The ex-pugilist sat back in the chair, chewing an unlighted black cigar, his fishy eyes fixed on Bromfield. Scars still decorated the colorless face, souvenirs of a battle in which he had been bested by a man he hated. Durand had a capacity for silence. He waited now for this exquisite from the upper world to tell his business.
Clarendon discovered that he had an unexpected repugnance to doing this. A fastidious sense of the obligations of class served him for a soul and the thing he was about to do could not be justified even in his loose code of ethics. He examined the ferule of his Malacca cane nervously.
"I've come to you, Mr. Durand, about—about a fellow called Lindsay."
The bulbous eyes of the other narrowed. He distrusted on principle all kid gloves. Those he had met were mostly ambitious reformers. Furthermore, any stranger who mentioned the name of the Arizonan became instantly an object of suspicion.
"What about him?"
"I understand that you and he are not on friendly terms. I've gathered that from what's been told me. Am I correct?"
Durand thrust out his salient chin. "Say! Who the hell are you?What's eatin' you? Whatta you want?"
"I'd rather not tell my name."
"Nothin' doin'. No name, no business. That goes."
"Very well. My name is Bromfield. This fellow Lindsay—gets in my way. I want to—to eliminate him."
"Are you askin' me to croak him?"
"Good God, no! I don't want him hurt—physically," cried Bromfield, alarmed.
"Whatta you want, then?" The tight-lipped mouth and the harsh voice called for a showdown.
"I want him discredited—disgraced."
"Why?"
"Some friends of mine are infatuated by him. I want to unmask him in a public way so as to disgust them with him."
"I'm hep. It's a girl."
"We'll not discuss that," said the clubman with a touch of hauteur. "As to the price, if you can arrange the thing as I want it done, I'll not haggle over terms."
The ex-pugilist listened sourly to Bromfield's proposition. He watched narrowly this fashionably dressed visitor. His suspicions still stirred, but not so actively. He was inclined to believe in the sincerity of the fellow's hatred of the Westerner. Jealousy over a girl could easily account for it. Jerry did not intend to involve himself until he had made sure.
"Whatta you want me to do? Come clean."
"Could we get him into a gambling-house, arrange some disgraceful mixup with a woman, get the place raided by the police, and have the whole thing come out in the papers?"
Jerry's slitted eyes went off into space. The thing could be arranged. The trouble in getting Lindsay was to draw him into a trap he could not break through. If Bromfield could deliver his enemy into his hands, Durand thought he would be a fool not to make the most of the chance. As for this soft-fingered swell's stipulation against physical injury, that could be ignored if the opportunity offered.
"Can you bring this Lindsay to a gambling-dump? Will he come with you?" demanded the gang politician.
"I think so. I'm not sure. But if I do that, can you fix the rest?"
"It'll cost money."
"How much will you need?"
"A coupla thousand to start with. More before I've finished. I've got to salve the cops."
Bromfield had prepared for this contingency. He counted out a thousand dollars in bills of large denominations.
"I'll cut that figure in two. Understand. He's not to be hurt. I won't have any rough work."
"Leave that to me."
"And you've got to arrange it so that when the house is raided I escape without being known."
"I'll do that, too. Leave your address and I'll send a man up later to wise you as to the scheme when I get one fixed up."
On a sheet torn from his memorandum book Bromfield wrote the name of the club which he most frequented.
"Don't forget the newspapers. I want them to get the story," said the clubman, rising.
"I'll see they cover the raid."
Bromfield, massaging a glove on to his long fingers, added another word of caution. "Don't slip up on this thing. Lindsay's a long way from being a soft mark."
"Don't I know it?" snapped Durand viciously. "There'll be no slip-up this time if you do your part. We'll get him, and we'll get him right."
"Without any violence, of course."
"Oh, of course."
Was there a covert but derisive jeer concealed in that smooth assent? Bromfield did not know, but he took away with him an unease that disturbed his sleep that night.
Before the clubman was out of the hotel, Jerry was snapping instructions at one of his satellites.
"Tail that fellow. Find where he goes, who he is, what girl he's mashed on, all about him. See if he's hooked up with Lindsay. And how? Hop to it! Did you get a slant at him as he went out?"
"Sure I did. He's my meat."
The tailer vanished.
Jerry stood at the window, still sullenly chewing his unlighted cigar, and watched his late visitor and the tailer lose themselves in the hurrying crowds.
"White-livered simp. 'No violence, Mr. Durand.' Hmp! Different here."
An evil grin broke through on the thin-lipped, cruel face.
When Bromfield suggested to Clay with a touch of stiffness that he would be glad to show him a side of New York night life probably still unfamiliar to him, the cattleman felt a surprise he carefully concealed. He guessed that this was a belated attempt on the part of Miss Whitford's fiancé to overcome the palpable dislike he had for her friend. If so, the impulse that inspired the offer was a creditable one. Lindsay had no desire to take in any of the plague spots of the city with Bromfield. Something about the society man set his back up, to use his own phrase. But because this was true he did not intend to be outdone in generosity by a successful rival. Promptly and heartily he accepted the invitation. If he had known that a note and a card from Jerry Durand lay in the vest pocket of his cynical host while he was holding out the olive branch, it is probable the Arizonan would have said, "No, thank you, kind sir."
The note mentioned no names. It said, "Wednesday, at Maddock's, 11P.M. Show this card."
And to Maddock's, on Wednesday, at an hour something earlier than eleven, the New Yorker led his guest after a call at one or two clubs.
Even from the outside the place had a dilapidated look that surprised Lindsay. The bell was of that brand you keep pulling till you discover it is out of order. Decayed gentility marked the neighborhood, though the blank front of the houses looked impeccably respectable.
As a feeble camouflage of its real reason for being, Maddock's called itself the "Omnium Club." But when Clay found how particular the doorkeeper was as to those who entered he guessed at once it was a gambling-house.
