 | CHAPTER XXII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED. Within the Law |  |
22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE TRAP THAT FAILED.
Burke, despite his quality of heaviness, was blest with a keen sense of humor, against which at times his professional labors strove mutinously. In the present instance, he had failed utterly to obtain any information of value from the girl whom he had just been examining. On the contrary, he had been befooled outrageously by a female criminal, in a manner to wound deeply his professional pride. Nevertheless, he bore no grudge against the adventuress. His sense of the absurd served him well, and he took a lively enjoyment in recalling the method by which her plausible wiles had beguiled him. He gave her a real respect for the adroitness with which she had deceived him—and he was not one to be readily deceived. So, now, as the scornful maiden went out of the door under the escort of Cassidy, Burke bowed gallantly to her lithe back, and blew a kiss from his thick fingertips, in mocking reverence for her as an artist in her way. Then, he seated himself, pressed the desk call-button, and, when he had learned that Edward Gilder was arrived, ordered that the magnate and the District Attorney be admitted, and that the son, also, be sent up from his cell.
"It's a bad business, sir,'' Burke said, with hearty
"What does he say?'' Gilder questioned. There was something pitiful in the distress of this man, usually so strong and so certain of his course. Now, he was hesitant in his movements, and his mellow voice came more weakly than its wont. There was a pathetic pleading in the dulled eyes with which he regarded the Inspector.
"Nothing!'' Burke answered. "That's why I sent for you. I suppose Mr. Demarest has made the situation plain to you.''
Gilder nodded, his face miserable.
"Yes,'' he has explained it to me,'' he said in a lifeless voice. "It's a terrible position for my boy. But you'll release him at once, won't you?'' Though he strove to put confidence into his words, his painful doubt was manifest.
"I can't,'' Burke replied, reluctantly, but bluntly. "You ought not to expect it, Mr. Gilder.''
"But,'' came the protest, delivered with much more spirit, "you know very well that he didn't do it!''
Burke shook his head emphatically in denial of the allegation.
"I don't know anything about it—yet,'' he contradicted.
The face of the magnate went white with fear.
"Inspector,'' he cried brokenly, "you—don't mean—''
Burke answered with entire candor.
"I mean, Mr. Gilder, that you've got to make him
"I'll do my best,'' the unhappy man replied, forlornly.
A minute later, Dick, in charge of an officer, was brought into the room. He was pale, a little disheveled from his hours in a cell. He still wore his evening clothes of the night before. His face showed clearly the deepened lines, graven by the suffering to which he had been subjected, but there was no weakness in his expression. Instead, a new force that love and sorrow had brought out in his character was plainly visible. The strength of his nature was springing to full life under the stimulus of the ordeal through which he was passing.
The father went forward quickly, and caught Dick's hands in a mighty grip.
"My boy!'' he murmured, huskily. Then, he made a great effort, and controlled his emotion to some extent. "The Inspector tells me,'' he went on, "that you've refused to talk—to answer his questions.''
Dick, too, winced under the pain of this meeting with his father in a situation so sinister. But he was, to some degree, apathetic from over-much misery. Now, in reply to his father's words, he only nodded a quiet assent.
"That wasn't wise under the circumstances,'' the father remonstrated hurriedly. "However, now, Demarest and I are here to protect your interests, so that you can talk freely.'' He went on with a little catch of anxiety in his voice. "Now, Dick, tell us! Who killed that man? We must know. Tell me.''
Burke broke in impatiently, with his blustering fashion of address.
"Where did you get—?''
But Demarest raised a restraining hand.
"Wait, please!'' he admonished the Inspector. "You wait a bit.'' He went a step toward the young man. "Give the boy a chance,'' he said, and his voice was very friendly as he went on speaking. "Dick, I don't want to frighten you, but your position is really a dangerous one. Your only chance is to speak with perfect frankness. I pledge you my word, I'm telling the truth, Dick.'' There was profound concern in the lawyer's thin face, and his voice, trained to oratorical arts, was emotionally persuasive. "Dick, my boy, I want you to forget that I'm the District Attorney, and remember only that I'm an old friend of yours, and of your father's, who is trying very hard to help you. Surely, you can trust me. Now, Dick, tell me: Who shot Griggs?''
There came a long pause. Burke's face was avid with desire for knowledge, with the keen expectancy of the hunter on the trail, which was characteristic of him in his professional work. The District Attorney himself was less vitally eager, but his curiosity, as well as his wish to escape from an embarrassing situation, showed openly on his alert countenance. The heavy features of the father were twisting a little in nervous spasms, for to him this hour was all anguish, since his only son was in such horrible plight. Dick alone seemed almost tranquil, though the outward calm was belied by the flickering of his eyelids and the occasional involuntary
"I shot Griggs,'' he said.
