Coming Through the Rye (16 page)

“Let him stay in jail then,” decided Steinmetz loftily. “His word won't be worth anything against us if he's in trouble himself. Freeman, you c'n fix that up.”

“The trouble is,” said Judge Freeman slowly, looking the other man straight in the eye as if he were preparing to send a missle, “the trouble is the kid has got hold of some papers that should have been destroyed. Apparently his father didn't know it, or if he did, he didn't report it. Anyhow, he's written a letter threatening to turn state's evidence unless we get him out right away. The letter was brought on board an hour ago by airplane. It came to Horton, and he thought it important enough to send a special messenger with it. I guess he's got us, all right! He has the papers that contain all the evidence in that Blatz case. I could have sworn they were in my safe, but Horton has searched, and they are not there. Something's gone fluey somewhere. I'll have to investigate when I get back. Meanwhile I've had Horton take special measures with all the other papers. But the fact remains that the fellow has all these papers and seems to know just how to use them. We've got to do something about it and do it quick! He's set a limit of tomorrow night before he shows them to that Sherwood crowd. We can't stand for that! We've got to act.”

There was an ominous silence in the cabin for a whole minute, and the swift flight of the birdlike vessel across the bright water seemed suddenly a tangible thing, a part of them. They were fleeing from danger themselves, but their interests were in jeopardy.

“This comes of taking up poor relations!” roared Steinmetz, glaring straight at Freeman. “It's the last time I'll consent to taking on seedy aristocracy.”

“They are no relations of mine,” spoke the calm voice of the judge. “They were only acquaintances in youth, but I felt no obligation to help them and merely suggested the possibility that shabby gentility would be a better screen than anything else we could get, provided we had it under entire control. You said yourself that it was a great idea, the fine old house, and the girl and all. There couldn't have been better cover for our work!”

“Yes, but you didn't have it under entire control.”

“We certainly did. The man Ransom was down and out. He had borrowed until he couldn't borrow another cent. Then he was up to his eyes in debt everywhere and his creditors ready to pull down his house around him. Added to that, he idolized that girl of his and wanted to give her a chance in the world. We couldn't have had a better hold. Besides, he had a conscience, such as it was. He did it to death nearly when he took up with our proposition, but the conscience was still alive enough to be working somewhere, and since it couldn't work in the old lines, he set it to work for us to salve its hurt. He was doing good conscientious work and getting results, too. Then, besides all that, he had something bigger than his conscience, and that was his pride. We had more trouble to break down his pride than we did his conscience when we first put up our proposition to him. And when he saw his conscience had been crossed, he put the stress all the harder on this pride.”

“Seems like a pretty strong proposition. What's the trouble then? Why did it fail?”

“The trouble was we didn't take into account the young fellow. He was too sharp. And somehow he got onto things and had to be let in.”

“Well, isn't he just like his daddy? Can't you work him the same way as the old one?”

Judge Freeman shook his head.

“Another generation,” he said. “Been badly spoiled! Hasn't got a conscience, never had one, and would sell his pride any day for a good time. He's in the game for himself and doesn't hesitate to say so. We've got to do something about it at once.”

Another silence while the men thought with anxious faces and smoked furiously.

“What about that South American project?” asked Steinmetz finally. “Couldn't we work him in on that? He can't do much damage away off there?”

“I've been thinking of that,” said Judge Freeman. “The trouble is that Sherwood gang have got him good and tight, and it isn't going to be an easy job to get him free. If I were at home, I might be able to work it. But it's got to be done somehow. Read that letter. You can see he's not going to be easy to handle, and the worst of it is he knows if he hands all these papers over to Sherwood, the mischief will be to pay for us. He's got the nicest little bunch of evidence against the crowd of us that any enemy could care to have. There's the bills of those furnishings for the school board, and a lot of other stuff that'll play havoc with our plans for election. The taxpayers are all upset now and suspicious about us, without anything like this. I tell you that young Ransom is a sharp one, all right. He seems just to have cribbed a lot of those little things from time to time with a view to getting us in a hole when the time came that he needed our help. If this all comes out, we might as well head this boat to some desert island and stay there ourselves, for we won't ever be able to go back to the States again.”

