Counsel for the Defense
She had not yet quite got her bearings concerning this new Bruce.
“Help? Why should you help? Oh, I see,” she said coldly; “it would make a nice sensational story for your paper.”
He flushed at her cutting words, and his square jaw set.
“I suppose I might follow your example of a minute ago and say that I don’t care what you think. But I don’t mind telling you a few things, and giving you a chance to understand me if you want to. I was on a Chicago paper, and had a big place that was growing bigger. I could have sold the Express when my uncle left it to me, and stayed there; but I saw a chance, with a paper of my own, to try out some of my own ideas, so I came to Westville. My idea of a newspaper is that its function is to serve the people – make them think – bring them new ideas – to be ever watching their interests. Of course, I want to make money – I’ve got to, or go to smash; but I’d rather run a candy store than run a sleepy, apologetic, afraid-of-a-mouse, mere money-making sheet like the Clarion, that would never breathe a word against the devil’s fair name so long as he carried a half-inch ad. You called me a yellow journalist yesterday. Well, if to tell the truth in the hardest way I know how, to tell it so that it will hit people square between the eyes and make ’em sit up and look around ’em – if that is yellow then I’m certainly a yellow journalist, and I thank God Almighty for inventing the breed!”
As Katherine listened to his snappy, vibrant words, as she looked at his powerful, dominant figure, and into his determined face with its flashing eyes, she felt a reluctant warmth creep through her being.
“Perhaps – I may have been mistaken about you,” she said.
“Perhaps you may!” he returned grimly. “Perhaps as much as I was about your father. And, speaking of your father, I don’t mind adding something more. Ever since I took charge of the Express, I’ve been advocating municipal ownership of every public utility. The water-works, which were apparently so satisfactory, were a good start; I used them constantly as a text for working up municipal ownership sentiment. The franchises of the Westville Traction Company expire next year, and I had been making a campaign against renewing the franchises and in favour of the city taking over the system and running it. Opinion ran high in favour of the scheme. But Doctor West’s seeming dishonesty completely killed the municipal ownership idea. That was my pet, and if I was bitter toward your father – well, I couldn’t help it. And now,” he added rather brusquely, “I’ve explained myself to you. To repeat your words, you can believe me or not, just as you like.”
There was no resisting the impression of the man’s sincerity.
“I suppose,” said Katherine, “that I should apologize for – for the things I’ve called you. My only excuse is that your mistake about my father helped cause my mistake about you.”
“And I,” returned he, “am not only willing to take back, publicly, in my paper, what I have said against your father, but am willing to print your statement about – ”
“You must not print a word till I get my evidence,” she put in quickly. “Printing it prematurely might ruin my case.”
“Very well. And as for what I have said about you, I take back everything – except – ” He paused; she saw disapprobation in his eyes. “Except the plain truth I told you that being a lawyer is no work for a woman.”
“You are very dogmatic!” said she hotly.
“I am very right,” he returned. “Excuse my saying it, but you appear to have too many good qualities as a woman to spoil it all by going out of your sphere and trying – ”
“Why – why – ” She stood gasping. “Do you know what your uncle told me about you?”
“Old Hosie?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Hosie’s an old fool!”
“He said that the trouble with you was that you had not been thrashed enough as a boy. And he was right, too!”
She turned quickly to the door, but he stepped before her.
“Don’t get mad because of a little truth. Remember, I want to help you.”
“I think,” said she, “that we’re better suited to fight each other than to help each other. I’m not so sure I want your help.”
“I’m not so sure you can avoid taking it,” he retorted. “This isn’t your father’s case alone. It’s the city’s case, too, and I’ve got a right to mix in. Now do you want me?”
She looked at him a moment.
“I’ll think it over. For the present, good afternoon.”
He hesitated, then held out his hand. She hesitated, then took it. After which, he opened the door for her and bowed her out.
CHAPTER IX
THE PRICE OF A MAN
When, half an hour before, Katherine walked with bowed head out of Harrison Blake’s office, Blake gazed fixedly after her for a moment, and his face, now that he was private, deepened its sickly, ashen hue. Then he strode feverishly up and down the room, lips twitching nervously, hands clinching and unclinching. Then he unlocked a cabinet against the wall, poured out a drink from a squat, black bottle, gulped it down, and returned the bottle, forgetting to close the cabinet. After which he dropped into his chair, gripped his face in his two hands, and sat at his desk breathing deeply, but otherwise without motion.
