For six days after the night of revelations Kent dived deep, personally
and by paid proxy, in a sea of secrecy which, but for the five pregnant
minutes in the doorway of the governor's office, might easily have proved
fathomless.
On the seventh day the conflagration broke out. The editor of the Belmount
_Refiner_ was the first to smell smoke and to raise the cry of "Fire!" but
by midnight the wires were humming with the news and the entire State was
ablaze.
The story as it appeared under the scare headlines the next morning was
crisply told. An oil company had been formed with Senator Duvall at its
head. After its incorporation it was ascertained that it not only held
options on all the most valuable wells in the Belmount region, but that
its charter gave it immunity from the law requiring all corporations to
have their organizations, officers, and operating headquarters in the
State. By the time the new company was three days old it had quietly taken
up its options and was the single big fish in the pool by virtue of its
having swallowed all the little ones.
Then came the finishing stroke which had set the wires to humming. On the
sixth day it was noised about that Senator Duvall had transferred his
controlling interest to Rumford--otherwise to the Universal Oil Company;
that he had served only as a figurehead in the transaction, using his
standing, social and political, to secure the charter which had been
denied Rumford and his associates.
It had all been managed very skilfully; the capping of the wells by the
Universal's agent, the practical sealing up of the entire district, being
the first public intimation of the result of Duvall's treachery and the
complete triumph of a foreign monopoly.
The storm that swept the State when the facts came out was cyclonic, and
it was reported, as it needed to be, that Senator Duvall had disappeared.
Never in the history of the State had public feeling risen so high; and
there were not lacking those who said that if Duvall showed himself his
life would not be safe in the streets of the capital.
It was after the _Argus_ had gone to press on the night of explosions that
Editor Hildreth sought and found David Kent in his rooms at the Clarendon,
and poured out the vials of his wrath.
"Say, I'd like to know if you cue-call this giving me a fair show!" he
demanded, flinging into Kent's sitting-room and dropping into a chair.
"Did I, or did I not understand that I was to have the age on this oil
business when there was anything fit to print?"
Kent gave the night editor a cigar and was otherwise exasperatingly
imperturbable.
"Keep your clothes on, and don't accuse a man of disloyalty until you have
all the documents in the case," he said. "I didn't know, until I saw your
bulletin a few hours ago, that the thing had been pulled off. In fact,
I've been too busy with other things to pay much attention to the Belmount
end of it."
"The ded-devil you have!" sputtered Hildreth, chewing savagely on the gift
cigar. "I'd like to know what business you had to mix up in other things
to the detriment of my news column. You were the one man who knew all
about it; or at least you did a week or two ago."
"Yes; but other and more important things have intervened. I have been
desperately busy, as I say."
"Well, you've lost your chance to get your grip on the capitol gang,
anyway; that is one comfort," growled the editor, getting what consolation
he could out of Kent's apparent failure. "They played it too fuf-fine for
you."
"Did they?" said Kent.
"It looks pretty much that way, doesn't it? Duvall is the scapegoat, and
the only one. About day after to-morrow Bucks' organ, the _Tribune_, will
come out with an 'inspired' editorial whitewashing the entire capitol
outfit. It will show how Rumford's application for the charter was
refused, and how a truly good and beneficent state government has been
hoodwinked and betrayed by one of its most trusted supporters."
Kent threw off his street coat and went to get his dressing-gown from the
wardrobe in the bedroom. When he came back he said: "Hildreth, you have
taken me at my word thus far, and you haven't had occasion to call me
either a knave or a fool. Do it a little longer and I'll put you in the
way of touching off a set-piece of pyrotechnics that will double discount
this mild little snap-cracker of the Belmount business."
"Can't you do it now?"
"No; the time isn't ripe yet. We must let the _Tribune's_ coat of
whitewash dry in first."
Hildreth wriggled in his chair.
"Kent, if I thought it would do any good, I'd cuc-curse you out; I would
for a fact. You are too blamed close-mouthed for any ordinary newspaper
use."
But Kent only laughed at him. Now that the strain was in some measure
relaxed he could stand any amount of abuse from so good a friend as the
night editor.
