THE MASK FALLS
But presently the sobs subsided, as though shut off by main force, and
Katherine rose to her feet. She wiped her eyes and looked at her
father, a wan smile on her reddened, still tremulous face.
"What a hope-inspiring lawyer you have, father!"
"I would not want a truer," said he loyally.
"We won't have one of these cloud-bursts again, I promise you. But
when you have been under a strain for months, and things are stretched
tighter and tighter, and at last something makes things snap, why you
just can't help--well," she ended, "a man would have done something
else, I suppose, but it might have been just as bad."
"Worse!" avowed her father.
"Anyhow, it's all over. I'll just repair some of the worst ravages of
the storm, and then we'll talk about our programme for the trial."
As she was arranging her hair before her father's mirror, she saw, in
the glass, the old man stoop and take something from the waste-basket.
Turning his back to her, he cautiously examined the object.
She left the mirror and came up behind him.
"What are you looking at, dear?"
He started, and glanced up.
"Oh--er--that editorial Mr. Bruce referred to." He rubbed his head
dazedly. "If that should happen, with me even indirectly the cause of
it--why, Katherine, it really would be pretty bad!" He held out the
_Clarion_. "Perhaps, after all, you had better read it."
She took the paper. The _Clarion_ had from the first opposed the
city's owning the water-works, and the editorial declared that the
present situation gave the paper, and all those who had held a similar
opinion, their long-awaited triumph and vindication. "This failure is
only what invariably happens whenever a city tries municipal
ownership," declared the editorial. "The situation has grown so
unbearably acute that the city's only hope of good water lies in the
sale of the system to some private concern, which will give us that
superior service which is always afforded by private capital.
Westville is upon the eve of a city election, and we most emphatically
urge upon both parties that they make the chief plank of their
platforms the immediate sale of our utterly discredited water-works
to some private company."
The editorial did not stir Katherine as it had appeared to stir Bruce,
nor even in the milder degree it had stirred Doctor West. She was
interested in the water-works only in so far as it concerned her
father, and the _Clarion's_ proposal had no apparent bearing on his
guilt or innocence.
She laid the _Clarion_ on the table, without comment, and proceeded to
discuss the coming trial. The only course she had to suggest was that
they plead for a postponement on the ground that they needed more time
in which to prepare their defense. If that plea were denied, then
before them seemed certain conviction. On that plea, then, they
decided to place all their hope.
When this matter had been talked out Doctor West took the _Clarion_
from the table and again read the editorial with troubled face, while
Katherine walked to and fro across the floor, her mind all on the
trial.
"If the town does sell, it will be too bad!" he sighed.
"I suppose so," said Katherine mechanically.
"It has reached me that people are saying that the system isn't worth
anything like what we paid for it."
"Is that so?" she asked absently.
Doctor West drew himself up and his faded cheeks flushed indignantly.
"No, it is not so. I don't know what's wrong, but it's the very best
system of its size in the Middle West!"
She paused.
"Forgive me--I wasn't paying any attention to what I was saying. I'm
sure it is."
She resumed her pacing.
"But if they sell out to some company," Doctor West continued, "the
company will probably get it for a third, or less, of what it is
actually worth."
"So, if some corporation has been secretly wanting to buy it,"
commented Katherine, "things could not have worked out better for the
corporation if they had been planned."
She came to a sudden pause, and stood gazing at her father, her lips
slowly parting.
"It could not have worked out better for the corporation if it had
been planned," she repeated.
"No," said Doctor West.
She picked up the _Clarion_, quickly read the editorial, and laid the
paper aside.
"Father!" Her voice was a low, startled cry.
"Yes?"
She moved slowly toward him, in her face a breathless look, and caught
his shoulders with tense hands.
"_Perhaps it was planned!_"
"What?"
Her voice rang out more loudly:
"_Perhaps it was planned!_"
"But Katherine--what do you mean?"
"Let me think. Let me think." She began feverishly to pace the room.
"Oh, why did I not think of this before!" she cried to herself. "I
thought of graft--political corruption--everything else. But it never
occurred to me that there might be a plan, a subtle, deep-laid plan,
to steal the water-works!"
Doctor West watched her rather dazedly as she went up and down the
floor, her brows knit, her lips moving in self-communion. Her
connection with the Municipal League in New York had given her an
intimate knowledge of the devious means by which public service
corporations sometimes gain their end. Her mind flashed over all the
situation's possibilities.
