son I'll tell 'em anything they want to know. Just ask me! Go ahead, ask me!"
I did: "What did Willsson give you five thousand dollars for?"
"For fun!" She leaned back and laughed heartily. Then: "Listen to this, old darling, it's a humdinger and I want you to get it the first time. Donald was hunting for scandal on the home talent. I had some stuff stuck away, some affidavits and things that I thought might be good for some jack some day. I'm a girl that likes to pick up a piece of change when she can. So I put these affidavits and things away in the old sock.
"So when this Donald began putting the boys on the pan for hunching, I let him know that I had some dirt on them, and it was for sale. He came to bargain and I gave him enough of a look at some of them to let them know they were good. And they were good! Then we talked how much. He wasn't as tight as you—nobody ever was—but he was a little bit close. So the deal hung fire, till yesterday.
"Then I gave him the rush—phoned him and told him I had another customer for the stuff, and that if he wanted it he could have it by showing up at ten that night with five thousand smacks—either cash or a certified check. That was hooey, but he fell for it. He was a nice boy in his way, but he didn't know much. You want to know why it had to be cash or a certified check, huh? All right, I'll tell you. I'll tell you anything you want to know. That's the kind of girl I am. Always was."
She went on for five o more minutes telling me in detail just exactly what and which sort of girl she was and always had been, and why. I finally cut in:
"I knew you were regular as soon as I saw you. A good girl, I told myself, a good girl. Now why did it have to be cash or a certified check?"
She shut one eye, waggled a forefinger at me, and said:
"So he couldn't stop payment. Because he couldn't use the stuff I sold him. It would have put his old man in jail along with the rest of 'em." She thumped my knee and laughed hilariously. "A good one, huh? The stuff I sold him would have nailed old Elihu tighter than anybody else!"
I laughed with her while I fought to keep my head above the gin I had guzzled.
"Who else would it nail?"
"The whole damned gang of 'em." She waved a hand in the air. "Max and Lew Yard and Noonan and Pete the Finn and old Elihu—the whole blooming crew!"
"Did Max know what you were doing?"
"Of course not—nobody knew but Willsson and me."
"Sure of that?"
"Sure I'm sure. You don't think I was going to brag about it ahead of time, do you?"
"Who do you think knows about it now?"
"I don't care," she said. "It was only a joke on him. That's all I meant it for."
"Yeah. But the gents whose secrets you sold won't see anything funny in it. Noonan's trying to hang the killing on you and Thaler. What means he found the stuff in Willsson's pocket. The rest of the gang already thought that old Elihu was using his son to chase them out of the city with that clean-up campaign, didn't they?"
"Yes, sir!" she said. "And I'm another one that thinks it!"
"You're probably wrong, but hat doesn't matter. Now if Noonan found your stuff in young Willsson's pocket, and found out about the check, why shouldn't he add 'em up to mean that you and Thaler had gone over to old Elihu's side. See? That's why he's pointing the rap at you and Thaler."
"I don't care what he thinks," she said obstinately. "It was only a joke. That's all I meant it for. Willsson wouldn't have found out he couldn't use
