But what can you
do with people who believe themselves justified in doing things like
that?"

She did not notice Detective Eddie Conroy, of the D.A.'s office,
standing behind an adjacent pillar, ostentatiously lighting a cigar; nor
see him smile as he slowly walked away.

* * * * *

"Talk about luck!" exulted O'Brien, the yellow dog of the district
attorney's office, an hour later to his chief. "What do you think, boss?
Eddie Conroy heard Miss Beekman telling old man Tutt over in the Tombs
that O'Connell had confessed to her! Say, how's that? Some
evidence--what?"

"What good will that do us?" asked Peckham, glancing up with a scowl
from his desk. "She won't testify for us."

"But she'll have to testify if we call her, won't she?" demanded his
assistant.

The district attorney drummed on the polished surface before him.

"We--ell, I suppose so," he admitted hesitatingly. "But you can't just
subpoena a woman like that without any warning and put her on the stand
and make her testify. It would be too rough!"

"It's the only way to do it!" retorted O'Brien with a sly grin. "If she
knew in advance that we were thinking of calling her she'd beat it out
of town."

"That's true," agreed his chief. "That's as far as she'd go, too, in
defying the law. But I don't much like it. Those Beekmans have a lot of
influence, and if she got sore she could make us a heap of trouble!
Besides it's sort of a scaly trick making her give up on him like that."

O'Brien raised his brows.

"Scaly trick! He's a murderer, isn't he? And he'll get off if we don't
call her. It's a matter of duty, as I see it."

"All the same, my son, your suggestion has a rotten smell to it. We may
have to do it--I don't say we won't--but it's risky business!" replied
Peckham dubiously.

"It's a good deal less risky than not doing it, so far as your candidacy
next autumn is concerned!" retorted his assistant. "We won't let her
suspect what we're goin' to do; and the last minute I'll call her to the
stand and cinch the case! She won't even know who called her! Perhaps I
can arrange with Judge Babson to call her on some other point and then
pretend to sort of stumble onto the fact of the confession and examine
her himself. That would let us out. I can smear it over somehow."

"You'd better," commented Peckham, "unless you want a howl from the
papers! It would make quite a story if Miss Althea Beekman got on the
rampage.