"DISTRICT NURSE"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 January 1939, Page 10

"DISTRICT NURSE"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY

FAITH BALDWIN.

CHAPTER XT (Continued.)

She made her way back to the office swiftly, spoke briefly to Miss Renwick. Miss Renwick nodded. The Espositos belonged, in a manner of speaking to her, to them all. Ellen must, and would, do what she thought best. Ellen picked up a telephone and called the police station. She spoke to the lieutenant, at length, trying to explain. He knew her, he knew her organisation. She hung up. “He’ll put a detective right on the case,” she reported, “Sarpia, an Italian." She got her caffs and went out, stopping for a malted milk at a drug store. When school let out she was waiting in the stationer's shop. She had explained the bent, agile man who ran it. When the boy came in. unkempt, whistling, his father spoke to him sharply. “You go with the lady, see, and tell what you know. The other boy, that was Jake, wasn’t it? Find him loo.” Something of a triumph. “I don’t want we should be mixed up in this,” the stationer told Ellen. It’s not good to be mixed up with the police.” “The boys have no responsibility,” Ellen has assured him, “beyond telling what they saw. That's all they'll be needed for. She had argued half despairing, but finally he had given in. With the two boys, important and excited, in tow, she went to the precinct station house. It was not the first time she had appeared there. The genial lieutenant at the desk greeted her. There were people milling about the room, people were waiting. It was close, it smelled of smoke. The Espositos were not there. She looked around. No they had not come, said the Lieutenant. Scarpia had been to the house. He hadn’t come back. He listened, frowning, to her story. Now Scarpia came in, a good looking Italian, a plain clothes man. He took Ellen and the boys into the rear office. Two desks, telephones, cuspidors, walls covered with hand-bills, photographs of wanted men. For the second time Ellen told her tale. The boys told theirs; disagreeing on one point. “She hollered,” insisted the younger boy, Jake, firmly. “I didn’t hear no holler,” said the stationer’s boy, as firmly. Scarpia leaned back in his chair. “There’s nothing,’! he said, “to be gotten out of the family. I tried. It seems they have changed their minds. They weren’t coming around. She’d come back, they said. I couldn’t do a thing with them. These wops are all alike, he said, in easy scorn of his own, “scared to death to come to the police. They’d rather shoot it out, among themselves —stab it out.”

Ellen said, distressed, “Something has to be done, don’t you understand that? The girl must be brought back, the man found.” She repeated what Mike had said to her. Scarpia shook his sleek black head. “We’ve nothing on him, this Fontana. He hasn’t got a record.” Another plain clothes man, at the other desk, an older man, looked across to bark suddenly, “suppose you got this wrong, Sister? Suppose the girl went of her own accord? Most of ’em do.”

“Not Gilda,” denied Ellen angrily. “She loathed the man. She —she had a good job, she’s happy in it. This man had been bothering her, I believe, for months.” She spoke of the little scene in the restaurant, which she had witnessed. Scarpia pricked up his ears. “It doesn’t look as if she hated him,” he said shewdly, “going out with him. that way.” Ellen said, sharply, “What does that prove? Perhaps he threatened her. 1 tell you she’s been taken away by force.”

“Hundred of girls,” said the older detective, “disappear, every day. Vanish. Napoo. Thin air. They come back sometimes, married. The family meantime races around, comes to us. We put our men to work. What do wt find? An elopement . . or a voluntary runaway. These girls weren't born yesterday . . .” “Have you any daughters?” Ellen asked, furiously. “Sure, two.” He was Irish, he had the Irishman's slow, amused grin. “Why?” “It's incredible," said Ellen, “that yon can take that attitude about another man's daughter." He reddened a little, and busied himself with the papers on his untidy desk.

“We'll do all we can, see, Sarpia said, soothingly. But if the family won't talk ... 1 tell you, I yelled my bead off at them.”

This was hardly the way to go about it, Ellen reminded him tartly. Sarpia shrugged. "I know these people," he said. “All for their ‘honour. But they don't want anyone else crashing in, see? The old lady, she doesn’t even speak English , . .” “Yes, a little. She understands." “I asked her, Capisce Inglese? She shook her head. As far as that went, sh didn't speak Italian either. Not a word! Won't talk. The father — a different kettle of fish, yet he and the boy wouldn't talk much either; just said it was a mistake that we were sent for; they’d handle it. If the family won’t lodge a complaint, let alone give us any information, our hands are tied, see?” Ellen rose. “I'll try to make them see reason," she said “Good. Find out where the girl is. we'll do the rest," said Sarpia. "Meantime I'll have ’em all looked up. But. you understand, our hands are tied?"

“I understand,” said Ellen, not too pleasantly. The other detective grinned at her again, his rancour forgotten. “You’re barkin' up the wrong tree, Sister, the Irishman murmured. “She'll come home. With a wedding ring. Or . . after all, she ain’t a minor, you know.”

Ellen went back to the Espositos. They were not at home. The helper, alone in the store, shrugged. He didn't know, he said. "The boss, lie go out. Come back, bimeby.” She went on home, discouraged. Delay, and obstinacy on every side, and meantime —Gilda?

