Gaiety's glaring brilliancy on Corson Hill had been effectually snuffed by
the onslaught of the mob. The mansion hid its lights behind shades and
shutters. The men of the orchestra had packed their instruments; the
dismayed guests put on their wraps and called for their carriages.
In the place of lilting violins and merry tongues, hammers clattered and
saws rasped; the servants were boarding up the broken windows.
Lana Corson, closeted with Mrs. Stanton, found the discord below-stairs
peculiarly hateful; it suggested so much, replacing the music.
The rude hand of circumstance had been laid so suddenly on the melody of
life!
"And I'll say again--" pursued Mrs. Stanton, breaking a silence that had
lain between the two.
"Don't say it again! Don't! Don't!" It was indignant expostulation instead
of supplication and the matron instantly exhibited relief.
"Thank goodness, Lana! Your symptoms are fine! You're past the crisis and
are on the mend. Get angrier! Stay angry! It's a healthy sign in any woman
recovering from such a relapse as has been threatening you since you came
back home."
"Will you not drop the topic?" demanded Miss Corson, with as much menace
as a maiden could display by tone and demeanor.
"As your nurse in this period of convalescence," insisted the
imperturbable lady, "I find your temperature encouraging. The higher the
better, in a case like this! But I'd like to register on your chart a
hard-and-fast declaration from you that you'll never again expose yourself
to infection from the same quarter!"
Lana did not make that declaration; she did not reply to her friend.
The two were in the Senator's study. Lana had led the retreat to that
apartment; its wainscoted walls and heavy door shut out in some measure
the racket of hammers and saws.
She walked to the window and pulled aside the curtain and looked out into
the night.
Between Corson Hill and Capitol Hill, in the broad bowl of a valley, most
of the structures of the city of Marion were nested. The State House
loomed darkly against the radiance of the winter sky.
She was still wondering what that blood-stained intruder had meant when he
declaimed about the job waiting on Capitol Hill, and she found disquieting
suggestiveness in the gloom which wrapped the distant State House. Even
the calm in the neighborhood of the Corson mansion troubled her; the scene
of the drama, whatever it was all about, had been shifted; the talk of men
had been of prospective happenings at the State House, and that talk was
ominous. Her father was there. She was fighting an impulse to hasten to
the Capitol and she assured herself that the impulse was wholly concerned
with her father.
"I'll admit that the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, just as
that poet has said they are," Mrs. Stanton went on, one topic engrossing
her. "But I'm assuming that there's an end to 'em, just as there is to the
much-talked-of long lane. In poems there's a lot of nonsense about
marrying one's own first love--and I suppose the thing is done, sometimes.
Yes, I'm quite sure of it, because it's written up so often in the divorce
cases. If I had married any one of the first five fellows I was engaged
to, probably my own case would have been on record in the newspapers
before this. Lana dear, why don't you come here and sit down and confide
in a friend and assure her that you're safe and sane from now on?"
Miss Corson, as if suddenly made aware that somebody in the room was
talking, snapped herself 'bout face.
"Doris, what are you saying to me?"
"I'm giving you a little soothing dissertation on love--the right kind of
love--the sensible kind--"
"How do you dare to annoy me with such silliness in a time like this?"
"Why, because this is just the right moment for you to tell me that you
are forever done with the silly kind of love. Mushy boy-and-girl love is
wholly made up of illusions. This Morrison man isn't leaving you any
illusions in regard to himself, is he?"
Miss Corson came away from the window with a rush; her cheeks were
danger-flags. "You seem to be absolutely determined to drive me to say
something dreadful to you, Doris! I've been trying so hard to remember
that you're my guest."
"Your friend, you mean!"
"You listen to me! I'm making my own declarations to myself about the men
in this world--the ones I know. If I should say out loud what I think of
them--or if I should say what I think of friends who meddle and maunder on
about love--_love_--I'd be ashamed if I were overheard. Now not another
word, Doris Stanton!" She stamped her foot and beat her hand hard on the
table in a manner that smacked considerably of the Senator's violence when
his emotions were stirred. "I'm ashamed of myself for acting like this. I
hate such displays! But I mean to protect myself. And now keep quiet, if
you please. I have something of real importance to attend to, even if you
haven't."
She went to a niche in the wall and pulled out the private telephone
instrument; the pressure of a button was required to put in a call. After
the prolonged wait, Senator Corson's voice sounded, high-pitched, urgent.
His appeal was broken short off.
Lana stared at Mrs. Stanton while making futile efforts to get a reply to
frantic questions; fear paled the girl's face and widened her eyes.
"What has happened, Lana?"
