A Certain Rich Man Part 30

The blaze of his wrath went out in a moment, and Barclay's mind went back to that afternoon in the seventies when Hendricks picked Bemis up and threw him bodily from the county convention and branded him as a boodler. Barclay knew argument was useless. So he said nothing.

"He has the county officers--every man-jack of them from the treasurer to Jake Dolan, the janitor--and I couldn't get hold of that book by fair means without his knowing it. But I am going to have that book, John--I'm going to have that book."

Barclay followed Bemis's mental processes, as if they were his own.

"Well--what if he does know it?" asked Barclay.

"Oh, if he knew I was after the book, he'd fix me,--have it destroyed or something; he could do lots of things or beat me some way. I've got to get that book--get it out of the court-house--and there's just one way to get into the court-house, without using the doors and the windows." When Bemis had finished speaking, he gazed steadily into Barclay's eyes. And Bemis saw the fear that was in Barclay's face.

"Yes, I know a way into the court-house, John--it's mine by fifty years' right of discovery. I'm going to have that book, and get an expert opinion as to the similarity of the handwriting in the book and the handwriting of my own little doc.u.ment. My own little doc.u.ment," he mused, licking his chops like a hound at the prospect.

Now we will call that little doc.u.ment "Exhibit I" in the case of the Larger Good _vs._ The People, and close thereby a long and tedious chapter. But we will begin another chapter in which the wheels of events spin rapidly in their courses toward that moral equilibrium that deeds must find before they stop when they are started for the Larger Good.

CHAPTER XXVII

The spring of 1904 in Sycamore Ridge opened in turmoil. The turmoil came from the contest over the purchase of the town's water system.

Robert Hendricks as president of the Citizens' League was leading the forces that advocated the purchase of the system by the town, as being the only sure way to change the water supply from the polluted mill-pond to a clean source. Six months before he had leased every bill-board in town, and for the two months preceding the city election that was to decide the question of munic.i.p.al purchase he had hired every available hall in town, for every vacant night during those months, and had bought half of the first page of both the _Banner_ and the _Index_ for those months--and all of this long before the town knew the fight was coming. He covered the bill-boards and the first pages of the newspapers with a.n.a.lyses of the water in the mill-pond--badly infected from the outlet of the town sewers and its surface drainage. The Citizens' League filled the halls with speakers demanding the purchase of the plant and the removal of the pumping station to a place several miles above the town, and four beyond the mill-pond. Judge Bemis, with the aid and abetment of John Barclay, who was in the game to help his old friend, put up banners denouncing Hendricks as a socialist, accusing him of being the town boss, and charged through the columns of the _Index_ that Hendricks' real motive in desiring to have the city take over the waterworks system was to make money on the sale of the city's bonds. So Hendricks was the centre of the fight.

In the first engagement, a malicious contest, Hendricks lost. The town refused to vote the bonds to buy the plant. But at the same election the same people elected a city council overwhelmingly in favour of munic.i.p.al owners.h.i.+p and in favour of compelling the operating company to move its plant from the mill-pond. The morning after the election Hendricks began a lawsuit as a taxpayer and citizen to make the waterworks company move its plant. The town could understand that issue, and sentiment rallied to Hendricks again. Judge Bemis, at the head of the company, although irritated, was not alarmed. For in the courts he could promote delays, plead technicalities, and wear out his adversary. It was an old game with him. Still, the suit disturbed the value of his bonds, and having other resources, he gleefully decided to use them.

And thus it fell out that one fine day in April, Trixie Lee, from the bedraggled outer hem of the social garment down by the banks of the Sycamore, called to the telephone Robert Hendricks of the town's purple and fine linen, who dwelt on the hill. He did not recognize her voice, the first time she called. But shrewd as Judge Bemis was, and bad as he was, he did not know it all. He did not know that when Hendricks had received the first anonymous letter three days before, he had instructed the girls in the telephone office, which he controlled, to make a record of every telephone call for his office or his house, and when the woman's voice on the telephone that day delivered Judge Bemis's message, the moment after she quit talking he knew with whom he had been talking.

