Next to a maple fireman's chair a man who looked about forty nodded
and the woman came forward to sit in the chair. He had a hypodermic in
his hand and she extended her arm.
On the far side of the room Martha was wheeling up a small recording
machine.
Now the woman's eyes were closed and the others sat back, watching
her. The contralto voice was clear and resonant.
"'... 'tis but thy name that is my enemy
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet...'"
The rich voice, the flowing rhythm, the silence--was it Burns she
quoted? No--he knew all of Burns--but this was some giant of the past;
this was almost up to vintage Burns.
He left his vantage point and went quietly back to the kitchen,
donning his infra-scope once more. In some of these old houses there
was a back steps, leading to the second floor.
Another door leading off the kitchen, another hall--and the steps.
They would undoubtedly creak. But they might not creak loudly enough
to disturb that circle of mesmerized individuals listening to the
contralto magic.
There was only one small creak, halfway up.
Three rooms led off a narrow hall. One held a cot and a dresser and a
straight-backed chair. The second room he entered had a strange smell.
A smell he didn't recognize. Ink? Was that a mimeograph machine?
Something stirred in his memory, some picture he had seen of a
duplicating machine somewhere. This other dingus was undoubtedly a
typewriter--and this small gadget on the desk a stapler.
And here, on a small pine table, was a sheaf of four mimeographed
pages, stapled together.
The heading read, _The Heritage Herald_.
That was the name of their magazine. Printers, under the technical
interpretation of the law. A typewriter and a duplicating machine and
stencils and ink--and words.
Shakespeare, whoever he was, and Robert W. Service and Milton and an
original by S. Crittington Jones.
The original was a short-short tale about a wrestler and a cowboy and
a video comedian, a space-farce. There was a piece headed _Editorial_
by Martha Klein. It had a sub-heading--_For Those Who Are Willing To
Fight_.
It was a stirring and vigorous call to arms against the Arnold Law. It
was as subversive as anything Doak had seen in his Department career.
He folded the magazine, and put it into an upper jacket pocket. He
went to the third room and saw the paper stacked there and the bottles
of ink and new stencils.
He went back to the stairs, and quietly down them. From the living
room, he heard--
"'... From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad;
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
An honest man's the noblest work of God!'"
This was more like it, except for that last line the bard had
borrowed. This was the true giant, and who was quoting him? It was
not the contralto voice. Who?
He moved out to the kitchen and back to his vantage point. He took off
the infra-scope and looked into the living room. It was the old gent,
with the beard. And who else could it be? For wasn't he the cream of
the lot, the most obvious scholar, the most evident gentleman?
Scholarship and breeding seemed to flow from every hair in his beard.
"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
From whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blessed with health and peace and sweet content!
And, O, may heaven their--"
Doak felt a stirring in him and tears moved down his cheeks and he
turned, quickly and silently, and went out the back door. He was no
child at his mother's knee, he was no mewling kitten--he was a
Security Officer and this was subversion.
Outside the stars were bright in a black sky. He stood in the back
yard, breathing heavily, ashamed at the sudden surge of feeling that
had moved through him. Some streak of adolescence, he thought, stirred
by the words he had remembered from his mother's lips.
He walked slowly back toward town. He could call in local help and
round up the gang back there in the house. He could wash this up
tonight and be back in Washington tomorrow morning. With June.
The prospect of being with June had lost its flavor somehow. And if
this was a widely published magazine, he had a larger duty than merely
apprehending the gang. All of the magazine's readers were breaking the
law and a real operative comes in with a complete, clean case.
Mrs. Klein still sat on her front porch. "Any luck?" she asked, as he
came up to sit on the glider near her chair.
"Some. I'll see him again tomorrow."
Her voice was dry. "One of our most prominent citizens, the Senator.
The other's Glen Ryder. I guess you know who he is."
He stiffened, trying to see her face in the dark. "Ryder? Oh, yes, in
the Security Department."
"That's right. Glen isn't anything to be ashamed of really. But that
Senator Arnold--my, the stories my mother told me about him!"
"I've heard," Doak said, "he was pretty wild as a young man."
"Wild?" Mrs. Klein sniffed. "Degraded would be a better word. If his
father didn't have all the money in the county he'd have gone to jail
more than once, that man. And then the people of this state sending
him to the Senate."
Doak said nothing, staring out at the quiet night.
"Would you like a little snack?" Mrs. Klein asked. "I've some baked
ham and rolls out in the kitchen."
"No thanks," Doak said. "I'm not very hungry. Was Glen Ryder a friend
of Senator Arnold's?"
"Not until Glen went to work for the government. I don't think the
Senator had any friends except those who could profit by it."
"This Ryder was something of an--opportunist?"
"If that means what it sounds like, I guess that would describe Glen.
He wasn't one to overlook any opportunity to better himself and he cut
it pretty thin at times."
Doak looked over but could not see her face in the darkness. He said
slowly, "I guess we all have to look out for ourselves and the devil
take the hindmost."
"I suppose," she said placidly. "Though it would depend on what you
wanted out of life. Here in Dubbinville I think we're a little more
neighborly than that."
"It's a nice town," Doak said. "A real nice town."
In front a car was stopping on the other side of the road. Someone got
out from the door on the far side and the car moved on.
"That would be Martha, I guess," Mrs. Klein said. "She'll want some of
that ham, I know. You may as well have a cup of coffee with us
anyway."