BRUCE TO THE FRONT
Katherine came down from Blake's office with many thoughts surging
through her brain: Of her father's release--of Blake's obduracy--of
his mother's illness; but at the forefront of them all, because
demanding immediate action, was the need of finding Doctor Sherman.
As she stepped forth from the stairway, she saw Arnold Bruce striding
along the Square in her direction. There was a sudden leaping of her
heart, a choking at her throat. But they passed each other with the
short cold nod which had been their manner of greeting during the last
few days when they had chanced to meet.
The next instant a sudden impulse seized her, and she turned about.
"Mr. Bruce," she called after him.
He came back to her. His face was rather pale, but was doggedly
resolute. Her look was not very different from his.
"Yes, Miss West?" said he.
For a moment it was hard for her to speak. No word, only that frigid
nod, had passed between them since their quarrel.
"I want to ask you something--and tell you something," she said
coldly.
"I am at your service," said he.
"We cannot talk here. Suppose we cross into the Court House yard?"
In silence he fell into step beside her. They did not speak until they
were in the yard where passers-by could not overhear them.
"You know of Mrs. Sherman's illness?" she began in a distant, formal
tone.
"Yes."
"It promises to be serious. We must get her husband home if possible.
But no one has his address. An idea for reaching him has been vaguely
in my head. It may not be good, but it now seems the only way."
"Do you mind telling me what it is?"
"Doctor Sherman is somewhere in the pine woods of the North. What I
thought about doing was to order some Chicago advertising agency to
insert notices in scores of small dailies and weeklies up North,
announcing to Doctor Sherman his wife's illness and urging him to come
home. My hope is that one of the papers may penetrate whatever remote
spot he may be in and the notice reach his eyes. What I want to ask
you is the name of an agency."
"Black & Graves are your people," said he.
"Also I want to know how to go about it to get prompt action on their
part."
"Write out the notice and send it to them with your instructions. And
since they won't know you, better enclose a draft or money order on
account. No, don't bother about the money; you won't know how much to
send. I know Phil Black, and I'll write him to-day guaranteeing the
account."
"Thank you," she said.
"You're perfectly welcome," said he with his cold politeness. "Is
there anything else I can do?"
"That's all about that. But I have something to tell you--a suggestion
to make for your campaign, if you will not consider it impertinent."
"Quite otherwise. I shall be very glad to get it."
"You have been saying in your speeches that the bad water has been due
to intentional mismanagement of the present administration, which is
ruled by Mr. Blake, for the purpose of rendering unpopular the
municipal ownership principle."
"I have, and it's been very effective."
"I suggest that you go farther."
"How?"
"Make the fever an issue of the campaign. The people, in fact all of
us, have been too excited, too frightened, to understand the relation
between the bad management of the water-works, the bad water, and the
fever. Tell them that relation. Only tell it carefully, by insinuation
if necessary, so that you will avoid the libel law--for you have no
proof as yet. Make them understand that the fever is due to bad water,
which in turn is due to bad management of the water-works, which in
turn is due to the influence of Mr. Blake."
"Great! Great!" exclaimed Bruce.
"Oh, the idea is not really mine," she said coldly. "It came to me
from some things my father told me."
Her tone recalled to him their chilly relationship.
"It's a regular knock-out idea," he said stiffly. "And I'm much
obliged to you."
They had turned back and were nearing the gate of the yard.
"I hope it will really help you--but be careful to avoid giving them
an opening to bring a libel charge. Permit me to say that you have
been making a splendid campaign."
"Things do seem to be coming my direction. The way I threw Blind
Charlie's threat back into his teeth, that has made a great hit. I
think I have him on the run."
He hesitated, gave her a sharp look, then added rather defiantly:
"I might as well tell you that in a few days I expect to have Blake
also on the run--in fact, in a regular gallop. That Indianapolis
lawyer friend of mine, Wilson's his name, is coming here to help me."
"Oh!" she exclaimed.
"You'll remember," he continued in his defiant tone, "that I once told
you that your father's case was not your case. It's the city's. I'm
going to put Wilson on it, and I expect him to clear it all up in
short order."
She could not hold back a sudden uprush of resentment.
"So then it's to be a battle between us, is it?" she demanded, looking
him straight in the face.
"A battle? How?"
"To see which one gets the evidence."
"We've got to get it--that's all," he answered grimly.