"Is this Mr. Hendricks?" the voice had begun, rather pleasantly. Yes, it was Mr. Hendricks. "Well, I am your friend, but I don't dare to let you know my name now; it would be all my life is worth." And Robert Hendricks grinned pleasantly into the rubber transmitter as he realized that his trap would work. "Yes, Mr. Hendricks, I am your friend, and you have a powerful enemy." What with the insinuations in the _Index_ and the venom that Lige Bemis had been putting into anonymous circulars during the preliminary waterworks campaign, this was no news to Mr. Hendricks; so he let the voice go on, "They want you to dismiss that suit against the waterworks company that you brought last week." There was a pause for a reply; but none came; then the voice said, "Are you there, Mr. Hendricks--do you hear me?" And Mr. Hendricks said that he heard perfectly. "And," went on the voice, "as your friend I wish you would, too. Do you remember a letter you once wrote to a woman, asking her to elope with you--a married woman, Mr. Hendricks?" There was a pause for a reply, and again the voice asked, "Do you hear, Mr. Hendricks?" and Mr. Hendricks heard; heard in his soul and was afraid, but his voice did not quaver as he replied, "Yes, I hear perfectly." Then the voice went on, "Well, they have that letter--a little note--not over one hundred words, and with no date on it, and the man who has it also has a photograph of page 234 of a certain ledger in the county treasurer's office for 1879, and there is an entry there in your handwriting, Mr. Hendricks; and he has had them both enlarged to show that the handwriting of the note and of the county book are the same; isn't that mean, Mr. Hendricks?" Hendricks coughed into the transmitter, and she knew that he was there, so she continued: "As your friend in this matter, I have got them to promise that if you will come to the Citizens' League meeting that you have called for to-morrow night at Barclay Hall and tell the people that you think we need harmony in the Ridge worse than we need this everlasting row, if you will merely say to Mr. Barclay as you pa.s.s into the meeting, 'Well, John, I believe I'll dismiss that suit,' you can have your letter back. He hasn't got the letter, but he will be sure to tell the news to a friend who has." Here the voice faltered, and said unconsciously, "Wait a minute, I've lost my place; oh, here it is; all right. And if you don't come to the meeting and say that, I believe they are going to spring those doc.u.ments on the meeting to put you in bad odour."

"Is that all?" asked Hendricks.

"Well--" a pause and then finally--"yes," came the voice.

"Well, my answer is no," said Hendricks, and while he was trying to get central the voice called again and said:--

"Just one word more: if you still maintain your present decision, a copy of that letter you wrote will be put into the hands of Mr.

Brownwell of the _Banner_ before the meeting; I tell you this to protect you. He and Mrs. Brownwell and Mrs. Barclay will be in town to-morrow evening on the Barclay car from the West on No. 6; you will have until then to reconsider your decision; after that you act at your own risk."

Again the voice ceased, and Hendricks learned from central who had been talking with him. It was after banking hours, and he sat for a time looking the situation squarely in the face. The reckoning had come. He had answered "no" with much bravery over the telephone--but in his heart a question began to rise, and his decision was clouded.

Hendricks walked alone under the stars that night, and as he walked he turned the situation over and over as one who examines a strange puzzle. He saw that his "no" could not be his own "no." Molly must be partner in it. For to continue his fight for clean water he must risk her good name. He measured Bemis, and remembered the old quarrel. The hate in the face of the bribe-giver, thrown out of the county convention a quarter of a century before, came to Hendricks, and he knew that it was no vain threat he was facing. So he turned up the other facet of the puzzle. There was Adrian. For an hour he considered Adrian Brownwell, a vain jealous old man with the temper of a beast.

To see Molly, tell her of their common peril, get her decision, and be with it at the meeting before Adrian saw the note, all in the two hours between the arrival of the train bearing the Brownwells and Mrs.

Barclay, and the time of the meeting in Barclay Hall, was part of Hendricks' puzzle. He believed that by using the telephone to make an appointment he could manage it. Then he turned the puzzle over and saw that to save Molly Brownwell's good name and his father's, human lives must be sacrificed by permitting the use of foul water in the town.

