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THE DEVIL TO PAY


BOOKS BY GENERAL F. W. GREENE
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
the Present Military situation in the
united states. 12mo . - - - net $0.75
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR AND THE MILITARY
POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. With Maps.
8vo . - - - - - - . . net $2.50
THE MISSISSIPPI. With Maps. (Campaigns of the
Civil War.) 12mo . . . . . . net $1.00


THE DEVIL TO PAY
-
BY
FRANCES NIMMO GREENE
-
AUTHOR of “THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST.”
“one CLEAR CALL”
-
C.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
º
1918


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CoPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published April, 1918
Reprinted April, 1918
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THE DEVIL TO PAY





THE DEVIL TO PAY
CHAPTER I
“The Lord have mercy on you!” said the priest.
“Dead,” pronounced the physician for the sov-
ereign State.
“Satisfied,” said Justice, folding her passionless
hands.
Ten minutes more and there was left nothing
to show that here had been wrought a tragedy. A
bare ten minutes l—yet they did not hustle it—the
thing that they had strangled. Nay, they handled
it even reverently, now that their law was “satis-
fied.” A bare ten minutes of final touches, and they
handed over the work of their hands to the stark-
faced woman and boy who had waited for it till it
should be finished.


CHAPTER II
It was a long day that—the longest in many a
year—but it came to an end at last, and night
settled over the little city—Night, with her power
to illumine, to show us what we are l
In the morning hours the course of technical jus-
tice had taken its way unimpeded, but very shortly
after the human life was sacrificed, the counter-
currents had set in.
There was never any question of George Roan's
guilt—not that. What they questioned, even when
the day was young, was their right to take the life
of a fellow creature. It had been long since a man
was hanged in that State—so long, by reason of
mistrials, appeals, petitions for executive clemency,
and what not, that a certain element had begun to
feel the law should either boldly vindicate its right
to punish capitally, or waive it altogether.
And so, it had come about that yesterday, when
George Roan's white-faced wife paced those streets
with a petition for clemency, few were found to
sign it.
But the fateful day was numbered with the dead
—the course of “justice” had spent itself and the
counter-currents were running strong. By the time
the dark had sifted down, every mind's eye in the
- - 2 -
* - w - - a


THE DEVIL TO PAY 3
city was turned toward where a little wilderness
of mock-oranges parted just enough to show a bow
of crape upon a low-faced door.
Larry Keeling, on his return from a day's fishing,
had seen that bow of crape with his mortal eyes,
and having seen, continued to behold it. He saw it
now as, a mile away, he sat on a bench in the tiny
public square and stared into nothingness.
“Have you heard the news?”
The young fellow came to himself with a start.
The man beside him had spoken, and was waiting
for his answer.
“No,” said Larry. “What now?”
“The Grand Jury has indicted the other one.”
“Who?” demanded young Keeling, with every
line in his face suddenly tense.
“Your social Pooh-Bah,” replied the stranger.
“Not—not—” began Larry.
“Brent Warren,” said the other, quietly.
The little city square suddenly grew strangely
unreal. It was one thing to hang for murder an
obscure, questionable social unit, but quite another
to indict as an accomplice in the crime one of the
most popular and influential citizens of the com-
munity.
“I can't believe it!” Larry found himself saying.
And then, “Who are you?”
“A member of the Grand Jury,” replied the man.
“I—don't understand!” at length stammered the
young man.
The other rose to his feet. “Suppose you drop


4 THE DEVIL TO PAY
around to the reception at the jail and ask him,” he
said, quietly, and he moved away.
Young Keeling leaned forward and watched the
retreating figure with keen curiosity. Who was the
man? That powerful yet slouching figure, those
heavy, non-committal features, were certainly not
strange to him. Indeed they seemed to belong in
the existing order of things—to have always be-
longed there. Larry remembered now that he had
seen the man many times before—had, so to speak,
subconsciously taken him for granted. Yet, as he
reflected now, he did not know one single thing
about the man, except the incognito of his outward
semblance.
And now the shadows at the far end of the square
were receiving the shadowy figure into themselves,
and Larry Keeling was left to revert, with another
start, to the news which this nameless member of
the Grand Jury had divulged—to the problem of
how, in the light of that news, to face the future.
And only that morning everybody had thought
the incident of the death of Joe Harkness forever
closed with the springing of the trap that swung
George Roan out into the mysteriesl
It had been an interesting case from start to fin-
ish—that is, to what had seemed the finish. Over-
whelming circumstantial evidence had gone to prove
that Roan fired the shot that killed Joe Harkness,
though the defendant protested his innocence to the
last, and though no rational motive for the crime
could be established. -


THE DEVIL TO PAY 5
Brent Warren himself, president of the Hamp-
ton Bank and Trust Company—in which Roan was
employed as paying teller, and Harkness as cashier
—could suggest no clue to the motive which
prompted the act. But, though called as witness by
the defense, Warren had, in his simple, straight-
forward testimony, revealed things which actually
served to tip the scales to the defendant's doom.
Young Keeling now recalled the fact that the
president of the Trust Company, himself, had not
escaped scot-free of criticism. George Roan had
been imported into the town by Warren himself at
the very organization of the Hampton Bank and
Trust Company, six years before. And from the
day of the opening of the bank's doors to the day
on which he shot and killed Joe Harkness, he had
been teller of the company and Warren's trusted
aide. But George Roan was by no means the type
of man usually employed in the banking business.
He was from the people—very lately from the peo-
ple—and outside working hours, he dropped abso-
lutely back among the people.
But early in the business Warren had explained
to those who had the right to question, that Roan
was a genius, in his crude way, and invaluable to
him. So those who had the right to question had
closed their lips and left the irresponsible to do
the talking. *
And even this irresponsible criticism of Warren
soon died away for lack of something to feed upon.
For even the irresponsible know that, after all, a


THE DEVIL TO PAY 7
Yes, it was true!
He hurried to a telephone and called a number
for which he did not have to refer to the directory.
In spite of their evident respect for the propri-
eties, the men near the boothless phone fell silent
when young Keeling spoke to the number he had
called.
“Have you told Dare?” he was heard to ask in
half-breathed undertone. “Well, whatever you do,
don't let her find out to-night! I'll tell her to-
morrow, myself—and—say! I may not be home
to-night—don't look for me.”
When he turned from the telephone, Larry
learned that the whole affair was “absurd,” and
“not worth giving a thought to.” And he felt much
better for being so assured.
Nevertheless, he found himself still uneasy. It
was all right for those who were not closely touched
by the “fiasco” to make light of it; for himself, he
felt as if Fate had suddenly laid a hand upon him.
After a few seconds' exchange of guarded re-
marks, young Keeling found it necessary to with-
draw from the too gaily sanguine company.
Then, once more in the open, he tried to recon-
cile himself and the situation. How should one
bear himself in such a complication? Just what
should be the amenities when the man to whom a
fellow's only sister is engaged to be married is in-
dicted by the Grand Jury for murder?
Young Keeling reflected now that he had op-
posed Dare's engagement to Warren from the be-


8 THE DEVIL TO PAY
ginning, and the smaller part of him felt a distinct
satisfaction in the thought that his superior wisdom
was now in grave danger of being vindicated. War-
ren was not guilty of murder, of course; but Warren
had never been good enough for Dare Keeling, and
most likely there would be “developments” when
the man's character was subjected to investigation.
But the next instant a something within the young
fellow clinched with his carping mood. Dare was his
sister, if she was the stubbornnest girl in the world,
and blood-loyalty was a mark of the Keeling race.
He would stand by Warren—no time now to take
an inventory of the fellow's general faults!
At this point the young man realized with a start
that his unconscious steps had brought him to the
very door of the city prison. The man whom race
traditions were inspiring him to champion was
somewhere behind those steel gratings!
Larry stopped short and stood for some time in
silent battle with his prejudices. Then he ascended
the steps determinedly.
A gathering of “best citizens” almost filled the
jail lobby. Some were arriving, some leaving. All
treated the circumstance of Warren's incarceration
in the most philosophic, off-hand manner.
Young Keeling entered the jailer's office. At the
rear end of this room the jailer himself, acting as
turnkey, was ushering in and out through a certain
steel door counter-streams of well-dressed, prosper-
ous-looking men.
Young and easily impressed, the new-comer took


THE DEVIL TO PAY 9
a deep breath of relief. Everybody that was any-
body was hastening to reaffirm his confidence in
the man whom the Grand Jury had ordered tried
for murder. Larry admitted to himself that he had
somewhat over-estimated Warren's need of what he
had to offer, still he knew that Dare would be
touched by his loyalty and promptness.
Mr. Parks, the jailer, greeted the young man
cordially. One of Mr. Warren's friends? Why,
surel It was after closing hour, and a bit unusual,
but then the whole circumstance was unusual.
The steel door was unlocked and swung back,
and Larry was admitted into what appeared to be
an inner office. There were visible a desk, some
chairs, and a lounge.
Men's voices — pleasing, cheery voices — were
heard immediately above. Larry's quick glance
caught the narrow iron stair at the side of the room.
He mounted this promptly, but paused at the top to
get his bearings. Unobserved in the crowd, he
stood back diffidently for a few moments.
Brent Warren, smiling, suave, assured, stood the
center of a jovial company to whom grand and petit
juries seemed things of small accounting, and indict-
ments a subject for pleasantries. No one appeared
in the least concerned about the startling develop-
ments, not even Warren himself.
Cigars were being passed around.
It was all so different from what he had expected
that young Keeling hesitated a moment, distinctly
embarrassed. But Warren was now shaking his


IO THE DEVIL TO PAY
hand cordially, and saying so exactly the right, the
graceful thing, that Larry managed to find his
tongue and reply fittingly.
There was a sudden laughing challenge from the
eight or ten other visitors, but Larry soon realized
that he was not its subject.
The jailer's ruddy, smiling face had appeared at
the top of the iron stair.
“Hello there, Parks, come here and tell Mr.
Warren about Archie Tipton l’’ one of them called.
Parks mounted till he could rest his huge arms
on the railing of the stair opening.
“Got Archie too,” he laughed.
“Tell them about his mamma,” urged a voice.
“Why, O'Hagan pinched the little cuss—”
“Praise bel”
“At last /*
“And we had to entertain him till we could turn
him over to the Reformatory to coddle. Well, we
are pretty full, you know—business mighty brisk
lately—and I had to manage the best I could with
Archie, so I put him in the cell with Freeling Train.”
“And his mamma didn't like it?” came by way of
expediting the story.
“Whose mamma P" asked another, and the men
all laughed.
“Archie's,” replied the jailer, laughing too.
“Train's didn't know about it, fortunately.”
“What's Train in for?” Larry asked.
“Wife murder,” threw in the jailer, and went on
with his story:


THE DEVIL TO PAY II
“Archie's mamma come down, and nearly flung a
fit about my lockin' up her precious little boy with a
murderer!”
“Did you change him?” someone asked.
“Me?” asked the jailer, “Well, I reckon not. I
just told the lady the truth—that that twelve-year-
old kid of hers could teach Train more meanness
in two hours than the fellow had ever yet suspected.
Train's a gentleman, I told her, and if anybody had
a kick comin' it was him—for bein’ locked up in
Archie's pernicious society. I'm worried for Train,”
he finished.
While the laugh was subsiding, one of the
younger visitors, Terry Carmichael, touched Larry
on the arm.
“Ever been in here?” he asked, motioning toward
a narrow passageway that led off.
Larry hadn't been in there, so he followed Terry
through the passage and into a large, quiet room.
In one corner was a steel platform, half-way up the
side of the wall and approached by narrow steps.
Terry led the way up these till they stood at the top.
“The death-trap,” he explained, as if his com-
panion hadn't eyes to behold. “See that hook up
there?—and that's a trap-door, they drop it from
under his feet.”
“George Roan stood here only this morning,”
said Larry, turning white about the mouth.
“I was here,” said Carmichael.
“You were?”
“Yes, Raymond—he's the county physician, you


I2 THE DEVIL TO PAY
know—picked me up on his way here. Raymond
was just up from a hospital experience, and—Well,
you see, when he got here he just didn't have the
nerve for the job, and he sent me in to say that the
sheriff would have to appoint a substitute for him,
as he had gone home sick. That's how I got in—
seemed to belong, you know.”
“I don't blame Raymond,” said Larry, looking
sick himself. “I fancy it wasn't easy to get anybody
to serve as a substitute for him.”
“Yes, it was. Haven't you heard the talk?”
“What talk?”
“Why they called on old Dr. Jernigan to serve
because he was there at hand. And the sheriff
didn't know till hours afterward that Jernigan was
Roan's nearest neighbor—possibly his friend.”
“But the man didn't serve, of course,” exclaimed
Larry, horrified.
“Yes, but he did. And he made a neat, quiet,
short job of it, too.”
“Well, if Jernigan was willing, I don't see what
business it was of other people's,” said Larry, as
he put his hand nervously to his throat.
“Yon don't?” exclaimed Carmichael. “Well, I'm
a friend of Warren's—Now—Oh, I say, let's get
out of this,” he exclaimed, bringing his glance back
to Larry's livid face.
As they made their way back Carmichael ex-
plained:
“That's the night jailer's room Warren is in now.
They are giving him quite a range here you see—
nice of Parks.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY I3
“Will Warren have to stay here, or can he make
bond?” Larry inquired, with concern, “I suppose
that in capital cases—”
“Oh, bonds are allowed in capital cases in this
State,” Carmichael replied, proud of his superior
knowledge, “but of course things have to look good
for the accused, and of course the bonds are made
large.” -
“Then there won't be any trouble about that,”
and young Keeling's tone was one of distinct relief.
“Certainly not. Everybody knows that Warren
is all right,” said Terry, “and his friends are able
and eager to go bail for him. He will have his pre-
liminary trial early in the morning, and the bond
will be made. It's just for the night, you see.”
“How long before the Criminal Court meets?”
asked Larry.
“Just a little over two weeks. Fortunate, ain't
it? It's so much better to have it over with soon.”
When they re-entered the room where Warren
and a half dozen of his guests were still lounging,
someone was saying:
“If it hadn't been for you, Warren, Grant could
never have pulled off the conviction of Roan.”
“I did only what any other citizen who stands
for law and order would have done,” Warren re-
plied modestly.
Larry thought he had never seen such poise be-
fore.
“Of course, it's all right about Roan,” remarked
another, as he carefully trimmed off the end of a


I4 THE DEVIL TO PAY
new cigar, “but I'll not vote for Grant again for the
solicitorship.”
“Why?” Larry surprised himself with the ques-
tion.
“Extremist,” replied the interrogated, with a
brief upward glance at the intrusion.
There was silence for a moment, and Larry won-
dered why. Then it occurred to him that he would
find out.
“Do you mean that Grant is too—zealous?” he
questioned.
“Too cock-sure,” was the brief reply.
“Carter means that Grant will never listen to the
advice of others,” explained Warren politely, “and
that's true. I myself was one of a party of men who
tried quietly to advise him about that Bozeman
case, but—he discounted our opinions.”
“Seems possessed with the notion that it's his
business to convict whether a man is innocent or
not,” put in another, “I’d rather have a blood-
hound after me than—”
There was a distinct pause, a pause in which more
than one glance momentarily sought Brent War-
ren's face, and then the speaker finished:
“—than Cullen Grant!”
The criticism of Grant continued—continued ad-
verse. Keeling grew restive under it. More than
once he was tempted to dissent, but, reflecting that
to do so might seem to argue a less sympathy with
Warren, he held his peace.
However, the effort it cost him to refrain from


THE DEVIL TO PAY 15
speaking to the case whenever criticism was leveled
at the solicitor, soon rendered Larry's position dis-
tinctly uncomfortable and he rose to leave. The
other callers scarcely noticed his move, so engrossed
were they in a lively topic they had conjured up,
but his host rose with him, and followed him down
the iron stair to the barred inner office.
“Dare said you would come,” Warren remarked,
as soon as they had descended out of hearing.
“Dare?”
“Yes, I ran up and told her as soon as they ar-
rested me. Deputy O'Hagan went along for good
measure, and was delighted,” Warren laughed. “I
have always thought that the immortal three, ‘the
lunatic, the lover, and the poet' ought to have the
Irishman bunched along with them.”
Larry ignored the pleasantry, and asked un-
easily:
“How did Dare take it?”
“You know Darel Of course she knows that it's
only a grotesque mistake, and I made her under-
stand it would be shortly righted.”
“Of course,” Larry found himself echoing. He
looked through the grating for the jailer with his
keys, but there seemed to be nobody in the office
just then.
Warren held out his hand. “An experience like
this has its value,” he said easily, “it shows us who
are our friends.”
Something white fluttered through the grating to
their feet.


I6 THE DEVIL TO PAY
Young Keeling was at the bars quickly enough to
see a small, dark figure disappear into the vestibule.
Larry's hand was first to reach the note. It was
directed to Warren, so he surrendered it at once.
With a quick apology, Warren tore open the mis-
sive and unfolded the sheet. He seemed to read it.
He might have read it several times as he stood
there, unspeaking, unmoving.
Keeling waited. The jailer had unlocked the
steel door now, to usher him out—but he waited.
And still Warren stood like a man hypnotized,
with the open page before him.
“The bearer didn't stay for an answer,” finally
ventured the younger man.
Silence—with Warren staring at the open sheet!
The jailer jingled his keys. Larry cleared his
throat.
The next instant the note was crumpled in War-
ren's hand.
“Brent l”
“I beg your pardon, Larry—a note—left for me
—But I'm keeping you waiting.”
The younger man hesitated a moment, but failing
to evolve an excuse for longer tarrying, he abruptly
said—“Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said his host.
Larry ran down the half-dozen steps of the vesti-
bule as if glad to escape from what he left behind.
The night air would help him think!


:
CHAPTER III
BUT the night breezes did not rally to the aid of
Larry Keeling in his effort to solve his problem.
For, though now eight long blocks from Warren's
enforced quarters, he was still storm-swept by emo-
tions he could neither control nor analyze. His .
sister—Dare Keeling—was engaged to be married
to a man who had been indicted by the Grand Jury
for murder! And Cullen Grant was to conduct the
prosecution | Why — the whole situation was —
simply impossible! He would wake up shortly.
Something touched him on the shoulder.
Larry looked round with a start, then proceeded
to anathematize the city fathers for allowing peo-
ple's mock-orange hedges to extend their trespassing
branches half across the sidewalk. Another step
and the mock-oranges divided, and Larry beheld the
dim outline of a closed door with the looming big-
ness of a black-dark house rising above.
The young man came to a dead halt. Beyond
that door lay all that the Sovereign State had left
of one man who had been indicted by the Grand
Jury for murder!
It was after Keeling had stood for some mo-
ments gazing blankly at the darkened house and ab-
sorbed in his own troubles, that a certain black spot
17


18 THE DEVIL TO PAY
upon the dim door began to take meaning before
him.
Then its full significance swept into his recollec-
tion—Those human creatures in there, and what
they mourned! He wondered if anybody had gone
to them in their despair, as he recalled the white
face of the woman who on yesterday had paced
these streets with an unsigned petition for mercy.
He remembered vividly because he, like many an-
other, had evaded the issue he did not have the
hardihood to meet.
It is a custom born of human instinct for people
to rally where a bolt has fallen, to sympathize, to
support. Did the fact that they had refused aid to
stay the bolt in this case keep them from offering
what help would still avail?
Larry was young and the springs of emotion were
strong within him. He hesitated only a moment,
and then passed between the mock-oranges and
knocked on the door. There was no answer. He
glanced around. Overshadowing evergreens on
every hand, and the dank odor of mold. What if
the spirit of a man did linger for a space about its
accustomed haunts—Fiddlesticks! Larry knocked
again.
The door was opened softly, disclosing a dim
light within. A man, a stranger to him, greeted
Larry in whispers and ushered him into a shadowy
living-room. Here were gathered some seven or
eight others, all strangers to Larry. There were
more women than men in the group.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 19
“How is—his wife?” Larry asked of the com-
pany after he had fixed his bearings. -
“We don't any of us know.” It was a kind-
faced, plain-looking woman who answered.
“The boy?” ventured the new-comer again.
“We don't any of us know,” replied another.
Larry glanced with curious interest at a door that
must lead somewhere back.
“It's locked,” said the kind-faced woman, in an
undertone. “We ain't any of us been in, an' they
ain't been in here.”
Larry drew back. “Do you mean,” he said, “that
the wife and boy are alone there with P”
“Yes,” said the woman, “they wouldn't let us
come back there.”
“Wouldn't we better ask if we can do anything?”
inquired the young fellow, trying to resist a shiver
that seeped in from the dank outside.
“The door is locked,” said the man.
Larry sat down with the others and waited, like
them, in silence for—he knew not what. After
what seemed an interminable time to his restless
spirit, an idea occurred to him, and taking out his
note-book he wrote:
“Is there anything we can do for you?—we would
be so glad.”
He showed the note to the others, who looked at
it, interested, but doubting. Then he rose, and go-
ing to the locked door that divided the one large
front room from whatever extended beyond, pushed
the paper halfway through the crack of the door


2O THE DEVIL TO PAY
and knocked softly. He waited, then knocked
again.
The paper was drawn slowly through the door.
After many minutes of suspense, the white slip
appeared in the crack again, and Larry seized and
opened it.
“You failed me when you might have helped,” he
read aloud. “I don't need you now.”
He and the others faced each other in dumb de-
feat.
“Wouldn't we better all go home?” asked a man
who had hitherto not spoken.
“I got to,” said a woman, looking about appre-
hensively.
“It looks like we can't,” urged the woman with
the kindly face. “What's to hinder a woman locked
away from humanity with that—from—doin' any-
thing?”
“Looks like we ought to stay,” agreed another.
And they did—even Larry Keeling and the woman
who had protested that she must go. Then, there
being nothing left to say, the group fell silent.
The night dragged.
And now the dank chill was stealing in again.
Larry drew closer to the smoldering fire and
looked about vainly for more fuel. The silence was
getting on his nerves and he found himself wishing
that somebody would speak. No one else seeming
so inclined, however, he cleared his filling throat
preparatory to breaking the spell himself.
*


THE DEVIL TO PAY 2I
“Hush!” said a nervous woman, with a start.
The remark that Keeling had been at such pains
to think out, died unexpressed, and his good-inten-
tioned move but served to intensify the silence that
engulfed them again.
It might have been only a few minutes after-
wards that it happened, or it might have been many,
for there is no chronometer to measure the night-
watch kept by the sovereign people over the dead
who lie dead at their hands—but bursting in on that
stillness, all-unheralded, there came one ear-split-
ting, soul-rending scream!
For one second not a form stirred. The watchers
only looked at each other with starting eyes. Then,
with one impulse, they sprang to their feet and laid
hold of the locked door.
They called, they knocked. But only the rever-
berations answered. They listened close to the in-
tervening door. Not one hint of what proceeded
beyond that frail partition reached their straining
senses. One of the men looked significantly at an-
other, and on receiving a nod in reply, laid a heavy
shoulder against the locked door. But a woman
interfered.
“Don't!—Come away,” she begged. “Any wo-
man would scream at-that!”
“It was a boy's voice,” ventured another.
“No, it was a woman’s.”
“What could have happened?” Still another put
the question that was uppermost in every mind.


22 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Did you hear the running feet—immediately
after?” questioned the first.
Nobody else had heard the steps—the speaker
must have been mistaken.
“Come away—any woman would—” began the
woman who had first interposed.
“Can't we get in without breaking in?” asked
Larry. “We have no right, you know. Let's try
at the back.”
“No, the front yard is divided from the back by
a high wall.”
“Let somebody go around the block to old Jerni-
gan's. The back of his house nearly touches this.
He may have heard.”
“I’d like to know who would do the going—old
Jernigan—” began a man who seemed to be thor-
oughly acquainted with the neighborhood.
“I’ll go,” offered Larry, “but don't break in.”
“I’ll go with you,” the slacker agreed, as if to
atone, and they started out together.
“‘Jernigan,’” repeated Larry to himself, trying
to keep step with the other's long strides. “Did
you say the man's name was ‘Jernigan’?”
“Yes,” replied his companion.
“Is he a doctor?” asked Larry. “Say, didn't he
act as physician for the county this morning—at-
at the hanging?”
“Believe he did,” said the other, striding ahead.
It was no use to try to talk to him.
The place they sought proved to be one that had
been a landmark in Larry Keeling's youthful super-


THE DEVIL TO PAY 23
stitions. It was overgrown, like George Roan's
place, with evergreens, and it maintained, amid the
growing populousness of the vicinity, a secretive-
ness, an isolation but little short of direct affront to
the confiding openness of the life surrounding.
But Larry lost no time. A glance put the for-
bidding old house in the right pigeon-hole of his
memory. The next minute, he was making the
heavy brass knocker do its level best.
There were steps inside, and a man's voice de-
manding:
“Who's there?”
“Lawrence Keeling,” Larry answered. “I want
to speak to Dr. Jernigan on urgent business.”
A key was turned in the lock, and the door opened
noisily.
Larry stepped back. Before him, slippered and
gowned, and with a lighted candle in his hand, stood
the nameless member of the Grand Jury who but
a few hours before had sat beside him on the park
bench, and turned the current of his life into a new
and stony channel.
“What is it?” asked the man aroused.
“We've been watching at George Roan's,” began
Larry—then he stopped, for the man had fastened
on his face a pair of uncomfortably keen eyes.
“Watching for what?” demanded the member
of the Grand Jury. -
“For—for very pity,” stammered the young man
under inquisition. “And something has happened
—We were locked out—”


24 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“We heard a scream,” put in Larry's companion,
“and we thought maybe you had heard and under-
stood.”
“I have been asleep,” said the man interrogated,
“but if I had heard, I would have understood.”
“We thought maybe as you knew them, that we
could go to them through your lot—” began Larry
again.
The old man was looking at him now, straight
in the eyes.
“Young man,” he questioned, “did you sign that
petition George Roan's wife walked these streets
with yesterday?”
“No-o,” said Larry.
“Did you?”—The keen eyes turned on Larry's
companion.
“No,” replied the questioned uneasily.
“Neither did I,” said the old man, “and for that
reason, I stay away now that they don't want me.”
The door closed noisily, and the key turned in
the lock. Larry Keeling and his companion faced
each other in the uncertain light of the street-lamp
on the corner.
There was nothing left to do but to go back, and
back they went.
The watchers in the dim living-room were seated
now, much as Larry had found them at first. And
they were conversing in quiet whispers again. Sev-
eral of the original party had left.
Nothing more had happened, those who remained
reported.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 25
Larry Keeling did not take a seat this time. He
had had quite enough for one night, he told him-
self, so he shortly followed the example of the re-
cent deserters, glad to escape from what he had not
the power to help.


