Children of the Whirlwind Part 43

Miss Sherwood, Hunt behind her, had been drawn by the sound of voices around to the side of the veranda where stood the four men. "What are you doing?" she now sharply demanded of Gavegan.

"Don't like to make any unpleasant scene, Miss Sherwood, but I've gotta tell you that this so-called Brandon is a well-known crook." Gavegan enjoyed few things more than astounding people with unpleasant facts.

"His real name is Brainard; he's done time, and now he's wanted by the New York police for a tough job he pulled."

"I knew all that long ago," said Miss Sherwood.

"Eh--what?" stammered Gavegan.

"Mr. Brainard told me all that the first time I saw him."

"h.e.l.lo, Gavegan," said Hunt, stepping forward.

"Well, I'll be--if you ain't that crazy--" Again the ability to express himself coherently and with restraint failed Gavegan. "If you ain't that painter that lived down at the d.u.c.h.ess's!"

"Right, Gavegan--as a detective always should be. And Larry Brainard was then, and is now, my friend."

Miss Sherwood again spoke up sharply. "Mr. Gavegan--if that is your name--you will please take those foolish things off Mr. Brainard's wrists."

Gavegan had been cheated out of creating a sensation. That discomfiture perhaps made him even more dogged than he was by nature.

"Sorry, Miss, but he's charged with having committed a crime and is a fugitive from justice, and I can't."

"I'll be his security. Take them off."

"Sorry to refuse you again, Miss. But he's a dangerous man--got away once before. My orders is to take no risks that'll give him another chance for a get-away."

Miss Sherwood turned to Larry. "I'll go into town with you, and so will Mr. Hunt. I'll see that you get bail and a good lawyer."

"Thank you, Miss Sherwood," Larry said. "Gavegan, I guess we're ready to start."

"Not just yet, Brainard. Sorry, Miss Sherwood, but we've got a search warrant for your place. We just want to have a look at the room Brainard used. No telling what kind of crooked stuff he's been up to. And to make the search warrant O.K. I had it issued in this county and brought along a county officer to serve it. Show it to the lady, Smith."

"I have no desire to see it, Mr. Gavegan. I have more interest in watching you while you go through my things." And giving Gavegan a look which made an unaccustomed flush run up that officer's thick neck and redden his square face, she led the way into Larry's study. "This is the room where Mr. Brainard works," she said. "Through that door is his bedroom. Everything here except his clothing is my property. I shall hold you rigidly responsible for any disorder you may create or any damage you may do. Now you may go ahead."

"Let's have all your keys, Brainard," Gavegan choked out.

Larry handed them over. With Miss Sherwood, Hunt, and Larry looking silently on, the two men began their examination. They began with the papers on Larry's desk and in its drawers; and in all his life Gavegan had not been so considerate in a search as he now was with Miss Sherwood's blue eyes coldly upon him. They unlocked cabinets, scrutinized their contents, shook out books, examined the backs of pictures, took up rugs; then pa.s.sed into Larry's bedroom. Miss Sherwood made no move to follow the officers into that more intimate apartment, and the other two watchers remained with her.

A minute pa.s.sed. Then Gavegan reentered, a puzzled, half-triumphant look on his red face, holding out a square of paint-covered canvas.

"Found this thing in Brainard's chiffonier. What the he--I mean what's it doing out here?"

There was not an instant's doubt as to what the thing was. Larry started, and Hunt started, and Miss Sherwood started. But it was Miss Sherwood who first spoke.

"Why, it's a portrait of Miss Cameron, in costume! And painted by Mr.

Hunt!" In amazement she turned first upon Larry and upon Hunt. "When did you ever paint her portrait, when you did not meet Miss Cameron till you met her here? And, Mr. Brainard, how do you come to possess Miss Cameron's portrait?"

It was Gavegan who spoke up promptly, and not either of the two suddenly discomfited men. And Gavegan instantly sensed in the situation a chance to get even for the humiliation his self-esteem had just suffered.

"Miss Cameron nothing! Her real name is Maggie Carlisle, and she used to live at a dump of a p.a.w.nshop down on the East Side run by Brainard's grandmother. Brainard knew her there, and so did Mr. Hunt."

"But--but--" gasped Miss Sherwood--"she's been coming out here as Maggie Cameron!"

"I tell you your Maggie Cameron is Maggie Carlisle!" said Gavegan gloatingly. "I've known her for years. Her father is Old Jimmie Carlisle, a notorious crook. And she's mixed up right now with her father and some others in a crooked game. And Brainard here used to be sweet on her, and probably still is, and if he's been letting her come here, without telling you who she is--well, I guess you know the answer.

Didn't I tell you, Miss, that give me a chance and I'd turn up something against this guy Brainard!"

Miss Sherwood's face was white, but set with grim accusation that was only waiting to p.r.o.nounce swift judgment. "Mr. Hunt, is it true that Miss Cameron is this Maggie Carlisle the officer mentions, and that you knew it all the while?"

"Yes--" began the painter.

"Don't blame him, Miss Sherwood," Larry interrupted. "He didn't tell you because I begged him not to as a favor to me. Blame me for everything."

Her judgment upon Hunt was p.r.o.nounced with cold finality, her eyes straight into Hunt's: "Whatever may have been Mr. Hunt's motives, I unalterably hold him to blame."

She turned upon Larry. The face which he had only seen in gracious moods was as inflexibly stern as a prosecuting attorney's.

"We're going to go right to the bottom of this, Mr. Brainard. You too have known all along that this Miss Cameron was really the Maggie Carlisle this officer speaks of?"

"Yes."

"And you have known all along that she was the daughter of this notorious criminal, Old Jimmie Carlisle?"

The impulse surged up in Larry to tell the newly learned truth about Maggie. But he remembered Maggie's injunction that the truth must never be known. He checked his revelation just in time.

"Yes."

"And is it true that Maggie Carlisle is herself what is known as a crook?--or has had crooked inclinations or plans?"

"It's like this, Miss Sherwood--"

"A direct answer, please!"

"Yes."

"And is it true, as this officer has suggested, that you were in love with her yourself?"

"Yes."

"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.