"Why--why--Chief--" Barney stammered. He had counted upon help here, where there had existed mutually advantageous relations for so long.
"I heard you say you had my protection. That"s another lie. You"ve squealed on a few people, but I"ve never given you a thing."
Barney gasped at this. He knew, as every one in the room also knew, that Barlow was lying. But Barlow held all the cards. Rough and ruthless police politician that he was, he made it his business always to hold the highest cards. As sick of soul as a man can be, Barney realized that Barlow was doing exactly what Barlow always did--was swinging to the side that had the most evidence and that would prove most advantageous to him. And Barney realized that he was suffering the appointed fate of all stool-pigeons who are found out by their fellow criminals to be stool-pigeons. Such informers are of no further use, and according to the police code they must be given punishment so severe as to dissipate any unhealthy belief on the public"s part that there could ever have been any alliance between the two.
"I"ve used this young lady who seems to have been Jimmie Carlisle"s daughter and now seems to be the daughter of this old-timer Joe Ellison, for a little private sleuthing on my own hook," Barlow went on--for it was the instinct of the man to claim the conception and leadership of any idea in whose development he had a part. He spoke in a brusque tone--as why should he not, since he was addressing an audience he lumped together as just so many crooks? "Through this little stunt I pulled to-night, I"ve got on to your curves, Barney Palmer. And yours, too, Jimmie Carlisle. And I"m going to run the pair of you in."
This was too much for Barney Palmer. Even though he knew that his position as a stool, who was known to be a stool, was without hope whatever, he went utterly to pieces.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Chief," he burst out frantically, "you"re not going to treat me like that! You could get me out of this easy! Think of all I"ve done for you! For G.o.d"s sake, Chief--for G.o.d"s sake--"
"Shut up!" ordered Barlow, doubling a big fist.
Chokingly Barney obeyed. Old Jimmie, coward though he was, and lacking entirely Barney"s quality of a bravo, had accepted the situation with the twitching calm of one to whom the worst has often happened. "Shut up," repeated Barlow, "and get it fixed in your beans that I"m going to run you two in."
"Run them in because of this Sherwood affair?" asked Larry.
"Surest thing you know. I"ve got all the evidence I seed."
"But--" Larry was beginning protestingly, when the doorbell rang again.
Maggie opened the door, and there entered Miss Sherwood, with Hunt just behind her, and d.i.c.k just behind him, and Casey and Gavegan following these three. All in the room were surprised at this invasion with the sole exception of Joe Ellison.
"When Mr. d.i.c.k spoke over the "phone about your coming," he said to Miss Sherwood, "I asked you not to do it."
Barlow was prompt to speak, and the sudden change in his voice would have been amazing to those who do not know how the little great men of the Police Department, and other little great men, can alter their tones. He had recognized Miss Sherwood at once, as would any one else at all acquainted with influential New York.
"Miss Sherwood, I believe," he said, essaying a slight bow.
"Yes. Though I fear I have not the pleasure of knowing you."
"Deputy Barlow, head of the Detective Bureau of the Police Department,"
he informed her. "Entirely at your service."
"Just what is going on here?" she queried. "I know a part of what has happened"--she was addressing herself particularly to Maggie and Larry--"for d.i.c.k telephoned me about seven, and I came right into town.
He told me everything he knew--which threw a different light on a lot of events--and d.i.c.k telephoned at about nine that I was coming over. But something more seems to have happened."
"Miss Sherwood, it"s like--" began Barlow.
"Just a second, Chief," Larry interrupted. Larry knew what a sensational story this would be as it had developed--and he knew in advance just how it would be seized upon and played up by the newspapers. And Larry did not want unpleasant publicity for his friends (three in that room were trying to make a fresh start in life), nor for those who had been his friends. "Chief, do you want to make an arrest on a charge which will involve every person in this room in a sensational story? Of course I know most of us here don"t weigh anything with you. But why drag Miss Sherwood, who is innocent in every way, into a criminal story that will serve to cheapen her and every decent person involved? Besides, it can only be a conspiracy charge, and there"s more than a probability that you can"t prove your case. So why make an arrest that will drag in Miss Sherwood?"
Barlow had a mind which functioned with amazing rapidity on matters pertaining to his own interest. He realized on the instant how it might count for him in the future if he were in a position to ask a favor of a person of Miss Sherwood"s standing; and he spoke without hesitation:
"I don"t know anything about this Sherwood matter. If anyone ever asks me, they"ll not get a word."