From behind a grating the man peered at them doubtfully. Bromfield showed a card, and after some hesitation on the part of his inquisitor, passed the examination. Toward Clay the doorkeeper jerked his head inquiringly.
"He's all right," the clubman vouched.
Again there was a suspicious and lengthy scrutiny.
The door opened far enough to let them slide into a scantily furnished hall. On the first landing was another guard, a heavy, brutal-looking fellow who was no doubt the "chucker-out." He too looked them over closely, but after a glance at the card drew aside to let them pass.
Through a door near the head of the stairs they moved into a large room, evidently made from several smaller ones with the partitions torn down and the ceilings pillared at intervals.
Clay had read about the magnificence of Canfield's in the old days, and he was surprised that one so fastidious as Bromfield should patronize a place so dingy and so rough as this. At the end of one room was a marble mantelpiece above which there was a defaced, gilt-frame mirror. The chandeliers, the chairs, the wall-paper, all suggested the same note of one-time opulence worn to shabbiness.
A game of Klondike was going. There were two roulette wheels, a faro table, and one circle of poker players.
The cold eyes of a sleek, slippery man sliding cards out of a faro-box looked at the Westerner curiously. Among the suckers who came to this den of thieves to be robbed were none of Clay's stamp. Lindsay watched the white, dexterous hands of the dealer with an honest distaste. All along the border from Juarez to Calexico he had seen just such soft, skilled fingers fleecing those who toiled. He knew the bloodless, impassive face of the professional gambler as well as he knew the anxious, reckless ones of his victims. His knowledge had told him little good of this breed of parasites who preyed upon a credulous public.
The traffic of this room was crooked business by day as well as by night. A partition ran across the rear of the back parlor which showed no opening but two small holes with narrow shelves at the bottom. Back of that was the paraphernalia of the pool-room, another device to separate customers from their money by playing the "ponies."
As Clay looked around it struck him that the personnel of this gambling-den's patrons was a singularly depressing one. All told there were not a dozen respectable-looking people in the room. Most of those present were derelicts of life, the failures of a great city washed up by the tide. Some were pallid, haggard wretches clinging to the vestiges of a prosperity that had once been theirs. Others were hard-faced ruffians from the underworld. Not a few bore the marks of the drug victim. All of those playing had a manner of furtive suspicion. They knew that if they risked their money the house would rob them. Yet they played.
Bromfield bought a small stack of chips at the roulette table.
"Won't you take a whirl at the wheel?" he asked Lindsay.
"Thanks, no, I believe not," his guest answered.
The Westerner was a bit disgusted at his host's lack of discrimination. "Does he think I'm a soft mark too?" he wondered. "If this is what he calls high life I've had more than enough already."
His disgust was shared by the clubman. Bromfield had never been in such a dive before. His gambling had been done in gilded luxury. While he touched shoulders with this motley crew his nostrils twitched with fastidious disdain. He played, but his interest was not in the wheel. Durand had promised that there would be women and that one of them should be bribed to make a claim upon Clay at the proper moment. He had an unhappy feeling that the gang politician had thrown him down in this. If so, what did that mean? Had Durand some card up his sleeve? Was he using him as a catspaw to rake in his own chestnuts?
Clarendon Bromfield began to weaken. He and Clay were the only two men in the room in evening clothes. His questing eye fell on tough, scarred faces that offered his fears no reassurance. Any one or all of them might be agents of Durand.
He shoved all of his chips out, putting half of them on number eight and the rest on seventeen. His object was to lose his stack immediately and be free to go. To his annoyance the whirling ball dropped into the pocket labeled eight.
"Let's get out of this hole," he said to Lindsay in a low voice. "I don't like it."
"Suits me," agreed the other.
As Bromfield was cashing his chips Clay came rigidly to attention. Two men had just come into the room. One of them was "Slim" Jim Collins, the other Gorilla Dave. As yet they had not seen him. He did not look at them, but at his host. There was a question in his mind he wanted solved. The clubman's gaze passed over both the newcomers without the least sign of recognition.
"I didn't know what this joint was like or I'd never have brought you," apologized Clarendon. "A friend of mine told me about it. He's got a queer fancy if he likes this frazzled dive."
Clay acquitted Bromfield of conspiracy. He must have been tailed here by Durand's men. His host had nothing to do with it. What for? They could not openly attack him.
"Slim" Jim's eyes fell on him. He nudged Dave. Both of them, standing near the entrance, watched Lindsay steadily.
Some one outside the door raised the cry, "The bulls are comin'."
Instantly the room leaped to frenzied excitement. Men dived for the doors, bets forgotten and chips scattered over the floor. Chairs were smashed as they charged over them, tables overturned. The unwary were trodden underfoot.
Bromfield went into a panic. Why had he been fool enough to trust Durand? No doubt the fellow would ruin him as willingly as he would Lindsay. The raid was fifteen minutes ahead of schedule time. The ward politician had betrayed him. He felt sure of it. All the carefully prepared plans agreed upon he jettisoned promptly. His sole thought was to save himself, not to trap his rival.
Lindsay caught him by the arm. "Let's try the back room."
He followed Clay, Durand's gangmen at his heels.
The lights went out.
The Westerner tried the window. It was heavily barred outside. He turned to search for a door.
Brought up by the partition, Bromfield was whimpering with fear as he too groped for a way of escape. A pale moon shone through the window upon his evening clothes.
In the dim light Clay knew that tragedy impended. "Slim" Jim had his automatic out.
"I've got you good," the chauffeur snarled.
The gun cracked. Bromfield bleated in frenzied terror as Clay dashed forward. A chair swung round in a sweeping arc. As it descended the spitting of the gun slashed through the darkness a second time.
"Slim" Jim went down, rolled over, lay like a log.
Some one dived for Lindsay and drove him against the wall, pinning him by the waist. A second figure joined the first and caught the cattleman's wrist.