CHAPTER IV
MeAsured by the difference in caste and in the
favoritism of opportunity, and by the lack of human
interest between them, George Roan's home was
ten thousand miles removed from the fashionable
boarding-house in which Larry Keeling and his sis-
ter Dare had their abiding-place. But by the actual
count of city blocks, the distance between the scene
of Larry's gruesome adventure and what he called
“home” was the matter of a mere half-mile.
The young man shortly covered that distance, and
let himself into a quiet hall with his latch-key. An-
other latch-key admitted him to the small suite that
was his and Dare's.
Dare's door was ajar, and the shaft of soft light
falling across the threshold, bade Larry enter.
They were to “talk it out” before going to sleep
for the night, as had been their custom ever since
their grand-aunt had died and left them marooned
in a world of big families, with no other blood-tie
than that between themselves.
Larry looked in. Dare was in bed and fast
asleep. On any ordinary night he would have
pulled-to the door and passed on. To-night, he
entered with softened steps and, placing a chair, sat
down beside her.
26


THE DEVIL TO PAY 27
A small light was hung low over the head of her
bed, and shed its softened rays directly over her
face and figure as she lay.
The brother's glance at first but casually took in
features and outlines, then he suddenly leaned for-
ward and his gaze became concerned.
Was this Dare?—this little wistful thing lying
limp upon the pillows? Why, the child—for the
first time in his life Larry thought of her as “a
child”—was slight, small, frail! He touched her
thin arm as it lay bared under the light. He
glanced down the outline of the slender form. He
lifted back a lock that had strayed across her face,
and studied her features — delicate — delicate to
pathos!
Now was this the Dare of all his troubles?—the
instigator and leader in all their collaborated youth-
ful devilment? — the spoiler of his after-peace?
Was this the defiant namesake who had sent Grand-
aunt Jane Dare, topping, into eternity and all but
pulled down the temple of her own fortunes upon
her rebel head?—Whoever would have suspected
that this slight thing here could harbor a spirit seven
feet tall!
Larry looked again at the supine pathos of her.
Other men called her beautiful—he wondered why.
Dare Keeling was what is known in family par-
lance as “a piece,” and her brother was laboring
under no illusions about her. But look at her nowl
Plainly, Dare awake and Dare asleep were two very
different personalities. Larry liked her better this


28 THE DEVIL TO PAY
way. If only girls would stay put, life would be so
simple !
If Dare could have married Cullen Grant, for
instance—when after her aunt's demise, she and the
young attorney fell so passionately in love with each
other—where now would be these menacing, all-
shadowing complications that were gathering about
her stubborn head?
Dominated by the dead!—And what were the
consequences?—A dip into society for Dare, fast
company, Brent Warren, and broken faith with
Cullen Grant, followed by a breach in their family
friendship with the young attorney which had wi-
dened with the years.
As Larry Keeling sat beside his sister now and
noted her frailness, he wished with all his heart
that she was safely married to the brilliant young
solicitor whom he had just heard so scathingly criti-
cised by Brent Warren's friends.
But Dare was not married to Cullen Grant—
she was engaged to be married to the man whom
Grant was to prosecute for murderl
Poor little thing!—And Dare's twelve months'
seniority of him, by virtue of which she had hitherto
dominated and patronized him, was suddenly re-
versed. He was her protector, her guide. His it
must be to decide the proper course for her to pur-
sue and to see that she followed it. But would he
be able to do this?
Larry at length rose, turned out the light, and
betook himself to his own room. But the question


THE DEVIL TO PAY 29
pursued him and dogged the more insistently—
Would he be able to protect Dare against herself
and what was gathering around her? Just suppose
that Warren was—Good God! he must put sup-
position out of calculation—He must know what
were the grounds for the charges against the man,
and that quickly.
Then a welcome thought came :-he would go to
Cullen Grant and find out just how much or how
little there was in this indictment.
And yet it would be most embarrassing to him
to appeal to Grant for counsel. Grant was not only
the discarded and irrecallable lover of his sister,
but was also that most unforgivable of all social
relations—a sometime friend.
Larry paced his bedroom floor in a vain effort to
think it all out.
There had been the sharp break between Cullen
and Dare, of course. But Cullen had not at that
time changed toward him. Now, had Cullen
changed at all?—Hadn't they rather drifted apart?
—No, it was Dare again—Dare who could never
bear to let any man slip completely out of her
grasp. Young Keeling felt the blood mount to his
face. -
Yes, it was because Dare had tried to reattach
Grant to her adoring train—because Grant had re-
fused to be so attached—that friendly association be-
tween himself and the man had seemed indelicate and
out of the question.
Larry regretted this state of things—he had re-


30 THE DEVIL TO PAY
gretted it before this need for Grant's friendship
arose.
Yes, it would be queer for him to go to Grant for
help, and yet in another aspect it would not. For
while there had been a distinct break in their inti-
macy, there remained between them a tie through
which Cullen Grant's loyalty of intent was always
manifest—and that was his efficient, zealous care of
the fortune that was one day to be Dare's.
Should he go to Grant, then, as to a friend?
Larry thought and thought. But the new compli-
cations piled upon the old, proved too much for his
solving. Tired out, he turned into bed, and was
soon asleep and dreaming that he had gone to Cullen
Grant, and—asking that the neglect of years be
passed over—had begged his advice as a friend.


CHAPTER V
DARE and Larry Keeling had early been left
orphans with only comfortable means for education
and support. Their grand-aunt, Jane Dare, how-
ever, an eccentric old lady of many thousands, had
taken them under her domination, and had made her
namesake, Dare, her heir.
But Aunt Jane had been unalterably set against
early marriages, and, distrusting everything in the
shape of a promise, had taken steps to insure that
her own will in this particular should dominate,
albeit from beyond the grave. Dare was to receive
not one cent from her inheritance till her twenty-
first birthday, nor even then, unless she were still
unmarried.
And then, some time after making the will, the
old lady had added to it a codicil which stated that
should there arise, during the last year of Dare's
probation, an urgent necessity for her to become pos-
sessed of her inheritance, it might be turned over to
her in whole or in part. But the urgency of Dare's
necessity for such setting aside of her affectionate
aunt's original desire, was left entirely to the judg-
ment of the executor.
Larry, the aunt cut out of the will entirely, for
31


THE DEVIL TO PAY 33
now kindled her very frailty. From the crown of
her shining head to the toe of her slippered foot,
Dare was awake!
Other men called her beautiful—well, maybe.
“Did you ever hear of such consummate inso-
lence?” Dare demanded, even as her brother hesi-
tated for a fitting phrase with which to open the
subject uppermost in the minds of both.
The young man took a second look at her. “‘In-
solence'?” he echoed, mistrusting his hearing.
“That Grand Jury!”
“Well,” said Larry, recovering slightly, “people
don't usually speak of Grand Juries as ‘insolent'—
but—”
“But what do you call it, then?”
“Menacing,” said the young man, sharply, and
then he was sorry. He went over and sat down on
the divan beside her, but Dare was in no humor to
be taken into one's arms.
“A set of common, ignorant—
stopped in sheer overfullness.
“They are the Grand Jury,” urged her brother,
anxious that she realize the gravity of the situation,
yet unwilling to distress her unduly.
“I don't care if they are,” flashed the girl. “Brent
says they are a bunch of low politicians and that this
is just a grand-stand play. Of course they can't
convict him!”
“Of course not,” put in her brother, “but, Dare,
they can make trouble.”
“Oh,” said the girl, “Brent says he will have to
33
she began, then


34 THE DEVIL TO PAY
spend a lot of money, but that that will be the sum
total of it.”
“I don't know,” began Larry—and then changed
to—“We mustn't say those things, kid, we've got to
be careful.”
“That's what I can't abidel” flashed the girl.
“You men are all afraid of your shadows. I mustn't
say this, and I mustn't say that—”
“You don't want to complicate things for Warren,
do you?” demanded her brother.
“No.”
“Well, hold your tongue, then.”
“But, Larry, if Brent didn't kill the man, what is
there to be afraid of?”
“All sorts of things that we don't understand yet.
You see, even though they don't bring in a convic-
tion, still Grant can make things very serious—”
“Who?”
The brother started at the suddenness of the
question, then pulled himself together and answered
naturally:
“Cullen Grant.”
Dare kindled from top to toe. “What has Cullen
Grant to do with it?” she demanded.
“Grant is solicitor. He'll have to—prosecute
Warren.”
There was a long pause in which Larry did not
look into his sister's face.
After a time, she said in a low, tense voice: “He
will not do it.”
“He'll have to,” said her brother.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 35
.
“Well, let him then I’” she cried passionately.
“Even Cullen Grant can't prove a thing true when
it isn't!”
“No,” said Larry. “No, but he can come darned
near it.”
A ring at the telephone drowned Dare's reply.
When Larry turned from the phone, where he
had adjusted a minor business matter, he faced the
spirited girl who, poised now on the arm of a big
chair, was waiting for him.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I?—Why I am going to talk to Cullen.”
Dare sprang to her feet.
“You are not!” she exclaimed.
“Cullen Grant,” continued her brother, ignoring
her protest, “knows better than anybody else just
what we are up against.”
“And cares less,” said Dare.
“I don't know,” said the young fellow, “I have
a hunch that he will still do the friendly thing by us.”
Dare caught her breath. “I’ll see Cullen Grant
dead before I—” she began, but her brother inter-
rupted her.
“Dare,” he said, with some asperity, “don’t you
think your venom toward Cullen is out of all pro-
portion to his offense of of " but Larry knew it
was time to stop.
“Cullen Grant has ignored our existence,” af-
firmed the sister.
“You stopped speaking to him!”
“I didn't, I'm too well-bred to stop speaking to


36 THE DEVIL TO PAY
anybody—long. I bowed to him across a whole
bunch of people at the reception the other night,
and he didn't even come up. I tell you, I'll see
him dead before I'll—”
“Dare,” said her brother, “you asked me what
I was going to do. I'm going to Grant to find out
just how this thing stands.”
Dare's face grew white with anger.
“After the way Cullen has treated me—” she
retorted passionately.
“Treated you!” broke in her brother. “What
has Cullen ever done to you, except to refuse to be
beckoned back for your amusement?” And Larry
knew that now he had not stopped in time.
Dare turned her back on him.
Larry stood looking at her, and it came to him
again that she was a slight, frail thing for all her
fire. Dare was his little sister, after all.
“Kid,” he said, after a moment of waiting, “can't
you trust me?—Don’t you know that I wouldn't
compromise you with anybody?”
But Dare did not answer, and he had to con-
tinue:
“Grant knows all that there is to be known about
this, because he had to be at the sittings of the
Grand Jury—the solicitor has to, you know. Now,
I am simply going to talk the matter over confi-
dentially with him. Cullen will understand that you
had nothing to do with my coming.” As she did
not reply, he continued, “There never was anything
small about Grant—you know that as well as I do.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 37
And you and I both know that when it comes to a
show-down, he'll play the generous part.”
No answer.
“Dare, it may develop that Cullen has it in his
power to do us—to do you—a mighty good turn.”
Larry waited a while for this last to have its
effect, but as Dare still made no sign, he struggled
into his overcoat. When he was ready to take his
leave, he made one last appeal to her.
“What may I tell Cullen for you?” he pleaded.
“Tell him to go to the devill” said Dare.


CHAPTER VI
WHY does not someone essay to measure, to ana-
lyze, to resolve for us the dominance of the dead
over the spirit of those that live?—that mystic
potency which to-day strikes us silent where but
yesterday we accused?—that all-conquering some-
thing which commands uncovered heads in the pres-
ence of even the dead condemned?
Maybe the disembodied know.
Maybe George Roan knew—that morning after.
Yesterday they shut him in a narrow cell. To-
day, they gave him the right of way down the
broad and sunny street. Yesterday, he was out-
cast—to-day, he was—Dead/ -
And the sovereign people spoke only in hushed
whispers as he came. They reduced the speed of
their cars to a creeping, noiseless glide and reined
in their horses in reverence to his solemn progress.
And here he comes—the Dead!—to the slow
tramp of funeral horses and with plumes upon his
chariot!—Make way for the Dead there, ye who
merely live/
Larry Keeling rounded a corner hurriedly and
started across the street, when a brown, wrinkled
hand was put out to stay his impetuous progress,
and an old voice said:
38


THE DEVIL TO PAY 39
“Stop, Mister, don't cross a dead man's path !”
Larry came to a halt abruptly and smiled at the
old darkey who thus blocked his way. But the next
instant his face sobered as he took in the scene—
life at pause before the awesome dignity of death!
And now the dead was imminent—now, his black-
plumed chariot was passing in slow transit across
the bright day! -
A sudden quiet but irresistible movement of the
crowd forced Larry, who was outermost, to within
a foot of the carriage which followed first. His
curiosity conquered, and he raised his eyes.
Inside the hired hack a boy with starting eyes
was staring beyond, and a white-faced woman be-
side him was protesting with a strange, unearthly
ring to her smothered tones:
“There is a God! There is a God!”
They were gone.
Larry looked about. Up the cleared thorough-
fare about a half block, stood Brent Warren, out
on bond while the day was thus young, and sur-
rounded by an ever-increasing throng of citizens
who seemed to desire nothing so much as the honor
of clasping his hand.
The young fellow took it all in in a flash. Yon-
der, down the street, was passing what was left of
one man whom the Grand Jury had indicted for the
murder of Joe Harkness. There, surrounded by an
admiring group of “best citizens,” stood another.
And now, Warren was crossing the street diag-
onally in an evident attempt to get to him, Larry.


40 THE DEVIL TO PAY
Young Keeling, pretending not to see, promptly
slipped between the back of the last funeral car-
riage and the noses of the horses which drew a de-
livery wagon, and lost himself in the press of vehicles
which were beginning to stir to life again, now that
the dead had passed.
A minute or two more, and Larry had gained
the opposite sidewalk some distance down the
block.
In his determination to escape an interview with
Warren at this juncture, he did not slacken pace
till he was within the elevator which was to lift him
to a conference with quite another man. Cullen
Grant knew all there was to know about the indict-
ment of Warren—Larry was going to him.
Mr. Grant was busy, would the gentleman make
himself comfortable, and wait?
Larry waited, but not in comfort. The circum-
stances would not admit of that. And the last thing
in the world he wished was to wait—to have time
to think.
He had time to think however, and as he sat in
the dull outer office and waited the convenience of
the solicitor, his feverish fear leapt from one high
point to another:-After all, would Cullen Grant
prove the man he fancied him? Would he come
to his assistance?—That scream! Well, anyway,
the woman hadn't killed the boy, and the boy hadn't
killed the woman!—That codicil might help!—Cul-
len knew Dare better than she knew herself. If
only he did not! If only he loved her now as blindly


THE DEVIL TO PAY 4I
as he had loved her once l—There is a God! Now
why the thrill, the live, almost ecstatic thrill in the
woman's voice?—Dare Keeling was engaged to be
married to a man who had been indicted by the
Grand Jury for murder! Now, would Cullen—?
“How are you, Larry?”
The young fellow started to his feet. A rather
tall, distinctly notable man had entered, and was
holding out his hand. One look into the steady
blue eyes, and Larry found himself yielding as of
old to the spell of that quiet but forceful person-
ality.
“I—want to talk to you—Cullen.” And he took
the proffered hand.
“Certainly,” said the other easily, “come in.”
Grant led the way into the inner office and closed
the door behind them. The two took seats facing
each other across the corner of the office table.
Larry looked into the face of the man from whom
he hoped, indefinitely, everything. Cullen Grant
was regarding him with an expression which he
remembered from pleasanter times—that straight,
all-attentive look which always had the effect of
putting the regarded definitely and honorably on
the map of human interest.
Forgetting all about attempting formally to
bridge their recent quasi estrangement, Larry re-
sponded at once to that silent invitation to confi-
dence.
“I am bothered to death,” he said.
“Of course you are,” said the other.


42 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“There'll be such a mess in clearing it all up,”
continued the young fellow.
“Yes,” agreed his attentive listener.
“And Dare is going to be the Old Nick to
handle !”
“Yes,” said Cullen Grant.
“And—and I've got to know where we stand,”
pursued Larry.
There came across the frank openness with which
his sometime friend regarded him, a subtle altera-
tion. Larry could not have analyzed it; he scarcely
admitted to himself that Grant's manner had
changed. The solicitor still faced him quietly, but
a something behind his steady regard had with-
drawn to a distance.
Larry found it awkward to continue.
“And I came to ask you just how much there
is in this indictment of Warren.”
Grant pushed back his chair.
“I can't answer that,” he replied.
“Of course you don't know either his guilt or his
innocence,” insisted Larry, “but you do know just
what is charged against him and the grounds for it.
It's that I'm after—I won't quote you—”
The solicitor raised his hand. It was an unob-
trusive movement, but there was in it a finality which
stopped Larry in the middle of his protestation.
And now Grant's even voice was saying, “You
shouldn't ask me that.”
Young Keeling's face grew crimson.
“You see,” continued Grant, earnestly but kindly,


THE DEVIL TO PAY 43
“I have no right to discuss with you what took place
in the Grand Jury room.”
“Why—I beg your pardon,” stammered Larry,
miserably, “I never thought.”
Grant interrupted, deprecatingly:
“My personal inclination would be to respond
to any request of yours,” he said, “I hope you realize
that.”
“Yes,” said Larry, “yes, I do.”
The entrance of the stenographer here broke the
tension of the awkward situation. Larry rose and
considerately withdrew to a window while the
lawyer gave certain instructions. When the girl re-
tired and closed the door, Larry found himself
casting about for something to say next, but Grant
forestalled him.
“Does Dare still think she loves Warren?” he
asked with characteristic directness.
“Why—yes,” said Dare's brother, somewhat
taken aback. “Yes, of course !”
“You must take her away from here before the
trial,” said Grant, without a moment's hesitation.
Larry started. “Why?” he asked, apprehen-
sively.
“You know Dare,” said Cullen Grant. “She can
come back when it all—blows over.”
“‘You know Dare,’” quoted Larry. “Now
would you be kind enough to tell me just how you
think her removal could be accomplished?”
Grant had risen, and was standing with hands
thrust into his pockets. At Larry's question, he


44 THE DEVIL TO PAY
drew out his right, and thoughtfully stroked his
chin. A perplexity quite foreign to his usual de-
cisiveness of mental operation knitted his straight
brows.
“You can't pick up women bodily, and put them
down where you want them,” growled Larry.
“No-no,” agreed the other.
“You can't scare 'em any more, you know—they
don't scare.”
“No-they don't scare,” came in tones of whim-
sical thoughtfulness from the man who was com-
monly charged with being too cock-sure.
“And you can't beat 'em any more!” And there
was a note of injury in the young man's voice as he
said it.
“No,” said Grant, smiling in spite of himself,
“there seems latterly to be a prejudice against beat-
ing them.”
“Well, what are you going to do with 'em now,
anyway?”
“I—don't know,” said Cullen Grant.
“And yet you tell me I ought to take Dare away
from here !”
The whimsical dropped from Grant's mood in-
stantly.
“You must,” he said.
“How P” insisted the brother.
“I can't tell you how to work out your problems,
Larry, but if Dare were my sister—she'd go!”
“I wish to heaven she were your—” Larry
stopped.
--.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 45
Cullen Grant's attention had been suddenly at-
tracted to the need of more light, and he was now
working with a refractory shade. Larry took in the
strong, lithe figure and the fine lines of the profile.
If he had been asked to characterize the solicitor
with a single adjective, he would have chosen un-
hesitatingly the word “manly.”
“Cullen,” he said, after a moment, “I’m dead up
against it—I don't know what to do.”
Grant turned to him quickly.
“When I can help you or Dare, Larry, I'll be
glad to do it.”
“That's good of you,” said the troubled Larry.
“Maybe together, we can work it out.” Cullen's
fine, straight glance solaced more than did his words.
“And may I come sometimes, and talk with you,”
the young man asked eagerly, “–about the personal
side of it, you know?”
“Any time you like,” replied the other warmly,
and he took the young fellow's extended hand and
held it a moment.
It was not until they were saying good-by again
at the door of the outer office that Larry found
courage to ask:
“You will have to prosecute Warren?”
“I am going to do it,” said Grant.
Out on the sidewalk again, but with Cullen
Grant's last ominous assurance still ringing in his
memory, young Keeling encountered his brother-in-
law-to-be.


46 THE DEVIL TO PAY
Warren was still surrounded by a press of smil-
ing, congratulating best citizens. A stranger to the
situation might easily have misinterpreted the whole
SCene.


CHAPTER VII
ON the very day on which Warren walked out
of prison, free on bond, the city council of women's
clubs met in extraordinary session in response to a
sensational call. The men of the town had been
caught, red-handed, attempting to deprive the chil-
dren of the town of breathing space, and the women
had called themselves into indignant council to de-
feat the iniquitous project.
It seemed that there were certain waste places
near the center of things which had been set apart,
under uncertain conditions, as a park and play-
ground. It seemed also that it was possible, under
these uncertain conditions, for the Board of Alder-
men to break up the waste places into building
blocks if they so chose.
And so it came about, that periodically in the
history of the community, the men would conspire
to seize the coveted spaces for their soulless com-
mercial purposes. But every time they tried it,
somebody would expose their plotting, and—their
mundane lots were cast with those women!
If only the men had been able to rear their sky-
scrapers overnight, or if they could even have gone
over and cast their lots with the women of a neigh-
boring town, they might have triumphed—but they
could not.
47


48 THE DEVIL TO PAY
The council of women met duly that afternoon in
the lecture-room of the public library, and thereat
the things usual to this crisis were said and done
with their accustomed spirit.
But there was injected into this meeting a spice
and zest which had been entirely wanting in any
bygone conclave. It seemed that the men, in sup-
port of their vandal plans, were arguing that, in the
eighteen years of battling, the said waste places had
never yet been parked or played upon. And that
there was some consistency in this point was attested
by the buzz it caused among the conservatives.
These women had gathered together, then, with
the fell intent of drawing the fangs of that menacing
masculine claim. They would forthwith cause the
waste places to blossom with thin-chested children
whom it were death to house. Moreover, they would
resort to their world-old tactics of assailing their
world-old enemy on his weakest side, and had ac-
cordingly conscripted as miners and sappers all the
popular society girls. The girls were to appeal to
the men. And, considering that this was in the direct
line of their business, their selection for the job was,
to say the least, discriminating. The girls were also
to canvass the town for children and make them
play!
The older women were to go at once about the
more practical business of redeeming the waste places
to playable fitness.
The girls fluttered in in numbers—gay, filmy,
picturesque. They were accustomed to being ex-


50 THE DEVIL TO PAY
speed was distinctly accelerated. Everybody wanted
a near view of her remarkable pose. A bevy of
Dare's intimates got to her first—all with her
romantic tragedy uppermost in mind, but with the
park problem only on their lips.
“Isn't it awful?” the first-to-arrive exclaimed, as
she took in Dare's bright face with a swift glance.
“It's that old Mr. Topwood's doings,” affirmed
the second—her eyes, too, sharpened to catch any
traitorous expression which the radiant new-comer
might unguardedly let slip — “just because he's
president of the Board of Aldermen, he thinks he's
going to do as he pleases with the city's property.”
“I wish I could kill him!” put in another.
“Let's do it!” exclaimed the tiger-lily, in gay
abandon.
But the older women interrupted the gay babel
and assigned to each girl her work for the play-
ground cause.
Dare Keeling had been selected to canvass one
of the busiest blocks—Did she feel like serving?
It was a mature woman—a woman who had met
life and knew it for what it was—who asked the
difficult question.
Of coursel Dare was delighted! Why, she
would snuggle up to the butcher at once and send
him after those crazy aldermen with his meat ax.
Yes, she would corral the Culver Addition children,
too, and make them play if it killed them!
The woman who had met life did not join in the
laugh with which Dare's acceptance of her mission


THE DEVIL TO PAY 51
!
was hailed, but turned away to a group of the older
women who, by this time, were asking each other
in whispers if there was ever anything like Dare
Keeling's bravado.
The gay little group of canvassers fluttered out
of the hall and down the steps.
It chanced that Dare was detained a moment by
one of the directing women, but on her release she
hurried after the other girls.
A man was coming up the broad steps of the
library just as Dare emerged from the great door.
There was no escape. They were face to face.
Cullen Grant paused on the step just below her—
his deep, earnest eyes on a level with hers. And
now he was extending his hand.
But he had failed to come that night at the recep-
tion when she nodded him a tacit invitation. For
him to come now—and with his eyes full of pity!—
“Dare,” he began.
But Dare was looking beyond him and smiling
gaily at a girl who was glancing back.
“Lucy,” she called, “Brent and I are coming up
to-night for that bridge game.” Then she flitted
past the man with the deep pity in his eyes as if he
had not been.
The butcher promised to trim up the Board of
Aldermen to the queen's taste. The grocer next
door then capitulated, following the tiger-lily to
the sidewalk, and looking after her in shameless
delight. The tea-store man, the ubiquitous “Kress,”


52 THE DEVIL TO PAY
and of course the druggist, successively responded
to Dare's appeal before it was put into words—a
roguish little smile did the business for each. But
further down the block was a harder nut in the
person of a dry-goods merchant. Pale and stony
from his long dealing with the sex, he listened with
sphinx-like not-thereness to Dare's proposition that
he forthwith do to the Board of Aldermen such
hurtful mischief as to render it forever unwilling,
if not unable, to build anything anywhere. It was
a one-sided and discouraging interview, but Dare
finally told the man that Southern women didn't
want the vote because their men always did every-
thing they wanted them to 1 The dry-goods man
said he had several acquaintances among the alder-
men, and that he would speak to them.
And the other girls were busy too. The cam-
paign eventuated, not only in pledging the citizens
at large, but in finally enlisting each separate mem-
ber of the Board of Aldermen against the corporate
body. Then the older women went around and
took the men's money away from them to buy para-
phernalia for the rejuvenated playground. And
the last estate of those men was seven times worse
than the first!
Dare enjoyed the day's work with a keenness
which not another girl engaged in it could possibly
experience. Feverishly exhilarated by the menace
of her coming fight with the world, and savagely
bitter against it, she nevertheless reveled in the fact
that she was now unmistakably the most conspic-


THE DEVIL TO PAY 53'
uous girl in town. Everybody knew her by sight,
and everybody knew that she was engaged to Brent
Warren. Smilingly insolent, daring, light-winged
then, she flitted in and out in the most crowded
block, flinging down her challenge to the world.
And the men—more merciful to her than had
been her own sex—called her a “good sport,” and
“plucky” when she passed. And if, by chance, her
spirit flagged momentarily and the old wistfulness
betrayed itself in glance or gesture, they suffered
for her, for they were men, and she a pretty woman.
When Larry and his sister met that night to “talk
it out,” Dare disdained to ask the result of his inter-
view with Cullen Grant, and Larry held his peace
on the subject with profound relief.
Brent Warren had just taken his leave after a
long visit, and it was of him they talked.


CHAPTER VIII
“CULLEN GRANT will do his duty, of course, and
of course we want him tol" and Larry abandoned
the support of the corner letter-box, and stood up
straight in alignment with the spirit of his own
fine phrase.
There was an answering thrill in the group of
eager, questioning young men to whom Keeling was
replying. Then somebody said:
“Hush—there he is now, talking to O'Hagan l’”
Immediately several pairs of eyes were focussed
on a dark-clad man who stood a short distance
away in close converse with an officer.
“What's Darby got on his Irish heart now, I
wonder!” whispered a sympathetic youth who was
watching the play of feeling on the young officer's
face as he talked to the solicitor.
At that moment the solicitor, looking up, recog-
nized members of the group at the letter-box and
nodded in salutation. When O'Hagan passed on,
however, Grant moved farther away, and looked
down the street.
“He doesn't want to talk, you know,” Larry ex-
plained, with an unaccountable feeling of proprietor-
ship in the man who was to prosecute his sister's
future husband.
The ever-forming, ever-dissolving group on the
54


THE DEVIL TO PAY 55
crowded corner changed again, and a heavy figure
now stood between the curious young men and the
solicitor—the non-committal member of the Grand
Jury had crossed Larry's path again.
“Who’s that old Jernigan,’ anyhow?” demanded
Larry, as the intruding figure thus unreasonably in-
terrupted his view.
“Constitutional sorehead,” answered another,
“gave up his practice years ago on account of a
row with the medical society.”
“And he's been an Ishmael ever since ſ” added
another. “–No, they do say that he used to speak
to George Roan once in a while.”
The group dissolved again, and Larry found
himself the lone support of the letter-box. The
non-committal member of the Grand Jury had
moved on.
Cullen Grant was still standing near, but with
his studied attention directed elsewhere. It sud-
denly flashed upon Keeling that the man was avoid-
ing looking his way, and he grew instantly hot at
the realization. But he very shortly explained the
circumstance to himself. The delicate relation in
which Grant stood to him, and the growing strain
of it, was rendering the solicitor's position increas-
ingly difficult. Larry would make the advance.
And he walked deliberately up to Grant, ting-
lingly conscious that everyone within eye-shot would
be keenly observant of any chance demonstration
between himself and the silent attorney, and thrill-
ing with the dramatic punch of the moving picture


56 THE DEVIL TO PAY
he was helping to form—the solicitor and the
brother-in-law-to-be of the man whom the solicitor
was to prosecute for murder, meeting in nonchalant,
gentlemanly, every-day fashion 1
“Is this hot enough for you?” Larry asked bril-
liantly of the second actor in the scene.
Grant ignored the reference to the temperature,
but greeted Larry with one of his frank, straight
looks and a pleasant “Good morning.”
In the light of the sincerity of that glance, the
artificiality of the situation for Larry suddenly gave
way to an overpowering realization of the concrete
actuality of both himself and the man he faced, and
of the problem which lay between them. In the
light of Grant's unstudied friendliness, too, Larry
began to distrust his own previous fancied acumen.
Cullen Grant glanced down the street again—
and now the welcoming light that had lingered on
his face from Larry's advent vanished abruptly.
His features hardened. Larry's quick glance fol-
lowed to the street.
In a handsome car, detained among others for
permission to round the corner, sat a suave, fault-
lessly dressed man and a girl with shining hair,
laughing and chatting together under the blaze of
a startled public scrutiny. And now they were look-
ing at the two men on the corner—at one of them.
It was over with in a moment. There was a
dimpled, challenging smile from the bright-haired
girl, a cordial bow from the man beside her, and
the car glinted past.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 57
Young Keeling had only caught his breath in
sheer astonishment, but Cullen Grant had raised
his hat.
“Let’s walk down the side street here,” Grant
said quietly. “The sight of us two together is too—
interesting.”
A few paces down the narrow side street, and they
were away from the gaping crowd. Here, the
handlers of wholesale groceries cared little for, and
knew less of their interesting identities.
“That must not happen again!” In the off-
guard moment, Grant's darkened face was a reve-
lation.
“Dare Keeling ought to be killed!” affirmed
Dare's brother in reply.
“She ought to be brought to her senses!”
“Yes, but who's going to do the bringing?”
“You’ll have to, Larry.”
“The brazenness of it!” exclaimed Larry.
“The tragic mistake of it,” said Grant.
Young Keeling gave him a startled glance, which,
unanswered, trailed off into an expression of uneasy
mystification.
“Of course Dare is helping Warren's cause by
showing herself in public with him,” he ventured,
“but—”
“But we must think of Dare,” finished the other.
“The whole—darned—business—” began Larry
—“Say, Cullen, what do you suppose Dare wants
me to do now?”
“What?”


