Children of the Whirlwind

by Leroy Scott

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  Dick's departure left Maggie to think alone upon an intricate andpossibly dangerous interplay of characters in which she had cast herselffor the chief role, which might prove a sacrificial role for her. Shequickly perceived that Dick's plan, clever as it might be, would bringabout, in the dubious event of its success, only one of the severalhappenings which had to come to pass if she were to clear her slatebefore her disappearance.

  Dick's plan was good; but it would only get rid of Barney and OldJimmie. It would only rid Larry of such danger as they represented; itwould only be revenge upon them for the evil they had done. And, afterall, revenge helped a man forward but very little. There would stillremain, even in the event of the success of Dick's plan, the constantdanger to Larry from the police hunt, instigated by Chief Barlow'svindictive determination to send Larry back to prison for his refusal tobe a stool-pigeon; and the constant danger from his one-time friends whowere hunting him down with deadly hatred as a squealer.

  Somehow, if she were to set things right for Larry, she had to maneuverthat night's happenings in such a way as to eliminate forever Barlow'spersecutions, and eliminate forever the danger to Larry from hisfriends' and their hirelings' desire for vengeance upon a supposedtraitor.

  Maggie thought rapidly, elaborating on Dick's plan. But what Maggie didwas not so much the result of sober thought as of the inspiration of adesperate, hardly pressed young woman; but then, after all, what we callinspiration is only thought geared to an incredibly high speed. Firstof all, she got rid of that slow-witted, awesome supernumerary, MissGrierson, who might completely upset the delicate action of the stageby a dignified entrance at the wrong moment and with the wrong cue. Nextshe called up Chief Barlow at Police Headquarters. Fortunately for herBarlow was still in; for an acrimonious dispute, then in progress andtaking much space in the public prints, between him and the DistrictAttorney's office was keeping him late at his desk despite the mostautocratic and pleasant of all demands, those of his dinner hour. Tohim Maggie gave a false name, and told him that she had most importantinformation to communicate at once; to which he growled back that shecould give it if she came down at once.

  Next she called up Barney, who had been waiting near a telephone inexpectation of news of the result of her second visit to the home ofDick Sherwood. To Barney she said that she had the greatest possiblenews--news which would require immediate action--and that he should beat her suite at nine o'clock prepared to play his part at once in thebig proposition that had just developed, and that he should get word toOld Jimmie to follow him in a few minutes.

  Within fifteen minutes a taxicab had whirled her down to PoliceHeadquarters and she was in the office where three months earlier Larryhad been grilled after his refusal of the license to steal and cheat onthe condition that he become a police stool. Barlow, who was alone inthe room, looked up with a scowl from a secret report he had secured ofthe activities of detectives in the District Attorney's office. AlthoughMaggie was pretty and stylishly dressed, Barlow did not rise nor did heremove the big cigar he had been viciously gnawing. It is the traditionof the Police Department, the most thoroughly respected article of itsreligion, that a woman who is seen in Police Headquarters cannot by anypossibility be a lady.

  "Well, what's on your chest?" he grunted, not even asking her to beseated.

  It was suddenly Maggie's impulse--sprung perhaps out of unconsciousmemory of what Larry had suffered--to inflict upon herself the uttermosthumiliation. So she said:

  "I've come here to offer myself as a stool-pigeon."

  "What's that?" Barlow exclaimed, startled. It was not often that a swelllady--who of course couldn't be a swell (he did not know who Maggiewas)--voluntarily walked into his office with such a proposition.

  "I can give you some real information about a big game that's beingworked up. In fact, I can arrange for you to be present when the game ispulled off, and you can make the arrests."

  "Who are the people?" he asked brusquely.

  Maggie knew it would be fatal to mention Barney or Old Jimmie, if thatstory about Barlow's protection contained any truth. Again inspiration,or incredibly swift thinking, came to her aid, and with sure touch shetwanged one of Barlow's rawest and most responsive nerves.

  "Larry Brainard is behind it all. He's been doing a lot of things on thequiet these last few months. Here is where you can get his whole crowd."

  "Larry Brainard!"

  Maggie did not yet know what had befallen Larry, and Gavegan hadneglected to telephone his Chief of the arrest. Even had Gavegan doneso, the large and vague manner in which Maggie had stated the situationwould have stirred Barlow's curiosity.

  "All right. I'll put a couple of my good men on the case. Where shall Isend 'em?"

