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Title: The Running Fight


Author: William Hamilton Osborne

Illustrator: George Brehm
        Harrison Fisher

Release date: April 15, 2020 [eBook #61840]

Language: English



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[Illustration: "Just a stroke of the pen, dear, and my father will be
free" (page 279)]


THE RUNNING FIGHT

by

WILLIAM HAMILTON OSBORNE

Author of "The Red Mouse"

With Illustrations by Harrison Fisher and George Brehm


[Illustration]






New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1910

Copyright, 1910, by
William Hamilton Osborne

Published April, 1910




_TO_
W. H. O., Jr. _and_ F. S. O.




ILLUSTRATIONS


"Just a stroke of the pen, dear, and my
father will be free" (page 279) _Frontispiece_


It was a mere wisp of a girl who confronted him, 14

If only he had dared ... he would have drawn
the dainty head of Leslie Wilkinson down on
his shoulder and would have kissed her then
and there, 76

"We've got a long fight ahead, Leslie--a running
fight, as Colonel Morehead calls it, but I'm
ready", 370




I


Once, twice, thrice,--failing miserably in his attempt to appear
unconcerned,--Ilingsworth paced back and forth in front of Peter V.
Wilkinson's big house in Riverside Drive. There it stood: a massive,
forbidding, modern pile of limestone, wholly unlike anything in its
vicinity. And yet, now that the time had come, Ilingsworth's face wore
a confused, half-fearful look, a sense of uncertainty possessed him,
which was all the more maddening because so far, at least, there had
been no obstacles or delays in this brief, turbulent journey of his; on
the contrary, all had gone well with him, and like a falcon in pursuit
of its prey he had sped on the straightest of straight lines towards a
person of the name of Leslie Wilkinson, and this person, so Ilingsworth
assured himself, would soon feel his claws.

From a distance, it is true, Wilkinson's imposing structure had
differed little from that which his imagination had led him to expect.
It was like the pictures he had seen of it many times in the papers;
so like, in fact, that even now in his extremity he could feel the
strange, exultant pride he had experienced but a few short months ago
when exhibiting to Elinor a counterfeit presentment of it in a monthly
magazine. And, certainly, he had every right to be proud, at least, so
he thought then,--for was not he, Elinor's father, Giles Ilingsworth of
Morristown, a close business associate of Peter V. Wilkinson, the great
financier? His business associate! Ugh! The very thought of it now made
him shiver, tortured him. Indeed, to such an extent that, on nearing
the place, his vengeful purpose was kindled anew, and his right hand
took a fresh grip on an object of sinister shape hidden in his pocket.
At that moment Ilingsworth had but one idea: to get it over with as
soon as possible.

But once actually in front of the Wilkinson mansion, when his eyes
sweeping upward had failed to catch the point of view of the press
photographers, a feeling akin to panic had come over him; and he had
passed and repassed, unable to force himself to the point of making
an inquiry of a passerby. And yet, what could he do to make certain?
And then, as if in answer to his half-smothered cries of "Is this
Wilkinson's? There must be no mistake ..." there fell on his ears the
raucous squeal of a megaphone, and, turning whence came the sound,
he beheld a crowded tourists' sight-seeing car rolling slowly and
laboriously along the Drive, its interlocutor busily engaged in the
practice of his genteel profession.

"We now perceive the palatial residence of Peter V. Wilkinson, the
multi-millionaire--the ten-million-dollar steal trust--so-called from
the habit of its owner in stealing trust companies."

This exceptionally brilliant play upon words was instantly rewarded by
a titter from some of the occupants of the car, and the perpetrator,
encouraged, proceeded:

"This house contains no less than eighty-four rooms; has twenty-four
bathrooms, not to speak of the Turkish bath; has paintings worth a
million or two; the rugs cost half a million, at least; and nearly a
million pounds of bronze has been used in its construction. Wilkinson's
second wife--Maggie Lane, when he married her, now Mrs. Margaret Lane
Wilkinson,--is said to be the handsomest woman in the block." He paused
to heighten the effect of what was to follow; then trumpeted: "That
is, on this end of the block. Peter V. Wilkinson owns seventeen trust
companies in the City of New York. He is president of the famous, and
now notorious, Interstate Trust Company which closed its doors last
week. Also president of the Tri-State Trust--the largest trust company
in the world, now toppling on the brink of the precipice...."

So the voice droned on, the car laboured on, and the passengers,
already sufficiently gorged with Wilkinson's affairs, would have been
spared any further enlightenment had not the eye of this dispenser
of metropolitan information lighted upon Ilingsworth as the latter,
trying to escape attention, stepped into the low-arched doorway of the
Wilkinson home. The opportunity was too good to be lost.

"The gentleman," proceeded the privileged lecturer, "now entering
this impressive imperial mansion, is not Peter V. Wilkinson. Note
the sinister expression of the back of his head and the peculiar
attitude of his right arm!" The megaphone turned itself directly upon
Ilingsworth, and kept on: "He looks like a disgruntled depositor of the
Interstate Trust Company--what if he be making a call for the purpose
of putting a pill into the proprietor? What?"

Ilingsworth turned an involuntary, startled glance toward the car.
Despite a desperate effort at self-control, he was visibly alarmed,
and jerked his hand swiftly from the confines of his pocket. Amidst a
chorus of laughter at his action the car rolled on. Ilingsworth turned
back to the entrance of the house, muttering to himself:

"They little know, they little know...."

Presently he pulled himself together and pressed the button with that
same right hand, then squared his shoulders, once more dropping both
hands at his side. There was a short interval of waiting, during which
he kept repeating to himself, as though conning some essential lesson:

"Leslie Wilkinson--Leslie Wilkinson, that's the man I want to see."

Suddenly a heavy door was swung open inward and a butler stood before
him, bowing.

"Leslie Wilkinson," demanded Ilingsworth somewhat explosively. There
was no prefix to the name--Ilingsworth was not considering the
conventionalities. He had come fresh from the confidential reports of
Wall Street detectives. Those two words had seared themselves into his
brain.

The butler looked surprised, shocked, that is, so far as his rigid
training would permit.

"Leslie Wilkinson," he repeated doubtfully, as though already
hypnotised into the other's trend of thought.

"Leslie Wilkinson," said Ilingsworth, "and right away."

The servant bowed.

"Who shall I say, sir?"

Ilingsworth smiled. It was all too easy, so it seemed. He felt as
though the fates were with him, as though before him lay the path
to victory. His breath came short and fast as he thought of the
possibilities: for if he should succeed, Elinor forever would be
safe--could take her rightful place in society.

"There's my card," he said, drawing forth his wallet.

Instantly the butler became obsequious, for not only did he perceive
that the visitor bore himself as a gentleman, but he recognised the
card as an open-sesame to his master. He handled it with infinite
respect. It read:

 MR. GILES ILINGSWORTH

  _Vice-President of the
  Tri-State Trust Company,
  New York._

"Your pardon, sir," said the butler before he closed the door, and
With a nod of the head towards the street. "Your car--does it need
attention, sir? Our garage is only half a block away. Shall I send out
and tell your chauffeur, sir?"

Ilingsworth's glance followed that of the butler's. A blue limousine
stood throbbing at the curb. It had evidently been there all the while,
though Ilingsworth had failed to observe it.

"It's not my car," he returned brusquely.

Again a puzzled look came over the servant's face, but concealing his
embarrassment, he closed the door.

"Very good, sir," he said. "Kindly step this way."

Ilingsworth followed him down the long hall to the entrance of a room
before which stood another servant.

"Step into the reception-room, sir, if you please," said the butler.
But, to the astonishment of both men, the footman advanced and waved
them back, saying:

"One moment, please, sir." And oblivious to the fact that Ilingsworth
was standing in the middle of the broad hall, he drew the butler to one
side, whispered in a confidential, off-duty aside: "You must not take
him in there. Put him somewhere else."

"Why not?" asked the butler. "Who's in there?"

The footman became inexcusably mysterious. He looked about him on all
sides to see that he was unheard. Then he shaded his mouth with his
hand and placed his lips close to the other's ear.

"Her," he whispered.

The butler eyed the footman sharply.

"Her!" he exclaimed. "Who's she?"

"There's only one her," he answered, and pursed his lips as though
about to perpetrate an explosion. And then it came: "Miss Braine, of
course. Here's her card."

The man who had admitted Giles Ilingsworth stiffened when he looked
upon this card, which read:

 MISS MADELINE BRAINE

  The Llandegraff
  ----th Street and
  the Drive.

"Not the governor's ...?"

"The same."

"What's she doing here?"

For answer the footman merely shrugged his shoulders.

"When did she come?" asked the butler.

"Ten minutes or so ago."

"But I didn't see her come."

"I let her in; you were downstairs."

The butler came as near to a whistle as any butler on duty ever came.
What is more, in his agitation at this new and unexpected crisis, he
quite forgot the presence of Giles Ilingsworth, vice-president of the
largest trust company in the world.

"There'll be the devil to pay if the missus sees her! Did she ask
for----"

"She came to see the governor," interrupted the footman, shaking his
head; "and what's more, she says she's going to wait until he comes."

The butler knitted his brows.

"You were a fool to let her in! Is that her car outside?"

"Don't you know it when you see it?"

The mention of the car forced the butler's thoughts back to
Ilingsworth. He started toward the financier of the Tri-State Company
with abundant apology upon his lips.

"I beg your pardon, sir ..." he began, and then stopped. For as he
passed the door of the reception-room he was able to peer into it, and
by some servant's trick to sweep every corner of it with his glance. It
was a room void of hangings, almost bare in its rich simplicity--one of
those triumphs of interior decoration. The butler's face was pale as he
retraced his steps and once more faced his fellow-servant.

"There's not a soul in there--see for yourself."

The other did see for himself, and he, too, looked bewildered.

"But I put her in there, and I put her there to stay. I didn't leave
her for more than half a second. Where's she gone?"

Instantly the butler took charge of the situation, and in commanding
sotto voce directed the other to look in the library, the music-room,
the Louis XIV. room, even in the grand salon.

The search was conducted quietly and with decorum, and it is only due
to these two past-masters of the art of footmanship to say that this
dialogue had taken an almost infinitesimal space of time, that its
utterance had been practically inaudible, and that Ilingsworth, the
guest to whom these two had owed a very present duty, had not yet
begun to realise that his interests were in any wise neglected.

But the footman came back disgruntled, disturbed, and wailing that she
was not to be found. And then it was that the butler stepped once more
to the side of Giles Ilingsworth and said somewhat contritely:

"Beg your pardon, sir, but would you mind stepping into 'the Den,'" all
the while showing the way. "It's Mr. Wilkinson's favourite place, his
private room, sir, for seeing all his friends--business and otherwise,
sir--yes, sir."

Ilingsworth followed where the butler led. And then, turning sharply
upon him, he repeated:

"I'm waiting to see Leslie Wilkinson. Do you understand?"

"Very good, sir."

Alone in "the Den" Ilingsworth smiled as he looked about him. Fate
was surely favouring him. The Den was a quasi-business office and
smoking-room, a room where anybody might be interviewed by anybody
of the household. It was in this room that Tiffany's man displayed
his biggest, newest jewels to Mrs. Peter V.; it was in this room that
Mrs. Peter V.'s women friends would drop in evenings for a chat with
Peter V. as he smoked a black cigar; it was the comfortable place of
the whole, big house. But to Ilingsworth it was something more: it
was the place best fitted for the arena of events as events had shaped
themselves. "The Den" had but one window--a high window that ran along
one side of the wall just underneath the black-beamed ceiling and
just above a long, comfortable, leather seat that ran along the wall.
The window was above the head of an ordinary man, and was composed of
leaded glass. It gave but little light, and afforded no view at all of
the world without. For the rest, there was a big, flat-topped desk,
heavy, leather-covered lounging-chairs, and heavy, dark red curtains
everywhere about the walls. And but a single door.

"The place I've dreamed about," Ilingsworth thought to himself. For an
instant he stood drinking in all of its details in some sort of gleeful
ecstasy--the ecstasy of a man who feels the end of the journey near.
And then, suddenly, he became all action. He stepped to the desk upon
which stood a desk-telephone upon a standard, and a small mahogany
tablet with two push-buttons on its surface.

"I can't understand why it's all so easy," he told himself; and the
next moment he drew from his left coat-pocket a pair of wire-cutters,
and with two sudden, jerky twists of his right wrist he clipped the
flexible green-covered wires that connected the push-buttons and the
telephone, and twisted the unconnected ends down and out of sight.
It was his first advent in this house of Wilkinson, and yet he had
rehearsed the scene in his waking hours and in his sleep so many, many
times, that he did it without nervousness and without fear. So that
he was not surprised to find himself more than practise-perfect. He
glanced about the room for evidences of other wires, buttons, bells and
speaking tubes, and then swooped down upon the door.

"If only it has a key!" he thought; and the next moment he almost cried
out joyfully, for he found that it had not only a key, but that it
might be bolted from the inside.

"And when it's bolted," he assured himself, "What sound can penetrate
beyond its walls?"

Beyond its walls! The phrase, somehow, kept ringing in his ears; to him
there was music in it. He never thought of the walls themselves; nor
had he ever asked himself whether behind those rich and heavy hanging
curtains there might not be other means of exit.

He took his place behind the open door.

"Now for the crisis," he said calmly to himself.

And plunging his hand once more into his coat-pocket he produced
a gun--a modern, hammerless revolver that he had selected with
considerable care, after consulting the advertisements in the
magazines, and after reading the booklets of their makers. This gun
he had selected, not only on account of its particular efficiency,
but also because of its remarkably repulsive look. It bore the same
formidable appearance compared with the large family of fire-arms as
the bull-dog does to his canine race. It was a weapon of peculiarly
terrifying appearance--and that was what he wanted. For the rest, it
was a .32 calibre, and upon its handle it bore the maker's name and
a number--a number that belonged to this particular weapon and to no
other weapon of this make in the whole wide world.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps in the hall without reached his ears.
Every nerve tingled with his purpose; every muscle became rigid and
alert.

"Now!" he exclaimed.

" ... Wilkinson," said the voice.

It was a mumbled announcement of some sort which came from the butler.
Ilingsworth waited until he had retreated, and only when he was certain
that but one figure had entered the room, was looking about in wonder
at its apparent emptiness, did he slowly, swiftly close the door, lock
it, bolt it, and finally place his back against it. Then, levelling the
weapon, he extended it toward the person who had entered.

"Seat yourself at that desk," he commanded, a dangerous note in his
voice; "and don't make any outcry, or I'll----"

He stopped short and lowered his weapon.

"Why--I----" he stammered, growing red-faced as he spoke.

It was a mere wisp of a girl who confronted him--a girl full-throated
and full-bosomed, and upon whom the gods had conferred that dazzling of
all dazzling charms: light hair and dark brown eyes. Fascinating she
was even to Ilingsworth, bewildering, too, as she gazed upon him in
sudden fear, her eyes widening, her lips parted.

"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered, consternation making it difficult
for him to speak. "I was expecting quite another person--Leslie
Wilkinson."

Too frightened to reply the girl merely stood and gazed at him. For a
moment she remained thus, and then, with the shudder of one who shakes
from her some horrible nightmare, she found her voice and said:

"Why, I'm Miss Wilkinson--Leslie Wilkinson!"

Ilingsworth could hardly believe his ears.

"You--you are Leslie Wilkinson!" he broke out. "Surely there must be
some mistake. Leslie is a man's name, isn't it?"

[Illustration: It was a mere wisp of a girl who confronted him]

The girl struggled to regain her composure. Dumbfounded and confused
though he was, Ilingsworth saw this, and with a hasty movement
thrust the revolver behind his back. And still facing her, he retreated
to a small table at the far corner of the room, and leaned against it,
thus concealing the weapon. In a measure this action of his reassured
the girl. Her countenance broke into a tremulous smile, though her
breast rose and fell tumultuously and her breath came in gasps.

"Yes," she replied in an endeavour to gain time, "Leslie is a man's
name except when it happens to be a girl's name, too. My name is
Leslie--I'm a girl--you see."

But again terror seized her. The man before her was undoubtedly insane,
she thought, and she glanced widely about the room for some avenue of
escape. There was only the door, and like some startled, wild thing,
she broke into a run toward it. But half way across the room she
halted, throwing over her shoulder a glance of fear toward Ilingsworth,
and then slowly retreated to her position at the desk.

"Please don't shoot!" she pleaded. "I promise you I won't try to get
away!"

Slowly, cautiously, Ilingsworth stretched forth his left hand. It was
evident that he did not wish to frighten the girl.

"Don't be afraid," he assured her, and so quietly and courteously now
that it seemed to the girl as if another man was speaking. "I'm not
going to shoot--I shall stay right where I am, don't fear. If you wish
you may go now." But as she started to go he leaned forward and said:
"You're free to go,"--there was a pathetic note in his voice now,--"but
I would like to tell you something--to explain my presence here. I
came here looking for Leslie Wilkinson--the son of Peter V. Wilkinson,
and----"

"But," she interrupted, in a puzzled way, "but my father has no
son--I'm his only child."

Ilingsworth bowed his head.

"I know that now," he answered, "but I didn't know it before. I was
looking for a conspirator of Peter V. Wilkinson's, and I thought I had
run him down. I thought I had, indeed.... You must not be frightened,"
he went on hastily, "and don't think me crazy. I'm only horribly
nervous. I've been desperate for weeks. I wouldn't harm you for the
world--I have a daughter of my own. But you must hear me out--I've got
to tell this to somebody--somebody who believes me, or I'll go mad. No,
no," he pleaded, for she seemed about to leave him. "My name is--why,
here's my card--I'm----"

"Oh, to be sure, Mr. Giles Ilingsworth, Vice-President of the
Tri-State," she said smilingly, giving a hasty look at the card in
his hand. "I remember, now, a quarter of an hour ago I wondered what
you might want with me. You see I dressed all up for you," and she
flashed a glance of coquetry toward him that was meant to captivate
and appease, for she was still under the impression that she was
dealing with an insane man: not for one moment did she believe that the
Vice-President of the Tri-State stood before her.

Ilingsworth turned pale as he watched her. Although apparently
indifferent to her words, her marvellous self-possession and witchery
were by no means lost on him. With something of a pang he realised
that it was easily explainable. She was Wilkinson's daughter; she had
her share of his wonderful steadiness of nerve. He sighed. How many
times had he given thanks that Elinor was all woman, all heart, gentle,
yielding. And yet, how much better for her if she had some of the
qualities that Wilkinson seemed to have infused into his offspring.
Little did he know that Elinor was fashioned in his own mould; that
the dark-eyed, warm-faced girl that he had left at home had inherited
his impulsiveness, for he had been denied the even balance accorded to
other business men. Compared with the caressing tenderness of his girl
Elinor, this girl who faced him seemed, perhaps, too well-balanced. But
though he did not know it, he was mistaken: Leslie Wilkinson, though of
a different type, was fully as feminine.

"Elinor," he groaned half to himself.

"Mr. Ilingsworth," Leslie began, breaking in on his musings, "may I ask
what you want with Leslie Wilkinson?"

Her question roused him. The blood forced itself into his temples until
the veins stood out like whipcords on his skull; desperation furrowed
his brow and lined his face.

"I want nothing of Leslie Wilkinson except my own," he answered
sullenly. "There's a quarter of a million dollars that belongs to
me--a quarter of a million dollars--every dollar that I've got in this
world--every dollar that I ever had."

"But," protested the girl, "I haven't your money."

Ilingsworth raised his eyebrows. It was plain that he doubted her,
though she spoke with every indication of honesty and frankness.

"You haven't any money, any stocks, bonds, deeds, or anything of the
kind?"

"I have what my mother left me," was her quiet answer. "She died some
time ago."

"How much was it?" he persisted.

"Why do you ask?" she returned, annoyed.

Ilingsworth made a gesture of impatience and again he asked:

"How much was it?"

"Less--than a million," the girl faltered. "About three-quarters, I
should say. I have the figures somewheres--but what is it to you?"

The man brushed away her answer as though the three-quarters of a
million were a mere dross.

"Tell me the truth!" he cried. "For heaven's sake don't lie to me! I'm
a broken man! You've got fifty million dollars, possibly a hundred
million standing in your name. What do you suppose I've spent my
last few thousands for but to get information that was reliable and
positive. I know Peter V. Wilkinson--and I'm the only one, I'll wager,
who knows the truth. Next week, next year, the world will say that
Wilkinson is bankrupt--without a dollar in the world. But I know--I've
found out. There is not another man in the world who could do the
thing he's done--strip a million people of their savings and hide it
so successfully. That's Wilkinson! Now whom could he trust--but you?
You've got it all!"

The girl was pale, but there was a new light in her eyes. She began to
perceive that the man who confronted her was not a mere overwrought
specimen of mankind. However much he might be mistaken this time, he
was talking with the force of business habit.

"You know as well as I, Mr. Ilingsworth, that I can't very well
discuss these matters with you," she said frankly. "My father is
ruined--I don't believe he will come out of this with a dollar. Who
is responsible for his ruin, I do not know." Little wrinkles creased
her forehead; she stopped uncertain how to continue. "It's the panic,
I suppose," she went on presently, "and he's gone down under it like
other Wall Street men. Only the blow--he suffered, perhaps, more than
the others."

Ilingsworth's lip curled.

"I know," he began emphatically, "I know that Peter V. Wilkinson is
still worth from fifty to a hundred million dollars--money sucked like
life-blood from the populace. I know that and more--his entire fortune
stands, in a manner and by a method that no one ever will suspect, in
your name. Your name, of course--whom else could he trust? Surely not
his second wife, with all that money? You know that well enough."

"Mr. Ilingsworth, I----"

"And because you had these millions," went on Ilingsworth hurriedly,
excitedly, "among them my quarter of a million, not mine, but
Elinor's,--do you know what that means to her?"

Leslie was strangely affected. She felt her consciousness vacillating
between a sense of danger and a sense of pity. Surreptitiously, during
the first part of the interview, she had pressed the button for
assistance, and had discovered, later, the disconnection of the wires.
Just what to do she did not know. Above all, she realised that she
must propitiate this man--this man with the grievance, real or fancied,
whose statements, if true, gave her the desire to hear more; if untrue,
rendered him all the more a man of danger. Impulsively she held out her
hand, and said softly:

"Do tell me about your daughter--Elinor--Mr. Ilingsworth."

Immediately Ilingsworth dropped his air of aggressiveness. He advanced
slowly toward her, his right hand still in his coat-pocket, but, as
he approached her, he drew forth that hand, and with it, a small
photograph.

"That's Elinor,"--he said, his face lighting up wonderfully,--"as she
was about a year ago--about the time I met your father. If I had known
that you existed, I should have wished that she could know you."

Leslie took the picture from his hand and looked long and intently at
it. To her surprise she saw that this was no ordinary face. The girl
was evidently petite, with an expression on her face that seemed to ask
for the world's fond protection as well as its admiration; a girl with
her soul in her eyes, at any rate, so it seemed to Leslie.

"Oh, she's pretty!" she exclaimed. "But someone must always take care
of her--always, always."

"You've said it, though I never even thought it!" he cried. "And you,
a stranger, see it--that appeal for protection, that wistfulness,
that----" Abruptly he stopped and glanced quickly toward the heavy
hangings on the wall toward the right--a strange, startled glance it
was.

Leslie followed the direction of his gaze wonderingly.

"I had a feeling, somehow," he said, fastening his steely grey eyes
suspiciously on her, "that we were not alone."

And indeed Ilingsworth would have been all the more startled had he
known that his fancy embodied the truth. For behind the dull red
curtains breathed a mortal who had heard, had seen, everything.




II


However successful Ilingsworth believed he had been in his effort
to persuade himself that his intuitive faculties had been at fault,
when they warned him of some alien presence in the room, it must be
acknowledged that he continued to look a little tentatively. At length,
however, his uneasiness wore off, and his manner, while again holding
out the picture for Leslie to look upon, softened so perceptibly that
it would have given one the impression that his visit there was more
in the nature of a social call than the tempestuous errand of business
vengeance that it was.

"I wish you had known her," Ilingsworth said; "and I'm rather surprised
that you don't. We're Morristown people, you know, and Elinor, well,
Elinor's friends are all very nice people. Even in New York, she----"

Leslie's eyes sought the ground.

"We go out very little here," she said. "Of course I have my friends,
and there was a time.... But since my father married a second time,
why----" This girlish confidence trailed off into uncertainty. She
handed back the photograph. "But I should like to know her," she
declared with sincerity.

"I wish you did," he began, and then added, "even in the light of
present things, I wish you did."

In the silence that followed Leslie fell to wondering about the man
before her, and it did not take her long to decide that she liked him.
He was not, it is true, of the same shrewd, practical mould as her
father. But she recognised that he had the high-strung temperament, so
often a characteristic of the aristocrat. The sense of fear was fast
leaving her.

"I--I'm going to apologise," he began at length, "for the fright I've
given you, though my purpose hasn't flagged. And if I had a man to deal
with--if I had met Peter V. Wilkinson, face to face again, who knows
but the demon in me would come once more to the fore. You say you can't
understand. Let me explain to you how it was: Up to thirteen months ago
we, Elinor and I, had a quarter of a million dollars--that means nearly
fifteen thousand dollars a year. And fifteen thousand in Morristown
means decent living--even here in New York it would mean that. Then I
met Wilkinson." His face grew livid, his hand clenched. "May heaven
forgive me, why didn't I understand it was my quarter of a million that
this vampire----"

The girl drew herself up and quickly interrupted him.

"Mr. Ilingsworth, I must remind you that you are speaking of my father."

There was no mistaking her anger. Her eyes blazed, and it seemed to
rouse the tiger in him.

"Yes, I'm speaking of your father!" he cried. "And if you've never
heard the truth before, you will hear it now. Moreover, if I am any
judge of human nature, you'll know whether I am stating facts or
otherwise. Thirteen months ago Peter V. Wilkinson sought me out. I
thought I was seeking him,"--he laughed bitterly,--"but I was wrong.
He sought me out and placed me high up in his companies. I was
successful--which meant that he had succeeded in his scheme. I did not
see it then; but now I know that the man who is willing to stoop low
enough to rope in the pennies of the Bridgets, the Michaels, the Lenas,
and the Gustaves, of this world, is a man who would spend his time and
money to get my quarter of a million--mine and Elinor's--in his grasp.
But then I was flattered. It meant big salary and big dividends for me,
at least, so I was assured."

He faltered for an instant, and then went on:

"I was a fool--a fool, not to see it all before. The result is that now
I haven't got a dollar--we're penniless."

"My father," returned the girl, calmly enough, "will have less than
that, when all is said and done. This house, though it's in the name
of Mrs. Wilkinson, will have to be sold, I presume. I don't see why you
make a fuss over it--it was the panic, wasn't it? Everybody went down
before it. That is, a great many Wall Street men are bankrupt. So, why
do you complain?"

"I complain because your father has got my quarter of a million--either
he's got it, or you have."

"I told you before that I have none of my father's money. I have my
mother's money only--less than a million, that's all."

"The panic!" went on Ilingsworth bitterly, ignoring her protest. "Yes,
that's just like Wilkinson to lay it to the panic! That's what they all
do! I tell you the panic was not the cause; it was the excuse. I wonder
if you have ever stopped to realise what a trust company is for?"

"Why, to save people's money, of course," was the girl's ready answer.
"Just like a bank, isn't it?"

Ilingsworth almost snorted. It was a strange colloquy, this
conversation between the man of middle age and the girl. It had a
curious interest that neither could have defined. The girl, on her
part, felt that Ilingsworth represented, somehow, the criticism and
abuse that the world was heaping on Peter V. Wilkinson. She wanted to
estimate its full force, to weigh its import, and then to defend her
father with every fibre of her being; Ilingsworth, on the other hand,
felt the need of a confidant who would understand, for Elinor of the
wistful eyes could only sympathise. This young woman knew what he was
talking about.

"Miss Wilkinson," he burst out now, "you surprise me! I thought you
were more of a business woman than I am a business man. But I find
you're not. Let me explain it to you. Jones wants to run a factory;
Smith wants to speculate in real estate; Robinson wants to buck the
Wall Street game. Now they haven't got a dollar, so what do they do?
They buy a trust company."

The girl opened her eyes wide.

"That's nonsense!" she exclaimed. "How can anyone buy a trust company
without a dollar!"

Ilingsworth's smile was full of meaning.

"It's the kind of nonsense your own father has been dealing in for
years," he returned, placing his hand upon her arm. "They buy the
trust company, and put up its own stock as security for the purchase
price--then they go ahead. Jones runs his factory; Smith buys and sells
real estate; Robinson bucks the game upon the Street...."

"And without money?" reiterated the girl, still incredulous.

"_With money_," corrected Ilingsworth, his voice even and unexcited
now, "with the money of Mike and Bridget and Carl and Sophy, depositors
who put their hard-earned dollars in to get a few cents interest--two
per cent., to be exact--while Jones and his crowd are making two
hundred per cent. on the money. But Jones isn't through--he wants more.
So he and his crowd buy another trust company, put up the stock of the
first as collateral, or any way you please,--there's no end to the
game,--and this crowd go on with their speculation, using the people's
money, and gathering in the cream. They never stop; and just so long as
everything is prosperous, so long are the trust companies sound. Then,
in the fulness of time, comes the panic,"--and with his clenched hands
he smote the top of the desk,--"smash!"

The girl showed that she had been following him closely when she
maintained:

"Still, that's only your point of view. At any rate, it was a venture,
and when the panic came--everybody goes under. These people don't
create the panic."

Ilingsworth gritted his teeth.

"I haven't finished!" he cried. "Out of all this crowd of Jones, Smith
and Robinson, there is always one man who understands the game.
He owns seventeen trust companies; he's milked them dry. He's been
_waiting_ for a panic; the panic comes. Now he throws up his hands,
tells the people he's been a fool with the rest, and shows up worthless
stock--waste-paper by the ton that he has bought for just nothing a
pound. But he's got _all_ that the people haven't got, and he's salted
it away. And that man's name is Peter V. Wilkinson."

Leslie's face paled.

"Mr. Ilingsworth," she cried sharply, "do you really believe all that
you've been telling me?"

Ilingsworth stared her wearily in the face.

"The Norahs and the Ludwigs, perhaps, don't mind losing their few
dollars," he replied vaguely; "but I want to tell you that when I--when
Elinor and I lose fifteen thousand a year--and how many years there are
ahead of us--it's killing! Killing! And you ask do I believe all that
I've been telling you?" He roused himself to sudden energy. "Believe?
Why, heavens and earth, I know, I know...."

There was a pause in which Ilingsworth's eyes sought the floor.
Presently he looked up and held out his hand.

"Miss Wilkinson," he said contritely, "for what I've done, or tried
to do this afternoon, I suppose you could have me put in jail--in an
asylum. If I had only myself to think of, I shouldn't mind. However,
I beg you to keep it to yourself, if you feel you can. I see things
clearer now...."

Leslie took the offered hand.

"But you weren't going to shoot Leslie Wilkinson, if he'd been a man?"

Ilingsworth shook his head.

"To tell the truth, Miss Wilkinson, I wasn't. My intention was to
frighten him...."

"You succeeded admirably," she answered, with a frank laugh. Then she
added: "What were you going to frighten him into doing?"

Ilingsworth's hand strayed to his forehead.

"I was going to compel him to sign a check, turn over stock, restore to
me my quarter of a million, somehow."

The girl smiled as she asked:

"But how could he do it in this room? Surely you didn't expect him to
have any stocks or money here? And if he gave a check, you know payment
on it could be stopped the instant you had left. And, anyway, how could
you get out unscathed? I can't just see how you could...."

Ilingsworth stared at her, fascinated. He felt his vision clear. He
realised now that she was right; that for weeks he had suffered the
curse of, the desperate; that he had been robbed of the one thing
that the desperate man needs--deliberation. He had possessed purpose,
force--the purpose to force the issue at the point of a murderous
revolver, but when it came to the execution.... And what about the
result? To what end would it all tend? Until now he had never thought
of that.

"I believe you're right, after all," he said somewhat sheepishly, and
started toward the door. "May I ask you for your promise not to expose
me," he entreated, "for the sake of Elinor?"

Leslie bowed her head. Now that it was all over, she was on the verge
of hysteria. "Mr. Ilingsworth, I won't say a word about it," she
promised, "unless the time comes when I think it necessary.... This
panic seems to have made us all half crazy--even my father seems so
most of the time. Good-bye!"

Somewhat incoherently Ilingsworth murmured some grateful words, and
immediately after Leslie watched him silently and carefully unlock the
door and open it. The hall was deserted save for the presence of a
footman near the front entrance, and to him this long interview behind
closed doors was as nothing. These were parlous times in the house of
Wilkinson; strange goings and comings were the rule, not the exception.
Nothing was unusual. And so Ilingsworth passed out in safety, carrying
his purpose with him to the free air outside.

But no sooner had he reached the middle of the sidewalk than there
swooped down upon him a horde of vagabonds, infinitesimal specimens of
humanity, and this mob of street gamins had but a single purpose, sang
but a common song:

 TRI-STATE TRUST COMPANY CLOSES ITS DOORS.

 BIGGEST SMASH ON RECORD.

For weeks and months, perhaps, Ilingsworth had seen this coming, had
known that it was inevitable, and here it was, thrust into his face
in scare headlines that smelt to heaven! It smote him as with sudden
lightning shock. But the public announcement did more than shock him,
it turned him almost into a raving maniac. For an instant he stood
silent, regarding the clamorous morsels of humanity all about him,
clamorous for the smallest coin known to the Union. Then, with mighty
swings of his arms, he swooped upon them, shrieking:

"Get out of my sight, get out of my sight, you ragamuffins!"

The newsboys fled as far as the next corner. There they stopped,
clustered once again and jeered at him.

Turning, Ilingsworth again faced the house of Wilkinson.

"I'm tricked--tricked!" he cried. "Why did I give up so easy; why
didn't I force the girl...." For a moment he checked his half-frenzied
words, then he went on: "Peter V. Wilkinson, I'll even up with you,
somehow, yet!"

In a few moments he had turned the nearest corner and disappeared.

Back in the Wilkinson household, Leslie, almost exhausted, sank into a
chair. As she sat there, she perceived one of the footmen passing her,
bound from the rear to the outer entrance.

"Jeffries," cried the girl, springing up, "tell Jordan that it will be
quite unnecessary to mention Mr. Ilingsworth's call to anyone. He came
to see me."

"Very good, ma'am," returned the footman, passing on.

"And Jeffries," she continued, "have you anything to do just now?"

"Nothing, Miss Leslie," answered the man, "except to obtain the latest
extras for Mrs. Wilkinson. She's that particular about it."

"Are there any extras now?" inquired the girl.

The footman inclined his head toward the entrance to the house, through
which Ilingsworth had just made his exit.

"Don't you hear them, Miss?" he asked.

And indeed, at that moment, the yelping of the young street wolves
of Manhattan could plainly be heard. Leslie placed her hands over
her ears and fled incontinently up the broad stairs, disdaining the
services of the man at the lift, who rose expectantly as she started
past him. On reaching the first landing, she met Roy Pallister--little
Pallister, she always thought of him, and noting the consternation on
his countenance, she could not refrain from bursting into laughter.

"Why, Mr. Pallister," she cried, "you look as if you had been shot out
of a cannon!"

In a moment Pallister's look of worriment changed to one of temporary
happiness. He was an undersized little fellow, doing the duties of
his insignificant career with a gentle manner. He was her father's
household secretary, amanuensis, a paid servant, it is true; but
critics of the Wilkinson household always maintained two things:
first, that there was only one gentlewoman there--Leslie; and only one
gentleman--Pallister. Leslie liked him, yet she could not eradicate
from the humorous part of her nature the fact that Pallister was ever
like a shuttlecock, dancing his dignified but harried attendance now
upon Peter V. and then upon another member of the household, whose
demands were even more exacting.

"Have you been shot out of a cannon, Mr. Pallister?" she persisted.

Pallister turned his eyes away from hers: he didn't dare to look at
Leslie too long. To him she was just a bit too bewildering. After a
time his glance crept back to hers.

"Yes, Miss Wilkinson," he said nervously, "and what's more, I've got to
come back directly and face the cannon's mouth again."

Leslie touched him lightly on the shoulder; a thrill passed through the
young man's frame.

"Never mind," she said smilingly, "I'm going up to spike the cannon for
you."

On reaching the second floor she knocked gently, but persistently, at a
boudoir door.

"Oh, who is it now?" came in a petulant, nasal voice from within.
"Come in, if you're coming; otherwise stay out!" And an expression of
something like pain crossed the girl's face as she entered.

Sitting up in bed in a flowered-silk kimona, a lady was sipping a
claret cup. Year after year, like the Wilkinson mansion, the lineaments
and form of this lady had been portrayed in the press throughout the
country; and long after she was entitled to any claim to comeliness,
she had been heralded as one of the beauties of the universe. As a
matter of fact, her delicate form--if delicate form she had ever
possessed--had been wholly obliterated by a generous layer of
avoirdupois--lumps wherever the lumps were the least needed.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" she snapped.

Leslie groaned inwardly as she looked at the woman before her;
for this lady of leisure was the Maggie Lane mentioned by the
megaphone--Margaret Lane Wilkinson now, but still Maggie by nature--and
her step-mother! The girl's eyes moistened as she thought of her own
mother that she had known, and who had died a short time ago. For in
the case of Wilkinson the funeral baked meats had almost furnished the
marriage feast.

"Anything I can do?" asked the young girl, forcing up the pleasant
little smile that was always part and parcel of Leslie Wilkinson.

The lady of the flowered kimona did not respond at once, but kept her
eyes fastened on the door.

"I told Jeffries to get those extras right away--he's been gone an
hour," she complained.

Leslie could not suppress a smile when she saw the multitude of papers
that bestrewed the bed and floor, and before she could speak, the elder
woman went on, between sips of her claret cup, to say:

"Oh, the disgrace of these failures! The terrible charges that
are made! I simply cannot stand it! A mere girl, like you, cannot
appreciate the strain of this thing on my nerves. And everybody thinks
of nothing but the strain on Peter; no one considers poor me----"

"Oh, but you must not take it so to heart," said the girl with
well-feigned sympathy. "Everybody is failing now."

"But I have looked these papers through and through," Mrs. Peter V.
went on, "and nowhere, nowhere have I been considered at all. Why, not
one paper has even mentioned my name to-day. For a month not one of
them has published a picture of me; yet they are full of pictures of
Peter V., this house, and of the Tri-State Trust Company offices. It
makes me sick--nobody thinks of me."

At this moment the footman knocked at the door. Leslie stepped forward
and took the papers that he passed in, tossing them lightly on the bed.

"Oh! Oh!" wailed Mrs. Peter V. as her eye rested on the headlines. "The
Tri-State has gone up! This is the end--the end of everything! Here,
Leslie, you take this paper, and I'll take that--we'll see whether
there isn't something in them about me."

       *       *       *       *       *

On the floor below, no sooner had Leslie left the Den than there was
a rustle behind the heavy curtains, in that room, and presently they
were parted, and then, with a stealthy movement a woman stepped forth
into the middle of the room.

Madeline Braine looked carefully about her, listened for an instant,
and then advanced still further toward the door. Her attitude was
watchfulness itself.

"His daughter Elinor, a girl who needs protection!" she cried, with
an agitation born of fresh events, and then a half-sob broke from her
lips. "There are other girls who should have had care just as much--and
haven't had it."

She glanced at her watch and started forward once again.

"I can't wait!" she cried. "Why isn't Peter Wilkinson here?"

For a moment it occurred to her to cross the hall to the
reception-room, and from there to summon a servant and give him a
message. She had had her own reasons, in the first instance, for
darting into Wilkinson's Den to hide. She well knew that her agreement
with Wilkinson forbade her to cross his threshold; but she intended to
make a crisis in her affairs as an excuse to him, and quite naturally
decided that there would be much less danger in the Den of her being
discovered by others than in the reception-room. Now, there were
reasons why she must not be found within this room: the interview
between Ilingsworth and Leslie Wilkinson made it impossible. And she
started to leave, but suddenly drew back.

"Somebody's coming," she whispered to herself. And scarcely had she
retreated once more behind the concealing curtains of the Den when
Jeffries entered with an armful of the latest extras and laid them down
upon the desk. After that, he passed out, but events happened with such
unusual rapidity that Madeline Braine found herself again caught like a
rat in a trap behind the heavy curtains in the room.

"It's just as well," she assured herself, as she waited there, every
minute expecting to get a chance to escape; but as it turned out, it
was not just as well for her.

       *       *       *       *       *

Alone at last in the silence and solitude of her own apartments at
the top of the house, Leslie sat for some moments on the window-seat,
gazing out over the Hudson at the misty, dusky shore across the way.

"I wonder," she mused, "if what this man Ilingsworth says is true. Is
it possible that my father----" she stopped abruptly. "No, no, it can't
be true," she went on; "my father wouldn't...." But the face of Giles
Ilingsworth rose before her, and she found herself searching his open,
honest countenance for some loophole of escape. Now his words rang in
her ears, and she felt that they were the words of a man who knew....

"Oh," she cried, "I must find out who is right, and who is wrong! I
must know about my father, and what he has done!" Presently, she leaped
to her feet, crossed to her dressing-table and picked up the photograph
of a man--a young man with a square chin and wonderful eyes--so she
thought--that looked her squarely in the face.

"Eliot," she said softly, to the picture, "you're always honest with
me, are you not? You're honest with everybody. I wonder if you will
find out for me--the truth about my father."

Now she drew the photograph nearer to her, and her eyes grew soft
and tender, and, for the time being, she forgot Ilingsworth and his
daughter Elinor; forgot the Tri-State Trust Company and its alleged
iniquities; forgot even her father, Peter V. Wilkinson.