58 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Asked me last night to go and stay with Warren
till the trial is over.”
“Well?” Grant was keenly interested.
“Warren's been trying for some weeks to get a
—sort of private secretary to come and stay with
him, but it seems he hasn't found a suitable party
yet. His living out there by himself has got on
Dare's nerves lately, and she lit in last night and
begged me to go nurse him.”
“What did you tell her?” asked Grant, quickly.
“Told her ‘no,” of course.—Oh, I'm doing the
perfectly proper thing by Warren—And I'm sorry
for Dare—I'm so darned sorry for the child I don't
know what to do!—But I never could stand Warren
—Understand, I don't believe he helped to kill Joe
Harkness—I just don't like him. And I don't think
it's going to help things for me to mix up with him
any further than I have to.”
“I—don't know,” responded Grant, thoughtfully.
“You don’t?”
“No—see here, Larry—You don't like Warren,
but you don't know why. Now, how about going to
his house and living with him, to find out why?”
“You don't mean—?” began Keeling sharply.
“But if I do mean?” and Grant's level glance
was absolutely unflinching.
The quick flush that had risen to Larry's face
faded into pallor.
“Warren—isn't—” he began, and stopped.
The other laid a firm hand upon his shoulder.
“It's what Warren is that you must find out.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 59
Accept that position, and don't for one instant,
scruple to watch your man.”
Young Keeling suddenly withdrew from his touch.
“I’ll go,” he said, with decision, “but I'm not
going to spy on Warren for you!”
“Larry,” replied the other, unruffled, “I don't
want you to spy on him for me. I simply want you
to know him for yourself, because it's up to you to
take care of your sister. Warren may not be guilty
of murder, and yet you may have very deep reason
to fear for Dare.”
That night, Larry Keeling read the riot act to
his sister. Was she crazy? Was she lost to all
sense of delicacy?
The moment he faced her in the privacy of their
own apartment, he poured out the torrent of his
wrath upon her shining head. Larry was “beating
her to it,” and he said all that there was to say,
and in the most picturesque language at his com-
mand, before she got the chance to reply.
But Dare did not reply—at least, not as he ex-
pected her to. Before the towering passion of this
strangely metamorphosed little brother, she stood
1 in wide-eyed, hurt surprise.
It was after a moment of unendurable silence be-
tween them, following the storm, that Dare replied
with a disconcerting quiver about her pretty mouth:
“Don’t you think, Larry, that it's time for me to
be seen in public with Brent, when my brother makes
a point of hanging out on the corner in intimate
*-


60 - THE DEVIL TO PAY
conversation with the man who is trying to—to
bring him to his death?”
Larry's weapon was broken in his hand.
“Why, why,” he began lamely, “I didn't mean it
to look that way—I met Grant quite accidentally—”
“But you stopped to talk with him?”
“Sure, I did!—I happened upon him—”
“And walked down Norton Street with him?”
“See here, Dare,” protested her brother, “if
Warren is innocent, and of course he is, we are not
supposed to be afraid of developments. I had just
said to a crowd of fellows who were trying to pump
me, that we wanted Grant to do his duty. Then I
walked straight up to Cullen.”
“And you talked about—me!”
“—Yes—”
“Larry, how could you!”
It proved a drawn battle.
Dare finally promised to be less in the public
view, and Larry agreed to accept the position of
private secretary to Warren and to take up his
abode immediately in the latter's lonely bachelor
home in the suburbs. Larry also agreed to refrain
from further public show of friendship with Cullen
Grant.


CHAPTER IX
THe next day Larry Keeling went to live with
Warren in his handsome suburban residence.
It was a place with a “past,” dating back as it
did at least three-quarters of a century, and hous-
ing within its brick walls associations which defied
eviction. Warren had bought and remodeled it at
the time of his much-advertised advent into the
town six years before. And from that time to the
present, he had lived here alone except for occa-
sional house-parties, arranged for the ultra-fashion-
able.
It was an impressive place, with plenty of space,
plenty of quiet aloofness. The grounds were large,
and there were trees and shrubs and hedges in pro-
fusion. An ideal spot it was for retirement, for
introspection,-for parallel lines of dense cedars,
originally flanking, but now almost choking its long
avenue of approach, insured isolation from all ex-
cept such as had some definite and compelling reason
for invading its reserve.
If Larry Keeling had been looking for seclusion,
he would have enjoyed the prospect of this exile
from the garish town, but twenty summers is not
given to pining for shadowy solitudes.
All circumstances considered, it was much to
Larry's credit that he succeeded in trumping up an
61


62 THE DEVIL TO PAY
air of joviality to grace his arrival at Brent War-
ren's door and the surrender of his time to the com-
mand of a man whom he personally did not like.
On the other hand, there might have been cer-
tain entries due to Warren's credit too, as he held
out a welcoming hand, and exclaimed:
“Now this is good of you, Larry!—Just as good
as it was sweet and foolish in Dare to conceive it!”
“Dare is not putting me in your way, I hope?”
asked Dare's brother. He had not heard that the
project was his sister's own.
“By no means !” exclaimed his employer-host, “I
was thinking of you.”
“Me?” said Larry. “Why, I'm prime for the job,
you know!—The question is, can you use me?”
“Certainly I can. Besides the secretary's duties,
which are very light, I want to have done a little
research work—family history, you know—and I’ve
tried for months to get a young man whom I'd really
care to have in my house. You and I can hit it
off nicely, and dear little Dare will be happy in
having got us together.”
When Larry withdrew from the interview to the
luxurious apartment assigned him, he carried with
him the distinct impression that Warren was sub-
mitting with a lover's good nature to a plan that
was entirely Dare's own. This was not altogether
pleasant. But Larry had promised last night—
after the threatened break with the little sister who
now stood in tragic need of his support—that he
would take the place and hold it. Family history—


THE DEVIL TO PAY 63
y
Well, let it be that, then Any old work would do.
Yes, he would be bound to know Warren better
for his stay here—but, not for any consideration
would he disclose any of his findings to Cullen
Grant.
Larry Keeling's duties as “private secretary”
proved surprisingly nil. It developed that Warren
preferred to open and answer his own mail, and
also that Larry's services were not to be invoked on
the all-shadowing subject of the impending trial.
This was certainly not what Larry had expected.
When Dare first communicated to her brother the
surprising news that Warren wanted him as private
secretary, Larry jumped to the conclusion that War-
ren sought his services because he needed a confi-
dant, and because he, Larry, was probably the one
man whom he could trust supremely. And it was
acting under this conviction that Larry promptly
informed Grant he would not report upon anything
which he might learn through his enforced secre-
taryship.
The whole situation was puzzling.
It was but reasonable to suppose that a man fac-
ing trial for a serious offense would have something
to write or to have written on the subject, but War-
ren explained briefly that his lawyers were paid to
attend to his case, and the private secretary was
never called upon in its connection.
It seemed, however, that the necessity for digging
out and transcribing the history of the Warren


64 THE DEVIL TO PAY
family was both urgent and important. And Larry
found himself gradually submerged in moth-eaten
manuscripts and ponderous works on genealogy.
An entire section of the tall bookshelves in the:
library had been given up to volumes set aside for
his research. Larry soon found out, however, that
the collection had not been hastily flung together in
order to furnish work for him, but that it was the
result of probably some years' systematic bringing
together. The born detective deduced this from
the fact that, of the numberless slips of paper used
to mark places for reference in the collected vol-
umes, many were quite yellow where they were left
exposed to the air. Warren had then long definitely
intended having this work done.
Nevertheless, Larry did not doubt that the as-
signment of himself to the work and at this par-
ticular juncture was rather a matter of trumped-up
expediency. But expediency or not, the young man
was facing a tedious, absorbing job.
Larry champed at his bit. He had expected at
least to be entertained. His remaining with War-
ren, however, was the price of keeping Dare from
making a fool of herself, so he set savagely to work
digging up the dead and gone Warrens.
The first day of it was terrific. He was shut off
to himself in a preternaturally large, gloomy library
which was bounded on the north, east, south, and
west by shelves upon shelves of books—while out-
side there, whence one ought to hear the sprightly
tramp of busy feet, the whirr of wheels, and the


THE DEVIL TO PAY 65
good old sound of human voices, were cedars—
cedars and boxwood, and a perfectly damnable
quiet!
The new secretary had the morning and the man-
sion to himself, and he played a lone, if successful,
hand at luncheon. Then the afternoon's work, and
a swearing-off till the morrow. He thought of go-
ing to town for the evening, but the “born detec-
tive” in him decided him to remain at his post.
When Larry finally left his books and took refuge
on the front veranda, it was already growing dark,
for night steals up swiftly where the trees dip low
to cover her advance. The young fellow found
himself vowing that if the place were his he would
fell to earth every tree and shrub in the whole
twenty-acre enclosure. -
And then a servant brought the message that Mr.
Warren had phoned he would dine in town. An-
other lonely meal, and the servants departed for the
night. Not one of them slept on the place l
Time passed—at least, it was due to pass. The
place got quieter and quieter, and bigger and bigger.
Larry went back to the front veranda.
If anybody had told Larry Keeling that he would
one time sit on the front steps and long for Brent
Warren, he would have laughed the prophet out of
countenance. But there he sat, waiting, wishing!
Warren was proprietor, so to speak, of all this
empty loneliness, and Warren ought to come back
and take the responsibility for it off his unaccus-
tomed hands.


66 THE DEVIL TO PAY
There is nothing like the empty dark to drive
home the old maxim that Nature abhors a vacuum
—the nameless, formless somethings which began
to crowd that black emptiness, shortly left to the
none-too-intrepid youth of twenty scarcely comfort-
able elbow-room, and he rose and retreated to his
workshop.
Here, at least, a fellow knew what he was up
against. He flung himself down upon a lounge,
and very shortly all the dead-and-gone Warrens
came and camped upon his chest.
Larry started awake. Somebody was in the
room! He rose quietly on his elbow. Somebody
was in the room, but it was a no more sinister visi-
tant than the proprietor of the establishment.
Brent Warren was down on one knee before a
big safe which stood in a corner, experimenting with
the combination. Larry caught a smothered oath,
and rose to his feet with a laugh.
The man at the safe started violently.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Larry exclaimed, “I
thought you knew I was here.”
“Where?” demanded Warren.
“On the couch here—I thought of course you
had seen me.”
“No-I supposed you had gone to bed,” replied
his host. Then he turned his interrupted attention
to the safe again. “I’ve forgotten the combina-
tion,” he said, after another vain try at the handle.
Larry was at once eager to help.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 67
“Connect up with something that happened the
same day,” he suggested.
“Oh, it was months ago,'
patiently.
“You haven't been able to open it in all that time?
Why didn't you get an expert?”
“Why,” replied Warren, working away, “I hadn't
tried to open it for some time. Everything that
relates to business I keep down-town. These were
only some old papers that I accidentally closed the
safe upon—”
“And they were secure enough here,” assisted
Larry.
“Yes,” said Warren, “and I have been so busy,
you know.”
Larry's eagerness to help led him on.
“Try to recall what you were thinking about when
you put on the combination,” he suggested. “What
were the circumstances?”
Warren looked up with knitted, thoughtful brows.
“The trouble is,” he said, “that the combination
had been put on some time before. The last time I
had the safe open, I was called out suddenly, and
shut the door to without making the change I had
intended. The old number—” and again he was
busy at the lock.
“Didn't you write it down somewhere?” asked
the younger man, subconsciously registering the fact
that the other had spoken of the combination's “hav-
ing been put on,” as if another and not himself had
set the key to its opening.
' replied the other im-
Propºrº
* ºf the
NEw York
*****ty Liers ºr


68 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“No,” replied Warren, with certainty.
Larry went over and sat down by the safe to
watch Warren's efforts—he liked puzzles.
“It was some very familiar combination of num-
bers,” said the man at the safe reflectively, “but I
can't remember what.”
Larry was instant with a suggestion:
“Try “ten, ten, double-ten. forty-five, and fifteen’”
he said.
“Oh, it was nothing foolish 1” Warren exclaimed.
The suggestion registered on Larry's subcon-
sciousness forced its way up: “Anybody else ever
know the combination?” he blurted out.
“Yes,” said Warren. Then he corrected himself—
rather hastily, Larry thought. “No, nobody else—
knows it.”
He was turning and turning the knob as he spoke,
and his attention was fixed upon it.
“I’d swear that—Oh, well, it will come back!”
and he stood up defeated.
“Is it important that you get in at once?” in-
quired his private secretary.
“Oh, no,” replied the other, “I’ll have a man out
some time to open it.”


!
CHAPTER X
LARRY slept that night unusually heavily, but
somewhere in the long stretch of oblivion he be-
came dimly conscious of protesting against being
wakened.
Defeated at length, however, he sat up in bed.
The telephone was ringing—it seemed to Larry to
have been ringing from the beginning of things.
But before he could marshal his wits, it had ceased.
He sprang out of bed and hurried into the hall
to answer at the extension before connection was
dropped. He took down the receiver and put it
to his ear.
Larry was awake. He would have sworn to the
fact at any time thereafter, and yet what came to
him over the wires, in a hesitating, peculiarly deep
bass voice, was:
“Do men dh-ie?”
A sharp sound followed which hurt the listener's
ear-drum, and then—silence.
“Hello!” he called, “Hello!”
“Number, please?” came in a nasal treble.
“No number, I was answering.”
“Excuse, please.”
Larry hung up the receiver, but stood still in the
dark.
69


7o THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Do men die?”—Yes, that was what it said—
Larry was awake—he was sure of it! Then sud-
denly, the situation became pregnant with sugges-
tion—The message was to Warren—perhaps War-
ren had received it down-stairs—Good God! what a
question to put to a man under a capital indictment!
Larry found the switch and turned on the hall
lights above and below. He started down-stairs—
stealthily at first—then something told him to pre-
pare the man below for his coming, and he called:
“Warren l”
He reached the library door at the foot of the
stairs and opened it.
By the desk on which rested the telephone sat
Brent Warren, as chalky white under the shaded
light as the night-clothes he wore.
“Did you hear?” asked Larry, coming forward,
quickly.
“Did you hear?” gasped the other.
“Yes, that was a voice to be remembered.”
Warren's next came with such sudden vehemence
that Larry started distinctly:
“Did you know that voice?”
“No,” Larry said promptly. “I meant I would
know it again. Whose was it?”
“How should I know?” exclaimed Warren.
“What do you mean?”
“Why, I don't ‘mean' anything, Brent. I thought
from the way you spoke that you knew—Oh, say,
I do know!”
“You?” exclaimed the other, starting up.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 71
Larry stopped short, and looked into the man's
blue-white face. Then he hastened to explain:
“It's some of the boys, Brent. They've got a
way of calling a fellow up in the dead of night to
ask how he is sleeping, and—all that sort of fool-
ishness.”
Warren sat down again. He passed his hand
across his forehead.
“They were after me,” continued Larry in ex-
planation.
“But those questions?”
“Guess they are twitting me about—about you,”
stammered the young man, with only a subconscious
recognition of the other man's use of the plural.
Warren rose from his chair—unsteadily, Larry
noticed.
“Well, will you please stop your friends' little
pleasantries,” he exclaimed.
“Certainly, I will,” protested Larry, “but I
couldn't help this, you know!”
But it wasn't any of the boys who put that weird
question over the wires—at least, they all strenu-
ously denied it when, the next day, Larry called
them up separately and demanded to know.
Later, when he met a bunch of them at their
favorite hanging-out corner, Larry became the sub-
ject of a comfortable roast at their hands.
Did he think they had no sense—no delicacy
whatever? Were they not his friends, and War-
ren's P


72 THE DEVIL TO PAY
And Larry experienced a sense of personal re-
lief at their indignant denials.
Their repudiation of the act, however, only added
to the real discomfort of the idea, for it left the
incident to stand out in stark silhouette, entirely
unexplained. And Larry was finally forced to the
conclusion that the bizarre telephone question had
been addressed to Warren, and that there must
have been somewhat of the sinister behind it.
Somebody was seizing on the situation to perse-
cute Warren. But who? Who in that town—
among all Warren's connections—could have any
reason for badgering the fellow like that?
The amateur detective repeated the phone ques-
tion to himself, unconsciously imitating the deep,
hesitating resonance of the peculiar voice: “Do men
dh-ie?”
Who was it that could say a thing like that to a
man facing trial for his life? And how much had
been said before he got to the phone to hear?—
Warren had spoken of “questions.”
Larry wished that he could talk to Cullen Grant
about it, but Grant was on the other side, and it
might be just possible that he would better not know.
Of course it was out of the question for him to
discuss the matter with anybody but Grant, for
whom else could he trust? It would be worse than
foolish, worse than disloyal in him to risk starting
any sort of gossip now, however light, about Brent
Warren—for the mean substratum of that mediocre
town would be ready to seize on and magnify the


CHAPTER XI
UNDER the inspiration of his new idea, Larry
repaired at once to the office of a detective agency.
He was going to take steps to protect Warren from
persecution. It was only loyal to Dare that he
do it—and besides, it was humanly right that he
should.
Larry explained his needs to the first responsible
looking man whom the office boy allowed him to
approach.
He wanted a man on a very delicate piece of
business, and he very much preferred one who was
in no way identified with the town.
It seemed that the agency had the man needed—
just arrived from New Orleans and absolutely
strange to the people. After some delay the young
man was ushered into the presence of the recent
importation.
He didn't look the detective, Mr. Potter, the new
man, didn't—for he had the good-natured face and
well-fed physique of a traveling salesman. Larry
was distinctly disappointed. It somehow seemed a
breach of contract in the man not to have a lean
and hungry look and the eye of a hawk.
In a very short time, however, Larry waived ex-
ternals and got down to business.
74


76 THE DEVIL TO PAY
beginning to feel that he must be making a moun-
tain out of a molehill and thus failing to interest
his listener, when the detective said:
“I believe if I were you, I'd drop around to the
telephone exchange and ask that the night-shift
make a note of the source of any more late calls for
your number. When you get another like those, and
find out from where it comes, let me know.”
This seemed the logical end of the interview, and
Larry rose to depart.
“I wouldn't talk this to anybody, of course,” said
the detective. “We want to hear from your unknown
friend again—And say, I believe I wouldn't air
my talents for imitation, if I were you—not just yet,
anyway.”


CHAPTER XII
THERE were no two ways about it—being big
brother to Dare Keeling was a man's size job.
Nothing which Larry could offer or threaten
would induce her to leave town till after Warren's
now imminent trial should be over. Larry preached,
he begged, he stormed, but Dare remained at her
post.
Yet there was one consolation—Dare was game.
The big brother had had visions of tears, of faint-
ing fits, of melodrama generally, but his visions re-
mained unfulfilled. Dare was gaily, confidently de-
fiant—Dare was superb!
As Larry motored back to the home of his
brother-in-law-to-be, he congratulated himself on
both his sister's fine spirit, and the wonderful poise
of the man with whom she had chosen to cast her
lot. After all, there was nothing in the world like
breeding to prepare people for crises—He himself
—well, he fancied he too was measuring up in no
mean degree.
Larry's mind turned from its complacent reflec-
tions to the seriousness of the problem before them.
What about preparations for the coming trial?
He knew that he had no right to expect any
measure of confidence from Cullen Grant, so, of
77


78 THE DEVIL TO PAY
course, the State's preparations would remain closed
to him. That the prosecution was getting ready
however to make serious trouble, he did not for a
moment doubt, for he was sharp enough to read
grim menace through Cullen Grant's closely guarded
remarks. Yes, there was no question about the
fact that the prosecution would be prepared—but,
what about the defense?
Larry felt a wave of indignation sweep over him.
Here, only six days before Brent Warren's trial
for murder, he, Dare Keeling's brother, knew not
one whit more about the preparations for his de-
fense than he knew about those of the opposing
side. What were Warren and his lawyers doing?
Why wasn't he, Larry, included somewhat in their
councils?
How much did Dare Keeling know of their plans?
The young detective nearly ditched his runabout
at the sudden thought. A quick turn saved his neck,
but effectually ditched his speculations. And he
was very much alive to his surroundings as he swept
down the avenue and around by a seldom-used drive
toward the rear.
To the right, yonder, on the big rocks under the
trees, were Warren and—Dare Keeling! Warren's
arm was about her, and they were talking earnestly
with heads bent close together.
Larry was instantly and hotly indignant, and
strange to say, not so much at Dare's presence here,
as at the fact that Warren's arm was about her
waist.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 79
And yet, why shouldn't it be? Dare was War-
ren’s promised wife—Why shouldn't she be receiv-
ing his confidences within the circle of his embrace?
Larry stifled his unreasoning indignation as best
he could, and sounded Klaxon for danger. Dare
and Warren looked up quickly, then rose and came
forward as Larry stepped from his car. Warren
was smiling, but Dare was seriously concerned.
Larry thought she looked frightened, but he knew
her too well to flatter himself that it was his own
ill-concealed wrath which she feared. -
“What's the matter?” he asked quickly.
“Nothing—Who's afraid?” then she smiled
bravely.
“Well, what on earth are you doing here?—
Dare, haven't you got any regard for appearances?”
“I have scolded her enough, Larry,” interposed
Warren in her behalf, “and she's going to be
good—”
“Speak for yourself, Brent!”—then to Larry—
“Why shouldn't I visit where my brother lives?—
I came to see you, of course.”
“Dare,” began her brother, indignantly.
“She is never coming again without bringing a
chaperon with her, Larry—let up,” urged Warren.
“It's wonderful how little sense a woman needs,”
put in Dare.
“Well, if the men didn't look after you, I'll be
hanged if you wouldn't walk straight into the fire l’”
exclaimed her brother.
“She was out driving by herself, and dropped in


THE DEVIL TO PAY 81
Of course he has property, you understand—plenty
of property—but it's all tied up in the Hampton
Company where he can't get his hands on it, and he
needs funds right away.”
It wouldn't have taken a born detective to catch
the drift of Dare's argument. Larry's thoughts
jumped at once to that codicil in Aunt Jane's will—
that second-thought proviso—which some saving
grace of reasonableness or the fear of something
after death had impelled the old lady to dictate in
the latest hour of her life. Dare could be given
her inheritance during this, the last year of her
probation. And Warren needed money!
Something within Larry rebelled instantly at the
yet unexpressed proposition, but a fleeting wistful-
ness across Dare's all-too-delicate face disarmed his
rising opposition.
“You want me to ask Grant to release to you a
little of your tainted money?” he asked gently.
“I want all of it.”
The young fellow's face darkened quickly. “But,
Darel” he exclaimed, “you surely couldn't let War-
ren use it all.”
“Larry,” she said, incisively, “the money is mine,
and I'm going to do just what I please with it.”
“But it isn't yours, yet,” her brother urged.
“It is mine,” she exclaimed. “Aunt Jane simply
didn't want me to marry early. I am practically
twenty-one right now, and you know that the intent
of the will is already fulfilled—”
The echo of Brent Warren in her phrasing, did


82 THE DEVIL TO PAY
not make her brother take any more kindly to her
argument, and he frowned as she concluded:
“And even Cullen Grant himself cannot pretend
to say that my need is not “urgent’l”
Larry demurred, protested—but all to no effect.
After all, he was only a youth of twenty, and his
sister was his senior by very much more than a year
in her knowledge of how to handle others.
When the end of the ride was reached, he had
promised Dare to use his utmost eloquence with
Cullen Grant to the end that she immediately be
made the unquestioned mistress of their grand-
aunt's many thousands.
But it was not until after he had parted with his
sister, that young Keeling came to the realization
that she had not told him one definite thing in re-
gard to Warren's preparations to meet the serious
charge facing him, even though he had opened the
subject many times—had, in fact, insisted on know-
ing. Dare simply didn't know, or said she didn't,
and it amounted to the same thing.


CHAPTER XIII
LARRY didn't suspect that he was weak about his
sister, but he was.
On his way back to Warren's—through “town”
of course—he found himself passing the county
court-house in which was the office of the solicitor.
Larry glanced up at the windows that he knew to
be Grant's, and his promise to Dare gripped him—
indeed, in that moment it became more a promise in
spirit and in truth than when he uttered it.
Yes, Dare was right about it—if Warren needed
her help, she ought to be allowed to give it to him.
Gee! but that was the girl for you!—loyal—fight-
ingly loyall
He would make the appeal to Grant now, God
bless her l
Larry quite tingled as he presented himself at the
solicitor's door.
He did not have to wait this time, for in spite
of the fact that the waiting-room was pretty well
filled with impatient others, he was admitted to
Grant's private office as soon as his name was
'sent in.
Grant welcomed him cordially—eagerly, Larry
thought.
No, the attorney was in no hurry at all, and
- 83


84 THE DEVIL TO PAY
Larry must sit down and chat. Miss Nettie would
wait in the other room awhile. A stenographer,
whom Larry had not noticed till then, went quietly
out, closing the door behind her. -
When they were alone and facing each other,
there was between them that clarity of atmosphere
which, no matter what were their differences, al-
ways marked their companionship. And, young
though he was, Larry was shrewd enough to recog-
nize that it was the other man's personality which
always dissipated any chance clouds of embarrass-
ment between them.
In his interviews with Grant, preliminaries some-
how dropped away from Larry's speech, leaving
him free to go straight to his point.
“Cullen, I want to talk to you about Dare's prop-
erty,” he said.
“All right, what about it?” came in prompt reply.
“I know that through your management,” began
Larry, “the estate is now worth twice as much as
when you took hold of it—”
A gesture from Grant waived that phase of the
subject. -
“All right,” resumed young Keeling, “but I
wanted you to know that Dare and I both appre-
ciate that fact.”
“You wanted to talk to me about the future?”
asked his listener.
“Yes,” replied Larry, deeply grateful for this ac-
celeration of his distasteful mission. “Your trustee-
ship is nearly over—”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 85
“Yes,” said Grant, promptly.
“Now,” continued Larry, “by the terms of Aunt
Jane's will, the property is to be turned over to
Dare, unconditionally, on her next birthday.”
“Provided she is still unmarried,” Grant re-
minded him.
“Yes, and Dare's twenty-first birthday is three
months from now.”
Cullen Grant calculated a moment, and then
agreed to the statement.
Larry opened his lips to recall the codicil to
Aunt Jane's will, but Grant saved him the trouble.
“And Dare wants me to release her property to
her now,” he stated, rather than asked.
“Yes,” assented Dare's brother.
“Larry,” asked the keen-eyed man before him,
“did your own judgment assent to this move, or did
Dare browbeat you into yielding it?”
The younger man flushed quickly and drew him-
self up.
“I am answered,” said Cullen Grant, again sav-
ing him the trouble.
“But you mistake—” began Keeling.
“No, I don't mistake, Larry,” said the other,
promptly. “Your instinct told you at the very out-
set that that would be an unwise move—but Dare
begged, and—I don't blame you, Larry.”
The younger man had somewhat of chagrin to
swallow at this quick reading of his hand by the
man before him, and before he had had time to
think out a rejoinder that would be sufficiently digni-


86 THE DEVIL TO PAY
fied to cover his retreat, Cullen Grant was saying to
him incisively: -
“You know as well as I do that Dare wants that
money to throw away on Warren.”
Larry rallied to his colors.
“Have I denied that Dare wants to help War-
ren?” he demanded. “And isn't it human that she
should?—Isn't it right that she should?”
“It's human all right,” answered the other,
grimly.
“Isn't it right?” urged Dare's brother. “Dare
loves and trusts Warren, and Warren needs money
to defend his life.”
“Do you suppose for an instant that Warren
hasn't enough money or its equivalent to pay all
the lawyers he can use?” demanded Grant.
“I know that he is financially embarrassed,” said
Larry, lamely.
“And I know,” put in Grant, “that he has plenty
for all righteous purposes connected with this trial.”
Young Keeling grew hot at the word “righteous.”
But too much was at stake for him to risk taking up
the glove thrown down by the other, so he simply
passed it over as if not seeing it.
“But it may be that the Hampton Company is
involved,” he urged instead.
Grant gave him a keen look which he caught but
could not understand. After the momentary pause
the solicitor asked:
“And you would throw Dare's good money after
Warren's bad?”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 87
Larry lost his temper. “Of course, Grant,” he
exclaimed, “since you assume to know all about
Warren's business and to be able to judge the whole
affair from—”
But Grant stopped him—“It happens to be my
business right now,” he said, sternly, “to know all
that can be found out about Brent Warren, and
your aunt's will makes me the judge of matters per-
taining to Dare's property. I don't "assume' any-
thing.” Then his voice softened again. “Don’t
let's get impatient with each other, Larry,” he added
with quick sincerity, “we are going to have much to
settle together shortly.”
But Larry was enjoying the thrill of being angry
too keenly to yield at once, and he answered quite
stiffly:
“Aunt Jane merely wanted to keep Dare from
marrying too young—now, Dare is twenty-one
years old—those three months don't make any dif-
ference, for Aunt Jane's point is gained. For you
to hold out now, merely on a technicality, is nothing
short of arbitrary.”
“That's your view of it, Larry.”
“Cullen, you and I must understand each other—
I know perfectly well that the law is on your side,
but it's absolutely unfeeling that you should refuse
Dare the only thing which could bring her any com-
fort.”
“I have been called ‘unfeeling' before,” said
Grant evenly.
“It is not—” Larry waited a moment—a moment


88 THE DEVIL TO PAY
in which Cullen Grant looked him straight in the
eyes—“It is not ethical!” he finished.
Grant, somehow, changed under the word—
changed without moving a muscle.
“I have not been called ‘unethical' before,” he
said. Then with his steady eyes still on Larry's, he
added, “You and I, Larry, are going to be careful
what we say to each other.”
Larry rose quickly, on the verge of adding some-
thing impetuous, but on second impulse, he closed his
lips on what had sprung to them.
Grant rose too, but stood quietly beside the table,
looking at the passion-shaken boy. After a mo-
ment he said, and quite kindly now:
“Larry, this is worse than foolish in us.”
“You don't know what I'm up against,” came in
uneven tones from the other.
“Yes, I know that—and more.” After a silence
that was uncomfortable for both, he added, “Larry,
did it ever occur to you that if I release this prop-
erty to Dare, she may marry Warren at once to
show her supreme faith in him?—and to win the
sympathy of the public for him?”
Young Keeling listened intently, even after Grant
had ceased speaking. Then he answered, as if care-
fully arranging his words:
“Of course Warren didn't inspire the murder of
Joe Harkness, and of course Dare is going to marry
him, sooner or later—Why not sooner?”
“But if Warren did inspire the murder of Joe


THE DEVIL TO PAY 89
Harkness? And if Dare marries him, only to find it
out too late?”
Larry recoiled. “Don’t,” he cried, “that's un-
thinkable !”
“It must not be “unthinkable,' Larry,” urged the
older man, now. “You are Dare's brother and pro-
tector. You simply must weigh all the possibilities.”
The dumb agony of the boy's face was suddenly
intensified.
“Cullen,” he exclaimed, “Dare is just the sort to
throw up the money and marry him anyhow !”
“Yes,” answered the other, “but Warren isn't
the sort.”
Young Keeling looked at him in groping ques-
tioning.
Grant answered the mute appeal. “Dare offered
to marry Warren the day he was arrested, but War-
ren refused to “allow the sacrifice’,” he said.
“How do you know?” demanded the brother,
taken aback.
“O'Hagan, who had Warren in charge, heard
the conversation.”
Larry stood for some time in stunned perplexity,
then said:
“But if Warren should yield?”
“Warren will not fling away the certain prospect
of a snug fortune.”
“But if he should?” urged Larry, “I am ‘weigh-
ing the possibility,' you see.”
“Dare would marry him,” said Grant.
“And Aunt Jane's money?”