And in the end his mind set. He knew that unless she forbade it, the contest must go on to a righteous finish, through whatever perils, over any obstacles. Yet as he walked back to the bank, determined not to take his hand from the plough, he saw that he must prepare to go into the next day as though it were his last. For in his consciousness on the other side of the puzzle--always there was the foolish Adrian, impetuous at best, but stark mad in his jealousy and wrath.

And Elijah Westlake Bemis, keeping account of the man's movements, chuckled as he felt the struggle in the man's breast. For he was a wise old snake, that Lige Bemis, and he had seduced many another man after the brave impulsive "no" had roared in his face. Just before midnight when he saw the electric light flash on in the private office of the president of the Exchange National Bank, Lige Bemis, libertine with men, strolled home and counted the battle won. "He's writing his speech," he said to Barclay over the telephone at midnight. And John Barclay, who had fought the local contest in the election with Bemis to be loyal to a friend, and to help one who was in danger of losing the profit on half a million dollars' investment in the Sycamore Ridge waterworks, laughed as he walked upstairs in his pajamas, and said to himself, "Old Lige is a great one--there is a lot of fight in the old viper yet." It was nothing to Barclay that the town got its water from a polluted pond. That phase of the case did not enter his consciousness, though it was placarded on the bill-boards and had been printed in the _Banner_ a thousand times during the campaign. To him it was a fight by the demagogues against property interests, and he was with property, even a little property--even a miserable little dribble of property like half a million dollars' worth of waterworks bonds.

And Robert Hendricks--playfellow of John Barclay's boyhood, partner of his youth--sat working throughout the night, a brave man, going into battle without a tremor. He went through his books, made out statements of his business relations, prepared directions for the heads of his different concerns, as a man would do who might be going on a long journey. For above everything, Robert Hendricks was foresighted. He prepared for emergencies first, and tried to avoid them afterwards. And with the thought of the smallness of this life in his soul, he looked up from his work to see the hard gray lines of the dawn in the street outside of his office, bringing the ugly details from the shadows that hid them during the day, and he sighed as he wondered in what bourne he should see the next dawn break.

It was a busy day for Robert Hendricks, that next day, and through it all his mind was planning every moment of the time how he could protect Molly Brownwell. Did he work in the bank, behind his work his mind was seeking some outlet from his prison. If he went over the power-house at the electric plant, always he was looking among the wheels for some way of refuge for Molly. When he spent an hour in the office of the wholesale grocery house, he despatched a day's work, but never for a second was his problem out of his head. He spent two hours with his lawyers planning the suit against the water company, pointing out new sources of evidence, and incidentally leaving a large check to pay for the work. But through it all Molly Brownwell's good name was ever before him, and when he thought how twenty years before he had walked through another day planning, scheming, and contriving, all to produce the climax of calamity that was hovering over her to-day, he was sick and faint with horror and self-loathing.

But as the day drew to its noon, Hendricks began to feel a persistent detachment from the world about him. It floated across his consciousness, like the shadow anchor of some cloud far above him. He began to watch the world go by. He seemed not to be a part of it. He became a spectator. At four o'clock he pa.s.sed Dolan on the street and said, absently, "I want you to-night at the bank at seven o'clock sharp--don't forget, it's very important."

As he walked down Main Street to the bank, the shadow anchor of the cloud had ceased to flit across his consciousness. Life had grown all gray and dull, and he was apart from the world. He saw the handbills announcing the meeting that night as one who sees a curious pa.s.sing show; the men he met on the street he greeted as creatures from another world. Yet he knew he smiled and spoke with them casually. But it was not he who spoke; the real Robert Hendricks he knew was separated from the pantomime about him. When he went into the bank at five o'clock, the janitor was finis.h.i.+ng his work. Hendricks called up the depot on the telephone and found that No. 6 was an hour late. With the realization that a full hour of his fighting time had been taken from him and that the train would arrive only a scant hour before the meeting, the Adrian face of his puzzle turned insistently toward Hendricks. It was not fear but despair that seized him. The cloud was over him. And for want of something to do he wrote. First he wrote abstractedly and mechanically to John Barclay, then to Neal Ward--a note for the _Banner_--and as the twilight deepened in the room, he squared his chair to the table and wrote to Molly Brownwell; that letter was the voice of his soul. That was real. Six o'clock struck.

