In the morning Carmel Lee had made up her mind. She did not know she
had made up her mind, but it was none the less true. Her mind was of
the sort which makes itself up upon slight provocation and then permits
its owner to reason and argue and apply the pure light of reason
to the problem in hand--a sort of _ex post facto_ deliberation. As
may have been noted, the salient characteristic of this young woman
was a certain impetuosity, a stubborn impulsiveness. Once her mind
made itself up to a certain course of action, nothing short of an
upheaval of nature could turn her from it. But, notwithstanding, she
considered herself to be of a schooled deliberation. She believed she
had impressed this deliberation upon herself, and was confident she
reasoned out every matter of importance gravely and logically.
Now, having determined just what she would do about the _cache_ of
whisky she had discovered, she sat down before her desk to determine
what it was best to do.
So enraged, so shaken, had she been by her encounter with Abner Fownes
the evening before, that it was necessary for her to take action
against somebody or something. She could not demolish Fownes, and
nobody else was handy, so she turned to the whisky and vented her anger
and disgust upon that.
While she sat before her desk pretending to herself that she was
deliberating, Evan Bartholomew Pell came into the office, nodded
curtly, and dropped in his chair. Carmel, of a sudden, seized paper and
commenced to write. As she set down word after word, sentence after
sentence, she became uneasily aware of some distracting influence. Upon
looking up she identified this extraneous force as the eyes of Evan
Pell. He was staring at her fixedly.
“You forgot your spectacles this morning,” she said, sharply, to cover
her embarrassment.
“I have no spectacles,” he said, dryly.
“What became of them?”
“They--er--disappeared during the barbarous episode of the other day.”
“You have no others?”
“None.”
“How can you work without them?”
“I find,” he said, “they are not essential. I was about to discard them
in any event.” He paused. “It was clear to me,” he said, simply, “that
a scholarly appearance was not necessary to me in my new walk of life.”
He said this so casually, with such good faith and simplicity, that
Carmel saw how little he realized the absurdity of it. It demonstrated
something of the straightforwardness of the man, something simple
and childlike in him.... Carmel turned back to her desk with a warmer
feeling of friendship toward Evan. There was something engaging,
appealing about the artificially dried, cloistered, egoistic man.
“At any rate,” she said, presently, again aware of his eyes, “you seem
perfectly able to stare at me, glasses or no glasses.”
“I was staring at you,” he admitted, with disconcerting directness.
“Well, of all things!... Why?”
“Because,” he said, “you present an interesting problem.”
“Indeed!... What problem, if you please?”
There was no trace of self-consciousness in his answer. It was direct,
not made with humorous intent, nor as a man of the world might have
uttered similar words. It issued from profound depths of ignorance of
life and of the customs and habits of life.
“I find,” he said, “that I think about you a great deal. Yes.... I find
my thoughts taken up with you at most inopportune moments. I am even
able to visualize you. Very queer. Only last evening, when I should
have been otherwise occupied, I suddenly aroused myself to find I had
been giving you minute consideration for half an hour. I may even say
that I derived a certain pleasure from the exercise. It was startling,
if I may use so strong a word. Doubtless there is some cause for such a
mental phenomenon.... Will you believe me, Miss Lee, I was perfectly
able to see you as if you were in the room with me. I watched you move
about. I could see the changing expressions upon your face.... And when
I realized how I was frittering away my time, and set about resolutely
to take up the business in hand, I could do so only with the greatest
difficulty. Actually, I did so with regret, and thereafter found
concentration extremely difficult.... Therefore I have been sitting
here, studying you with the utmost care to discover, if I can, the
reason for these things.”
“And have you discovered it?” Carmel asked, a trifle breathlessly.
He shook his head. “Undoubtedly you are pleasing to the eye,” he said,
“but I must have encountered other people who are equally pleasing. I
must confess to being at a loss for an answer.”