Suddenly she paused before her father, face flushed, triumph in her
eyes.
"Father, _it was planned!_"
"Eh?" said he.
"Father," she demanded excitedly, "do you know what the great public
service corporations are doing now?" Her words rushed on, not waiting
for an answer. "They have got hold of almost all the valuable public
utilities in the great cities, and now they are turning to a fresh
field--the small cities. Westville is a rich chance in a small way. It
has only thirty thousand inhabitants now. But it is growing. Some day
it will have fifty thousand--a hundred thousand."
"That's what people say."
"If a private company could get hold of the water-works, the system
would not only be richly profitable at once, but it would be worth a
fortune as the city grows. Now if a company, a clever company, wanted
to buy in the water-works, what would be their first move?"
"To make an offer, I suppose."
"Never! Their first step would be to try to make the people want to
sell. And how would they try to make the people want to sell?"
"Why--why----"
"By making the water-works fail!" Her excitement was mounting; she
caught his shoulders. "Fail so badly that the people would be
disgusted, just as they now are, and willing to sell at any price.
And now, father--and now, father--" he could feel her quivering all
over--"listen to me! We're coming to the point! How would they make
the water-works fail?"
He could only blink at her.
"They'd make it fail by removing from office, and so disgracing
him that everything he had done would be discredited, the one
incorruptible man whose care and knowledge had made it a success!
Don't you see, father? Don't you see?"
"Bless me," said the old man, "if I know what you're talking about!"
"With you out of the way, whom they knew they could not corrupt, they
could buy under officials to attend to the details of making the water
bad and the plant itself a failure--just exactly what has been done.
You are not the real victim. You are just an obstruction--something
that they had to get out of the way. The real victim is Westville!
It's a plan to rob the city!"
His gray eyes were catching the light that blazed from hers.
"I begin to see," he said. "It hardly seems possible people would do
such things. But perhaps you're right. What are you going to do?"
"Fight!"
"Fight?" He looked admiringly at her glowing figure. "But if there is
a strong company behind all this, for you to fight it alone--it will
be an awful big fight!"
"I don't care how big the fight is!" she cried exultantly. "What has
almost broken my heart till now is that there has been no one to
fight!"
A shadow fell on the old man's face.
"But after all, Katherine, it is all only a guess."
"Of course it is only a guess!" she cried. "But I have tested every
other possible solution. This is the only one left, and it fits every
known circumstance of the case. It is only a guess--but I'll stake my
life on its being the right guess!" Her voice rose. "Oh, father, we're
on the right track at last! We're going to clear you! Don't you ever
doubt that. We're going to clear you!"
There was no resisting the ringing confidence in her voice, the fire
of her enthusiasm.
"Katherine!" he cried, and opened his arms.
She rushed into them. "We're going to clear you, father! And, oh,
won't it be fine! Won't it be fine!"
For a space they held each other close, then they parted.
"What are you going to do first?" he asked.
"Try to find the person, or corporation, behind the scheme."
"And how will you do that?"
"First, I shall talk it over with Mr. Blake. You know he told me to
come to him if I ever wished his advice. He knows the situation
here--he has the interests of Westville at heart--and I know he will
help us. I'm not going to lose a second, so I'm off to see him now."
She rushed downstairs. But she did have to lose a second, and many of
them, for when she called up Mr. Blake's office on the telephone, the
answer came back that Mr. Blake was in the capital and would not
return till the following day on the one forty-five. It occurred to
Katherine to advise with old Hosie Hollingsworth, for during the long
summer her blind, childish shrinking had changed to warm liking of the
dry old lawyer; and she had discovered, too, that the heresies it had
been his delight to utter a generation before--and on which he still
prided himself--were now a part of the belief of many an orthodox
divine.
But she decided against conferring with Old Hosie. Her adviser and
leader must be a man more actively in the current of modern affairs.
No, Blake was her great hope, and precious and few as were the hours
before the trial, there was nothing for it but to wait for his return.