"Turn on the hot water if you want to, and if it will relieve the
pressure. I know about how you feel; and I'd be as sore as you are if I
didn't know that I am going to make it up to you a little later on. But
about this oil blaze and to-morrow's--or to-day's--issue of the _Argus_. I
hope you haven't said too much."
"I haven't sus-said anything. The stuff trickled in by Associated wire at
the last minute, and we had to cut and slash for space and run it pretty
much as it came--the bare story."
"All right; that's better. Now suppose you hint darkly that only half of
the truth has come out; that more--and more startling--developments may be
safely predicted in the immediate hence. Hit it up hard toward the
capitol, and don't be afraid of libeling anybody."
Hildreth's eyes narrowed.
"Say, Kent; you have grown a lot in these last few weeks: what is your
diet?"
"Hard work--and a determination to make my brag good."
"To down the ring, you mean?"
"Yes; to down the ring."
"Are you any nearer to it than you were when you began?"
"A good many parasangs."
"By Jove! I more than half believe you've got hold of something
ded-definite at last!"
"I have, indeed. Hildreth, I have evidence--printable evidence--enough to
dig a dozen political graves, one of them big enough to hold Jasper G.
Bucks' six-feet-two."
"Let me see it!" said the night editor, eagerly; but Kent laughed and
pushed him toward the door.
"Go home and go to bed. I wouldn't show it to you to-night if I had it
here--as I have not. I don't go around with a stick of dynamite in my
pocket."
"Where is it?" Hildreth asked.
"It is in a safety-deposit box in the vault of the Security Bank; where it
is going to stay until I am ready to use it. Go home, I say, and let me go
to bed. I'm ragged enough to sleep the clock around."
In spite of his weariness, which was real enough, Kent was up betimes the
next morning. He had a wire appointment with Blashfield Hunnicott and two
others in Gaston, and he took an early train to keep it. The ex-local
attorney met him at the station with a two-seated rig; and on the way to
the western suburbs they picked up Frazee, the county assessor, and Orton,
the appraiser of the Apache Building and Loan Association.
"Hunnicott has told you what I am after," said Kent, when the surrey party
was made up. "We all know the property well enough, but to have it all
fair and above-board, we'll drive out and look it over, so that our
knowledge may be said to be fully up to date."
Twenty minutes afterward the quartet was locating the corners of a square
in Gaston's remotest suburb; an "addition" whose only improvements were
the weathered and rotting street and lot stakings on the bare, brown
plain.
"'Lots 1 to 56 in Block 10, Guilford & Hawk's Addition,'" said Kent,
reading from a memorandum in his note-book. "It lies beautifully, doesn't
it?"
"Yes; for a chicken farm," chuckled the assessor.
"Well, give me your candid opinion, you two: what is the property worth?"
The Building and Loan man scratched his chin.
"Say fifty dollars for the plot--if you'll fence it."
"No, put it up. You are having a little boom here now: give it the top
boom price, if you like."
The two referees drew apart and laid their heads together.
"As property is going here just now, fifty dollars for the inside lots,
and one hundred dollars apiece for the corners; say three thousand for the
plot. And that is just about three times as much as anybody but a
land-crazy idiot would give for it." It was Frazee who announced the
decision.
"Thank you both until you are better paid. Now we'll go back to town and
you can write me a joint letter stating the fact. If you think it will get
you disliked here at home, make the figure higher; make it high enough so
that all Gaston will be dead sure to approve."
"You are going to print it?" asked the Building and Loan appraiser.
"I may want to. You may shape it to that end."
"I'll stand by my figures," said Frazee. "It will give me my little chance
to get back at the governor. I had it assessed as unimproved suburban
property at so much the lot, but he made a kick to the board of
equalization and got it put in as unimproved farm land at fifty dollars an
acre." Then, looking at his watch: "We'd better be getting back, if you
have to catch the Accommodation. Won't you stay over and visit with us?"
"I can't, this time; much obliged," said Kent; and they drove to the
Building and Loan office where the joint letter of appraisal was written
and signed.