  "A couple of your good men won't do. I want only one of your goodmen--and that man is yourself."

  "Me!" growled Barlow. "What kind of floor-walker d'you think I am? I'mtoo busy!"

  "Too busy to take personal charge, and get personal credit, for one ofthe biggest cases that ever went through this office?"

  Maggie had sought only to excite his vanity. But unknowingly she hadalso appealed to something else in him: his very deep concern in thehostile activities of the District Attorney's office. If this girl toldthe truth, then here might be his chance to display such devotionto duty as to turn up some such sensational case as would make thisinvestigation from the District Attorney's office seem to the publican unholy persecution and make the chagrined District Attorney, whowas very sensitive to public opinion, think it wiser to drop the wholematter.

  "How do I know you're not trying to string me?--or get me out of the wayof something bigger?--or hand me the double-cross?"

  "I shall be there all the time, and if you don't like the way the thingdevelops you can arrest me. I suppose you've got some kind of law, witha stiff punishment attached, about conspiracy against an officer."

  "Well--give me all the dope, and tell me where I'm to come," he yieldedungraciously.

  "I've told you all I am going to tell. All the important 'dope' you'llget first-hand by being present when the thing happens. The place tocome is the Hotel Grantham--room eleven-forty-two--at eight-thirtysharp."

  To this Barlow grudgingly agreed. He might have exulted inwardly, buthe would have shown no outer graciousness if a committee of citizens hadhanded him a reward of a million dollars and an engrossed testimonial tohis unprecedented services. Barlow did not know how to thank any one.

  Five minutes after she left Headquarters Maggie was in the back room ofthe Duchess's pawnshop, which her rapid planning had fixed upon as thenext station at which she should stop. She did not waste a moment incoming to the point with the Duchess.

  "Red Hannigan is really the most important of Larry's old friends whoare out to get him, isn't he?" she asked.

  "Yes--in a way. I mean among those who honestly think Larry has turnedstool and squealer. He trusted Larry more than any one else--and nowhe hates Larry more than any one else. Rather natural, since he was twomonths in the Tombs before he could get bail--because he thinks Larrysquealed on him."

  "How's he stand with his crowd?"

  "No one higher. They'd all take his word for anything."

  "Can you find him at once?" Maggie pursued breathlessly.

  That was a trifling question to ask the Duchess; since all the news ofher shadowy world came to her ears in some swift obscure manner.

  "Yes. If it is necessary."

  "It's terribly necessary! If I can't get him, the whole thing may fail!"

  "What thing?" demanded the Duchess.

  "It might all sound impossibly foolish!" cried the excited, desperateMaggie. "You might tell me so--and discourage me--and I simply must goahead! I feel rather like--like a juggler who's trying for the firsttime to keep a lot of new things going in the air all at once. But Ithink there's a chance that I may succeed! I'll tell you just one thing.It all has to do with Larry. I think I may help Larry."

  "I'll g
et Red Hannigan," the Duchess said briefly. "What do you wantwith him?"

  "Have him come to the Hotel Grantham--room eleven-forty-two--ateight-fifteen sharp!"

  "He'll be there," said the Duchess.

  There followed a swirling taxi-ride back to the Grantham, and a rapidchange into her most fetching evening gown (she had not even a thoughtof dinner) to play her bold part in the drama which she was excitedlywriting in her mind and for which she had just engaged her cast. She wason fire with terrible suspense: would the other actors play their partsas she intended they should?--would her complicated drama have theending she was hoping for?

  Had she been in a more composed, matter-of-fact state of mind, this playwhich she was staging would have seemed the crudest, most impossiblemelodrama--a thing both too absurd and too dangerous for her to risk.But Maggie was just then living through one of the highest periods ofher life; she cared little what happened to her. And it is just suchmoods that transform and elevate what otherwise would be absurd to thenobly serious; that changes the impossible into the possible; just as anexalted mood or mind is, or was, the primary difference between Hamlet,or Macbeth, or Lear, and any of the forgotten Bowery melodramas of ageneration now gone.

  She had been dressed for perhaps ten nervous minutes when the bell rang.She admitted a slight, erect, well-dressed, middle-aged man with a lean,thin-lipped face and a cold, hard, conservative eye: a man of the typethat you see by the dozens in the better hotels of New York, and seeingthem you think, if you think of them at all, that here is the cannypresident of some fair-sized bank who will not let a client borrow adollar beyond his established credit, or that here is the shrewd butunobtrusive power behind some great industry of the Middle West.