Half-past six clanged on the town clock, and as Jake Dolan opened the bank door, Hendricks heard the roar of the train crossing at the end of Main Street.

"There goes Johnnie's private car, switching on the tail of her," said Dolan, standing in the doorway.

Hendricks sent Dolan to a back room of the bank, and at seven-twenty went to the telephone. "Give me 876, central," he called.

"h.e.l.lo--h.e.l.lo--h.e.l.lo," he cried nervously, "h.e.l.lo--who is this?"

The answer came and he said, "Oh, I didn't recognize your voice." Then he asked in a low tone, as one who had fear in his heart: "Do you recognize me? If you do, don't speak my name. Where is Adrian?" Then Mr. Dolan, listening in the next room, heard this: "You say Judge Bemis phoned to him? Oh, he was to meet him at eight o'clock. How long ago did he leave?" After a moment Hendricks' answer was: "Then he has just gone; and will not be back?" Hendricks cut impatiently into whatever answer came with: "Molly, I must see you within the next fifteen minutes. I can't talk any more over the telephone, but I must come up." "Yes," in a moment, "I must have your decision in a matter of great importance to you--to you, Molly." There was a short silence, then Dolan heard: "All right, I'll be there in ten minutes."

Then Hendricks turned from the telephone and called Dolan in. He unlocked a drawer in his desk, and began speaking to Dolan, who stood over him. Hendricks' voice was low, and he was repressing the agitation in his heart by main strength.

"Jake," he said, talking as rapidly as he could, "I must be unG.o.dly frank with you. It doesn't make any difference whether he is right or not, but Adrian Brownwell may be fooled into thinking he has reason to be jealous of me." Hendricks was biting his mustache. "He's a raging maniac of jealousy, Jake, but I'm not afraid of him--not for myself.

I can get him before he gets me, if it comes to that, but to do it I'll have to sacrifice Molly. And I won't do that. If it comes to her good name or my life--she can have my life." They were outside now and Dolan was unhitching the horse. He knew instinctively that he was not to reply. In a moment Hendricks went on, "Well, there is just one chance in a hundred that it may turn that way--her good name or my life--and on that chance I've written some letters here." He reached in his coat and said, "Now, Jake, put these letters in your pocket and if anything goes wrong with me, deliver them to the persons whose names are on the envelopes--and to no one else. I must trust everything to you, Jake," he said.

Driving up the hill, he met Bemis coming down town. He pa.s.sed people going to the meeting in Barclay Hall. He did not greet them, but drove on. His jaw was set hard, and the muscles of his face were firm. As he neared the Culpepper home he climbed from the buggy and hitched the horse to the block in front of his own house. He hurried into the Culpepper yard, past the lilac bushes heavy with blooms, and up the broad stone steps with the white pillars looming above him. It was a quarter to eight, and at that minute Bemis was saying to Adrian Brownwell, "All right, if you don't believe it, don't take my word for it, but go home right now and see what you find."

Molly Brownwell met Hendricks on the threshold with trembling steps.

"Bob, what is it?" she asked. They stood in the shadow of the great white pillars, where they had parted a generation ago.

"It's this, Molly," answered Hendricks, as he put his hand to his forehead that was throbbing with pain; "Lige Bemis has my letter to you. Yes," he cried as she gasped, "the note--the very note, and to get it I must quit the waterworks fight and go to the meeting to-night and surrender. I had no right to decide that alone. It is our question, Molly. We are bound by the old life--and we must take this last stand together."