"Eliot, dear," she whispered, "I wonder what you would think of me, if
you knew that I did this?" Whereupon, she pressed her soft, warm, young
face against the pictured one. "Maybe you'll never know, though," she
went on; "maybe you'll never take the trouble to find out."

Leslie laid down the photograph with a sigh, and, retracing her
steps to the window, was just in time to see a big Mastodon bring
up at the curb in the street below, from which four men alighted:
Peter V. Wilkinson, her father, looking very much exercised and
troubled; Flomerfelt, his confidential man; and, lastly, two Pinkerton
detectives, recently-acquired guards who were never far away whenever
he appeared in the open.




III


"What the deuce is that machine doing in front of my place?" were the
words that Peter V. Wilkinson spoke as his eyes lighted upon the dark
blue limousine that had been standing for so long a time before his
house.

"Whose machine is it?" answered Flomerfelt, who had not yet recognised
it. But a moment more he emitted a whistle and whispered softly under
his breath: "By George, it's hers!"

Wilkinson's eyes bulged with anger.

"What does she mean by coming here?" He clutched Flomerfelt's shoulder
as in a vise. "You don't suppose she's come to see my wife, do you?
What's she up to? Why, I wouldn't have even little Pallister see her
for the world! And as for Leslie! Thunder and lightning, if Leslie
finds this out--anything but that!"

Wilkinson started toward the blue machine, bent on interviewing the
chauffeur.

"Look here, my man----" he began; but whatever imprecations he intended
to hurl at the chauffeur's head never passed his lips, for then it was
that something happened: a strange, dishevelled figure dashed suddenly
into the group, threw itself upon Wilkinson and seized him by the
throat. With almost maniacal energy the assailant forced Wilkinson up
against the blue machine, and digging his fingers into that gentleman's
wind-pipe, he cried:

"Now, Wilkinson, I'm going to even up matters with you!"

Wilkinson's face turned blue--almost as blue as the machine--and his
eyes bulged out almost like the headlights in front of it.

"Help! Help!" implored Wilkinson, tugging at the wrists of iron that
held him.

His call was quickly answered. And in an incredibly short space of
time, the Pinkerton men had broken the madman's grip and held him
fast. Wilkinson quickly regained his composure. Then half-wondering,
half-fearful, he riveted his eyes upon this enemy who seemed to have
dropped from the skies, while Flomerfelt came out from behind the
touring car where he had warily awaited the outcome of the sudden
onslaught.

"So it has come to this! Why, Ilingsworth, what's the matter with you?"
ejaculated Wilkinson. "What have I done to you?"

But before Ilingsworth could answer, the Pinkerton men had hustled him
into the Mastodon, and were holding him there.

"Shall we surrender him, Mr. Wilkinson?" they asked.

Wilkinson glanced at Flomerfelt, presumably, for advice. But when the
other was about to speak, Wilkinson evidently changed his mind, for
waving him aside with his hand, he strode to the side of the Mastodon
and looking Ilingsworth full in the face, after a moment's hesitation,
said:

"Not yet; I don't want the authorities to have him yet. I may want to
talk to him first. Suppose you bring him into the house." And with
that, he turned on his heel, and, striding through the entrance to his
home, past his two footmen who were quaking in their boots, walked into
the arms of his daughter.

"What's the matter, father?" she cried.

Wilkinson brushed her aside, for the business of the moment was too
weighty.

"Flomerfelt," he directed, in a low voice, "tell them to take
Ilingsworth into a reception-room--that one there, and hold him until I
send for him."

Leslie took her father's arm and led him into the Den. With almost a
mother's anxious gaze she looked him over.

"Are you hurt?" she inquired. "I saw--I could just make out
something--somebody attacking--it was all so quick--but I heard your
voice, and then I ran downstairs. But you're safe--safe!" and she
patted his arm affectionately. "Oh, what was the trouble?"

Wilkinson sank down into his desk-chair.

"Let me pull myself together first," he said. His heavy form sprawled
itself across the seat, and he panted with the unwonted fright he had
had. Now he lit a black cigar.

"Confound it, Leslie!" he returned at length, "the man scared
me--blamed if he didn't. There was murder in his eyes."

Leslie had not seen Ilingsworth, neither did she know that he was a
prisoner in another room.

"Whose eyes?" she asked, eagerly. "What man?"

Wilkinson turned his glance full upon her.

"A man you never heard of, girlie--a man you never saw--a business man,
Giles Ilingsworth----"

He got no further, for she was at his side now, her hand upon his arm.

"Then he _did_ mean murder! He did, I know he did!" she exclaimed,
greatly excited.

Wilkinson had been wiping his brow; this operation ceased with a start
and he searched her face.

"How do you know he did, girlie?" he asked suspiciously.

At that instant the lean and cat-like Flomerfelt entered the room and
stood beside the girl. Immediately, with a feminine aversion written on
her face, Leslie withdrew and stood in the doorway, still trembling and
afraid.

"How do you know that he meant murder?" persisted Wilkinson.

"I'll come back later, father, and tell you why," she said, leaving the
room, and hastening toward the staircase.

Flomerfelt moved slowly in the direction of the door and watched her
go, then noiselessly retraced his steps, and seated himself opposite
the financier. There was no cringing in the manner of this confidential
man of Wilkinson's; on the contrary, his attitude toward his employer
was that of man to man.

"The only decent thing about you, Peter V.," he said impudently to the
multi-millionaire, "is your daughter Leslie."

Wilkinson's face plainly showed his annoyance, nevertheless he said:

"Flomerfelt, it would be well for you to leave my daughter Leslie out
of this--out of everything, you understand?"

Flomerfelt smiled.

"Leaving her out, then, I will revise my former statement. There are
two good things about you: one is Flomerfelt, your very necessary
confidant; the other is----" he started to say "your chiefest luxury,
Miss Madeline Braine,"--but he didn't say it; for Wilkinson brought his
clenched hand down upon the desk with great force.

"Come, get down to the business in hand! Remember that you are dealing
with Peter V. Wilkinson." He paused, and then added with a smile full
of meaning: "Despite his being a ruined bank president."

Flomerfelt shook off his air of sinister sarcasm, squared his elbows on
the desk, and was all attention.

"Now, then," continued Wilkinson, "what are we going to do with--with
this incubus Ilingsworth?"

"Jug him, Peter! The man is dangerous--he's a bad one."

Wilkinson pulled away at his black cigar. This was a problem and he
liked problems. Ilingsworth was in his power, and Wilkinson did not
intend to let his chance slip by. Just then his eyes chanced to light
on the scareheads of the extras on his desk:

TRI-STATE TRUST COMPANY CLOSES ITS DOORS

But the magnate felt no sensation on reading them. That very afternoon,
for that matter, he had seen thousands of them on the streets; and so,
they moved him not at all. Nevertheless, he tossed one to Flomerfelt.

"Pretty serious predicament, eh, Flomerfelt?" he said easily.

Coolly, Flomerfelt rose, reached over for a cigar and lighted it.

"There are only two men in this city who can handle a situation of that
kind," he answered significantly.

Wilkinson merely raised his eyebrows.

"And these two," Flomerfelt continued, "have got to work together. If
they don't----" His eye caught the other's glance and held it. "If they
don't, chief, the devil take the hindmost."

Peter V. Wilkinson laughed until he was red in the face.

"You blamed upstart!" he burst out. "Do you think that Peter V.
Wilkinson isn't able to go it alone?"

"I know he isn't," emphatically.

Wilkinson sprang to his feet.

"Why, you infernal idiot!" he shouted. "Who conceived the scheme
of transferring fifty millions of securities of my own to those
broken capitalists, Ellenbogen, Glackner & Gilroy, and of taking
over a hundred millions of wild-cat stocks! Who thought of having
the stock--the good stock, on the books, transferred to the names
of these three men, and then having them pass it over to an unknown
holder--Leslie Wilkinson! And who thought of sending these three men
to different parts of Europe, where they can't be found! Let those
who will, ask questions of me--you know what answer they'll get! Let
them ask questions of me!" he went on, swelling in the pride of
generalship. "My records show that I'm ruined. Let them ask questions
of Leslie Wilkinson--who's got the stuff, and who doesn't know she's
got it--what will they find out? Who else is there to ask? Three
inaccessible old fools who'll stay where we put 'em until it all blows
over. Who conceived that scheme? And who framed another that disposed
of thirty-five more millions? Tell me that, eh? Was it you?"

Flomerfelt's smile was a sneer. In turn, he rose and looked his chief
full in the face, his own small, ferret eyes alight with contempt.

"It may have taken a good man to conceive the scheme, but it took a
better man to put these things into execution, to----"

Wilkinson laughed.

"To do the dirty work," he interposed, contemptuously.

Flomerfelt nodded.

"Have it that way if you will, chief," he assented. "It's dirty work
any way you may put it. However, don't you forget one thing, it was I
that did it--and doing it, I did what no one else could do."

For a brief interval the two men stood glaring at each other. It was
Flomerfelt who, at the last, lowered his eyes.

"Well, have it so, Flomerfelt," Wilkinson was speaking now, "we won't
quarrel. Perhaps we do belong together--at any rate, you get pay
enough...."

"No, not enough," Flomerfelt mused half-aloud, for his thoughts had
travelled through the closed door, into the hall without, had climbed
up the stairs and were centred on Leslie Wilkinson in the room above.

Wilkinson resumed his seat.

"What are we going to do with Ilingsworth," he began. "That's the first
proposition. You say to----"

"Jug him," finished Flomerfelt. "Take the offensive. Make the first
move."

Wilkinson snorted.

"That's where your 'prentice hand shows up, just as I knew it would.
I'm going to let him go."

Flomerfelt started.

"What!" he ejaculated.

Wilkinson grinned. Slowly he gathered together the newspapers littering
his desk and deposited them in the waste-basket. Then he turned to
Flomerfelt.

"Now, you whippersnapper of an understudy," he paused a moment, "the
reason I'm going to let him go, _is because I'm going to lay the blame
of this whole thing on Giles Ilingsworth_. See?"

Flomerfelt looked at the extras, at his chief, at the walls, the
hangings--now still as death they were--and at the floor. Then he rose
and paced the floor with that noiseless tread of his. Finally he
stopped, and swinging his lithe body about, once more faced his chief.

"By George, Wilkinson, you're great!" he exclaimed. "Ilingsworth a
scapegoat! How did you ever think of it?"

"_When_ did I think of it would be more to the purpose," returned his
chief, not without pride. "I thought of it as I think of everything--in
a flash--while you were trying to induce me to surrender him.
Somebody's got to bear the brunt of this--he's the new blood that's
wrecked us--he and his crowd, so why not he, eh? Why not?"

Flomerfelt's thin lips widened into a diabolical grin.

"How are you going to do it, Wilkinson?"

His chief did not reply immediately. His hesitation made the other's
grin widen all the more.

"I'll have to work that out, Flomerfelt," presently he said, "but I'll
do it. He might as well smart as anyone else. Besides, what will it
amount to, anyway? An investigation--censure--a few bribes--and---- The
rest of us can go to Europe and enjoy ourselves until it's blown over."

"If it ever blows over," put in Flomerfelt. Then he stretched out his
arm and laid his long, lean fingers on the sleeve of Wilkinson's coat.

"Peter V.," he said in a low voice, "I'll give you credit in this, as
well as in other things; but let me tell you something: while you've
been mumbling here, I've worked your idea out--sketched in the details."

"You don't say!" cried Wilkinson. "Good boy! Well?" And he looked at
him questioningly.

But Flomerfelt shook his head.

"No, chief, I'll work it out myself. But I'll say this much, I've got a
hold on nearly every man in the Tri-State Trust Company, the Interstate
also. There are things to be done, things to be sworn to, and only I
know how...." He withdrew his hand. "The question is, Wilkinson," he
went on, "am I to get good pay?... This thing is more serious than you
think. It won't blow over, take my word for it. A million people in
three States are up in arms; what's more, District Attorney Murgatroyd
is up in arms, too."

"You get paid well enough, Flomerfelt, I should think."

"Not well enough," he declared. And again his thoughts went aloft to
the daughter of his chief.

Wilkinson touched a button; in silence the two men waited for it to be
answered. In a somewhat irritated manner Wilkinson touched it again,
and thundered out:

"What's become of the servants?"

Flomerfelt leaned over in alarm.

"The wires--the wires are cut!" he exclaimed. "The telephone is
disconnected," he went on, his face growing ashen with the fear and
mystery of it all.

Wilkinson's excitement was evidenced by the manner in which he shook
his finger in the other's face, called him a fool, and ordered him
to go and fetch the servants that they might explain how the thing
occurred. And he ended with: "Go now, be quick about it!"

At the door, Flomerfelt stopped. In the entrance was Leslie.

"These wires have been tampered with!" he cried out to her. "Does
anybody in this house know how?"

Leslie ignored the question, but instead she said:

"Mrs. Wilkinson wishes to speak with you, Mr. Flomerfelt. You will find
her upstairs, in her boudoir."

Flomerfelt bowed.

"I'll go up with you at once," he told her; but Leslie shook her head.

"No, you'd better go alone. I know about the wires. I came down
expressly to tell father about them."

Flomerfelt reddened with annoyance, nevertheless he started to leave
the room.

"I say," called out Wilkinson after him, "tell those Pinkertons to
drive Ilingsworth away down-town--take him to any place he wants to
go, set him loose. If he runs away, you understand, it will be all the
better for us. And if he doesn't, it will be all the worse for him."

"I'll take care of it, Mr. Wilkinson," said Flomerfelt, adopting the
prefix that he used in the presence of a third party. "The plan is
yours; the details belong to me."

With considerable trepidation Leslie approached her father.

"You're not going to set that Mr. Ilingsworth free!" she begged.
"Father, don't do it! He's dangerous! I told you he had murder in his
mind--I saw it to-day."

Little by little Wilkinson drew from her the whole story, with the
exception of her father's terrible arraignment by Giles Ilingsworth;
and that, for reasons of her own, she left out of her recital.

"Come, come," demanded Wilkinson, shrewdly reading his daughter's face,
"you haven't told me everything! I want to know the rest."

The girl looked away as she said falteringly:

"The rest is nothing--really, there is nothing to tell."

"If it's nothing, then you'd better tell it to me anyway," he
persisted. "Come, dear, what is it that you're holding back?"

For a moment that seemed minutes to her father, Leslie hid her face
upon his shoulder, and did not speak. Finally she broke out with:

"Only something that he told me that I know is false; but if you must
know, I'll tell you what he said...."

       *       *       *       *       *

On the floor above, Mrs. Peter V. Wilkinson, still in her flowered-silk
kimona, received her husband's confidential man.

"Sit there," she directed, pointing to a chair close to the sofa on
which now she was reclining, propped up by numberless bright-hued
silken pillows.

Flomerfelt did as he was bid, not omitting to kiss the hand that she
had extended to him.

"Now, Flomerfelt," she began, an anxious look on a face that was
usually expressionless, "I want to know just where I stand in all this.
For if there's going to be a crash, I want to know precisely what I've
got--that is, how much money?"

Flomerfelt did not answer at once.

"You know," he said slowly, "that it has not been the custom of Peter
V. to give money to his wife, rather, I should say, to put money in her
name. Like every other business man, he has always needed ready cash,
and----"

"But how do I stand?" she interrupted, impatiently. "What have I got?
Tell me; I must know."

"Well, to begin with, there are your jewels," he declared. "They are
worth thousands--perhaps hundreds of thousands."

"And this house stands in my name, doesn't it?" she asked, brushing
away the question of a few hundred thousands.

"It does," was his brief answer, but without enthusiasm.

"And the house is worth at least ten million dollars, isn't it?" she
went on, with some show of satisfaction. "That's what it cost to build."

Flomerfelt shook his head.

"I should say that it cost much less."

"What!" she gasped. "Why, everybody says it did. The papers...."

Flomerfelt thought a moment.

"I should think four million was an outside figure," he declared. "I
know Peter V. doesn't consider it worth more than that."

"Well, four million is something, at any rate," she returned,
mollified. "I can live on that."

Flomerfelt began to pace the room.

"The difficulty with it, Mrs. Peter V., is that it is mortgaged. The
trust companies hold mortgages on it to the extent of five million
dollars, at least."

Mrs. Wilkinson reached forth and drew him back into his seat.

"Do sit down, Flomerfelt!" she cried; "and don't be a fool! What do
you mean by telling me that the property isn't worth more than four
million, and that, notwithstanding that, the trust companies have
loaned five million on it--more than its value? What trust company
would do a thing like that?"

Flomerfelt's gaze took in the lady of the flowered-silk kimona from the
sole of her foot to the top of her head.

"Um--such trust companies as the Interstate and Tri-State." He paused a
moment, and then added: "With such a man as Giles Ilingsworth handling
the reins----"

"Giles Ilingsworth!" she broke in. "Who is Giles Ilingsworth? Why, I
never heard of him."

Flomerfelt looked at her in well-feigned astonishment.

"You never heard of Giles Ilingsworth! He was the power behind the
throne--the man who wrecked the companies--who did more, who wrecked
Peter V. Wilkinson." He made a movement to go. "There is nothing
further I can do for you, I suppose, Mrs. Peter V.----?"

For the briefest of moments the lady gazed at him in silent
contemplation. Then motioning him again to sit beside her,--which
he did,--she drew his head down close to her lips, and patted it
affectionately.

"Flomerfelt, you're a good friend of mine?" she said.

Wilkinson's confidential man straightened up.

"That depends on how good a friend you are of mine," he answered,
looking her full in the face.

The eyes of Margaret Lane Wilkinson narrowed.

"You do your best to see that I don't come out at the little end of the
horn, Flomerfelt--take care of my interests, even against----"

"Even against Peter V. Wilkinson," breathed Flomerfelt.

"Even against Peter V. Wilkinson," breathed the woman. There was a
pause, and presently she added: "On every occasion, no matter what the
question, I shall agree with you."

"You forget to take into consideration that there's a girl named Leslie
Wilkinson, who----"

She stopped him with a concluding gesture.

"No, not for one moment have I forgotten her," she affirmed. "If the
worst comes to the worst, Leslie has enough to keep us both."

Flomerfelt bent over her.

"It's a bargain," he announced. "We'll seal it with a kiss."

"Why, Mr. Flomerfelt, I never have kissed anybody except Peter V.,"
she simpered, blushing all the while.

"I couldn't help it," he told her on leaving, and passing through the
door, closed it gently behind him. On the second landing he stopped and
thought a while. "Not a bad scheme, that scheme of hers," he mused to
himself. "She doesn't altogether realise that if the time ever comes
when we fight Wilkinson, she and I, that we will be fighting a man
still worth a hundred million dollars. At any rate," he concluded, "my
game is first to fight for Wilkinson, and then--against him."

Meanwhile, in her boudoir, the lady had hastened to the mirror to
contemplate her fairness.

"He's not such a bad chap, after all, that Flomerfelt," she
acknowledged to herself.




IV


Peter V. Wilkinson in the Den below was having a bad quarter of an hour
with his daughter Leslie. For, truth to tell, there was no person in
the universe whose judgment he dreaded more than the judgment of this
girl who sat before him: it was his one passion to appear well in her
eyes. He had listened, with keen interest, to what she had to say,
invariably seeking her glance, at times leaning forward with unusual
intentness in order not to lose a single word. Time and time again
her words, unintentionally it is true, stung him to the quick. And
yet, he had not even gulped down his emotion. He had faced her, quiet,
calculating, with a countenance at times interested, at times amused.
Not once had he interrupted her; not once apologised. At the start he
had wondered just what he should say when she had finished, had thought
of denials, of indignation, of calling on the absent accuser for his
proofs; but as her tale unfolded, he merely continued to chew the
black, unlighted cigar that he held in his mouth.

"Have you told me all?" he asked, glancing up at the high window with
its leaded panes.

The girl, shamefaced, downcast, because of her doubts of her father,
flushed and nodded a "yes."

Wilkinson smiled, and leaning across the table, looked her full in the
eyes.

"Girlie," he told her, suavely, "you know I'm glad you told me this. I
want you to be just as frank in telling me everything else that bothers
you--especially about myself. I'm glad you told me this," he repeated,
"because, because it's true."

The girl jumped up from her seat, and exclaimed incredulously:

"True! Father, it can't be true!"

He waved her back again to her chair, took a fresh cigar, lighted it,
and then said squarely:

"It's the Gospel truth. With just one exception--an immaterial
correction that I want to make--what you have said is fact, only you've
got the wrong sow by the ear."

"The what!" stammered the girl.

Wilkinson waved a deprecating hand.

"I should have said that your story is all right, but it's told about
the wrong man," he explained.

Leslie's eyes sparkled.

"Then you mean to say----"

"I mean to say," interrupted her father grimly, "that the man who
concocted that very clever scheme was not myself, but quite another
person."

"You don't mean Mr. Flomerfelt?" she put in quickly.

Wilkinson rose, his eyes blazing with righteous indignation.

"Who understands the methods of a thief better than a thief! Who can
tell you how to rob a bank so well as the thug who robbed it! Leslie,
the man who tried that scheme," he went on with great emphasis, "and
who, trying it, dragged us all to ruin, is the man who told you his
story in this room to-day. It is Giles Ilingsworth of the Tri-State
Trust Company."

Leslie fell back before him in astonishment.

"I--I can't believe it," was all she could say.

Wilkinson laughed gently, generously.

"I don't ask you to believe it, girlie. But let me ask you a question:
A year ago, did you ever hear my trust companies questioned? was there
any doubt of the integrity of the Interstate and Tri-State?--you
know there wasn't. Well, thirteen months ago we took on this Giles
Ilingsworth--new blood, you understand--who brought in a whole lot
of new bloods with him. We didn't understand then that he was a
get-rich-quick proposition." Wilkinson chuckled in spite of his
indignation. "We believed, rather, that he was an honest, sober-minded,
experienced chap, solid and, well, I thought I could take my ease,
thought I had a man who would run things right and let me have the fun
I've earned so hard. I let him go his gait. And what did he try to do
for us? Just what he accused me of doing this afternoon."

Wilkinson sank into his chair and covered his face with his hands.
Leslie darted around the corner of the big desk and threw her arms
about him.

"I knew--I knew----" she sobbed in her joy. She pressed her young, fair
face against his grizzled jowl. "My father ..." she whispered softly to
him, as though to some lover, "my father, will you believe that I never
really doubted you? It sounded so true on the instant----"

Wilkinson drew her to his knee and kissed her.

"I don't wonder you believed him, girlie," he said after a while. "Why
shouldn't he fool you, when he fooled your old father."

The girl still clung to him, but Wilkinson felt the strain beginning to
tell, felt that his face was growing ashen with fatigue, and now that
it was over he needed solitude. So he placed her lightly on her feet,
and tapping her affectionately on the shoulder, said:

"Run along now, girlie. And on your way out you might tell Jordan
that I'm not to be disturbed for fifteen minutes--not even by that
Flomerfelt, who seems to be wandering around upstairs in our private
apartments. That man gets on my nerves so that I can't think."

After Leslie had gone, for some moments Wilkinson, in silence, puffed
away at his black cigar. Then, with considerable deliberation, he
rose, went over to the door, and locked and bolted it. Absorbed in his
thoughts, he remained standing there for a long time. When he turned
back toward the desk, a woman stood there, facing him--a woman, young,
tall, slender, with very dark hair and dark blue eyes, a woman with a
strange mixture of hope and trouble in her eyes.

Wilkinson's face paled; he was angry through and through. Nevertheless
he struggled to appear calm.

"Confound it, Madeline," he said tactfully, "I forgot all about you.
This blamed excitement put it all out of my head." But in the next
breath his manner changed, and he burst out with: "What the deuce is
your car doing at my door?"

"Your car, not mine," she reminded him gently.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It happens to be yours," he corrected, "for I gave it to you, didn't
I?"

"We won't go into that," wearily she replied.

Wilkinson looked her sternly in the eye.

"We'll cut out the question of ownership. What's more to the point, is,
what the devil you're doing in my house? If you wanted to see me, why
didn't you wait for me to come to you? My wife is upstairs," he went on
severely, "and my daughter all around the place. They probably both
know you, even though they don't know.... You might have waited----"

"I couldn't do that," she answered, faltering. "I--I had to see you,
and I couldn't wait. Do you suppose I would have come here--to your
home--if there hadn't been some urgency about it. I wrote; you did not
answer."

"The Tri-State kept me on the jump," he half apologised. "I had no time
to read love letters----"

"Love letters? Indeed!" she interjected, and then went on: "I called at
the Trust Company office to see you, sent messages, called you up on
the 'phone, but to no avail. I had to see you even at the risk of your
displeasure. Besides, no one has seen me but you."

Wilkinson started.

"You've been here in this room all the time--what?"

"Behind those curtains," she informed him, emphasising her words with a
nod toward them.

Wilkinson advanced on the woman as if he were about to strike her, for
now he knew that she had been spying upon him, had been a witness to
Flomerfelt's confidences, had listened to the colloquy between Leslie
and himself; but, making a great effort, he checked his mad impulse,
and, instead, endeavoured to make no point whatever of her presence
there. He knew Madeline Braine's comprehension of business schemes was
nil. To direct her attention to anything she had heard would be unwise.

"You couldn't have chosen a better place," he told her genially.

And then it was that suddenly something seemed to snap within his
brain. The terrible excitement of the past few weeks was beginning to
tell on him; a wild yearning to escape all further responsibility, to
rove free, careless, reckless, took possession of him. The woman before
him was lovely to look upon, he liked her, and why not chuck the whole
game, so he termed it, take her away with him, anywhere, to South
America, to the ends of the world?

"Why not?" he exclaimed, touching her on the shoulder.

The woman looked at him, surprised.

"I say, Madeline," he went on, happily, "I've been so busy of late
that I haven't seen as much of you as I would have liked. Besides, you
were good enough to be out the last two times I looked you up. Do you
know," he was close to her now, his hot breath upon her face, "I don't
think I ever loved you quite as much as now. Suppose I take a rest from
business, and we'll take a ten-days' trip in the _Marchioness_. We'll
have a bully good time! Come, Madeline, say the word, and I'll do it."

Madeline eluded his amorous embrace, and slipping to the side of the
desk placed upon it a small black bag.

"One of the things, Peter V.," she said quietly, "I came for, was to
bring these back."

Wilkinson looked at the bag inquisitively. He wondered what surprise
she had in store for him, and smilingly proceeded to open it.

"Jewels!" he exclaimed, eyeing her for a moment in uncertainty; and the
next moment his hand brought forth a handful of rings.

"Yes, those and the automobile," she faltered, forcing the words out,
"I want to give them back to you."

The man broke suddenly into a good-natured, affectionate laugh.

"You've been reading the papers, I see, and thought the old man was
down and out. You were going to put up your jewels and truck to help me
out? Well, I'll be----" He caught her hand impulsively. "Say, Madeline,
you're a good sort, and no mistake about it!" And now, snapping the
little bag together, he passed it back to her. "But you're all wrong,
my dear, I'm not strapped--not much! This is between ourselves, though,
understand. You keep your jewels, and the car, too. There's many a good
time coming to us yet. Don't you worry, now--and don't forget that I
appreciate your goodness to me. I do, indeed."

"You don't understand me," she said, retreating under his advances. "I
brought these back to you, because I'm going to break with you. I----"

Wilkinson looked at her dumbfounded.

"Break with me! What? Surely you're joking. Why, no woman ever broke
with Peter V. Wilkinson voluntarily. I've broken with a score or more,
but this is a new one on me. Break with me? What for?" He leaned back
against his desk.

There was nothing more to say; the girl had spoken in finality. She
drew herself up to her full height and looked down upon him. And as she
stood there in all her slenderness, she had never seemed more beautiful
to him.

"I think I understand now," presently he said, white with anger. "You
really thought, like the rest, that I was a sinking ship; and you were
going to desert me, like the rats, before I sank. That's the idea, is
it? Well, you're mightily mistaken, my girl." And now he held out his
hand to her in appeal. "You don't want me to prove that I'm as sound
as a dollar, do you? For I can and will." And then he went on to tell
her that he had all his money stowed away. "I have, for a fact," he
concluded; "but this is in confidence. And now you won't leave me, will
you? Somehow, I can't let you go."

"Peter, I thought I might be able to do this without telling you the
truth," she said, with a note almost of tenderness in her voice. "But I
see I've got to make myself plain to you. I'm going to break with you
for the reason that--that there's someone else."

The words fell dully on his ears.

" ... Someone else," he repeated. He looked at her long and searchingly
before continuing:

"But how can there be anyone else? I've got all the money that there
is in little old New York! What more do you want? Who else----" And
then, without waiting for a reply: "It isn't Wilgerot? No? Then it's
Debevoise?"

She shook her head.

"Look here, Madeline, it isn't that Dumont Mapes?" he cried. "You
wouldn't shake me for a rake like that, would you?"

"I can't tell you who it is," was all the girl would say.

"But I want to know," insisted the man. "You've got to tell me."

"If you must know, then, it is a man I love--a man I'm going to marry,"
she answered softly.

Wilkinson returned to his desk, to a fresh cigar. This was another
problem, and problems were in his line, it seemed.

"You're going to marry somebody rich, I suppose," he said at length.

A smile crossed her face.

"Somebody poor," she answered.

"Poor! Why in heaven's name should you marry somebody that's poor?"

"Peter, I told you I loved him," she repeated, still smiling.

Wilkinson was conscious of a curious, indefinable sensation; an emotion
that heretofore had been foreign to his nature.

"And--and," he stammered, battling with this new sensation, "he loves
you, I suppose?"

"I know he does," she answered.

The millionaire puffed silently.

"He must love you," he went on at length, in brutal tones, "to--to
forgive all this." And stretching his arms wide into a circle that
included her and himself, he added: "He's willing to forget the past?"

The girl did not answer. But on her face was a death-like pallor.

"Ah!" he cried, quickly noting her change of colour. "Then he doesn't
know!"

No one better than Madeline Braine could better realise the full import
of this sneer. Advancing toward him, her limbs dragging against her
skirts, giving her the appearance of a woman struggling forward on her
knees, she caught at one corner of the desk and leaned against it,
crying:

"Peter, I love this man. You won't--why should he know----"

"Why shouldn't he?" was the man's cruel answer. "You love him...."

"No, no, no!" she cried. "Don't you understand--we're going away--going
West, never to come back. If he doesn't know, all will be well...."

"Oh, so everything is going to be lovely," grinned Peter, "until he
finds out. But when he finds out? What then?"

For a long time she pleaded with him, while he, lolling back
comfortably in his chair, leisurely blew rings of smoke in the air.
Finally he rose, and held out his hand.

"You're sure, Madeline, that you've made up your mind to leave me?
Sure?"

For answer, the girl inclined her head.

Wilkinson frowned.

"This interview is at an end. From now on, madam, we'll deal at
arm's length." Then he added, laughing brutally: "Until you find it
desirable to come back again to me." He unlocked the door and opened it
sufficiently to permit her to pass. "Good-day."

Without a word she passed out and down the hall. At the entrance she
found Jordan, who rose and bowed.

"Tell my man," she ordered, pointing to the blue limousine without,
"that he need wait no longer--that I shall remain here to-night."

Jordan's heart popped into his mouth at this unexpected declaration.
With difficulty he asked her to repeat her message, after which he
stepped out to the curb and delivered it. And it was not until the
machine started up and had gathered speed for its homeward journey that
she gave the order to the footman to open the door for her.

With a sigh of relief the footman cheerfully complied, and bowed her
out.

"First she said she was going to stay all night, and then she said she
wasn't," he repeated rhythmically, "and now I wonder where the devil
she's gone?"

Madeline Braine was hardly out of hearing when Wilkinson sent
post-haste for Flomerfelt.

"Flomerfelt," he cried, the minute that worthy entered the room, "I've
got a new job for you. Forget the Tri-State,--it's trivial, compared
with this,--and find out the name of the man Madeline Braine is going
to marry."

"Marry!" gasped Flomerfelt.

Wilkinson clutched him by the wrist, and continued: "And when you've
found out his name, find the man. And when you find the man,
buttonhole him...."

"Buttonhole him!" echoed the astonished Flomerfelt. "Don't you mean
throttle him?"

"Buttonhole him," repeated Wilkinson savagely, "and then tell him all
about the girl he loves--and me."

       *       *       *       *       *

A few days later, alone in a bare, hall-bedroom, on the east side of
the big city, Madeline Braine sat staring, with eyes that saw not, into
the gloom without. Well might she reflect that nothing but a miracle
could save her now; well might her reason totter at the thought of what
life held for her in the future. The letter in her lap read:

 " ... There's no use in my seeing you again. I take it from your
 silence that you prefer not to explain what I have learned about
 you--what I have proved to myself to be a fact--the truth of your
 relations with Peter V. Wilkinson. I start West to-night.

  "Yours,

  "H. T."




V


In Mrs. Pallet-Searing's house on Fifth Avenue was an authorised
hiding-place intended, evidently, for no more than two persons, which
was reached by a short journey through the interior flower-garden:
an undignified plunge between some half-dozen palm-tubs, and a short
ascent up a wide, circular staircase.

In this haven--known only to the initiated,--a week later, Eliot
Beekman and Leslie Wilkinson had been sitting for some time.

"We must have been here three hours!" the girl suddenly exclaimed
in tones of deep contrition. "Half the people must have gone.
I've deliberately cut every man on the last half of my card," she
rattled on., "thereby completely ruining my chances of ever marrying
any of them; and besides," she concluded limply, "what will Mrs.
Pallet-Searing have to say ..."

"How did we get here anyway?" questioned the young man.

"I led the way," confessed the girl, opining wide her eyes, and
glancing daringly into his. "Mrs. Pallet-Searing says that this place
is a trap; and, that Pallet-Searing says, that she's a terribly
designing woman. She says that he says that more--more matches have
been made on account of this moonlit spot than in any other place in
the Borough of Manhattan."

The face of Eliot Beekman flushed, his eyes were unnaturally bright. If
only he had dared, with his strong right arm he would have drawn the
dainty head of Leslie Wilkinson down on his shoulder and would have
kissed her then and there. But he understood the girl too well--or
thought he did.

"A match-making cosy-corner," he mused. "How many others have you
fetched here before--have preceded me?"

Leslie laughingly rose and stood looking down upon him.

"You're quite the first, I assure you, Mr. Beekman," she answered,
still smiling.

"Are you--are you sure?" he faltered, becoming suddenly serious.

"Quite sure," she answered, catching his mood.

Beekman rose, the flush deepening on his face. His breath came fast.

"Why, then----" he began; but the girl quickly held up her hand.

"Now, don't be silly, don't!" she pleaded. "We've been foolish
enough as it is. People will talk, you know; they'll say that it's
the get-rich-quick strain in me that makes me do these ill-bred,
extraordinary things. But indeed it is not. My own mother, Mr.
Beekman," she went on soberly, "was a charming woman--a lady who
would never have associated with some of the people that one meets
here, even. It must be the pure deviltry in me that makes me do some
things--pure deviltry, I assure you, that's all."

"To lead some impecunious devil to the most exclusive match-making
place in America, and then refuse to.... Pure deviltry! I should
think----"

Leslie's brow wrinkled.

"But Mrs. Pallet-Searing? What is she going to say?" broke in the girl.

"Say! Say nothing at all, of course. She and Pallet-Searing must have
occupied similar cosy-corners, I suppose, years ago," he answered, with
a smile.

"I don't quite see the application," returned Leslie, puzzled. "Very
likely they had the right: they were engaged, and afterwards married."

"True," said Beekman, his eyes feasting on her. "And I don't understand
why history can't repeat itself right here and now. The fact is,
your hostess will be disappointed--will be annoyed, I'm sure, at our
stupidity, if we do not make the most of our opportunity."

Leslie smiled a glorious smile upon him.

"Mr. Beekman," she whispered softly, "do you think we've been so very
stupid?"

[Illustration: If only he had dared, ... he would have drawn the dainty
head of Leslie Wilkinson down on his shoulder and would have kissed her
then and there]

She touched him lightly on the arm. He tried to seize her hand, but she
drew it from him.

"I don't believe," he said, "that we've got any right to leave
this fascinating retreat, and go down and face the crowd without
being--well, without being engaged. That is, according to my idea of
the Pallet-Searings' idea, we'd be considered a dull young couple, to
say the least."

"But I'd be cutting myself out of many a delightful hour here!" Leslie
shook her head.

"Not necessarily," he persisted.

She tilted her head critically.

"And this is all I'm to get for sitting out the best part of an evening
with a girl, when I might have been down there with the madding crowd,
having the time of my life," he added.

Leslie moved to go.

"We've made several false starts from here," she reminded him, "but we
must go now without any further hesitation, and by separate routes.
Good-bye," she said, and held out her hand. "Shall I see you at the
landing-place at eight o'clock sharp in the morning?"

Beekman drew her back.

"At what landing-place?" he demanded, uncertain of her meaning. "What's
going on?"

The girl fell back helplessly before him.

"Do you mean to tell me," she sighed forlornly, "that I have been here
all this time with you without telling you the very thing I brought
you here to tell?"

"I only know," he returned, likewise forlornly, "that you won't let me
tell you the thing that for hours I've been trying to tell."

Leslie laughed gaily.

"It was very delightful listening, anyway," she admitted frankly. "But
about this other thing--I told everybody here, that is, everybody
that's to go, but you--and you, why I wanted you the most of all."

Beekman caught her hand and held it, despite her dignified little
struggle.

"You're sure of that?"

"Quite sure," she replied, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You need a
little tan--the sail would do you good. Why, twenty of us boys and
girls,--besides some half-dozen chaperones--are going for the week-end
on the _Marchioness_. Away out to sea as far as she can stand it, and
back again. It ought to be good fun! There'll be only congenial people
aboard--the right men for the right girls."

"But for yourself, Miss Wilkinson, who----"

"My dear young friend," she broke in upon his question, "inasmuch as
I am hostess, I see no reason why I shouldn't have the whole ten men
most of the time, do you? I'm a pretty fair manager about these things,
you know," she went on interestedly, "and I thought for you that Jane
Gerard...."

Beekman coughed slightly and glanced at his watch.

"A most delightful trip," he conceded, "and I should be glad, awfully
glad to be able to take advantage of the opportunity if it were not
that I am so very busy, and----"

Leslie was quick to detect his annoyance, but went on, still
flirtatiously:

"Of course, I could pair off Jane Gerard with Larry Pendexter, though I
was thinking of keeping him myself...." She pursed her lips, and stood
for a moment with her eyes half-closed. Presently, she said: "I think
maybe _it could_ be arranged." And laughing, now, added: "You'll surely
come, won't you?"

"Come!" he exclaimed, beaming with joy. "I'd come in the face of a
million-dollar retainer from John D. Rockefeller--I would, indeed!"

A few minutes later, when she faced her hostess to bid her good-night,
that estimable lady, not altogether satisfied with Leslie's nonchalant
manner, laid her hand on her young guest's shoulder, and drew her to
one side.

"I hope, my dear," she said insinuatingly, "that it's not going to be
Eliot Beekman. He's all right, little one--handsome, and clean, too.
But what you need is money--don't forget that--particularly now. Take
my advice--Eliot is dangerous." The lady sighed. "I've known such
men--I knew one of them once." Her eyes sought the portly form of
Pallet-Searing across the big room. "And I married Pallet-Searing. It's
been worth while." But there was a sigh in her voice, the girl thought,
as she repeated again, "worth while. Run along now! Mrs. Wilkinson has
been looking everywhere for you. Even Peter V. looked in to take you
home. They've both gone. But here comes Eliot now." And turning to
Beekman, the lady shook her finger at him. "I've been warning Leslie
against you, Eliot," she said, frankly, telling him to his face what
she had said behind his back. "I've been warning her that she must
look for money. And, oh, by the way, Eliot! Somebody's been here after
you to-night. We searched everywhere for you except in one place, and
nobody is ever allowed to look there. Colonel Morehead is the man."

Beekman started.

"You don't by any chance happen to know----"

"Business," interposed Mrs. Pallet-Searing; "at least, he said it was."

Beekman gave vent to a slight gesture of annoyance.

"I wish I might have seen him. But he's gone, I suppose?"

Mrs. Pallet-Searing laughed outright.

"You surely don't regret the fact that we couldn't find you, Eliot?"

Beekman laughed sheepishly, and shot a glance of guilt toward Leslie.

"That isn't the point. It simply gives me an involuntary pang when
somebody looks me up on business and I miss them. I have a feeling
that, somehow, I may have lost an opportunity; and chaps like me can't
well afford to miss a man like Colonel Morehead."

" ... How are you going to get home, child?" suddenly asked her hostess
of Leslie. "Your machine is out there, but----"

Leslie hesitated for an instant.

"Possibly Mr. Beekman ..." she laughed mischievously.

Beekman looked up with mock gravity.

"Miss Wilkinson," he said, "you've heard that old saying about the game
and the name? Come!" And he took her by the arm.

Mrs. Pallet-Searing watched the happy young couple leave her house, and
her face took on an expression little in accord with the worldly and
cynical advice that she had given the girl a few moments before.

From her corner of the limousine Leslie confided to Beekman:

"Do you know that every time I do something, have something, or give
something, now that we live on Bankrupt Row, up there on the Drive, I
have to explain to everybody that it's my money, and not my father's,
as most people imagine."

"I wish I could do something for you or your father, but I'm only an
atom of an aggregation here in New York, confound it!"

Leslie looked at him gratefully, but went on:

"My money must support the family. Father lost everything he had."

"I--I didn't know that you had any money." He laughed uncomfortably.
"I'm one of these chaps who has to blurt things out, Miss Wilkinson,
and so I'll tell you just what I thought. Of course I didn't really
want Peter V. Wilkinson to fail--I was sorry when I heard about it. But
when I knew it had to happen, that it was inevitable--Oh, confound it,
I was glad, and for my own selfish reason."

