Children of the Whirlwind by Leroy Scott (page 3)

ordinary motives, of possible happenings; but he could find none which would reconcile her very keen and kindly feeling for Hunt with her abstinence from all inquiries.

From his first day in his sanctuary Larry spent long hours every day over the accounts and documents Miss Sherwood had put in his hands. They were indeed a tangle. Originally the Sherwood estate had consisted of solid real-estate holdings. But now that Larry had before him the records of holdings and of various dealings he learned that the character of the Sherwood fortune had altered greatly. Miss Sherwood’s father had neglected the care of this sober business in favor of speculative investment and even outright gambling in stocks; and Dick, possessing this strain of his father, and lacking his father’s experience, had and was speculating even more wildly.

Larry had followed the market since he had been in a broker’s office almost ten years earlier, so he knew what stock values had been and had some idea of what they were now. The records, and some of the stock Larry found in the safe, recalled the reputation of the elder Sherwood. He had been known as a spirited, daring man who would buy anything or sell anything; he had been several times victimized by sharp traders, some of these out-and-out confidence men. Studying these old records Larry remembered that the elder Sherwood a dozen years before had lost a hundred thousand in a mining deal which Old Jimmie Carlisle had helped manipulate.

Larry found hundreds and hundreds of thousands of stock in the safe that were just so much waste paper, and he found records of other hundreds of thousands in safety deposit vaults that had no greater value. The real estate, the more solid and to the male Sherwoods the less interesting part of the fortune, had long been in the care of agents; and since Larry was prohibited from going out and studying the condition and true value of these holdings, he had to depend upon the book valuations and the agents’ reports and letters. Upon the basis of these valuations he estimated that some holdings were returning a loss, some a bare one and a half per cent, and some running as high as fifteen per cent. Larry found many complaints from tenants; some threatening letters from the Building Department for failure to make ordered alterations to comply with new building laws; and some rather perfunctory letters of advice and recommendation from the agents themselves.

From Miss Sherwood Larry learned that the agents were old men, friends of her father since youth; that they had both made comfortable fortunes which they had no incentive to increase. Larry judged that there was no dishonesty on the part of the agents, only laxity, and an easy adherence to the methods of their earlier years when there had not been so much competition nor so many building laws. All the same Larry judged that the real-estate holdings were in a bad way.

Larry liked the days and days of this work, although the farther he went the worse did the tangle seem. It was the kind of work for which his faculties fitted him, and this was his first chance to use his faculties upon large affairs in an honest way. Thus far his work was all diagnostic; cure, construction, would not come until later–and perhaps Miss Sherwood would not trust him with such affairs. This investigation, this checking up, involved no risk on her part as she had frankly told him. The other would: it would mean at least partial control of property, the handling of funds.

Miss Sherwood had many sessions with him; she was interested, but she confessed herself helpless in this compilation and diagnosis of so many facts and figures. Dick was prompt enough to report his stock transactions, and he was eager enough to discuss the probable fluctuation of this or that stock; but when asked to go over what Larry had done, he refused flatly and good-humoredly to “sit in any such slow, dead game.”

“If my Solomon-headed sister is satisfied with what you’re doing, Captain Nemo, that’s good enough for me,” he would say. “So forget that stuff till I’m out of sight. Open up, Captain–what do you think copper is going to do?”

“I wish you could be put on an operating-table and have your speculative streak knifed out of you, Dick. That oil stock you bought the other day–why, a blind man could have seen it was wild-cat. And you were wiped out.”

“Oh, the best of ’em get aboard a bad deal now and then.”

“I know. But I’ve been tabulating all your deals to date, and on the total you’re away behind. Better leave the market absolutely alone, Dick, and quit taking those big chances.”

“You’ve got to take some big chances, Captain Nemo”–Dick had clung to the title he had lightly conferred on Larry the morning he had come in to apologize–“or else you’ll never make any big winnings. Besides, I want a run for my money. Just getting money isn’t enough. I want a little pep in mine.”

Larry saw that these talks on the unwisdom of speculation he was giving Dick were not in themselves enough to affect a change in Dick. Mere words were colorless and negative; something positive would be required.

Larry hesitated before he ventured upon another matter he had long considered. “Excuse my saying it, Dick. But a man who’s trying to do as much in a business way as you are, particularly since it’s plain speculation, can’t afford to go to after-theater shows three times a week and to late suppers the other four nights. Two and three o’clock is no bedtime hour for a business man. And that boot-legged booze you drink when you’re out doesn’t help you any. I know you think I’m talking like a fossilized grand-aunt–but all the same, it’s the straight stuff I’m handing you.”

“Of course it’s straight stuff–and you’re perfectly all right, Captain Nemo.” With a good-natured smile Dick clapped him on the shoulder. “But I’m all right, too, and nothing and nobody is going to hurt me. Got to have a little fun, haven’t I? As for the booze, I’m merely making hay while the sun shines. Soon there’ll be no sun–I mean no booze.”

Larry dropped the subject. In his old unprincipled, days his practice had been much what he had suggested to Dick; as little drink as possible, and as few late nights as possible. He had needed all his wits all the time. In this matter of hilarious late hours, as in the matter of speculation, Larry recognized words alone, however good, would have little effect upon the pleasure-loving, friendly, likable Dick. An event, some big experience, would be required to check him short and bring him to his senses.

While Larry was keeping at this grind something was happening to Larry of which he was not then conscious: something which was part of the big development in him that was in time to lead him far. A confidence man is essentially a “sure-thing” gambler. It had been Larry’s practice, before the law had tripped him up, to study every detail of an enterprise he was planning to undertake, to know the psychology of the individuals with whom he was dealing, to eliminate every perceivable uncertainty: that was what had made almost all of his deals “sure things.” Strip a clever knave of all intent or inclination for knavery, and leave all his other qualities and practices intact and eager, and you have the makings of a “sure-thing” business man:–a man who does not cheat others, and who takes precious care that his every move is sound and forward-looking. Aside from the moral element involved, the difference between the two is largely a difference in percentage: say the difference between a thousand per cent profit and six per cent profit. The element of trying to play a “safe thing” still remains.

This transformation of character, under the stimulus of hard, steady work upon a tangled thing which contained the germ of great constructive possibilities for some one, was what was happening unconsciously to Larry.

CHAPTER XVI

All this while Maggie, and what he was to do about her, and how do it, was in Larry’s mind. Even this work he was doing for Miss Sherwood, he was doing also for Maggie in the hope that in some unseen way it might lead him to her and help lead her to herself. There were difficulties enough between them, God knew; but of them all two were forever presenting themselves as foremost: first, he did not dare go openly to see her; and, second, even if he so dared he did not know where she was.

When he had been with the Sherwoods some three weeks Larry determined upon a preliminary measure. By this time he knew that the letters mailed from Chicago, according to the plan he had arranged with Miss Sherwood, had had their contemplated effect. He knew that he was supposed by his enemies to be in Chicago or some other Western point, and that New York was off its guard as far as he was concerned.

His preliminary measure was to discover, if possible, Maggie’s whereabouts. The Duchess seemed to him the most likely source of information. He dared not write asking her for this, for he was certain her mail was still being scrutinized. The safest method would be to call at the pawnshop in person; the police, and his old friends, and the Ginger Bucks would expect anything else before they would expect him to return to his grandmother’s. Of course he must use all precautions.

Incidentally he was prompted to this method by his desire to see his grandmother and Hunt. He had an idea or two which he had been mulling over that concerned the artist.

He chose a night when a steady, blowing rain had driven all but limousined and most necessitous traffic from the streets. The rain was excuse for a long raincoat with high collar which buttoned under his nose, and a cap which pulled down to his eyes, and an umbrella which masked him from every direct glance. Thus abetted and equipped he came, after a taxi ride and a walk, into his grandmother’s street. It was as seemingly deserted as on that tumultuous night when he had left it; and on this occasion no figures sprang out of the cover of shadows, shooting and cursing. He had calculated correctly and unmolested he gained the pawnshop door, passed the solemn-eyed, incurious Isaac, and entered the room behind.

His grandmother sat over her accounts at her desk in a corner among her curios. Hunt, smoking a black pipe, was using his tireless right hand in a rapid sketch of her: another of those swift, few-stroked, vivid character notes which were about his studio by the hundreds. The Duchess saw Larry first; and she greeted him in the same unsurprised, emotionless manner as on the night he had come back from Sing Sing.

“Good-evening, Larry,” said she.

“Good-evening, grandmother,” he returned.

Hunt came to his feet, knocking over a chair in so doing, and gripped Larry’s hand. “Hello–here’s our wandering boy to-night! How are you, son?”

“First-rate, you old paint-slinger. And you?”

“Hitting all twelve cylinders and taking everything on high! But say, listen, youngster: how about your copper friends and those gun-toting schoolmates of yours?”

“Missed them so far.”

“Better keep on missing ’em.” Hunt regarded him intently for a moment, then asked abruptly: “Never heard one way or another–but did you use that telephone number I gave you?”

“Yes.”

“Miss Sherwood take care of you?”

“Yes.”

“Still there?”

“Yes.”

Again Hunt was silent for a moment. Larry expected questions about Miss Sherwood, for he knew the quality of the painter’s interest. But Hunt seemed quite as determined to avoid any personal question relating to Miss Sherwood as she had been about personal questions relating to him; for his next remark was:

“Young fellow, still keeping all those commandments you wrote for yourself?”

