Children of the Whirlwind [63]
"I'd rather you'd hold it for me. And better still, I'd rather call the bet off in favor of a new bargain."
"What's the new proposition for swindling me?"
"You need a business nursemaid. What commission do you pay dealers?"
"Been paying those burglars forty per cent."
"That's too much for doing nothing. Here's my proposition. Give me ten per cent to act as your personal agent, and I'll guarantee that your total percentage for commissions will be less than at present, and that your prices will be doubled. Of course I can't do much while the police and others are so darned interested in me, so if you accept we'll just date the agreement from the time I'm cleared."
"You're on, son--and we'll just date the agreement from the present moment, A.D." Again Hunt gripped Larry's hand. "You're all to the good, Larry--and I'm not giving you half enough."
That provided Larry with the opening he had desired. "You can make it up to me."
"How?"
"By helping me out with a proposition of my own. To come straight to the point, it's Maggie."
"Maggie?"
"I guess you know how I feel there. She's got a wrong set of ideas, and she's fixed in them--and you know how high-spirited she is. She's out in the world now, trying to put something crooked over which she thinks is big. I know what it is. I want to stop her, and change her. That's my big aim--to change her. The only way I can at this moment stop what she is now doing is by exposing her. And mighty few people with a wrong twist are ever set right by merely being exposed."
"I guess you're right there, Larry."
"What I want is a chance to try another method on Maggie. If she's handled right I think she may turn out a very different person from what she seems to be--something that may surprise both of us."
Hunt nodded. "That was why I painted her picture. Since I first saw her I've been interested in how she was going to come out. She might become anything. But where do I fit in?"
"She's flying in high company. It occurred to me that, when you got back to your own world, you might meet her, and in your surprise you might speak to her in a manner which would be equivalent in its effect to an intentional exposure. I wanted to put you on your guard and to ask you to treat her as a stranger."
"That's promised. I won't know her."
"Don't promise till you know the rest."
"What else is there to know?"
"Who the sucker is they're trying to trim." Larry regarded the other steadily. "You know him. He's Dick Sherwood."
"Dick Sherwood!" exploded Hunt. "Are you sure about that?"
"I was with Maggie the other night when Dick came to have supper with her; he didn't see me. Besides, Dick has told me about her."
"How did they ever get hold of Dick?"
"Dick's the easiest kind of fish for two such smooth men as Barney and Old Jimmie when they've got a clever, good-looking girl as bait, and when they know how to use her. He's generous, easily impressed, thinks he is a wise man of the world and is really very gullible."
"Have they got him hooked?"
"Hard and fast. It won't be his fault if they don't land him."
The painter gazed at Larry with a hard look. Then he demanded abruptly:
"Show Miss Sherwood that picture of Maggie I painted?"
"No. I had my reasons."
"What you going to do with it?"
"Keep it, and pay you your top price for it when I've got the money."
"H'm! Told Miss Sherwood what's doing about Dick?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I thought of doing it, then I decided against it. For the same reason I just gave you--that it might lead to exposure, and that exposure would defeat my plans."
"You seem to be forgetting that your plan leaves Dick in danger. Dick deserves some consideration."
"And I'm giving it to him," argued Larry. "I'm thinking of him as much as of Maggie. Or almost as much. His sister and friends have pulled him out of a lot of scrapes. He's not a bit wiser or better for that kind of help. And it's not going to do him any good whatever to have some one step in and take care of him again. He's been a good friend