"Very kind of you to gloat over our misfortune," was her brief comment,
uttered by no means seriously.

"I thought," went on Beekman, grimly, "that it would put us more on an
equal footing, that perhaps I would have the right to----"

"Oh, the right, did you say? I never thought you worried much over
that," she said with truly feminine perversity.

There was a pause. Beekman was the first to speak.

"A terribly complicated matter, this making love to a rich girl. In the
first place----"

"Is this an argument before a court?" she inquired, playfully.

"Before the last court of appeals," he answered quickly. "And the gist
of it is this: How the deuce can a rich girl ever know that anybody
ever loves her?"

"Do you suppose she cannot tell?"

"You can't. Look at the rich women who have been fooled--either fooled,
or else satisfied to be sought for what they've got and not for what
they are! You know them by the score."

"I think I should know if anyone loved me."

The man shook his head.

"There is only one way to make the perfect test," he told her, "and
that's impossible. To rid yourself of every dollar for all time, and
then see what happens."

The girl made no answer.

"Yes," he went on, "of all the women in the world, the rich American
girl, in my opinion, stands the least chance to be mated as she should
be. If she marries money, ten chances to one it's money she marries
and not a man; if she marries a beggar, she gets an adventurer. The
reason for this, is: the honest American men will not aspire to the
hand of a girl of wealth; and those are the very men that the rich girl
ought to marry. Unfortunately, however, they are just as independent in
their way as she is in hers. You ought to come down and be poor," he
concluded, helping her to alight, for the limousine was now in front of
the Wilkinson house.

They crossed the pavement to the doorway. There she asked:

"Do you know any honest, poor man, who will----" She broke off
abruptly, recognising her audacity, and then added: "Don't forget, at
eight to-morrow morning. Those not on time will get left--for at two
minutes past eight the _Marchioness_ will be out in the middle of the
Hudson. Until then,"--and she gave him her hand,--"at the landing----"

"Not at the landing," he broke in. "I'm going to start from here. I'll
call for you just to see that Larry Pendexter keeps himself to himself,
or at least to Jane Gerard. Is it a go?"

Leslie did not answer. Instead she flashed him a bewildering smile as
she passed through the door which Jeffries held open for her.

Half way down the hall, Leslie ran into Roy Pallister. His face was
haggard and unduly white. She started back as she saw him.

"Why, Roy!" she cried, unconsciously calling him by his first name;
"what has happened?"

The boy flushed as his name fell from her lips.

"Miss Leslie," he began stumblingly, seemingly embarrassed by the
searching gaze she rested on him, "nothing--that is, nothing that's
imminent. Your----"

"My father!" she queried. "Has anything----"

"They," pointing to the floor above, "seem to treat it lightly. I'm a
beast for frightening you; but I think your father feels--fears----"

"Mr. Pallister, what are you keeping from me? What is the matter?"

The gentle little fellow steadied himself for a moment against the
wall, and then, as she made a movement to go, he drew her back.

"Miss Leslie, I've been wanting to tell you something--I've been
waiting for the chance. If ever in the future you need help--help of
any kind, you'll let me know," he said with lips that trembled. "I
want to be sure that you understand just what I mean. I've never done
anything for you, Miss Leslie, and----"

"Why, yes you have; indeed you have...." she assured him, and her look
was one of genuine affection.

The boy shook his head.

"I want your promise that you'll come to me if----"

Leslie did not wait to hear any more, but breaking from him, ran
swiftly up the stairs. At the first landing she turned and looked
back: he was standing very straight and very quiet by the newel post,
glancing up at her with intense admiration. In a flash she was back to
the foot of the stairs holding out her hand to him.

"I promise, Roy," she said impulsively. "You're the best-hearted fellow
going! Good-night!"

At the door of her step-mother's apartment, Leslie paused. A babel of
voices came from behind the closed doors--the voices of many men and
one woman. Quickly in answer to her knock and question "May I come in?"
the door was thrown back, and Flomerfelt, her father's confidential
man, stood framed in the doorway, bowing elaborately. In a glance,
despite the haze of cigar smoke, she saw that the company consisted of
her father, her father's wife, and another man. With a glad cry, she
rushed over to this other man and grasped his hand.

"Colonel Morehead! The sight of you...."

In an instant, Colonel Morehead's thin lips parted in a smile. He made
an old-fashioned bow and then sank back into his chair.

"You were at Amy Pallet-Searing's to-night," the girl went on, "and you
never looked me up. Be good enough to explain yourself, sir!"

Colonel Morehead removed his glasses and polished them upon his
handkerchief before answering:

"I was busy looking up somebody else," he said, and Leslie saw that
the smile had left his face as he resumed his tap-tapping on the table
with his fingers; she saw, too, that her father's face was a bit white
where the skin showed. He looked tired, but his thick Van Dyke bristled
aggressively, and his eyebrows breathed the usual defiance.

"Where were you, Leslie, that we couldn't find you anywhere?" demanded
her step-mother, irritably. "How did you get home?"

"Very comfortably in the limousine, thank you," replied Leslie. "Mr.
Beekman was good enough----"

Colonel Morehead leaped to his feet.

"Not Eliot Beekman! What? He came home with you?" He started for the
door. "Why, he's the man I've been looking for. Where is he now?"

"Undoubtedly home, by this time," said Leslie.

The Colonel again reseated himself and drummed loudly with his fingers.

"Hang it!" he ejaculated. "If I'd only known.... He could have been
with us here now. We need him--and badly."

Wilkinson looked puzzled.

"Why do we need him?" Wilkinson asked the question in a voice in which
excitement still held sway.

"That's what I should like to know!" put in Mrs. Wilkinson, gulping
down, not without audible satisfaction, her customary night-cap.

Leslie blushed as she added that the question likewise was of interest
to her.

"We're disgraced, that's all there is to it!" snapped the mistress
of the house, her night-cap, even at this early stage, lending her
asperity. "And I the most of all! I don't see how this Beekman can help
us out?"

"I don't myself," admitted her husband. "However, nothing can happen so
long as Colonel Morehead sticks to us--nothing."

"I have no intention of deserting you, don't be alarmed," declared
Colonel Morehead. "But for all that, I want this man Beekman--I
need him." And so saying he lifted from the small table a document
consisting of several sheets of carbon-copy.

"Miss Wilkinson," he said gravely, handing it to her. "No--there's
nothing in it to startle you, only you should know, I think, we all
ought to understand.... If you'll read this, you'll know what happened
to your father this afternoon."

Puzzled at first, the girl slowly read the flimsy document as she
stood there in the middle of the room.

"Oh!" she wailed, as its meaning dawned upon her. "They had no right to
do this--no right whatever!"

"You're sure you understand it?" interrogated the Colonel.

The girl bowed her head gravely. Then, going over to her
father,--wholly unconscious of a curious look on Flomerfelt's
face,--she threw her arms about his neck.

"Father, dear father," she whispered to him, "don't mind. We'll win
out."

Her father submitted goodnaturedly but wearily to her embrace. He
stretched his arms and yawned.

"I'm dog tired," he said, rising. "I'm going to bed. You'll stay all
night, Morehead?"

"Not a bit of it," responded the Colonel. "You don't catch me deserting
my own hard bed--not much! I'll go home." He shook hands with Mrs.
Peter V. Wilkinson, and pressed a button.

"How about you, Flomerfelt? It's rather late ..." said Peter V.

"Don't care if I do," was the latter's answer. And on the servant's
appearing, Peter V. ordered him to show Mr. Flomerfelt to one of the
guest rooms, concluding with: "Show him to the one with the painted
nymphs skylarking on the walls." Then he placed his arm around his
daughter, and together they followed Colonel Morehead downstairs to the
door, where they bade him good-night.

Mrs. Wilkinson and Flomerfelt listened to the sound of retreating
footsteps.

"He'll not be coming back," she said, "and I want to talk to you." And
pointing to the document that Leslie had been shown, she asked: "What
does all this signify?"

"What it signifies," he answered, picking up the paper, "may depend on
you."

The woman looked puzzled.

"How?"

Flomerfelt's eyes narrowed. Then, with a lithe and dexterous movement
of his long arms, he shot his cuffs--hitherto out of sight--into view;
extending them, with a jerk, below his coat-sleeves, so that they
covered his lean wrists to the extent of three-quarters of an inch, a
distance which he measured with mathematical certainty, apparently, for
his nice adjustment of them was followed critically by his glance. He
eyed and adjusted one cuff until it satisfied him, and then eyed and
adjusted the other; finally he rubbed his hands together, and said:

"One of the richest women in the world--rich in her own right. How does
that sound to you?"

Mrs. Peter V. stared at him.

"Who is?" she inquired.

"It's a possibility that affects a woman in this house."

"Leslie?"

He shook his head.

"I was thinking of you."

"I? I'm not rich. I've been a fool!" she cried. "I should have made him
settle something on me--half, at any rate. Now it's all gone; he's lost
everything; I might as well have had half of it--as well that, as to
throw it in the gutter as he did."

Wilkinson's confidential man seated himself.

"Unquestionably you need me," he said frankly, and then stopped.
Hitherto he had kept his own counsel. And yet, he reflected, there is a
wisdom of disclosure just as there is a wisdom of suppression. Some new
impulse seized him; his voice sank into a whisper. "There is a chance
for us, Mrs. Peter V., to be rich, if we work together, unusually rich."

"But how?" she whispered back, excitedly.

Flomerfelt smiled inscrutably, and answered:

"Out of the wreck, there's a chance----"

"A good chance?" she interrupted eagerly.

"There's only one man who can prevent it," he went on.

"Peter V.----?"

A nod was her answer.

Immediately then she went back to first principles.

"What is going to happen to him? Will they put him in jail?"

Wilkinson's confidential man smiled.

"I've often wondered," he mused, "whether it would be good or bad for
us if they jailed him. A man in prison is a man very much out of the
way. But in this case he would be too much out of the way. Put him in
jail and you discourage his defence--you encourage the public, his
depositors. They'll do what we should do: infest the wreck and gobble
up what is ours by right. No, so long as Peter Wilkinson lives, we must
fight his battle for him--pull him through, keep him standing up, only
to be able to knock him down later. That, so long as he lives, must be
our policy. So long as he lives," he repeated.

"Suppose," she began, and then hazarded: "In case of his death, what
would my rights be?"

"In case he dies----" suddenly he stopped. That was a possibility he
had not foreseen. He had seen much strife ahead: first, a tremendous
fight for Wilkinson, then a tremendous campaign against him. But what
if the man should break down, die? There was food for thought, reasoned
Flomerfelt.

"He might die," he resumed, holding her glance as he went on, "for
everything must be considered. Disgrace wouldn't kill him, but his
liver, or,----" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder,--"there might be
violence--conspiracies. There have been rumours that the trust company
depositors are wild, especially the poor ones--socialists, we'll say.
So, he might die--be killed. Who knows?"

Flomerfelt rose and looked down upon her long and earnestly.

"But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Mrs. Peter V.
Good-night, my dear lady!" And bowing unusually low to her, he left the
room.




VI


It was three o'clock in the morning when Eliot Beekman reached his club
in Forty-fourth Street.

"There's a telegram for you, Mr. Beekman," called out a sleepy employé,
from the office. "It was left here by your clerk to-night."

In his room Beekman switched on the light and read:

  ELIOT BEEKMAN, ESQ.,
  32 Nassau St., N. Y.

 Meet us at Hotel Iroquois, Buffalo, to-morrow six P. M. Important
 letter follows. Wire answer. Do not fail.

  BANK LE BOEUF,
  _J. K. W., Cashier_.

"The Bank Le Boeuf of Buffalo! Sounds good; I hope it is good," mused
Beekman. "If so, another big client added to my growing list."

Without hesitation he wrote an answering telegram, stating that he
would be at the Hotel Iroquois at 6 P. M. the following night, took it
downstairs, and left it in the office with instructions to send it as
soon as possible.

And it was not until fifteen minutes later, in the midst of his
speculations as to the nature of this business sent to him by the Bank
Le Boeuf, that the thought of Leslie's yachting-party came to him.

"Confound it!" he muttered to himself. "I clean forgot all about it.
What am I going to do?"

Yet Beekman was so consistent that he recognised at once that there
was nothing to do save what he had done. He had built up his practice
without pull, influence or money; and he had done it by religiously
conserving the interests of his clients. He knew, therefore, that
he must obey this summons. So, assuring himself that Leslie would
understand it when he told her in the morning, he removed his evening
dress, swathed himself in a dressing--gown, stepped into his library
and began to work. An unfinished job lay upon his table--a job that, he
knew, would take past dawn to finish, and early in the evening he had
determined not to go to bed. So he started in.

There was a neat supply of law books in his rooms--a good working
library, an average lawyer would call it. And from the hour that he
donned his dressing--gown, Beekman nosed among these tan-coloured
volumes, taking down one from its shelf, scanning the headnotes of
a given case, reading the opinion, slapping the book together and
replacing it. A hundred times, at least, he did this. Finally, weary of
his search, and hopelessly downcast, for so far his search had been in
vain, he found on the highest shelf a slender volume and opened it. And
now, as he started to read, his eye brightened and he quickly seized
pen and paper.

"Eureka!" he exclaimed. "On all fours--just in point. By George,
this--this wins the trick!"

Half an hour was spent in jotting down the salient portions of the
opinion of the Court of Appeals. Then, restoring the book to its
accustomed place, he folded up his memorandum neatly and thrust it
into a heavy brown envelope, labelled: Turner vs. Cooper. And now with
considerable complacency he leaned back, saying to himself:

"I thought sure I was licked. But I've got 'em! I'll bet dollars to
doughnuts that Jameson & Bowers never even heard of that decision!
Now," he stretched out his arms, "I'm ready for Leslie Wilkinson and
the _Marchioness_--or, no," he corrected himself, "I mean I'm ready for
the Empire State Express."

A moment more and he had turned on the faucet, filled the tub to the
brim, and had plunged in--holding his head under the cold water for
half a minute at a time. Completely refreshed, he dressed carefully,
ascertained from the appearance of the heavens that it was likely to be
clear, then quietly left his room and started down the stairs and left
the club. At the Grand Central Station he checked his grip. He had lots
of time, even for the preliminary little journey that he proposed to
take.

After getting some breakfast he strolled back to the West Side and
sauntered up Sixth Avenue. The stores were all closed. One, however,
as Beekman passed, opened up. From the door its proprietor, a little
wizened Jew, nodded sleepily to Beekman. Returning the nod, the latter
looked again at the store, and retracing his steps, entered.

"Ready for business?" inquired the lawyer.

The proprietor nodded.

"Always," he replied.

"This is a gun store?" queried Beekman.

The Jew yawned.

"Loogs like id," he conceded. "Did you vant to buy a gun?"

"I want ten cents' worth of shot," his customer replied, pointing out
the size he wanted; and, after the storekeeper had weighed out the
quantity and it had been dropped into his pockets, he started on his
way rejoicing, making a bee line for Wilkinson's. It was getting-up
time now, but not for people on the Drive. There silence reigned
supreme.

But Beekman felt very wide awake. His conversation with Leslie the
night before in the Pallet-Searing cosy-corner, and his successful
night's work had gone to his head like wine. And it was this condition
that led him to purchase a handful of shot; and now, regardless of the
fact that he was operating on the residence that had cost ten million
dollars, more or less, and, in fact, regardless of consequences, he
took his station in the middle of the Drive and selecting half a dozen
missiles from his pocket, he flung them lightly through the air, aiming
for a wide window-pane on the third story of the house. Three times he
did this. The fourth time he was stopped by a voice calling out:

"Hi, there!"

Turning quickly Beekman found himself confronted with the majesty of
the law.

"What're you trying to do?" demanded the officer. "Isn't it a bit early
in the morning, or a bit late in the evening, to be out on a drunk?
What's doin', anyway?"

Beekman grinned, desisting, nevertheless.

"A bit of old-time romance," he explained; "trying to wake her up,
that's all."

"Is her name Norah?" demanded the blue-coat, threateningly.

Beekman glanced aloft; then he plucked the officer by the sleeve.

"Look for yourself," he rejoined, "and see.... Is that Norah up
there?"

While the officer scanned the housetop, Beekman gazed innocently out
over the Hudson.

"It is--not," he assented joyfully. "And so long as it is not, I have
nought to say, except," the policeman's voice trailed off into a
whisper, "except, sir, that the lady is waving to you. Look now, and
see."

Beekman looked. There she was, indeed.

"I've been up an hour!" she cried. "Wait until I come down."

In the music-room, she greeted him with:

"Have you had your breakfast?"

"Yes. I came to tell you...."

"Then you got my telegram all right?"

Beekman shook his head.

"You're not the Bank Le Boeuf of Buffalo?"

"I didn't phone you," she went on, ignoring his question, "because I
couldn't, don't you know. But I sent a wire so you'd get it the first
thing this morning--at your club."

"Crowd there too sleepy to get it to me, I suppose," he said, puzzled.
"What was in it?" But without waiting for an answer, he went on: "I
came to tell you about my telegram," and with that he passed it over
to her. "Business before pleasure," he remarked tritely, and yet
in a manner that he knew she would understand. "I can't go on the
_Marchioness_, you see."

"The _Marchioness_," she responded, "is not going after all. That's
why I wired you. But I'm glad you came, because, somehow, I wanted you
to know--before it appeared in the papers----" She paused, and then
added, with much feeling: "The Grand Jury has indicted my father--late
yesterday afternoon. As yet no one knows it; but everybody will know it
by nine o'clock this morning. It may be in the papers now, though they
tried to keep it out. It's a terrible thing--a thing like that! I can't
see how, or why, they indicted him! Can you?"

Beekman looked his sympathy. Presently he asked:

"Do you mind my asking just what they charge him with?"




VII


The Empire State Express had not travelled many miles when Eliot
Beekman's attention was directed to a strange-looking man who sat
across the aisle, facing him. From time to time the man's face flushed
and gave little nervous starts and twitches, and, every now and then,
he mumbled to himself. At first Beekman figured out that the man was
recovering from an unaccustomed debauch; but afterwards he changed his
mind: he decided that he was crazy.

"Glad to get away from New York," confided the stranger, breaking in on
Beekman's meditations, and tapping him on the knee. "The farther away I
get the better I like it."

Beekman somewhat resented this interference with his comfortable
somnolence, but he straightened up and smiled and answered:

"For my part New York's home to me. I feel sick, somehow, when I'm away
from it."

The man swung about and glanced nervously at the changing landscape,
and then suddenly turned back again and exhibited a pocket volume with
flexible covers.

"Dante's Inferno," he declared, pointing to the book. "Ever delve
into it? I've just recently been through a little inferno of my own,"
he went on. "I brought this with me, because I've got to keep before
my mind the fact that some people have gone through more than I have.
At least, so it seems to me. At the same time, I don't know that I'm
ready to change places with any of the chaps in here." He tapped the
book. "Neat little volume," he commented, rattling on nervously and
without apparently keeping much track of what he was saying. "See the
frontispiece," he said, leaning over towards Beekman. "It's Dante
himself. I wonder why he always wears that headgear? Never see him
without it! Always reminds me of a little verse on how to tell the
names of busts."

"'I recognise Dante because he's tab-eared.' Tab-eared, you know," he
went on, "is his peculiar sort of headgear. All sculptors give it to
him." He resumed in sing-song fashion:

    "'I recognise Dante, because he's tab-eared,
    And Virgil I know by his wreath,
    Old Homer I tell by his rough, shaggy beard,
    And the rest--_by the names underneath_.'"

Beekman laughed aloud.

"Good! Mighty good!" he cried. "Especially 'and the rest by the names
underneath.' A flash of genius that."

The man turned over several pages in his book and began to read
steadily, rumpling his hair, from time to time, as he did so. Once he
looked up, only to find Beekman staring hard at the top of his head.

"Looking at my Heidelberg scar?" he asked hastily, pulling a lock of
hair over it. "It was an ugly one, I can tell you, and almost did for
me, too. Sometimes, you know I've thought it dented me a little in the
skull." He pushed back the hair, again exhibiting the long, deep cut.
"It throbs there once in a while--it's throbbing now."

His conversation became incoherent, and from it Beekman gathered only
snatches.

"I don't know how to go about it," he continued, as though talking to
himself. "It's the taxes chiefly. If I can get rid of the tax sales,
that farm is just the thing for me. Old farm," he explained, looking up
at Beekman, "somewhere in Erie County. Thought I'd take a look at it.
Been in the family for years, but neglected it; now I want to live on
it, bury myself, get away from New York, from the Inferno back to Eden,
don't you know."

He laughed a quick, nervous laugh, and jerked himself away once more,
his face twitching while he mumbled.

"A man labouring under some strange and unusual excitement," thought
Beekman, "and yet...."

The stranger was on his feet now, and going down the aisle paused
before a chair that was occupied by a tired mother and her
two-and-a-half-year-old child. Weary, mortified, her temper gone, the
woman was trying to appease the crying babe.

Taking up the child in his arms, the stranger sat it on his knee, let
it play with his watch, rattled his keys, adopted a hundred lively
pranks for the benefit of the child; and the infant, soothed and
cheered by this new and agreeable personality, sank at last into a
peaceful sleep.

"Nothing like a child," he said to Beekman, "to make the future seem
worth while. Talk about Eden--there's no Eden, no happiness, without
them. I love children, this one, all of them."

Beekman once more lapsed into drowsiness, his thoughts, in a confused
way, resting on the eccentric character beside him. When he awoke the
train was pulling into Buffalo. Touching the stranger by the arm, as
he was preparing to alight, he quoted: "'And the rest by the names
underneath.'" And added, as he raised his hat: "Thanks. I'll not forget
that."

Nor did he soon forget it. For indeed through many months to come he
carried with him the memory of that nervous, haunted, tired face with
the restless, hopeless eyes, the memory of this unknown man with the
scar deep and long and wide upon his forehead--the scar from Heidelberg.

       *       *       *       *       *

At ten o'clock that morning Peter V. Wilkinson was closeted with
Colonel Morehead in Colonel Morehead's office at 120 Broadway.

"Glad you left that Flomerfelt proposition downstairs, Peter," said
Morehead, "because, for one thing, I don't like him."

"Well, I do," retorted Wilkinson positively. "As a matter of fact, I
like him because I can't get along without him. He's a wonder!" he went
on enthusiastically. "Any time you want a thing put through, and don't
care how it's done, you hire my man Flomerfelt. In this whole crisis,
Flomerfelt, in my opinion, is worth his weight in gold. Why, the man
has a hold on nearly everybody that I know."

"Well, he hasn't one on me," returned the lawyer.

"He has on me, then," said his client, "but I don't mind. He gets good
pay from me; and he can make any given man do almost anything he wants
him to do--that's Flomerfelt. I never stop thanking my good fortune
that I've got him on my side. He's the kingpin in this mix-up, let me
tell you, Morehead."

The Colonel laughed.

"I was inclined to think, Peter, that I might be some pumpkins myself,"
he suggested. "I may be, before we're through."

"No use of talking," protested his client, "Flomerfelt can do things
that you can't do, and never thought of doing. If I get out of this
scrape, it will be Flomerfelt's doing...."

The lawyer leaned back in his revolving chair. He was a lean personage,
all bone and gristle, with a lean nose and shrewd, sharp eyes.

"Peter," he said, "a bunch of indictments for perjury, larceny and
forgery are dangerous things." He looked at his watch. "Confound it!"
he went on. "Why the dickens couldn't the Court agree to take our plea
at ten this morning. By eleven everybody in town will know about it,
everybody that can will be there. If the papers hadn't got on to it
early this morning we'd have had no trouble. We could have slipped in
and out--done the trick, and nobody the wiser. But now.... By the way,"
he added, "that reminds me--I want that man Beekman over here. I'll
call him up."

Eliot Beekman's office said he was out--said he was not in New
York--that he'd left that morning on the Empire State Express for
Buffalo.

"Well, where is he in Buffalo?" asked Morehead.

They told him--at the Iroquois Hotel.

"Tell him that Colonel Morehead called him up," said the Colonel; "and
that I want to see him the minute he returns."

Wilkinson nervously tapped his foot upon the floor.

"I can't see what you want of Beekman?" he said.

Morehead's eyes narrowed.

"I want him to defend you, if these indictments come to trial, as
probably they shall."

"What! That young fellow who calls at my house to see Leslie!" returned
Wilkinson. "Why, we want the highest-priced counsel we can get. I want
you, and Patrick Durand, but not one of the submerged like Beekman."

"I want to tell you that Beekman isn't one of the submerged, as you
say. He's got a practice here that yields him at least seventy-five
hundred a year, which means that he's a wonderful man, because he's
only thirty, or a little under, with no political pull. He makes his
living out of the law pure and simple, not out of Wall Street, or real
estate deals, or the criminal classes, either."

"Well, then, if he's not a criminal lawyer, we certainly do not want
him," protested the Colonel's rich client.

"I like Beekman," proceeded the Colonel, ignoring the comment,
"because, in a measure, he reminds me of myself, though he has
something that I never had. Like me, he's a free lance. He never hooked
up in partnership with anybody. When he tries a case he does it as I
do--not with his associate holding his hand on one side and a couple of
assistants holding his hand on the other--but alone with a couple of
scraps of paper, and the rest of his case in his head. I like Beekman
first-rate." He hitched his chair close to Wilkinson's. "But that isn't
the point. The gist of the whole thing is this: There's one thing that
Beekman can do better than any other lawyer in New York; one thing that
he can do that most lawyers can't do at all. He is able to impress his
jury with his own absolute belief in his client's cause. He's sincere,
and the jury know it. And that's three-quarters of the battle. Oh,
we'll all be there, Peter, on the show-down, but you can imagine me
trying to impress a jury with my belief in my client's honesty, can't
you? Oh, yes, my cleverness is conceded; they'd all laugh, and say,
'Strike one for the Colonel,' and all that sort of thing. But ten
chances to one they'd find the other way. I wish I had that strange
thing that Beekman has got! All my life I've wanted it."

Wilkinson fidgeted about. He didn't see this as the Colonel did.
Nevertheless he answered:

"What you say goes, Morehead!"

The Colonel jerked his head and became the least bit more confidential.

"But the trick is to be sure that Beekman actually does believe in you.
But, Peter, we're fortunate in one respect--I would have retained him
anyway--but this development is certainly fortuitous: He wants to marry
your daughter Leslie."

Wilkinson's face reddened; his Van Dyke bristled with opposition.

"I'd like to see him get the chance!" he cried. "Leslie has got to
marry well, and she's just the hard-headed little girl who'll do it,
too. Beekman marry Leslie! Not if I know it!"

The lawyer sank back wearily.

"The question of who marries your daughter, Wilkinson, is no concern
of mine. That Beekman wants to marry her, is enough for me. Let him
want to--let him see her all he wants to--you can fix the ultimate
proceedings in your own way. But for the present, somebody has got to
build up in Beekman a great and immovable faith in you. He must be
educated up to the belief that you are as straight as a string. Let his
teacher be the girl; she'll make the best one, for she believes in you
herself."

Wilkinson pressed his hand against his face.

"And she's always got to believe in me," he groaned. "We must see to
that."

The Colonel gripped his arm.

"And whatever happens, Peter," he concluded, "I don't want Beekman ever
to meet this man Giles Ilingsworth, for he's another of your honest
chaps; and if Beekman before your trial should hear from the lips of
Giles Ilingsworth his own story of the case, he's going to believe
it. Do you understand?" The lawyer grinned, adding: "For I believe it
myself."

Fifteen minutes later a Mastodon turned into Franklin Street from
Broadway and rolled easily down the hill toward the Criminal Courts
Building, next door to the Tombs. In the car were four men: Peter V.
Wilkinson, Colonel Morehead, his counsel; Roy Pallister, Wilkinson's
private secretary, and Wilkinson's chauffeur.

"Great guns!" cried Wilkinson when they were half way down the street;
"look at the crowds! Why, everybody in New York is here!"

"I heard on the street this morning," said Morehead, who rather enjoyed
his client's discomfiture, "that the disgruntled depositors had
deserted the front doors of the Interstate and the Tri-State, and had
formed here, waiting to see you----"

Morehead got no further, for at that moment the car abruptly stopped,
as if on the brink of a precipice. A dirty fist was thrust into the
car, and an extra shoved into their faces.

 WILKINSON WARNED!

 RUMOURS RIFE THAT THE CROWD AT CRIMINAL COURT WILL TRY TO KILL----

"Stop the car! Stop the car!" called out Wilkinson frantically. "Look
at that murderous gang down there! Go back--go back! Turn the other
way--turn the car around, do you hear?"

Morehead held up his hand.

"It's all right, Francois. Go ahead!" he commanded. "Go right ahead and
nobody will notice us. We'll go in by the rear entrance; most of the
crowd are in front. There are four automobiles there already; they've
probably mistaken others for us. The crowd don't know you, Wilkinson,
from Adam--wouldn't know you from your pictures in the papers. Besides,
there's no danger; there never is, with a New York crowd. Drive on!"

The chauffeur obeyed him.

Now they were on the outskirts of the crowd, and had begun slowly to
eat their way through it when, all of a sudden, somebody set up a cry
of "Wilkinson!" But quick as a flash, Morehead leaned over the side of
the car and shouted to the nearest of the mob:

"Has Wilkinson arrived?"

The answer was "No!" And at once word passed quickly that the car did
not contain Wilkinson, but somebody else. Nevertheless, to Wilkinson's
fearful eye there was a movement here, there, everywhere, as if the
crowd, or some few people in it, had realised the truth.

Presently Morehead caught sight of two officers standing on the steps.
To these the Colonel waved an unseen signal, while on the sidewalk
Wilkinson's faithful Pinkertons waited, alert, quiet, their hands in
their coat pockets.

And so it happened that the Mastodon managed to draw up at the curb
before a spacious door, the two officers moving out to meet it, the
Pinkertons flanking it on the other side.

"All we have to do, you see," said Colonel Morehead, "is to make a dash
behind these uniforms, and a second more and we're inside. The crowd
will be fooled."

But the crowd was not fooled. For suddenly there rose upon the air a
mighty cry as if from a thousand throats:

"Wilkinson! Wilkinson! He's here! He's here! This way! This way!
There's Wilkinson!" A moment's silence, and then more cries of: "Thief!
Forger! Perjurer! My money--give me back my money!... Arg-gh
Wilkinson ...!"

"Now, Wilkinson," whispered the Colonel, "keep a stiff upper lip; don't
turn a hair. Just get out of the car and walk right through. I know
crowds--nothing will happen--nothing. Now...."

Colonel Morehead was a man whose orders were generally obeyed.
Consequently, in a situation like this, his reassuring words carried
great weight, and the men with him in the car, immediately following
his example, jumped to their feet. For an instant they stood, exposed
to merciless hootings, preparing to alight; and in that very instant
there suddenly rang out a revolver shot, and a puff of smoke floated
over the densest part of the crowd, while, almost simultaneously, one
of the four men in the car, clutching first at the air and then at
his throat, plunged head foremost into the street below. Just how it
happened the police never knew, but all remembered hearing a voice cry
out: "Wilkinson!"

For a moment that seemed hours, the trained Pinkertons failed to rise
to the emergency, but then fairly leaping into the machine and dragging
the men across the sidewalk, they thrust them into the safety within
the hall and closed the doors on them. Out again and into the street
dashed the Pinkertons with the two uniformed officers, and there they
picked up the body which was lying hideously huddled between the curb
and the machine. As for Francois the chauffeur, he had fled.

"Get back there! Get back there!" cried the officers. "If you don't,
we'll pull our clubs. Get back! Will you get back ...!"

But the frenzied crowd would not budge. So the officers, with their
backs to the machine, plied their clubs viciously about them, but even
then the mob persisted.

"It served him right! He got what was coming to him!" came from all
sides.

"Get back!" cried the officers, standing guard over the body on the
sidewalk. Gently one of them felt of the dead man, opening his clothing
at the neck, felt of his heart. Now the officers shook their heads.
A man came running through the crowd. "I'm a doctor," he told them;
"anything I can do?" He, too, applied the tests. Presently he finished
and rose to his feet, and announced:

"He's dead--dead as a door nail."

The policemen carried the body into the huge building and laid it down
upon the stones.

"Great heavens! It's little Pallister."

The exclamation fell from the lips of Peter V. Wilkinson as he
clutched at Colonel Morehead for support. A moment later, wiping the
perspiration from his face, he added:

"And they meant that for me!"




VIII


Despite the efforts of his counsel to pacify him, it was fully half
an hour before Peter V. Wilkinson recovered from his fright. Over and
over again he wailed in the lawyer's ears, "But they tried to do it,
Morehead. They tried to kill me, didn't they?" And when, at last, the
replies to this question were not forthcoming, he asked, between little
fits of shivering, what plans had been made to get him away, since
the police would probably be powerless to drive away the crowd which
every moment, he was positive, was increasing because of the excitement
and their knowledge now that he was in the building. In a measure,
however, he was soon reassured. For after a loud rap on the railing,
the Court came in, and glancing commiseratingly at Colonel Morehead, as
if apologising for an act of violence, he shot out a stern forefinger
towards the officers and cried out in a sonorous tone:

"Clear the court-room at once! Next thing you know we'll have violence
here."

This proceeding took some little time, for the court-room was crowded.
When at last it was cleared the Court, bowing respectfully to Colonel
Morehead, announced:

"If you're ready, Colonel Morehead, we'll have the indictments read."

The Colonel made a grimace.

"We've been reading them all night, your Honour; I know them all by
heart; I think we can waive having them read."

"Put the waiver on the record," said the Assistant District Attorney to
the stenographer. He nodded toward the Court. "The District Attorney is
most particular about this case."

"How do you plead to the first, Colonel?" asked the Court.

"The larceny indictment?"

"Yes."

"Not guilty."

"Forgery--eight counts there, Colonel."

"Not guilty."

"Perjury--these banking reports--how about it?"

"Not guilty," repeated Morehead laconically. "And now, your Honour," he
went on, adopting a casual tone, "about bail?"

The Court inclined his head toward the Assistant District Attorney.

"Any suggestions?"

"I move, your Honour," said the assistant, "that bail in these
cases,--under the new rule laid down in the Mitchell case,--be fixed at
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on each charge."

Colonel Morehead stiffened as with a sudden shock.

"Your Honour," he protested, "this is preposterous! Every defendant is
entitled to have bail fixed at a reasonable sum."

"Then," went on the assistant with asperity, "if Colonel Morehead makes
a fuss about it, I move, your Honour, to hold this defendant in the
Tombs, and without bail, if your Honour please. It is, in this case,
discretionary with your Honour. People vs. Mitchell, 193 New York."

His Honour nodded impartially to Colonel Morehead and the Assistant
District Attorney.

For a while he gazed into space; finally he said:

"Colonel Morehead, I think that I must fix the bail suggested, if I fix
any bail at all."

"This is barbarous, prohibitive, unconstitutional," groaned Morehead.
"Why, your Honour, it is a notorious fact that my client is a broken
man, financially. Where can he get three-quarters of a million bail?"

The Court's eyes sought the rear wall. He had often dined with
Wilkinson, had been entertained at his house, but this made no
difference to the Court.

"I think, Colonel," he repeated, this time with a shade more emphasis,
"that I must fix the bail suggested, if I am to fix any bail at all."

Wilkinson, the present calamity fresh upon him, was trembling; and
pressing against Colonel Morehead, whispered loudly in his ear:

"Let it go at three-quarters of a million, Colonel; we can raise that
easy enough."

The Colonel turned white with rage. He looked at the Assistant District
Attorney to see if that gentleman had heard the remark. Then, satisfied
that he had not, he turned swiftly and ostentatiously upon his client,
protesting:

"Mr. Wilkinson, I am managing this case, not you. Be good enough to
let me manage it alone." Before proceeding, he wiped his glasses and
blinked his eyes. "Your Honour," he said with considerable pathos in
his tone, "to fix this bail means that my client must be incarcerated
in the Tombs. Who among all his friends will come forward to-day and
furnish three-quarters of a million dollars bail? Who, indeed?" He
shook his head. "Blessed are they that hath, for to them shall be
given. But to him that hath not, shall be taken away, even that he
hath. Does your Honour still persist?"

"Colonel Morehead," said the Court, "I shall cheerfully hold this man
without bail at all, if you still persist."

Morehead bowed.

"We shall try ..." and his voice rang with the wail of a funeral bell,
"we shall try to get bail, your Honour."

"You can't furnish it now?" asked the Court.

"You might as well ask for the moon," returned Wilkinson's counsel,
looking the picture of grim despair.

The Court's eyelids never fluttered as he ordered:

"Take the prisoner to the Tombs in default of bail."

"I'll go with you, Wilkinson," declared Morehead, with a peculiar smile.

As they crossed the Bridge of Sighs, they could hear the cries of the
crowd below--a crowd frenzied both by the horror of the crime and the
escape of Wilkinson.

"Don't be frightened, Wilkinson, this is all right," said Morehead
soothingly. "You're going to stay in the Tombs until I get you bail."

"I can put it up in half an hour, you fool!" insisted Wilkinson.

"But you won't," returned his counsel. "Not if I know it. If you put up
bail in half an hour, they'll find out where it comes from; and if they
find that out, they'll find out all the rest."

Wilkinson dropped his eyes.

"Perhaps you're right, Colonel," he conceded. "Do with me as you will."

"Yes, you must do as I say, or I'll drop this case," warned the
Colonel. "And while you're in here, you're not to talk--not a word to
anyone--do you understand me?"

"But how long will I be in here? They won't lock me up, will they?"

"Of course they will."

"Not behind the bars--not in a cell?"

Morehead nodded.

"I won't stand for it!" blustered the millionaire.

Morehead caught him by the arm and looked him in the eye.

"You've got to do as I say to the letter, or it means ruin, ruin, do
you understand? I know what I'm talking about. You go into a cell
without a murmur. The newspapers--all New York will talk about it;
everybody will know that Colonel Morehead is gnashing his teeth at the
injustice shown you. Morehead is taking an appeal, they will say; but
as for you, you'll keep quiet in your cage until I let you out. It
won't be long; wait and see."

They passed into the Tombs. A deputy warden nodded to Wilkinson.

"That was a narrow escape you had, Mr. Wilkinson," he said, referring
to the tragedy of an hour or so before.

"I--I should think so," faltered Wilkinson, the cold sweat running down
his face. "Poor Pallister! Have they got the murderer?"

"No," said the warden, "and I doubt if they'll ever get him, either.
Still, you never can tell...."

"If they should find out, you'll let me know at once, won't you?" urged
Wilkinson.

The warden promised. The lawyer and his client parted: Colonel Morehead
went his way; Wilkinson was shown into a cell.

At one o'clock that day, one of the officials unlocked the door of his
cell and took him down into a counsel room. Sitting there at a table
was a woman with her face in her hands.

"Oh, father, I couldn't stay away!" she cried, springing to her feet
and smiling bravely.

"Leslie--you here--you!" And the next moment he had gathered her in his
arms and was patting the head that rested on his shoulders.

"I'm so glad to see you, that you're alive and well," she went on
affectionately. "Colonel Morehead told me----"

"What's Morehead doing?" broke in her father, putting her gently from
him.

"Turning my stocks and bonds into cash, or getting a surety company
bond on them, I don't know which. Isn't it lucky, father, that I had
enough--more than enough to help you out? The Colonel says you may have
to stay here two or three nights...."

Wilkinson was beside himself.

"I won't--I won't stay here," he raged. "I'll take the risk----"

"What risk?" she asked wonderingly.

Her father sobered.

"Oh, Leslie, I--I don't know what I'm saying. Don't mind me--I'm
unnerved, overwrought. Poor Pallister...."

Leslie burst into tears.

"Yes, poor, poor Roy," she murmured. "It was awful--simply awful! I
was so fond of him, father. He was always so kind, so thoughtful and
considerate, and devoted to your interests, wasn't he, father?"

Wilkinson merely inclined his head, contenting himself with patting her
hand and saying:

"There, there, my girl, don't cry."

For, truth to tell, he was much too taken up with a consideration of
his own affairs to have any time for other people's troubles, much less
mourn over Roy Pallister, though, in his way, he was undoubtedly fond
of the little chap. However, after Leslie had calmed down sufficiently
to talk connectedly once more, he not only listened, but approved of
the girl's suggestion that she offer a reward, a large reward for the
discovery of the perpetrator of the dastardly crime.

"Yes, I must know," he said to himself when once more alone in his
cell. "Flomerfelt must find out who fired that shot. Flomerfelt will
find out.... What would I do without him?"

But the question would surely not have been asked had it been possible
for him to have overheard the conversation that took place, later,
between Mrs. Peter Wilkinson and his confidential man.

As Flomerfelt entered the house, Mrs. Peter V. Wilkinson was waiting
for him.

Flomerfelt was visibly excited. He removed his gloves and fell to
pacing lightly up and down the room.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Mrs. Peter V.

Flomerfelt stopped before her, his white lips drawn tightly against his
teeth.

"My, what a chance for an enemy in that big mob; and what a fumble!"

"Were you there?" she asked.

Flomerfelt shrugged his shoulders.

"Trouble is something that I sidestep. I expected trouble and stayed
away."

"You expected this?" The woman looked at him incredulously.

"Wilkinson feared it, too, I think."

"Why?"

"The depositors--the mob----"

"Was it one of the depositors who--who killed Pallister?"

"How should I know?" And again he shrugged his shoulders, eyed his
coat-sleeves and his lean wrists, for his cuffs, obeying some unwritten
law, had crept up and out of sight. He jerked his arms again, and his
linen darted once more into view. Again he scrutinised it carefully,
first glancing upon his right hand and then upon his left.

