“In case I’m overlooking anything good,” Loveman remarked in the same gentle voice, “would you mind telling me just what these possibilities are?”
“Of course the marriage had to be secret; otherwise the possibilities would have been cut down by two thirds. First item, after the marriage had taken place, there was the possibility of getting hush money out of Mary Regan by threatening to expose her. You would never have appeared in this; Bradley would have attended to this detail—perhaps through one of his men. Second, after you had exhausted the possibilities of blackmail, the next step would have been to inform the father that you suspected something was wrong with Jack. The father would order the matter looked into; you would engage Bradley for the job, and after a lengthy examination Bradley would report a secret marriage—a big bill for detective services. Third, you would then be retained to annul the marriage—and a big fee there. Well, Loveman, Bradley,” he ended grimly, “I believe that’s just about the outline of this particular sweet little game!”
Bradley was glaring at him, his square jaws clamped upon his cigar. Little Loveman, still with his affable look, was twirling the tasseled end of his girdle around a chubby forefinger.
“You’re very ingenious, very imaginative, Clifford. But granting for the moment that you are correct, what next?”
Clifford leaned sharply forward. “You are not going through with it! I’m going to stop you!”
Clifford gazed tensely at the two men. A slight quivering ran through Bradley’s frame; his cigar fell, bitten through; his small, brilliant eyes were points of vicious flame. Loveman still twirled the end of his girdle, but now a bit more slowly. And thus the three sat for several moments.
Then suddenly, without warning of word, seemingly without any preliminary motion, Bradley’s powerful body launched itself from a sitting posture straight at Clifford. Clifford started to rise, and instinctively threw up his arms; but to no avail, for Bradley’s big hands broke past his weak defense and gripped his throat. His chair went toppling over, the table with its cargo of liquors went crashing to the floor, and Clifford was carried resistlessly backward by the force of Bradley’s lunge, until he came up against the great library table. Over this he toppled, his spine against the table’s edge, and Bradley drove his head down upon the wood with a terrific thump.
“You’ll stop nothing!” grated Bradley. “You’ve butted into my affairs for the last time!”
Clifford tried to struggle free, but he was caught at too hopeless a disadvantage—his spine upon the edge of the table, Bradley’s weight crushing upon him, and that pair of hands clutching his throat. He could move only his arms, and those to no purpose; he could not cry out; he could not breathe. As his chest heaved for lack of air, he read his doom in the deadly fury of Bradley’s face. And he realized, even could he call for help, the futility of such an outcry in this apartment at the top of a lofty building, at this heavily slumbrous hour of four.
He had been faintly conscious of hurried fumblings about the desk—of the snap of a lock—of the whine of a sliding drawer. Now, suddenly, as his wide eyes were growing bleared, he saw a dark something appear between his face and the face of Bradley a bare two feet away. And then he saw the something was a short, black pistol, and that the pistol was flush against Bradley’s jaw, and that the pistol was gripped in a soft, round hand that was indubitably Loveman’s. And he heard Loveman’s voice, no longer velvety, snap out:—