Children of the Whirlwind
to attend to you now, Barney--but, by God, I'm going to square things
with you for the dirt you've done me, and I'm going to show you up for
a stool and a squealer!” He wheeled on Old Jimmie. “And the only reason
I'll be easy with you, Jimmie Carlisle, is because you are Maggie's
father--though you're the rottenest thing as a father God ever let
breathe!”
Old Jimmie shrank slightly before Larry's glower, and his little eyes
gleamed with the fear of a rat that is cornered. But he said nothing.
Larry turned his back upon the two men. “We're through with this bunch,
Maggie. Put on a hat and a wrap, and let's go. We can send for your
things.”
“No you don't, Maggie,” snarled Barney, before Maggie could speak.
Old Jimmie made his first positive motion since entering the room. He
shifted quickly to Maggie's side and seized her arm.
“You're my daughter, and you stay with me!” he ordered. “I brought
you up, and you do exactly what I tell you to! You're not going with
Larry--he's lying about Barney. You stay with me!”
“Come on, let's go, Maggie,” repeated Larry.
“You stay with me!” repeated Jimmie.
Thus ordered and appealed to, Maggie was areel with contradicting
thoughts and impulses while the three men awaited her action. In fact
she had no clear thought at all. She never knew later what determined
her course at this bewildered moment: perhaps it was partly a
continuance of her doubt of Larry, perhaps partly once more sheer
momentum, perhaps her instinctive feeling that her place was with the
man she believed to be her father.
“Yes, I'll stay with you,” she said to Old Jimmie.
“That's the signal for you to be on your way, Larry Brainard!” Barney
snapped at him triumphantly.
Larry realized, all of a sudden, that his coming here was no more than
a splendid gesture to which his anger had excited him. Indeed there was
nothing for him but to be on his way.
“I've told you the truth, Maggie; and you'll be sorry that you have not
left--if not sorry soon, then sorry a little later.”
He turned to Barney with a last shot; he could not leave the gloating
Barney Palmer his unalloyed triumph. “I told you I had the straight dope
on you, Barney. Here's some more of it. I know exactly what your game
is, and I know exactly who your sucker is. We'll see if you put it
over--you squealer! Good-night, all.”
With that Larry walked out. Old Jimmie regarded his partner with
suspicion.
“How about that, Barney--you being a stool and a squealer?” he demanded.
“I tell you it's all a lie--a damned lie!” cried Barney with feverish
emphasis.
“I hope it is!” breathed Old Jimmie.
This was a subject Barney wanted to get away from. “Maggie,” he
demanded, “is what Larry Brainard said about how he came here the
truth?--his seeing you on the street and then following you here?”
“How do I know where he first saw me?”
“But is to-night the first time you've seen him?”
“It is.”
“Sure you haven't been seeing him?” demanded Barney's quick jealousy.
“I have not.”
“Did he tell you where he came from?--where he hangs out?”
“No.”
Old Jimmie interrupted this cross-examination.
“You're wasting good time asking these questions. Barney, do you realize
the cold fact that it's not a good thing for you, nor for us, for Larry
Brainard to be back in New York, floating around as he pleases?”
“I should say not!” Barney saw he was facing a sudden crisis, and in the
need for quick action he spoke without thought of Maggie. “We've got to
look after him at once!”
“Tell the bunch he's back, and let them take care of him?” suggested Old
Jimmie.
Barney considered rapidly. If Larry knew of his arrangement with the
police, then perhaps his secret was beginning to leak through to others.
He decided that for the present it would be wiser to keep from these old
friends and allies.
“Not the bunch--the police!” he said inspiredly. “They're after him,
anyhow, and are sore. All we've got to do is slip them word--they'll do
the rest!” And then with the sharper emphasis of an immediate plan: “We
don't want to lose a minute. I know where Gavegan hangs out at this time
of night. Come on!”
With a bare “Good-night” to Maggie the two men hurried forth on their
pressing mission. Left to herself, Maggie sank into a chair and wildly
considered the many elements of this new situation. Presently two
thoughts emerged to dominance: Whether Larry was right or wrong, he had
risked coming out of his safety for her sake--perhaps had risked all he
had won for her sake. And now the police were to be set after him, with
that Gavegan heading the pack.
Perhaps the further thinking Maggie did did not result in cool, mature
wisdom--for her thoughts were the operations of a panicky mind. Somehow
she had to get warning to Larry of this imminent police hunt! Without
doubt Larry would return to Cedar Crest sometime that night. Word should
be sent to him there. A letter was too uncertain in such a crisis.
Of course she had an invitation to go to Cedar Crest the following
afternoon, and she might warn him then--but that might be too late.
She dared not telephone or telegraph--for that might somehow direct
dangerous attention to the exact spot where Larry was hidden. Also she
had an instinct, operating unconsciously long before she had any thought
of what she was eventually to do, not to let Barney or Old Jimmie find
out, or even guess, that she had warned Larry--not yet.
There seemed nothing that she herself could do. Then she thought of the
Duchess. That was the way out! The Duchess would know some way in which
to get Larry word.
