WHEN WOMEN NEVER TALK
Mary Regan had drawn nearer the table, and pale, her figure tense, she
was gazing fixedly at Jack--waiting. Jack was gazing back sheepishly,
stubbornly,--and Nina Cordova and Nan Burdette and Hilton were staring
at Mary in insolent triumph. Little Loveman’s face was expressionless.
Behind her, near the doorway, ready to move swiftly, if there was need,
stood Slim Harrison.
At that instant Clifford realized that his supreme interest was
centered upon that trapped figure in the next room--and that his
supreme efforts would have as their chief object the extrication of
Mary Regan from whatever crisis might be about to develop. But at
the same time Clifford realized that his duty demanded that he hold
himself in check, and allow Loveman to reveal the details of his
plan by action, and then catch him in the act. He would then have
evidence--real evidence.
“Are you coming, Jack?” Mary was saying quietly.
“Go on with her, Jack,” Nina Cordova taunted him. “None of us believed
you had the nerve really to go through with what you were bragging
about!”
“Man’s got ri’ do wha’ever he pleases--got ri’ have li’l’ fun,” Jack
said obstinately, his eyes still fixed on Mary.
“Are you coming, Jack?” she repeated in the same quiet voice.
He wavered. Clifford sensed that the young fellow’s finer instincts
were trying to struggle through the murk of his being; and mixed with
his disgust he felt a pity for this likable weakling who had been
brought to this low estate.
“All ri’,” Jack said sullenly, and started to leave the table.
“One moment, Jack,” cut in the soft, even voice of Loveman--and
Clifford saw Loveman give Mary a quick, vindictive glance. “Before you
go with her, Jack, I think you ought to know who she is. I only just
now found out myself. Her name is Mary Regan, all right, but she comes
of a crook family, and she herself has been a confidence-woman and
all-around adventuress. She married you solely to do you out of your
money. Ask her to deny it!”
“It’s true, Jack. But--”
“Understand now why she wanted to keep your marriage secret?” Loveman
cut in. “Plain enough: she knew that if it were generally known that
you had married her, you would quickly learn the truth about her and
that would finish her game. And that self-sacrifice business in letting
your father believe that she was your mistress, all in order to protect
you--can’t you see that she was really doing it to _protect herself_,
and protect her own little scheme for playing you along as a sucker?
Want to go along with her now, do you, so she can soak you some more?”
Jack, steadying himself with hands on the table, was staring across at
Mary. “’S tha’ so?” he demanded thickly.
“Part of it. But, Jack, listen--”
“I’ll not listen! Tha’s enough!” he burst out. He had irked at the
restraints she had put upon him; and since for him she represented
the routine life, he had unconsciously begun to weary of her. And all
the while he had been sneakingly ashamed that he had accepted this
supposed sacrifice from her. “I’ll not go home!” he shouted across at
her. “Un’erstand? I’ll never go home! Un’erstand? I’m through with you!
Un’erstand? You crook, you--you li’l’, dam’, sneakin’ crook!”
Mary stared at the inflamed, wine-flushed face thrust toward her. Then
she drew a deep breath--a breath tense and quivering. Then a heavy
voice sounded behind her.
“Guess you’ve got the right dope at last, Morton, on this Regan dame.”
As Mary turned quickly, Clifford’s eyes went to the other curtained
doorway. Just inside it stood the broad, powerful figure of Bradley. So
engrossed had Clifford been in the scene between Jack and Mary that he
had not heard Bradley’s entrance--which had doubtless been effected by
one of Le Bain’s many duplicate keys.
Clifford gasped within himself. The affair was even bigger than he had
thought a few minutes gone. And in a flash he guessed the explanation
of Bradley’s prompt appearance upon the scene: that while in the
telephone closet Loveman had sent _two_ messages--that after getting
Mary’s promise to come, he had notified Bradley.
Mary looked back at Loveman, ignoring Jack. Clifford could see that her
face was very pale; but she was straight and her gaze was unafraid.
“It’s no use trying to make Jack see the truth, Peter Loveman,” she
said in a slow, determined voice. “There’s no denying that you’ve
beaten me. You have removed all my motives for keeping silent about
you. I know enough about you and can produce enough evidence to secure
your conviction on half a dozen counts--and, believe me, Peter Loveman,
I’m going to give all that evidence to Mr. Clifford.”
She turned to Bradley, and her steady voice went on. “You were a crook
when you were in the Police Department--and you’ve been a crook,
playing every sort of crooked, double-crossing game, since you became a
private detective--and I have the evidence on you, too, that will send
you away--and believe me, Mr. Bradley, I’m going to use it!”
Loveman started toward her, but Bradley checked him with a gesture of a
big hand.
“Oh, you are, are you!” he said to Mary, and advanced until he stood
squarely before her. An ugly look had come into his face; her last
words had fired his animal anger. “Oh, I guess you’re not, sister!” he
said with crunching grimness. “I’ve had to hold off on you too long,
but at last I’ve got you where I want you! You ain’t going to expose
me, and you ain’t going to expose anybody else, and you ain’t ever
goin’ to hurt anybody! Do you get me, sister?”
He was glowering with malignant purpose. Clifford was wildly a-pulse
with the desire to leap out and hurl himself on Bradley. But the time
had not come; he had to wait and see the full purpose of this night’s
design.
“And, let me tell you, Mary Regan,” the heavy voice gritted on, “that
I’ve come here myself because I want the personal satisfaction of
attending to you--and because I didn’t want any slip-up on the job. And
I’m going to tell you in advance just exactly what’s going to happen to
you. Why? Because your knowing that is going to make you suffer all the
more--and, damn you, you’re going to suffer the limit! I ain’t afraid
to talk out, because we’re all in this together!”
