of cling
ing child-woman that was her
weapon against society. He re-
GREETED that handwriting with the
passionate regret of an artist.
He removed his gaze from her
steadily moving hand and looked
out through the filthy curtain to
what he could see of the sultry day
outside. His thoughts wandered
back.
Ten years ago she had laid upon
MIN a spell of worship and fear.
He had heard of her first whilst
serving, after thirty years of weak
and laundering impulse towards
evil. a sentence for embezzlement
Regular picture she u.s." a fellow
prisoner had cnthuscd. Born and
bred in Whitechapel, been working
the U. S. A. ever since she could
work anything at all and due over
here soon-N' Yawk got a bit
warm, / did hear" And Mr.. |
Brummelton's mind had visualized
a nasal, bold-eyed vulture, full
bosomed and garish. With |
the passing of time, first his in.
formant and then himself had
come "out," and after month or
two-bleak enough to the one
time solicitor whose growing in
trinity of memory closed even the
crooked paths to hinl-the two
had met again.
Not entirely by chance. The
admirer of the picture" though
not one of her regular men, had
driftcd into touch with her after
her arrival in England and spoken
to her of Brummclton. "She'd like
you to come along. 1t don't com
NIT you to anything" But it had
committed him. That first enrap-
turing sight of her had manacled
him, his wrist to hers, through ten
strange years.
She was thirty-four and she
looked twenty. Little and slim
and crystalline, her world was a
place of dirt and distrust and
whispered bargainings from which
she sailed out to plumber with the
grace of a bird on the wing. She
was the very spirit incarnate of
that underworld and yet beside her
straight women looked furtive and
clean women coarse She had the
freedom of the dark places in two
II L