“So far, my bucko.”

“Keep on keeping ’em, and write yourself a few more, and you’ll have a brand-new decalogue. And we’ll have a little Moses of our own. But in the meantime, son, what’s the great idea of coming down here?”

“For one thing, I came to ask for a couple of your paintings.”

“My paintings!” Hunt regarded the other suspiciously. “What the hell you want my paintings for?”

“They might make good towels if I can scrape the paint off.”

“Aw, cut out the vaudeville stuff! I asked you what you wanted my paintings for? Give me a straight answer!”

“All right–here’s your straight answer: I want your paintings to sell them.”

“Sell my paintings! Say, are you trying to say something still funnier?”

“I want them to sell them. Remember I once told you that I could sell them–that I could sell anything. Let me have them, and then just see.”

“You’d sure have to be able to sell anything to sell them!” A challenging glint had come into Hunt’s eyes. “Young fellow, you’re so damned fresh that if you had any dough I’d bet you five thousand, any odds you like, that you couldn’t even GIVE one of the things away!”

“Loan me five thousand,” Larry returned evenly, “and I’ll cover the bet with even money–it being understood that I’m to sell the picture at a price not less than the highest price you ever received for one of your ‘pretty pictures’ which you delight to curse and which made your fortune. Now bring down your pictures–or shut up!”

Hunt’s jaw set. “Young fellow, I take that bet! And I’ll not let you off, either–you’ll have to pay it! Which pictures do you want?”

“That young Italian woman sitting on the curb nursing her baby–and any other picture you want to put with it.”

Hunt went clumping up the stairway. When he was out of earshot, the Duchess remarked quietly:

“What did you really come for, Larry?”

Larry was somewhat taken aback by his grandmother’s penetration, but he did not try to evade the question nor the steady gaze of the old eyes.

“I thought you might know where Maggie is, and I came to ask.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

The old eyes were still steady upon him. “I don’t know that I should tell you. I want you to get on–and the less you have to do with Maggie, the better for you.”

“I’d like to know, grandmother.”

The Duchess considered for a long space. “After all, you’re of age– and you’ve got to decide what’s best for yourself. I’ll tell you. Maggie was here the other day–dressed simple–to get some letters she’d forgotten to take and which I couldn’t find. We had a talk. Maggie is living at the Grantham under the name of Margaret Cameron. She has a suite there.”

“A suite at the Grantham!” exclaimed Larry, astounded. “Why, the Grantham is in the same class with the Ritzmore, where she used to work–or the Plaza! A suite at the Grantham!”

And then Larry gave a twitching start. “At the Grantham–alone?”

“Not alone–no. But it’s not what just came into your mind. It’s a woman that’s with her; a hired companion. And they’re doing everything on a swell scale.”

“What’s Maggie up to?”

“She didn’t tell me, except to say that the plan was a big one. She was all excited over it. If you want to know just what it is, ask Barney Palmer and Old Jimmie.”

“Barney and Old Jimmie!” ejaculated Larry. And then: “Barney and Old Jimmie–and a suite at the Grantham!”

At that moment Hunt came back down the stairway, carrying a roll wrapped in brown paper.

“Here you are, young fellow,” he announced. De-mounted ’em so the junk would be easier to handle. The Dago mother you asked for–the second painting may be one you’d like to have for your own private gallery. I’m not going to let you get away with your bluff–and don’t you forget it! . . . Duchess, don’t you think he’d better beat it before Gavegan and his loving friends take a tumble to his presence and mess up the neighborhood?”

“Yes,” said the Duchess. “Good-night, Larry.”

“Good-night,” said he.

Mechanically he took the roll of paintings and slipped it under his raincoat; mechanically he shook hands; mechanically he got out of the pawnshop; mechanically he took all precautions in getting out of the little rain-driven street and in getting into a taxicab which he captured over near Cooper Institute. All his mind was upon what the Duchess had told him and upon a new idea which was throbbingly growing into a purpose. Maggie and Barney and Old Jimmie! Maggie in a suite at the Grantham!

What Larry now did, as he got into the taxi, he would have called footless and foolhardy an hour before, and at any other hour his judgment might have restrained him. But just now he seemed controlled by a force greater than smooth-running judgment–a composite of many forces: by sudden jealousy, by a sudden desire to shield Maggie, by a sudden desire to see her. So as he stepped into the taxi, he said:

“The Grantham–quick!”

CHAPTER XVII

The taxi went rocking up Fourth Avenue. But now that decision was made and he was headed toward Maggie, a little of judgment reasserted itself. It would not be safe for him to walk openly into the Grantham with a mouthful of questions. He did not know the number of Maggie’s suite. And Maggie might not be in. So he revised his plan slightly. He called to his driver:

“Go to the Claridge first.”

Five minutes later the taxi was in Forty-Fourth Street and Larry was stepping out. Fortune favored him in one fact–or perhaps his subconscious mind had based his plan upon this fact: the time was half-past ten, the theaters still held their crowds, the streets were empty, the restaurants were practically unoccupied. He was incurring the minimum of risk.

“Wait for me,” he ordered the driver. “I’ll be out in five minutes.”

In less than the half of the first of these minutes Larry had attained his first objective: the secluded telephone-room down behind the grill. It was unoccupied except for the telephone girl who was gazing raptly at the sorrowful, romantic, and very soiled pages of “St. Elmo.” The next moment she was gazing at something else–a five- dollar bill which Larry had slipped into the open book.

“That’s to pay for a telephone call; just keep the change,” he said rapidly. “You’re to do all the talking, and say just what I tell you.”

“I got you, general,” said the girl, emerging with alacrity from romance to reality. “Shoot.”

“Call up the Hotel Grantham–say you’re a florist with an order to deliver some flowers direct to Miss Margaret Cameron–and ask for the number of her suite–and keep the wire open.”

The girl obeyed promptly. In less than a minute she was reporting to Larry:

“They say 1141-1142-1143.”

“Ask if she’s in. If she is, get her on the ‘phone, tell her long distance is calling, but doesn’t want to speak to her unless she is alone. You get it?”

“Sure, brother. This ain’t the first time I helped a party out.”

There was more jabbing with the switch-board plug, evident switching at the other end, several questions, and then the girl asked: “Is this Miss Margaret Cameron? Miss Cameron–” and so on as per Larry’s instructions.

The operator turned to Larry: “She says she’s alone.”

“Tell her to hold the wire till you get better connections–the storm has messed up connections terribly–and keep your own wire open and make her hold her end.”

As Larry went out he heard his instructions being executed while an adept hand safely banked the bill inside her shirt-waist. Within two minutes his taxi set him down at the Grantham; and knowing that whatever risks he ran would be lessened by his acting swiftly and without any suspicious hesitation, he walked straight in and to the elevators, in the manner of one having business there, his collar again pulled up, his cap pulled down, and his face just then covered with a handkerchief which was caring for a sniffling nose in a highly natural manner.

With his heart pounding he got without mishap to the doors numbered 1141, 1142, and 1143. Instinctively he knew in a general way what the apartment was like: a set of rooms of various character which the hotel could rent singly or throw together and rent en suite. But which of the three was the main entrance? He dared not hesitate, for the slightest queer action might get the attention of the floor clerk down the corridor. So Larry chose the happy medium and pressed the mother- of-pearl button of 1142.

The door opened, and before Larry stood a large, elderly, imposing woman in a rigidly formal evening gown–a gown which, by the way, had been part of Miss Grierson’s equipment for many a year for helping raw young things master the art of being ladies. Larry surmised at once that this was the “hired companion” his grandmother had spoken of. In other days Larry had had experience with this type and before Miss Grierson could bar him out or ask a question, Larry was in the room and the door closed behind him–and he had entered with the easiest, most natural, most polite manner imaginable.

“You were expecting me?” inquired Larry with his disarming and wholly engaging smile.

Neither Miss Grierson’s mind nor body was geared for rapid action. She was taken aback, and yet not offended. So being at a loss, she resorted to the chief item in her stock in trade, her ever dependable dignity.

“I cannot say that I was. In fact, sir, I do not know who you are.”

“Miss Cameron knows–and she is expecting me,” Larry returned pleasantly. His quick eyes had noted that this was a sitting-room: an ornate, patterned affair which the great hotels seem to order in hundred lots. “Where is Miss Cameron?”

“In the next room,” nodding at the connecting door. “She is engaged. Telephoning. A long-distance call. I’m quite sure she is not expecting you,” Miss Grierson went on to explain ponderously and elaborately, but with politeness, for this young man was handsome and pleasant and well-bred and might prove to be some one of real importance. “We were to have had a theater party with supper afterwards; but owing to Miss Cameron’s indisposition we did not go to the theater. But she insisted on keeping the engagement for the supper, but changing it to here. Besides herself and myself, there are to be only her uncle, her cousin, and just one guest. That is why I am so certain, sir, she is not expecting you.”

“But you see,” smiled Larry, “I am that one guest.”

Miss Grierson shook her carefully coiffured transformation. “I’ve met the guest who is coming, and I certainly have not met you.”

