THE GREATER TEMPTING
Journalistic Worthington ran true to type in the Milly Neal affair. No
newspaper published more than a paragraph about the "sudden death."
Suicide was not even hinted at in print. But newspaperdom had its own
opinion, magnified and colored by the processes of gossip, over which
professional courtesy exercised no control. That the girl had killed
herself was generally understood: that there had been a shooting,
previous to her death, was also current. Eager report recalled and
exaggerated the fact that she had been seen with Hal Surtaine at a
dubious road-house some months previous. The popular "inside knowledge"
of the tragedy was that Milly had gone to the Surtaine mansion to force
Hal's hand, failing in which she had shot him, inflicting an
inconsiderable wound, and then killed herself; and that Dr. Surtaine had
thereupon turned his son out of the house. Hal's removal to the hotel
served to bear out this surmise, and the Doctor's strategic effort to
cover the situation by giving it out that his son's part of the mansion
was being remodeled--even going to the lengths of actually setting a
force of men to work there--failed to convince the gossips.
Between the two men, the situation was now most difficult. Quite
instinctively Hal had fallen in with his father's theory that the primal
necessity, after the tragedy, was to keep everything out of print. That
by so doing he wholly subverted his own hard-won policy did not, in the
stress of the crisis, occur to him. Later he realized it. Yet he could
see no other course of action as having been possible to him. The mere
plain facts of the case constituted an accusation against Dr. Surtaine,
unthinkable for a son to publish against his father. And Hal still
cozened himself into a belief in the quack's essential innocence,
persuading his own reason that there was a blind side to the man which
rendered it impossible for him to see through the legal into the ethical
phases of the question. By this method he was saving his loyalty and
affection. But so profound had been the shock that he could not, for a
time, endure the constant companionship of former days. Consequently the
frequent calls which Dr. Surtaine deemed it expedient to make for the
sake of appearances, at Hal's hotel, resulted in painful, rambling,
topic-shifting talks, devoid of any human touch other than the pitiful
and thwarted affection of two personalities at hopeless odds. "Least
said soonest mended" was a favorite aphorism of the experienced quack.
But in this tangle it failed him. It was he who first touched on the
poisoned theme.
"Look here, Boy-ee," said he, a week after the burial. "We're both
scared to death of what each of us is thinking. Let's agree to forget
this until you are ready to talk it out with me."
"What good will talk do?" said Hal drearily.
"None at present." His father sighed. He had hoped for a clean breast of
it, a confession of the intrigue that should leave the way open to a
readjustment of relations. "So let's put the whole thing aside."
"All right," agreed Hal listlessly. "I suppose you know," he added,
"before we close the subject, that I've ordered the Relief Pills
advertising out of the 'Clarion.'"
"You needn't have bothered. It won't be offered again."
Silence fell between them. "I've about decided to quit that line," the
charlatan resumed with an obvious effort. "Not that it isn't strictly
legal," he added, falling back upon his reserve defense. "But it's too
troublesome. The copy is ticklish; I've had to write all those ads.
myself. And, at that, there's some newspapers won't accept 'em and
others that want to edit 'em. Belford Couch and I have been going over
the whole matter. He's the diplomat of the concern. And we've about
decided to sell out. Anyway," he added, brightening, "there ain't hardly
money enough in a side-line like the Pills to pay for the trouble of
running it separate."
If Dr. Surtaine had looked for explicit approval of his virtuous
resolution, he was disappointed. Yet Hal experienced, or tried to
believe that he experienced, a certain factitious glow of satisfaction
at this proof that his father was ready to give up an evil thing even
without being fully convinced of its wrongfulness. This helped the son
to feel that, at least, his sacrifice had been made for a worthy
affection. Still, he had no word to say except that he must get to the
office. The Doctor left with gloom upon his handsome face.