Mrs. Peter V. eyed him closely.

"Doesn't anybody know who fired the shot?"

He shook his head.

"Some believe the depositors did it; others a personal enemy. Wilkinson
feared treachery, I think. A reward is being offered--a rather large
reward, I think--ten thousand dollars."

The question, "By whom?" hung on her lips, but was interrupted by
Flomerfelt, who went on with:

"It was Leslie's idea, I understand. She is beside herself--wants to
avenge Pallister."

"Sorry about him myself," said Mrs. Peter V., seemingly sincere. It was
only when she added, "He certainly knew how to hook up waists," that
the shallowness of the woman's mind was evident. And even Flomerfelt
recoiled from her when, a moment later, she motioned to him to seat
himself by her side.

"Who shot at Wilkinson?" she asked, persistently, drawing him closer to
her.

Flomerfelt dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand.

"As we remarked, it makes but little difference now. The shot went
wild."

       *       *       *       *       *

At six o'clock that night, Eliot Beekman dined at the Iroquois Hotel in
Buffalo with J. K. Witheridge, cashier of the Bank Le Boeuf.

"You were so successful, Mr. Beekman," said the cashier, when coffee
and cigars had arrived, "with that hopeless Cantrell mix-up of ours in
New York, that we thought we would give you a harder nut to crack. This
time our claim is for $50,000, if it's a cent."

Beekman pricked up his ears. This was worth a hurried trip to Buffalo
and no mistake.

"Against whom is your claim?" he asked.

"One reason why we wanted to see you personally," the cashier went
on to explain, "is because there seems to be a good deal of secrecy
involved in this thing. Our claim is against the Tri-State Trust
Company--our funds on deposit there. We want to get them back."

"You stand a small chance ..." quickly spoke up Beekman. "In my
opinion, Tri-State won't pay three per cent."

"Admitting all that," conceded the cashier, "it's not the Tri-State
Trust Company that I want you to tackle; I want you to find its funds."

"Funds? It hasn't any!"

"Of course it hasn't, but we're satisfied--and other banks are
satisfied--that somebody's got its funds. And the fellow that gets in
first and right, is going to get his claim paid in full. That's why we
sent for you. The man we've got to fight is Peter V. Wilkinson."

"Peter V. Wilkinson!" echoed the other. "And you say he's----"

"We claim he's bagged the spoils."

Beekman laughed outright.

"Why, man, he's smashed--ruined! He hasn't got a dollar to his name. I
know him."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. And I'll tell you where I think you're off the track.
His daughter has money--money of her own. It came from her
mother--Wilkinson's first wife. I have no doubt that all these rumours
about Wilkinson's cash,--although this is the first I've heard about
it,--come from the fact that his daughter has money."

"Pshaw! She has less than a million dollars--we have the facts on that.
We're not thinking about that; we believe Wilkinson has got upwards of
fifty millions packed away."

Again Beekman laughed.

"If you were in New York you wouldn't say that. Everybody there knows
that Wilkinson is a wreck."

"Nevertheless we have our theory. We're willing to pay the shot,"
declared Witheridge. "Now, is there any reason why I shouldn't go
on--tell you the rest--the confidential details? In other words, Mr.
Beekman, is there any reason why you should not take up this case and
probe Wilkinson to the finish?"

Beekman thought for a while, weighing carefully the other's words.
There was reputation in this thing; moreover, he felt that it would
do Wilkinson no harm, for he was convinced of Wilkinson's honesty of
purpose. He saw no reason why honest business should be refused. More
than that, this Bank Le Boeuf had, in times past, employed him as its
counsel, and all through dinner Witheridge had been pouring praises in
his ear.

"I hope you can take it," pressed Witheridge, "for to tell you the
truth, there's nobody in New York that we'd rather have than you. We've
that much confidence in you...."

But Beekman still balked.

"If I take this case, I needn't assure you, Mr. Witheridge, that you
may depend on me. The only reason why I hesitate is because I know the
man's daughter. But once I decide to take the case...."

At that moment a waiter laid down an evening paper before Beekman;
he glanced at it, revolving the proposition the while in his mind.
Suddenly he started and cried out:

"Great Scott! The man we're talking about--shot...."

"Killed?" gasped Witheridge.

"No--it's his private secretary that was killed." And with his eyes
still on the paper, "No, wait. There's more. Wilkinson is held in
three-quarter of a million bail. I heard this morning that he was
indicted, but I never expected---- And, Cæsar's ghost! They've locked
him up in the Tombs and in default of bail. That's rough!"

"My dear Beekman," grinned Witheridge, "don't you see that it's all a
game--all but the killing? Say that you'll take the case, then I can go
on--tell you the rest."

But whatever would have been Eliot's decision at that moment, he was
not permitted to give it utterance. For just then he heard some one
calling out his name; and, glancing up, he saw a boy approaching him
with a telegram in his hand.

"Mr. Beekman?" asked the boy.

Beekman took the message, which said:

  ELIOT BEEKMAN, ESQ.,
  Hotel Iroquois, Buffalo, N. Y.

 You are retained in People vs. Wilkinson as counsel for defence.
 Take the first train for New York.

  MOREHEAD.

After grasping its contents, Beekman quickly passed it over to his host
with the one word: "Read." And then he added:

"This is a retainer, Mr. Witheridge, that I cannot very well refuse.
You see," he was smiling now, "I know his daughter."




IX


Ten men crowded into the office of Assistant District Attorney Leech,
ten men of various sizes and complexions, ten men upon whom sat
undoubted respectability, and yet in whose eyes gleamed a gnawing
anxiety--a strange excitement.

A deputy assistant district attorney--or a d. a. d. a., as they call
them there, received the delegation coldly.

"What in thunder is this mob doing here?" he asked.

The ten men nodded toward their spokesman; he leaned against the d. a.
d. a.'s desk.

"Chief clerk sent us here," he said.

"What about?" asked his cross-examiner.

The spokesman drew from his pocket a folded paper and opened it wide
for the other to read.

"Ten Thousand Dollars Reward for information leading to the Conviction
of the Murderer of Roy Pallister," is what he read, after which the d.
a. d. a. looked at it curiously, and added: "Well? What then?"

"Well," said the spokesman, as the ten men crowded closely about him,
"we've got information--see?"

"What information?"

For answer he drew forth a weapon--an ugly-looking weapon: a hammerless
revolver, with one chamber empty.

The d. a. d. a. sniffed with some excitement.

"Where did you get it?" he demanded. Surreptitiously he nodded to a
uniformed attendant, who as surreptitiously shut the door and locked it.

"Picked it up the day young Pallister was killed," went on the
spokesman, "picked it up where the man that used it left it lying--when
he ran away."

The assistant glanced at him sharply.

"Why didn't you pass it over right away?" he demanded.

The ten men shrugged their shoulders, but it was their spokesman who
explained:

"In that crowd," he returned slowly, "there was too much excitement
already. These here saw me pick it up, and we talked about it--talked
about it slow and cold. We didn't want to be mobbed ourselves, even by
the cops; we didn't want to be taken for the murderer--you understand?
So we closed in around this gun, y'see, and we kept it close, till
now." He grinned sheepishly. "Besides," he added, "our savings has been
lost in the Tri-State Trust, and we was kind o' waitin' for somethin'
of this kind," he pointed to the advertised reward, "thinking maybe we
could even up somehow, y'see."

"I see," returned the assistant, grimly. "I see that you had no right
to wait an instant when you got this thing in your fist." He waved his
hand. "Never mind that now, but tell me who did the killing. Did you
know the man?"

The ten men shook their heads.

"We seen no man," one blurted out, "a hand--that's all I see."

"That's all we see," assented the spokesman, looking to his fellows
for affirmance, "a hand and a shot. It was all so quick. We asked
everybody; nobody seen anything--just a hand and a shot, that's all."

The assistant frowned.

"Do you suspect who did it?" he interrogated.

Blankly they shook their heads.

The d. a. d. a. shot out a forefinger.

"Tell me about that mass meeting of the savings depositors held the
night before the murder?" he demanded, at a venture.

They returned his query with a stare.

"There wasn't any mass meeting that we know of," they said.

He rapped upon the table and nodded to the uniformed attendant.

"You know what to do," he said.

Evidently the attendant did; for after a short space of time he
unlocked the door, and six plain-clothesmen pounced upon the spokesman.

"But I didn't do it!" yelled the big man who had handed over the
ferocious-looking gun.

"He didn't do it!" cried the other men behind.

"Aw, come on!" said the officer of the law, "we'll lock the whole kit
an' boodle of you up as witnesses. What--you won't? Come on--Come on!"

"But don't you forget that we furnished information," called back the
spokesman, "that may lead to the conviction of somebody, and when that
happens, we want that ten, y'see?"

It was not long before the news of the discovery of the pistol became
known. So that when Leslie arrived on a visit to her father, and
asked an officer if there had been any developments in regard to her
advertisement in the paper, she was answered in the affirmative.

"Father, dear," she cried, excitedly, when they were alone, "listen to
me. I can't sleep to-night unless it can be arranged for me to see that
pistol that was found. I have a fancy that----" She stopped short.

"A fancy--what?" he demanded suddenly.

"That I may have seen it once before," she continued.

Wilkinson called an officer.

The officer took Leslie across the bridge and into the other part of
the building where the pistol was to be seen. Its custodian watched the
girl narrowly as she looked upon it; but she gave no sign.

"I don't believe I ever saw that one before," she volunteered.

Back again with her father, she whispered eagerly in his ear:

"Father, oh, father, what am I to do? That gun there is the very gun
that Giles Ilingsworth had in our house that day. It's the same--the
very same, I'm sure of it. What am I to do?"

Wilkinson uttered an oath under his breath.

"We'll give him up, that's what we'll do! We'll hunt him down!" he said
excitedly. "He tried to kill me, and he did kill little Pallister."

He stood there staring at her, his face growing whiter all the time.
He was about to speak again when he was interrupted by the entrance of
Colonel Morehead.

Through the lawyer's mind, as he looked at Wilkinson and his daughter,
a number of impressions were passing. The three days' confinement
in a cell had left its traces on the multi-millionaire: a terrible
depression was on him, his shoulders were hunched, and his eyes
lustreless. With Leslie, of course, there was no such great change,
though her lips were trembling, her eyes wide and searching, and her
figure seemed shrunken. In other words, the shadow of the Tombs
was upon them all. All--the word is used advisedly, for Morehead,
himself, was by no means in a normal condition. Veteran, though he
unquestionably was, he had shivered as if with dread the moment he had
crossed the threshold of the jail. Hundreds of times, it is true, he
had passed in and out without let or hinderance, and yet upon every
occasion this indescribable sense of dread--the clutch of terror,
the stretching out of the cold, clammy hand of penal servitude, the
horribly silent eloquence of bolt and bar--was ever present. Custom had
not staled it; it bit into him with terrible force.

But whatever he felt, he gave no sign. To-day, as always, he had
merely nodded to the doorman as he passed in, strode down the narrow
passage-way and pushed through the turn-stile. At that point, however,
he had been confronted by the deputy warden of the jail.

"Counsellor," asked big Bill Steen with unaccustomed caution in his
tone, "who was you looking for?"

The Counsellor smiled.

"You have only one of my birds shut up in your aviary, Bill. Obviously,
he's the man I wish to see."

Big Bill nodded, still with suspicious caution.

"Peter V. Wilkinson, I suppose?"

"Precisely," returned the Colonel, and was starting on.

"One moment, Counsellor," went on the deputy, detaining him. "You an'
me is old friends, and I don't want to hurt your feelings. But I have
been warned by Murgatroyd. The District Attorney is most particular
about this case." And a curious expression crossed his face, as he
added: "You must admit, Counsellor, that we don't often have a guy
locked up here--worth millions and charged with larceny, forgery and
perjury, all at once, and who's waitin' for three-quarters of a million
bail."

"No, it isn't an everyday occurrence, I acknowledge. Now, will you
bring him down, or shall I go up to him?"

Again the deputy shook his head.

"Counsellor, District Attorney Murgatroyd says be careful, and I got
to, even with an old friend like you. If there's any attempt at an
escape,--and a man who's said to be worth millions and wants to get out
of jail--well, sometimes, locks will turn and bars will break. I don't
know that it would take so many millions to----"

Colonel Morehead looked straight into the eyes of big Bill Steen, with
that confidential look which had won him many juries.

"Bill," he said, under his breath, "suppose he wasn't worth
millions--only a fraction of a million! And suppose he couldn't get
bail! How much would you take, Bill, to let him go? How much? A hundred
thousand, two hundred, a quarter of a million? Come--say the word."

The deputy indignantly drew away.

"Counsellor," he protested, "you couldn't touch me with ten million. I
wouldn't let him off for that."

Morehead's smile was not a pleasant one.

"Steen," he went on severely, "you'll let him off for less. Oh, yes,
yes you will; I know all about you, one hour won't pass before you'll
be sending a man upstairs to let Wilkinson out. Come, call it a hundred
and fifty thousand.... No? Then two ... two and a half----"

"Not on your life!" returned Steen, raising a deprecating hand.

Colonel Morehead fixed his hypnotic eye upon the other, drew himself up
to his full height, thrust his hand into his breast-pocket, pulled out
a paper, and held it under the nose of Steen.

"Look at that, Bill," he insisted, "and see whether my prophecy comes
true."

The deputy warden opened the paper, glanced at it and grinned.

"Quit your kiddin', Counsellor! Why didn't you say all along that you'd
given bail?"

"You can send it to your friend Murgatroyd," concluded Morehead, "and
make sure it's O. K. I'll go up to Wilkinson."

Colonel Morehead, on leaving the warden, was suddenly conscious of a
feeling of disgust. With an effort, however, he shook it off, and there
was a semblance, at least, of a smile on his face when he appeared, as
has been said, before Wilkinson and his daughter in the counsel room.

"They're going to let you out, Peter," he announced, seating himself at
a table and squaring his elbows, "and right away."

"I thought they never would," was Wilkinson's answer. "These three days
have seemed more like three years to me.... So you got it through, did
you? Surety Company fix it up ...?"

"I got the Court to reduce the bail to half a million; your daughter
Leslie and the Surety Company did the rest."

Leslie started.

"I! Why I didn't know that I did anything?"

Colonel Morehead smiled.

"You assigned two-thirds of your own fortune--stocks and bonds--to the
surety company to secure them. So if Peter V. skips his bail--runs
away,"--he was leering at him now,--"you stand to lose, you see."

"Runs away," repeated Leslie. The words were like music to her ears.
"What a splendid idea! It would be the best way out of it, after all.
You could take the _Marchioness_," she went on enthusiastically, "and
steam to the ends of the earth!"

"Haven't I told you, Colonel, that she was a hard-headed little
proposition," said her father, with a good deal of pride. "Not a bad
idea, the _Marchioness_. Now, if--if I were guilty, instead of being
innocent...."

Colonel Morehead grunted.

"Do you think that your steam yacht the _Marchioness_ is any match for
District Attorney Murgatroyd? He'd find you even in uncharted seas, and
bring you back."

"It's all O. K., Counsellor," called out Bill Steen, tapping on the
door; "you can go now!"

Steen unlocked the door of the dingy little room. And as Peter
Wilkinson started to go, Steen intercepted him and held out his hand,
hesitated a moment, and finally said:

"It ain't often that we have a man of your standing, Mr. Wilkinson, in
our hotel. Would you mind a-shakin' hands before you go?"

Wilkinson shook hands with a will.

"Here's hoping that we may never see you here again," said Steen,
cordially.

"You can be sure of that," answered Wilkinson, with just the ghost of
a smile on his lips. At the entrance he stood an instant and looked
up into the sky. "Free," he breathed, as to himself. Leslie clung to
his arm, and pressed her hand against her face. They started down the
steps, but Wilkinson drew back.

"The crowds--the crowds--they'll mob me again!" he cried, his huge
frame shaking like a leaf.

Morehead caught him firmly by the arm.

"Come, Peter, brace up, take a big grip on yourself!" were his
reassuring words. "There's no mob, no one who knows you, anyhow. You
don't look so different from a lot of other men."

Wilkinson shook himself and clenched his hands.

"I'm all right now," he declared, "I lost my nerve in there." After a
long intake of breath, he added: "That's the last time they'll ever get
me in there, the last time, mark my words, Morehead. There were times
when I came near biting the bars. Think of me being locked up!" They
had reached the corner of the street. He halted. "There was a chap in
the cell next to mine," he went on, "who'd been sent up for five years.
Think of it! He was waiting to be taken up the river any day--didn't
seem to mind it, either. Five years in a place like that----"

"The machine's around on Lafayette Street," interrupted the Colonel. "I
thought it better...."

"Right," declared Wilkinson. "But we don't need it yet."

Leslie turned to Colonel Morehead; her eyes were bright, her cheeks red
with excitement.

"Why did my father have to stay in there; can you tell me that?" she
asked.

"The bail was stupendous. I had arranged for reasonable bail; but this
was unusual," the Colonel explained. "But that's not all--the surety
companies had been warned."

"Warned! Did you say warned not to give bail when they were secured?"
she cried.

"Warned," repeated Morehead, "not to furnish bail without being sure
that they were secure."

"Who warned them?" echoed Wilkinson, incredulous.

"The _Morning Mail_," began the Colonel, but was interrupted by
Wilkinson:

"Phew! And who owns the _Morning Mail_?"

Morehead smiled.

"Check and countercheck," he grinned. "Ougheltree and his gang have
just bought it." Turning to Leslie, he explained that Ougheltree was
the President of the Twentieth Century National Bank. "The National
Banks have formed in line to fight the Trust Companies," he told her,
"because the Trust Companies, having bigger powers, attract more
people. And they've opened fire on your father, first, and his string
of Trust Companies." And now once more he turned to Wilkinson, and
laying his hand on the other's shoulder, he said: "Do you know what I
was thinking just this morning? I think you ought to buy a daily paper.
I do, indeed! This is a crisis----"

"But I already own a paper," objected Wilkinson.

"I mean a good one. My idea would be to buy--well, say the _Daily
Reporter_. It's a crackerjack sheet that's just begun to go down hill.
It can be bought cheap, too."

Leslie tightened her grasp on her father's arm.

"Let me buy it for you, father, that is, if there's money enough left
to buy it with."

Morehead's attention was directed afresh toward Leslie.

"Let me go on, Miss Leslie," he continued. "There were other reasons
why haste was inadvisable. The _Morning Mail_, owned by this gang of
national bankers, is trying to poison public opinion against your
father. If we had instantly snapped a bail bond of three-quarters of a
million dollars on the files, the _Mail_ would have charged Peter V.
Wilkinson with being a rich man still, having the money of the masses
in his coat-tail pocket. It was wise and necessary, too, for me to
forestall this. I gave to every newspaper in the city the pedigree
of the stocks and bonds that you put up, showing that they were the
individual property of your mother, and had come down to you direct.
The result is that the _Morning Mail_ had not a word to say. We've got
to be mighty careful," he concluded, "about public opinion. For there's
a trial waiting for us out there in the future."

There was determination in the girl's voice as she answered excitedly:

"And we'll win it, too!"

Wilkinson snorted.

"Of course we'll win!" he cried.

"We'll win," conceded Morehead, "but only after some shrewd
counsellor-at-law--naming no names--has mapped out the campaign."

"That reminds me," said Wilkinson, "that we must put Flomerfelt on to
this."

"Never mind Flomerfelt just now," advised Morehead. "Our first step is
to buy a live newspaper and start in. And the first thing that's going
to be chalked up to the methods of the _Morning Mail_, is the murderous
mob that's responsible for the murder of Pallister three days ago."

They had started for Lafayette Street, but Wilkinson held them back.

"Who's going to try my case, Morehead?" he queried. "Which one of
Murgatroyd's men?"

Colonel Morehead smiled enigmatically.

"Assistant District Attorney J. Newton Leech is the man. My information
is direct--direct from the inside."

Wilkinson literally dragged them across the street.

"Come on," he said, "we'll go in and see Assistant District Attorney
Leech right away."

Morehead interposed, and demanded:

"What for?"

"Just to--er--throw a sop to Cerberus," said Wilkinson. "Come, come
along with me."

Wilkinson's cringing manner of a little while before had left him. His
shoulders once more were straight, his Van Dyke belligerent. He had
assumed his position as a leader of men.

"Both you and Leslie come along with me," he repeated. "I'm going to
scratch Leech's back, and maybe, one of these days, he'll scratch mine."

They were ushered forthwith into the Assistant District Attorney's
outer office. His private door was open, and they could hear his even
voice within. His tones were mingled, however, with those of a woman--a
pleading, tearful woman, judging from her voice. Wilkinson's card was
sent in to Leech; and the instant that the Assistant District Attorney
saw it, his straight lips widened into a pleasant smile. He came out to
greet the three almost instantly, singled out Morehead and held out his
hand.

"Colonel," he said in his sprightly and yet confidential manner,
"mighty glad to see you." And now turning his gaze on Wilkinson, he
added: "I'm afraid, Mr. Wilkinson, that you won't care to shake hands
with me; but I assure you I won't bite--not just yet, at any rate."

Wilkinson shook hands warmly, and haw-hawed in a most approved and
business-like manner. Leech now turned swiftly to Leslie, and then
stopped, embarrassed.

"Miss Wilkinson," began Colonel Morehead.

"Mr. Leech, this is my daughter, Miss Wilkinson," said Peter V.,
snatching the words from the Colonel's mouth, and then without giving
Leech the opportunity to make the usual acknowledgment, he hurriedly
went on in a loud, commanding voice: "Now, Leslie, dear, I want you to
tell Assistant District Attorney Leech of the threats that this man
Ilingsworth made to you the other day."

"I beg your pardon," said Leech, stepping to the inner door and closing
it quietly, for Wilkinson's words had brought an exclamation to the
lips of the woman in the adjoining room, that had reached his ears.
Leech came back almost instantly and placed chairs for them all.

"Tell him all you know, Leslie," commanded her father.

The girl's breath came quick and short. Her father's words had come as
a shock to her, and she looked about her helplessly.

"Father, I'd much prefer not," she protested.

Morehead did not altogether approve of the proceeding, chiefly because
he had not been consulted upon it, and he interjected gravely:

"Are we sure, Mr. Wilkinson, that she knows anything of the affair?"

Wilkinson did not deign even to glance at his counsel, and ignoring the
girl's protests, and brushing aside or rather pushing his way through
her objections, as was his wont, with his shoulders, he repeated:

"Leslie, I want you to tell Assistant District Attorney Leech all that
you know about this man Ilingsworth--all--you understand."

Leslie, with difficulty, controlled herself, and cried out:

"Father, this is a--a case of murder. I can't be the accuser.... Don't
drag me into it--please...."

A dull red, angry colour crept up over Wilkinson's collar, and his eyes
flashed.

"Leslie, don't you understand what this man Ilingsworth has done? He's
killed my private secretary Pallister! It's your duty.... How are you
going to escape ...?"

Leech tiptoed back to the door of his private office and gently closed
the transom, which was open.

"In order to relieve you, Miss Wilkinson," he now said, and his voice
was reassuring, "I may as well tell you that we have established,
beyond all doubt, proofs of Ilingsworth's guilt. We have people who say
they saw him in the crowd; we've found the man who sold him the gun,
and we've shown him Ilingsworth's photograph, which he identifies as
unquestionably the man."

"But you haven't got Ilingsworth?" quickly interposed Morehead.

"Not yet," and Leech fastened his eyes on Leslie. "Can you have any
idea as to where he is?"

The three dissented silently.

"We'll get him yet," smiled Leech. "It is rare that we do not succeed
in landing a person when once we start out to," he went on, his glance
shifting to Wilkinson, who met it in open and genial defiance.

"You--you have time to hear what my daughter has to say?" asked
Wilkinson, and without waiting for an answer, he added: "I think now is
the time to take it down--and----"

Leech rose abruptly.

"Miss Wilkinson, you would know this man Ilingsworth, I suppose, if you
saw him?"

"Yes," faltered Leslie, "I should know the man. But his pictures in
the daily papers--I should never have known him from those."

"Just a moment, until I get his photograph," whispered the Assistant
District Attorney, opening the inside door; presently he returned,
closing the door again behind him, and advancing towards them he
resumed confidingly: "The fact is, I've got Ilingsworth's daughter
inside there. I shouldn't be surprised if she knew where the old man
is, either, though she insists that she does not, and----"

Wilkinson grunted.

"And you're practising third-degree tactics on her, I suppose," he said.

"Well, not exactly that, but persuasion--polite persuasion, that's
all," explained the Assistant District Attorney, smiling. He stepped
once more toward the inner door, and Leslie, obeying some hidden
impulse, darted quickly to his side.

"Will you let me see her without being seen," she pleaded. "He told me
all about her--her name is Elinor."

"Stand here, then," whispered Leech, and opening the door swiftly, he
passed over to the window and held the girl within in conversation
while he searched among his papers, and in such a manner that
three-quarters of her countenance was turned toward Leslie. One glance
at the pretty face of the girl was sufficient to satisfy Leslie that
Elinor Ilingsworth was in great distress, and taking her place beside
her father, she whispered:

"Oh, father, you should see her. She's in great trouble, and yet she
looks so--so pretty." Genuine anguish shone from Leslie's eyes as she
now turned from her father to Colonel Morehead, and asked:

"Who's going to take care of her? What's to become of her now?"

Leech had returned by this time and was holding before Leslie a
half-tone photograph of Giles Ilingsworth.

"That's the man!" cried Leslie, seizing the picture. She turned it
over and glanced involuntarily at the inscription on the back. "Taken
particularly for my daughter Elinor," it said. "Affectionately her
father, G. I. Sept. 190----"

Leslie's eyes reproached Leech.

"You make this girl an instrument in her father's destruction," she
said indignantly, little understanding what part she might play later
in her own father's affairs.

Leech, who seemed to take a very business-like pleasure in feasting his
eyes upon Leslie's face, merely nodded, and after a moment's silence he
said:

"You forget, Miss Wilkinson, that we have our duty to perform. A man
who murders is not entitled to so very much consideration, after all."
He looked at the photograph in her hand. "If you're sure that this is
the man you know as Giles Ilingsworth, you might tell me briefly what
he said. It is not vital," he went on hastily, "that is, we can make
a case without it. But we want--and Mr. Wilkinson is good enough to
offer----"

"Mr. Leech," broke in Wilkinson, seeking the Assistant District
Attorney's glance, which he held to the end, "let me be understood.
This man Ilingsworth killed a man in my employ--to be exact, my private
secretary, my friend. I want to put myself on record here and now:
Whenever a man tries to do me an injury, whenever a man tries to hound
me--hound me, understand, as this man Ilingsworth did,"--he paused for
an instant,--"his gun was aimed at me, don't you forget that--why,
I camp on that man's trail until I land him. And conversely, if a
man does me a favour,"--again there was a pause to let the fact sink
home,--"I never forget it. Now, Leslie," he concluded, "you may proceed
with the facts, and tell us about the man who tried to kill your father
in cold blood."

Leslie's recital consisted of the threats Ilingsworth had made.
Wilkinson supplemented it with his statement as to the unwarranted
attack on himself by Ilingsworth in front of Wilkinson's house on the
Drive on that eventful evening a short while before. Leech took no
notes of these statements, but merely tucked away the details to be
dictated to his stenographer later in the privacy of his inner room.

"That's all, Mr. Leech," said Wilkinson, rising, and, holding out his
hand, the other shook it genially.

"By the way, who's going to try the Ilingsworth case for the People?"
inquired Morehead, hoping to take the Assistant District Attorney off
his guard.

"Nobody knows yet," snapped the Assistant District Attorney, in a
manner to remind the Colonel gently but forcefully that it was nobody's
business but the People's.

At the outer door, Leslie held them for a moment.

"If there was any way to," she faltered, "I'd like to know what's going
to happen to--to that girl inside. I----"

Wilkinson winked at Morehead.

"Why, girlie," he exclaimed, "Ilingsworth's stolen millions will take
care of her!"

Leslie brightened up.

"To be sure," she answered. "I--I never thought of that. I'd forgotten
all about the fact that he had money still."

"He reeks with money," added Morehead, returning Wilkinson's wink. "And
now, for the machine."

Twenty minutes later Wilkinson stalked into the presence of his wife
and Beekman. It was late afternoon, and Beekman was to dine with them
that night. Wilkinson bowed ostentatiously to Mrs. Wilkinson, and
commented:

"Overpowered, my dear, absolutely overpowered by your attentions to me
while I was in the Tombs. I actually felt like a bachelor again."

"How could any man expect a lady to go there?" she asked, glaring at
Beekman, and evidently expecting him to come to her aid, but as no
comment was forthcoming from that gentleman, she concluded her remark
by saying: "Not for the best man alive would I trail down into that
dirty, dingy place."

Wilkinson groaned with disgust.

"Nevertheless, there were some women," he reminded her, "who came
there, clad in rags, and stood, stood, stood on their tired feet all
day long, outside the cells of the men they loved. They were wives,
mostly wives, too, for I heard what they had to say...." He, too,
appealed to Beekman. "It's worth while, Beekman," he wound up, a trifle
sadly, "to be loved for yourself alone, and not for your money, isn't
it?"

The mistress of the house lifted up her voice in raucous mirth.

"I don't see, Peter," she returned, "that you have any money to be
loved for now."

"Hence," commented her lord and master, while Beekman grew hot and cold
by turns at this free and easy bickering, "hence you didn't come down
to the Tombs. But," his forefinger shot out and, figuratively speaking,
touched her on a vital spot, "you made a big mistake! If you'd been
there the artists of the daily press would have had you shown up in
forty different poses for Sunday. I had the devil's own time in keeping
Leslie's face from getting in. But yours--I could have had it in every
hour of the day without its costing me one penny."

The lady leaned forward in genuine eagerness, and asked:

"Is that true, Peter? I thought they had abandoned me--left me on the
shelf. But if it's true, I promise to be there every day the next time
you're locked up."

Peter V. paled perceptibly.

"There isn't going to be any next time," he laughed. "Eliot Beekman's
going to see to that."

Meantime in the Colonial drawing-room, Leslie was enjoying a quiet
tête-à-tête with Colonel Morehead.

"It was the nicest thing in the world, Colonel," she was telling him,
"your picking out Eliot Beekman for--for father. And I believe you're
right. Mr. Beekman is so honest, so earnest, and so convincing. And he
looks you in the eye so."

"Um, how does he look you in the eye?" returned the Colonel, meeting
her gaze.

But Leslie, flushing, had already fled.

It was hours later, when alone with Beekman, she looked into his eyes
squarely, as was her habit, and asked falteringly:

"Do you know, Mr.--Mr. Beekman----"

Beekman stopped her.

"Begin again," he commanded, "you can do better than that."

"Mr.... Mr...." she started in, but again Beekman protested.

"Now look here, I'm only one of six lawyers in your father's case.
Every last man of 'em calls you Leslie--even Patrick Durand, and I'm
going to call you Leslie, too. It's a part of my duties, as your
father's counsel in the case. Therefore, you begin again, and begin it
right."

There was a moment's pause in which Leslie averted her face.

"Eliot," she finally whispered, in gentle tones, her eyes coming back
to his, "I think it is perfectly fine of you to help father in this
way. Don't you know," she went on, "you said that night on the way home
from Mrs. Pallet-Searing's, that you wished you could do something for
him, help him some way. And now you've buckled on your armour in his
defence."

"Hold on there!" called out Beekman, in alarm. "Wait a bit! Is that
what you call it-- my helping him? Why, there are just about ten
thousand lawyers in the Borough of Manhattan who'd give their eyes to
get the job. And, besides, don't laud me yet. Great Heavens, Leslie!
Don't you understand that I've got a fat retainer in my pocket for all
this?"

The girl laughed in glee.

"So much the better!" she exclaimed. Presently her brow wrinkled and
she demanded: "Who paid it to you, Eliot?"

"Colonel Morehead," quickly spoke up Beekman.

"I wonder where he got the money?" she mused, then she laughed once
more. "Probably my money," she said. "Wouldn't it be great if I were
paying you for this?"

"It would," answered Beekman in mock solemnity, "because, getting this
much out of your coffers, I should have hopes in time of depleting your
funds to a very large extent, so that some day in the future, having
flim-flammed you out of a large proportion of your worldly wealth, I
should then stand on that footing of American equality I mentioned to
you the other night, and might, in turn, 'with all these worldly goods
I thee endow'----"

"Don't you be too sure," she said seriously.

Nor was it given to them to know what the fates had in store for them,
that the time was soon to come when Beekman should be on that equal
footing, to which he referred, and, what is more, that he was to stand
as the one man in the state, the cynosure of all eyes, his name on
every lip.

"At any rate," she went on, "it's fine of you to fight.... You're going
to fight, aren't you?"

He looked over her head far into the future. It was all hazy there, but
in his ambitious purposes Beekman recognised that he held within his
grasp the one big opportunity of his career.

"Fight," he echoed, "to the last ditch."

"And so am I," she went on enthusiastically. "We'll all fight, and
we'll win; we're bound to win."

"We're bound to win," he repeated, the blood surging through his veins.
"And when we win--what then?" He looked deep into her eyes; but she
cast them down before him.

"Let's win first," she faltered.

If only there had been a warning hand, a friendly voice to tell him
what lay before him in the future! For could he have heard Wilkinson's
words, that very afternoon, to the Assistant District Attorney: "The
man who does me a favour I never forget; the man who injures me I never
forgive,"--he might have thought twice before replying:

"It's a go. You're quite right. We'll win first."




X


"You ought to have been there, Patrick! By jinks, you had ...!"
exclaimed Wilkinson some months later as he watched the rings of smoke
from his cigar float upwards to the ceiling of the Millionaires' Club.
"I fixed him, didn't I, Colonel?"

Colonel Morehead thought a moment before replying:

"I shouldn't wonder if you did, Peter. You furnished the evidence of
deliberation--that essential element in a murder case--the lying in
wait. Yes, your admirable efforts in that direction will probably land
Ilingsworth in the chair."

"Probably! Oh, thunder," put in Patrick Durand, one of the cleverest
criminal lawyers in the city, "that man Ilingsworth is dead already!"

Colonel Morehead placed the finger-tips of one hand against those of
the other as he made answer:

"If he'd been merely one of a crowd of maddened depositors, acting
in the heat of passion, it would have been second degree, without a
doubt. And yet,"--and the Colonel darted sharp glances first at Durand
and then toward his client,--"in my opinion, the star witness of the
prosecution was your daughter Leslie. The jury believed every word
that she said."

And indeed such had been the case at Ilingsworth's trial. Assistant
District Attorney Leech had made no mistake in the order of summoning
his witnesses. After her father, bluff, arrogant and eager--and
over-willingness is a bad virtue in a witness--had finished his
testimony, Leslie had taken the stand and had wholly removed the bad
impression Wilkinson had made on the jury through his evident desire
that Ilingsworth should be convicted. Moreover, Leech had trained the
girl, as he did all his witnesses, to answer the essential facts,
and nothing else. And to make his task all the easier, Ilingsworth's
lawyer, a hanger-on of the criminal courts--for Ilingsworth had had
no funds to employ first-class counsel, and a prisoner without money
is a doomed man in New York--had wallowed through the trial without
a glimmering of common sense. From the first, as might have been
expected, he had played directly into the hands of the People. But his
blundering had not been without its interesting side--interesting, at
least, to a few of his hearers. For despite the Assistant District
Attorney's strenuous objections, the Court had overruled his contention
that the entire conversation between Giles Ilingsworth and Leslie that
memorable afternoon was irrelevant and immaterial, and in consequence
the good-for-nothing lawyer had led Leslie on to tell in detail all
of Ilingsworth's grave charges against her father. And it was at that
point, and barely before the girl had uttered two hundred words,
that a reporter of the _Morning Mail_ had succeeded in wriggling
his way through the lawyers inside the rail, and had not crept back
into his place and resumed the taking of copious notes until the
court stenographer to whom he had whispered: "Say, old man, I want
all this, word for word, by two o'clock, at any price," had nodded
his willingness to accept the fifty-dollar bill that he was sure the
_Morning Mail_ must vouchsafe him for this hurry job.

And so it happened that an hour later the _Morning Mail_ man was
telling Mr. Ougheltree of the Twentieth Century Bank and head of the
bankers clique that owned the _Mail_, that he had to stand by this man
Ilingsworth from start to finish. And as a result of this interview
the few spectators at the afternoon session of the court had heard the
celebrated Worth Higgins inform the Court that he had been retained to
conduct the case for the defence, as well as the Court's complimentary
remarks in reply.

But Worth Higgins had been of little service to the defendant, though
he had drawn from his witnesses, especially Ilingsworth, all that
they knew or suspected about Wilkinson's management of the seventeen
bankrupt trust companies--a feat which, as will readily be imagined,
was all that the _Morning Mail_ required of him. In truth, Higgins had
done Ilingsworth more harm than good. The defendant had deliberately
purchased a gun; had lain in wait; had shot a man down in cold blood.
Not the man he had aimed at, it is true, but the principle was the same.

"Will the defendant deny that he did the shooting?" had been Higgins'
query to Boggs.

"Of course he will," had been his fellow-counsel's answer. "He's as
innocent as a new-born babe."

And with that Higgins had put the defendant on the stand and heard him
deny it--a weak, wabbling denial it was, in reality merely a recital of
his wrongs.

"That's all," Higgins said, when the testimony was over, and then he
had added in an aside to his junior: "His goose is cooked."

Nevertheless, at the suggestion of the _Morning Mail_ man, he had taken
all the exceptions possible, remarking to that gentleman's intimation
that the case was going up for an appeal: "A good thing it is, for it's
a gone case here."

And Higgins had been quite right. For, a short time after this the jury
had filed back and pronounced the one word of doom.

In common with everyone in the court-room, save Ilingsworth and his
daughter, Leslie had expected just such an ending. All through the
trial she had longed for the words that would relieve her from the
thraldom of uncertainty in which she was held; yet when the foreman
had pronounced the verdict it had shocked her inexpressibly, left her
indescribably sad. For some moments she had struggled to regain her
composure, and fearful of a break-down, she had fled, but not in time
to escape seeing Ilingsworth slump down into his seat with a faint
moan. At the door the sound of many voices and exclamations of pity
had reached her ears. She halted, and looking back she saw that the
commotion was the result of some woman who had fainted. And then it
was that she saw, too, the never-to-be-forgotten picture of Elinor
Ilingsworth, friendless and helpless, looking hopelessly down upon
her father while she endeavoured to soothe him with endearing words.
Impulsively Leslie had started back, a vague intention of putting her
arms around the girl's neck, of taking possession of her, as it were,
and carrying her, who needed care so much, to her own home. But like
a flash the futility of such a course had dawned upon her. For the
realisation had been borne in upon her that it was her own testimony,
more than anyone else's, that had been the means of convicting the
girl's father; and that for her to offer words of sympathy to the
daughter would be a mockery if not an insult. It was, therefore, with
a sigh that Leslie had again retraced her steps, forcing herself to be
content with giving the girl a glance of infinite pity.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Conceding that Leslie's testimony did for him," Wilkinson was now
saying to his cronies at his club, gulping down his Scotch, "conceding
that, but who set her on--made her testify? It was I who bit into that
fellow's heel, and don't you forget that I'm proud of it."

Morehead stared through the cloud of collecting smoke.

"I wish, Patrick," he proceeded to say to Durand, in his own calm way,
"that you could have been there for just one reason: I am anxious to
know whether my view of the effect of Peter's testimony on the jury is
correct."

Patrick Durand waved his hand.

"You ought to know, Colonel."

"Don't you think it had a good effect on 'em, Morehead?" queried his
client.

Morehead rose and stretched his legs, and without glancing, even, at
Wilkinson, he said bluntly:

"Durand, I watched them closely--each one of the twelve. And, mark my
words, if it hadn't been for Leslie, I don't believe one man in the
twelve would have believed a word that Peter said."

Wilkinson turned red.

"What the devil do you mean, Morehead?" he roared. "Is this an insult?"

Morehead never flinched.

"Sit down, Wilkinson," he commanded curtly. "I'm talking to Mr. Durand.
What do you think, Patrick?"

Patrick Durand glanced over the rims of his glasses at the ceiling.

"Representative men, were they, Colonel?" he asked.

"A good mixture," said the Colonel. "I never saw a better...."

Durand drew a long breath.

"It looks bad--mighty bad, Colonel, for us," he observed calmly.

"What do you mean? How bad for us?" insisted Wilkinson, his face still
red with the imputation cast upon him.

Durand looked at him long and searchingly, doubtful whether to take him
into their confidence or not. Presently he said:

"It's just this, Brother Wilkinson: If an ordinary jury isn't going to
believe a man when he tells the truth, what are they going to do when
he deliberately lies?"

"But hang it, man," exploded Wilkinson, "I didn't lie; I told the
truth."

"Yes, Wilkinson, you told the truth in this Ilingsworth case, but it's
your own case we're thinking about. There'll be a jury in that, too."

"You fellows make me tired," growled Wilkinson. "My case--if it ever
comes to trial----"

"Oh, don't you worry about that! It will come to trial, all right," put
in Flomerfelt, speaking for the first time, and helping himself to a
fresh cigar.

"It won't if my overtures to District Attorney Murgatroyd are
accepted," retorted Peter V.

The two eminent counsel lifted up their eyes in mild surprise.

"You don't mean to say you're going to bribe Murgatroyd?" came in
chorus.

"Why not?"

"You've got enough indictments against you already, Peter," they warned
him, "without having Murgatroyd charge you with an attempt to bribe."

"No, indeed, you can't bribe Murgatroyd," spoke up Flomerfelt, with a
knowing smile. "Though I'll tell you what, Colonel," he went on, "there
is a chap who's not above suspicion on that staff."

