Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/254

 stuff, and she certainly worked up a wonderful curtain."

"When do you take her over?" inquired Heminway.

"We'll get her to-day," said Ellison.

"What's on here?" Calvin changed the subject at the opening of an office door through which debouched several dark-haired, swarthy young men of the type which Calvin classified as "southern European."

"Part of the morning pick-up on Considine," Heminway informed, referring thus to the more important of the two shootings reported to the State's attorney's office over night. Considine, though still in his twenties, was a man of no small political importance and was credited with a fortune of half a million gained by bootlegging and as profits of his roadhouse.

"Oh, how's he?" asked Ellison, who of course had been shut off from immediate news by his presence in the court-room.

"Recovered consciousness 'bout an hour ago, but he's done."

"Talk, did he?"

"He did not."

"Are we holding anybody?" asked Calvin, as the visible part of the pick-up passed toward the elevators and evidently was not to be detained.

"What chance?" said Heminway. "Who'll talk? Considine knows he's finished; but he won't say a word. What do you figure we'll get out of boys who still have their health and want to enjoy life, liberty and their opportunities under the eighteenth amendment a little longer? They wouldn't even admit that Baretta and Considine had fallen out."

Ellison laughed and opened his door. "Did Baretta do it, d'you suppose," he asked, when the three entered the room, "or was he just back of it?"

"Just back of it," said Heminway. "A subject upon