"MY BEAUTIFUL ONE"
Miss Farrell was surprised to find her employer already in his office
when she unlocked the door at eight o'clock the next morning, and her
surprise was increased when Harwood, always punctilious in such matters,
ignored the good-morning with which she greeted him. The electric lights
over Dan's desk were burning, a fact not lost upon his stenographer. It
was apparent that Harwood had either spent the night in his office or
had gone to work before daylight. Rose's eyes were as sharp as her wits,
and she recognized at a glance the file-envelopes and papers relating to
the Kelton estate, many of them superscribed in her own hand, that lay
on Harwood's desk.
She snapped off the lights with an air that implied reproof, or could
not have failed of that effect if the man at the desk had been conscious
of the act. He was hopelessly distraught and his face appeared no less
pallid in daylight than in the electric glare in which Rose had found
him. As the girl warmed her hands at the radiator in the reception room
the telephone chimed cheerily. The telephone provides a welcome
companionship for the office girl: its importunities and insolences are
at once her delight and despair. Rose took down the receiver with
relief. She parleyed guardedly with an unseen questioner and addressed
Harwood from the door in the cautious, apologetic tone with which wise
office girls break in upon the meditations of their employers.
"Pardon me, Mr. Harwood. Shall I say you're engaged. It's Mr. Thatcher."
Dan half-turned and replied with a tameness Rose had not expected.
"Say what you please, Rose; only I don't want to talk to him or see him,
or anybody."
The clock in the court-house tower boomed nine sombrely. Dan distrusted
its accuracy as he distrusted everything in the world that morning. He
walked listlessly to the window and compared the face of the clock with
his watch. He had thought it must be noon; but the hour of the day did
not matter greatly.
"It's all right," said Rose meekly from the door. "I told him you were
probably at the State House."
"Whom? Oh, thank you, Rose." And then, as though to ease her conscience
for this mild mendacity, he added: "I believe I did have an engagement
over there at nine."
"He said--" Rose began warily; and then gave him an opportunity to cut
her short.
"What did he say?"
"Oh, he was hot! He said if you came in before he found you, to say that
if you and Ramsay didn't help him deliver the freight to-day he would
get action to-morrow; that that's the limit."
"He said to-morrow, did he? Very well, Rose. That's all."
Rose, virtuously indexing the letter-book, saw Harwood as he idly ranged
the rooms try the hall door to make sure it was bolted. Then he stood at
the window of his own room, staring at nothing. The telephone chimed
cheerfully at intervals. Ramsay sought him; Thatcher had stationed one
of his allies at a telephone booth in the State House corridor to call
the office at regular intervals. Newspaper reporters demanded to know
where Harwood could be found; the governor, rankling under the criticism
he had brought upon his party by the special session, wished to see
Harwood to learn when, if possible, the legislature would take itself
home. To these continual importunities Rose replied in tones of
surprise, regret, or chagrin, as the individual case demanded, without
again troubling her employer. The index completed, she filed papers,
smoothed her yellow hair at the wash stand, exchanged fraternal signals
with a girl friend in the office opposite, and read the "Courier's"
report of the senatorial struggle with complete understanding of its
intricacies.
"Rose!"
It was twelve o'clock when Harwood called her. He had brushed aside the
mass of documents she had noted on her arrival, and a single letter
sheet lay before him. Without glancing up he bade her sit down. She had
brought her notebook prepared to take dictation. He glanced at it and
shook his head. The tired, indifferent Harwood she had found at the end
of his night vigil had vanished; he was once more the alert, earnest
young man of action she admired.
"Rose, I want to ask you some questions. I think you will believe me if
I say that I shouldn't ask them if they were not of importance--of very
great importance."
"All right, Mr. Harwood."
Her eyes had fallen upon the letter and her lids fluttered quickly. She
touched her pompadour with the back of her hand and tightened the knot
of her tie.
"This is on the dead, Rose. It concerns a lot of people, and it's
important for me to know the truth. And it's possible that you may not
be able to help; but if you can't the matter ends here."
