"Let's go where no one can hear us."
They repaired to the library. Jim hitched his chair very close to hers.
"I want you to understand just one thing, Miss Madge--I'm a friend of
your'n." He cleared his throat. "I want to come clean with you--if
you'll let me."
"Please do."
"Well, first off I want to tell you why I'm here. I'm here--" his fishy
eyes closed slowly, opened even more slowly and then fixed glassily and
compellingly on hers--"I'm here to break off this match between you an'
Whitey."
Her lips parted and she leaned forward. "Why?" she cried. "Do you, too,
believe that he is--a--a--not what he should be?"
Jim Hanvey's ponderous head rolled from side to side.
"No ma'am!" he said explosively, "I don't!"
"What?" Her voice rang with incredulous amazement.
"Whitey ain't no crook--and that's what I wanted to tell you. He's
on the level, that kid is. They've been out to get him for the last
ten years and they've not succeeded. Why? The reason is because he's
straight. But they've had it in for him. If he'd ever slipped--even an
inch--they'd have got him. That's what I wanted to tell you--that I'm
here as your friend. Of course I think he's pretty old for you--but
that's your business and his. Your father thinks I'm gonna try to hang
somethin' on Whitey. I'm not. But it's better for a friend of his to
stick around than to tell the old man how I really stand and have him
hire some one who has it in for Whitey. He wouldn't have a chance then.
They'd frame him. And I just wanted to explain this to you so you'd
know you can trust me."
Impulsively she clasped his big right hand in both of hers. Her eyes
were shining: "I don't know how to thank you. And I _do_ trust you--Oh!
so much! It's horrible, what they're saying about Warren--and I know
it isn't so. I--well, do you mind if I tell Warren that you're here to
help him--to help us?"
"No," returned Jim dryly, "I don't mind. Tell him. He'll be awful
interested."
And Whitey was interested when she told him the following morning. He
was more than that, and the amazement which was writ large upon his
features was reflected in the fury which surcharged his voice.
"It's a damned lie--" He did not catch the startled, hurt glance which
she bestowed upon him. "Jim believes I'm crooked. He's here to prove it
to you. And when he says he's our friend, he lies."
She cringed slightly. The intensity of the man troubled her. It was
something which her immaturity could not understand; a new vision of
this hitherto soft-spoken, gentle, thoughtful man. A tremor of doubt
assailed her. Girl-like, she could not comprehend the bitterness which
seemed so unnecessary. For the moment Whitey Kirk had stepped out of
character.
Later she told Jim that Kirk was distrustful and Hanvey insisted
that the three of them meet for a chat. Kirk violently opposed the
suggestion. Things which he could not fathom were happening too swiftly
for his comfort. He was afraid of Jim and did not know how to combat
this new tack--this brummagem friendliness. It was Madge who insisted
that the trio talk things over, and Madge who made evasion impossible.
Lowering and sullen he greeted the impassive Jim who puffed placidly
upon one of his murderous cigars and appeared happily oblivious to
the rancor in the other's manner. But Madge was noticing--and she was
vaguely uncomfortable for Jim.
"What's your game, Jim?" Whitey Kirk came straight to the point.
"Game? Who said I was playin' a game?"
"You know perfectly well that when you told Miss Weston you were here
in the rôle of friend, you lied."
"Mph! You don't care who you call a liar, do you?"
"No I don't, and----"
"Well----" softly--"I'm too much your friend to get sore at you about
doin' it. Ain't that the sensible thing, Miss Madge?"
"It is." She clipped her words short with a mannerism keenly remindful
of her father. "And I must say, Warren, that you seem unnecessarily
severe."
He swung wrathfully upon her. "I tell you that your father has employed
this man to destroy our happiness--to break off our engagement----"
"He told me so himself," she answered with some asperity.
"He did?"
"Certainly. And he said he was remaining here because he is our friend
and because if he resigned any other man who assumed the task would be
our enemy. Isn't that simple?"
"Yeh," chimed in Jim, "ain't it?"
Kirk gazed at him through half-closed eyes. "I still don't get the
drift----"
"It's just this," explained Hanvey. "Everybody says you're a crook--but
you ain't--are you?"
"No."
