good. I took stock that night—or morning—and found only four dollars in my purse. The rent was due, and the world looked pretty damned blue.
“Half-lit on Dago wine as I was, I decided to run over and see Stan, tell him all my troubles, and make a touch. Stan is a good egg and he’s always willing to go the limit for me. Sober, I wouldn’t have gone to see him at three in the morning; but it seemed a perfectly sensible thing to do at the time.
“It’s only a few minutes’ walk from here to Stan’s. I went down Bush Street to Leavenworth, and up Leavenworth to Pine. I was in the middle of that last block when Bernie was shot—I heard it. And when I turned the corner into Pine Street I saw a copper bending over a man on the pavement right in front of Stan’s. I hesitated for a couple of minutes, standing in the shadow of a pole, until three or four men had gathered around the man on the sidewalk. Then I went over.
“It was Bernie. And just as I got there I heard the copper tell one of the men that he had been shot. It was an awful shock to me. You know how things like that will hit you!”
I nodded; though God knows there was nothing in this girl’s face, manner, or voice to suggest shock. She might have been talking about the weather.
“Dumbfounded, not knowing what to do,” she went on, “I didn’t even stop. I went on, passing as close to Bernie as I am to you now, and rang Stan’s bell. He let me in. He had been half-undressed when I rang. His rooms are in the rear of the building, and he hadn’t heard the shot, he said. He didn’t know Bernie had been killed until I told him. It sort of knocked the wind out of him. He said Bernie had been there—in Stan’s rooms—since midnight, and had just left.