第8章

Anger boiled up within Larry. Against all the persons connected with his arrest, trial, and imprisonment, he had no particular resentment, except against this one man. He never could forget the time he and Gavegan, he handcuffed, had been locked in a sound-proof cell, and Gavegan had given him the third degree--in this case a length of heavy rubber hose, applied with a powerful arm upon head and shoulders--in an effort to make him squeal upon his confederates. And that third degree was merely a sample of the material of which Gavegan was made.

Larry held his desire in leash. "So you bet you'll get me. I'll take that bet--any figure you like. I've already got a new game cooked up, Gavegan. Cleverer than anything I've ever tried before."

"Oh, I'll get you!" Gavegan growled again.

"Oh, no, you won't!" And then Larry's old anger against Gavegan got into his tongue and made it wag tauntingly. "You didn't get me the last time; that was a slip and police stools got me. All by yourself, Gavegan, you couldn't get anything. Your brain's got flat tires, and its motor doesn't fire, and its clutch is broken. The only thing about it that still works is the horn. You've got a hell of a horn, Gavegan, and it never stops blowing."

A tug was nearing the dock, and by its light Larry saw the terrific swing that the enraged detective started. Larry swayed slightly aside, and as Gavegan lunged by, Larry's right fist drove into Gavegan's chin--drove with all the power of his dislike and all the strength of five years in a Y.M.C.A. gymnasium and a year in a prison boiler-room.

Gavegan went down and out.

Larry gazed a moment at the dim, sprawling figure, then turned and made his way off the pier and again to the door of the pawnshop. Casey was gone; he could see no one within but Old Isaac, the assistant.

Larry opened the door and entered. "Hello, Isaac. Where's grandmother?"

It is not a desirable trait in one connected with a pawnshop, that is also reputed to be a fence, to show surprise or curiosity. So Isaac's reply was confined to a few facts and brief direction.

Wondering, Larry mounted the stairway which opened from the confidential business room behind the pawnshop. It was common enough for his grandmother to rent out the third floor; but to a painter, and a crazy painter--that seemed strange. And yet more strange was it for her to be having dinner with the painter.

Larry knocked at the door. A big male voice within gave order:

"Be parlor-maid, Maggie, and see who's there."

The door opened and Larry half entered. Then he stopped, and in surprise gazed at the flushed, gleaming Maggie, slender and supple in the folds of the Spanish shawl.

"Why, Maggie!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand.

"Larry!"

She was thrillingly confused by his surprised admiration. For a moment they stood gazing at each other, holding hands. The clothes given him on leaving prison were of course atrocious, but in all else he measured up to her dreams: lithe, well-built, handsome, a laugh ready on his lips, and the very devil of daring in his smiling, gray-blue eyes.

"How you have grown up, Maggie!" he said, still amazed.

"That's all I've had to do for two years," she returned.

"Come on in, Larry," said the Duchess.

Larry shut the door, bowed with light grace as he had to pass in front of Maggie, and crossed to the Duchess.

"Hello, grandmother," he said as though he had last seen her the day before. He held out his hand, the left one, and she took it in a mummified claw. In all his life he had never kissed his grandmother, nor did he remember ever having been kissed by her.

"Glad you're back, Larry." She dropped his hand. "The man's name is Hunt."

Larry turned to the painter. His laughing eyes could be sharp; they were penetratingly sharp now. And so were Hunt's eyes.

Larry held out his hand, again the left. "And so you're the painter?"

"They call me a painter," responded Hunt, "but none of them believe I'm a painter."

Larry turned again to Maggie. "And so you're actually Maggie! Meaning no offense"--and there was a smiling audacity in his face that it would have been hard to have taken offense at--"I don't see how Old Jimmie Carlisle's daughter got such looks without stealing them."

"Well, then," retorted Maggie, "I don't see how you got your looks unless--"

She broke off and bit her tongue. She had been about to retort with the contrast between Larry's face and his shriveled, hook-nosed grandmother's. They all perceived her intention, however.

Larry came instantly to her rescue with almost imperceptible ease.

"Dinner!" he exclaimed, gazing at the miscellany of dishes on the table. "Am I invited?"

"Invited?" said Hunt. "You're the guest of honor."

"Then might the guest of honor beg the privilege of cleaning up a bit?" Larry drew his right hand from his coat pocket, where it had been all this while, and started to unwind the handkerchief which he had wound about his knuckles as he had crossed from the pier.

"Is your hand hurt much?" Maggie inquired eagerly.

"Just skinned my knuckles."

"How?"

"They happened to connect with a flatfoot's jaw while he was trying to make hypnotic passes at me. He's coming to about now. Officer Gavegan."