THE QUESTION
Sometime, high on a mountain slope, a cross current of air, or perhaps a
tremor of the surface occasioned far off, starts the small snow-cap, that
sliding, halting, impelled forward again, always accumulating, gathering
momentum, finally becomes the irresistible avalanche. So Marcia Feversham,
the following morning, gave the first slight impetus to the question that
eventually menaced Tisdale with swift destruction. She was not taking the
early train with her husband; she desired to break the long journey and,
after the season in the north, prolong the visit with her relatives in
Seattle. The delegate had left her sleeping, but when he had finished the
light breakfast served him alone in the Morganstein dining-room and
hurried out to the waiting limousine, to his surprise he found her in the
car. "I am going down to see you away," she explained; "this salt breeze
with the morning tide is so delightfully fresh."
There was no archness in her glance; her humor was wholly masculine. A
firm mouthy brilliant, dark eyes, the heavy Morganstein brows that met
over the high nose, gave weight and intensity to anything she said. Her
husband, in coaching her for the coming campaign at Washington, had told
her earnestness was her strong suit; that her deep, deliberate voice was
her best card, but she held in her eyes, unquestionably, both bowers.
"Delightful of you, I am sure," he answered, taking the seat beside her,
with his for-the-public smile, "but I give credit to the air; you are
looking as brilliant at this outrageous hour as you would on your way to
an afternoon at bridge." Then, the chauffeur having closed the door and
taken his place in the machine, Feversham turned a little to scrutinize
her face.
"Now, my lady," he asked, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Mr. Tisdale," she answered directly. "Of course you must see now, even if
I do contrive to meet him through Frederic, as you suggested, and manage
to see him frequently; even if I find out what he means to say in those
coal reports, when it comes to influence, I won't have the weight of a
feather. No woman could. He is made of iron, and his principles were cast
in the mold."
"Every man has his vulnerable point, and I can trust you to find Hollis
Tisdale's." The delegate paused an instant, still regarding his wife's
face, frowning a little, yet not without humor, then said: "But you have
changed your attitude quickly. Where did you learn so much about him? How
can you be so positive about a man you never have met? Whom you have seen
only a time or two at a distance, on some street--or was it a hotel
lobby?--in Valdez or Fairbanks?"
"Yesterday, when we were talking, that was true; but since then I have
seen him at close range. I've heard him." She turned and met Feversham's
scrutiny with the brilliancy rising in her eyes. "Last night at the
clubhouse, when he told the story of David Weatherbee, I was there."
"You were there? Impossible! That is against the rules. Not a man of the
Circle would have permitted it, and you certainly would have been
discovered before you reached the assembly hall. Why, I myself was the
last to arrive. Frederic, you remember, had to speed the car a little to
get me there. And I looked back from the door and saw you in the tonneau
with Elizabeth, while Mrs. Weatherbee kept her place in front with
Frederic. You were going down the boulevard to spend the evening with her
at Vivian Court."
"That was our plan, but we turned back," she explained. "We had a
curiosity to see the Circle seated around the banquet board in those
ridiculous purple parkas. And Frederic bet me a new electric runabout
against the parka of silver fox and the mukluks I bought of the Esquimau
girl at Valdez that we never could get as far as the assembly room. He
waited with Elizabeth in the car while we two crept up the stairs. The
door was open, and we stood almost screened by that portière of Indian
leather, peeping in. Mr. Tisdale was telling the ptarmigan yarn--it's
wonderful the power he has to hold the interest of a crowd of men--and the
chance was too good to miss. We stole on up the steps to the gallery,--no
one noticed us,--and concealed ourselves behind that hanging Kodiak
bearskin."
"Incredible!" exclaimed Feversham. "But I see you arrived at the opportune
moment,--when Tisdale was talking. There's something occult about the
personality of that man. And she, Mrs. Weatherbee, heard everything?"
Marcia nodded. "Even your graceful toast to her."
At this he settled back in his seat, laughing. "Well, I am glad I made it.
I could hardly have put it more neatly had I known she was there."
"She couldn't have missed a word. We had found a bench behind the Kodiak
skin, and she sat straight as a soldier, listening through it all. I
couldn't get her to come away; it was as though she was looking on at an
interesting play. She was just as neutral and still; only her face turned
white, and her eyes were wide as stars, and once she gripped the fur of
the Kodiak so hard I expected to see it come down. But I know she failed
to grasp the vital point of the story. I mean the point vital to her. She
doesn't understand enough about law. And I myself slept on it the night
through before I saw. It came the moment I wakened this morning, clear and
sudden as an electric flash. If David Weatherbee was mentally unbalanced
when he made that transfer, the last half interest in the Aurora mine
ought to revert to her."
Feversham started. He lifted his plump hands and let them drop forcibly on
his broad knees. But she did not notice his surprise. They were
approaching the station, and time pressed. "You know it is not a simple
infatuation with Frederic," she hurried on, "to be forgotten tomorrow. He
has loved her passionately from the day he first met her, four years ago.
He can't think of anything else; he never will do anything of credit to
the family until she is his wife. And now, with David Weatherbee safely
buried, it seems reasonably sure. Still, still, Miles, this unexpected
fortune held out to her just now might turn the scales. We have got to
keep it from her, and if those coal claims are coming up for trial, you
must frame some excuse to have them postponed."
"Postponed? Why, we've just succeeded in gaining Federal attention. We've
been waiting five years. We want them settled now. It concerns Frederic as
well as the rest of us."
"True," she answered, "even more. If those patents are allowed, he will
take immediate steps to mine the coal on a large scale. And it came over
me, instantly, on the heels of the first flash, that it was inevitable, if
Mr. Tisdale had taken advantage of David Weatherbee's condition--and his
own story shows the man had lost his mind; he was wandering around
planting make-believe orchards in the snow--you would use the point to
impeach the Government's star witness."
"Impeach the Government's witness?" repeated Feversham, then a sudden
intelligence leaped into his face. "Impeach Hollis Tisdale," he added
softly and laughed.
Presently, as the chauffeur slackened speed, looking for a stand among the
waiting machines at the depot, the attorney said: "If the syndicate sends
Stuart Foster north to the Iditarod, he may be forced to winter there;
that would certainly postpone the trial until spring."
The next moment the chauffeur threw open the limousine door, and the
delegate stepped out; but he lingered a little over his good-by, retaining
his wife's hand, which he continued to shake slowly, while his eyes
telegraphed an answer to the question in hers. Then, laughing again
deeply, he said: "My lady! My lady! Nature juggled; she played your
brother Frederic a trick when she set that mind in your woman's head."