Then the lights flashed on again. Clay saw that the man who had flung him against the partition was Gorilla Dave. A plain-clothes man with a star had twisted his wrist and was clinging to it. Bromfield was nowhere to be seen, but an open door to the left showed that he had found at least a temporary escape.
A policeman came forward and stooped over the figure of the prostrate man.
"Some one's croaked a guy," he said.
Gorilla Dave spoke up quickly. "This fellow did it. With a chair. I seen him."
There was a moment before Lindsay answered quietly. "He shot twice.The gun must be lying under him where he fell."
Already men had crowded forward to the scene of the tragedy, moved by the morbid curiosity a crowd has in such sights. Two policemen pushed them back and turned the still body over. No revolver was to be seen.
"Anybody know who this is?" one of the officers asked.
"Collins—'Slim' Jim," answered big Dave.
"Well, he's got his this time," the policeman said. "Skull smashed."
Clay's heart sank. In that noise of struggling men and crashing furniture very likely the sound of the shots had been muffled. The revolver gone, false testimony against him, proof that he had threatened Collins available, Clay knew that he was in desperate straits.
"There was another guy here with him in them glad rags," volunteered one of the gamblers captured in the raid.
"Who was he?" asked the plain-clothes man of his prisoner.
Clay was silent. He was thinking rapidly. His enemies had him trapped at last with the help of circumstance, Why bring Bromfield into it? It would mean trouble and worry for Beatrice.
"Better speak up, young fellow, me lad," advised the detective. "It won't help you any to be sulky. You're up against the electric chair sure."
The Arizonan looked at him with the level, unafraid eyes of the hills.
"I reckon I'll not talk till I'm ready," he said in his slow drawl.
The handcuffs clicked on his wrists.
Colin Whitford came into the room carrying a morning paper. His step was hurried, his eyes eager. When he spoke there was the lift of excitement in his voice.
"Bee, I've got bad news."
"Is the Bird Cage flooded?" asked Beatrice. "Or have the miners called a strike again?"
"Worse than that. Lindsay's been arrested. For murder."
The bottom fell out of her heart. She caught at the corner of a desk to steady herself. "Murder! It can't be! Must be some one of the same name."
"I reckon not, honey. It's Clay sure enough. Listen." He read the headlines of a front-page story.
"It can't be Clay! What would he be doing in a gambling-dive?" She reached for the paper, but when she had it the lines blurred before her eyes. "Read it, please."
Whitford read the story to the last line. Long before he had finished, his daughter knew the one arrested was Clay. She sat down heavily, all the life stricken from her young body.
"It's that man Durand. He's done this and fastened it on Clay. We'll find a way to prove Clay didn't do it."
"Maybe, in self-defense—"
Beatrice pushed back her father's hesitant suggestion, and even while she did it a wave of dread swept over her. The dead man was the same criminal "Slim" Jim Collins whom the cattleman had threatened in order to protect the Millikan girl. The facts that the man had been struck down by a chair and that her friend claimed, according to the paper, that the gunman had fired two shots, buttressed the solution offered by Whitford. But the horror of it was too strong for her. Against reason her soul protested that Clay could not have killed a man. It was too horrible, too ghastly, that through the faults of others he should be put in such a situation.
And why should her friend be in such a place unless he had been trapped by the enemies who were determined to ruin him? She knew he had a contempt for men who wasted their energies in futile dissipations. He was too clean, too much a son of the wind-swept desert, to care anything about the low pleasures of indecent and furtive vice. He was the last man she knew likely to be found enjoying a den of this sort.
"Dad, I'm going to him," she announced with crisp decision.
Her father offered no protest. His impulse, too, was to stand by the friend in need. He had no doubt Clay had killed the man, but he had a sure conviction it had been done in self-defense.
"We'll get the best lawyers in New York for him, honey," he said."Nobody will slip anything over on Lindsay if we can help it."
"Will they let us see him? Or shall we have to get permission from some one?"
"We'll have to get an order. I know the district attorney. He'll do what he can for me, but maybe it'll take time."
Beatrice rose, strong again and resilient. Her voice was vibrant with confidence. "Then after you've called up the district attorney, we'll drive to Clay's flat in Harlem and find out from Johnnie what he can tell us. Perhaps he knows what Clay was doing in that place they raided."
It was not necessary to go to the Runt. He came to them. As Beatrice and her father stepped into the car Johnnie and Kitty appeared round the corner. Both of them had the news of a catastrophe written on their faces. A very little encouragement and they would be in tears.
"Ain't it tur'ble, Miss Beatrice? They done got Clay at last. After he made 'em all look like plugged nickels they done fixed it so he'll mebbe go to the electric chair and—"
"Stop that nonsense, Johnnie," ordered Miss Whitford sharply, a pain stabbing her heart at his words. "Don't begin whining already. We've got to see him through. Buck up and tell me what you know."
"That's right, Johnnie,"' added the mining man. "You and Kitty quit looking like the Atlantic Ocean in distress. We've got to endure the grief and get busy. We'll get Lindsay out of this hole all right."
"You're dawg-goned whistlin'. Y'betcha, by jollies!" agreed the Runt, immensely cheered by Whitford's confidence. "We been drug into this an' we'll sure hop to it."
"When did you see Clay last? How did he come to be in that gambling-house? Did he say anything to you about going there?" The girl's questions tumbled over each other in her hurry.
"Well, ma'am, it must 'a' been about nine o'clock that Clay he left last night. I recollect because—"
"It doesn't matter why. Where was he going?"
"To meet Mr. Bromfield at his club," said Kitty.
"Mr. Bromfield!" cried Beatrice, surprised. "Are you sure?"
"Tha's what Clay said," corroborated the husband. "Mr. Bromfield invited him. We both noticed it because it seemed kinda funny, him and Clay not bein'—"
"Johnnie," his wife reproved, mindful of the relationship between this young woman and the clubman.
