STERN LOGIC
Between Dr. Surtaine and his son had risen a barrier built up of
reticences. At the outset of their reunion, they had chattered like a
pair of schoolboy friends, who, after long separation, must rehearse to
each other the whole roster of experiences. The Doctor was an enthusiast
of speech, glowingly loquacious above knife and fork, and the dinner
hours were enlivened for his son by his fund of far-gathered business
incidents and adventures, pointed with his crude but apt philosophy, and
irradiated with his centripetal optimism. He possessed and was conscious
of this prime virtue of talk, that he was never tiresome. Yet recently
he had noted a restlessness verging to actual distaste on Hal's part,
whenever he turned the conversation upon his favorite topic, the
greatness of Certina and the commercial romance of the proprietary
medicine business.
In his one close fellowship, the old quack cultivated even the minor and
finer virtues. With Hal he was scrupulously tactful. If the boy found
_his_ business an irksome subject, he would talk about the boy's
business. And he did, sounding the Pæan of Policy across the Surtaine
mahogany in a hundred variations supported by a thousand instances. But
here, also, Hal grew restive. He responded no more willingly to leads on
journalism than to encomiums of Certina. Again the affectionate diplomat
changed his ground. He dropped into the lighter personalities; chatted
to Hal of his new friends, and was met halfway. But in secret he puzzled
and grieved over the waning of frankness and freedom in their
intercourse. Dinner, once eagerly looked forward to by both as the best
hour of the day, was now something of an ordeal, a contact in which
each must move warily, lest, all unknowing, he bruise the other.
Of the underlying truth of the situation Dr. Surtaine had no inkling.
Had any one told him that his son dared neither speak nor hear
unreservedly, lest the gathering suspicions about his father, against
which he was fighting while denying to himself their very existence,
should take form and substance of unescapable facts, the Doctor would
have failed utterly of comprehension. He ascribed Hal's unease and
preoccupation to a more definite cause. Sedulous in everything which
concerned his "Boyee," he had learned something of the affair with Esmé
Elliot, and had surmised distressfully how hard the blow had been: but
what worried him much more were rumors connecting Hal's name with Milly
Neal. Several people had seen the two on the day of the road-house
adventure. Milly, with her vivid femininity was a natural mark for
gossip. The mere fact that she had been in Hal's runabout was enough to
set tongues wagging. Then, sometime thereafter, she had resigned her
position in the "Clarion" office without giving any reason, so Dr.
Surtaine understood. The whole matter looked ugly. Not that the
charlatan would have been particularly shocked had Hal exhibited a
certain laxity of morals in the matter of women. For this sort of
offense Dr. Surtaine had an easy toleration, so long as it was kept
decently under cover. But that his son should become entangled with one
of his--Dr. Surtaine's--employees, a woman under the protection of his
roof, even though it were but the factory roof--that, indeed, would be a
shock to his feudal conception of business honor.
Such dismal considerations the Doctor had suppressed during an unusually
uncomfortable dinner, on a hot and thunder-breeding evening when both of
the Surtaines had painfully talked against time. Immediately after the
meal, Hal, on pretext of beating the storm to the office, left. His
father took his forebodings to the club and attempted to lose them
along with several rubbers of absent-minded bridge. Meantime the woman
for whom his loyalty was concerned as well as for his son, was
stimulating a resolution with the slow poison of liquor around the
corner from the "Clarion" office.
Nine P.M. is slack tide in a morning newspaper office. The afternoon
news is cleared up; the night wires have not yet begun to buzz with
outer-world tidings of importance; the reporters are still afield on the
evening's assignments. As the champion short-distance sleeper of his
craft, which distinction he claimed for himself without fear of
successful contradiction, McGuire Ellis was wont to devote half an hour
or more, beginning on the ninth stroke of the clock, to the cultivation
of Morpheus. Intruders were not popular at that hour.
