The first coop held perhaps a dozen women and girls. One of them was quietly weeping. The others, looking, as they sat on one of the benches in their more or less draggled finery, like a row of dishevelled cage birds of gay plumage, maintained attitudes which ranged from the highly indifferent to the excessively defiant. The detective unlatched the door, which was of iron wattles too, and put his prisoner inside.
Youll have to stay here awhile, he bade her. His tone was altered from that which he had employed toward her at any time before. Just set down there and be comfortable.
But she did not sit. She drew herself close up into a space where wall and wall, meeting at right angles, made a corner. Her cellmates eyed her. Being inclined to believe from her garb that she probably was a shopgirl caught pilfering, none of them offered to hail her; all of them continued, though, to watch her curiously. As he closed and bolted the door and moved away the plain-clothes man, glancing back, caught a fair look at her face behind the iron uprights. Her big, staring eyes reminded him of something, some creature, he had seen somewhere. Later he remembered. He had seen that same look out of the staring eyes of animals, lying with legs bound on the floor of a slaughterhouse.
Following this, the ordinary procedure for him would have been to call up the East Twenty-second Street station house by telephone and report that, having made an arrest, he had seen fit to bring his prisoner direct to court; then visit the complaint clerks office in a little cubby-hole of a room, and there swear to a short affidavit setting forth the accusation in due form; finally, file the affidavit with the magistrates clerk and stand by to await the calling of that particular case. Strangely enough, he did none of these things.
Instead, he made his way direct to the magistrates desk inside the railing which cut the room across from side to side. The pent, close smell of the place was fit to sicken men unused to it. It commingled those odours which seem always to go with a police court of unwashed human bodies, of iodoform, of stale fumes of alcohol, of cheap rank perfumery. Petty crime exhales an atmosphere which is peculiarly its own. This man was used to this smell. Smelling it was to him a part of the days work the nights work rather.
The magistrate upon the bench was a young magistrate, newly appointed by the mayor to this post. Because he belonged to an old family and because his sister had married a rich man the papers loved to refer to him as the society judge. As the detective came up he was finishing a hearing which had lasted less than three minutes.
Any previous record as shown by the finger prints and the card indexes? he was asking of the officer complainant.
Three, Your Honour, answered the man glibly. Suspended sentence oncet, thirty days oncet, thirty days oncet again. Probation officers report shows that this here young woman
Never mind that, said the magistrate; six months.
The officer and the woman who had been sentenced to six months fell back, and the detective shoved forward, putting his arms on the top of the edge of the desk to bring his head closer to the magistrate.
Your Honour, he began, speaking in a sort of confidential undertone, could I have a word with you?
Go ahead, Schwartzmann, said the magistrate, bending forward to hear.
Well, Judge, a minute ago I brought a girl in here; picked her up at Fourteenth Street and Thoid Avenue for solicitin. So far as that goes its a dead-open-and-shut case. She come up to me on the street and braced me. She wasnt dressed like most of these Thoid-Avenue cruisers dress and shes sort of acted as if shed never been pinched before tried to give me an argument on the way over. Well, that didnt get her anywheres with me. You cant never tell when one of them dames will turn out in a new make-up, but somethin that happened when we was right here outside the door somethin I seen about her sort of He broke off the sentence in the middle and started again. Well, anyhow, Your Honour, I may be makin a sucker of myself, but I didnt swear out no affidavit and I aint called up the station house even. I stuck her over there in the bull-pen and then I come straight to you.
The magistrates eyes narrowed. Thus early in his experience as a police judge he had learned and with abundant cause to distrust the motives of plain-clothes men grown suddenly philanthropic. Besides, in the first place, this night court was created to circumvent the unholy partnership of the bail-bond shark and the police pilot fish.
Now look here, Schwartzmann, he said sharply, you know the law you know the routine that has to be followed.
Yes, sir, I do, agreed Schwartzmann; and if Ive made a break Im willin to stand the gaff. Maybe Im makin a sucker of myself, too, just like I said. But, Judge, there aint no great harm done yet. Shes there in that pen and you know shes there and I know shes there.
