Helen of the Old House Part 41

"I'm glad you are here, Jim," Adam said, in a shaking whisper. "You understand these things. John is a fool--he don't believe when I tell him they are after us. But you know what to do. You have the right idea about handling these unions. Kill the leaders; and if the men won't work, turn the soldiers loose on them. You said the right thing, 'Drive them to their jobs with bayonets.' Pete Martin's boy was one of them, and he got what was coming to him to-night. And John and Helen brought him right here into my house. They've got him upstairs there now. They think I'll stand for it, but you'll see--I'll show them! What was he hanging around my place for in the night like this? I know what he was after. But he got what he wasn't looking for this time and Pete will get his too, if he--"

"Father!"

Unnoticed, Helen had come into the room behind them. In pacing the open door she had seen her father and had realized instantly his condition.

But the little she had heard him say was not at all unusual to her, and she attached no special importance to his words.

Adam Ward was like a child, abashed in her presence.

She looked at McIver appealingly. "Father is excited and nervous, Jim.

He is not at all well, you know."

McIver spoke with gentle authority, "If you will permit me, I will go with him to his room for a little quiet talk. And then, perhaps, he can sleep. What do you say, Mr. Ward?"

"Yes--yes," agreed Adam, hurriedly.

Helen looked her grat.i.tude and McIver led the Mill owner away.

When they were in Adam's own apartment and the door was shut McIver's manner changed with startling abruptness. With all the masterful power of his strong-willed nature he faced his trembling host, and his heavy voice was charged with the force of his dominating personality.

"Listen to me, Adam Ward. You must stop this crazy nonsense. If you act and talk like this the police will have the handcuffs on you before you know where you are."

Adam cringed before him. "Jim--I--I--do they think that I--"

"Shut up!" growled McIver. "I don't want to hear another word. I have heard too much now. Charlie Martin stays right here in this house and your family will give him every attention. His father and sister will be here, too, and you'll not open your mouth against them. Do you understand?"

"Yes--yes," whispered the now thoroughly frightened Adam.

"Don't you dare even to speak to Mrs. Ward or John or Helen as you have to me. And for G.o.d's sake pull yourself together and remember--you don't know any more than the rest of us about this business--you were in your room when you heard the shots."

"Yes, of course, Jim--but I--I--"

"Shut up! You are not to talk, I tell you--even to me."

Adam Ward whimpered like a child.

For another moment McIver glared at him; then, "Don't forget that I saw this affair and that I went over the ground with the police. I'm going back downstairs now. You go to bed where you belong and stay there."

He turned abruptly and left the room.

But as he went down the stairway McIver drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"What in G.o.d's name," he asked himself, "did Adam Ward's excited fears mean? What terrible thing gave birth to his mad words? What awful pattern was this that the unseen forces were weaving? And what part was he, with his love for Helen, destined to fill in it all?" That his life was being somehow woven into the design he felt certain--but how and to what end? And again the man in all his strength felt that dread foreboding.

When Peter Martin and his daughter arrived with John at the big house on the hill, Mrs. Ward met them at the door.

The old workman betrayed no consciousness of the distance the years of Adam Ward's material prosperity had placed between these two families that in the old-house days had lived in such intimacy.

Mary hesitated. It must have been that to the girl, who saw it between herself and the happy fulfillment of her womanhood, the distance seemed even greater than it actually was.

But her hesitation was only for an instant. One full look into the gentle face that was so marked by the years of uncomplaining disappointment and patient unhappiness and Mary knew that in the heart of John Ward's mother the separation had brought no change. In the arms of her own mother's dearest friend the young woman found, even as a child, the love she needed to sustain her in that hour.

When they entered the room where Captain Charlie lay unconscious, Helen rose from her watch beside the bed and held out her hands to her girlhood playmate. And in her gesture there was a full surrender--a plea for pardon. Humbly she offered--lovingly she invited--while she held her place beside the man who was slowly pa.s.sing into that shadow where all cla.s.s forms are lost, as if she claimed the right before a court higher than the petty courts of human customs. No word was spoken--no word was needed. The daughter of Peter Martin and the daughter of Adam Ward knew that the bond of their sisterhood was sealed.

