THE PARTING
The doorbell buzzed.
"That's the detective," said Dr. Surtaine to Hal. "Stay here."
He wormed himself painfully into an overcoat which concealed his
scarified shoulder, and went out. In a few moments he and the officer
reappeared. The latter glanced at the body.
"Heart disease, you say?" he asked.
"Yes: valvular lesion."
"Better 'phone the coroner's office, eh?"
"Not necessary. I can give a certificate. The coroner will be all
right," said Dr. Surtaine, with an assurance derived from the fact that
a year before he had given that functionary five hundred dollars for not
finding morphine in the stomach of a baby who had been dosed to death on
the "Sure Soother" powders.
"That goes," agreed the detective. "What undertaker?"
"Any. And, Murtha, while you're at the 'phone, call up the 'Clarion'
office and tell McGuire Ellis to come up here on the jump, will you?"
Left to themselves, with the body between them, father and son fell into
a silence, instinct with the dread of estranging speech. Hal made the
first effort.
"Your shoulder?" he said.
"Nothing," declared the Doctor. "Later on will do for that." He brooded
for a time. "You can trust Ellis, can you?"
"Absolutely."
"It's the newspapers we have to look out for. Everything else is easy."
He conducted the detective, who had finished telephoning, into the
library, set out drinks and cigars for him and returned. Nothing further
was said until Ellis arrived. The associate editor's face, as he looked
from the dead girl to Hal, was both sorrowful and stern. But he was
there to act; not to judge or comment. He consulted his watch.
"Eleven forty-five," he said. "Better give out the story to-night."
"Why not wait till to-morrow?" asked Dr. Surtaine.
"The longer you wait, the more it will look like suppressing it."
"But we _want_ to suppress it."
"Certainly," agreed Ellis. "I'm telling you the best way. Fix the story
up for the 'Clarion' and the other papers will follow our lead."
"If we can arrange a story that they'll believe--" began Hal.
"Oh, they won't believe it! Not the kind of story we want to print. They
aren't fools. But that won't make any difference."
"I should think it would be just the sort of possible scandal our
enemies would catch at."
"You've still got a lot to learn about the newspaper game," replied his
subordinate contemptuously. "One newspaper doesn't print a scandal about
the owner of another. It's an unwritten law. They'll publish just what
we tell 'em to--as we would if it was their dis--I mean misfortune.
Come, now," he added, in a hard, businesslike voice, "what are we going
to call the cause of death?"
"Miss Neal died of heart disease."
"Call it heart disease," confirmed the other. "Circumstances?"
This was a poser. Dr. Surtaine and Hal looked at each other and looked
away again.
"How would this do?" suggested Ellis briskly. "Miss Neal came here to
consult Dr. Surtaine on an emergency in her department at the factory,
was taken ill while waiting, and was dead when he--No; that don't fit.
If she died without medical attendance, the coroner would have to give a
permit for removal. Died shortly after Dr. Surtaine's arrival in spite
of his efforts to revive her; that's it!"
"Just about how it happened," said Dr. Surtaine gratefully.
"For publication. Now give me the real facts--under that overcoat of
yours."
Dr. Surtaine started, and winced as the movement tweaked the raw nerves
of his wound. "There's nothing else to tell," he said.
"You brought me here to lie for you," said the journalist. "All right,
I'm ready. But if I'm to lie and not get caught at it, I must know the
truth. Now, when I see a man wearing an overcoat over a painful arm, and
discover what looks like a new bullet hole in the wall of the room, I
think a dead body may mean something more than heart disease."
"I don't see--" began the charlatan.
But Hal cut him short. "For God's sake," he cried in a voice which
seemed to gouge its way through his straining throat, "let's have done
with lies for once." And he blurted out the whole story, eking out what
he lacked in detail, by insistent questioning of his father.
When they came to the part about the Relief Pills, Ellis looked up with
a bitter grin.
"Works out quite logically, doesn't it?" he observed. Then, walking over
to the body, he looked down into the face, with a changed expression.