Very early next morning her telephone rang. She went to it, her heart beating quickly. Mike’s voice reached her, low, guarded. “Some one ’phoned,” Mike said, without preliminaries. “She’s all right . . .

if the folks say she can marry him. he'll bring her back." “Did you notify the detective . .?" “Nope. It ain’t his business, now," said Mike. Nor yours, said his tone. His tone definitely dismissed her; lay off. it told her, in effect. He hung up. She dressed rapidly, after putting on the coffee. Soon she was at the Espositos. This time they opened to her knock, and she went in and sat down, marshalling her arguments. “What else is there to do?” said Esposito after they had talked a long time. “She will marry him, of course. Some one will 'phone again today. That’s all there is to it.” the father said. “But she hates him,” said Ellen wildly. “Why on earth should she marry him? Marriage, by force —it isn’t legal, it isn’t —”

But he only lifted hands and shoulders, fatalistically. Mrs Esposito sobbed. Mike turned from the window, his hands’sunk in his pockets. “He’ll marry her, all right,” said Mike, sombrely. “When she comes back,” begged Ellen, fighting the tears of futility and despair, realising that she was up against a blank wall of absolute incomprehension, “you must let me talk to her.”

She added, “But if—oh, if only you would see it my way! If you feel the police are out of place here, I know a lawyer. I will get private detectives, I can do something . . .”

A look passed between Esposito and his son, a look almost of hope. Ellen realised that it was the police they feared, the publicity. Esposito nodded. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “perhaps that would be good.” She would, she thought, get in touch with Frank; he could help her.

Later she called his office. He was in court. There was no way to reach him all day long. She located him finally, at his apartment. He would he promised, come around at once. Arriving he took her out in the car. Ellen told him all she knew. It was, he agreed, damnable. But, was she sure? He asked the question the detective had asked. Was she sure the girl hadn't gone of her own accord? Men were all alike, she told him, angrily. Wasn’t there the telephone call to prove that she hadn’t gone of her own accord? He tried to quiet her. He said, “You know I’ll help. I know a private investigator. He's under some obligation to me; I’ll try to reach him. I’ll find him surely, tomorrow, or next day. But meantime, I wish you’d keep out of this Ellen; it’s a dangerous business.” “It’s my job,” she said wretchedly. “Can’t you understand that?” He couldn’t. There was something of a coolness between them when they parted. He was, she saw plainly, more interested in her and her possible situation, than in Gilda. The next day the ’phone rang early. I* was Mike. “She has come home.” he said cautiously. “She will marry him. There isn’t any use you getting the detective.” Impasse.

She ’phoned Frank, and explained briefly. “Good," he said heartily over the ’phone, “So, that's all over.”

It wasn't. Ellen went, as soon as she had a free moment, to the rooms over the fruit store, Gilda was there. She looked amazing, her face almost green white, her eyes shadowed, and her mouth twitching. She was sitting in a corner of the sofa, her hands folded in her lap. Fontana was not there. Nor Mike. Gild cried when she saw Ellen, slow tears running unheeded down her cheeks. Had they, Ellen wondered, been unkind to her? It did not seem so.

Esposito walked restlessly about the room. Ellen asked, “Where is he?" and Esposito shrugged. “He's gone out," he said, “to buy himself a suit. Mike went along." He was silent. He did not tell her he had locked the future bridegroom in, all last night after their arrival, locked him in an unused storage room. “Please let me talk to Gilda atone,” Ellen demanded.

Esposito went out, heavily, downstairs to the store. Mrs Esposito, curiously recovered and plainly resigned, went into the kitchen. Ellen took Gilda's cold hands in her own. “I can’t tell you—" said Gilda. shaking.

Ellen said, “you needn't. And you needn't marry him. Gilda. See. this is today, not yesterday. Nothing that happened was your fault You need not marry him. No one need ever know. I’ll see that he doesn't annoy you any more.”

Gilda shrugged. In that moment she looked like her mother. She hadn’t a feature of her mother's save her eyes. Yet she looked like her, patient, resigned. “Gilda, wait, please, give it a day’s thought, two days, a week', before you take this step," Ellen urged her.

Gilda rose. She made no reply. “I must help mother,” she dismissed Ellen, “in the kitchen." She moved toward the door with Ellen, the elasticity gone from her step. At the door she caught Ellen’s hands in hers, a tight, frantic grip . . . "I—l'm grateful.” She whispered, “but you can’t do anything

Ellen was alone, on the other side of the closed door. That was final. Gilda would marry him. She mustn’t. She must be brought to see reason.

On an impulse she turned her steps toward Jim O'Connor's office. His face lighted when he saw her. He drew her into the back room, closed the door. “It's an honour," he assured her.

She tried to smile at him. "Not a social call, not a friendly one even. I need your help." “Shoot,” he said. She could tell him. He would understand. Better than Frank. He knew these people, their hates, their tragedies; their blood ran in his veins. She told him briefly. At the back of her brain there was a little sore spot. The restaurant, that night, the man who had looked like Jim, at Gilda's table. But it hadn’t been Jim. (To be Continued.)