In that wretched home in the Flats, little Maggie Whaley smiled in her sleep as she dreamed of her princess lady.

The armed guards at their stations around McIver's dark and silent factory kept their watch.

The Mill, under the cloud of smoke, sang the deep-voiced song of its industry as the night s.h.i.+ft carried on.

In the room back of the pool hall, Jake Vodell whispered with two of his disciples.

In the window of the Interpreter's hut on the cliff a lamp gleamed starlike above the darkness below.

CHAPTER XXVI

AT THE CALL OF THE WHISTLE

Everywhere in Millsburgh the shooting of Captain Charlie was the one topic of conversation. As the patrons of the cigar stand came and went they talked with the philosopher of nothing else. The dry-goods pessimist delivered his dark predictions to a group of his fellow citizens and listened with grave shakes of his head to the counter opinions of the real-estate agent. The grocer questioned the garage man and the lawyer discussed the known details of the tragedy with the postmaster, the hotel keeper and the politician. The barber asked the banker for his views and reviewed the financier's opinion to the judge while a farmer and a preacher listened. The milliner told her customers about it and the stenographer discussed it with the bookkeeper. In the homes, on the streets, and, later in the day, throughout the country, the shock of the crime was felt.

Meanwhile, the efforts of the police to find the a.s.sa.s.sin were fruitless. The most careful search revealed nothing in the nature of a clew.

Millsburgh had been very proud of Captain Martin and the honors he had won in France, as Millsburgh was proud of Adam Ward and his success--only with a different pride. The people had known Charlie from his birth, as they had known his father and mother all their years.

There had been nothing in the young workman's life--as every one remarked--to lead to such an end.

It is doubtful if in the entire community there was a single soul that did not secretly or openly think of the tragedy as being in some dark way an outcome of the strike. And, gradually, as the day pa.s.sed, the conjectures, opinions and views crystallized into two opposing theories--each with its natural advocates.

One division of the people held that the deed was committed by some one of Jake Vodell's followers, because of the workman's known opposition to a sympathetic strike of the Mill workers' union. Captain Charlie's leaders.h.i.+p of the Mill men was recognized by all, and it was conceded generally that it was his active influence, guided by the Interpreter's counsel, that was keeping John Ward's employees at work. Without the a.s.sistance of the Mill men the strike leader could not hope for victory. With Captain Charlie's personal influence no longer a factor, it was thought that the agitator might win the majority of the Mill workers and so force the union into line with the strikers.

This opinion was held by many of the business men and by the more thoughtful members of the unions, who had watched with grave apprehension the increasing bitterness of the agitator's hatred of Captain Charlie, because of the workman's successful opposition to his schemes.

The opposing theory, which was skillfully advanced by Jake Vodell himself and fostered by his followers, was that the mysterious a.s.sa.s.sin was an agent of McIver's and that the deed was committed for the very purpose of charging the strikers with the crime and thus turning public sympathy against them.

This view, so plausible to the minds of the strikers, prepared, as they were, by hards.h.i.+p and suffering, found many champions among the Mill men themselves. Not a few of those who had stood with Charlie in his opposition to the agitator and against their union joining the strike now spoke openly with bitter feeling against the employer cla.s.s. The weeks of agitation--the constant pounding of Vodell's arguments--the steady fire of his oratory and the continual appeal to their cla.s.s loyalty made it easy for them to stand with their fellow workmen, now that the issue was being so clearly forced.

So the lines of the industrial battle were drawn closer--the opposing forces were ma.s.sed in more definite formation--the feeling was more intense and bitter. In the gloom and hush of the impending desperate struggle that was forced upon it by the emissary of an alien organization, this little American city waited the coming of the dark messenger to Captain Charlie. It was felt by all alike that the workman's death would precipitate the crisis.

And through it all the question most often asked was this, "Why was the workman, Charlie Martin, at the gate to Adam Ward's estate at that hour of the night?"

To this question no one ventured even the suggestion of a satisfactory answer.

All that long day Helen kept her watch beside the wounded man. Others were there in the room with her, but she seemed unconscious of their presence. She made no attempt, now, to hide her love. There was no pretense--no evasion. Openly, before them all, she silently acknowledged him--her man--and to his claim upon her surrendered herself without reserve.