THE MENDED ROAD
Dr. Ivany, the great Hungarian specialist, adept in the delicate
adventurings of brain surgery, ceased his examination and refastened
the light bandage upon his patient's head with a look of satisfaction.
"But yes," he said, in his concise French, "it goes well. I release
you from my care, Monsieur. One thing, however, you must remember. No
excitation. No anger. No prolonged mental labour for some months to
come. Otherwise--the tiniest hemorrhage in the affected area--and all
my surgery could not undo the damage again."
The spruce young secretary who stood at Craig's side translated.
"All right," said Craig. "Tell him I'm much obliged." He shook hands
with the great man without emotion, and when the door had closed upon
the latter he got upon his feet. "Have you arranged the rooms at the
hotel?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then get me out of here. The sooner the better."
A half hour later he was in a suite of the hotel. "Now bring me the
home papers," he commanded.
"To-day, sir?" ventured the secretary. "Do you think you are strong
enough so soon--"
"Do as I tell you," was the curt reply. "I was shot on the ninth of
May, last year. I want to begin with the tenth, and I want all of
them!"
The secretary went into the adjoining room, to return presently with a
file of newspapers, stitched neatly together, their columns marked here
and there in blue-pencil. He laid the great tome down on the table.
"That's all now," said Craig. "I'll call when I want you again. I'll
dine here."
Alone, he drew a long breath. Then he set his teeth and a peculiar
expression came to his face. A year, and more, had been snatched from
his life--this had been told him when it had been evident that the
operation had restored his faculties unimpaired, and as soon as he had
recovered sufficient strength. Beyond this, however, he had been told
nothing: on this score the surgical authority had been adamant. So,
for weeks, denied even the presence of his secretary, he had been
constrained, albeit impatiently, to subsist on the merest assurances
cabled him from day to day that the interests which had been in his
charge were adequately cared for, and to compel his stubborn resolution
to patience. Now the embargo had been lifted; he was once more his own
master. And before him, in black and white, lay the record of that
vanished time, which to him was but a meaningless void thronged with
vague and inchoate images, the story of the ignominy and downfall of
the man who had tricked him and robbed him of the woman he desired!
The blood rose in his temples. His lips drew up from his clenched
teeth and his fingers twitched as he reached for the newspapers.
There it was, the episode that excluded all else from his thought, the
sensational headlines running half across the front page--the story,
pieced together by the assiduous reportorial pencil, of the burglars
and the shooting, the unknown feminine visitor who had disappeared in
the confusion leaving no clue behind her, the arrest of the single
desperado, closing with the latter's confrontation with Craig himself.
An exclamation of satisfaction fell from his lips. He had said to Echo
that there lived no man who could say that he had lied--a boast that
had had a shameful aftermath. Yet he felt now no shade of remorse for
the black perjury that had fastened the attempted murder upon Harry
Sevier. Rather he felt disappointed that consciousness had failed him
a moment too soon, so that his own lips had not placarded the other to
his face. That joy had been denied him.
He turned the leaves, searching avidly for the headlines which should
have flung broadcast the startling identification. The events of the
great world, the larger happenings that had plunged two Balkan States
into war and overturned a British Ministry, the loss of a great ocean
liner--even a senatorial inquiry into the methods of the Distillery
Trust--held no interest for him at this moment. His brain had linked
onto the past where it had dropped it, and the empty gulf had laid no
cooling fingers on his burning craving for revenge.
But the thing he sought was not there. "_Prisoner Refuses to Make Any
Statement_"--"_Criminal Unknown to Police_"--"_Sticks Stubbornly to
Policy of Silence_"--as he read, a dull flush overspread his face.
Fools! Was it possible that he--Harry Sevier--known to a thousand folk
of a city a couple of hundreds of miles away, could hoodwink the police
by the silly subterfuge of a newly-shaven chin? The papers shook in
his vengeful clutch as he turned and turned, conning the progress of
the trial. It ended with the conviction and the sentence; thereafter
the headlines told of things of fresher public interest.
For a long time Craig sat perfectly still, staring into the grate whose
fire-light danced in yellow shadows on the wall, with the page open on
his knees. He had won the first trick, and Harry Sevier had played his
lone trump of silence. But what of that? He was a jail-bird, chained
to a cell for twenty years. His absence from home would long ago have
raised a question, which in the end must become insistent. He, Cameron
Craig, could answer that question! His lips curved in a cruel smile.
And Echo? She had profited by the situation--Harry had borne the brunt.
Her lover! A sinistrous rage caught him as he repeated the word to
himself. No softer thought of her now lurked in the bitter chambers of
his mind. She had mocked and fooled him and he hated her with the
still, cold hatred which the strong and evil man feels for the weaker
thing that defies him. Yet so far as she was concerned he was
helpless. He could not deny his declaration that he had not known the
woman in the library. Life was long and he knew the penalty that in
the south awaited the man who wantonly attacked the character of a
woman. All facts aside, his sober judgment told him that the act would
bar against him every social door that now stood open.
But Harry Sevier was another thing. Harry Sevier, thief and
house-breaker? Harry Sevier, a midnight assassin? Harry Sevier, the
nameless convict in the State's Penitentiary? What a story! Fate held
its compensations, after all. Now he would be able to figure, first
hand, in the sensation that he should send sweeping over the south like
a lurid flame!
He rose and set the newspapers on the table, parting the leaves further
along, now that his main craving had been satisfied catching glimpses
of other things: movements in the business world, and the new political
alignment, the danger of which, to the interests with which he was
identified, he had long ago discerned. So the Civic Club following had
become a full-fledged party now--was reaching out toward a state-wide
organisation!
Suddenly his gaze fixed itself and he bent over the page staring
unbelievingly. A hoarse ejaculation broke from him. What he saw was
the line, in inch-high letters--
HENRY SEVIER FOR GOVERNOR!
He snatched up the file again and held it to the light. There was no
mistake! Three months ago, while he had lain inert in the hospital
above the river, the man he imagined the occupant of a prison-cell had
been nominated for the highest office in the Commonwealth, the
standard-bearer of the New Ideal!
For an instant a keen trepidation darted through him. His hand went up
and touched the bandage. Could it be that he was--not himself? Was
what he had imagined only the figment of a brain astray? With a fierce
effort at self-control he sat down and beginning at the date at which
he had left off his reading, began to scan the columns carefully and
methodically, missing nothing.
For two hours he did this, and at length he came upon a paragraph at
which his lowering face lightened with exultation. It chronicled in a
dozen words the escape from the Penitentiary of the convict who was
under imprisonment for the burglary of the Craig mansion and the
shooting of its owner. The circle of evidence closed up. He was
certain, now.
Craig laughed out loud, a grating laugh of sardonic amusement. Again
the cards had fallen Harry Sevier's way. By some lucky chance he had
freed himself, and with the effrontery of supposed security had resumed
his old place and character, no one the wiser. Now he was actually
running for Governor! Well, the higher the pinnacle the more
spectacular the fall! The game was his, Craig's, for he held the
highest trump!
He rang for his secretary.
"Bring me the steamer-lists," he said, "and have the servants pack my
things. We are going to leave on the Nord-Express at midnight."