The Early Ayn Rand (15 page)

“I’d like to know,” Mr. Scraggs cried in furious amazement, “what the hell is the meaning of your strange . . . Where are you going?! Hey! Stop! Come here at once! Where are you going?”

But Laury did not hear him. He was flying madly down the stairs, out into the street, into his sports car. . . .

His apartment was empty when he got there. Jinx’s perfume was still lingering in the air. A pair of adorable little slippers was thrown into a chair. The sofa cushions were still crumpled where they had been sitting together. . . .

He found a note on his desk.

“You gentlemen of the press,” said Mr. Winford to Laury, “are most decidedly aggravating, I must say. You should realize that I am not exactly in the mood to give you interviews and information on this painful subject. . . . No, I repeat, the individual who calls himself Damned Dan did not come to this second meeting, as he promised, an hour after the first. I waited for him to no avail and I just returned home. That is all I know. . . . But I do wish that you gentlemen would not be so insistent in paying me visits that are becoming rather too frequent.”

Laury stared at him hopelessly.

“And, young man,” Mr. Winford added severely, “I would give a little more consideration to my personal appearance before calling at people’s houses, if I were you.”

Laury glanced indifferently into a big, full-size mirror in the white marble hall of the Winford residence, and the mirror showed to him a haggard, disheveled young man, with his hair hanging down on his wet forehead, his cap backwards on his head, his shirt torn open and his necktie on his shoulder.

The sight did not affect him at all; he had had too many shocks this day to retain any faculty of reaction. The last shock had been the worst of all; from his apartment he had rushed straight to the Winford residence, hoping to find Jinx there; he had found only Mr. Winford just returned from his second appointment with Pug-Nose Thomson and Pug-Nose had
not
come to this meeting! Why? Jinx was in his power now. What had happened?

Laury bowed to Mr. Winford wearily.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Winford,” he said in a dull voice. “I’m rather upset over a very serious matter. . . . Thank you for the information. . . . Goodnight!”

He turned and left the wide, empty hall dimly lighted by crystal chandeliers reflected in the dark mirrors and polished marble floor, Mr. Winford’s lonely figure motionless among tall, white columns and the faint sound of Mrs. Winford’s sobs, somewhere in a distant room.

He drove his rattling sports car on the graveled road of the Winford gardens, rolling downhill, with a fountain tinkling somewhere in the darkness like breaking glass and the lights of Dicksville glittering far down under his feet between the branches of tall, black cypresses.

With each turn of the wheels his face was becoming grimmer and grimmer. He was calm now, and implacable. There was only one thing to do—and he had decided to do it.

He was going straight to Police Headquarters to throw them on Pug-Nose Thomson’s trail. He knew that once Pug-Nose was caught, it would be the end of him, too, for the bum certainly would not keep silent. For the first time he felt a cold shudder at the thought of jail. So that was the fate awaiting him! Such was to be the end of his glorious journalistic career that had just been starting so brilliantly! A kidnapper, a criminal, a convict. . . . Oh, well, it had to be done!

He did not hesitate for a moment, for there was only one reason, expressed in one word, that pushed him to action: Jinx! His whole being was one immense anxiety for her. Where was she now and what was happening to her? He closed his eyes not to see Pug-Nose Thomson’s picture that rose in his mind. . . .

It was a proud, determined Laury that entered Chief Police Inspector Rafferty’s office; a Laury cold, imperative, and impersonal, like a general ready for a dangerous battle, calm with the calm of a great moment.

“Get your men, Inspector,” he ordered, “to arrest Miss Winford’s kidnapper!”

“Cats and rats!!” cried Chief Police Inspector Rafferty.

Pug-Nose Thomson’s hangouts were pretty well known to the police. It would not take long to make their round, and Inspector Rafferty decided to go himself in his excitement over the biggest case of his whole career. He called two husky policemen to accompany him.

Laury, true to his duty to the last, rushed to a telephone.

“Mr. Scraggs?” he cried, when he got the
Dawn
’s editorial desk. “It’s McGee speaking! Send your best man over to Police Headquarters right away! There’s going to be a knockout of a story! . . . No, I won’t be able to cover it! . . . You’ll learn why, very soon! . . . Goodbye! Hurry!”

