and that all policemen should be locked up in their stations to play
dominoes. "If it'll do you any good to know it," she said finally,
"it's Susie Capper, commonly called 'Tootles.' And I tell you what
it is. If you come snooping round my place to get me before the
beak, I'll scream and kick, so help me Bob, I will." There was an
English cockney twang in her voice.

The policeman left her in the middle of a paean, with the wounded
taxi and Martin, and the light of a lamp-post throwing up the
unnatural red of her lips on a pretty little white face. He had
probably gone to call up the taxicab company.

Then she turned to Martin. "The decent thing for you to do, Mr. Nut,
is to see me home," she said. "I'm blowed if I'm going to face any
more attempts at murder alone. My word, what a life!"

"Come along, then," said Martin, and he put his hand under her
elbow. That amazing avenue, which had the appearance of a great,
deep cut down the middle of an uneven mountain, was almost deserted.
From the long line of street lamps intermittent patches of light
were reflected as though in glass. The night and the absence of
thickly crawling motors and swarming crowds gave it dignity. A
strange, incongruous Oriental note was struck by the deep red of
velvet hangings thrown up by the lights in a furniture dealer's shop
on the second floor of a white building.

"Look for a row of women's ugly wooden heads painted by some one
suffering from delirium tremens," said Miss Susie Capper as they
turned down West Forty-sixth Street. "It's a dressmaker's, although
you might think it was an asylum for dope fiends. I've got a