Larry caught and whirled around Barney Palmer just as the hand of the escaping Barney was on the knob of the outer door.
“No, you don't, Barney Palmer!” he cried. “You stay right here!”
Startled as Barney was by this appearance of his dearest enemy, he wasted no precious time on mere words. He swung a vicious blow at Larry, intended to remove this barrier to his freedom. But the experienced Larry let it glance off his forearm, and with the need of an instantaneous conclusion he sent a terrific right to Barney's chin. Barney staggered back, fell in a crumpled heap, and lay motionless.
Sparing only the fraction of a second to see that Barney was momentarily out of it, Larry sprang upon Joe Ellison and tried to break the deadly grips Joe held upon Old Jimmie.
“Stop, Joe—stop!” he cried peremptorily. “Your killing Jimmie Carlisle isn't going to help things!”
Without relaxing his holds, Joe turned upon this interferer.
“Larry Brainard! How'd you come in here?”
“I've been here all the time. But, Joe—don't kill Jimmie Carlisle!”
“You keep out—this is my business!” Joe fiercely replied. “If you've been here all the time, then you know what he's done to me, and what he's done to my girl! You know he deserves to have his neck twisted off—and I'm going to twist it off!”
Larry perceived that Joe's sense of tremendous injury had made him for the moment a madman in his rage. Only the most powerful appeal had a chance to bring him back to sanity.
“Listen, Joe—listen!” he cried desperately, straining to hold back the other's furious strength from its destructive purpose. “After what's happened, every one is bound to know that Maggie is your daughter! Understand that, Joe?—every one will know that Maggie is your daughter! It's not going to help you to be charged with murder. And think of this, Joe—what's it going to do to your daughter to have her father a murderer?”
“What's that?” Joe Ellison asked dazedly.
Larry saw that his point had penetrated to the other's reason. So he drove on, repeating what he had said.
“Understand this, Joe?—every one will now know that Maggie is your daughter! You simply can't prevent their knowing that now! Remember how for over fifteen years you've been trying to do the best you could for her! Do you now want to do the worst thing you can do? The worst thing you can do for Maggie is to make her father a murderer!”
“I guess that's right Larry,” he said huskily. “Thanks.”
He pushed the half-strangled Jimmie Carlisle away from him. “You'll get yours in some other way!” he said grimly.
Old Jimmie, staggering, caught the back of a chair for support. He tenderly felt his throat and blinked at Larry and Joe and Maggie. He did not try to say anything. In the meantime Barney had recovered consciousness, had struggled up, and was standing near Old Jimmie. Their recognition that they were sharers of defeat had served to restore something of the sense of alliance between the two.
“Well, anyhow, Larry Brainard,” snarled Barney, “you haven't had anything to do with putting this across!”
It was Joe Ellison who replied. “Larry Brainard has had everything to do with putting this across. He's been beating you all the time from the very beginning, though you may not have known it. And though he's seemed to be out of things for the last few hours, he's been the actual power behind everything that's happened up to this minute. So don't fool yourself—Larry Brainard has beaten you out at every point!”
A sense of triumph glowed within Larry at this. There had been a time when he had wanted the animal satisfaction which would have come from his giving violent physical punishment to these two—particularly to Barney. But he had no desire now for such empty vengeance.
“Well, I guess you've got nothing on me,” Barney growled at them, “so I'll be moving along. Better come, too, Jimmie.”
While he spoke a figure had moved from Larry's closet with the silence of a swift shadow. It's thin hand gripped Barney's shoulder.
“I guessI'vegot something on you!” it said.
Barney whirled. “Red Hannigan!” he gasped.
“Yes, Red Hannigan!—you stool—you squealer!” said Red Hannigan. “I heard you brag about being Barlow's stool, and I heard everything else you bragged about to Joe Ellison's girl. I'd bump you off right now if I had my gat with me and if I had any chance at a get-away. But I'll be looking after you, and the gang will be looking after you, till you die—the same as you set us after Larry Brainard! No matter what else happens to you, you'll always have that as something extra waiting for you! And when the time comes, we'll get you!”
As silently as he had appeared from the closet, as silently he let himself out of the room. The glowering features of Barney had faded to a pasty white while Hannigan had spoken, and now the hand which tried to bring a handkerchief to his lips shook so that he could hardly find his face. For none knew so well as Barney Palmer how inescapable was this thing which would be hanging over him until the end of his days.
Before any one in the room could speak there came a loud pounding from within the door of the closet Larry and Red Hannigan had not occupied. “Oh, I'd completely forgotten!” exclaimed Maggie—and indeed she had forgotten all that was not immediately connected with the situation created by her father's unexpected entrance. She crossed and unlocked the door, and Barlow stepped out.
“Chief Barlow!” exclaimed the astonished Larry, and all the other men gazed at the Chief of Detectives with an equal surprise.
“He is part of my frame-up,” Maggie explained at large. “I wanted both the police and Larry's old friends to know the truth at first hand—and clear him before I went away.”
“Wasn't that Red Hannigan who just spoke?” were Barlow's first words.
