THE NIGHT WATCH
The next morning Elijah Stone appeared in Katherine's office as per
request. He was a thickly, if not solidly, built gentleman, in
imminent danger of a double chin, and with that submerged blackness of
the complexion which is the result of a fresh-shaven heavy beard. He
kept his jaw clinched to give an appearance of power, and his black
eyebrows lowered to diffuse a sense of deeply pondered mystery. His
wife considered him a rarely handsome specimen of his sex, and he
permitted art to supplement the acknowledged gifts of nature so far as
to perfume his glossy black hair, to wear a couple of large diamond
rings, and to carry upon the watch chain that clanked heavily across
the broad and arching acreage of his waistcoat a begemmed lodge emblem
in size a trifle smaller than a paper weight.
He was an affable, if somewhat superior, being, and he listened to
Katherine with a still further lowering of his impressive brows. She
informed him, in a perplexed, helpless, womanly way, that she was
inclined to believe that her father was "the victim of foul play"--the
black brows sank yet another degree--and that she wished him privately
to investigate the matter. He of course would know far, far better
what to do than she, but she would suggest that he keep an eye upon
Blake. At first Mr. Stone appeared somewhat sceptical and hesitant,
but after peering darkly out for a long and ruminative period at the
dusty foliage of the Court House elms, and after hearing the
comfortable fee Katherine was willing to pay, he consented to accept
the case. As he left he kindly assured her, with manly pity for her
woman's helplessness, that if there was anything in her suspicion she
"needn't waste no sleep now about gettin' the goods."
In the days that followed, Katherine saw her Monsieur Lecoque
shadowing the movements of Blake with the lightness and general
unobtrusiveness of a mahogany bedstead ambling about upon its castors.
She soon guessed that Blake perceived that he was being watched, and
she imagined how he must be smiling up his sleeve at her simplicity.
Had the matters at stake not been so grave, had she been more certain
of the issue, she might have put her own sleeve to a similar purpose.
In the meantime, as far as she could do so without exciting suspicion,
she kept close watch upon Blake. It had occurred to her that there
was a chance that he had an unknown accomplice whose discovery would
make the gaining of the rest of the evidence a simple matter. There
was a chance that he might let slip some revealing action. At any
rate, till Mr. Manning came, her role was to watch with unsleeping eye
for developments. Her office window commanded the entrance to Blake's
suite of rooms, and no one went up by day whom she did not see. Her
bedroom commanded Blake's house and grounds, and every night she sat
at her darkened window till the small hours and watched for possible
suspicious visitors, or possible suspicious movements on the part of
Blake.
Also she did not forget Doctor Sherman. On the day of her departure
for New York, she had called upon Doctor Sherman, and in the privacy
of his study had charged him with playing a guilty part in Blake's
conspiracy. She had been urged to this course by the slender chance
that, when directly accused as she had dared not accuse him in the
court-room, he might break down and confess. But Doctor Sherman had
denied her charge and had clung to the story he had told upon the
witness stand. Since Katherine had counted but little on this chance,
she had gone away but little disappointed.
But she did not now let up upon the young minister. Regular
attendance at church had of late years not been one of Katherine's
virtues, but after her return it was remarked that she did not miss a
single service at which Doctor Sherman spoke. She always tried to sit
in the very centre of his vision, seeking to keep ever before his
mind, while he preached God's word, the sin he had committed against
God's law and man's. He visibly grew more pale, more thin, more
distraught. The changes inspired his congregation with concern; they
began to talk of overwork, of the danger of a breakdown; and seeing
the dire possibility of losing so popular and pew-filling a pastor,
they began to urge upon him the need of a long vacation.
Katherine could not but also give attention to the campaign, since it
was daily growing more sensational, and was completely engrossing the
town. Blake, in his speeches, stood for a continuance of the rule that
had made Westville so prosperous, and dwelt especially upon an
improvement in the service of the water-works, though as to the nature
of the improvements he confined himself to language that was somewhat
vague. Katherine heard him often. He was always eloquent, clever,
forceful, with a manly grace of presence upon the platform--just what
she, and just what the town, expected him to be.
But the surprise of the campaign, to Katherine and to Westville, was
Arnold Bruce. Katherine had known Bruce to be a man of energy; now, in
her mind, a forceful if not altogether elegant phrase of Carlyle
attached itself to him--"A steam-engine in pants." He was never
clever, never polished, he never charmed with the physical grace of
his opponent, but he spoke with a power, an earnestness, and an energy
that were tremendous. By the main strength of his ideas and his
personality he seemed to bear down the prejudice against the principle
for which he stood. He seemed to stand out in the mid-current of
hostile opinion and by main strength hurl it back into its former
course. The man's efforts were nothing less than herculean. He was a
bigger man, a more powerful man, than Westville had ever dreamed; and
his spirited battle against such apparently hopeless odds had a
compelling fascination. Despite her defiantly critical attitude,
Katherine was profoundly impressed; and she heard it whispered about
that, notwithstanding Blake's great popularity, his party's certainty
of success was becoming very much disturbed.