“Then she must have asked two of us. Anyhow, I’ll just speak to her, and if I’m mistaken and de trop, I’ll withdraw.” And ere Miss Grierson could even stir up an intention to intervene further, this well- mannered young man had smiled his disarming smile and bowed to her and had passed through the door, closing it behind him.

He halted, the knob in his hand. Maggie was standing sidewise to him, holding a telephone in her hand, its receiver at her ear. She must have supposed that it was Miss Grierson who had so quietly entered, for she did not look around.

“Yes, I’m still waiting,” she was saying impatiently. “Can’t you ever get that connection?”

Larry had seen Maggie only in the plain dark suit which she had worn to her daily business of selling cigarettes at the Ritzmore; and once, on the night of his return from Sing Sing, in that stage gypsy costume, which though effective was cheap and impromptu and did not at all lift her out of the environment of the Duchess’s ancient and grimy house. But Larry was so startled by this changed Maggie that for the moment he could not have moved from the door even had he so desired. She was accoutered in the smartest of filmy evening gowns, with the short skirt which was then the mode, with high-heeled silver slippers, her rounded arms and shoulders and bosom bare, her abundant black hair piled high in careful carelessness. The gown was cerise in color, and from her forearm hung a great fan of green plumes. In all the hotels and theaters of New York one could hardly have come upon a figure that night more striking in its finished and fresh young womanhood. Larry trembled all over; his heart tried to throb madly up out of his throat.

At length he spoke. And all he was able to say was:

“Maggie.”

She whirled about, and telephone and receiver almost fell from her hands. She went pale, and stared at him, her mouth agape, her dark eyes wide.

“La-Larry!” she whispered.

“Maggie!” he said again.

“La-Larry! I thought you were in Chicago.”

“I’m here now, Maggie–especially to see you.” He did not know it, but his voice was husky. He noted that she was still holding the telephone and receiver. “It was I who put in that long-distance call. But I came instead. So you might as well hang up.”

She obeyed, and set the instrument upon its little table.

“Larry–where have you been all this while?”

He was now conscious enough to note that there was tense concern in her manner. He exulted at it, and crossed and took her hand.

“Right here in New York, Maggie.”

“In hiding?”

“In mighty good hiding.”

“But, Larry–don’t you know it’s dangerous for you to come out? And to come here of all places?”

“I couldn’t help myself. I simply had to see you, Maggie.”

He was still holding her hand, and there was an instinctive grip of her fingers about his. For a moment–the moment during which her outer or more conscious self was startled into forgetfulness–they gazed at each other silently and steadily, eye into eye.

And then the things the Duchess had said crept back into his mind, and he said:

“Maggie, I’ve come to take you out of all this. Get ready–let’s leave at once.”

That broke the spell. She jerked away from him, and instantly she was the old Maggie: the Maggie who had jeered at him and defied him the night of his return from prison when he had announced his new plan– the Maggie who had flaunted him as “stool” and “squealer” the evening she had left the Duchess’s to enter upon this new career.

“No, you’re not going to take me out of this!” she flung at him. “I told you once before that I wasn’t going your way! I told you that I was going my own way! That held for then, and it holds for now, and it will hold for always!”

The softer mood which had come upon him by surprise at sight of her and filled him, now gave way to grim determination. “Yes, you are coming my way–sometime, if not now! And now if I can make you!”

Their embattled gazes gripped each other. But now Larry was seeing more than just Maggie. He was also taking in the room. It was close kin to the room in which he had left Miss Grierson: ornate, undistinguished, and very expensive. He noted one slight difference: a tiny hallway giving on the corridor, its inner door now opened.

But the greatest difference was what he saw over Maggie’s smooth white shoulders: a table all set with china and glass and silver, and arranged for five.

“Maggie, what’s this game you’re up to?” he demanded.

“It’s none of your business!” she said fiercely, but in a low tone– for both were instinctively remembering Miss Grierson in the adjoining room. And then she added proudly: “But it’s big! Bigger than anything you ever dreamed of! And you can see I am putting it across so far– and I’ll be putting it across at the finish! Compare it to the cheap line you talked about. Bah!”

“Listen, Maggie!” In his intensity he gripped her bare forearm. “This is bad business, and if you had any sense you’d know it! Don’t you think I get the layout? Barney is your cousin, Old Jimmie is your uncle, that dame in the next room and this suite and your swell clothes to help put up a front! And your sickness that wouldn’t let you go to the theater is just a fake, so that, not wanting to disappoint them entirely, you’d have an excuse for having supper here–and thus adroitly draw some person into the trap of a more intimate relationship. It’s a clever and classy layout. Maggie, exactly what’s your game?”

“I’ll not tell you!”

“Who’s that man that’s coming here?”

“I’ll not tell you!”

“Is he the sucker you’re out to trim?”

“I’ll not tell you!”

“You will tell me!” he cried dominantly. “And you’re going to get out of all this! You hear me? It may look good to you now. But I tell you it has only one finish! And that’s a rotten finish!”

She tore free from his punishing grip, and pantingly glared at him–her former defiance now an egoistic fury.

“I won’t have you interfering with my life!–you fake preacher!–you stool, you squealer!” she flung at him madly. “Stool–squealer!” she repeated. “I tell you I’m going my own way–and it’s a big way–and I tell you again nothing you can say or do can stop me! If I could have my best wish, all I’d wish for would be something to keep you from always interfering–something to get you out of my way!”

Panting, she paused. Her tense figure, with hands closing and unclosing, expressed the very acme of furious defiance–of desire to annihilate–of ultimate hatred. Larry was astounded by the very extent, the profundity, of her passion. And so they stood, silent except for their quick breathing, eyes fixed upon eyes, for several moments.

And then a key sounded in the outer door of the little hallway. Instantly there was an almost unbelievable transformation in Maggie. From an imperious, uncontrollable fury, she changed to a white, quivering thing.

“Barney!” she whispered; and sprang to the inner door of the little hallway, closed and locked it.

She turned on Larry a face that was ghastly in its pallor.

“Barney always carries a pistol,” she whispered.

They had heard the outer door close with a click of its automatic lock. They now heard the knob of the inner door turn and tugged at; and then heard Barney call:
“What’s the matter, Maggie? Let us in.”

Maggie made a supreme effort to reply in a controlled voice:

“Just a minute. I’m not quite ready.”

Then a second voice sounded from the other side of the door:

“Don’t keep us too long, Maggie. Please!”

There was a distantly familiar quality to Larry in that second voice. But he did not try to place it then: he was too poignantly concerned in his own situation, and in the bewildering change in Maggie.

She slipped a hand through his arm. “Oh, La-Larry, why did you ever take such a risk!” she breathed. Her whisper was piteous, aquiver with fright. “Come this way!” and she quickly pulled him into the room where he had met Miss Grierson and to the door by which he had entered.

Maggie opened this door. “They’re all in the little hallway–I don’t think they’ll see you,” her rapid, agitated whisper went on. “Don’t take the elevators in this corridor, they’re in plain sight. There are elevators just around the corner. Take them; they’re safer. Good-bye, Larry–and, oh, Larry, don’t ever take such a risk again!”

With that she pushed him out and closed the door.

Larry followed her instructions about the elevator; he used the same precautions in leaving that he had used in coming, and twenty minutes later he was back in his room in the Sherwood apartment. For an hour or more he sat motionless–thinking–thinking: asking himself questions, but in his tumultuous state of mind and emotions not able to keep to a question long enough to reason out its possible answer.

Just what was that game in which Maggie was involved?–a game which required that Grantham setting, that eminently respectable companion, and Maggie’s accouterment as a young lady of obvious wealth.

Whose was that vaguely familiar second voice?–that voice which he still could not place.

But what he thought about most of all was something very different. What had caused that swift change in Maggie?–from a fury that was both fire and granite, to that pallid, quivering, whispering girl who had so rapidly led him safely out of his danger.

To and fro, back and forth, shuttled these questions. Toward two o’clock he stood up, mind still absorbed, and mechanically started to undress. He then observed the roll of paintings Hunt had given him. Better for them if they were flattened out. Mechanically he removed string and paper. There on top was the Italian mother he had asked for. A great painting–a truly great painting. Mechanically he lifted this aside to see what was the second painting Hunt had included. Larry gave a great start and the Italian mother went flapping to the floor.

The second painting was of Maggie; the one on which Hunt had been working the day Larry had come back: Maggie in her plain working clothes, looking out at the world confidently, conqueringly; the painting in which Hunt, his brain teeming with ideas, had tried to express the Maggie that was, the many Maggies that were in her, and the Maggie that was yet to be.

CHAPTER XVIII

The next morning Larry tried to force his mind to attend strictly to Miss Sherwood’s affairs. But in this effort he was less than fifty per cent effective. His experience of the night before had been too exciting, too provocative of speculation, too involved with what he frankly recognized to be the major interest of his life, to allow him to apply himself with perfect and unperturbed concentration to the day’s routine. Constantly he was seeing the transformed Maggie in the cerise evening gown with the fan of green plumes–seeing her elaborate setting in her suite at the Grantham–hearing that vaguely familiar but unplaceable voice outside her door–recalling the frenzied effort with which Maggie had so swiftly effected his escape.

This last matter puzzled him greatly. If she were so angered at him as she had declared, if she so distrusted him, why had she not given him up when she had had him at her mercy? Could it be that, despite her words, she had an unacknowledged liking for him? He did not dare let himself believe this.

