Vera, the Medium Part 11

Already frightened by the possible result of the plot, Rainey, with a vehemence born of fear, retorted sharply: "Hold his hands! How're you going to make him hold his tongue, afterward?"

Gaylor turned upon him savagely.

"My G.o.d, man!" he cried, "we're not trying to persuade the District Attorney that he's seen a ghost. If your friends can persuade Stephen Hallowell that he's seen one, the District Attorney can go to the devil!"

"Well, he won't!" returned Rainey, "he'll go to law!"

"Let him!" cried Gaylor defiantly. "Get Hallowell to sign that will, and I'll go into court with him."

His bravado was suddenly attacked from an unexpected source.

"You'll go into court with him, all right," declared Mrs. Vance, "all of you! And if you don't want him to catch you," she cried, "you'll clear out, now! He's coming here any minute."

"Who's coming here?" demanded her husband.

"Winthrop," returned his wife, "to see Vera."

"To see Vera!" cried Vance eagerly. "What about? About this morning?"

"No," protested Mabel, "to call on her. He's an old friend--"

In alarm Rainey pushed into the group of now thoroughly excited people.

"Don't you believe it!" he cried. "If he's coming here, he's coming to give her the third degree--"

The door from the hall suddenly opened, was as suddenly closed, and Mannie slipped into the room. One hand he held up for silence; with the other he pointed at the folding doors.

"Hus.h.!.+" he warned them. "He's in there! He says he's come to call on Vera. She says he's come professionally, and I must bring him in here.

I've shut the door into the parlor, and you can slip upstairs without his seeing you."

"Upstairs!" gasped Rainey, "not for me!" He appealed to Gaylor in accents of real alarm. "We must get away from this house," he declared.

"If he finds us here--" With a gesture of dismay he tossed his hands in the air. Gaylor nodded. In silence all, save Mannie, moved into the hall, and halted between the outer and inner doors of the vestibule.

Gaylor turned to Vance. "Are you going to tell her," he asked, "that he is to be there tonight?"

"He'll tell her himself, now!"

"No," corrected Rainey, "he doesn't know yet there's to be a seance.

Hallowell was writing the note when he left."

"Then," instructed Gaylor, "do not let her know until she arrives--until it will be too late for her to back out."

Vance nodded and, waiting until from the back room he heard the voices of Mannie and Winthrop, he opened the front door and the two men ran down the steps into the street.

While the conspirators were hidden in the vestibule, Mannie had opened the folding doors, and invited Winthrop to enter the reception parlor.

"Miss Vera will be down in a minute," he said. "If you want your hand read," he added, pointing, "you sit over there."

As Winthrop approached the centre table, Mannie backed against the piano. The presence of the District Attorney at such short range aroused in him many emotions. Alternately he was torn with alarm, with admiration, with curiosity. He regarded him apprehensively, with a nervous and unhappy smile.

About the smile there was something that Winthrop found familiar, and, with one almost as attractive, he answered it.

"I think we've met before, haven't we?" he asked pleasantly.

Mannie nodded. "Yes, sir," he answered promptly. "At Sam Hepner's old place, on West Forty-fourth street."

"Why, of course!" exclaimed the District Attorney.

"Don't you--don't you remember?" stammered Mannie eagerly. He was deeply concerned lest the distinguished cross-examiner should think, that from him of his lurid past he could withhold anything. "I had my coat off--and you said you'd make it hot for me."

"Did I?" asked Winthrop with an effort at recollection.

"No, you didn't!" Mannie hastened to rea.s.sure him. "I mean, you didn't make it hot for me."

Winthrop laughed, and seated himself comfortably beside the centre table. "Well I'm glad of that," he said. "So our relations are still pleasant, then?" he asked.

"Sure!" exclaimed Mannie heartily. "I mean--yes, sir."

Winthrop mechanically reached for his cigarette case, and then, recollecting, withdrew his hand.

"And how are the ponies running?" he asked.

The interview was filling Mannie with excitement and delight. He chuckled with pleasure. His fear of the great man was rapidly departing.

Could this, he asked himself, be the "terror to evil-doers," the man whose cruel questions drove witnesses to tears, whose "third degree"

sent veterans of the underworld staggering from his confessional box, limp and gasping?

"Oh, pretty well," said the boy, "seems as if I couldn't keep away from them. I got a good thing for today--Pompadour--in the fifth. I put all the money on her I could get together," he announced importantly, and then added frankly, with a laugh, "two dollars!" The laugh was contagious, and the District Attorney laughed with him.

"Pompadour," Winthrop objected, "she's one of those winter track favorites."

"I know, but today," declared Mannie, "she win, sure!" Carried away by his enthusiasm, and by the sympathy of his audience, he rushed, unheeding, to his fate. "If you'd like to put a little on," he said, "I can tell you where you can do it."

The District Attorney stared and laughed. "You mustn't tell me where you can do it," he said.

Mannie gave a terrified gasp and, for an instant, clapped his hands over his lips. "That's right," he cried. "Gee, that's right! I'm such a crank on all kinds of sport that I clean forgot!"

He gazed at the much-dreaded District Attorney with the awe of the new-born hero-wors.h.i.+pper. "I guess you are, too, hey?" he protested admiringly. "Vera was telling me you used to be a great ball t.o.s.s.e.r."

In the face of the District Attorney there came a sudden interest. His eyes lightened.

"How did she--"

"She used to watch you in Geneva," said Mannie, "playing with the college lads. I--I," he added consciously, "was a ball player myself once. Used to pitch for the Interstate League." He stopped abruptly.

"Interstate?" said Winthrop encouragingly. "You must have been good."

The enthusiasm had departed from the face of the boy. "Yes," he said, "but--" he smiled shamefacedly, "but I got taking c.o.ke, and they--" He finished with a dramatic gesture of the hand as of a man tossing away a cigarette.

"Cocaine?" said the District Attorney.

The boy nodded and, for an instant, the two men eyed each other, the boy smiling ruefully. The District Attorney shook his head. "My young friend," he said, "you can never beat that game!"