"Folks just think you are. They're terrible unjust to you. You're
really a gent and you're engaged to a swell young girl. All you want is
a chance to marry her. Well, I'm here to see that you get that chance."
"That isn't true!" snapped Kirk bluntly.
"Why not?"
"Because you know good and well----" He pulled himself up sharply,
suddenly remembering that his fiancée was an auditor "--that you think
I'm not on the level."
"Aw, Son, you're doin' yourself an awful injustice. I never knew a
straighter, nicer feller than you in my life. I've always been your
friend. I've always told these other dicks who've been after you that
it wasn't no use--that they'd never get the goods on you so they might
as well quit tryin'. Honest, I have."
Kirk turned away. "One warning, Madge," he flung harshly over his
shoulder, "this man isn't to be trusted."
She stared after his retreating figure, her own countenance aflame
with embarrassment. Jim Hanvey, alone of the trio, seemed unperturbed.
His attitude of disinterestedness was superb, and when she would have
apologized for Kirk he cut her short. "That's all right, Miss Madge.
I don't hold it against poor Whitey. They've been houndin' him for so
long he's just naturally suspicious of everybody. Don't you go lettin'
this little scene worry you. Just remember that I'm your friend.
Real--sure-enough friend."
She left him there and scarcely had she disappeared within the house
when Kirk returned. His face was pallid and the gray eyes were blazing
beneath the thinly pencilled brows. Jim greeted him with a broad grin.
"Back again, Whitey?"
"Yes. What I want to know----"
"I'll tell you one thing you _ought_ to know--that is you pulled an
awful bone just now. The way you acted you almost convinced me I was
wrong and that you really are a crook."
"Come off that, Jim. What are you driving at?"
"Just trying to help you out. You an' Miss Madge. Terrible swell kid.
I'm strong for her."
"You can't hang anything on me."
Hanvey met his eyes squarely. Then the detective's lids closed with
interminable slowness. At the termination of the protracted ocular yawn
he gave vent to a single comment. "Nobody in this world ever batted a
thousand," he said.
That night the three principals in the little drama gave themselves
over to intensive thought. Jim speculated least of all. He was more
than merely satisfied with the results of his preliminary work,
although he was yet somewhat appalled by the difficulty of the task he
had undertaken--and with the urgency of success. He shuddered in his
big, simple heart at thought of the girl's future should his efforts
meet with failure. Whitey was all right in his own sphere--but this
girl did not belong there and he knew that Whitey could never fit
himself into her world.
As for Whitey Kirk, that gentleman was victim to a severe and obsessing
worry. He had been apprehensive from the moment of Jim's arrival on the
scene and had already laid a predicate of defense against any possible
move of the detective. But the first move had caught him unprepared--it
had come from an unexpected quarter and he found himself off guard.
Jim's expressed friendship was the one thing with which he did not
know how to cope. He realized that he had pulled a strategic blunder
that afternoon--all through the evening Madge had been cool and unlike
her naturally effusive and effervescent self. Madge was thinking--and
Whitey didn't want Madge to think. Her nimble brain contained too much
of her father's powers of logical deduction.
Kirk could not vision the goal toward which Jim was heading. That
Jim had a definite objective, he did not doubt. He knew that the
protestations of friendly interest were untrue--but he could not
prove they were untrue. The very fact that Hanvey's strategy was
unintelligible to him caused additional worry. He could face a definite
attack. This one, subtle and evasive, bewildered and rendered him
horribly vulnerable.
Madge sat at her window, staring seriously across the silhouette of
hills. In her eyes was a brooding reflective light which was at once
doubting and speculative. Instinct informed her that Jim Hanvey was her
friend. She could not help but trust him. And she had that day made
the startling discovery that there was something to Warren Kirk beside
suave gentility. She had glimpsed beneath the surface and had seen
there a hardness and a grimness which she--eighteen and in love--had
never suspected.
There was little sleep for her that night and she did not come down
the following morning until long after breakfast. She had forgotten an
engagement to ride with Kirk and learned with an inexplicable measure
of relief that he had gone alone. In the morning room she found Jim
Hanvey smoking one of his vile cigars and worrying himself over the
proper place to drop the ashes. She settled herself for a chat--and so,
eager and friendly, Whitey Kirk found her when he returned from his
ride. He remonstrated with her, and, as she had discovered a granite
something in him the previous day, so he now learned that there was a
strain of firmness in her which did not brook opposition.