  "I'm Hannigan," he announced briefly. "I know you're Old JimmieCarlisle's girl. The Duchess told me you wanted me on something big.What's the idea?"

  "You want to get Larry Brainard, don't you?--or whoever it was thatsquealed on you?"

  There was a momentary gleam in the hard, gray eyes. "I do."

  "That's why you're here. In a little over an hour, if you stay quiet inthe background, you'll have what you want."

  "You've got a swell-looking lay-out here. What's going to be pulledoff?"

  "It's not what I might tell you that's going to help you. It's what youhear and see."

  "All right," said the thin-lipped man. "I'll pass the questions, sincethe Duchess told me to do as you said. She's square, even if she doeshave a grandson who's a stool. I suppose I'm to be out of sight duringwhatever happens?"

  "Yes."

  In the room there were two spacious closets, as is not infrequent in thebetter class of modern hotels; and it had been these two closets whichhad been the practical starting-point of Maggie's development of DickSherwood's proposition. To one of these she led Hannigan.

  "You'll be out of sight here, and you'll get every word."

  He stepped inside, and she closed the door. Also she took the precautionof locking it. She wished Hannigan to hear, but she wished no suchcontretemps as Hannigan bursting forth and spoiling her play when it hadreached only the middle of its necessary action.

  Barlow came promptly at half-past eight. He brought news which for a fewmoments almost completely upset Maggie's delicately balanced structure.

  "I know who you are now," he said brusquely. "And part of your game'scold before you start."

  "Why?--What part?"

  "Just after you left Headquarters Officer Gavegan showed up. He had thisLarry Brainard in tow--had pinched him out on Long Island."

  This announcement staggered Maggie; for the moment made all herstrenuous planning seem to have lost its purpose. In her normalcondition she might either have given up or betrayed her real intent.But just now, in her super-excited state, in which she felt she wasfighting desperately for others, she was acting far above her ordinarycapacity; and she was making decisions so swift that they hardly seemedto proceed from conscious thought. So Barlow, vigilant watcher of facesthat he was, saw nothing unusual in her expression or manner.

  "What did you do with him?" she asked.

  "Left him with Gavegan--and with Casey, who had just come in. Trailingwith Brainard was a swell named Hunt, cussing mad. He was snortingaround about being pals with most of the magistrates, and swore he'dhave Brainard out on bail inside an hour. But what he does don't makeany difference to me. Your proposition seems to me dead cold, since I'vealready got Brainard, and got him right. I wouldn't have bothered tohave come here at all except for something you let drop about the palshe might have been working with these last few months."

  "That's exactly it," she caught him up. "I never thought that you'dcatch Larry Brainard here. How could I, when, if you know me as you say,you also know that he and I are in different camps--are fighting eachother? What's going to happen here is something that will show you thepeople Larry Brainard's been mixed up with--that will turn up for youthe people you want."

  "But what's going to happen?" Barlow demanded.

  To this Maggie answered in much the same strain she had used withHannigan a few minutes earlier. "I told you down at Headquarters thateverything that's important you'll learn by being present when the thingactually happened. What I tell you doesn't count for much--it might notbe true. It's what you see and hear for yourself when things begin tohappen. You're to wait in here." She led him to the second large closetand opened the door.

  "See here," he demanded, "are you framing something on me?"

  "How can I, in a big hotel like this? And even if I were to try, you'dcertainly make me pay for it later. Besides, you've got a gun. Pleasego in quick; I'm expecting the people here any minute. And don't make asound that might arouse their suspicions and queer everything."

  He entered, and she closed the door. So carefully that he did not hearit, she locked the door; no more than in Hannigan's case did she wantBarlow to come bungling into a scene before it had reached its climax.

  All was now ready for the curtain to rise. Quivering all through shewaited for Barney Palmer, whose entrance was to open her drama. Sheglanced at her wrist-watch which she had left upon the little lacqueredwriting-table. Ten minutes of nine. Ten more minutes to wait. She feltfar more of sickening suspense than ever did any young playwright onthe opening night of his first play. For she was more than merelyplaywright. In her desperate, overwrought determination Maggie hadassumed for herself the super-mortal role of dea ex machina. And inthose moments of tense waiting Maggie, who so feverishly loathed all shehad been, was not at all sure whether she was going to succeed in herpart of goddess from the machine.

