and began to feel half-absently in his pockets for a cigar. Blount
offered his own pocket-case, following it with the tender of a lighted
match. With the cigar going, the Honorable David settled back in the
deep chair, chuckling thoughtfully.
"They wrote me from back yonder on the Eastern edge of things that you
had the makings of a mighty fine lawyer in you, boy, and I'll be
switched if I don't believe they had it about right. The way you've
trailed this thing out doesn't leave the old man a hole as big as a
dog-burrow to crawl out of, does it, now? Reckon you've sure-enough got
to have those papers back before you can go on, do you?"
"You know I must. You know what I've been preaching and talking: I have
meant every word of it in good faith, and when I began to doubt the good
faith of those behind me, I was forced to cast about for a weapon. It
was handed to me almost miraculously, and as long as I held it my good
name before the people of the State was safe. As the matter stands now,
I'm a broken man, dad. After the election I shall be billeted from one
end of the State to the other as the most shameless liar that ever
breathed!"
The senator was rocking his great head slowly upon the chair-pillow.
"That's bad; that's mighty bad, son. I reckon we'll have to fix some way
to trail you out of that bog-hole, sure enough!"
"I'm not asking for help; I'm asking for bare justice. Give me those
papers and I'll fight myself clear."
"And if I say I can't give 'em to you, Evan, boy, what then?"
"Then, hard and unfilial as it may seem to you, I shall fight you and
your machine to a finish. You think I can't do it? I'll show you. I've
got five days, and they are all my own. This campaign has been rotten to
the core from the very beginning. You have tried to keep me from finding
it out, and you have partly succeeded. But I know a little, and inside
of the next twenty-four hours I shall know more. That's my last word,
dad, and it breaks my heart to have to say it. But, by the God who made
us both, if you drive me to it, I shall stir up such a revolution in
this State that the people will forget to curse me for the lies I have
been allowed to tell them!"
Blount was upon his feet when he finished, and the senator was rising
stiffly from the depths of the big chair.
"That's good, man-sized talk, son," he commented gently, "and I reckon I
haven't a word to say against it. All I'm going to beg for is this:
we're kin, boy--mighty close kin. Belt away as hard as you like in the
big scrap; it does me good to see that all these little Eastern frills
haven't made you any less a two-fisted, hard-hitting Blount; but don't
let it make you turn your back when your old daddy comes into the room.
That's all I ask. Now you'd better go to bed and sleep up some. There's
another day coming, and if there isn't, none of these little things
we've been haggling over is going to count for much to any of us."
Three minutes later the Honorable Senator Sage-Brush was letting himself
into the sitting-room of his suite on the private dining-room floor by
means of his night-key. The small person whom Gantry and a few others
were still calling the court of last resort was sitting up, and the tiny
embroidery-frame on the table had evidently just been laid aside.
"Well?" she said inquiringly.
The senator shook his head in patient tolerance.
"Whatever you've been doing, it's knocked the bottom clean out for the
boy, Honoria. For a little spell he had me going, and I thought I'd just
naturally have to turn loose and spill all the fat into the fire."
"You mustn't do that," she returned quickly. "There are five days yet,
and I need at least three of them. He was very angry?"
"Fighting mad."
"Of course," said the small one thoughtfully. "But we can't allow that
to get in the way of the bigger things. It won't make any family break,
will it? For Patricia's sake I shall be sorry if he is desperate enough
to make the quarrel a personal one."
"I did the best I could on that, little woman, and I reckon he's big
enough to keep on telling us 'Howdy.' What comes next on the programme?"
"To-morrow I'm going to try to get him to take Patricia driving. Beyond
that I haven't planned, and anyway it doesn't matter, now that you have
Gryson out of the way." Then she offered a bit of news. "Richard Gantry
telephoned me a few minutes ago. He has sent in his resignation, and is
going to Peru."
The senator was opening the door to the adjoining bedroom and turning on
the lights.
"Oh, no, I reckon not," he rejoined, with a mellow laugh rumbling deep
in his great body. "Dick only thinks he is going to Peru. We all think
such things now and then."