"I think you're unjust and unreasonable, Warren."
"I know what I'm talking about."
"Has Mr. Hanvey ever harmed you?"
"It isn't his fault that he hasn't. He has tried."
"How do you know?"
Kirk's face flushed. That was a question which was embarrassing to
answer. He knew well enough, but--"I know--that's all."
"That isn't sufficient for me, Warren. I like Mr. Hanvey and I believe
he's our friend."
Kirk's face hardened unpleasantly. "He may be yours, Madge; but he
isn't mine."
They had walked down the rosepath together and now she left him
abruptly and returned to Hanvey. He gave no slightest indication of
interest in their conversation. He stared stolidly at nothing at all
and allowed her ample time to recover her mental equilibrium.
Kirk again tried to solve the riddle. Jim was proceeding with a smug
complacency which worried him. Mentally, he checked over the list of
his criminal exploits. He was positive that each had been excellently
covered but he wasn't sure. Now. He had been sure until Jim appeared
on the scene. But nothing could explain Jim's air of confidence save
the certainty that he had uncovered some supposedly closed trail of
Kirk's. But if Jim Hanvey was planning to discredit Kirk in the eyes of
the girl, his actions gave no hint of that fact. It was the following
morning, after a hearty tiff between Whitey and Madge, that he found
her crying in an arbor and slumped down beside her consolingly----
"Aw! c'mon, Kid--that ain't no way to carry on. Whitey didn't mean
nothin' by what he said."
She faced him squarely. There were tears in her eyes but no suggestion
of weakness in the firm line of her jaw. "It isn't what he said, Mr.
Hanvey--it's what he didn't say."
"Well then--he didn't mean nothin' by what he didn't say. Whitey's a
swell feller, Madge. An awful swell feller. Best in the world. He's got
his faults--we've all of us got them. But I'm strong for Whitey an' I'd
give anything in the world if he'd believe that."
"So would I," she said. "I trust you, Mr. Hanvey. I don't know why--but
I do. Perhaps it's because I like you so much."
Jim blushed like a schoolgirl. "Gee! them words is music to my ears.
There ain't many folks have said that to me, Miss Madge. Y'know--it
seems that when folks meet up with a fat man they think all they got to
do to prove they're good fellers is to give him a razzin'. Goshamighty,
a fat feller likes friends as much as a skinny one. More, I'll say. He
needs 'em more." He breathed heavily with the exertion of prolonged
declamation. "That's why I wisht Whitey would like me an' trust me like
you do. Matter of fact I've just been achin' to solve his problem, but
he wouldn't let me get within firin' distance--you'd think I was gonna
eat him."
"You've been aching to solve what problem, Mr. Hanvey?"
"His an' yourn."
"How?"
Jim looked away. "I don't exactly like to tell you. If Whitey was to
suspect I was hornin' in on his affairs he'd get plumb peeved. Reckon
I'd better wait. But it _is_ a terrible good solution."
"What is it?"
Her interrogation fairly crackled. Jim grinned. "Anybody listenin' to
that would know you was your father's daughter, Sis."
"What have you in mind?"
"Nothin' special--just an easy way out. Somethin' Whitey would of
thought of long ago if he'd been twenty years younger." He stared
reflectively at the sky--"Elopement!"
The color receded from her cheeks. For a moment she sat motionless,
then leaned forward earnestly. "Would he?"
"Elope? Goodness goshness! yes! Feller who wouldn't elope with you
would be a wooden Indian. 'Course I suppose he's figured that it'd get
you in dutch with your folks, but I've been studyin' them out, an' I
know they're so nuts about you they'd forgive you right away. Ain't it
so?"
"Yes.... Mr. Hanvey, I've been hoping that Warren would suggest that.
I have, really. I know it sounds unmaidenly to say it--but I've
been so worried and so uncertain. And recently Warren has acted so
peculiarly--since you came here, that is.... I wish it was over and
done with."
"That's the way to talk, Sis. And I want you to know I'm here to help
you all I can."
"You will?"
