With a disgusted grunt, McNew, editor and proprietor of the New York
Gazette, flung himself back in his chair. He was impatient by nature,
and since he had bought the Gazette and made it the most notorious
if not the most famous paper in New York, he had stopped concealing
the fact. It is a bad thing for some men to succeed too soon in life.
If McNew could have put off his success for twenty years, it would
probably not have done him half the harm it did when he was thirty-five.
McNew had succeeded, so he had no patience with failure, not even
with the temporary failure that comes to all newspaper men at times.
His idea was that all information naturally belonged to the Gazette.
Sometimes it was wilfully kept from it by perverse persons, and anon
it was maliciously stolen from it by rivals; in either case he held
that the loss was due to the failure of the Gazette men. McNew never
admitted the impossibility of getting a piece of news.
In the present case he took no pains to hide his disgust.
“So far as I can make out, Risdon,” he jeered. “Your trouble seems to
lie in the depraved desire of certain people to keep their business to
themselves instead of telling it to you. What I want to know is, why
do you let them do it? What in hell’s bells do you think the Gazette
brought you back from Germany and landed you in Washington for? What do
you think it pays you for? To report pink teas?”
Risdon flushed, but not from embarrassment. Risdon had been a newspaper
writer too long to be readily embarrassed, even by his employer. But he
was very angry. He leaned forward and brought his fist down with a bang
on the table. “See here, Mac,” he began, furiously. “If--”
McNew drew in his horns a little. He wanted to stir up Risdon, but
he did not want to stir him too far. “Aw! don’t call me Mac,” he
interrupted. “It’s too infernally formal. Call me Johnny.”
A reluctant smile curved the corners of Risdon’s mouth. He and McNew
had known each other ever since they had been cub reporters on the
Alta California twenty years ago, and they understood each other
thoroughly. “All right, Johnny,” he answered, still a little huffily.
“If you want my resignation, you can get it.”
“What would I do with it?” retorted the other. “I can get a better
scoop without turning around. I don’t want resignations; I want
news. I’m publishing a newspaper, and I want something to fill it.
Particularly, I want to know what the German and Japanese ambassadors
are discussing so often and so earnestly with the daughter of the
governor of the most Germanic state of all the states of Brazil. I
don’t want pipe dreams; I want facts, f-a-c-t-s, facts, and not a lot
of rot like this;” McNew crumpled a dozen typewritten pages in his
hand, and flung them contemptuously on the table. “You call yourself a
newspaper man and can’t find out a little thing like that?” he finished
scornfully.
“Little thing! Humph! It is all right to talk, and it’s easy enough to
invent plots a la Oppenheim, but--”
“Why don’t you invent ’em, then,” retorted the editor; “instead of
sending in rehash like this. How many times have the Japs seized
the Philippines--in the newspapers? How many times has Germany made
faces at us since Admiral Diedrich tried to bluff Dewey at Manila
eight years ago? Pah! It’s gotten to be a joke and a mighty bad joke,
too; and it isn’t helped out much by the row over the schools in San
Francisco. Japan isn’t going to war, and if she was going to war she
wouldn’t give us warning that she was getting her back up. She’d jump
right in, and fuss about it later. A yarn like this is altogether too
fakey!”
Risdon studied the other for a moment. “You don’t see any significance
in the Germany and Japan ambassadors meeting with a Brazilian countess,
then, don’t you?” he asked.
“Mighty little. Where’s the connection? What’s Germany stand to win? As
for Brazil--Well! the founding of a German empire in Brazil--if that’s
what you’ve got in mind--is about as mouldy as the Japanese attack on
the Philippines. This panatella countess is half a German, and it’s
entirely natural that she should run with the German crowd here. As
for the Japs--Well! that may be only a coincidence. Anyway! there’s no
proof that would warrant me in risking half a dozen great big libel
suits. No! No! Risdon! If you want to run a yarn like this you’ve got
to have some real facts to back it up. Why don’t you get them?”
Risdon flung up his hands. “How can I?” he demanded. “I’ve done my
best. You know what these embassies are. No one can break into them
except a burglar--”
“Then turn burglar!”
“Not even a burglar, I should have said. No subordinate will talk; and
I can fancy what Bildstein or Siuki would say if I went to either of
them and asked to be told the subjects of their conferences with the
Countess Elsa.”
“Well! What would they say?”
“Say? They’d say: ‘Such a question, sir, is an unwarranted
impertinence. You will kindly excuse me.’ Then they would show me to
the door and would cut me dead the next time they met me! Thank you!
I’ve got to get news in Washington, and I’m not quarreling with my
sources of information--especially when I know it wouldn’t do any good.”
“Well! How about this countess woman? You ought to be used to the
aristocracy by now. Can’t you break in there, or shall I go back to New
York and send an office boy down to show you how?”
