As Helen was shown into Saul Hartz’s library a clock on the
chimneypiece struck eleven.
“May I get you anything, miss?” said the butler, to whom she was well
known.
“Thank you, Jennings--no.” She shivered slightly; it was a chill
September night.
Jennings gave the fire a poke and retired.
Helen took a book from a table, turned up a reading lamp and sat down.
At first so strong was the current of her thought that she did not look
at the book. Her whole mind was fixed upon the forty precious minutes
that could be allowed for Mr. Hartz’s return. If he tarried beyond that
time it might be too late for him to be of use--at any rate, so far as
the U. P. was concerned. In regard to the _Planet_ he might, perhaps,
be allowed another two hours.
Severe good sense forbade giving her thoughts much rein. Worry was not
going to help. Besides, she had one of those disciplined minds, which,
in spite of the moment’s pressure, are not allowed to riot. She looked
at the book in her hand. Its title was _Essays in Contribution to a
Permanent Peace_, its author, John Endor. Publication was not due for
another fortnight, but an advance copy had been sent already to the
_Planet_ by the book’s publishers in the hope of an early review.
Coincidence, brain wave, sixth, seventh, eighth, nth sense, had drawn
her fingers subconsciously, in semidarkness to this volume. That it was
now in her hand was not due to the fact that she had read the title on
the cover. The book’s coming open at this particular place was less a
fruit of chance than of the fact that a marker had been inserted.
A mere glance disclosed that much of page 204 was heavily underscored
in red ink.
“The most acute problem of this vexed time is the ever-growing power
of the newspaper press. Legislation of a drastic kind is needed to
cope with certain newspaper ‘bosses’ in Great Britain and America
and their combinations, national and international, of periodicals,
agencies, special correspondents and their sinister antennae, which
persistently foul at the source the wells of truth. So long as the
infernal machinery which creates and molds public opinion and now
aspires to govern the world can be set in motion by the Luciferian
minds which control it, minds whose sole merit is a prodigious
development of the modern business brain and its infinite capacity
for combination and adjustment, hope of a stable peace on any of the
five continents of this unlucky planet is out of the question. It
cannot be said too often that such an engine as the Universal Press
is a power for evil and a dire menace to civilization.”
To the eyes that read these words they were written in letters of fire.
They seemed to burn themselves in Helen’s brain. Could this terrible
indictment be true? Was it justified? At least it was the considered
verdict of the man she had promised to marry. And it was directed
against one who had her whole allegiance, one who crowned with a
princely reward her loyal labors.
The Chief had many foes. So much was known to her. But like most other
people she had been willing to regard that fact as a tribute to the
peculiar nature of his talent. Saul Hartz’s enemies were the first
to own that his genius had enabled him to get so many strings into
his hand that he was able to interfere too intimately with the inner
workings of the body politic. He had made such a “corner” in public
opinion and the subterranean forces which mold it that he had been able
to upset the true balance of government throughout the world. Acute
minds saw the time coming when the U. P. would have all nations at its
mercy.
Helen Sholto knew that sinister charges had been brought against
a portentous machine. But to her they had always remained vague.
Now, however, they were taking shape. Once she had heard Mr. Hartz
stigmatize John Endor as a fanatic. The moment was at hand when the two
men must be weighed in the scales. Which was in the right? Helen felt
that her whole career was involved in the answer about to be given.
Under which king, Bezonian? The words seemed to come to her out of the
upper air. It was as if they sounded in the delicate ear of her spirit.
Before, however, she could trace them to their source she was terribly
startled. Someone had entered the room unperceived. With a shiver she
woke to a perception of the fact that the Colossus stood looking at
her.