XXI
THE UNDER-DOG
Blount's first move on the morning following the militant interview with
his father was telegraphic; he wired the campaign chairmen in the three
towns remaining on his list, cancelling his speaking-engagements. Beyond
that he went forth to institute a painstaking search in the purlieus of
the city, a quest having for its object the unearthing of the man Thomas
Gryson. More and more he was coming to believe that this man was the key
to a larger situation in the field of political corruption than any
which had as yet developed. Wherefore he made the search thorough.
Oddly enough, considering the man and his habits, the quest proved
fruitless. Blount was too clean a man to be on familiar terms with the
saloon men and dive-keepers of the capital-city underworld, or with the
crooks and turnings of the underworld itself; but he found his way
around easily enough in daylight, and had his labor for his pains. For
when he went back to the hotel at the luncheon-hour he brought little
with him save a stench in his nostrils and a slightly increased fund of
mystification. Gryson had disappeared as completely as if the earth had
opened and swallowed him. And Blount knew the disappearance was real,
because the ward-heeler's own henchmen were searching for him.
Daunted but not beaten, Blount meant to continue the quest in the
afternoon. But man proposes, and a small _dea ex machina_ may dispose.
At the _café_ family luncheon, at which Blount was careful to make his
appearance, not only because Patricia was there, but also for the sake
of keeping the kinsman peace his father had begged for, it transpired
that Patricia had been promised an auto drive to Fort Parker, the
military reservation sixteen miles to the westward, and that there were
difficulties. The senator's wife took his arm and explained her dilemma
at the table dispersal.
"It is parade day at the Fort, you know, and Patricia has set her heart
on going. I don't know how I came to be so absurdly thoughtless, but I
promised her before I remembered that this is the Kismet Club election
afternoon, and if I don't go, they'll make me president again in spite
of everything," she said in low tones as they were leaving the _café_.
"I simply _can't_ serve another year; and at the same time, I do so
dislike to disappoint Patricia. She is such a dear girl!" Mrs. Honoria
was strictly within the bounds of truth in claiming to have forgotten
the date of the Kismet election of officers; but it was equally true
that the club would re-elect her, present or absent, since she was its
founder and chief patroness.
Blount saw the pointing of all this with perfect clarity, and he had no
need to assure himself that it had every ear-mark of another expedient
to get him out of the way. But while he was with Mrs. Honoria and
listening to her persuasive little appeals it was much harder to
maintain the antagonistic attitude than it was when she figured--at a
distance--merely as his father's second wife and his mother's
supplanter. Foolish? Oh, yes; but at times when the star of impulse is
in the ascendant every man hath a fool in his sleeve.
"It _is_ too bad to disappoint her," he found himself saying, matching
the little lady's low tone. "If I wasn't so terribly busy--"
"I know; and just now, with the election so near, you must be busier
than ever. I suppose I shall have to explain to Patricia, and it hurts
me, when she is going home so soon."
"Going home?" echoed the victim.
"Yes; in a few days now. The professor has already overstayed his leave
of absence, so he says."
Blount clenched a figurative fist and shook it savagely at an unkind
fate. Nevertheless, he fell.
"If you can shift your responsibility to my shoulders, Mrs. Blount--" he
began, but she would not let him finish.
"Oh! that is _so_ good of you, Evan. Take the little car, and be sure to
ask the garage man to put in new batteries. The magneto isn't working
very well. And be here by half past one if you can. The parade is at
half past two, you know."
Under other conditions the railroad company's "social secretary," as
the society editors of the capital were still calling him, might have
had a joyous half-holiday. The autumn afternoon was picture-fine, the
little car ran well, and Patricia's mood was tempered with the gayety
which strives to extract the final thrill of enjoyment out of the
closing days of a delightful vacation. Blount was grateful for the
light-hearted mood. He felt that it would be next to impossible to tell
Patricia how wretchedly he had failed in the single-handed crusade, and,
as to the desperate alternative, there could be no confidences with one
whose every reference to his father was shot through with loving and
loyal admiration.
At the military reservation there were fewer opportunities for the
confidences, or rather fewer temptations to indulge in them. It was a
gala day at the post, and there were a number of auto parties out from
the city. Blount knew most of the officers and their wives, and Patricia
was welcomed not less for her own sake than for the reason that she had
figured in former visits as the _protégée_ of an ex-senator's wife.