He rose and closed the door of his room to shut out the renewed jingle
of the telephone.
"I want you to look at this letter and tell me whether you ever saw it
before."
She took it from him, glanced at the first line indifferently, looked
closely at the paper, and gave it back, shaking her head.
"We never had anything like that in the office, paper or machine either.
That's heavier than the stationery you had over in the Boordman
Building, and that's a black ribbon; we've always used purple
copying-ribbons. And that letter wasn't copied; you can tell that."
"That doesn't answer my question, Rose. I want to know whether you ever
saw that letter before. Perhaps you'd better take another look at it."
"Oh, I can tell any of my work across the street! I don't know anything
about that letter, Mr. Harwood."
Her indifference had yielded to respectful indignation. She set her
lips firmly, and her blue eyes expressed surprise that her employer
should be thus subjecting her to cross-examination.
"I understand perfectly, Rose, that this is unusual, and that it is not
quite on the square. But this is strictly between ourselves. It's on the
dead, you understand."
"Oh, I'd do anything for you that I'd do for anybody, yes, sir--I'd do
more: but I refused ten thousand dollars for what I know about what
happened in the Transportation Committee that winter I was its stenog.
That's a lot of money; it would take care of me for the rest of my life;
and you know Thatcher kept after me until I had to tell him a few things
I'd do to him if he didn't let me alone. I'll answer your question
straight," and she looked him in the eye, "I never saw that letter
before, and I don't know anything about it. Is that all?"
"To go back again, Rose," resumed Dan patiently, "not many girls would
have the strength to resist a temptation like that, as you did. But this
is a very different case. I need your help, but it isn't for myself that
I'm trying to trace that letter. If it weren't a matter of actual need I
shouldn't trouble you--be sure of that."
"I always thought you were on the square, but you're asking me to do
something you wouldn't do yourself. And I've told you again that I don't
know anything about that letter; I never saw it before."
She tapped the edge of the desk to hide the trembling of her fingers.
The tears shone suddenly in her blue eyes.
Dan frowned, but the frown was not for Rose. She had already betrayed
herself; he was confident from her manner that she knew. The prompt
denial of any knowledge of the fateful sheet of paper for which he had
hoped all night had not been forthcoming. But mere assumptions would not
serve him; he had walked in darkness too long not to crave the full
light. The pathos of this girl's loyalty had touched him; her chance in
life had been the slightest, she had been wayward and had erred deeply,
and yet there were fastnesses of honor in her soul that remained
unassailable.
Her agitation distressed him; he had never seen her like this; he missed
the little affectations and the droll retorts that had always amused
him. She was no longer the imperturbable and ready young woman whose
unwearying sunniness and amazing intuitions had so often helped him
through perplexities.
"As a matter of your own honor, Rose, you wouldn't tell me. But if the
honor of some one else--"
She shook her head slowly, and he paused.
"No," she said. "I'm only a poor little devil of a stenog and I've been
clear down,--you know that,--but I won't do it. I turned down Thatcher's
ten thousand dollars, and I turned it down hard. The more important that
letter is, the less I know about it. I'll go into court and swear I
never saw or heard of it before. I don't know anything about it. If you
want me to quit, it's all right; it's all right, Mr. Harwood. You've
been mighty good to me and I hate to go; but I guess I'd better quit."
He did not speak until she was quite calm again. As a last resource he
must shatter her fine loyalty by an appeal to her gratitude.
"Rose, if some one you knew well--some one who had been the kindest of
friends, and who had lent you a hand when you needed it most--were in
danger, and I needed your help to protect--that person--would you tell
me?"
Their eyes met; she looked away, and then, as she met his gaze again,
her lips parted and the color deepened in her face.
"You don't mean--" she began.
"I mean that this is to help me protect a dear friend of yours and of
mine. I shouldn't have told you this if it hadn't been necessary. It's
as hard for me as it is for you, Rose. There's a great deal at stake.
