IV
On the second floor of that house which bore the number of One-hundred-and-twenty-seven, a lank and slatternly young girl was bent over a porcelain bath-tub, scrubbing therefrom the residuary tide-marks of many communal ablutions. Her head was bent low over her work and she saw nothing of the resplendent and somewhat short-winded figure that darted suddenly up the stairs and contemplated her from the open bath-room door.
"Sis," demanded this figure, "d'you believe in fairies?"
The scrub-girl dropped her scrub-rag and raised a dishevelled head.
"No, m'm!" she answered, quite without emotion.
"Then it's time to!" was the prompt retort. "I'm your fairy, sis, an' to prove it I'm going to hand you over about a hundred dollars worth o' Fift' Avenoo wearin' apparel!"
Even while she spoke, the resplendent apparition began tugging and unbuttoning and unsheathing.
"What d'ye mean, m'm?" asked the vacant-eyed girl with the scrub-rag.
"I mean I'm going to swop with you. Gi'me them shoes an' that gingham skirt an' shirt-waist, quick. Peel 'em off, quick, or I might change me mind! This is your lucky day! An' here's five bones, sis, to seal the bargain!"
Sadie, breathless and writhing, slipped from her shimmering cocoon. Then she pounced on the still-hesitating house-maid, peeled her as a cook peels an onion, and struggled into the more ample folds of that borrowed raiment, kicking her own finery toward the staring-eyed denuded one as she dressed.
"They're all yours, dearie, gloves, a Gimbel hat an' all! Save 'em for Sunday an' you'll sure make a hit!"
She continued to talk as she caught up the unclean scrub-rag and mopped her face with it. "An' don't try chasin' me or worryin' me with questions! I've got a husband who's gone bughouse with payin' me bills an' says I've gotta dress simple!"
Sadie slammed and locked shut the bath-room door on that still astounded young house-maid who did not altogether seem ready to believe in fairies. Then she turned and ran for the next stairway. As she did so, she heard the street door below give way with a crash. That sound served to lend wings to her flight.
Not once did she stop on her way to the roof. There she tarried only long enough to restore the transom to its place. Then she ran nimbly across the flat tin of the house-top, dropped to the next roof, crossed that, and ran on until she came to a clothes-line dangling with a row of freshly washed clothes. At the far end of this line was a door opening upon a stairway. At the top of this stairway lay an empty laundry bag. Quick as thought the hurrying girl caught it up. Then she listened for a second or two, peering down into the house before her. Then quickly but quietly, pausing at each stair-head as she took up her flight, she made her way down through that silent and many-odoured house.
She reached the basement without discovery or interruption. There, on a row of hooks beside the door, she saw a widow's bonnet, a pair of oil-stained overalls and a faded plaid shawl. The shawl she quickly threw over her shoulders. The overalls she promptly stuffed down into her laundry bag. Then she stopped for a minute with a mouthful of hairpins, while she twisted her hair tightly together, and pinned it flat above her ears. Then she let herself out through the door, stepped across the area, and mounted to the sidewalk.
As she had expected, a blue-coated officer was posted between her and the street-corner to the west. To the east, half way down the block, stood an empty taxi-cab and a scattering of curious onlookers. Here and there she could see still more blue-coated figures. She gaped at them for a moment, chewing vacantly on an imaginary cud of gum. Then she turned about and shambled westward, hitching at her skirt as she went. She was looking straight up, squinting vacantly at the blue sky above her, as she approached the idle officer. He stared at her for a moment, without perceptible hostility, and went on swinging his night-stick. Once she was past that swinging night-stick, she took a deep breath. And, once she had rounded the corner, she quickened her pace, crossed the street, went north for a block, struck west again, rounded still another corner, and slipped quietly into the family entrance of a corner saloon, where, having sought out the telephone, she expeditiously exhumed a hidden pocketbook and sent across the city a hurried call for assistance.
Then, having retired to the one dingy chambre separee which that dingy caravansary offered, and having made sure a certain chamois-covered package was still in place, she ordered a silver fizz and a package of Turkish cigarettes.
"Gee," she confided to the shirt-sleeved Hibernian who proceeded to supply her wants, "but I'm sure gapin' at the gills for a smoke!"
••••••••
It was five minutes later that Kestner and a patrolman, giving up their house-search, returned to the open street. There they met nothing to revive their failing hopes of a round-up.
"Tim," said the patrolman to the officer still swinging his night-stick, "you dead sure nobody got by you here?"
"Divil a sowl," was Tim's answer. "Nothin' in petticoats—beyant a young slip of a gerrl wid a laundry-bag!"
"A what?" demanded Kestner.
"A kitchen-gerrl wid a twisted face and a mug full av chewin' gum—a kid widout a hat!"
The patrolman, unconscious of Kestner's little groan of disgust, turned contemplatively to the Secret Agent.
"I guess we'd better work to the east. If your woman's in that block, the sooner we dig her out, the better!"
Kestner laughed—but quite without mirth.
"The woman's gone," he called back, as he strode toward the waiting taxi-cab. "She made her getaway with that laundry-bag. And here's where I have to begin all over again!"