After the parade there was an impromptu game of baseball, with the broad
verandas of the officers' quarters serving for the grandstand. Beyond
the game there was tea, and the sunset gun had been fired before the
young lieutenant, who had attached himself to Miss Anners at the
earliest possible moment in the afternoon, reluctantly surrendered his
prize and handed Patricia into the waiting runabout for the return to
the capital.
"We shall be late for dinner, if we don't hurry," was the young woman's
comment when Blount steered the little car clear of the post settlement
and took the road well in the wake of the Weatherford touring machine.
Then she added: "We mustn't be; we are dining out this evening--at the
Gordons."
Blount was entirely willing to hurry. Half of one of the precious days
of challenge had been wasted in the futile search for Gryson, and here
was the other half worse than wasted, since the handsome young
lieutenant had so brazenly monopolized Patricia.
"I'll get you home in time for dinner, never fear," he returned, but
apparently the little car was no party to the promise. A short mile from
the reservation the motor began to miss, and a few minutes farther along
it stopped altogether. Blount got out and began to investigate. There
was plenty of gasolene, but the spark appeared to be dead.
"I ought to have a leather medal!" he confided to Patricia, in great
disgust. "Mrs. Blount told me that the batteries needed to be changed,
and I had them changed, but neglected to have them tested. Sit still and
let me spin it on the magneto a while."
She let him do it until the perspiration was standing in fine little
beads on his forehead and he was hot and desperate. Then she said
sweetly: "I don't believe I'd wear myself out that way, if I were you,
Evan. Something happened to the magneto two or three weeks ago, and it
has never been fixed."
Blount pushed his driving-cap back, mopped his face, and came around to
dive once more into the wiring in the battery box. Dusk was coming on,
and he had to light one of the side-lamps to serve as a lantern. By
changing the wiring he was finally able to evoke a desultory response
from the spark-coil, and a little later to start the motor after some
limping fashion.
"Oh, my poor dinner!" said Miss Anners, who was still in the
light-hearted mood; this after Blount's careful nursing had resulted in
a creeping resumption of the cityward progress. And then: "I hope you
didn't have any engagement for this evening?"
"I have but one ambition in life," he rejoined grimly, "and that is to
get you back to the hotel in time for your engagement. Surely Mrs.
Blount will wait for you."
At the rate they were going the waiting promised to be long. But after
another half-hour had been killed, the headlights of a westward-driven
car appeared in the road ahead. Blount pulled quickly into the ditch and
jumped out to flag the oncoming machine; did flag it, and was able to
borrow a set of batteries. With the new equipment the remainder of the
drive was accomplished swiftly, but not swiftly enough. At the
Inter-Mountain they found that the senator and Mrs. Honoria had gone to
keep their dinner engagement, and a note in the little lady's
copperplate handwriting informed Blount that the invitation had been
made to include him, and that he was to hurry and bring Patricia.
Fully alive now to the time-killing purpose of the clever little
machinator in arranging to have spent batteries given him, Blount,
nevertheless, did his duty like a man, and the pair made a late descent
upon the Gordon dinner-table. Though the dinner was informal, there were
other guests besides the senator's party, and among them the traffic
manager. Blount, sitting next to Patricia, made their tardiness an
excuse and devoted himself to her, thus escaping the toils of the
general table-talk, which was frankly political. But at the adjournment
to the drawing-room he cornered Gantry.
"I meant to hunt you up this afternoon," he began, "but I was otherwise
spoken for. What have you done?"
"I've cabled a conditional acceptance of the offer I was telling you
about."
"But you haven't resigned?"
"No. Mr. McVickar will probably be here within a day or two, and I'll
make it verbal."
Yielding to the urgings of the younger Gordon, Patricia was going to the
piano, and Blount snatched at his opportunity.
"Give me a few minutes in the smoking-room," he said to the traffic
manager, and when the privacy was secured: "You needn't resign, Dick.
There isn't going to be any earthquake--of the kind you were fearing."
"You don't mean that the Honorable Senator has turned you down, Evan?"
"Just that."