Kent caught his train with something to spare, and was back at the capital
in good time to keep a dinner engagement at Miss Van Brock's. He had
understood that Ormsby would be the only other guest. But Portia had a
little surprise in store for him. Loring had dropped in, unannounced, from
the East; and Portia, having first ascertained that Mrs. Brentwood's
asthma was prohibitive of late dinings-out, had instructed Ormsby to bring
Elinor and Penelope.
Kent had been saving the results of his deep-sea divings in the oil-field
investigation to spread them out before Miss Van Brock and Ormsby "in
committee," but he put a padlock on his lips when he saw the others.
Portia gave him Elinor to take out, and he would have rejoiced brazenly if
the table talk, from the bouillon to the ices, had not been persistently
general, turning most naturally upon the Universal Oil Company's
successful _coup_ in the Belmount field. Kent kept out of it as much as he
could, striving manfully to monopolize Elinor for his own especial behoof;
but finally Portia laid her commands upon him.
"You are not to be allowed to maroon yourself with Miss Brentwood any
longer," she said dictatorially. "You know more about the unpublished part
of this Belmount conspiracy than any one else excepting the conspirators
themselves, and you are to tell us all about it."
Kent looked up rather helplessly.
"Really, I--I'm not sure that I know anything worth repeating at your
dinner-table," he protested.
But Miss Van Brock made a mock of his caution.
"You needn't be afraid. I pledged everybody to secrecy before you came. It
is understood that we are in 'executive session.' And if you don't know
much, you may tell us what you know now more than you knew before you knew
so little as you know now."
"Hold on," said Kent; "will you please say that over again and say it
slowly?"
"Never mind," laughed Ormsby. "Miss Portia has a copyright on that. But
before you begin, I'd like to know if the newspapers have it straight as
far as they have gone into it?"
"They have, all but one small detail. They are saying that Senator Duvall
has left the city and the State."
"Hasn't he?" Loring asked.
"He hadn't yesterday."
"My-oh!" said Portia. "They will mob him if he shows himself."
Kent nodded assent.
"He knows it: he is hiding out. But I found him."
"Where?" from the three women in chorus.
"In his own house, out in Pentland Place. The family has been away since
April, and the place has been shut up. I took him the first meal he'd had
in thirty-six hours."
Portia clapped her hands. The butler came in with the coffee and she
dismissed him and bade him shut the doors.
"Now begin at the very tip end of the beginning," she commanded.
Kent had a sharp little tussle with his inborn reticence, thrust it to the
wall and told a plain tale.
"It begins in a piece of reckless folly. Shortly after I left Mrs.
Brentwood's last Thursday evening I had a curious experience. The shortest
way down-town is diagonally through the capitol grounds, but some
undefinable impulse led me to go around on the Capitol Avenue side. As I
was passing the right wing of the building I saw lights in the governor's
room, and in a sudden fit of desperation resolved to go up and have it out
with Bucks. It was abnormally foolish, I'll confess. I had nothing
definite to go on; but I--well, I was keyed up to just about the right
pitch, and I thought I might bluff him."
"Mercy me! You do need a guardian angel worse than anybody I know!" Portia
cut in. "Do go on."
Kent nodded.
"I had one that night; angel or demon, whichever you please. I was fairly
dragged into doing what I did. When I reached the upper corridor the door
of the public anteroom was ajar, and I heard voices. The outer room was
not lighted, but the door between it and the governor's private office was
open. I went in and stood in that open doorway for as much as five
minutes, I think, and none of the four men sitting around the governor's
writing-table saw me."
He had his small audience well in hand by this time, and Ormsby's question
was almost mechanical. "Who were the four?"
"After the newspaper rapid-fire of this morning you might guess them all.
They were his Excellency, Grafton Hendricks, Rumford, and Senator Duvall.
They were in the act of closing the deal as I became an onlooker. Rumford
had withdrawn his application for a charter, and another 'straw' company
had been formed with Duvall at its head. I saw at once what I fancy Duvall
never suspected; that he was going to be made the scapegoat for the ring.
They all promised to stand by him--and you see how that promise has been
kept."
