Carmel entered the office of the _Free Press_, after her encounter
with Abner Fownes, in a temper which her most lenient friend could not
describe as amiable. It was no small part of Carmel’s charm that she
could be unamiable interestingly. Her tempers were not set pieces, like
the Niagara Falls display at a fireworks celebration. They did not glow
and pour and smoke until the spectators were tired of them and wanted
to see something else. Rather they were like gorgeous aërial bombs
which rent the remote clouds with a detonation and lighted the heavens
with a multitude of colored stars. Sometimes her choicest tempers
were like those progressive bombs which keep on detonating a half a
dozen times and illuminating with different colored stars after each
explosion. This particular temper was one of her best.
“From now on,” she said to nobody in particular, and not at all for the
purpose of giving information, “this paper is going to be run for one
single purpose. It’s going to do everything that pompous little fat
man, with his ears growing out of his shoulders, doesn’t want it to.
It’s going to hunt for things he doesn’t like. It is going to annoy
and plague and prod him. If a paper like this can make a man like him
uncomfortable, he’ll never know another peaceful moment....”
Evan Pell looked up from his table--over the rims of his
spectacles--and regarded her with interest.
“Indeed!” he said. “And what, if I may ask, has caused this--er--
declaration of policy?”
“He looked at me,” Carmel said, “and he--he wiggled all his chins at
me.”
Tubal thrust his head through the doorway. “What’d he do?” he demanded,
belligerently. “If he done anythin’ a gent shouldn’t do to a lady I’ll
jest ca’mly walk over there and twist three-four of them chins clean
off’n him.”
“I wish you would.... I wish you would.... But you mustn’t.... He gave
me orders. He told me I was to let him read every bit of copy which
went into this paper. He said I must have his O. K. on everything I
print.”
“Ah!” said Evan Pell. “And what did you rejoin?”
“I told him this was my paper, and so long as it was mine, I should
do exactly what I wanted with it, and then I turned my back and
walked away leaving him looking like a dressed-up mushroom--a fatuous
mushroom.”
“A new variety,” said Pell.
“I--I’ll make his life miserable for sixty days anyhow.”
“If,” said Pell, “he permits you to continue for sixty days.”
“I’ll continue, not for sixty days, but for years and years and
years--till I’m an old, gray-headed woman--just to spite him. I’ll make
this paper pay! I’ll show him he can’t threaten me. I’ll----”
“Now, Lady,” said Tubal, “if I was you I’d set down and cool off. If
you’re spoilin’ fer a fight you better go into it level-headed and not
jest jump in flailin’ your arms like a Frenchy cook in a tantrum. Abner
Fownes hain’t no infant to be spanked and put to bed. If you calc’late
to go after his scalp, you better find out how you kin git a grip onto
his hair.”
“And,” said Pell, “how you can prevent his--er--getting a grip on
yours.”
“I don’t believe he’s as big a man as he thinks he is,” said Carmel.
“I have read somewhere--I do not recall the author at the moment--a
word of advice which might apply to this situation. It is to the effect
that one should never underestimate an antagonist.”
“Oh, I shan’t. I’ll cool down presently, and then I’ll be as
cold-blooded and calculating as anybody. But right now I--I want
to--stamp on his pudgy toes.”
The telephone interrupted and Evan Pell put the receiver to his ear.
“... Yes, this is the _Free Press_.... Please repeat that.... In Boston
last night?... Who saw him? Who is speaking?” Then his face assumed
that blank, exasperated look which nothing can bring in such perfection
as to have the receiver at the other end of the line hung up in one’s
ear. He turned to Carmel.
“The person”--he waggled his thumb toward the instrument--“who was on
the wire says Sheriff Churchill was seen in Boston last night?”
“Alive?”
“Alive.”
“Who was it? Who saw him?”
“When I asked that--he hung up the receiver in my ear.”
“Do you suppose it is true?”
“Um!... Let us scrutinize the matter in the light of logic--which
it is your custom to ridicule. First, we have an anonymous
communication. Anonymity is always open to suspicion. Second, it is
the newspaper which is informed--not the authorities. Third, it is
the newspaper which has been showing a curiosity as to the sheriff’s
whereabouts--er--contrary to the wishes of certain people....”