90 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Would go to the Church Home.”
“But, Cullen,” exclaimed the young man, “don’t
you see what you are doing?—You are running the
risk of robbing Darel Robbing her!”
Grant's face was deeply serious as he replied:
“That's true.”
“You hadn't thought of that?”
“Yes, I have—I haven't been able to escape the
thought of it.”
Larry Keeling looked at the man in sheer aston-
ishment.
“And you still persist?” he at length burst out.
“I am obliged to,” said Grant.
Larry stood perplexed for some moments—but
he had promised Dare to do his very best.
“Cullen,” he said at length, “why don't you make
the release of the property conditioned on her not
marrying Warren before the expiration of the
time?”
The solicitor hesitated significantly before he re-
plied, “The law must be allowed to take its course.”
Larry Keeling felt a sudden, queer lightness of
the head.
“I—I can't ask you what you mean by that,” he at
length said.
“No,” said the solicitor.
The young fellow wiped the cold sweat from his
forehead. “You are wrong,” he exclaimed. “You've
got to be wrong! And all the while you are keeping
Dare from doing what any true woman would want
to do!”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 9I
“Larry,” said the other, earnestly, “if you or
Dare or Warren can show me a righteous need for
the expenditure of any of Dare's money in this case,
I’ll release to her what is needed, but when it comes
to the Hampton Company—”
As soon as young Keeling had closed the door
behind him, Grant drew a letter-head to him and
Wrote :
MR. John SEIBERT,
State Bank Examiner,
DEAR SEIBERT:—
About that certain institution I wrote you of yes-
terday: I have reason to suspect that your prede-
cessor, Nolan, was “hurried” in that last examina-
tion of it. It may well be that you can unearth
facts which were overlooked by him at that time.
Am writing to ask that you overhaul the institu-
tion within the next ten days.
Cordially yours,
CULLEN GRANT, Solicitor.


CHAPTER XIV
Utterly disheartened, Larry returned to Dare
to report the result of his interview with the execu-
tor of their aunt's will. He knew perfectly well
that the fact that Grant had reserved to himself
to judge of the righteousness of any contemplated
expenditure of Dare's money had already defeated
the cause for which he had pleaded. He knew be-
cause he knew Dare.
Still it might be that Warren's need was limited
to a few thousands. In such an event, Larry be-
lieved he could persuade Grant to meet the demand
without embarrassing either Dare or Warren. The
thought seemed a happy one. Of course Warren
could not have immediate and urgent need for much
money. Then the disagreeable question obtruded
itself: Why didn't he borrow from his own bank?
Well, maybe there were complications. And the
very conclusion which would have given serious con-
cern to an older man was sufficient to make Larry—
who was beginning to realize the limitations of his
youth—glad to dismiss that phase of the subject
from his calculations.
He turned with relief to something with which
he felt capable of coping.
The work at his hand was to reconcile two very
difficult people. Larry would make Dare say just
92


THE DEVIL TO PAY 93
how much money Warren needed, and then would
take up the matter again with the executor of Aunt
Jane's will.
Dare had been the type of child that school teach-
ers never “understand.” When Larry came out of
that interview, he was desperate. Of course he did
not credit her threats of the many weird things she
was going to do to Cullen Grant—Larry, somehow,
didn't tremble for the solicitor.
Rather had he begun to fear the more—for Dare.
She had scorned the idea of a “few thousands,”
had demanded all that was hers, “to put in the
fire” if she so chose, and had flatly refused to state
or even hint the amount which Warren claimed to
need.
But Larry brought away from that interview one
remarkable idea: Dare had scorned his suggestion
of a few thousands !
It was plain that Warren wanted a good deal
of ready money, and it was plain that Dare knew
it—though she would not take her brother frankly
into her confidence.
Larry was at what appeared to be the end of his
row. With Dare, the reckless, the defiant, dealing
in quantities which were to remain unknown to him,
her natural protector, where could he turn—To
Grant?—Not to Grant—To whom then? Most
assuredly a detective was out of the question here!
That evening, young Keeling and his sister dined
with Warren at his club.


94 THE DEVIL TO PAY
Larry did not wish to do it, for Cullen Grant's
warning to him to keep Dare from being much seen
with Warren had stabbed him awake to an unnamed
fear for her. But Dare's insistence that she had
merely promised to be seen less with Warren,
coupled with a certain unreasoning resentment he
felt toward Grant, and the fact that there was not
the ghost of an excuse to offer Warren. broke down
Larry's objection.
They would be among their peers and sympa-
thizers, Larry reflected, which would be quite an-
other thing from Dare's flaunting herself with
Warren in the eyes of the general public, always
censorious of those whom it envies.
So they went to dine with Warren at his club.
And they found, on joining their host, not only good
cheer, but good news as well. .
Warren told them at once, and with very evident
gratification, that the directors of the Hampton
Bank had that afternoon unanimously and firmly re-
fused to accept his resignation from the presidency
of the company.
At a mystified question from Dare as to why he
had offered his resignation, Warren explained the
sensitiveness of banking institutions, and added that
of course he was anxious lest this cabal against him
should injure the Hampton Company
Dare laid her hand on his arm.
“That was fine of you,” she said, “and fine of
them to stand by you!”
Larry's pulse beat high at the news of this pledge


THE DEVIL TO PAY 95
of confidence in Warren by the men who were best
in position to know his integrity, and he began to
wonder why he had allowed himself to be so quickly
prejudiced by Cullen Grant.
The young fellow was delighted with Warren's
reception by his peers. Men came from all parts
of the club-rooms to shake hands with him—and
they were the most prominent men in town.
Larry was further pleased when, later, Warren
voluntarily introduced the subject of his request for
the “temporary use” of some of Dare's property.
The three were seated now at a table in a removed
alcove which called itself a private dining-room.
Warren talked about the proposition with a frank,
simple reasonableness which completely robbed it
of its embarrassing delicacy and finally disarmed
Larry's instinctive opposition to it.
It was agreed among the three that Grant had
quite overstepped his authority in the premises. In-
deed, Larry was almost tempted to second some of
Dare's extreme remarks on the subject, when War-
ren interposed. Grant was sincere, he said, and
they ought not to blame him for being honestly
mistaken. The unfortunate part of the whole mat-
ter was that Grant had allowed himself to become
prejudiced against him, Warren, by men to whose
interest it was to make trouble. And he begged
Dare to be careful in what she said about the solici-
tor for their old friendship's sake. There were no
two ways about it—Brent Warren was a gentleman.
An hour later, as they passed out through the


96 THE DEVIL TO PAY
main dining-room, Larry's quick glance rested on a
certain party of two at a small removed table.
Cullen Grant and another man whose back was
toward them were dining together, and the two were
in deep conversation. Grant, however, looked up
as the interesting trio paused to exchange pleasant-
ries with eager friends.
Larry saw that Cullen Grant saw, and a tingle
of triumphant pride passed through him. Grant
was bound to be wrong, and this very demonstration
here was bound to be the beginning of his awak-
ening.
They left their eager friends and passed out.
“Who was the man with Cullen Grant?” asked
Dare, after they had passed beyond sight of the
diners.
“Didn't notice Grant, at all,” answered Warren,
“was he there?”
“I didn't see the fellow's face,” said Larry.
“Why 7”
“Cullen pointed us out to him as we came out,”
replied Dare, “and the stranger looked into the
mirror instead of at us.”
Meantime, the conspicuous trio departed, the so-
licitor leaned a little closer to his companion and
said:
“That boy is the brother I told you about.”
“Oh, that one !” and the man's gray-green eyes
lighted.
“Do you know him?” asked Grant.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 97
“Oh, no,” replied the other, cheerfully; “seen
him about town, you know.”
The man's eyes were taking a survey of Grant's
clear-cut profile as the latter's attention was mo-
mentarily called away.
“Boy quite a mimic, ain't he?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Grant, bringing his glance back to his
companion's face. “Thought you didn't—”
“I don't,” interjected the other, “but I heard a
man the other day saying what a good actor he'd
make.”
“Larry can imitate anything he has ever heard,”
replied Grant, “but his ambitions don't turn toward
the stage. He wants to follow—your calling.”
“Well,” laughed the other, “selling toilet soap
is not bad in an esthetically awakening age.” Then
his eyes shifted again toward the far door. “Weak,
would you say?” he queried.
“No-o,” replied Grant, “uncertain rather—prin-
cipally young. But he's trying to be conventionally
loyal.”
“Couldn't you enlist him?” the stranger asked.
A look of sharp distaste crossed the face of the
solicitor. “I don't want to club him into my way
of thinking, you know,” he said. “Besides, as I
haven't the full proofs, I might not be able to, even
if I could discuss the evidence with him.”
“He’d be a valuable asset to us,” insisted the
other, “and our case is mighty slim so far.”
“Yes, but I can't trust him—No, I don't mean
dishonest. He's vacillating. I might convince him


THE DEVIL TO PAY 99
“Yes,” assented the solicitor.
“Ever been overhauled by your present bank
examiner?”
“No,” said Grant; “Seibert has been in office only
a few weeks, and has not been the rounds yet.”
“What about his predecessor?” asked the other,
in a still lower tone. “Seems to be the general
opinion about here that he was—inefficient.”
“Nolan was stupid and made a good many mis-
takes,” Grant replied guardedly. “Besides, he lent
himself easily to the influence of other men—he
was socially and politically indebted to Warren,
you know.”
“Rotten!” exclaimed the other in an undertone.
“I’d have a special examination of that bank made
right away. Say, you can trust this one to do the
job right, can't you?”
“Yes,” replied the solicitor; “Seibert is both hon-
est and efficient. If Nolan deliberately shut his eyes
to anything, or carelessly allowed irregularities to
slip by him, Seibert will know it within the next ten
days. I have already asked him to make a special
examination.”
When Dare's two escorts returned to their abode
that night, young Keeling entered first the dimly
lighted hall. The telephone bell in the library was
ringing, and with a decided note of exasperation.
The call must be important.
Larry was first to reach the library desk, and
'2"/44; B


IOO THE DEVIL TO PAY
he took down the receiver, raising his eyes as he
did so to Brent Warren, who had followed.
Warren was standing arrested in the attitude of
removing a glove, his eyes focussed on the tele-
phone.
That unforgettable voice again! But Larry only
handed the receiver to the other man, saying:
“He wants you.”
As Warren took his place at the instrument,
Larry was watching his face interestedly, but he
was hardly prepared for what really did happen.
Brent Warren listened for one second only, then
dropped the receiver with a smothered—
“Good God!”
The younger man seized him by the shoulder.
“What is it?” he exclaimed. “What is it?”
“I—don't—know—”
“Who Was it?”
“Nobody—” said Warren.
“What did he say?” persisted Larry.
“Nothing!”
Larry looked at the man for some moments—
looked at his curiously white face—at his inter-
locked fingers."
“Warren,” he ventured at length, “was it some
of those devilish boys again?”
“No ſ” said Warren.
“I’ll make Central give me that numberl” ex-
claimed the younger man, indignantly. But before
he could seize the receiver, Warren had swept the
phone out of his reach.


IO2 THE DEVIL TO PAY
from what? It was unthinkable that Warren had
had anything to do with the murder of Joe Hark-
ness, and yet there might be damning circumstances
—many an innocent man was convicted and pun-
ished 1
Only six days morel But just suppose that War-
ren did—
Now what was he to do—he, Dare's brother and
protector? On which side of the struggle did he
belong? On which side was he?
Just before young Keeling lost his mind, the dawn
came and he dressed and went out to meet it.


CHAPTER xv.
DARE KEELING shortly found that to make a
promise to the Council of Women's Clubs was the
mistake of one's young life.
It had been all very well—very interesting, in
fact—to go gunning for the men one didn't meet
at the country club—to find how like all the others
were they—dead easy. But to make a house-to-
house canvass and interview women about children
was quite another proposition. Dare seriously con-
templated being too ill to serve, but the realization
that her world would attribute her illness to fear
and mortification for Warren brought her to her
feet to dress for the canvassing trip.
The club women had assigned to her a section of
the town which she had not even thought of before,
and had asked that she do her visiting on foot—it
being deemed wise that the young canvassers refrain
from display, since their mission was to the plain.
Dare conceded that point all right, but when the
propagandists asked that she dress quietly for her
work, she registered a silent refusal. Any girl
could tell you that you were likely to meet anybody
anywhere, so why go out looking like a fright?
It might all have been part of a scheme of Fate—
of a Fate with a sardonic sense of humor, by the
103


IO4 THE DEVIL TO PAY
way—but the tiger-lily was at her flaunting bright-
est when she braved certain forbidding-looking
mock-oranges and knocked briskly on a low-faced
door.
There was no response.
Dare looked about her with disapproval. The
yard was lower than the sidewalk and was badly
overgrown with shrubs. Why didn't they fill it in
and plant grass? Why didn't they cut away this
forest of evergreens? Why didn't they burn up that
ugly old house?
She knocked again — decidedly, commandingly,
this time.
There were footsteps inside. And now the door
was opening slowly and cautiously for a few inches.
A white-faced woman in black peered out.
“What do you want now?” she asked.
“I wish to speak to the lady of the house,” said
the tiger-lily with a bright smile. “Are you she?”
“Yes,” said the woman, looking at her very hard,
but not widening the opening by an inch.
Dare was not without resources.
“I am very tired,” she said, drooping a little;
“might I sit down?”
The woman hesitated a moment, and then opened
the door to her.
“Come in and rest,” she said; “it’s wearisome—
walking these streets.”
Dare entered what seemed—after the bright out-
of-doors—to be total darkness. She was braver
than Larry, but imaginative like him, and the cool


THE DEVIL TO PAY IO5
dark chilled her to the bone. She took the dim
chair offered, and sat down facing the black-draped
figure, which also found a seat.
The blackness was clearing a little, now that her
eyes were becoming accustomed to the change. It
was a big room, with the usual center-table and
chairs. There were shadowy pictures on the wall
and shadowy bric-à-brac on shelves and mantel. All
bespoke plainness rather than poverty.
“I am from the Council of Women's Clubs,”
began Dare, “and have been sent to try to interest
you in our new scheme for civic improvement.”
“You have?” said the woman, suddenly lapsing
into stony immobility.
Dare was keenly conscious of the emphasis, but
she had met with flattering success thus far, and
wished to report unanimous endorsement. She ex-
plained the playground project, the necessity for the
cooperation of mothers, and the advantage to the
children of a safe place in which to disport them-
selves. Dare was now talking against her surround-
ings, and she painted a gaily bright picture over the
somber background—And all the while that dim,
dark figure was sitting as motionless there as a
watching fatel
Dare waited for a reply—waited with the chill
taking hold of the very heart of her. Then she
made another effort. It was the special interest of
the club women to do something for the pleasure
of orphaned children—the lady was a widow, wasn't
she f—was she?


Ioë THE DEVIL TO PAY
There was a dead silence. -
Then the static figure suddenly raised its dim
arms high above its head with a smothered, thrilling
cry:
“There is a God!”
Dare sprang to her feet in horror, and darted to
the opposite side of the table, for the strange figure
had risen and was coming toward her. She smoth-
ered a scream and looked wildly about for a way
of escape.
The front door opened and a subdued light from
the shaded yard fell across the scene. The white-
faced woman in black was leaning across the table
toward her with a look that was not anguish nor
fear nor joy nor hate, but a wild mixture of all,
and more.
“Mother!” Somebody had entered the open
door, but Dare was afraid to take her eyes from
the figure across the table. And now the woman
was speaking:
“Oh, I'm not mad, girl! I'm due to be, but I'm
not!—I wouldn't hurt you!”
The someone came up to the woman and stood
beside her. Dare's startled gaze included him now.
He was a gaunt boy creature, and even in that mo-
ment Dare noted that the starting eyes of him
seemed to see beyond. Was he looking at some-
thing behind her? She gave a swift glance around
—there was nothing there but a door ajar at the
back—nothing to make one's eyes start like that!
Dare's quick glance measured the distance between


THE DEVIL TO PAY Io.7
herself and the front door—could she make it?
But she was afraid to try.
“George,” said the woman to the boy, “George,
the lady wants us to come and play with her—she
wants to teach us how to play!”
“Oh,” gasped the tiger-lily, “what is it I—have
done?”
“Don’t you know me?” said the woman, leaning
toward her again with a searching look.
“No-nol” breathed the girl.
“Don’t know?—why, the very stones of these
streets know me / Think again!”
“—I—I have never seen you—
frightened girl.
“But you've heard of me—I am the woman who
failed !”
“‘Failed'?” gasped Dare.
“I am the woman who walked these streets beg-
ging for mercy from those granite men—who
walked—and begged—and failed!”
“—You are—his wife?”
“His wife,” said the other, “but not mad, you
little—Oh, have you got soul enough inside that to
feel what it would mean to sit day after day while
they wove their net about him!—day after day,
with all those eager faces growing harder every
hour, watching your hope die!—Can you imagine
what it would mean to wait outside praying for just
one more chance for him even when you knew they
had dropped the trap from under his feet!”
With a wild little cry, Dare fled from the house.
” stammered the


IO3 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“What's the matter?”
Dare didn't know that she had run all the way
to the corner, till she bumped against the man who
caught her, and who now stood holding her solici-
tously by the arm.
“I'm—afraidſ” she gasped.
“What scared you? Who scared you?” he in-
sisted, “tell me and I'll—”
But the girl—looking him full in the face now—
suddenly shrank from his grasp. *
“Nothing, nothing!” she protested. “Let me by
—I want that car—”
“But you screamed,” insisted the man.
“I didn't—it wasn't I,” and she darted past him.
Dare dropped on the car seat more dead than
alive. The man whose attention Cullen Grant had
directed toward her at the club that night had heard
her scream—had caught her running, frightened,
from George Roan's house.


CHAPTER XVI
CoNTRARY to his custom, Larry didn't go near
his sister that day. He was troubled and bewil-
dered, and he wished to keep it from her. That
eerie telephoning had got on his nerves. Somebody
had a sinister motive for tormenting Warren, and
Warren was afraid.
But in the daylight the idea seemed very much
less menacing than it had done when it came to him
out of the dark.
Of course Warren, in the singularly trying posi-
tion in which he found himself, was bound to be
extremely nervous. Besides, nearly any man would
be stirred somewhat by manifestations of hidden
enmity. And Larry, measuring Warren by the only
standard which he thoroughly knew, finally decided
that his behavior was quite normal—under all the
circumstances.
Larry tried to work but couldn't. Instead, he
spent the day pottering around, measuring what he
had already accomplished, guessing at how much
more he would have to do. In his restless prowling,
his interest became focussed on the safe which he
had seen Warren trying to open.
Only yesterday, he had learned—on the question-
able authority of a picture-play, it was true—that
109


IIO THE DEVIL TO PAY
experts solve combinations by “listening for the
tumblers through their teeth.” Well, it would be
interesting to try, and if he did get it open Warren
would be saved having an expert out to unlock it.
Larry took a steel paper-knife from the library
table and stooped down before the rectangular, de-
fiant countenance of the closed safe to put his re-
cently acquired information to the test.
He took the handle of the steel instrument be-
tween his teeth and placed the point of the blade
against the lock, then he began slowly to turn the
knob. No results! He tried again, still more in-
tent upon his experiment.
“Wellſ” -
At the sound of the sharp exclamation behind
him, the young fellow sprang to his feet.
Brent Warren was standing in the doorway, his
face contorted with rage.
“I—I thought you wanted to get in it!” stam-
mered Larry, at bay before the silent menace of the
man's white anger.
“And did I say I wanted you to get in it?”
“I took it for granted that you would like me to
open it for you—I wanted to surprise you—” Larry
began.
“You have surprised me!”
A hot wave swept over young Keeling. “Well,
by the Lord Harry, what do you mean by that?”
he demanded.
“I mean that if you try to pry into my private
affairs—”


THE DEVIL TO PAY III
That unfinished sentence was eloquent of all
threat.
“All right,” said the other, “I’ll put myself be-
yond the reach of temptation, and you can go to the
devil!” And Larry marched past him and went
straight upstairs.
In the upper hall he halted at the telephone to
call up Dare. But his quick eye caught the tiny edge
of a foreign something showing beneath the bell
rim. Larry examined it closely. The bell had been
muffled. He replaced the receiver without calling,
and passed into his room.
Larry thought he was glad to leave, but as he
gathered his effects together from the four winds
and proceeded to throw them into his trunk, his
anxiety to shake the dust of Brent Warren's place
from his feet, waned steadily.
Never had a born detective a more complex
mystery to solve or a finer point of vantage from
which to work out the solution. Then there was
Darel And Larry stopped short, aghast at what he
was doing. Dare was engaged to marry Warren,
and he, Larry, was throwing up all chance to know
the man for what he was l Larry alternately cursed
his own lack of discretion and the whatever demon-
inspired impulse had sent Brent Warren back, be-
fore his time, to catch him at that safe.
A tap on the door brought the young man's
preparations to a sudden halt.
“Come in l’” he called, and he stood in attitude


THE DEVIL TO PAY II3
after hours in that house of disconcerting happen-
ings. So, when he came upstairs at half-past eleven
o'clock, he pulled down the shades and shut the
door, and prepared to spend some hours with Sher-
lock Holmes. The connection for the reading lamp
was near the door—Larry wasn't crazy about that
door! He ended, however, by putting his chair
against it. In a short time he was lost to the world.
What in the name of common sense—was—that?
Sherlock had dropped to the rug, and Larry was on
his feet, staring at nothing with startled eyes—Oh,
that muffled telephone !
Larry hesitated a moment, then reflecting that
Warren's bedroom was in a remote wing, he opened
his door quietly and took down the receiver.
“Hello,” he called softly, with his mouth close
to the instrument.
“Wah-ren?” asked the peculiar, hesitating voice
that he remembered only too well.
Larry answered with a very soft, but very good
imitation of Brent Warren's smooth tones:
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Ask who I–was /" said the voice.
“Where are you?” breathed the astonished Larry.
And again the voice: “Where no man is /"
The receiver at the other end of the line was
hung up. -
Larry promptly signaled Central. He had put
the office on notice as Mr. Potter had suggested.
“What number called just then?” he asked.


II4 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Armstead 4204,” Central's high treble re-
sponded.
“Whose phone?”
“The Hampton Bank and Trust Company,” came
in reply.
“Great! — Say, give me the Greyling Hotel,
quick!”
“Number, please?”
“The Greyling Hotel, precious, I'm not cat
enough to see numbers in the dark—S.O.S. 1"
The connection was given.
“Mr. Potter, traveling man from New Orleans,”
Larry breathed into the mouthpiece, “–You, Pot-
ter?—This Keeling—yes—Know who is night
watchman in the Hampton Bank? — None?—
Caesar's spirit—Would you swear that?—Get over
there as quick as you can and watch!—Yes—
Quick!”
When Larry replaced the receiver, he was as cold
as a cadaver and shaking like an aspen.—There
was no night watchman in the Hampton Bank!—
“Where no man is!”
Larry slipped back into his room and hastily
pulled on his coat. His shoes were quickly removed,
and these he carried in his hand that he might creep
out without being heard. Then he stole through the
long black halls and out into the night.
It was out of the question to get out the car—
he must beat it to town afoot. -


CHAPTER XVII
A THREE-MILE sprint under a cold moon ought
not to put out of commission anything of twenty,
but lately Larry had been riding too much, worry-
ing too much, and keeping too much the hours of
the dissipated, to be physically fit. Besides, he
sprinted too hard.
He was dead fagged and with a pain under his
heart when at length he turned into the street on
which was located the Hampton Bank and Trust
Company.
The street lights, and most of the interior lights
of buildings were gone, having winked out by clock-
work some hours before. Behind a few plate-glass
windows, dim rays still kept vigil, but for the rest,
the moon and the shadows!
It was all so dim and so cold—so quiet! Larry
had been out in the small hours before, but never
alone—and never before with mystery waiting for
him on the dim corner, and danger beckoning from
every dark arcade.
He took the shadowed side of the street, and
covered the next two blocks in swift silence.
The small building of the Hampton Bank and
! Trust Company was lighted as usual. Larry paused
near-by in one of those recesses which seem to be
115


II6 THE DEVIL TO PAY
providentially provided for the bootblack, and sur-
veyed the scene. Nothing doing—only the police-
man walking slowly past the lighted bank windows
and tapping his tethered billy on the sidewalk.
Before the policeman looked up, however, Larry
slipped out of the bootblack's stronghold and came
straight down the sidewalk to meet him.
“Any trouble, Mr. Huggins?” he asked, joining
the officer at the plate-glass window, and taking a
quick survey of the white marble interior as he
spoke.
“Little flurry awhile ago about somebody breakin'
in there,” replied the officer, “but there wasn't
nothin' to it—couldn't a-been, with me right here
on the block!”
“Who raised the alarm?" asked Larry.
“Why, a travelin' man over there at The Grey-
ling thought he saw somethin' and come spyin'
around. I was 'bout to pinch him, when Mr. Sears
—vice-president here, you know—come whizzin'
down with his auto full of cops. He unlocked the
door, and we searched the bank.”
“And found nothing?” repeated Larry.
“Of course not — with me right here on the
block!”
“Didn't you find any signs at all?”
“Nothin' but what you see in there.”
“Their private telephone exchange is around that
cage yonder,” said Larry, almost as if to himself.
The officer took a straight look at him, but Larry
didn't pursue that trail. Instead, he asked:


II8 THE DEVIL TO PAY
, “Got a puncture?” asked Potter, standing over
him after Grant had pressed him into a seat.
The scene gave signs of swimming away, but the
young fellow gasped:
“What did you find, Cullen?”
“Nothing,” answered the detective to the ques-
tion directed to the other. “What made you send
me on that wild goose chase?”
“But—but—” Larry stopped. He needed what
breath he could catch.
“That's pretty stiff for him,” he presently heard
Grant saying, and then Mr. Potter was holding a
glass of whiskey to his lips.
Larry drank it down eagerly—drank it all. He
was fighting to keep his wits about him.
“I ran over Mr. Grant at the corner,” explained
the detective, as if reading the unexpressed question
on Larry's lips. “Took him along to help catch
your bank robber—”
“But, Cullen, you—you—f—found—you found
—” the pain under his heart was gone now and he
was beginning to feel good.
“Found the end of the rainbow,” said the de-
tective in answer to his question to Grant.
Larry had an indefinable, far-away sense that
Potter was laughing covertly. But the clear-cut
features and the steady blue eyes of the other man
were unmistakably grave. Larry wondered fleet-
ingly—not why Grant was serious, but why that
other smiled.