Both Katherine and Bruce were fond of horseback riding--Doctor West's
single luxury, his saddle horse, was ever at Katherine's disposal--and
at the end of one afternoon they met by chance out along the winding
River Road, with its border of bowing willows and mottled sycamores,
between whose browned foliage could be glimpsed long reaches of the
broad and polished river, steel-gray in the shadows, a flaming copper
where the low sun poured over it its parting fire. Little by little
Bruce began to talk of his ideals. Presently he was speaking with a
simplicity and openness that he had not yet used with Katherine. She
perceived, more clearly than before, that whereas he was dogmatic in
his ideas and brutally direct in their expression, he was a hot-souled
idealist, overflowing with a passionate, even desperate, love of
democracy, which he feared was in danger of dying out in the
land--quietly and painlessly suffocated by a narrowing oligarchy which
sought to blind the people to its rule by allowing them the exercise
of democracy's dead forms.
His square, rude face, which she watched with a rising fascination,
was no longer repellent. It had that compelling beauty, superior to
mere tint and moulding of the flesh, which is born of great and
glowing ideas. She saw that there was sweetness in his nature, that
beneath his rough exterior was a violent, all-inclusive tenderness.
Now and then she put in a word of discriminating approval, now and
then a word of well-reasoned dissent.
"I believe you are even more radical than I am!" he exclaimed, looking
at her keenly.
"A woman, if she is really radical, has got to be more radical than a
man. She sees all the evils and dangers that he sees, and in addition
she suffers from injustices and restrictions from which man is wholly
free."
He was too absorbed in the afterglow of what he had been saying to
take in all the meanings implicated in her last phrase.
"Do you know," he said, as they neared the town, "you are the first
woman I have met in Westville to whom one could talk about real things
and who could talk back with real sense."
A very sly and pat remark upon his inconsistency was at her tongue's
tip. But she realized that he had spoken impulsively, unguardedly, and
she felt that it would be little short of sacrilege to be even gently
sarcastic after the exalted revelation he had made of himself.
"Thank you," she said quietly, and turned her face and smiled at the
now steel-blue reaches of the river.
He dropped in several evenings to see her. When he was in an
idealistic mood she was warmly responsive. When he was arbitrary and
opinionated, she met him with chaffing and raillery, and at such times
she was as elusive, as baffling, as exasperating as a sprite. On
occasions when he rather insistently asked her plans and her progress
in her father's case, she evaded him and held him at bay. She felt
that he admired her, but with a grudging, unwilling admiration that
left his fundamental disapproval of her quite unshaken.
The more she saw of this dogmatic dreamer, this erratic man of action,
the more she liked him, the more she found really admirable in him.
But mixed with her admiration was an alert and pugnacious fear, so big
was he, so powerful, so violently hostile to all the principles
involved in her belief that the whole wide world of action should in
justice lie as much open to woman to choose from as to man.
Without cessation Katherine kept eyes and mind on Blake. She searched
out and pondered over the thousand possible details and ramifications
his conspiracy might have. No human plan was a perfect plan. By
patiently watching and studying every point there was a chance that
she might discover one detail, one slip, one oversight, that would
give her the key to the case.
One of the thousand possibilities was that he had an active partner in
his scheme. Since no such partner was visible in the open, it was
likely that his associate was a man with whom Blake wished to have
seemingly no relations. Were this conjecture true, then naturally he
would meet this confederate in secret. She began to think upon all
possible means and places of holding secret conferences. Such a
meeting might be held there in Westville in the dead of night. It
might be held in any large city in which individuals might lose
themselves--Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Chicago. It might be
held at any appointed spot within the radius of an automobile journey.
Katherine analyzed every possible place of this last possibility. She
began to watch, as she watched other possibilities, the comings and
goings of the Blake automobile. It occurred to her that, if anything
were in this conjecture, the meeting would be held at night; and then,
a little later, it occurred to her to make a certain regular
observation. The Blake garage and the West stable stood side by side
and opened into the same alley. Every evening while Blake's car was
being cleaned--if it had been in use during the day--Katherine went
out to say good night to her saddle horse, and as she was on friendly
terms with Blake's man she contrived, while exchanging a word with
him, to read the mileage record of the speedometer. This observation
she carried on with no higher hope of anything resulting from it than
from any of a score of other measures. It was merely one detail of her
all-embracing vigilance.
Every night she sat on watch--the evening's earlier half usually in
the rustic summer-house in the backyard, the latter part at her
bedroom window. One night after most of Westville was in bed, her
long, patient vigil was rewarded by seeing the Blake automobile slip
out with a single vague figure at the wheel and turn into the back
streets of the town.
Hours passed, and still she sat wide-eyed at her window. It was not
till raucous old muzzains of roosters raised from the watch-towers of
their various coops their concatenated prophecy of the dawn, that she
saw the machine return with its single passenger. The next morning, as
soon as she saw Blake's man stirring about his work, she slipped out
to her stable. Watching her chance, she got a glimpse of Blake's
speedometer. Then she quickly slipped back to her room and sat there
in excited thought.