Such was the interest aroused by the Winford case that when Inspector Rafferty, Laury, and the two policemen were leaving Headquarters, Mr. Jonathan Scraggs in person bounced out of a speeding taxi before it had quite stopped, and joined them. He was accompanied by Vic Perkins.

“So Pug-Nose Thomson is Damned Dan?” asked Mr. Scraggs, a note of disappointment in his voice, as the police car dashed into the dark streets, its siren screaming piercingly.

“Well, not quite. But you’re going to find Damned Dan, too,” answered Laury with resignation. . . .

They found Pug-Nose Thomson in the dirty back room of an old, miserable tenement. The room had one tiny window with dusty pieces of broken glass sticking out and a wretched little gas lamp that hardly gave enough light to distinguish Pug-Nose Thomson’s huge bulk huddled over an old, unpainted table, drinking desperately. He was alone.

“Where’s Miss Winford?” cried Laury.

Pug-Nose looked with hazy eyes at the group of men in his doorway, and the gleaming brass buttons were the first thing he understood.

“So yuh squealed, yuh goddamn louse, yuh did?” he yelled, jumping at Laury, but the two policemen seized him, one by each arm, and handcuffed his big, hairy fists.

“Where’s the girl?” asked Inspector Rafferty in a threatening voice.

“The girl? The girl, she’s gone, damn her, she escaped from me!”

“How could she escape?”

“How
could
she? Oh boy! The only thing I wonder ’bout is how that boob managed to keep her fer three days!” And he shook his fist at Laury.

“What do you mean?” cried Mr. Scraggs.

“Haw-haw! So yuh don’t know, do yuh? Damned Dan—there he is, in his own person! Shake hands an’ make yerself acquainted!” And he bellowed his ferocious laugh into Laury’s face.

“The man’s insane!” Mr. Scraggs exclaimed.

“Who’s insane, yuh old fool? Sure, I stole the girl, but I stole her from him! He’s the one that pulled the whole thing! Yuh thought maybe I wouldn’t squeal on yuh, yuh dirty double-crosser?”

Five pairs of bulging eyes turned to Laury. He looked at them, cold, silent, immobile. He did not want to deny it; he knew that his guilt could be proved too easily.

“Why . . . Laury! . . . Why . . .” choked Mr. Scraggs.

Silently, Laury stretched his hand out to Inspector Rafferty for the handcuffs.

“My stars in heaven!” was all Mr. Scraggs could utter.

“Hot diggity dog!” added Vic Perkins. . . .

Laury was silent in the car all the way down to the jail, and the five men did not dare to look at him. Pug-Nose snored by his side.

The big door of the damp, gray jail building opened like a gaping mouth, eager to swallow Laury, and the heavy iron gratings clicked like hungry teeth. Inspector Rafferty had to kick the jailer on the back to get him out of the trance he had fallen into, on learning who his new prisoner was and why.

When the rusty grate of his cell closed after him, Laury turned suddenly and handed a piece of paper to the jailer with a few words written in the form of a headline. The words were:

“Give that to Mr. Scraggs,” said Laury sadly. “That, too, will make good copy!”

“I suppose,” said Inspector Rafferty, entering his office with Mr. Scraggs, Vic Perkins, and the two policemen, “I suppose Miss Winford is safe at home by this time. I shall inquire.”

He called up the Winford residence and asked if Miss Winford had returned home.

“No! Oh, my God, no!” answered Mrs. Winford’s hysterical voice.

The five men looked at each other, dumbfounded.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” cried Inspector Rafferty, falling into a chair. “What a case! What’s happened now?”

Laury’s apartment being the only place they could think of searching, all five of them rushed back to the car and hurried there at full speed. They were not only anxious by this time, they were panic-stricken.

When they entered Laury’s apartment, Jinx herself met them. She had one of Laury’s shirts draped gracefully instead of an apron, with the two sleeves tied around her waist, and she was in the kitchen, cooking dinner.

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she asked with the charming smile of a gracious hostess.

