Neely beams on Pomeroy and on Kavanaugh. "That's fine," he says. He turns his head to beam on his followers. "Ain't that fine, boys?" he asks. "Mr. Kavanaugh knows all about it."

The boys do not say anything.

Neely returns his attention to Pomeroy.

Pomeroy repeats his question: "Why did you come up here?"

Neely pushes his Derby a little back on his head, hooks thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and says amiably: "Well, I'll tell you, Pommy. You know we were in a little trouble. Well, it got worse, and I said to the boys: 'Boys, Mr. Pomeroy is our friend and he's a respectable millionaire, and respectable millionaires don't ever get into any trouble except over women, so we'll go up and visit with him and get him to show us how he keeps out of it.'"

Pomeroy wets his lips with his tongue. "I-I can't help you," he says.

Neely claps him on the shoulder again. "Sure you can," he says jovially. "Don't worry. There's no hurry about it. We'll stay here and visit with you two or three days while you figure something out. The boys like your place." He turns his head over his shoulder to ask: "Don't you boys?"

The boys do not say anything.

Pomeroy looks despairingly at Kavanaugh. The dapper elderly attorney is rigid with anger and seems on the point of bursting into speech, but when he sees the three "boys" regarding him with coldly curious eyes, he coughs a little and subsides.

"Well," Neely says with good-natured decisiveness. "That's settled. How about putting on the feed-bag? We ain't had lunch yet." He puts an arm across Pomeroy's back and starts him toward the house, "A shot of steam wouldn't do us any harm, either."

Pomeroy allows himself to be guided back to the house. Kavanaugh hesitates, looks at the three "boys" who are looking at him, and trots along behind Neely and Pomeroy. The three bring up the rear.

At the house, Pomeroy opens the door and steps aside to let the others enter. Kavanaugh halts beside him. Neely and his three followers go in. Pomeroy puts his mouth to Kavanaugh's ear. "Get Richmond," he says.

Kavanaugh nods. He and Pomeroy go indoors.

Richmond's office. He is seated at his desk. Babe Holliday is rocking vigorously back and forth in another chair.

"There's nothing to it, Gene," she is saying. "The kid hasn't been away over a weekend for six months, and then only to his cousin's in San Francisco. And you can count the nights he's been out after midnight on the toes of your left foot. He goes to the movies and he reads, and that lets him out. I talked to-"

The telephone bell interrupts her.

Richmond speaks into the phone: "Gene Richmond speaking."

The other end of the wire. Kavanaugh crouched somewhat furtively over the telephone. His eyes dart toward the closed door. He speaks into the instrument in a low voice: "This is Ward Kavanaugh, Mr. Richmond. You may consider your terms accepted."

Richmond, quietly business-like: "Thanks. Where's Pomeroy? How soon can I see him?"

Kavanaugh: "He's here at Green Lake, but-"

Richmond: "I'll be up this evening."

Kavanaugh, looking fearfully at the door again, splutters: "But they are here too, Mr. Richmond!"

Richmond: "Swell! We can all gather around the fireplace and pop corn and tell ghost stories. I'm leaving right away."

Kavanaugh: "Are you sure you ought to-"

Richmond, rea.s.suringly: "Just leave it to me." He puts down the telephone, stares thoughtfully at it for a moment, lips pursed, eyes dreamy and narrow; then his face clears again and he turns in his swivel chair to face Babe Holliday.

A formal garden beside Pomeroy's house at Green Lake. Cheaters Neely, Buck, the Dis-and-Dat Kid, and Happy Jones are walking in pairs down a path, looking around with manifest approval.

A girl of twenty-one comes up the path toward them. She is dressed in white and carries a tennis racket. She is lithe, beautiful, somewhat haughty. As she approaches the four men she holds her head high and regards them with disapproving eyes.

They halt, blocking the path. The Dis-and-Dat Kid's fidgety eyes look her up and down, ogle her, and he runs the tip of his tongue over his lips. Buck stares somberly at her. Happy Jones turns his back to her and pretends interest in the shrubbery. Neely grins amiably at her.

As they make no move to clear the path for her, she halts in front of them, regarding them haughtily.

Neely points a finger at the tennis racket and says, familiarly: "h.e.l.lo, sister. How's the racket?" Then he laughs merrily at his joke.

The girl starts to speak, then bites her lip angrily, puts her chin higher in the air, steps out of the path, walks around them, and goes on toward the house.

The four men turn in unison to watch her.

"That's a pain in the neck," Buck growls.

The Dis-and-Dat Kid leers at the girl's back. "I'll take it," he says.

Happy Jones whines: "I like a woman with some meat on her."

