"Well, sir," complied Weil, "I should say she's about twenty-five years old. It's hard to tell about those Italian women, but I should say she's about twenty-five--or maybe twenty-six. She's got no figure at all and she's dressed poor. But she's got a pretty face--big brown eyes and----" "That will do," interrupted the deputy commissioner--"that will do for that. I take it you're not qualifyin' here for a beauty expert, Lieutenant Weil!" he added with elaborate sarcasm. "You asked me about her looks, sir," parried Weil defensively, "and I'm just trying to tell you." "Proceed! Proceed!" bade Donohue, rumbling his consonants. "Yes, sir. Well, in regard to this woman: She's talking so fast I can't figure out at first what she's trying to tell me. It's Italian she's talking--or I should say the kind of Italian they talk in parts of Sicily. After a little I begin to see what she's driving at. It seems she's the wife of one Antonio Terranova and her name is Maria Terranova. And after I get her straightened out and going slow she tells me her story." "Is this here story got a bearin' on the charges pendin'?" "I think it has. Yes, sir; it helps to explain what happens. As near as I can make out she comes from some small town down round Messina somewhere, and the way she tells it to me, her husband leaves there not long after they're married and comes over here to New York to get work, and when he gets enough money saved up ahead he's going to send back for her. That's near about three years ago. So she stays behind waiting for him, and in about four months after he leaves the baby is born--the same baby that she brings in here to headquarters with her last Thursday. She says neither one of them thinks it'll be long before he can save up money for her passage, but it seems like he has the bad luck. He's sick for a while after he lands, and then when he gets a job in a construction gang the padrone takes the most of what he makes. And just about the time he gets a little saved up some other Ginney--Italian--in the construction camp steals it off of him. "So he's up against it, and after a while he gets desperate. So he joins in with a Black Hander gang--amateurs operating up in the Bronx--and the very first trick he helps turn he does well by it. His share is near about a hundred dollars, and he sends her the best part of it to bring her and the baby over. She don't know at the time, though, how he raises all this money--so she tells me. And I think, at that, she's telling the truth--she ain't got sense enough to lie, I think. Anyway it sounds truthful to me--the way she tells it to me here last Thursday night." "Proceed!" prompted Donohue testily.