“Yes....”
“From these premises I would reason: first, that the anonymous informer
wishes the fact to be made public; second, that he wishes this paper to
believe it; third, that, if the paper does believe it, it will cease
asking where the sheriff is and why; and fourth, that if this report is
credited, there will be no search by anybody for a _corpus delicti_.”
“A _corpus delicti_! And what might that be?”
Evan Pell sighed with that impatient tolerance which one exhibits
toward children asking questions about the obvious.
“It has been suggested,” he said, “that Sheriff Churchill has been
murdered. The first requisite in the establishment of the commission of
a murder is the production of the _corpus delicti_--the body of the
victim. If the body cannot be produced, or its disposal established,
there can be no conviction for the crime. In short, a murder requires
the fact of a dead man, and until the law can be shown a veritable body
it is compelled, I imagine, to presume the victim still alive. Here,
you will perceive, the effort is to raise a presumption that Sheriff
Churchill is not a _corpus delicti_.”
“Then you don’t believe it?”
“Do you?”
“I--I don’t know. Poor Mrs. Churchill! For her sake I hope it is true.”
“H’m!... If I were you, Miss Lee, I would not inform Mrs. Churchill of
this--without substantiation.”
“You are right. Nor shall I print it in the paper. You believe some one
is deliberately imposing upon us?”
“My mind,” said Evan Pell, “has been trained for years to seek the
truth. I am an observer of facts, trained to separate the true from the
false. That is the business of science and research. I think I have
made plain my reasons for doubting the truth of this message.”
“So much so,” said Carmel, “that I agree with you.”
Evan smiled complacently. “I fancied you could not do otherwise,” he
said. “Perhaps you will be further convinced if I tell you I am quite
certain I recognized the voice which gave the message.”
“Are you sure? Who was it?”
“I am certain in my own mind, but I could not take my oath in a court
of law.... I believe the voice was that of the little hunchback known
locally as Peewee Bangs.”
“The proprietor of the Lakeside Hotel?”
Evan nodded.
“What is this Lakeside Hotel?” Carmel asked. “I’ve heard it mentioned,
and somehow I’ve gotten the idea that it was--peculiar.”
Tubal interjected an answer before Evan Pell could speak. “It’s a good
place for sich as you be to keep away from. Folks drives out there in
automobiles from the big town twenty-thirty mile off, and has high
jinks. Before prohibition come in folks said Peewee run a blind pig.”
“He seems very friendly with the local politicians.”
“Huh!” snorted Tubal.
“I don’t understand Gibeon,” Carmel said. “Of course I haven’t been
here long enough to know it and to know the people, but there’s
something about it which seems different from other little towns I’ve
known. The people look the same and talk the same. There are the same
churches and lodges and the reading club and its auxiliaries, and I
suppose there is the woman’s club which is exclusive, and all that.
But, somehow, those things, the normal life of the place, affect me as
being all on the surface, with something secret going on underneath....
If there is anything hidden, it must be hidden from most of the people,
too. The folks must be decent, honest, hardworking. Whatever it is,
they don’t know.”
“What gives you such an idea?” Evan Pell asked, with interest.
“It’s a feeling--instinct, maybe. Possibly it’s because I’m trying
to find something, and imagine it all. Maybe I’ve magnified little,
inconsequential things.”
“What has all this to do with Abner Fownes?”
“Why--nothing. He seems to be a rather typical small-town magnate. He’s
egotistical, bumptious, small-minded. He loves importance--and he’s
rich. The professional politicians know him and his weaknesses and use
him. He’s a figurehead--so far as actual things go, with a lot of petty
power which he loves to exercise.... He’s a bubble, and, oh, how I’d
love to prick him!”
Evan bowed to her with ironical deference. “Remarkable,” he said.
“A clean-cut, searching analysis. Doubtless correct. You have been
studying him cursorily for a matter of days, but you comprehend him
to the innermost workings of his mind.... I, a trained observer, have
watched and scrutinized Abner Fownes for a year--and have not yet
reached a conclusion. May I compliment you, Miss Lee?”
Carmel’s eyes snapped. “You may,” she said, and then closed her lips
determinedly.
“You were going to say?” Evan asked, in his most irritating,
pedagogical tone.
