The time that Cowperwood spent in the Eastern Penitentiary of
Pennsylvania was exactly thirteen months from the day of his entry to
his discharge. The influences which brought about this result were
partly of his willing, and partly not. For one thing, some six months
after his incarceration, Edward Malia Butler died, expired sitting in
his chair in his private office at his home. The conduct of Aileen had
been a great strain on him. From the time Cowperwood had been
sentenced, and more particularly after the time he had cried on
Aileen’s shoulder in prison, she had turned on her father in an almost
brutal way. Her attitude, unnatural for a child, was quite explicable
as that of a tortured sweetheart. Cowperwood had told her that he
thought Butler was using his influence to withhold a pardon for him,
even though one were granted to Stener, whose life in prison he had
been following with considerable interest; and this had enraged her
beyond measure. She lost no chance of being practically insulting to
her father, ignoring him on every occasion, refusing as often as
possible to eat at the same table, and when she did, sitting next her
mother in the place of Norah, with whom she managed to exchange. She
refused to sing or play any more when he was present, and persistently
ignored the large number of young political aspirants who came to the
house, and whose presence in a way had been encouraged for her benefit.
Old Butler realized, of course, what it was all about. He said nothing.
He could not placate her.
Her mother and brothers did not understand it at all at first. (Mrs.
Butler never understood.) But not long after Cowperwood’s incarceration
Callum and Owen became aware of what the trouble was. Once, when Owen
was coming away from a reception at one of the houses where his growing
financial importance made him welcome, he heard one of two men whom he
knew casually, say to the other, as they stood at the door adjusting
their coats, “You saw where this fellow Cowperwood got four years,
didn’t you?”
“Yes,” replied the other. “A clever devil that—wasn’t he? I knew that
girl he was in with, too—you know who I mean. Miss Butler—wasn’t that
her name?”
Owen was not sure that he had heard right. He did not get the
connection until the other guest, opening the door and stepping out,
remarked: “Well, old Butler got even, apparently. They say he sent him
up.”
Owen’s brow clouded. A hard, contentious look came into his eyes. He
had much of his father’s force. What in the devil were they talking
about? What Miss Butler did they have in mind? Could this be Aileen or
Norah, and how could Cowperwood come to be in with either of them? It
could not possibly be Norah, he reflected; she was very much infatuated
with a young man whom he knew, and was going to marry him. Aileen had
been most friendly with the Cowperwoods, and had often spoken well of
the financier. Could it be she? He could not believe it. He thought
once of overtaking the two acquaintances and demanding to know what
they meant, but when he came out on the step they were already some
distance down the street and in the opposite direction from that in
which he wished to go. He decided to ask his father about this.
On demand, old Butler confessed at once, but insisted that his son keep
silent about it.
“I wish I’d have known,” said Owen, grimly. “I’d have shot the dirty
dog.”
“Aisy, aisy,” said Butler. “Yer own life’s worth more than his, and
ye’d only be draggin’ the rest of yer family in the dirt with him. He’s
had somethin’ to pay him for his dirty trick, and he’ll have more. Just
ye say nothin’ to no one. Wait. He’ll be wantin’ to get out in a year
or two. Say nothin’ to her aither. Talkin’ won’t help there. She’ll
come to her sinses when he’s been away long enough, I’m thinkin’.” Owen
had tried to be civil to his sister after that, but since he was a
stickler for social perfection and advancement, and so eager to get up
in the world himself, he could not understand how she could possibly
have done any such thing. He resented bitterly the stumbling-block she
had put in his path. Now, among other things, his enemies would have
this to throw in his face if they wanted to—and they would want to,
trust life for that.
Callum reached his knowledge of the matter in quite another manner, but
at about the same time. He was a member of an athletic club which had
an attractive building in the city, and a fine country club, where he
went occasionally to enjoy the swimming-pool and the Turkish bath
connected with it. One of his friends approached him there in the
billiard-room one evening and said, “Say, Butler, you know I’m a good
friend of yours, don’t you?”
“Why, certainly, I know it,” replied Callum. “What’s the matter?”
“Well, you know,” said the young individual, whose name was Richard
Pethick, looking at Callum with a look of almost strained affection, “I
wouldn’t come to you with any story that I thought would hurt your
feelings or that you oughtn’t to know about, but I do think you ought
to know about this.” He pulled at a high white collar which was choking
his neck.
“I know you wouldn’t, Pethick,” replied Callum; very much interested.