"Did he say which club?"
"Seems to me he didn't, not as I remember. How about that, Kitty?"
"No, I'm sure he didn't. He said he wouldn't be back early. So we went to bed. We s'posed after we got up this mo'nin' he was sleepin' in his room till the paper come and I looked at it." Johnnie gave way to lament. "I told him awhile ago we had orto go back to Arizona or they'd git him. And now they've gone and done it sure enough."
Keen as a hawk on the hunt, Beatrice turned to her father quickly."I'm going to get Clarendon on the 'phone. He'll know all about it."
"Why will he know all about it?"
"Because he was with Clay. He's the man the paper says the police are looking for—the man with Clay when it happened."
Her father's eyes lit. "That's good guessing, Bee."
It was her fiancé's man who answered the girl's call. She learned thatClarendon was still in his room.
"He's quite sick this morning, Miss," the valet added.
"Tell him I want to talk with him. It's important."
"I don't think, Miss, that he's able—"
"Will you please tell him what I say?"
Presently the voice of Bromfield, thin and worried, came to her over the wire. "I'm ill, Bee. Absolutely done up. I—I can't talk."
"Tell me about Clay Lindsay. Were you with him when—when it happened?"
There was a perceptible pause before the answer came.
"With him?" She could feel his terror throbbing over the wire. Though she could not see him, she knew her question had stricken him white. "With him where?"
"At this gambling-house—Maddock's?"
"No, I—I—Bee, I tell you I'm ill."
"He went out last night to join you at your club. I know that. When did you see him last?"
"I—we didn't—he didn't come."
"Then didn't you see him at all?"
There was another pause, significant and telling, followed by a quavering "No-o."
"Clary, I want to see you—right away."
"I'm ill, I tell you—can't leave my bed." He gave a groan too genuine to doubt.
Beatrice hung up the receiver. Her eyes sparked. For all her slimness, she looked both competent and dangerous.
"What does he say?" her father asked.
"Says he didn't meet Clay at all—that he didn't show up. Dad, there's something wrong about it. Clary's in a panic about something. I'm going to see him, no matter whether he can leave his room or not."
Whitford looked dubious. "I don't see—"
"Well, I do," his daughter cut him off decisively. "We're going to his rooms—now. Why not? He says he's ill. All right. I'm engaged to be married to him and I've a right to see how ill he is."
"What's in your noodle, honey? You've got some kind of a suspicion.What is it?"
"I think Clary knows something. My notion is that he was at Maddock's and that he's in a blue funk for fear he'll be found and named as an accessory. I'm going to find out all he can tell me."
"But—"
She looked at her father directly, a deep meaning in the lovely eyes.A little tremor ran through her body. "Dad, I'm going to save Clay.That's the only thing that counts."
Her words were an appeal, a challenge. They told him that her heart belonged to the friend in prison, and they carried him back somehow to the hour when the nurse first laid her, a tiny baby, in his arms.
His heart was very tender to her. "Whatever you say, sweetheart."
Their chauffeur broke the speed laws getting them to the apartment house for bachelors where Bromfield lived.
His valet for once was caught off guard when he opened the door to them. Beatrice was inside before he could quite make up his mind how best to meet this frontal attack.
"We came to see Mr. Bromfield," she said.
"Sorry, Miss. He's really quite ill. The doctor says—"
"I'm Miss Whitford. We're engaged to be married. It's very important that I see him."
"Yes, Miss, I know."
The man was perfectly well aware that his master wanted of all things to avoid a meeting with her. For some reason or other, Bromfield was in a state of collapse this morning the valet could not understand. The man's business was to protect him until he had recovered. But he could not flatly turn his master's fiancée out of the apartment. His eye turned to Whitford and found no help there. He fell back on the usual device of servants.
"I don't really think he can see you, Miss. The doctor has specially told me to guard against any excitement. But I'll ask Mr. Bromfield if—if he feels up to it."
The valet passed into what was evidently a bedroom and closed the door behind him. There was a faint murmur of voices.
"I'm going in now," Beatrice announced abruptly to her father.
She moved forward quickly, before Whitford could stop her, whipped open the door, and stepped into the room. Her father followed her reluctantly.
Clarendon, in a frogged dressing-gown, lay propped up by pillows. Beside the bed was a tray, upon which was a decanter of whiskey and a siphon of soda. His figure seemed to have fallen together and his seamed face was that of an old man. But it was the eyes that held her. They were full of stark terror. The look in them took the girl's breath. They told her that he had undergone some great shock.
He shivered at sight of her.
"What is it, Clary?" she cried, moving toward him. "Tell me—tell me all about it."
"I—I'm ill." He quaked it from a burning throat.
"You were all right, yesterday. Why are you ill now?"
He groaned unhappily.
"You're going to tell me everything—everything."
His fascinated, frightened eyes clung to this straight, slim girl whose look stabbed into him and shook his soul. Why had she come to trouble him this morning while he was cowering in fear of the men who would break in to drag him away to prison?
"Nothing to tell," he got out with a gulp.
"Oh, yes, you have. Are you ill because of what happened at Maddock's?"
He tried to pull himself together, to stop the chattering of his teeth.
"N-nonsense, my dear. I'm done up completely. Delighted to see you and all that, but—Won't you go home?" His appealing eyes passed to Whitford. "Can't you take her away?"
"No, I won't go home—and he can't take me away." Her resolution was hard as steel. It seemed to crowd inexorably upon the shivering wretch in the frogged gown. "What is it you're so afraid to tell me, Clarendon?"
He quailed at her thrust. "What—what do you mean?"
She knew now, beyond any question or doubt, that he had been present when "Slim" Jim Collins had been killed. He had seen a man's life snuffed out, was still trembling for fear he might be called in as a party to the crime.