She went up to her room, and her excited mind, now half inspired, went
feverishly over the situation and all who were in any wise concerned
in it. She thought of the fifty dollar check from the Acme Filter
Company. With her new viewpoint she now understood the whole
bewildering business of that check. The company, or at least one of
its officers, was somehow in on the deal, and there had been some
careful scheming behind the sending of that fifty dollars. The
company had been confronted with two obvious difficulties. First, it
had to make certain that the check would not be received until after
the two thousand dollars was in the hands of her father. Second, the
date of the check and the date of the Westville postmark must be
earlier than the day the two thousand dollars was delivered--else
Doctor West could produce check and envelope to prove that the check
had not arrived until after he had already accepted what he thought
was the donation, and thus perhaps ruin the whole scheme. What had
been done, Katherine now clearly perceived, was that some one, most
probably an assistant of her father, had been bought over to look out
for the arrival of the letter, to hold it back until the critical day
had passed, and then slip it into her father's neglected mail.
Her mind raced on to further matters, further persons, connected with
the situation. When she came to Bruce her hands clenched the arms of
her wicker rocking chair. In a flash the whole man was plain to her,
and her second great discovery of the day was made.
Bruce was an agent of the hidden corporation!
The motive behind his fierce desire to destroy her father was at last
apparent. To destroy Doctor West was his part in the conspiracy. As
for his rabid advocacy of municipal ownership, and all his fine talk
about the city's betterment, that was mere sham--merely the virtuous
front behind which he could work out his purpose unsuspected. No one
could quote the scripture of civic improvement more loudly than the
civic despoiler. She always had distrusted him. Now she knew him. Many
a time through the night her mind flashed back to him from other
matters and she thrilled with a vengeful joy at the thought of tearing
aside his mask.
It was a long and feverish night to Katherine, and a long and feverish
forenoon. At a quarter to two she was in Blake's office, which was
furnished with just that balance between simplicity and richness
appropriate to a growing great man with a constituency half of the
city and half of the country. She had sat some time at a window
looking down upon the Square, its foliage now a dusty, shrivelled
brown, when Blake came in. He had not been told that she was waiting,
and at sight of her he came to a sudden pause. But the next instant he
had crossed the room and was shaking her hand.
For that first instant Katherine's eyes and mind, which during the
last twenty-four hours had had an almost more than mortal clearness,
had an impression that he was strangely agitated. But the moment over,
the impression was gone.
He placed a chair for her at the corner of his desk and himself sat
down, his dark, strong, handsome face fixed on hers.
"Now, how can I serve you, Katherine?"
There were rings about her eyes, but excitement gave her colour.
"You know that to-morrow is father's trial?"
"Yes. You must have a hard, hard fight before you."
"Perhaps not so hard as you may think." She tried to keep her tugging
excitement in leash.
"I hope not," said he.
"I think it may prove easy--if you will help me."
"Help you?"
"Yes. I have come to ask you that again."
"Well--you see--as I told you----"
"But the situation has changed since I first came to you," she put in
quickly, not quite able to restrain a little laugh. "I have found
something out!"
He started. "You have found--you say----"
"I have found something out!"
She smiled at him happily, triumphantly.
"And that?" said he.
She leaned forward.
"I do not need to tell you, for you know it, that the big corporations
have discovered a new gold mine--or rather, thousands of little gold
mines. That all over the country they have gained control, and are
working to gain control, of the street-car lines, gas works and other
public utilities in the smaller cities."
"Well?"
She spoke excitedly, putting the case more definitely than it really
was, to better the chance of winning his aid.
"Well, I have just discovered that there is a plan on foot, directed
by a hidden some one, to seize the water-works of Westville. I have
discovered that my father is not guilty. He is the victim of a trick
to ruin the water-works and make the people willing to sell. The first
thing to do is to find the man behind the scheme. I want you to help
me find this man."
A greenish pallor had overspread his features.
"And you want me--to find this man?" he repeated.
"Yes. I know you will take this up, simply because of your interest in
the city. But there is another reason--it would help you in your
larger ambition. If you could disclose this scheme, save the city,
become the hero of a great popular gratitude, think how it would help
your senatorial chances!"
He did not at once reply, but sat staring at her.
"Don't you see?" she cried.
"I--I see."
"Why, it would turn your chance for the Senate into a certainty! It
would--but, Mr. Blake, what's the matter?"
"Matter," he repeated, huskily. "Why--why nothing."
She gazed at him with deep concern. "But you look almost sick."
In his eyes there struggled a wild look. Her gaze became fixed upon
his face, so strangely altered. In her present high-wrought state all
her senses were excited to their intensest keenness.
There was a moment of silence--eyes into eyes. Then she stood slowly
up, and one hand reached slowly out and clutched his arm.
