The Big-Town Round-Up

by Raine, William MacLeod

  The gray morning broke, and brought with it the steaming smell of prison cooking, the sounds of the caged underworld, the sense of life all around him dwarfed and warped to twisted moral purposes. A warden came with breakfast—a lukewarm, muddy liquid he called coffee and a stew in which potatoes and bits of fat beef bobbed like life buoys—and Clay ate heartily while his cell mate favored him, between gulps, with a monologue on ethics, politics, and the state of society, as these related especially to Shiny the Shover. Lindsay was given to understand that the whole world was "on de spud," but the big crooks had fixed the laws so that they could wear diamonds instead of stripes.

  Presently a guard climbed the iron stairway with a visitor and led the way along the deck outside the tier of cells where Clay had been put.

  "He's in seventy-four, Mr. Durand," the man said as he approached.

  "I'll have to beat it. Come back to the office when you're ready."

  The ex-pugilist had come to gloat over him. Clay knew it at once. His pupils narrowed.

  He was lying on the bed, his supple body stretched at graceful ease.

  Not by the lift of an eyelid did he recognize the presence of his enemy.

  Durand stood in front of the cell, hands in pockets, the inevitable unlit black cigar in his mouth. On his face was a sneer of malevolent derision.

  Shiny the Shover bustled forward, all complaisance.

  "Pleased to meet youse, Mr. Durand."

  The gang politician's insolent eyes went up and down him. "I didn't come to see you."

  "'S all right. Glad to see youse, anyhow," the counterfeit passer went on obsequiously. "Some day, when you've got time I'd like to talk wit' youse about gettin' some fall money."

  "Nothin' doin', Shiny. I'm not backin' you," said Jerry coldly.

  "You've got to go up the river."

  "Youse promised—"

  "Aw, what the hell's eatin' you?"

  Shiny's low voice carried a plaintive whine. "If you'd speak to de judge—"

  "Forget it." Durand brushed the plea away with a motion of his hand. "It's your cell pal I've come to take a look at—the one who's goin' to the chair."

  With one lithe movement Clay swung down to the floor. He sauntered forward to the grating, his level gaze full on the ward boss.

  "Shiny, this fellow's rotten," he said evenly and impersonally. "He's not only a crook, but he's a crooked crook. He'd throw down his own brother if it paid him."

  Durand's cruel lips laughed. "Your pal's a little worried this mornin', Shiny. He ain't slept much. You see the bulls got him right. It's the death chair for him and no lifeboat in sight."

  Clay leaned against the bars negligently. He spoke with a touch of lazy scorn. "See those scars on his face, Shiny—the one on the cheek bone and the other above the eye. Ask him where he got 'em and how."

  Jerry cursed. He broke into a storm of threats, anger sweeping over him in furious gusts. He had come to make sport of his victim and Lindsay somehow took the upper hand at once. He had this fellow where he wanted him at last. Yet the man's soft voice still carried the note of easy contempt. If the Arizonan was afraid, he gave no least sign of it.

  "You'll sing another tune before I'm through with you," the prize-fighter prophesied savagely.

  The Westerner turned away and swung back to his upper berth. He knew, what he had before suspected, that Durand was going to "frame" him if he could. That information gained, the man no longer interested him.

  Sullenly Jerry left. There was no profit in jeering at Lindsay. He was too entirely master of every situation that confronted him.

  Within the hour Clay was wakened from sleep by another guard with word that he was wanted at the office of the warden. He found waiting him there Beatrice and her father. The girl bloomed in that dingy room like a cactus in the desert.

  She came toward him with hands extended, in her eyes gifts of friendship and faith.

  "Oh, Clay!" she cried.

  "Much obliged, little pardner." Her voice went to his heart like water to the thirsty roots of prickly pears. A warm glow beat through his veins. The doubts that had weighed on him during the night were gone. Beatrice believed in him. All was well with the world.

  He shook hands with Whitford. "Blamed good of you to come, sir."

  "Why wouldn't we come?" demanded the mining man bluntly. "We're here to do what we can for you."

