“You’ll be out of sight here, and you’ll get every word.”

He stepped inside, and she closed the door.  Also she took the precaution of locking it.  She wished Hannigan to hear, but she wished no such contretemps as Hannigan bursting forth and spoiling her play when it had reached only the middle of its necessary action.

Barlow came promptly at half-past eight.  He brought news which for a few moments almost completely upset Maggie’s delicately balanced structure.

“I know who you are now,” he said brusquely.  “And part of your game’s cold before you start.”

“Why?—­What part?”

“Just after you left Headquarters Officer Gavegan showed up.  He had this Larry Brainard in tow—­had pinched him out on Long Island.”

This announcement staggered Maggie; for the moment made all her strenuous planning seem to have lost its purpose.  In her normal condition she might either have given up or betrayed her real intent.  But just now, in her super-excited state, in which she felt she was fighting desperately for others, she was acting far above her ordinary capacity; and she was making decisions so swift that they hardly seemed to proceed from conscious thought.  So Barlow, vigilant watcher of faces that he was, saw nothing unusual in her expression or manner.

“What did you do with him?” she asked.

“Left him with Gavegan—­and with Casey, who had just come in.  Trailing with Brainard was a swell named Hunt, cussing mad.  He was snorting around about being pals with most of the magistrates, and swore he’d have Brainard out on bail inside an hour.  But what he does don’t make any difference to me.  Your proposition seems to me dead cold, since I’ve already got Brainard, and got him right.  I wouldn’t have bothered to have come here at all except for something you let drop about the pals he might have been working with these last few months.”

“That’s exactly it,” she caught him up.  “I never thought that you’d catch Larry Brainard here.  How could I, when, if you know me as you say, you also know that he and I are in different camps—­are fighting each other?  What’s going to happen here is something that will show you the people Larry Brainard’s been mixed up with—­that will turn up for you the people you want.”

“But what’s going to happen?” Barlow demanded.

To this Maggie answered in much the same strain she had used with Hannigan a few minutes earlier.  “I told you down at Headquarters that everything that’s important you’ll learn by being present when the thing actually happened.  What I tell you doesn’t count for much—­it might not be true.  It’s what you see and hear for yourself when things begin to happen.  You’re to wait in here.”  She led him to the second large closet and opened the door.

“See here,” he demanded, “are you framing something on me?”

“How can I, in a big hotel like this?  And even if I were to try, you’d certainly make me pay for it later.  Besides, you’ve got a gun.  Please go in quick; I’m expecting the people here any minute.  And don’t make a sound that might arouse their suspicions and queer everything.”