Demarest realized subtly that his plea had failed, but he made ar effort to resist the impression, to take the admission at its face value.
"Why?'' he demanded.
Dick's answer came in the like unmeaning tones, and as wearily.
"Because I thought he was a burglar.''
The District Attorney was beginning to feel his professional pride aroused against this young man who so flagrantly repelled his attempts to learn the truth concerning the crime that had been committed. He resorted to familiar artifices for entangling one questioned.
"Oh, I see!'' he said, in a tone of conviction. "Now, let's go back a little. Burke says you told him last night that you had persuaded your wife to come over to the house, and join you there. Is that right?''
"Yes.'' The monosyllable was uttered indifferently.
"And, while the two of you were talking,'' Demarest continued in a matter-of-fact manner. He did not conclude the sentence, but asked instead: "Now, tell me, Dick, just what did happen, won't you?''
There was no reply; and, after a little interval, the lawyer resumed his questioning.
"Did this burglar come into the room?''
Dick nodded an assent.
"And he attacked you?''
There came another nod of affirmation.
"And there was a struggle?''
"Yes,'' Dick said, and now there was resolution in his answer.
"And you shot him?'' Demarest asked, smoothly.
"Yes,'' the young man said again.
"Then,'' the lawyer countered on the instant, "where did you get the revolver?''
Dick started to answer without thought:
"Why, I grabbed it—'' Then, the significance of this crashed on his consciousness, and he checked the words trembling on his lips. His eyes, which had been downcast, lifted and glared on the questioner. "So,'' he said with swift hostility in his voice, "so, you're trying to trap me, too!'' He shrugged his shoulders in a way he had learned abroad. "You! And you talk of friendship. I want none of such friendship.''
Demarest, greatly disconcerted, was skilled, nevertheless, in dissembling, and he hid his chagrin perfectly. There was only reproach in his voice as he answered stoutly:
"I am your friend, Dick.''
But Burke would be no longer restrained. He had listened with increasing impatience to the diplomatic efforts of the District Attorney, which had ended in total rout. Now, he insisted on employing his own more drastic, and, as he believed, more efficacious, methods. He stood up, and spoke in his most threatening manner.
"You don't want to take us for fools, young man,'' he said, and his big tones rumbled harshly through the
The arraignment was severely logical. Dick showed his appreciation of the justice of it in the whitening of his face, nor did he try to answer the charges thus hurled at him.
The father, too, appreciated the gravity of the situation. His face was working, as if toward tears.
"We're trying to save you,'' he pleaded, tremulously.
Burke persisted in his vehement system of attack. Now, he again brought out the weapon that had done Eddie Griggs to death.
"Where'd you get this gun?'' he shouted.
Dick held his tranquil pose.
"I won't talk any more,'' he answered, simply. "I must see my wife first.'' His voice became more aggressive. "I want to know what you've done to her.''
Burke seized on this opening.
"Did she kill Griggs?" he questioned, roughly.
For once, Dick was startled out of his calm.
"No, no!'' he cried, desperately.
Burke followed up his advantage.
"Then, who did?'' he demanded, sharply. "Who did?''
Now, however, the young man had regained his self-
"I won't say any more until I've talked with a lawyer whom I can trust.'' He shot a vindictive glance toward Demarest.
The father intervened with a piteous eagerness.
"Dick, if you know who killed this man, you must speak to protect yourself.''
Burke's voice came viciously.
"The gun was found on you. Don't forget that.''
"You don't seem to realize the position you're in,'' the father insisted, despairingly. "Think of me, Dick, my boy. If you won't speak for your own sake, do it for mine.''
The face of the young man softened as he met his father's beseeching eyes.
"I'm sorry, Dad,'' he said, very gently. "But I— well, I can't!''
Again, Burke interposed. His busy brain was working out a new scheme for solving this irritating problem.
"I'm going to give him a little more time to think things over,'' he said, curtly. He went back to his chair. "Perhaps he'll get to understand the importance of what we've been saying pretty soon.'' He scowled at Dick. "Now, young man,'' he went on briskly, "you want to do a lot of quick thinking, and a lot of honest thinking, and, when you're ready to tell the truth, let me know.''
He pressed the button on his desk, and, as the doorman appeared, addressed that functionary.
"Dan, have one of the men take him back. You wait outside.''
Dick, however, did not move. His voice came with a note of determination.
"I want to know about my wife. Where is she?''