Again and again he thought of this adventure in whose very middle Maggie now was, and of whose successful issue she had proudly boasted to him. It was indeed something big, as she had said; that establishment at the Grantham was proof of this. Larry could now perceive the adventure’s general outlines. There was nothing original in what he perceived; and the plan, so far as he could see it, would not have interested him in the least as a novel creation of the brain were not Maggie its central figure, and were not Barney and Old Jimmie her directing agents. A pretty woman was being used as a lure to some rich man, and his infatuation for her was to cause him to part with a great deal of money: some variation of this ancient idea, which has a thousand variations–that was the plan.

Obviously the enterprise was not directed at some gross victim whose palate might permit his swallowing anything. If any one item essentially proved this, it was the item of the overwhelmingly respectable chaperon. Maggie was being presented as an innocent, respectable, young girl; and the victim, whoever he was, was the type of man for whom only such a type of girl would have a compelling appeal.

And this man–who was he? Ever and again he tried to place the man’s voice, with its faintly familiar quality, but it kept dodging away like a dream one cannot quite recall.

The whole business made Larry rage within himself. Maggie to be used in such a way! He did not blame Maggie, for he understood her. Also he loved her. She was young, proud, willful, had been trained to regard such adventures as colorful and legitimate; and had not lived long enough for experience to teach her otherwise. No, Maggie was not to blame. But Old Jimmie! He would like to twist Old Jimmie’s neck! But then Old Jimmie was Maggie’s father; and the mere fact of Old Jimmie being Maggie’s father would, he knew, safeguard the old man from his wrath even were he at liberty to go forth and act.

He cursed his enforced seclusion. If only he were free to go out and do his best in the open! But then, even if he were, his best endeavors would have little influence upon Maggie–with her despising and distrusting him as she did, and with her so determined to go ahead in her own way.

Once during the morning, he slipped from the library into his room and gazed at the portrait of Maggie that Hunt had given him the night before: Maggie, self-confident, willful, a beautiful nobody who was staring the world out of countenance; a Maggie that was a thousand possible Maggies. And as he gazed he thought of the wager he had made with Hunt, and of his own rather scatter-brained plannings concerning it. He removed Maggie’s portrait from the fellowship of the picture of the Italian mother, and hid it in his chiffonier. Whatever he might do in his endeavor to make good his boast to Hunt, for the present he would regard Maggie’s portrait as his private property. To use the painting as he had vaguely planned, before he had been surprised to find it Maggie’s portrait, would be to pass it on into other possession where it might become public–where, through some chance, the Maggie of the working-girl’s cheap shirt-waist might be identified with the rich Miss Cameron of the Grantham, to Maggie’s great discomfiture, and possibly to her entanglement with the police.

When Miss Sherwood came into the library a little later, Larry tried to put Maggie and all matters pertaining to his previous night’s adventure out of his mind. He had enough other affairs which he was trying adroitly to handle–for instance, Miss Sherwood and Hunt; and when his business talk with her was ended, he remarked:

“I saw Mr. Hunt last evening.”

He watched her closely, but he could detect no flash of interest at Hunt’s name.

“You went down to your grandmother’s?”

“Yes.”

“That was a very great risk for you to take,” she reproved him. “I’m glad you got back safely.”

Despite the disturbance Maggie had been to his thoughts, part of his brain had been trying to make plans to forward this other aim; so he now told Miss Sherwood of his wager with Hunt and his bringing away a picture–he said “one picture.” He wanted to awaken the suppressed interest each had in the other; to help bridge or close the chasm which he sensed had opened between them. So he brought the picture of the Italian mother from his room. She regarded it critically, but with no sign of approval or disapproval.

“What do you think of it?” she asked.

“It’s a most remarkable piece of work!” he said emphatically–wishing he could bring in that picture of Maggie as additional evidence supporting his opinion.

She made no further comment, and it was up to Larry to keep the conversation alive. “What is the most Mr. Hunt ever was paid for a painting? I mean one of what he swears at as his `pretty pictures’?”

“I believe about two thousand dollars.”

That was part of the information necessary to Larry’s plan.

“Miss Sherwood, I’m going to ask another favor of you. In connection with a bet I made with Mr. Hunt. I want to talk with a picture dealer–the best one there is. I can’t very well go to him. Can you manage to have him come here?”

“Easily. I know the man best for your purpose. I’ll telephone, and if he’s in New York he’ll come to see you this afternoon.”

“Thank you.”

She started out, then turned. “Better finish your business with him to-day if you can. We go to the country to-morrow or the day after. I’ve just had word that the workmen are finally out of the house; though the grounds, of course, are in bad shape, and will probably remain so. With this labor situation, it’s practically impossible to get men.”

Larry remembered something else. “Miss Sherwood, you recall my once speaking about a man I got to be friends with in prison–Joe Ellison?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve written him, under an assumed name, of course, and have had an answer. He’ll be out in a very few days now. He’s through with his old ways. I know he’d like nothing better than a quiet place to work, off to himself somewhere. I’m sure you can trust him.”

“We’ll arrange to have him come out to Cedar Crest. Oh, don’t think I’m being generous or sentimental,” she interrupted smilingly as he started to thank her. “I’d be glad to put two or three more ex-convicts to work on our place if I could get them. And so would my friends; they can’t get workmen of any kind.”

That afternoon the picture dealer came. Miss Sherwood introduced Larry to him as Mr. Brandon, her cousin, and then left the two men together. Larry appraised Mr. Graham as a shrewd man who knew his business and who would like to score a triumph in his own particular field. He decided that the dealer had to be handled with a great deal of frankness, and with some stiff bluffing which must appear equally frank. The secret of Larry’s earlier success had been to establish confidence and even enthusiasm in something which had little or no value. In selling an honest thing at an honest price, the first and fundamental procedure was the same, to establish confidence and, if possible, enthusiasm.

From the moment of introduction Larry quietly assumed the manner of an art collector who was very sure of himself; which manner was abetted by the setting of the Sherwood library. He felt something of the old zest when wits had been matched against wits, even though this was to be a strictly honorable enterprise.

“You know the work of Mr. Jerome Hunt?” he asked.

“I have handled practically all his work since he began to sell,” replied Mr. Graham.

“I was referring to work in his recent manner.”

“He has not been doing any work recently,” corrected Mr. Graham.

“No?” Larry picked up the Italian mother which for this occasion he had mounted with thumb-tacks upon a drawing-board, and stood it upon a chair in the most advantageous light. “There is a little thing in Mr. Hunt’s recent manner which I lately purchased.”

Mr. Graham regarded the painting long and critically.

Finally he remarked:

“At least it is different.”

“Different and better,” said Larry with his quiet positiveness. “So much better that I paid him three thousand dollars for it.”

“Three thousand!” The dealer regarded Larry sharply. “Three thousand for that?”

“Yes. And I consider that I got a bargain.”

Mr. Graham was silent for several moments. Then he said “For what reason have I been asked here?”

“I want you to undertake to sell this picture.”

“For how much?”

“Five thousand dollars.”

“Five thousand dollars!”

“It is easily worth five thousand,” Larry said quietly.

“If you value it so highly, why do you want to sell?”

“I am pressed by the present money shortage. Also I secured a second picture when I got this one. That second picture I shall not sell. You should have no difficulty in selling this,” Larry continued, “if you handle the matter right. Think of how people have started again to talk about Gaugin: about his starting to paint in a new manner down there in the Marquesas Islands, of his trading a picture for a stick of furniture or selling it for a few hundred francs–which same paintings are now each worth a small fortune. Capitalize this Gaugin talk; also the talk about poor mad Blakeslie. You’ve got a new sensation. One all your own.”

“You can’t start a sensation with one painting,” Mr. Graham remarked dryly.

This had been the very remark Larry had adroitly been trying to draw from the dealer.

“Why, that’s so!” he exclaimed. And then as if the thought had only that moment come to him: “Why not have an exhibition of paintings done in his new manner? He’s got a studio full of things just as characteristic as this one.”

Larry caught the gleam which came into the dealer’s eyes. It was instantly masked.

“Too late in the spring for a picture show. Couldn’t put on an exhibition before next season.”

“But why not have a private pre-exhibition showing?” Larry argued– “with special invitations sent to a small, carefully chosen list, putting it over strong to them that you were offering them the chance of a first and exclusive view of something very remarkable. Most of them will feel flattered and will come. And that will start talk and stir up interest in your public exhibition in the fall. That’s the idea!”

Again there was the gleam, quickly masked, in the dealer’s eyes. But Larry got it.

“How do I know this picture here isn’t just an accident?–the only one of the sort Mr. Hunt has ever painted, or ever will paint?” cautiously inquired Mr. Graham. “You said you had a second picture. May I see it?”

Larry hesitated. But he believed he had the dealer almost “sold”; a little more and Mr. Graham would be convinced. So he brought in Maggie’s portrait. The dealer looked it over with a face which he tried to keep expressionless.

“How much is this one?” he asked at length.

“It is not for sale.”

“It will bring more money than the other. It’s a more interesting subject.”

“That’s why I’m keeping it,” said Larry. “I think you’ll admit, Mr. Graham, that this proves that Mr. Hunt is not now painting accidents.”

