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Officer Maguire had strolled up, after chasing away a small crowd that had gathered with fierce and unholy threats. For the first time now he noticed the peculiar perturbation of the usually placid German couple.

“What about your daughter?” he asked, catching a word as to that.

Both old people raised their voices at once.

“She haf gone. She haf run avay. Ach, himmel, ve must for her loog. Quick — she could not get in. Ve had der door shut.”

“Locked her out, eh?” inquired Maguire after a time, hearing much of the rest of the story.

“Yes,” explained Rogaum.”It was to schkare her a liddle. She vould not come yen I called.”

“Sure, that’s the girl we saw walkin’ with young Almerting, do ye mind? The one in the white dress,” said Delahanty to Maguire.

“White dress, yah!” echoed Rogaum, and then the fact of her walking with some one came home like a blow.

“Did you hear dot?” he exclaimed even as Mrs. Rogaum did likewise.”Mein Gott, hast du das gehoert?”

He fairly jumped as he said it. His hands flew up to his stout and ruddy head.

“Waddy ya want to let her out for nights?” asked Maguire roughly, catching the drift of the situation.”That’s no time for young girls to be out, anyhow, and with these toughs around here. Sure, I saw her, nearly two hours ago.”

“Ach,” groaned Rogaum.”Two hours yet. Ho, ho, ho!” His voice was quite hysteric.

“Well, go on in,” said Officer Delahanty.”There’s no use yellin’ out here. Give us a description of her an’ we’ll send out an alarm. You won’t be able to find her walkin’ around.”

Her parents described her exactly. The two men turned to the nearest police box and then disappeared, leaving the old German couple in the throes of distress. A time-worn old church-clock nearby now chimed out one and then two. The notes cut like knives. Mrs. Rogaum began fearfully to cry. Rogaum walked and blustered to himself.

“It’s a queer case, that,” said Officer Delahanty to Maguire after having reported the matter of Theresa, but referring solely to the outcast of the doorway so recently sent away and in whose fate they were much more interested. She being a part of the commercialized vice of the city, they were curious as to the cause of her suicide.”I think I know that woman. I think I know where she came from. You do, too — Adele’s, around the corner, eh? She didn’t come into that doorway by herself, either. She was put there. You know how they do.”

“You’re right,” said Maguire.”She was put there, all right, and that’s just where she come from, too.”

The two of them now tipped up their noses and cocked their eyes significantly.

“Let’s go around,” added Maguire.

They went, the significant red light over the transom at 68 telling its own story. Strolling leisurely up, they knocked. At the very first sound a painted denizen of the half-world opened the door

“Where’s Adele?” asked Maguire as the two, hats on as usual, stepped in.

“She’s gone to bed.”

“Tell her to come down.”

They seated themselves deliberately in the gaudy mirrored parlor and waited, conversing between themselves in whispers. Presently a sleepy-looking woman of forty in a gaudy robe of heavy texture, and slippered in red, appeared.

“We’re here about that suicide case you had tonight. What about it? Who was she? How’d she come to be in that doorway around the corner? Come, now,” Maguire added, as the madam assumed an air of mingled injured and ignorant innocence, “you know. Can that stuff! How did she come to take poison?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the woman with the utmost air of innocence.”I never heard of any suicide.”