Buck looks at Happy's thin frame. "You got a lot to give her," he says.

They retrace their steps to the house, going leisurely around to the back and entering through the kitchen, where the cook, a buxom middle-aged woman in white, is directing the activities of two a.s.sistants. She looks around indignantly as they come in.

They stroll through the kitchen in single file, looking around curiously. The Dis-and-Dat Kid spies a chicken on a platter. He picks up a knife, slashes off a drumstick and bites into it.

The cook, hands on hips, advances angrily, "Here! What are you up to? Clear out of here!"

Buck scowls at her. "Aw, go poach your kidneys," he growls. He leans over, tears the other drumstick from the chicken and stuffs half of it into his mouth.

They leave the kitchen through a doorway opposite the one by which they entered. Happy Jones pauses in the doorway to look back, amorously, at the angry cook.

The Dis-and-Dat Kid nudges Buck, points his drumstick at the sad-faced man in the doorway, sn.i.g.g.e.rs, and says: "Ain't dat somepin'?"

They go through the pantry and dining room into a hallway, strolling idly, the Kid and Buck gnawing their drumsticks. In the hallway they see the girl in white again. Her eyes darken with anger when she sees them. She goes haughtily up the stairs. They stand and watch her mount the stairs. They keep their hats on.

She goes into a room on the second floor. Pomeroy and Kavanaugh are seated there. The room is furnished with elaborately carved, stamped, and bra.s.s-studded Spanish office furniture. There is a stock-ticker in one corner. Through an open door, part of Pomeroy's bedroom can be seen.

Kavanaugh rises and bows as the girl enters. Pomeroy says: "h.e.l.lo, Ann. How'd the game go?"

Both men have put their best attempts at smiling unconcern on their faces for her.

She is still angry. "Father, who are those horrible men?" she asks.

He glances apprehensively at Kavanaugh, then smiles as carelessly as he can at his daughter and asks: "You mean those-" He finishes the sentence with aimless motions of his hands.

"Those four horrible, horrible men!" she says.

He smiles paternally at her. "They won't bother you, honey," he says. "And they'll only be here a couple of days at most. It's necessary that-"

She takes a step toward him. "A couple of days!" she exclaims. "They can't stay here, Father! We've people coming down tomorrow for the weekend-the Robinsons and the Laurens and-you can't have them here. They're horrible!"

Pomeroy puts out a hand to pat one of hers. "There, there!" he says soothingly. "Papa'll see what he can do. Perhaps it'll only be necessary to keep them here overnight." He looks at Kavanaugh for support, asking: "Perhaps, hm-m-m?"

Kavanaugh nods hastily, saying: "Perhaps. Perhaps."

"But why do you have to keep them here overnight?" Ann demands. "Why are they here at all?"

Pomeroy shakes a playful finger at her. "No prying into Papa's affairs, young lady," he says.

She screws her eyes up at him, wrinkles her forehead, asks, "Are they detectives or guards or something? Are you in some kind of danger?" She seems suddenly frightened.

"Sh-h-h," he says. "There's not a thing for you to worry about-word of honor."

She bends down to kiss him on the forehead. "And you will get rid of them?" she asks as she straightens up.

"Cross my heart," he promises.

She flashes a smile at Kavanaugh and goes out.

Kavanaugh sinks down in his chair again. The light goes out of Pomeroy's face. They stare at each other hopelessly.

A bedroom in Pomeroy's house. Happy Jones is lying on his back on the bed, hands clasped at the nape of his neck, staring mournfully at the ceiling. The Dis-and-Dat Kid is sitting on a window sill, looking boredly out at the grounds. Smoke drifts up from a cigarette in a corner of his mouth. Buck is straddling a chair, holding a gla.s.s of whisky in one hand. Neely is tilted back in another chair with his feet on the bed. He is wearing his derby; the others are bareheaded.

Neely is saying: ". . . and then I look at him again and I'm a son-of-a-gun if it ain't my brother."

Buck puts his head back and laughs heartily.

The Dis-and-Dat Kid turns his face from the window to grin crookedly. Then he leaves the sill, drops his cigarette on the floor, puts his foot on it, and asks: "What are we waiting for, Cheaters? For Happy to get bed sores?"

Neely pulls a watch from his pocket, looks at it, and sticks it back in. "I'm comfortable," he says amiably, "but if you guys are itching, all right."

Buck hurls his drink into his mouth without touching his lips with the gla.s.s, smacks his lips, and rises, saying: "I'm ready."

Happy gets up slowly from the bed, finds his hat on the floor, and puts it on. Buck puts on his cap, the Dis-and-Dat Kid his hat. They leave the room and go downstairs to the second floor in single file, Neely first, then Buck, the Kid, and Happy.

