Dick's departure left Maggie to think alone upon an intricate and possibly dangerous interplay of characters in which she had cast herself for the chief role, which might prove a sacrificial role for her. She quickly perceived that Dick's plan, clever as it might be, would bring about, in the dubious event of its success, only one of the several happenings which had to come to pass if she were to clear her slate before her disappearance.
Dick's plan was good; but it would only get rid of Barney and Old Jimmie. It would only rid Larry of such danger as they represented; it would only be revenge upon them for the evil they had done. And, after all, revenge helped a man forward but very little. There would still remain, even in the event of the success of Dick's plan, the constant danger to Larry from the police hunt, instigated by Chief Barlow's vindictive determination to send Larry back to prison for his refusal to be a stool-pigeon; and the constant danger from his one-time friends who were hunting him down with deadly hatred as a squealer.
Somehow, if she were to set things right for Larry, she had to maneuver that night's happenings in such a way as to eliminate forever Barlow's persecutions, and eliminate forever the danger to Larry from his friends' and their hirelings' desire for vengeance upon a supposed traitor.
Maggie thought rapidly, elaborating on Dick's plan. But what Maggie did was not so much the result of sober thought as of the inspiration of a desperate, hardly pressed young woman; but then, after all, what we call inspiration is only thought geared to an incredibly high speed. First of all, she got rid of that slow-witted, awesome supernumerary, Miss Grierson, who might completely upset the delicate action of the stage by a dignified entrance at the wrong moment and with the wrong cue. Next she called up Chief Barlow at Police Headquarters. Fortunately for her Barlow was still in; for an acrimonious dispute, then in progress and taking much space in the public prints, between him and the District Attorney's office was keeping him late at his desk despite the most autocratic and pleasant of all demands, those of his dinner hour. To him Maggie gave a false name, and told him that she had most important information to communicate at once; to which he growled back that she could give it if she came down at once.
Next she called up Barney, who had been waiting near a telephone in expectation of news of the result of her second visit to the home of Dick Sherwood. To Barney she said that she had the greatest possible news--news which would require immediate action--and that he should be at her suite at nine o'clock prepared to play his part at once in the big proposition that had just developed, and that he should get word to Old Jimmie to follow him in a few minutes.
Within fifteen minutes a taxicab had whirled her down to Police Headquarters and she was in the office where three months earlier Larry had been grilled after his refusal of the license to steal and cheat on the condition that he become a police stool. Barlow, who was alone in the room, looked up with a scowl from a secret report he had secured of the activities of detectives in the District Attorney's office. Although Maggie was pretty and stylishly dressed, Barlow did not rise nor did he remove the big cigar he had been viciously gnawing. It is the tradition of the Police Department, the most thoroughly respected article of its religion, that a woman who is seen in Police Headquarters cannot by any possibility be a lady.
"Well, what's on your chest?" he grunted, not even asking her to be seated.
It was suddenly Maggie's impulse--sprung perhaps out of unconscious memory of what Larry had suffered--to inflict upon herself the uttermost humiliation. So she said:
"I've come here to offer myself as a stool-pigeon."
"What's that?" Barlow exclaimed, startled. It was not often that a swell lady--who of course couldn't be a swell (he did not know who Maggie was)--voluntarily walked into his office with such a proposition.
"I can give you some real information about a big game that's being worked up. In fact, I can arrange for you to be present when the game is pulled off, and you can make the arrests."
"Who are the people?" he asked brusquely.
Maggie knew it would be fatal to mention Barney or Old Jimmie, if that story about Barlow's protection contained any truth. Again inspiration, or incredibly swift thinking, came to her aid, and with sure touch she twanged one of Barlow's rawest and most responsive nerves.
"Larry Brainard is behind it all. He's been doing a lot of things on the quiet these last few months. Here is where you can get his whole crowd."
"Larry Brainard!"
Maggie did not yet know what had befallen Larry, and Gavegan had neglected to telephone his Chief of the arrest. Even had Gavegan done so, the large and vague manner in which Maggie had stated the situation would have stirred Barlow's curiosity.
"All right. I'll put a couple of my good men on the case. Where shall I send 'em?"
"A couple of your good men won't do. I want only one of your good men--and that man is yourself."
"Me!" growled Barlow. "What kind of floor-walker d'you think I am? I'm too busy!"
"Too busy to take personal charge, and get personal credit, for one of the biggest cases that ever went through this office?"
Maggie had sought only to excite his vanity. But unknowingly she had also appealed to something else in him: his very deep concern in the hostile activities of the District Attorney's office. If this girl told the truth, then here might be his chance to display such devotion to duty as to turn up some such sensational case as would make this investigation from the District Attorney's office seem to the public an unholy persecution and make the chagrined District Attorney, who was very sensitive to public opinion, think it wiser to drop the whole matter.
"How do I know you're not trying to string me?--or get me out of the way of something bigger?--or hand me the double-cross?"