  Little wells of tears brimmed over Beatrice's lids. "I've been so worried."

  "Don't you. It'll be all right." Strangely enough he felt now that it would. Her coming had brought rippling sunshine into a drab world.

  "I won't now. I'm going to get evidence for you. Tell us all about it."

  "Why, there isn't much to tell that you haven't read in the papers probably. He came a-shootin' and was hit by a chair."

  "Was it you that hit him?"

  "Wouldn't I be justified?" he asked gently.

  "But did you?"

  For a moment he hesitated, then made up his mind swiftly. "Yes," he told her gravely.

  She winced. "You couldn't help it. How did you come to be there?"

  "I just dropped in."

  "Alone?"

  "Yes."

  He had burned the bridges behind him and was lying glibly. Why bring Bromfield into it? She was going to marry him in a few days. If her fiancé was man enough to come forward and tell the truth he would do so anyhow. It was up to him. Clay was not going to betray him to Beatrice.

  "The paper says there was some one with you."

  "Sho! Reporters sure enough have lively imaginations."

  "Johnnie told me you had an engagement with Mr. Bromfield."

  "Did you ever know Johnnie get anything right?"

  "And Clarendon says he was with you at Maddock's."

  Clay had not been prepared for this cumulative evidence. He gave a low laugh of relief. "I'm an awful poor liar. So Bromfield says he was with me, does he?"

  "Yes."

  He intended to wait for a lead before showing his hand. "Then you know all about it?" he asked carelessly.

  Their eyes were on each other, keen and watchful. She knew he was concealing something of importance. He had meant not to tell her that Bromfield had been with him. Why? To protect the man to whom she was engaged. She jumped to the conclusion that he was still shielding him.

  "Yes, you're a poor liar, Clay," she agreed. "You stayed to keep back

  Collins so as to give Clarendon a chance to escape."

  "Did I?"

  "Can you deny it? Clarendon heard the shots as he was running downstairs."

  "He told you that, did he?"

  "Yes."

  "That ought to help a lot. If I can prove Collins was shootin' at me I can plead self-defense."

  "That's what it was, of course."

  "Yes. But Durand doesn't mean to let it go at that. He was here to see me this mo'nin'." Clay turned to the mining man, his voice low but incisive. His brain was working clear and fast. "Mr. Whitford, I have a hunch he's going to destroy the evidence that's in my favor. There must be two bullet holes in the partition of the rear room where Collins was killed. See if you can't find those bullet holes and the bullets in the wall behind."

  "I'll do that, Lindsay."

  "And hire me a good lawyer. Send him to me. I won't use a smart one whose business is to help crooks escape. If he doesn't believe in me, I don't want him. I'll have him get the names of all those pulled in the raid and visit them to see if he can't find some one who heard the shots or saw shooting. Then there's the gun. Some one's got that gun. It's up to us to learn who."

  "That right."

  "Tim Muldoon will do anything he can for me. There's a girl lives with his mother. Her name's Annie Millikan. She has ways of finding out things. Better talk it over with her too. We've got to get busy in a hurry."

  "Yes," agreed Whitford. "We'll do that, boy."

  "Oh, Clay, I'm sure it's going to be all right!" cried Beatrice, in a glow of enthusiasm. "We'll give all our
time. We'll get evidence to show the truth. And we'll let you know every day what we are doing."

  "How about my going bail for you?" asked her father.

  Clay shook his head. "No chance, just yet. Let's make our showing at the coroner's inquest. I'll do fine and dandy here till then."

  He shook hands with them both and was taken back to his cell. But hope was in his heart now. He knew his friends would do their best to get the evidence to free him. It would be a battle royal between the truth and a lie.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  BROMFIELD MAKES AN OFFER

  A youth with a face like a fox sidled up to Durand in the hotel lobby and whispered in his ear. Jerry nodded curtly, and the man slipped away as furtively as he had come.

  Presently the ex-prize-fighter got up, sauntered to the street, and hailed a taxi. Twenty minutes later he paid the driver, turned a corner, and passed into an apartment house for bachelors. He took the elevator to the third floor and rang an electric bell at a door which carried the name "Mr. Clarendon Bromfield."