Well, whats the favour you want to ask of me? demanded His Honour.
Its like this: I want to slip over to the address she gave me and see if shes been handin me the right steer about certain things. It aint so far. He glanced down at the scribbled card he held in his hand. I can get over there and get back in half an hour at the outside. And then if shes been tryin to con me Ill go through with it Ill press the charge all right. His jaw locked grimly on the thought that his professional sagacity was on test.
Well, what is her story? asked the magistrate.
Judge, to tell you the truth it aint her story so much as its somethin I seen. And if Im makin a sucker of myself Id rather not say too much about that yet.
Oh, go ahead, assented the magistrate, whose name was Voris. Theres no danger of the case being called while youre gone, because, as I understand you, there isnt any case to call. Go ahead, but remember this while youre gone I dont like all this mystery. Im going to want to know all the facts before Im done.
Thank you, sir, said Schwartzmann, getting himself outside the railed inclosure. Ill be back in lessn no time, Your Honour.
He wasnt, though. Nearly an hour passed before an attendant brought Magistrate Voris word that Officer Schwartzmann craved the privilege of seeing His Honour alone for a minute or two in His Honours private chamber. The magistrate left the bench, suspending the business of the night temporarily, and went; on the way he was mentally fortifying himself to be severe enough if he caught a plain-clothes man trying to trifle with him.
Well, Schwartzmann? he said shortly as he entered the room.
Judge, said the detective, the woman wasnt lyin. She told me her sister was sick alone in their flat without nobody to look after her and that her brother was dead. I dont know about the brother at least I aint sure about him but the sister was sick. Only she aint sick no more shes dead.
Dead? What did she die of?
She didnt die of nothin she killed herself with gas. She turned the gas on in the room where she was sick in bed. The body was still warm when I got there. I gave her first aid, but she was gone all right. She wasnt nothin more than a shell anyhow had some wastin disease from the looks of her; and I judge it didnt take but a few whiffs to finish her off. I called in the officer on post, name of Riordan, and I notified the coroners office myself over the telephone, and theyre goin to send a man up there inside of an hour or so to take charge of the case.
He wasnt, though. Nearly an hour passed before an attendant brought Magistrate Voris word that Officer Schwartzmann craved the privilege of seeing His Honour alone for a minute or two in His Honours private chamber. The magistrate left the bench, suspending the business of the night temporarily, and went; on the way he was mentally fortifying himself to be severe enough if he caught a plain-clothes man trying to trifle with him.
Well, Schwartzmann? he said shortly as he entered the room.
Judge, said the detective, the woman wasnt lyin. She told me her sister was sick alone in their flat without nobody to look after her and that her brother was dead. I dont know about the brother at least I aint sure about him but the sister was sick. Only she aint sick no more shes dead.
Dead? What did she die of?
She didnt die of nothin she killed herself with gas. She turned the gas on in the room where she was sick in bed. The body was still warm when I got there. I gave her first aid, but she was gone all right. She wasnt nothin more than a shell anyhow had some wastin disease from the looks of her; and I judge it didnt take but a few whiffs to finish her off. I called in the officer on post, name of Riordan, and I notified the coroners office myself over the telephone, and theyre goin to send a man up there inside of an hour or so to take charge of the case.
And so, after that, feelin a sort of personal interest in the whole thing, as you might say, I broke the rules some more. When I found this here girl dead she had two pieces of paper in her hand; shed died holdin to em. One of em was a letter that shed wrote herself, I guess, and the other must a been a letter from somebody else kind of an official-lookin letter. Both of em was in French. I dont know exactly why I done it, unless it was I wanted to prove somethin to myself, but I brought off them two letters with me and here they are, sir. Im hopin to get your court interpreter to translate em for me, and then I aim to rush em back over there before the coroners physician gets in, and put em back on that bed where I found em.
I read French a little, said the young magistrate. Suppose you let me have a look at them first.