To respect for this habitude, Reginald Currier, known to mortals as Bim,
Guardian of the Sacred Gates, had been rigorously educated. But Bim had
a creed of his own which mollified the rigidity of specific standards,
and one tenet thereof was the apothegm, "Once a 'Clarion' man, always a
'Clarion' man," the same applying to women. Therefore, when Milly Neal
appeared at the gate at 9.05 in the evening, the Cerberus greeted her
professionally with a "How goes it, Miss Cutie?" and passed her in
without question. She went straight to the inner office.
"Hoong!" grunted McGuire Ellis, rubbing his eyes in a desperate endeavor
to disentangle dreams from actualities. "What are _you_ doing here?"
"I want to see Mr. Surtaine."
Something in the girl's aspect put Ellis on his guard. "What do you want
to see him about?" he asked.
"I don't see any Examination Bureau license pinned to you, Ellis," she
retorted hardily.
"The Boss is out."
"I don't believe it."
"All right," said McGuire Ellis equably. "I'm a liar."
"Then you're the proper man for a 'Clarion' job," came the savage
retort.
"Come off, Kitty. Don't be young!"
"I want to see Hal Surtaine," she said with sullen insistence.
Shaking himself out of his chair, the associate editor started across
the room to the telephone at Hal's desk, but halted sharply in front of
the girl.
"You've been drinking," he said.
"What's it to you if I have?"
The man's hand fell on her shoulder. There was no familiarity in the
act; only comradeship. Comradeship in the voice, also, and concern, as
he said, "Cut it, Neal, cut it. There's nothing in it. You're too good
stuff to throw yourself away on that."
"Don't you worry about me." She shook off his hand, and seated herself.
"Still working at the Certina joint?"
"No. I'm not working."
"See here, Neal: what made you quit us?"
The girl withheld speech back of tight-pressed lips.
"Oh, well, never mind that. The point is, we miss you. We miss the
'Cutie' column. It was good stuff. We want you back."
Still silence.
"And I guess you miss us. You liked the job, didn't you?"
The girl gazed past him with ashen eyes. "Oh, my God!" she said under
her breath.
"Your job back and no questions asked," pursued Ellis, with an outer
cheerfulness which cost him no small effort in the face of his growing
conviction of some tragic issue pending.
Now she looked directly at him, and there was a flicker of flame in her
regard.
"Do you know what a Hardscrabbler is, Ellis?" she asked.
The other rubbed his head in puzzlement. "I don't believe I do," he
confessed.
"Then you won't understand when I tell you that I'm one and that I'd see
your 'Clarion' blazing in hell before I'd take another cent of your
money." The fire died from her face, and in her former tone of dulled
stolidity she repeated, "I want to see Mr. Surtaine."
With every word uttered, McGuire Ellis's forebodings had grown darker.
That Hal Surtaine, carried away by the girl's vividness and allure,
might have involved himself in a _liaison_ with her was credible enough.
He recalled the episode of the road-house, on that stormy spring day.
That Hal would have deserted her afterward, Ellis could not believe. And
yet--and yet--why otherwise should she come with the marks of fierce
misery in her face, demanding an interview at this time? On one point
Ellis's mind was swiftly made up: she should not see Hal.
"Miss Neal," he said quietly, "you can sit there all night, but you
can't see the Boss unless you tell me your errand."
The girl rose, slowly. "Oh, I guess you all stand together here," she
said. "Well, remember: I gave him his chance to square himself."
When Hal came up from a visit to the new press half an hour later, Ellis
had decided to say nothing of the call. Later, he must have it out with
his employer, for the sake of both of them and of the "Clarion." But it
was an ordeal which he was glad to postpone. Nothing more, he judged,
was to be feared that night, from Milly Neal; he could safely sleep over
the problem. Having a certain sufficient religion of his own, McGuire
Ellis still believes that a merciful Heaven forgives us our sins; but,
looking back on that evening's decision, he sometimes wonders whether it
ever fully pardons our mistakes.
While he sat reading proof on the status of a flickering foreign war,
the Hardscrabbler's daughter, in a quiet back room farther down the
block, slowly sipped more gin; and gin is fire and fury to the
Hardscrabbler blood.
