Mr. Allison did not meet Lieutenant Forrest that day as he had "hoped
to." He did not hope to at all. He hoped not to for several days, and a
very uncomfortable man he was. Forrest, however, seemed making no effort
to find him, as the millionaire rather expected him to do. Forrest's
duties were somewhat confining, and Allison even kept away from his pet
club awhile, dreading to meet with officers who were being entertained
there at all hours. The Lambert was another place that for a while he
religiously avoided. He was becoming afraid of Wells. It gave him a
queer feeling, however, when driving home to luncheon one day, to see an
orderly holding two officers' horses opposite the private entrance, and
Cranston and Forrest in conversation with Mr. Wells. They were absorbed
and did not look up, but something told Allison there was trouble ahead
for him. Even his friend Waldo had been embarrassed and constrained in
his presence. He made up his mind to stop and see Wells that very
afternoon, and did so, bursting in in his fine old English manner.
After fidgeting a few moments until Wells had had his stenographer
(acting) withdraw, he impetuously began:
"Hum--haw--Wells, tell me about that girl. How's she getting on?"
"If by 'that girl,' Allison, you mean Miss Wallen, she's not getting on
at all. A lady who is robbed of her mother, her health, her good name,
and threatened with the loss of her means of livelihood, at one fell
swoop, cannot be expected to get on."
"Mr. Wells, I don't like the tone which you assume towards me."
"Mr. Allison, I shouldn't like it if you did."
For one moment Allison stared at the librarian, and Wells glared
unflinchingly back. The magnate was mad in earnest now. "By God! Mr.
Wells, you're the only man in this city who dares treat me with
disrespect, and I won't have it!"
"By gad, Mr. Allison, it's because I'm probably the only one who
thoroughly knows you. Wait till I tell all about your demands regarding
Miss Wallen, and you'll find others in plenty."
"You can't, without looking elsewhere for a position."
"I can, for the position is looking for me, and the only reason I
haven't accepted it is that I mean to stay right here until full justice
has been done my stenographer,--full justice, sir. If that young lady
were to place this case in the hands of even a tolerable lawyer, yours
wouldn't have a leg to stand on."
"You don't mean she's going to law!"
"It's what my wife says would serve you right; and I agree with her.
Just let this community know that solely on the statements of a cur you
kicked out of your own employ you had defamed that brave, honest girl,
and there'd be a tempest about your head compared to which this riot was
a zephyr."
Allison's wrath was cooling now. He sank back in a chair and stared
gloomily at the librarian. "Where is that" (gulp) "Elmendorf?" he
finally asked.
"In jail, I hope; in the gutter, the last time I heard of him, being
pommelled by her brother. Major Cranston and Mr. Forrest are looking for
him."
"What do they want?" asked Allison, suspiciously.
"Several things; one is to find out how much he will admit having told
you, and how much to hold you solely responsible for."
Allison fidgeted for a moment, and then turned again upon the librarian.
"You mean to tell me that you think she's entirely good and honest and
all that, do you?"
"No. I told you I knew she was."
"Well, then, what does it mean that Forrest is trying to hunt up or run
down my witnesses?"
"It simply means that he's a gentleman who intends to defend the girl
whose name you have coupled with his."
"Why don't he come to me? He hasn't been near my house since he came
back," said Allison, in a tone of complaint. "He hasn't given me a
chance to--fix things. Who was fool enough to tell him?"
"You, principally, by your reception of him. He knew all about it before
he came here to me. Of course he hasn't been to your house, and probably
never will go there again. I wouldn't in his place."
Allison pondered painfully awhile. "Well, I suppose this thing is
beginning to get around the neighborhood?--people are talking about it?"
he queried guardedly.
"Beginning?" was the answer. "Lord, no! It began the day you shouted the
whole business so that everybody in the library could hear. Of course
people are talking, but not as loud as you did."