Morehead winked.

"The hold-over from the last administration?"

"You mean Leech?" gasped Wilkinson.

Flomerfelt nodded.

"It's better to hear you say the name than to say it ourselves, Peter,"
remarked Morehead.

"Why, then the case needn't come to trial!" exclaimed Peter V.,
joyously. "We can get at Leech."

"Not in a hundred years!" ejaculated Flomerfelt. "Murgatroyd stands
behind these indictments in your case, don't you forget that. And even
if Leech tries them, Murgatroyd will be there to see.... The Assistant
District Attorney won't be able to move out of the beaten track. Your
case will come to trial, never fear."

"Well, then, let it come," grunted Wilkinson, a little ruffled by the
demeanour of Flomerfelt and his counsel. "But by that time this man
Ilingsworth will be dead; we'll shove everything on him."

"I don't believe Ilingsworth will be dead," remarked Morehead. "Indeed
I do not."

"Well, even if he isn't," retorted Wilkinson, huskily, "he's wholly
discredited. A man who'll murder may commit other crimes; the jury will
believe anything of Ilingsworth by the time we're through with him."

Morehead held up his hand.

"Durand and I have gone over this whole thing; have looked up every man
on Flomerfelt's list; they won't stick to us, that's all. Wilkinson,
your crowd are down on you. And what's more, the _Morning Mail_ now
stands behind Ilingsworth, and they're going to stick by him. So if we
make this attempt to unload iniquity on Ilingsworth and fail, we'll
do two things we don't want to do: One is, we'll make the dangerous
admission that there has been iniquity; and the other, psychological
problem as it is, is quite as much to be feared----"

"Fire ahead," interrupted Wilkinson.

"I'm banking on Beekman--banking on his personality with his jury, and
I don't want the ghost of a doubt to show in his face. That's why I
sent him to Europe. Of course we need the evidence he's getting over
there--it's good stuff. But I sent him now in order that he shouldn't
even read, save in a casual way, this story of Ilingsworth. A true
story is a mighty bad story, Peter. So we'll cut Ilingsworth out of
this case. If the People produce him--and I'm satisfied they won't--why
we'll try to get him on the cross-examination. Durand and I have talked
it all over, and our game is going to be a game of denial from start to
finish. I doubt whether the People make out the case against you. If
they don't we've got 'em nailed. And if the judge sends the case to the
jury, we'll deny everything the People put up against us. But it's a
lucky thing for you that they'll believe your daughter Leslie."

"It's a pity, Wilkinson," said Flomerfelt, with something like a
sneer, "that while you were about it, you didn't swing this thing in a
more careful way. Of course it's too late now. You bit off more than
you could chew that time! You thought you could get away with the
goods--got careless! I've seen many a safecracker do the same thing."

Wilkinson flushed.

"Do you mean to compare me with----" he began; but Flomerfelt left the
question unanswered.

"This is no Sunday-school picnic, and you may as well understand it
now, Peter," said Morehead. "We've got to work for our living in this
case, and you've got to do your share, have got to understand that it's
a running fight from now on to the end."

"I'll do my part," Wilkinson assured them, burying his hands in his
pockets. "But I want you to find out who the judge is going to be, and
when the time comes, give me the names of the jury, and I'll get at
them all right."

Colonel Morehead rose to his lanky height and clutched the shoulder of
his opulent client.

"Wilkinson," he cried, shaking a lean hand in the other's face, "you
don't know what you're talking about! And you might as well make up
your mind now that you can't touch Murgatroyd, and you can't touch the
Court. And Murgatroyd is there to see that you don't touch the jury.
We--Durand and I--have got charge of this thing. You keep your hands
off...."

"But you're going to pull me out, aren't you?"

" ... In our own way. So far I've always had my own way in my cases,"
declared Patrick Durand, "and if I can't have it in this one, why, I'll
retire, that's all."

"Yes, you must do as they say, Peter V." advised Flomerfelt, suavely,
and then lowering his voice so that the others should not hear, he
added: "If in the course of human events it should become necessary to
lay a bribe in order to get you clear, I'll attend to that myself."




XI


"Guilty, your Honour."

The voice was the tremulous voice of the foreman of a jury. His hand
shook as it held the slip of paper from which he read the portentous
words.

The Court leaned over toward him.

"I didn't catch that," said the Court.

Once more the foreman drew himself together, and moistened his lips
before he repeated in shrill tones:

"Guilty, your Honour--guilty as charged in the indictment."

For a brief moment there was a silence; then the spacious court-room
broke into subdued uproar.

"Jumpin' Jerusalem, I didn't think they'd have the nerve to do
it!" came from a voice somewhere in the crowd; and judging from
the expression on the faces of the people, this remark was fairly
indicative of their opinion.

The Court rapped for silence, and nodded to Beekman, the active counsel
for the defence.

"If the Court please," began Beekman, his face pale, and his voice
trembling with surprise and disappointment, "we move to set aside the
verdict and for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is against
the weight of evidence, against the charge of the Court, contrary
to...."

A heavy hand was laid upon Beekman's arm.

"Hold on there! I want that jury polled!" The speaker of these words
was Peter V. Wilkinson; for this trial was his trial; and this verdict
was the verdict in his case. "Morehead, get 'em to poll that jury!"
Again he spoke as one accustomed to command, and not as a prisoner
before the bar.

"Poll the jury," directed the Court.

The clerk started to obey.

"Now, Morehead," went on Wilkinson in a hoarse whisper, "I want you to
place in my hands--my hands, you understand--the name and address of
every mother's son upon that jury. I won't forget 'em, let me tell you
that."

"John T. Wyatt," droned the clerk.

And Wyatt, juror, stiffened for an instant, hesitated, and then taking
a big grip on himself, answered as his foreman had: "Guilty." Every man
in the box made the same answer; but as every man voiced his verdict,
he met the sullen, defiant, vengeful gaze of a man who never forgot,
who never forgave, and each man felt that instant as if, somehow, he
were in the tightening grasp of the big millionaire at the counsel
table.

"Now make your motions, Beekman," whispered Morehead.

And Beekman made a motion to set aside the verdict; made a motion in
arrest of judgment; made a motion for a new trial.

Wilkinson watched the face of the Court as he had watched the faces of
the jurymen.

"This is Gilchrist's chance to square himself, Morehead," he announced
huskily. "He's got to give us a new trial, or we'll know the reason
why."

But Judge Gilchrist merely swept the court-room with a weary glance.

"Motion denied," he said briefly, and with as much concern as if he
brushed away a fly. He now turned to the jury. "Gentlemen," he went on
gratefully, "you are discharged for the balance of the week--after this
long, protracted trial--with the thanks of the Court, for the fairness,
justice and impartiality of your verdict. Good-day, gentlemen."

"Wha--what!" gasped Wilkinson in a voice that could be heard all over
the court-room. "Does he mean to say that this verdict is just--does
he, Morehead?"

Colonel Morehead frowned with vexation.

"Keep quiet, Wilkinson," was all he said.

The Court waited until the jury had filed out, watching them as they
went. Then his glance returned to the coterie of counsel at the table.

"Counsellor," he remarked to Beekman, "what day will be most convenient
to you for sentence? And you, Mr. Leech?"

Up to this time Leslie, who had been sitting at the counsel table
with her father, had listened in a sort of daze to the proceedings of
the court. She had heard all the testimony, understanding it as best
she could, and had gathered from her father's manner and that of his
counsel, particularly Beekman's, that the whole thing was a mere matter
of form, from which her father would come out unscathed and unscarred.
The verdict had simply added to this vagueness; but when the Court had
pronounced the significant and ugly word 'sentence,' it brought her up,
as it were, all standing; and half-rising from her seat she held out
her hand in an imploring gesture.

"Sentence?" she cried out in her excitement. "No, he can't mean
that...."

There was a titter from the women on the benches; it brought Leslie to
her senses, and flushing and confused she sank back and covered her
face with her hands.

"Leslie, brace up!" said Beekman, leaning over her, his voice showing
his deep emotion. "It will come out all right. We'll win out on appeal."

Flomerfelt stepped to the fore and plucked Beekman by the sleeve.

"Let me have a word with you," he requested, whispering something in
his ear.

Beekman at once addressed the Court.

"If your Honour please," he began, "may we have a brief consultation
among counsel before we ask your Honour to set a day?"

"Certainly," agreed the Court, "you may step into the ante-room."

Six counsel and Flomerfelt and Wilkinson--eight in all--filed into the
ante-room.

"Shut that door, Eliot," said Morehead. "Now, Flomerfelt, what's your
idea?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Out in the court-room J. Newton Leech, who had prosecuted for the
People, left the side of Murgatroyd and went over to Leslie to offer
his sympathy.

"Miss Wilkinson, this has been pretty hard on you."

"I don't understand it at all," the girl answered, turning her pale,
tired face to his.

"I wouldn't worry," he went on, with something more than mere
professional courtesy in his eyes.

And indeed Leech spoke truly when he said that the trial had been most
distressing to Leslie. It had been doubly so, perhaps, because of the
lack of the usual dramatic features. Forgery, perjury, larceny, ominous
charges to be sure, had figured in the case, but their proof consisted
in large account books, private memoranda, original reports from the
State banking offices, notes, stock transfers, in fact, everything to
weary and little to excite.

District Attorney Murgatroyd, like the accusing ghost of Hamlet's
father, had stalked silent, brooding, imperturbable, behind his
assistant, Leech, dictating nothing openly, but seeing, knowing that no
stone was left unturned. For the first two days of the trial the People
apparently had made but little inroads upon the integrity of Peter V.
Wilkinson; but at the end of that time, some new and powerful influence
had made itself felt: shrewd accountants entered the court-room and sat
at the Assistant District Attorney's elbow; a financier or two kept at
Murgatroyd's side; absolutely unassailable witnesses took the stand.

It was about this time that Morehead had nudged Durand and whispered:

"The _Morning Mail_ and Ougheltree of the National Banks are at work.
Here's where our trouble begins."

But although these two practitioners well knew, even at that early
stage of the game, that the chances weighed heavily against them, not
once did they flinch, not once did they permit the set expression of
confidence to leave their faces. On the contrary, they turned to their
leader and said:

"Beekman, the jury isn't even nibbling at this stuff. We've got a
walk-over."

But Beekman could not bring himself to their point of view. With
growing fear he listened to the evidence of the People as it piled up
against his client. Nevertheless, Beekman had--just the thing that
Morehead had said he had--an unaltering faith in Wilkinson. He was
partisan to the last degree. And so quite naturally his intellect
rejected the proofs of the People. Not that he did not appreciate their
weight, but rather that he didn't believe their truth.

And what a fight he had put up for his client! To this day Beekman's
summing up is remembered.

"We didn't make any mistake in getting him," Morehead had told Durand
after the address to the jury.

Even Murgatroyd had been moved to admiration by his closing arguments,
turning black into white, as he did, because it looked white to him,
and the District Attorney had said to his Assistant:

"Leech, you couldn't do that in a thousand years--not the way he does
it. And if it were not for public opinion, it is pretty certain that
Beekman would get an acquittal from this jury. As it is...."

And not for one moment had Murgatroyd felt that the case was safe
until the foreman's tremulous tones had quavered forth upon the heavy
air of Sessions.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the first few minutes of the time that was passed in the
ante-room behind closed doors, Beekman's face wore an air of profound
dejection. Instead of joining, as was to be expected, in an animated
discussion that the others were having, he had taken a seat by himself,
and was reproaching himself with dereliction of duty. Imagine, then,
his astonishment when presently the little coterie gathered about him
and began to laud him for his good work.

"You're a wonder, youngster!" they told him. "And you may consider
yourself engaged again right now, if we get a new trial."

"But they beat me! I failed!" replied Beekman, a look of bewilderment
on his face. For he had expected reproaches, and here was genuine
applause as for a winner instead of for a loser.

"Thought you were going to get me out of this?" growled Wilkinson,
staring about him; for he knew that these men in some way were
responsible for his losing his case.

"We are," returned Durand, grimly; but his eyes flashed a wireless
message to the eyes of Colonel Morehead. And this wireless message ran
about like this: "We are going to get him out of this ... but how?"

Colonel Morehead's glance travelled quickly around the room in a
comprehensive way; then settled upon Wilkinson, and he said:

"Gentlemen, I think Peter V. had better be sentenced now."

"Now! Thunder and guns, not now! Give me another chance to get at the
Court, or at Murgatroyd. I need time--put it off as long as possible,"
Wilkinson said, the tremour in his voice only half concealed.

"Time is dangerous," declared Morehead, with a shake of the head. "We
don't want public opinion nor the _Morning Mail_ to get to work. The
public--except your own depositors--didn't believe that you were going
to be convicted; they believed you to be only technically guilty.
But give the populace two days to consider the fact that you've
been convicted--convicted of forgery--I don't say you're guilty,
Wilkinson--and let the _Morning Mail_ hammer that in for a week, the
Judge is bound to feel the force of this public opinion. It's the one
thing from which no public officer can escape."

"Let Gilchrist sentence now, and you'll get off with a fine,"
interposed Flomerfelt; "that was my suggestion."

"That's the whole idea," said Patrick Durand. "The less delay there
is, the lighter it will be."

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile Assistant District Attorney Leech had been moderately
successful in his attempt to soothe Leslie. His manner and his words,
"I wouldn't worry," had seemed a guarantee to her that her troubles
were about to vanish. She began to reason that nothing could happen to
her father. Nothing ever did happen to respectable men like him--big
men, rich men. And so she watched with increasing confidence the eight
men file back into the court-room.

"If the Court please," Beekman was saying gravely, at her side,
"instead of fixing a future day for sentence, we suggest that the Court
pronounce its sentence now."

The suggestion fell like a bomb-shell in the midst of the crowd. Even
District Attorney Murgatroyd rose to his feet in surprise.

"I see no reason," he began, and then remembering that he was not
trying the case, he nodded to his assistant; Leech took the cue and
pressed to the fore.

"This is an important case, your Honour," he contended, "and one that
demands deliberation. It seems to me that it would be preferable to
defer sentence until--say, Thursday of next week."

The Court quickly waved Leech back to his seat and addressed himself to
the prisoner.

"What does the defendant say? Are you ready for sentence now?"

"I am," said Wilkinson, and rising at Morehead's nudge he stood glaring
at the Court. Beekman was at his side, and extended his hand, saying:

"Before sentence is pronounced, if your Honour please, I should like to
say a word or two on behalf of the defendant."

The Court likewise waved him back.

"I heard all you told the jury," remarked Judge Gilchrist, somewhat
sharply. "You exhausted the subject, there's nothing left to say. I
have the floor."

There was a pause during which the Court slowly took off his glasses,
wiped them with his handkerchief and put them on again.

"This is an unusual case," he began, looking sternly at the defendant.

Back on the benches the crowd leaned forward eagerly.

"What will he give him?" asked someone.

On the rear seat, Burns of the Ideal Dairy, who never missed a big
trial, turned to his friend Porteous, the Park Row hardware man, and
remarked:

"I'll bet you another fifty, Billy, that he fines him a cold million
dollars--that or more."

The hardware man only laughed.

"Done," he answered. "Judge Gilchrist wouldn't dare to fine him over
fifty thousand dollars--and----"

"Hush!" whispered Burns. "He's speaking now."

" ... confined for ten years in State's Prison at hard labour,"
concluded the Court.

The people looked at one another aghast; but Murgatroyd smiled a
smile of complete satisfaction. As for Leslie, she turned a startled,
half-reproachful glance at the Assistant District Attorney, and then
her face went white and her head sank slowly down upon her arm that
lay upon the table. Unconsciously Beekman rested his hand lightly
upon her shoulder, and although the court-room seemed whirling about
his head, he presently found himself counting the heart throbs that
shook her frame. At the table Wilkinson's counsel exchanged glances,
only Morehead and Durand apparently retaining their self-possession,
and proceeded to gather their papers together, and scoop them into
capacious leather bags, shutting the bags loudly with a snap.

Wilkinson's face was scarlet, his eyes flashing fire. From the instant
of the rendition of the jury's verdict he had been a spluttering
volcano of righteous indignation; but now, as he glared at the Court,
he was searching in his mind for some torture, some vengeance fitting
for a judge who dared....

"Do you mean to tell me, Gilchrist," he shouted so that all might hear,
and advancing toward him, "that you've got the nerve to----"

The Court rapped for order.

"Clear the court-room!" he ordered; and turning to Beekman he added:
"Counsellor, your client is beside himself. Take charge of him, or I'll
have somebody do it for you."

Morehead and Flomerfelt pulled Wilkinson down into his seat and held
him there while a court officer stood over him threateningly. For a
brief instant, only, Gilchrist let his cold, judicial gaze meet the hot
belligerence of Peter V. Wilkinson; then he rose, gathered his robes
about him, and passed on to his private chambers.

Immediately four New York newspaper men boldly took possession of the
bench and got three flashlights of Wilkinson struggling in the grasp of
his attorneys. It took less than three-quarters of an hour to clear the
court-room, but within that time New York was reading the headlines:
"Ten years at hard labour in State's Prison for Peter V. Wilkinson,
the multi-millionaire." As a piece of news it was unquestionably quite
worth while; and in an incredibly short space of time London and Paris
had it; that night Constantinople had it; the world had it and gloated
over it.

       *       *       *       *       *

"What are they going to do to you, father?" cried Leslie, when two
uniformed officers laid hands upon Wilkinson.

"That's what I'd like to know," he answered in alarm.

"Take him to the Tombs, of course," spoke up one of the officers. "What
else is there to do?"

"No, I won't go back there! I refuse ..." cried Wilkinson, struggling.

Morehead laid a detaining hand upon the officer's arm.

"Wait a minute, officer," he said. "We'll file a notice of appeal
inside of ten minutes. We're having it prepared now. We'll give
bail--renew the bond...."

Murgatroyd stepped forward and said, clipping his words off as he spoke:

"I shall oppose this man's release on bail pending an appeal, unless
his present bail is increased to double the amount."

"A million dollars! What are you talking about!" exclaimed Morehead.

"I'm talking about the new rule," returned the District Attorney;
"and you know just as much about it as I do." And then smiling
significantly he added: "I think Judge Gilchrist will do pretty much
as I say. Maybe he'll ask for more because of your client's outburst
when sentenced. If you want to see the Judge, come along with me."

"And in the meantime, Chief, shall we lock him up?" queried an officer.

"Wait a bit," put in Leech, courteously glancing at Leslie. "Suppose
Mr. Wilkinson stays in my room until"--he looked at the Colonel
now--"you can give bail this afternoon, can't you?"

"Not if it's a million dollars. Murgatroyd, this man has got to rely
upon his daughter's money," he pleaded. "We couldn't raise a million
dollars in a month."

"Yes we can," snapped Wilkinson, the cold sweat standing out on his
forehead. "We can raise twice that in an hour."

There was an interval of silence in which Morehead tried to look
unconcerned, and Murgatroyd winked at Leech.

"I thought he had it somewhere," whispered the District Attorney to his
assistant.

With this proof before him that he was standing in the presence of a
man far from bankrupt, Leech became doubly attentive.

"I think I can accommodate Mr. Wilkinson in my private office until
five o'clock," he suggested smoothly. "Two officers can remain on
guard outside, Chief. Is that all right?"

Murgatroyd nodded a tentative assent before saying:

"Come, Colonel, and we'll see the Judge...."

And an hour and a half later the bail had been fixed and matters
arranged by Morehead and his colleagues with the surety company. But
when the Colonel was back again in Leech's private office, he whispered
to Wilkinson:

"Where's your nerve, you confounded idiot! Now you've given the whole
thing away! If you'd gone back to the Tombs for a few days longer...."

Wilkinson gave him a look of withering scorn, and measuring his words
carefully, declared:

"I'll never be locked up, Morehead, again--anywhere. I told you once,
and I tell you now for all time, that they'll never get Peter V.
Wilkinson again behind the bars."

Colonel Morehead made no comment, but favoured him with an enigmatical
smile. After a moment or two, he went on to explain that if Wilkinson
had kept quiet they could have hunted up some of his friends and had
the thing fixed up in forty-eight hours; that now, after what had
happened, everybody, and especially Ougheltree and the _Morning Mail_,
would know that he had this money tucked away somewhere; and that
before long they'd find out where the rest of it was, concluding with:
"Somebody'll get it, Wilkinson--they'll get at it."

Wilkinson resented, with a shrug of the shoulders, this interference
with what he considered his business, and made no answer. But turning
to Leslie, he said irritably:

"Leslie, just put your name on the back of these things, will you. The
surety company is waiting for them."

Leslie's face showed a peculiar change; and she turned the certificates
over to read them before attaching her signature.

"Half a million more!" she gasped. "Why, I don't own that much, father.
They can't be mine to sign away, can they?"

"Do as I tell you," ordered her father, gruffly, taking them out of her
hand and turning them face down. "Sign your name on the back of every
one of them." And when she had done so, he said to a waiting messenger:
"There, now, Surety Company, fork over that new bond." And motioning to
Morehead: "Call Leech--there's his bail."




XII


Peter V. Wilkinson was taken to his home in his big Mastodon car.
With him, besides the chauffeur, were his daughter Leslie and Colonel
Morehead. The news of the verdict, the sentence, and the release on
bail had travelled even faster than the sixty-horse-power machine whose
passengers had to fight their way through an impacted mass of humanity
which filled the sidewalk and the street in front of Wilkinson's big
place on the Drive. But then it was not every day that people had the
chance to look upon an ex-multi-millionaire who had been sentenced to
ten years at hard labour and had given a million-dollar bail!

With difficulty they reached the door, and a moment later it closed
upon them.

"Where's Mrs. Wilkinson?" asked the multi-millionaire of the first
footman he came across. And in an aside to Morehead: "I suppose the
missus will have a few remarks to make."

He was informed that Mrs. Wilkinson was in her room and feeling
poorly,--"Very, very poorly," the servant had been told to say,--a
condition of late chronic with the lady. And she had developed another
alarming condition: her increasing avoirdupois, the disappearance
of the last remnants of her charms, the palpable bankruptcy of her
husband, and her envy of her step-daughter Leslie--the only member
of the household who still had grace of mind and face and figure, to
say nothing of wealth--all these had developed in the lady a latent
ferocity, a tigerish temper which seemed to hold unlimited force
behind it. All over the great house her shrill virago's voice could be
heard terrifying the servants; in short, her sudden rise to power was,
perhaps, best described by another member of the household. "The missus
rules the roost now," was the way her husband put it, and he knew
whereof he spoke. Indeed, for that matter, Wilkinson, himself hitherto
fearing no one, and priding himself in the fact, actually trembled
now during the few moments that he was compelled to be in the lady's
presence.

"Colonel, you've got to come with me," begun Wilkinson.

"Not I," was the brief refusal.

"You've got to come if I have to pay you to do it," insisted the
husband. "I won't go up alone."

And Colonel Morehead would probably have used an even more forcible
expression of refusal to do the husband's bidding had he known that
at that very moment his right-hand man was closeted upstairs with his
wife, and was telling her,-- with one of his inscrutable smiles,--a
smile that was intended to convey that it rested wholly with him
whether Wilkinson would get off or not,--that Wilkinson was convicted,
because the men who took the witness stand happened to tell the truth
and had ended emphatically with: "The whole truth, and nothing but the
truth."

But it happened that when they entered on tiptoe the lady's
boudoir--Morehead having been finally persuaded, much against his
will--the lady did not deign to acknowledge Morehead's presence, but
sobbed out to her husband:

"You did not stop to consider me! Why did you let them do this thing to
you? It all falls on me. The intolerable disgrace, shame, humiliation!
You, a felon, a convict, a common thief, a forger!" One after another
she hurled these epithets at him, while Flomerfelt discreetly withdrew.

Wilkinson looked at Morehead for sympathy; then he answered with illy
assumed contrition:

"Yes, my dear."

"I can't face anybody--not my dearest friends," went on the lady. "I
shall never be able to go anywhere again--never."

Wilkinson grinned feebly at his lawyer.

"They say I won't, either, for the next ten years," he said, in
soothing tones.

His jibe aroused the sleeping tigress in her. The lady rose and pointed
toward the door. Her gown was a masterpiece of dressmaking art, for
singular as it may seem her income had not been stopped. Upon her
breast lay jewels worth many thousands; about her neck was clasped a
dog-collar weighted with heavy pearls; and her fingers sparkled with
gems.

"You can go!" exclaimed the lady, stamping her foot--this lady who
would have been nobody without the wealth that this man had lavished on
her. "All these years you've considered everybody but your wife," she
went on. "I've had to bear the brunt of it all. I--I.... The idea of
you letting them send you up for ten years, of heaping all this infamy
on me! I shall sue for divorce, do you hear, divorce!"

"Yes, my dear," said Wilkinson, again meekly glancing at his counsel.

"Go!" she exclaimed; then added with commendable melodramatic force:
"You and your paid hireling there, leave me!"

Colonel Morehead grew purple in the face. He advanced toward his
client's wife.

"Madam," he began angrily.

"Come, Morehead, come away!" exclaimed Wilkinson, and he led him out
into the hall where he said: "Don't you know she'd have scratched your
face if you'd stayed there any longer?"

Tumultuously they descended the stairs and crept into the den on the
floor below.

"That's over," sighed the husband, setting the decanter on the table
and passing the cigars. And for a while, at least, the two men smoked
in peace.

       *       *       *       *       *

Blissfully happy was the condition that Leslie told herself that she
was in that evening. They had assured her after the council of war
behind closed doors that everything would come out right. And now, last
but not least, Beekman was alone with her and telling her the same
thing.

"The verdict is ridiculous," he said. "Public prejudice, that's all.
The Appellate Division will fill it full of holes."

"You're sure?" she asked, still a trifle dubious.

Beekman smiled confidently.

"Look here, Leslie," he returned consolingly, "lots of rich men have
been indicted and tried lately, haven't they? You haven't heard of any
of them having been imprisoned so far, have you? It's just a bit of
hysteria, but the Appellate courts don't get hysterical. We'll win out
upon appeal."

"There's--there's something, Eliot, I wanted to say to you." She
hesitated a moment, and then went on: "If I'd been on that jury and a
murderer had been on trial, after hearing your defence, no matter what
I knew your man had done, I would have acquitted him, I know. I think
you're wonderful!"

"If only our jury had felt as you feel, Leslie," he responded soberly.
"If only they had acquitted," --and he was looking into her eyes
now,--"why, things would be different to-night, so far as you and I are
concerned."

The girl flushed prettily, but did not dare to meet his glance.

"We're going to fight it to a finish, aren't we?" she faltered.

"That's the compact," he returned. "You're right--we'll fight it to a
finish--first."

"To see you, Miss Wilkinson." The voice was that of Jeffries, and he
was handing her a card. Leslie took it and, turning slightly pale,
started to leave the room. Before going out, however, she stopped and
made her excuse to Eliot, begging him to wait until she returned. In
the hall she asked Jeffries where her caller was to be found; she was
told that he was in the music-room. In front of the door she paused and
considered a moment. Not that she was not genuinely grateful for all
that Leech had done for her father that afternoon, but out of all that
day's experiences one thing clung to her memory more persistently than
any other: the audacious admiration in the glance of the man who had
spoken to her in the court-room and was now waiting for her.

However, she swept into the room and held out her hand.

"Miss Wilkinson," said Leech, meeting her half way and holding her hand
in his longer than necessary, "I had to come here to explain my part
in your father's prosecution. Personally I am not responsible for it. I
am a mere machine. Murgatroyd presses the button and we--I start up and
go through the day's work, willy nilly. I wanted you to know, as I said
before, that I am not responsible."

Never once did the man's eyes leave the girl's face; his look was one
of bold admiration. He wanted the dainty girl before him, wanted the
things that she stood for: the ease, the excitement, the power that
great wealth brings. Besides, he was assured of something that Beekman
did not even suspect, that Leslie, even, didn't know, and that was that
Peter V. Wilkinson had somewhere millions upon millions, and that the
man who married Leslie Wilkinson would sip the nectar of the gods from
the first tolling of the marriage bell.

"I know, Mr. Leech, you merely did your duty," she answered somewhat
coldly, lowering her eyes under his frank gaze. "We have intelligence
enough for that. We're not altogether narrow here."

"I wanted to be sure that you understood my position," he proceeded,
"to feel that my sympathies are with your father--with you. Yes, to
the extent that were I a free agent, and not bound by my oath to the
People, I'd turn in and work my fingers to the bone for your father."
He moved a little closer to her, and added significantly, "for you."

When Leslie returned to Beekman, singularly enough, she said nothing to
Beekman of the Assistant District Attorney's brief visit; nor later did
she mention it to her father. It would have disturbed Beekman; it would
have pleased Wilkinson; but she could not know that.




XIII


It was a beautiful day in the early part of Summer. On the deck of
the _Marchioness_, only a short time ago put in commission, Peter V.
Wilkinson was lying back in his steamer chair, luxuriously. New York
was experiencing one of the season's first hot days, but under the
awning of the after deck of the _Marchioness_, and out of sight of
land as she was, a delicious ocean breeze made life worth living, so
it seemed, at any rate, to the two men sitting there, ever and anon
calling to the steward, and refreshing themselves with Wilkinson's
choicest wines and liqueurs with which the yacht was stocked.

"Do you know," remarked Wilkinson with a short laugh, as he threw over
the side an unfinished cigar and lighted a fresh one, "I ought to have
taken Leslie's original advice--ought to have sailed away on the
_Marchioness_ when they indicted me."

"You'd be in the thick of the trouble, Peter," returned his counsel
sagely.

"Huh!" grunted Wilkinson, "don't know but I'll do it now, and take you
with me, Colonel."

"Don't care if you do. It would end my troubles."

Wilkinson tapped the Colonel on the knee.

"Tell me, Colonel, how much money does that blatherskite get a year?"

"What blatherskite?"

"Gilchrist--the chap that had the nerve to sentence me."

Morehead told him; Wilkinson opened wide his eyes.

"You don't mean to tell me that's all he makes--his salary?"

The Colonel nodded.

"And do you mean to tell me that a man who only gets that much a year
has the power to put away a man like me--can do a thing like that? What
are we coming to in the United States?"

The Colonel laughed heartily.

"That man Gilchrist is a marked man from now on," went on Wilkinson.
"His degradation has begun. He sentenced me all right; and I've
sentenced him. I'll see to it that he's hounded out of New York. Any
man that tries to set himself up before me--may stand up for five
minutes or so, but he'll go down as sure as death and taxes. Every man
that's prosecuted me, touched me, laid his hands on me physically or
figuratively, is going to get it. I've got a heavy hand, Morehead, and
they're going to feel it. They're going to know it's me. Gilchrist will
get his, first."

The lawyer sniffed the breeze and closed his eyes in ecstasy.

"Oh, come now, Peter ...! I haven't enjoyed a day like this in years."

"You don't suppose I brought you along to have you enjoy yourself?"
bluntly.

"No, I wouldn't credit you with that nobility of character, Peter. But
I'm here no matter what your purpose may have been, and I propose to
enjoy myself."

The multi-millionaire received this remark in silence. Colonel Morehead
was one of the few independent men he had ever met. Wilkinson could
never quite make him out, and therefore was afraid of him. As a
matter of fact, Morehead's code was a simple one: he merely did his
duty towards his clients in his own way; and if they didn't like it,
that was their affair and not his. His acquired indifference was his
greatest capital.

"At any rate," growled his host, "I suppose I'm paying you by the
minute all the time you're here."

"Presume you are, Peter," sweetly answered the Colonel; "and that's a
pleasure, too, to both of us, I'm sure."

"Business before pleasure is my motto, you know," resumed Wilkinson.
"I brought you out here to have a quiet talk where even Flomerfelt or
Patrick Durand cannot hear it. I haven't been able to pin you down
to my case since my conviction. Look here, Morehead," he went on
appealingly, "we'll reverse this sentence a hundred times over, eh?"

The Colonel, who had been sprawling lazily across his steamer chair, at
this drew himself up to a sitting posture.

"Now look here, Wilkinson, we've appealed this case, and we've filed a
bond, and you're out on bail...."

"And we'll win out on appeal?"

"I was about to remark," went on the lawyer, quietly, "that your case
will go first to the Appellate Division, then to the Court of Appeals,
then--maybe to the United States Supreme Court. Then a few certificates
of reasonable doubt, motions, stays, etc. It will take months, months,
even if they rush it through. There's no hurry about discussing it; we
can take our time."

Wilkinson was about to speak, but Morehead raised his hand.

"Since we're talking business, Peter, I may as well get to it, so that
you can enjoy your pleasure afterward." He got up, yawned and stretched
himself. Then looking Peter straight in the eye, he added: "What I
wanted to impress upon you is, that after our last card is played, this
conviction and this sentence are going to be----"

"Reversed, as sure as guns!" cried out Wilkinson.

"This conviction and this sentence," went on the lawyer, ignoring
the interruption, "will be affirmed." And so saying he leaned back in
his chair and puffed away contentedly. A moment later he added: "Now,
Peter, business is over, let's enjoy ourselves. What do you call that
thing yonder--a schooner or a hermaphrodite brig?"

His wealthy client swaggered to the fore once more.

"Do you mean to tell me that a man who's worth a hundred million is
actually going to serve ten years in State's Prison at hard labour?
That's nonsense!"

"I mean precisely what I say," said Morehead, his voice ringing
prophetically, "that this verdict and this sentence are going to be
affirmed."

"I'll spend five--ten million to reverse it."

"Spend it, then, and I'll help you, and when you're through you'll know
that I spoke the truth--affirmance, not reversal." He stopped abruptly,
then rising and plunging his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he
suddenly put the question to him: "I wish you'd tell me, Peter, whom
your daughter is going to marry? I'm interested."

"What the devil has that got to do with this case?"

"By the way," went on Morehead, ignoring purposely the other's
outburst, "where is your daughter now?"

"Home."

"Then you'd better swing the _Marchioness_ about. When you get home you
can find out if you do not already know."

"How should I know? There's a dozen cubs hanging around--none of them
good enough for her. Leslie's got to marry well."

"Has she? A fine chance she has, with her father a convict under a
prison sentence! Come, come, man, why don't you give your captain
orders? I want to know whom this girl of yours is going to marry--and
right away."

Wilkinson chuckled.

"Might send a wireless...."

"You'd get a most remarkable answer, Peter." Morehead was now striding
up and down, nervous, energetic strides they were, for he had shaken
off his tendency to enjoyment. "I say," he went on, "I haven't heard
you mention a word about the political situation so far; you're usually
pretty enthusiastic."

"How can a man be enthusiastic about politics when he's got the sword
of Damocles over his head."

"You're going to open fire on Gilchrist, aren't you?"

"Sure."

"That's politics," said Morehead, "and now that we're on the subject,
I want you to do me a favour. Wilkinson, I want my man put up for
governor this year, and I want your backing, you understand--your
influence, your money, all to back my man. Can I count on you, Peter?"

Wilkinson thought a moment before answering.

"Who is your man?"

"Um," smiled Morehead, "I don't know that--yet."

       *       *       *       *       *

A short time after Wilkinson's return from the yachting trip, Leslie
received a message that her father would like to see her. She found
him with an unlighted cigar between his fingers sitting in his big
arm-chair in the Den, gazing into space, his face like a mask.

"You sent for me, father, and I came," she said, entering, a faint
smile on her lips.

"I sent for you," he told her in a level unemotional voice, "to find
out something--something that you can tell me if you will. Strange
things are happening nowadays. There are matters I'd like to settle
before----"

"Before what?" she asked, startled.

"Before I plunge into this appeal and forget everything else," he
answered easily; but now with just enough anxiety in his manner
to alarm her, he repeated: "There's something that I've got to
know--something that only you can tell me, girlie."

"I'll tell you anything, father," she answered softly.

Wilkinson caught her by the hand and drew her to him, asking so
suddenly that she started: "Who's the man you're going to marry?"

The girl disengaged herself from her father's embrace. The blood rushed
to her face, and she laughed a little uneasily. After a moment she
answered:

"How can I tell! He--nobody's asked me. Has anybody asked you, father?"

Wilkinson chuckled over her reply, though her evasiveness slightly
irritated him.

"Come," he said, "is it Berry Broughton, or Larry Pendexter, or
Montgomery?" Her father rattled on without giving her a chance to
answer, the girl's face growing more and more scarlet as he proceeded.

"It must be Eliot Beekman or Tommy Cadwalader," he declared, searching
her face. But still Leslie made no answer, though there was the same
embarrassed flush upon her countenance.

"Well, can't you tell me who it is?" he questioned impatiently.

"I don't know," she protested, "really, I do not."

"But I've got to know," persisted her father.

But whether she could not or would not tell him, his efforts were
unsuccessful, for she merely fled in a panic from the room. So that it
was in a voice whose tone was one of defeat that he called out:

"You can come now, Colonel!"

From the heavy curtains Colonel Morehead emerged--a grim figure lying
in ambush, he seemed, as he asked:

"Well! who's the lucky man?"

"Blamed if I could find out."

"But I did. Eliot Beekman is the lucky man, Peter."

"How do you know?"

"You may think you know men, but, at any rate, you don't know women,
Peter. I merely watched her face."

"So did I," spluttered Wilkinson, "but I didn't...."

"Peter, you asked me the name of my candidate for governor," said
Morehead himself in a manner that suggested that he was quite ready to
get down to business.

"Well?"

"His name is Eliot Beekman."

Peter V. Wilkinson looked his surprise.

"And why Beekman?"

"One reason is because he's going to marry your daughter. I was
satisfied of that, even before I heard this interview. But there are
other reasons: he's a partisan; he's taken sides with you; the boy
believes in you; and as long as your daughter sticks to him he's bound
to believe in you, and he'll stick to you, too. Now, Peter, do you see
why I've picked him for governor, and why I want your backing?"

"There's one thing I don't quite see, and that is your real reason for
wanting him for governor. Tell me that, will you, Colonel?"

Colonel Morehead took his cigar from his mouth, and thrusting his face
close to Wilkinson's, he said, speaking very distinctly so that his
client should not misunderstand his meaning:

"Because, my dear Peter, after you've spent your millions on appeals
and bribes and legal curlyques--when you find at the end of the race
that a ten-year term is still staring you in the face, it will be a
deuced comfortable thing, Peter, to know that up in Albany you've got a
friend, a partisan, a son-in-law _who's got the power to pardon_."

There was a pregnant pause in which both men watched each other with a
curious expression on their faces. Finally Wilkinson rose and strode
around the end of the desk, and holding out his hand, he said:

"Colonel, I've been curt and disagreeable in my talk to you. I want to
say now that I take back everything, except the good things, that I've
said. You're a wonder--a perfect wonder!"

"Remember, I'm to manage this campaign," warned the Colonel.
"Everything will be done from the outside. No one, not even Leslie nor
Beekman, must know a word about it. You promise?"

"I promise to keep my hands off," agreed Wilkinson, but the next
instant he added: "Come to think of it, though, I don't see why we
have to do it. I'm sure that my conviction will never get that far. If
necessary I'll buy up every judge from here to Washington."




XIV


Labouring evidently under the stress of some new and strange
excitement, a man strode swiftly through the darkness of the night.
He was a tall, spare individual, clothed from neck to heel in a long,
loose raincoat that clung closely to his body, though the ends flapped
freely in the wind. It was a dark, stormy night early in November, and
although the storm pelted his uplifted face as he sped along, he never
heeded the elements; nor did he notice that few pedestrians were abroad
on a night that, had the weather been more propitious, would have been
a gala night. As it was, the crowds were under cover. Street-cars were
loaded to their limit, taxi-cabs and hansoms by the hundreds passed
and repassed, so that any time he might have escaped this drenching
by lifting his finger. But the storm, after all, was what he wanted;
it cooled and steadied him; and as he went along he laughed gently to
himself from time to time.

"I got away from them, all right," he murmured, half-aloud.

"Them" had been a mob of men at the Barristers' Club. They had
surrounded him suddenly with outstretched hands, dragging him
unmercifully about. But at last, though this demonstration had made
him happy, he had torn himself away to enjoy a greater happiness--one
that meant all the world to him.

At the foot of a long hill he stopped and glanced toward its summit. To
him, somehow, it seemed typical of his own career--a slow climb, but
with a vision of glory at the top. And before he knew it he had mounted
the summit and was waiting to be admitted into the presence of the one
woman he loved.

"This way, sir," Jeffries whispered in his ear.

With a hasty movement Beekman flung off his dripping raincoat, dashed
the drops from his face with a flirt of his handkerchief, and the next
instant he was standing face to face with Leslie, who came toward him,
smiling as she exclaimed:

"Where have you been hiding? I've kept the wires going all this
afternoon and evening trying to find out about you."

"Leslie," he answered, his face ruddy with the swift walk and dampness,
"they piled on top of me down at the club, but I got away from
them--nearly tore the clothes from me, the beggars! You know what's
happened, don't you?"

For answer she looked at him critically, bursting out with:

"Indeed I do! Stand off a moment--let me look at you--Governor
Beekman."

He laughed soberly.

"It sounds fine, doesn't it?"

Leslie continued to gaze at him with pride.

"Do you know, Leslie," he went on, "I can't realise it--can't
understand why Broderick--why the organisation picked me of all men for
the office. Wanted a clean man, they said--the wave of reform demanded
it, and they didn't know anyone who would fill the bill as well as I."

Leslie sobered.

"It's destiny," she said. "You were meant to go up, up, up...."

"Stop!" he called out with a well-feigned frightened look on his face.
"I'm high enough now."

"Wouldn't it be fine," she continued with girlish enthusiasm, "if,
after this, you could be United States Senator, Vice-President, and
after that possibly----"

"The Big Job?" He laughed. "Why, I haven't even been sworn in yet." He
stopped suddenly. "But I want to see your father, Leslie," his voice
losing its note of gaiety, "I want to tell him----"

Leslie, too, left laughter behind her.