“What is it? What’s the point?”
“Well, I don’t like to say anything,” replied Pethick, “but that fellow
Hibbs is saying things around here about your sister.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Callum, straightening up in the most dynamic
way and bethinking him of the approved social procedure in all such
cases. He should be very angry. He should demand and exact proper
satisfaction in some form or other—by blows very likely if his honor
had been in any way impugned. “What is it he says about my sister? What
right has he to mention her name here, anyhow? He doesn’t know her.”
Pethick affected to be greatly concerned lest he cause trouble between
Callum and Hibbs. He protested that he did not want to, when, in
reality, he was dying to tell. At last he came out with, “Why, he’s
circulated the yarn that your sister had something to do with this man
Cowperwood, who was tried here recently, and that that’s why he’s just
gone to prison.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Callum, losing the make-believe of the
unimportant, and taking on the serious mien of some one who feels
desperately. “He says that, does he? Where is he? I want to see if
he’ll say that to me.”
Some of the stern fighting ability of his father showed in his slender,
rather refined young face.
“Now, Callum,” insisted Pethick, realizing the genuine storm he had
raised, and being a little fearful of the result, “do be careful what
you say. You mustn’t have a row in here. You know it’s against the
rules. Besides he may be drunk. It’s just some foolish talk he’s heard,
I’m sure. Now, for goodness’ sake, don’t get so excited.” Pethick,
having evoked the storm, was not a little nervous as to its results in
his own case. He, too, as well as Callum, himself as the tale-bearer,
might now be involved.
But Callum by now was not so easily restrained. His face was quite
pale, and he was moving toward the old English grill-room, where Hibbs
happened to be, consuming a brandy-and-soda with a friend of about his
own age. Callum entered and called him.
“Oh, Hibbs!” he said.
Hibbs, hearing his voice and seeing him in the door, arose and came
over. He was an interesting youth of the collegiate type, educated at
Princeton. He had heard the rumor concerning Aileen from various
sources—other members of the club, for one—and had ventured to repeat
it in Pethick’s presence.
“What’s that you were just saying about my sister?” asked Callum,
grimly, looking Hibbs in the eye.
“Why—I—” hesitated Hibbs, who sensed trouble and was eager to avoid it.
He was not exceptionally brave and looked it. His hair was
straw-colored, his eyes blue, and his cheeks pink. “Why—nothing in
particular. Who said I was talking about her?” He looked at Pethick,
whom he knew to be the tale-bearer, and the latter exclaimed,
excitedly:
“Now don’t you try to deny it, Hibbs. You know I heard you?”
“Well, what did I say?” asked Hibbs, defiantly.
“Well, what did you say?” interrupted Callum, grimly, transferring the
conversation to himself. “That’s just what I want to know.”
“Why,” stammered Hibbs, nervously, “I don’t think I’ve said anything
that anybody else hasn’t said. I just repeated that some one said that
your sister had been very friendly with Mr. Cowperwood. I didn’t say
any more than I have heard other people say around here.”
“Oh, you didn’t, did you?” exclaimed Callum, withdrawing his hand from
his pocket and slapping Hibbs in the face. He repeated the blow with
his left hand, fiercely. “Perhaps that’ll teach you to keep my sister’s
name out of your mouth, you pup!”
Hibbs’s arms flew up. He was not without pugilistic training, and he
struck back vigorously, striking Callum once in the chest and once in
the neck. In an instant the two rooms of this suite were in an uproar.
Tables and chairs were overturned by the energy of men attempting to
get to the scene of action. The two combatants were quickly separated;
sides were taken by the friends of each, excited explanations attempted
and defied. Callum was examining the knuckles of his left hand, which
were cut from the blow he had delivered. He maintained a gentlemanly
calm. Hibbs, very much flustered and excited, insisted that he had been
most unreasonably used. The idea of attacking him here. And, anyhow, as
he maintained now, Pethick had been both eavesdropping and lying about
him. Incidentally, the latter was protesting to others that he had done
the only thing which an honorable friend could do. It was a nine days’
wonder in the club, and was only kept out of the newspapers by the most
strenuous efforts on the part of the friends of both parties. Callum
was so outraged on discovering that there was some foundation for the
rumor at the club in a general rumor which prevailed that he tendered
his resignation, and never went there again.
