hat it was the old story. So far as Minnie
could figure prospects there wasn't a thing she had or a thing she could
do that would bring in money--except the one asset that wasn't on the
market: her virtue. As I said I didn't start out to tell a sob story,
but in this business we see quite a few cases like that. It's usually
just a question of how long these girls can hold out before they sell
the one thing that's saleable. Maybe you can't blame them at that. If
virtue is measured that way--and it's a practical way--the 'until,' as
you call it, came to Minnie at the end of quite a siege."

Mr. Tollman's impatience grew into actual fretfulness as his visitor
delayed coming to the point of his proposition.

"It seems to have been a case," went on the detective unhurriedly, "of
dropping down the scale for her until she was up against the question of
diving into East River--or hypothecating the one asset."

"How about this mission that you speak of? Didn't it help her?"

"All it could--but that wasn't enough. It got her one or two temporary
jobs--but there were hundreds on its lists and it had to spread charity
thin. So for the time being they were trying down there to keep her
courage up, and that was about all they could do."

"I will take the address of this mission and send a contribution,"
announced Mr. Tollman benignly. "I suppose your business here is
soliciting that--is it not?"

"Yes--it is not," exploded Mr. Hagan emphatically with a smile that
savored of a snarl, "though I don't doubt they'd appreciate it. Well,
there was a cold-blooded party laying siege to Minnie. He was one of the
rat-faces that you can see any time you stroll along Broadway, and up to
date she'd been refusing to play with him. But he had the chance to put
money in her way--and all he asked was that she'd 'be nice to him.'"

"You put things very bluntly--I might almost say, vulgarly, Mr. Hagan,"
objected Eben Tollman with a fastidious shiver and his visitor flashed
his answer back in a manner of menacing aggressiveness.

"It strikes you that way, does it? Perhaps you know a way to talk about
things like this that isn't vulgar. Personally, I don't. Well, the long
and the short of it is this, after so many weeks of fighting this thing
out with herself Minnie Ray reached the point where she fell for a
dinner with the rat-faced gentleman at the Van Styne, and after he'd
opened some wine--" The raconteur shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you see