"Father's in his Den," she said quietly, "smoking his quota of big
black cigars. The poor old dear feels pretty blue. The Appellate
Division decision...."

On his way to the Den Beekman stopped and turned round, saying:

"I can't for the life of me understand, Leslie, why they affirmed that
sentence. If they only half read Colonel Morehead's brief, or even
mine, they surely would have been convinced.... What do you suppose it
is--whose influence is behind this thing?"

Leslie shrugged her shoulders.

"Father says that the National Banks have set their face against the
Trust Companies--and it looks as if he were to be the victim of the
clash."

"Ground between the upper and nether mill-stones," mused Beekman,
shaking his head in genuine anguish of mind. Then he stiffened and
his eyes flashed. "It will never stand, Leslie; nor can I see how
Ougheltree of the National Bank clique can have any weight with the
courts. But at any rate, when this thing gets up at Albany before
the Court of Appeals, all local influence will fade away. Peter V.
Wilkinson will get justice there. The other side are fighting only for
money, but with us, Durand, Morehead and myself, why it's a fight for
life, almost--and we'll beat 'em out."

Beekman's outburst took Leslie quite by storm. She had never seen him
so roused, so strong, so fine.

"You make me sorry that you're Governor, Eliot," she said, her heart
beating fast, "for I suppose now you're unable to be my father's
counsel--or does a governor still practise law?"

Beekman's head drooped.

"You're right," he said at length, "I suppose I'm out of the fight. But
the others are just as determined to win."

"How I wish father could have heard you a moment ago!" cried the girl,
wistfully. "He would then understand what genuine loyalty is. He thinks
every man he knows, and every woman, too, I guess, save me, is a time
server. Every man has his price, according to his idea. I don't believe
he thinks that he has a genuine friend in all the world--not one. Isn't
it hopeless to suspect everyone like that?"

"How can he help it?" returned Beekman, pointedly. "Just what I told
you about the rich American girl--how is she going to know, understand
the motives of men ...?"

Leslie's face went suddenly white; then she suggested almost too
hastily, so she reflected later:

"If you want to see my father, remember he's in the Den." And an
instant later Beekman found himself standing in the presence of Peter
V. Wilkinson.

In his exuberance of joy Wilkinson almost flung himself at Beekman. He
grasped the other's hand with both of his, then clapped him heavily on
the shoulder.

"Governor, my boy, you made a grand fight--a great fight! You're the
right man in the right place! Proud of you, I am."

"Now about the Appellate Division ..." began Beekman, but Wilkinson
would have none of it.

"Not on your life!" said he. "Never mind me! No troubles to-night--only
wine and wassail. All Governor and nothing else. The returns are all
in, aren't they? No contests--nothing doubtful--sure thing--you're
Governor and no mistake?"

"No mistake, Mr. Wilkinson," smiled Beekman. "It's all right."

For an instant Beekman hesitated and glanced about the room as though
for inspiration, then his eyes settled down once more on Peter V.

"Mr. Wilkinson," he stammered, "I'm a bit old-fashioned, I suppose,
all wrong, from the modern point of view, but I've got something on my
mind--something----"

"Out with it," laughed the older man.

The Governor-elect gulped.

"It's--your--your daughter Leslie," he went on, still floundering. "I
want to marry her--thought I'd ask you first."

"Ask me first?" exploded Peter V. Wilkinson. "Haven't you asked her
yet?"

"Her money--I've always been afraid of people with a lot of money,
and----"

"You needn't be afraid of me," gurgled Wilkinson; "I haven't any left."

"But the principle is the same," insisted Beekman. "I wanted to be
sure, that's all."

"Suppose I refuse?"

"Oh, in that case, I should ask her anyway--and get her too, I think.
I'm merely trying to do my duty by you, don't you see."

Wilkinson raised his hand and brought it down heavily upon the
Governor's shoulder once more.

"Governor," he said, "you've always done right by me, and I believe you
always will--I've that much faith in you. As for the rest, I don't know
of any man that I'd rather trust my daughter Leslie to, than you."

Beekman's blood rushed tumultuously through his veins.

"I don't deserve----" he began quite formally, but Wilkinson cut him
off.

"You understand," said he, searching his face, "that your being
Governor makes no difference to me. I give you Leslie because I like
you--I think you're a man."

Beekman left the room intoxicated with success. Indeed such was the
magnetism of Peter V. that Beekman left his presence, like many a man
before him, with a feeling that he would be willing to face death, if
necessary, in Wilkinson's defence.

The girl was waiting where he had left her.

"Leslie," he began and got no further, for the words that he had
planned to say would not come to him. Finally he stammered out: "It's
this way, you see. We're equals now--that is, you're the daughter of
Peter V. Wilkinson and I'm the Governor of the State. Consequently I
dare--oh, I want you--there!"

Leslie tried to pass him, but he was too quick for her. He caught her
and drew her close to him, and for one instant his lips met hers. Then
she wrenched herself away.

"Tell me what you want of me, Eliot, quick," she panted, a new, wild,
haunting expression in her eyes.

"My wife," he stammered, swiftly advancing toward her. "My wife--I know
that you--that you----"

Her eyes sought the pattern of the Kirzan underneath their feet.

"You know nothing," she said, her hands tightly clenched, the colour
coming and receding on her face.

"I--I saw it in your eyes," he pleaded.

"You saw nothing in my eyes," she answered, speaking very determinedly.

Beekman paused. Presently he drew from his pocket a trinket and held it
out.

"Leslie," he whispered, "perhaps I've been presumptuous, but you know I
have always told you that I am old-fashioned. I got this for you."

"It's just like you," she said, taking the trinket for an instant.
"There's not a man in all New York who would have thought of buying the
ring before--perhaps I like you for it, though."

"But what will you think of me when I tell you that I had an
inscription put on the inner circle? You had better read it, hadn't
you?"

For an instant Leslie felt herself weakening as she saw their initials
on the ring. With difficulty she restrained her tears, and it was with
a sad little smile that she now handed him back the ring.

Then she shook her head.

"Eliot," she said in an unnatural voice, "I'm not blaming you. You did
only what you thought you had the right to do. More than that, I may
have led you on. But it can never be. No, don't come near me, please,
I mean it. You don't know; you can't understand; things happen very
suddenly, sometimes. I can't marry you, Eliot, that's all. I can't ...
I can't...."

Beekman's face became scarlet, for there was something of the
determination of her father in her voice.

"You've got to," he insisted, for he refused to believe that she was
not for him.

But still she retreated before him.

"I can't talk about it," she repeated wearily, stubbornly.

"Will you tell me why?" he asked, forcing himself to be calm.

Leslie gave him a quick glance. His question came as a relief to her.
She seemed on the point of answering it.

"Yes," she began, and then pressed her hand against her lips. "I
mean, no--I can't tell you anything except--that the whole thing is
absolutely impossible. You would not understand if I told you. I should
never want you to understand it."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because the instant that you understood it, you would find that you
couldn't understand it," she told him enigmatically. "And yet," she
murmured as though to herself, "it's all so clear, so plain to me."

Beekman quickly caught her by the wrist. Her hand still clenched
itself, and he could feel her nerves throbbing as with pain.

"Your father tells me it's all right," he went on, his voice growing
hoarser as he proceeded, for he couldn't see that he was making any
headway with the girl; "he approves, gives his consent, all that sort
of thing. He seemed glad, friendly. It seemed to be what he wanted. Why
do you hesitate?"

"I don't hesitate," she answered, though uncertainly. All the time she
was praying that he would let her go. She wanted to escape. All that
she wished for now was to get to her room at the top of the house,
where in solitude she could rest and weep.

"My father," she resumed, "knows nothing--nothing of my reasons. This
is a matter of my own. Even he couldn't understand...."

Beekman dropped her hand and said:

"Leslie, tell me one thing: Is there some one else?"

Leslie looked down without immediately replying and gradually grew
pale. Then with one of her quick changes she looked up and her eyes met
his in a clear, straight glance.

"Yes," she said, tossing her head in the air, "there is some one else."

"Who?" he demanded in a voice that was distinctly authoritative.

The girl drew herself up to her full height and quietly reminded him
that he had no right to ask the question. But when Beekman had gone,
Leslie's face showed a peculiar change; the hardness dropped from it,
and was replaced by a look of intense sadness.

At the door of the Den she stopped to bid her father good-night.

"Well," he called out cheerfully, motioning her to come in, "it's all
over then?"

Leslie seated herself upon the knee he offered her. She was pale and
very tired.

"Yes, it's all over--all over."

Wilkinson was watching her closely.

"You seem to take it hard, girlie," he returned, puzzled.

"Yes," she sighed.

He drew her girlish head down against his breast.

"He's a bully boy for you, Leslie. Mrs. Governor Beekman, eh? Not bad!
It's a good thing to have money, but it's a great thing to be a Mrs.
Governor, too, and especially when the Governor happens to be a man and
not one of those cheap politicians. I congratulate you, little one."

"You never used to think much of him," she faltered.

"True. But I didn't know him. I didn't know the stuff he was made of.
Colonel Morehead sized him up right from the start. But he's the man
for me, now, Beekman is, and no mistake."

Leslie closed her eyes and whispered softly, her hand creeping about
his neck:

"Good-night, father."

The next moment she rose and slowly started to the door and then as
slowly came back, thinking to herself:

"I might as well get it over once for all, so that to-morrow there'll
be nothing to tell, nothing to do but to take up the routine of life
again." And when she reached her father's side, she said bravely but
with a little sigh:

"Father, I'm not going to marry Eliot Beekman."

"Not going to----" spluttered Wilkinson. For the first time in months
his colour fled. "Didn't he--hasn't he asked you?"

"Yes, and I refused him."

"What?" he bellowed. "Why?"

"I had my own reasons," she replied, never flinching as her father
glowered upon her from his height.

"A woman's reason, I'll wager. What's the trouble? Some other chap?"

"No."

"Nobody else, eh? Then, what's up? Don't you like Beekman?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you like him, but don't love him, that is, well enough to marry
him. I don't care so much about the love. We'll leave love out of the
question--it's too ticklish a subject."

"I like him too well to marry him," she answered earnestly.

"A woman's reason all right enough," muttered her father. "Talk United
States, girlie. What's the trouble?"

Once more she clung to him, and said very tenderly, now:

"Father, won't you rest content, won't you let me stay with you always,
always taking care of you, doing for you--there's no one else...." She
caught his big hand in hers. "I want to go down the years with you,
hand in hand, never leaving you, father--never...." She choked suddenly.

"You can do that as Beekman's wife," he persisted.

"I shall not be Beekman's wife," she insisted, strangling a sigh.

"I want to know the reason," he demanded, with that veiled threat in
his tone which never failed of its results.

"Will you forgive if I tell you?"

"I won't forgive you if you don't!"

Leslie drew herself away and leaned against the door as though for
support, for strength.

"Father, Eliot Beekman wouldn't ask me to marry him until he had made
a position? for himself, had something to offer me. He has said it a
thousand times. He's got pride--too much pride, it seems to me. But
I've got pride, too. Months ago I would have married Eliot--he didn't
know that--any time he asked me. It's got beyond me now. He's got
everything to offer me, I've got nothing in return to offer him."

"Nonsense, child! You've got money," protested her father, puzzled, "at
least you have so long as I don't jump the bail."

"Oh, how I wish you would!" she cried, startled into sudden ecstasy
by the thought. Then she went on: "Money, what is money to me? What
was it to Eliot? Nothing save an obstacle. That isn't it; you haven't
understood; and to tell you I've got to hurt--I've got to say things
that--oh, don't misunderstand me, please...."

"I'll misunderstand you if you don't go on," blurted out Wilkinson,
unfeelingly. "Quick, now!"

"Why won't you understand, father, that it's because he has everything
to offer, while I have nothing. He's been given the highest office that
the State has to give--a position that he thought would entitle him to
me--and I, who am I ...?"

"You're the woman he wants, the woman he's earned, girlie," said her
father, his voice softening.

"I am the daughter of a convict," she went on swiftly, her tones
cutting into the air like frost.

Her father stared at her aghast for an instant. Then he slowly
returned to his seat at his desk and slumped into it heavily, and
groaned.

"Ye gods, but you're harsh!" he cried.

"You wanted to know why," she answered, "and now you do not
understand--you're everything to me, everything, father. But the
reason--the world, the people of whom Eliot is going to be governor,
they look only on the record, and I'm not his equal. Upon me rests this
taint--I'm not complaining--I'm glad to stand by you, father.... But I
have pride--how can I, with this disgrace upon us, give myself to Eliot
Beekman?"

"Nonsense, girl," said Wilkinson, pulling himself together, "I'll get
clear all right."

"When you do," she declared with a faint smile, "and if he then asks
me, I'll take him. If he does not...." A sigh of misery escaped her.

"You're a little fool! Confound it, Leslie, this thing was all cut
and----" He checked himself suddenly, remembering his promise to the
Colonel.

"Cut and dried," she echoed in surprise.

"Yes, this National Bank conspiracy," he mumbled in confusion, "the
courts here in the city are backing them up. But up there in Albany,
I'll get free, you'll see." And now with a sudden change of manner, he
continued: "Look here, Leslie, I've got reasons, too--reasons a darned
sight better than yours, why I want you to marry Eliot Beekman. Never
mind what they are. The fact is, I want you to be settled--I want it
all fixed.... I give you my word--the Colonel will give you his word
that I shall get clear. We know it, we've got it fixed.... It's all
right--there can't be a slip up. And now, besides my freedom, which
I'm going to get, there's only one thing in the world that I want, and
that is that you marry Eliot Beekman. Good heavens, girl, can't you
see--don't you see that this thing is vital to me? I'm no woman, and
I don't speak at random. You've got to marry Eliot Beekman; if you
don't----"

"But I can't," she returned simply; and from this decision there seemed
no appeal. "I can't accept him now, father."

Leslie rose and made a movement to go. But Wilkinson, feeling as though
the hangman's noose was already settling about his neck, snatched up
the receiver on his desk with one hand, while with the other he made an
authoritative gesture for the girl to resume her seat.

"Is Mr. Flomerfelt in the house?" he called through the instrument.

A look of pained surprise and annoyance at once crossed Leslie's face.
Heedless of it Wilkinson spoke again.

"In the library, you say? Give me that room and be quick about it."

There was a pause in which the eyes of both father and daughter
plainly showed to each other the strength of the will that lay behind
them.

"Hello--Hello," called Wilkinson, "is that you, Flomerfelt?"

"............"

"Look here, Flomerfelt, had you an idea that Beekman----" Then,
parenthetically, to Leslie, who was beating against her father's
intentions to betray her confidences with as much success as a bird
beating against the bars of its cage: "Of course, I'll tell him. Do
you think for one moment that the wishes of a silly girl like you will
be allowed to stand in the way of our well-laid plans--not much!"
Then through the phone: "Yes, this is Peter V. and.... Well, he has,
and Leslie has refused him.... What's that?... Yes, he's gone.... No,
she's here with me.... All right, I will." And with that he hung up the
receiver, and turning round and facing the girl he announced: "Now,
young woman, you will listen to my final word in this matter." But that
word was not spoken, for at that moment there came a knock at the door
and Jeffries, entering, announced a visitor for Miss Wilkinson.




XV


There was a flush on the face of Elinor Ilingsworth as she left the
office of J. Newton Leech. For the hundred and first time, perhaps,
she had crept into the presence of the Assistant District Attorney,
trusting that he might have some good news for her. Her father was her
only relative; she had no friends in New York; and her money was nearly
gone. At first, when she had gone to the Tombs to see her father, the
authorities had permitted her to have her talks with him in the counsel
room, where Leslie had seen her father, but as the weeks passed into
months, things changed, and it ended in Elinor's sitting on the outside
of a cell, holding her father's hand between the bars. And as they sat
there with bowed heads her father had told her, not once, but a hundred
times, that he was guiltless of the murder of Roy Pallister. And Elinor
believed and felt that some day the truth would be known. Every hour,
therefore, when it was possible she spent in going to and fro, between
the offices of Worth Higgins and Assistant District Attorney Leech.
Singularly enough, she received more encouragement from the latter than
the former; indeed, Higgins gave her but little hope. Nor did he tell
her that a wealthy newspaper, for ulterior purposes, was employing
him to fight for her father. Enthusiastic always at the crisis of a
litigation, Worth Higgins, for some reason or other, had become cool,
surly, sharp to Elinor, as time went on. Her visits annoyed him; he
rebuffed her as often as he could. Leech, on the other hand, had been
by no means chary of his promises to help her through her troubles;
on the contrary, he was ever profuse, when the woman in question was
pretty, and Elinor Ilingsworth was unquestionably pretty.

"I like to come here after seeing that old bear," Elinor had often said
to the Assistant District Attorney. "Mr. Higgins is beginning to hate
the sight of me."

"You see that I do not," invariably would be his answer; and, waving
her to a seat, he would take one beside her and the two would chat.

Elinor was forced to admit that Leech became nicer as time went on.
Always he suggested new hopes, new speculations, for he saw that
it took but little to encourage her. He explained to her carefully
the quasi-judicial nature of his office, how the District Attorney
in theory was neither for nor against the criminal, but was always
anxious, ready and willing to learn the truth. Soon he began to note
that the girl grew shabbier in appearance day after day; that her face
was thinning, and that her eyes were dark and lustrous.

"I'll do what I can," he had told her time and time again, his pulse
quickening as he felt the pressure of her hand.

And Elinor would go forth, refreshed and strengthened; while Leech,
settling himself comfortably back in his chair, would light a cigar,
and fall to wondering when and what the end of it all would be.

"A pretty girl," he often reflected, "a mighty pretty girl. And, oh,
such eyes!"

It was upon just such an occasion as this that Elinor went back to
the Tombs more than ordinarily encouraged, and sought her father's
presence. She sat down beside him and poured out to him her hopes. When
she had finished he bent over her slender hand and his mouth quivered
while the hot tears dropped from his working face.

"We've lost," he told her, in a voice filled with despair. "I heard it
only a few moments ago."

"It can't be true," she replied incredulously, and with just the
glimmer of a smile on her face. "Why, I've just left Mr. Leech, and he
said nothing of it."

But nevertheless it was true. The old man handed her Higgins' letter,
which she read; it verified what her father had told her.

"I've worked so hard," she faltered, leaning her head against the bars
and sobbing silently as though her heart would break, "so very, very
hard."

Ilingsworth drew a long sigh--a sigh that had behind it the regret of
years.

"It's all my fault," he said through the tears that rolled down his
cheeks, "for being such a fool as to----"

"As to----" she repeated slowly.

"As to do anything at all," he finished. "Everything, everything I've
done," he continued sadly, "has been the act of a fool. And now I'm
going to die a fool's death. I wouldn't care if it wasn't for you,
child. But you--how are you going to get along? How are you going to
get along without money?" he concluded, breaking down completely.

"I have enough," she answered consolingly; "don't mind me."

But in truth Elinor Ilingsworth had only enough money to pay for a
sleeping place, and was at her wits' end to obtain sufficient food.

"I'm all right, all right, father," she kept on insisting to her
father's upbraiding of himself, now smiling through the tears which
with difficulty she kept back, now patting his hand affectionately,
always cheering him up.

"You're a brave girl," he told her, when their interview was over, and
pressed her hand for a long time to his lips.

As Elinor was about to leave the Tombs, a young woman looking very much
embarrassed slowly emerged from a recess in which there was a crowd of
waiting visitors, and came towards her, saying:

"You are Miss Ilingsworth?"

Elinor shot a quick, distrustful glance toward the intruder, who,
somehow, seemed very queenly to her, although there was nothing
expensive about the woman's garments. She was dressed in simple black
clothes. Elinor had hear of Tombs' angels, and presently decided that
the woman must be one of them.

"Yes," she answered, wondering what she wanted of her.

"You don't know me," went on the woman, "but I have heard of you
from--from friends of mine--that is, the Wilkinsons."

"You refer to the Peter V. Wilkinsons, I suppose," returned Elinor,
icily; and without waiting for an answer added: "They are no friends
of mine, and you must excuse me.... You can't possibly have anything
of interest to say to me," she finished, and started to go. But the
stranger, advancing in such a way as to bar her passage, pleaded for a
hearing.

"I know that," she explained. "But I merely wanted to get your
attention, wanted some excuse for my interference. I wanted to help
you, if I could. I know more about New York--all about New York. I can
assist you in many ways. Won't you let me?" she concluded insistently.

Elinor was all attention.

"You mean that you can help my father?" she inquired.

The woman appeared to hesitate. At length she whispered "Yes."

"But how can you?"

"In many ways. I might be able to find some clue--anyhow, I want to
help--him, of course, but particularly you."

Elinor looked dubious; nevertheless she suggested:

"Perhaps you'll come back and talk to him."

Her new acquaintance shook her head.

"Not now. But isn't there something I can do for you? Don't you
need----"

"Money?" Elinor said, taking the words out of the other's mouth.
"We have money, thank you," and added half hurriedly, half in
embarrassment: "Will you excuse me if I leave you. I have an engagement
with our lawyer, and I'm late."

The stranger laid her hand on Elinor's sleeve, and persisted:

"But can't I come and see you--won't you tell me where you live?"

There was something in the tone and action of the woman that Elinor
resented, though she didn't know just what it was.

"Really, I don't know what to say."

"I'm sorry you're suspicious of me. I wish I could prove to you that
I'm sincere. Please tell me where I can see you."

"To-morrow, then, here," was Elinor's answer, and finally tore herself
away.

The moment she entered Leech's office, he broke out with:

"You haven't lunched, I know. Come on, Miss Ilingsworth, we'll lunch
together."

"I can't do that, Mr. Leech, I've lunched already," she told him. But
Leech saw clearly the falsity of this statement in the pallor of the
girl's skin, in the hunger in her eyes. And, in the end, as he had
planned, she consented to go with him. As they sat at one of Raphael's
small tables she confided to him how she had been accosted by a strange
woman. At first Leech seemed to regard the incident as not worthy of
attention; but on second thoughts he warned Elinor not to see the woman
again. And his motive in doing this was by no means a disinterested
one, for so clearly and faithfully had Elinor reported the conversation
between the stranger and herself, that the Assistant District Attorney
could not fail to believe that Elinor had, in reality, found a friend.

"One has got to be so careful here in New York of everybody," he
remarked with an admirable assumption of solicitude.

But true to her promise, the woman came to the Tombs the next day. And
on seeing Elinor she came quickly toward her with outstretched hand;
but the other merely shook her head and passed on inside. She felt
independent of any outside aid now; for the attitude of Leech was most
encouraging. And there was unusual happiness in her look, an infectious
tone in her laugh as she said to her father:

"I know you'll get off somehow."

On the next day and the day after that, Elinor noted the woman still
waiting at her post, still hoping, evidently, that Elinor would speak
to her; and on each of these days Giles Ilingsworth felt the buoyancy
in his daughter's manner.

"You're like a bit of sunshine in this place," he said.

On the third day, at sunset, he sent for the deputy.

"Deputy," said the old man, clutching his coat-sleeve pitifully through
the bars, "I--my daughter hasn't been here to-day."

"I know," answered the other. "I've missed her, too."

"She must be ill," the old man said. "Is there any way of finding out?
I have some money with me...."

They sent a messenger to Elinor's room; but the messenger returned with
the information that she was not in. All that night Ilingsworth paced
his narrow cell; but with the morning sun came new hopes.

"She'll be here to-day," he assured himself.

But she didn't come that day either. When his meals were brought to him
he refused to eat. And again all that night he paced his cell. He was
inconsolable.

Five more days passed without Ilingsworth having received word from his
daughter, but then, just when it seemed that he could bear the suspense
no longer, the deputy came to him and said:

"There's a lady downstairs who knows your daughter. She's been here
every day, came just to see her. She wants to help--wants her address.
Shall I give it to her?"

"Yes, yes," exclaimed the old man, eagerly.

In a little while the woman returned and told the deputy that Miss
Ilingsworth had moved, had taken all her things, had gone, they didn't
know where; and the warden repeated her words to the poor old man
before whom lay many nights yet of sleeplessness and agony.




XVI


"I believe I once remarked to you, Mrs. Peter V., that I needed you,"
said Flomerfelt, his fingers stealthily groping into the depth of his
sleeves for his cuffs, and when they were arranged to his satisfaction,
he added: "to manage Peter V. It seems that I was mistaken."

"And you don't need me?" asked Mrs. Wilkinson anxiously. For the lady
feared Flomerfelt, and realised that he was a dangerous man. In some
way or other she considered him responsible for the attempt on her
husband's life, which ended in the killing of Roy Pallister. She had
never lost confidence in Flomerfelt's ability to win the battle that
he and she were waging against her husband. There had been a time, it
must be acknowledged, when she had looked up to and admired Wilkinson,
but that feeling had long since passed off and had been replaced by one
of tolerance and fear. Now she despised the man--despised him the more
because she believed that Flomerfelt would circumvent him. A poor judge
of character, as she was--a woman whose only end and aim in life was
to feed her own desires--she saw nothing save unsuccessful clumsiness
in Wilkinson's move at this time, and had naught but admiration for
Flomerfelt's promised finesse.

"You do need me?" she asked, taking refuge in tears. And she was
rewarded by a sudden half-reluctant change in his manner, for he said
soothingly:

"I suppose I do, but not as far as your husband is concerned. Peter V.,
in or out of prison, is sewed up, done up; he's in our hands. Our fight
is with a woman." And even before the last word was spoken he noted
that she seemed to be impressing upon herself the possibility of such a
contingency. "I suppose you know," he went on, "did Peter V. tell you
that Leslie had refused Governor Beekman?"

"The girl's a fool!" exclaimed her step-mother. "If she halts at
marrying a governor--I'd marry Beekman--I'd marry any governor in the
land! I've been all wrong in thinking that money will do everything in
New York! A millionaire's wife is nobody, unless.... Now if I were a
statesman's wife, they'd have to recognise me--I'd show them!"

"You don't suppose that she wants _me_, do you?" Flomerfelt said,
putting into his voice as much tenderness as he dared.

Mrs. Peter V. shook her head, laughing scornfully in spite of herself.

"Some day, perhaps, we can make her like you, when I'm through liking
you myself," she replied.

"You?" scowled Flomerfelt.

The woman shivered at his tone.

"What reason does she give?" she asked, wisely changing the subject.

Then Flomerfelt went on to explain with a grim smile what he thought of
the deep-laid plans of Colonel Morehead, the schemes of Wilkinson and
how they had all gone for naught, ending with:

"She's a born fighter, that Leslie, and it's she that we're up against,
and not Wilkinson. Now the sooner Peter V. wins his fight, the better
for us; but this minx is blocking him, though I admire her for it, I
must say."

"We'll make her marry Beekman," declared Mrs. Peter V.

The woman's confidence in her own powers brought a sarcastic smile to
his lips.

"It isn't a part of my game that she shall marry him," he argued. "The
essential thing is that she shall engage herself to him. I say that she
will never marry him."

"But Beekman can't be put out of the way as easily as----"

"There has been too much blundering already," said Flomerfelt,
gloatingly, for the look of fear in her eyes had not escaped him. For
a moment that seemed minutes they were silent. Finally Flomerfelt
announced: "The long and short of it is that I don't intend that this
Beekman shall marry her, and you've got to help me."

"Of course," said the lady, rejoicing that at last her services would
be brought into play. "But how? What would you suggest?"

" ... That you go and see him secretly," he told her, and then
proceeded to unfold his plan of what she should say to him.

"You'll go now?" he asked, observing the readiness in which she lent
herself to his scheme, "and I'll go with you, that is, part way."

And in no way concerned as to the outcome of her dishonourable
action--so confident was she of Flomerfelt's ability to carry out any
project that he might undertake--Mrs. Peter V., without the slightest
compunction, swept out of the room to make ready for their little
excursion to Beekman's apartments. In a surprisingly short space of
time she came back arrayed in a long fur motor-coat and a hat perched
upon her head with a rakishness that she thought quite smart, but
which, in reality, had not the remotest chance of success unless worn
by a very young and pretty girl. And notwithstanding the fact that
her eyes were over-bright, as were her cheeks, there was no lack
of self-satisfaction in the manner in which she carried herself as
together they passed out through the entrance door, stepped into her
limousine, and were off.

But scarcely had the limousine passed out of sight of the house than
Jeffries was summoned to the door once more.

"It's Mr. Beekman back again, Miss Leslie," were the words with which
the butler interrupted Wilkinson's insistence that Leslie should listen
to his final command; "and he says that he must see you at once."

Wilkinson's eyes gleamed as he snapped out:

"See him again, Leslie, and patch things up. Mind you, if you don't
take him, I'll drag you to him and make you."

Frightened lest he should see Beekman before she saw him herself, for
she realised that her father was desperate for some unknown reason and
quite capable of carrying out his threat, Leslie swept on past Jeffries
and into the room where Beekman was waiting, his eyes bright with a new
hope.

"Idiot that I was, Leslie," he began breathlessly, "I was half way home
before I came to my senses. Then in a flash I saw it all--no, you can't
fool me this time. The whole trouble is your father's troubles. Come,
confess!"

"But I've already confessed," she said. And so she had, though not in
the way she intended, for her eyes told the story.

It was, therefore, with no uncertain tread, but rather with a sudden
warmth and force that seemed to take possession of him, body and soul,
that he continued:

"Look here, little one, this is a matter between you and me and no
one else. You must consider no one, but remember only that I represent
to you the one man in all the world for you, as you stand for the only
woman in the world for me: for I love you, Leslie, and I know that you
love me."

There had been times when Eliot Beekman had stood before and pleaded
with reluctant juries and judges whose faces were dead set against
him, but his task then had been nothing compared with the one now. And
yet so well did he plead his case, that when he had finished it was as
he had told her: she forgot her father's sentence, forgot everything,
except that she loved him, and that he was the one man in all the world
for her.

"I believe you," she confessed to him in a whisper; "I believe you are
right. Would to heaven that you had given me the chance to say this to
you months ago."

"You've loved me all the time?" he asked, his pulse beating fast.

"Yes," she answered, "and I knew that you loved me."

The next instant he had brought out the ring which she had refused to
accept, a little while before, and holding out her hand impulsively
Leslie let him put it on.

There was a pause in which she looked first at the ring and then at the
man before her, the meaning of it all slowly dawning upon her. And
then in some sudden outburst of rapture she let herself be held in his
arms as their lips met in one long kiss. In that moment her heart went
out to him, and she knew that there could never be anyone else for her.
After a time she gently drew herself away from him, and said:

"My senses are coming back, Eliot, and this surrender is only on one
condition, which is that there shall be no--no wedding--until, until
father is cleared.... Of course, if you will not consent to this," and
she toyed with the gem that sparkled on her finger, "then----"

"Hold on there, hold on!" cried Beekman. "I'll consent to anything so
long as you're mine...."

"All over, is it, Eliot?" came in a big voice from somewhere behind
them.

The pair of lovers sprang apart like two persons caught in the act of
concocting some conspiracy. The interloper was the girl's father.

"I thought," went on Wilkinson, more gently now, "that I'd drop in
before the news went over the wire. Leslie's been opening up her heart
to me--letting me in on her troubles, and I agree with her, though it's
your own affair, of course. I'd keep the engagement quiet, for the
present."

"That is precisely what I want; in fact I insist upon it," said Leslie,
tugging at the ring on her finger.

Beekman watched her struggles in alarm.

"I consent to anything, just so long as I am sure you're mine, that you
belong to me," he repeated.

Wilkinson held out his hand, saying:

"I'll make myself scarce and let you make sure in your own way that
she does belong to you, Governor Beekman. Clinch the bargain, my boy;
strike while the iron's hot; make hay while the sun shines."

A moment more and Wilkinson had ambled off to smoke another black cigar
and to pat himself upon the back, while the happy pair, heedful of his
advice, in the dim light of the music-room proceeded to make hay while
the sun shone, even though without the November storm raged above the
Hudson.

It was a night to be marked with a white stone for them, a happy memory
in the days to come. For the time was not far distant when the sun for
them would cease to shine, when the storm was to rage within these two
as it now raged without the big house on the Drive.




XVII


On a bright snappy morning of the following Spring, Governor Beekman,
reaching his private room in the Capitol at Albany a little ahead of
time, began to pace slowly up and down in front of the open windows.
A wonderfully pleasant place the world seemed to him now. However
much his ambition might grope forward in the future, the present was
eminently satisfactory. All his struggles seemed to lie behind him;
before him he saw power, pleasant ways, and Leslie Wilkinson.

His private secretary, on time to the minute, broke in on his thoughts.

"This came in last night, Governor," he said, "after you'd left. I read
it over."

"What is it?" asked the Governor, absent-mindedly.

"It's a petition for pardon," said the other casually, handing it to
the Governor.

"What's the conviction," asked the latter, glancing at the document.

"Murder in the first degree," was the answer. Beekman frowned. Out of
many applications this was the first he had received in a murder case.

"The game of Governor isn't all beer and skittles, is it, Phillips?"

"I'll change with you any time you say, Governor," laughed Phillips;
and a moment later he added: "This is the case of Giles Ilingsworth."

"And who is Giles Ilingsworth?"

"Don't you remember that Tri-State Trust Company affair? The
vice-president who shot a man named Pallister."

"Of course, Phillips, now I remember it very well. But I never took
much interest in his case. Have they sent the record up--the printed
case?"

"Yes, and the Hon. Worth Higgins, of New York, is waiting to see you,
Governor Beekman. He came up yesterday--was at the Remsen last night."

"So he was. I remember now seeing him this morning, eating breakfast. I
thought he looked at me as if something were in the wind. Tell him to
come in, Phillips; I'll see him right away."

Bearing underneath his arm a printed book, the Hon. Worth Higgins
entered the arena of events with his accustomed energy. He bowed low
to the Governor, placed a high silk hat on the Governor's table, and
settled down into a seat.

"Have you read my petition?" he asked of the Governor.

"I looked at it," replied the other. "You have a choice assortment of
names upon it--looks all right."

"It is all right," declared Higgins, "I can assure you."

"I have just fifteen minutes," said the Governor. "I'll take this
matter up with you with pleasure. Give me the printed case. Now point
out to me--the evidence must have been brief on the exact point--the
testimony relating to the crime. Remember I don't want your own
private opinion, I want merely the salient facts of the case." And
after glancing quickly over the pages that Higgins selected, he then
wandered through the testimony on his own account. At sight of the name
of Leslie Wilkinson in the printed index of the witnesses, Governor
Beekman was conscious of a shock; nevertheless he turned to her
testimony and to that of Wilkinson.

"Seems to have been deliberation all right," he remarked. "But wasn't
there a gun store clerk upon the stand? I was in Austria at the time,
and I lost track of this case."

Higgins, his countenance falling, pointed out the exact testimony. The
Governor solemnly shook his head, as he observed:

"And here, Mr. Higgins, are three witnesses in the crowd who say that
they saw him fire the fatal shot. What have you to say to that?"

"Ah!" exclaimed the Hon. Worth Higgins, his spirits rising, "that is
just the point. If you will examine the cross-examination, blundering
though it be, of my colleague Boggs, you will find that those three
witnesses cannot give a correct account of themselves. They were not
depositors--that much we showed: they were hangers-on of Mulberry Bend
resorts."

"These three men," returned the Governor, "do not stand impeached by
Boggs, that much is sure; and, besides, this was Ilingsworth's gun. How
do you get away from that?"

Now Higgins, be it known, was not secretly in sympathy with this errand
of his. He knew instinctively that his mission would fail. He preferred
successful missions, and consequently he had balked. But he had
outlined a plan whereby he would sit down before the Governor and make
his plea, and then retire, leaving the rest to fate. So that he had not
come prepared to answer vital questions, and they annoyed him. Besides,
he knew and felt that Ilingsworth had been convicted on the merits of
the case. Appeals had failed; this petition to the Governor was a last
resort. Nevertheless, he started in to tell the Governor the story his
petition set forth--a story of the wrongs of Ilingsworth.

Governor Beekman listened patiently to him for a few minutes, then he
said:

"But this man Ilingsworth ran away, too, didn't he? In my mind that
refutes even this question of quasi-insanity that you set up. You were
beaten on insanity, beaten on everything."

Once more the Governor took up the petition and glanced at the names
subscribed on it. When he came to the name of Nathan Ougheltree of the
National Banks, he smiled and said: "He heads the list." And running
his finger further down the long line of names, he added sardonically:
"Instead of being People vs. Ilingsworth, it looks like Ougheltree
against Wilkinson--the National Banks against the Trust Companies. At
least it does to me, Mr. Higgins; how does it look to you?"

The Hon. Worth Higgins flushed to his eyelids.

"My dear Governor," he said reprovingly, "a man's life is at stake."

"I understand that, Counsellor," returned the Governor. "I'm just
trying to figure out just how much you and Ougheltree care about the
man's life, that's all. I'll take your papers," he went on, "and have
no fear, I'll go over this thing carefully, give the man the benefit of
every reasonable doubt, and that's the best I can do."

"You'll pardon him, Governor Beekman," said Higgins, placing his silk
hat upon his head, and lighting a cigar. "You'll pardon him, I predict.
Good-day!"

Higgins's head was held high in the air until he left the room, but
once outside he conversed dejectedly with his own inner consciousness.

"What the devil did Ougheltree send me on this fool errand for!" he
protested. "Ilingsworth's done for; anyhow, he's served our purpose.
The _Morning Mail_ has had him for a weapon against Wilkinson long
enough."

On Church Street he stepped into a telephone booth and called up
Ougheltree in Manhattan.

"What luck?" queried the National Bank man.

At his end of the line Higgins chuckled.

"You can lay this unction to your soul," he replied. "There's no hope.
Besides," unconsciously lowering his voice, "this man B. is Wilkinson's
man from top to toe. I did what I could."

"Nobody could do more," conceded Ougheltree at the other end; "let it
go at that."

No sooner was the interview between Higgins and the Governor at an end
than the latter's private secretary tiptoed his way back into the room,
and remarked:

"You're not through with that Ilingsworth case yet. Somebody else wants
to see you--a woman, this time."

"His wife, I suppose," said the Governor, wearily.

Phillips shook his head.

"Ilingsworth was a widower," he explained.

"It must be his daughter, then--he has a daughter, so it seems," he
said, tapping the printed case. "Doesn't she give her name? No? Well,
tell her to come in, then."

The private secretary went out as directed, and a moment later the new
visitor entered.

In a glance the Governor saw that although she was simply and poorly
clad, she was a woman of great beauty; and presently he said:

"You are Miss Ilingsworth?"

The woman turned her lustrous dark blue eyes full upon him--eyes full
of sorrow, full of appeal; they troubled the Governor.

"I am not Miss Ilingsworth," she returned in a strong, rich, full
voice, vibrant with pathos. "I have no card. My name is Madeline
Braine. I'm a saleswoman in Satterthwaite's department store in New
York."

The Governor looked at her questioningly.

"I was informed that you had received the Ilingsworth papers," she
began, going right to the point, "and that Mr. Higgins had been here to
see you. I have come about it, too."

The Governor drew a chair forward for her; and the young woman leaning
across a table, her figure half-resting lightly upon it, her slender
arm stretching toward him, continued:

"Yes, I have come to plead for Giles Ilingsworth, to save him
from----" She stopped suddenly, and for an instant her eyes held the
other's glance.

"Who sent you here?" presently asked the Governor.

"I came of my own accord, sir."

"You are not allied with the Ougheltree crowd?" he asked, and his eyes
narrowed.

Madeline Braine opened hers wide.

"What Ougheltree crowd?" she queried in return.

"Come, come," he said a bit impatiently, "you must know what I mean.
I've heard all about this Ilingsworth case. It's been a handle in
the hands of a lot of people for the purpose of hounding Peter V.
Wilkinson."

"Peter V. Wilkinson," she breathed, a sharp note of enmity in her tone
that the Governor recognised for the thing it was.

"Ah, you know something of what I say?" he said.

"I have heard," she began.

"Then why do you come here?" he interrupted testily.

Madeline Braine leaned toward him a bit closer, persisting:

"Because I know that this man Ilingsworth isn't guilty."

"How do you know it?" he asked.

"I just know," she replied with feminine logic.

"You think he was insane? That seems to be the chief argument of his
friends."

"He isn't guilty of the murder, that's all," she declared, her eyes
glittering for an instant.

"I wish you'd tell me how you know this?" asked the Governor, firmly.
He was fast getting out of patience with her.

"Because I've heard him tell his story, and I know it's true," she
insisted stubbornly.

"But twelve men heard his story," went on the Governor, disturbed out
of his gubernatorial dignity by her evident distress, "and they felt it
wasn't true."

"They didn't hear it as I heard it," she declared with great
earnestness. "You ought to hear it from him--not read it. Just hear the
sound of his voice, see his face, his eyes! You'd believe him--you'd
know it was true."

The Governor was interested, not only at her words, but at her forceful
manner; moreover, he was attracted not a little by the young woman's
great beauty. Presently he asked:

"You were in the crowd the day of the murder? Or perhaps you know
someone who was?" But both these questions she answered negatively.

The Governor was puzzled. Dealing with the Honourable Worth Higgins
had been an easy matter compared to this. Nevertheless, there was a
wonderfully convincing stubbornness about the woman that disturbed him.

"You think he had a fair trial?" he asked, flirting the leaves of the
printed case. "It seems to me he had."

"No," she answered, "he did not...." And then she went on to give her
reasons why she thought this, ending with: "The three witnesses out of
the crowd--the three men who were procured by the police, and who swore
they saw Ilingsworth fire the shot--those men lied."

The Governor started.

"Isn't it rather queer that Counsellor Higgins should have harped on
that very thing! You've talked to Higgins this morning, or perhaps some
other time, about this case, haven't you?"