"And you say she's down sick and can't see people. Of course if I've
been--made a victim of in this matter by that fellow Elmendorf--why,
damn him, he's been trying to make up to my own daughter! she had to
order him out of the house,--of course I want to straighten things out.
I withdraw my demand for her discharge, under the circumstances; and if
I might send her a check--or something, in reason----"
"You might, if you wanted to see how quick it would come back."
"Why, hang it, Wells, what _should_ a man do? What can a man do?"
"Sit down and write her that you have made a consummate ass of yourself.
That might not be a delicate way out of it, but it would be telling the
truth. Anyhow, you've got to do something, and that right soon. My wife
tells me that her one idea is to get well enough to come over here for
one day, just to confront her accusers. Then where'll you be, and your
invaluable witnesses?"
Allison went home and had a conference with his sister which left that
lady dissolved in tears. It was a brutally hot July afternoon, and he
ordered the carriage for a drive in the Park and bade Florence drive
with him, and obediently she went. There wasn't a whiff of breeze off
the lake; it all came pouring from the hot prairies to the southwest,
and everybody looked languid and depressed. The sun was almost down, and
the walks and roadways in the Park were but sparsely occupied. Slowly
the heavy family carriage rolled along the smooth macadam and drew up,
with others of its kind, near a shaded kiosk where a band was playing.
Presently from under her parasol Florence caught sight of a familiar
figure. Leaning against the door of an open livery carriage, a tall man
in straw hat and white duck suit was chatting with the occupants, one a
middle-aged woman, with a gentle, motherly face, the other a slender
girl in deep mourning, reclining languidly as though propped on
cushions. Allison, anxiously watching his daughter, saw the light in her
eyes, the faint color rising in her cheeks; and he, too, looked, then
reddened, for all that other party seemed to face him at the instant.
The tall man in duck came promptly around and stood beside them, bowing
coldly to the father, but raising his hat and holding out his hand to
Florence. She took it, her eyes not downcast, but seeking his.
"I am glad to see you out, Miss Allison," he said, in frank and cordial
tone. "You were looking far from--yourself the night we met in front of
the club. I hope you are well?"
"I am--better," she answered, rather faintly, "and I had hoped to see
you--before this."
"That was why I went to the club that night," he answered, gravely. "How
is Cary?"
"Oh, he's just miserable, because pa--father kept him cooped up and
wouldn't let him out to the riots. He was simply mad when he heard of
your experience with the mob. But you are coming to see us?" she
finished, looking appealingly at her father.
"Yes, Forrest," said Allison, "I wish you would. There's a matter I want
to talk to you about."
"Possibly the same that Mr. Elmendorf is to bring up at department
head-quarters to-morrow afternoon, which I believe you will be invited
to hear," said Forrest, calmly. Then, turning once more to Florence, he
held forth his hand. "I am very glad to meet you again, Miss Allison,"
he said, "and to find you looking better. But now I must return to my
friends." And, bowing again to her, but almost ignoring Allison, he
walked away, and was soon in earnest talk with the ladies in the open
carriage.
"Do you know who they are?" asked Florence presently of her father.
"Yes. One is Mrs. Wells, wife of our librarian. The other is a Miss
Wallen, one of the library employees. She has been ill.--Go on, Parks,"
he said to his coachman, and they drove silently home.
"He came and talked with me," said Florence to her aunt that night. "He
was polite and kind, and didn't seem angry,--didn't say anything,
but--he went--he said he must go to his friends,--to his _friends_, do
you understand? We're no longer--no longer of them." Then she turned and
sought her own room.
And there was an invitation for Mr. Allison,--a very pressing
invitation, for an aide-de-camp delivered it personally,--a request that
Mr. Allison should be at head-quarters the next afternoon at four
o'clock; and Allison went. He was received by Captain Morris, who
expressed the general's regrets at being unable to see him in person,
and was ushered into a room where were Colonel Kenyon, Major Cranston,
and Lieutenant Forrest, still in service dress, and two of the senior
staff-officers. These latter came forward and shook hands with the
magnate, the others simply bowed.