Burke disregarded the question as completely as if it had not been uttered, and went on speaking to the doorman with a suggestion in his words that was effective.
"He's not to speak to any one, you understand.'' Then he condescended to give his attention to the prisoner. "You'll know all about your wife, young man, when you make up your mind to tell me the truth.''
Dick gave no heed to the Inspector's statement. His eyes were fixed on his father, and there was a great tenderness in their depths. And he spoke very softly:
"Dad, I'm sorry!''
The father's gaze met the son's, and the eyes of the two locked. There was no other word spoken. Dick turned, and followed his custodian out of the office in silence. Even after the shutting of the door behind the prisoner, the pause endured for some moments.
Then, at last, Burke spoke to the magnate.
"You see, Mr. Gilder, what we're up against. I can't let him go—yet!''
The father strode across the room in a sudden access of rage.
"He's thinking of that woman,'' he cried out, in a loud voice. "He's trying to shield her.''
"He's a loyal kid, at that,'' Burke commented, with a grudging admiration. "I'll say that much for him.''
The Inspector next called his stenographer, and gave explicit directions. At the back of the room, behind the desk, were three large windows, which opened on a corridor, and across this was a tier of cells. The stenographer was to take his seat in this corridor, just outside one of the windows. Over the windows, the shades were drawn, so that he would remain invisible to any one within the office, while yet easily able to overhear every word spoken in the room.
When he had completed his instructions to the stenographer, Burke turned to Gilder and Demarest.
"Now, this time,'' he said energetically, "I'll be the one to do the talking. And get this: Whatever you hear me say, don't you be surprised. Remember, we're dealing with crooks, and, when you're dealing with crooks, you have to use crooked ways.''
There was a brief period of silence. Then, the door opened, and Mary Turner entered the office. She walked slowly forward, moving with the smooth strength and grace that were the proof of perfect health and of perfect poise, the correlation of mind and body in exactness. Her form, clearly revealed by the clinging evening dress, was a curving group of graces. The beauty of her face was enhanced, rather than lessened, by the pallor of it, for the fading of the richer colors gave to the fine features an expression more spiritual, made plainer the underlying qualities that her accustomed brilliance might half-conceal. She paid absolutely no attention to the other two in the room, but went straight to the desk, and there halted, gazing with her softly penetrant eyes of deepest violet into the face of the Inspector.
Under that intent scrutiny, Burke felt a challenge, set himself to match craft with craft. He was not likely to undervalue the wits of one who had so often flouted him, who, even now, had placed him in a preposterous predicament by this entanglement over the death of a spy. But he was resolved to use his best skill to disarm her sophistication. His large voice was modulated to kindliness as he spoke in a casual manner.
"I just sent for you to tell you that you're free.''
Mary regarded the speaker with an impenetrable expression. Her tones as she spoke were quite as matter-of-fact as his own had been. In them was no wonder, no exultation.
"Then, I can go,'' she said, simply.
"Sure, you can go,'' Burke replied, amiably.
Without any delay, yet without any haste, Mary glanced toward Gilder and Demarest, who were watching the scene closely. Her eyes were somehow appraising, but altogether indifferent. Then, she went toward the outer door of the office, still with that almost lackadaisical air.
Burke waited rather impatiently until she had nearly reached the door before he shot his bolt, with a fine assumption of carelessness in the announcement.
"Garson has confessed!''
Mary, who readily enough had already guessed the essential hypocrisy of all this play, turned and confronted the Inspector, and answered without the least trace of fear, but with the firmness of knowledge:
"Oh, no, he hasn't!''
Her attitude exasperated Burke. His voice roared out wrathfully.
"What's the reason he hasn't?''
The music in the tones of the answer was a vocal rebuke.
"Because he didn't do it.'' She stated the fact as one without a hint of any contradictory possibility.
"Well, he says he did it!'' Burke vociferated, still more loudly.
Mary, in her turn, resorted to a bit of finesse, in order to learn whether or not Garson had been arrested. She spoke with a trace of indignation.
"But how could he have done it, when he went—'' she began.
The Inspector fell a victim to her superior craft. His question came eagerly.
"Where did he go?''
Mary smiled for the first time since she had been in the room, and in that smile the Inspector realized his defeat in the first passage of this game of intrigue between them.
"You ought to know,'' she said, sedately, "since you have arrested him, and he has confessed.''
Demarest put up a hand to conceal his smile over the police official's chagrin. Gilder, staring always at this woman who had come to be his Nemesis, was marveling over the beauty and verve of the one so hating him as to plan the ruin of his life and his son's.
