第86章

"You are aware of my brother's infatuation for her? That he has asked her to marry him?"

"Yes."

Her voice now sounded more terrible to Larry. "I took you in to give you a chance. And your repayment has been that, knowing all these things, you have kept silent and let me and my brother be imposed upon by a swindling operation. And who knows, since you admit that you love the girl, that you have not been a partner in the conspiracy from the first!"

"That's exactly the idea, Miss!" put in Gavegan.

Larry had foreseen many possible wrong turns which his plan might take, but he was appalled by the utter unexpectedness of the actual disaster. And yet he recognized that the evidence justified Miss Sherwood's judgment of him. It all made him seem an ingrate and a swindler.

For the moment Larry was so overwhelmed that he made no attempt to speak. And since for once Gavegan was content merely to gloat over his triumph, there was stiff silence in the room until Miss Sherwood said in the cold voice of a judge after a jury has brought in a verdict of guilty:

"Of course, if you think there is anything you may say for yourself, Mr. Brainard, you now have the chance to say it."

"I have much to say, but I can't blame you if you refuse to believe most of it," Larry said desperately, fighting for what seemed his last chance. "I loved Maggie Carlisle. I believed she had splendid qualities. Only she was dominated by the twisted ideas Old Jimmie Carlisle had planted in her. I wanted to eradicate those twisted ideas, and make her good qualities her ruling ones. But she didn't believe in me. She thought me a soft-head, a police stool, a squealer.

Then I had to disappear; you know all about that. Not till I had been with you for several weeks did I learn that she was being used in a swindling scheme against Dick.

"I did think of telling you or Dick. But my greatest interest was to awaken that better person I believed to be in her; and I knew that the certain result of my exposing her to you would be for me to lose the last bit of influence I had with her, and for her to pass right on to another enterprise of similar character. So the idea came to me that if I didn't expose her, but caused her to be received with every courtesy by her intended victims, the effect upon her would be that she would feel a revulsion for what she was doing and she would come to her best senses. I told this to Mr. Hunt; that's why he agreed not to give her away. And another point, though frankly this was not so important to me: it seemed to me that a good hard jolt might be just what was needed to make Dick take life more seriously, and I saw in this affair a chance for Dick to get just the jolt he needed.

"That's all, Miss Sherwood. Except that I have seen signs which make me believe that what I figured would happen to Maggie Carlisle have begun to happen to her."

"Bunk!" snorted Gavegan.

"I know that part of what he says is true," put in Hunt.

Miss Sherwood ignored Hunt and his remark. The look of controlled wrath which she held upon Larry did not change. Larry recognized that his statement had sounded most implausible. Miss Sherwood in her indignation considered only that her kindness had been betrayed, her hospitality outraged, and that those she had accepted as friends had sought to trick her family in the worst way she could conceive; and she spoke accordingly.

"If that is the best Mr. Brainard has to say for himself, Mr. Gavegan, you may take him with you, and without any interference from me. I ask only that you take him out of the house at once."

With that she moved from the room, not looking again at either Hunt or Larry. For a brief space there was silence, while Gavegan let his triumph feed gloatingly upon the sight of his prisoner.

This brief silence was broken by a low, strange sound, like a human cry quickly repressed, that seemed to come from just outside the French windows.

"What was that?" Larry asked quickly.

"I didn't hear anything," said Gavegan whose senses had been thoroughly concentrated upon his triumph.

"I did," said Hunt. "On the veranda."

"We'll see. Watch him--" to the county officer; and Gavegan followed Hunt to the French windows and looked out. "No one on the veranda, and no one in sight," he reported. "You fellows must have been dreaming."

He returned and faced Larry. "I guess you'll admit, Brainard, that I've got you for keeps this time."

"Then suppose we be starting for Headquarters." Larry responded.

Hunt moved to Larry's side. "I'll just trail along after you, Larry.

Anyhow, this doesn't seem to be any place for me."

A few minutes afterwards Larry was in a car beside Gavegan, speeding away from Cedar Crest toward the city. Larry's thoughts were the gloomiest he had entertained since he had come out of Sing Sing months before with his great dream. All that he had counted on had gone wrong. He was in the hands of the police, and he knew how hard the police would be. He had incurred the hostility of Miss Sherwood and had lost what had seemed a substantial opportunity to start his career as an honest man. The only item of his great plan in which he did not seem to have failed completely was Maggie. And he did not know what Maggie was going to do.