AFTER A YEAR
Lawrence Treadwell, the attorney, sat in his office negligently smoking
a segar and staring down through the open window upon the busy
thoroughfare beneath. Outside was the spring sunshine and the smell of
growing trees. Just across from the building stood the city's new
Opera House, over whose ambitious entrance was still stretched a canvas
sign advertising a mass-meeting held the evening before under the
auspices of the Civic Club.
He read the lettering reflectively as he blew out clouds of the
fragrant, opalescent incense: "Protest Against Machine-Rule." He
smiled. The old revolt of the Quixotic handful against the entrenched
forces that had governed the city for a generation--one more of the
popular ebullitions which punctuate modern progress, the familiar
periodic dust-storms from whose turmoil the Old Guard emerged, moveless
as ever in the saddle, to a new campaign dictated by the mighty
Over-Lord, the great Public Services Corporation which, through its
multiple ramifications, assumed to control the state's franchises, to
dictate its significant legislation--even to influence its judiciary.
As he read the words on the canvas bellying in the breeze, his smile
was cynical.
Yet the smile had a touch of wistfulness too. The movement had grown
out of the general unrest, the keener public conscience, that had
accompanied the political renaissance that in the past year had been
sweeping over a dozen commonwealths. In the old southern city, wherein
principles were not yet become mere hypocrisies and folk still
preserved old-fashioned political ideals, it had attained to the
prestige of well-known names and engaging personalities. Their
forefathers had been men to whom honour and cleanliness in public life
had meant all things and who had governed as naturally as they had
breathed. And there were many among these to whom the new era, with
its open sneer at public trust and its subservience to great
aggregations of wealth selfishly employed, had become an increasing
reproach. The man who gazed down from the office window had long ago
made his choice. He had no illusions. He knew to what allegiance he
owed his present position. It had been the reward of long and faithful
service! Yet sometimes still the bonds chafed--sometimes still the new
spirit that was stirring abroad struck through his ingrained habit,
calling to him to do the impossibly fanatical thing!
There was a knock at the door and a man entered. It was Cameron Craig.
He responded briefly to the lawyer's greeting and coming to the window,
stood a moment beside him, looking down at the hurrying wheeled
traffic, the loitering pavement pedestrians--and the flapping canvas
sign. He laughed a little, but without mirth.
"You were there, I suppose," he said.
Treadwell nodded. "Yes. It's tilting at the windmills, of course."
"They began too late," said Craig grimly. "The ticket is safe enough
this year. But next year--the Gubernatorial campaign--if they only had
fire enough to keep the blaze going till then, they might give us
trouble."
The other did not answer. His eyes had rested briefly on Craig's face,
then again had sought the window. He was thinking that his visitor had
not changed for the better during the past two months. The fact,
indeed, would have been apparent to a casual eye. The virulent force
and will were no less noticeable, but there was now a kind of glaze
over his face--a certain fierce and sullen quality that seemed a
reflection of inner bitterness.
The judicial eye clove to the fact. Since that far-away night at the
"Farm," Craig's passion had never loosened its grip. It was
characteristic of the man that he had on that occasion played the only
card in his hand, not blindly, but by instinct and without hesitation.
But while he had apparently gained his point, it had been borne to him
gradually that his very method of play had lost him infinitely more
than he had gained. In the mind of the woman he desired he had
transgressed the rules of the game, and the realisation maddened him.
Never since then had he heard her name coupled with Harry Sevier's.
Never had he seen them together. This had given him satisfaction. But
if he had shattered her regard for the man whom he now hated more
tenaciously than he had ever hated anything in his whole life, the fact
had seemed to hold no advantage for himself. On several visits to the
city, he had invented reasons to call at the Allen house, but he had
soon learned that he was not to meet Echo there. He had, however, seen
her elsewhere more than once--when her gaze had gone by him as if he
had been empty air. Though his veins burned with the fever of the
famished, he had not ventured to challenge that cold aloofness. But it
had rankled and stung him almost beyond endurance, till he had come to
thirst avidly for some kind of test between them--for action, whatever
the result might mean. And the fierce desire that raged within him,
feeding on itself, had left its sinister traces on his face.
Abruptly Craig withdrew his gaze. "I see young Sevier held forth last
night. The last time I heard him was in court, just a year ago. The
young fop! He'd do better to stick to his lawbooks--though I hear he
has no cases anymore."
