Page:Arthur Stringer - The Hand of Peril.djvu/157

 you on the wire this mornin'. You gotta help me out. You gotta dope me out some phoney paper from me Mother-Superior! I know you hate doin' that pen work, but I gotta have somethin' to clinch me past. You gotta forge me a couple o' family charts to steer by!"

A moment's silence ensued in that strange conversation. Then Maura Lambert spoke again.

"Sadie, where did you meet this man?"

"Jus' a minute," reprimanded the other woman. "I wantta put you gerry to my name, from now on. Nix on the Sadie an' the Puggy an' the Wimpel. I've canned that low-brow monacker. After this I'm Francine Florette. Get so you won't be gun-shy to that. An' remember I'm a movie actress temp'ry laid off with water on the knee. An' I've got the knee to show for it. Francine Florette, remember, educated at Ann Arbor an' from an ol' southern family that lost everythin' in the Galveston flood. As for that Uncle Updyke of mine, I met him through Madam De Martinette. She's that astrologist off Herald Square, the fleshy dame who gets fifteen a crack at the crystal, an' fifty for a full readin'. I grubstaked her to tip the old boy off, so things would fall easier for me! An' now he thinks the stars got together an' kind of wished me on him an' calls it Kismet an' spiels about me bein' the reincarnation of his first rag buried out in Kickapoo. How's that for finesse? I guess poor ol' Uncle Updyke's been stung by so many female grafters makin' a straight head-dive for his dough, he's got to dreamin' I'm an angel from above, jus' because I never once squeal for a rake-off!"