There was little chance that the police would search her place or greatly bother her.  To the police mind, now that Larry was aware he was known to be in New York, the pawnshop would obviously be the last place in which he would seek refuge or through which he would have dealings.  Nevertheless, the Duchess deemed it wise to lose no moment and to neglect no possible caution.  Therefore, while Barney was still with Chief Barlow and before the general order regarding Larry had more than reached the various police stations, the Duchess, in cape, hat, and veil, was out of her house.  A block up the street lived the owner of two or three taxicabs, concerning whom the Duchess, who was almost omniscient in her own world, knew much that the said owner ardently desired should be known no further.  A few sentences with this gentleman, and fifteen minutes later, huddled back in the darkened corner of a taxicab, she rolled over the Queensboro Bridge out upon Long Island on her mission of releasing a fact whose effect she could not foresee.

An hour and a half after that Larry was leading her to a bench in the scented darkness of the Sherwoods’ lawn.  She had telephoned “Mr. Brandon” from a drug-store booth in Flushing, and Larry had been waiting for her near the entrance to Cedar Crest.

“What brought you out here like this, grandmother?” Larry whispered in amazement as he sat down beside her.

“To tell you that the police are after you,” she whispered back.

“I knew that already.”

“Yes, I knew that you would.”

“But how did you find out?”

“Maggie told me.”

“Maggie!”

“She came down to see me, told me what had just happened at her place, told me about Barney hurrying away to slip the news to that Gavegan, and begged me to warn you at once.  She was terribly nervous and wrought up.”

“Maggie did that!” he breathed.  His heart leaped at her unexpected concern for him.  “Maggie did that!” And then:  “There wasn’t any need; she should have known that I would know.”

“It was rather foolish in a way—­but Maggie was too excited to use cool reason.”

His grandmother did not speak for a moment.  “Her losing her head and coming shows that she cares for you, Larry.”

He could make no response.  This was indeed the clearest evidence Maggie had yet given that possibly she might care.

“Maggie may have lost her head in her excitement,” he managed to say; “but, grandmother, there was no reason for you to lose your head so far as to come away out here to tell me about the police.”

“I didn’t come away out here to tell you about the police,” she replied.  “I came to tell you something else.”

“Yes?”

“You’re sure you really care for Maggie?”

“I told you that when I was down to see you this evening.”

Though the Duchess had decided, the desire to protect Larry remained tenaciously in her and made it hard for her jealous love to take a risk.  “You’re sure she might turn out all right—­that is, under better influences?”