“I wish to heaven you hadn’t struck that fellow,” counseled Owen, when
the incident was related to him. “It will only make more talk. She
ought to leave this place; but she won’t. She’s struck on that fellow
yet, and we can’t tell Norah and mother. We will never hear the last of
this, you and I—believe me.”
“Damn it, she ought to be made to go,” exclaimed Callum.
“Well, she won’t,” replied Owen. “Father has tried making her, and she
won’t go. Just let things stand. He’s in the penitentiary now, and
that’s probably the end of him. The public seem to think that father
put him there, and that’s something. Maybe we can persuade her to go
after a while. I wish to God we had never had sight of that fellow. If
ever he comes out, I’ve a good notion to kill him.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything like that,” replied Callum. “It’s useless.
It would only stir things up afresh. He’s done for, anyhow.”
They planned to urge Norah to marry as soon as possible. And as for
their feelings toward Aileen, it was a very chilly atmosphere which
Mrs. Butler contemplated from now on, much to her confusion, grief, and
astonishment.
In this divided world it was that Butler eventually found himself, all
at sea as to what to think or what to do. He had brooded so long now,
for months, and as yet had found no solution. And finally, in a form of
religious despair, sitting at his desk, in his business chair, he had
collapsed—a weary and disconsolate man of seventy. A lesion of the left
ventricle was the immediate physical cause, although brooding over
Aileen was in part the mental one. His death could not have been laid
to his grief over Aileen exactly, for he was a very large
man—apoplectic and with sclerotic veins and arteries. For a great many
years now he had taken very little exercise, and his digestion had been
considerably impaired thereby. He was past seventy, and his time had
been reached. They found him there the next morning, his hands folded
in his lap, his head on his bosom, quite cold.
He was buried with honors out of St. Timothy’s Church, the funeral
attended by a large body of politicians and city officials, who
discussed secretly among themselves whether his grief over his daughter
had anything to do with his end. All his good deeds were remembered, of
course, and Mollenhauer and Simpson sent great floral emblems in
remembrance. They were very sorry that he was gone, for they had been a
cordial three. But gone he was, and that ended their interest in the
matter. He left all of his property to his wife in one of the shortest
wills ever recorded locally.
“I give and bequeath to my beloved wife, Norah, all my property of
whatsoever kind to be disposed of as she may see fit.”
There was no misconstruing this. A private paper drawn secretly for her
sometime before by Butler, explained how the property should be
disposed of by her at her death. It was Butler’s real will masquerading
as hers, and she would not have changed it for worlds; but he wanted
her left in undisturbed possession of everything until she should die.
Aileen’s originally assigned portion had never been changed. According
to her father’s will, which no power under the sun could have made Mrs.
Butler alter, she was left $250,000 to be paid at Mrs. Butler’s death.
Neither this fact nor any of the others contained in the paper were
communicated by Mrs. Butler, who retained it to be left as her will.
Aileen often wondered, but never sought to know, what had been left
her. Nothing she fancied—but felt that she could not help this.
Butler’s death led at once to a great change in the temper of the home.
After the funeral the family settled down to a seemingly peaceful
continuance of the old life; but it was a matter of seeming merely. The
situation stood with Callum and Owen manifesting a certain degree of
contempt for Aileen, which she, understanding, reciprocated. She was
very haughty. Owen had plans of forcing her to leave after Butler’s
death, but he finally asked himself what was the use. Mrs. Butler, who
did not want to leave the old home, was very fond of Aileen, so therein
lay a reason for letting her remain. Besides, any move to force her out
would have entailed an explanation to her mother, which was not deemed
advisable. Owen himself was interested in Caroline Mollenhauer, whom he
hoped some day to marry—as much for her prospective wealth as for any
other reason, though he was quite fond of her. In the January following
Butler’s death, which occurred in August, Norah was married very
quietly, and the following spring Callum embarked on a similar venture.
In the meanwhile, with Butler’s death, the control of the political
situation had shifted considerably. A certain Tom Collins, formerly one
of Butler’s henchmen, but latterly a power in the First, Second, Third,
and Fourth Wards, where he had numerous saloons and control of other
forms of vice, appeared as a claimant for political recognition.