"Mr. Blake!" she whispered, in an awed and terrified tone. She
continued to stare into his eyes. "Mr. Blake!" she repeated.
She felt a tensing of his body, as of a man who seeks to master
himself with a mighty effort. He tried to smile, though his greenish
pallor did not leave him.
"It is my turn," he said, "to ask what is the matter with you,
Katherine."
"Mr. Blake!" She loosed her hold upon his arm, and shrank away.
He rose.
"What is the matter?" he repeated. "You seem upset. I suppose it is
the nervous strain of to-morrow's trial."
In her face was stupefied horror.
"It is what--what I have discovered."
"What you call your discovery would be most valuable, if true. But it
is just a dream, Katherine--a crazy, crazy dream."
She still was looking straight into his eyes.
"Mr. Blake, it is true," she said slowly, almost breathlessly. "For I
have found the man behind the plan."
"Indeed! And who?"
"I think you know him, Mr. Blake."
"I?"
"Better than any one else."
His smile had left him.
"Who?"
She continued to stare at him for a moment in silence. Then she slowly
raised her arm and pointed at him.
The silence continued for several moments, each gazing at the other.
He had put one hand upon his desk and was leaning heavily upon it. He
looked like a man sick unto death. But soon a shiver ran through him;
he swallowed, gripped himself in a strong control, and smiled again
his strained, unnatural smile.
"Katherine, Katherine," he tried to say it reprovingly and
indulgently, but there was a quaver in his voice. "You have gone quite
out of your head!"
"It is true!" she cried. "All unintentionally I have followed one of
the oldest of police expedients. I have suddenly confronted the
criminal with his crime, and I have surprised his guilt upon his
face!"
"What you say is absurd. I can explain it only on the theory that you
are quite out of your mind."
"Never before was I so much in it!"
In this moment when she felt that the hidden enemy she had striven so
long to find was at last revealed to her, she felt more of anguish
than of triumph.
"Oh, how could you do such a thing, Mr. Blake?" she burst out. "How
could you do it?"
He shook his head, and tried to smile at her perversity--but the smile
was a wan failure.
"I see--I see!" she cried in her pain. "It is just the old story. A
good man rises to power through being the champion of the people--and,
once in power, the opportunities, the temptation, are too much for
him. But I never--no, never!--thought that such a thing would happen
with you!"
He strove for the injured air of the misjudged old friend.
"Again I must say that I can only explain your charges by supposing
that you are out of your head."
"Here in Westville you believe it is not woman's business to think
about politics," Katherine went on, in her voice of pain. "But I could
not help thinking about them, and watching them. I have lost my faith
in the old parties, but I had kept my faith in some of their leaders.
I believe some of them honest, devoted, indomitable. And of them all,
the one I admired most, ranked highest, was you. And now--and now--oh,
Mr. Blake!--to learn that you----"
"Katherine! Katherine!" And he raised his hands with the manner of
exasperated, yet indulgent, helplessness.
"Mr. Blake, you know you are now only playing a part! And you know
that I know it!" She moved up to him eagerly. "Listen to me," she
pleaded rapidly. "You have only started on this, you have not gone too
far to turn back. You have done no real wrong as yet, save to my
father, and I know my father will forgive you. Drop your plan--let my
father be honourably cleared--and everything will be just as before!"
For a space he seemed shaken by her words. She watched him,
breathless, awaiting the outcome of the battle she felt was waging
within him.
"Drop the plan--do!--do!--I beg you!" she cried.
His dark face twitched; a quivering ran through his body. Then by a
mighty effort he partially regained his mastery.
"There is no plan for me to drop," he said huskily.
"You still cling to the part you are playing?"
"I am playing no part; you are all wrong about me," he continued.
"Your charges are so absurd that it would be foolish to deny them.
They are merely the ravings of an hysterical woman."
"And this is your answer?"
"That is my answer."
She gazed at him for a long moment. Then she sighed.
"I'm so sorry!" she said; and she turned away and moved toward the
door.
She gave him a parting look, as he stood pale, quivering, yet
controlled, behind his desk. In this last moment she remembered the
gallant fight this man had made against Blind Charlie Peck; she
remembered that fragrant, far-distant night of June when he had asked
her to marry him; and she felt as though she were gazing for the last
time upon a dear dead face.
"I'm sorry--oh, so sorry!" she said tremulously. "Good-by." And
turning, she walked with bowed head out of his office.