The Big-Town Round-Up

  CHAPTER XXIX

  BAD NEWS

  Colin Whitford came into the room carrying a morning paper. His stepwas hurried, his eyes eager. When he spoke there was the lift ofexcitement in his voice.

  "Bee, I've got bad news."

  "Is the Bird Cage flooded?" asked Beatrice. "Or have the miners calleda strike again?"

  "Worse than that. Lindsay's been arrested. For murder."

  The bottom fell out of her heart. She caught at the corner of a deskto steady herself. "Murder! It can't be! Must be some one of thesame name."

  "I reckon not, honey. It's Clay sure enough. Listen." He read theheadlines of a front-page story.

  "It can't be Clay! What would he be doing in a gambling-dive?" Shereached for the paper, but when she had it the lines blurred before hereyes. "Read it, please."

  Whitford read the story to the last line. Long before he had finished,his daughter knew the one arrested was Clay. She sat down heavily, allthe life stricken from her young body.

  "It's that man Durand. He's done this and fastened it on Clay. We'llfind a way to prove Clay didn't do it."

  "Maybe, in self-defense--"

  Beatrice pushed back her father's hesitant suggestion, and even whileshe did it a wave of dread swept over her. The dead man was the samecriminal "Slim" Jim Collins whom the cattleman had threatened in orderto protect the Millikan girl. The facts that the man had been struckdown by a chair and that her friend claimed, according to the paper,that the gunman had fired two shots, buttressed the solution offered byWhitford. But the horror of it was too strong for her. Against reasonher soul protested that Clay could not have killed a man. It was toohorrible, too ghastly, that through the faults of others he should beput in such a situation.

  And why should her friend be in such a place unless he had been trappedby the enemies who were determined to ruin him? She knew he had acontempt for men who wasted their energies in futile dissipations. Hewas too clean, too much a son of the wind-swept desert, to careanything about the low pleasures of indecent and furtive vice. He wasthe last man she knew likely to be found enjoying a den of this sort.

  "Dad, I'm going to him," she announced with crisp decision.

  Her father offered no protest. His impulse, too, was to stand by thefriend in need. He had no doubt Clay had killed the man, but he had asure conviction it had been done in self-defense.

  "We'll get the best lawyers in New York for him, honey," he said."Nobody will slip anything over on Lindsay if we can help it."

  "Will they let us see him? Or shall we have to get permission fromsome one?"

  "We'll have to get an order. I know the district attorney. He'll dowhat he can for me, but maybe it'll take time."

  Beatrice rose, strong again and resilient. Her voice was vibrant withconfidence. "Then after you've called up the district attorney, we'lldrive to Clay's flat in Harlem and find out from Johnnie what he cantell us. Perhaps he knows what Clay was doing in that place theyraided."

  It was not necessary to go to the Runt. He came to them. As Beatriceand her father stepped into the car Johnnie and Kitty appeared roundthe corner. Both of them had the news of a catastrophe written ontheir faces. A very little encouragement and they would be in tears.

  "Ain't it tur'ble, Miss Beatrice? They done got Clay at last. Afterhe made 'em all look like plugged nickels they done fixed it so he'llmebbe go to the electric chair and--"

  "Stop that nonsense, Johnnie," ordered Miss Whitford sharply, a painstabbing her heart at his words. "Don't begin whining already. We'vegot to see him through. Buck up and tell me what you know."

  "That's right, Johnnie,"' added the mining man. "You and Kitty quitlooking like the Atlantic Ocean in distress. We've got to endure thegrief and get busy. We'll get Lindsay out of this hole all right."

  "You're dawg-goned whistlin'. Y'betcha, by jollies!" agreed the Runt,immensely cheered by Whitford's confidence. "We been drug into thisan' we'll sure hop to it."

  "When did you see Clay last? How did he come to be in thatgambling-house? Did he say anything to you about going there?" Thegirl's questions tumbled over each other in her hurry.

  "Well, ma'am, it must 'a' been about nine o'clock that Clay he leftlast night. I recollect because--"

  "It doesn't matter why. Where was he going?"

  "To meet Mr. Bromfield at his club," said Kitty.

  "Mr. Bromfield!" cried Beatrice, surprised. "Are you sure?"

  "Tha's what Clay said," corroborated the husband. "Mr. Bromfieldinvited him. We both noticed it because it seemed kinda funny, him andClay not bein'--"

  "Johnnie," his wife reproved, mindful of the relationship between thisyoung woman and the clubman.

  "Did he say which club?"

  "Seems to me he didn't, not as I remember. How about that, Kitty?"

  "No, I'm sure he didn't. He said he wouldn't be back early. So wewent to bed. We s'posed after we got up this mo'nin' he was sleepin'in his room till the paper come and I looked at it." Johnnie gave wayto lament. "I told him awhile ago we had orto go back to Arizona orthey'd git him. And now they've gone and done it sure enough."

  Keen as a hawk on the hunt, Beatrice turned to her father quickly."I'm going to get Clarendon on the 'phone. He'll know all about it."

  "Why will he know all about it?"

  "Because he was with Clay. He's the man the paper says the police arelooking for--the man with Clay when it happened."

  Her father's eyes lit. "That's good guessing, Bee."

  It was her fiance's man who answered the girl's call. She learned thatClarendon was still in his room.

  "He's quite sick this morning, Miss," the valet added.

  "Tell him I want to talk with him. It's important."

  "I don't think, Miss, that he's able--"

  "Will you please tell him what I say?"

  Presently the voice of Bromfield, thin and worried, came to her overthe wire. "I'm ill, Bee. Absolutely done up. I--I can't talk."

  "Tell me about Clay Lindsay. Were you with him when--when it happened?"

  There was a perceptible pause before the answer came.

  "With him?" She could feel his terror throbbing over the wire. Thoughshe could not see him, she knew her question had stricken him white."With him where?"

  "At this gambling-house--Maddock's?"

  "No, I--I--Bee, I tell you I'm ill."

  "He went out last night to join you at your club. I know that. Whendid you see him last?"

  "I--we didn't--he didn't come."

  "Then didn't you see him at all?"

  There was another pause, significant and telling, followed by aquavering "No-o."

  "Clary, I want to see you--right away."

  "I'm ill, I tell you--can't leave my bed." He gave a groan too genuineto doubt.

  Beatrice hung up the receiver. Her eyes sparked. For all herslimness, she looked both competent and dangerous.

  "What does he say?" her father asked.

  "Says he didn't meet Clay at all--that he didn't show up. Dad, there'ssomething wrong about it. Clary's in a panic about something. I'mgoing to see him, no matter whether he can leave his room or not."

  Whitford looked dubious. "I don't see--"

  "Well, I do," his daughter cut him off decisively. "We're going to hisrooms--now. Why not? He says he's ill. All right. I'm engaged to bemarried to him and I've a right to see how ill he is."

  "What's in your noodle, honey? You've got some kind of a suspicion.What is it?"

  "I think Clary knows something. My notion is that he was at Maddock'sand that he's in a blue funk for fear he'll be found and named as anaccessory. I'm going to find out all he can tell me."

  "But--"

  She looked at her father directly, a deep meaning in the lovely eyes.A little tremor ran through her body. "Dad, I'm going to save Clay.That's the only thing that counts."

  Her words were an appeal, a challenge. They told him that her hear
tbelonged to the friend in prison, and they carried him back somehow tothe hour when the nurse first laid her, a tiny baby, in his arms.

  His heart was very tender to her. "Whatever you say, sweetheart."