as it was "all right."

A new appointee--a lieutenant she had never seen before--was temporarily
in charge of the station.

"I'm Mrs. Cleary," she began, in her free, outspoken way, "and this is
Mr. Felix O'Day."

The new appointee stared and said nothing.

"Ye never saw me before, but that wouldn't make any difference if the
captain was around. But ye can find out about me from any one of yer men
who knows me. I'm here with Mr. O'Day lookin' up a woman who was brought
here this morning for stealin' some finery or whatever it was from one
of these big stores--and we want to see her, if ye plaze."

The lieutenant shook his head. "Can't see no prisoner without the
captain's orders."

Kitty bridled, but she kept her temper. "When will he be back?"

"Six o'clock. He's gone to headquarters."

"He'd let me see her if he was here," she retorted, with some asperity.

"No doubt--but I can't." All this time he had not changed his
position--his arms on the desk, his fingers drumming idly.

Felix rested his hands on the rail fronting the desk. "May I ask if you
saw the woman?"

"No. I only came on half an hour ago."

"Is there any one here who did see her?"

Something in O'Day's manner and in the incisive tones of his voice,
those of command not supplication, made the lieutenant change his
position. The speaker might have a "pull" somewhere. He turned to the
sergeant. "You were on duty. What did she look like?"

The sergeant yawned from behind his hand. He had been up most of the
previous night and was some hours behind his sleep schedule. Kitty's
presence had not roused him but the self-possessed man could not be
ignored.

"You mean the girl who got Rosenthal's lace?" he answered.

"You're dead right," returned the lieutenant obligingly. He had, of
course, always been ready to do what he could for people in trouble, and
was so now.

"Oh, about as they all look." This time the sergeant directed his
remarks to Felix. "We get two or three of 'em every day, specially
about Christmas and New Year's. Rather run down at the heel, this one,
and--no, come to think of it, I'm wrong--she looked different. Been
a corker in her time--not bad now--about thirty, I guess--maybe
younger--you can't always tell. Rather slim--had on a black-straw hat
and some kind of a cloak."

Kitty was about to freshen his memory with some remembrance of her
own, and had got as far as, "Well, my man Mike was here and he told me
that--" when