"I have talked to no one," was her answer, and, somehow, the Governor
felt that she spoke the truth.

"Leaving out the question of those three men," he went on, "there's
enough proof--the gun, the threats--to have convicted him on
circumstantial evidence."

"Another reason is," she continued, heedless of his remark, "that the
influence of Peter V. Wilkinson, and especially," she hesitated for an
instant, "the testimony of Miss Leslie Wilkinson were too strong in the
case--too much importance was attached to them."

At the mention of Leslie's name the Governor winced. Not so much
because of her connection with the case, but he blamed himself for
permitting his thoughts, for one instant, to rest on this woman to the
exclusion of the other.

"Their testimony," he argued, "was entitled to weight. It was true; and
it established these threats ... I can't see...."

But there was such genuine distress and anguish on her face, and she
seemed to be advocating such a losing cause that he pitied her, and was
wondering just how he could assist her, when suddenly she leaned closer
to him, her breast swelling, heaving against the polished surface of
the table; and placing her ungloved hand upon his, while with the other
she pushed towards him a closely-written memorandum, she said in soft,
swelling tones:

"Governor Beekman, I know this man is innocent. See what I have done:
This is a list of men who have been sent to death by juries, courts of
appeals, in times past--innocent men, like Ilingsworth, condemned by
the world, while living, and acquitted only when it was too late. This
man Ilingsworth is not guilty, I say," she concluded, tightening her
grasp on his arm, while her gaze held his.

The Governor's frame thrilled at her touch.

"I would not say this, Governor Beekman," she resumed, still holding
his glance, "if I were not desperate, but if there is anything I can
do for you, if there's anything in my power to give, I'll do it if you
will set this man free."

The Governor felt the warmth of her hand through his sleeve, yet there
was nothing of the temptress in her touch, but rather she had become
a desperate woman, the apotheosis of self-sacrifice, a Monna Vanna,
stopping at nothing to gain her virtuous object.

"I don't know you," she went on softly, with downcast eyes, "but if
there's anything about me--do with me----"

Suddenly she stopped. The door had opened, and a girl stood framed in
the doorway. But although the Governor paled perceptibly, he did not
move. After a moment the woman removed her hand from his arm, quietly
rose and stood facing the girl who had entered.

"Governor Beekman," she said, now turning to him, her face still
appealing in its pathos, her arms half stretched toward him, "I'm
coming here every day, whether you will see me or not. I'm coming
until you consent to see this man Ilingsworth and hear from him the
truth. You must see him, you must hear his story from his lips," she
concluded, holding out her hand.

"I will say to you precisely what I told Mr. Higgins," he replied,
taking her hand and bowing gravely over it. "I shall consider this
matter fully and faithfully, and shall give Giles Ilingsworth the
benefit of every reasonable doubt."

When the woman had finally gone, Leslie came forward laughing, but with
just enough nervousness showing in her laugh to startle Beekman, and
remarked:

"Take care, take care, Eliot, some of them will get you if you don't
watch out!"

By this time the Governor had thrown off the subtle influence of the
woman, and smiling, too, he answered:

"Let me tell you all about it, Leslie," and proceeded to do so, despite
her protests that she didn't care to hear it. During his recital,
however, she broke in with:

"She's awfully attractive, Eliot, to say the least!"

"To tell you the truth, Leslie," he laughed, "I'm not quite sure how
far her influence upon me is going to go."

"Surely you don't mean----" began Leslie, but Beekman joined in
quickly, soberly, honestly saying:

"Just this: that if she persists, it may result in my seeing Giles
Ilingsworth."

"Oh!" The interjection plainly showing her relief. But a moment more
and she had recalled Colonel Morehead's warnings that under no
circumstances was Beekman to be permitted to hear Ilingsworth's story
from his own lips.

Immediately, therefore, to Beekman's surprise, the reserve that had
marked her manner dissolved, and she cried:

"Eliot, don't see him! Please don't see him, Eliot!"

"But why not?" he inquired, smiling.

"Because I don't want you to," she told him.

"Leslie! Surely you're not trying to pit your influence against hers?
What?" he said, his smile changing to an expression of slight annoyance.

"No, indeed," she replied. "It's something else."

"Why, then?"

"That's the trouble--I don't know. Only, he was, is still, my father's
enemy. Oh, I have seen his fury--he meant murder--he did murder...."

"It is because the case is a murder case," explained the Governor,
"that it troubles me. It's the first murder case since my election, and
really, I don't know--I can't promise anything now."

       *       *       *       *       *

Madeline Braine lived up to her promises. Day after day for a week she
had waited persistently in the Governor's ante-room, buoyed up with
the hope that eventually he would accede to her wishes. At last her
patience was rewarded: for the Governor, passing through the room
where she waited, suddenly announced to his private secretary that he
would consent to an interview with Ilingsworth the following day at
noon. And turning to the woman, he added:

"I want you here, Miss Braine, too."

Phillips, the Governor's private secretary, frowned to himself. Unknown
to the Governor, he was one of Wilkinson's most faithful men--placed
at the Governor's side apparently by the Governor's untrammelled
choice--but actually forced upon him without his own knowledge.

"I don't like this a little bit," thought Phillips to himself. "It
looks bad, bad...."

The following day punctually at noon, in obedience to the mandate of
the Governor, three men marched into the waiting-room at the Capitol.
Two were men in uniform; one in civilian's dress.

"You can go right in," said the secretary, nodding to them. And passing
into the Governor's private office they found him at his desk, signing
some papers. In a corner sat Miss Madeline Braine. One of the uniformed
officers stood at attention, waiting until the Governor should look up.

"This is Giles Ilingsworth, sir," he said at length.

Instantly the Governor raised his eyes and looked at the prisoner--a
man whose hair was turning grey, whose aspect was pathetically
hopeless. And steeling himself against the sight--for it was within
the range of possibility that all murderers looked this way, guilty or
not,--he ordered him to sit down, and pointing to a seat, he added:

"Mr. Ilingsworth, take this chair, please."

The chair had been placed so that the light shone full upon the face of
the condemned man. And the instant that Ilingsworth had seated himself,
some new expression crossed the face of the Governor as unconsciously
he placed his hand against his forehead. In an instant, however, he
had removed it, and his glance went from Ilingsworth to the young
woman sitting in the corner, at the same time motioning to her to come
forward.

"Mr. Ilingsworth," he began gently, "the fact that I have consented to
see you is due to your friend, Miss Madeline Braine."

The prisoner turned an expressionless countenance toward the girl.

"My friend, Miss Madeline Braine!" he exclaimed, his hand, too,
creeping along his own forehead. "I have no friend of the name Braine."

"You may not know her by that name, but this is the lady," said the
Governor.

Giles Ilingsworth stared hard at her; the next instant he announced:

"I don't know this lady, sir."

The Governor was startled afresh.

"You don't know her? Why, she's been pleading for you for days."

Ilingsworth smiled gratefully, murmuring:

"Some young newspaper woman, I suppose. I thank her for it."

The Governor shook his head.

"She's not a newspaper woman--I know that," he returned. "I mistook her
for your daughter."

Giles Ilingsworth struggled wildly to his feet, and brushing his hair
roughly from his forehead as he leaned over the Governor's desk and
looked him full in the eye, he cried:

"My daughter! My daughter----"

"Stop!" ordered the Governor in commanding tones, the puzzled look on
his face giving way to one of recognition, relief.

"I've placed you now--yes, by Jove, I'm right--I know you!" He laughed
with the surprise of it all.

Ilingsworth continued to stare vacantly into space.

"'And the rest by the names underneath,'" quoted the Governor, touching
him on the arm, as though to arouse him.

"Eh?" exclaimed the prisoner, working his fingers convulsively through
his hair.

"Listen to this!" And the Governor recited with almost boyish glee:

    "'I recognise Dante because he's tab-eared,
    And Virgil I know by his wreath,
    Old Homer I tell by his rough shaggy beard--
    And the rest _by the names underneath_.'"

"Don't you remember it?" he added, when he had finished the verse.

Ilingsworth's face lighted up.

"Why, sir," he cried, "it's my favourite. Where did you hear it?"

"From your own lips," replied the Governor. "And at the same time you
showed me that,"--and he pointed with his finger to the spot where the
old man had brushed away his hair from his forehead--"the Heidelberg
scar upon your head. And you were reading Dante at the time."

Ilingsworth pulled a thumb-worn volume out of his pocket.

"I've that copy of the Inferno yet," he murmured sadly. "It keeps
reminding me.... My daughter"--he peered uncertainly at the Governor.
"I'm curious to know, sir, when I met you. I can't seem to place you."

"But I remember you very well indeed," rejoined the Governor. "I rode
with you all day long to Buffalo, some months ago. We were on the
Empire State Express together."

"Buffalo?" said Ilingsworth. "I never went to Buffalo."

"Oh, yes, you did," persisted the Governor; and drawing from his
breast-pocket a diary he turned over the leaves rapidly until he came
to a certain page. "Yes, you went to Buffalo on the 27th day of April,
190--that's the date."

"I can't seem to remember it," was all that Ilingsworth said; but at
that moment a figure sprang towards the Governor, and a voice cried in
his ear:

"The date--what was that date? The twenty-seventh day of what?"

"April."

"Please repeat it."

The Governor repeated it.

"Are you absolutely sure?" she cried.

"Of course," he answered. "Why?"

"And you say you took the Empire State Express?" demanded Madeline
Braine, almost beside herself with excitement. "What time does it leave
in the morning?"

"It leaves always at the same time--eight-thirty in the morning."

"It was an all-day ride?"

"Yes."

"And Giles Ilingsworth was near you all the way? You're sure that you
were with him on the Empire State Express at eleven o'clock--eleven in
the morning that day?"

"Surely I was."

Madeline Braine offered up a silent prayer.

"I knew, I knew," she cried, "that there must be some way out of this!
Giles Ilingsworth was miles away at the time when Pallister was killed!
The murder took place on April 27th at eleven o'clock in the morning,
at the very instant when you and he were riding to Buffalo as fast as
steam could carry you! You----"

She sank into her chair and covered her face with her hands.

"I told you he was innocent," she said, smiling through her tears.

There was a tense moment in which Governor Beekman, the prisoner and
the two officers stood staring at each other in speechless amazement.

"Can it be possible ...!" exclaimed the Governor at length, and again
he consulted his diary. All of a sudden something else on the page that
he was looking at caught his eye, and he cried out:

"It was at six o'clock that evening in the Iroquois that I read the
murder in the papers. It was that day--it was...." And a moment later
he was at his desk rapidly leafing over the printed case for the date
of the commission of the crime.

There was no mistake about it. Every witness had it pat. Repeatedly in
his opening address and in his summing up the District Attorney had
referred to it; three times it appeared in the Court's charge to the
jury.

"Phillips," he directed, when his secretary appeared, "call up my
office in New York; call up the District Attorney's office in New York;
and call up the Bank Le Boeuf in Buffalo. Get them right away, please."

The calls were answered quickly. Once the people at the other end knew
the Governor of New York was on the wire, everything was put aside to
do his bidding; and at the end of an hour the Governor sank back into
his chair with a sigh of satisfaction.

"There is not the slightest doubt about it," he told them. "At the
very time the shot was fired in Lafayette Street, New York, this man
was with me miles away from the spot." He looked at the officers
significantly. "When was he to be----" He broke off, shuddering at the
thought of the man's narrow escape.

"Next week Thursday," came from the officers.

Beekman thought for some time. Finally he said:

"I'll grant him a reprieve for a month. It may take a week to verify
the facts."

When the prisoner had been led away, the Governor turned to Madeline
Braine, and said with great feeling:

"Miss Braine, I owe you a debt of gratitude I can never repay. If it
hadn't been for you I would have sent this man to his doom--and one
of these days, when it was too late, I would have found it out, and
then...." His finger-nails bit into his palms. "You've saved me from
the Inferno that he harps upon."

But much to the Governor's surprise, the woman before him seemed to
receive this remark listlessly. An unaccountable depression was upon
her; there was no fire in her eyes; and the hand that she gave to him
was cold as ice. Yet, instinctively he felt that she must be grateful.

"If I can ever be of service"--she murmured. But Beekman interrupted
her.

"Pardon me, it is I who wish to be of some service to you. But will you
tell me," he asked, another thought coming into his mind, "how it was
that you didn't know Ilingsworth, and that he didn't know you? How do
you account for it, Miss Braine?"

"I think this day has taught us that there are many unaccountable
things in life, hasn't it, Governor?"

And the Governor, when once more seated alone at his desk, was forced
to acknowledge to himself that it had.

Governor Beekman was still at his desk going over some papers when
Phillips, some time later, came in and handed him a telegram, saying:

"It's in cipher, sir."

"Cipher!" said the other. "Why cipher? I have no code with anybody. Can
you read it?"

"It says 'Coal gone to $6.50 retail.'" And passing it over, added:
"It's signed, M. X. Y. Z."

"And you say that's a cipher?" asked the Governor.

"Yes. The X. Y. Z. means the X. Y. Z. Code, apparently," explained
Phillips, glibly. "I have the A. B. C. and the X. Y. Z. in my desk. I
translated it while you were busy. It means this: 'Court has affirmed
Wilkinson conviction. Morehead.'"

Governor Beekman started with genuine anxiety.

"The deuce you say! I'm sorry, very sorry, to hear that," he said; but
Phillips only smiled--a smile that the Governor did not see. "I can't
understand why they affirm that conviction, I can't--I can't ..." he
kept saying to himself. Then aloud to his secretary: "Get me a copy of
that opinion, will you, Phillips? I want to see it, word for word."

And it was with considerable satisfaction that the private secretary
observed, as he left the room, that the Governor was nervously pacing
to and fro.




XVIII


In Colonel Morehead's office at 120 Broadway, Peter V. Wilkinson sat at
the window reading a typewritten document of considerable length. He
was white and rigid; while Leslie, standing beside him, rested her arm
upon his shoulder. As he read he stirred uneasily, even his daughter's
hand felt heavy upon him, and he shrugged it off.

"By all the gods!" he groaned from time to time; "those chaps have
nerve to say such things about me!"

"They seem to have the right," said the Colonel, suppressing a chuckle,
"and I suppose we can't complain."

When Peter V. had finished reading the opinion, he wiped his face with
his kerchief--the perspiration had started from every pore.

"That's the last crack, I suppose, Morehead," he ventured.

Morehead did not immediately answer, but turned to Leslie and said:

"There's a new Inness in the next room that I picked up at a bargain.
Would you like----" And without waiting for her answer the Colonel led
the way to an adjoining room, where he pointed out briefly to her the
artistic features of his new acquisition, and leaving her to admire it,
he came back, closing the door behind him.

"Peter," he said softly, "how much money have you squandered on this
business in the last year--since you were indicted, convicted and so
forth. I mean outside of what you haven't paid me and of what I know
about?"

Wilkinson grunted in disgust.

"Ten, I should say."

"Millions?"

His client fumed and nodded.

Morehead made a gesture of impatience which included the other.

"Didn't I warn you, Peter, that it would be of no use? That at the end
of the race you'd find yourself with a ten-years' sentence staring
you in the face. You might have saved your money, or given it to me,
preferably the latter course."

"Oh, come, Morehead, what's the use of these post mortems of yours!
Let's get to work. How much time have we got?"

"I can get a few certificates of reasonable doubt--that part's all
right--run it along for months yet. We've got to concede, however,
that they shoved it along mighty quick. What I'm trying to figure out
is whether we hadn't better apply to Beekman now--strike while the
iron's hot. For that opinion will make him mad, and if so, now is our
time...."

"Sure it's our time, Colonel; let's do it right away."

Morehead slipped into the next room and adjusted the window-shade.

"The light is a little better, now, Miss Leslie. I want you to like
that picture. If you like it well enough, maybe I'll give it to you one
of these days...."

Leslie smiled her gratitude, glancing anxiously at the same time into
the next room.

"Can I go back to father now?" she asked.

"Of course, I came to get you," said Colonel Morehead; and when they
were back in the room in which her father waited, the Colonel, lounging
easily in his seat, went on to confide to her the fact that her father
was at last in desperate straits; that this opinion constituted his
last chance with the courts.

"Your father and I have been talking it over," he said in a tone of
finality; "and the hand of the National Banks sticks up like a sore
finger all through the case. It's an outrage! We've decided that this
is the proper time and the proper case to present to Governor Beekman
for pardon. What do you think ...?"

At first, while Morehead was explaining, as well as he knew how, the
unpleasant situation that her father was in, Leslie had half-risen in
her chair, her face growing white; but at the lawyer's concluding words
her colour came back.

"Why, I--I never thought of that!" she cried out, her troubles slipping
from her suddenly.

Colonel Morehead smiled at her until she lowered her eyes in confusion.
Afterwards he deigned to explain that neither had they until just now.

"Providence," put in Wilkinson, winking at Colonel Morehead, "seems to
be on our side--the appellate courts to the contrary notwithstanding."

"The right shall prevail," quoth Morehead, unblushingly.

"Isn't it funny," exclaimed Leslie, "that none of us ever thought of
this before!"

Leslie thought of it a good deal afterwards, however, and the very next
day in the Mastodon car she canvassed in person practically every house
upon the Drive and over on Fifth Avenue to get the list of signatures
that the Colonel wished her to obtain.

"This has got to be done right, Miss Leslie," he impressed upon her.
"For when Eliot pardons your father, remember that he's got to show why
he does it, and upon whose petition."

"You mean"--she faltered, "that he may be criticised?"

"It's quite possible, my dear. The _Morning Mail_, for instance, will
doubtless roast him from here to Gehenna and back again."

Leslie's smile of girlish confidence returned.

"Eliot won't mind," she said. "I don't believe he cares much about
anything except me. He'll do right by us no matter what happens, I feel
sure of that."

"And I think," suggested the Colonel, "that when we hand in our
petitions, we'll all go up together."

Leslie laughed in sheer delight.

"Of course we'll all go up together," she returned. "Our march to
victory."

       *       *       *       *       *

"That man Ilingsworth is here again," Phillips told the Governor,
somewhat reluctantly; "and he wants to see you."

"Show him in," briskly returned his chief. "I'll be delighted to see
him."

Ilingsworth came in slowly, dejectedly, alone. No guard was with him;
the air he breathed was free air, and yet there were no signs of
contentment.

"I didn't come exactly to thank you, Governor," he said uneasily. "I
did that in my letter when they told me of my pardon. I came to you
because in all my life you are the only man who ever really helped
me--for it seems to have been the mission of other men to drag me down.
I have come for help once more."

"I want to help you, Mr. Ilingsworth," volunteered the Governor.
"What's the trouble? Is it--money?"

Ilingsworth slowly shook his head.

"No, it is not money...." He paused and looked about him uncertainly,
murmuring to himself: "What is it that I want?"

Beekman touched him kindly.

"You seem to lose yourself at times," he remarked. "For instance, you
didn't remember that trip to Buffalo."

"That's the only time I ever lost myself, I guess," was his answer.
"If I hadn't lost myself then, I suppose I could have proved an alibi.
I couldn't account for myself upon my trial, and nobody who knew me
had seen me for a few days. I must have knocked about Buffalo and come
back."

"You were looking for a farm."

"Yes, you told me that. It comes back to me now. And there was a farm,
but it's all very vague--a farm some years ago somewhere up there. I
had the notion to find it and to live on it--just myself and----" he
broke off abruptly, and there was a new light in his eyes and a world
of pathos in the voice that said: "It's my daughter that I want to see
you about. I want to find her. Can't you help me to find her?"

"Don't you know where she is?"

"I haven't seen her for, oh, so long--so long. When they put me away
she would come to the Tombs--twice she came up the River to see me. But
the last time there was something in her face I couldn't understand,
then she never came again, and I knew they'd got her. For she had to
get along, somehow, and she didn't dare to face me. Poor girl, there
was no one to care for her--see to her!" And then all of a sudden
flaring up out of his downcast demeanour, he cried:

"Curse them! Curse that man Wilkinson--all of them! First they robbed
me of my money, then they got me, and now they've got her!"

The Governor's eyes narrowed.

"What has Wilkinson to do with it?" he demanded.

"Why, don't you know?" Ilingsworth burst out excitedly. "Doesn't
everybody know? Didn't you read my testimony at the trial?"

"Only hurriedly," acknowledged the Governor. "What I wanted to read
first was the case made against you. I read your own denial--but as
for the rest, well, you were rambling, somewhat incoherent. I didn't
understand it--in fact I hardly read it all."

Ilingsworth dragged up a chair.

"Will you let me tell you, sir, all about it?"

Governor Beekman let him tell his story. And scarcely had the last
words of Ilingsworth's recital of his wrongs left his lips than
Phillips, entering, announced:

"Colonel Morehead and some friends to see you, sir!"

"Bring them right in!" exclaimed the Governor, at once rising and going
with a smile to meet them. Suddenly he remembered Ilingsworth and
started to escort that gentleman out of another entrance.

"But my daughter," mumbled Ilingsworth as with bowed head he followed
the Governor. "If I can't have her back again, why, what's the good of
a pardon? I must have help to find her." At the door something impelled
him to pause, and looking back he found himself face to face with Peter
V. Wilkinson.

"That's the man--there--the man that got my money--that's got my
daughter! No matter where she is, he's responsible! Look at him! Look
at his face! I don't have to tell you...."

But the Governor, startled by this outburst and intent upon getting rid
of his visitor, did not turn, and consequently he did not see the face
of Wilkinson blanch and twitch under the accusing forefinger of his old
vice-president, Giles Ilingsworth.

"I'll help you find your daughter, sir," the Governor promised, taking
the man by the arm; "I'll help you all I can."

"Poor chap," said he, returning, and shaking hands with his guests,
"seems to have it in for you, Mr. Wilkinson."

"I don't blame him having it in for somebody," spoke up Leslie. "It is
not his innocence or guilt that interests me, but his daughter. I saw
her picture once--saw her twice," she went on wistfully. "How I wish
that I might help him...."

Colonel Morehead, tucking the Ilingsworth incident into the back of his
head for future use, laid down a batch of papers and his printed case
upon the Governor's desk.

"Governor--Eliot," he remarked jovially, "the New York _Reporter_ and
the _Star_ call you the pardoning Governor."

"Yes. They rapped me hard, didn't they," he said, all unconscious
that they were Wilkinson's own papers. "But what could I do? The man
Ilingsworth was innocent--I knew he was innocent."

"Oh, they didn't hit you very hard--just a little dig in the short
ribs--friendly little scrap, don't you know," said Morehead,
soothingly. "But the _Morning Mail_ made up for it, my boy. They'll
stick to you through thick and thin, and don't you forget it. It won't
hurt you. Ougheltree's backing is not to be sneezed at by any man. But
what I started in to say, Eliot, was, that since you're the pardoning
Governor, so-called, why, we've got a little bone to pick with you--a
petition--or petitions, rather, in the case of the People versus
Wilkinson."

Colonel Morehead handed up his bunch of papers, Leslie following suit,
as she said with a little smile:

"My contribution, Governor."

"A bit stiff, that U. S. Supreme decision," said the Governor, taking
them, and looking at Wilkinson. "It seemed to me unnecessarily rough."

Wilkinson shrugged his shoulders.

"With the National Banks against me, how can the U. S. courts be for
me--that's what I'd like to know?" he asked.

"Will you hear me now, Governor," interposed Morehead.

For an instant the Governor hesitated. Then he replied that he would
send for him when he was ready; that he had to read the case all
through, ending with:

"I've forgotten half of it. I'll read it and then I'll set a day...."

But that day was long forthcoming. For it was not until three weeks
later that Colonel Morehead heard anything relating to their visit
to the Governor in Albany. And then, one morning to his surprise,
Governor Beekman presented himself at his office in Broadway, and
handing him a personal memorandum, he said:

"I was down here and thought we'd clean these up first. I'm going to
Murgatroyd's to look at the original exhibits when I'm through here--or
he'll probably send them to my office."

The Colonel gave the man before him one long searching glance. He noted
that the Governor's face was unnaturally flushed; there were deep lines
on it; he had the appearance of an over-worked man.

"Must have burned some midnight oil on this thing, Eliot?" said
Morehead.

The Governor wearily drew his hand across his face.

"I have," he answered shortly.

"The first memo.," went on the Governor, referring to the printed case,
"relates to page 121."

Morehead found page 121 and his face reddened perceptibly. The Governor
had touched a sore spot: page 121 contained the first bit of damning
documentary evidence against Wilkinson. Morehead ran through the
other pages indicated on the memorandum; and closing his eyes for a
few seconds, he pressed his hands against them and thought hard. The
Governor had burnt midnight oil to some purpose: he had located every
weak place in Wilkinson's armour--and Morehead knew it.

"I merely want to find out what Wilkinson's explanation of all these
things is," remarked the Governor, grimly.

"I'll tell you," said the Colonel, glibly; "that's easy, Eliot. Or,
perhaps," he suggested in order to gain time, "we might get Wilkinson
down here, and have him go over these things with you and me." Already
his hand was on the telephone; but the Governor stayed it.

"Your explanation will do, Colonel."

For two hours the Governor listened to Morehead's explanation. At
the end of that time the Governor was still leaning forward studying
every expression in the other's face; but the lines were deeper in
his own face, while on the Colonel's lean countenance small beads of
perspiration stood forth.

"That's the explanation of it, is it, Colonel?" asked the Governor.

"That's the whole thing in a nut-shell," returned Morehead.

Hurriedly the Governor took his departure. He was nervous, anxious,
worried.

"It seems to be the kind of an explanation that doesn't explain ..." he
told himself. Now he went back to his old office on Nassau Street and
telephoned to Murgatroyd for the original exhibits. At the Barristers'
Club, behind locked doors, he examined the documents for hours. All
night long he studied them; then he rose and gazed out into the grey
dawn.

"Wilkinson is guilty!" he cried out; "damnably guilty! Why didn't I see
it all before?"

There was a reason: Colonel Morehead had been right when he told
Wilkinson that Beekman was partisan. And so long as his duty lay
that way, Beekman was partisan. But now he was Governor; his duty in
this case had become judicial; he saw with impartial eyes; and what
he saw and what he read was not the mere testimony of witnesses, not
evidence that depended on veracity, but documents whose genuineness
was undisputed, and whose significance had strangely escaped him until
now. In his own words, over his own signature, Wilkinson had convicted
himself over and over again.

"Damnably guilty," he repeated to himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening some days later Colonel Morehead betook himself into
the presence of Peter V. Wilkinson and his daughter Leslie. He had
with him, he said, a note which had come from the Governor's private
chambers, which he wished to read to them. It ran:

  _My dear Colonel_:

 I have examined with great care the petitions for pardon in the
 People vs. Wilkinson. Also the printed record. There seem to be
 undisputed facts which are totally inconsistent with innocence.
 The verdict seems to have been justified, the decisions on appeal
 correct. There are no extenuating circumstances known to me which
 require executive interference.

  Very truly,

  ELIOT BEEKMAN.

"What the devil does he want?" growled Wilkinson, taking the letter
from Morehead, and tossing it to Leslie. "Is it money or political
preferment? Haven't I given him enough?" his anger increasing as he
went on. "I made him----"

"Stop!" cried Morehead, alarmed lest he should betray to her their
political secret.

"I mean I gave him my daughter," corrected the father, "everything I
had."

Morehead stared at them a moment from under knitted brows. Presently he
said:

"Peter, I'd send Leslie to him. This letter is only tentative."

"It's a refusal," gasped Wilkinson, hopelessly.

"It's a denial to me," explained Colonel Morehead. "But wait until he
sees her! He'll have something different to say to her, I know."

And so it happened that the following day Leslie Wilkinson arrived at
Albany to interview her betrothed on her father's behalf.

"I came to talk to you, Eliot, about my father," she began.

Beekman swayed in his chair. His eyes seemed sunken in his head, and
his head ached from weariness and lack of sleep.

"Yes, Leslie," he said.

"Colonel Morehead didn't--couldn't understand what your letter meant,
so I came to see."

"It means that I can't pardon your father, Leslie," he told her with
great difficulty.

"Why not?"

"Because your father is guilty----"

"Eliot!" she cried, leaping back with flashing eyes.

"But I must speak the truth, Leslie," said the Governor, "and that's
the truth."

There was a silence that lapsed into minutes. Beekman was the first to
break it.

"Unfortunately for us all," he said, "I'm sworn to do my duty--I don't
know that it makes much difference about my being sworn--I'd have to do
it anyway."

"You defended him," she said with sudden spirit. "You believed him
innocent then--you said so a thousand times."

"I defended him below," he returned, "because it was my duty to defend
him. I had never seen any other side of the case then; but now I know I
was wrong. He's guilty, deliberately guilty, wofully guilty...."

"Eliot, must I remind you that you are speaking of my father! Have I
no right, no influence, no claim upon you?" she rattled on breathlessly.

"Yes, you have a claim upon me," he said, eyeing her sternly. "Your
influence is of the best, Leslie, and it is your right, your duty
to claim, to demand of me that I shall do my duty in this as in all
things. If I were false in this, I would be false to you."

But Leslie could not see things in his light, bent as she was on
obtaining her father's pardon.

"You pardoned Giles Ilingsworth?" she went on; "and now you won't...."

"Yes, I pardoned Giles Ilingsworth," he admitted.

"A murderer!" she blazed forth.

"I pardoned him because he was innocent," he insisted.

"And you can't pardon my father?"

Eliot Beekman did not answer at once, but hung his head under the
girl's scrutinising gaze. She looked very beautiful, irresistibly
beautiful to him pleading there, and for a moment he came perilously
near to wavering in his purpose. He would have liked to have taken her
in his arms, to have uttered the one word of all others that she wished
to hear and to have sent her home happy. But, hard as it was to deny
her, he knew from the first that it was impossible to grant her request.

"No, Leslie, I can't," he told her at last.

"Look at me!" she cried, now changing her tactics. "I haven't slept, I
haven't eaten! Have you no pity for me--if not for him?"

"But, Leslie, you're asking me to commit a crime!"

"Just a stroke of the pen, dear, and my father will be free," she
went on, half sobbing, half smiling. "It's his last chance--my last
chance--surely you can't, you won't refuse me this."

Then followed a scene that lived in Beekman's memory for ever
after--the memory of a woman, the woman he loved, crawling after him on
her knees, pleading, almost writhing in agony, imploring him to do this
impossible thing--a thing that, were it not for his conscience, was so
ridiculously easy: merely the exercising of the authority vested in
him, and solely in him, and thus save the father of the woman he loved
from serving a term of ten years at hard labour in the State's Prison.

"Why was I ever Governor!" burst out Beekman.

"I'll tell you why," said Wilkinson, striding suddenly into the room.
"It's because I made you Governor, that's why! I--I bought you the
job--I----"

"You?" ejaculated Beekman.

"Yes, it is true," said Flomerfelt, gliding also into the scene. "You
owe it all to Peter V."

"Now you've got to do it!" exclaimed Leslie, staggering to her feet.

Beekman eyed them all with growing determination. He was beginning to
see things clearly now.

"I even gave you my daughter, confound you!" went on Wilkinson.

Beekman turned back to his desk and stood there, calm now, desperately
calm.

"So you made me Governor just to get this pardon?"

Flomerfelt started to speak, but Wilkinson was before him.

"Yes," snarled Wilkinson, "just to get this pardon. Do you think for an
instant that you were put here for any other reason? Or that you had
any qualifications for the office?"

Leslie laughed a discordant laugh, and Flomerfelt, seeing at once that
the girl was in complete sympathy with her father, stepped back behind
them.

"There are many good reasons, Mr. Wilkinson," said the Governor,
grimly, "Why you should not be pardoned. Needless to say you know
what they are. But," he added fiercely, for he knew that he had been
tricked, "if there were no other reason, the fact that you had put me
here to secure your pardon would make it impossible for me to act." He
stopped and stared at Leslie, his eyes unconsciously seeking hers for
sympathy, but something there shocked him beyond measure, and before he
was aware of what he was saying, he blurted out:

"Did you give me your daughter for the same season? Did you, Leslie----"

There was a deep silence in which the attention of all was focussed on
the girl.

"Mr. Beekman," she said, in a cold, hard voice, though her eyes were
softly eager, "will you tell me once for all whether you're going to
pardon my father?"

"I certainly am not going to pardon him," declared Beekman.

Leslie favoured him with a little stinging laugh.

"Then you'd better know the rest. Yes, it is true that my father gave
me to you--I gave myself to you for that very reason, and no other....
I made a big mistake; so did he. We should have made our bargain before
we took that step. It would have been better." She paused to take
breath, and presently went on in a voice that rankled: "You talked once
to me of equals--and when you got this office you thought, at last,
that you were my equal. I know better; you're my inferior. And I want
you to know and to understand--and understand it clearly--that the
Wilkinsons do not mate with cowards." And with that she drew off her
ring and placed it before him, crying: "There!"

An instant later, Leslie, strangling a sob that threatened to escape,
hurriedly fled from the room, her father and Flomerfelt following
closely on her heels.




XIX


In common with most men who have attained their ambition to be
money-kings, Peter V. Wilkinson regarded the legal profession solely
in the light of the ability of its members to provide processes for
him by means of which the law could be evaded. Failing in that or in
their promises of immunity from imprisonment,--which is much more
to the point in this case,--their usefulness, naturally, ceased.
Accordingly, from time to time, one after another of his superfluous
counsel had been dropped, even Patrick Durand, able criminal lawyer
as he was acknowledged to be, being forced to content himself with a
handsome souvenir of his connection with the case, to the exclusion of
any further interest in the expected spoils. Obviously, the old Colonel
was retained, but even this field marshal of a hundred campaigns, when
he arrived at the Wilkinson suite in the Remsen at Albany in response
to Wilkinson's imperative summons, had to acknowledge that the battle
of his life--the last battle of what he called the running fight--was
on, and likely, so at least it looked at the present time, to be his
Waterloo.

It was but little wonder that, witnessing the burst of rage with which
Wilkinson had told him of the Governor's refusal to pardon, not to
speak of the pitiful state of collapse in which he found Leslie, that
thwarted and disappointed as he was, Colonel Morehead came to feel
that there was little likelihood of anything being immediately done
towards the forming of a new campaign. Practically, the Wilkinson
advisory committee had dwindled down to three--a triumvirate now, as it
were--for Flomerfelt, doubtless for reasons of his own, had returned
to New York; and Morehead at once set himself the task of forcing the
intellects of father and daughter to resume their functions. With the
girl it did not prove difficult. Womanlike, and despite her horror of
the inevitable, she flung aside her own personal troubles at the call
of the Colonel for a consultation, and entered the conclave intent on
helping her father in his last great struggle with an energy that she
determined would be boundless.

"Colonel Morehead, why can't father go away?" suddenly said the girl.

"Why not, Morehead?" asked Wilkinson, fairly jumping at her words.

But the Colonel was still sullen. He was beaten, or thought he was,
which is very much the same thing. Wilkinson, on the contrary, seemed
to find new life in the moroseness of the other. And for the first
time in the struggle Wilkinson seemed to feel that the whole fight
rested on his own shoulders, and Wilkinson was one who dearly loved to
fight alone and single-handed.

"Why not run away, Morehead?" he repeated.

"How?" demanded the Colonel with little interest.

"The _Marchioness_ ..." suggested Leslie.

"And forfeit a million dollars bail?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"Don't make any mistake," declared Wilkinson, "they'll never get me
behind the bars again! Never! Not even if I have to----" A new strange
note had forced itself into his tone. Leslie, feeling suddenly cold,
crept closer to him.

"Don't, don't talk that way, father!" she cried. "It shall never come
to that."

Morehead, even, was alarmed.

"Peter, you don't mean----" he began.

"I mean," repeated the other, looking sturdily at him, "that if they
ever put me behind the bars, it will be after life has left my body."

Leslie uttered a half-strangled cry and buried her face in her hands.
But Wilkinson only braced himself.

"We haven't got to that yet, Colonel," he observed. There was a pause,
after which he repeated his question: "Why not run away, eh?"

The Colonel thought a moment. Then, taking both Wilkinson and Leslie
by the arm marched them to the window and drew back the curtain.

"Do you see that Italian fruit-vender over there selling figs to the
swell? They're Murgatroyd's men, both of them. Murgatroyd's got you
surrounded, sewed up, tied in. One of the elevator boys in the Remsen
here is a New York County man; the chambermaid of this suite is a
detective. Murgatroyd has sworn that you won't get away. It may cost
the County of New York a million dollars, but you know Murgatroyd! And,
besides, behind him stand the National Banks. How much will they put up
to break you, eh? Murgatroyd will put you behind the bars as sure as
guns--unless----" He stopped, his eyes were half shut.

"Unless----" repeated father and daughter, leaning forward.

Morehead did not answer at once. His mind was working fast; he was
evidently feeling his way clear before committing himself. Suddenly he
said:

"Peter, how long have you worn a beard?"

The question seemed so irrelevant that the millionaire started.

"Why, nearly all my life," he answered. "I've--I've never shaved.
But----"

"It was so bristly," explained the Colonel, "that I thought it might be
the result of shaving; but everything about you bristles, so I guess
it's nature and not art. When you first saw it coming, you let it grow,
didn't you--and you've had it ever since?"

Peter V. did not like the turn the conversation was taking, and merely
nodded.

The Colonel uncrossed his legs and sat on the edge of the table, facing
them.

"How do you look without a beard?" he asked.

Leslie laughed aloud in sheer delight. The problem seemed to be solving
itself, but how or in what way she could not see.

"Blamed if I know," answered Wilkinson. "I don't even remember how I
used to look without a beard, and as for photographs, well, in former
days those luxuries were not for me, you know."

Colonel Morehead stuck his hands into his armpits and rested his chin
upon his shirt front. Presently he went on:

"Peter, you know this is Murgatroyd's pet case. It's his first in his
series of raids upon the iniquitous rich. He means to see to it that
you serve ten years--less good behaviour. From the time you put up
your million-dollar bail bond he has had you watched. Of course his
task is a tremendous one. You and I know that time and time again we
have eluded the vigilance of his men; and we know that we can do it
again for a time; but that doesn't alter the situation. If you should
disappear, every hotel, every train, every steamship would be thronged
with plainclothes men. You can't get out of the United States, and
you can't get out of the State, unless--you can't, in fact, elude
Murgatroyd for any time at all, unless----" Again he stopped, and again
Leslie and her father chimed in insistently:

"Unless----"

"Unless you follow my directions."

"What are they?" quickly asked the others.

"You've got to leave your beard and your name and all your worldly
goods----" went on the Colonel, but he checked himself in time.

"My worldly possessions being minus anyway," sighed Wilkinson, helping
the Colonel out.

"You've got to leave, even Mrs. Peter V.," smiled Morehead.

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Wilkinson with mock solemnity; then he
added: "I can leave the lady with eminent complacency."

"And also," went on Morehead, mercilessly, "you must leave your
daughter."

There was a sharp cry from Leslie, but Wilkinson gave no sign. He
merely sniffed hopefully, for he smelled freedom in all this.

"Go on!" he commanded, ignoring the quivering palm that Leslie laid
upon his hand.

"You've got to leave them all and never come back to them," continued
the Colonel; and bending closer and lowering his voice to a whisper, he
added: "Leave everything that you've got in the world, you understand?"

Wilkinson muttered an oath under his breath, for next to liberty his
wealth was dear to him. In fact, he now arranged in his mind the
relative importance of things: first, liberty--he must have that at any
cost; second, the millions that he had stowed away; third, his daughter
Leslie.

"Why have I got to leave them all?" he demanded, "and why never come
back at all?"

"Because," said his counsel, "if you so much as plank down a ten-dollar
bill for a railroad ticket after you disappear, you will be suspected.
The county men, the police in other cities will be on the look-out for
a man with money; they will not search the lodging-houses. You must not
be caught. It takes nerve, but you've got to do it. You've got to say
good-bye to everything."

There was a moment's silence; then Wilkinson answered:

"Where could I go?"

"Anywhere you like. Disappear. But don't buy a railroad ticket if you
can help it. Don't try to leave the country, for if you do they'll get
you. Don't do anything that a man with a roll of bills might do. Play
the part of a tramp."

For a time they pondered the situation. The Colonel was the first to
break the ruminating silence, and said:

"Of course your bail would be forfeited, and that would leave your
daughter penniless."

This remark was for Leslie's benefit. Nevertheless he knew that after
Wilkinson had gone, some way could be found in which his huge fortune
might gradually be used for her.

"I don't care at all about being penniless!" cried Leslie, springing to
her feet. "All I care for, is--but can't I go with father?"

"That's out of the question--they'd get me in an hour if you did."
There was nothing paternal in Wilkinson's voice, for the primal
principle had him in its clutch. Leslie was hurt by this seeming
indifference to her; it was not given to her to comprehend fully that
her father was making, in actuality, a fight for his life.

"You must understand, Leslie, that this means an absolute loss of
identity, or ten years behind the bars for your father," explained
Colonel Morehead.

Wilkinson rose, and walking to the window glanced down at the fruit man
on the other side of the street, and then came back.

"How long time have I, Colonel, before----"

"There'll be no trouble about time," was the Colonel's reply. "I
can still string it on for months. Summer is coming on--the long
vacation----"

Wilkinson rewarded him with a crafty, exultant smile. He saw in this
plan nothing save success. Firmly he believed that there was some way
after all by which, whether he was in Paris, San Francisco or some
other place, he could draw back his millions, even if it had to be
accomplished in the slow way that formerly he had drawn them from his
depositors.

"Liberty first, then----" he said half-aloud; and turning to his
daughter, whose presence for the moment he had forgotten, he added:
"Isn't it more than bedtime, child? You must be mighty tired, little
girl. You're a mighty loyal one, anyhow."