"Positively. But--" ruminatingly "--I wouldn't mention that fact to
Whitey if I was you."
She nodded agreement. "Perhaps I had better not. But I'll count on you
just the same."
It was that night that she walked through the gardens with Kirk and
broached her plan. She did it simply and naïvely--she was worried,
she said, recent developments had mitigated the perfection of their
happiness. He had become morose and she worried. It was better not to
go on this way. If he really loved her, he wouldn't wait--he'd just
carry her off....
Whitey Kirk scarce believed the evidence of his senses. He was
amazed and exultant. Ever since the moment of Jim's arrival on the
scene he had longed to suggest an elopement, but he was afraid. Jim
would find out some way, and then there'd be thunder to pay. He had
feared it would be a tactical blunder, might arouse her suspicions of
over-anxiety on his part.
His agreement was instant and enthusiastic--sufficiently enthusiastic
even for her girlish, romance-loving heart. Within an hour their plans
were laid: they were to announce after dinner the following night
that they were going for a ride. At about eight o'clock they'd leave
the grounds in her own high-powered sport roadster into which their
suitcases would previously have been put. Then across country to the
next town--and marriage. Whitey was whistling gleefully when they
returned to the spacious veranda, but Madge was victim to a strange
admixture of emotions. On the one hand was the thrill of active
romance--on the other a feeling that she was doing wrong, that she
wasn't playing fair with her parents; that, perhaps, after all was said
and done, Whitey wasn't exactly the man for her.
Some of her doubts she expressed to Jim the following morning. He
laughed away her fears. He had advised it, he said, because it was the
simplest way out of a serious difficulty. A problem, he explained, was
only a problem until it attained solution. It became then, a status.
Those were not Jim's words, but that was the sense of them. She was
only half-convinced and told him so.
"But I trust you, Jim Hanvey. I'm taking your advice. I'll do what you
say."
"You really love Whitey?"
"Y-yes."
"Then elope with him to-night."
All through the long afternoon she was distraught. Her suitcase was
packed and ready. Immediately following a peculiarly strained dinner
Whitey Kirk disappeared. He returned in a few minutes having, in the
interim, placed his suitcase in the girl's car. The world was a very
bright and rosy place for Whitey just then. He glanced contemptuously
toward the slothful, hulking figure of the detective. Not the least
item of the prospective triumph would be Jim's discomfiture.
For her part, Madge was uncertain and unhappy. Only her immaturity and
her fear of that youthful bugbear known as "backing down" prevented
an eleventh-hour retreat. But, starry-eyed and firm-jawed, she set
herself to go through with it. She had said she'd do it and she
would--come what might. But she experienced none of the happiness which
she had fancied would be hers upon her nuptial night. There was only
a vague, formless terror ... time and again she turned to Jim Hanvey
for comfort. Jim knew--she could talk to him. He tried cumbersomely
to reassure her, and succeeded partially. That evening he was to her
both mother and father ... they were very close to one another; the
big, ungainly detective and the bewildered, emotion-driven child of a
millionaire father.
At seven-thirty o'clock Whitey Kirk called Madge aside.
"Your suitcase in the car, dear?"
"Yes," she answered softly.
"You put it there yourself?"
"Yes...." Then she hesitated and bit her lip. Madge had never been
taught to lie. "Well, not exactly myself."
"What do you mean: Not exactly?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean, Madge?"
"Well, somebody put it there for me."
"Who?"
"I don't see what difference that makes, Warren."
He quizzed her with an intensity which he himself did not understand.
"Who was it?"
Her head was flung back defiantly.
"Mr. Hanvey!"
His jaw dropped slowly. Then his fingers tightened on her arm. "Jim
Hanvey?"
"Yes."
"Then--" He was striving to adjust himself to this queer
development--"Then Jim Hanvey knows about this elopement?"
"Yes."
"You told him?"
"No. That is--not exactly."
"Good God! Madge, can't you realize what you've done? You've spoiled
the whole thing. If Jim Hanvey knows of this we may as well call it
off. We'll never get away with it. I told you from the first that he
was here to prevent our marriage. And now that you've told him--"
Her voice was level and firm in defense of the detective.
"And I've told you _you_ were wrong, Warren. Jim is my friend and
yours. He won't stop our elopement."