The woman shrank from Hendricks with horror on her face, as he personified her danger. She could not reply at once, but stood staring at him in the dusk. As she stared, the feeling that she had seen it all before in a dream came over her, and the premonition that some awful thing was impending shook her to the marrow.

"Molly, we have no time to spare," he urged. "I must answer Bemis in ten minutes--I can do it by phone. But say what you think."

"Why--why--why--Bob--let me think," she whispered, as one trying to speak in a dream, and that also seemed familiar to her. "It's typhoid for my poor who died like sheep last year," she cried, "or my good name and yours, is it, Bob? Is it, Bob?" she repeated.

He put his hand to his forehead again in the old way she remembered so well--to temples that were covered with thin gray hair--and answered, "Yes, Molly, that's our price."

Those were the last words that she seemed to have heard before; after that the dialogue was all new to her. She was silent a few agonized seconds and then said, "I know what you think, Bob; you are for my poor; you are brave." He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance.

As she sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac plumes and brought their perfume to her. From down the avenue came the whir of wheels and the hurrying click of a horse's hoofs. At length she rose, and said tremulously: "I stand with you, Bob. May G.o.d make the blow as light as He can."

They did not notice that a buggy had drawn up on the asphalt in front of the house. Hendricks put out his hand and cried, "Oh, Molly--Molly--Molly--" and she took it in both of hers and pressed it to her lips, and as Adrian Brownwell pa.s.sed the lilac thicket in the gathering darkness that is what he saw. Hendricks was halfway down the veranda steps before he was aware that Brownwell was running up the walk at them, pistol in hand, like one mad. Before the man could fire, Hendricks was upon him, and had Brownwell's two hands gripped tightly in one of his, holding them high in the air. The little man struggled.

"Don't scream--for G.o.d's sake, don't scream," cried Hendricks to the woman in a suppressed voice. Then he commanded her harshly, "Go in the house--quick--Molly--quick."

She ran as though hypnotized by the force of the suggestion. Hendricks had his free hand over Brownwell's mouth and around his neck. The little old man was kicking and wriggling, but Hendricks held him. "Not here, you fool, not here. Can't you see it would ruin her, you fool?

Not here." He carried and dragged Brownwell across the gra.s.s through the shrubbery and into the Hendricks yard. No one was pa.s.sing, and the night had fallen. "Now," said Hendricks, as he backed against a pine tree, still holding Brownwell, "I shall let you go if you'll promise to listen to me just a minute until I tell you the whole truth. Molly is innocent, man--absolutely innocent, and I'll show you if you'll talk for a moment. Will you promise, man?"

Brownwell nodded his a.s.sent; Hendricks looked at him steadily for a second and then said, "All right," and set the little man on his feet.

The glare of madness came into Brownwell's eyes, and as he turned he came at Hendricks with his pistol drawn. An instant later there was a shot. Brownwell saw the amazement flash into Hendricks' eyes, and then Hendricks sank gently to the foot of the pine tree.

And Molly Brownwell, with the paralysis of terror still upon her, heard the shot and then heard footsteps running across the gra.s.s. A moment later her husband, empty-handed, chattering, s.h.i.+vering, and white, stumbled into the room. Rage had been conquered by fear. For an agonized second the man and woman stared at one another, speechless--then the wife cried:--

"Oh--oh--why--why--Adrian," and her voice was thick with fear.--

The man was a-tremble--hands, limbs, body--and his mad eyes seemed to shrink from the woman's gaze. "Oh, G.o.d--G.o.d--oh, G.o.d--" he panted, and fell upon his face across the sofa. They heard a hurrying step running toward the Hendricks house, there came a frightened, choked cry of "Help!" repeated twice, another and another sound of pattering feet came, and five minutes after the quaking man had entered the door the whole neighbourhood seemed to be alive with running figures hurrying silently through the gloom. The thud of feet and the pounding of her heart, and the whimpering of the little man who lay, face down, on the sofa, were the only sounds in her ears. She started to go with the crowd. But Adrian screamed to her to stay.

"Oh," he cried, "he sank so softly--he sank so softly--he sank so softly! Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d--he sank so softly!"