Presently his door opened.
“Mr. Brown is here to see you,” announced a voice.
He slowly raised his head, and stared an instant at his stenographer in dumfounded silence.
“Mr. Brown!” he repeated.
“Yes,” said the young woman.
He continued to stare at her in sickly stupefaction.
“Shall I tell him you’ll see him later?”
“Show him in,” said Blake. “But, no – wait till I ring.”
He passed his hand across his moist and pallid face, paced his room again several times, then touched a button and stood stiffly erect beside his desk. The next moment the door closed behind a short, rather chubby man with an egg-shell dome and a circlet of grayish hair. He had eyes that twinkled with good fellowship and a cheery, fatherly manner.
“Well, well, Mr. Blake; mighty glad to see you!” he exclaimed as he crossed the room.
Blake, still pale, but now with tense composure, took the hand of his visitor.
“This is a surprise, Mr. Brown,” said he. “How do you happen to be in Westville?”
Mr. Brown disposed himself comfortably in the chair that Katherine had so lately occupied.
“To-morrow’s the trial of that Doctor West, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I thought I’d better be on the ground to see how it came out.”
Blake did not respond at once; but, lips very tight together, sat gazing at the ruddy face of his visitor.
“Everything’s going all right, isn’t it?” asked Mr. Brown in his cheery voice.
“About the trial, you mean?” Blake asked with an effort.
“Of course. The letter I had from you yesterday assured me conviction was certain. Things still stand the same way, I suppose?”
Blake’s whole body was taut. His dark eyes were fixed upon Mr. Brown.
“They do not,” he said quietly.
“Not stand the same way?” cried Mr. Brown, half rising from his chair. “Why not?”
“I am afraid,” replied Blake with his strained quiet, “that the prosecution will not make out a case.”
“Not make out a case?”
“To-morrow Doctor West is going to be cleared.”
“Cleared? Cleared?” Mr. Brown stared. “Now what the devil – see here, Blake, how’s that going to happen?”
Blake’s tense figure had leaned forward.
“It’s going to happen, Mr. Brown,” he burst out, with a flashing of his dark eyes, “because I’m tired of doing your dirty work, and the dirty work of the National Electric & Water Company!”
“You mean you’re going to see he’s cleared?”
“I mean I’m going to see he’s cleared!”
“What – you?” ejaculated Mr. Brown, still staring. “Why, only in your letter yesterday you were all for the plan! What’s come over you?”
“If you’d gone through what I’ve just gone through – ” Blake abruptly checked his passionate reference to his scene with Katherine. “I say enough when I say that I’m going to see that Doctor West is cleared. There you have it.”
No further word was spoken for a moment. The two men, leaning toward each other, gazed straight into one another’s eyes. Blake’s powerful, handsome face was blazing and defiant. The fatherly kindness had disappeared from the other, and it was keen and hard.
“So,” said Mr. Brown, cuttingly, and with an infinity of contempt, “it appears that Mr. Harrison Blake is the owner of a white liver.”
“You know that’s a lie!” Blake fiercely retorted. “You know I’ve got as much courage as you and your infernal company put together!”
“Oh, you have, have you? From the way you’re turning tail – ”
“To turn tail upon a dirty job is no cowardice!”
“But there have been plenty of dirty jobs you haven’t run from. You’ve put through many a one in the last two or three years on the quiet.”
“But never one like this.”
“You knew exactly what the job was when you made the bargain with us.”
“Yes. And my stomach rose against it even then.”
“Then why the devil did you tie up with us?”
“Because your big promises dazzled me! Because you took me up on a high mountain and showed me the kingdoms of the earth!”
“Well, you then thought the kingdoms were pretty good looking property.”
“Good enough to make me forget the sort of thing I was doing. Good enough to blind me as to how things might come out. But I see now! And I’m through with it all!”
The chubby little man’s eyes were on fire. But he was too experienced in his trade to allow much liberty to anger.
“And that’s final – that’s where you stand?” he asked with comparative calm.
“That’s where I stand!” cried Blake. “I may have got started crooked, but I’m through with this kind of business now! I’m going back to clean ways! And you, Mr. Brown, you might as well say good-by!”
