Children of the Whirlwind, Leroy Scott [read full novel txt] 📗

speak to her unless she is alone. You get it?"

"Sure, brother. This ain't the first time I helped a party out."

There was more jabbing with the switch-board plug, evident switching at the other end, several questions, and then the girl asked: "Is this Miss Margaret Cameron? Miss Cameron - " and so on as per Larry's instructions.

The operator turned to Larry: "She says she's alone."

"Tell her to hold the wire till you get better connections - the storm has messed up connections terribly - and keep your own wire open and make her hold her end."

As Larry went out he heard his instructions being executed while an adept hand safely banked the bill inside her shirt-waist. Within two minutes his taxi set him down at the Grantham; and knowing that whatever risks he ran would be lessened by his acting swiftly and without any suspicious hesitation, he walked straight in and to the elevators, in the manner of one having business there, his collar again pulled up, his cap pulled down, and his face just then covered with a handkerchief which was caring for a sniffling nose in a highly natural manner.

With his heart pounding he got without mishap to the doors numbered 1141, 1142, and 1143. Instinctively he knew in a general way what the apartment was like: a set of rooms of various character which the hotel could rent singly or throw together and rent en suite. But which of the three was the main entrance? He dared not hesitate, for the slightest queer action might get the attention of the floor clerk down the corridor. So Larry chose the happy medium and pressed the mother- of-pearl button of 1142.

The door opened, and before Larry stood a large, elderly, imposing woman in a rigidly formal evening gown - a gown which, by the way, had been part of Miss Grierson's equipment for many a year for helping raw young things master the art of being ladies. Larry surmised at once that this was the "hired companion" his grandmother had spoken of. In other days Larry had had experience with this type and before Miss Grierson could bar him out or ask a question, Larry was in the room and the door closed behind him - and he had entered with the easiest, most natural, most polite manner imaginable.

"You were expecting me?" inquired Larry with his disarming and wholly engaging smile.

Neither Miss Grierson's mind nor body was geared for rapid action. She was taken aback, and yet not offended. So being at a loss, she resorted to the chief item in her stock in trade, her ever dependable dignity.

"I cannot say that I was. In fact, sir, I do not know who you are."

"Miss Cameron knows - and she is expecting me," Larry returned pleasantly. His quick eyes had noted that this was a sitting-room: an ornate, patterned affair which the great hotels seem to order in hundred lots. "Where is Miss Cameron?"

"In the next room," nodding at the connecting door. "She is engaged. Telephoning. A long-distance call. I'm quite sure she is not expecting you," Miss Grierson went on to explain ponderously and elaborately, but with politeness, for this young man was handsome and pleasant and well-bred and might prove to be some one of real importance. "We were to have had a theater party with supper afterwards; but owing to Miss Cameron's indisposition we did not go to the theater. But she insisted on keeping the engagement for the supper, but changing it to here. Besides herself and myself, there are to be only her uncle, her cousin, and just one guest. That is why I am so certain, sir, she is not expecting you."

"But you see," smiled Larry, "I am that one guest."

Miss Grierson shook her carefully coiffured transformation. "I've met the guest who is coming, and I certainly have not met you."

"Then she must have asked two of us. Anyhow, I'll just speak to her, and if I'm mistaken and de trop, I'll withdraw." And ere Miss Grierson could even stir up an intention to intervene further, this well- mannered young man had smiled his disarming smile and bowed to her and had passed through the door, closing it behind him.

He halted, the knob in his hand. Maggie was standing sidewise to him, holding a telephone in her hand, its receiver at her ear. She must have supposed that it was Miss Grierson who had so quietly entered, for she did not look around.

"Yes, I'm still waiting," she was saying impatiently. "Can't you ever get that connection?"

Larry had seen Maggie only in the plain dark suit which she had worn to her daily business of selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore; and once, on the night of his return from Sing Sing, in that stage gypsy costume, which though effective was cheap and impromptu and did not at all lift her out of the environment of the Duchess's ancient and grimy house. But Larry was so startled by this changed Maggie that for the moment he could not have moved from the door even had he so desired. She was accoutered in the smartest of filmy evening gowns, with the short skirt which was then the mode, with high-heeled silver slippers, her rounded arms and shoulders and bosom bare, her abundant black hair piled high in careful carelessness. The gown was cerise in color, and from her forearm hung a great fan of green plumes. In all the hotels and theaters of New York one could hardly have come upon a figure that night more striking in its finished and fresh young womanhood. Larry trembled all over; his heart tried to throb madly up out of his throat.