THE DEVIL TO PAY II9
And now the scene was swimming again. It gave
him a queer feeling of elation.
“I tell you—I tell you there's just one explana-
tion to it—” he began excitedly. “Somebody, some-
thing, called from inside that bank—‘where no man
is'—he said it—and when I asked ‘Who are you?'
he said—he said, “Ask who I was!"—There's just
one explanation to it—He keeps calling—calling
Warren—and Warren knows his voice—he's afraid
of it— There's just one explanation to it—Brent
Warren is haunted!—Joe Harkness calls and calls
and calls—”
Larry found himself in bed now, and more com-
fortable. The scene swam less, with his head
anchored against a pillow.
Grant was sitting on the side of the bed, looking
at him so straight—Grant's eyes were as blue—as
blue—and leaning on the foot-board was—that fat
traveling salesman, watching, too—they were both
watching him.
“Do you write Warren's letters for him?” the
man at the foot asked.
“I?” began the boy, “I write—”
“Larry!” said Cullen Grant.
The other laughed.
“His gen—genealogy,” the wondering boy fin-
ished, “I try to help him—tried to help him get
that something in his safe he's so crazy for, but he
was furious—he hides everything from me—Dare
says—”
“Larry”—from the man beside him—“shut up!”


I2O THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Let him talk about that safe then,” the man on
the foot-board said.
“No,” said Grant with finality.
Later, Larry understood that there was only one
man with him in the room—a man with blue, blue
eyes, who shut him up again when he tried to talk
of Dare Keeling.
And then the room went swimming away with
him.


CHAPTER XVIII
WHEN Larry waked up he was alone in the little
hotel bedroom. Somebody had been good enough
to take his suit off and hang it on a chair.
His head was aching furiously, but he made his
way to the window to assure himself that his con-
fused recollections were bona fide. Yes, he was in
The Greyling, and over the way on that busy corner
was The Hampton Bank and Trust Company. The
streets were full of people, and the city-hall clock
yonder registered—twelve-thirty!
The door opened and Cullen Grant walked in
with a glass in his hand, and with something white
over his arm. Grant laughed.
“Sobered up?” he inquired.
“Did—did Potter do that on purpose?” the
young fellow demanded.
“Oh, no—you were out of commission, and he
only gave you what he considers a bracer.”
“What's that you've got there?”
“Bromo-seltzer, and some fresh clothes. Get a
bath and come over to my rooms—just across the
hall here. I want to talk to you.”
When Larry accordingly presented himself at
Grant's door, he was feeling much more fit, and he
was ready for the hot coffee the aroma of which
greeted him as he opened the door.
121


THE DEVIL TO PAY I23
“Thanks, old man.”
There was silence, and then the other spoke.
“Larry, Potter told me that you had been to him
for confidential advice—You probably don't know
that he is sent here by the Harkness family to aid
in the prosecution of Warren.”
“Holy smokel” and the young fellow shoved
back his chair abruptly.
“You won't say that to anybody—though some
people are beginning to catch on.”
“No-no,” said the astonished youth.
There was a dead pause, and then the young fel-
low asked:
“Cullen, you stayed with me till—”
“Till Potter was out and gone.”
“You’re white, all right.”
“Potter is—overzealous.”
“And you and he herd here together to work out
your case.”
Grant did not answer the challenge, but Keeling,
not to be discouraged, asked:
“Is it true that you didn't find anybody in the bank
at all?”
“I came up as they were unlocking the door—
1 there was nobody there.”
“I thought all banks kept night watchmen on the
inside,” said Larry.
“No, a good many small ones do not. Time-locks
and heavier steel are supposed to render them im-
pregnable.”
“There's positively only one explanation to it,”


124 THE DEVIL TO PAY
exclaimed the young fellow. And he went over the
circumstances again.
“The girl at the telephone office made a mistake,
of course,” said Grant.
“No, she didn't. She's their crack operator, and
she had five dollars in her pocket to insure against
mistakes.”
Grant laid down his fork, and rested his arms on
the table.
“Larry,” he said, “I’ve been thinking this morn-
ing that I'd take back what I said to you about stay-
ing out yonder. You went to Warren's because
I insisted on it. Now, I advise you to come
home.”
Young Keeling's expression changed, and Grant
added:
“No, there is nothing dark and deep about this
suggestion. It's just this—it's too much a strain
on your nerves. You've been looking bum lately,
and you showed last night—”
“What?”
“That the circumstances have taken an unhealthy
hold on your imagination—No, I don't mean that
you think that way. It is a matter purely tempera-
mental. But when your reason was off-guard you
talked excitedly about Warren's being “haunted' by
Joe Harkness—I think you had better come back
to your normal life.”
“I am not a quitter,” said the young fellow, “and
I really don't believe—”
“A quitter' is a man who quits when he ought


THE DEVIL TO PAY I25
to keep on, Larry. It looks as if it were time for
you to stop.”
Young Keeling pushed his chair back.
“Cullen,” he said, “I’m much obliged for your
advice, I really am, you know—but it's my sister
who is engaged to that fellow! And even if the
blue devils do stack up on me I'm going—to linger
at his side.”
“Well, that is with you, of course, and I sup-
pose you are right about it. But I wouldn't attach
any importance to these phone messages, if I were
you. It is evidently someone trying to annoy War-
ren, that's all.”
“From the inside of a locked and deserted build-
ing in the dead of night?”
“The girl at Central made a mistake.”
“No she didn't, I tell you!”
They relapsed into a thoughtful silence which
Larry was first to break.
“Cullen, I want to know if you will answer me a
few plain questions.”
“Depends on how plain they are,” replied the
other, looking at him very straight.
Larry delivered the first—"Is Joe Harkness dead
or alive?”
Grant's open look became instantly concerned.
“No, I'm not nutty,” exclaimed Larry in answer
to his change of expression, “I’m quite as sane as
you are, and I want your answer!”
“Dead,” said Grant.
“You are sure of that?”


126 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“They buried him.”
“What kind of voice did he have?”
“Why, didn't you know Harkness?” inquired the
solicitor.
“No, he came here after I had left for the Uni-
versity, and—they killed him before I could get
back. What kind of voice did he have?”
“Had a deep voice.”
“Resonant?” asked Larry.
“He sang bass in the Presbyterian choir.”
“Did he have a sort of catch in his speech?”
Grant looked at him for a moment in silence, and
then replied: “I knew him only slightly.”
“Would you know his voice if you were to hear
it again?”
The other smiled—tolerantly, Larry thought.
“Why,” he said, “I am not sure of the infallibility
of my memory, but I am sure that it will never be
tested on that point.”
Larry leaned forward and delivered in exact imi-
tation of that deep, resonant, yet slightly hesitating
voice, the sentences which had come to him so mys-
teriously over the wires.
Grant stood up in open surprise and thrust both
hands into his pockets.
“Say that again!” he exclaimed.
Larry repeated some of the sentences.
“Well—I'll—be hanged!” from Grant.
“You know,” exclaimed Larry, excited, “it’s Joe
Harkness's voice!”


128 THE DEVIL TO PAY."
how to hold my tongue in the future. I never meant
to tell a thing—I just got balled up. If you get
anything more out of me by accident, or Potter by
trickery, it will be after Joe Harkness has taught
me how to telephone from the New Jerusalem!”
“No,” said the other quietly, “it will be after you
have found out on which side of this question you
belong.”
Young Keeling looked at him for a moment like
a man who was struggling awake.
“Cullen,” he said at length “–there's Darel”
“That's what I was saying,” said Grant.
But Larry didn't answer this time—only stood
looking at him.
After a moment, Grant asked quietly: “How is
she, Larry?”
“Game as a fighting cock,” the young fellow re-
plied.
“Yes—but under the surface f"
The brother looked concerned. “Why, she's
game to the bone,” he said. And then, when the
other's silence seemed to dissent, he set out in ex-
position of his theory—“she never flops, never cries
or faints—or—or that sort of thing!”
“Just fights,” put in the other, and a smile that
was of neither mirth nor irony hovered for a mo-
ment about his mouth.
“Just fights,” echoed the brother.
“Poor child!”
At the pitying exclamation, the look of concern
deepened on the younger man's face, but as the


THE DEVIL TO PAY 129
other was quietly lighting a new cigar now, he smiled
in relief.
“She's—she's going to be very firm with you,
Cullen,” he laughed.
“I understand as much.”
“Says she is going to have her property or your
head!”
A waiter entered to remove the lunch things, and
the two men found their hats.
They parted outside Grant's apartment, and took
different elevators to the street floor.
Larry made his exit through a communicating
shop, as that not only disassociated him widely from
Grant, but furnished the shorter route to the street
he wanted.
A number of men were in the shop engaged in
earnest debate when he opened the door communi-
cating from the hotel lobby. The group was gath-
ered near the center. No one noticed Larry, who
had to wait a moment for room to pass.
The man in the center of the crowd was speaking
quietly but vehemently now, and the others were
listening with intent sympathy—their faces dark
and keen.
“Money—that's what it is! Money and social
swagger!” – Larry started. The non-committal
member of the Grand Jury was speaking—“They
hanged George Roan without even a petition for
mercy, and now they hand that other around on a
silver tray—just you wait—wait!”
A chorus of menacing voices broke in upon the


I30 THE DEVIL TO PAY
tirade, and Larry Keeling stepped back into the
hotel lobby, letting the door swing-to between him
and the group on which he had intruded.
The other side of the picture l—And the young
fellow recalled Warren's royal progress through the
diners at the Exeter Club. Then he glanced again
at the swinging door through which the angry voices
still buzzed, and hurried out of the main entrance
of the hotel.


CHAPTER XIX
FROM the hotel, Larry went at once to his sister.
It was a changed Dare that he took in his arms
at their sitting-room door. But before he had time
to comment on the change in her, she pushed him
away at arm's length the better to view him, and
exclaimed:
“Larry—what's the matter with you?”
“With me?—nothing!”
“You’ve been sick,” she said, “and you didn't let
me know!” and a quick sympathy touched to tender-
ness every line of her delicate face.
In vain Larry protested that he was more than
usually “husky.” Dare would have it that he was
ill, and she proceeded to scold and pet and coddle
him.
“I’m going to kill Brent Warren,” she declared,
“he's as self-centered as he can be—only this morn-
ing he told me you were ‘prime'—Why, he hasn't
even seen how you look!”
“Talk about me!” sputtered the young fellow
under her ministrations, “I could read a book
through you, kid! You look like a ha'nt up an
alley!” -
They were on the sofa, now. Dare put her hand
on his breast.
131


I32 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Larry,” she said, “sometimes I have the feeling
that you are all I have in the world.”
“Dare !”
“You remember when I threw that brick through
Aunt Jane's conservatory window and you took the
blame?”
“Yes, but you got her round the leg and bit her
when she tried to lick me for it.”
“And then when Aunt Jane left, we got into a
fight with each other about it,” she recalled in fond
reminiscence.
“Yes,” said Larry, “how in the world did we
manage it?”
“I don't know.” Then suddenly she pressed close
to his side. “Larry,” she said, “I dreamed last
night that—that we had a mother!”
There was a quiet pause, and then the young
fellow answered:
“We'll just have to stand up for each other.”
Then he pulled himself together: “Dare, what is
Warren doing in preparation for—his trial?”
“Why,” she said, speaking more openly, more
frankly than on that last occasion when he ques-
tioned, “I really don't know specifically. He has
retained a lot of good lawyers, you know. Brent
says that the burden of proof is on the other side,
and that they simply can't prove anything. It's
about the other—the financial side—that he is
worried.”
“Is he in much of a hole?” Larry asked, sympa-
thetically.


I34 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“I’ll be hanged if you—”
“Larry,” she interrupted, turning to him with
something of her old spirit in her glance, “it’s not
the time for me to think of myself.”
“Bully for you!” exclaimed her brother in a noisy
effort to retreat before the depth that he had
glimpsed. “You wouldn't be your little red-headed
self, if—”
“Larry Keeling, I'm not ‘red-headed!' that light
in my hair is gold!” Dare was trying to retreat too.
“Accept the amendment!” he exclaimed. “Say,
kid, when I fall in love with a girl, she's going to
be fightingly loyal, too, but she's not going to have
any ‘gold light' in her hair.”
But Dare's face was deeply serious now.
“It would be unspeakable not to be loyal to Brent
now, Larry—I've got to go all the way—” Some-
how her phrasing struck Larry as peculiarly inade-
quate, under the circumstances. But now she was
challenging him:
“And you will, too, Larry, won't you?—won't
you?”
For a moment the universe threatened to topple,
but an inspiration came to him.
“I’ll be loyal to you,” he said.
There was a pause—a pause in which their hands'
sought each other, and then Larry cleared his
throat hesitatingly.
“Dare,” he brought out, “I want to ask you one
question—” but he stopped.
“Hurry up before I die of curiosity.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY I35
“Promise you won't get mad with me,” he urged.
“Larry, don't be a goose, if you can help it!”
Larry plunged: “You don't—love Brent Warren
like you thought you did, do you?”
Dare caught her breath. Swift and subtle changes
swept over her mobile face, but what she said was:
“Poor boy, you couldn't help it!”
“Answer my question,” he insisted eagerly.
“I’m devoted to Brent.”
“Not like you used to be—to-to Cullen Grant.”
“Larry,” she interrupted severely, “if you were
not so young, you'd understand these things. I
wasn't even as old as you are when I fell in love
with Cullen, and of course I didn't have any sense—
I lost my head entirely. But now—why I am a
woman now, and I take these things more—more
placidly—But I'm crazy about Brent!”
The eagerness died out of the young man's face
and left it troubled and perplexed.
He had risen to go, and he now threw open the
long casement window which led out on a side
veranda. This window afforded an easy and com-
paratively private exit, for from the veranda just
here, steps descended to a walk leading immediately
to a quiet side street.
Larry turned back to his sister.
“We'll just have to do our best,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, “it would be despicable to
be half-hearted toward Brent now!”
They turned toward the window, but Dare sud-
denly retreated against the shielding curtain.


136 THE DEVIL TO PAY
On the sidewalk, fifty feet away, a woman in
black passed slowly. Her pallid face was turned
toward them and her eyes were searching—search-
Ing.
When Larry's glance shifted swiftly back to his
sister's face, she was as white as the curtain against
which she leaned.
“What's the matter?” he exclaimed.
“—That—woman!”
Larry jerked-to the curtains, and drew his sister
to a seat beside him on the sofa.
“How did you come to recognize Mrs. Roan?”
he asked quickly. “Where did you ever see
her?”
With eyes that burned as she talked, and with a
nervousness which spoke of tense repression, Dare
told her brother of her stumbling visit to George
Roan's house, and of its eerie dénouement.
“And Larry,” she panted, “she has found me
out, and—follows me!—It's horrible—I can't make
out whether she is crazy or—or what—but she
sends me word to meet her at the playground—is
she mocking me, Larry?—Is she gloating over
me?”
Larry took her strongly by both arms. “Dare,”
he exclaimed, “pull yourself together, kidſ"
But this much was all he could say naturally, for
suddenly there thrilled through his memory again
that wild cry in the night, and with it the echo of
another voice: “Any woman would scream at-
that l”


138 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Mrs. Roan is not the wrong sort of woman,
you know,” put in Larry. “Brent just didn't want
you bothered.”
Dare looked thoughtful a moment.
“I am afraid she is wrong,” she replied, “for
Brent was so disconcerted at my coming in contact
with her. He even told me not to receive any note
or letter from her, but just to send back any she
might write, unopened, as a reproof.”
“Well,” said her brother, “Warren knows peo-
ple a good deal better than I do, and I’m awfully
glad he's so particular about you.”
But in spite of the fact that Warren had provided
against Dare's being again approached by George
Roan's wife, Larry Keeling, did not leave his sister
till he had transferred her, bag and baggage, to
another boarding place, across town.
When this was accomplished and Dare declared
herself happy in her new surroundings, Larry took
himself to the corner to catch the last street-car to
Warren's—for he had spent half the night being
funny and cheery for Dare's diversion.
Before he reached the car line, however, Terry
Carmichael happened along in his machine and of-
fered to deliver him at his destination.
Arrived in the vicinity of Warren's home, how-
ever, it was found that a fallen tree blocked any
nearer approach to the house itself, so Larry
jumped out to foot it the remainder of the way.
By the light from the auto lamps he vaulted the
trunk of the fallen tree, and took a quick glance


THE DEVIL TO PAY I39
around to orient himself against the departure of
the lights. Then Terry Carmichael chugged away
toward his farther destination, and the black night
closed in.
But young Keeling knew his ground and he lost no
time in measuring it—at least to where commenced
the long avenue of cedars. Here, however, his pace
slackened in spite of himself, and he began vaguely
to entertain the suggestion to cut out the dreary
avenue altogether by striking across the open field
to the left and entering the yard proper through a
side gate. There was a momentary battle between
Larry's instinct and his self-respect in which the
latter was worsted, and the young man took the
flanking field. Here, at least, one could see his
hand before him.
The young fellow pressed on. When within
twenty-five or thirty yards of the objective side-
gate, however, his vision, accustomed now to the
darkness, distinguished a moving object which was
just at that moment emerging through the gate.
Larry stopped in his tracks. He was unarmed,
and anyone else pottering about Warren's premises
in the dead of night was pretty apt to be equipped
for mischief. As Larry stood calculating whether
or not he could gain the shelter of the cedars un-
observed, the figure passed between him and the
sudden glare of an auto light from the distant high-
way.
It was big and shadowy!


CHAPTER XX
The buzzer rang sharply at Grant's elbow.
A lady—a lady who would not give her name,
said the girl in the outer office—was on the wire.
Would Mr. Grant speak to her?
“A lady? Yes,” said Grant. “–Dareſ—What
is it?—Why, no, don't think of coming down here,
I'll come to you—No—no—” he said at intervals
as he listened. “See here, Dare, I think you know
me well enough to understand—” and he hung up
the receiver.
Grant lost no time in presenting himself at Miss
Keeling's new habitation, but he had to wait some
time before being admitted to the lady for whom
he was inquiring.
When at length a maid did rescue him from the
big gloom of the general reception-room and usher
him into a tiny private sitting-room, he found the
lady waiting for him.
She was standing by a window when he entered
—Dare with her old-time haunting wistfulness, and
with the glint of gold in her eyes and hair!
The man closed the door behind him but stood
still. Certain fleeting alternations between color
and pallor in his face might have been telltale of
suppressed emotion, but otherwise there was in his
141


I42 THE DEVIL TO PAY
appearance and manner nothing to play traitor to
this master of himself.
“It was good of you to come,” said Dare, “after
—the other day at the library.”
“That doesn't make any difference.”
“Won't you sit down?”
He took the seat she motioned him to, after she
had drifted into another.
“You wanted to see me on business,” he began,
but the cold professional phrase found strange set-
ting in the tones in which he said it.
“Yes,” she said again, “Larry told me you had
refused to help me, and—I simply wouldn't believe
it—Cullen!”
At the sound of his name from her lips, the man's
face changed color again swiftly, but he only said,
and very quietly:
“Larry didn't put it that way.”
“But it isn't true!” she pleaded.
Whether Dare came honestly by the pathetic ap-
peal of her, or whether she accomplished it by long
and canny practice, none but Dare and Dare's
Maker ever knew. But cannily employed or not,
the genius of her personality was in every fragile
touch of her as she leaned toward the man now, and
said:
“You'll give me my property now, because I
ask it.”
Grant drew a long breath, but after a moment's
pause, he replied:
“No, I won’t, Dare.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY I43
“Cullen,” she begged, “won't you just for once
put yourself in my place?—Suppose—suppose the
woman you loved were in trouble—do you think
your money would possess any value if you were
not free to use it for her?”
“No, Dare.”
“Then give me what is mine.”
“Would you turn it over to Warren?”
“If I am willing to trust myself to Brent, don't
you think I could trust him with my money?”
“Dare,” said the man, looking so deep into her
eyes that she involuntarily shrank from him, “loy-
alty is the greatest thing in the world. If you were
less loyal to Warren now, I should despise you.
But—”
“Feeling that, you will not refuse what I ask.”
“I will not refuse what you really need of it,
Dare—what Warren really needs,” he replied
gently.
“I need,” she began slowly, “to have my own
property in my own hands—I need to be relieved
of-of-the humiliation of having to appeal to
you.”
Grant's strong face flushed.
“Yes,” he said, even more gently, “I understand.
But I wish you could feel a little different—I want
to help you.”
“Then why do you refuse to do it?”
“How much do you need?” he asked.
“All !”
“But you can't—possibly!”


I44 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“That is not your—that is my affair,” she re-
plied.
“Dare,” he protested earnestly, “if — if the
Hampton Company is involved, it would be worse
than madness to put your money in it!”
Grant recognized, from the memory of many a
conflict, the gleam that suddenly lighted her gold-
brown eyes. Fortunately he knew, and was ready
for what it presaged.
“I have asked you for what is mine,” she said,
“and not for your advice as to how to use it.”
He waited a moment before replying, and his
voice was under strong control as he asked:
“Don’t you know me yet, Dare?”
She rose to her feet, and Grant followed—on
guard for what should come.
“You don't know me,” she began slowly, “I am
not the little fool you used to dominate—I am a
woman!”
“Well?” he said, meeting her flashing eyes
steadily.
“I don't take your every word as final now—I
ask your reason for refusing me what is my own.”
The ground was less dangerous here. The man's
mood relaxed, and he spoke placatingly.
“My reason is that I am responsible for the right
use of your Aunt's property till your twenty-first
birthday. The codicil stated that in case of “urgent
necessity' I was at liberty to turn over the property
to you—I am sorry, very sorry, Dare—but I don't
consider your necessity urgent—that's all.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY I47
In sheer desperation, the young man addressed
himself savagely to the specific task to which War-
ren had tied him before leaving for the afternoon.
Larry hated this work of delving into the past,
but lately he had been driving at it with real per-
sistency and hardihood. It was the price of his
remaining at his point of vantage, and he had
learned to pay that price with a better grace since
the disconcerting interview which had so nearly cost
him his precious foothold here.
So Larry read and read the ponderous works on
genealogy, making faithful and voluminous notes
the while. The particular subdivision of drudgery
in hand being finished with, the delver laid it aside
with an exclamation of relief, and then reluctantly
addressed himself to the next book in the collection
placed for his research. This proved to be a his-
tory of the United States. Larry felt relieved.
Here, at last, he was on familiar ground.
Two white slips only were enclosed between its
leaves. Larry opened the book naturally at the
first—Massachusetts in the early days of the Revo-
lution. The reader's glance dropped quickly to a
name which had begun to attract like a magnet—
Warren—Joseph Warren, American patriot. He
made a mental calculation of how much of this
would have to be transcribed, and then turned lei-
surely to where the second white slip pointed the
way—the presidential campaign of 1844, and the
northwest boundary contest.
Larry's rapidly descending glance sought the


148 THE DEVIL TO PAY
magnet name down the several pages, but sought in
vain. He turned back to the beginning, and scanned
the chapter through again, more carefully this time.
Still no mention of a “Warren.” A picture of
James K. Polk prefacing the chapter was studied,
but it revealed no hint of likeness to the now well-
known Warren type of face.
Larry replaced the second slip looking to the time
when he could ask Warren its particular signifi-
cance, and was about to close the pages on it when
his eyes lighted on the sentence, ““Fifty-four forty
or fight!" was the campaign cry of the Democrats.”
After this were scribbled in pencil the words, “First
right, four, second left, three.”
Larry raised his head quickly and looked the
stubborn safe squarely in the face for one long, still
moment. The thing looked guilty. The amateur
detective was convinced that he held in his hand the
combination which would cause it to render up that
which Warren so much wished to secure, but seemed
so unwilling to allow him, Larry, to see.
Then Larry took himself sharply to task. He was
a fool, and was letting his imagination run amuck.
Just because its owner was unwilling to have him
open the safe was no reason why he should suspect
its contents.
And yet—
Larry's glance dropped again to the open page.
Why, these penciled words were distinctly not in
Brent Warren's hand! Whose, then? Warren


THE DEVIL TO PAY I49
had spoken of the combination's “having been put
on.”
“First right, four, second left, three.”
It would not be dishonorable to try the combina-
tion, if he did not interfere with the contents of the
safe. Besides, his sister was engaged to Warren,
and Warren was indicted for murder Cullen Grant
did not trust the man—Cullen Grant had warned
him to know Warren for what he was.
Larry flung the history to the floor, and the next
moment was down before the safe.
54 right four times, 40 left, three—and the big
handle turned under his grasp!—The heavy steel
door opened
With the opening of the safe door, several sheets
of paper dropped out on the floor. They were
crumpled, as if having been hurriedly thrust inside
their hiding-place. Larry recalled Warren's having
said that he was called away suddenly when last he
had the safe open. He looked at the crumpled
sheets. Letters they were, very evidently—letters
which their last reader had thrust into the safe with-
out waiting to refold.
One was face up.
After all, most of us are honest only in moods.
Larry Keeling's generations of ethics proved a mere
scrap of paper in that compelling hour. His eye
caught first the signature—“Joseph D. Harkness”
—then immediately above the words, “This is
final.” -
Young Keeling looked hurriedly at the opening—


150 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Mr. Brent Warren.” It was a difficult hand, and
the amateur detective floundered at the very first
sentence, unconsciously turning over the while an-
other of the dropped sheets. Then his glance shifted
to the second letter, which he had unconsciously
picked up.
The same name in signature, and the same brief
closing, “This is final.” “Mr. George Roan” was
addressed in this!
Roan, the man who had suffered death for the
murder of Joe Harkness, and Warren, who was in-
dicted for complicity in the same crime, both given
an ultimatum by this Joseph D. Harkness!
Ethics to the winds now, Dare Keeling's brother
set himself hurriedly to decipher that difficult first
line of the text.
There was the slight sound of a turning knob, and
the library door opened.
At the sound of the opening door, Larry Keeling
hastily crammed the unfolded letters into the safe,
much as their late peruser must have crammed them
in before—helter-skelter.
As he clapped-to the safe door, Dare Keeling
entered the room.
Larry didn't speak—he couldn't. What he had
expected to enter that door had not come, but here
was a brand new complication.
Dare took a step forward and then stopped.
“Larry,” she said, “what makes you look at me
like that?”
“I’m not used to seeing ghosts,” answered her


THE DEVIL TO PAY I51
brother, managing a twisted smile. “What do you
mean by materializing at such inopportune mo-
ments?”
“‘Inopportune?’” echoed Dare. “Seems to me
it's exactly the right time to appear when my brother
is engaged in robbing the safe of my fiancé!” But
Dare smiled as she said it, and she came up to him
and put her hands on his shoulders. “I’m so glad
you and he have got closer together,” she finished.
Larry glimpsed the light of hope, but afar off.
“Yes,” he replied, “I’m beginning to know Brent
—better.”
“It was natural that he shouldn't put his private
affairs into your hands at first,” pursued Dare, “you
are so young, and he couldn't possibly know how
discreet you are.”
“Maybe so,” said Larry.
Dare sat down before the safe. “And this is
where you keep his important papers?” she added,
with interest.
“—Yes,” said Larry, weakly.
“I’m going to tell Brent how glad I am he took
my advice.”
Larry gave her a quick, apprehensive glance,
which she answered:
“I told him I wanted him to take you entirely
into his confidence—that he could trust you to the
end of the world, and that you would be no end of
help and comfort to him,” she explained.
The situation needed only to have Brent Warren
suddenly injected into it to cap it with desperation,


I52 THE DEVIL TO PAY
and Brent Warren might enter at any moment now.
Larry plunged:
“Dare,” he began, “you don't know men—”
“I've been engaged to as many as three at a
time!” she informed him shamelessly.
“But you haven't yet found out that with men the
next most objectionable thing to having a woman
advise is to have her claim credit for it afterward.”
Dare smiled. “Larry,” she said, “you are grow-
ing up!”
This assurance was distinctly encouraging in con-
tent, however much of nettle its mere phraseology
carried. Larry took heart from it.
“Now,” said he, judicially, “you've butted in in
this association between Brent and me quite as much
as is good for the health of it—Let up, and shut
up! The first thing you know, he'll get sick of hear-
ing about me, and then I'll not be able to—to do
anything more.”
“Oh, well,” exclaimed Dare, “I won't, then.”
And then she added, entirely gratuitously, “Men are
not half as big as they look.”
Larry was vastly relieved, but the sudden relaxa-
tion to his nerves left him weak and inwardly shak-
ing. In keeping her hands off the situation here,
Dare would possibly not mention to Warren about
him and that infernal safe. It was a slim, slim
chance, but it was his only one.
Not for the universe could he let her know the
truth! The thing to do now was to get Dare out
and away, and secure possession of those ominous


THE DEVIL TO PAY I53
letters before Brent Warren could return, for in
the presence of the suggestive safe Dare would be
more than apt to be reminded to say the very thing
to Warren which would bring the situation tumbling
about their ears. He must get Dare away and take
possession of those letters! Warren had forgotten
the combination, but Warren might recollect it at
any moment and put this seeming key to the situation
forever out of reach.
Dare must be got away and at oncel And Larry
opened up to that end with his accustomed tactful-
IncSS.
“What in the devil are you doing in Brent War-
ren's house, anyway?” he demanded.
“I?” said Dare. “I am conversing with my
brother.” -
“Dare—” he began wildly.
But Dare put up her hand to stop him. “Mrs.
Saltus is out there in the hall in watchful waiting,”
she explained. “I had to come to tell you some-
thing important!”
“What's the matter now?” Larry asked, forget-
ting his indignation in his quick concern.
“Nothing ‘the matter,’” replied Dare, intent, too,
“but such a lucky chance—just what we've been need-
ing! This morning, Cullen Grant sold to the O.
and P. Railroad, station sites and the right of way
through Aunt Jane's land for eighty thousand dol-
lars cash!”
Larry Keeling caught his breath. “Jiminy
Christmas!” he exclaimed. And then the thought


I54 THE DEVIL TO PAY
of those “ill-advised loans” of Warren's rose like
a ghost before him.
“And that money is mine!” pronounced Dare.
“Has Cullen given that to you for Warren?” ex-
claimed her brother.
“No, but he will!”
“You went to Cullen and—oh, I knew he still
loved you!”
The brother was all unprepared for the swift
pain which, for one moment of surprise, quivered
about her delicate mouth.
“—Cullen has-forgotten,” she answered. Dare
looked away, but not quickly enough to hide a bright
heaviness that suddenly weighted her lashes.
Larry Keeling had come lately to consider him-
self immune to surprises, but here was another!
Tears?—tears from Dare—and not because of
Warren? He groped darkly for a few moments,
and then returned for relief to the concrete subject.
“What makes you say that Grant will give you
the money?” he asked.
Dare turned to him with eager pleading in her
eyes. “You are going to make him do it this very
day,” she declared.
Larry demurred, protested, begged—but all to no
purpose. Then he flatly refused.
Dare drew back, her face white with more than
anger.
“Larry,” she said incisively. “If you desert me
now—now when things are getting black—”
“What, Dare 7” he panted.


