curtly.
“That'sh all right.” The young man came nearer. He balanced himself with difficulty, but upon him there appeared to have descended suddenly a vast dignity. “I'm—hic—law—'biding citizen. Gotta know. Gotta show me. Damn funny—coming out of there this time of night! Eh—what'sh the idea?”
Rough Rorke, with his free hand, grabbed the young man by the shoulder angrily.
“Mind your own business, or you'll get into trouble!” he rasped out. “I'm an officer, and this woman is under arrest. Beat it! D'ye hear? Beat it—or I'll run you in, too!”
“Is that'sh so!” The young man's tones expressed a fuddled defiance. He rocked on his feet and stared from one to the other. “Shay, is that'sh so! You will—eh? Gotta show me. How do I know you're—hic—officer? Eh? More likely damned thief yourself! I—”
The young man lurched suddenly and violently forward, breaking Rough Rorke's grip on Rhoda Gray—and, as his arms swept out to grasp at the detective in an apparently wild effort to preserve his balance, Rhoda Gray felt a quick, significant push upon her shoulder.
For the space of time it takes a watch to tick she stood startled and amazed, and then, like a flash, she was speeding down the street. A roar of rage, a burst of unbridled profanity went up from Rough Rorke behind her; it was mingled with equally angry vituperation in the young man's voice. She looked behind her. The two men were swaying around crazily in each other's arms. She ran on—faster than she had ever run in her life. The corner was not far ahead. Her brain was working with lightning speed. Gypsy Nan's house was just around the corner. If she could get out of sight—hide—it would...
She glanced behind her again, as her ears caught the pound of racing feet. The young man was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, shaking his fist; Rough Rorke, perhaps a bare fifty yards away, was chasing her at top speed.
Her face set hard. She could not out-run a man! There was only one hope for her—just one—to gain Gypsy Nan's doorway before Rorke got around the corner.
A yard—another—still another! She swerved around the corner.
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