  From the man who came to the door Mr. Bromfield's visitor learned that he was not well and could receive no callers.

  "Just mention the Omnium Club, and say I'm here on very important business," said Jerry with a sour grin.

  The reference served as a password. Jerry was admitted to meet a host quite unable to control his alarm. At sight of his visitor Bromfield jumped up angrily. As soon as his man had gone he broke out in a subdued scream.

  "You rotten traitor! Get out of my room, or I'll call the police."

  Durand found a comfortable chair, drew a case from his pocket, and selected a cigar. He grinned with evil mirth.

  "You will, eh? Like hell you will. You're hidin' from the cops this blessed minute. I've just found out myself where you live."

  "You took my money and threw me down. You hired a gunman to kill me."

  "Now, what would I do that for? I hadn't a thing in the world against you, an' I haven't now."

  "That damned ruffian shot at me. He was still shooting when I struck him with the chair," cried Bromfield, his voice shaking.

  "He didn't know it was you—mistook you for Lindsay in the darkness."

  "My God, I didn't mean to kill him. I had to do something."

  "You did it all right."

  "I told you there wasn't to be any violence. It was explicitly stated. You promised. And all the time you were planning murder. I'll tell all I know. By God, I will."

  "Go easy, Mr. Bromfield," snarled Jerry. "If you do, where do ye think you'll get off at?"

  "I'll go to the police and tell them your hired gunman was shooting at us."

  "Will you now? An' I'll have plenty of good witnesses to swear he

  wasn't." Durand bared his teeth in a threat. "That's not all either.

  I'll tie you up with the rube from the West and send you up to Sing

  Sing as accessory. How'd you like that?"

  "If I tell the truth—"

  "You'll be convicted of murder in place of him and he'll go up as accessory. I don't care two straws how it is. But you'd be a damned fool. I'll say that for you."

  "I'm not going to let an innocent man suffer in my place. It wouldn't be playing the game."

  Durand leaned forward and tapped the table with his finger-tips. His voice rasped like a file. "You can't save him. He's goin' to get it right. But you can hurt yourself a hell of a lot. Get out of the country and stay out till it's over with. That's the best thing you can do. Go to the Hawaiian Islands, man. That's a good healthy climate an' the hotel cooking's a lot better than it is at Sing Sing."

  "I can't do it," moaned the clubman. "My God, man, if it ever came out—that I'd paid you money to—to—ruin his reputation, and that I'd run away when I could have saved an innocent man—I'd be done for. I'd be kicked out of every club I'm in."

  "It won't ever come out if you're not here. But if you force my hand—well, that's different." Again Jerry's grin slit his colorless face. He had this poor devil where he wanted him, and he was enjoying himself.

  "What do you want me to do, then?" cried Bromfield, tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead.

  "You'll do as I say—beat it outa the country till the thing's over with."

  "But Lindsay will talk."

  "The boob's padlocked his mouth. For some fool reason he's protectin' you. Get out, an' you're safe."

  Bromfield sweated blood as he walked up and down the room looking for a way out of his dilemma. He had come to the parting of the road again. If he did this thing he would be a yellow cur. It was one thing to destroy Lindsay's influence with Beatrice by giving her a false impression. From his point of view their friendship was pernicious anyhow and ought to be wiped out. At most the cattleman would have gone back unhurt to the Arizona desert he was always talking about. Nobody there would care about what had happened to him in New York. But to leave him, an innocent man, to go to his death because he was too chivalrous to betray his partner in an adventure—this was something that even Bromfield's atrophied conscience revolted at. Clay was standing by him, according to Durand's story. The news of it lifted a weight from his soul. But it left him too under a stronger moral obligation to step out and face the music.

  The clubman made the only decision he could, and that was to procrastinate, to put off making any choice for the present.

  "I'll think it over. Give me a day to make up my mind," he begged.