"Good heavens!" ejaculated Loring. "What a despicable lot of scoundrels!
But the bribe: did you learn anything about that?"
"I saw it," said Kent, impressively. "It was a slip of paper passed across
the table by Rumford to Bucks, face down. Bucks glanced at it before he
thrust it into his pocket, and I had my glimpse, too. It was a draft on a
Chicago bank, but I could not read the figures, and I doubt if either of
the other conspirators knew the amount. Then the governor tossed a folded
paper over to the oil man, saying, 'There is your deed to the choicest
piece of property in all Gaston, and you've got it dirt cheap.' I came
away at that."
Elinor's sigh was almost a sob; but Miss Van Brock's eyes were dancing.
"Go on, go on," she exclaimed. "That is only the beginning."
Kent's smile was of reminiscent weariness.
"I found it so, I assure you. So far as any usable evidence was concerned,
I was no better off than before; it was merely my assertion against their
denial--one man against four. But I have had a full week, and it has not
been wasted. I needn't bore you with the mechanical details. One of my men
followed Bucks' messenger to Chicago--he wouldn't trust the banks here or
the mails--and we know now, know it in black on white, with the proper
affidavits, that the draft was for two hundred thousand dollars, payable
to the order of Jasper G. Bucks. The ostensible consideration was the
transfer from Bucks to Rumford of a piece of property in the outskirts of
Gaston. I had this piece of land appraised for me to-day by two
disinterested citizens of Gaston, and they valued it at a possible, but
highly improbable, three thousand."
"Oh, how clumsy!" said Portia, in fine scorn. "Does his Excellency imagine
for a moment that any one would be deceived by such a primitive bit of
dust-throwing?" and Ormsby also had something to say about the fatal
mistakes of the shrewdest criminals.
"It was not so bad," said Kent. "If it should ever be charged that he took
money from Rumford, here is a plain business transaction to account for
it. The deed, as recorded, has nothing to say of the enormous price paid.
The phrasing is the common form used when the parties to the transfer do
not wish to make the price public: 'For one dollar to me in hand paid, and
other valuable considerations.' Luckily, we are able to establish
conclusively what the 'other valuable considerations' were."
"It seems to me that these documents arm and equip you for anything you
want to do," said Loring, polishing his eye-glasses after his ingrained
habit.
Kent shook his head.
"No; thus far the evidence is all circumstantial, or rather inferential.
But I picked up the final link in the chain--the human link--yesterday.
One of the detectives had been dogging Duvall. Two days ago the senator
disappeared, unaccountably. I put two and two together, and late last
evening took the liberty of breaking into his house."
"Alone?" said Elinor, with the courage-worshiping light in the blue-gray
eyes.
"Yes; it didn't seem worth while to double the risk. I did it rather
clumsily, I suppose, and my greeting was a shot fired at random in the
darkness--the senator mistaking me for a burglar, as he afterward
explained. There was no harm done, and the pistol welcome effectually
broke the ice in what might otherwise have been a rather difficult
interview. We had it out in an upper room, with the gas turned low and the
window curtains drawn. To cut a long story short, I finally succeeded in
making him understand what he was in for; that his confederates had used
him and thrown him aside. Then I went out and brought him some supper."
Ormsby smote softly upon the edge of the table with an extended
forefinger.
"Will he testify?" he asked.
Kent's rejoinder was definitive.
"He has put himself entirely in my hands. He is a ruined man, politically
and socially, and he is desperate. While I couldn't make him give me any
of the details in the Trans-Western affair, he made a clean breast of the
oil field deal, and I have his statement locked up with the other papers
in the Security vaults."
It was Penelope who gave David Kent his due meed of praise.
"I am neither a triumphant politician nor a successful detective, but I
recognize both when they are pointed out to me," she said. "Mr. Kent, will
you serve these gentlemen up hot for dinner, or cold for luncheon?"
"Yes," Portia chimed in. "You have outrun your pace-setters, and I'm proud
of you. Tell us what you mean to do next."
Kent laughed.