At eleven o'clock that evening, Dr. Surtaine, returning to that massive
hybrid of architecture which he called home, found Milly Neal waiting in
his study.
"Well, Milly: what's up?" he asked, cheerfully enough in tone, but with
a sinking heart.
"I want to know what you're going to do for me?"
"Something wrong?"
"You've got a right to know. I'm in trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
"The kind you make money out of with your Relief Pills."
"Milly! Milly!" cried the quack, in honest distress. "I wouldn't have
believed it of you."
"Yes: it's terrible, isn't it!" mocked the girl. "What are you going to
do about it? It's up to you."
"Up to me?" queried the Doctor, bracing himself for what was coming.
"Don't you promise, with your Relief Pills to get women out of trouble?"
Dr. Surtaine's breath came a little easier. Perhaps she was not going to
force the issue upon him by mentioning Hal. If this were diplomacy, he
would play the game.
"Certainly not! Certainly not!" he protested with a scandalized air.
"We've never made such a claim. It would be against the law."
"Look at this." She held up in her left hand a clipping, showing a
line-cut of a smiling woman, over the caption "A Happy Lady"; and
announcing in wide print, "Every form of suppression relieved. The most
obstinate cases yield at once. Thousands of once desperate women bless
the name of Relief Pills."
"I don't want to look at it," said the Doctor.
"No, I guess you don't! It's from the 'Clarion,' that clipping. And the
Neverfail Company that makes the fake abortion pills is _you_."
"It doesn't mean--that. You've misread it."
"It _does_ mean just that to every poor, silly fool of a girl that reads
it. What else can it mean? 'The most obstinate cases'--"
"Don't! Don't!" There was a pause, then:
"Of course, you can't stay in the Certina factory after this."
A bitter access of mirth seized the girl. The sound of it
"rang cracked and thin,
Like a fiend's laughter, heard in Hell,
Far down."
"Of course!" she mocked. "The pious and holy Dr. Surtaine couldn't have
an employee who went wrong. Not even though it was his lies that helped
tempt her."
"Don't try to put it off on me. You are suffering for your own sin, my
girl," accused the quack.
"I'll stand my share of it; the suffering and the disgrace, if there is
any. But you've got to stand your share. You promised to get me out of
this and I believed you."
"_I_! Promised to--"
"In plain print." She tossed the clipping at him with her left hand. The
other she held in her lap, under a light wrap which she carried. "And I
believed you. I thought you were square. Then when the pills didn't
help, I went to a doctor, and he laughed and said they were nothing but
sugar and flavoring. He wouldn't help me. He said no decent doctor
would. _You_ ain't a decent doctor. You're a lying devil. Are you going
to help me out?"
"If you had come in a proper spirit--"
"That's enough. I've got my answer." She rose slowly to her feet. "After
I found out what was wrong with me, I went home to my father. I didn't
tell him about myself. But I told him I was quitting the Certina
business. And he told me about my mother, how you sent her to her death.
One word from me would have brought him here after you. _This_ time he
wouldn't have missed you. Then they'd have hung him, I suppose. That's
why I held my tongue. You killed my mother, you and your quack
medicines; and now you've done this to me." Her hand jerked up out of
the wrap. "I don't see where you come in to live any longer," said Milly
Neal deliberately.
Dr. Surtaine looked into the muzzle of a revolver.
There was a step on the soft rug outside, the curtain of the door to Dr.
Surtaine's right parted, and Hal appeared. He carried a light stick.
"I thought I heard--" he began. Then, seeing the revolver, "What's this!
Put that down!"
"Don't move, either of you," warned the girl. "I haven't said my say
out. You're a fine-matched pair, you two! Him with his sugar-pills and
you, Hal Surtaine, with your lying promises."
Lying promises! The phrase, thus used in the girl's mouth against the
son, struck to the father's heart, confirming his dread. It _was_ Hal,
then. For the moment he forgot his instant peril, in his sorrow and
shame.
"I don't know why I shouldn't kill you both," went on the half-crazed
girl. "That'd even the score. Two Surtaines against two Neals, my mother
and me."