Long they sat in troubled conclave, hatching out a new set of evil plans, and before morning a message in code had gone to the henchman back at home with orders to get Lawrence Ransom out of jail at all costs and off to South America by the next possible boat; or, if that couldn't be done to hurry, a trial and fix a jury and somehow get him a sentence of “not guilty.”

Then another message went to Larry to assure him that his interests were being cherished and cared for and that he was to keep a cheerful patience, for he would soon be free.

Before the council broke up, a third message was also framed, to the daughter of the stricken father, expressing sympathy and offering financial aid in the present trying situation.

Then those five mighty noblemen went to their luxurious beds and slept the sleep of the just, having by their own cunning worked a way out of their difficulties and set their troubled minds at peace.

E
van Sherwood had ordered an elaborate breakfast brought to his bachelor apartment of two rooms and a bath in honor of his aunt, Miss Patricia Sherwood, who was spending a few days with him in the city.

The breakfast was set forth from the caterer's container by Aunt Patty herself, on the old leaf-table that used to belong to Evan's own mother. Aunt Patty had drawn it into the front window, where the spring sunshine brightened the room, and spread it with linen from the chest that Evan had kept in his bedroom since he came away from the old homestead and all the familiar surroundings that he had held dear from childhood.

There were daffodils in a blue bowl in the center of the table, also in honor of Aunt Patty, and Evan neglected his morning paper to watch his white-haired aunt with her springy steps and her gentle ways move about his rooms and seem to give grace to what had before been a dreary and desolate apartment.

There was grapefruit carefully prepared in the first container, oatmeal nicely cooked with fairly rich cream in the second, French chops, French-fried potatoes, and griddle-cakes in the third, besides rolls and butter and a pot of coffee. Evan had ordered it from the best caterer he knew. He often had meals sent in this way when he grew tired of restaurants or wanted to read or work. But somehow the layout didn't seem altogether up to his hopes. He surveyed it critically as he sat down opposite Aunt Patty.

“It doesn't smell like your cooking, Aunt Patty,” he said wistfully, looking at her with eager eyes, “but it's the best I could do. And anyhow it's great to have you here sitting opposite to eat it with me.”

“It's wonderful!” said the little old lady, sliding spryly into her chair. “We don't get chops like that up in Melgrove. But my! What a lot you ordered! You don't expect me to eat half of all this!”

“It isn't half-good enough for you, Aunt Patty!” laughed the young man. “When I think of your buckwheats, and the doughnuts—”

“Well, aren't you coming up for a good long vacation this summer and eat to your heart's content? I know it isn't right to have buckwheats in summer, but I've been keeping a little buckwheat flour very carefully for you, and there isn't a bug in it yet. And we'll have corn cakes, and waffles besides, and new maple syrup. From our own tree, you know.”

“I know,” he said a little sadly. “I'll try, but I don't see my way clear this summer. Maybe in the fall, but it's not likely till after election anyway. You see, I'm up to my eyes in this League business, and the bootleggers and politicians are giving us all kinds of trouble. We mean to defeat them if we can, but it's going to be a hard pull to clean up the town.”

“Well, it's a great work,” said Aunt Patty with a gleam of pride in her eyes. “How your father would rejoice over you! He would be so proud and happy that you were in such work! And your mother! It seems too bad they couldn't have lived long enough to see what you've turned out to be, when there are so many fathers and mothers who have to go sorrowing all their days over the way their children are turning out. But maybe yours are allowed to look down.…”

Evan smiled.

“I like to think they can,” he said. “Sometimes when I get downhearted and lonely, I like to remember that Father and Mother were doing things like this and would be pleased to have me going on with it.”

