CHAPTER XXI

BATTLE ROYAL

“Why can’t people take care of their money?” It was on that same afternoon that Florence found herself asking this question. There was a scowl on her brow as she journeyed slowly toward the home of Margaret DeLane, the widow who had been robbed by a gypsy fortune teller. “Some people are so stupid they don’t deserve any help,” she was thinking as she studied the faces about her on the street car. Stolid and stupid they surely appeared to be. “Not an attractive face among them all. They—”

She broke off to stifle a groan. The woman she sat next to was large. This had crowded her half into the aisle. A second woman, in passing, had stepped on her foot. Instead of appearing sorry about it, the woman grinned as if to say, “Ha! Ha! Big joke!”

“Big joke!” Florence thought grimly. “Life’s a big joke, and the joke’s always on me.” Life had not seemed so joyous since Jeanne had gone away. It is surprising that the absence of one person can mean so much to us.

The street car came to a jerking halt. “My street.” She was up and off the car.

Her street, and such a street as it was! Narrow and dirty, its sidewalks were lined with ugly, blank-faced, staring frame buildings that appeared to shout insults at her. She trudged on.

At last she came to the worst building of them all, and there on the front was her number.

Following instructions, she came at last to a side door. Having knocked, she was admitted at once by a dark-haired girl. This girl, who might have been twelve, wore an apron pinned about her neck. The apron touched the floor.

“Does Mrs. DeLane live here?” Florence asked.

“Yes, that’s my mother, and I am Jane,” said the girl. “No, she isn’t here. She’s out scrubbing. She’ll be back very soon. Won’t you sit down?”

The child was so polite, the place was so neat and clean, that Florence felt as though the sun had suddenly burst through a cloud.

Two younger children were playing at keeping house in a corner. How beautiful and bright they were! Their eyes, their hair, even their simple cotton garments fairly shone.

“And this,” thought Florence, swallowing hard, “is what Margaret DeLane lives for.”

Then suddenly her spirits rose. “Why, this is what we all live for, the little children!” she thought. “We all at times are foolish. Many of us break the law. Few of us who are older deserve a great deal of sympathy. It’s the children, poor little innocent ones, who are too young to do any wrong—they are the ones who suffer.

“And they must not!” she thought with sudden fierceness. “They must not. We must find that gypsy robber and get that money back!”

As if in answer to this fierce resolve, the door opened and in walked Margaret DeLane.

“It was that I wanted to do so much!” the woman all but sobbed as she told her story. “Mrs. Doyle, two doors away, asked a fortune teller how she should invest her money. She said, ‘Buy a house.’ Mrs. Doyle bought a house, one of the worst in the city. Someone wanted the land for what they called ‘slum clearance,’ and Mrs. Doyle doubled her money. So—”

“So you asked a gypsy woman what to do with your money, and she stole it?” Florence sighed. “Well, we’ve got to go and find that gypsy woman and get the money back. It will be difficult. It may be dangerous. Are you ready?”

“Ready?” The weary woman reached for her coat. “But you?” She held back. “Why should you—”

“Oh, that’s part of my job.” Florence forced a laugh. “It’s all in a day’s work. So—come on.”

They were away, but not until Florence had placed upon the walls of her memory a picture of three smiling children’s faces. “These,” she thought, “shall be my inspiration, come what may!”

Their search for the gypsy was rewarded with astonishing speed. Scarcely had they rounded a corner to enter noisy and crowded Maxwell Street than the widow DeLane gripped Florence’s arm to whisper, “There! There she is! That’s her.”

Florence found herself staring at a dark and evil face. The woman was powerfully built. There was about her a suggestion of crouching. “Like some great cat,” Florence thought as a chill ran up her spine.

That the woman resembled a cat in other ways was at once apparent. With feline instinct, she sensed danger without actually seeing it. Standing, with her eyes turned away, she gave a sudden start, wheeled half about, took one startled look, then glided, with all the agility of a cat, through the crowd.

Florence might not be as sly as the gypsy, but she was powerful, and she could stick to a purpose. With the widow close at her heels, she crowded between a thin man and a fat woman, pushed an astonished peddler of roasted chestnuts into the street, hurdled a low rack lined with cheap shoes, knocked over a table piled high with cheap jewelry, to at last arrive panting before a door that had just been closed by the gypsy.