He paused a minute; then demanded: “Want to know what’s coming to you?”
She stood silent, eyeing him steadily. Breathlessly Clifford waited.
Without being aware of it, he had drawn his automatic.
“I ain’t going to croak you. That would be too soft for you--it would
be over too soon.”
“Help!” she called, with all her voice.
“Go to it, kid,--do it again,” encouraged Bradley. “That’s right,
Slim,”--Harrison had caught her elbows from behind, as she had turned
to run. “I guess you’ll stand still now and hear me through. First
item, sister,--have you heard of that necklace that was stole a week
ago from one of the rich dames that lives in the Mordona?”
Mary did not speak.
“It’s a diamond necklace,” Bradley went on. “Worth ten thousand--mebbe
twenty. I’ve got that diamond necklace on me--never mind how I got it.
Now, as I said, the dame that lost the ice lives in the Mordona. Also
you’ve been living in the Mordona. Also, though they’ve never hung
a case on you, the police know you’ve been a crook. Now, that there
diamond necklace is going to be found by the police on Mary Regan.
That’s item number one.”
He paused to watch the effect of this upon her. White, she looked at
him unflinchingly.
“Here’s item number two. You see Nan Burdette, and Hilton, and Slim
Harrison,--all publicly notorious characters,--and I know I ain’t
offending any of them when I say that if there’s any such thing as
morals, they ain’t never troubled any one of the three o’ them. There’s
a big car outside--it’s got speed, believe me--and Slim is certainly
some driver. In about two minutes Nan and Hilton and Slim and you start
off on a joy-ride--and you’ll be fixed so you won’t do any objecting.”
Mary still gazed at him in white steadfastness. Clifford clutched his
automatic with steely tenseness.
“And waiting in the harbor of Greenport, out at the end of Long Island,
is a swell little motor yacht. The crew has all been fixed. In two or
three hours--Slim here can make the run in about that time--the four of
you go aboard and begin a joy-cruise among those islands and bays out
there where nobody is ever goin’ to bother you. In about ten days the
police will be tipped off as to who stole the necklace and where you’re
to be found--and you’ll be pinched in this crowd here, and the necklace
found in the bottom of your bag. This bunch will swear that you came
along voluntarily--that you really helped get up the party. And the
crew will testify how you and the others behaved--and the bunch here
will admit it. Booze all the time--Slim, here, your special guy--the
lid off everything. I guess you get me!”
If she did not, Clifford did. He drew a deep breath. It was all
devilishly cunning. But tense and excited though he was, Clifford
recognized that the situation was far larger than just this one case on
which he looked; that in a limited way it was typical. Many a woman, in
this world where he had been working these many months, had been the
victim of kindred daring enterprises when necessary for the safety or
the projects of these subtle _entrepreneurs_ of Big Pleasure. And these
women had never dared tell what had happened to them.
Bradley drove on at her. “And your being pinched on a joy-cruise
with this bunch, which will stamp you as being the same sort of
character--and that necklace being found on you--this, with what the
police already know about you, will fix you good and proper! Squeal all
you want to on me or Loveman, or anybody you like--you’ll be so smeared
your word won’t count for a damn with a judge or anybody else!”
Terrible as it was, Clifford almost admired the plan, so ghastly was it
in its completeness, its convincingness. He saw that Mary’s face was
now drawn, her eyes wide--saw that she was perceiving as inescapable
the cunning fate that had been planned for her--saw that she was seeing
it as a thing beyond her ever to explain away.
Taut as a violin string, Clifford directed his senses to the front of
the house for an instant--listening. Why were not Jimmie Kelly and the
others on hand to reinforce him? He was not conscious that this scene,
which had seemed so long to him, was in reality only a few minutes in
the acting.
When he peered back into the dining-room, Jack was lurching toward
Bradley. He halted swayingly and pointed a finger at the detective, the
man that was in him struggling once more to rise.
“See here, Bradley,” he said thickly. “Tha’s no go! I no stan’ f’r raw
business like tha’!”
“Shut up, you booze pup!” Bradley snapped at him. “What we’re doing,
we’re doing as much for you as anybody else. She’s always played you
rotten, ain’t she? Well, we’re just fixing her so she’ll be showed up
in public for what she really is--and so she can’t squeeze any dough
out of you, and so’s you have it easy getting a divorce. So back up,
you boob!”
He glanced at the group at the table. “Get your things on, Burdette
and Hilton,” he ordered. He turned again to Mary and her keeper: “All
ready, Slim,” he announced sharply.
His slow taunting of his prisoner now changed to swiftest action. He
drew from a pocket a heavy strap which he threw in a loop over Mary’s
head and with his huge strength buckled tightly at her elbows. In the
same instant Slim seized her head from behind, and with a fierce,
practiced grip forced a gag into her mouth, which the next instant he
tied.
“Where’s that cloak?” Bradley demanded. Nan Burdette handed it to him,
and he flung it about Mary. “Slim, got your car all ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then gimme that motor-veil, Slim.” It was handed over. “And you keep
out of this, Morton,--remember we’re doing it to help you. Just hold
her, Loveman.”
Nan Burdette and Hilton stepped forward and held apart the
curtains--while Jack, his face still wine-flushed, looked on
waveringly, Nina holding his arm.
Bradley threw the veil over Mary’s head and began to knot it behind.
“Get ready, there, to take her out!” he ordered sharply.
“Why doesn’t Jimmie Kelly come?” Clifford’s wild suspense cried within
him.