"It's father! He asked for help! It's something--some danger--something
dreadful." She clung to the telephone for several minutes, demanding,
listening, hoping for further words--the completion of his orders to her.
Then, abandoning her efforts, she made haste to call the sheriff of the
county, using the study extension of the regular telephone.
The customary rattle informed her that the line was in use, after she had
called for the number, looking it up in the directory. When she finally
did succeed in getting the ear of the sheriff she was informed in
placatory orotund by that official that all her fears were groundless. "I
have been talking with the State House just before you called me, Miss
Corson. I am assured on the best of authority that everything is all
right, there." He was plainly indulging what he accepted as the vagaries
of hysteria--having been apprised by the matter-of-fact Mac Tavish that
some nonsensical news might come through an excited female. "I think you
must have misconstrued what your father said. My informant is known to me
as reliable. Oh no, Miss Corson, I cannot give you his name. It's a rule
of the sheriff's office that individuals who give information have their
identities respected. If the Senator is at the State House you can
undoubtedly reach him by 'phone in the Executive Chamber." He placidly
bade her good night.
But Miss Corson was unable to communicate with the Executive Chamber.
After many delays she was informed that central had tried repeatedly and
directly through the State House exchange, as was the custom after the
departure of the exchange operators for the night; central officially
reported, "Line out of order."
During her efforts to communicate, Coventry Daunt hastened into the study;
he had tapped and he obeyed his sister's admonition, "Come in!"
"I tell you something terrible is the matter," Lana declared, giving up
her efforts to get news over the wire. "Coventry, your looks tell me that
you have heard bad news of some sort!"
"I don't want to be an alarmist," admitted young Daunt, "but all sorts of
whip-whap stuff seem to be in the air all of a sudden. I just took a run
down to the foot of the hill. The bees are buzzing a little livelier there
than they are in the neighborhood of the house. Up here some soldier boys
are waving their bayonets and fat cops are swinging clubs. We're all
right, ladies, but there are all sorts of stories about what's likely to
happen up at the State House. I've come to tell you that if you can do
without me I think I'll take a swing over to Capitol Hill. I don't want to
miss anything good, and I'll bring back straight news."
"I can't endure to wait here for news, Coventry," Lana said. "Order the
car; I'll go along with you."
"It's absolute folly!" declared Mrs. Stanton, aghast, "Haven't you had
enough experience with mobs for one evening?"
"I am going to my father, mobs or no mobs! I know his voice and I know
he's in trouble, no matter what that idiot of a sheriff tells me." She
hurried to the door. "Order the car, I say! I'll get my wraps."
Mrs. Stanton divided rueful gaze between her own evening gown and Lana's.
"Are you going with that dress on?"
"I certainly am!" Lana called from the corridor, running toward her
apartments.
"Well," Mrs. Stanton informed her brother, "this gown has served me all
evening during the political rally that somebody tried to pass off as a
reception. Probably it will do very well for the mob-affair. I'll go for
my furs."
"That's a brick!" was her brother's indorsement. "She needs us both. But
don't be frightened, sis! It's only a political flurry, and such fusses
are usually more fizz than fight. I'll have the car around to the door in
a jab of a jiffy!"
By the time the limousine swung under the _porte-cochère_ Lana was down
and waiting; Mrs. Stanton came hurrying after, ready to defy a January
midnight in a cocoon of kolinsky.
Coventry had ridden from the garage with the chauffeur. "I have been
talking with Wallace. He thinks he'd better drive to the State House by
detour through the parkway."
"Go straight down through the city," commanded the mistress. "I'm not
afraid of my hometown folks. Besides, I have an errand. Stop at the Marion
_Monitor_ office, Wallace!"
The city certainly offered no cause for alarm when they traversed the
streets of the business district. Nobody was in sight; they did not see
even a patrolman.
"The bees seem to have hived all of a sudden," remarked young Daunt. "All
fizz, as I told you, and now the fizz has fizzled."
When the car stopped in front of the newspaper office Lana asked her
guests to wait in the automobile. "That is, if you don't mind!" Then Miss
Corson revealed a bit of nerve strain; she allowed herself to copy some of
the sarcasm that was characteristic of Doris Stanton. "One of those old
friends whom we have been discussing so pleasantly this evening, Doris, is
the city editor of the _Monitor_. Gossipy, of course, from the nature of
his business. But I'm sure that he'll gossip more at his ease if there are
no strangers present."
Coventry had opened the door of the car. Lana hastened past him and
disappeared in the building.
"Dorrie, I'm afraid you are overtraining Lana," the brother complained. "I
have never heard her speak like that before."
"I'm giving her special training for a special occasion which will present
itself very soon, I hope. When she talks to a certain man I want to feel
that my efforts haven't been thrown away."