With McGuire Ellis, Hal's association had become even more difficult
than with the Doctor. Since his abrupt and unceremonious departure from
the room of death, in the belief in Hal's guilt, Ellis had maintained a
purely professional attitude toward his employer. For a time, in his
wretchedness and turmoil of spirit, Hal had scarcely noticed Ellis's
withdrawal of fellowship, vaguely attributing his silence to unexpressed
sympathy. But later, when he broached the subject of Milly's death, he
was met with a stony avoidance which inspired both astonishment and
resentment. Sub-normal as he now was in nervous strength and tension, he
shrank from having it out with Ellis. But he felt, for the first time in
his life, forlorn and friendless.
On his part McGuire Ellis brooded over a deep anger. He was not a man to
yield lightly of his best; but he had given to Hal, first a fine
loyalty, and later, as they grew into closer association, a warm if
rather reticent affection. For the rough idealist had found in his
employer an idealism not always as clear and intelligent as his own, yet
often higher and finer; and along with the professional protectiveness
which he had assumed over the younger man's inexperience had come an
honest admiration and far-reaching hopes. Now he saw in his chief one
who had betrayed his cause through a weak and selfish indulgence. The
clear-sighted journalist knew that the newspaper owner with a shameful
secret binds his own power in the coils of that secret. And fatally in
error as he was as to the nature of the entanglement in which Hal was
involved, he foresaw the inevitable effect of the situation upon the
"Clarion." Moreover, he was bitterly disappointed in Hal as a man. Had
his superior "gone on the loose" and contracted a _liaison_ with some
woman of the outer world, Ellis would have passed over the abstract
morality of the question. But to take advantage of a girl in his own
employ, and then so cruelly to leave her to her fate,--there was rot at
the heart of the man who could do that. The excision of the offending
"Relief Pills" ad. after the culmination of the tragedy, was simply a
sop to hypocrisy.
Only once had Ellis made any reference to Milly's death. On the day of
her funeral Max Veltman had disappeared, without notice. A week later he
reported for duty, shaken and pallid.
"Do you want to take him back?" Ellis inquired of Hal.
Hal's first impulse was to say "No"; but he conquered it, remembering
Milly Neal's pitiful generosity toward her lover.
"Where has he been?" he asked.
"Drunk, I guess."
"What do you think?"
"I think yes."
"All right, if he's sobered up. Tell him it mustn't happen again."
There was a gleam in McGuire Ellis's eye. "Suppose _you_ tell him that
it mustn't happen again. It would come with more force from you."
Hal whirled in his chair. "Mac, what's the matter with you?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking of 'Kitty the Cutie.'"
"What were you thinking of her?"
"Only that Max Veltman would have gone through hell-fire for her. And,
from his looks, he's been through and had the heart burned out of him."
With that he resumed his proof-reading in a dogged silence.
To Hal's great relief Veltman kept out of his way. The man seemed dazed
with misery, but did his work well enough. Rumors reached the office
that he was striving to gain a refuge from his sufferings by giving all
his leisure hours to work in the Rookeries district, under the direction
of the Reverend Norman Hale. Ellis was of the opinion that his mind was
somewhat affected, and that he would bear watching a bit; and was the
more disturbed in that Veltman shared the secret of the great epidemic
"spread," now practically completed for the "Clarion's" publishing or
suppressing. Ellis held the belief that, now, Hal would order it
suppressed. The man who had shirked his responsibility to Milly Neal
could hardly be relied on for the stamina necessary to such an
exploitation.
The time was at hand for the decision to be made. The two physicians,
Elliot and Merritt, pressed for publication. Every day, they pointed
out, not only meant a further risk of life, but also increased the
impending danger of a general outburst which would find the city wholly
unprepared. On the other hand, the journalists, Ellis and Wayne, held
out for delay. They perceived the one weak point in their case, that
neither a dead body nor a living patient had as yet come to the hands of
the constituted authorities for diagnosis. The sole determination had
been made on corpses carried across the line and now probably impossible
of identification. The committee fund was doing its work of concealment
effectually. But Fate tripped the strategy board at last, using the
Reverend Norman Hale as its agent.