"You'd better tell me before it's too late. How did you and ClayLindsay come to go to that den?"
"We went out to—to see the town."
"But why to that place? Are you in the habit of going there?"
He shuddered. "Never was there before. I had a card. Some one gave it to me. So we went in for a few minutes—to see what it was like. The police raided the place." He dropped his sentences reluctantly, as though they were being forced from him in pain.
"Well?"
"Everybody tried to escape. The lights went out. I found a back door and got away. Then I came home."
"What about Clay?"
Bromfield told the truth. "I didn't see him after the lights went out, except for a moment. He was running at the man with the gun."
"You saw the gun?"
He nodded, moistened his dry lips with the tip of his tongue.
"And the—the shooting? Did you see that?"
Twice the words he tried to say faded on his lips. At last he managed a "No."
"Why not?"
"I—found a door and escaped."
"You must have heard shooting."
"I heard shots as I ran down the stairs. This morning I read that—that a man was—" He swallowed down a lump and left the sentence unfinished.
"Then you know that Clay is accused of killing this man, and that the police are looking for you because you were with him."
"Yes." His answer was a dry whisper.
"Did you see this man Collins in the room?"
"No. I shouldn't know him if I saw him."
"But you heard shots. You're sure of that!" cried Beatrice.
"Y-yes."
The girl turned triumphantly to her father. "He saw the gun and he heard shots. That proves self-defense at the worst. They were shooting at Clay when he struck with the chair—if he did. Clarendon's testimony will show that."
"My testimony!" screamed Bromfield. "My God, do you think I'm going to—to—go into court? They would claim I—I was—"
She waited, but he did not finish. "Clay's life may depend upon it, and of course you'll tell the truth," she said quietly.
"Maybe I didn't hear shots," he hedged. "Maybe it was furniture falling. There was a lot of noise of people stamping and fighting."
"You—heard—shots."
The eyes of the girl were deadly weapons. They glittered like unscabbarded steel. In them was a contained fire that awed him.
He threw out his hand in a weak, impotent gesture of despair. "My God, how did I ever come to get into such a mix-up? It will ruin me."
"How did you come to go?" she asked.
"He wanted to see New York. I suppose I had some notion of taking him slumming."
Beatrice went up to him and looked straight into his eyes. "Then testify to that in court. It won't hurt you any. Go down to the police and say you have read in the paper that they want you. Tell the whole truth. And Clary—don't weaken. Stick to your story about the shots." Her voice shook a little. "Clay's life is at stake. Remember that."
"Do you think it would be safe to go to the police?" he asked doubtfully.
Whitford spoke up. "That's the only square and safe thing to do, Bromfield. They'll find out who you are, of course. If you go straight to them you draw the sting from their charge that you were an accomplice of Clay. Don't lose your nerve. You'll go through with flying colors. When a man has done nothing wrong he needn't be afraid."
"I dare say you're right," agreed Bromfield miserably.
The trouble was that Whitford was arguing from false premises. He was assuming that Clarendon was an innocent man, whereas the clubman knew just how guilty he was. Back of the killing lay a conspiracy which might come to light during the investigation. He dared not face the police. His conscience was not clean enough.
"Of course Dad's right. It's the only way to save your reputation," Beatrice cried. "I'm not going to leave you till you promise to go straight down there to headquarters. If you don't you'll be smirched for life—and you'd be doing something absolutely dishonorable."
He came to time with a heart of heavy dread. "All right, Bee. I'll go," he promised. "It's an awful mess, but I've got to go through with it, I suppose."
"Of course you have," she said with complete conviction. "You're not a quitter, and you can't hide here like a criminal."
"We'll have to be moving, Bee," her father reminded her. "You know we have an appointment to meet the district attorney."
Beatrice nodded. With a queer feeling of repulsion she patted her fiancé's cheek with her soft hand and whispered a word of comfort to him.
"Buck up, old boy. It won't be half as bad as you think. Nobody is going to blame you."
They were shown out by the valet.
"You don't want to be hard on Bromfield, honey," Whitford told his daughter after they had reëntered their car. "He's a parlor man. That's the way he's been brought up. Never did a hard day's work in his life. Everything made easy for him. If he'd ever ridden out a blizzard like Clay or stuck it out in a mine for a week without food after a cave-in, he wouldn't balk on the job before him. But he's soft. And he's afraid of his reputation. That's natural, I suppose."
Beatrice knew he was talking to save her feelings. "You don't need to make excuses for him, Dad," she answered gently, with a wry smile. "I've got to give up. I don't think I can go through with it."
"You mean—marry him?"
"Yes." She added, with a flare of passionate scorn of herself: "I deserve what I've got. I knew all the time I didn't love him. It was sheer selfishness in me to accept him. I wanted what he had to give me."
Her father drew a deep breath of relief. "I'm glad you see that, Bee. I don't think he's good enough for you. But I don't know anybody that is, come to that."
"That's just your partiality. I'm a mean little bounder or I never should have led him on," the girl answered in frank disgust.
Both of them felt smirched. The behavior of Bromfield had been a reflection on them. They had picked him for a thoroughbred, and he had failed them at the first test.
"Well, I haven't been proud of you in that affair," conceded Colin."It didn't seem like my girl to—"
He broke off in characteristic fashion to berate her environment. "It's this crazy town. The spirit of it gets into a person and he accepts its standards. Let's get away from here for a while, sweetheart."
"After Clay is out of trouble, Dad, I'll go with you back to Denver or to Europe or anywhere you say."
"That's a deal," he told her promptly. "We'll stay till after the annual election of the company and then go off on a honeymoon together, Bee."
Durand waited alone for word to be flashed him that the debt he owed Clay Lindsay had been settled in full. A telephone lay on the desk close at hand and beside it was a watch. The second-hand ticked its way jerkily round and round the circle. Except for that the stillness weighed on him unbearably. He paced up and down the room chewing nervously the end of an unlit cigar. For the good tidings which he was anxious to hear was news of the death of the strong young enemy who had beaten him at every turn.
