Burn, Witch, Burn!

"Well, her watchers are better than ours." I echoed Ricori; and I told McCann then of the second attack

in the night; and why I had sought him.

"An' that," he said when I had ended, "Proves the Mandilip hag knows who's who behind the watch on

her. She tried to wipe out both the boss and Mollie. She's onto us, Doc."

"The dolls are accompanied," I said. "The musical note is a summons. They do not disappear into thin air.

They answer the note and make their way…somehow to whoever sounds the note. The dolls must be

taken from the shop. Therefore one of the two women must take them. How did they evade your

watchers?"

"I don't know." The lean face was worried. "The fish-white gal does it. Let me tell you what I found out,

Doc. After I left you last night I go down to see what the boys have to say. I hear plenty. They say about

four o'clock the gal goes in the back an' the old woman takes a chair in the store. They don't think

nothing of that. But about seven who do they see walking down the street and into the doll joint but the

gal. They give the boys in the back hell. But they ain't seen her go, an' they pass the buck to the boys in

front.

"Then about eleven o'clock one of the relief lads comes in with worse news. He says he's down at the

foot of Broadway when a coupe turns the corner an' driving it is the gal. He can't be mistaken because

he's seen her in the doll joint. She goes up Broadway at a clip. He sees there ain't nobody trailing her, an'

he looks around for a taxi. Course there's nothing in sight-not even a parked car he can lift. So he

comes down to the gang to ask what the hell they mean by it. An' again nobody's seen the gal go."

"I take a couple of the boys an' we start out to comb the neighborhood to find out where she stables the

coupe. We don't have no luck at all until about four o'clock when one of the tails-one of the lads who's

been looking-meets up with me. He says that about three he sees the gal-at least he thinks it's the

gal-walking along the street around the corner from the joint. She's got a coupla big suitcases but they

don't seem to trouble her none. She's walking quick. But away from the doll joint. He eases over to get a

better look, when all of a sudden she ain't there. He sniffs around the place he's seen her. There ain't hide

nor hair of her. It's pretty dark, an' he tries the doors an' the areaways, but the doors are locked an' there

ain't nobody in the areaways. So he gives it up an' hunts me.

"I look over the place. It's about a third down the block around the corner from the doll joint. The doll

joint is eight numbers from the corner. They're mostly shops an' I guess storage up above. Not many

people living there. The houses all old ones. Still, I don't see how the gal can get to the doll joint. I think

maybe the tail's mistaken. He's seen somebody else, or just thinks he's seen somebody. But we scout

close around, an' after a while we see a place that looks like it might stable a car. It don't take us long to

open the doors. An' sure enough, there's a coupe with its engine still hot. It ain't been in long. Also it's the

same kind of coupe the lad who's seen the gal says she was driving.

"I lock the place up again, an' go back to the boys. I watch with 'em the rest of the night. Not a light in

the doll joint. But nigh eight o'clock, the gal shows up inside the shop and opens up!"

"Still," I said at this point, "you have no real evidence she had been out. The girl your man thought he saw

might not have been she at all."

He looked at me pityingly.

"She got out in the afternoon without 'em seeing her, didn't she? What's to keep her from doing the same

thing at night? The lad saw her driving a coupe, didn't he? An' we find a coupe like it close where the

wench dropped out of sight."

I sat thinking. There was no reason to disbelieve McCann. And there was a sinister coincidence in the

hours the girl had been seen. I said, half-aloud:

"The time she was out in the afternoon coincides with the time the doll was left at the Gilmores'. The time

she was out at night coincides with the time of the attack upon Ricori, and the death of John Gilmore."

"You hit it plumb in the eye!" said McCann. "She goes an' leaves the doll at Mollie's, an' comes back.

She goes an' sets the dolls on the boss. She waits for 'em to pop out. Then she goes an' collects the one

she's left at Mollie's. Then she beats it back home. They're in the suitcases she's carrying."

I could not hold back the irritation of helpless mystification that swept me.

"And I suppose you think she got out of the house by riding a broomstick up the chimney," I said,

sarcastically.

"No," he answered, seriously. "No, I don't, Doc. But them houses are old, and I think maybe there's a rat

hole of a passage or something she gets through. Anyway, the hands are watching the street an' the

coupe stable now, an' she can't pull that again."

He added, morosely:

"At that, I ain't saying she couldn't bridle a broomstick if she had to."