  Jerry shrugged his heavy shoulders. He knew that every hour counted in his favor, would make it more difficult for the tortured man to come forward and tell the truth. "Sure. Look it over upside and down. Don't hurry. But, man, what's there to think about? I thought you hated this guy—wanted to get rid of him."

  "Not that way. God, no! Durand, I'll give you any sum in reason to let him go without bringing me into it. You can arrange it."

  Jerry slammed down a fist heavily on the table. "I can, but I won't. Not if you was to go fifty-fifty with me to your last cent. I'm goin' to get this fellow. See? I'm goin' to get him good. He'll be crawlin' on his hands and knees to me before I'm through with him."

  "What good will that do you? I'm offering you cold cash just to let the truth get out—that Collins was trying to kill him when he got hit."

  "Nothin' doin'. I've been layin' for this boob. I've got him now.

  I'm goin' to turn the screws on and listen to him holler."

  Bromfield's valet stepped into the room. "Mr. and Miss Whitford to see you, sir."

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  BEATRICE QUALIFIES AS A SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Annie Millikan nodded her wise little head. "Jerry's gonna frame him if he can. He's laid the wires for it. That's a lead pipe."

  "Sure," agreed Muldoon. "I'll bet he's been busy all night fixin' up his story. Some poor divvies he'll bully-rag into swearin' lies an' others he'll buy. Trust Jerry for the crooked stuff."

  "We've got to get the truth," said Beatrice crisply, pulling on her gloves. "And we'll do it too. A pack of lies can't stand against four of us all looking for the truth."

  Annie looked curiously at this golden-haired girl with the fine rapture of untamed youth, so delicate and yet so silken strong. By training and tradition they were miles apart, yet the girl who had lived on the edge of the underworld recognized a certain kinship. She liked the thorough way this young woman threw herself into the business of the day. The wireless telegraphy of the eyes, translated through the medium of her own emotions, told her that no matter whose ring Beatrice Whitford was wearing Clay Lindsay held her happiness in the cup of his strong brown hand.

  "You're shoutin', Miss." Annie rose briskly. "I'll get busy doin' some sleuthin' myself. I liked your friend from the minute he stepped through—from the minute I set me peepers on him. He's one man, if anybody asks you. I'm soitainly for him till the clock strikes twelve. And say, listen! Jerry's liable not to get away with it. I'm hep to one thing. The gang's sore on him. He rides the boys too hard. Some of 'em will sure t'row him do
wn hard if they think they'll be protected."

  "The district attorney will stand by us," said Whitford. "He told me himself Durand was a menace and that his days as boss were numbered. Another thing, Miss Millikan. If you need to spend any money in a legitimate way, I'm here to foot the bills."

  Muldoon, who was on night duty this month and therefore had his days free, guided Whitford and his daughter to Maddock's. As they reached the house an express wagon was being driven away. Automatically the license number registered itself in Tim's memory.

  The policeman took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. The three went up the stairs to the deserted gambling-hall and through it to the rear room.

  "From what Lindsay says the bullet holes ought to be about as high as his arm pits," said Whitford.

  "'Slim' must 'a' been standin' about here," guessed Muldoon, illustrating his theory by taking the position he meant. "The bullets would hit the partition close to the center, wouldn't they?"

  Beatrice had gone straight to the plank wall. "They're not here," she told them.

  "Must be. According to Lindsay's story the fellow was aiming straight at it."

  "Well, they're not here. See for yourself."

  She was right. There was no evidence whatever that any bullets had passed through the partition. They covered every inch of the cross wall in their search.

  "Lindsay must have been mistaken," decided Whitford, hiding his keen disappointment. "This man Collins couldn't have been firing in this direction. Of course everything was confusion. No doubt they shifted round in the dark and—"

  He stopped, struck by an odd expression on the face of his daughter. She had stooped and picked up a small fragment of shaving from the floor. Her eyes went from it to a plank in the partition and then back to the thin crisp of wood.

  "What is it, honey?" asked Whitford.

  The girl turned to Muldoon, alert in every quivering muscle. "That express wagon—the one leaving the house as we drove up—Did you notice it?"