Why didn't Collins get to the telephone? Was it possible that there had been a slip-up, that Lindsay had again broken through the trap set for him? Had "Slim's" nerve failed him? Or had Bromfield been unable to bring the victim to the slaughter?
His mind went over the details again. The thing had been well planned even to the unguarded door through which Collins was to escape. In the darkness "Slim" could do the job, make his getaway along with Dave, and be safe from any chance of identification. Bromfield, to save his own hide, would keep still. If he didn't, Durand was prepared to shift the murder upon his shoulders.
The minute-hand of the watch passed down from the quarter to the half and from the half to the three quarters. Still the telephone bell did not ring. The gang leader began to sweat blood. Had some one bungled after all the care with which he had laid his plans?
A door slammed below. Hurried footsteps sounded on the stair treads.Into the room burst a man.
"'Slim' 's been croaked," he blurted.
"What!" Durand's eyes dilated.
"At Maddock's."
"Who did it?"
"De guy he was to gun."
"Lindsay."
"Dat's de fellow."
"Did the bulls get Lindsay?"
"Pinched him right on de spot."
"Gun 'Slim,' did he?"
"Nope. Knocked him cold wit' a chair. Cracked his skull."
"Is he dead?"
"He'll never be deader. Dave grabbed this sucker Lindsay and yelled that he done it. The bulls pinched him like I said right there."
"Did it happen in the dark?"
"Sure as you're a foot high. My job was dousin' the glims, and I done it right."
"What about 'Slim'? Was he shooting when he got it?"
The other man shook his head. "This Lindsay man claims he was. I talked wit' a bull afterward. Dey didn't find no gun on 'Slim.' The bull says there was no gun-play."
"What became of 'Slim's' gun?"
"Search me."
Durand slammed a big fist exultantly down on the desk. "Better than the way I planned it. If the gun's gone, I'll frame Lindsay for the chair. It's Salt Creek for his."
He lost no time in getting into touch with Gorilla Dave, who was under arrest at the station house. From him he learned the story of the killing of Collins. One whispered detail of it filled him with malicious glee.
"The boob! He'll go to the death chair sure if I can frame him. We're lucky Bromfield ran back into the little room. Up in front a dozen guys might have seen the whole play even in the dark."
Durand spent the night strengthening the web he had spun to destroy his enemy. He passed to and fro among those who had been arrested in the raid and he arranged the testimony of some of them to suit his case. More than one of the men caught in the dragnet of the police was willing to see the affray from the proper angle in exchange for protection from prosecution.
After breakfast Durand went to the Tombs, where Clay had been transferred at daybreak.
"You needn't bring the fellow here," he told the warden. "I'll go right to his cage and see him. I wantta have a talk with him."
Between two guards Clay climbed the iron steps to an upper tier of cages at the Tombs. He was put into a cell which held two beds, one above the other, as in the cabin of an ocean liner. By the side of the bunks was a narrow space just long enough for a man to take two steps in the same direction.
An unshaven head was lifted in the lower bunk to see why the sleep of its owner was being disturbed.
"I've brought you a cell mate, Shiny," explained one of the guards."You want to be civil to him. He's just croaked a friend of yours."
"For de love o' Gawd. Who did he croak?"
"'Slim' Jim Collins. Cracked him one on the bean and that was a-plenty. Hope you'll enjoy each other's society, gents." The guard closed the door and departed.
"Is that right? Did youse do up 'Slim,' or was he kiddin' me?"
"I don't reckon we'll discuss that subject," said Clay blandly, but with a note of finality in his voice.
"No offense, boss. It's an honor to have so distinguished a gent for a cell pal. For that matter I ain't no cheap rat myself. Dey pinched me for shovin' de queer. I'd ought to get fifteen years," he said proudly.
This drew a grin from Lindsay, though not exactly a merry one. "If you're anxious for a long term you can have some of mine," he told the counterfeiter.
"Maybe youse'll go up Salt Creek," said Shiny hopefully.
Afraid the allusion might not be understood, he thoughtfully explained that this was the underworld term for the electric chair.
Clay made no further comment. He found the theme a gruesome one.
"Anyhow, I'm glad dey didn't put no hoister nor damper-getter wit' me. I'm partickler who I meet. De whole profesh is gettin' run down at de heel. I'm dead sick of rats who can't do nothin' but lift pokes," concluded the occupant of the lower berth with disgust.
Though Clay's nerves were of the best he did very little sleeping that night. He was in a grave situation. Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough. But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, his case would be hopeless—and Clay suspected that the clubman would prove only a broken reed as a support. The fellow was selfish to the core. He had not, in the telling Western phrase, the guts to go through. He would take the line of least resistance.
Beatrice was in his thoughts a great deal. What would she think of him when the news came that he was a murderer, caught by the police in a den of vice where he had no business to be? Some deep instinct of his soul told him that she would brush through the evidence to the essential truth. She had failed him once. She would never do it again. He felt sure of that.
The gray morning broke, and brought with it the steaming smell of prison cooking, the sounds of the caged underworld, the sense of life all around him dwarfed and warped to twisted moral purposes. A warden came with breakfast—a lukewarm, muddy liquid he called coffee and a stew in which potatoes and bits of fat beef bobbed like life buoys—and Clay ate heartily while his cell mate favored him, between gulps, with a monologue on ethics, politics, and the state of society, as these related especially to Shiny the Shover. Lindsay was given to understand that the whole world was "on de spud," but the big crooks had fixed the laws so that they could wear diamonds instead of stripes.
Presently a guard climbed the iron stairway with a visitor and led the way along the deck outside the tier of cells where Clay had been put.
"He's in seventy-four, Mr. Durand," the man said as he approached."I'll have to beat it. Come back to the office when you're ready."
