I had told the girl to talk fast. She did. For twenty minutes she stood there and turned out words in a chattering stream that had no breaks except where I cut in to keep her from straying from the path I wanted her to follow. It was jumbled, almost incoherent in spots, and not always plausible, but the notion stayed with me throughout that she was trying to tell the truth—most of the time.
And not for a fraction of a second did she turn her gaze from my eyes. It was as if she was afraid to look anywhere else.
This millionaire’s daughter had, two months before, been one of a party of four young people returning late at night from some sort of social affair down the coast. Somebody suggested that they stop at a roadhouse along their way—a particularly tough joint. Its toughness was its attraction, of course—toughness was more or less of a novelty to them. They got a firsthand view of it that night, for, nobody knew just how, they found themselves taking part in a row before they had been ten minutes in the dump.
The girl’s escort had shamed her by showing an unreasonable amount of cowardice. He had let Red O’Leary turn him over his knee and spank him—and had done nothing about it afterward. The other youth in the party had been not much braver. The girl, insulted by this meekness, had walked across to the red-haired giant who had wrecked her escort, and she had spoken to him loud enough for everybody to hear:
“Will you please take me home?”
Red O’Leary was glad to do it. She left him a block or two from her city house. She told him her name was Nancy Regan. He probably doubted