  At five minutes to nine there was a ring. She gave a little jump at thesound. That was Barney. Though generally when Barney came he used thelatch-key which his assumed dear cousinship, and the argued possibilityof their being out and thus causing him to wait around in discomfort,Miss Grierson's sense of propriety had unbent far enough to permit himto possess. The truth was, of course, that Barney had desired the keyso that he might have most private conferences with Maggie, at any timenecessity demanded, without the stolidly conscientious Miss Griersonever knowing what had happened and being therefore unable to givedangerous testimony.

  Maggie crossed and opened the door. But instead of Barney Palmer, it wasLarry who stepped in. He quickly closed the door behind him.

  "Larry!" she cried startled. "Why--why, I thought the police had you!"

  "They did. But Hunt was with me, and he got hold of a magistrate whowould have made Hunt a present of the Tombs and Police Headquarters ifhe had owned them."

  "Then you're out on bail?"

  "Got out about ten minutes ago. Hunt didn't have any property he couldput up as security, so he 'phoned my grandmother. She walked in with anarmload of deeds. Why, she must own as much property in New York as theAstor Estate."

  "Larry, I'm so glad!" And then, remembering what, according to her plan,was due to begin to happen almost any moment, she exclaimed in dismay:"But, Larry, oh, why did you come here now!"
<
br />   "I wanted to know--you understand--what you had decided to do afterlearning about your father. And I wanted to tell you that, after all mygreat boasts to you, I seem to have failed in every boast. Item one, thepolice have got me. Item two, since the police have got me, my old palswill also most likely get me. Item three, when I was arrested at CedarCrest Miss Sherwood learned that I had known you all along and believesI was part of a conspiracy to clean out the family; so she chuckedme--and I've lost what I believed my big chance to make good. So, yousee, Maggie, it looks as if you were right when you predicted that I wasgoing to fail in everything I said I was going to do."

  "Larry--Miss Sherwood believes that!" she breathed. And then sheremembered again, and caught his arm with sudden energy. "Larry, youmustn't stay here!"

  "Why not?"

  Her answer was almost identical with one she had given the previousevening. "Because Barney Palmer may be here the next minute!"

  His response was in sense also identical. "Then I'll stay right here.There's no one I want to see as much as Barney Palmer. And this timeI'll have it out with him!"

  Maggie was in consternation at this unexpected twist which was not inthe brain-manuscript of her play at all--which indeed threatened totake her play right out of her hands. "Please go, Larry!" she crieddesperately. "And please give me a chance! You'll spoil it all if youstay!"

  "I'm going to stay right here," was his grim response.

  She realized there was no changing him. She glimpsed a closet doorbehind him, and caught at the chance of saving at least a fragment ofher drama.

  "Stay, then but, Larry, please give me a chance to do what I want todo! Please!" By this time she had dragged him across the room andhad started to unlock the closet. "Just wait in here--and keep quiet!Please!"

  He took the key from her fumbling hands, unlocked the door, and slippedthe key into his pocket. "All right--I'll give you your chance," hepromised.

  He stepped through the door and closed it upon himself, entombinghimself in blackness. The next moment the glare of a pocket flash was inhis face, blinding him.

  "Larry Brainard!" gritted a low voice in the darkness.

  Larry could see nothing, but there was no mistaking that voice. "RedHannigan!" he exclaimed.

  "Yes--you damned squealer! And I'm going to finish you off right here!"

  The light clicked out, and a pair of lean hands almost closed on Larry'swind-pipe. But Larry caught the wrists of the older man in a grip theother could not break. There was a brief struggle in the blackness ofthe closet, then the slighter man stood still with his wrists manacledby Larry's hands.

  "Evidently you haven't a gun on you, Red, or you, wouldn't have triedthis," Larry commented. "Anyhow, you couldn't have got away with killingin a big hotel, whether you had strangled me or shot me. I don't blameyou for being sore at me, Red--only you've got me all wrong. But youand I are evidently here for the same purpose: to get next to somethingthat's going to happen out in the room. What do you say, Red?--let'ssuspend hostilities for the present. You've got me where you can followme, and you can get me any time."

  "You bet I'll get you!" declared Hannigan. And then after a few morewords an armistice was agreed upon between the two men in the closetand silently, tensely, they stood in the dark awaiting whatever was tohappen.

  Outside Maggie, that amateur playwright who had tried so desperately toprearrange events, that inexperienced goddess from the machine, stood ina panic of fear and suspense the like of which she had never known.