Since Milly Neal's death, the Reverend Norman had tried to find time to
call on Hal Surtaine, and had failed. He wished to talk with him about
Veltman. Three days after the funeral he had hauled the "Clarion's"
foreman out of the gutter, stood between him and suicide for one savage
night of struggle, and listened to the remorse of a haunted soul. Being
a man and a brother, the Reverend Norman forbore blame or admonition;
being a physician of the inner being, he devised work for the wreck in
his slums, and had driven him relentlessly that he might find peace in
the service of others. Slowly the man won back to sanity. One obsession
persisted, however, disturbing to the clergyman. Veltman was willing to
do penance himself, in any possible way, but he insisted that, since the
Surtaines shared his guilt, they, too, must make amends, before his dead
mistress could rest in her grave. Apprised by Veltman of the whole
wretched story, Hale secretly sympathized with this view of the
Surtaines' responsibility. But he was concerned lest, in Veltman, it
take some form of direct vengeance. When he learned that Veltman had
returned to the "Clarion" composing-room to work, the minister, unable
to spare time for a call from his almost sleepless activities, sent an
urgent request to Hal to meet him at the Recreation Club. Hal being out,
Ellis got the note, observed the "Immediate and Important" on the
envelope, read the contents, and set out for the rendezvous.
He never got there. For at the corner of Sperry Street he was met by a
messenger who knew him.
"The back room at McManey's," said the urchin. "He's in there, waitin'."
Ellis entered the place. At a table sat the Reverend Norman Hale, with
an expression of radiant happiness on his gaunt face. The barkeeper,
who, on his own initiative, had just brought in a steaming hot drink,
stood watching him with unfeigned concern. Hale welcomed Ellis warmly,
and drew a chair close for him.
"You sent for Mr. Surtaine," said Ellis.
"Did I?" asked the other vaguely. "I forget. It doesn't matter. Nothing
matters, now. Ellis, I've found out the secret."
"What secret?"
"The great secret. The solution," replied the young minister, buoyantly.
"All that is necessary is to get the bodies."
"Yes, of course," agreed the other, with rising uneasiness. "But they
smuggle them out as fast--"
"They won't when I've told them. McGuire Ellis,"--he gripped his
companion suddenly with fingers that clamped like a burning vise,--"_I
can bring the dead back to life_."
"Tell me about it. But take a swallow of this first." Ellis pushed the
hot drink toward him. "You're cold."
"Nothing but excitement. The glory of it! All this suffering and grief
and death--"
"Wait a minute. I want a drink myself."
He turned to the bartender. "Get an auto," he whispered. "Quick!"
"There's a rig outside," said the man. "I seen he was sick when he came
in, so I sent for it."
"Good man!" said Ellis. "Telephone to Dr. Merritt at the Health Office
to meet me instantly at the hospital. Tell him why. Now, Mr. Hale," he
added, "come on. Let's get along. You can tell me on the way."
Still rapt with his vision the minister rose, and permitted himself to
be guided to the carriage. Once inside he fell into a semi-stupor. Only
at the hospital, where Dr. Merritt was waiting to see him safe within
the isolation ward, did he come to his rightful senses, cool, and, as
ever, thoughtful of everything but himself.
"You've got your chance for a diagnosis at last, Doctor," he whispered
to the health officer.
Half an hour later, Dr. Merritt came out to the waiting journalist.
"Typhus," he said, with grievous exultation. "Unmistakably and
officially typhus. We've got our case. Only, I wish to God it had been
any of the rest of us."
"Will he die?" queried Ellis.
"God knows. I should say his chance was worse than even. He's worn out
from overwork."
For assurance, Dr. Elliot was sent for and added his diagnosis. Ellis
got authoritative interviews with both men, and the "Clarion's" great,
potential sensation was now fully ripe for print. Denton the reporter
had done the previous work well. His "story," leaded out and with
subheads, ran flush to two pages of the paper, and every paragraph of it
struck fire. It would, as Ellis said, set off a ton of dynamite beneath
sleepy Worthington. That night Veltman "pulled" a proof, and Ellis
stayed far into the morning, pasting up a dummy of the article for Hal's
inspection and final judgment.
