THE LAST STAND
The next morning Katherine, incited by the desperate need of action,
was so bold as to request Mr. Manning to meet her at Old Hosie's. She
was fortunate enough to get into the office without being observed.
The old lawyer, in preparation for the conference, had drawn his
wrinkled, once green shade as far down as he dared without giving
cause for suspicion, and before the window had placed a high-backed
chair and thrown upon it a greenish, blackish, brownish veteran of a
fall overcoat--thus balking any glances that might rove lazily upward
to his office.
Old Hosie raised his lean figure from his chair and shook her hand, at
first silently. He, too, was dazed by the collapse of Bruce's
fortunes.
"Things certainly do look bad," he said slowly. "I never suspected
that his case would suddenly stand on its head like that."
"Nor did I--though from the beginning I had an instinctive feeling
that it was too good, too easy, to be true."
"And to think that after all we know the boy is right!" groaned the
old man.
"That's what makes the whole affair so tantalizing. We know he is
right--we know my father is innocent--we know the danger the city is
in--we know Mr. Blake's guilt--we know just what his plans are. We
know everything! But we have not one jot of evidence that would be
believed by the public. The irony of it! To think, for all our
knowledge, we can only look helplessly on and watch Mr. Blake succeed
in everything."
Old Hosie breathed an imprecation that must have made his ancestors,
asleep behind the old Quaker meeting-house down in Buck Creek, gasp in
their grassy, cedar-shaded graves.
"All the same," Katherine added desperately, "we've got to half kill
ourselves trying between now and election day!"
They subsided into silence. In nervous impatience Katherine awaited
the appearance of the pseudo-investor in run-down farms. He seemed a
long time in coming, but the delay was all in her suspense, for as the
Court House clock was tolling the appointed hour Mr. Manning, _alias_
Mr. Hartsell, walked into the office. He was, as Katherine had once
described him to Old Hosie, a quiet, reserved man with that
confidence-inspiring amplitude in the equatorial regions commonly
observable in bank presidents and trusted officials of corporations.
As he closed the door his subdued but confident dignity dropped from
him and he warmly shook hands with Katherine, for this was their first
meeting since their conference in New York six weeks before.
"You must know how very, very terrible our situation is," Katherine
rapidly began. "We've simply _got_ to do something!"
"I certainly haven't done much so far," said Manning, with a rueful
smile. "I'm sorry--but you don't know how tedious my role's been to
me. To act the part of bait, and just lie around before the noses of
the fish you're after, and not get a bite in two whole weeks--that's
not my idea of exciting fishing."
"I know. But the plan looked a good one."
"It looked first-class," conceded Manning. "And, perhaps----"
"With election only four days off, we've simply got to do something!"
Katherine repeated. "If nothing else, let's drop that plan, devise a
new one, and stake our hopes on some wild chance."
"Wait a minute," said Manning. "I wouldn't drop that plan just yet.
I've gone two weeks without a bite, but--I'm not sure--remember I say
I'm not sure--but I think that at last I may possibly have a nibble."
"A nibble you say?" cried Katherine, leaning eagerly forward.
"At least, the cork bobbed under."
"When?"
"Last night."
"Last night? Tell me about it!"
"Well, of late I've been making my study of the water-works more and
more obvious, and I've half suspected that I've been watched, though I
was too uncertain to risk raising any false hopes by sending you word
about it. But yesterday afternoon Blind Charlie Peck--he's been
growing friendly with me lately--yesterday Blind Charlie invited me to
have supper with him. The supper was in his private dining-room; just
us two. I suspected that the old man was up to some game, and when I
saw the cocktails and whiskey and wine come on, I was pretty sure--for
you know, Miss West, when a crafty old politician of the Peck variety
wants to steal a little information from a man, his regulation scheme
is to get his man so drunk he doesn't know what he's talking about."
"I know. Go on!"
"I tried to beg off from the drinking. I told Mr. Peck I did not
drink. I liked it, I said, but I could not carry it. A glass or two
would put me under the table, so the only safe plan for me was to
leave it entirely alone. But he pressed me--and I took one. And he
pressed me again, and I took another--and another--and another--till
I'd had five or----"
"But you should never have done it!" cried Katherine in alarm.
Manning smiled at her reassuringly.
"I'm no drinking man, but I'm so put together that I can swallow a
gallon and then sign the pledge with as steady a hand as the president
of the W. C. T. U. But after the sixth drink I must have looked just
about right to Blind Charlie. He began to put cunning questions at me.
