THE SIMMERING SAMOVAR
One day it occurred to me to ask Fellows if he was keeping up my
advertisement for Mary Doherty, from which I had heard nothing so far.
His start and confusion were an obvious confession.
"N-no, not now. I did run it several times."
"I told you to keep it in until further orders. Don't you remember?"
He did not answer. I could not understand his manner.
"I am sorry if you didn't understand. We have probably lost an
opportunity,--certainly have lost time. I count on getting important
information from Mrs. Barker, if we can find her."
"What sort of information?" asked Fellows doggedly. I thought he was
trying to minimize the results of his neglect.
"Well, almost any information that would enable us to fix Barker's
associates would probably be valuable. More particularly, I want to
find out whether there is anyone who wants to marry her and couldn't
while Barker was alive."
I succeeded in attracting Fellows' attention, at least. He stared at
me in silence, as though he were turning the thought over.
"I'll advertise again," he said, but without enthusiasm.
I think it was that day that I had a disconcerting interview with
Burleigh, the editor of the Saintsbury Samovar. I have mentioned, I
believe, that some independent public-spirited citizens were trying to
make Clyde run for mayor. (It was one of those anti-ring waves of
reform which strike a city once in so often, and are temporarily
successful because good business men work at them for a season. The
success is seldom, if ever, more than temporary, because the good
business men go back to their jobs as soon as things are running
smoothly, while the ring politicians never really drop their jobs for
a minute.)
Well, Clyde had cold-shouldered the proposition, but rather
half-heartedly. Probably there is no man living who does not have some
political ambition. Certainly Clyde had it. With his wide interest in
public matters, his natural power over men, and his ancestry and
associations, I knew that nothing but the shadow of fear at his elbow
had kept him out of the political game, and I was therefore not
surprised when, a few days after the Barker tragedy had ceased to
occupy the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the
newspapers, that space was given up to announcing that Kenneth Clyde
had consented to accept the reform party's nomination. I sympathized
with the relief which I knew lay back of the acceptance.
This was the political situation when I met Burleigh. He was the
editor of the evening paper which supported the ring and damned
reform, and of course I knew where he stood as regards Clyde's
candidacy. But when he stopped me on the street that noon, he didn't
speak of Clyde.
"Hello, how's the lawyerman?" he said, taking my hand where it hung by
my side and shaking it without regard to my wishes in the matter.
I resented his familiarity with my hand and with my profession, but
the convention of politeness, which makes it impossible for us to tell
people our real feelings about them, constrained me to civility.
"Very well, thank you," I said, carelessly, and made a move to go on
my way.
He turned and fell into step with me.
"I'd like to ask what you lawyers call a hypothetical question," he
said. "Just a joke, you understand,--a case some of the boys were
talking about in our office. Read of it in some novel, I guess. Some
said it would be that way and some said it wouldn't. In law, you
know."
"Well, what is the question?" I asked, as politely as my feelings
would permit. (Funny idea people have, that a lawyer learns law for
the purpose of supplying gratuitous opinions to chance acquaintances!
I shouldn't think of asking Burleigh to send me the Samovar for a
year, just to satisfy my curiosity!)
"Why, it's this. If a man has been convicted of murder--the man in the
story was--and then makes his escape and lives somewhere else for
twenty years or so, and is finally discovered and identified, how does
he stand in regard to the law?"
You may guess how I felt! The hypothetical case was so exactly Clyde's
case that for a moment my brain was paralyzed. I was so afraid of
betraying my surprise that I did not speak. I merely nodded and smoked
and kept my eyes on the ground.
"There's no statute of limitations to run on a sentence of the court,
is there?" he asked, eagerly.
"No," I said, with professional deliberation. "No, if you are sure
that you have your facts all straight. But you don't often get law
entirely disentangled from facts, and they often have unexpected
effects on a question. What novel did you get that from?"
"Oh,--I don't know. I just heard the boys talking about it, and I
wondered."
But he looked so eager that I could not help feeling the question was
more significant to him than mere literary curiosity would explain.
"You think, then, that there might be some element in the situation
that would perhaps complicate it?" he asked.
"It is never safe to form an opinion without knowing all the facts," I
said, oracularly.
"But if the facts are as I stated them,--an escape from justice after
conviction, and nothing else,--then the man is still liable to the
law, isn't he?"
"Probably," I said, with a shrug intended to intimate that the matter
was of no special interest to me. "How did it turn out in your story?"
Burleigh looked at me sideways for a moment. Then he said,
imperturbably, "Why, I believe he made the mistake of going into
politics, and so the thing came out. He was hung--in the story.
Politics is no place for a man who has a past that he doesn't want to
have come out."
"No doubt you are right about that," I said lightly.
"Of course I am. I'm in the business," he said emphatically. "If a man
has a past--that sort of a past, I mean,--he ought to know enough to
stick to--philanthropy or architecture or collecting, or something
else nice and private. This your street? Well, good day, Mr. Hilton.
Glad I met you." He tipped his hat and left me.
You can imagine the state of my mind. I puzzled over the situation for
an hour, and then telephoned Clyde and asked him to drop into my
office.
Clyde came that same afternoon. I told him of the Burleigh interview
as directly as possible.
"Now you can judge for yourself whether it means anything sinister," I
concluded.
"The Samovar is for the ring, of course," he said, thoughtfully.
"Of course. And Burleigh's recommendation that a man in that
predicament should confine himself to architecture, or some kindred
avocation, instead of trying to break into politics, didn't sound
altogether accidental."
He nodded comprehendingly, and smoked in silence for a few moments.
Then he looked up with a smile.
"I think I'll go on the theory that it was accidental."
I hadn't expected that, and I couldn't approve.
"As your lawyer, I must warn you that you are taking a serious risk,"
I said earnestly. "If Barker shared his secret with someone, who has
gone with it to Burleigh, you are exactly in your old situation. It
would be better to let the sleeping Samovar lie and give up the
mayoralty."
He continued to smoke for a minute, but I saw the obstinate look in
his eye that a mettled horse tales on when he doesn't mean to heed
your hints.
"You don't understand, Hilton," he said after a moment, "but since
Barker's death I have felt free for the first time in fifteen years. I
like the sensation. Very likely I have gone drunk on it and lost my
senses, but I like the feeling so much that I am going to snap my
fingers at Burleigh and pretend that he has no more power to influence
my actions than he would have had if--well, if Tom Johnson had never
got into trouble."
"You think the mayoralty is worth the risk?" I asked.
"The mayoralty? No! Not for a minute. But--this sense of freedom is."
"But it is your freedom that you are risking."
He stood up, and though I could not commend his judgment, I had to
admire his courage. There was something finely determined in his
attitude as he tossed away his cigar and put his hands in his pockets.
"I am going to have it out with my evil destiny this time," he said,
with a quick laugh. "Better be hanged than to skulk longer. I shall go
on the theory that Burleigh has merely been reading some giddy
detective stories."
"Don't forget that there are some crimes which don't achieve the
immortality of a detective story, because they are never explained," I
said warningly.
He merely smiled, but I knew my warning would go for nothing,--and
secretly I was glad. There are things more to be desired than safety.