The ex-pugilist had come to gloat over him. Clay knew it at once. His pupils narrowed.
He was lying on the bed, his supple body stretched at graceful ease.Not by the lift of an eyelid did he recognize the presence of his enemy.
Durand stood in front of the cell, hands in pockets, the inevitable unlit black cigar in his mouth. On his face was a sneer of malevolent derision.
Shiny the Shover bustled forward, all complaisance.
"Pleased to meet youse, Mr. Durand."
The gang politician's insolent eyes went up and down him. "I didn't come to seeyou."
"'S all right. Glad to see youse, anyhow," the counterfeit passer went on obsequiously. "Some day, when you've got time I'd like to talk wit' youse about gettin' some fall money."
"Nothin' doin', Shiny. I'm not backin' you," said Jerry coldly."You've got to go up the river."
"Youse promised—"
"Aw, what the hell's eatin' you?"
Shiny's low voice carried a plaintive whine. "If you'd speak to de judge—"
"Forget it." Durand brushed the plea away with a motion of his hand. "It's your cell pal I've come to take a look at—the one who's goin' to the chair."
With one lithe movement Clay swung down to the floor. He sauntered forward to the grating, his level gaze full on the ward boss.
"Shiny, this fellow's rotten," he said evenly and impersonally. "He's not only a crook, but he's a crooked crook. He'd throw down his own brother if it paid him."
Durand's cruel lips laughed. "Your pal's a little worried this mornin', Shiny. He ain't slept much. You see the bulls got him right. It's the death chair for him and no lifeboat in sight."
Clay leaned against the bars negligently. He spoke with a touch of lazy scorn. "See those scars on his face, Shiny—the one on the cheek bone and the other above the eye. Ask him where he got 'em and how."
Jerry cursed. He broke into a storm of threats, anger sweeping over him in furious gusts. He had come to make sport of his victim and Lindsay somehow took the upper hand at once. He had this fellow where he wanted him at last. Yet the man's soft voice still carried the note of easy contempt. If the Arizonan was afraid, he gave no least sign of it.
"You'll sing another tune before I'm through with you," the prize-fighter prophesied savagely.
The Westerner turned away and swung back to his upper berth. He knew, what he had before suspected, that Durand was going to "frame" him if he could. That information gained, the man no longer interested him.
Sullenly Jerry left. There was no profit in jeering at Lindsay. He was too entirely master of every situation that confronted him.
Within the hour Clay was wakened from sleep by another guard with word that he was wanted at the office of the warden. He found waiting him there Beatrice and her father. The girl bloomed in that dingy room like a cactus in the desert.
She came toward him with hands extended, in her eyes gifts of friendship and faith.
"Oh, Clay!" she cried.
"Much obliged, little pardner." Her voice went to his heart like water to the thirsty roots of prickly pears. A warm glow beat through his veins. The doubts that had weighed on him during the night were gone. Beatrice believed in him. All was well with the world.
He shook hands with Whitford. "Blamed good of you to come, sir."
"Why wouldn't we come?" demanded the mining man bluntly. "We're here to do what we can for you."
Little wells of tears brimmed over Beatrice's lids. "I've been so worried."
"Don't you. It'll be all right." Strangely enough he felt now that it would. Her coming had brought rippling sunshine into a drab world.
"I won't now. I'm going to get evidence for you. Tell us all about it."
"Why, there isn't much to tell that you haven't read in the papers probably. He came a-shootin' and was hit by a chair."
"Was it you that hit him?"
"Wouldn't I be justified?" he asked gently.
"But did you?"
For a moment he hesitated, then made up his mind swiftly. "Yes," he told her gravely.
She winced. "You couldn't help it. How did you come to be there?"
"I just dropped in."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
He had burned the bridges behind him and was lying glibly. Why bring Bromfield into it? She was going to marry him in a few days. If her fiancé was man enough to come forward and tell the truth he would do so anyhow. It was up to him. Clay was not going to betray him to Beatrice.
"The paper says there was some one with you."
"Sho! Reporters sure enough have lively imaginations."
"Johnnie told me you had an engagement with Mr. Bromfield."
"Did you ever know Johnnie get anything right?"
"And Clarendon says he was with you at Maddock's."
Clay had not been prepared for this cumulative evidence. He gave a low laugh of relief. "I'm an awful poor liar. So Bromfield says he was with me, does he?"
"Yes."
He intended to wait for a lead before showing his hand. "Then you know all about it?" he asked carelessly.
Their eyes were on each other, keen and watchful. She knew he was concealing something of importance. He had meant not to tell her that Bromfield had been with him. Why? To protect the man to whom she was engaged. She jumped to the conclusion that he was still shielding him.
"Yes, you're a poor liar, Clay," she agreed. "You stayed to keep backCollins so as to give Clarendon a chance to escape."
"Did I?"
"Can you deny it? Clarendon heard the shots as he was running downstairs."
"He told you that, did he?"
"Yes."
"That ought to help a lot. If I can prove Collins was shootin' at me I can plead self-defense."
"That's what it was, of course."
"Yes. But Durand doesn't mean to let it go at that. He was here to see me this mo'nin'." Clay turned to the mining man, his voice low but incisive. His brain was working clear and fast. "Mr. Whitford, I have a hunch he's going to destroy the evidence that's in my favor. There must be two bullet holes in the partition of the rear room where Collins was killed. See if you can't find those bullet holes and the bullets in the wall behind."
"I'll do that, Lindsay."
"And hire me a good lawyer. Send him to me. I won't use a smart one whose business is to help crooks escape. If he doesn't believe in me, I don't want him. I'll have him get the names of all those pulled in the raid and visit them to see if he can't find some one who heard the shots or saw shooting. Then there's the gun. Some one's got that gun. It's up to us to learn who."
"That right."