But Mr. Brown was an old campaigner. He never abandoned a battle merely because it apparently seemed lost. He now leaned back in his chair, slowly crossed his short legs, and thoughtfully regarded Blake’s excited features. His own countenance had changed its aspect; it had shed its recent hardness, and had not resumed its original cheeriness. It was eminently a reasonable face.
“Come, let’s talk this whole matter over in a calm manner,” he began in a rather soothing tone. “Neither of us wants to be too hasty. There are a few points I’d like to call your attention to, if you’ll let me.”
“Go ahead with your points,” said Blake. “But they won’t change my decision.”
“First, let’s talk about the company,” Mr. Brown went on in his mild, persuasive manner. “Frankly, you’ve put the company in a hole. Believing that you would keep your end of the bargain, the company has invested a lot of money and started a lot of projects. We bought up practically all the stock of the Westville street car lines, when that municipal ownership talk drove the price so low, because we expected to get a new franchise through your smashing this municipal ownership fallacy. We have counted on big things from the water-works when you got hold of it for us. And we have plans on foot in several other cities of the state, and we’ve been counting on the failure of municipal ownership in Westville to have a big influence on those cities and to help us in getting what we want. In one way and another this deal here means an awful lot to the company. Your failing us at the last moment means to the company – ”
“I understand all that,” interrupted Blake.
“Here’s a point for you to consider then: Since the company has banked so much upon your promise, since it will lose so heavily if you repudiate your word, are you not bound in honour to stand by your agreement?”
Blake opened his lips, but Mr. Brown raised a hand.
“Don’t answer now. I just leave that for you to think upon. So much for the company. Now for yourself. We promised you if you carried this deal through – and you know how able we are to keep our promise! – we promised you Grayson’s seat in the Senate. And after that, with your ability and our support, who knows where you’d stop?” Mr. Brown’s voice became yet more soft and persuasive. “Isn’t that a lot to throw overboard because of a scruple?”
“I can win all that, or part of it, by being loyal to the people,” Blake replied doggedly, but in a rather unsteady tone.
“Come, come, Mr. Blake,” said Brown reprovingly, “you know you’re not talking sense. You know that the only quick and sure way of getting the big offices is by the help of the corporations. So you realize what you’re losing.”
Blake’s face had become drawn and pale. He closed his eyes, as though to shut out the visions of the kingdoms Mr. Brown had conjured up.
“I’m ready to lose it!” he cried.
“All right, then,” Mr. Brown went mildly on. “So much for what we lose, and what you lose. Now for the next point, the action you intend to take regarding Doctor West. Do you mind telling me just how you propose to undo what you have done so far?”
“I haven’t thought it out yet. But I can do it.”
“Of course,” pursued Mr. Brown blandly, “you propose to do it so that you will appear in no way to be involved?”
Blake was thinking of Katherine’s accusation. “Of course.”
“Just suppose you think about that point for a minute or two.”
There was a brief silence. When Mr. Brown next spoke he spoke very slowly and accompanied each word with a gentle tap of his forefinger on the desk.
“Can you think of a single way to clear Doctor West without incriminating yourself?”
Blake gave a start.
“What’s that?”
“Can you get Doctor West out of his trouble without showing who got him into his trouble? Just think that over.”
During the moment of silence Blake grew yet more pale.
“I’ll kill the case somehow!” he breathed.
“But the case looks very strong against Doctor West. Everybody believes him guilty. Do you think you can suddenly, within twenty-four hours, reverse the whole situation, and not run some risk of having suspicion shift around to you?”
Blake’s eyes fell to his desk, and he sat staring whitely at it.
“And there’s still another matter,” pursued the gentle voice of Mr. Brown, now grown apologetic. “I wouldn’t think of mentioning it, but I want you to have every consideration before you. I believe I never told you that the National Electric & Water Company own the majority stock of the Acme Filter Company.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“It was because of that mutual relationship that I was able to help out your little plan by getting Marcy to do what he did. Now if some of our directors should feel sore at the way you’ve thrown us down, they might take it into their minds to make things unpleasant for you.”
“Unpleasant? How?”
Mr. Brown’s fatherly smile had now come back. It was full of concern for Blake.
“Well, I’d hate, for instance, to see them use their pressure to drive Mr. Marcy to make a statement.”
“Mr. Marcy? A statement?”
