Not till that moment did Maggie realize the full truth; not till then did she realize the solid influence Larry Brainard had been in the background of her life all these months.
"I didn"t go through with it because of Larry Brainard."
"Larry Brainard!" His astonishment increased. "You know Larry Brainard, then?"
"I"ve known him for several years."
"And you"ve been coming out, and he"s been pretending not to know you!
Of course I knew what Larry Brainard has been. But is he in this, too?"
"No. He"s exactly what you think him. From the start he"s been trying to keep me out of this. He was behind my coming to your house; he"s told me so. His reason for getting me there was his belief that my being treated by you and your sister as I was would make me ashamed of myself and make me want to quit what I was doing. And I think--I think he was right--partly."
"And Larry--he"s the reason you"re telling me now?"
"I think so. But there are other reasons." Making a clean breast of things though she was, she felt she dared not trust d.i.c.k with the secret of her father. "I--I wanted to clear things up as far as I was responsible. That"s one reason I"m telling you. There was the chance you might sometime find out that Larry had known me and suspect him; I wanted you to know the truth of what he"d really done. And I wanted to tell you the truth about myself, so you"d despise and forget me, instead of perhaps carrying around romantic delusions about me after I"ve gone. And there"s another reason. I"d like to tell you--for you"ve been everything that"s fine to me--if it won"t offend you."
"Go on," he said huskily.
"Barney Palmer picked you out as the victim--you didn"t know you were being picked out--because he said that you were an easy mark. That you took things for exactly what they pretended to be, and didn"t care what you did with your money. That you never would settle down into a responsible person. I"m telling you all this, d.i.c.k, because I don"t want you to be what Barney said."
d.i.c.k slumped into a chair, at last beaten down by this c.u.mulative revelation. He buried his face in his hands and his panting breath was convulsive with unuttered sobs. Maggie looked down upon the young boy, with pity, remorse, and an increasing recognition of the wide-spread suffering she had wrought.
"To think that this has all been horrible make-believe!" he at last groaned. "That all the while I"ve been looked on as just a young fool who would always remain a fool!"
Maggie, in her sense of guilt, was helpless to make any reply that would soften his agony; and for a s.p.a.ce neither spoke.
Presently d.i.c.k stood suddenly up. His face was still marked by suffering, but somehow it seemed to have grown older without losing its youth. There was a new blaze of determination in the direct look he held on Maggie.
"You say you have never loved me?" he demanded.
She shook her head. "But I"ve told you that I"ve always liked you."
"Larry Brainard"s doing what he has kept on doing for you--that means that he loves you, doesn"t it?" he pressed on.
"He has told me so."
"And you love him?"
"What difference does that make?--since I am going away as soon as I get everything I"m wholly or partly responsible for cleared up."
"If Larry Brainard has known you for a long while, then how about Barney Palmer and Jimmie Carlisle?"
"They"ve known me as long, or longer."
"Then you must have all known each other?"
"Yes. Years ago Larry worked with Barney and Jimmie Carlisle."
"What was the att.i.tude of those two toward Larry, when he was trying to balk them by making you give up the plan?"
"They hated him. They are the cause--especially Barney--of all of Larry"s trouble with the police and with the old crowd he"s quit. To try to clear Larry, that"s the most important thing I"m going to try to do."
"And that"s where you"ve got to let me help you!" d.i.c.k cried with sudden energy. "Larry"s been a mighty good friend to me--he"s tried to head me right--and I owe him a lot. And I"d like a chance to show that Barney Palmer I"m not going to keep on being the eternal fool he sized me up to be!"
Maggie was startled by this swift transformation. "Why--why, d.i.c.k!" she breathed.
"What"s your plan to clear Larry?"
"I hadn"t got so far as to have a clear plan. I had only just realized that there had to be a plan. But since they have set the police on Larry, it came to me that the idea behind any plan would be for the police to really capture Barney and Jimmie Carlisle--get them out of Larry"s way."
"That"s it!" d.i.c.k Sherwood had a mind which, given an interesting stimulus, could work swiftly; and it worked swiftly now. "They were planning to trim me. Let"s use that plan you outlined to me--use it to-night. You can tell them some story which will make immediate action seem necessary and we"ll all get together this evening. I"ll play my part all right--don"t you worry about me! I"ll come with a roll of money that I"ll dig up somewhere, and it"ll be marked money. When it"s pa.s.sed--bingo!--a couple of detectives that we"ll have planted to watch the proceedings will step right up and nab the two!"