Little by little all my secrets leaked out. The farm lands were only a
blind. My real business in Westville was the water-works. There was a
chance that the city might sell them, and if I could get them I was
going to snap them up. In fact, I was going to make an offer to the
city in a very few days. I had been examining the system closely; it
wasn't really in bad shape at all; it was worth a lot more than the
people said; and I was ready, if I had to, to pay its full value to
get it--even more. I had plenty of money behind me, for I was
representing Mr. Seymour, the big New York capitalist."
"Good! Good!" cried Katharine breathlessly. "How did he seem to take
it?"
"I could see that he was stirred up, and I guessed that he was
thinking big thoughts."
"But did he say anything?"
"Not a word. Except that it was interesting."
"Ah!" It was an exclamation of disappointment. Then she instantly
added: "But of course he could not say anything until after he had
talked it over with Mr. Blake. He'll do that this morning--if he did
not do it last night. You may be approached by them to-day."
She stood up excitedly, and her brown eyes glowed. "After all,
something may come of the plan!"
"It's at least an opening," said Manning.
"Yes. And let's use it for all it's worth. Don't you think it would be
best for you to go right back to your hotel, and keep yourself in
sight, so Mr. Peck won't have to lose a second in case he wants to
talk to you again?"
"That's what I had in mind."
"And all day I'll be either in my office, or at home, or at Mrs.
Sherman's. And the minute anything develops, send word to Mr.
Hollingsworth and he'll send word to me."
"I'll not waste a minute," he assured her.
All day she waited with suppressed excitement for good news from
Manning. But the only news was that there was no news. And so on the
second day. And so on the third. Her hopes, that had flared so high,
sunk by slow degrees to mere embers among the ashes. It appeared that
the nibble, which had seemed but the preliminary to swallowing the
bait, was after all no more than a nibble; that the fish had merely
nosed the worm and swum away. In the meantime, while eaten up by the
suspense of this inaction, she was witness to activity of the most
strenuous variety. Never had she seen a man spring up into favour as
did Harrison Blake. His campaign meetings were resumed the very night
of Bruce's conviction; the city crowded to them; the Blake Marching
Club tramped the streets till midnight, with flaming torches, rousing
the enthusiasm of the people with their shouts and campaign songs; and
wherever Blake appeared upon the platform he was greeted by an uproar,
and even when he appeared by daylight, when men's spirits are more
sedate, his progress through the streets was a series of miniature
ovations.
As for Bruce, Katherine saw his power and position crumble so swiftly
that she could hardly see them disappear. The structure of a
tremendous future had stood one moment imposingly before her eyes.
Presto, and it was no more! The sentiment he had roused in favour of
public ownership, and against the regime of Blake, was as a thing that
had never been. With him in jail, his candidacy was but the ashes that
are left by a conflagration--though, to be sure, since the ballots
were already printed, it was too late to remove his name. He was a
thing to be cursed at, jeered at. He had suddenly become a little
lower than nobody, a little less than nothing.
And as for his paper, when Katherine looked at it it made her sick at
heart. Within a day it lost a third in size. Advertisers no longer
dared, perhaps no longer cared, to give it patronage. Its news and
editorial character collapsed. This last she could hardly understand,
for Billy Harper was in charge, and Bruce had often praised him to her
as a marvel of a newspaper man. But one evening, when she was coming
home late from Elsie Sherman's and hurrying through the crowd of Main
Street, Billy Harper lurched against her. The next day, with a little
adroit inquiry, she learned that Harper, freed from Bruce's
restraining influence, and depressed by the general situation, was
drinking constantly. It required no prophetic vision for Katherine to
see that, if things continued as they now were going, on the day Bruce
came out of jail he would find the _Express_, which he had lifted to
power and a promise of prosperity, had sunk into a disrepute and a
decay from which even so great an energy as his could not restore it.
Since there was so little she could do elsewhere, Katherine was at the
Shermans' several times a day, trying in unobtrusive ways to aid the
nurse and Doctor Sherman's sister. Miss Sherman was a spare, silent
woman of close upon forty, with rather sharp, determined features.
Despite her unloveliness, Katherine respected her deeply, for in other
days Elsie had told her sister-in-law's story. Miss Sherman and her
brother were orphans. To her had been given certain plain virtues, to
him all the graces of mind and body. She was a country school-teacher,
and it had been her hard work, her determination, her penny-counting
economy, that had saved her talented brother from her early hardships
and sent him through college. She had made him what he was; and
beneath her stern exterior she loved him with that intense devotion a
lonely, ingrowing woman feels for the object on which she has spent
her life's thought and effort.
Whenever Katherine entered the sick chamber--they had moved Elsie's
bed into the sitting-room because of its greater convenience and
better air--her heart would stand still as she saw how white and
wasted was her friend. At such a time she would recall with a choking
keenness all of Elsie's virtues, each virtue increased and
purified--her simplicity, her purity, her loyalty.