It was on Thursday that Norman Hale was taken to the hospital. Friday
noon McGuire Ellis laid before his principal the carefully constructed
dummy with the brief comment:
"There's the epidemic story."
Hal accepted and read it in silence. Once or twice he made a note. When
he had finished, he turned to find Ellis's gaze fixed upon him.
"We ought to run it Monday," said Ellis. "We can round it all up by
then."
Monday is the dead day of journalism, the day for which news articles
which do not demand instant production are reserved, both to liven up a
dull paper and because the sensation produced is greater. However, the
sensation inevitable to the publishing of this article, as Hal instantly
realized, would be enormous on any day.
"It's big stuff," said he, with a long breath.
Ellis nodded. "Shall I release it for Monday?"
"N-n-no," came the dubious reply.
"It's been held already for ten days."
"Then what does it matter if we hold it a little longer?"
"Human lives, maybe. Isn't that matter enough?"
"That's only a guess. I've got to have time on this," insisted Hal.
"It's the most vital question of policy that the paper has had to face."
"Policy!" grunted Ellis savagely.
"Besides, I've given my word to the Chamber of Commerce Committee that
we wouldn't publish any epidemic news without due warning to them."
"Then it's to be killed?"
"'Wait for orders' proof," said Hal stonily.
"I might have known," sneered Ellis, with an infinite depth of scorn,
and went to bear the bitter message to Wayne.
While the "Clarion" policy trembled in the balance, Dr. Surtaine's
Committee on Suppression was facing a new crisis brought about by the
striking down of Norman Hale, of which they received early information.
Should he die, as was believed probable, the news, whether or not the
full facts got into print, would surely become a focus for the
propagation of alarmist rumors. In their distress, the patriots of
commerce paid a hasty visit to their chief, craving counsel. Having
foreseen the possibility of some such contingency, Dr. Surtaine was
ready with a plan. The committee would enlarge itself, call a meeting of
the representative men of the town, organize an Emergency Health
Committee of One Hundred, and take the field against the onset of
pernicious malaria. This show of fighting force would allay public
alarm, a large fund would be raised, the newspapers would be kept in
thorough subjection, and the disease could be wiped out without undue
publicity or the imperiling of Old Home Week.
"What about the 'Clarion'?" inquired Hollenbeck, of the committee.
"They're still holding off."
"Safe as your hat," Dr. Surtaine assured the questioner with a smile.
"At the meeting you told us you couldn't answer for your son's paper,"
Stensland recalled.
"I can now," said the confident quack. "Just you leave it to me."
He went direct to the "Clarion" office, revolving in his mind the
impending interview. For the first time since the tragedy he anticipated
a meeting with his son without embarrassment, for now he had a definite
topic to talk about, difficult though it might be.
Finding Hal at the editorial desk he went direct to the point.
"Boy-ee, the epidemic is spreading."
"I know it."
"I'm going to take hold of the matter personally, from now on."
"In what way?"
"By organizing a committee of one hundred to cover the city and make a
scientific campaign."
"Are you going to let people know that it's typhus?"
"Sh-sh-sh! So you know, do you? Well, the important thing now is to see
that others don't find out. Don't even whisper the word. Malaria's our
cue; pernicious malaria. What's the use of scaring every one to death?
We'll call a public meeting for next week--"
"Publicity is the last thing you want, I should think."
"Semi-public, I should have said. The epidemic has gone so far that
people are beginning to take notice. We've got to reassure them and the
right kind of an Emergency Health Committee is the way to do it, Belford
Couch is working up the meeting now. I've kept him over on purpose for
it. He's the best little diplomat in the proprietary business. And Yours
Truly will be elected Chairman of the Committee. It'll cost us a
ten-thousand-dollar donation to the fund, but it's worth it to the
business."
"To the business? I don't quite see how."
"Simple as a pin! When it's all over and we're ready to let the account
of it get into print, Dr. Surtaine, proprietor of Certina, will be the
principal figure in the campaign. What's that worth in advertising to
the year's business? Not that I'm doing it for that. I'm doing it to
save Old Home Week."
"With a little profit on the side."