“Locked!” She set her teeth tight. “What’s one lock more or less?” Her stout shoulder hit the door.

Quite taken by surprise by the suddenness of her success in breaking open the door, she lost her balance and tumbled into the room, landing flat on the floor.

She had tumbled before, many, many times. In fact, she could tumble more times per minute than anyone in her gym class. Locks and tumbles were not new to her. She was on her feet and ready for battle in ten split seconds.

The gypsy woman was not slow. The widow had followed Florence into the room. There came a glitter of steel as the gypsy sprang at her.

But not so fast! As the gypsy’s arm swung high, Florence caught it from behind, gave it a sudden wrench that brought forth a groan, then shook it as a dog shakes a rat, until the needle-pointed stiletto gripped in the murderous gypsy’s hand flew high and wide to sink into the heart of a gaudy dancing girl hanging in a frame on the wall.

Whirling about just in time to save herself from the grip of five girls in gypsy costumes who swarmed at her, Florence sprang towards them to scatter them as a turkey might scatter a bevy of pigeons.

Meanwhile the distracted widow had dashed from the room, screaming, “Police! Police!”

Deprived of her deadly weapon, the gypsy woman did what harm she could with tooth and nail. This lasted just long enough for Florence to receive two ugly scratches down her right cheek. Then the dark-faced one found herself lying flat upon her back with one hundred and sixty pounds of Florence seated on her chest.

“Now—now rest easy,” Florence breathed, “un—until the police come.”

“I didn’t take it!” the woman panted. “I didn’t take the money. I—I’ll give it back. Let me up. I’ll get it back for you. I—”

At that moment there was a stir at the door and there stood Officer Patrick Moriarity.

“Oh! So it’s you!” He grinned at Florence. “They told me someone was being killed. But if it’s you doin’ the killin’, it’s O. K. You wouldn’t kill nobody that didn’t need killin’.”

Patrick’s young sisters had attended Florence’s playground classes in the good days that were gone. More often than was really necessary, Patrick had looked in to see how they were getting on.

Now, with a grin, he said, “I’ll just be toddlin’ along.”

“You’ll not!” said Florence in sudden fright. “This woman stole four hundred dollars. You’ve got to do something about it.”

“Only four hundred?” Patrick whistled through his teeth. “Why bother her?

“But then,” he added as a sort of afterthought, “we might take her to the station. She’ll get four years. These gypsies like a nice soft spot in jail.”

The woman let out an unearthly wail, then struggled in vain to free herself.

“She told me,” Florence said quietly, “that if I’d let her up she’d give me the money.”

“She did?” Patrick studied the walls of the room. “Door and both windows right here in front,” he reflected. “I think we might try it out. Let her up, and we’ll see.”

Once on her feet, the woman was not slow in digging deep among the folds of her ample skirts and extracting a roll of bills.

“Let’s see!” Patrick took it from her. “Ten—twenty—forty—” he counted.

“But say!” he ended, “it’s four hundred and ten! How come?”

“The ten is mine,” the gypsy grumbled.

“Fair enough,” said Patrick. “Your man got a car?”

The woman nodded sulkily.

“All right. Now you take this ten and buy gas with it. Turn that old car south and keep it going until the gas is gone. And if I see your face again on Maxwell Street—” He made the sign of handcuffs. “Mostly honest people live on Maxwell Street. You don’t belong here. Scram! _Scram!_” He gave her a sturdy push.

The woman was gone before Florence could think twice.

Patrick turned to Florence. “And now, when do I sign you up as a lady cop?”

“Never! Oh, never!” Florence fingered her bleeding cheek. “Do—do you think she’s poisonous?”

“No, not very poisonous.” Patrick smiled. “Just a little antiseptic will fix that up, fine an’ dandy. But really,” he added, “you should carry a piece of lead pipe or maybe a gun. You can’t tell what they’ll do to you—you really can’t.”

“I’m staying on the Boulevard from now on.” The big girl’s tone carried little conviction. Truth was, she knew she would do nothing of the sort.

“Well, anyway,” she said to Frances Ward two hours later, “the widow got her money back. I got a story, and those three cute kids will get a fine break for months to come. And after all,” she added soberly, “it’s for the children, the little children, I did it. Everything we do is for them.”

“Yes.” Frances Ward wiped her glasses with a shaking hand. “Yes, it is always for the little children.”