“There is a person here, madam,” said Greaves, “who says she ’as something to say concerning Mr. Wayne. She says it’s very important.”

Alice could tell from the way Greaves said the word “person” that the caller was a questionable character. Her mind flashed to the blonde girl of Wayne’s. Could this be she? Well, whoever it was, she would see her.

“She gave no name, Greaves?”

“No, madam.”

“Have her come in here.”

“Yes, madam.”

Alice laid her book on the library table, and rose expectantly.

Cokey Jenny was shown in. She was wrapped in a long black coat with bedraggled fox collar. Underneath she wore a black gown which was modish but badly wrinkled and stained. Her pointed black satin slippers were spotted where she had spilt gin on them in Nigger Gert’s. Powder and lip rouge were artfully applied, redeeming somewhat the hard lips and thick features. Her eyes were bright pinpoints of light, the pupils contracted by the effects of the dope she had taken. Vengeful pride flickered III their depths.

“You have something important to say?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny, “about Mr. Wayne Baldwin.”

“Yes,” said Alice. “My brother—what about him?”

“Ain’t heard nothin’ about this dame he’s got, didja?”

Alice regarded the girl narrowly.

“No,” she said. “I can’t say that I have. I don’t even know her name.”

Jenny’s lips twisted bitterly.

“Well, I know it plenty. It’s Babe Gordon.”

“Yes ? You know something about her?”

“I’ll say I do,” Jenny’s voice rasped. “I know her like nobody else.”

“What is she? An actress?”

Jenny laughed harshly.

“I’ll say she’s an actress. Not the kind on the stage. But nobody can beat her puttin’ on her act wit’ men.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She used to be a hooker around the Marathon Fight Club.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“She was just a common ordinary tart.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was one meself. Me an’ her was pals.”

Alice recoiled before the coarse revelation.

“We got money from managers to play up to other managers’ fighters. Get ’em drunk, before their fights—weaken ’em so’s they would lose. And we’d try to pick the winners after a fight, because they copped the big end of the dough.”

Alice was startled and paled a little, but Jenny went right on, warming up to her subject, like a college professor enthusiastically lecturing on organic biology. The revelations she made to Alice about Babe’s professional activities, and her own, would have been shocking enough even to Alice’s sophisticated brother. To the sister, the effect was overwhelming. Occasionally she had to ask for an explanation, for Cokey Jenny’s highly technical language was just as strange to Alice as the deeds she described.