Mollenhauer and Simpson had to consult him, as he could make very
uncertain the disposition of some hundred and fifteen thousand votes, a
large number of which were fraudulent, but which fact did not modify
their deadly character on occasion. Butler’s sons disappeared as
possible political factors, and were compelled to confine themselves to
the street-railway and contracting business. The pardon of Cowperwood
and Stener, which Butler would have opposed, because by keeping Stener
in he kept Cowperwood in, became a much easier matter. The scandal of
the treasury defalcation was gradually dying down; the newspapers had
ceased to refer to it in any way. Through Steger and Wingate, a large
petition signed by all important financiers and brokers had been sent
to the Governor pointing out that Cowperwood’s trial and conviction had
been most unfair, and asking that he be pardoned. There was no need of
any such effort, so far as Stener was concerned; whenever the time
seemed ripe the politicians were quite ready to say to the Governor
that he ought to let him go. It was only because Butler had opposed
Cowperwood’s release that they had hesitated. It was really not
possible to let out the one and ignore the other; and this petition,
coupled with Butler’s death, cleared the way very nicely.
Nevertheless, nothing was done until the March following Butler’s
death, when both Stener and Cowperwood had been incarcerated thirteen
months—a length of time which seemed quite sufficient to appease the
anger of the public at large. In this period Stener had undergone a
considerable change physically and mentally. In spite of the fact that
a number of the minor aldermen, who had profited in various ways by his
largess, called to see him occasionally, and that he had been given, as
it were, almost the liberty of the place, and that his family had not
been allowed to suffer, nevertheless he realized that his political and
social days were over. Somebody might now occasionally send him a
basket of fruit and assure him that he would not be compelled to suffer
much longer; but when he did get out, he knew that he had nothing to
depend on save his experience as an insurance agent and real-estate
dealer. That had been precarious enough in the days when he was trying
to get some small political foothold. How would it be when he was known
only as the man who had looted the treasury of five hundred thousand
dollars and been sent to the penitentiary for five years? Who would
lend him the money wherewith to get a little start, even so much as
four or five thousand dollars? The people who were calling to pay their
respects now and then, and to assure him that he had been badly
treated? Never. All of them could honestly claim that they had not so
much to spare. If he had good security to offer—yes; but if he had good
security he would not need to go to them at all. The man who would have
actually helped him if he had only known was Frank A. Cowperwood.
Stener could have confessed his mistake, as Cowperwood saw it, and
Cowperwood would have given him the money gladly, without any thought
of return. But by his poor understanding of human nature, Stener
considered that Cowperwood must be an enemy of his, and he would not
have had either the courage or the business judgment to approach him.
During his incarceration Cowperwood had been slowly accumulating a
little money through Wingate. He had paid Steger considerable sums from
time to time, until that worthy finally decided that it would not be
fair to take any more.
“If ever you get on your feet, Frank,” he said, “you can remember me if
you want to, but I don’t think you’ll want to. It’s been nothing but
lose, lose, lose for you through me. I’ll undertake this matter of
getting that appeal to the Governor without any charge on my part.
Anything I can do for you from now on is free gratis for nothing.”
“Oh, don’t talk nonsense, Harper,” replied Cowperwood. “I don’t know of
anybody that could have done better with my case. Certainly there isn’t
anybody that I would have trusted as much. I don’t like lawyers you
know.”
“Yes—well,” said Steger, “they’ve got nothing on financiers, so we’ll
call it even.” And they shook hands.
So when it was finally decided to pardon Stener, which was in the early
part of March, 1873—Cowperwood’s pardon was necessarily but gingerly
included. A delegation, consisting of Strobik, Harmon, and Winpenny,
representing, as it was intended to appear, the unanimous wishes of the
council and the city administration, and speaking for Mollenhauer and
Simpson, who had given their consent, visited the Governor at
Harrisburg and made the necessary formal representations which were
intended to impress the public. At the same time, through the agency of
Steger, Davison, and Walter Leigh, the appeal in behalf of Cowperwood
was made. The Governor, who had had instructions beforehand from
sources quite superior to this committee, was very solemn about the
whole procedure. He would take the matter under advisement. He would
look into the history of the crimes and the records of the two men. He
could make no promises—he would see. But in ten days, after allowing
the petitions to gather considerable dust in one of his pigeonholes and
doing absolutely nothing toward investigating anything, he issued two
separate pardons in writing. One, as a matter of courtesy, he gave into
the hands of Messrs. Strobik, Harmon, and Winpenny, to bear personally
to Mr. Stener, as they desired that he should. The other, on Steger’s
request, he gave to him. The two committees which had called to receive
them then departed; and the afternoon of that same day saw Strobik,
Harmon, and Winpenny arrive in one group, and Steger, Wingate, and
Walter Leigh in another, at the prison gate, but at different hours.