"What makes you think that?" His voice contained a sneer.
"Because," she announced calmly, "the idea of this elopement originated
with Jim Hanvey!"
His grip on her arm relaxed. He gazed at her in incredulous
astoundment. His brain seemed momentarily atrophied. Of all possible
disclosures this was the most disturbing. It had been sufficiently
alarming to learn that Jim was aware of the proposed elopement but to
be informed that the idea had originated with the portly detective was
a stunning blow.
He questioned the girl dazedly, choosing his words with care, holding
himself in leash that he might betray none of the violent emotion which
seethed within him. He might have suspected ... might have known that
Jim was not entirely inactive. And all the time, while the girl was
explaining, his own brain groped for an answer to the puzzle. What was
Jim planning? What _could_ he be planning? As from a great distance he
heard her words--
"And so you see I was right and Jim is your friend."
An uncontrollable fury shook him. The words were out of their own
volition--"He's a damned sneak! Butting in on my affairs!"
She recoiled. The viciousness of the man's attitude, his venomous
speech.... He saw his error quickly and for the next ten minutes
devoted himself and his expert talents to the task of making amends.
She was only half-convinced.... "We'll go through with it," he said
grimly. "Jim will double-cross you--you'll see. But we'll go through."
She went to her room. The farewell to her dainty little sanctuary was
not easy. She dabbed at her eyes with a tiny lace handkerchief and
prayed for the moral courage to renege at this eleventh hour. But that
courage did not come--she was too young and her philosophy was builded
about a tenet of gameness. She had said she'd elope with Warren Kirk
and elope she would despite the instinct which cried to her in warning.
She pulled herself together with an effort, set her lips in a
straight, determined line, and--with shoulders thrown back and head
held high--descended the stairway. Her eyes roved questioningly about
and she felt more than a hint of regret at failing to discern the
hulking figure of Jim Hanvey. Nor did she see Kirk. She inquired his
whereabouts of her father.
"I'm sure I don't know," answered Weston. "I saw Kirk strolling about
with Jim Hanvey but I don't know where they went. Weren't you going
riding with Warren?"
She nodded in dumb misery. As they reached the veranda Kirk appeared
from the dusk. He seemed nervous and, in the light which streamed
through the doorway, his face possessed a marked pallor. He addressed
the girl: "All ready, Dear?"
"Yes." She turned to her father. "Where is Johnson? I want him to get
the roadster."
Weston answered. "Johnson has gone to town in the big car, Dear. I'll
get the other out for you."
"No." Her manner denoted anxiety. "I'll back it out myself. You talk to
Warren."
There was no eagerness in her manner as she progressed slowly toward
the garage in the rear of the big house. A premonition of disaster was
with her, the irrevocability of the thing was depressing. Game as she
was, there was considerable trepidation at the thought that she was
thus wilfully abandoning the placidity of her existence for a future
unknown and with a man whom she had just come to realize she scarcely
knew.
She climbed thoughtfully into the roadster, assured herself that her
suitcase and Whitey's were there, and then started the motor. Its
rhythmic hum brought no elation this night. Just before slipping into
gear, she reached to the dashboard and switched on her head-lights.
As by magic the interior of the garage was illumined by the brilliant
glare. And then, as the significance of the sight disclosed by the
sudden illumination penetrated her consciousness, she capitulated to
her overwrought nerves. She screamed.
"Dad! O-oh! Dad!"
She sat motionless, gripped by a horrid fear, until her father stood
beside the car, and as she alighted uncertainly her eyes discerned the
figure of Warren Kirk farther back in the shadows. He hovered there
uncertainly. Her father held her arm anxiously and then, as he saw her
distended eyes, he followed their direction and a startled exclamation
escaped from between his lips. For, in the very corner of the garage
was a bundle of flashy, vivid clothes--a bundle bound securely by ropes
and rendered mute by a gag.
"He's dead!" The girl's eyes flashed accusingly upon Kirk, and then
back to the pitiful figure of Jim Hanvey in the corner. Jim was slumped
grotesquely, his chin hung forward on the massive breast, a thin
trickle of blood coursed down his fat cheeks and lost itself in the fat
recesses of the ample chins.