“Because,” continued Mr. Brown in his tone of fatherly concern, “after Mr. Marcy had stated what he knows about this case, I’m afraid there wouldn’t be much chance for you to win any high places by being loyal to the people.”
For a moment after this velvet threat Blake held upon Mr. Brown an open-lipped, ashen face. Then, without a word, he leaned his elbows upon his desk and buried his face in his hands. For a long space there was silence in the room. Mr. Brown’s eyes, kind no longer, but keenest of the keen, watched the form before him, timing the right second to strike again.
At length he recrossed his legs.
“Of course it’s up to you to decide, and what you say goes,” he went on in his amiable voice. “But speaking impartially, and as a friend, it strikes me that you’ve gone too far in this matter to draw back. It strikes me that the best and only thing is to go straight ahead.”
Blake’s head remained bowed in his hands, and he did not speak.
“And, of course,” pursued Mr. Brown, “if you should decide in favour of the original agreement, our promise still stands good – Senate and all.”
Mr. Brown said no more, but sat watching his man. Again there was a long silence. Then Blake raised his face – and a changed face it was indeed from that which had fallen into his hands. It bore the marks of a mighty struggle, but it was hard and resolute – the face of a man who has cast all hesitancy behind.
“The agreement still stands,” he said.
“Then you’re ready to go ahead?”
“To the very end,” said Blake.
Mr. Brown nodded. “I was sure you’d decide that way,” said he.
“I want to thank you for what you’ve said to bring me around,” Blake continued in his new incisive tone. “But it is only fair to tell you that this was only a spell – not the first one, in fact – and that I would have come to my senses anyhow.”
“Of course, of course.” It was not the policy of Mr. Brown, once the victory was won, to discuss to whom the victory belonged.
Blake’s eyes were keen and penetrating.
“And you say that the things I said a little while back will not affect your attitude toward me in the future?”
“Those things? Why, they’ve already passed out of my other ear! Oh, it’s no new experience,” he went on with his comforting air of good-fellowship, “for me to run into one of our political friends when he’s sick with a bad case of conscience. They all have it now and then, and they all pull out of it. No, don’t you worry about the future. You’re O. K. with us.”
“Thank you.”
“And now, since everything is so pleasantly cleared up,” continued Mr. Brown, “let’s go back to my first question. I suppose everything looks all right for the trial to-morrow?”
Blake hesitated a moment, then told of Katherine’s discovery. “But it’s no more than a surmise,” he ended.
“Has she guessed any other of the parties implicated?” Mr. Brown asked anxiously.
“I’m certain she has not.”
“Is she likely to raise a row to-morrow?”
“I hardly see how she can.”
“All the same, we’d better do something to quiet her,” returned Mr. Brown meaningly.
Blake flashed a quick look at the other.
“See here – I’ll not have her touched!”
Mr. Brown’s scanty eyebrows lifted.
“Hello! You seem very tender about her!”
Blake looked at him sternly a moment. Then he said stiffly: “I once asked Miss West to marry me.”
“Eh – you don’t say!” exclaimed the other, amazed. “That is certainly a queer situation for you!” He rubbed his naked dome. “And you still feel – ”
“What I feel is my own affair!” Blake cut in sharply.
“Of course, of course!” agreed Mr. Brown quickly. “I beg your pardon!”
Blake ignored the apology.
“It might be well for you not to see me openly again like this. With Miss West watching me – ”
“She might see us together, and suspect things. I understand. Needn’t worry about that. You may not see me again for a year. I’m here – there – everywhere. But before I go, how do things look for the election?”
“We’ll carry the city easily.”
“Who’ll you put up for mayor?”
“Probably Kennedy, the prosecuting attorney.”
“Is he safe?”
“He’ll do what he’s told.”
“That’s good. Is he strong with the people?”
“Fairly so. But the party will carry him through.”
“H’m.” Mr. Brown was thoughtful for a space. “This is your end of the game, of course, and I make it a point not to interfere with another man’s work. The only time I’ve butted in here was when I helped you about getting Marcy. But still, I hope you don’t mind my making a suggestion.”
“Not at all.”
“We’ve got to have the next mayor and council, you know. Simply got to have them. We don’t want to run any risk, however small. If you think there’s one chance in a thousand of Kennedy losing out, suppose you have yourself nominated.”