Innocent people will suffer if I'm unable to manage this with full
knowledge of all the facts. You think back, six years ago last spring,
and tell me whether you have any knowledge, no matter how indefinite, as
to where that letter was written."
"You say," she began haltingly, "there's a friend of mine that I could
help if I knew anything about your letter? You'll have to tell me who it
is."
"I'd rather not do that; I'd rather not mention any names, not even to
you."
She was drying her eyes with her handkerchief. Her brows knit, she bent
her head for an instant, and then stared at him in bewilderment and
unbelief, and her lips trembled.
"You don't mean my friend--my beautiful one!--not the one who picked me
up out of the dirt--" She choked and her slender frame shook--and then
she smiled wanly and ended with the tears coursing down her cheeks. "My
beautiful one, who took me home again and kissed me--she kissed me
here!" She touched her forehead as though the act were part of some
ritual, then covered her eyes.
"You don't mean"--she cried out suddenly,--"you don't mean it's that!"
"No; it's not that; far from _that_," replied Dan sadly, knowing what
was in her mind.
He went out and closed the door upon her. He called Mrs. Owen on the
telephone and told her he would be up immediately. Then he went back to
Rose.
"It was like this, Mr. Harwood," said the girl, quite composed again. "I
knew him--pretty well--you know the man I mean. After that
Transportation Committee work I guess he thought he had to keep his hand
on me. He's like that, you know. If he thinks anybody knows anything on
him he watches them and keeps a tight grip on them, all right. You know
that about him?"
Dan nodded. He saw how the web of circumstance had enmeshed him from the
beginning. All the incidents of that chance visit to Fraserville to
write the sketch of Bassett for the "Courier" lived in his memory.
Something had been said there about Madison College; and his connection
with Fitch's office had been mentioned, and on the fears thus roused in
Morton Bassett, he, Daniel Harwood, had reared a tottering
superstructure of aims, hopes, ambitions, that threatened to overwhelm
him! But now, as the first shock passed, he saw all things clearly. He
would save Sylvia even though Bassett must be saved first. If Thatcher
could be silenced in no other way, he might have the senatorship; or Dan
would go direct to Bassett and demand that he withdraw from the contest.
He was not afraid of Morton Bassett now.
"I had gone to work for that construction company in the Boordman where
you found me. It was his idea to move me into your office--I guess you
thought you picked me out; but he gave me a quiet tip to ask you for the
job. Well, he'd been dropping into the construction office now and then
to see me--you know the boss was never in town and I hadn't much to do.
He used to dictate letters--said he couldn't trust the public stenogs in
the hotels; and one day he gave me that letter to copy. He had written
it out in lead pencil beforehand, but seemed mighty anxious to get it
just right. After I copied it he worked it over several times, before he
got it to suit him. He said it was a little business he was attending to
for a friend. We burnt up the discards in the little old grate in the
office. He had brought some paper and envelopes along with him, and I
remember he held a sheet up to the light to make sure it didn't have a
watermark. He threw down a twenty-dollar gold piece and took the letter
away with him. After I had moved into your office he spoke of that
letter once: one day when you were out he asked me how much money had
been mentioned in the letter."
"When was that, Rose?"
"A few days after the state convention when you shot the hot tacks into
Thatcher. He had been at Waupegan, you remember."
Dan remembered. And he recalled also that Bassett had seen Sylvia at
Mrs. Owen's the day following the convention, and it was not astonishing
that the sight of her had reminded him of his offer to pay for her
education. His own relation to the matter was clear enough now that Rose
had yielded her secret.
Rose watched him as he drew on his overcoat and she handed him his hat
and gloves. Her friend, "the beautiful one," would not suffer; she was
confident of this, now that Harwood was fully armed to protect her.
"Keep after Ramsay by telephone until you find him. Tell him to come
here and wait for me if it's all day. If you fail to catch him by
telephone, go out and look for him and bring him here."
In a moment he was hurrying toward Mrs. Owen's.