"You don’t know what I’ve stood for that man!" she blazed out. "I could settle him. I could send him to the stir. I could have him touched off!" She had clenched her fist, and, at these last words, with their horrible possibility, she smote it down on the table. "But he knew I wouldn’t be a copper!" She ended with this, and fumbling among a woman’s trinkets in her hand-bag, she snatched out a handkerchief and hastily brushed away the tears. Gibbs, appealed to in all sorts of exigencies, was at a loss when a woman wept. She shook with weeping, until her hatred was lost in the pity she felt for herself. "I never said a word when you flew me the kite to keep under cover that time he plugged Moon." "No, you were good then." "Yes," she said, looking up for approval, "I was, wasn’t I? But this time--I won’t stand for it!" "I’m out o’ this," said Gibbs. "Well," she went on, "his mouthpiece wrote me not to show here. But I was on at once. Curly knew I was hip from the start"--her anger was rising again. "It was all framed up; he got that mouthpiece to hand me that bull con, and he’s even got McFee to--" "McFee!" said Gibbs, starting at the name of the inspector. "McFee! Have you been to him?" "Yes, I’ve been to him!" she said, repeating his words with a satirical curl of the lip. "I’ve been to him; the mouthpiece sent me word to lay low till he sprung him; Curly sent me word that McFee said I wasn’t to come to this town. Think I couldn’t see through all that? I was wise in a minute and I just come, that’s what I did, right away. I did the grand over here." "What was it you thought they had framed up?" asked Gibbs innocently. "I can’t follow you." "Aw, now, Dan," she said, drawing away from the table with a sneer, "don’t you try to whip-saw me." "No, on the dead!" "What was it? Why, some moll, of course; some tommy." Gibbs leaned back and laughed; he laughed because he saw that this was simply woman’s jealousy. "Look here, Jane," he said, "you know I don’t like to referee these domestic scraps--I know I’ll be the fall guy if I do--but you’re wrong, that’s all; you’ve got it wrong." She looked at him, intently trying to prove his sincerity, and anxious to be convinced that her suspicions were unfounded, and yet by habit and by her long life of crime she was so suspicious and so distrustful--like all thieves, she thought there were no honest people in the world--that her suspicions soon gained their usual mastery over her, and she broke out: "You know I’m not wrong. I went to see McFee." "What did he say?" asked Gibbs, with the interest in anything this lord that stood between him and the upper world might say. "Why, he said he wouldn’t say nothing." "Did he say you could stay?" "Well," she hesitated an instant, "he said he didn’t want me doing any work in town; he said he wouldn’t stand for it." "No, you mustn’t do any work here." Gibbs spoke now with his own authority, reinforcing that of the detective.