“You’re right.” The mask suddenly dropped from Mr. Graham’s face; he was no longer merely an art merchant; he was also an art enthusiast. “Hunt has struck something bold and fresh, and I think I can put him over. I’ll try that scheme you mentioned. Tell me where I can find him and I’ll see him at once.”

“That picture has got to be sold before I give you his address. No use seeing him until then; he’d laugh at you, and not listen to anything. He’s sore at the world; thinks it doesn’t understand him. An actual sale would be the only argument that would have weight with him.”

“All right–I’ll buy the picture myself. Hunt and I have had a falling out, and I’d like him to have proof that I believe in him.” Again Mr. Graham was the art merchant. “Though, of course, I can’t pay the five thousand you ask. Hunt’s new manner may catch on, and it may not. It’s a big gamble.”

“What will you pay?”

“What you paid for it–three thousand.”

“That’s an awful drop from what I expected. When can you pay it?”

“I’ll send you my check by an assistant as soon as I get back to my place.”

“I told you I was squeezed financially–so the picture is yours. I’ll send you Mr. Hunt’s present address when I receive your check. Make it payable to ‘cash.'”

When Mr. Graham had gone with the Italian mother–it was then the very end of the afternoon–Larry wondered if his plan to draw Hunt out of his hermitage was going to succeed; and wondered what would be the result, if any, upon the relationship between Hunt and Miss Sherwood if Hunt should come openly back into his world an acclaimed success, and come with the changed attitude toward every one and every thing that recognition bestows.

But something was to make Larry wonder even more a few minutes later. Dick, that habitual late riser, had had to hurry away that morning without speaking to him. Now, when he came home toward six o’clock, Dick shouted cheerily from the hallway:

“Ahoy! Where you anchored, Captain Nemo?”

Larry did not answer. He sat over his papers as one frozen. He knew now whose had been the elusively familiar voice he had heard outside Maggie’s door. It was Dick Sherwood’s.

Dick paused without to take some messages from Judkins, and Larry’s mind raced feverishly. Dick Sherwood was the victim Maggie and Barney and Old Jimmie were so cautiously and elaborately trying to trim! It seemed an impossible coincidence. But no, not impossible, after all. Their net had been spread for just such game: a young man, impressionable, pleasure-loving, with plenty of money, and with no strings tied to his spending of it. That Barney should have made his acquaintance was easily explained; to establish acquaintance with such persons as Dick was Barney’s specialty. What more natural than that the high-spirited, irresponsible Dick should fall into this trap?–or indeed that he should have been picked out in advance as the ideal victim and have been drawn into it?

“Hello, there!” grumbled Dick, entering. “Why didn’t you answer a shipmate’s hail?”

“I heard you; but just then I was adding a column of figures, and I knew you’d look in.”

At that moment Larry noted the portrait of Maggie, looking up from the chair beside him. With a swiftness which he tried to disguise into a mechanical action, he seized the painting and rolled it up, face inside.

“What’s that you’ve got?” demanded Dick.

“Just a little daub of my own.”

“So you paint, too. What else can you do? Let’s have a look.”

“It’s too rotten. I’d rather let you see something else–though all my stuff is bad.”

“You wouldn’t do any little thing, would you, to brighten this tiredest hour in the day of a tired business man,” complained Dick. “I’ve really been a business man to-day, Captain. Worked like the devil–or an angel–whichever works the harder.”

He lit a cigarette and settled with a sigh on the corner of Larry’s desk. Larry regarded him with a stranger and more contradicting mixture of feelings than he had ever thought to contain: solicitude for Dick–jealousy of him–and the instinct to protect Maggie. This last seemed to Larry grotesquely absurd the instant it seethed up in him, but there the instinct was: was Dick treating Maggie right?

“How was the show last night, Dick?”

“Punk!”

“I thought you said you were to see ‘The Jest.’ I’ve heard it’s one of the best things for years.”

“Oh, I guess the show’s all right. But the company was poor. My company, I mean. The person I wanted to see couldn’t come.”

“Hope you had a supper party that made up for the disappointment,” pursued Larry, adroitly trying to lead him on.

“I sure had that, Captain!”

Dick slid to a chair beside Larry, dropped a hand on Larry’s knee, and said in a lowered tone:

“Captain, I’ve recently met a new girl–and believe me, she’s a knock- out!”

“Better keep clear of those show girls, Dick.”

“Never again! The last one cured me for life. Miss Cameron–Maggie Cameron, how’s that for a name?–is no Broadway girl, Captain. She’s not even a New York girl.”

“No?”

“She’s from some place out West. Father owned several big ranches. She says that explains her crudeness. Her crude? I should say not! They don’t grow better manners right here in New York. And she’s pretty, and clever, and utterly naive about everything in New York. Though I must say,” Dick added, “that I’m not so keen about her cousin and her uncle. I’d met the cousin a few times the last year or two around town; he belongs here. The two are the sort of poor stock that crops out in every good family. They’ve got one merit, though: they don’t try to impose on her too much.”

“What is your Miss Cameron doing in New York?”

“Having her first look at the town before going to some resort for the summer; perhaps taking a cottage somewhere. I say, Captain”–leaning closer–“I wish you didn’t feel you had to stick around this apartment so tight. I’d like to take you out and introduce you to her.”

Larry could imagine the resulting scene if ever this innocently proposed introduction were given.

“I guess that for the present I’ll have to depend upon your reports, Dick.”

“Well, you can take it from me that she’s just about all right!”

It was Larry’s strange instinct to protect Maggie that prompted his next remark:

“You’re not just out joy-riding, are you, Dick?”

Dick flushed. “Nothing of that sort. She’s not that kind of girl. Besides–I think it’s the real thing, Captain.”

The honest look in Dick’s eyes, even more than his words, quieted Larry’s fear for Maggie. Presently Dick walked out leaving Larry yet another problem added to his life. He could not let anything happen to Maggie. He could not let anything happen to Dick. He had to protect each; he had to do something. Yet what could he do?

Yes, this certainly was a problem! He paced the room, another victim of the ancient predicament of divided and antagonistic duty.

CHAPTER XIX

The night of Larry’s unexpected call upon her at the Grantham, Maggie had pulled herself together and aided by the imposing Miss Grierson had done her best as ingenue hostess to her pseudo-cousin, Barney, and her pseudo-uncle, Old Jimmie, and to their quarry, Dick Sherwood, whom they were so cautiously stalking. But when Dick had gone, and when Miss Grierson had withdrawn to permit her charge a little visit with her relatives, Barney had been prompt with his dissatisfaction.

“What was the matter with you to-night, Maggie?” he demanded. “You didn’t play up to your usual form.”

“If you don’t like the way I did it, you may get some one else,” Maggie snapped back.

“Aw, don’t get sore. If I’m stage-managing this show, I guess it’s my business to tell you how to act the part, and to tell you when you’re endangering the success of the piece by giving a poor performance.”

“Maybe you’d better get some one else to take my part right now.”

Maggie’s tone and look were implacable. Barney moved uneasily. That was the worst about Maggie: she wouldn’t take advice from any one unless the advice were a coincidence with or an enlargement of her own wishes, and she was particularly temperish to-night. He hastened to appease her.

“I guess the best of us have our off days. It’s all right unless”– Barney hesitated, business fear and jealousy suddenly seizing him– “unless the way you acted tonight means you don’t intend to go through with it?”

“Why shouldn’t I go through with it?”

“No reason. Unless you acted as you did to-night because”–again Barney hesitated; again jealousy prompted him on–“because you’ve heard in some way from Larry Brainard. Have you heard from Larry?”

Maggie met his gaze without flinching. She would take the necessary measures in the morning with Miss Grierson to keep that lady from indiscreet talking.

“I have not heard from Larry, and if I had, it wouldn’t be any of your business, Barney Palmer!”

He chose to ignore the verbal slap in his face of her last phrase. “No, I guess you haven’t heard from Larry. And I guess none of us will hear from him–not for a long time. He’s certainly fixed himself for fair!”

“He sure has,” agreed Old Jimmie.

Maggie said nothing.

“Seems to me we’ve got this young Sherwood hooked,” said Old Jimmie, who had been impatient during this unprofitable bickering. “Seems to me it’s time to settle just how we’re going to get his dough. How about it, Barney?”

“Plenty of time for that, Jimmie. This is a big fish, and we’ve got to be absolutely sure we’ve got him hooked so he can’t get off. We’ve got to play safe here; it’s worth waiting for, believe me. Besides, all the while Maggie’s getting practice.”

“Seems to me we ought to make our clean-up quick. So that–so that–“

“See here–you think you got some other swell game you want to use Maggie in?”

Old Jimmie’s shifty gaze wavered before Barney’s glare.

“No. But she’s my daughter, ain’t she?”

“Yes. But who’s running this?” Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna!

“You are.”

“Then shut up, and let me run it!”

“You might at least tell if you’ve decided how you’re going to run it,” persisted Old Jimmie.

“Will you shut up!” snapped Barney.

Old Jimmie said no more. And having asserted his supremacy over at least one of the two, Barney relented and condescended to talk, lounging back in his chair with that self-conscious grace which had helped make him a figure of increasing note in the gayer restaurants of New York.

