“He put one over on me. Gosh! That fellow’s mind is so constructed that he couldn’t go straight if he was sliding down a tube! And I went into it with my eyes open--yes, sir. Some of the boys who’d worked with him and one of his partners told me he’d do it before I left Manhattan Island. I had my warning--but I’m one of those dames who know it all and I wouldn’t believe ’em. That’s the kind of mad woman I am. And all they said came true. Yesterday morning, when everything was fixed for me to tote you to Ostend, I went to see him to split the Mendlesohn money. No, I wasn’t in that. But the little friend of mine who brought Father Eli to the verge of marriage had to go back home. Her eldest boy was ill, and I advanced her her share. Forty-sixty, that’s how I shared, and how Freda had arranged to share. And that’s how I paid her--and it was worth it. Freda put in a whole lot of good, solid work for that guy. Only interest he had in life was stamps--postal stamps. Freda studied those darned foolish things so that she jumped every time the postman knocked. Dan would part on terms--and I’m his friend! Used to be in the same touring company as me, back home!” Gordon was rubbing his head mechanically. “Your--your husband, is he?” Her scorn was visible. “My husband!” she scoffed. “Now listen! I’m a respectable married woman and you gotta remember that, Man! Married ten years. I’ve the daisiest little apartment over in New York--and a real nice lovely boy of a husband.” “In New York?” he managed to ask. She hesitated. “Why, he’s not in New York now: he’s in the State Penitentiary--an innocent man, as heaven is my judge! You know what these Central Office men are! They’d swear you into the chair for a nickel. And John could have got evidence that he was a sleep-walker. Yes, sir. He’s been that way for years. When the bulls got him in Ackensmidt’s Jewellery Store, he didn’t know how he got there himself--he’s one of the best singers in the Sing Sing Glee Party, is John. But he’s due home in a month and naturally I’m going home to meet him.” “But is he a--a thief?” he blurted. A pink and angry flush spread on the classic face of Heloise. “Say, where did you get all that personal stuff? Thief! John’s no thief--he’s had a lot of bad luck, I guess. But sleep-walking is at the bottom of it. When he’s awake he wouldn’t take anything unless he got a receipt for it. It’s at nights he goes kinder crazy. No, sir, John is a gentleman--though he’s on the register as a safe and strong-room expoit--expert.” He was calmer now and prepared, if necessary, to enquire into the profits of the business. “He’s a bank-smasher!” he said sagely. “How interesting! And of course he smashes the banks where he hasn’t a deposit.” The futility of his remark was palpable even to himself.