"It's his own choice," the attorney answered coldly. He liked Harry
Sevier and he resented the other's tone, no less than the words. "He
could have a new client every day if he wanted. As a matter of fact he
hasn't taken a case since the one you speak of. He fought for six
months trying to get through an appeal on that. It was the first
criminal case he had ever lost and it cut him up some, I fancy. Of
course it's ridiculous to take it so to heart, but I swear I can't help
liking him for it! He's not merely a fop, either. In my opinion he
comes mighty near being just what that crowd at the Civic Club have
been looking for."
Craig's eyes had not left Treadwell's. "In what way?" he asked.
"As a spokesman. They know what they believe and what they want to
fight for. But they've been inarticulate. Most of them are
blue-blooded old fogies, with their souls full of fine ideals, but with
no leader. In him (and in that speech of his last night he threw in
his lot with them absolutely) they have a finely trained legal
mind--for with all his old fire-works Sevier always had that--and a
natural orator besides. You should have heard him last night! For two
hours he held that great audience in a perfect spell. 'The finest
exhibition of southern oratory since the war' the papers called it this
morning, and I tell you, Craig, they weren't far wrong!"
He stopped, somewhat embarrassed by his own enthusiasm, and wondering
at the dark look on the other's face. Perhaps to hide this, Craig
turned away. His fingers were twitching and for an instant he was not
wholly master of himself. When he spoke, however, he had regained his
governance.
"After all, it wasn't the future of this anti-machine campaign that I
came to talk about. There's something nearer home that is worrying me."
"What's the trouble?"
"The Welles-Scott case decision. It is to be handed down on the first
of May. It must be in our favour."
The other looked surprised. "But surely it will be."
"It's not on the cards. I thought I knew the Judge, but there are
signs that I'm afraid of."
The attorney sniffed incredulously. "Judge Allen!" he exclaimed.
"Why, the trust made him. And it keeps him made, I should think, too."
Craig shook his head. "He's been talking lately. We've had warnings
from some who are very close to him. This decision _must_ be what we
want it to be. Voters are thinking more than they used to. If these
Civic Club people keep up the agitation--particularly if they link on
to the prohibition movement, as they are likely to do--the distillery
may become a live issue in the next state campaign. That's the great
danger. And this Welles-Scott case strikes at the heart of the matter.
If the Trust loses this decision it will be the signal for a crop of
bills in the next legislature that will cost us a cool million to
fight. And they may lead anywhere. I tell you we _have_ to have it!"
The other mused a moment. "The Judge, of course, can't be reached
in--in ordinary ways."
"Of course not. He's not venal. We've been able to depend on him so
long because he has grown up with the Trust--he was its counsel for
many years--and its interests were his. He thought with it. His mind
ran in the same groove. But Beverly Allen, the Trust's counsel, and
Judge Allen of the Supreme Court are different propositions. I always
thought this test case was a mistake! But I was overruled. Well,
we've got to have the decision. If one way won't bring it about,
another shall. Something will have to--persuade him. He must have a
weak spot. We must find it, that's all."
"His life's been an open book, if that's what you mean," said the
attorney, slowly.
"Few men's life are open books," returned Craig, with cynical
shortness. "There's apt to be a page pasted down somewhere. That part
of it is your business. If there's any such page in his case, you find
it! I don't care how small a page it is, or how long ago it was pasted
down. If it's there I want it!"
"His record was combed with a fine-tooth comb when he went on the
bench," said Treadwell. "The Trust wanted a man that the opposition
couldn't get anything on. That was before your time, of course. I
went over the report myself. There wasn't anything there--nothing but
the vaguest suspicion of an old love affair that was polished off
twenty years ago."
Craig turned sharply. "A love affair! After his marriage?"
"Why yes, I think so. But there weren't any details. And the woman
died abroad long ago."
"What was her name?"
Treadwell looked at him curiously. A faint flush had crept over his
face. "See here, Craig," he said, "after all, there's a limit to
decency. At the most it was nothing but a passing infatuation--an
innocent one. There was not the faintest breath of scandal. And as I
told you, the woman is dead."
Craig's eyes were boring into him. "Treadwell," he said in a hard
voice, "you don't seem to understand. This is a big game, and there is
no limit! None! And I intend to win it! _What was her name?_"
The other leaned to knock the ash from his segar. There was a tense
pause before he replied. "I have forgotten."
"Where are the old reports?"
"They were destroyed."
Craig looked at him an instant, his eyes like sparkling points of
steel. He opened his lips to speak, but he did not. Instead, with a
shrug of incredulous contempt, he caught up his hat, turned to the
door, opened it and went out.
Treadwell listened to the heavy footsteps descending the stair. Then
he went and shut the door.
"The hound!" he said under his breath.