"Oh, Morrison has botched everything for himself--all around!"
"Thank you! I'm glad to hear you admit that a caveman can be too much of a
good thing with his stone hatchet or club or whatever he uses to bang and
whack all heads with!"
Mrs. Stanton impatiently invited Coventry to step in and shut the door and
make sure that the electric heater was doing business.
City Editor Tasper had a pompadour like a penwiper, round eyes, and a wide
smile. He trotted out to Lana in the reception-room and gave her comradely
greeting. "Any other night but this, Lana Corson, and I'd have been up to
your house to pat Juba on the side-lines even if I couldn't squeeze in one
assignment on your dance order. But as a Marionite you know what we're up
against in this office the night before an inauguration. Afraid the
reception-spread will be squeezed? Don't worry. It's a big night, but I'm
giving you a first-page send-off just the same."
"Billy, I'm not here to talk about that reception. I don't care if there
isn't a word about it."
"Oh, I get you! Don't worry about that fracas, either! I'm killing all
mention of it. We're not advertising that Marion has Bolshevists. Hurts!"
"But I'm not trying to tell you your business about the paper!" the girl
protested. "I'm here after news. What is the trouble at the State House?"
"I don't know," he confessed. "That is to say, I'm not on to the real
inside of the proposition. We can't get our boys in and we can't get any
news out! Those soldiers won't even admit the telephone crew to restore
connection with the Executive Chamber."
"My father is there! He's there with the Governor."
"Well, I should say for a guess that the Senator is in the safest place in
the city, judging from the way Danny Sweetsir and his warriors are on
their jobs at those doors."
"Billy, who else is there with the Governor?" she questioned, anxiously,
harrowed by that memory of her father's tone when he shouted the word
"lunatic!"
"No know! No can tell!" returned Tasper. "But why all the excitement?
There's a crowd outside the State House, but all my reports say that it's
still orderly. It's only the old 'state steal' stuff warmed over by the
sore-heads. But we're printing a statement from Governor North in the
morning. The whole matter is going up to the full bench in the usual way.
If the opposition starts any rough-stuff to-night, the gang hasn't got a
Pekingese's chance in a bulldog convention. There are three machine-guns
in that State House!"
A young chap who was trying hard to be professionally _blasé_ bolted into
the reception-room in search of his chief. "Excuse me! But four
truck-loads of men from the Agawam quarries just went through toward the
State House. They had crowbars and sledge-hammers!"
"So? Warson is making a demonstration, is he? I'll be back there in a
minute, Jack!" Tasper turned to Lana again. "Warson was turned down by
North on the state-prison-wing stone contract. If Warson is setting up
stone-cutters to be shot as rowdies, Warson and his party will be the ones
who'll get hurt."
"But our state will be hurt most of all, Billy," the girl declared, with
passionate earnestness. "We'll be ashamed and disgraced from one end of
the country to the other. Just think of our own good state making a
hideous exhibition when we're all trying so hard to get back to peace!"
"Must have law and order," Tasper insisted.
"Will Governor North tell those soldiers to shoot and kill?"
"Sure thing! His oath of office obliges him to protect state property.
I've just been reading proof of an interview he gave us this afternoon."
Lana walked up and down the room, beating her hands together.
"I'll explain to you, Lana. There's quite a story goes with it. You
haven't been in touch with conditions here at home. The election statutes
provide that the Governor and his Council--"
"I haven't any time to listen to explanations! My father is in that State
House! In the name of Heaven, Billy Tasper, isn't there some man in this
state big enough, broad enough, honest enough to get between the fools who
are threatening this thing?"
"He doesn't seem to be in sight--at any rate, just now."
She paused in her walk, hesitated, and then blurted, "What part is Stewart
Morrison playing in all this?"
"I see you have some news about him, too!" Mr. Tasper fenced, eying her
with some curiosity.
"Dealing in news is your business, not mine," she said, tartly. "But I did
hear him declare in public to-night that he would give the people a square
deal--or that he would see to it that it is done--or--or something!" She
showed the embarrassment of a person who was dealing with affairs in the
details of which she was not well informed.
"All right, I'll give you news as we get it in the office, here. Morrison
has gone nuts over this People thing. He is bucking the corporations in
this water-power dream of his. Playing to the people! I think it's bosh.
Holds capital out of the state! But I see you're in a hurry! He made a
speech to a hit-or-miss gang down-town to-night. It was snapped as a
surprise and we didn't have our men there. But from what we gather he
incited feeling against the State House crowd. Told his merry men he'd
grab in and fix it for 'em. Bad foozle, Lana! Bad! When a mayor of a city
talks like that he's putting a fool notion into the heads of unthinking
irresponsibles, making 'em believe that there is really something to be
fixed. He ought to have told 'em that everything was all right and to go
home and go to bed. Your father would have told 'em that. That's good
politics. But you and I know Stewart from the ground up! He is about as
much a politician as I am parson--and I'd wreck a well-established parish
in less than five minutes by the clock. He's taking a little more time as
a wrecker in his line--but he's making a thorough job of it!"