Dr. Surtaine deemed it politic to ignore the tone of the commentary.
"Why not? Nobody's hurt by it. You'll be on the Central Committee,
Boy-ee."
"No; I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"I think I'd better keep out of the movement, Dad."
"As you like. And you'll see that the 'Clarion' keeps out of it, too?"
"So that's it."
"Yes, Boy-ee: that's it. You can see, for yourself, that a newspaper
sensation would ruin everything just now--and also ruin the paper that
sprung it."
"So I heard from Elias M. Pierce sometime since."
"For once Pierce is right."
"Are you asking me to suppress the epidemic story?"
"To let us handle it our own way," substituted the Doctor. "We've got
our campaign all figured out and ready to start. Do you know what the
great danger is now?"
"Letting the infection go on without taking open measures to stop it."
"You're way wrong! Starting a panic that will scatter it all over the
place is the real danger. Have you heard of a single case outside of the
Rookeries district, so far?"
Hal strove to recall the death-list on the proof. "No," he admitted.
"You see! It's confined to one locality. Now, what happens if you turn
loose a newspaper scare? Why, those poor, ignorant people will swarm out
of the Rookeries and go anywhere to escape the quarantine that they know
will come. You'll have an epidemic not localized, but general. The
situation will be ten times as difficult and dangerous as it is now."
Struck with the plausibility of this reasoning, Hal hesitated. "That's
up to the authorities," he said.
"The authorities!" cried the charlatan, in disdain. "What could they do?
The damage would be done before they got ready to move. You see, we've
got to handle this situation diplomatically. Look here, Boyee; what's
the worst feature of an epidemic? Panic. You know the Bible parable. The
seven plagues came to Egypt and ten thousand people died. The Grand
Vizier said to the plagues, 'How many of my people have you slain?' The
plagues said, 'A thousand.' 'What about the other nine thousand?' said
the Grand Vizier. 'Not guilty!' said the plagues. 'They were slain by
Fear.' Maybe it was in 'Paradise Lost' and not the Bible. But the
lesson's the same. Panic is the killer."
"But the disease is increasing all the time," objected Hal. "Are we to
sit still and--"
"Is it?" broke in the wily controversialist. "How do you account for
this, then?" He drew from his pocket a printed leaflet. "Take a peek at
those figures. Fewer deaths in the Rookeries this last week than in any
week since March."
This was true. Not infrequently there comes an inexplicable subsidence
of mortality in mid-epidemic. No competent hygienist is deceived into
mistaking this phenomenon for an indication of the end. Not being a
hygienist Hal was again impressed.
"The Health Bureau's own statistics," continued the argumentator,
pushing his advantage. "With Dr. Merritt's signature at the bottom."
"Dr. Merritt says that the epidemic is being fostered by secrecy,
suppression, and lying."
"All sentimentalism. Merritt would turn the city upside down if he had
his way. Was it him that told you it was typhus?"
"No. We've got a two-page story in proof now, giving the whole facts of
the epidemic."
"You can't publish it, Boy-ee," said his father firmly.
"Can't? That sounds like an order."
Adroitly Dr. Surtaine caught at the word. "An order drawn on your word
of honor."
"If there's any question of honor to the 'Clarion,' it's to tell the
truth plainly and take the consequences."
"Who said anything about the 'Clarion's honor? This is between you and
me."
"You'll have to speak more plainly," said Hal with a dawning dread.
"Boyee, I hate to do this, but I've got to, to save the city. You gave
me your word that the day you had to suppress news for your own sake,
you'd quit this Don Quixotic business and treat others as decently and
considerately as you treated yourself."
"Go on," said Hal, in a half whisper.
"Well--Milly Neal." Dr. Surtaine wet his lips nervously. "You saved
yourself there by keeping the story out of the papers. Of course you
were right. You were dead right. You'd have been a fool to do anything
else. But there you are. And there's your promise."