“I'm sure they are,” said Aunt Patty briskly, “and now, tell me about it. Has it been a big fight?”

“Oh yes. At first they didn't' think we were in earnest, and everybody was sneering and saying we were making a great fuss about nothing. The officials smiled and agreed that it was just what they wanted done, to keep the laws, and that they were doing it with all their might. But when we began to show them up, when we gave sworn testimony about the places that were open and running a regular business, when we began to give names and dates and to ferret out the owners of these saloons and immoral places that were doing business openly without regard to the law, when we let them know that we knew about the bribes they were taking and the salaries they were handing out to their friends with money they got from a stuffed budget of expenses, when the city taxpayers began to learn how their money was being spent, and misrepresented in the reports, then the beast began to snarl and show his teeth. Then the anonymous letters began to come in threatening our lives, and the poor women and children whose husbands were coming home drunk with empty pay envelopes began to come to us with evidence; then the real fight began.”

“Anonymous letters!” said Aunt Patty, looking anxious. “I suppose really you are in great danger.”

“Oh no,” laughed Evan, “not real danger, not any more than any man who really does his duty in the world ought to be. Of course, when the enemy is at work anywhere against righteousness, there is danger, but it's all in the day's work, and I figure that we'll be taken care of while we're needed for the work. Anyhow, we've got to die when the right time comes. Besides, you know, Aunt Pat, a man is a coward who will take refuge behind an anonymous letter, and there really isn't anything to be feared from him. Here's one, for instance.” Evan took a somewhat-crumpled envelope from his pocket and handed it to his aunt. She opened it with curiosity and read:

Aunt Patty laughed as she handed back the letter, yet there was a troubled look in her eyes.

“I wish you would be careful, Evan,” she said. “I know you are awfully courageous, and I'm afraid you take unnecessary chances sometimes. You ought to have someone with you when you go out late at night. These people may be cowards, but even cowards can be brave in the dark when they know they have an advantage.”

“Aunt Pat,” said the young man, looking into her troubled eyes with steady, earnest ones, “there's a Bible verse that Father taught me when I was a little shaver that stands by me a whole lot these days. I guess you know it. ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.' That's the passport I travel under now, Aunt Pat, and I figure I couldn't have a better.”

Aunt Patty's eyes were bright with proud tears as she looked at the young man tenderly.

“You're right, Evan. I needn't worry!” she said. “How I wish I could help in some way.”

Evan's face sobered thoughtfully.

“I'm not so sure that you can,” he said. “I only wish you could make it to spend the winter with me. There's a lot you could do for some of the victims. If only Aunt Martha could spare you. But I know she can't.”

“No,” said Aunt Patty, shaking her head sadly. “Poor Aunt Martha. She's all crippled up with rheumatism and suffers terribly. It was almost wrong for me to run away for even these few days; if it hadn't been for the papers that had to be signed, and her feeling that nobody but you could attend to the business for us, I wouldn't have left her even with Hannah Hartzell, good as she is, for Marth misses me. But I do wish you were located so you could live with us.”

“You couldn't persuade Aunt Marth to let us bring her down here to live? We could get a wonderful apartment where she could lie and look out of the window and watch people all day long. It would be cheerful for her and might do her a world of good. Then perhaps some great specialist—”

“No, Evan, no. It wouldn't do any good. I tried all that five years ago. Martha nearly broke her heart. I believe in my soul she would die of the break. You know she's over eighty and has lived all her life in that one little town. She was married there, and her children were born there and married, and both of them died and were buried there, and her husband, too. No, she would feel that she was leaving behind everything and everyone that belonged to her. I've tried reasoning, but it does no good. Martha will have to live out her days in the old homestead. It's the only comfort she has, and I'm glad I kept it for her to come home to when she was widowed and childless. It's my work, Evan, and I must do it, but I certainly would love to be down here with you, too. What did you mean by ‘victims'?”