THE DEVIL TO PAY I55
“If you leave this—this money trouble to come
to light and prejudice the people against Brent in
face of this trial—what are you leaving for me
but—”
Larry took her by the wrist and looked into her
eyes.
“But what?” he demanded with a swift glance
at the steel door behind which the letters of Joseph
D. Harkness waited to point him the way.
“But to make Brent marry me right now so that
all the influence I have can be flung in the balance
for him. I can make him do it, in spite of the fact
that he is so unwilling to accept the sacrifice l’”
In the silence which followed, Larry heard his
own blood pounding its way through his brain. At
length, however, he spoke.
“Dare,” he said, “I’ll get that money from Cullen
Grant if I have to take him by the throat—but you've
got to promise me—promise me on your soul, that
you won't marry Brent till this trial is over.”
Dare turned to him quickly. “I promise,” she
said.
“Swear it!” said her brother, unconsciously shak-
ing her in the grasp that he had laid upon her
armS.
Dare made the pledge.
“Now,” said her brother, breathlessly, “be a good
girl and go home at once. After a while, I'll come
in town and tackle Grant.”
But Dare wished him to go immediately, and
there was a sharp altercation between them which


156 THE DEVIL TO PAY
eventuated in Larry's consenting, for Brent Warren
was already overdue.
But to leave that room without those letters
seemed worse than madness to Larry, and he tried
his best to linger behind long enough to make one
desperate dash for them. But Dare dogged his
heels till, maddened by the realization that Warren
might appear at any moment, he submitted himself
to being whirled away between his sister and her
impressed chaperon.
The one crumb of comfort which Larry Keeling
took away with him on that ride was the knowl-
edge that he had closed the safe on Joseph D. Hark-
ness's letters with the original combination on.


CHAPTER XXII
DARE Keeling was due at the new playground
—Dare Keeling was long overdue at the playground
when she bade good-by to her brother and Mrs.
Saltus at the entrance, and hastily took her way
through its wilderness of dirty children.
Lucy Clinton, who had been condemned to serve
for the afternoon with Dare, would have to be pla-
cated, so Dare promptly put aside whatever children
blocked her path and hurried to her neglected “co-
worker.”
But it was not hard to placate Lucy. Dare was
wearing these days the halo of romantic notoriety,
and her admiringly envious mates were prepared
to forgive her seventy times seven for the sake of
the thrill of being near her.
It was not long before the co-workers had their
heads together in very friendly and very serious
converse. Lucy was speaking:
“And the overdress was of delicate blue—you
children run on away now, we are very busy—was
of delicate blue georgette—”
“‘Blue’?” exclaimed Dare, incredulously.
“Yes,” said Lucy, “would you have thought it? I
never connect blue with her, either. When I think
of Helen, I always think wistaria.”
157


158 THE DEVIL TO PAY
The dirty children blew about where they listed.
. One of them approached now.
“Te-ee-cher,” he began, “–I—I mean, Lady,
Mamie Bilbro got skeered o' that ole woman, an'
run home.”
“Well, tell him not to do that any more,” said
the absorbed Lady. Then she turned again to her
co-worker. “Helen's been selected to deliver the
flag,” she pursued. “They wanted you, Dare, but
this—this—outrageous trial of Brent's—commenc-
ing so soon— Now look at that, won't you!”—and
Lucy darted off to settle a fight.
When she returned, successful, from her peace
negotiations, she was out of breath and patience.
“That's the way it's been all the afternoon,” she
exclaimed when she could. “They are nothing but
a set of husky little savages, and those old crazy
club women told us they were sickly!”
“I haven't seen a thin-chested one yet!” said Dare,
with righteously tight lips.
“Nor I, either,” chimed in Lucy. “I think it's
perfectly outrageous!”
“–Tootsiel” exclaimed a big sister to a little
one, “if you don't behave, I'll give you to that black
booger over yonder!”
But Lucy was too absorbed to interfere. “I don't
see why they selected Helen—” she declared, “she's
not so popular with the boys at the camp—”
“And I don't know where they got their idea that
I wouldn't deliver the flag,” exclaimed Dare. “They
know perfectly well that I don't attach the slightest


16o THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Tell her to go away!” she cried.
“Here she is now !” exclaimed the first.
Dare Keeling sprang to her feet. Before her
stood the black-draped figure which had shadowed
her ever since she had stumbled into George Roan's
house.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” pleaded the woman,
while the children fell back in awe, “I have some-
thing to tell you!”
“No,” gasped Dare, her eerie terror of the
woman taking wild possession of her, “No!” And
she began to retreat.
“But it's something you ought to hear,” urged
the stranger, “I didn't know who you were when
you came—”
“There is nothing you could know about me,”
protested Dare. “I want you to let me alone—
alone do you hear me?”
“What's the trouble?” The park policeman had
approached unnoticed.
“She has been told to keep away from me,” ex-
claimed Dare, shaking like a leaf.
But the black swathed figure was already re-
treating hurriedly.
The policeman did not follow. Instead, he stood
looking after the woman, within his eyes an expres-
sion of deep compassion.
“That's George Roan's wife,” he said to Dare,
“and she stood up to her man to the last. I reckon
after such an experience as that, she just ain't all


THE DEVIL TO PAY I61
there.” And he touched his forehead significantly
and moved on.
Just beyond a tangle of wild privet, however, the
policeman was stopped in his path and buttonholed
by the fat, good-natured first aid to the injured.


CHAPTER XXIII
MR. Potter, traveling man, came out of The
Greyling hotel and intercepted solicitor Grant who
was just then in the act of passing. The two re-
turned to the hotel lobby and found seats in a
moderately secluded corner near the side elevator.
“There's been something doing in my line too,
lately,” Mr. Potter confided with weighty sugges-
tiveness. Then his manner changed completely. A
couple of strangers, approaching the side elevator
and pausing within a few feet of them, had turned
to regard them with interest while they waited for
the lift. -
The solicitor's straying glance did not shift back
to the speaker in his tense interest at this announce-
ment, but a swift darkening of his eyes informed his
companion that he was listening with every faculty
awake.
“—They are manufacturing a toilet soap which is
patently an imitation of our “A grade' variety,” Mr.
Potter was saying as if he had never been inter-
rupted, “and are putting it on the market under a
name and wrapping nearly exactly like our own.
My house wants you to look into the matter, and—”
The elevator door clicked shut, and the strangers
were lifted to realms above.
162


THE DEVIL TO PAY 163
“—and Warren has been speculating in cotton—
plunged, and lost heavily again and again,” con-
cluded Mr. Potter.
“Got the proofs?” exclaimed the other in sup-
pressed excitement.
“Sure! Creighton will come from New Orleans
to testify, if you want him.”
“We want him l” Grant rose in his excitement
and thrust both hands into his pockets, but the de-
scending elevator unloaded a bevy of chattering
women near their retreat, and the solicitor re-
lapsed quickly into his conventional unemotionalism.
Seated again, he leaned forward, and said in a quiet
but incisive undertone:
“This tallies exactly with part of the testimony
on which Warren was indicted.”
“You say that fellow's story to the Grand Jury
was consistent and complete?” asked the detective.
“Absolutely,” replied the solicitor, “but it re-
mains to be substantiated. Jernigan nailed a few
high points—enough, taken in connection with the
other's story, to secure the indictment. Now,
Creighton's testimony will give strong color to his
statement about the stealing—” but the solicitor
stopped short in perplexed thought.
“Damn it!” he said at length—he who seldom
SWOre.
“Amen!” said the detective, “but, incidentally,
what?”
“We haven't got Warren yet,” replied the other,
“we are getting everything except Warren's part in


164 THE DEVIL TO PAY
the killing of Joe Harkness, which is the thing we
are after. We may uncover defalcation and may
fasten it on Warren, but still we have only the
uncorroborated testimony of one man before the
Grand Jury that that defalcation furnished the mo-
tive for the killing of Joe Harkness, and that War-
ren instigated the crime.”
“And that man is now dead,” said Potter.
“Yes,” replied Grant, moodily. “Don’t you see
where we are?”
The other whistled a few soft bars and then
ventured: “Maybe Warren didn't have any part in
the murder of Joe Harkness, after all.”
“Maybe he didn't,” said the solicitor, “but I'm
not often an ass.” After a moment of perplexed
thought he added, “Seibert is going to drop down
out of a clear sky day after to-morrow to examine
the Hampton. If he finds that defalcation, it will
go far toward proving everything but—”
“But Warren's part in the murder,” finished the
other.
“Exactly,” said Grant. “It will furnish a sup-
positional motive only. It remains to be proved
that it was the real motive of a real crime—Potter,
you've got to get busier still.”
But Mr. Potter went drumming softly on the back
of the bench. His brow was not as clouded as was
the solicitor's, and certain lines about his mouth
threatened to curl. When Grant's attention was
again attracted to the elevator, Mr. Potter took a
swift, sly look into his face.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 165
Grant turned on him almost in time to surprise
the look:
“Is Jernigan still showing a disposition to re-
treat?” he asked.
Mr. Potter was instantly grave. “Why, Jerni-
gan still sticks to what he said before the Grand
Jury, of course,” he replied, “but I've got the feel-
ing that now he is fighting away from us—There's
something in the air that's affecting Jernigan—We
ought to have had more time for this.”
. The solicitor did not reply to this last. He only
sat in brooding silence. After a moment, however,
he asked:
“Are you certain that it was not Warren's own
money that he lost on that cotton?—He's been
considered wealthy, you know.”
“Yes,” replied the detective, “I’m convinced my-
self, but I'd hate to be asked to convince others.”
Grant's eyes flashed. “If it's the funds of the
Hampton that Warren has been gambling with,” he
said, “he'll not get the chance to replace what he
has taken.” Then he leaned a little closer and
added, “Warren is still moving heaven and earth to
get his hands on Miss Keeling's money, and when
he finds out that I made that big deal for her with
the O. & P. this morning, we will have a new drive
for it, mark me.”
“Still,” said Potter, speculatingly, “it may only
mean that the price of jurors and witnesses has
risen—war times, you know.”
“But he is after such a pile !” exclaimed Grant.


I66 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Do you control the girl's money absolutely?”
asked Potter.
“Miss Keeling's money—Yes, at present.”
“Good!” said the traveling man, as easily as if he
had not just suffered a reproof. “And this brings
us to another chapter: Somebody has been having
trouble with Mrs. George Roan.”
“Who?” asked the other quickly.
Mr. Potter squared himself about, and again the
lines about his mouth showed a disposition to curl.
“The other afternoon,” he began, “I was standing
on the corner of Reade and Thurston streets—try-
ing to get a line on the enclosure where Jernigan's
and Roan's houses back up to each other, you
know—”
Again the descending elevator interrupted. But
Grant was not deterred by it.
“You don't mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that
at last you've really got something by haunting those
places!”
“And you said I ought to play to popular prices,
when I started in for it,” laughed the other.
“But what did you find?—Who's having trouble
with Mrs. Roan?” Grant urged.
“Miss Keeling,” said the other.
“No” exclaimed Grant, recoiling.
“Yes,” replied the other in keen enjoyment at
taking the solicitor completely off-guard, “you see,
it was this way: I was standing around on the cor-
ner sunning myself, when all at once I heard a
piercing scream. The moment after, Miss Keeling


THE DEVIL TO PAY 167
came running out of George Roan's front door, as
white as a sheet. She ran all the way to the corner,
where I caught her to ask what was the matter.”
Grant was leaning forward now, tensely still.
“When I asked her what the trouble was,” con-
tinued the other, “she told me she was “afraid.’
On a second look at me, however, she abruptly
changed front—though why, I can't tell, for she
certainly doesn't know who I am. But after that
second look, she declared that there was nothing
the matter, that she had not screamed, and that she
was only running for the street-car. Then she gave
me the slip, and darted for the car—Also, Chief
Gaster told me that Warren had asked at police
headquarters to have Mrs. Roan restrained from
approaching Miss Keeling—Said Warren repre-
sented that Mrs. Roan had taken to shadowing the
girl—Miss Keeling. Stood on the corner for hours,
waiting for her, and that Miss Keeling was very
nervous over it. Said—”
“You don't tell me—!” broke in the listener.
“—I’m trying mighty hard to l—And thirty min-
utes ago, I surprised a little scene in this new chil-
dren's park over in Culver Addition. Miss Dare
Keeling was there with another girl who seemed to
be taking some sort of supervision over the children.
While I was helping this other girl with a squalling
kid, I saw Mrs. Roan approach Miss Keeling and
try to speak to her. Miss Keeling—she was scared
white again, by the way—wouldn't listen, and made
the park cop send the woman away. I kept Mrs.


168 THE DEVIL TO PAY
Roan in sight till she reached the entrance to the
park. And when she got there, that old Jernigan
came up as if looking for someone—as if looking
for her. He spoke to her sharply—or seemed to,
and the woman seemed to placate. They went off
together.
“Later, when I questioned the cop about the in-
cident between Miss Keeling and Mrs. Roan, he
didn't know anything more than I told him. On
guard, just as I told you. But I afterwards got it
out of some of the children who had been near
enough to hear, that Mrs. Roan told Miss Keeling
she had something to tell her—something she ought
to know—and that Miss Keeling refused to listen.”
“Good God!” said Grant under his breath.
“—Mind you,” continued the detective, “after
you and I both moved heaven and earth to make
the Roan woman talk—and failed !”
“She's got to talk yet!” affirmed the solicitor
grimly.
“Well, I don't bid to be the one to try again to
make her.”
“Just what impression did you get when you inter-
viewed her?” inquired Grant.
“She's scared—wildly scared, and so is that boy
of hers. I never stirred up so much of inexplicable
panic before.”
Grant looked incredulous. “She's touched,” he
corrected, with a shake of the head.
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed the other, “she's
afraid!”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 169
“That's preposterous, Potter, there is absolutely
nothing left to happen to her. She was quite natu-
rally stirred at the reopening of the subject, but—
I think you imagined the ‘panic'.”
“Oh, do you?—Well, you talked to her, too,
what did you ‘imagine’?”
“Unbalanced,” replied the other with conviction.
“Why there was a positive thrill about her—a sort
of smothered joy almost—Oh, she's crazy!”
“Well, you'll have to guess again—She doesn't
want to talk to our side of the case, so she puts this
game over on you.”
“But why doesn't she want to talk to us?—that's
what I can't understand. Her husband was hanged
for a crime part of the responsibility for which we
are trying to fasten on another man. Now, by all
human experience, she ought to be vengefully anx-
ious to help us bring the other man to justice. In-
stead of that, she goes creeping about under cover
trying to confide something to the other side. If it
isn't an obsession what do you make of it?”
“Why,” said the detective, “there are depths to
this mixup which neither one of us has yet sus-
pected. Jernigan knows more than he has told.
The police—or some of them—know more than
they have told. Also, the indications are that—
that there is somebody else influencing the whole
situation.”
“Who?” demanded Grant.
“I don't know,” said Mr. Potter.
“Then where are we?” from the other.


17o THE DEVIL TO PAY
“At the very beginning.”
The solicitor made a gesture of impatience.
“Are we ever going to get any further than a be-
ginning?—that's what I want to know.”
The other faced him squarely. “Not,” he said,
“not unless we take the metaphorical animal by the
horns.”
“What do you mean?” asked Grant.
“That we ought to bring about that interview
between George Roan's wife and Miss Keeling and
in such a way that I can lay my ear at the cat-hole
and hear what it is the woman is trying so hard to
confide to her.”
Cullen Grant drew back. “No!” he exclaimed
in sharp dissent. “No matter what develops, we are
not going to use her against Warren.”
“Well, well,” the other laughed easily. “We
may never get anywhere with this case, but at least
you and I have passed some very pleasant hours
chatting about it.”
Grant's face colored darkly, but he did not an-
SWCT.
Mr. Potter was drumming on the back of the
seat again—but this time, without that look of secret
elation.
“Well, if you won't let us use her,” he said
finally, “you at least ought to let me impress that
brother of hers for the service—You don't want to
flunk, you know, and we've got just three days
more.”
Grant rose without replying to this, but there was


THE DEVIL TO PAY 171
a baffled, troubled question in his eyes. “I am going
up to the Exeter Club to answer that letter from
Joe Harkness's mother,” he said, “let me know
promptly any further developments.”
From his perplexing interview with the detective,
the solicitor went on his way to answer the letter
from the mother of Joe Harkness.
Everybody was talking about the now imminent
trial of Brent Warren. The men in the hotel lobby
were joking about it as Grant passed, pedestrians
on the street were discussing it as he threaded his
way among them. Everybody, everywhere, was
talking about murder and trials for murder.
Everybody except one l A black-draped woman
stood on the street corner affirming to an Ishmaelite
practitioner in a strangely thrilling voice—“There
is a God!”—Stood affirming it against her com-
panion's scoffing unbelief—against the selfishness
and the blind cruelty about her—against the heart-
ache and the fearing and the bitterness that passed
along that way—affirming against the very despair
which should have been hers—“There is a God!”


CHAPTER XXIV
The first time Larry Keeling had ever sworn
was at his sister Dare, and what that virgin “damn”
cost him in his waning babyhood was absurdly proto-
typic of his present plight. Dare had threatened
to tell Aunt Jane, and Dare had been bribed to
silence. And Larry had found himself sold into
slavery nearly forty years after slavery was said to
have been abolished. He was from that accursed
moment Dare's peon—albeit a rebellious one. She
made him wait on her at every turn, and she took
possession of his playthings ad libitum.
But the onus of Dare's domination had grown
and grown till, unable to bear the ills he had, the
self-accusing Larry had gone screaming to those
the mere menace of which had been rendering him
slave and coward. But he had lived through the
crisis. And when, a few minutes later, he had stood
on the back steps and reminiscently rubbed the seat
of his little trousers, he had faced a new day of
freedom.
But here it was again seventeen years later—Dare
dominating him at every turn! And he, temporiz-
ing, conceding to the present in the hope of somehow
warding off that which menaced from beyond. If
only he could make one mad rush to this crisis!
But he could not. And at all hazards, Dare must
be kept from marrying Brent Warren precipitately.
172


THE DEVIL TO PAY I73
Dare and Brent Warren!—Yes, Dare was loyal,
fightingly, fiercely loyal to Warren—and yet—and
yet—had not her swift tears been because of Cullen
Grant?
Besides, Dare had taken to dreaming that she had
a mother/
Not finding Grant at home, nor at any one of
several places where he was wont to be at times,
young Keeling went looking for him through the
rooms of the Exeter Club. After a few minutes'
general searching here, he entered a large room and
instantly sighted his man seated at a desk in a small
writing-room adjoining. Not far from the par-
tially curtained arch opening into the writing-room
—but to one side—a party of men were talking
in a close circle, and so absorbedly that they failed
to notice the appearance on the scene of Larry
Keeling.
And Larry entered just in time to witness a sur-
prising rencounter. Cullen Grant, in the room be-
yond, suddenly raised his head from his letter in
the attitude of listening. Then he rose abruptly and
approached till he stood in the arched way connect-
ing the two rooms. Even across the long room,
Larry caught the indignant blaze of his eyes.
The men in the close circle looked up quickly on
the sudden appearance of Grant between the por-
tières, and drew back, Larry fancied, in consterna-
tion. In that brief moment Larry recognized them
for Brent Warren's friends.
“I came to tell you, gentlemen,” Grant was say-


THE DEVIL TO PAY I75
A warm light such as Larry had never seen in
Grant's eyes before suddenly rendered them deep
and dark.
“I’m not judging the child harshly,” the man said
in a guarded but vibrant undertone. “It's natural
that all the fight in her should be stirred to its depths
now—and it's natural that she should hate me!”
“And that she should do her fighting-best for
Warrenl” added her brother quickly.
“Yes,” said the other, “and splendid of her l I
wouldn't have thought it of Dare—I didn't know
she had it in her.”
“I did,” said the brother, softly too.
“Well, it redeems all the rest.”
There were a few moments of silence between
them, and then Cullen Grant cleared his throat and
added:
“Larry, I want you to know that I am doing my
fighting-best for Dare.”
“Yes, Grant,” answered the young fellow quickly
and sincerely, “I believe that—I really do. But
somehow—your “best' is mighty hard on her.”
“You think I ought to give Dare that eighty
thousand dollars to throw away on Warren?”
Grant went straight to the point as usual.
The thought of those “ill-advised loans” of War-
ren's jumped at Larry, but he fought it away and
answered:
“If it brought Dare peace, it wouldn't be thrown
away!”


176 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“‘If it brought Dare peace',” the other echoed,
“but what if it only involved her in deeper trouble?”
“Cullen,” exclaimed the brother in a burst of
feeling, “it would kill Dare if Warren were to
be—!” but he stopped short on the dizzy brink.
“Larry, just where do your plans for Dare lead?”
The young fellow ran his hands through his hair
in despair. His plans? He had fought down that
question from within, he had temporized with it, he
had pretended that it was not! And here was Cul-
len Grant calmly presenting it for his instant solu-
tion. Larry's distracted thoughts tumbled over
each other pell-mell—for the life of him, he couldn't
marshal them in any sort of orderly progression.
Then all suddenly he poured out to Grant his
fear that Dare, denied the chance to help Warren
with her money, would throw herself into the bal-
ance for him by persuading him to marry her at
OnCC.
Grant's strong face blanched. “It may well be,”
he said, “that Warren's straits are such he will
forego Dare's fortune, and marry her at once in a
desperate effort to escape—what he deserves.”
“And it would help Warren's cause for Dare to
marry him?” Larry asked quickly.
“It would probably save him against—the odds.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Dare,” said the other, as if that one name suf-
ficed.
“If Dare could pull off that pathetic stunt of hers
in Warren's favor, it would work, you think?”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 177
“Larry,” said Grant, “if Dare were to marry
Warren now, the act itself would grip every man
in the community; and then, if she were to come
with that appealing loveliness of hers before the
jury one time, they would want to give Warren a
loving-cup!”
“Then, why in God's name don't you give her
the money and let her spend it on him? You don't
want your jury unduly influenced, do you?”
“Larry,” exclaimed the other, so abruptly that
the young man started, “do you know that money
can be used to cover motives for crime—that juries
can be bribed with it?”
The young man drew back and looked at him
wide-eyed. “Grant,” he gasped at length, “are you
on the track of—?”
Grant didn't answer the half-put question. He
only looked the young fellow in the eye.
“If–if-Warren should be convicted—!” And
Dare Keeling's brother dropped his face in his
hands.
“Larry,” said the other man, shaking him by the
arm and forcing him to master himself, “can it be
that you grant the possibility of the man's guilt,
and yet are willing to help cover it?”
“But that would save him from ruin—save Dare
from ruin through him!” exclaimed the young fel-
low precipitately.
Grant looked at him in open rebuke. “‘Ruin?’”
he said, sharply, “that depends on what you mean
by “ruin.' If Dare were mine to protect, I would


178 THE DEVIL TO PAY
no more shield Warren from the X-ray of trial than
I would deliver her into the keeping of a masked
unknown. Don't you see, Larry, that the very best
thing which can be done for Dare, is to try out this
man?—Good God, boy, don't you see it?”
But before Grant had found pause in his impas-
sioned rebuke, his listener was leaning forward,
eager for a chance to break in.
“But, Grant,” he finally managed to interject,
“what about covering it up from the world for
Dare's sake, and then saving Dare from him by
proving the truth to her?”
“Could you do it?—Understand, Larry, we are
discussing your plans, not my own.”
The young fellow fairly glowed with a light from
within as he exclaimed, “I could!—I—” the light
flickered a little, but he added stoutly, “I’m sure
I could.”
Grant rose abruptly. He gave one keen, piercing
look into the boy's excited face, then strode quickly
to the door. Young Keeling wondered what the
solicitor was going to do—wondered, with his heart
in his throat. But Grant only glanced about the
communicating apartment to make sure that no one
was within hearing, and instantly returned.
He paused before Larry and slowly tapped the
table between them with his blue-white knuckles.
“You,” he said, with fateful quiet, “you have
found damaging evidence against Warrenl”
It was no longer his friend, Cullen Grant, who


THE DEVIL TO PAY I79
spoke, it was the prosecuting attorney for the State
who stood over him and demanded to know.
“I haven't said sol” gasped Dare Keeling's
brother.
“No,” said the State's attorney, “you haven't
said so, but you will!”
“Oh, you don't know me!”—the boy was on his
feet now, facing him—“You couldn't get anything
out of me with the rack of the Inquisition. Be-
sides,” he added, cunningly, “there isn't anything to
get—I lied to you!”
There was the sound of approaching voices.
Grant spoke hurriedly:
“Don’t try that on me, Larry!—And listen:
Whatever you have of proof against Warren, keep
it where he can't get his hands on it!”
The voices were coming nearer.
“And you, Cullen—you?” The young fellow
seized him by both arms in his excitement.
Grant looked into his eyes but with a troubled
dissenting. “I, Larry,” he answered slowly, “am
—an officer for the State.”
A party of men entered the adjoining room.
They were the other players in the dramatic little
scene which young Keeling had surprised a half-
hour before. But neither the darkly abstracted
solicitor nor the blanch-faced boy who followed
him past the group to the elevator recognized the
: fact in the tumult of spirit that was his.