"See if Mr. Elmendorf is anywhere about," said Captain Morris to a
messenger. But it was ten minutes before that intellectual party
appeared. The great strike had collapsed, the leaders were under the
indictment of the law, and this particular agitator's occupation, like
that of hundreds of his hapless dupes, was gone. Nevertheless it pleased
him to lurk about the neighborhood until fifteen minutes after the
appointed time, so that he might be the last to arrive and might thereby
keep the so-called upper classes waiting. The moment he arrived the
chief of staff proceeded to business.
"You set four o'clock as the time you would appear to make your charges,
Mr. Elmendorf, and we've been waiting here a quarter of an hour."
"Affairs of greater importance, sir, occupied my time."
"Oh, yes; our janitor tells us that you have been communing with
yourself over a glass of beer in the saloon across the way for the last
hour.--Gentlemen, I received a letter from Mr. Elmendorf yesterday
morning, which I will read:
"'SIR,--Having been informed that Mr. Warren Starkey, a clerk
in your employ, has been discharged because of his having been accused
of revealing to the press certain facts relative to the circumstances
under which Lieutenant Forrest was twice ordered away from Chicago, this
is to inform you that unless Mr. Starkey is immediately reinstated I
shall consider it my duty, as an accredited correspondent of numerous
newspapers of high repute, to publish all the facts in the case as well
known to me, and to demand the dismissal of Lieutenant Forrest. That you
may know I speak by the card, I purpose calling at your office at four
P.M. to-morrow, at which time, if you see fit, the gentleman
and those he may claim as his friends can hear the grounds on which I
base my demand. Let the laws which oppress the poor and friendless now
apply to the proud and powerful.
"'MAX ELMENDORF.'
"Now, Mr. Elmendorf, Mr. Starkey has been discharged, and has not been
reinstated. We'll hear him first, and then you."
"Very good, sir. Though I seem to be alone in the lions' den, I shall
not flinch from my duty even in the face of all this array that has been
carefully selected from among mine enemies."
"They are exactly as indicated by yourself," coldly answered the
colonel. "Send in Starkey."
And Starkey came,--Elmendorf's one weak victim among head-quarters
force,--and Starkey was in a sorry plight. He told his story ruefully:
"I supposed this gentleman was all right. I used to see him with the
officers. He was with them every day or two for hours. Then he made
himself pleasant and sociable, and used to get me to lunch, or treat to
drinks sometimes, and seemed to know everything that was going on. I
didn't know anything whatever about Mr. Forrest's affairs except what he
told me from time to time, and I believed what he told. Perhaps I did
let on I knew more. He got me to drinking, and God only knows how it all
came about. That reporter came to me and said that Mr. Elmendorf had
told him this and that and Captain Morris had told him more, and then he
got things up around the Lambert and around Forrest's lodgings, and
asked me if 'twasn't so that Forrest had been ordered off on account of
things happening there. Well, I suppose perhaps I did say that it was
so, but I never dreamed that he'd make what he did of it. And then when
the chief clerk caught me drunk and accused me of the whole thing I
broke down and owned up to everything, and I've been a--well, I've just
been that man's dupe."
The unhappy ex-clerk was withdrawn. Mr. Elmendorf cleared his throat in
readiness to speak. Forrest, with a smouldering fire in his eyes and
with compressed lips, sat gazing sternly at the ex-tutor. The others,
with faces indicative of various shades of contempt and indifference or
indignation, not unmingled with the curiosity which one feels in
studying some uncommon type of animal or man, silently awaited his
remarks. "I will begin by saying that my suspicions in this case were
aroused long months ago," said Elmendorf, when the judge-advocate of the
department suavely spoke:
"Kindly spare us your suspicions, Mr. Elmendorf. You promised facts,
and, as time is short, owing to your own delay, we desire facts alone."