"Poor little girl!" he muttered. "Poor little Kitty!" He whirled swiftly
upon the Surtaines. "By God, _I'd_ like to write her story!" he cried.
The outburst was but momentary. Instantly he was his cool, capable self
again.
"You've had experience in this sort of thing before, I suppose?" he
inquired of Dr. Surtaine.
"Yes. No! Whaddye mean?" blustered the quack.
"Only that you'll know how to fix the police and the coroner."
"No call for any fixing."
"So all that I have to do is to handle the newspapers," pursued the
other imperturbably. "All right. There'll be no more than a paragraph in
any paper to-morrow. 'Working-Girl Drops Dead,' or something like that.
You can sleep easy, gentlemen."
So obvious was the taunt that Hal stared at his friend, astounded. Upon
the Doctor it made no impression.
"Say, Ellis. Do something for me, will you?" he requested. "Wire to
Belford Couch, the Willard, Washington, to come on here by first train."
"Couch? Oh, that's Certina Charley, isn't it? Your professional fixer?"
"Never mind what he is. You'll be sure to do it, won't you?"
"No. Do it yourself," said Ellis curtly, and walked out without a
good-night.
"Well, whaddye think of that!" spluttered Dr. Surtaine. "That fellow's
getting the big-head."
Hal made no reply. He had dropped into a chair and now sat with his head
between his hands. When he raised his face it was haggard as if with
famine.
"Dad, I'm going away."
"Where?" demanded his father, startled.
"Anywhere, away from this house."
"No wonder you're shaken, Boyee," said the other soothingly. "We'll talk
about it in the morning. After a night's rest--"
"In this house? I couldn't close my eyes for fear of what I'd see!"
"It's been a tough business. I'll give you a sleeping powder."
"No; I've got to think this out: this whole business of the Relief
Pills."
Dr. Surtaine was instantly on the defensive. "Don't go getting any
sentimental notions now, Hal. It's a perfectly legal business."
"So much the worse for the law, then."
"You talk like an anarchist!" returned his father, shocked. "Do you want
to be better than the law?"
"If the law permits murder--I do," said Hal, very low.
Indignation rose up within Dr. Surtaine: not wholly unjustified,
considering his belief that Hal was primarily responsible for the
tragedy. "Are your hands so clean, then?" he asked significantly.
"God knows, they're not!" cried the son, with passion. "I didn't know. I
didn't realize."
"Yet you turn on me--"
"Oh, Dad, I don't want to quarrel with you. All I know is, I can't stay
in this house any more."
Dr. Surtaine pondered for a few minutes. Perhaps it was better that the
boy should go for a time, until his conscience worked out a more
satisfactory state of mind. His own conscience was clear. He was doing
business within the limits set for him by the law and the Post Office
authorities, which had once investigated the "Pills" and given them a
clean bill. Milly Neal should not put the onus of her own recklessness
and immorality upon him. Nevertheless, he was glad that Belford Couch
was coming on; and, by the way, he must telephone a dispatch to him.
Rising, he addressed his son.
"Where shall you go?"
"I don't know. Some hotel. The Dunstan."
"Very well. I'll see you at the office soon, I suppose. Good-night."
All Hal's world whirled about him as he saw his father leave the room.
What seemed to him a monstrous manifestation of chance had overwhelmed
and swept him from all moorings. But was it chance? Was it not, rather,
as McGuire Ellis had suggested, the exemplification of an exact logic?
The closing of the door behind his father sent a current of air across
the room in which a bit of paper on the floor wavered and turned. Hal
picked it up. It was the clipping from the "Clarion"--his
newspaper--which Milly Neal had brought as her justification. One line
of print stood out, writhing as if in an uncontrollable access of
diabolic glee: "Only $1 A Box: Satisfaction Guaranteed"; and above it
the face of the Happy Lady, distorted by the crumpling of the paper,
smirked up at him with a taunt. He thought to interpret that taunt in
the words which Veltman had used, aforetime:--
"What's _your_ percentage?"