When Tasper mentioned "job" he suggested a natural question to Miss
Corson. "Where is he right now?"
This time the stare that the city editor gave the girl was distinctly
peculiar. "According to what we can get in the way of reports, Lana, the
last time Morrison was seen in public he was talking with you. If he has
talked with anybody since then the folks he has talked with are keeping
mighty mum about it. Perhaps he has told you where he was going."
Miss Corson exhibited an emotion that was more profound than mere
embarrassment.
"Pardon me! But I'd like to know, Lana! It's mighty important to me in the
line of my business right now."
"What? Can't you find the mayor of the city in a time like this?"
"He's not at home! He's not at City Hall. The chief of police won't say a
word. And he's not in the crowd outside the State House."
Lana did not disclose the fact that she had suggested to the mayor, in a
way, the rabble as Morrison's probable destination, and that he had agreed
with her.
"And a fine chance he has of being let inside the State House," Tasper
went on, with conviction, "after the attitude he has taken in regard to
the administration!"
"He may be there, nevertheless!" Whether hope that he was there or fear
that he might be there prompted Lana's suggestion was not clear from her
manner.
"You'll sooner find a rat down the back of my neck than find Stewart
Morrison inside that State House after the brags he has been making around
this city in the past few hours," declared Tasper, with the breezy freedom
of long friendship with the caller. "He is A Number One in the list of
those who can't get in!"
"But Captain Sweetsir is his mill-student!"
"Captain Sweetsir, in this new importance of his, is leaning so far
backward, in trying to stand straight, that he's scratching the back of
his head on his heels. His own brother is one of our reporters and what
Dan did to Dave when Dave made a holler at the door is a matter of record
on the emergency-hospital blotter. That's straight! Inch of sword-blade.
Not dangerous, but painful!"
All through this interview Lana had maintained the demeanor of one who was
poised on tiptoes, ready to run. She gathered her coat's broad collar more
tightly in its clasp of her throat, and started for the door. But she
whirled and ran back to Tasper.
"You say that Stewart Morrison is no politician! But I noticed the queer
flash in your eyes, Billy Tasper! Do you think he is a coward and has run
away?"
"Tut, tut! Not so strong!" The newspaper man put up a protesting palm. "I
simply state that His Honor the Mayor is under-somewhere! I never saw any
signs of his being a coward--but a lot of us have never been tested by a
real crisis, you know!"
"You say he has no power in politics! Could he do anything in a case like
this?"
Tasper clawed his hand over his head and the crest of his pompadour
bristled more horrently. "He could at least try to undo some of the
trouble he has caused by his tongue. He could be at City Hall, where he
belongs. The fact that he isn't there--that he can't be found--speaks a
whole lot to the people of this city, Lana Corson! Why, there isn't a
policeman to be seen on the streets of Marion to-night! We can't get any
explanation from police headquarters. A devil of a mayor, say I!"
She turned and fled to the door.
"Lana!" called the editor. "He has made promises that he can't back
up--and he has ducked. That's the story! We're going to say so in the
_Monitor_. We can't say anything else!"
She made no reply.
She did not wait for the elevator to take her down the single flight of
stairs; she ran, holding her wrap about her.
Coventry Daunt, on the watch for her, opened the limousine's door and she
plunged in. "Wallace! To the State House! Quick!" she commanded.
When Tasper returned to the city-room he was told that somebody was
waiting on the telephone. It was one of the men assigned to the matter on
Capitol Hill; he was calling from a drug-store booth in that neighborhood.
"Boss, it looks as if they're going to mix it. The tough mutts are ready
to grab any excuse and they won't listen to men like Commander Lanigan of
the Legion."
"If there's a fight pulled off all we can do is to see that we have a good
story. What else?"
"I think I've located the mayor. I can't get anything at all out of those
tin Napoleons at the doors, but Lanigan says that Morrison is in the State
House--'on his job,' so Lanigan puts it."
"Lanigan is a liar!" the city editor yelped. "He has been a two-legged
Hurrah-for-Morrison ever since his high-school days. I like a good lie
when it's told to help a friend! This one isn't good enough! Stewart
Morrison is in that State House like tissue-paper napkins are in Tophet."
"But sha'n't I send in what Lanigan says?"
"We won't have any room for the joke column in the morning," returned
the city editor, hanging up.