In an instant she had resumed control of herself.
"I hope you succeed," she said calmly. "Good afternoon." And with a
crisp nod she turned away.
Bruce's action in calmly taking the case out of her hands, which was
in effect an iteration of his statement that he had no confidence in
her ability, stung her bitterly and for a space her wrath flamed
high. But there were too many things to be done to give much time to
mere resentment. She wrote the letter to the Chicago advertising
agency, mailed it, then set out to find her father. At the jail she
was told that he had been released and had left for Blake's. There she
found him. He came out into the hall, kissed her warmly, then hurried
back into the bedroom. Katherine, glancing through the open door, saw
him move swiftly about the old gray-haired woman, while Blake stood in
strained silence looking on.
When her father had done all for Mrs. Blake he could do at that time,
Katherine hurried him away to Elsie Sherman. He replaced the very
willing Doctor Woods, who knew little about typhoid, and assumed
charge of Elsie with all his unerring mastery of what to do. He gave
her his very best skill, and he hovered about her with all the concern
that the illness of his own child might have evoked, for she had been
a warm favourite with him and the charges of her husband had in no
degree lessened his regard. Whatever science and care and love could
do for her, it all was certain to be done.
Within two hours after Blake had received Doctor Brenholtz's telegram
its contents had flashed about the town. Doctor West was besieged. The
next day found him treating not only as many individual cases as his
strength and the hours of the day allowed, but found him in command of
the Board of Health's fight against the plague, with all the rest of
the city's doctors accepting orders from him. All his long life of
incessant study and experiment, all those long years when he had been
laughed at for a fool and jeered at for a failure--all that time had
been but an unconscious preparation for this great fight to save a
stricken city. And the town, for all its hatred, for all the stain
upon his name, as it watched this slight, white-haired man go so
swiftly and gently and efficiently about his work, began to feel for
him something akin to awe--began dimly to feel that this old figure
whom it had been their habit to scorn for near a generation was
perhaps their greatest man.
While Katherine watched this fight against the fever with her father
as its central figure, while she awaited in suspense some results of
her advertising campaign, and while she tried to press forward the
other details of her search for evidence, she could but keep her eyes
upon the mayoralty campaign--for it was mounting to an ever higher
climax of excitement. Bruce was fighting like a fury. The sensation
created by his announcement of Blind Charlie's threatened treachery
was a mere nothing compared to the uproar created when he informed the
people, not directly, but by careful insinuation, that Blake was
responsible for the epidemic.
Blake denied the charge with desperate energy and with all his power
of eloquence; he declared that the epidemic was but another
consequence of that supremest folly of mankind, public ownership. He
was angrily supported by his party, his friends and his followers--but
those followers were not so many as a few short weeks before. Passion
was at its highest--so high that trustworthy forecasts of the election
were impossible. But ten days before election it was freely talked
about the streets, and even privately admitted by some of Blake's best
friends, that nothing but a miracle could save him from defeat.
In these days of promise Bruce seemed to pour forth an even greater
energy; and in his efforts he was now aided by Mr. Wilson, the
Indianapolis lawyer, who was spending his entire time in Westville.
Katherine caught in Bruce's face, when they passed upon the street, a
gleam of triumph which he could not wholly suppress. She wondered,
with a pang of jealousy, if he and Mr. Wilson were succeeding where
she had failed--if all her efforts were to come to nothing--if her
ambition to demonstrate to Bruce that she could do things was to prove
a mere dream?
Toward noon one day, as she was walking along the Square homeward
bound from Elsie Sherman's, she passed Bruce and Mr. Wilson headed for
the stairway of the _Express_ Building. Both bowed to her, then
Katherine overheard Bruce say, "I'll be with you in a minute, Wilson,"
and the next instant he was at her side.
"Excuse me, Miss West," he said. "But we have just unearthed something
which I think you should be the first person to learn."
"I shall be glad to hear it," she said in the cold, polite tone they
reserved for one another.
"Let's go over into the Court House yard."
They silently crossed the street and entered the comparative seclusion
of the yard.
"I suppose it is something very significant?" she asked.
"So significant," he burst out, "that the minute the _Express_ appears
this afternoon Harrison Blake is a has-been!"
She looked at him quickly. The triumph she had of late seen gleaming
in his face was now openly blazing there.