"I'm sorry," said the friend in need, feeling his way cautiously. Then
he added: "You needn't tell me anything more than you want to, you
know."
"There isn't much to tell. I asked for bare justice, and it was
refused."
"Your father has the papers?"
"He neither admitted nor denied."
"But you didn't quarrel?"
Blount's smile was mirthless. "We are here together, as you see. After
all is said, we are still father and son."
"Of course; that's as it should be, Evan. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know: go on fighting until I'm wiped out, I suppose. And that
reminds me: have you seen that fellow Gryson within the last day or
two?"
Gantry dropped into the depths of a lounging-chair and lighted a
cigarette. "So you're after Thomas Matthew, too, are you? Kittredge has
been ransacking the town for him all day, and up to a couple of hours
ago he hadn't found him. What's in the wind?"
"I don't know, but I mean to find out. What can you tell me about
Gryson--more than you have already told me?"
"Not very much, I guess. He's a scalawag, of course, but unhappily for
all of us he is a scalawag with a pull. Kittredge has been dickering
with him--I don't mind telling you that now."
"What is the nature of the pull?"
"Votes," said Gantry succinctly.
"Straight or crooked?"
"You may search me. But knowing Tom Gryson a little, I should put my
money on the marked card."
"Naturally," said Blount dryly. "Still, I am needing to be shown. I've
had two or three chances to size Gryson up, and he didn't impress me as
a man with any ability beyond the requirements of a bully and the lowest
type of a political heeler."
"Tom is bigger than that; I don't know how much bigger, but some. He has
votes to sell, and Kittredge, at least, seems to believe that he can
deliver the goods. I don't know the inside of the deal. I'll tell you
frankly that I tried to shove it over to you, neck and heels, at first.
When that little notion failed, I pushed it along to Kittredge."
Blount's eyebrows, which promised in time to be as portentous as the
Honorable Senator's, met in a frown. "I'm going to find Gryson, dead or
alive," he said.
Gantry looked up quickly.
"Which means that you know what has become of him?"
"He has been put out of the way for a purpose, and the purpose is to
keep me from finding out something that Gryson wants to tell me. That
was the animus of the scheme to send me on a fool's errand to Lewiston.
After you left me last night I found out that Gryson had been worrying
Collins the day before; had been in the office a number of times and was
sweatingly anxious about something."
Gantry flung his cigarette away and lighted another. After a deep
inhalation or two he said: "Let it alone, Evan. I have a hunch that
you'll be happier if you don't try to drag the cover off of that
particular cesspool."
"Listen," said Blount shortly. "When my father turned me down last night
I told him that I still had five days in which to--"
"I know," Gantry nodded. "Just the same, you're not going to do it."
"If I don't, it will be because I can't; because the time is too short."
Then, with a sudden and impulsive gesture of appeal: "Dick, for Heaven's
sake help me to find that man Gryson, if you know where he is! I shall
blow up if I can't do something!"
Gantry rose and tossed the second cigarette among the coals in the
grate.
"I've been afraid all along that they'd corner you and beat you to death
with feather-dusters," he lamented. "And the only thing I can say will
make matters worse instead of better. I have it pretty straight that
Gryson has been fired--shooed out of town, and probably out of the
State."
"Who did it, Gantry?"
"There is only one man in this bailiwick who can take the whip to a
fellow like Tom Gryson. I guess I don't need to name him for you, Evan."
Blount got out of his chair and stood with his back to the fire, and his
face was white.
"Good God! the rottenness of it, Dick!" he groaned. And then: "I've got
to get out of this and begin all over again in some corner of the world
where at least one man in ten hasn't forgotten the meaning of common
honesty and decency and fair dealing. Heaven knows I'm no saint, but if
I stay here this cursed crookedness will get into my blood and I'll be
just as degraded as the worst of them. No, I'm not raving; there have
been times when I've felt myself slipping--times when I've been tempted
to get down and fight with the weapons that everybody fights with in
this God-forsaken, law-breaking, graft-ridden commonwealth!"
Gantry had risen and he was slowly shaking his head.