She was taken aback by the very idea of him, the victim, after her confession, throwing his lot in with her. "Why, d.i.c.k"--she stammered--"to think of you offering to do such a thing!"
"I owe that much to Larry Brainard," he declared. "And--and I owe that much to your desire to help set him straight. Well, what about my plan?"
Since he seemed eager to lend himself to it, it seemed to her altogether wonderful, and she told him so. They discussed details for several minutes, for there was much to be done and it had all to be done most adroitly. It was agreed that he should come at ten o"clock, when the stage would all be set.
As he was leaving to attend to his part of the play, a precautionary idea flashed upon Maggie.
"Better telephone me just before you come. Something may have happened to change our plans."
"All right--I"ll telephone. Just keep your nerve."
With that he hurried out. At about the time he left, Larry was leaving Cedar Crest in handcuffs beside the burly and triumphant Gavegan, and believing that the power he had sought to exercise was now effectually at an end. He was out of it. In his despondency it was not granted him to see that the greatest thing which he could do was already done; that he had set in motion all the machinery of what had taken place and what was about to take place; that all the figures in the action of the further drama of that night were to act as they were to do primarily because of promptings which came from him.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
d.i.c.k"s departure left Maggie to think alone upon an intricate and possibly dangerous interplay of characters in which she had cast herself for the chief role, which might prove a sacrificial role for her. She quickly perceived that d.i.c.k"s plan, clever as it might be, would bring about, in the dubious event of its success, only one of the several happenings which had to come to pa.s.s if she were to clear her slate before her disappearance.
d.i.c.k"s plan was good; but it would only get rid of Barney and Old Jimmie. It would only rid Larry of such danger as they represented; it would only be revenge upon them for the evil they had done. And, after all, revenge helped a man forward but very little. There would still remain, even in the event of the success of d.i.c.k"s plan, the constant danger to Larry from the police hunt, instigated by Chief Barlow"s vindictive determination to send Larry back to prison for his refusal to be a stool-pigeon; and the constant danger from his one-time friends who were hunting him down with deadly hatred as a squealer.
Somehow, if she were to set things right for Larry, she had to maneuver that night"s happenings in such a way as to eliminate forever Barlow"s persecutions, and eliminate forever the danger to Larry from his friends" and their hirelings" desire for vengeance upon a supposed traitor.
Maggie thought rapidly, elaborating on d.i.c.k"s plan. But what Maggie did was not so much the result of sober thought as of the inspiration of a desperate, hardly pressed young woman; but then, after all, what we call inspiration is only thought geared to an incredibly high speed. First of all, she got rid of that slow-witted, awesome supernumerary, Miss Grierson, who might completely upset the delicate action of the stage by a dignified entrance at the wrong moment and with the wrong cue. Next she called up Chief Barlow at Police Headquarters. Fortunately for her Barlow was still in; for an acrimonious dispute, then in progress and taking much s.p.a.ce in the public prints, between him and the District Attorney"s office was keeping him late at his desk despite the most autocratic and pleasant of all demands, those of his dinner hour. To him Maggie gave a false name, and told him that she had most important information to communicate at once; to which he growled back that she could give it if she came down at once.
Next she called up Barney, who had been waiting near a telephone in expectation of news of the result of her second visit to the home of d.i.c.k Sherwood. To Barney she said that she had the greatest possible news--news which would require immediate action--and that he should be at her suite at nine o"clock prepared to play his part at once in the big proposition that had just developed, and that he should get word to Old Jimmie to follow him in a few minutes.
Within fifteen minutes a taxicab had whirled her down to Police Headquarters and she was in the office where three months earlier Larry had been grilled after his refusal of the license to steal and cheat on the condition that he become a police stool. Barlow, who was alone in the room, looked up with a scowl from a secret report he had secured of the activities of detectives in the District Attorney"s office. Although Maggie was pretty and stylishly dressed, Barlow did not rise nor did he remove the big cigar he had been viciously gnawing. It is the tradition of the Police Department, the most thoroughly respected article of its religion, that a woman who is seen in Police Headquarters cannot by any possibility be a lady.
"Well, what"s on your chest?" he grunted, not even asking her to be seated.
It was suddenly Maggie"s impulse--sprung perhaps out of unconscious memory of what Larry had suffered--to inflict upon herself the uttermost humiliation. So she said:
"I"ve come here to offer myself as a stool-pigeon."