as though that knock were nothing to her.
Frances hurried into the hall with a belated and breathless "Oh, yes’m. Did somebody knock? I didn’t notice!"
She made a time wrestling with the latch, although her mother had not locked the door. Then she opened it a crack with her foot behind it and looked out, chewing her gum nervously, with an assumed indifference.
A man stood outside with some papers in his hand, which he seemed to have been trying to read by the fitful light of the street. He looked up at Frances and asked sharply, "Is Mr. Lawrence Ransom here?"
Francis was past master in delaying on attack.
"Mr. Who?" she asked stupidly.
"Mr. Ransom—Mr. Lawrence Ransom. I was told I would find him here."
"This is Judsons’," stated Frances with finality. "I don’t know any Mr. Ransom."
"You’re Frances Judson, aren’t you?"
Frances was frightened, but she put on a bold face.
"Well, what’s that got to do with the man you was talking about?"
"You’re the girl that was with him the other night when I stopped him on the road, up by the roadhouse. You remember. You were trying to make a getaway."
Frances cast a frightened glance up toward the stairs and, stepping out the door, hurriedly drew it to, lowering her voice.
"Oh, you mean Larry!" she whispered. "He’s just a kid I met that night. I didn’t know his name. He was taking me to ride. I don’t know him, honest I don’t. A friend of mine introduced us——"
"You can’t pull that off with me!" said the man gruffly. "I want to see Lawrence Ransom, and I mean to do it! You had both been drinking that night, and you had a whole case of liquor in the car——"
"Don’t talk so loud!" pleaded Frances in a whisper. "I’ve got a little sick sister, and they don’t know if she’s going to live or not. They had a consultation t’day—they said she must be kep’ quiet——"
"Very well," said the man, lowering his voice a trifle. "I’ll be quiet if you’ll step aside and let me in. But you can’t put anything over on me."
"You needn’t bother to keep quiet," said a calm, stern voice over their heads. "He isn’t here, but I’ll come down and show you through the house. Frances, you come in the house and go to bed."
Frances cringed at her mother’s voice from the window above, and ducked into the house as her mother withdrew her head from the window and came heavily down the stairs. The girl hastily reviewed the interview and wondered how long her mother had been listening. There had been an ominous sound to her voice. She slid into the parlor with a defiant fright in her eyes and tried to look nonchalant before the girls, hoping they had not heard. But Sybil left no rag of doubt about that.
"I wouldn’t stand fer that, Fran! Now’s the time ta get out!"
But with strange suddenness Mrs. Judson stood beside her.
"Yes, now’s the time ta get out!" she repeated. "You girls better run right home ta yer mothers! Frances! There’s the stairs!"
Then she turned her attention to the man who had entered in Frances’s wake.
"Will you have a chair?" Her tone was sad and formal. Then to the girls: "You girls run along!"
With defiant malice in their eyes the three visitors, chins up, sidled along the wall toward the hall, under the grilling gaze of the stranger. Suddenly the man pointed his pencil at Sybil.
"Wait! You’re another!"
His words were like sharp scissors snipping off the words.
Sybil lifted her chin, and her eyes grew hard and wicked. The sad eyes of Mrs. Judson looked at her for an instant, startled, and then glanced toward her own child with sudden understanding. She had thought these creatures were little children, and here—suddenly! What would come next? Her eyes went sternly to the frightened Frances standing huddled in her corner like a draggled nasturtium in her bright cheap draperies, and Frances quivered and slunk toward the door. But the bold black eyes of Sybil jeered at her, and Frances was forced to put up a feeble fight.
"I ain’ta going upstairs now, Ma. I got company!" she said, trying to make her voice both conciliatory and defiant, although she could see from her mother’s face that her stand would be short-lived. When her mother was really roused, there was no gainsaying her.
"Let her stay, will you, Mrs. Judson? I want to ask her some questions. And you three, you stay, too. There’s another one I want to see!"
He was pointing at Sybil. Gladys and Vivian huddled behind her with furtive glances toward the door.
Mrs. Judson sat down heavily, her stolid face blank with burden and despair. She was looking straight at Sybil as if a revelation was slowly dawning upon her.
Sybil leaned back nonchalantly against the door frame, took out her cigarette, and lighted a match with an air of supreme contempt of the whole scene. She eyed the officer with an assumed amusement.
Then, with surprising agility for one who seemed so massive, Mrs. Judson was upon her feet and standing close to the bold-eyed girl, speaking in a calm low tone of command.
"Stop that!" she said. "You can’t do that in my house! I may be old-fashioned and ugly, but I still know what’s right, and there ain’t no little huzzy like you goin’ to overstep me. You c’n blow out that match and put that box in your pocket, but you can’t stand there and smoke in my house. I’ve always been respectable, if my husband is in jail, and I intend to keep so!"
And, strange to say, Sybil obeyed her. She did it with an air of contempt, but she did it. Frances was amazed. She drooped in her corner and wondered what awful thing would come next.
Then spoke the officer.
"You kids had better look out," he warned. "If you keep up the pace you’re going, you’ll all be landed in jail in another week. I know what I’m talking about, and you’re headed straight downhill!"
The girls were frightened. Frances’s face grew white, and she watched her mother with a sideways glance, but Sybil stood her ground contemptuously.
"It’s none of your business what we do," she said to the man boldly. "And you’ve got no right to make us stay here. I don’t know anything about your Mister Ransom, if that’s what you call him, and I’m going where there’s some fun."
"You’re not going until you’ve answered me a few questions," said the man firmly, and he flashed a badge from under his coat. "You’re the girl that was in that seven-passenger Cadillac that was stolen from Seventh and Broad the other night. You got away then by lying, but you don’t get away now. I’ve got this house watched back and front, and it won’t do any good for you to try to slip out. If you answer my questions straight, you can go where you like, but if you try to put something over on me I’ll have you taken to headquarters. Now, what’s your full name?"
"Sybil Mary Johnston," answered the girl sullenly.
"Where do you live?"