As Neely reaches the second-floor landing, he meets one of the maids. She looks at him and the others nervously and keeps as close to the far wall as she can on her way to another part of the floor.

Neely raises a hand. "Where's the boss?" he asks.

She pauses long enough to say hurriedly, "Mr. Pomeroy is in his office," and hurries away.

Happy looks sadly after her and shakes his head. "She ain't got the meat on her," he whines.

They go down to the room where Pomeroy and Kavanaugh are, Neely opens the door without knocking, and the others file in after him.

Pomeroy has been standing at a window, Kavanaugh is seated. Both try to conceal their alarm as they look around at the four men entering.

Neely, all smiles, says, "Howdy, gents," while Happy, the last one in, is shutting the door and leaning his back against it.

Buck strolls deliberately across the room and out of sight through the open bedroom door. The Dis-and-Dat Kid, fingers and eyes fidgeting, moves around the other side of the room, keeping himself turned slightly sidewise toward the stockbroker and his attorney.

Pomeroy and Kavanaugh exchange nervous glances. Pomeroy clears his throat and says: "Kavanaugh and I are still unable to see how we can be of any a.s.sistance to you-in-"

Neely stops him with an up-raised palm. "Don't you and Kavvy worry about that," he says amiably, smiling as if at a couple of younger brothers. "Us boys figured it all out. Didn't we, boys?"

The boys do not say anything. Kavanaugh and Pomeroy glance apprehensively at each other. Kavanaugh takes off his gla.s.ses and begins to polish them.

Neely says: "Stake us to get-away dough and we'll amscray.

Kavanaugh and Pomeroy stare uncomprehendingly at him.

Neely laughs. "Money," he explains, "and we'll go to read and write-powder out-blow-leave the country."

Pomeroy glances at Kavanaugh again, then asks hesitantly: "Ah-how much money would be necessary?"

Neely puts his thumbs in his vest armholes and rocks back on his heels, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his eyes up at the ceiling in good-natured calculation. "Well," he begins, "we'd have to. . . ."

Gene Richmond in his Cord roadster burning the road along the edge of Green Lake. Across the water the sun is going down. He turns off the road into Pomeroy's driveway, stops in front of the house, and gets out.

A man servant opens the door for him. "Mr. Pomeroy is expecting me," he says, "Mr. Richmond."

The servant takes his hat and coat, bows him into a reception room off the hall, and goes upstairs.

Richmond waits placidly until the servant has disappeared at the top of the stairs, then goes briskly up after him, reaching the top in time to see the servant entering Pomeroy's office. Then he moderates his pace and walks down the second-story hallway, arriving at the door just as the servant comes out. He says: "Thanks," politely to the man and goes in. The servant goggles at him.

The six men in the room-Buck is standing in the bedroom doorway now-stare at him.

He bows to Kavanaugh-"Good evening"-and then to the stockbroker, saying suavely: "Mr. Pomeroy, I suppose?"

Pomeroy returns the bow uncomfortably. He is sitting at the Spanish desk, the fingers of one hand on an open checkbook, the other hand holding a pen.

Richmond surveys the others meditatively, one by one, speaking as if to himself. "Cheaters Neely, of course," making a circle around one of his own eyes to indicate the spectacles; "and Happy Jones-that's easy," looking at the mournful man; "and Buck and I are old friends-remember the time I pulled you out of the sewer pipe up north? So you must be the Dis-and-Dat Kid."

Neely smiles pleasantly at Richmond and says: "You seem to know more people than know you, brother."

By then Happy has slipped behind Richmond to stand with his back against the hall door again. His right hand is in his coat pocket. Buck glowers at Richmond. The Kid's eyes fidget from Richmond to Neely.

Kavanaugh, speaking hastily, as if to forestall further conversation between Neely and the detective, says: "Ah-Mr. Richmond, we have just reached an-ah-amicable settlement." He adjusts his gla.s.ses to his nose with an air of relief.

Richmond looks with mild amus.e.m.e.nt from Kavanaugh to Pomeroy. The broker abruptly leans over and begins to sign the check.

Richmond takes two deliberate steps to the desk and bends to look at the check, and then, just as deliberately, puts out a forefinger and rubs it slowly across Pomeroy's incompleted signature, making an undecipherable dark smear of it.

Pomeroy rocks back in his chair in surprise.

The Dis-and-Dat Kid puts a hand to his right hip and takes a step toward Richmond's back. Neely catches the Kid's eye, smiles, and shakes his head. The Kid halts indecisively.

Richmond addresses Pomeroy carelessly: "That's a sucker play. Giving him money is what got you into this. You'll never get out that way."