“Miss . . . Miss Winford!” gulped Inspector Rafferty. He was the only one that had retained the use of his voice.

Jinx stood facing them, perfectly poised, smiling, unperturbed, a slight interrogative frown raising her eyebrows, as though waiting politely for an explanation.

“I . . . I’m glad to see you safe, Miss Winford,” muttered Inspector Rafferty, not at all sure whether he quite understood just what the situation was. “I’m glad we managed to rescue you at last!”

“Oh, you did?”

“Yes, Miss Winford! You have nothing to fear from him any more!”

“Fear from whom?”

“The young man that kidnapped you, Laurence McGee!”

“Laurence McGee?” Jinx shouted.
“Laurence McGee?”

And such a thunder of laughter exploded like a bomb with splinters ringing all over the room, that Inspector Rafferty and his companions started, terrified.

“Oh . . . oh, how adorable!” Jinx laughed, understanding the real meaning and reason of the whole case.

“You are glad that we arrested him, is that it?” asked Inspector Rafferty timidly, very much surprised.

“Arrested?
Him?
Oh, my God! . . . Inspector, you must release him immediately!”

Vic Perkins, who had been taking notes, dropped his pad and pencil.

“It’s all a big misunderstanding, Inspector!” Jinx said quickly, still anxious, but regaining her calm.

“A misunderstanding, Miss Winford?”

“You see, I’ve never been kidnapped,” she explained, so sweetly, so sincerely that it would have been hard to doubt the straight look of her bold, mocking eyes. “I feel that you ought to know the truth, and I must confess everything. Mr. McGee did not kidnap me. We have known each other for a long time, and we were in love, and we eloped to get married; because, you see, my parents would have objected to it. So we made it look like a kidnapping to throw them off the track. It was all my idea!”

The five faces before her were frozen with the queerest expressions she had ever seen.

“Of course, I escaped from that broken-nosed bum, who tried to butt in, and then I came right back here. So there wasn’t any particular need to rescue me.”

“I . . . I don’t . . . I’ve never in my life . . . I . . .” Inspector Rafferty felt that his power of speech had been knocked out together with the rest of his reasoning abilities.

“Oh, dear Inspector!” Jinx gave him her sweetest smile and her most innocent look. “Surely you won’t break my heart and be too severe with my poor fiance?”

“Of . . . of course . . . I see that it . . . it changes the situation,” stuttered Inspector Rafferty.

“Where is he now?”

“In jail, Miss Win—”

“In jail? How dare you! Come, at once, set him free!”

And she rushed out, flying like a bullet down the stairs, the five men hardly able to follow her.

She jumped at the wheel of the police car, pushing the chauffeur aside.

“Never mind, I’m a better driver than any of you!” she cried in reply to Inspector Rafferty’s protest. “Jump in! Hurry!”

And the big car tore forward like a rocket, with a deafening whistle of the siren, in the hands of the little blue driver with wild, flying hair. . . .

“Don’t try to write it, Vic, old boy!” Mr. Scraggs cried, striving to be heard above the roar of the speeding machine. “No words will ever cover
that
story!”

Jinx had to wait in the jail reception room, while Inspector Rafferty and the jailer went to bring Laury.

They found him lying on his cot, his face in his hands. But he jumped up when they entered the cell and faced them calmly, the brave gray eyes steady and unfaltering.

“I must apologize, Mr. McGee,” said Inspector Rafferty, “though, of course, you shouldn’t have kept silent. But I’m glad to say that you are free to go now.”

“I’m . . . free?”

“Yes, we know the whole truth. Miss Winford confessed everything.”

“She did?”

Laury was stupefied, but he had learned by this time that it was better not to protest against anything Jinx said.

He walked to the reception room. Jinx rushed to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him, before the eyes of all the witnesses.

“Oh,
Laury
darling, I’m so sorry you had to suffer like that for me!” she cried.

“It was very noble of you to keep silent, but, really, you should have told them the truth,” she went on, as though without noticing the amazed look in his eyes. “I told them everything, how we eloped to get married and how I made up the kidnapping story to deceive my parents. You can tell them it’s true now, darling!”