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

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"That doesn't seem to me such a strong talking point in your favor," she said thoughtfully.

"But don't you get the idea? I'm so strong with Barlow that I can get away with anything I want to. That means I can give you the protection from the police you just spoke about. See?"

"Yes I see." Again she spoke thoughtfully. "But I told you I had to be shown. You must have done some pretty big things to have got such a standing with Barlow. For example?"

"I could write you a book!" He laughed in his excited pride. "You ask for an example. I could hardly hold myself in awhile ago when you said you'd practically swung the present deal alone, and that I'd done almost nothing. Why, Maggie, I did just one smooth little thing without which there couldn't have been any deal."

"What?"

"You'll admit that nothing would have been safe with Larry Brainard determined to butt in on what you did?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm the little guy that fixed Larry Brainard so he wouldn't hurt anyone!"

"You did that?" For the first time Maggie showed what seemed to be a live interest. "How?"

"How? You'll say it was clever when you learn how. And you'll say that I'm the man you want on that count of being able to put over a situation so that no one will ever guess I'm the man who did it. You'll admit that putting Larry Brainard out of business, so he'd stay out, was certainly a stiff job - for though I don't like him, I admit that Larry is one wise bird. One thing I did was to suggest to Barlow that he force Larry to become a police stool. I knew Larry would refuse, and I figured out everything else exactly as it has happened. I ask you, wasn't that putting something clever over?"

"It certainly was clever!" admired Maggie.

"Wait! That's only half. To finish Larry off so that he wouldn't have a chance I had to finish him off not only with the cops, but also with his pals. So I tipped off Barlow to the game Red Hannigan and Jack Rosenfeldt were pulling and - "

"Then Larry Brainard really didn't do that?"

"No; I did it! Listen - there's some more to it. I spread the word, so that it seemed to be a leak from the Police Department, that it was Larry who had squealed on Red Hannigan and Jack Rosenfeldt. Did his old pals start out to get Larry? Well, now, did they! If I do say it myself, that was smooth work!"

"It was wonderful!" agreed Maggie.

"And there's still more, Maggie! You remember that charge of stick-up and attempted murder of a Chicago guy that the police are trying to land Larry on? I put that over! I'm the party that was messed up in that. I was trying to put over a neat little job all on my own; but something went wrong just as I thought I was cleaning out the sucker, and I had to be rough with that Chicago guy in order to make a get- away from him. I beat it straight to Barlow, and said that right here was the chance to fasten something on Larry. Barlow took my tip. My foot may have slipped on the original job, but my bean certainly did act quick, and you've got to admit I turned an apparent failure into something bigger than success would have been. And that's certainly traveling!"

"It certainly is!"

"And now, Maggie " - Barney pressed her eagerly - "I've shown you I'm just the sort you said a man had to be for you to tie up with him. I've shown you I can guarantee you police protection. And I've shown you I'm able to put over clever situations without any one ever guessing I'm the party who put 'em over. I fit all your specifications! How about our settling right now to join up some place - Toronto's the best bet - say three days after we make our get- away after to-night's clean-up? Let's be quick about this, Maggie - before Old Jimmie comes in. He's due any minute now!"

"Isn't that him at the door now?" breathed Maggie.

Both waited intently for a moment. But though she pretended so, Maggie's interest was not upon the outer door. Her attention was fixed, as it had been with sickening fear this last minute, upon that half-inch crack in the closet door behind Barney. Why had she, in her dismayed urgence, allowed Larry to possess himself of that closet key? - when her plan had been to keep Hannigan as well as Barlow forcibly behind the scenes until she had acted out her play? She now hoped almost against hope that Hannigan would not burst forth and ruin what was yet to come. Since that door unluckily had to be unlocked, her one chance was given her by the presence of Larry. Perhaps Larry could perceive the larger things she was striving for, and in some way restrain Hannigan.

These thoughts were but an instant in passing through her brain. Barney's eyes came back from the outer door to her face. "That's not Old Jimmie yet."

"No," her lips said. But her brain was saying, since the crack still remained a half-inch crack, "Larry understands - he's holding back Red Hannigan!"

Barney returned swiftly to his charge. "How about Toronto, Maggie - say exactly seventy-two hours from now - the Royal Brunswick Hotel?"

Maggie realized she could no longer put him off if she were to keep him unsuspicious for the next hour. Besides, in her desperate disillusionment concerning herself, she did not care what happened to her, or what people might think of her, if only she could keep this play going till its final moment.

"Yes," she said - "if we each feel the same way toward each other when this evening's ended."