“I was going to say that you have mighty little to be supercilious
about. You don’t know any more about this man than I do, and you’ve
been here a year. You don’t like him because he hurt your vanity,
and you’re so crusted over with vanity that whatever is inside of it
is quite lost to sight.... He had you discharged as superintendent
of schools, and it rankles.... It’s childish, like that letter of
yours.... Oh, you irritate me.”
“Er--at any rate you have the quality of making yourself clear,” he
said, dryly, not offended, she was surprised to note, but rather amused
and tolerant. He was so cocksure, so wrapped up in himself and his
abilities, so egotistical, that no word of criticism could reach and
wound him. Carmel wanted to wound him, to see him wince. She was sorry
for him because she could perceive the smallness, the narrowness,
the poverty of his life; yet, because she felt, somehow, that his
character was of his own planning and constructing, and because it was
so eminently satisfactory to her, that it was a duty to goad him into a
realization of his deficiencies. Evan Pell did not seem to her a human
being, a man, so much as a dry-as-dust mechanism--an irritating little
pedant lacking in all moving emotions except boundless vanity.
She had taken him into the office, half from sympathy, half because
somebody was needed and he was the only help available. At times she
regretted it. Now she leaned forward to challenge him.
“You’ve boasted about your abilities as a trained investigator,” she
said. “Very well, then, investigate. That’s the business of a reporter.
Gibeon is your laboratory. You’ll find it somewhat different to get
at facts hidden in human brains than to discover the hidden properties
of a chemical or to classify some rare plant or animal.... I haven’t a
trained mind. I wasn’t an infant prodigy. I haven’t spent my lifetime
in educating my brain out of all usefulness, but I can see there’s
something wrong here. Now, Mr. Pell, take your trained faculties out
and discover what it is. There’s investigation worth while.”
“Are you sure,” said Evan, “you will have the courage to publish what I
find?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “There’s no use talking about that,” she
said, “until you find something.”
“What,” he said, provocatively, “do you want me to investigate first?”
“The one thing that cries out for investigation. Find out why nothing
is done to discover what happened to Sheriff Churchill. Find out why
he disappeared and who made him disappear and what has become of him.
Fetch me the answers to these questions and I’ll take back all I’ve
said--and apologize.”
“Has it--er--occurred to you that perhaps Sheriff Churchill disappeared
because he--investigated too much?”
“Are you afraid?” she asked.
He wrinkled his brows and peered at her through his spectacles, and
then, nonplused her by answering, calmly, “I rather fancy I am.
Yes, now I come to give consideration to my emotions, I find I am
apprehensive.”
“Then,” she said, with a shrug, “we will forget about it.”
“You are trying,” he said, “to make me feel ashamed because I am
afraid. It is useless. I shall not be ashamed. It is natural I
should be afraid. Self-preservation dictates fear. The emotion of
fear was implanted in man and animals as a--er--safety device to
prevent them from incurring dangers. No, I am not in the least
ashamed.... Fortunately, reason has been provided as well as fear,
and, consequently, if reason counsels a course of action which fear
would veto, it is only natural that intelligence should govern....
Reason should always control emotion. Therefore, apprehensive as I
am of unpleasant consequences to myself, I shall proceed with the
investigation as indicated.” His tone was final. There was no boasting
in his statement, only the logical presentation of a fact. He was
afraid, but his reason indicated to him that it was worth his while
to subject himself to the hazards of the situation. Therefore he
subordinated fear.
But Carmel--responsibility sat upon her heavily in that moment. She had
ordered or goaded a human being into risking his person, perhaps his
life. That phase of it had not presented itself to her. She was sending
a man into danger, and the responsibility of her doing so arose stark
before her.
“I--I have no right,” she said, hesitatingly. “I was wrong. I cannot
allow you to put yourself in danger.”
“Unfortunately,” said Evan Pell, “you have no vote in the matter.
I have made the decision.... Of course, you may dispense with my
services, but that will not affect my conduct. I shall find out what
became of Sheriff Churchill and put myself in a position to lay before
the proper authorities substantiated facts covering all phases of his
disappearance.”
“But----”
He raised his hand, palm toward her. “My decision is final,” he said,
with asperity.