CHAPTER XXV
WHEN Larry Keeling left the solicitor at the
door of the Exeter Club, he went straight to a public
telephone and called up his sister. Then he told her
a falsehood.
Grant, he assured her, would think seriously
about letting her have her money. And she was
not to worry at all, for her big brother was going
to take the situation in hand and clear up things—
provided she kept her promise to do nothing rash.
Then he told her to go to sleep like a good girl—
if she could guess how that was—and leave the
whole business in his hands.
While the speaker still held the receiver to his
ear, his face suddenly changed. He listened more
intently, and then asked, softly and miserably:
“Dare, are you crying?”—after another listening
pause he spoke again—“That's right, old top, I
might have known you were too gamel—Good-
night.”
And Dare Keeling's big brother took the street-
car for “home.”
He had a “plan” for Dare now, but the district
solicitor was not to be allowed to share in it. He
would get possession of those Harkness letters and
tead them. If they proved inculpatory of Warren,
180


THE DEVIL TO PAY I8I
he would keep them from the prosecuting attorney,
but would use them, if necessary, to bring Dare to
her senses.
And then the Furies swirled down upon him:
What if Dare should refuse to be convinced?
What if Dare, convinced, should refuse to desert
Warren? It was the history of the sex that they
would not believe where they did not wish to, would
not desert even where they should.
Larry Keeling trod the thorny way of all the
great-grandsons of Adam.
Maker of Men! wasn't there any way left to
manage a woman! Wasn't there anything a fellow
could do to bring her to just terms!—to reduce her
to reason l
The young man swelled out his chest and reached,
in spirit, for the big stick of his twilight history.
But it was not there—the big stick wasn't—he had
traded it centuries ago for that look in the eyes of
him.
Dare Keeling was free. And he, her brother,
was bound to protect her in whatsoever reckless and
arbitrary use she might elect to make of that free-
dom! Maker of Men!—But He did not answer.
Sure now of only one thing under the sun, Larry
Keeling made his way down the avenue of cedars
in blind haste. He must get those letters into his
possession at oncel For the rest—the letters them-
selves would decide.
But even afar off, he saw that the library was
brilliantly lighted, and when he approached nearer


182 THE DEVIL TO PAY
and mounted the steps, he glimpsed the master of
the mansion through one of its front windows.
Warren was trying the lock of the safe!
Whatever happened he, Larry, must play his part
well. He let himself in—not quietly this time—
and went at once to the library. He entered.
Warren had heard him, of course. He merely
glanced over his shoulder with a pleasant, “Hello,”
and went on with his experimenting.
Since the two of them had come so near to a
parting of their ways concerning that very safe,
Larry thought it best to take a pleasant interest in,
rather than to ignore it.
He crossed the room and stood over Warren as
he worked, watching the strong white hands of the
man the while, and choking back an inward, awful
fear that they might stumble on the right combina-
tion.
“I thought you were going to have out a man to
open it,” he said with feigned ease.
“Why, I told Strother days ago to come out, but
he's so dilatory—He has promised to come in the
morning.”
Larry's collar suddenly tightened, but he managed
to speak quite naturally as he ventured, “It's not
important, you said?”
“Oh, no,” replied Warren easily, “but the delay
is very—inconvenient.”
“I finished that sketch of Elihu Warren,” said
Larry. “You asked me to push it up.”
Warren rose, and the two of them turned to the


THE DEVIL TO PAY 183
desk. Larry was very near the man—hatefully, re-
pellently near him. A faint odor of Warren's fav-
orite dentifrice made him sick. He hated the fault-
lessly cut vest that his eyes rested upon—hated the
buttons on it!
But he masked his antipathy carefully, and dis-
played his day's work.
“That's good,” said Warren, as he fingered the
sheets but plainly without seeing them. “Now, un-
less you are called away, I wish you would collect
all the data you have about Elihu Warren's branch
of the house. One of his descendants has written
me for the information—something about a law-
suit over property.”
“I’ll start to-night,” answered Larry with feigned
cordiality. “I sleep badly anyhow, so I'll just put
in a few hours here after you have gone up.”
Warren laughed easily, “Now, you don't think
our little boss is going to stand for my working
you day and night too, do you?” And he put his
hand on Larry's shoulder.
Larry was a natural actor, else he could never
have kept that shoulder from savagely shaking off
that touch.
He started to protest that their “little boss” would
never know anything about it, when Warren inter-
posed:
“I really need the desk and elbow room, Larry,
I have got to get in some hours of work myself—
bank business.”
There was nothing left to do but to withdraw.


184 THE DEVIL TO PAY
As he paused on the threshold to say good-night,
Larry said:
“If I wake up in the night and can't go back to
sleep, as I have been doing lately, I may come down
and work a little—as a soporific. If you hear me
bruising about, don't shoot me for a burglar.”
Larry delivered this in his easiest, most off-hand
manner, but as he was closing the door behind him,
he noted that Brent Warren was regarding him
narrowly.
The young man went to his room but not to bed.
He merely got into his smoking-jacket and slippers
and took his seat at a side window to watch a cer-
tain streak of light.
His room was immediately above the library and
he could see the light from that streaming across the
roofless side porch below—the library opening on
this porch by a door containing panels of leaded
glass.
Larry was resolved to stay at his post till that
light should disappear and he should hear Warren
go to his room for the night. He wondered how
he could dare to risk the adventure for those letters
to-night after that narrow look of Warren's, but he
knew that he had it to do, for Strother was coming
to open the safe in the morning and he might not
wake in time to beat the expert to it.
He must get those letters to-night/
After a time, Larry realized that he was very
tired. A window-seat immediately on the other side
of the fireplace offered a number of restful looking


THE DEVIL TO PAY 185
pillows and he slipped over very quietly to its in-
viting comfort, and stretched his limbs upon it.
With his head and shoulders against the big restful
cushions, he could still watch the light which
streamed out through the library door.
But the young fellow was very, very tired. If
that library light went out that night, he never knew
it.


CHAPTER XXVI
The next light which Larry Keeling saw was
that of a new day. It streamed across him as he
lay stretched on the window-seat, blinking his eyes,
and trying to remember.
But a glance out of the window brought every-
thing back to him. He had slept away the last
night in which those letters of Joseph D. Harkness
would lie secure behind that locked safe door—had
slept away, perhaps, his last chance to get into his
possession that which would unmask this unknown
man into whose hands his sister was about to be
delivered.
In the flood of full awakening, Larry Keeling
sprang to his feet. It might not be too latel War-
ren had been awake and moving about when he,
Larry, had dropped off into his disastrous slumber.
It might reasonably be that Warren was sleeping
later into the morning hours than himself.
He knew the safe combination—could work it
quickly. With those letters in his own keeping,
Fate was welcome to send down upon him any-
thing else she might choose. He had a plan for
his sister now, and he was going to be man enough
to execute it.
The young fellow hastily consulted his watch. It
was only seven-thirty. Warren was more than apt
186


THE DEVIL TO PAY 189
“So you got them, did you?” he said, softly but
with naked hate. “You’ve opened it at last with
your tinkering, and stolen what is mine! Now, my
young man—” and the next came with agonizing
slowness—“you are—going to give up to me—those
letters!”
Even in his stunned surprise, Larry Keeling real-
ized vaguely that he was trapped. The side door
and the windows were locked from the night's secur-
ing, and Brent Warren—pale in his desperation—
stood with his back against the only other door.
With a herculean effort, the young fellow moved
his hands along the sofa arm—he wanted to see
if they were real, if they were under his control.
And now that white-faced man with his back to
the door was saying again:
“You are going to give me—those letters.”
“I?—I haven't any letters.” And Larry won-
dered if that detached voice were his own. He
glanced helplessly at the open safe out of which no
crumpled letter sheets were fallen.
“You opened that safe and took them in the
night,” said that terrible other.
“I did not—I swear I didn't!” protested the
trapped boy.
“That's why you wanted to sit up here—why you
laid a predicate for coming back.”
“I—I have not been in this room since I left you
here,” declared the young fellow.
“Give me those letters.”


190 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“I haven't got anything of yours. On my soul I
haven't.”
The force of the half-truth, augmented by the
convincingness of the young man's manner—a con-
vincingness born between his desperate strait and his
genius for dissembling—gave pause to that other's
white fury. For a moment, conviction gave place
to doubt and mystification in the depth of Brent
Warren's blazing eyes.
Young Keeling, feeling an advantage gained, was
quick to follow it up.
“Warren,” he protested, “if you didn't open the
safe and remove those things to—to try to fasten
a theft on me—then somebody else—somebody who
knew the combination—”
Warren leaned heavily back against the door.
“Someone—” continued Larry, coming more and
more to himself—“entered here last night while you
and I both slept.”
“It is a lie!” breathed Warren, glancing about.
“There is no such thing!”
“Someone is shadowing this place,” protested the
boy, “I saw a figure pass out of the side-gate one
night after twelve o'clock.”
“You didn't tell me about it,” exclaimed the other
in unrelenting impeachment.
“I didn't want to make you nervous,” replied the
boy.
“It's a lie,” said the man, and then, as if to the
empty air about him: “Those things — don't hap-
pen!” -


THE DEVIL TO PAY 191
“Somebody who knew this place—knew the com-
bination of your safe,” pressed Larry.
“Who?” demanded the other.
“Don’t you know?” asked Larry, coming a little
closer to the big table which stood between them,
and looking straight into the man's suddenly wid-
ened eyes. -
“It's a lie!” said Warren, glancing to left and to
right again. “It is not humanly possible, I tell you!”
“Warren,” protested the younger man now, “you
know what was in those letters—Who beside your-
self would want them?—there's your clue.”
Warren's answer licked out at him like a tongue
of flame:
& 4 You /*
“I?” cried the young man with cannily feigned
astonishment—“Why should I want your letters?
What possible use could I put them to?”
The shot sped true.
“There—there is nothing you ought to want with
them,” Brent Warren stumbled, “nothing in them
that could interest you in the remotest.”
“Then why accuse me?” demanded the young
man, growing bold with his advantage.
“Because,” said the other, stumbling again—“be-
cause—you tried—”
“Even if I had opened the safe, and were a thief,”
pursued Larry, “I would hardly have stolen and
kept letters which could be of no interest to me,
would I?” w
It began to dawn upon Larry that he had his man.


192 THE DEVIL TO PAY
For Warren to further press the accusation, would
be to admit that the extracted letters were of con-
cern to him, Larry, and contained matter which War-
ren would be loath for him to see. And this might
prove a damaging admission in the event that an-
other, and not Dare Keeling's brother, had secured
possession of the letters.
Larry reasoned that he had his man. If those
stolen letters were incriminating, then unquestion-
ably Warren's best hope to escape consequences lay
in the chance that another, and not he, Dare Keel-
ing's brother, had possession of them. And of
course if that other had them, it were worse than
madness in Warren to show his hand. For he,
Larry, roused to suspicion, might turn against him,
might even anticipate him in securing the damning
papers.
Larry had his man.
He and Warren looked into each other's eyes.
“Do you want to search me?” he demanded, mak-
ing a gesture of ready assent.
“—No,” said Warren.
“Do you want to have me arrested?”
“No,” said Warren.
“What do you want, then?” asked the younger
man.
Warren hesitated for a moment, and then moved
away from the door which he had been barring,
leaving clear Larry's way out, should he choose to
take it. “Nothing—at present,” he said.
Suddenly there was the sound of voices and steps


194 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Now—still for my sake, Brent—I want you to
allow my rooms and effects to be searched. Strother
and James here will perform the delicate little job,
and to relieve them from any embarrassment I'll
take myself off.”
There was again a feint of protest, but it was
silenced by the two men's being positively directed
by Larry to proceed with the work. James was
told to bring down Larry's coat and hat.
In the brief interval which passed during the ser-
vant's absence on his errand, Warren and young
Keeling faced each other in armed inaction.
“Do you object to my leaving the house?” Dare
Keeling's brother asked at length.
“—No,” said Warren. Then he added quickly,
“You are coming back?”
Was he coming back? In his hour of momentous
decision, Larry's mental processes became singularly,
detachedly, clear.
If he should not return to Warren's house, there
would have to be explanations to Dare. If he should
explain to Dare that he had broken with Warren—l
“Yes, I am coming back,” he replied. 4.
“It is best,” said Warren.
And now the butler's footsteps were heard de-
scending the stair.
Young Keeling and Warren took a surer look at
each other. There was imminent a fateful trial of
strength between them and both realized the fact.
It would be under cover and to a finish, and both
tacitly gave consent.


196 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Not unless it is absolutely necessary,” answered
the solicitor. “For the sake of why, everybody
concerned is strung up to the breaking point. We
must get it over with as soon as possible—as soon
as we can without sacrifice.”
But Mr. Potter refused to be downcast.
“Don’t forget that young Keeling has had a
change of heart, and wants to see us together,” he
replied. “Let's wait for him here.” And he opened
a door marked, “Private.”
But before they had retired to the inner office,
an attendant ushered in from the hall one who en-
tered as from another world. His boyish face was
curiously set, and he had in his eyes the look of
one walking apart.
At sight of the new-comer, Grant's eyes darkened
quickly. A phlegmatic girl at a typewriter paused
a moment to surreptitiously catch the eye of a clerk
at the filing-case, who, with a batch of letters in
his arrested hand, was looking sharply at the man
who had entered. Mr. Potter and Solicitor Grant
advanced a hasty step or two, and Grant put his
hand on the young man's shoulder and drew him
into the private office.
When the three were alone in the smaller room
with the door shut between them and the office force,
Larry Keeling walked to the table, sat down, and
rested his head on his hands.
“What's the matter, old man?” asked Grant
gently.
“Those letters are—gone!” answered the boy.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 197
The solicitor and the detective looked at each
other. Then Grant spoke again. “What letters,
Larry?” he asked.
“The ones from Joe Harkness.”
With a silent start, the two men exchanged glances
again.
“To Warren?” asked the detective, with repressed
eagerness.
“And to Roan,” said Larry, “–Oh—I never told
you!—I’m nutty!—I have lived a thousand years
on the way from Warren's here.”
Then Larry Keeling told the story of how he
found and how he lost again those seemingly threat-
ening letters—those letters from Joe Harkness to
the men subsequently accused of his murder. And
during that telling the men on each side of him sat
silent.
When the story was concluded, one of them swore
deeply under his breath. “The missing link we have
been tearing our hair for l’’ he exclaimed. “If you
had only had sense enough—”
But Grant interrupted. “Oh, come,” he exclaimed,
“don’t you know that no man would be fool enough
to keep papers that would incriminate him?”
“They do it every day,” said Potter sharply.
“Only yesterday, secret service men pinched three
employees of the Tennessee Company who had all
sorts of incriminating stuff right in their office desks.”
“And Warren thought his letters were secure,”
offered Larry.
“Sure,” said the detective. “He may have kept


THE DEVIL TO PAY 199
“You take a look for those papers when you go
back,” commanded the detective.
Cullen Grant leaned forward in an attempt to
speak, but Mr. Potter was already asking, “Did you
ever walk in your sleep?”
“I?” said Larry. “Never.”
“And nobody else knew that combination?” in-
sisted the detective.
“Why,” answered Larry, “I asked Warren that
identical question the first time I saw him tinkering
with the lock, and he answered, ‘nobody knows it'
as if there might have been someone else at some-
time who was onto it.”
Mr. Potter paused a second in thought, and then
asked:
“Did that mysterious party ever call Warren over
the phone again—after we got up that excitement
about the bank?”
“No,” said Larry, “not that I know of.”
Grant turned to Mr. Potter. “You still think
there was someone in the bank that night?” he
asked.
It was Larry Keeling's time to be surprised, but
he listened in silence for Mr. Potter's answer.
“I still insist that I saw a man come out of the
shadows of that deep-set side door of the Hampton
and slink into the alley,” the detective answered.
“Whether he actually came out of the bank, or
merely out of a hiding within the recess made by the
door-facing, is what I couldn't swear to. But what
I believe is that he came out of the bank, and that


THE DEVIL TO PAY 2OI
to young Keeling and laid a firm hand on his
shoulder.
“Larry, you are not going back to Warren's,” he
said.
“But I must,” protested the boy.
Grant looked deeply troubled.
“Sit down,” he said, “and let's see if we can't
work this out together.”
It was a long interview and a frankly confiden-
tial one on Larry's part, for it seemed foreordained
that he should be close to Cullen Grant.
Larry told his friend the story in detail of where-
ever his own experience had touched the hidden
course of the mystery—from that startling night-
watch in the house of George Roan, to the circum-
stance of the Roan woman's shadowing Dare Keel-
ing—from Dare's first demand for the power to
help Brent Warren with her money, to the knowl-
edge of those “ill-advised loans” of Warren's.
There was no time now for reservations. But when
it was all finished no white light came, and the two
sat unspeaking for some moments. It was Larry
who broke the silence.
“So I've got to go back to Warren's,” he said.
“If I took out those letters in my sleep, or if War-
ren did it, they are hidden somewhere, and I and
not Warren must get them.”
Grant roused from his speculations quickly.
“Larry,” he protested, “Potter said that to send
you back to that place because you might prove a
valuable tool—”


2O2 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Then I must go back,” said the boy.
“It's not safe, I tell you. The man is dangerous,
and you are alone there together.”
“But Dare.”
“Why don't you tell Dare the truth?”
“What is the truth?” parried Dare's brother.
“I meant to get those letters and show them to her
—I was going to convince her of Warren's guilt,
and then destroy the evidence against him because
—because of her.”
“Larry,” said Grant, deeply troubled, “if-if
Dare really loves Warren—” but he stopped, and
Dare's brother did not challenge the suggestion.
Instead, after a few minutes' brooding, he exclaimed
sharply:
“Great Jehoshaphat! What if Dare lets out to
Warren that she saw me with that safe open?”
“She will not be apt to,” said Grant, trying to
reassure even while deep lines of doubt marred his
own brow.
But the young fellow was too stirred to be com-
forted.
“If Dare finds out I have turned against War-
ren,” he exclaimed, “she will do something des-
perate.”
“She must not know till she has to,” replied the
other.
“She must not know at all!” exclaimed the boy.
A quick surprise flickered up in the eyes of the
other.
“Of course you understand, Larry,” he said,


THE DEVIL TO PAY 2O3
“that if those letters are found, we will summon
you as a witness to identify them?”
The boy gasped. “But you—you couldn't, Cul-
len,” he cried.
“I shall have to,” the solicitor replied.
“But, Grant,” protested the young man, “I got
what I know through confidential association,
through meddling, through—”
“Larry,” interrupted the solicitor, “there is not
properly any code of ethics between a man and the
powers of darkness.”
Later, as the two parted at the door of the Arliss
Detective Agency, the younger man said:
“Cullen, of course nothing is going to happen to
me, but—if anything should, you know—you'll tell
Dare why I turned against Warren?”
“Yes,” replied Grant—and his earnest glance
made a pledge of the simple promise. “But it's go-
ing to be all right, Larry.”
“Oh, yes,” said the other with a twisted smile.
“And you are determined to go back to War-
ren’s P”
“Yes,” said the boy. But as he turned away there
came to him again: “‘If Dare really loves War-
ren’—” What then?—What was that which Cul-
len Grant had left unsaid?
It took courage to go back to that mystery-
haunted house of Warren's—courage of the sort
that, seeing danger and according it its full value,


THE DEVIL TO PAY 205
at this point, he began to have vague recollections
of just such a somnambulistic adventure.
For five mortal hours he followed the will-o'-the-
wisp of his imagining on a tour of fruitless search-
ing that left him all but dead in body and in
spirit.
Then the dark came, but not Brent Warren.
When dinner was announced, Larry was spent
and hungry, and in spite of his revulsion at the idea
of sitting down at his enemy's table, he did do it,
and he ate heartily.
From dinner he was called to the telephone.
“Larry,” said Cullen Grant's earnest voice, “can't
you do something with Dare?”
“O Lord—what now?” the boy exclaimed in
agonized reply.
“Why,” said Grant, “she has been trying right
and left to borrow large sums of money on her
prospects. Clifton Gaines came to me to-day to
ask about her property, and Weinstein brought me
a curious little promissory note she had offered him.
—It's so—pitiable.”
“They—they won't let her have it!” gasped the
boy. -
“No,” of course not,” came in answer. “She can't
give any sort of security—poor child!”
“It's—horrible!” blurted out the boy, and a
bright something dropped from his lashes.
“Can't you stop her?” came over the wires in a
tone of exasperated pleading.
“Of course I can—I can kill her!” And Dare's


CHAPTER XXVIII
THERE are such things as ghosts!
Old loves shadow us, and old hates. Old hurts
and fears, old laughter, old regrettings refuse to
lie still in the silences. Even that to which we
never granted life yields up a spirit to follow us
along our after way. A little tin soldier proves a
haunting thing. A looming “secretary,” darkening
a remote corner of childhood, has a spirit that
“comes back!” The eyes of dim portraits follow
through the years; a poignant note, though struck
once and once only, sounds again when all is due to
be still; and between the lights, the spirit of for-
gotten gardens returns along the evening wind.
There are such things as ghosts l
And Larry Keeling knew it as he sat there in
Brent Warren's library alone at dead of night—
knew it in his bones. Warren was gone. The ser-
vants were gone. Larry was alone. Alone except
for—those Others!
He had searched vainly for the missing letters
of the murdered Joe Harkness—searched till his
very soul was weary. And at last he had dropped
down to rest.
It was then that the Others came. The fear that
was born with him entered to keep him company.
207


208 THE DEVIL TO PAY
The superstitions of his dreaming age—butchered
in his callous high-school days—crept up around
him with questions in their startled eyes. Blood
memories of nameless terrors came and sat beside
him.
And then the phantoms of the past two weeks!—
that woman's cry in the night—or was it a boy's?—
that hesitating, weirdly deep echo of a man that had
come to them over the wires from where no man
was that vision of a little iron balcony with its
heavy hook above, and its trap-door beneath to
drop from under the feet of the departing!
Larry started and looked over his shoulder.
There was nothing there. After all, why should
there have been? Nothing was due to be in that
room at two o'clock at night.
He rose mechanically and stirred the dying fire.
Only a few side lights were on, and he would have
liked to snap on the big center chandelier to flood
the room with light, but the switch was 'way over
by the hall door, and he was—tired. He stepped
to the glass-paneled side door again to make sure
that the night-latch was on, and looked out on the
roofless porch across which fell a dim light from
the door at which he stood. From that window
immediately above, he had watched last night—
or was it a thousand years ago?—for the chance
to get possession of those all-important letters. By
that window last night he had slept away his hour
of fate.
Larry suddenly pulled down the shade on the


THE DEVIL TO PAY 209
door to shut out the ghost of that failure. He satis-
fied himself again that the door was locked and
went back and sat down by the fire, which had begun
to blaze brightly.
Feeling sure that he would never again wish to
sleep, the young fellow began to cast about for
something to read, now that the added light of the
fire was making reading possible. On the table near
were several magazines, but he had already de-
voured their contents. He began to examine the
books which lay about among the periodicals. One
of them looked inviting. It was new and attractive,
and he saw extending from between its pages Brent
Warren's particular book-mark. A brand-new book
lately thumbed by Brent Warren promised interest.
If Warren could stop to buy and read a new book
at this crisis, it must mean that that book had a
peculiar and compelling interest for him. And a
man's compelling interest is a key to the man.
The young fellow drew the book to him and
examined its title: “The Undying Dead.”
“Do men die?” a something within him quoted.
And then, curiously enough, came his own question
to Cullen Grant, “Is Joe Harkness dead or alive?”
Larry remembered to have subsequently been
ashamed of that question. But here, under the half
lights, it was again seeming a very natural one.
He began to turn the pages. “Authenticated
psychological phenomena”—Brent Warren had
been reading ghost storiesl
—But what was this—John Wesley a haunted


2IO THE DEVIL TO PAY
man?—which “John Wesley”?—could it be that
the father of Methodism—?
After a few paragraphs Brent Warren and his
complications retired a little from the center of the
stage, and after some pages they yielded the scene
altogether to John Wesley and his devilish perse-
CutorS.
At the unsatisfactory end of the sketch, Larry
took a startled, dazed look around—then plunged
into the next story.
But the light of the fire, his main dependence for
reading, was flickering badly now and he moved
closer to the hearth and held his book lower.
Canon Wilberforce and his haunted library!
“Library” — Larry glanced about again—Canon
Wilberforce's library was haunted! With a shiver,
he returned avidly to his reading.
“And the spirit priest told him that on that hunt,
he, the priest, had been thrown from his horse and
killed—”
There was the sound of a slight “click!”
Larry raised his eyes from the book, and they
rested on the side door over the glass panels of
which he had drawn down the shade.
The door-knob was turning!
With a flash of thankfulness, he remembered that
he had put on the night-latch and tested it.
He had put on the night-latch—but—Almighty
God!—the door was being opened
Was Brent Warren coming back after him? Or
was it—something else that was coming back?


2I4 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Larry!” It was Grant's welcome voice that
called out of the darkness.
At the loosening of the tension that had gripped
him, the boy suddenly lay back in his chair while
the room swam about him.
The sound of vigorous knocking, however, brought
him clear-headed to his feet, and he hastened to
unlock the door.
Grant entered and, taking him by both arms,
looked deep into his eyes.
“You’ve had a nightmare, old man,” he said.
And then he turned back to the door. “Come in,”
he called.
Mr. Potter and two others—strangers, whom he
did not think to introduce—entered.
“But—but—” gasped Larry, “what if Warren
finds you people here?”
“We know where Warren is,” answered Potter,
“he won't trouble us for the little of the night that's
left.”
“We keep him shadowed,” Grant explained in
answer to the mystified surprise of the boy's face.
“What's this about your ghost?” the detective
asked, impatiently. And the next minute the four
men were grouped about young Keeling, listening
in eager silence to his story.
Grant was facing the shaken boy and watching
anxiously his every change of expression. The two
strangers—keen-faced young fellows—lined up on
each side of Grant. Mr. Potter stood a little apart,
hands in pockets, watching the scene.
y


THE DEVIL TO PAY 215
Larry told his story.
“You dreamed it,” pronounced Grant with
finality.
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed the boy—then his
glance shifted unexpectedly to the face of the de-
tective—“What?” he asked, startled.
“I didn't say anything,” said Mr. Potter, with a
laugh.
Grant and the two strangers turned at once to
the detective in silent questioning.
“You didn't “say” anything,” echoed young Keel-
ing, “but you got something all in a heap—I saw
it!” -
“You are dreaming again, sonny,” and the eyes
of the three others shifted back to the boy. But
Larry caught, in a mirror opposite, a signal from
Potter to Grant. The latter opened the side door.
“You are coming home with me, Larry,” he said.
Young Keeling never quite knew how the rest
was accomplished, but he did know that he was soon
in Grant's car, and was being sped through the
graying dawn. Suddenly he realized that he had
neglected something.
“We left that house open!” he exclaimed.
“The others will close it,” said Grant.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 217
that he was too busy to come to her, when on the
Hampton Bank corner he met and was stopped by
Lucy Clinton.
“Isn't it too bad about Dare l’” she exclaimed.
“What about Dare P” asked Dare's brother with
a sudden sinking in his breast.
“Why, those meddlesome women in the boarding-
house—Dare told you, didn't she, that they have
told her everything?”
“What is ‘everything'?” Larry heard himself
asking.
“Oh,” replied the girl, “just what everybody is
saying, you know—that Brent Warren is going to
have a hard time proving his innocence—of course
he is innocent—but—Oh, do you know, poor Dare
read that piece in the paper about a man's serving
ninety-nine years in the penitentiary and then find-
ing out that another man did it!”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Larry, and then he
rallied his presence of mind quickly enough to say,
conventionally, “Brent won't have to prove his
innocence. It's up to the prosecution to prove him
guilty.” -
“Yes,” prattled Lucy, “but they say Mr. Grant
I could convict the Angel Gabriel if he wanted to—
and of course, since Dare flirted with him—”
“Hold on—” said the boy, “Cullen Grant is too
big for that sort of thing. It's his duty to prosecute
Warren.”
“Oh,” gasped Lucy, “so you do—” and she
moved a step or two in retreat.


CHAPTER XXX
“CULLEN, Dare has gone!—And with Warren/?”
Young Keeling had seized the solicitor by the arm
as he was about to step into his car.
“Where?” exclaimed the other.
“She said to the Wards' plantation, but—”
Grant turned quickly and hurried back up the
court-house steps, before which Larry had inter-
cepted him. The stunned boy saw the solicitor stop
a big man in the lobby—a man whom he presently
recognized as the sheriff.
After a short colloquy together Grant and the
man disappeared into the building. They were gone
but a short time, however, and soon came out to
where Larry waited.
“I have sworn out a warrant for the arrest of
Warren on a new count,” explained Grant hurriedly.
“The sheriff will send a deputy out to Ward's at
once and put others on the search. You take my car
and go after your sister. They will give you a chance
to get her away before Warren is arrested. It
must not be said that Dare was with Warren when
he bolted.—Understand?—You've got to protect
her.”
“But, Cullen,” gasped the boy, “I can't do any-
thing with Darel”
226


THE DEVIL TO PAY 231
“God knows!” replied the other.
“But there is the defalcation?”
“For over a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Maybe Roan or Harkness took the money,”
urged the boy—and then with a sudden start—“Oh,
I say! Are you going to make me testify that Dare
told me about Warren's making ill-advised loans
with the bank's money?”
“Hearsay evidence is of no value,” replied the
solicitor. “Warren said that to Dare. She is the
one whose testimony—”
“No” exclaimed the boy in consternation at the
possibility which suddenly loomed up before him.
“I have not summoned Dare,” the other replied.
But Cullen Grant's strong face was troubled, and
after a time he turned again to the boy beside him.
“You see,” he began, in the tone of a man explain-
ing more to himself than to his listener, “I can sum-
mon her or not as I think best for the case. As
I told you before, the jury would be unconsciously
biased by her appearance on the stand. The grip-
ping circumstances — her appealing loveliness — all
would militate against us. I have hesitated though.
I have had to make sure of my motives in face of
“What?” asked Larry when he did not finish.
The man's face was deeply lined as he answered:
“I have kept Dare from marrying Warren. If
I had not deliberately stood across her path with
the questionable weapon your aunt put into my
hands, Dare would have been Warren's wife to-day,
and as his wife, could not have been made to testify


232 THE DEVIL TO PAY
against him. I have the feeling—I believe that
under the circumstances I should not force her to
take the witness stand.”
“But how about the other side?” asked the still
anxious Larry.
“They have not summoned her. If it is Warren's
decision, it is the most decent thing he has ever
done.”
The Wards really were expecting Dare and War-
ren—had been expecting them for some little time
when Larry Keeling came alone to their door to
say that he was the bearer of an important message
for Warren and was anxious to deliver it as soon
as possible.
The Wards were sympathetically concerned.
They thought their tardy guests were only taking
a longer drive than they had at first planned, and
if Larry would wait— -
But Larry explained that he feared there might
have been an accident, and said he thought he would
take a look about for the delayed couple. If War-
ren and Dare should come, would they please phone
—No, Larry had forgotten that their phone was
out of order.
Young Keeling returned to the car which had
waited for him under the brow of the hill.
“They are not there,” he explained nervously,
“but the Wards are expecting them. Maybe they
didn't intend to bolt, after all, and are just taking
a drive, or—or have met with an accident.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 233
At a cross-roads store a half-mile beyond, Larry
alighted again to ask questions, and again to com-
municate with the sheriff who, in his office, was
directing the search. There were no returns as yet.
But there was something doing on the other line—
would Mr. Keeling hold the phone—the detective
wanted to speak to him. Mr. Potter charged Larry
with a cryptophonic message to Grant—“The under-
current was running strong, but!—”
Larry was left hung up in suspense.
On receiving Potter's message, Grant caught his
breath with a smothered exclamation. He did not
interpret the message to its bearer, however, in
spite of the fact that the bearer waited eagerly to
hear.
As they hesitated over a choice of the forking
roads, a boy ran out of the cottage which adjoined
the store, and called:
“Mister, Ma says a man an' a young lady come
by here in a automobile about a half-hour ago, and
turned into the woods yonder jes' past that big
maple.”
It was enough. They passed the big maple, and
found where the wheels of a heavy car had turned
into an overgrown and apparently abandoned wagon
road leading into the heart of the forest.
“Follow those tracks,” said Grant.
Neither spoke further. The situation was now
beyond discussing.
Presently their car slowed up. “I can't make it,”
said the chauffeur.