It did not enter into Barney’s calculations, present or for the future, to make Maggie the mistress of any man. Not that Barney was restrained by moral considerations. The thing was just bad business. Such a woman makes but comparatively little; and what is worse, if she chooses, she makes it all for herself. And Barney, in his cynical wisdom of his poor world, further knew that the average man enticed into this poor trap, after the woman has said yes, and after the first brief freshness has lost its bloom, becomes a tight-wad and there is little real money to be got from him for any one.

“It’s like this: once we’ve got this Sherwood bird safely hooked,” expanded Barney with the air of an authority, flicking off his cigarette ash with his best restaurant manner, “we can play the game a hundred ways. But the marriage proposition is the best bet, and there are two best ways of working that.”

“Which d’you think we ought to use, Barney?” inquired Old Jimmie.

But Barney went on as if the older man had not asked a question. “Both ways depend upon Sherwood being crazy in love, and upon his coming across with a proposal and sticking to it. The first way, after being proposed to, Maggie must break down and confess she’s married to a man she doesn’t love and who doesn’t love her. This husband would probably give her a divorce, but he’s a cagy guy and is out for the coin, and if he smelled that she wanted to remarry some one with money he would demand a large price for her freedom. Maggie must further confess that she really has no money, and is therefore helpless. Then Sherwood offers to meet the terms of this brute of a husband. If Sherwood falls for this we shove in a dummy husband who takes Sherwood’s dough–and a big bank roll it will be!–and that’ll be the last Sherwood’ll ever see of Maggie.”

Old Jimmie nodded. “When it’s worked right, that always brings home the kale.”

“The only question is,” continued Barney, “can Maggie put that stuff over? How about it, Maggie? Think you’re good enough to handle a proposition like that?”

Looking the handsome Barney straight in the eyes, Maggie for the moment thought only of his desire to manage her and of the challenge in his tone. Larry and the appeal he had made to her were forgotten, as was also Dick Sherwood.

“Anything you’re good enough to think up, Barney Palmer, I guess I’m good enough to put over,” she answered coolly.

And then: “What’s the other way?” she asked.

“Old stuff. Have to be a sure-enough marriage. Sherwoods are big-time people, you know; a sister who’s a regular somebody. After marriage, family permitted to learn truth–perhaps something much worse than truth. Family horrified. They pay Maggie a big wad for a separation– same as so many horrified families get rid of daughters-in-law they don’t like. Which of the ways suits you best, Maggie?”

Maggie shrugged her shoulders with indifference. It suited her present mood to maintain her attitude of being equal to any enterprise.

“Which do you like best, Barney?” Old Jimmie asked.

“The second is safer. But then it’s slower; and there would be lawyers’ fees which would eat into our profits; and then because of the publicity we might have to wait some time before it would be safe to use Maggie again. The first plan isn’t so complicated, it’s quick, and at once we’ve got Maggie free to use in other operations. The first looks the best bet to me–but, as I said, we don’t have to decide yet. We can let developments help make the actual decision for us.”

Barney did not add that a further reason for his objecting to the second plan was that he didn’t want Maggie actually tied in marriage to any man. That was a relationship his hopes were reserving for himself.

Barney’s inborn desire for acknowledged chieftainship again craved assertion and pressed him on to say:

“You see, Maggie, how much depends on you. You’ve got a whale of a chance for a beginner. I hope you take a big brace over to-night and play up to the possibilities of your part.”

“You take care of your end, and I’ll take care of mine!” was her sharp retort.

Barney was flustered for a moment by his second failure to dominate Maggie. “Oh, well, we’ll not row,” he tried to say easily. “We understand each other, and we’re each trying to help the other fellow’s game–that’s the main point.”

The two men left, Jimmie without kissing his daughter good-night. This caused Maggie no surprise. A kiss, not the lack of it, would have been the thing that would have excited wonder in Maggie.

Barney went away well satisfied on the whole with the manner in which the affair was progressing, and with his management of it and of Maggie. Maggie was obstinate, to be sure; but he’d soon work that out of her. He was now fully convinced of the soundness of his explanation of Maggie’s poor performance of that night: she had just had an off day.

As for Maggie, after they had gone she sat up long, thinking–and her thoughts reverted irresistibly to Larry. His visit had been most distracting. But she was not going to let it affect her purpose. If anything, she was more determined than ever to be what she had told him she was going to be, to prove to him that he could not influence her.

She tried to keep her mind off Larry, but she could not. He was for her so many questions. How had he escaped?–thrown off both police and old friends? Where was he now? What was he doing? And when and how was he going to reappear and interfere?–for Maggie had no doubt, now that she knew him to be in New York, that he would come again; and again try to check her.

And there was a matter which she no more understood than Larry, and this was another of her questions: Why had she gone into a panic and aided his escape?

Of course, she now and then thought of Dick Sherwood. She rather liked Dick. But thus far she regarded him exactly as her scheme of life had presented him to her: as a pleasant dupe who, in an exciting play in which she had the thrilling lead, was to be parted from his money. She was rather sorry for him; but this was business, and her sorrow was not going to interfere with what she was going to do.

Maggie Cameron, at this period of her life, was not deeply introspective. She did not realize what, according to other standards, this thing was which she was doing. She was merely functioning as she had been taught to function. And if any change was beginning in her, she was thus far wholly unconscious of it.

CHAPTER XX

Larry’s new problem was the most difficult and delicate dilemma of his life–this divided loyalty: to balk Maggie and the two men behind her without revealing the truth about Maggie to Dick, to protect Dick without betraying Maggie. It certainly was a trying, baffling situation.

He had no such foolish idea that he could change Maggie by exposing her. At best he would merely render her incapable of continuing this particular course; he would increase her bitterness and hostility to him. Anyhow, according to the remnants of his old code, that wouldn’t be playing fair–particularly after her aiding his escape when he had been trapped.

Upon only one point was he clear, and on this he became more settled with every hour: whatever he did he must do with the idea of a fundamental awakening in Maggie. Merely to foil her in this one scheme would be to solve the lesser part of his problem; Maggie would be left unchanged, or if changed at all the change would be toward a greater hardness, and his major problem would be made more difficult of solution.

He considered many ways. He thought of seeing Maggie again, and once more appealing to her. That he vetoed, not because of the danger to himself, but because he knew Maggie would not see him; and if he again did break in upon her unexpectedly, in her obstinate pride she would heed nothing he said. He thought of seeing Barney and Old Jimmie and somehow so throwing the fear of God into that pair that they would withdraw Maggie from the present enterprise; but even if he succeeded in so hazardous an undertaking, again Maggie would be left unchanged. He thought of showing Miss Sherwood the hidden portrait of Maggie, of telling her all and asking her aid; but this he also vetoed, for it seemed a betrayal of Maggie.

He kept going back to one plan: not a plan exactly, but the idea upon which the right plan might be based. If only he could adroitly, with his hand remaining unseen, place Maggie in a situation where circumstances would appeal conqueringly to her best self, to her latent sense of honor–that was the idea! But cudgel his brain as he would, Larry could not just then develop a working plan whose foundation was that idea.

But even if Larry had had a brilliant plan it would hardly have been possible for him to have devoted himself to its execution, for two days after his visit to Maggie at the Grantham, the Sherwoods moved out to their summer place some forty miles from the city on the North Shore of Long Island; and Larry was so occupied with routine duties pertaining to this migration that at the moment he had time for little else. Cedar Crest was individual yet typical of the better class of Long Island summer residences. It was a long white building of many piazzas and many wings, set on a bluff looking over the Sound, with a broad stretch of silken lawn, and about it gardens in their June glory, and behind the house a couple of hundred acres of scrub pine.

On the following day, according to a plan that had been worked out between Larry and Miss Sherwood, Joe Ellison appeared at Cedar Crest and was given the assistant gardener’s cottage which stood apart on the bluff some three hundred yards east of the house. He was a tall, slightly bent, white-haired man, apparently once a man of physical strength and dominance of character and with the outer markings of a gentleman, but now seemingly a mere shadow of the forceful man of his prime. As a matter of fact, Joe Ellison had barely escaped that greatest of prison scourges, tuberculosis.

The roses were given over to his care. For a few brief years during the height of his prosperity he had owned a small place in New Jersey and during that period had seemingly been the country gentleman. Flowers had been his hobby; so that now he could have had no work which would have more suited him than this guardianship of the roses. For himself he desired no better thing than to spend what remained of his life in this sunlit privacy and communion with growing things.

He gripped Larry’s hand when they were first alone in the little cottage. “Thanks, Larry; I’ll not forget this,” he said. He said little else. He did not refer to his prison life, or what had gone before it. He had never asked Larry, even while in prison together, about Larry’s previous activities and associates; and he asked no questions now. Apparently it was the desire of this silent man to have the bones of his own past remain buried, and to leave undisturbed the graves of others’ mistakes.

A retiring, unobtrusive figure, he settled quickly to his work. He seemed content, even happy; and at times there was a far-away, exultant look in his gray eyes. Miss Sherwood caught this on several occasions; it puzzled her, and she spoke of it to Larry. Larry understood what lay behind Joe’s bearing, and since the thing had never been told to him as a secret he retold that portion of Joe’s history he had recited to the Duchess: of a child who had been brought up among honorable people, protected from the knowledge that her father was a convict–a child Joe never expected to see and did not even know how to find.