"You mean----"
"I mean that I've got the goods on him!"
"You--you have evidence?"
"The best sort of evidence!"
"That will clear my father?"
"Perhaps not directly. Indirectly, yes. But it will smash Blake to
smithereens!"
She was happy on Bruce's account, on her father's, on the city's, but
for the moment she was sick upon her own.
"Is the nature of the evidence a secret?"
"The whole town will know it this afternoon. I asked you over here to
tell you first. I have just secured a full confession from two of
Blake's accomplices."
"Then you've discovered Doctor Sherman?" she exclaimed.
"Doctor Sherman?" He stared at her. "I don't know what you mean. The
two men are the assistant superintendent of the water-works and the
engineer at the pumping-plant."
"How did you get at them?"
"Wilson and I started out to cross-examine everybody who might be in
the remotest way connected with the case. My suspicion against the two
men was first aroused by their strained behaviour. I went----"
"Then it was you who made this discovery, not that--that other
lawyer?"
"Yes, I was the first to tackle the pair, though Wilson has helped me.
He's a great lawyer, Wilson. We've gone at them relentlessly--with
accusation, cross-examination, appeal; with the result that this
morning both of them broke down and confessed that Blake had secretly
paid them to do all that lay within their power to make the
water-works a failure."
They followed the path in silence for several moments, Katherine's
eyes upon the ground. At length she looked up. In Bruce's face she
plainly read what she had guessed to be an extra motive with him all
along, a glowering determination to crush her, humiliate her, a
determination to cut the ground from beneath her ambition by
overturning Blake and clearing her father without her aid.
"And so," she breathed, "you have made good all your predictions. You
have succeeded and I have failed."
For an instant his square face glowed upon her, exultant with triumph.
Then he partially subdued the look.
"We won't discuss that matter," he said. "It's enough to repeat what I
once said, that Wilson is a crackerjack lawyer."
"All the same, I congratulate you--and wish you every success," she
said; and as quickly thereafter as she could she made her escape, her
heart full of the bitterness of personal defeat.
That afternoon the _Express_, in its largest type, in its editor's
highest-powered English, made its exposure of Harrison Blake. And that
afternoon there was pandemonium in Westville. Violence might have been
attempted upon Blake, but, fortunately for him, he had gone the night
before to Indianapolis--on a matter of state politics, it was said.
Blake, however, was a man to fight to the last ditch. On the morning
after the publication of the _Express's_ charges, the _Clarion_
printed an indignant denial from him. That same morning Bruce was
arrested on a charge of criminal libel, and that same day--the grand
jury being in session--he was indicted. Blake's attorney demanded
that, since these charges had a very direct bearing upon the
approaching election, the trial should take precedence over other
cases and be heard immediately. To this Bruce eagerly agreed, for he
desired nothing better than to demolish Blake in court, and the trial
was fixed for five days before election.
Katherine, going about, heard the people jeer at Blake's denial; heard
them say that his demand for a trial was mere bravado to save his face
for a time--that when the trial came he would never show up. She saw
the former favourite of Westville become in an hour an object of
universal abomination. And, on the other hand, she saw Bruce leap up
to the very apex of popularity.
For Bruce's sake, for every one's sake but her own, she was rejoiced.
But as for herself, she walked in the valley of humiliation, she ate
of the ashes of bitterness. Swept aside by the onrush of events,
feeling herself and her plans suddenly become futile, she decided to
cease all efforts and countermand all orders. But she could not veto
her plan concerning Doctor Sherman, for her money was spent and her
advertisements were broadcast through the North. As for Mr. Manning,
he stated that he had become so interested in the situation that he
was going to stay on in Westville for a time to see how affairs came
out.
On the day of the trial Katherine and the city had one surprise at the
very start. Contrary to all predictions, Harrison Blake was in the
court-room and at the prosecution's table. Despite all the judge, the
clerk, and the sheriff could do to maintain order, there were cries
and mutterings against him. Not once did he flinch, but sat looking
straight ahead of him, or whispering to his private attorney or to the
public prosecutor, Kennedy. He was a brave man. Katherine had known
that.
Bruce, all confidence, recited on the witness stand how he had come by
his evidence. Then the assistant superintendent told with most
convincing detail how he had succumbed to Blake's temptation and done
his bidding. Next, the engineer testified to the same effect.
