FullReads

“And for why did she want that?” rumbled Donohue.

“That’s what I asks her myself. It seems she’s got no shame about it at all. She tells me she wants to hang on to it until she can get the money to have it enlarged into a big picture, and then she’s going to keep it–till the bambino–that’s Italian for baby, commissioner, you know–till the baby grows up, so he can see what his dead father looked like.”

Now of a sudden La Farge knew–or thought he knew–why his interest had stirred in him a minute before. Instinctively his reporter’s sixth sense had scented a good news story before the real point of the story had come out, even. A curious little silence had fallen on the half-lighted, almost empty big room. Only the voice of Weil broke this silence:

“Of course, commissioner, I tries to explain to her what the circumstances are. I tells her that, in the first place, on account of the mayor’s orders about cutting down the gallery having gone into effect, it’s an even bet her husband’s picture ain’t there anyhow–that it’s most likely been destroyed; and in the second place, even if it is there, I tells her I’ve got no right to be giving it to her without an order from somebody higher up. But either she can’t understand or she won’t. I guess my being in uniform makes her think I’m running the whole department, and she won’t seem to listen to what I says.

“She cries and she carries on worse than ever, and begs and begs me to give it to her. I guess you know how excitable those Italian women can be, especially when they are Sicilians. Anyhow, commissioner, after a lot of that sort of thing I tells her to wait where she is for a minute. I leaves her and I goes across into the Bertillon room, where the pictures are, and I looks up this here Antonio Terranova. I forget his number now and I don’t know how it is he comes to be overlooked when we’re cleaning out the gallery; but he’s there all right, full face and side view, with his gallery number in big white figures on his chest. And, commissioner, he’s a pretty tolerable tough-looking Ginney.” The witness checked an inclination to grin. “I takes a slant at his picture, and I can’t make up my own mind which way he’ll look the worst enlarged into a crayon portrait–full face or side view. I can still hear her crying outside the door. She’s crying harder than ever.

“I puts the picture back, and I goes out to where she is and tries to argue with her. It’s no use. She goes down on her knees and holds the baby up, and tells me it ain’t for her sake she’s asking this–it’s for the bambino. And she calls on a lot of Italian saints that I never even heard the names of some of them before–and so on, like that. It’s pretty tough.

“She’s such a stupid, ignorant thing you can’t help from feeling sorry for her–nobody could.” He hesitated a moment as though seeking for words of explanation and extenuation that were not in his regular vocabulary. “I got kids of my own, commissioner,” he said suddenly, and stopped dead short for a moment. “I’m no Italian, but I got kids of my own!” he repeated, as though the fact constituted a defense.

“Well, well–what happened then?” The deputy commissioner’s frosty voice seemed to have frozen so hard it had a crack in it. And now then the Semitic face of Weil twisted into a grin that was more than shamefaced–it was downright sheepish.

“Why, then,” he said, “when I comes back out of the Bertillon room the second time she goes back down on her knees again and she says to me–of course she ain’t expected to know what my religion is–maybe that explains it, commissioner–she says to me that all her life–every morning and every night–she’s going to pray to the Blessed Virgin for me. That’s what she says anyway. So I just lets it go at that.”

He halted as though he were through.

“Then do I understand that, without an order from any superior authority, you gave this here woman certain property belonging to the Police Department?” Old Donohue’s voice was gruffer than common, even. He whetted his talon forefinger on the desk top.

“Yes, sir,” owned up the Jew. “There’s nobody there but just us two. And I don’t know how Captain Meagher comes to find the picture is gone and that it was me took it–but it’s true, commissioner. She goes away kissing it and holding it to the breast of her clothes–that Rogues’ Gallery picture! Yes, sir; I gives it to her.”

The third deputy commissioner’s gold-banded right arm was shoved out, with all the lean fingers upon the hand at the far end of it widely extended. He spoke, and something in his throat–a hard lump perhaps–husked his brogue and made his r’s roll out like dice.

“Lieutenant Weil,” he said, “I congratulate you! You’re guilty!”