The Big-Town Round-Up Part 33

"With his gang?" asked Tim.

"No; I waited till they had gone. I locked myself in a room alone with him. He took eight shots at me in the dark and then we mixed."

"Mother o' Moses!" exclaimed the policeman. "In the dark?"

"No. I had switched the lights on."

"You bate him! I can see it in your eye!" cried Muldoon, pounding the table so that the dishes jumped.

"You'll have to ask him about that." Clay pa.s.sed to more important facts. "When I reached home Kitty was there. They had dropped her in the Park to make a safe getaway."

"That's good."

"But Tim--when Annie Millikan gave me the address where Jerry Durand was, the driver of my taxi saw her. The man was 'Slim' Jim."

Muldoon sat up, a serious look on his face. "Man, yuh spilt the beans that time. How'd you ever come to do it? They'll take it out on Annie, the dogs." The eyes of the policeman blazed.

"Unless we stand by her."

"Sure, and we'll do that. But how?"

"First we've got to get her away from there to some decent place where she'll be safe."

Mrs. Muldoon spoke up. "And that's easy. She'll just take our spare bedroom and welcome."

Tim put an arm caressingly over his mother's shoulders. "Ain't she the best little sport ever, Mr. Lindsay?" he said proudly.

Clay smiled. "She sure enough grades 'way up."

"It's blarney yuh're both talkin'," snorted Mrs. Muldoon. "Sure the girrl needs a mother and a home. An' I don't doubt she'll pay her way."

"Then that's settled. Will you see Annie, Tim? Or shall I?"

"We'll both see her. But there's another thing. Will she be safe here?"

"I'm goin' to have a talk with 'Slim' Jim and try to throw a scare into him. I'll report to you what he says."

They took a trolley to the lodging-house where Annie lived.

The girl looked pale and tired. Clay guessed she slept little. The memory of "Slim" Jim's snarling had stood out in the darkness at the foot of her bed.

"Is this a pinch?" she asked Tim with a pert little tilt to her chin.

"Yuh can call it that, Annie. Mother wants yuh to come and stay with us."

"And what would I do that for, Mr. Tim Muldoon?" she asked promptly, the color flushing her cheeks.

"Because you're not safe here. That gang will make yuh pay somehow for what yuh did."

"And if your mother took me in they'd make her pay. You'd maybe lose your job."

"I'd find another. I'm thinkin' of quittin' anyhow."

"Say, whadya think I am? I'll not go. I can look out for myself."

"I don't think they'd get Tim," put in Clay. "I'm goin' to see Collins and have a talk with him."

"You can't salve Jim with soft soap."

"Did I mention soft soap?"

"I heard some one most killed Jerry Durand last night," said Annie abruptly, staring at Lindsay's bruised face. "Was it you?"

"Yes," said the Arizonan simply.

"Did you get the girl?"

"They dropped her to save themselves. My friend found her with a man and took her from him."

"I hope you did up Jerry right!" cried Annie, a vindictive flash in her dark eyes.

"I haven't called him up this mo'nin' to see how he's feelin'," said Clay whimsically. "Miss Annie, we're worried some about you. Mrs.

Muldoon is right anxious for us to get you to come and stay awhile with her. She's honin' to have a li'l' girl to mother. Don't you reckon you can go?"

"I--I wish yuh'd come, Annie," blurted out Tim, looking down his nose.

Tears brimmed in Annie's eyes. To Clay it seemed there was something hungry in the look the girl gave Muldoon. She did not want his pity alone. She would not have their hospitality if they were giving it to a girl they despised and wanted to reform.

"I'm an alley cat you're offerin' to take in and feed, Tim Muldoon,"

she charged suspiciously.

"Yuh're the girl--my mother loves." He choked on the impulsive avowal he had almost made and finished the sentence awkwardly. It was impossible for him to escape the natural male instinct to keep his feelings out of words.

The girl's face softened. Inside, she was a river of tenderness flowing toward the Irishman. "I'll go to your mother, Tim, if she really wants me," she cried almost in a murmur.

"You're shoutin' now, Miss Annie," said Clay, smiling. "She sure wants you. I'll hit the trail to have that talk with Jim Collins."

He found "Slim" Jim at his stand. That flashily dressed young crook eyed him with a dogged and wary defiance. He had just come from a call at the bedside of Jerry Durand and he felt a healthy respect for the man who could do what this light-stepping young fellow had done to the champion rough-houser of New York. The story Jerry had told was of an a.s.sault from behind with a club, but this Collins did not accept at par. There were too many bruises on his sides and cuts on his face to be accounted for in any way except by a hard toe-to-toe fight.

"Mo'nin', Mr. Collins. I left you in a hurry last night and forgot to pay my bill. What's the damage?" asked Clay in his gently ironic drawl.

"Slim" Jim growled something the meaning of which was drowned in an oath.

"You say it was a free ride? Much obliged. That's sure fair enough,"

Clay went on easily. "Well, I didn't come to talk to you about that.

I've got other business with you this mo'nin'."

The chauffeur looked at him sullenly and silently.