How long she stood there she didn't know. She remembered her father
leaping across the garage, whipping out a gold penknife as he did so.
And she knew vaguely that Kirk was beside her, his hand on her elbow.
She shook his hand off and he moved away as though she had struck him.
Weston administered first aid to the stricken man from a silver pocket
flask and not until the fishy eyes wavered open did the girl move, and
then it was to dart across the garage and drop to her knees by the side
of the ungainly figure. She pillowed his head on her breast and soft,
crooning mother-sounds came from between her lips. She wiped away the
thin stream of blood with the hem of her skirt. Jim rousing himself
with an effort, blinked dazedly into the glare of the auto lamps and
shook his head. His voice came lugubriously--
"Gosh! I sure feel like Friday the thirteenth."
As Jim, with the aid of Theodore Weston, struggled to his feet, Whitey
Kirk moved slowly into the circle of light. His finely chiselled face
exhibited great concern. He voiced a question--"What happened, Jim?"
It was Madge Weston who answered. She, too, had risen, and a new
maturity seemed to have enveloped her. With a quietly dramatic gesture
she removed from the fourth finger of her left hand the ring which Kirk
had given her. She extended it to him.
"You know what happened to him, Warren."
"I don't...." His denial was fervent. "I'll swear to you, Madge--"
"Take this, Warren. I'd rather not discuss the matter."
His eyes held hers. And the man saw there a light of finality which was
beyond question or argument. With that revealing glance he knew that he
had lost. Madge turned to her father and gave a calm, quiet, womanly
explanation--
"I was about to elope with Warren. He was afraid that Mr. Hanvey might
try to stop us. And so he committed this--this cowardly act--"
"I didn't!" It was Kirk defending himself passionately. "I give you my
word. Jim, you know I didn't do this. Tell them--"
"It doesn't matter what Mr. Hanvey says," retorted the girl sadly. "He
has always been your friend and he's your friend now. He'd probably say
you didn't do it, wouldn't you, Mr. Hanvey?"
"Yeh." Jim's big head nodded slowly. "I prob'ly would. I ain't aimin'
to git Whitey into no trouble."
"You see, Warren, he's standing by you to the end. For it is the end,
Warren. The very end. I've learned a good deal in the last few days.
Somehow, I marvel that I didn't know before."
"But I didn't do it, Madge. Tell her that I didn't do it, Jim."
Jim met his eyes levelly. "I ain't accused you of nothin', have I,
Whitey?"
Kirk stood rigid, staring from one to the other. From father and
daughter he received stares of unveiled hostility. From Jim Hanvey only
a mild, blinking reproof. Kirk's big figure shook with fury and he
smashed one fist into the palm of the other hand.
"It's all a damned lie!" he shouted. "I had nothing to do with this and
Jim Hanvey knows it."
"Well," came the quiet retort from the detective, "I ain't said you
did, have I?"
It was Madge Weston who interposed. "It doesn't matter what either of
you might say," she remarked coldly. "And now, Dad, I think we'd better
help Mr. Hanvey into the house."
They supported the big figure between them. Whitey Kirk stood aside
as they passed him. Later, after Weston and Madge had bandaged Jim's
slight scalp wound, Kirk dispatched a note to Madge protesting his
innocence and begging for an audience. She returned a curt refusal and
the following morning, without again having seen the girl, Whitey Kirk
abruptly departed the Weston home.
That afternoon Jim Hanvey and Theodore Weston faced each other across
the polished surface of the walnut desk in the library. Jim was puffing
peacefully upon one of his favorite black cigars and his host was
struggling manfully with its mate. But however horrible the cigar might
have been, it was not sufficiently malevolent to negative entirely the
unalloyed exaltation which Weston was experiencing.
"You accomplished the impossible, Jim. I'll never forget it. I didn't
believe it would work----"
"I wasn't so dog-goned sure of it myself," answered the big detective
slowly. Then he grinned ruefully as he tenderly rubbed the bruise
on his head. "I'll hand you one thing, Mr. Weston. Your bindin' an'
gaggin' wasn't such a fine job--but believe me that sure was one awful
wallop you hit me. I don't wonder Miss Madge was so sure that Whitey
done it. She never would believe her Dad was that cruel."