Children of the Whirlwind
elements which she would have to handle that he could not foretell just
what her course would be. It was a terrific situation for a young woman,
who was after all just a very young girl, to face alone. But there was
nothing for him but to wait for news from her. And she had not said even
that she would ever let him hear.
While he considered these matters he had risen and paced the room. Once
he had paused at a French window which opened upon a side veranda, and
had seen below him a few yards away Joe Ellison, whose interest in his
flowers had established his workday from sunrise to sunset. Joe Ellison
had been pulling tiny weeds that were daring to attempt to get a start
in a rose-garden. Larry's mind had halted a moment upon Joe. Here at
least was a contented man: one who, no matter what happened, would
remain in ignorance of possibly great events which would intimately
concern him. Then Larry had left the window and had returned to his
thoughts of Maggie.
But Larry's thoughts were not to remain exclusively with Maggie for
long. Shortly after six Judkins entered and announced that a man was at
the door with a message. The man had refused to come in, saying he was
only a messenger and was in a hurry; and had refused to give Judkins
the message, saying that it was verbal. Thinking that some word had come
from his grandmother, or possibly even from Maggie, Larry went out upon
the veranda. Waiting for him was a nondescript man he did not know.
“Mr. Brandon, sir?” asked the man.
“Yes. You have a message for me?”
Before the man could reply, there came a shout from the shrubbery beyond
the drive:
“Grab him, Smith! He's the man!”
Instantly Smith's steely arms were about Larry, pinning his elbows to
his sides, and a man broke from the shrubbery and hurried toward the
house. Instinctively Larry started to struggle, but he ceased as he
recognized the man coming up the steps. It was Gavegan. Larry realized
that he had been shrewdly trapped, that resistance would serve no end,
and the next moment handcuffs were upon his wrists.
“Well, Brainard,” gloated Gavegan, “we've landed you at last!”
“So it seems, Gavegan.”
“You thought you was damned clever, but I guess you know now you ain't
one, two, three!”
“Oh, I knew how clever you are, Gavegan,” Larry responded dryly, “and
that you'd get me sooner or later if I hung around.”
As a matter of fact Larry's capture, which was as unspectacular as his
escape had been strenuous, was the consequence of no cleverness at
all. Larry had said to Barney Palmer the night before that he knew who
Barney's sucker was; and Barney had passed this information along to
Chief Barlow. “Follow every clue; luck may be with you and one of the
clues may turn up what you want”:--this is in substance an unwritten
rule of routine procedure which effects those magnificent police
solutions which are presented as more mysterious than the original
mystery--for it is well for the public to believe that its police
officers are unfailingly more clever than its criminals. Barlow had
done some routine thinking: if Larry Brainard knew Dick Sherwood was
the sucker, then watching Dick Sherwood might possibly reveal the
whereabouts of Larry Brainard. Barlow had passed this tip along to
Gavegan. Gavegan had grumbled to himself that it was only a thousand to
one shot; but luck had been with him, and his long shot had won.
Miss Sherwood, Hunt behind her, had been drawn by the sound of voices
around to the side of the veranda where stood the four men. “What are
you doing?” she now sharply demanded of Gavegan.
“Don't like to make any unpleasant scene, Miss Sherwood, but I've gotta
tell you that this so-called Brandon is a well-known crook.” Gavegan
enjoyed few things more than astounding people with unpleasant facts.
“His real name is Brainard; he's done time, and now he's wanted by the
New York police for a tough job he pulled.”
“I knew all that long ago,” said Miss Sherwood.
“Eh--what?” stammered Gavegan.
“Mr. Brainard told me all that the first time I saw him.”
“Hello, Gavegan,” said Hunt, stepping forward.
“Well, I'll be--if you ain't that crazy--” Again the ability to express
himself coherently and with restraint failed Gavegan. “If you ain't that
painter that lived down at the Duchess's!”
“Right, Gavegan--as a detective always should be. And Larry Brainard was
then, and is now, my friend.”
Miss Sherwood again spoke up sharply. “Mr. Gavegan--if that is your
name--you will please take those foolish things off Mr. Brainard's
wrists.”
Gavegan had been cheated out of creating a sensation. That discomfiture
perhaps made him even more dogged than he was by nature.
“Sorry, Miss, but he's charged with having committed a crime and is a
fugitive from justice, and I can't.”
“I'll be his security. Take them off.”
“Sorry to refuse you again, Miss. But he's a dangerous man--got away
once before. My orders is to take no risks that'll give him another
chance for a get-away.”
Miss Sherwood turned to Larry. “I'll go into town with you, and so will
Mr. Hunt. I'll see that you get bail and a good lawyer.”
“Thank you, Miss Sherwood,” Larry said. “Gavegan, I guess we're ready to
start.”
“Not just yet, Brainard. Sorry, Miss Sherwood, but we've got a search
warrant for your place. We just want to have a look at the room Brainard
used. No telling what kind of crooked stuff he's been up to. And to make
the search warrant O.K. I had it issued in this county and brought along
a county officer to serve it. Show it to the lady, Smith.”
“I have no desire to see it, Mr. Gavegan. I have more interest in
watching you while you go through my things.” And giving Gavegan a look
which made an unaccustomed flush run up that officer's thick neck and
redden his square face, she led the way into Larry's study. “This is
the room where Mr. Brainard works,” she said. “Through that door is his
bedroom. Everything here except his clothing is my property. I shall
hold you rigidly responsible for any disorder you may create or any
damage you may do. Now you may go ahead.”
