“Maggie!” he breathed.  Then impulsively he started toward her authoritatively.  “Maggie, I’m not going to let you do anything of the sort!”

But swiftly Barney had stepped in between them, Old Jimmie just behind him.

“Keep out of this!” Barney snapped at Larry, a reddish blaze in his eyes.  “Maggie’s going away and you can’t stop her.  D’you think her father is going to let her stay down here any longer, where you can spout your preaching at her!—­and you all the time a stool and a squealer!”

“What’s that?” cried Larry.

“I called you a stool!” repeated the malignantly exultant Barney, alert for any move on the part of the suddenly tensed Larry.  “And you are a stool!  Didn’t I see you myself go into Headquarters with Casey and Gavegan where you sold yourself to Chief Barlow!”

“Why, you damned—­”

Even before he spoke Larry launched a furious swing straight from the hip at Barney’s twisted face.  But Barney had been expecting exactly that, and was even the quicker.  He caught Larry’s wrist before it was fairly started, and thrust a dull-hued automatic into Larry’s stomach.

“Behave; damn you,” gritted Barney, “or I’ll blow your damned guts out!  No—­go ahead and try to hit me.  I’d like nothing better than to kill you, you rat, and have a good plea of self-defense!”

Larry let his hands unclench and fall to his sides.  “You’ve got the drop on me, Barney—­but you’re a liar.”

“You bet I got the drop on you!  And not only with my gun.  I’ve got it on you about being a stool.  Everybody knows you are a stool.  And what’s more, they know you are a squealer!”

“A squealer!” Larry stiffened again.

“A stool and a squealer!” Barney fairly hurled at Larry these two most despised epithets of his world.  “You’ve done your job swell as a stool, and squealed on Red Hannigan and Jack Rosenfeldt and turned them up for the police!”

“You believe I had anything to do with their arrest?” exclaimed Larry.

Barney laughed in his derision.

“Of course we believe it,” put in Old Jimmie, his seamed, cunning face now ruthlessly hard.  “And what’s more, we know it!”

“And what’s still more,” Barney taunted, “Maggie believes it, too!”

Larry turned to Maggie.  Her face was now drawn, with staring eyes.

“Maggie—­do you believe it?” he demanded.

For a moment she neither spoke nor moved.  Then slowly she nodded.

“But, Maggie,” he protested, “I didn’t do it!  Barlow did ask me to be a stool, but I turned him down!  Aside from that, I know no more of this than you do!”

“Of course you’d deny it—­we were waiting for that,” sneered Barney.  “Jimmie, we’ve wasted enough time here.  Take Maggie’s bag and let’s be moving on.”

Old Jimmie picked up Maggie’s suitcase, and slipping a hand through her arm led her across the room.  She did not even say good-bye to Hunt or the Duchess, or even glance at them; but went out silently, her drawn, staring look on Larry alone.