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

Sound. Five minutes later Larry was back.

"It's all arranged, Maggie. I've told the people; they're sorry you've got to go. And Dick is getting his car ready."

She turned her eyes upon him. He had never seen in them such a look. They were feverish, with a dazed, affrighted horror. She clutched his arm.

"You must promise never to tell my father about me!"

"I won't. Unless I have to."

"But you must not! Never!" she cried desperately. "He thinks I'm - Oh, don't you understand? If he were to learn what I really am, it would kill him. He must keep his dream. For his sake he must never find out, he must keep on thinking of me just the same. Now, you understand?"

Larry slowly nodded.

Her next words were dully vibrant with stricken awe. "And it means that I can never have him for my father! Never! And I think - I'd - I'd like him for a father! Don't you see?"

Again Larry nodded. In this entirely new phase of her, a white-faced, stricken, shivering girl, Larry felt a poignant sympathy for her the like of which had never tingled through him in her conquering moods. Indeed Maggie's situation was opening out into great human problems such as neither he nor any one else had ever foreseen!

"There comes Dick," she whispered. "I must do my best to hold myself together. Good-bye, Larry."

A minute later, Larry just behind her, she was crossing the lawn on Dick's arm, explaining her weakness and pallor by the sudden dizziness which had come upon her in consequence of not eating and of being in the hot sun.


CHAPTER XXXI


Larry was far more deeply moved this time when Maggie drove away with Dick than on that former occasion when he had tried to play with adroitness upon her psychological reactions. Now he knew that her very world was shaken; that her soul was stunned and reeling; that she was fighting with all her strength for a brief outward composure.

He had loved her for months, but he had never so loved her as in this hour when all her artificial defenses had been battered down and she had been just a bewildered, agonized girl, with just the emotions and first thoughts that any other normal girl would have had under the same circumstances. His great desire had been to be with her, to comfort her, help her; but he realized that she had been correct in her instinct to be by herself for a while, to try to comprehend it all, to try to think her way out.

When Maggie was out of sight he excused himself from having tea, left Hunt and Miss Sherwood upon the veranda, and sought his study. But though he had neglected his work the whole day, he now gave it no attention. He sat at his desk and thought of Maggie: tried to think of what she was going to do. Her situation was so complicated with big 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