"Tim Muldoon will do anything he can for me. There's a girl lives with his mother. Her name's Annie Millikan. She has ways of finding out things. Better talk it over with her too. We've got to get busy in a hurry."
"Yes," agreed Whitford. "We'll do that, boy."
"Oh, Clay, I'm sure it's going to be all right!" cried Beatrice, in a glow of enthusiasm. "We'll give all our time. We'll get evidence to show the truth. And we'll let you know every day what we are doing."
"How about my going bail for you?" asked her father.
Clay shook his head. "No chance, just yet. Let's make our showing at the coroner's inquest. I'll do fine and dandy here till then."
He shook hands with them both and was taken back to his cell. But hope was in his heart now. He knew his friends would do their best to get the evidence to free him. It would be a battle royal between the truth and a lie.
A youth with a face like a fox sidled up to Durand in the hotel lobby and whispered in his ear. Jerry nodded curtly, and the man slipped away as furtively as he had come.
Presently the ex-prize-fighter got up, sauntered to the street, and hailed a taxi. Twenty minutes later he paid the driver, turned a corner, and passed into an apartment house for bachelors. He took the elevator to the third floor and rang an electric bell at a door which carried the name "Mr. Clarendon Bromfield."
From the man who came to the door Mr. Bromfield's visitor learned that he was not well and could receive no callers.
"Just mention the Omnium Club, and say I'm here on very important business," said Jerry with a sour grin.
The reference served as a password. Jerry was admitted to meet a host quite unable to control his alarm. At sight of his visitor Bromfield jumped up angrily. As soon as his man had gone he broke out in a subdued scream.
"You rotten traitor! Get out of my room, or I'll call the police."
Durand found a comfortable chair, drew a case from his pocket, and selected a cigar. He grinned with evil mirth.
"You will, eh? Like hell you will. You're hidin' from the cops this blessed minute. I've just found out myself where you live."
"You took my money and threw me down. You hired a gunman to kill me."
"Now, what would I do that for? I hadn't a thing in the world against you, an' I haven't now."
"That damned ruffian shot at me. He was still shooting when I struck him with the chair," cried Bromfield, his voice shaking.
"He didn't know it was you—mistook you for Lindsay in the darkness."
"My God, I didn't mean to kill him. I had to do something."
"You did it all right."
"I told you there wasn't to be any violence. It was explicitly stated. You promised. And all the time you were planning murder. I'll tell all I know. By God, I will."
"Go easy, Mr. Bromfield," snarled Jerry. "If you do, where do ye think you'll get off at?"
"I'll go to the police and tell them your hired gunman was shooting at us."
"Will you now? An' I'll have plenty of good witnesses to swear hewasn't." Durand bared his teeth in a threat. "That's not all either.I'll tie you up with the rube from the West and send you up to SingSing as accessory. How'd you like that?"
"If I tell the truth—"
"You'll be convicted of murder in place of him and he'll go up as accessory. I don't care two straws how it is. But you'd be a damned fool. I'll say that for you."
"I'm not going to let an innocent man suffer in my place. It wouldn't be playing the game."
Durand leaned forward and tapped the table with his finger-tips. His voice rasped like a file. "You can't save him. He's goin' to get it right. But you can hurt yourself a hell of a lot. Get out of the country and stay out till it's over with. That's the best thing you can do. Go to the Hawaiian Islands, man. That's a good healthy climate an' the hotel cooking's a lot better than it is at Sing Sing."
"I can't do it," moaned the clubman. "My God, man, if it ever came out—that I'd paid you money to—to—ruin his reputation, and that I'd run away when I could have saved an innocent man—I'd be done for. I'd be kicked out of every club I'm in."
"It won't ever come out if you're not here. But if you force my hand—well, that's different." Again Jerry's grin slit his colorless face. He had this poor devil where he wanted him, and he was enjoying himself.
"What do you want me to do, then?" cried Bromfield, tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead.
"You'll do as I say—beat it outa the country till the thing's over with."
"But Lindsay will talk."
"The boob's padlocked his mouth. For some fool reason he's protectin' you. Get out, an' you're safe."
Bromfield sweated blood as he walked up and down the room looking for a way out of his dilemma. He had come to the parting of the road again. If he did this thing he would be a yellow cur. It was one thing to destroy Lindsay's influence with Beatrice by giving her a false impression. From his point of view their friendship was pernicious anyhow and ought to be wiped out. At most the cattleman would have gone back unhurt to the Arizona desert he was always talking about. Nobody there would care about what had happened to him in New York. But to leave him, an innocent man, to go to his death because he was too chivalrous to betray his partner in an adventure—this was something that even Bromfield's atrophied conscience revolted at. Clay was standing by him, according to Durand's story. The news of it lifted a weight from his soul. But it left him too under a stronger moral obligation to step out and face the music.
The clubman made the only decision he could, and that was to procrastinate, to put off making any choice for the present.
"I'll think it over. Give me a day to make up my mind," he begged.
Jerry shrugged his heavy shoulders. He knew that every hour counted in his favor, would make it more difficult for the tortured man to come forward and tell the truth. "Sure. Look it over upside and down. Don't hurry. But, man, what's there to think about? I thought you hated this guy—wanted to get rid of him."
"Not that way. God, no! Durand, I'll give you any sum in reason to let him go without bringing me into it. You can arrange it."
Jerry slammed down a fist heavily on the table. "I can, but I won't. Not if you was to go fifty-fifty with me to your last cent. I'm goin' to get this fellow. See? I'm goin' to get him good. He'll be crawlin' on his hands and knees to me before I'm through with him."
"What good will that do you? I'm offering you cold cash just to let the truth get out—that Collins was trying to kill him when he got hit."
"Nothin' doin'. I've been layin' for this boob. I've got him now.I'm goin' to turn the screws on and listen to him holler."
Bromfield's valet stepped into the room. "Mr. and Miss Whitford to see you, sir."