Schwartzmann surrendered them and the magistrate read them through. First he read the pitiably short, pitiably direct farewell lines the suicide had written to her half-sister before she turned on the gas, and then he read the briefly regretful letter of set terms of condolence, which a clerk in a consular office had in duty bound transcribed. Having read them through, this magistrate, who had read in the newspapers of Liège and Louvain, of Mons and Charlevois, of Ypres and Rheims, of the Masurien Lakes and Poland and Eastern Prussia and Western Flanders and Northern France; who had read also the casualty reports emanating at frequent intervals from half a dozen war offices, reading the one as matters of news and the other, until now, as lists of steadily mounting figures he raised his head and in his heart he silently cursed war and all its fruits. And next day he went and joined a league for national preparedness.
Schwartzmann, he said as he laid the papers on his desk, I guess probably your prisoner was telling the whole truth. She did have a brother and he is dead. He was a French soldier and he died about a month or six weeks ago on the Field of Honour, the letter says. And this note that the girl left, Ill tell you what it says. It says that she heard what the doctor said about her there must have been a doctor in to see her some time this evening and that she knows she can never get well, and that they are about out of money, and that she is afraid Marie Marie is the sister whos in yonder now, I suppose will do something desperate to get money, so rather than be a burden on her sister she is going to commit a mortal sin. So she asks God to forgive her and let her be with her brother Paul hes the dead brother, no doubt when she has paid for her sin. And that is all she says except good-bye.
He paused a moment, clearing his throat, and when he went on he spoke aloud, but it was to himself that he spoke rather than to the detective: Field of Honour? Not one but two out of that family dead on the Field of Honour, by my way of thinking. Yes, and though its a new name for it, I guess you might call Fourteenth Street and Third Avenue a Field of Honour, too, and not be so very far wrong for this once. What a hellish thing it all is!
Hows that, sir? asked Schwartzmann. I didnt quite get you. He had taken the two papers back in his own hands and was shuffling them absently.
Nothing, said the magistrate. And then almost harshly: Well, what do you want me to do about the woman in the pen yonder?
Well, sir, said the other slowly, I was thinkin that probably you wouldnt care to tell her whats just come off in the flat at least not in court. And I know I dont want to have to tell her. I thought maybe if you could stretch the rules sos I could get her out of here without havin to make a regular charge against her and without me havin to arraign her in the regular way
Damn the rules! snapped Voris petulantly. Ill fix them. You neednt worry about that part of it. Go on!
Well, sir, I was thinkin maybe that after I found somebody to take these letters back where they belong, I could take her on home with me I live right down here in Greenwich Village and keep her there for the night, or anyhow till the coroners physician is through with what hes got to do, and Id ask my wife to break the news to her and tell her about it. A woman can do them things sometimes bettern a man can. So thats my idea, sir.
Youre willing to take a woman into your home that you picked up for streetwalking?
Ill take the chance. You see, Your Honour, I seen somethin else somethin I aint mentioned somethin I dont care to mention if you dont mind.
Suit yourself, said the other. I suppose youll be looking up the newspaper men before you go. This will make what they call a great heart-interest story.
I dont figure on tellin the reporters neither, mumbled Schwartzmann, as though ashamed of his own forbearance.
The magistrate found the detectives right hand and started to shake it. Then he dropped it. You might have thought from the haste with which he dropped it that he also was ashamed.
Ill see you dont get into any trouble with the inspector, he said. Then he added: You know of course that this brother was a French soldier?
Sure I know it you told me so.
Youre German, arent you? asked Voris. German descent, I mean?
I dont figure as thats got anythin to do with the case, said the plain-clothes man, bristling.
I dont either, Schwartzmann, said the magistrate. Now you go ahead and get that woman out of this hole.
Schwartzmann went. She was where he had left her; she was huddled up, shrinking in, against the bars, and as he unlatched the iron door and swung it in and beckoned to her to come out from behind it, he saw, as she came, that her eyes looked at him with a dumb, questioning misery and that her left hand was still gripped in a hard knot against her breast. He knew what that hand held. It held a little, cheap, carved white crucifix.
I see by the papers that those popularly reputed to be anointed of God, who are principally in charge of this war, are graciously pleased to ordain that the same shall go on for quite some time yet.