Carmel experienced a wave of sympathy. She hoped he would never
discover the cause of the phenomenon, and fancied it quite likely he
would never comprehend it. Mingled with her sympathy was a sense of
guilt. She reviewed her conduct toward Evan Pell and could discover
no action on her part which justified a feeling of guilt, yet it
persisted. This queer, pedantic, crackling man was attracted to her,
was, perhaps, on the verge of falling in love with her.... He was
coming to life! She paused to wonder what sort of man he would be if
he really came to life; if he sloughed off his shell of pedantry and
stood disclosed without disguise. Perhaps it would be good for him to
fall in love, no matter how vainly. It might be unpleasant for both
of them, but, she determined, if he did find out what ailed him, she
would be patient and gentle with him and see to it the hurt she would
inflict should be as slight as she could make it.... It is to be noted
her mind was already made up. Evan had no chance whatever. Already she
had refused him, kindly, gently, but firmly.... It was upsetting.
“Probably,” she said, with an artificial laugh, “it is something you
have eaten.”
“I have made no alteration in my diet,” he said, and then, with the air
of one who wrenches himself away from an engrossing subject, “There
seems to be an unusual supply of liquor in Gibeon to-day.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve noted a dozen men on the street this morning who are indicative
of the fact.”
“Where do they get it?”
As she turned to ask the question, she saw his face change, saw a glint
of determination in his really fine eyes; saw his chin jut forward and
the muscles just under his jaw bunch into little white knots. “I don’t
know,” he said, “but I’m going to find out.”
Here was a new man, a man she had not seen. This new man was as
revealing as that indomitable man she had seen fighting a futile fight
with Deputy Jenney.
“If I can find out who dispenses liquor in town,” he said, “that will
be a step toward discovering where the dispensers get it. It will be
climbing the first round of the ladder.”
For an instant she was about to tell him what she had discovered, but
it was vanity which stopped her. It was her discovery, her “beat,” and
she wanted to surprise everybody with it.
“Whose business is it to stop this liquor traffic?” she asked.
“First, it is the business of the law-enforcement officials of this
county--the sheriff and his subordinates. This is a prohibition
state and has been for years. Second, it is the business of Federal
enforcement officials.”
“Who, doubtless, are few and far between in this region.”
“Yes. To put a stop to the thing by legal means, we must have the
co-operation of the sheriff.”
“And there is no sheriff,” said Carmel.
“Er--removed by the liquor interests for cause,” said Evan, dryly.
“If I am a judge of appearances, the sheriff’s office as it is now
constituted is not likely to give the rum smugglers a maximum of
uneasiness.”
“Mr. Pell, when there is a vacancy in the office of sheriff, how can
that vacancy be filled?”
“I was reading the Compiled Statutes of the state last night with that
point in mind.... The Governor may appoint a successor to fill the
unexpired term of office.”
Carmel turned back to her work, but once more faced Evan abruptly.
“Have you noticed an unusual number of men going up to Lancelot Bangs’s
photograph gallery to-day?” she asked.
“No. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I wondered.”
He eyed her a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “I shall give Mr.
Bangs my attention,” he said, and arose to leave the office.
Carmel arose, too, impulsively. “Please be cautious, be careful.... I
could never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
For an instant his eyes glowed, color mounted to his cheeks. Then
a look of astonishment, of sudden apprehension, and of confusion
succeeded it. He turned and fled abruptly.
For an hour Carmel continued to write. She completed a circumstantial
account of the finding of the liquor _cache_, omitting only the picking
up of the brass match box. It was intuition rather than judgment which
caused this omission. Having completed this news story, she composed a
three-quarter-column editorial upon the subject, and therein she walked
a more dangerous path than in the mere recounting of the news itself.
She ventured into realms of conjecture.
First she touched the traffic itself, then upon the apparent magnitude
of the industry locally, and then, which was an unsafe thing to do, and
unwise, she pointed out with logic that such a huge business required
capital, organization, and intelligence. She gave it as the opinion
of the _Free Press_ that here was no affair of a few small bad men,
but a real conspiracy to break the laws of the land, to the end of a
huge profit. She named no names, because here conjecture was forced
to pause, but she set afloat upon the current of gossip a raft of
suspicion. Who in Gibeon was engaged in this conspiracy? Who was at the
head of it?... At the end she asked one sentence:
“Find the men who hid this store of whisky in the woods and you will
have the murderers of Sheriff Churchill.”
