第92章

This announcement staggered Maggie; for the moment made all her strenuous planning seem to have lost its purpose. In her normal condition she might either have given up or betrayed her real intent.

But just now, in her super-excited state, in which she felt she was fighting desperately for others, she was acting far above her ordinary capacity; and she was making decisions so swift that they hardly seemed to proceed from conscious thought. So Barlow, vigilant watcher of faces that he was, saw nothing unusual in her expression or manner.

"What did you do with him?" she asked.

"Left him with Gavegan--and with Casey, who had just come in. Trailing with Brainard was a swell named Hunt, cussing mad. He was snorting around about being pals with most of the magistrates, and swore he'd have Brainard out on bail inside an hour. But what he does don't make any difference to me. Your proposition seems to me dead cold, since I've already got Brainard, and got him right. I wouldn't have bothered to have come here at all except for something you let drop about the pals he might have been working with these last few months."

"That's exactly it," she caught him up. "I never thought that you'd catch Larry Brainard here. How could I, when, if you know me as you say, you also know that he and I are in different camps--are fighting each other? What's going to happen here is something that will show you the people Larry Brainard's been mixed up with--that will turn up for you the people you want."

"But what's going to happen?" Barlow demanded.

To this Maggie answered in much the same strain she had used with Hannigan a few minutes earlier. "I told you down at Headquarters that everything that's important you'll learn by being present when the thing actually happened. What I tell you doesn't count for much--it might not be true. It's what you see and hear for yourself when things begin to happen. You're to wait in here." She led him to the second large closet and opened the door.

"See here," he demanded, "are you framing something on me?"

"How can I, in a big hotel like this? And even if I were to try, you'd certainly make me pay for it later. Besides, you've got a gun. Please go in quick; I'm expecting the people here any minute. And don't make a sound that might arouse their suspicions and queer everything."

He entered, and she closed the door. So carefully that he did not hear it, she locked the door; no more than in Hannigan's case did she want Barlow to come bungling into a scene before it had reached its climax.

All was now ready for the curtain to rise. Quivering all through she waited for Barney Palmer, whose entrance was to open her drama. She glanced at her wrist-watch which she had left upon the little lacquered writing-table. Ten minutes of nine. Ten more minutes to wait. She felt far more of sickening suspense than ever did any young playwright on the opening night of his first play. For she was more than merely playwright. In her desperate, overwrought determination Maggie had assumed for herself the super-mortal role of dea ex machina. And in those moments of tense waiting Maggie, who so feverishly loathed all she had been, was not at all sure whether she was going to succeed in her part of goddess from the machine.

At five minutes to nine there was a ring. She gave a little jump at the sound. That was Barney. Though generally when Barney came he used the latch-key which his assumed dear cousinship, and the argued possibility of their being out and thus causing him to wait around in discomfort, Miss Grierson's sense of propriety had unbent far enough to permit him to possess. The truth was, of course, that Barney had desired the key so that he might have most private conferences with Maggie, at any time necessity demanded, without the stolidly conscientious Miss Grierson ever knowing what had happened and being therefore unable to give dangerous testimony.

Maggie crossed and opened the door. But instead of Barney Palmer, it was Larry who stepped in. He quickly closed the door behind him.

"Larry!" she cried startled. "Why--why, I thought the police had you!"