At length he spoke. And all he was able to say was:

"Maggie."

She whirled about, and telephone and receiver almost fell from her hands. She went pale, and stared at him, her mouth agape, her dark eyes wide.

"La-Larry!" she whispered.

"Maggie!" he said again.

"La-Larry! I thought you were in Chicago."

"I'm here now, Maggie - especially to see you." He did not know it, but his voice was husky. He noted that she was still holding the telephone and receiver. "It was I who put in that long-distance call. But I came instead. So you might as well hang up."

She obeyed, and set the instrument upon its little table.

"Larry - where have you been all this while?"

He was now conscious enough to note that there was tense concern in her manner. He exulted at it, and crossed and took her hand.

"Right here in New York, Maggie."

"In hiding?"

"In mighty good hiding."

"But, Larry - don't you know it's dangerous for you to come out? And to come here of all places?"

"I couldn't help myself. I simply had to see you, Maggie."

He was still holding her hand, and there was an instinctive grip of her fingers about his. For a moment - the moment during which her outer or more conscious self was startled into forgetfulness - they gazed at each other silently and steadily, eye into eye.

And then the things the Duchess had said crept back into his mind, and he said:

"Maggie, I've come to take you out of all this. Get ready - let's leave at once."

That broke the spell. She jerked away from him, and instantly she was the old Maggie: the Maggie who had jeered at him and defied him the night of his return from prison when he had announced his new plan - the Maggie who had flaunted him as "stool" and "squealer" the evening she had left the Duchess's to enter upon this new career.

"No, you're not going to take me out of this!" she flung at him. "I told you once before that I wasn't going your way! I told you that I was going my own way! That held for then, and it holds for now, and it will hold for always!"

The softer mood which had come upon him by surprise at sight of her and filled him, now gave way to grim determination. "Yes, you are coming my way - sometime, if not now! And now if I can make you!"

Their embattled gazes gripped each other. But now Larry was seeing more than just Maggie. He was also taking in the room. It was close kin to the room in which he had left Miss Grierson: ornate, undistinguished, and very expensive. He noted one slight difference: a tiny hallway giving on the corridor, its inner door now opened.

But the greatest difference was what he saw over Maggie's smooth white shoulders: a table all set with china and glass and silver, and arranged for five.

"Maggie, what's this game you're up to?" he demanded.

"It's none of your business!" she said fiercely, but in a low tone - for both were instinctively remembering Miss Grierson in the adjoining room. And then she added proudly: "But it's big! Bigger than anything you ever dreamed of! And you can see I am putting it across so far - and I'll be putting it across at the finish! Compare it to the cheap line you talked about. Bah!"

"Listen, Maggie!" In his intensity he gripped her bare forearm. "This is bad business, and if you had any sense you'd know it! Don't you think I get the layout? Barney is your cousin, Old Jimmie is your uncle, that dame in the next room and this suite and your swell clothes to help put up a front! And your sickness that wouldn't let you go to the theater is just a fake, so that, not wanting to disappoint them entirely, you'd have an excuse for having supper here - and thus adroitly draw some person into the trap of a more intimate relationship. It's a clever and classy layout. Maggie, exactly what's your game?"

"I'll not tell you!"

"Who's that man that's coming here?"

"I'll not tell you!"

"Is he the sucker you're out to trim?"

"I'll not tell you!"

"You will tell me!" he cried dominantly. "And you're going to get out of all this! You hear me? It may look good to you now. But I tell you it has only one finish! And that's a rotten finish!"

She tore free from his punishing grip, and pantingly glared at him - her former defiance now an egoistic fury.

"I won't have you interfering with my life! - you fake preacher! - you stool, you squealer!" she flung at him madly. "Stool - squealer!" she repeated. "I tell you I'm going my own way - and it's a big way - and I tell you again nothing you can say or do can stop me! If I could have my best wish, all I'd wish for would be something to keep you from always interfering - something to get you out of my way!"

Panting, she paused. Her tense figure, with hands closing and unclosing, expressed the very acme of furious defiance - of desire to annihilate - of ultimate hatred. Larry was astounded by the very extent, the profundity, of her passion. And so they stood, silent except for their quick breathing, eyes fixed upon eyes, for several moments.

And then a key sounded in the outer door of the little hallway. Instantly there was an almost unbelievable transformation in Maggie. From an imperious, uncontrollable fury, she changed to a white, quivering thing.

"Barney!" she whispered; and sprang to the inner door