第93章

"They did. But Hunt was with me, and he got hold of a magistrate who would have made Hunt a present of the Tombs and Police Headquarters if he had owned them."

"Then you're out on bail?"

"Got out about ten minutes ago. Hunt didn't have any property he could put up as security, so he 'phoned my grandmother. She walked in with an armload of deeds. Why, she must own as much property in New York as the Astor Estate."

"Larry, I'm so glad!" And then, remembering what, according to her plan, was due to begin to happen almost any moment, she exclaimed in dismay: "But, Larry, oh, why did you come here now!"

"I wanted to know--you understand--what you had decided to do after learning about your father. And I wanted to tell you that, after all my great boasts to you, I seem to have failed in every boast. Item one, the police have got me. Item two, since the police have got me, my old pals will also most likely get me. Item three, when I was arrested at Cedar Crest Miss Sherwood learned that I had known you all along and believes I was part of a conspiracy to clean out the family; so she chucked me--and I've lost what I believed my big chance to make good. So, you see, Maggie, it looks as if you were right when you predicted that I was going to fail in everything I said I was going to do."

"Larry--Miss Sherwood believes that!" she breathed. And then she remembered again, and caught his arm with sudden energy. "Larry, you mustn't stay here!"

"Why not?"

Her answer was almost identical with one she had given the previous evening. "Because Barney Palmer may be here the next minute!"

His response was in sense also identical. "Then I'll stay right here.

There's no one I want to see as much as Barney Palmer. And this time I'll have it out with him!"

Maggie was in consternation at this unexpected twist which was not in the brain-manuscript of her play at all--which indeed threatened to take her play right out of her hands. "Please go, Larry!" she cried desperately. "And please give me a chance! You'll spoil it all if you stay!"

"I'm going to stay right here," was his grim response.

She realized there was no changing him. She glimpsed a closet door behind him, and caught at the chance of saving at least a fragment of her drama.

"Stay, then but, Larry, please give me a chance to do what I want to do! Please!" By this time she had dragged him across the room and had started to unlock the closet. "Just wait in here--and keep quiet!

Please!"

He took the key from her fumbling hands, unlocked the door, and slipped the key into his pocket. "All right--I'll give you your chance," he promised.

He stepped through the door and closed it upon himself, entombing himself in blackness. The next moment the glare of a pocket flash was in his face, blinding him.

"Larry Brainard!" gritted a low voice in the darkness.

Larry could see nothing, but there was no mistaking that voice. "Red Hannigan!" he exclaimed.

"Yes--you damned squealer! And I'm going to finish you off right here!"

The light clicked out, and a pair of lean hands almost closed on Larry's wind-pipe. But Larry caught the wrists of the older man in a grip the other could not break. There was a brief struggle in the blackness of the closet, then the slighter man stood still with his wrists manacled by Larry's hands.

"Evidently you haven't a gun on you, Red, or you, wouldn't have tried this," Larry commented. "Anyhow, you couldn't have got away with killing in a big hotel, whether you had strangled me or shot me. I don't blame you for being sore at me, Red--only you've got me all wrong. But you and I are evidently here for the same purpose: to get next to something that's going to happen out in the room. What do you say, Red?--let's suspend hostilities for the present. You've got me where you can follow me, and you can get me any time."

"You bet I'll get you!" declared Hannigan. And then after a few more words an armistice was agreed upon between the two men in the closet and silently, tensely, they stood in the dark awaiting whatever was to happen.

Outside Maggie, that amateur playwright who had tried so desperately to prearrange events, that inexperienced goddess from the machine, stood in a panic of fear and suspense the like of which she had never known.