There was swift relief on the faces of Barney and Old Jimmie; to be instantly dispelled by Chief Barlow"s next statement which followed his last with only a pause for breath:
"The main thing we want is to stick these two crooks away." He turned on Barney and Old Jimmie. "I"ve just learned you two fellows are the birds I want for that Gregory stock business. I"ve got you for fair on that.
It"ll hold you a hundred times tighter than any conspiracy charge.
Casey, Gavegan--hustle these two crooks out of here."
The next moment Casey and Gavegan had handcuffs on the prisoners and were leading them out.
"Good for you, Larry," Casey whispered warmly as he went by with Barney.
"I knew you were going to win out, though it might be an extra-inning game!"
At the door Barlow paused. "I hope I"ve done everything all right, Miss Sherwood?"
"Yes--as far as I know, Mr. Barlow."
Again Barlow started out, and again turned. "And you, Brainard," he said, rather grudgingly, "I guess you needn"t worry any about that charge against you. It"ll be dropped."
And with that Barlow followed his men and his prisoners out of the room.
Then for a moment there was silence. As Larry saw and felt that moment, it was a moment so large that words would only make a faltering failure in trying to express it. He himself was suddenly free of all clouds and all dangers. He had succeeded in what he had been trying to do with Maggie. A father and a daughter were meeting, with each knowing their relationship, for the first time. There was so much to be said, among all of them, that could only be said as souls relaxed and got acquainted with each other.
It was so strained, so stupendous a moment that it would quickly have become awkward and anti-climacteric but for the tact of Miss Sherwood.
"Mr. Brainard," she began, in her smiling, direct manner, with a touch of brisk commonplace in it which helped relieve the tension, "I want to apologize to you for the way I treated you late this afternoon. As I said, I"ve just had a talk with d.i.c.k and he"s told me everything--except some things we may all have to tell each other later. I was entirely in the wrong, and you were entirely in the right. And the way you"ve handled things seems to have given d.i.c.k just that shock which you said he needed to awaken him to be the man it"s in him to be. I"m sure we all congratulate you."
She gave Larry no chance to respond. She knew the danger, in such an emotional crisis as this, of any let-up. So she went right on in her brisk tone of ingratiating authority.
"I guess we"ve all been through too much to talk. You are all coming right home with me. Mr. Brainard and Mr. Ellison live there, I"m their boss, and they"ve got to come. And you"ve got to come, Miss Ellison, if you don"t want to offend me. I won"t take "no." Besides, your place is near your father. Wear what you have on; in a half a minute you can put enough in a bag to last until to-morrow. To-morrow we"ll send in for the rest of your things--whatever you want--and send a note to your Miss Grierson, paying her off. You and your father will have my car," she concluded, "Mr. Brainard and d.i.c.k will ride in d.i.c.k"s car, and Mr. Hunt will take me."
And as she ordered, so was it.
For fifteen minutes--perhaps half an hour--after it rolled away from the Grantham Hotel there was absolute stillness in Miss Sherwood"s limousine, which she had a.s.signed to Maggie and her father. Maggie was near emotional collapse from what she had been through; and now she was sitting tight in one corner, away from the dark shadow in the other corner that was her newly discovered father who had cared for her so much that he had sought to erase from her mind all knowledge of his existence. She wanted to say something--do something; she was torn with a poignant hunger. But she was so filled with pulsing desires and fears that she was impotent to express any of the million things within her.
And so they rode on, dark shadows, almost half the width of the deeply cushioned seat between them. Thus they had ridden along Jackson Avenue, almost into Flushing, when the silence was broken by the first words of the journey. They were husky words, yearning and afraid of their own sound, and were spoken by Maggie"s father.
"I--I don"t know what to call you. Will--will Maggie do?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"I"m--I"m not much," the husky voice ventured on; "but what you said about going away--for my sake--do you think you need to do it?"
"I"ve made--such a mess of myself," she choked out.
"Other people were to blame," he said. "And out of it all, I think you"re going to be what--what I dreamed you were. And--and--"
There was another stifling silence. "Yes?" she prompted.
"I wanted to keep out of your life--for your sake," he went on in his strained, suppressed voice. "But--but if you"re not ashamed of me now that you know all"--in the darkness his groping hand closed upon hers--"I wish you wouldn"t--go away from me, Maggie."
And then the surging, incoherent thing in her that bad been struggling to say itself this last half-hour, suddenly found its voice in a single word:
"Father!" she cried, and flung her arms around his neck.
"Maggie!" he sobbed, crushing her to him.