Several times Elsie came back from the brink of the Great Abyss, over
which she so faintly hovered, and smiled at Katherine and spoke a few
words--but only a few, for Doctor West allowed no more. Each time she
asked, with fluttering trepidation, if any word had come from her
husband; and each time at Katherine's choking negative she would try
to smile bravely and hide her disappointment.
On one of the last days of this period--it was the Sunday before
election--Doctor West had said that either the end or a turn for the
better must be close at hand. Katherine had been sitting long watching
Elsie's pale face and faintly rising bosom, when Elsie slowly opened
her eyes. Elsie pressed her friend's hand with a barely perceptible
pressure and smiled with the faintest shadow of a smile.
"You here again, Katherine?" she breathed.
"Yes, dear."
"Just the same dear Katherine!"
"Don't speak, Elsie."
She was silent a space. Then the wistful look Katherine had seen so
often came into the patient's soft gray eyes, and she knew what
Elsie's words were going to be before they passed her lips.
"Have you heard anything--from him?"
Katherine slowly shook her head.
Elsie turned her face away for a moment. A sigh fluttered out. Then
she looked back.
"But you are still trying to find him?"
"We have done, and are doing, everything, dear."
"I'm sure," sighed Elsie, "that he would come if he only knew."
"Yes--if he only knew."
"And you will keep on--trying--to get him word?"
"Yes, dear."
"Then perhaps--he may come yet."
"Perhaps," said Katherine, with hopeful lips. But in her heart there
was no hope.
Elsie closed her eyes, and did not speak again. Presently Katherine
went out into the level, red-gold sunlight of the waning November
afternoon. The church bells, resting between their morning duty and
that of the night, all were silent; over the city there lay a hush--it
was as if the town were gathering strength for its final spasm of
campaign activity on the morrow. There was nothing in that Sabbath
calm to disturb the emotion of Elsie's bedside, and Katherine walked
slowly homeward beneath the barren maples, in that fearful, tremulous,
yearning mood in which she had left the bedside of her friend.
In this same mood she reached home and entered the empty sitting-room.
She was slowly drawing off her gloves when she perceived, upon the
centre-table, a special delivery letter addressed to herself. She
picked it up in moderate curiosity. The envelope was plain, the
address was typewritten, there was nothing to suggest the identity of
the sender. In the same moderate curiosity she unfolded the inclosure.
Then her curiosity became excitement, for the letter bore the
signature of Mr. Seymour.
"I have to-day received a letter from Mr. Harrison Blake of
Westville," Mr. Seymour wrote her, "of which the following is the
text: 'We have just learned that there is in our city a Mr. Hartsell
who represents himself to be an agent of yours instructed to purchase
the water-works of Westville. Before entering into any negotiations
with him the city naturally desires to be assured by you that he is a
representative of your firm. As haste is necessary in this matter, we
request you to reply at once and by special delivery."
"Ah, I understand the delay now!" Katherine exclaimed. "Before making
a deal with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blake and Mr. Peck wanted to be sure
their man was what he said he was!"
"And now, Miss West," Mr. Seymour wrote on, "since you have kept me in
the dark as to the details of your plan, and as I have never heard of
said Hartsell, I have not known just how to reply to your Mr. Blake.
So I have had recourse to the vague brevity of a busy man, and have
sent the following by the same mail that brings this to you: 'Replying
to your inquiry of the 3rd inst. I beg to inform you that I have a
representative in Westville fully authorized to act for me in the
matter of the water-works.' I hope this reply is all right. Also there
is a second hope, which is strong even if I try to keep it subdued;
and that is that you will have to buy the water-works in for me."
From that instant Katherine's mind was all upon her scheme. She was
certain that Mr. Seymour's reply was already in the hands of Blake and
Peck, and that they were even then planning, or perhaps had already
planned, what action they should take. At once she called Old Hosie up
by telephone.
"I think it looks as though the 'nibble' were going to develop into a
bite, and quick," she said rapidly. "Get into communication with Mr.
Manning and tell him to make no final arrangement with those parties
till he sees me. I want to know what they offer."
It was an hour later, and the early night had already fallen, when
there was a ring at the West door, and Old Hosie entered, alone.
Katharine quickly led the old lawyer into the parlour.
"Well?" she whispered.
"Manning has just accepted an invitation for an automobile ride this
evening from Charlie Peck."
Katherine suddenly gripped his hand.
"That may be a bite!"
The old man nodded with suppressed excitement.
"They were to set out at six. It's five minutes to six now."
