The Frame Up | Page 4

scored as a detective and as a driver of racing-cars. As Wharton's chauffeur he now doubled the parts.
"What Nolan testified wouldn't be any help," said Wharton. "They would say it was just a story he invented to save me."
"Then square yourself this way," urged Rumson. "Send a note now by hand to Ham Cutler and one to your sister. Tell them you're going to Ida Earle's--and why--tell them you're afraid it's a frame-up, and for them to keep your notes as evidence. And enclose the one from her."
Wharton nodded in approval, and, while he wrote, Rumson and the detective planned how, without those inside the road- house being aware of their presence, they might be near it.
Kessler's Cafe lay in the Seventy-ninth Police Precinct. In taxi-cabs they arranged to start at once and proceed down White Plains Avenue, which parallels the Boston Road, until they were on a line with Kessler's, but from it hidden by the woods and the garages. A walk of a quarter of a mile across lots and under cover of the trees would bring them to within a hundred yards of the house.
Wharton was to give them a start of half an hour. That he might know they were on watch, they agreed, after they dismissed the taxi-cabs, to send one of them into the Boston Post Road past the road-house. When it was directly in front of the cafe, the chauffeur would throw away into the road an empty cigarette-case.
From the cigar-stand they selected a cigarette box of a startling yellow. At half a mile it was conspicuous.
"When you see this in the road," explained Rumson, "you'll know we're on the job. And after you're inside, if you need us, you've only to go to a rear window and wave."
"If they mean to do him up," growled Bissell, "he won't get to a rear window."
"He can always tell them we're outside," said Rumson----"and they are extremely likely to believe him. Do you want a gun?"
"No," said the D. A.
"Better have mine,"' urged Hewitt.
"I have my own," explained the D. A.
Rumson and Hewitt set off in taxi-cabs and, a half-hour later, Wharton followed. As he sank back against the cushions of the big touring-car he felt a pleasing thrill of excitement, and as he passed the traffic police, and they saluted mechanically, he smiled. Had they guessed his errand their interest in his progress would have been less perfunctory. In half an hour he might know that the police killed Banf; in half an hour he himself might walk into a trap they had, in turn, staged for him. As the car ran swiftly through the clean October air, and the wind and sun alternately chilled and warmed his blood, Wharton considered these possibilities.
He could not believe the woman Earle would lend herself to any plot to do him bodily harm. She was a responsible person. In her own world she was as important a figure as was the district attorney in his. Her allies were the man "higher up " in Tammany and the police of the upper ranks of the uniformed force. And of the higher office of the district attorney she possessed an intimate and respectful knowledge. It was not to be considered that against the prosecuting attorney such a woman would wage war. So the thought that upon his person any assault was meditated Wharton dismissed as unintelligent. That it was upon his reputation the attack was planned seemed much more probable. But that contingency he had foreseen and so, he believed, forestalled. There then remained only the possibility that the offer in the letter was genuine. It seemed quite too good to be true. For, as he asked himself, on the very eve of an election, why should Tammany, or a friend of Tammany, place in his possession the information that to the Tammany candidate would bring inevitable defeat. He felt that the way they were playing into his hands was too open, too generous. If their object was to lead him into a trap, of all baits they might use the promise to tell him who killed Banf was the one certain to attract him. It made their invitation to walk into the parlor almost too obvious. But were the offer not genuine, there was a condition attached to it that puzzled him. It was not the condition that stipulated he should come alone. His experience had taught him many will confess, or betray, to the district attorney who, to a deputy, will tell nothing. The condition that puzzled him was the one that insisted he should come at once or it would be "too late."
Why was haste so imperative? Why, if he delayed, would he be "too late"? Was the man he sought about to escape from his