The light of slaying was in her eyes, as she stiffened her arm. Just a
fraction of an inch the arm swerved, for a streak of light was darting
toward her. Hal had taken the only chance. He had flung his cane,
whirling, in the hope of diverting her aim, and had followed it at a
leap.
The two shots were almost instantaneous. At the second, the quack reeled
back against the wall. The girl turned swiftly upon Hal, and as he
seized her he felt the cold steel against his neck. The touch seemed to
paralyze him. Strangely enough, the thought of death was summed up in a
vast, regretful curiosity to know why all this was happening. Then the
weapon fell.
"I can't kill _you_!" cried the girl, in a bursting sob, and fell, face
down, upon the floor.
Hal, snatching up the revolver, ran to his father.
"I'm all right," declared the quack. "Only the shoulder. Just winged.
Get me a drink from that decanter."
His son obeyed. With swift, careful hands he got the coat off the
bulky-muscled arm, and saw, with a heart-lifting relief, that the bullet
had hardly more than grazed the flesh. Meantime the girl had crawled,
still sobbing, to a chair.
"Did I kill him?" she asked, covering her eyes against what she might
see.
"No," said Hal.
"Listen," commanded Dr. Surtaine. "Some one's coming. Keep quiet." He
walked steadily to the door and called out, "It's nothing. Just
experimenting with a new pistol. Go back to your bed."
"Who was it?" asked Hal.
"The housekeeper. There's just one thing to do for the sake of all of
us. This has _got_ to be hushed up. I'm going out to telephone. Don't
let her get away, Hal."
"Get away! Oh, my God!" breathed the girl.
Hal walked over to her, his heart wrung with pity.
"Why did you come here to kill my father, Milly?" he asked.
She stooped to pick up the "Happy Lady" clipping from the floor.
"That's why," she said.
"Good God!" said Hal. "Have you been taking that--those pills?"
"Taking 'em? Yes, and believing in 'em, till I found out it was all
damned lies. And your fine and noble and honest 'Clarion' advertises the
lies just as your fine and noble and honest father makes the pills.
They're no good. Do you get that? And when I came here and told your
father he'd got to help me out of my trouble, what do you think he told
me? That I'd lost my job at the factory!"
"Who is the man, Milly?"
"What business is that of yours?"
"I'll go after him and see that he marries you if it takes--"
"Oh, he'd be only too glad to marry me if he could. He can't. Poor Max
has got a wife somewhere--"
"Max? It's Veltman!" cried Hal. "The dirty scoundrel."
"Oh, don't blame Max," said the girl wearily. "It isn't his fault. After
you threw me down"--Hal winced--"I started to run wild. It's the
Hardscrabbler in me. I took to drinking and running around, and Max
pulled me out of it, and I went to live with him. I didn't care. Nothing
mattered, anyway. And I wasn't afraid of anything like this happening,
because I thought the pills made it all safe."
Here Dr. Surtaine reappeared. "I've got a detective coming that I can
trust."
"A detective?" cried Hal. "Oh, Dad--"
"You keep out of this," retorted his father, in a tone such as his son
had never heard from him before. "I guess you've done enough. The
question is"--he continued as regardless of Milly as if she had been
deaf--"how to hush her up."
"You've had your chance to hush me up," said the girl sullenly.
"Any money within reason--"
"I don't want your money."
"Listen here, then. You tried to murder me. That's ten years in State's
prison. Now, if ever I hear of you opening your mouth about this, I'll
send you up. I guess that will keep you quiet. Now, then, what's your
answer?"
"Give me a glass of whiskey, and I'll tell you."
Hal poured her out a glass. She passed a swift hand above it.
"Here's peace and quiet in the proprietary medicine business," she said,
and drank. "I guess that'll--make--some--stir," she added, with an
effect of carefully timing her words.
Her body lapsed quite gently back into the chair. The two men ran and
bent over her as the glass tinkled and rolled on the floor. There was an
acrid, bitter scent in the air. They lifted their heads, and their eyes
met in a haggard realization. No longer was there any need of hushing up
Milly Neal.