“Yes,” said Larry.
Barney, and Old Jimmie as well, had perked up at the appearance of Barlow, as though at aid which had come just in time. But Barlow turned upon Barney a cold police eye.
“I heard you brag that you were my stool. That's a lie.”
“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 God'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 God's sake, Chief—for God'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 Dick 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. Dick 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 Dick 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 Dick 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 Dick 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 Dick 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 Dick will ride in Dick'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 assigned 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.
All the way to Cedar Crest they said not another word; just clung to each other in the darkness, sobbing—the first miraculous embrace of a father and daughter who had each found that which they had never expected to have.
It was ten the next morning at Cedar Crest, and Larry Brainard sat in his study mechanically going over his figures and plans for the Sherwood housing project.
For Larry the storms of the past few weeks, and the whirlwind of last night, had cleared away. There was quiet in the house, and through the open windows he could glimpse the broad lawn almost singing in its sun-gladdened greenness, and farther on he could glimpse the Sound gleaming placidly. Once for perhaps ten minutes he had seen the overalled and straw-hatted figure of Joe Ellison busy as usual among the flowers. He had strained his eyes for a glimpse of Maggie, but he had looked in vain.
Despite all that had come to pass at the Grantham the previous evening, Larry was just now feeling restless and rather forlorn. His breakfast had been brought to him in his room, and he had not seen a single member of last night's party at the Grantham since they had all divided up according to Miss Sherwood's orders and driven away; that is he had really seen no one except Dick.
Dick had gripped his hand when he had slipped in beside Dick in the low seat of the roadster. “You're all right, Captain Nemo!—only I'm going to be so brash as to call you Larry after this,” Dick had said. “If you'll let me, you and I are going to be buddies.”
He was all right, Dick was. Dick Sherwood was a thoroughbred.
And there was another matter which had pleased him. The Duchess had called him up that morning, had congratulated him in terms so brief that they sounded perfunctory, but which Larry realized had all his grandmother's heart in them, and had said she wanted him to take over the care of all her houses—those she had put up as bail for him. When could he come in to see her about this?... He understood this dusty-seeming, stooped, inarticulate grandmother of his as he had not before. Considering what her life had been, she also was a brick.
But notwithstanding all this, Larry was lonely—hungrily lonely—and was very much in doubt. Miss Sherwood had spoken to him fair enough the night before—yet he really did not know just how he stood with her. And then—Maggie. That was what meant most to him just now. True, Maggie had emerged safe through perils without and within; and to get her through to some such safety as now was hers had been his chief concern these many months. He wanted to see her, to speak to her. But he did not know what her attitude toward him would now be. He did not know how to go about finding her. He was not even certain where she had spent the night. He wanted to see her, yet was apulse with fear of seeing her. She would not be hostile, he knew that much; but she might not love him; and at the best a meeting would be awkward, with so wide a gap in their lives to be bridged....
He was brooding thus when there was a loud knocking at his door. Without waiting for his invitation to enter, the door was flung open, and Hunt strode in leaving the door wide behind him. His face was just one great, excited grin. He gave Larry a thump upon the back, which almost knocked Larry over, and then pulled him back to equilibrium by seizing a hand in both of his, and then almost shook it off.
“Larry, my son,” exploded the big painter, “I've just done it! And I did it just as you ordered me to! Forgot that Miss Sherwood and I had had a falling out, and as per your orders I walked straight up to her and asked her. And Larry, you son-of-a-gun, you were right! She said 'yes'!”
“You're lucky, old man!” exclaimed Larry, warmly returning the painter's grip.
“And, Larry, that's not all. You told me I had the clearness of vision of a cold boiled lobster—said I was the greatest fool that ever had brains enough not to paint with the wrong end of an umbrella. Paid me some little compliment like that.”
“Something like that,” Larry agreed.
“Well, Larry, old son, you were right again! I've been a worse fool than all you said. Been blinder than one of those varnished skulls some tough-stomached people use for paper-weights. After she'd said 'yes' she gave me the inside story of why we had fallen out. And guess why it was?”
“You don't want me to guess. You want to tell me. So go to it.”
“Larry, we men will never know how clever women really are!” Hunt shook his head with impressive emphasis. “Nor how they understand our natures—the clever women—nor how well they know how to handle us. She confessed that our quarrel was, on her part, carefully planned from the beginning with a definite result in view. She told me she'd always believed me a great painter, if I'd only break loose from the pretty things people wanted and paid me so much for. The trouble, as she saw it, was to get me to cut loose from so much easy money and devote myself entirely to real stuff. The only way she could see was for her to tell me I couldn't paint anything worth while, and tell it so straight-out as to make me believe that she believed it—and thus make me so mad that I'd chuck everything and go off to prove to her that I damned well could paint! I certainly got sore—I ducked out of sight, swearing I'd show her—and, oh, well, you know the rest! Tell me now, can you think of anything cleverer than the way she handled me?”
“It's just about what I would expect of Miss Sherwood,” Larry commented.
“Excuse me,” said a voice behind them. “I found the door open; may I come in?”