Five minutes later, in her plainest suit and hat, Maggie in a taxicab
was rolling down toward the Duchess's--from where, only a few months
back, she had started forth upon her great career.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Old Jimmie did not like meeting the police any oftener than a meeting
was forced upon him, and so he slipped away and allowed Barney Palmer
to undertake alone the business of settling Larry. Barney found Gavegan
exactly where he had counted: lingering over his late dinner in the cafe
of a famous Broadway restaurant--a favorite with some of the detectives
and higher officials of the Police Department--in which cafe, in happier
days now deeply mourned, Gavegan had had all the exhilaration he wanted
to drink at the standing invitation of the proprietor, and where even
yet on occasion a bit of the old exhilaration was brought to Gavegan's
table in a cup or served him in a room above to which he had had
whispered instructions to retire. The proprietor had in the old days
liked to stand well with the police; and though his bar was now devoted
to legal drinks--or at least obliging Federal officers reported it to
be--he still liked to stand well with the police.
Gavegan was at a table with a minor producer of musical shows, to
whom Barney had been of occasional service in securing the predominant
essential of such music--namely, shapely young women. Barney nodded
to Gavegan, chatted for a few minutes with his musical-comedy friend,
during which he gave Gavegan a signal, then crossed to the once-crowded
bar, now sunk to isolation and the lowly estate of soft drinks, and
ordered a ginger ale. Not until then did he notice Barlow, chief of the
Detective Bureau, at a corner table. Barney gave no sign of recognition,
and Barlow, after a casual glance at him, returned to his food.
Barney, in solitude at one end of the bar, slowly sipped with a sort of
indignation against his kickless purchase. Presently Gavegan was beside
him, having most convincing ill-luck in his attempts to light his cigar
from a box of splintering safety matches which stood at that end of the
bar.
“Well, what is it?” Gavegan whispered out of that corner of his mouth
which was not occupied by his cigar. He did not look at Barney.
“Any clue to Larry Brainard yet?” Barney whispered also out of a corner
of his mouth, glass at his lips. Like-wise he seemed not to notice the
man beside him.
“Naw! Still out West somewhere. Them Chicago bums couldn't catch a crook
if he walked along State Street with a sign-board on him!”
“Saw Larry Brainard to-night.”
Gavegan had difficulty in maintaining his attitude of non-awareness of
his bar-mate.
“Where?”
“Right here in New York.”
“What! Where'd you see him?”
“Coming out of the Grantham.”
“When?”
“Fifteen minutes ago.”
“Know where he went to?--where he hangs out?--know anything else?”
“That's everything. Thought I'd better slip it to you as quick as I
could.”
“This time that bird'll not get away!” growled Gavegan, still in a
whisper. “Twenty-four hours and he'll be in the cooler!”
Finally Gavegan managed to get a flame from one of those irritatingly
splintery Swedish matches made in Japan. Cigar alight he walked over to
Barlow's table. He conversed with his Chief a moment or two, then went
out. After a minute Barney saw Chief Barlow crossing toward the bar.
Barney seemed not to notice this movement. Barlow likewise paused beside
him to light a cigar; and from the side of the Chief's mouth there
issued: “Room 613.”
Barlow passed on. Presently Barney finished the dreary drudgery of
drink and sauntered out. Five minutes later, having exercised the proper
caution, he was in Room 613, and the door was locked.
“What's this dope you just handed Gavegan about Larry Brainard?”
demanded Barlow.
Barney gave his information, again, but this time more fully. Of course
he omitted all mention of Maggie and the enterprise which Larry had
sought to interrupt; it was part of the tacit understanding between
these two that Barlow should have no knowledge of Barney's professional
doings, unless such knowledge should be forced upon him by events or
people too strong to be ignored.
“Did Brainard drop any clue that might give us a lead as to where he's
hiding out?”
Barney remembered something Larry had said half an hour before, which he
had considered mere boasting. “He said he knew I had some game on, and
he said he knew who the sucker was I was planning to trim.”
“Did he say who the sucker was?”
“No.”
“If Larry Brainard really did know, then who would he be having in
mind?”
Barney hesitated; but he perceived that this was a question which had
to be answered. “Young Dick Sherwood, of the swell Sherwood family--you
know.”
Barlow did not pursue the subject. According to his arrangement with
Barney, the latter's private activities were none of his business.
“I'll get busy with the drag-net; we'll land Brainard this time,” said
Barlow. And then with a grim look at Barney: “But Larry Brainard's not
what I got you up here to talk about, Palmer. I wanted to talk about two
words to you--and say 'em to you right between your eyes.”
“Go ahead, Chief.”
“First, you ain't been worth a damn to me for several months. You've
given me no value received for me keeping my men off of you. You haven't
turned up a single thing.”
“Come, now, Chief--you're forgetting about Red Hannigan and Jack
Rosenfeldt.”
“Chicken feed! They're out on bail, and when their cases come up,
they'll beat them! Besides, you didn't give me that tip to help me; you
gave it to me so that you could fix things to put Larry Brainard in bad
with all his old friends. You did that to help yourself. Shut up! Don't
try to deny it. I know!”
Barney did not attempt denial. Barlow went on:
“And the second thing I want to tell you, and tell you hard, is this:
You gotta turn in some business! The easy way you've been going makes
it look like you've forgot I've got hold of you where the hair's long.
Young man, you'd better remember that I've got you cold for that Gregory
stock business--you and Old Jimmie Carlisle. Got all the papers in a