Joe Ellison became a figure that moved Miss Sherwood deeply: content to busy himself in his earthly obscurity, ever dreaming and gloating over his one great sustaining thought–that he had given his child the best chance which circumstances permitted; that he had removed himself from his child’s life; that some unknown where out in the world his child was growing to maturity among clean, wholesome people; that he never expected to make himself known to his child. The situation also moved Larry profoundly whenever he looked at his old friend, merging into a kindly fellowship with the earth.

But while busy with new affairs at Cedar Crest, Larry was all the while thinking of Maggie, and particularly of his own dilemma regarding Maggie and Dick. But the right plan still refused to take form in his brain. However, one important detail occurred to him which required immediate attention. If his procedure in regard to Hunt’s pictures succeeded in drawing the painter from his hermitage, nothing was more likely than that Hunt unexpectedly would happen upon Maggie in the company of Dick Sherwood. That might be a catastrophe to Larry’s unformed plan; it had to be forestalled if possible. Such a matter could not be handled in a letter, with the police opening all mail coming to the Duchess’s house. So once more he decided upon a secret visit to the Duchess’s house. He figured that such a visit would be comparatively without risk, since the police and Barney Palmer and the gangsters Barney had put upon his trail all still believed him somewhere in the West.

Accordingly, a few nights after they had settled at Cedar Crest, he motored into New York in a roadster Miss Sherwood had placed at his disposal, and after the necessary precautions he entered Hunt’s studio. The room was dismantled, and Hunt sat among his packed belongings smoking his pipe.

“Well, young fellow,” growled Hunt after they had shaken hands, “you see you’ve driven me from my happy home.”

“Then Mr. Graham has been to see you?”

“Yes. And he put up to me your suggestion about a private exhibition. And I fell for it. And I’ve got to go back among the people I used to know. And wear good clothes and put on a set of standardized good manners. Hell!”

“You don’t like it?”

“I suppose, if the exhibition is a go, I’ll like grinning at the bunch that thought I couldn’t paint. You bet I’ll like that! You, young fellow–I suppose you’re here to gloat over me and to try to collect your five thousand.”

“I never gloat over doing such an easy job as that was. And I’m not here to collect my bet. As far as money is concerned, I’m here to give you some.” And he handed Hunt the check made out to “cash” which Mr. Graham had sent him for the Italian mother.

“Better keep that on account of what I owe you,” advised Hunt.

“I’d rather you’d hold it for me. And better still, I’d rather call the bet off in favor of a new bargain.”

“What’s the new proposition for swindling me?”

“You need a business nursemaid. What commission do you pay dealers?”

“Been paying those burglars forty per cent.”

“That’s too much for doing nothing. Here’s my proposition. Give me ten per cent to act as your personal agent, and I’ll guarantee that your total percentage for commissions will be less than at present, and that your prices will be doubled. Of course I can’t do much while the police and others are so darned interested in me, so if you accept we’ll just date the agreement from the time I’m cleared.”

“You’re on, son–and we’ll just date the agreement from the present moment, A.D.” Again Hunt gripped Larry’s hand. “You’re all to the good, Larry–and I’m not giving you half enough.”

That provided Larry with the opening he had desired. “You can make it up to me.”

“How?”

“By helping me out with a proposition of my own. To come straight to the point, it’s Maggie.”

“Maggie?”

“I guess you know how I feel there. She’s got a wrong set of ideas, and she’s fixed in them–and you know how high-spirited she is. She’s out in the world now, trying to put something crooked over which she thinks is big. I know what it is. I want to stop her, and change her. That’s my big aim–to change her. The only way I can at this moment stop what she is now doing is by exposing her. And mighty few people with a wrong twist are ever set right by merely being exposed.”

“I guess you’re right there, Larry.”

“What I want is a chance to try another method on Maggie. If she’s handled right I think she may turn out a very different person from what she seems to be–something that may surprise both of us.”

Hunt nodded. “That was why I painted her picture. Since I first saw her I’ve been interested in how she was going to come out. She might become anything. But where do I fit in?”

“She’s flying in high company. It occurred to me that, when you got back to your own world, you might meet her, and in your surprise you might speak to her in a manner which would be equivalent in its effect to an intentional exposure. I wanted to put you on your guard and to ask you to treat her as a stranger.”

“That’s promised. I won’t know her.”

“Don’t promise till you know the rest.”

“What else is there to know?”

“Who the sucker is they’re trying to trim.” Larry regarded the other steadily. “You know him. He’s Dick Sherwood.”

“Dick Sherwood!” exploded Hunt. “Are you sure about that?”

“I was with Maggie the other night when Dick came to have supper with her; he didn’t see me. Besides, Dick has told me about her.”

“How did they ever get hold of Dick?”

“Dick’s the easiest kind of fish for two such smooth men as Barney and Old Jimmie when they’ve got a clever, good-looking girl as bait, and when they know how to use her. He’s generous, easily impressed, thinks he is a wise man of the world and is really very gullible.”

“Have they got him hooked?”

“Hard and fast. It won’t be his fault if they don’t land him.”

The painter gazed at Larry with a hard look. Then he demanded abruptly:

“Show Miss Sherwood that picture of Maggie I painted?”

“No. I had my reasons.”

“What you going to do with it?”

“Keep it, and pay you your top price for it when I’ve got the money.”

“H’m! Told Miss Sherwood what’s doing about Dick?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I thought of doing it, then I decided against it. For the same reason I just gave you–that it might lead to exposure, and that exposure would defeat my plans.”

“You seem to be forgetting that your plan leaves Dick in danger. Dick deserves some consideration.”

“And I’m giving it to him,” argued Larry. “I’m thinking of him as much as of Maggie. Or almost as much. His sister and friends have pulled him out of a lot of scrapes. He’s not a bit wiser or better for that kind of help. And it’s not going to do him any good whatever to have some one step in and take care of him again. He’s been a good friend to me, but he’s a dear fool. I want to handle this so he’ll get a jolt that will waken him up–make him take his responsibilities more seriously–make him able to take care of himself.”

“Huh!” grunted Hunt. “You’ve certainly picked out a few man-sized jobs for yourself: to make a success of the straight life for yourself–to come out ahead of the police and your old pals–to make Maggie love the Ten Commandments–to put me across–to make Dick into a level- headed citizen. Any other little item you’d like to take on?”

Larry ignored the irony of the question. “Some of those things I’m going to do,” he said confidently. “And any I see I’m going to fail in, I’ll get warning to the people involved. But to come back to your promise: are you willing to give your promise now that you know all the facts?”

Hunt pulled for a long moment at his pipe. Then he said almost gruffly:

“I guess you’ve guessed that Isabel Sherwood is about the most important person in the world to me?”

That was the nearest Hunt had ever come to telling that he loved Miss Sherwood. Larry nodded.

“I’m in bad there already. Suppose your foot slips and everything about Dick goes wrong. What’ll be my situation when she learns I’ve known all along and have just stood by quietly and let things happen? See what I’ll be letting myself in for?”

“I do,” said Larry, his spirits sinking. “And of course I can understand your decision not to give your promise.”

“Who said I wouldn’t give my promise?” demanded Hunt. “Of course I give my promise! All I said was that the weather bureau of my bad toe predicts that there’s likely to be a storm because of this–and I want you to use your brain, son, I want you to use your brain!”

He upreared his big, shag-haired figure and gripped Larry’s hand. “You’re all right, Larry–and here’s wishing you luck! Now get to hell out of here before Gavegan and Casey drop in for a cup of tea, or your old friends begin target practice with their hip artillery. I want a little quiet in which to finish my packing.

“And say, son,” he added, as he pushed Larry through the door, “don’t fall dead at the sight of me when you see me next, for I’m likely to be walking around inside all the finery and vanity of Fifth Avenue.”

CHAPTER XXI

Larry came down the stairway from Hunt’s studio in a mood of high elation. Through Hunt’s promise of cooperation he had at least made a start in his unformed plan regarding Maggie. Somehow, he’d work out and put across the rest of it.

Then Hunt’s prediction of the trouble that might rise through his silence recurred to Larry. Indeed, that was a delicate situation!– containing all kinds of possible disasters for himself as well as for Hunt. He would have to be most watchful, most careful, or he would find himself entangled in worse circumstances than at present.

As he came down into the little back room, his grandmother was sitting over her interminable accounts, each of which represented a little profit to herself, some a little relief to many, some a tragedy to a few; and many of which were in code, for these represented transactions of a character which no pawnshop, particularly one reputed to be a fence, wishes ever to have understood by those presumptive busy-bodies, the police. When Larry had first entered, she had merely given him an unsurprised “good-evening” and permitted him to pass on. But now, as he told her good-night and turned to leave, she said in her thin, monotonous voice:

“Sit down for a minute, Larry. I want to talk to you.”

Larry obeyed. “Yes, grandmother.”

But the Duchess did not at once speak. She held her red-rimmed, unblinking eyes on him steadily. Larry waited patiently. Though she was so composed, so self-contained, Larry knew her well enough to know that what was passing in her mind was something of deep importance, at least to her.

At length she spoke. “You saw Maggie that night you hurried away from here?”

“Yes, grandmother. Have you heard from her since the?–or from Barney or Old Jimmie?”