Burke was frantic over being worsted thus. To gain a diversion, he reverted to his familiar bullying tactics. His question burst raspingly. It was a question that had come to be constant within his brain during the last few hours, one that obsessed him, that fretted him sorely, almost beyond endurance.
"Who shot Griggs?'' he shouted.
Mary rested serene in the presence of this violence. Her answer capped the climax of the officer's exasperation.
"My husband shot a burglar,'' she said, languidly.
Burke betook himself to another form of attack.
"Oh, you know better than that,'' he declared, truculently. "You see, we've traced the Maxim silencer. Garson himself bought it up in Hartford.''
For the first time, Mary was caught off her guard.
"But he told me—'' she began, then became aware of her indiscretion, and checked herself.
Burke seized on her lapse with avidity.
"What did he tell you?'' he questioned, eagerly.
Now, Mary had regained her self-command, and she spoke calmly.
"He told me,'' she said, without a particle of hesitation, "that he had never seen one. Surely, if he had had anything of the sort, he would have shown it to me then.''
"Probably he did, too!'' Burke rejoined, without the least suspicion that his surly utterance touched the truth exactly. "Now, see here,'' he went on, trying to make his voice affable, though with small success, for he was excessively irritated by these repeated failures; "I can make it a lot easier for you if you'll talk. Come on, now! Who killed Griggs?''
Mary cast off pretense finally, and spoke malignantly.
"That's for you to find out,'' she said, sneering.
Burke pressed the button on the desk, and, when the doorman appeared, ordered that the prisoner be returned to her cell.
But Mary stood rebellious, and spoke with a resumption of her cynical scorn.
"I suppose,'' she said, with a glance of contempt toward Demarest, "that it's useless for me to claim my constitutional rights, and demand to see a lawyer?''
Burke, too, had cast off pretense at last.
"Yes,'' he agreed, with an evil smirk, "you've guessed it right, the first time.''
Mary spoke to the District Attorney.
"I believe,'' she said, with a new dignity of bearing, "that such is my constitutional right, is it not, Mr. Demarest?''
The lawyer sought no evasion of the issue. For that matter, he was coming to have an increasing respect, even admiration, for this young woman, who endured insult and ignominy with a spirit so sturdy, and met strategem with other strategem better devised. So, now, he made his answer with frank honesty.
"It is your constitutional right, Miss Turner.''
Mary turned her clear eyes on the Inspector, and awaited from that official a reply that was not forthcoming. Truth to tell, Burke was far from comfortable under that survey.
"Well, Inspector?'' she inquired, at last.
Burke took refuge, as his wont was when too hard pressed, in a mighty bellow.
"The Constitution don't go here!'' It was the best he could do, and it shamed him, for he knew its weakness. Again, wrath surged in him, and it surged high. He welcomed the advent of Cassidy, who came hurrying in with a grin of satisfaction on his stolid face.
"Say, Chief,'' the detective said with animation, in response to Burke's glance of inquiry, "we've got Garson.''
Mary's face fell, though the change of expression was almost imperceptible. Only Demarest, a student of much experience, observed the fleeting display of repressed emotion. When the Inspector took thought to look at her, she was as impassive as before. Yet, he was minded to try another ruse in his desire to defeat the intelligence of this woman. To this end, he asked Gilder and the District Attorney to withdraw, while he should have a private conversation with the prisoner. As she listened to his request, Mary smiled again in sphinx-like fashion, and there was still on her lips an expression that caused the official a pang of doubt, when, at last, the two were left alone together, and he darted a surreptitious glance toward her. Nevertheless, he pressed on his device valiantly.
"Now,'' he said, with a marked softening of manner, "I'm going to be your friend.''
"Are you?'' Mary's tone was non-committal.
"Yes,'' Burke declared, heartily. "And I mean it! Give up the truth about young Gilder. I know he shot Griggs, of course. But I'm not taking any stock in that
There was coarseness a-plenty in the Inspector's pretense, but it possessed a solitary fundamental virtue: it played on the heart of the woman whom he questioned, aroused it to wrath in defense of her mate. In a second, all poise fled from this girl whose soul was blossoming in the blest realization that a man loved her purely, unselfishly. Her words came stumblingly in their haste. Her eyes were near to black in their anger.
"He didn't kill him! He didn't kill him!'' she fairly hissed. "Why, he's the most wonderful man in the world. You shatn't hurt him! Nobody shall hurt him! I'll fight to the end of my life for Dick Gilder!''
Burke was beaming joyously. At last—a long last! —his finesse had won the victory over this woman's subtleties.