"You want to make me say some melodramatic thing about having the shackles
forged and snapping them upon the gubernatorial wrists, don't you? It will
be prosaic enough from this on. I fancy we shall have no difficulty now in
convincing his Excellency of the justice of our proceedings to quash Judge
MacFarlane and his receiver."
"But how will you go about it? Surely you can not go personally and
threaten the governor of the State!" this from Miss Brentwood.
"Can't I?" said Kent. "Having the score written out and safely committed
to memory, that will be quite the easiest number on the programme, I
assure you."
But Loring had something to say about the risk.
"Thus far you have not considered your personal safety--haven't had to,
perhaps. But you are coming to that now. You are dealing with a desperate
man, David; with a gang of them, in fact."
"That is so," said Ormsby. "And, as chairman of the executive committee, I
shall have to take steps. We can't afford to bury you just yet, Kent."
"I think you needn't select the pall-bearers yet a while," laughed the
undaunted one; and then Miss Van Brock gave the signal and the "executive
committee" adjourned to the drawing-room. Here the talk, already so deeply
channeled in the groove political, ran easily to forecastings and
predictions for another electoral year; and when Penelope began to yawn
behind her fan, Ormsby took pity on her and the party broke up.
It was at the moment of leave-taking that Elinor sought and found her
chance to extract a promise from David Kent.
"I must have a word with you before you do what you say you are going to
do," she whispered hurriedly. "Will you come to see me?"
"Certainly, if you wish it. But you mustn't let Loring's nervousness
infect you. There is no danger."
"There is a danger," she insisted, "a much greater danger than the one Mr.
Loring fears. Come as soon as you can, won't you?"
It was a new thing for her to plead with him, and he promised in an access
of tumultuous hope reawakened by her changed attitude. But afterward, when
he was walking down-town with Loring, the episode troubled him a little;
would have troubled him more if he had not been so deeply interested in
Loring's story of the campaign in the East.
Taking it all in all, the ex-manager's report was encouraging. The New
Englanders were by no means disposed to lie down in the harness, and since
the Western Pacific proper was an interstate line, the Advisory Board had
taken its grievance to Washington. Many of the small stockholders were
standing firm, though there had been panicky defections in spite of all
that could be done. Loring had no direct evidence to sustain the stock
deal theory; but it was morally certain that the Plantagould brokers were
picking up Western Pacific by littles wherever they could find it.
"I am inclined to believe we haven't much time to lose," was Kent's
comment. "Things will focus here long before Washington can get action.
The other lines are bringing a tremendous pressure to bear on Guilford,
whose cut rates are demoralizing business frightfully. The fictitious boom
in Trans-Western traffic is about worked out; and for political reasons
Bucks can't afford to have the road in the hands of his henchmen when the
collapse comes. The major is bolstering things from week to week now until
the Plantagould people get what they are after--a controlling majority of
the stock--and then Judge MacFarlane will come back."
They were within two squares of the Clarendon, and the cross-street was
deserted save for a drunken cow-boy in shaps and sombrero staggering
aimlessly around the corner.
"That's curious," Loring remarked. "Don't you know, I saw that same
fellow, or his double, lurching across the avenue as we came out of
Alameda Square, and I wondered what he was doing out in that region."
"It was his double, I guess," said Kent. "This one is many pegs too drunk
to have covered the distance as fast as we have been walking."
But drunk or sober, the cow-boy turned up again most unexpectedly; this
time at the entrance of the alley half-way down the block. In passing he
stumbled heavily against Kent; there was a thick-tongued oath, and Loring
struck out smartly with his walking-stick. By consequence the man's pistol
went off harmlessly in the air. The shot brought a policeman lumbering
heavily up from the street beyond, and the skirling of relief whistles
shrilled on the night. But the man with a pistol had twisted out of Kent's
grasp and was gone in a flash.
"By Jove!" said Loring, breathing hard; "he wasn't as drunk as he seemed
to be!"
Kent drew down his cuffs and shook himself straight in his coat.
"No; he wasn't drunk at all; I guess he was the man you saw when we came
out of the square." Then, as the policeman came up puffing: "Let me do the
talking; the whisky theory will be good enough for the newspapers."