“Me?” exclaimed Blake.
“It strikes you as a come-down, of course. But you can do it gracefully – in the interest of the city, and all that, you know. You can turn it into a popular hit. Then you can resign as soon as our business is put through.”
“There may be something in it,” commented Blake.
“It’s only a suggestion. Just think it over, and use your own judgment.” He stood up. “Well, I guess that’s all we need to say to one another. The whole situation here is entirely in your hands. Do as you please, and we ask no questions about how you do it. We’re not interested in methods, only in results.”
He clapped Blake heartily upon the shoulder. “And it looks as though we all were going to get results! Especially you! Why, you, with this trial successfully over – with the election won – with the goods delivered – ”
He suddenly broke off, for the tail of his eye had sighted Blake’s open cabinet.
“Will you allow me a liberty?”
“Certainly,” replied Blake, in the dark as to his visitor’s purpose.
Mr. Brown crossed to the cabinet, and returned with the squat, black bottle and two small glasses. He tilted an inch into each tumbler, gave one to Blake, and raised the other on high. His face was illumined with his fatherly smile.
“To our new Senator!” he said.
CHAPTER X
SUNSET AT THE SYCAMORES
When the door had closed behind the pleasant figure of Mr. Brown, Blake pressed the button upon his desk. His stenographer appeared.
“I have some important matters to consider,” he said. “Do not allow me to be disturbed until Doctor and Mrs. Sherman come with the car.”
His privacy thus secured, Blake sat at his desk, staring fixedly before him. His brow was compressed into wrinkles, his dark face, still showing a yellowish pallor, was hard and set. He reviewed the entire situation, and as his consuming ambition contemplated the glories of success, and the success after that, and the succession of successes that led up and ever up, his every nerve was afire with an excruciating, impatient pleasure.
For a space while Katherine had confronted him, and for a space after she had gone, he had shrunk from this business he was carrying through. But he had spoken truthfully to Mr. Brown when he had said that his revulsion was but a temporary feeling, and that of his own accord he would have come back to his original decision. He had had such revulsions before, and each time he had swung as surely back to his purpose as does the disturbed needle to the magnetic pole.
Westville considered Harrison Blake a happy blend of the best of his father and mother; whereas, in point of fact, his father and his mother lived in him with their personalities almost intact. There was his mother, with her idealism and her high sense of honour; and his father, with his boundless ambition and his lack of principles. In the earlier years of Blake’s manhood his mother’s qualities had dominated. He had sincerely tried to do great work for Westville, and had done it; and the reputation he had then made, and the gratitude he had then won, were the seed from which had grown the great esteem with which Westville now regarded him.
But a few years back he had found that rise, through virtue, was slow and beset with barriers. His ambition had become impatient. Now that he was a figure of local power and importance, temptation began to assail him with offers of rapid elevation if only he would be complaisant. In this situation, the father in him rose into the ascendency; he had compromised and yielded, though always managing to keep his dubious transactions secret. And now at length ambition ruled him – though as yet not undisturbed, for conscience sometimes rose in unexpected revolt and gave him many a bitter battle.
When his stenographer told Blake that Doctor and Mrs. Sherman were waiting at the curb, he descended with something more like his usual cast of countenance. Elsie and her husband were in the tonneau, and as Blake crossed the sidewalk to the car she stretched out a nervous hand and gave him a worn, excited smile.
“It is so good of you to take us out to The Sycamores for over night!” she exclaimed. “It’s such a pleasure – and such a relief!”
She did not need to explain that it was a relief because the motion, the company, the change of scene, would help crowd from her mind the dread of to-morrow when her husband would have to take the stand against Doctor West; she did not need to explain this, because Blake’s eyes read it all in her pale, feverish face.
Blake shook hands with Doctor Sherman, dismissed his chauffeur, and took the wheel. They spun out of the city and down into the River Road – the favourite drive with Westville folk – which followed the stream in broad sweeping curves and ran through arcades of thick-bodied, bowing willows and sycamores lofty and severe, their foliage now a drought-crisped brown. After half an hour the car turned through a stone gateway into a grove of beech and elm and sycamore. At a comfortable distance apart were perhaps a dozen houses whose outer walls were slabs of trees with the bark still on. This was The Sycamores, a little summer resort established by a small group of the select families of Westville.