"The facts," said Elmendorf, nettled, "are that the gentleman in
question, while posing as a man of honor and a welcome guest in a most
estimable family circle, has long been secretly laying siege to the
affections of a young and comparatively friendless girl, with such
success that their relations became the talk of the neighborhood. I
found that she had been seen at his lodgings after dark, that they were
frequently seen alone together as late as midnight, and that they were
often alone in the private rooms at the Lambert. These facts were so
well known that when he was suddenly ordered to leave Chicago last
winter the explanation arrived at by common consent was that the general
sent him off to his regiment to avert further scandal, and that his
second orders were for practically the same reason. It is notorious
that because of this affair the girl has been threatened with discharge
from the position she holds, and so I am here to say that since this
poor clerk and this poor girl are made the sufferers and the only ones,
I, as the ever ready representative of the people, demand the prompt
punishment of the real offender, whom doubtless his class would shield.
Nothing but my dislike of involving a poor working-girl in further
scandal and trouble has held me silent until now."
"I see," said the judge-advocate, reflectively; "and you have intimated
that in order to spare her further publicity you would be willing to
abandon your purpose, provided----?"
"Provided Mr. Forrest tender his immediate and unconditional resignation
from the service, and I be furnished written assurance that it will be
accepted, also admission that my statement as to the cause of his sudden
orders to leave Chicago was true."
The scene in the office that sultry afternoon was something to remember
long days after. Cranston couldn't help thinking what a blessing it was
that the breeze at last was blowing fresh from the lake and the white
caps were bounding beyond the breakwater. It was a group worthy of a
painter's brush,--Elmendorf's sublime confidence in the criminality of
his fellow-man and the unassailable integrity of his own position,
Kenyon's attitude of close and appreciative study of this unique
specimen, Cranston's twitching lips and clinching fists, Allison's
almost apoplectic face at one moment, contrasting oddly with the
infinite consternation with which he contemplated his own probable
connection with the plot the next:--the speaker was a monument of
conceit and "cheek,"--might even be a lunatic, but what--what could be
said of himself? The chief of staff was fuming. Forrest was inwardly
raging, yet by a strong effort maintained, as he had agreed, utter
silence, leaving to his friends their own method of conducting the
affair. One officer alone seemed to be deriving entertainment from the
situation: the judge-advocate had never had a professional treat to
compare with it.
"Before committing ourselves to any promise, Mr. Elmendorf," said he,
most blandly, "you will pardon me if I refer to what seems a trifle weak
link in your chain of evidence. You say the young lady was in the habit
of visiting Mr. Forrest's lodgings. How often have you seen her there?"
"I said she was seen there. I did not keep watch."
"On Mr. Forrest's _lodgings_, no. But how often was she seen there?"
"I am not prepared to state. Once is considered enough, I venture to
say."
"How often did the witness tell _you_ she was there, Mr. Allison?" asked
the judge-advocate, turning, to his consternation, upon that gentleman.
Allison went crimson in an instant. "Well, I paid so little attention.
It was all so frivolous," he stammered.
"Yet he was the witness named by Mr. Elmendorf, I believe,--the only
one; and you had him come to your office and you questioned him there,
did you not?"
"I did, yes, but the impression passed away almost immediately. The man
wasn't worthy of confidence."
"When you hear his story you may think otherwise," said Elmendorf, with
a contemptuous sneer.
"I have heard," said the judge-advocate; "but we'll hear it again.--Send
Starkey's friend in here," he said to the messenger; and presently in
came a hangdog, corner-loafer specimen of the shabby-genteel young man,
supremely impudent on his native heath, but wofully ill at ease now.
"This is your reputable witness, Mr. Elmendorf."
"I protest against indignity to my witnesses or browbeating of any kind.
This is not a court, and he's not on oath."
"Certainly not. He's saved us all the trouble by telling the truth
beforehand.--Now you can tell us how you came to chase the young lady
into that door-way," said the judge-advocate, turning suddenly on the
shrinking new-comer.