A nausea of the soul sickened Hal. That his father, whom he had so loved
and honored, should make of the loyalty which had, at the cost of
principle, protected the name of Surtaine against open disgrace, a tool
wherewith to tear down his professional standards--it was like some
incredible and malign jocosity of a devilish logic. Of what was going on
in the quack's mind he had no inkling. He could not know that his father
saw in the suppression of the suicide news, only a natural and
successful effort on the part of Hal to conceal his own guilt in Milly's
death. No more could Dr. Surtaine comprehend that it was the dreadful
responsibility of the Surtaine quackery for which Hal had unhesitantly
sacrificed the declared principle of the "Clarion." So they gazed darkly
at each other across the chasm, each seeing his opponent in the blackest
colors.
"You hold me to that?" demanded Hal, half choked.
"I have to, Boy-ee."
To Dr. Surtaine the issue which he had raised was but the distasteful
means to a necessary end. To Hal it meant the final capitulation to the
forces against which he had been fighting since his first enlightenment.
"I might as well sell the 'Clarion' now, and be done with it," he
declared bitterly.
"Nonsense! If you stuck to this foolishness you'd have to sell it or
lose it. You'd be ruined, both in influence and in money. How would you
feel when Mac Ellis, and Wayne, and all the fellows that stuck by you
found themselves out of a job because of your pig-headedness? And what
harm are you doing by dropping the story, anyway? We've got this thing
beaten, right now. It isn't spreading. It's dropping off. What'll the
'Clarion' look like when its great sensation peters out into thin air?
But by that time the harm'll be done and the whole country will think
we're a plague-stricken city. Don't do all that damage and spoil
everything just for a false delusion, Boyee."
But Hal's mind was brooding on the fatal promise which he had so
confidently made his father. One way out there was.
"Since it's a question of my word to you," he said, "I could still
publish the truth about Milly Neal."
"No. You couldn't do that, Boyee," said his father in a tone, half
sorrowful, half shamed.
"No. You're right. I couldn't--God help me!"
To proclaim his own father a moral criminal in his own paper was the
one test which Hal lacked the power to meet. It was the world-old
conflict between loyalty and principle--in which loyalty so often and so
tragically wins the first combat.
After all, Hal forced himself to consider, he was not serving his public
ill by this particular sacrifice of principle. The official mortality
figures helped him to persuade himself that the typhus was indeed
ebbing. For himself, as the price of silence, there was easy sailing
under the flag of local patriotism, and with every success in prospect.
Yet it was with sunken eyes that he turned to the tempter.
"All right," he said, with a half groan, "I give in. We won't print it."
Dr. Surtaine heaved a great sigh of relief. "That's horse sense!" he
cried jovially. "Now, you go ahead on those lines and you'll make the
'Clarion' the best-paying proposition in Worthington. I'll drop a few
hints where they'll do the most good, and you'll see the advertisers
breaking their necks to come in. Journalism is no different from any
other business, Boy-ee. Live and let live. Bear and forbear. There's the
rule for you. The trouble with you, Boy-ee, has been that you've been
trying to run a business on pink-tea principles."
"The trouble with me," said his son bitterly, "is that I've been trying
to reform a city when I ought to have been reforming myself."
"Oh, you're all right, Boy-ee," his affectionate and admiring father
reassured him. "You're just finding yourself. As for this reform--" And
he was launched upon the second measure of the Pæan of Policy when Hal
cut him short by ringing a bell and ordering the boy to send McGuire
Ellis to him. Ellis came up from the city room.
"Kill the epidemic story, Mr. Ellis," he ordered.
Red passion surged up into Ellis's face.
"Kill--" he began, in a strangled voice.
"Kill it. You understand?" The associate editor's color receded. He
looked with slow contempt from father to son.
"Oh, yes, I understand," he said. "Any other orders to-day?"
Hal made no reply. His father, divining that this was no time for
further speech, took his departure. McGuire Ellis went out with black
despair at his heart, a soldier betrayed by his captain. And the
proprietor of the "Clarion," his feet now set in the path of success and
profit, turned back to his work in sodden disenchantment, sighing as
youth alone sighs, and as youth sighs only when it foregoes the dream of
ideals which is its immortal birthright.