234 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Damn it!—Go on!” said Grant.
And they went on through the growing dusk—
over deep ruts and jagged boulders—over fallen
boughs and stubborn underbrush—on and on and
on 1 The super-six panted with the strain.
“Hello there !” Their car in rounding an over-
grown curve was brought to a standstill so suddenly
that the occupants were fairly pitched forward.
In the road before them and with one wheel torn
to pieces, sprawled a big machine.
Grant and Larry jumped out on each side, and
rushed to examine the wreck. No débris that once
was human was involved in the ruin. It was Brent
Warren's car—Larry knew the number.
Not another soul was in sight anywhere but
Deputy Garner who now came up.
Straining their eyes to peer through the growing
dusk, they at length spied in the distance a tiny log
cabin from the one chimney of which a thin blue
wisp of smoke curled upward like a summoning
signal. Without a word, the men piled into the
machine again. -
“Take that hill there around the wreck,” ordered
Grant.
They took the hill, and though once it seemed
that they would turn turtle with another yard, they
came into the forest road again on four wheels. .
At the cabin beyond an old negro reported that
a gentleman and a young lady had stopped there
some little time before to ask the way to the near-
est farm house, and that he had directed them to


CHAPTER XXXI
“Is this the place?” asked Grant, as the auto crept
along under the shadow of a mock-orange hedge
whose tangled wilderness formed the plantation
fence.
“Yes,” replied the nervous boy. “Let's get out
and walk down the lane. Your man can wait for
us here.”
The suggestion was hardly more than made, be-
fore they had jumped out of the car and, followed
by Garner, went making their way along a shady
rear approach to a farm-house which they glimpsed
against a dying sky. Instinctively and with little
speaking they kept close to one side and under the
overhanging mock-oranges.
“Remember, Larry,” said Grant, “you must call
Dare out and we will get her away without having
a scene before the people and the servants. Then
Garner will arrest Warren and bring him back to
town.”
When they arrived at the lot fence, Larry led the
way through the barn-yard, and the three came
quietly up to a side door which stood open.
“Larryl—thank God!” It was a woman's voice
that came out to them. The next moment, a sweet-
faced, mother creature emerged, and threw her arms
about the boy.
236


24O THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Has she turned against Warren?” gasped Dare's
brother, while Cullen Grant stood like a man
changed to stone.
“No, but she has refused to marry him unless
he will go back to his trial—I never felt as sorry
for anybody in my life—Dare is such a valiant little
thing, so incapable of cowardice herself—that—”
“Cullen,” said Larry feverishly, “let Garner take
him now and get it over with.”
“Not yet,” said Grant.
A servant, entering, claimed Mrs. Hayden's atten-
tion, and Larry crossed over to Grant and spoke
in a lowered tone: “Why wait, Cullen?”
When Grant turned from the window at which
he stood, young Keeling was mystified at the change
which had come over his countenance, and was still
further at sea when he caught a certain unusual note
in the man's deep voice.
“Larry,” said Grant, “if Dare loves Warren, she
—Why, we must give her the chance to make him
do the manly thing.”
Larry Keeling was glimpsing something infinitely
higher than his boy standards—his ideals were
growing up.
“Do you mean,” he asked, “that you won't have
him arrested, if she can make him go back?”
“Yes.”
“But if he bolts on the way back?”
“He can't, we have too many after him. Be-
sides, Garner will shadow him—though she won't
know.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 24I
“But what if Dare marries him—?”
“We must see that she doesn't,” said Grant.
“Mrs. Hayden,” he continued, turning to the lady
who now stood in anxious suspense, “can't you get
Dare in here without letting Warren suspect?”
“Yes,” she replied. But Larry stopped her as
her hand was laid upon the door.
“Wait,” he exclaimed—then to Grant: “What
are we going to say to Dare?”
“To begin with, you are going to tell your sister
the truth as far as we know it, Larry, so that she
will at least not be walking in the dark.”
Young Keeling recoiled. “But-I can't!” he pro-
tested.
Grant looked at him very straight and answered:
“Then I will.” -
With a troubled glance from one to the other,
Mrs. Hayden withdrew.
“Dare will take it better from you, Larry,” urged
Grant.
“But my part in it!” moaned the boy.
There were a few minutes of earnest colloquy,
and then the door opened and Dare Keeling came
quickly into the room. Mrs. Hayden, who had fol-
lowed, stepped back into the hall and closed the
door.
The girl glanced about, and with a smothered
little cry drew back—at bay before the two who,
of all the world, were the most concerned to pro-
tect her.


242 THE DEVIL TO PAY
But after that first little cry—that first impulsive
retreat—Dare kindled from top to toe.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
Grant looked to Larry Keeling to answer—
looked in vain—and then said in a voice so low, so
vibrant with tenderness that the wretched, unspeak-
ing boy took a swift glance into his face:
“Larry and I want to take care of you, Dare—
Where is Warren?”
“In there,” she answered with defiant frankness.
“Where is he going?”
“Back to Hampton, of course.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“I am.” But the next moment, in spite of the
supreme effort she was making, Dare's face turned
ashen, and she asked quickly:
“Are—are you going to arrest him?”
“—No,” said Grant—and again young Keeling
started and looked into his face—“But I am going
to tell you the truth about him, little girl.”
Dare flamed. “And do you imagine that I am
going to listen to what you call ‘the truth'?” She
turned toward the door, but Grant put out his hand
in quick protest.
“You must, Dare.”
“So,” she exclaimed, “you think I have no more
sense of loyalty than my brother, there—You think
I will hear what you have whipped yourself into
believing!”
She was at the door now, but Grant quietly laid
his hand on the knob. There was no mistaking his


244 THE DEVIL TO PAY
The girl caught her breath. “How do you know
he told me that?” she demanded.
Grant opened his lips impulsively, then closed
them firmly on his unspoken answer. Dare leaned
forward with the sharp challenge still in her eyes.
Larry's burden became unbearable. “Dare,”
he exclaimed at length, “I told Cullen you said
that.”
“No!” There was sharp agony in the little cry,
and Dare momentarily covered her face with her
hands. Her brother shrank back, but Cullen Grant
exclaimed:
“Dare, Larry has not been disloyal to you. He
fought me to a finish till he found out what Brent
Warren was, and then he did the only thing he could
to save you from him.”
But Dare flung off the assuring hand that he laid
upon her arm.
“What do you mean—?” she began.
“I mean,” said the man gently but decidedly, “to
tell you the whole truth no matter what it costs us
both.”
The girl made another impulsive move, but Grant
stopped her with a commanding gesture.
“No, Dare, you are going to listen to me now,”
he said. And then, holding her quiet by a deter-
mined mastery, he told her the story as he knew it
—as Larry had guessed it.
And Larry Keeling listened to the fearless telling
of that story, watched the teller's quiet command of
the situation, felt the passionate sympathy vibrant


THE DEVIL TO PAY 247
Larry Keeling, who had retreated before the
poignancy of that moment, now experienced the dim
sensation of one looking on, disembodied, at what
had gone beyond his power to suffer.
“Men have done that much before for—” the
girl was pleading.
But the man, turned away—Larry could not see
his face.
And now Dare again— “I thought you loved me,
Cullen!”
“You know that I love you,” Larry heard him
say.
“Then what are you going to ask that jury to
believe?”
Larry saw the man take a deep breath, saw him
turn to Dare with a white, set face, and heard him
anSWer:
“I am going to ask them to believe—what I be-
lieve myself.”
A something in her eyes died. The extended
hand dropped at her side, and the slim, girlish figure
straightened.
“May I go now?” she asked.
“One moment, Dare. I said I would tell you the
truth—We came here to arrest Warren for em-
bezzlement—Wait, dear, till I tell you—You say
Warren is going back to Hampton. Then we will
keep hands off.”
“You are trying to tell me that this is—a great
concession?” she asked.
“It will be much better for him that way,” Grant


248 THE DEVIL TO PAY
answered. “If people were to get the idea that
Warren was running away—Sit down, child—are
you sick?”
But the little ghost of a girl stepped back from
his offered support, and the man had to resume:
“It would be bad for Warren for him to be ar-
rested and carried back—It would look as if he
were trying to slip his bond in the other case, and
would lose him the friends that he has, and worse.
He may go back free, Dare—but he must go back.”
Larry Keeling looked away from his sister's face,
and he knew by his knowledge of Cullen Grant that
his glance had spared her too.
But now Dare was speaking.
“It is fair of you,” Larry heard her low voice
saying, “and I know you will believe me when I give
you my word we will go straight home.”
Larry turned to her quickly, but Grant was al-
ready speaking.
“You are not going with—” he began, and
stopped.
“I am going with Brent,” she said.
“No ſ”
There was in her voice when she answered him
a note that had not been there before. “I have told
you that we are going back to Hampton—I have
told you!—Cullen, you know that I–"
“Dare,” said the man, “I know you! But I would
no more trust you to that man—I will not!”
In consideration of the fact that his car had been


THE DEVIL TO PAY 249
wrecked beyond repairing on his drive that after-
noon, Brent Warren's friend, Mrs. Brantley Hay-
den, kindly volunteered to send him into town in
her own machine in time to meet his dinner engage-
ment at the Exeter Club. And if there was a cer-
tain shadowy figure on a motorcycle that came out
of a side lane and took the road behind the Hayden
car, Dare Keeling did not know it as she stood on
the front steps where Warren had left her.
Larry and Grant had remained in the rear of the
house, unseen, in their anxiety to spare Dare the
sight of any humiliation of the man to whom she
had dedicated the flame of her loyal spirit.
But now that Warren had gone, they emerged
into the hall where they were met by Mrs. Hayden.
Dare was nowhere in sight.
“I am going to keep the child till to-morrow,” said
Dare's mother's friend. “And don't you think you
had better stay, too, son?”
At the kind invitation, Larry turned eagerly to
Grant. -
“By all means,” assented the solicitor. “You
two—do what you can with Dare. And keep her
away from that court-house to-morrow.” Then
with hurried thanks he said good-bye and passed
out of the front door, closing it behind him.
It was dark—black dark, for there was no porch
light.
The car was waiting at the distant front gate,
and Grant started down the steps, feeling his way.
Suddenly, he put his hand on something which


CHAPTER XXXII
LARRY did not get to attend the opening morning
session of Brent Warren's trial. With the coming
of the fateful day, Dare had “gone to pieces,” and
her brother did not leave her even to Mrs. Hay-
den's tender care, till she had regained a reasonable
control of herself.
And then it was hard to escape her, for Dare
had made up her mind to take her place beside
Warren in his hour of supreme need.
But Larry did escape at length, and without his
sister.
Larry dropped off the car at the court-house
square, and stood for a moment, agape before the
surging scene. -
A line of automobiles blocked the curbing. The
broad sidewalks and the grass-plots beyond were
filled with little groups of people who were talking
1 earnestly together. The wide-spreading steps of
the court-house itself were thronged with men, and
the arched vestibule was packed.
Everybody was out to hear the most memorable
trial in the history of the State. The best citizens
were there to a man—the members of the Exeter
Club being conspicuously present. But Larry's dis-
251


252 THE DEVIL TO PAY
criminating glance soon found wide divergence in
their expressions of countenance. It was not as it
had been two weeks ago when, one and all, they
had pressed up to shake Brent Warren's hand.
Larry tried to get through the press up the court-
house steps, but succeeded in mounting only half-
way.
“No use,” volunteered someone at his elbow, “not
another man can get inside. Court will adjourn for
dinner in a few minutes, and then things will loosen
up.”
“Mur-ur-ur-derſ”
But it was only a newsboy flying down the middle
of the street with an extra. When Larry rallied his
nerves under his control again, the boy had swept
on with the wind.
“Nothing in it,” kindly assured a passer-by who
had noted the young man's futile efforts to get to
the newsy. “Nothing definite.”
“You’ve been in court?”
“Yes, all morning.”
“What have—?” But the man had passed.
Young Keeling accosted another. “Have they
proved anything yet?” he gasped.
“Nothing except the asininity of the solicitor,”
answered the intercepted, curtly. And the next mo-
ment he too had passed on and lost himself in the
crowd.
Larry looked about for someone who would take
the trouble to explain, and just at that moment a
man whom he knew well by sight came wedging his


THE DEVIL TO PAY 253
way down the steps. Larry rushed the crowd and
got himself entangled with his prey.
“What's the matter with the solicitor?” he in-
quired in the golden moment of apology.
“Nothing, except that he has more sense in his
head than all the rest of the Hampton bar com-
bined,” the impeded answered. Then he too was
gone.
And now a voice from over in the thickest:
“That's what comes of appointing political tools to
preside over so-called courts of justice,” somebody
was raving, “Hinton doesn't know any more about
presiding—Why, it's the worst bungled case—!”
Larry lost the rest.
The next minute he found himself pinned against
a group of men who were having a lively, if good-
natured, altercation. He recognized several, the
most noticeable of whom was a certain tall man in
a clerical-looking coat.
“Yes,”—it was an every-day sort of a man speak-
ing—“but you can't make me believe but that Grant
is keener to get him by reason of that very fact.
I'm a man myself, and if I loved a girl that another
fellow had taken away from me—”
“The point is that it's Grant duty to go all the
way,” broke in another.
“Yes,” urged the clerical one, “and in the last
analysis the man who goes all the way to his duty
even when he knows that his motives are being
impugned is—”


254 THE DEVIL TO PAY
“Some man!” finished another, amid a general
laugh.
“Oh, if he does it only because it's his duty—”
began the first speaker.
But the minister put a hand on his shoulder.
“‘I am a man myself,’” he quoted, “and I am
free to say that even if I believed Mr. Grant actu-
ated by his love for the girl in striving to uncover
the crime—”
“Wait, Doctor, wait!” the first speaker inter-
rupted, “you are proceeding on the supposition that
Warren is guilty!”
“No-no,” said the challenged—“on the sup-
position that Grant believes him guilty.”
“Oh, well, of course—when you stop to analyze
it.—But how many are going to think it out to that
when Warren is proven innocent?”
“But if Warren should be proven guilty?” put
in one who had not spoken before.
“Then all of us,” exclaimed another, “will ap-
plaud the man who saved an innocent girl from him
—no matter how human were his motives.”
“Oh, I grant you,” said the man who had led the
opposition, “if Grant wins this, he—wins!”
“Sure,” put in another, “and in that good day
we will take the time to realize what a man's size
job he has been up against.”
All at once a subdued roar flowed from the court-
room, and the big crowd outside woke to intensified
interest to its farthest outposts. Larry found him-
self being borne strongly to one side. The crowd


THE DEVIL TO PAY 257
“Why, they established the facts of the murder
of Joe Harkness—just like it was when they tried
George Roan, you know, and—say! you heard about
the embezzlement of a hundred thousand dollars
from the Hampton Bank, didn't you?”
“Yes, go on.”
“Sibert, the State bank examiner, told about that.
He found dummy packages of specie substituted for
the real thing. By the way, they made things look
mighty black against Nolan, the old examiner. Em-
ployees of the Hampton testified that the bank's
vaults had never been thoroughly gone through by
Nolan. Seems that on his so-called visits of inspec-
tion, he had a way of dropping around and making
himself generally pleasant, and going off at last with
only Warren's statement that things were prime.”
As the raconteur paused for breath, young Keel-
ing asked impatiently:
“What else?”
“Why,” resumed Terry, “then a cotton factor
from New Orleans named ‘Creighton' testified that
Warren had lost heavily on margins a few months
ago.”
“Yes, but did they connect up the evidence—?”
“Well, that's just what they didn't. You see
Warren and his friends swore that he had loads of
money of his own which he might have speculated
with, and the defense also brought several all right
witnesses to the stand who testified to the fact that
though George Roan lived in an obscure part of
town and pretended to have nothing but his salary,


258 THE DEVIL TO PAY
he always had plenty of money and played poker
recklessly. See?—They contended that Roan stole
the bank's money, and that what Warren lost was
his own.”
“How did the jury—how did the people take it?”
gasped Larry, feeling suddenly faint.
“Well,” said Terry philosophically, “it’s mighty
easy to suspect a dishonored dead man, and mighty
hard to connect a man of Warren's standing with
the idea of crime.—Say, you are not disappointed,
are you?” And Carmichael took another sharp
look into his face. “Holy Christmas! maybe you
are one of the new witnesses the State asked to in-
troduce this afternoon.”
“Hook me on!” young Keeling interrupted wildly.
“Why, after the State's witnesses had been heard,
and the defense was already at work, there was a
telegram brought in to the solicitor—You certainly
did miss it!—I have never in my life seen anything
like Cullen Grant's face when he read that tele-
gram. He didn't move a muscle, but he changed
all over from his head to his heels—It was then
that he asked permission to introduce the new wit-
nesses as soon as they could be brought. Of course
Warren's lawyers fought like the devil, but the court
decided to admit the new witnesses, and—I'll bust if
you don't tell me, Larry—Are you one of 'em?”
“If I am, I'm at the first of it, Terry—I am utter-
ly at sea.”
“You look it,” said Terry after another frankly
scrutinizing stare.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 259
A slow, quiet step sounded from the corridor.
“Say,” continued Carmichael, “Court has taken
recess for only an hour—Let's go over to the ‘Good
Eats' and get some ballast—”
The step again, and louder—and a black-draped
woman's figure passed along the hall.
“George Roan's wife,” said Terry under his
breath. -
“Has she been in court?” asked Larry.
“No, Been batting about down here knocking—
God!”
“‘Knocking?'—Now what do you know about .
that?—And I thought she rooted for Him!—See,
here—I saw her the very morning her husband was
buried and there was a positive thrill in her voice—
like joy, you know—when she talked about God to
that boy.”
“Well, she's got it in for Him this morning.—
I have never heard such blasphemy!”
“Why don't the police take her in hand?”
“‘The Police?'—Oh, they stood in with Roan,
you know. You couldn't get one of them to inter-
fere with her. They pretend that she is harmlessly
insane.”
“Well, she has got bats—hasn't she?”
“Detective Potter says she is as sane as the police
force.”
“Looks like she'd be glad to see Warren
arraigned.”
“Looks like it,” assented Terry. “But instead
she's wildly bitter. I overheard her this morning


CHAPTER XXXIII
WITH a genius for friendliness, Carmichael filled
the rest of that hour of recess so full that Larry
was saved the slow agony of suspense, as well as
opportunity to reflect on his nerve-shaking interview
with the wife of George Roan. And when court
was ready for reassembling and Dare Keeling's
brother took his seat near the long table which
divided the opposing lawyers, Terry was still at his
side.
In his inquisitive boyhood young Keeling had
treated himself to many and varied experiences, but
it happened that he had never included in them a
court trial. So now he saw photographically—with
his virgin interest awake to detail.
On “the bench”—a chair by the way—sat the
august “court,” the jury at his left in a railed-off
space of the floor. A chair stood on a low platform
between judge and jury, and facing the audience.
“The witness stand,” Terry explained.
In the open floor space, between judge and jury
and witness-stand, was a long table at the far end
of which were grouped the opposing lawyers. But
nowhere was seen the solicitor, and Larry had not
been able to get to him during the recess of the
COurt.
264


266 THE DEVIL TO PAY
passed a wave of suppressed sound and movement.
“Warren!” whispered Terry.
Larry looked up quickly with a sickening thrill
but was glad that his glance singled out no well-
known form from the men who blocked that far
aisle.
After a moment Terry whispered again. “He is
seated on one of those chairs in front—before the
judge. If you move three inches this way, you can
get a full view of him.”
But Larry did not move.
“Order in the court!”
The command startled the scene to silence. There
was a whispered colloquy among the lawyers for
the defense, and then one of them rose.
“Your Honor, we ask permission to introduce a
witness who has just volunteered.”
Larry lost the reply, but he heard very distinctly
the lawyer say:
“Call Dare Keeling.”
With a start Larry looked to Cullen Grant. The
man's face had turned gray, but not a muscle was
allowed to quiver.
And now a door near the judge's bench was
opened, and there entered through it—was it a girl?
—or a pathetic little spirit that had lost its way?
Where now were Dare's bright trappings? Where
the challenging red with which she was used of late
to give color to her bravery? Clad simply as for
her long ride of yesterday and pale as a little ghost,
Dare Keeling mounted the witness stand.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 267
Other men called her beautiful—and Larry at
last knew why.
A stifled cry of sympathy from somewhere in the
audience voiced the feeling of that big, dumb mass,
and every man in the jury box was leaning forward
with his man's heart in his eyes. -
The mischief was done. And Larry saw the fact
confirmed in the solicitor's deeply troubled face.
“Do you know the defendant in this case?” asso-
ciate counsel for the defense was asking gently.
“Yes,” said the witness.
“How long have you known him?”
“Five years.”
“Do you think you know his general character
for truth and veracity in this community?”
“Yes 3 y
“Is it good or bad?”
“Good,” said the witness. -
“From his general character for truth and verac-
ity, would you believe him on oath in a court of
justice in a matter in which he was interested?”
The witness turned her head slightly. She was
looking straight into the eyes of the solicitor as she
answered:
“Yes.”
“Do you know if the defendant had command
of any large sums of money other than what he had
invested in the Hampton Bank and Trust Com-
pany?”
“At one time, yes,” replied the witness, “his
family—in Canada—are very wealthy.”


THE DEVIL TO PAY 269
told Larry that the die was cast. And now Cullen
Grant's low voice was speaking:
“Do you believe that Mr. Warren had command
of large sums of money?”
The frightened eyes widened. The jury had to
lean forward to hear her answer.
“Not-not in the past few weeks,” the girl stam-
mered. “If he lost heavily what did not belong—
what belonged to his family—they—they would
naturally not—” the quiver about the pathetic mouth
was pleading for her.
Larry realized that his sister read what was writ
so large on the tense face of the State's attorney.
Larry realized, and would have given a thousand
worlds to get to her then.
But the solicitor was speaking again:
“Did Mr. Warren ever tell you—?”
The hunted eyes flickered momentarily. The
next, however, they were raised again to her stern
questioner in frightened, anguished appeal.
Larry saw the man take a deep breath, saw him
hesitate, and then—
“The witness may be excused,” he said.
The big human mass stirred.
Dare stepped down from the stand, and with one
swift, inexplicable glance into the face of the solici-
tor, crossed over to where the defendant sat.
Larry Keeling was on his feet in an instant at-
tempt to get to his sister, but the sheriff called,
“Order in the court!” and Carmichael pulled him
down.


THE DEVIL TO PAY 27I
ren—now it was pausing directly in front of him.
Suddenly the obscuring hat was lowered.
“Great God!”
But whether it was Brent Warren who had cried
out, or whether that gasping throng spoke its pent-
up feeling, Larry did not know, for his whole atten-
tion was fixed on that face revealed—that face with
its skull suggestion, its haunting eyes, and its crooked,
ugly scar.
But even seemingly interminable moments come
to an end at last. The figure passed. It took its
place on the witness stand. In a sudden pressing
closer of eager, awestruck listeners, Larry lost the
words of the formal oath, but now Solicitor Grant
cleared his throat and asked distinctly of the man
on the stand:
“What is your name?”
“George Roan.”
Not a breath stirred the listening stillness.
“Are you the man who was hanged in this city
on the seventeenth day of October for the murder
of Joseph D. Harkness?” the solicitor asked.
“Yes.”
“You were delivered to your family for dead,
showed signs of life in the night, and were revived
by Dr. Milton Jernigan?”
“Yes.”
A very young member of the counsel for defense
suddenly lost his head.
“Your Honor,” he exclaimed, starting to his feet,
“that man Jernigan was substituted at the last minute


272 THE DEVIL TO PAY
for the county physician at the hanging of Roan—
He was secretly Roan's friend!—he purposely had
him cut down before he was dead—”
But at that point the young man's associates got
him.
When order was restored, Solicitor Grant re-
sumed his examination of the witness.
“And since that time,” he asked of Roan, “you
have been in hiding because you feared that the
State would complete its bungled execution?”
“Yes,” replied the witness.
Larry's glance strayed beyond and rested on the
black-draped woman's figure. A startled shifting
of position, and he looked straight into the wild
despair of her burning eyes. All at once, he under-
stood—She had taken her husband's giving back as
direct from the hand of God, till the law laid its
iron grip upon him again. “Nobody to hear”—No
wonder!
“You were apprehended this morning by Detec-
tive Potter?” the solicitor was asking.
“Yes,” the witness replied.
“You have vital information regarding this cause
which you are ready to give to this jury?”
“I have.”
Larry Keeling's senses threatened to give way.
He had been the chief instrument in solving the
mystery which had surrounded and had protected
that murderer yonder.
But this eerie revelation!
There was a pause in the proceedings to allow


THE DEVIL TO PAY 275
in cotton margins through “Creighton and Son' of
New Orleans. We lost, and took more. And—”
“About how much money in all did you and War-
ren extract from the Hampton Bank?”
The solicitor's voice, breaking in unexpectedly,
caused the hypnotized mass of people to stir vaguely.
It was as if the great human whole had drawn a
deep, deep breath.
“About a hundred and three thousand dollars in
all,” and with the resuming of the low passionless
voice, the room became awed and still again. “I
had the heaviest risk,” the living dead man pursued,
“and my nerves threatened to give way. Warren
gave me a vacation, and I went to Bingham Springs
—That was on May the third. The next day, I
got this letter from Joe Harkness.” The witness
took from his pocket and unfolded a letter. “Shall
I read it?” he asked.
“Let the solicitor read it,” said the court.
Grant stepped forward, took the letter, and read:
“Hampton, May 4th, 1916.
GEORGE ROAN, Esq.,
Bingham Springs.
DEAR SIR:—
This is to put you on notice that I know beyond
a doubt you have been extracting from the vaults
of the Hampton Bank and Trust Company large
sums of money, and to warn you to replace what
you have taken.
You have a wife and son and I would not ruin


THE DEVIL TO PAY 283
And now the non-committal member of the Grand
Jury—forced at last to speak—was testifying to
having overheard Warren threaten to “desert” Roan
if he did not “put over the job” that would give
them time to replace the bank's money.
Larry's eyes were focussed on Warren. Sud-
denly, he saw the quiet figure kindle from head to
foot.
The next moment Warren had sprung to his feet
and made half the distance to a near-by window.
Larry could have stopped him—started to do it,
when a detaining grip was laid upon his arm.
But the alert sheriff stepped between the fugitive
and liberty, and the audience stormed.
Warren wavered and stopped. Those nearest
him drew back.
It was then that Larry saw that quick, sinister
reaching back. The next moment, the man at bay
withdrew his hand from behind him and placed
something bright against his breast.
A sharp report, and Brent Warren crumpled on
the floor!
There was a moment of quiet in which all matters
earthly seemed to stand at pause—a moment in
which Larry vaguely realized that Cullen Grant's
was the detaining hand which—forgotten now—
still gripped him by the arm.
Then the sheriff knelt beside the crumpled figure.
After a few moment's examination, he looked up
and said:
“Dead.”


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