It was the first time a name had been given the disappearance of the
sheriff; the first time in print that the word _murder_ had been
attached to it.
Carmel was well satisfied with herself. She took the story and the
editorial to Tubal, with directions to set at once.
Ten minutes later he appeared in the door, the manuscript in his left
hand, while with his right he transferred ink from his fingers to his
face.
“Lady,” he said, “be you serious about printin’ this here?”
“I certainly am.”
“All of it?”
“Every word, sentence, paragraph, and punctuation mark.”
“My Gawd!... Say, Lady, now lookit here! This here thing is loaded with
dynamite, nitroglycerin, TNT, and mustard gas. The dum thing’s apt
to go off right on the printin’ press and blow the whole shebang to
smithereens. If I was to drop a page onto the floor--_whoof!_... Better
think it over.”
“I’ve thought it over.”
“Um!... It’s funny what folks calls thinkin’ sometimes! Hain’t
despondent, be ye?”
“No. Why?”
“’Cause, if ye be, and kind of want to shuffle off’n this mortal coil,
you kin pick out easier ’n’ pleasanter ways of doin’ it. There’s layin’
down with your head on the railroad track, f’r instance.”
“Are you afraid, Tubal?”
“Bet your life,” said Tubal, unabashed. “Can’t say I git so much joy
out of life that it makes me go around hollerin’ and singin’, but
what there is of it I kind of like. When you’re dead you can’t chaw
tobacker. Ruther chaw than twiddle a harp. Uh huh. Hain’t no printer’s
ink to smell in heaven.”
“But maybe you won’t go to heaven, Tubal.”
“Bound to,” he said, gravely. “Got it all figgered out. Says suthin’ in
the Bible about the Lord ’u’d rather herd in one sinner to heaven than
ninety-nine righteous fellers, don’t it? Wa-al, I’m the sinner he was
calc’latin’ on. When he goes to herd me in, I hain’t goin’ to put up no
resistance whatever. Yas ’m I’m safe to pass them pearly gates on the
run.”
“Tubal, do you ever drink?”
“Frequent--but not too frequent.”
“Where do you get it?”
“Um!... Now there’s a question, Lady. Now hain’t it? Want a feller to
do me a favor like gittin’ liquor fer me in a dry and thirsty land, and
then fer me to go ’n’ tattle on him? Uh-uh, Lady. Can’t be did.”
“But you’re loyal to me, aren’t you, Tubal?”
“Lady, seems like I’d come clost to lettin’ wild hosses tromple onto me
fer you.”
“Then why not help me when I’m trying to find out about this liquor
business?”
“Best help I kin give ye is to warn you to leave it alone. Churchill,
he meddled with it.”
“I’m going to find out who killed him.”
“Lady, you’re runnin’ up a tree that’s bound to be struck by
lightnin’.... Listen, there’s jest you ’n’ Simmy ’n’ that perfessor
feller. Count us up--four. What chanct we got?”
“Against whom, Tubal?”
“The ones we hain’t got no chanct ag’in’,” he said noncommittally. “I
dunno, Lady, and if I knowed I wouldn’t tell. Men that hain’t afraid
to do away with a sheriff wouldn’t come to a sweat over disposin’ of a
printer like me.”
“It’s the business of a newspaper----”
“To make a livin’ for the owners of it and to keep out of libel suits.
Stick to that, Lady. Hain’t this sheet in a bad enough way without your
tyin’ a rock to it and throwin’ it in the river?”
“We’re wasting time,” said Carmel.
“You’re bound and determined to print this here?”
“I’ll print that if it’s the last act of my life.”
“Wa-al, if that’s the way you feel.... Mebby it will be, mebby not,
seems as though.” He walked to the door, and there turned. “I own a
book of synonyms,” he said.
“Yes, Tubal.”
“Goin’ to throw it away?”
“Why?”
“’Tain’t correct.”
“How is it wrong?”
“Don’t give _woman_ as a synonym for _lunatic_,” he said, and
disappeared abruptly.