In the Bishop's Carriage Part 30

That finished me. I stooped and picked her up in my arms, throwing her up in the air to hear her crow and feel her come down again.

"Mouse," I said, "we'll just have a little trip together. The nurse that'd lose you deserves to worry till you're found. The mother that's lucky enough to own you will be benefited hereafter by a sharp scare on your account just now. Come on, sweetheart!"

Oh, the feel of a baby in your arms, Mag! It makes the Cruelty seem a perfectly unreal thing, a thing one should be unutterably ashamed of imagining, of accusing human nature of; a thing only an irredeemably vile thing could imagine. Just the weight of that little body riding like a bonny boat at anchor on your arm, just the c.o.c.ky little way it sits up, chirping and confident; just the light touch of a bit of a hand on your collar; just that is enough to push down brick walls; to destroy pictures of bruised and maimed children that endure after the injuries are healed; to scatter records that even I--I, Nancy Olden--can't believe and believe, too, that other women have carried their babies, as I did some other woman's baby, across the Square.

On the other side I set her down. I didn't want to. I was greedy of every moment that I had her. But I wanted to get some change ready before climbing up the steps to the L-station.

She clutched my dress as we stood there a minute in a perfectly irresistible way. I know now why men marry baby-women: it's to feel that delicious, helpless clutch of weak fingers; the clutch of dependence, of trust, of appeal.

I looked down at her with that same silly adoration I've seen on Molly's face for her poor, lacking, twisted boy. At least, I did in the beginning. But gradually the expression of my face must have changed; for all at once I discovered what had been done to me.

My purse was gone.

Yes, Maggie Monahan, clean gone! My pocket had been as neatly picked as I myself--well, never mind, as what. I threw back my head and laughed aloud. Nance Olden, the great doer-up, had been done up so cleverly, so surely, so prettily, that she hadn't had an inkling of it.

I wished I could get a glimpse of the clever girl that did it. A girl--of course, it was! Do you think any boy's fingers could do a job like that and me not even know?

But I didn't stop to wish very long. Here was I with the thing I valued most in the world still clutched in my hand, and not a nickel to my name to get me, the paper, and the baby on our way.

It was the baby, of course, that decided me. You can't be very enterprising when you're carrying a pink lump of sweetness that's all a-smile at the moment, but may get all a-tear the next.

"It's you for the nearest police station, you young tough!" I said, squeezing her. "I can't take you home now and show you to Mag."

But she giggled and gurgled back at me, the abandoned thing, as though the police station was just the properest place for a young lady of her years.

It was not so very near, either, that station. My arm ached when I got there from carrying her, but my heart ached, too, to leave her. I told the matron how and where the little thing had picked me up. At first she wouldn't leave me, but--the fickle little thing--a gla.s.s of milk transferred all her smiles and wiles to the matron. Then we both went over her clothes to find a name or an initial or a laundry mark. But we found nothing. The matron offered me a gla.s.s of milk, too, but I was in a hurry to be gone. She was a nice matron; so nice that I was just about to ask her for the loan of car-fare when--

When I heard a voice, Maggie, in the office adjoining. I knew that voice all right, and I knew that I had to make a decision quick.

I did. I threw the whole thing into the lap of Fate. And when I opened the door and faced him I was smiling.

Oh, yes, it was Tausig.

XIV.

He started as though he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw me. "The Lord hath delivered mine enemy into my hand," shone in his evil little face.

"Why, Mr. Tausig," I cried, before he could get his breath. "How odd to meet you here! Did you find a baby, too?"

"Did I find--" He glared at me. "I find you; that's enough. Now--"

"But the luncheon was to be at twelve-thirty," I laughed. "And I haven't changed my dress yet."

"You'll change it all right for something not so becoming if you don't sh.e.l.l out that paper."

"Paper?"

"Yes, paper. Look here, if you give it back to me this minute--now--I'll not prosecute you for--for--"

"For the sake of my reputation?" I suggested softly.

"Yes." He looked doubtfully at me, mistrusting the amiable deference of my manner.

"That would be awfully good of you," I murmured.

He did not answer, but watched me as though he wasn't sure which way I'd jump the next moment.

"I wonder what could induce you to be so forgiving," I went on musingly. "What sort of paper is this you miss? It must be valuable--"

"Yes, it's valuable all right. Come on, now! Quit your fooling and get down to business. I'm going to have that paper."

"Do you know, Mr. Tausig," I said impulsively, "if I were you, and anybody had stolen a valuable paper from me, I'd have him arrested. I would. I should not care a rap what the public exposure did to his reputation, so long--so long," I grinned right up at him, "so long as it didn't hurt me, myself, in the eyes of the law."

Mad? Oh, he was hopping! A German swear-word burst from him. I don't know what it meant, but I can imagine.

"Look here, I give you one more chance," he squeaked; "if you don't--"

"What'll you do?"

I was sure I had him. I was sure, from the very whisper in which he had spoken, that the last thing in the world he wanted was to have that agreement made public by my arrest. But I tripped up on one thing. I didn't know there was a middle way for a man with money.

His manner changed.

"Nance Olden," he said aloud now, "I charge you with stealing a valuable private paper of mine from my desk. Here, Sergeant!"

I hadn't particularly noticed the Sergeant standing at the other door with his back to us. But from the way he came at Tausig's call I knew he'd had a private talk with him, and I knew he'd found the middle way.

"This girl's taken a paper of mine. I want her searched," Tausig cried.

"Do you mean," I said, "that you'll sign your name to such a charge against me?"

He didn't answer. He had pulled the Sergeant down and was whispering in his ear. I knew what that meant. It meant a special pull and a special way of doing things and--

"You'll do well, my girl, to give up Mr. Tausig's property to him," the Sergeant said stiffly.

"But what have I got that belongs to him?" I demanded.

He grinned and shrugged his big shoulders.

"We've a way of finding out, you know, here. Give it up or--"

"But what does he say I've taken? What charge is there against me?

Have you the right to search any woman who walks in here? And what in the world would I want a paper of Tausig's for?"

"You won't give it up then?" He tapped a bell.

A woman came in. I had a bad minute there, but it didn't last; it wasn't the matron I'd brought the baby to.