"Maggie!" he cried. "Maggie!" This time, when he exultantly caught at her hand, she dared not refuse it to him. And she felt an additional loathing for Barney's caress because she knew that Larry was a witness to it.

Indeed, it was difficult for Larry, at the sight of Maggie's hand in Barney's too eager palms, to hold himself in check; and to do this in addition to holding in check the slight, quivering Red Hannigan, whose collar and whose right wrist he had been gripping these last three minutes. For Larry, as Maggie had hoped, had dimly apprehended something of Maggie's plan, and he felt himself bound by the promise she had extracted from him, to let her go through with whatever she had under way; though he had no conception of her plan's extent, and could, of course, not know of the intention of her overwrought mind to give her plan its final touch in what amounted to her own self- destruction, and in her vanishing utterly out of the knowledge of all who knew her.

Another minute passed; then Larry heard three peculiar rings of the bell of the outer door - an obvious signal. Maggie answered the summons, and Larry saw Old Jimmie enter. There followed a rapid and compact conference between the three, the substance of which was the telling of Old Jimmie of the developments against Dick Sherwood which Maggie had a little earlier recited to Barney, together with instructions to Old Jimmie concerning his new role as Maggie's guardian. It seemed to Larry that he caught signs of uneasiness in Jimmie, but to all the older man nodded his head.

Presently there was a loud ring. "That's Dick!" exclaimed Barney in a whisper. "And mighty eager, too - shows that by being ahead of the time you set! Let him in, Maggie."

Maggie was startled by the ring, though she did not show it. She thought rapidly. She had definitely asked Dick to telephone before coming. Why hadn't he telephoned? Perhaps something had happened to prevent it, or perhaps an idea had come to him by which their plan could be bettered without a telephone message. In either case, she and Dick might have to improvise and deftly catch cues tossed to each other, as experienced actors sometimes do without the audience ever knowing that a hiatus in the play has been skillfully covered.

Maggie stood up. "You both understand what you're to do?"

Both whispered "yes." Larry watched Maggie start across the room, his whole figure quivering with suspense as to what was going to happen when Dick entered. He was quite sure there was more here than appeared upon the surface, quite sure that Maggie did not intend that the business with Dick should work out as she had outlined. What could Maggie possibly be up to? he asked himself in feverish wonderment, and could find no answer. For of course Larry had no knowledge of that most important fact: that Maggie had actually made a confession to Dick - not the fraudulent confession she had told Barney of - but an honest and complete confession, and that in consequence she and Dick were working in cooperation.

From his crack Larry could not quite see the outer door. But after she opened the door he saw Maggie fall back with an inarticulate cry, her face suddenly blanched with astounded fright. And then Larry experienced one of the greatest surprises of his life - a surprise so unnerving that he almost loosed his hold upon Red Hannigan. For instead of Dick there walked into the room the tall, white-haired figure of Joe Ellison, and Joe's lean, prison-blanched face was aquiver with a devastating purpose. How in the name of God had Joe come to be here? - and what did that terrible look portend?

But Larry's surprise was but an unperturbing emotion compared to the effect of her father's appearance, with his terrible face, upon Maggie. Life seemed suddenly to go out of her. She realized that the clever play which she had constructed so rapidly, and upon which she had counted to clear the tangle for which she was in part responsible, and to bring her back in time as the seeming fulfillment of the dream of a happy and undisillusioned father - she realized that her poor, brilliant play had come to an instant end before it was fairly started, and that the control of events had passed into other hands.


CHAPTER XXXV


At the entrance of Joe Ellison instead of the expected Dick, Barney and Old Jimmie had sprung up from the table in amazement. Joe strode past Maggie, hardly heeding his daughter, and faced the two men.

"I guess you know me, Jimmie Carlisle!" said Joe with a terrifying restraint of tone. "The pal I trusted - the pal I turned everything over to - the pal who double-crossed me in every way!"

"Joe Ellison!" gasped Jimmie, suddenly as ghastly as a dead man. "I - I didn't know you were out."

"I'm out, all right. But I'll probably go in again for what I'm going to do to you! And you there" - turning on Barney - "you're got up enough like a professional dancer to be the Barney Palmer I've heard of!"

"What business is it of yours who I am?" Barney tried to bluster. "Perhaps you won't mind introducing yourself."

"I'm the man who's going to settle with you and Old Jimmie Carlisle! Is that introduction enough. If not, then I'm Joe Ellison, the father of this girl here you call Maggie Carlisle and Maggie Cameron, that you two have made into a crook."

"Your daughter!" exclaimed