Children of the Whirlwind Part 42

"I'd like to hear it from you, please--if you don't mind."

"There's really not much to tell," he said. "You know what I was and what happened. When I went to prison my daughter was too young to remember me--less than two years old. I didn't want her ever to be drawn into the sort of life that had been mine, or be the sort of woman that a girl becomes who gets into that life. And I didn't want her ever to have the stigma, and the handicap, of her knowing and the world knowing that her father was a convict. You can't understand it fully, Miss Cameron, but perhaps you can understand a little how disgraced you would feel, what a handicap it would be, if your father were a convict. I had a good friend I could trust. So I turned my daughter over to him, to be brought up with no knowledge of my existence, and with every reasonable advantage that a nice girl should have. I guess that's all, Miss Cameron."

"This friend--what was his name?"

"Carlisle--Jimmie Carlisle. But his name could never have meant anything to you. Besides, he's dead now."

Maggie forced herself on. "Your plan--it turned out all right? And you--you are happy?"

"Yes." In the sympathetic atmosphere which this young girl's presence created for him, Joe's emotions flowed into words more freely than ever before in the company of a human being. Though he was answering her, what he was really doing was rather just letting his heart use its long-silent voice, speak its exultant dream and belief.

"Somewhere out in the world--I don't know where, and I don't want to know--my daughter has now grown into a wholesome, splendid young woman!"

he said in a vibrant voice. Brooding in solitude so long upon his careful plan that he believed could not fail, had made the keen Joe Ellison less suspicious concerning it than he otherwise would have been--perhaps had made him a bit daffy on this one subject. "I have saved my daughter from all the grime she might have known, and which might have soiled her, and even pulled her down if I hadn't thought out in good time my plan to protect her. And of course I am happy!" he exulted. "I have done the best thing that it was possible for me to do, the thing which I wanted most to do! Instead of what she might have been, I have as a daughter just such a nice girl as you are--just about your own age--though, of course, she hasn't your money, your social position, and naturally not quite the advantages you have had. Of course I'm happy!"

"You're--you're sure she's all that?"

Again his words were as much a statement aloud to himself of his constant dream as they were a direct answer to Maggie. "Of course! There was enough money--the plan was in the hands of a friend who knew how to handle such a thing--she's never known anything but the very best surroundings--and until she was fourteen I had regular reports on how wonderfully she was progressing. You see my friend had had her legally adopted by a splendid family, so there's no doubt about everything being for the best."

"And you"--Maggie drove herself on--"don't you ever want to see her?"

"Of course I do. But at the very beginning I fixed things so I could not; so that I would not even know where she is. Removed temptation from myself, you see. Don't you see the possible results if I should try to see her? Something might happen that would bring out the truth, and that would ruin her happiness, her career. Don't you see?"

His gray eyes, bright with his great dream, were fixed intently upon Maggie; and yet she felt that they were gazing far beyond her at some other girl... at his girl.

"I--I--" she gulped and swayed and would have fallen if he had not been quick to catch her arm.

"You are sick, Miss?" he asked anxiously.

"I--I have been," she stammered, trying to regain control of her faculties. "It's--it's that--and my not eating--and standing in this hot sun. Thank you very much for what you've told me. I'd--I'd better be getting back."

"I'll help you." And very gently, with a firm hand under one arm, he escorted her to the bench where Larry sat scribbling nothings. He then raised his hat and returned to his dahlias.

"Well?" queried Larry when they were alone.

"I can't stand it to stay here and talk to these people," she replied in an agonized whisper. "I must get away from here quick, so that I can think."

"May I come with you?"

"No, Larry--I must be alone. Please, Larry, please get into the house, and manage to fake a telephone message for me, calling me back to New York at once."

"All right." And Larry hurried away. She sat, pale, breathing rapidly, her whole being clenched, staring fixedly out at the Sound. Five minutes later Larry was back.

"It's all arranged, Maggie. I've told the people; they're sorry you've got to go. And d.i.c.k is getting his car ready."

She turned her eyes upon him. He had never seen in them such a look.

They were feverish, with a dazed, affrighted horror. She clutched his arm.

"You must promise never to tell my father about me!"

"I won't. Unless I have to."

"But you must not! Never!" she cried desperately. "He thinks I'm--Oh, don't you understand? If he were to learn what I really am, it would kill him. He must keep his dream. For his sake he must never find out, he must keep on thinking of me just the same. Now, you understand?"

Larry slowly nodded.