Both men turned quickly. Entering was Miss Sherwood.
“Isabel!” exclaimed the happy painter. “I was just telling Larry here—you know!”
Miss Sherwood's tone tried to be severe, and she tried not to smile—and she succeeded in being just herself.
“I came to talk business with Mr. Brainard. And I'm going to stay to talk business with Mr. Brainard. But I'll give him five seconds for congratulations—provided at the end of the five seconds Mr. Hunt gets out of the room.”
Larry congratulated the two; congratulated them as warmly as he felt his as yet dubious position in this company warranted. At the end of the five seconds Hunt was closing the door upon his back.
“I've always loved him—and I want to thank you, Mr. Brainard,” she said with her simple directness. And before Larry could make response of any kind, she shifted the subject.
“I really came in to see you on business, Mr. Brainard. I hope I made my attitude toward you clear enough last night. If I did not, let me say now that I think you have made good in every particular—and that I trust you in every particular. What I wished especially to say now,” she went on briskly, giving Larry no chance to stammer out his appreciation, “is that I wish to go ahead without any delay with your proposition for developing the Sherwood properties in New York City which we discussed some time ago. A former objection you raised is now removed: you are cleared, and are free to work in the open. I want you to take charge of affairs, with Dick working beside you. I think it will be Dick's big chance. I've talked it over with him this morning, and he's eager for the arrangement. I hope you are not going to refuse the offer this time.”
“I can't—not such an offer as that,” Larry said huskily. “But, Miss Sherwood, I didn't expect—”
“Then it's settled,” she interrupted with her brisk tone. “There'll be a lot of details, but we'll have plenty of time to talk them over later.” She stood up. “There are some changes here at Cedar Crest which I want begun at once and which I want you to supervise. If you don't mind we'll look things over now.”
He followed beside her along the curving, graveled walks. She headed toward the cliff, but he had no idea where she was leading until a sharp turn brought them almost upon the low cottage which these last few weeks had been Joe Ellison's home.
“Here is where we start our changes,” said the business-like Miss Sherwood. “The door's open, so we might as well go right in.”
They stepped into a tiny entry, and from thence into a little sitting-room. The room was filled with cut flowers, but Larry did not even see them. For as they entered, Maggie sprang up, startled, from a chair, and, whiter than she had been before in all her life, gazed at him as if she wanted to run away. She stood trembling and slender in a linen frock of most simple and graceful lines. It was Miss Sherwood's frock, though Larry did not know this; already it had been decided that all those showy Grantham gowns were never to be worn again.
Once more Miss Sherwood came to the rescue of a stupendous situation, just as her tact had rescued a situation too great for words the night before.
“Of course you two people now perceive that I'm a fraud—that I've got you together by base trickery. So much being admitted, let's proceed.” She turned on Larry. “Maggie—we've agreed that I am to call her that—Maggie stayed with me last night. There are two beds in my room. But we didn't sleep much. Mostly we talked. If there's anything Maggie didn't tell me about herself, I can't guess what there's left to tell. According to herself, she's terrible. But that's for us to judge; personally I don't believe her. She confessed that she really loved you, but that after the way she'd treated you, of course she wasn't fit for you. Which, of course, is just a girl's nonsense. I suppose you, Mr. Brainard, are thinking something of the sort regarding your own self. It is equally nonsense. You both love each other—you've both been through a lot—nothing of importance now stands between you—so don't waste any of your too short lives in coming together.”
She took a deep breath and went on. “You might as well know, Mr. Brainard, that Maggie is going to live with me for the present—that, of course, she is going to be a very great burden to me—and it will be a great favor to me if you'll marry her soon and take her off my hands.” And then the voice that had tried to keep itself brisk and even, quavered with a sudden sob. “For Heaven's sake, dear children—don't be fools!”
And with that she was gone.
For an instant Larry continued to gaze at Maggie's slender, trembling figure. But something approaching a miracle—a very human miracle—had just happened. All those doubts, fears, indecisions, unexpressed desires, agonies of self-abasement, which might have delayed their understanding and happiness for weeks and months, had been swept into nothingness by the incisive kindliness of Miss Sherwood. In one minute she had said all they might have said in months; there was nothing more to say. There was nothing left of the past to discuss. Before them was only the fact of that immediate moment, and the future.
Tremblingly, silently, Larry crossed to that trembling, silent figure in white. She did not retreat. Tremblingly he took her hands and looked down into her dark eyes. They were now flowing tears, but they met his squarely, holding back nothing. The look in her eyes answered all he desired to know just then, for he gathered her tight into his arms. Wordlessly, but with a sharp, convulsive sob, she threw her arms about his neck—and thus embracing, shaken with sharp sobs, they stood while the minutes passed, not a single word having been spoken. And so it was that these two, both children of the storm, at last came together....
Presently Joe Ellison chanced to step unsuspectingly into the room. Seeing what he did, he silently tiptoed out. There was a garden chair just outside his door. Into this he sank and let his thin face fall into his hands. His figure shook and hot tears burned through his fingers. For his heart told him that his great dream was at last come true.