The crowd lowered at Blake. Certainly matters looked blacker than ever
for the one-time idol of the city.
But Blake sat unmoved. His calmness begat a sort of uneasiness in
Katherine. When the engineer had completed his direct testimony,
Kennedy arose, and following whispered suggestions from Blake,
cross-questioned the witness searchingly, ever more searchingly,
pursued him in and out, in and out, till at length, snap!--Katherine's
heart stood still, and the crowd leaned forward breathless--snap, and
he had caught the engineer in a contradiction!
Kennedy went after the engineer with rapid-fire questions that
involved the witness in contradiction on contradiction--that got him
confused, then hopelessly tangled up--that then broke him down
completely and drew from him a shamefaced confession. The fact was, he
said, that Mr. Bruce, wanting campaign material, had privately come to
him and paid him to make his statements. He had had no dealings with
Mr. Blake whatever. He was a poor man--his wife was sick with the
fever--he had needed the money--he hoped the court would be lenient
with him--etc., etc. The other witness, recalled, confessed to the
same story.
Amid a stunned court room, Bruce sprang to his feet.
"Lies! Lies!" he cried in a choking fury. "They've been bought off by
Blake!"
"Silence!" shouted Judge Kellog, pounding his desk with his gavel.
"I tell you it's trickery! They've been bought off by Blake!"
"Silence!" thundered the judge, and followed with a dire threat of
contempt of court.
But already Mr. Wilson and Sheriff Nichols were dragging the
struggling Bruce back into his chair. More shouts and hammering of
gavels by the judge and clerk had partially restored to order the
chaos begotten by this scene, when a bit of paper was slipped from
behind into Bruce's hand. He unfolded it with trembling fingers, and
read in a disguised, back-hand scrawl:
"There's still enough left of me to know what's happened."
That was all. But Bruce understood. Here was the handiwork and
vengeance of Blind Charlie Peck. He sprang up again and turned his
ireful face to where, in the crowd, sat the old politician.
"You--you----" he began.
But before he got further he was again dragged down into his seat. And
almost before the crowd had had time fairly to regain its breath, the
jury had filed out, had filed back in again, had returned its verdict
of guilty, and Judge Kellog had imposed a sentence of five hundred
dollars fine and sixty days in the county jail.
In all the crowd that looked bewildered on, Katherine was perhaps the
only one who believed in Bruce's cry of trickery. She saw that Blake,
with Blind Charlie's cunning back of him, had risked his all on one
bold move that for a brief period had made him an object of universal
hatred. She saw that Bruce had fallen into a trap cleverly baited for
him, saw that he was the victim of an astute scheme to discredit him
utterly and remove him from the way.
As Blake left the Court House Katherine heard a great cheer go up for
him; and within an hour the evidence of eye and ear proved to her that
he was more popular than ever. She saw the town crowd about him to
make amends for the injustice it considered it had done him. And as
for Bruce, as he was led by Sheriff Nichols from the Court House
toward the jail, she heard him pursued by jeers and hisses.
Katherine walked homeward from the trial, completely dazed by this
sudden capsizing of all of Bruce's hopes--and of her own hopes as
well, for during the last few days she had come to depend on Bruce for
the clearing of her father. That evening, and most of the night, she
spent in casting up accounts. As matters then stood, they looked
desperate indeed. On the one hand, everything pointed to Blake's
election and the certain success of his plans. On the other hand, she
had gained no clue whatever to the whereabouts of Doctor Sherman;
nothing had as yet developed in the scheme she had built about Mr.
Manning; as for Mr. Stone, she had expected nothing from him, and all
he had turned in to her was that he suspected secret relations between
Blake and Peck. Furthermore, the man she loved--for yes, she loved him
still--was in jail, his candidacy collapsed, the cause for which he
stood a ruin. And last of all, the city, to the music of its own
applause, was about to be colossally swindled.
A dark prospect indeed. But as she sat alone in the night, the cheers
for Blake floating in to her, she desperately determined to renew her
fight. Five days still remained before election, and in five days one
might do much; during those five days her ships might still come home
from sea. She summoned her courage, and gripped it fiercely. "I'll do
my best! I'll do my best!" she kept breathing throughout the night.
And her determination grew in its intensity as she realized the sum of
all the things for which she fought, and fought alone.
She was fighting to save her father, she was fighting to save the
city, she was fighting to save the man she loved.