The evening before the mileage had read 1437; this morning the reading
was 1459. Blake, in his furtive midnight journey, had travelled
twenty-two miles. If he had slipped forth to meet a secret ally, then
evidently their place of meeting was half of twenty-two miles distant.
Where was this rendezvous?
Almost instantly she thought of The Sycamores. That fitted the
requirements exactly. It was eleven miles distant--Blake had a cabin
there--the place was deserted at this season of the year. Nothing
could be safer than for two men, coming in different vehicles, from
different points perhaps, to meet at that retired spot at such an
eyeless hour.
Perhaps there was no confederate. Perhaps Blake's night trip was
not to a secret conference. Perhaps The Sycamores was not the
rendezvous. But there was a chance that all three of these conjectures
were correct. And if so, there was a chance,--aye, more, a
probability--that there would be further midnight trysts.
Bruce had fallen into the habit of dropping in occasionally for a few
minutes at the end of an evening's speaking to tell Katherine how
matters seemed to be progressing. When he called that night toward
ten he was surprised to be directed around to the summer-house. His
surprise was all the more because the three months' drought had that
afternoon been broken, and the rain was now driving down in gusts and
there was a far rumbling of thunder that threatened a nearer and a
fiercer cannonading.
Crouching beneath his umbrella, he made his way through the blackness
to the summer-house, in which he saw sitting a dim, solitary figure.
"In mercy's name, what are you doing out here?" he demanded as he
entered.
"Watching the rain. I love to be out in a storm." Every clap of
thunder sent a shiver through her.
"You must go right into the house!" he commanded. "You'll get wet.
I'll bet you're soaked already!"
"Oh, no. I have a raincoat on," she answered calmly. "I'm going to
stay and watch the storm a little longer."
He expostulated, spoke movingly of colds and pneumonia. But she kept
her seat and sweetly suggested that he avoid his vividly pictured
dangers of a premature death by following his own advice. He jerked a
rustic chair up beside her, growled a bit in faint imitation of the
thunder, then ran off into the wonted subject of the campaign.
As the situation now stood he had a chance of winning, so successful
had been his fight to turn back public opinion; and if only he had and
could use the evidence Katherine was seeking, an overwhelming victory
would be his beyond a doubt. He plainly was chafing at her delays, and
as plainly made it evident that he was sceptical of her gaining proof.
But she did not let herself be ruffled. She evaded all his questions,
and when she spoke she spoke calmly and with good-nature.
Presently, sounding dimly through a lull in the rising tumult of the
night, they heard the Court House clock strike eleven. Soon after,
Katherine's ear, alert for a certain sound, caught a muffled throbbing
that was not distinguishable to Bruce from the other noises of the
storm.
She sprang up.
"You must go now--good night!" she said breathlessly, and darted out
of the summer-house.
"Wait! Where are you going?" he cried, and tried to seize her, but she
was gone.
He stumbled amazedly after her vague figure, which was running through
the grape-arbour swiftly toward the stable. The blackness, his
unfamiliarity with the way, made him half a minute behind Katherine in
entering the barn.
"Miss West!" he called. "Miss West!"
There was no answer and no sound within the stable. Just then a flash
of lightning showed him that the rear door was open. As he felt his
way through this he heard Katherine say, "Whoa, Nelly! Whoa, Nelly!"
and saw her swing into the saddle.
He sprang forward and caught the bridle rein.
"What are you going to do?" he cried.
"Going out for a little gallop," she answered with an excited laugh.
"What?" A light broke in upon him. "You've been sitting there all
evening in your riding habit! Your horse has been standing saddled and
bridled in the stall! Tell me--where are you going?"
"For a little ride, I said. Now let loose my rein."
"Why--why--" he gasped in amazement. Then he cried out fiercely: "You
shall not go! It's madness to go out in a storm like this!"
"Mr. Bruce, let go that rein this instant!" she said peremptorily.
"I shall do nothing of the sort! I shall not let you make an insane
fool of yourself!"
She bent downward. Though in the darkness he could not see her face,
the tensity of her tone told him her eyes were flashing.
"Mr. Bruce," she said with slow emphasis, "if you do not loosen that
rein, this second, I give you my word I shall never see you, never
speak to you again."
"All right, but I shall not let you make a fool of yourself," he cried
with fierce dominance. "You've got to yield to sense, even though I
use force on you."
She did not answer. Swiftly she reversed her riding crop and with all
her strength brought its heavy end down upon his wrist.
"Nelly!" she ordered sharply, and in the same instant struck the
horse. The animal lunged free from Bruce's benumbed grasp, and sprang
forward into a gallop.
"Good night!" she called back to him.
He shouted a reply; his voice came to her faintly, wrathful and
defiant, but his words were whirled away upon the storm.