The Duchess shook her head. “Do you mind telling me what happened that night–and what Maggie’s doing?”

Larry told her of the scene in Maggie’s suite at the Grantham, told of the plan in which Maggie was involved and of his own added predicament. This last the Duchess seemingly ignored.

“Just about what I supposed she was doing,” she said. “And you tried again to get her to give it up?”

“Yes.”

“And she refused?”

“Yes.” And he added: “Refused more emphatically than before.”

The Duchess studied him a long moment. Then: “You’re not trying to make her give that up just because you think she’s worth saving. You like her a lot, Larry?”

“I love her,” Larry admitted.

“I’m sorry about that, Larry.” There was real emotion in the old voice now. “I’ve told you that you’re all I’ve got left. And now that you’ve at last started right, I want everything to go right with you. Everything! And Maggie will never help things go right with you. Your love for her can only mean misery and misfortune. You can’t change her.”

Larry came out with the questions he had asked himself so frequently these last days. “But why did her manner change so when she heard Barney and the others? Why did she help me escape?”

“That was because, deep down, she really loves you. That’s the worst part of it: you both love each other.” The Duchess slowly nodded her head. “You both love each other. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t care what you tried to do. But I tell you again you can’t change her. She’s too sure of herself. She’ll always try to make you go _her way_–and if you don’t, you’ll never get a smile from her. And because you love each other, I’m afraid you’ll give in and go her way. That’s what I’m afraid of. Won’t you just cut her out of your life, Larry?”

It had been a prodigiously long speech for the Duchess. And Larry realized that the emotion behind it was a thousand times what showed in the thin voice of the bent, gestureless figure.

“For your sake I’m sorry, grandmother. But I can’t.”

“Then it’s only fair to tell you, Larry,” she said in a more composed tone which expressed a finality of decision, “that if there’s ever anything I can do to stop this, I’ll do it. For she’s bad for you– what with her stiff spirit–and the ideas Old Jimmie has put into her–and the way Old Jimmie has brought her up. I’ll stop things if I can.”

Larry made no reply. The Duchess continued looking at him steadily for a long space. He knew she was thinking; and he was wondering what was passing through that shrewd old brain, when she remarked:

“By the way, Larry, I just remembered what you told me of that old Sing Sing friend–Joe Ellison. Have you heard from him recently?”

“He’s out, and he’s working where I am.”

“Yes? What’s he doing?”

“He’s working there as a gardener.”

Again she was silent a space, her sunken eyes steady With thought. Then she said:

“From the time he was twenty till he was thirty I knew Joe Ellison well–better than I’ve ever told you. He knew your mother when she was a girl, Larry. I wish you’d ask him to come in to see me. As soon as he can manage it.”

Larry promised. His grandmother said no more about Maggie, and presently Larry bade her good-night and made his cautious way, ever on the lookout for danger, to where he had left his roadster, and thence safely out to Cedar Crest. But the Duchess sat for hours exactly as he had left her, her accounts unheeded, thinking, thinking, thinking over an utterly impossible possibility that had first presented itself faintly to her several days before. She did not see how the thing could be; and yet somehow it might be, for many a strange thing did happen in this border world where for so long she had lived. When finally she went to bed she slept little; her busy conjectures would not permit sleep. And though the next day she went about her shop seemingly as usual, she was still thinking.

That night Joe Ellison came. They met as though they had last seen each other but yesterday.

“Good-evening, Joe.”

“Glad to see you, Duchess.”

She held out to him a box of the best cigars, which she had bought against his coming, for she had remembered Joe Ellison’s once fastidious taste regarding tobacco. He lit one, and they fell into the easy silence of old friends, taking up their friendship exactly where it had been broken off. As a matter of fact, Joe Ellison might have been her son-in-law but for her own firm attitude. He had known her daughter very much better than her words to Larry the previous evening had indicated. Not only had Joe known her while a girl down here, but much later he had learned in what convent she was going to school and there had been surreptitious love-making despite convent rules and boundaries–till the Duchess had learned what was going on. She had had a square out-and-out talk with Joe; the romance had suddenly ended; and later Larry’s mother had married elsewhere. But the snuffed-out romance had made no difference in the friendship between the Duchess and Joe; each had recognized the other as square, as that word was understood in their border world.

To Joe Ellison the Duchess was changed but little since twenty-odd years ago. She had seemed old even then; though as a youth he had known old men who had talked of her beauty when a young woman and of how she had queened it among the reckless spirits of that far time. But to the Duchess the change in Joe Ellison was astounding. She had last seen him in his middle thirties: black-haired, handsome, careful of dress, powerful of physique, dominant, fiery-tempered, fearless of any living thing, but with these hot qualities checked into a surface appearance of unruffled equanimity by his self-control and his habitual reticence. And now to see him thin, white-haired, bent, his old fire seemingly burned to gray ashes–the Duchess, who had seen much in her generations, was almost appalled at the transformation.

At first the Duchess skillfully guided the talk among commonplaces.

“Larry tells me you’re out with him.”

“Yes,” said Joe. “Larry’s been a mighty good pal.”

“What’re you going to do when you get back your strength?”

“The same as I’m doing now–if they’ll let me.”

And after a pause: “Perhaps later, if I had the necessary capital, I’d like to start a little nursery. Or else grow flowers for the market.”

“Not going back to the old thing, then?”

Joe shook his white head. “I’m all through there. Flowers are a more interesting proposition.”

“Whenever you get ready to start, Joe, you can have all the capital you want from me. And it will cost you nothing. Or if you’d rather pay, it’ll cost you the same as at a bank–six per cent.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember.” Joe Ellison could not have spoken his gratitude more strongly.

The Duchess now carefully guided the talk in the direction of the thing of which she had thought so constantly.

“By the way, Joe, Larry told me something about you I’d never heard before–that you had been married, and had a child.”

“Yes. You didn’t hear because I wasn’t telling anybody about it when it happened, and it never came out.”

“Mind telling me about it, Joe?”

He pulled at his perfecto while assembling his facts; and then he made one of the longest speeches Joe Ellison–“Silent Joe” some of his friends had called him in the old days–was ever known to utter. But there was reason for its length; it was an epitome of the most important period of his life.

“I had a nice little country place over in Jersey for three or four years. It all happened there. No one knew me for what I was; they took me for what I pretended to be, a small capitalist whose interests required his taking occasional trips. Nice neighbors. That’s where I met my wife. She was fine every way. That’s why I kept all that part of my life from my pals; I was afraid they might leak and the truth would spoil everything. My wife was an orphan, niece of the widow of a broker who lived out there. She never knew the truth about me. She died when the baby was born. When the baby was a year and a half my big smash came, and I went up the river. But I was never connected up with the man who lived over in Jersey and who suddenly cancelled his lease and moved away.”

The Duchess drew nearer to the heart of her thoughts.

“Was the baby a boy or girl, Joe?”

“Girl.”

The Duchess did not so much as blink. “How old would she be by this time?”

“Eighteen.”

“What was her name?”

“Mary–after her mother. But of course I ordered it to be changed. I don’t know what her name is now.”

The Duchess pressed closer.

“What became of her, Joe?”

A glow began to come into the somber eyes of Joe Ellison. “I told you her mother was a fine woman, and she never knew anything bad about me. I wanted my girl to grow up like her mother. I wanted her to have as good a chance as any of those nice girls over in Jersey–I wanted her never to know any of the lot I’ve known–I wanted her never to have the stain of knowing her father was a crook–I wanted her never to know even who her father was.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Her mother had left a little fortune, about twenty-five thousand– twelve or fifteen hundred a year. I turned the money and the girl over to my best pal–and the squarest pal a man ever had–the only one I’d let know about my Jersey life. I told him what to do. She was an awfully bright little thing; at a year and a half, when I saw her last, she was already talking. She was to be brought up among nice, simple people–go to a good school–grow up to be a nice, simple girl. And especially never to know anything about me. She was to believe herself an orphan. And my pal did just as I ordered. He wrote me how she was getting on till about four years ago, then I had news that he was dead and that the trust fund had been transferred to a firm of lawyers, though I wasn’t given the name of the lawyers. That doesn’t make any difference since she’s getting the money just the same.

“What was your pal’s name, Joe?”

“Jimmie Carlisle.”

The Duchess had been certain what this name would be, but nevertheless she could not repress a start.

“What’s the matter?” Joe asked sharply. “Did you know him?”

“Not in those days,” said the Duchess, recovering her even tone. “Though I got to know him later. By the way,” she added casually, “did Jimmie Carlisle have any children of his own?”

“Not before I went away. He wasn’t even married.”

There was now no slightest doubt left in the Duchess’s mind. Maggie was really Joe Ellison’s daughter.

Joe Ellison went on, the glow of his sunken eyes becoming yet more exalted. He was almost voicing his thoughts to himself alone, for his friendship with the Duchess was so old that her presence was no inhibition. His low words were almost identical in substance with what Larry had told–a summary of what had come to be his one great hope and dream, the nearest thing he had to a religion.

“Somewhere, in a nice place, my girl is now growing up like her mother. Clean of everything I was and I knew. She must be practically a woman now. I don’t know where she is–there’s now no way for me to learn. And I don’t want to know. And I don’t want her ever to know about me. I don’t ever want to be the cause of making her feel disgraced, or of dragging her down from among the people where she