And Shirley swung, and swung and swung!

CHAPTER XXII

IN THE DOUBLE TRAP

Eternity had passed, the Judgment Day had been overlooked and new aeons had gone their way, it seemed to the criminologist, when the voice was audible again.

“Oh, all right.  I just drew it down from the top.  Tell me about your doping.  Who was the devil?”

He had been unobserved.  By the grace of the fates, Warren’s sudden appearance had given him a better chance to hear their secrets, and Taylor’s own abstraction had dissipated any interest in the world beyond the window.  Again he lifted himself to the level of the sill, sure that the creamy curtains upon which the light from the big electrolier was beaming, would shield him from their view.  Warren called for some brandy.  Taylor served him, but it was three minutes or more before the other could collect himself.  Then he began furiously, as the pain in his forehead diminished.

“This Shirley:  he’s a clever dog.  He put something on my handkerchief, and when I got that message of yours it got me, right in the taxicab, as I was on my way to the Blue Goose to meet you.”

“To meet me?” and Taylor’s turn came to be startled.  “I don’t know why you should meet me at the Blue Goose!”

“Say, didn’t you send me this note in code?” demanded Warren, drawing out the typewritten sheet.  Taylor shook his head, with a blanched face.

The other looked at him with the first evidence of fear which Shirley had ever seen on the confident face.  Warren caught his assistant’s hand, and drew his face down toward the note.

“Look, it is in our code.  Phil can read it but he is the only one beside you.  He is locked up in jail, and couldn’t reach a typewriter.  I got a message from him this afternoon that he wouldn’t squeal.  You know how he smuggled it out to me.  Tell me how could any one know about the Monk and write this so?”

Taylor shook his head, speechless.  As he turned his face toward the window Shirley observed the great drawn shadows under his squinting eyes.  The sudden shock was telling on that weasel face.  Taylor walked unsteadily toward the infernal machine, and he looked blankly toward Warren again.  The other’s blazing orbs were full upon him now.  There was a frightful menace in their glittering depths as he spoke.

“Taylor, if I thought you had sold out I’d skin you alive right now!”

“Reg—­Reg—­you are my best friend.  Don’t say a thing like that.”

“Are you selling me for some purpose.  Are you soft on that chicken?  Has she blarneyed you into this?” demanded his chief, rising, unsteadily, but fierce in his suspicious tensity.

Taylor cowered, with imploring hands stretched out.

“Why, Reg, no one ever did for me what you’ve done.  I’d die rather than sell you out, and there ain’t a dame in the world that could make me soft on a real game like this.”