"Well, sir, I'd been drinking, and I thought she was--a girl I knew."
"Yes? and when you caught her in the vestibule what happened?"
"Nothin' much. She fought, and the door flew open, and----" here the
shifting eyes wandered around until they rested on Forrest--"this
gentleman kicked me out. I wouldn't 'a' said anything about it,
only--him there found me afterwards." And he nodded at Elmendorf.
"Didn't you declare to me you'd seen the lady going in there with him?
Didn't you see them together late at night up near her own home?" asked
Elmendorf, excitedly.
"Well, you took me up and showed 'em to me."
"Didn't you tell me you knew she often went to his rooms?"
"Well, you asked me if I hadn't seen her, and I said no, and then you
asked if I didn't think it was more'n likely, and----" Here Starkey's
friend faltered.
"That will do," said the judge-advocate. "You both knew very well then,
and you know now, that it is an apartment-house, in which several
families dwell, some of them friends of the young lady in question. You
can go, young man,--I merely introduced that party as a specimen of the
evidence for the prosecution. Now, Mr. Elmendorf, let me give you a
specimen of the evidence for the defence.--Colonel," said he to the
chief of staff, "would you mind saying in the presence of these
gentlemen whether the faintest inkling of any such charge as this of
Mr. Elmendorf's against Mr. Forrest had ever reached you?"
"Not a whisper."
"Were Mr. Forrest's sudden orders in any way the result of any such
rumor?"
"Not in the least. He was selected by the general to make certain
confidential investigations regarding the encroachments of settlers,
boomers, etc., on the Oklahoma tract. It was necessary that the object
should not be heralded beforehand by the press, and so we had to keep it
quiet."
"There, Mr. Elmendorf; admitting these as specimen bricks of the
probable testimony, we decline to reinstate the clerk, or to attach the
slightest importance to your allegations at the expense of Mr. Forrest,
and I am constrained to say that your propensity for meddling has got
you into a nasty mess. So far as head-quarters are concerned, we've done
with you. Now I'll leave you to settle with the friends of the young
lady." Here Elmendorf made for the door.
"I'm not to be assaulted, and----" he began; but Allison blocked the
way.
"You lied to me and mine," he cried. "You declared on your honor that
gentlemen high in authority in this office told you the reasons you gave
for Mr. Forrest's summary orders to quit Chicago. I demand now to know
whether it was not that poor devil whom you've ruined here,--Starkey.
Answer me."
"What good would it do?" whined Elmendorf, shrugging his shoulders.
"Would not my statement be promptly denied? _Noblesse oblige_, sir; the
first business of these Knights of the Sword is to stand together, and
woe betide the knave who dare accuse one of them. But if you'll be
guided by my advice, Mr. Allison, you'll look well to your own vine and
fig-tree, lest the despoiler----"
But here Allison hurled himself upon the fellow and grasped him by the
throat. "You whelp!" he cried, banging the luckless head against the
door-post before any one could interfere. In an instant, however, the
officers had seized him, shaking the tutor loose. Madly sped the latter
to the elevator, but, finding Starkey and his crestfallen friend
awaiting him there, he turned and dashed down the stairway, his
ex-witnesses after him.
For a moment there was silence in the office, while Allison recovered
breath. Bowing coldly to him, Colonel Kenyon, with Cranston and Forrest,
turned to leave the room.
"Mr. Forrest," said the magnate, stepping hastily forward, "I am more
rejoiced at your vindication than I can say. Of course I see I've been
led into doing you an injustice, and I hope you'll permit me to make
amends."
But Forrest declined the outstretched hand and thrust his own within the
breast of his uniform.
"You have amends to make elsewhere, Mr. Allison," he answered, with
lips that trembled despite his efforts at control, "and a wrong to right
beside which mine is insignificant. Good-day, sir."
And so they left him.
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