"You're hot now--and with good enough cause, I guess. But that sort of a
temperature makes a man near-sighted and color-blind. Human nature is
pretty much the same the world over, Evan, and if you could see beyond
the crookedness you'd find a lot of good people out here, averaging
about the same as the decent majority anywhere. It's an inarticulate
majority generally; it doesn't stand up on its hind legs and rear around
and call attention to itself--couldn't if it should try. But it's here
and there and everywhere in America, just the same. A railroad car with
one drunken fool in it gives you the idea. You focus on him and say,
'What a beastly shame!' and you entirely overlook the other fifty-odd
people in the car who are quietly minding their own business."
Blount's smile was for the man rather than for the theory.
"You are an implacable optimist, Dick, and you always have been," he
returned. "Your theory is good humanitarianism, and I wish I could
accept it as applying to this abandoned community out here in my native
hills; but I can't. Let's go back to the others. We've established a
sort of family _modus vivendi_, my father and I, and I don't want him to
think that I'm breaking it by plotting with you."
It was while the evening was still measurably young that Blount made his
excuses to his hostess and got away, fondly believing that he was
escaping without attracting the attention of the small lady who was deep
in a political discussion with candidate Gordon at the critical moment.
He was mistaken, but the escape was not interrupted. At the curb the
Blount touring-car was waiting, with two others, and for an instant
Blount hesitated, half inclined to ask his father's chauffeur, to drive
him down-town. On such inconsequent pivots fate, or accident, twirls the
most momentous affairs of life. If Blount had taken the car he would
have been driven directly to the hotel. As it was, he walked, and in
passing the Temple Court Building he remembered that he had not seen his
mail since early morning.
Rousing the sleepy boy in charge of the all-night elevator, he had
himself lifted to his office floor. The upper corridor was dimly
lighted, and on leaving the car he went directly to the door of his
private room, walking swiftly and neither seeing nor hearing a man who,
materializing mysteriously out of the corridor shadows, followed him
step by step.
In the office Blount snapped the lights on and turned to unlock his
desk. As the key clicked in the lock the sixth sense, which is perhaps
only a mingling of the subtler essences of the other five, warned him
sharply, and he wheeled to face the door which had been left on the
latch. As he looked, the door opened silently and the materializing
shadow, haggard of face and with bloodshot eyes mirroring blind rage and
the terror of a cornered rat, slipped into the room and stood warily
aside out of the direct light from the electric chandelier. Blount
looked again and swore softly. The dodging intruder was the man Thomas
Gryson.
XXII
THE ICONOCLAST
It is a threadbare saying that the environment moulds the man. Yet, much
more than the philosophers have contended, there are chameleon
tendencies in the strongest character, and one finely determining to
coerce his surroundings is quite likely to end by realizing that the
surroundings have appealed to unsuspected color-changings in himself.
Thus it may chance that the fairest fighter, finding himself
sufficiently kicked and cuffed in the rough-and-tumble, will discover
how facilely easy it is to descend to the level of his antagonists, and
from this discovery to the awakening of the remorseless passion for
success at any price is but a step, long or short according to the
exigencies of the struggle.
Checked in his luggage, if not precisely pinned openly upon his sleeve,
Blount had brought with him from the scholastic banks of the Charles a
choice assortment of ideals, which are things precious only as they can
be preserved inviolate. But for weeks, endless weeks as they seemed to
him in the retrospect, he had been rubbing shoulders with a crude world
which appeared to care little for ideals and less for the man who upheld
them. Inevitably, as he had admitted to Gantry, the change was wrought,
or working; the exclamation springing to his lips when he recognized
Gryson evinced it, and when he beckoned the shifty intruder to the chair
at the desk end the ruthless _zeitgeist_ had taken full possession of
him, and the thought uppermost had grown suddenly indifferent to the
means if by their employment the end might be gained.
"Come over here and sit down," he commanded; then, seeing that Gryson
hesitated and flung a glance over his shoulder at the door: "What are
you afraid of?"
"They've got my number," said the ward-heeler, in a convict whisper
which was little more than a facial contortion. "There's a couple o'
bulls waitin' f'r me down on the sidewalk."
Blount crossed the room, shut the door and locked it. Then he went back
to the self-confessed fugitive.
"You're safe for the time being," he told the man. "Now talk fast and
talk straight. What do you want this time?"