Risdon bristled up. “See here, Mac,” he exclaimed. “You’ve said about
enough. I’m tired of it, and if you keep on I’m likely to chuck you
and my job into the street together. I’ve tried to do exactly what you
suggest. The countess had been here some time before I knew it. When
I heard of her, I suspected something was up; I had met the lady in
Berlin and had reason to believe she was framing up something. She’s
staying at Senator Pratt’s, and the darkey who runs my errands is sweet
on one of the maids there. He told me of her interviews with the German
ambassador. Then I saw Pratt and everybody else--Great Scott! Don’t you
suppose I know my business! Nothing doing! I couldn’t get a line. So I
went to see the countess. Nothing doing again. I knew there wouldn’t
be. That woman can give me cards and spades and beat me. She’s wasted
in Washington and in this age. She ought to have lived in France a
hundred years ago. She’s a woman to overturn a government--or create
one. And I am not so sure she isn’t doing one or both. But I can’t
prove it.”
“How does she come to be visiting Pratt?”
“Put-up job! That’s one thing that makes me think there’s something
big brewing. Pratt and his daughter were in Europe last summer
just after--well, just after something peculiar happened--and the
countess laid herself out for them. The Ouro Pretos aren’t any cheap
adventurers, you understand. They’re all to the mustard in Paris
and Berlin, and they made things mighty delightful for Susy Pratt.
Now Susy’s all right. She’s a mighty sweet girl and the senator
is--well--he’s chairman of the big foreign affairs committee of the
Senate, but otherwise he’s what you’d expect a senator from his state
to be. Fine people, both of them, but not the sort that the countess
would lay herself out for without a lot better reason than their
sterling characters. The colored gentleman in the wood-pile didn’t
appear till this winter when the countess cabled from Tokio--Tokio,
mind you--asking for an invitation to Washington for the winter. Of
course, she got it, and I’d give something to know what she wanted it
for. If it’s some big political scheme, as I think it is, the chairman
of the foreign affairs committee is a mighty good stalking horse to
do business behind. I believe she deliberately picked Pratt as a
standing guarantee of her innocence and as an unsuspicious somebody
whom she could wrap around her finger. Maybe she’s right about Pratt’s
subserviency, but I’m none too sure of it.”
McNew considered. Then he slowly gathered up the typed pages that he
had thrown on the table. “Then you really believe there’s something in
this yarn of yours?” he asked.
Risdon did not answer at once. Instead, he stared out of the window
along the broad stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue to where half a dozen
electric lights branched beneath a pillared portico. So long he stared
that McNew’s impatience burst out.
“Well! Well! Well!” he shouted. “Why don’t you speak?”
Risdon roused himself. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “I think it is
correct--if not accurate. Of course, it isn’t new. It’s been used
before. In fact, we’ve been yelling wolf a whole lot and nobody has
ever taken it seriously, but the wolf did come at last in the fable,
you’ll remember, and so may the Japs. I didn’t send that yarn just to
make a story. I sent it because I really believed that the wolf might
be about ready to come and I hoped to scare him off.”
McNew laughed. “Lord! you’re innocent,” he jeered. “Do you really
think a scare-head in the Gazette would make the Japs--or Germans
either--change their plans--if they have any. Your story would simply
warn them. If you’re right--if you’re the least little bit right,
you’ve got your finger on _the_ story of the year. And you go off half
cocked. Heavens! Risdon! If I didn’t know to the contrary I’d think you
a rank cub.”
“Tha-a-anks! But suppose war comes--while I wait. Do you want that?”
“War!” McNew shuddered. “God forbid! The Spanish War wiped out the
Gazette’s entire profits for 1898, and a war with Germany would ruin
it.”
Risdon nodded. “So I understand,” he answered. “I wrote that article,
if you’ll notice, so as to convey the idea that I got my information
from the State Department and that it was prepared for anything. In
other words I tried to make it appear that the United States had
chosen me to serve formal notice on the Japs to go slow. But I didn’t
get my information from the State Department. I got the basis of it
in Berlin last summer, and I’ve got more later from various sources.
There is really something big on. I was sure of it months ago. That’s
why I persuaded you to send Miss Byrd to South America. It wasn’t for
commercial reasons, as I let on--though she’s made good on those all
right. It was because I was sure there was something doing. But--well,
I’ve gotten frightened. You’ve read this story”--he pointed to the
typed sheets--“and you know what it says. That rebellion in South
Brazil is growing stronger day by day. The rebels are getting men and
money and arms from unknown sources. Rutile--he’s secretary of our
embassy in Berlin--thought they were sent from Germany and got a leave
of absence and set off to investigate them. He’s disappeared and I
can’t learn what’s become of him. It looks to me as if the game was
getting near a finish. I don’t know what the State Department knows or
thinks; and I’ve been afraid to ask questions for fear I’d give the
scoop away. So it seemed best to print the yarn. If it does nothing
else, it may at least stir up the State Department. A yarn like that
is more effective when it’s published--even if it’s published in a
yellow sheet like the Gazette. Somehow people put more credence in it.
Besides, I think it’s not a bad story.”
McNew snorted. “Oh! it’s good enough, in one way,” he admitted. “I’ve
been joshing you to a certain extent. If I had been sure the story was
a plain fake, I would have printed it this morning. But I wasn’t sure!
I have information from--well, from abroad--that makes me think that
maybe you’re right. That’s why I held it up last night. That’s why I
came down here today. And that’s why you’re going to come with me and
meet the young woman who I hope will help to solve the problem.” He
drew out his watch and glanced at it. “It’s eight o’clock,” he noted;
“and I wired her that we would call at eight thirty. So get your hat
and come along.”