Her next words were dully vibrant with stricken awe. "And it means that I can never have him for my father! Never! And I think--I'd--I'd like him for a father! Don't you see?"

Again Larry nodded. In this entirely new phase of her, a white-faced, stricken, s.h.i.+vering girl, Larry felt a poignant sympathy for her the like of which had never tingled through him in her conquering moods.

Indeed Maggie's situation was opening out into great human problems such as neither he nor any one else had ever foreseen!

"There comes d.i.c.k," she whispered. "I must do my best to hold myself together. Good-bye, Larry."

A minute later, Larry just behind her, she was crossing the lawn on d.i.c.k's arm, explaining her weakness and pallor by the sudden dizziness which had come upon her in consequence of not eating and of being in the hot sun.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

Larry was far more deeply moved this time when Maggie drove away with d.i.c.k than on that former occasion when he had tried to play with adroitness upon her psychological reactions. Now he knew that her very world was shaken; that her soul was stunned and reeling; that she was fighting with all her strength for a brief outward composure.

He had loved her for months, but he had never so loved her as in this hour when all her artificial defenses had been battered down and she had been just a bewildered, agonized girl, with just the emotions and first thoughts that any other normal girl would have had under the same circ.u.mstances. His great desire had been to be with her, to comfort her, help her; but he realized that she had been correct in her instinct to be by herself for a while, to try to comprehend it all, to try to think her way out.

When Maggie was out of sight he excused himself from having tea, left Hunt and Miss Sherwood upon the veranda, and sought his study. But though he had neglected his work the whole day, he now gave it no attention. He sat at his desk and thought of Maggie: tried to think of what she was going to do. Her situation was so complicated with big elements which she would have to handle that he could not foretell just what her course would be. It was a terrific situation for a young woman, who was after all just a very young girl, to face alone. But there was nothing for him but to wait for news from her. And she had not said even that she would ever let him hear.

While he considered these matters he had risen and paced the room. Once he had paused at a French window which opened upon a side veranda, and had seen below him a few yards away Joe Ellison, whose interest in his flowers had established his workday from sunrise to sunset. Joe Ellison had been pulling tiny weeds that were daring to attempt to get a start in a rose-garden. Larry's mind had halted a moment upon Joe. Here at least was a contented man: one who, no matter what happened, would remain in ignorance of possibly great events which would intimately concern him. Then Larry had left the window and had returned to his thoughts of Maggie.

But Larry's thoughts were not to remain exclusively with Maggie for long. Shortly after six Judkins entered and announced that a man was at the door with a message. The man had refused to come in, saying he was only a messenger and was in a hurry; and had refused to give Judkins the message, saying that it was verbal. Thinking that some word had come from his grandmother, or possibly even from Maggie, Larry went out upon the veranda. Waiting for him was a nondescript man he did not know.

"Mr. Brandon, sir?" asked the man.

"Yes. You have a message for me?"

Before the man could reply, there came a shout from the shrubbery beyond the drive:

"Grab him, Smith! He's the man!"

Instantly Smith's steely arms were about Larry, pinning his elbows to his sides, and a man broke from the shrubbery and hurried toward the house. Instinctively Larry started to struggle, but he ceased as he recognized the man coming up the steps. It was Gavegan. Larry realized that he had been shrewdly trapped, that resistance would serve no end, and the next moment handcuffs were upon his wrists.

"Well, Brainard," gloated Gavegan, "we've landed you at last!"

"So it seems, Gavegan."

"You thought you was d.a.m.ned clever, but I guess you know now you ain't one, two, three!"

"Oh, I knew how clever you are, Gavegan," Larry responded dryly, "and that you'd get me sooner or later if I hung around."

As a matter of fact Larry's capture, which was as unspectacular as his escape had been strenuous, was the consequence of no cleverness at all. Larry had said to Barney Palmer the night before that he knew who Barney's sucker was; and Barney had pa.s.sed this information along to Chief Barlow. "Follow every clue; luck may be with you and one of the clues may turn up what you want":--this is in substance an unwritten rule of routine procedure which effects those magnificent police solutions which are presented as more mysterious than the original mystery--for it is well for the public to believe that its police officers are unfailingly more clever than its criminals. Barlow had done some routine thinking: if Larry Brainard knew d.i.c.k Sherwood was the sucker, then watching d.i.c.k Sherwood might possibly reveal the whereabouts of Larry Brainard. Barlow had pa.s.sed this tip along to Gavegan. Gavegan had grumbled to himself that it was only a thousand to one shot; but luck had been with him, and his long shot had won.