"Well, that's just what I thought,'' he said, with smug content. "And now, then, who did shoot Griggs? We've got every one of the gang. They're all crooks. See here,'' he went on, with a sudden change to the respectful in his manner, "why don't you start fresh? I'll give you every chance in the world. I'm dead on the level with you this time.''
But he was too late. By now, Mary had herself well
"Just you wait,'' he went on cheerfully, "and I'll prove to you that I'm on the level about this, that I'm really your friend.... There was a letter came for you to your apartment. My men brought it down to me. I've read it. Here it is. I'll read it to you!''
He picked up an envelope, which had been lying on the desk, and drew out the single sheet of paper it contained. Mary watched him, wondering much more than her expression revealed over this new development. Then, as she listened, quick interest touched her features to a new life. In her eyes leaped emotions to make or mar a life.
This was the letter:
"I can't go without telling you how sorry I am. There won't never be a time that I won't remember it was me got you sent up, that you did time in my place. I ain't going to forgive myself ever, and I swear I'm going straight always.
"Your true friend,
"HELEN MORRIS.''
For once, Burke showed a certain delicacy. When he had finished the reading, he said nothing for a long minute— only, sat with his cunning eyes on the face of the
To Mary Turner, this was the wonderful hour. In it, the vindication of her innocence was made complete. The story was there recorded in black and white on the page written by Helen Morris. It mattered little—or infinitely much!—that it came too late. She had gained her evil place in the world, was a notorious woman in fact, was even now a prisoner under suspicion of murder. Nevertheless, she felt a thrill of ecstasy over this written document—which it had never occurred to her to wrest from the girl at the time of the oral confession. Now that it had been proffered, the value of it loomed above almost all things else in the world. It proclaimed undeniably the wrong under which she had suffered. She was not the thief the court had adjudged
Mary was again the resourceful woman who was glad to pit her brain against the contriving of those who fought her. So, at this moment, she seemed pliant to the will of the man who urged her thus cunningly. Her quick glance around the office was of a sort to delude the Inspector into a belief that she was yielding to his lure.
"Are you sure no one will ever know?'' she asked, timorously.
"Nobody but you and me,'' Burke declared, all agog with anticipation of victory at last. "I give you my word!''
Mary met the gaze of the Inspector fully. In the same instant, she flashed on him a smile that was dazzling, the smile of a woman triumphant in her mastery of the situation. Her face was radiant, luminous with honest mirth. There was something simple and genuine in her beauty that thrilled the man before her, the man trying so vindictively to trap her to her own undoing. For all his grossness, Burke was of shrewd perceptions, and somewhere, half-submerged under the sordid nature of his calling, was a love of things esthetic, a responsiveness to the appeals of beauty. Now, as his glance searched the face of the girl who was bubbling with mirth, he experienced an odd warming of his heart under the spell of her loveliness—a loveliness wholly feminine, pervasive, wholesome. But, too, his soul shook in a premonition of catastrophe, for there was
All his apprehensions were verified by her utterance. It came in a most casual voice, despite the dancing delight in her face. The tones were drawled in the matter-of-fact fashion of statement that leads a listener to answer without heed to the exact import of the question, unless very alert, indeed.... This is what she said in that so-casual voice:
"I'm not speaking loud enough, am I, stenographer?''
And that industrious writer of shorthand notes, absorbed in his task, answered instantly from his hidden place in the corridor.
"No, ma'am, not quite.''
Mary laughed aloud, while Burke sat dumfounded. She rose swiftly, and went to the nearest window, and with a pull at the cord sent the shade flying upward. For seconds, there was revealed the busy stenographer, bent over his pad. Then, the noise of the ascending shade, which had been hammering on his consciousness, penetrated, and he looked up. Realization came, as he beheld the woman laughing at him through the window. Consternation beset him. He knew that, somehow, he had bungled fatally. A groan of distress burst from him, and he fled the place in ignominious rout.
There was another whose spirit was equally desirous of flight—Burke! Yet once again, he was beaten at his own game, his cunning made of no avail against the clever interpretation of this woman whom he assailed.
The doorman appeared with that automatic precision which made him valuable in his position, and the Inspector hailed the ready presence with a feeling of profound relief.
"Dan, take her back!'' he said, feebly.
Mary was smiling still as she went to the door. But she could not resist the impulse toward retort.
"Oh, yes,'' she said, suavely; "you were right on the level with me, weren't you, Burke? Nobody here but you and me!'' The words came in a sing-song of mockery.
The Inspector had nothing in the way of answer— only, sat motionless until the door closed after her. Then, left alone, his sole audible comment was a single word—one he had learned, perhaps, from Aggie Lynch:
"Hell!''
| CHAPTER XXII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED. Within the Law | |