“It’s a diamond necklace,” Bradley went on. “Worth ten thousand—mebbe twenty. I’ve got that diamond necklace on me—never mind how I got it. Now, as I said, the dame that lost the ice lives in the Mordona. Also you’ve been living in the Mordona. Also, though they’ve never hung a case on you, the police know you’ve been a crook. Now, that there diamond necklace is going to be found by the police on Mary Regan. That’s item number one.”
He paused to watch the effect of this upon her. White, she looked at him unflinchingly.
“Here’s item number two. You see Nan Burdette, and Hilton, and Slim Harrison,—all publicly notorious characters,—and I know I ain’t offending any of them when I say that if there’s any such thing as morals, they ain’t never troubled any one of the three o’ them. There’s a big car outside—it’s got speed, believe me—and Slim is certainly some driver. In about two minutes Nan and Hilton and Slim and you start off on a joy-ride—and you’ll be fixed so you won’t do any objecting.”
Mary still gazed at him in white steadfastness. Clifford clutched his automatic with steely tenseness.
“And waiting in the harbor of Greenport, out at the end of Long Island, is a swell little motor yacht. The crew has all been fixed. In two or three hours—Slim here can make the run in about that time—the four of you go aboard and begin a joy-cruise among those islands and bays out there where nobody is ever goin’ to bother you. In about ten days the police will be tipped off as to who stole the necklace and where you’re to be found—and you’ll be pinched in this crowd here, and the necklace found in the bottom of your bag. This bunch will swear that you came along voluntarily—that you really helped get up the party. And the crew will testify how you and the others behaved—and the bunch here will admit it. Booze all the time—Slim, here, your special guy—the lid off everything. I guess you get me!”
If she did not, Clifford did. He drew a deep breath. It was all devilishly cunning. But tense and excited though he was, Clifford recognized that the situation was far larger than just this one case on which he looked; that in a limited way it was typical. Many a woman, in this world where he had been working these many months, had been the victim of kindred daring enterprises when necessary for the safety or the projects of these subtle entrepreneurs of Big Pleasure. And these women had never dared tell what had happened to them.
Bradley drove on at her. “And your being pinched on a joy-cruise with this bunch, which will stamp you as being the same sort of character—and that necklace being found on you—this, with what the police already know about you, will fix you good and proper! Squeal all you want to on me or Loveman, or anybody you like—you’ll be so smeared your word won’t count for a damn with a judge or anybody else!”
Terrible as it was, Clifford almost admired the plan, so ghastly was it in its completeness, its convincingness. He saw that Mary’s face was now drawn, her eyes wide—saw that she was perceiving as inescapable the cunning fate that had been planned for her—saw that she was seeing it as a thing beyond her ever to explain away.
Taut as a violin string, Clifford directed his senses to the front of the house for an instant—listening. Why were not Jimmie Kelly and the others on hand to reinforce him? He was not conscious that this scene, which had seemed so long to him, was in reality only a few minutes in the acting.
When he peered back into the dining-room, Jack was lurching toward Bradley. He halted swayingly and pointed a finger at the detective, the man that was in him struggling once more to rise.