Without a word Katherine crossed swiftly and opened the door an inch,
and stood tensely waiting beside it. Presently, through the calm of
the Sabbath evening, there started up very near the sudden buzzing of
a cranked-up car. Then swiftly the buzzing faded away into the
distance.
Katherine turned.
"It's Mr. Blake's car. They'll all be at The Sycamores in half an
hour. It's a bite, certain! Get hold of Mr. Manning as soon as he
comes back, and bring him here. The house will be darkened, but the
front door will be unlocked. Come right in. Come as late as you
please. You'll find me waiting here in the parlour."
The hours that followed were trying ones for Katherine. She sat about
with her aunt till toward ten o'clock. Then her father returned from
his last call, and soon thereafter they all went to their rooms.
Katherine remained upstairs till she thought her father and aunt were
settled, then slipped down to the parlour, set the front door ajar,
and sat waiting in the darkness. She heard the Court House clock with
judicial slowness count off eleven o'clock--then after a long, long
space, count off twelve. A few minutes later she heard Blake's car
return, and after a time she heard the city clock strike one.
It was close upon two when soft steps sounded upon the porch and the
front door opened. She silently shook hands with her two vague
visitors.
"We didn't think it safe to come any sooner," explained Old Hosie in a
whisper.
"You've been with them out at The Sycamores?" Katherine eagerly
inquired of Manning.
"Yes. For a four hours' session."
"Well?"
"Well, so far it looks O. K."
In a low voice he detailed to Katherine how they had at first fenced
with one another; how at length he had told them that he had a formal
proposal to the city to buy the water-works all drawn up and that on
the morrow he was going to present it--and that, furthermore, he
would, if necessary, increase the sum he offered in that proposal to
the full value of the plant. Blake and Peck, after a slow approach to
the subject, in which they admitted that they also planned to buy the
system, had suggested that, inasmuch as he was only an agent and there
would be no profit in the purchase to him personally, he abandon his
purpose. If he would do this they would make it richly worth his
while. He had replied that this was such a different plan from that
which he had been considering that he must have time to think it over
and would give them his answer to-morrow. On which understanding the
three had parted.
"I suppose it would hardly be practicable," said Katherine when he had
finished, "to have a number of witnesses concealed at your place of
meeting and overhear your conversation?"
"No, it would be mighty difficult to pull that off."
"And what's more," she commented, "Mr. Blake would deny whatever they
said, and with his present popularity his words would carry more
weight than that of any half dozen witnesses we might get. At the
best, our charges would drag on for months, perhaps years, in the
courts, with in the end the majority of the people believing in him.
With the election so near, we must have instantaneous results. We
must use a means of exposing him that will instantly convince all the
people."
"That's the way I see it," agreed Manning.
"When did they offer to pay you, in case you agreed to sell out to
them?"
"On the day they got control of the water-works. Naturally they didn't
want to pay me before, for fear I might break faith with them and buy
in the system for Mr. Seymour."
"Can't you make them put their proposition in the form of an
agreement, to be signed by all three of you?" asked Katherine.
"But mebbe they won't consent to that," put in Old Hosie.
"Mr. Manning will know how to bring them around. He can say, for
example, that, unless he has such a written agreement, they will be in
a position to drop him when once they've got what they want. He can
say that unless they consent to sign some such agreement he will go on
with his original plan. I think they'll sign."
"And if they do?" queried Old Hosie.
"If they do," said Katherine, "we'll have documentary evidence to show
Westville that those two great political enemies, Mr. Blake and Mr.
Peck, are secretly business associates--their business being a
conspiracy to wreck the water-works and defraud the city. I think such
a document would interest Westville."
"I should say it would!" exclaimed Old Hosie.
They whispered on, excitedly, hopefully; and when the two men had
departed and Katherine had gone up to her room to try to snatch a few
hours' sleep, she continued to dwell eagerly upon the plan that seemed
so near of consummation. She tossed about her bed, and heard the Court
House clock sound three, and then four. Then the heat of her
excitement began to pass away, and cold doubts began to creep into her
mind. Perhaps Blake and Peck would refuse to sign. And even if they
did sign, she began to see this prospective success as a thing of
lesser magnitude. The agreement would prove the alliance between Blake
and Peck, and would make clear that a conspiracy existed. It was good,
but it was not enough. It fell short by more than half. It would not
clear her father, though his innocence might be inferred, and it would
not prove Blake's responsibility for the epidemic.
As she lay there staring wide-eyed into the gloom of the night,
listening to the town clock count off the hours of her last day, she
realized that what she needed most of all, far more than Manning's
document even should he get it, was the testimony which she believed
was sealed behind the lips of Doctor Sherman, whose present
whereabouts God only knew.