“Let's have all your keys, Brainard,” Gavegan choked out.
Larry handed them over. With Miss Sherwood, Hunt, and Larry looking
silently on, the two men began their examination. They began with the
papers on Larry's desk and in its drawers; and in all his life Gavegan
had not been so considerate in a search as he now was with Miss
Sherwood's blue eyes coldly upon him. They unlocked cabinets,
scrutinized their contents, shook out books, examined the backs of
pictures, took up rugs; then passed into Larry's bedroom. Miss Sherwood
made no move to follow the officers into that more intimate apartment,
and the other two watchers remained with her.
A minute passed. Then Gavegan reentered, a puzzled, half-triumphant look
on his red face, holding out a square of paint-covered canvas.
“Found this thing in Brainard's chiffonier. What the he--I mean what's
it doing out here?”
There was not an instant's doubt as to what the thing was. Larry
started, and Hunt started, and Miss Sherwood started. But it was Miss
Sherwood who first spoke.
“Why, it's a portrait of Miss Cameron, in costume! And painted by Mr.
Hunt!” In amazement she turned first upon Larry and upon Hunt. “When did
you ever paint her portrait, when you did not meet Miss Cameron till
you met her here? And, Mr. Brainard, how do you come to possess Miss
Cameron's portrait?”
It was Gavegan who spoke up promptly, and not either of the two suddenly
discomfited men. And Gavegan instantly sensed in the situation a chance
to get even for the humiliation his self-esteem had just suffered.
“Miss Cameron nothing! Her real name is Maggie Carlisle, and she used
to live at a dump of a pawnshop down on the East Side run by Brainard's
grandmother. Brainard knew her there, and so did Mr. Hunt.”
“But--but--” gasped Miss Sherwood--“she's been coming out here as Maggie
Cameron!”
“I tell you your Maggie Cameron is Maggie Carlisle!” said Gavegan
gloatingly. “I've known her for years. Her father is Old Jimmie
Carlisle, a notorious crook. And she's mixed up right now with her
father and some others in a crooked game. And Brainard here used to be
sweet on her, and probably still is, and if he's been letting her come
here, without telling you who she is--well, I guess you know the answer.
Didn't I tell you, Miss, that give me a chance and I'd turn up something
against this guy Brainard!”
Miss Sherwood's face was white, but set with grim accusation that was
only waiting to pronounce swift judgment. “Mr. Hunt, is it true that
Miss Cameron is this Maggie Carlisle the officer mentions, and that you
knew it all the while?”
“Yes--” began the painter.
“Don't blame him, Miss Sherwood,” Larry interrupted. “He didn't tell you
because I begged him not to as a favor to me. Blame me for everything.”
Her judgment upon Hunt was pronounced with cold finality, her eyes
straight into Hunt's: “Whatever may have been Mr. Hunt's motives, I
unalterably hold him to blame.”
She turned upon Larry. The face which he had only seen in gracious moods
was as inflexibly stern as a prosecuting attorney's.
“We're going to go right to the bottom of this, Mr. Brainard. You
too have known all along that this Miss Cameron was really the Maggie
Carlisle this officer speaks of?”
“Yes.”
“And you have known all along that she was the daughter of this
notorious criminal, Old Jimmie Carlisle?”
The impulse surged up in Larry to tell the newly learned truth about
Maggie. But he remembered Maggie's injunction that the truth must never
be known. He checked his revelation just in time.
“Yes.”
“And is it true that Maggie Carlisle is herself what is known as a
crook?--or has had crooked inclinations or plans?”
“It's like this, Miss Sherwood--”
“A direct answer, please!”
“Yes.”
“And is it true, as this officer has suggested, that you were in love
with her yourself?”
“Yes.”
“You are aware of my brother's infatuation for her? That he has asked
her to marry him?”
“Yes.”
Her voice now sounded more terrible to Larry. “I took you in to give you
a chance. And your repayment has been that, knowing all these things,
you have kept silent and let me and my brother be imposed upon by a
swindling operation. And who knows, since you admit that you love
the girl, that you have not been a partner in the conspiracy from the
first!”
“That's exactly the idea, Miss!” put in Gavegan.
Larry had foreseen many possible wrong turns which his plan might take,
but he was appalled by the utter unexpectedness of the actual disaster.
And yet he recognized that the evidence justified Miss Sherwood's
judgment of him. It all made him seem an ingrate and a swindler.
For the moment Larry was so overwhelmed that he made no attempt to
speak. And since for once Gavegan was content merely to gloat over his
triumph, there was stiff silence in the room until Miss Sherwood said
in the cold voice of a judge after a jury has brought in a verdict of
guilty:
“Of course, if you think there is anything you may say for yourself, Mr.
Brainard, you now have the chance to say it.”
“I have much to say, but I can't blame you if you refuse to believe
most of it,” Larry said desperately, fighting for what seemed his last
chance. “I loved Maggie Carlisle. I believed she had splendid qualities.
Only she was dominated by the twisted ideas Old Jimmie Carlisle had
planted in her. I wanted to eradicate those twisted ideas, and make
her good qualities her ruling ones. But she didn't believe in me.
She thought me a soft-head, a police stool, a squealer. Then I had to
disappear; you know all about that. Not till I had been with you for
several weeks did I learn that she was being used in a swindling scheme
against Dick.