Leslie held out her hand to Colonel Morehead.

"Don't worry, my girl," said the Colonel, kindly, "it's going to come
out all right. I feel it, somehow, and I know you do, too. Good-night!"

But the Colonel's words did not banish the look of worriment on
Leslie's face; and going over to her father, now, she clung to him
insistently, pressing her flushed face against his breast, saying:

"Father, you're not going to leave me to-night?"

"Not for many nights," he answered, patting her head; and a moment
after, Leslie withdrew.

For a brief ten minutes the client and his attorney waited in silence.
Suddenly, then, Morehead stepped to a door and opened it, and a man
came in.

It cannot be said that the newcomer was wanting in self-possession, and
his bow to Morehead was one of respect. But that he stood in awe of
Wilkinson, his manner while awaiting orders gave ample evidence.

"Sit down, Phillips," said Wilkinson. "Have a cigar?"

Governor Beekman's secretary helped himself to a cigar, and in fact,
made himself quite at home.

"Now then, what are we going to do with this man Beekman?" asked the
millionaire, his face flushed, his mouth hardening. "He's got to get
his--and get it right away."

Morehead held up his hand.

"Peter V., do you think it advisable to----. Why not let Beekman alone
until...."

"I'll do nothing of the kind!" snapped back Wilkinson. "Do you think
I'm not going to hit him back? I don't want that kind of advice from
you, Colonel. What I do want, is for you to tell me the quickest
way...."

The Colonel swung about and closed his eyes, puffing unconcernedly at
his cigar.

"I think," he remarked mildly, "that you'd better leave me out of this.
Vengeance is not in my line. I'll have to leave that part to you and
Mr. Phillips here."

"What do you say, Phillips?" demanded Wilkinson.

"_Impeachment_," answered Phillips.

"Can it be done?"

"Easy as rolling off a log."

"Good--good as far as it goes; but it don't go far enough. We want to
be as hard as we can."

"I think that can be arranged without trouble, too."

"How will we get him?"

"Suppose you leave that to me. You'll back me up?"

Wilkinson clenched his fist.

"Go the limit, Phillips--I'll back you up. The traitor! And to think
that this man Beekman might have had anything he wanted."

"The _Reporter_ and the _Star_ will back me, too?"

"To the limit."

"We'll need public opinion with us, don't forget that, Mr. Wilkinson."

"Pshaw, I'll take care of that."

"How long are you going to stay in Albany?"

Wilkinson raised his hand high in the air, as one about to take an oath.

"Until I've done up this man Beekman," was the magnate's answer to the
Governor's private secretary.

Two days later charges of corruption against Governor Beekman had
been presented to the legislature. A petition for his impeachment had
been handed up; and a committee of three appointed to investigate the
charges and to report. What the charges were was not quite clear upon
the first news of the affair; but that they were serious seemed to be
conceded.

Upon the evening of the very day of the appointment of the committee
of three, a woman stepped into the lobby of the Remsen in Albany and
exhibited a letter to the clerk. The letter was written upon the
private letter-head of Governor Beekman and was addressed to a woman.

The clerk raised his eyebrows imperceptibly, and calling a boy ordered
him to take the lady to the Governor's suite.

At the Governor's suite the woman was met by a maid, who unhesitatingly
admitted her and escorted her into the Governor's den--a small room
fitted with window-seats and couches galore.

"Are you sure this is all right?" asked the woman, somewhat alarmed at
the effusive way in which she was made so suddenly at home.

The maid insisted that it was; that Governor Beekman was on his way up
from New York; and that he was expected at any moment. The maid left,
locking the door behind her.

Alone in this room the woman settled herself comfortably back to wait
for the Governor. She had not long to wait, however, for presently the
door opened and three men entered the reception-room. From where she
sat she could see them, but they could not see her; and except for
their being perhaps a bit unkempt, she noted that they were of the
ordinary type of business men.

"I suppose this is all right," she heard one of the men saying.

"Of course it is," said another. "We've got a search warrant from the
House, and anyway, we haven't broken in. I'd like to know how you're
going to keep a legislative committee out of any place. We've got our
rights, you know."

The woman shrank into a corner, fearing that any moment they might find
her there. But they merely waited in the outer room, expectantly.

"Wonder what he'll have to say for himself?" queried one.

A second man laughed.

"There's nothing to it," he returned, "we're on a wild goose chase.
Bribery? Nonsense! Beekman's as straight as a die."

"Suppose," said the third, "that we wait until we find out all about
it. Suppose----" He broke off abruptly, for someone was knocking at
the door; and looking up he saw that two people had entered the room.

When the woman in the inner room perceived who had entered, she could
not suppress an exclamation, which, fortunately, however, did not reach
the ears of Leslie and her father, who were now bowing to the three
committee-men.

"I beg your pardon," said Wilkinson, "but can you tell me when the
Governor is likely to return? We----" he smiled awkwardly, "we were
summoned by him to meet him here at this hour."

One of the Assemblymen, a New York man, leaned over to his neighbour,
and said: "That's Wilkinson." Whereupon, the others rose and bowed, and
answered:

"We were told that he'd be here any minute now." And as if in
confirmation of his words, the door suddenly opened, and Governor
Beekman, with a light but hurried step, came into the room.

"I beg your pardon," he said, when he saw who was standing before him.

Leslie turned to him involuntarily, and half acknowledged his bow; then
remembering, she quickly turned away, and looked at her father, fixedly.

The three men pressed forward at once, the chairman speaking.

"Governor," he said, "you understand why we're here. You've had a copy
of the impeachment charges."

Beekman flushed.

"I received them in New York and came up as fast as I could," he
answered, a little brusquely. "What can I do for you?"

"I beg your pardon, Governor Beekman, but I received this note from you
and have obeyed it. Can you see us first?" asked Wilkinson.

The Governor took the note, which was written on his heavy, private
letter-head, and read it. It ran:

  _Dear Mr. Wilkinson_:

 Will you and your daughter, Miss Wilkinson, kindly call at my
 suite in the Remsen this evening at eight o'clock. I desire to see
 you at that time.

  Very truly yours,

  ELIOT BEEKMAN.

For a moment Beekman was nonplussed and looked from the note to its
bearer.

"I didn't write this letter," presently he said. He paled perceptibly;
his confusion, whatever it may have meant, was not lost on the three
committee-men.

"You didn't write it," queried Wilkinson, coldly, "but isn't that your
signature?"

"It looks like my signature," admitted the Governor, after scanning the
writing closely.

"But I can't for the life of me think what I wanted to see you about."
And turning now to the three men, he added: "You'll excuse us, please."

Leaving the three Assemblymen he ushered his guests into the next room.

"Comfortable quarters, Governor," commented Wilkinson; "almost comes up
to mine at home." And switching on more lights, Peter V. strayed boldly
into the inner room. "Hello, hello, who's here?" he suddenly called out.

The woman who had been sitting on a couch came forth. She was plainly
agitated at the sight of the two men and the woman who now stood facing
her, for Leslie, unconsciously, had pressed to her father's side. In
the background, too, were the three committee-men.

"Governor, it's all my fault," said Wilkinson, somewhat contritely. "I
beg your pardon for intruding on your--your privacy."

The moment was a tense one, the Governor not daring to glance at Leslie.

"There must be some mistake," he stammered out; and then advancing
towards the woman, he demanded angrily: "How did you----" but stopped
suddenly in amazement. "Why, Miss Braine--how do you come to be here?"

Madeline Braine drew from her bosom a crumpled note.

"I--I don't know," she faltered, "that is, I received this note from
you and I came. I supposed it was about the--the Ilingsworth case...."

Wilkinson threw a significant glance over his shoulder toward the three
committee-men.

"The Ilingsworth case," he repeated scornfully, meaningly.

"They--the maid--ushered me in here," went on the woman.

"What maid?" demanded the Governor, puzzled. "I have no maid. And,
what's more, I didn't write this letter--it's something that I cannot
understand."

"It's something that _we_ do not wish to understand," said Wilkinson,
suggestively.

"I told you I would come whenever you wanted me," murmured Madeline
Braine, waving the note, in her agitation, toward the Governor, "and I
came."

Wilkinson chuckled inwardly. In an instant he turned to his daughter
and whispered in a voice that could be heard all over the room:

"Leslie, clearly this is no place for you. A Governor who turns his
apartments into.... Come, dear!" And he made a hurried movement to go.
But the Governor was too quick for him and blocked his path. His face
had gone white with anger; he cried out:

"What do you mean, sir?"

Wilkinson sneered.

"Do you want me to say it here?"

"You've got to say it here," returned the other.

Wilkinson waved his hand toward Miss Braine.

"Then please explain her presence in your apartments,--your private,
apartments, if you can!"

"I will not!" responded Beekman, looking at everybody save Leslie. "I
will not, because I cannot. Nor will she, because neither can she."

"A complete misunderstanding all around," laughed Wilkinson.
"Nevertheless, I prefer to take my daughter to her rooms." And again he
made a movement to go.

"You won't take your daughter to her rooms until you give me a good
reason why you're here, and why you choose to make these remarks," said
Beekman, belligerently.

"I'll answer the last part of your question first because it's easier.
I choose to make these remarks because you're Governor of the State of
New York, and as a citizen of the State, I have a right to object to a
woman of her reputation...."

"A woman of my reputation, did you say?" said Madeline Braine quietly,
and so marvellously well did she succeed in keeping her anger out of
her voice that not for one moment did Wilkinson suspect the action
that was to follow. In a trice she had seized him by the throat with
the whole strength of her woman's hands and was pinning him up against
the wall.

"Peter Wilkinson," she cried, "I'll teach you not to speak ill of a
woman!"

But scarcely had these words fallen from her lips when she loosened her
hands and threw herself into a chair, sobbing. With merely a glance
at the woman who had assaulted him in this fashion, Wilkinson quickly
hurried to his daughter's side, who seemed on the point of fainting. It
was only a short time, however, before the woman had become calm, and
Beekman, turning to Wilkinson, demanded:

"What is the meaning of this? So you know Miss Braine?"

Again the worst in Wilkinson's nature asserted itself; he answered the
Governor's question with a question.

"Do you know this woman's history, Governor Beekman?"

The woman had gathered herself together and stood motionless with
downcast eyes, silent, inert.

In his turn the Governor ignored the man's question and demanded:

"Miss Braine, do you know this man?"

The woman hesitated, while her eyes slowly wandered across the room
and rested on Leslie, standing with her hand in that of her father. A
moment more and Madeline Braine had answered firmly:

"No, except through this Ilingsworth case."

"The Ilingsworth case!" exclaimed Wilkinson; "always the Ilingsworth
case! Some day, Governor, the Ilingsworth case will be your undoing.
Some day----"

Again there was an interruption. The private secretary pushed his way
into the group. He was received by the Governor, with:

"Phillips, I'm delighted you've come. There's the biggest mix-up here
you ever saw. I don't understand it--nobody understands anything."

He stopped short, for Phillips stood facing him with a curious
expression on his countenance, and holding out a folded letter.

"My resignation as your private secretary, Governor Beekman."

"Resignation!"

"My reasons are obvious, but they are nevertheless stated in that
letter, and they will appear in the columns of the press to-morrow. It
is quite beyond me to remain upon the staff of a man who ..." Phillips'
voice quivered. He turned to the committee of three, and addressing
them, said:

"Gentlemen, much as I dislike to follow your instructions, I have,
nevertheless, obeyed your _subpoena duces tecum_. In obedience thereto
I hand you the papers that you came here to find. I found them, not
here, but in the Governor's room at the Capitol. I think this is all
you want of me."

The chairman of the committee took the papers in question and read
them, his associates looking over his shoulder; and when they had
finished reading them they looked at each other with an expression
on their faces, the meaning of which could easily be interpreted
without the exclamatory assurance given by one of them: "By George!
we've got the goods," highly illustrative of the situation as was that
gentleman's phraseology.

"Well?" The Governor was speaking now.

For answer they handed him two letters, one of which read:

  _My dear Beekman_:

 I now concede that the inducement offered in our interview of
 yesterday was insufficient to justify you in acting in the
 suggested manner. Let me now say, however, that the situation has
 lifted itself out of the Ilingsworth case--we are fast climbing to
 a higher plane. The legislature will pass our Trust Company law,
 abolishing trust companies. I shall see to that. You must sign
 the bill--you must see to that. There is a step beyond. We need
 National legislation extending the power of National Banks--we
 need good men in the Senate. Let me be clear--these are the things
 we want: Wilkinson must be smashed. The first step toward that is
 the pardon of Ilingsworth, for the Ilingsworth case gets us public
 opinion--you can see that. Wilkinson has got to serve his term,
 otherwise he is a dangerous element. Pardon Ilingsworth, refuse
 to pardon Wilkinson, sign the Trust Company Bill--all this you
 can do for us. We can do much for you--beyond you lies the United
 States Senatorship, and beyond that, who knows.... A good New York
 man is in line for many things--if he's got the backing. You will
 have ours. Better burn this letter.

  Yours, etc.,

  OUGHELTREE.

The Governor read this letter silently, unmoved, and proceeded with
the other, which was not an original letter, but a carbon copy. It was
addressed to Ougheltree and was signed by Beekman.

 "_Dear Sir_," it ran, "I am in receipt of your communication
 with reference to the Ilingsworth petition for pardon. I note
 everything you say and have considered it carefully. I shall do my
 best to decide this case upon its merits, and will advise you of
 the result.

  "Very truly,

  "ELIOT BEEKMAN."

"This letter," said the Governor, handing the letters back and
referring to the carbon copy, "is a copy of my letter to Ougheltree;
the other letter I never saw."

"But isn't it strange," asked the chairman, "that yours is an answer to
the other. Besides, his letter is dated one day, yours the next."

The Governor took the letters again and looked them over still more
carefully. Finally he ordered Phillips to go to his, Beekman's,
private room and fetch Ougheltree's letter of that date.

"This is his letter of that date," returned Phillips, referring to the
one already read.

"Ougheltree did write me a letter of that date, gentlemen," conceded
the Governor, eyeing the other sternly. Whereupon Wilkinson winked
broadly at the committee, and the chairman took notes upon a little
pad. "But this is not the letter."

The chairman smiled.

"It's very strange," he said, meaningly.

The committee returned to the reception-room and took seats round the
table.

"You understand, Governor," said the chairman, "that we are
commissioned to report on these charges. We came here partly to get
evidence, partly to get your statement. You understand that the
Ilingsworth case is the pivot on which this turns."

"I understand that, Mr. Chairman," said the Governor.

"Do you mind telling us just why you pardoned this man Ilingsworth?"
inquired the other.

Leslie leaned forward, drinking in every word. Even the lingering
respect that she had for Beekman was fast leaving her. Her father
had seen to that. Beekman was already sinking beneath the surface.
Wilkinson intended that he should go down into ignominy shunned by all.

Beekman still addressed the men of the committee, but now he looked at
Leslie.

"Everybody knows why I pardoned Ilingsworth," he said. "Ilingsworth
didn't commit the crime."

The chairman poised his pencil.

"So it was a matter not susceptible of proof, wholly within your own
knowledge and the knowledge of no one else?"

"Yes, that is true."

"Come, Leslie," said her father, drawing her away; and turning to
Beekman he eyed him severely, and added "The price must have been big!
Too thin, Governor--that's too thin!"

The next day the _Star_ and the _Reporter_ took up the hue and cry
against him. "Too thin" was the _Star's_ headline, while the _Reporter_
denounced Beekman in scathing language; contended that in pardoning
such a man as Ilingsworth the Governor had deliberately let loose on
the community a murderer and an anarchist; and assured its readers that
in refusing clemency to Wilkinson the Governor had in cowardice yielded
to the popular clamour that someone should be made to suffer for the
iniquitous methods of the great financiers of the present day.

"The present incumbent at Albany is a blot on the escutcheon of the
Empire State," the editorial concluded. "The sooner the blot is wiped
out the better."

The next day public opinion was swinging strongly against the Governor.
And, on his own motion, Beekman was suspended from office until the
charges against him had been tried.

The next day Ougheltree's denial was ridiculed. What is more, the
_Morning Mail_, Ougheltree's paper, did not dare to take up the cudgels
in the Governor's behalf: it could no longer defend a man who was
charged with being implicated with its chief, since to do so would be
to admit its owner's part in the conspiracy. And yet Ougheltree was as
innocent as a new-born babe of having written the incriminating letter.

In short, Beekman was doomed. He had climbed the hill and for an
instant had stood in the glory of the sunlight, only to find himself
suddenly dashed down to the bottom at break-neck pace.

But not even this satisfied Wilkinson. Closeted later with Flomerfelt
in the big house on the Drive he ground his heel into the rug of his
den, exclaiming:

"Never until he wallows in the mud, Flomerfelt, will I let up on him!"

And in all this what of Leslie?

Irrefutable evidence had been presented to her of the Governor's
unworthiness, and little wonder, then, that she had ranged herself
upon her father's side. Nevertheless, there were times when she would
shudder in silence. For out in the future it was certain that one of
three things must happen to her father, and she dreaded any one of
them.




XX


"I suppose there is some painless way of putting him to death?"

The voice was Wilkinson's. He was seated on the veranda at Cobblestone,
his Morris County place, and opposite to him sat a complacent,
side-whiskered M. D. from Morristown. The complacence of the M. D.
was due in great measure to the fact that a check reposed in his
waistcoat-pocket. It was a goodly check, too; Wilkinson had been
ailing, and the bill was heavy.

"I don't want him to suffer at all," went on Wilkinson. "I merely want
him to pass away and not feel it."

"Humph! He's of no further use?" returned Dr. Parker Wetherell.

"Tigerskin is twenty years old, nearly blind, and can hardly hobble a
step. My dear Wetherell, that horse has won me no end of money on the
track! He's been worth his weight in gold! I hate to think of him as
dead." He laid a cold hand upon the doctor's. "How about chloroform?
It's safe, painless----"

"It's painless enough," interrupted the physician, "but it's not always
sure."

Wilkinson's hand trembled.

"It kills men sure enough, doesn't it?"

Wetherell shook his head.

"Not sure enough," he answered. "They come out of it when one least
expects it."

"Strychnine, then, or prussic acid?" suggested Wilkinson.

Again Wetherell shook his head.

"I wouldn't give either of them to my dearest enemy," he opined. "My
advice is, not...." He drew forth a tiny cigarette and lighted it.
"My suggestion, Mr. Wilkinson--of course I'm not a horse doctor, and
there's no charge for this--my method, rather, would be powder and
shot--the old-fashioned way...."

"Pistol?"

"Yes."

"A pistol bullet through the heart?" went on Wilkinson, his hand still
resting lightly on the doctor's and his voice trembling. "Let's see,
you know I'm going to do this thing myself,--a horse's heart is in the
same place as a man's, isn't it?" He placed his hand on the right side
of his chest about even with his shoulder.

"Good gracious, man!" piped up the doctor, growing red in the face with
laughter. "Don't you know where your heart is? Didn't you ever go to
school?"

Wilkinson flushed.

"Don't tread on facts, Doc," he protested.

"Your heart is right there," explained the physician, placing the
millionaire's big paw-like hand over the right spot, and waiting until
Wilkinson could feel it throb. "You hear it beat?" he asked. "That's
where your heart is; but don't ever shoot a horse, or a man, either,
through the heart unless you want him to suffer the tortures of the
damned. He might linger hours in terrific pain. No, no, the head's the
place...."

Wilkinson shifted his hand from his heart to his head.

"Quickly, eh?" he continued eagerly, "and painless, too."

The specialist replied in the affirmative.

"Suppose, now," continued Peter V., "that we had old Tigerskin here.
Just what part of the head would I aim at? Back here?"

"The temple," said the doctor.

"That's back here, isn't it?" persisted his patient, forcing a laugh at
his own ignorance. "Where is it on a horse, anyhow?"

Parker Wetherell touched his own forehead, and said:

"Just about where it is on a man. Right here at the side of the head in
front of the ear."

Wilkinson had withdrawn his hand and was tapping the table in front of
him nervously.

"Doc," he insisted, "just put my finger on the spot--here on my
head--and when I get Tigerskin, why then I'll know...."

The physician seized his patient's pudgy finger, held it for an instant
poised half an inch from the big man's head, and then jammed it into
the temple with precision.

"There," he exclaimed, "that's just the spot!"

"You don't say," returned Wilkinson. "I never would have thought
it--and a ball through there would do the trick?"

"Man or beast--he'd never know what struck him." And then as Wilkinson
removed his arm, the doctor sprang forward in alarm, and added: "Why,
look, here, Mr. Wilkinson, you've smeared a lot of ink up there!"

"Where?"

"On your temple. Your finger must have dipped into the inkwell...."

Wilkinson looked at his finger with a grimace, then he looked at the
surface of the table upon which was a round, wet splotch of ink. Upon
the end of his finger, which evidently had rested for an instant upon
the spot on the table, was a similar splotch; and when Wetherell had
jammed the finger into his temple, it being still moist with the dusky
fluid, it had left a small round spot on his forehead. With a hasty
movement Wilkinson drew forth his handkerchief and started it on the
way to his head.

"Hold on!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I'll get my kerchief stained, too.
I'll go to the bathroom and wash it off, if you'll excuse me."

Wilkinson rose, but some sudden tremour seemed to seize him.

"Nerves a bit shaky yet, Doc," he complained. And, turning, walked
through an open window. Behind the palms his daughter Leslie was
reading a book; she had heard scraps of the conversation without, and
glanced up at him questioningly. "Trying to find out just where to
shoot old Tigerskin," he stopped to explain, "and got myself all ink."

Leslie laughed, and he continued his way through the room and up one
flight of stairs to the bathroom.

"A bull's-eye--a perfect bull's-eye that," he whispered to himself,
looking in the glass. Then suddenly whipping out of his hip-pocket a
revolver, he aimed for the small, black spot upon his forehead.

Parker Wetherell, M. D., down on the veranda, having taken from his
waistcoat-pocket Leslie's check, was glancing on it with reverence; but
soon the reverie into which he had plunged was rudely interrupted: a
pistol shot rang out, followed almost instantly by a woman's scream.
Wetherell leaped to his feet.

"He tricked me," he whispered, turning pale, "the painless method was
for himself, not for Tigerskin."

With an answering shout he ran pell-mell up the stairs. In the bathroom
he found three people: Hawkins, Wilkinson's new valet, Leslie and
Wilkinson, the latter swaying to and fro in the grasp of the other two.
In his hand he held a smoking revolver; and as the doctor seized him,
he smiled a ghastly smile and exclaimed:

"I missed it, Doc! Missed!... My little painless program didn't pull
through!"

That night all Morris County, all New York, had the news, specials
having been gotten out by the various papers to that effect.

"It's up to you, Hawkins," said the District Attorney over the wire to
Wilkinson's new valet; "we've got to have this man alive, and not dead.
You've got to be Johnny-on-the-spot every minute of the time."

And that was precisely what was the trouble, so far as Wilkinson
was concerned. Hawkins was too much Johnny-on-the-spot to suit his
purposes. Down in his home on the Drive Jeffries had resigned from his
position, and the new man who took his place was one of Murgatroyd's
shrewdest men, which meant that Peter V. Wilkinson, under a ten-year
sentence, out on a million-dollar bail, was surrounded by a net-work
of Murgatroyd's making. Murgatroyd was seeing to it successfully that
Wilkinson couldn't run away. Wilkinson had said that one of three
things confronted him: prison, flight or suicide. The second seemed
to have been eliminated from the program of possibilities; the first
he had sworn never to endure; and as for suicide, Murgatroyd had
said it was up to Hawkins.... But there were other guards also who
interposed: Leslie watched her father as a mother watches an errant
child. Wetherell, too, sniffing more big checks, suggested other
safeguards, and called with undue regularity. Every servant in the
household and even the pudgy Mrs. Wilkinson herself--Flomerfelt had
warned her that his death now would upset all their plans--kept on the
look-out. Morristown druggists were warned to be sure to whom they sold
poisons. Express and mail packages were scrutinised with care. No end
of precaution was being exercised to thwart his plans.

"Seems to be an awful lot of fuss about it," remarked Mrs. Peter V., as
she scanned the daily press. "If I tried suicide, I wonder...."

"Probably not," grinned Wilkinson, feebly, "unless you succeeded in the
attempt."

Now Murgatroyd's men were handicapped in one respect: Murgatroyd
never trained detectives to be servants; he trained servants to be
detectives. Hawkins, the valet, and Watson, Jeffries' successor,
were born to yellow plush, and had acquired the detective polish
later. Their handicap was, that they must maintain their character
as servants. They must obey, must efface themselves, must serve ...
otherwise the game was spoiled. When Wilkinson roared a command which
sent them off for half an hour, they had to go. But the intervention of
the family now helped them out: it became an unwritten rule that Peter
V. must never be left alone, save in the night-time when he slept in
an apartment stripped of everything save a bed and chair. This last
arrangement he consented to only after Wetherell had threatened him
with sanatorium confinement.

It happened, therefore, that one day, Wilkinson, weary of this close
surveillance, remarked to Leslie:

"Let's go back to the Drive, child. I'm sick of the still nights up
here."

And indeed Leslie was not sorry of the opportunity to go. There was
one reason in particular for this: Cobblestone was but a quarter of a
mile away from the Ilingsworth place; and Ilingsworth's place, like
its former owner, had become a wreck. It was overgrown with weeds, was
falling gradually to pieces; upon it had been laid the heavy hand of
disuse and decay. The heavy mortgage on the place had been foreclosed;
the property laid vacant, idle; it had become an eye-sore to Leslie.
Besides, vague rumour had it that the place was haunted--lights,
even, having been seen in the rooms at night. It was none of these
things, however, that had disquieted Leslie, but the fact that one
night at dusk as she tripped along the road, a man had darted from the
road-side, and laying a detaining hand upon her arm, had said to her:

"I wish you could help me find my daughter. I've tried to beg, borrow,
steal even, to get enough to find her, but----" he had stopped to
search her face, "but you're a Wilkinson, I see; you wouldn't help;"
and letting her go, he suddenly disappeared in the shadows.

Naturally, the girl had been frightened. Afterwards, however, she
regretted that she had not tried to detain Ilingsworth, for he it was,
since there were mysteries about him which she could not understand.
If he had lost his daughter, why did he not use the money that he had
stowed away--the millions that her father had told her about,--and
why was the mortgage on his place foreclosed? The mortgage on her own
father's place had not been foreclosed, she was sure of that. And so
insistent became the pressure of these doubts that one night just
before they returned to town, she sent a servant over with a note to
Ilingsworth. Leslie knew him for a murderer, a forger, a perjurer, a
thief, and yet some instinct drove her to this act.

 " ... Some time," she wrote, "when we are out of our own trouble,
 if there is anything that I can do--for Elinor--believe me I shall
 do it--the very best I can."

It now became known throughout the Wilkinson household
on-the-Drive--and, likewise, to the inner sanctum of District Attorney
Murgatroyd's office--that Peter V. Wilkinson contemplated a trip to
Maine. There was reason for it: the city sweltered in mid-August heat.
Peter V. had no house or shooting-box in Maine--his game being men, not
beasts,--and accordingly a suite of rooms at a hotel was engaged by
wire. Railroad tickets were purchased; trunks were packed; appointments
made with his nearest and dearest friends to meet him there for a
three-weeks' jaunt. Every essential detail was attended to; nothing was
overlooked. But there was one strange thing about it all: Leslie, who
usually accompanied him, was to be left behind; Wilkinson was going
alone with Hawkins. It was his frolic; he did not want to be hampered
by anyone. But Hawkins and the District Attorney knew that Wilkinson
would not be lonely: a chambermaid to have charge of his suite of rooms
at the hotel in Maine was despatched from the Borough of Manhattan;
two bell-boys were installed; from the instant that Wilkinson should
reach the East Side pier in New York he would be attended by a drove of
sleuths.

But did Wilkinson have any suspicion of all this? If he did, not by
word or look did he betray as much.

On the day of his departure, Peter V., with a matter-of-fact air,
handed to Hawkins a small, oblong, heavy, cold, metallic package,
saying:

"Hawkins, just stick that in my suit-case."

Alone, later, the valet opened and examined the package, and found, as
he suspected, that it contained another revolver, hammerless, sinister,
ominous.

"Suicide in Maine!" He emitted a whistle, and added: "Not if I know it,
Mr. Wilkinson."

He discussed at length with Murgatroyd the ease with which Wilkinson
might throw himself overboard, or might shoot or poison himself in his
stateroom. But "Hawkins, it's up to you to see that he doesn't ..." was
all the satisfaction that he received from the District Attorney.

Their preparations completed, Hawkins now stepped into the presence of
his master, and announced:

"Colonel Morehead, sir, to see you."

Wilkinson descended to his Den, entered and locked the door behind him.
After fifteen minutes of desultory conversation, he held out his hand,
and said, his voice trembling:

"Good-bye, old boy! We shall never meet in life again--good-bye!"

Colonel Morehead stared curiously at his client. He asked no questions,
but merely took Peter's hand within his own and pressed it hard.

"Good-bye, Peter," was all he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Wilkinson, watch in hand, stood at the open door.

"Look sharp, now, with those grips," he directed. And turning to
Watson, his new footman: "Watson, time is the essence of this thing. Go
up and help Hawkins, and be quick about it, please."

Out of the corner of his eye, Watson glanced at Wilkinson; that
gentleman was holding his gaze upon his watch. It all seemed safe....
So Watson obeyed, running swiftly down the broad hall and swiftly up
the stairs.

"Get a move on, Hawkins," he whispered; "he's down there all alone."

The multi-millionaire waited until Watson was well out of sight, then
going quietly to the open door he passed through, and walking rapidly
to the corner of the street, turned and disappeared--disappeared, and
that was all that could be said about it. No, there was this to be
said: His trunks went on to Maine, and when opened there later were
found to reek with poison--anæsthetics, chiefly, that stupefied and
killed; while tucked away in one corner was a gun. Wilkinson had been
cunning: he had done things under the nose of Hawkins that Hawkins had
not surmised, much less seen.

But Wilkinson had not quite disappeared after all! There were some
who saw him after his disappearance, though they were not members of
his household, nor were they officials in the employ of the county
or State: they were casual observers, mere pleasure-seekers down at
Brighton Beach. For later on that day a man with a bristling beard
stepped into Obermeyer's Bathing Pavilion at the Beach, stepped up to
the desk, as he had done several times before,--for Wilkinson loved
promiscuity--he was essentially of the people,--and nodding to the
clerk, passed out his wallet, his pin and other valuables, sealed them
in an envelope, writing his name quite plainly upon it, and handed it
to the man behind the desk. The recipient glanced at the name, glanced
at the man interestedly, then gave him a fifty-cent bathing-suit,
two checks on rubber strings and a key; and Wilkinson, taking these,
proceeded to his allotted booth.

"Can I check that, too?" the clerk called after him, referring to
a brown paper parcel which Wilkinson carried under his arm. But
Wilkinson shook his head, and the incident passed out of the clerk's
mind, for the next man was becoming angrily insistent.

Once inside his booth, Peter V. stripped to the skin and donned the
bathing-suit. So far he had followed the prescribed method of bathers
at Obermeyer's as well as every other pavilion in the universe. But
at this juncture he departed from custom: For having donned the
bathing-suit, he did not, as other men do, unlock the door and run
flat-footed to the beach; instead, he opened the brown paper bundle and
looked over its contents with considerable satisfaction. It contained a
complete suit of underwear, clothing, hat and shoes--all second-hand;
and over his Obermeyer bathing-suit he drew on these clothes, one by
one, jamming the soft, felt hat upon his head. Then folding up the
brown paper he tied it carefully with the string, and placed it in the
side-pocket of his coat, taking good care at the same time to remove
from the trousers pocket of the suit he had discarded a goodly roll of
bills.

Now fully dressed in his new garments--leaving his own clothes behind,
he left the room, and locked the door, forgetting neither his brass
checks, nor to place the bathhouse key on the ledge above the door.

"So far so good," he whispered to himself.

Curiously enough, however, he did not join the crowds upon the
beach, but sought another bathing pavilion a quarter of a mile
away--Helmstaedter's--where he was not known. There he repeated the
process: went to the desk; obtained a twenty-five cent bathing-suit,
but this time he deposited no valuables, having none that were visible.
Then with his second bathing-suit he stepped into one of Helmstaedter's
dressing-rooms, and again he undressed, stripping to the skin as
before, and donning now the Helmstaedter bathing-suit, he opened the
door, closed it behind him, and took his way to the beach.

And now, since Peter V. had gone to Brighton Beach for the ostensible
purpose of bathing, Peter V. bathed. But strangely enough, though
he had Helmstaedter's bathing-suit upon him, he did not bathe from
Helmstaedter's; on the contrary, he strode up the beach and bathed at
Obermeyer's. An expert swimmer, he was known to the life guard, who saw
him and warned him with:

"Better look out, Mr. Wilkinson, two big men had cramps out there
yesterday. I had the time of my life bringing them in."

"Never mind me," laughed Wilkinson, "there's no fear of my having
cramps to-day." And with that he plunged boldly into the surf. When
the life guard last saw him, Wilkinson was merely a speck far out upon
the surface of the sunlit sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening, while all New York was looking for him, while Hawkins
and Watson were being soundly rated by the District Attorney, while
Flomerfelt and Mrs. Peter V. were laying new plans, while Leslie wept
in the silence of her room, that evening one of the Obermeyer helpers
making his rounds, discovered the clothes of Peter V. Wilkinson, the
Trust Company man, in his booth. The clerk at the desk produced the
banker's wallet containing hundreds of dollars, his pin and other
valuables. But the bathing-suit, the brass checks, and Peter V.
Wilkinson were nowhere to be found.

"Suicide," at once said the press; family and friends said "drowning
accident," and the life guard backed them up. Furthermore,
Hawkins produced the pistol and poisons taken from the trunks in
Maine--evidences of suicidal intent. These strengthened and deepened
the theory of suicide. Even Murgatroyd, after thinking it over, was
satisfied that such was the case. As for Colonel Morehead, he would
sit for hours in his office, staring at the wall, never coming to
any conclusion. "Peter's certainly got me guessing," was the way he
acknowledged his inability to solve the problem. Nor did the ocean
ever give up Peter from its capacious depths.

Of all the men in New York County there was one, however, who had a
theory. This man was tall, slender, handsome, a man in authority. After
the county detectives had given up the search, and after the newspaper
reporters had faded from the scene, this man quietly went down to
Brighton Beach and interviewed the clerk.

"I wonder," he asked himself, as under his gruelling cross-examination
the clerk searched the remotest confines of his memory, "I wonder what
Wilkinson had in that brown paper bundle, and what became of it. Was it
drowned, too?"

But of all the people down at Brighton Beach, only one man _knew_
the movements of Peter V., and that was Peter V. himself. He had
had his swim; he had gone far out, ducked and swam under water
for a distance, and finally had gone ashore near Helmstaedter's
pavilion--Helmstaedter's pavilion, where he belonged and where he was
not known. Dripping, glowing from his bath, he had entered the pavilion
with hundreds of bathers and gone at once to his booth.

The rest was simple. Having dried himself, he once more donned the
dry, Obermeyer bathing-suit, drew on top of that his second-hand
suit of clothes, smashed his soft hat down on his head, and left
the pavilion by the street entrance. And pushing through the back
streets and alleyways which were crowded with the cheaper order of
pleasure-seekers, eating "hot-dogs," he darted into a barber-shop and
leaned back in the chair with a grunt of satisfaction.

"Too hot for spinach, Tony," he remarked in the genial vernacular of
the day, "so shave her off."

Tony did as he was bid; and when Wilkinson rose and glanced into Tony's
glass, he looked upon a countenance that he would never have recognised
for his own. In former days his cheeks were plump and muscular, his
chin bold, and his lips expressive. But for some years now a beard had
covered his face; his lips and chin and jowls had been unused. So that
not only was he not the Peter V. Wilkinson of the present day, but he
was not the Peter V. Wilkinson of any day: he was just a very average
man in a second-hand suit of clothes.

"So long, Tony!" he sang out, and soon he was lost in the crowd.




XXI


Wandering aimlessly through Madison Square Park one evening ex-Governor
Beekman suddenly felt someone tugging at his arm, and swinging round
quickly to shake himself from the other's grasp, yet glancing down to
see what sort of a person had accosted him, he saw that it was a woman,
that she looked pale and weary, that her clothes were very shabby,
and that she seemed to be in sad straits. Instantly he was conscious
of a feeling of pity for her, at the same time he was angry with
himself, angry with the fates that prevented him from doing what he had
repeatedly done under similar circumstances in times past. For Beekman,
always a tender, kind-hearted fellow, had never been one to look down
upon less fortunate beings, and rarely lost an opportunity whereby he
might do a kindness to some poor unfortunate.

"What do you want of me?" he asked, not unkindly.

"I--I've been looking for you," said the woman. "I----"

The man pulled himself up quickly. Here was someone who knew him, and
of late he had been shunning the sight of his acquaintances. Again he
shot a sharp glance at the woman: the intruder was Madeline Braine. The
moment that he recognised her, Beekman was aware of a spasm of pain;
too well she brought back to his memory the things he was trying to
forget; nevertheless, he said with a pleasant smile:

"Why, of course, you're Miss Braine. I know you now. How stupid of
me.... But what do you want of me?"

The woman did not immediately answer. She stood by him silent,
motionless, looking vaguely into space. After a while she said
falteringly:

"I--I don't know what I wish with you. Really I--misery----"

" ... loves company," he finished for her under his breath while
reflecting: "How can one man be responsible for so much?" for it had
been borne in upon him that the woman, like himself, was a social
outcast with the hand of Wilkinson heavy on her, still pressing her
down though he was no more.

The woman seemed to have read his thoughts, for she broke in upon them
with:

"Oh, you didn't know Peter V. Wilkinson as I did! I've felt his force,
sir, indeed I have.... But we won't talk about my story.... Won't you
tell me yours, for I know----" She stopped abruptly and looked up at
him, a strange, pathetic look in her eyes. And whether it was her rare
beauty that appealed to him, or that she was so intensely human toward
one who had been thrust into the gutter, at any rate she seemed like a
bit of heaven opening up to him.

Therefore it was not long before he was pouring out into her ears all
his sufferings at the hands of Wilkinson, and already he was beginning
to like her because of the sorrow they had in common.

"Tell me," he said to her, "how can a man like that set my friends
against me--hound me out of my clubs."

"I read about you and the Barristers'. You were treasurer--they claimed
your books were crooked. I knew----"

"My bookkeeper must have been one of Wilkinson's men. Of course I made
it good. But that was nothing compared with the charge itself--enough
to damn any man! I had investments, mortgages, but how he succeeded in
tying up those properties in a night, destroy the neighbourhood, cut
their value in two, is what dazes me. The power of the man is beyond
me--I can't understand it."

"I can understand it all," she answered, "only you've injured him more
than I ever did."

"There is Judge Gilchrist, for instance," he went on, "what hasn't
he done to him? The man's reputation is gone, and as for mine...."
He held his head very high. "They may have robbed me of my money, my
clients may have been forced to leave me, but there's one thing they
can't do to me--they can't take my profession from me. The Judges
know--they believe...."

"But Wilkinson could have you disbarred if he were alive, you must know
that," she insisted hopelessly.

"Never!" he answered defiantly. "He can't fool the courts. And some day
I'm going to climb back ... even if I have to crawl there on my hands
and knees."

"I'd like to help you win your place back in the world," she spoke up,
remembering his kindness to her, then she stopped, her face flushing
with the sudden realisation which was forcing itself upon her, that who
was she to stand beside any man in his fight against the world, she, a
creature rejected by everyone, penniless, with a fight of her own on
her hands?

"I shouldn't have said this," she went on by way of explanation. "I'm
rather a weak ally to"--she paused to push back a stray lock that the
wind insisted upon blowing in her face, but in reality it was to brush
away the tears that clung to her eyelids. Beekman saw this, and his
heart went out to her, for he knew that hard as was his lot, hers must
be infinitely harder.

"It wouldn't have been so," presently she continued. "But there was no
one to care for me--no one to care what became of me. I was a silly,
vain creature like thousands of others...."

For some time the conversation held to this strain. At last the girl
put out her hand and said with a faint little smile on her lips:

"Governor Beekman--for I must still call you so--it looks like a case
of down and out for both of us. If you'll give me your address, I'll
give you mine. One can never tell, you know...."

"That's very true," he answered sadly, and proceeded to scribble his
name and address on a leaf of his note book, tore out the leaf and
passed it over to her; then scribbling her address, as she repeated
it, upon another leaf, he added with genuine sincerity: "If I can ever
be of service to you, Miss Braine, don't hesitate to call upon me." He
took the hand which she gave him, and once more their ways parted.

The next morning Beekman's superior--Beekman had obtained a job
with the Title Company, after he had been frozen out of his law
practice--called him into the inside office.

"I'm sorry to tell you," he began, "it's not personal with me at all,
but the company have given me orders to ask you to resign...."

"I knew they would," said Beekman, pocketing his salary. "I expect to
spend the rest of my natural life in resignation. I've resigned from
six positions now, and am being kicked out of the seventh. I bear no
malice to anybody except the man above.... If he's alive, I hope to get
him one of these days; if he isn't," he smiled genially, "why, he's
getting his reward right now."

The hounding of Beekman had become an easy matter. Once driven out of
independent business and shunned by people of his kind, he was forced
to apply for salaried positions. After that the story was always the
same, except that each time he kept asking lower and lower wages,
getting them until he was turned off. And he was always turned off--no
longer was his resignation requested.

" ... we can't have a thief in our employ," was the customary
remark. Some imputed to him hideous morals; others charged him with
drunkenness, but always with the same result.

In the beginning he had thought of leaving town and going West; but the
Beekman grit was in him and it declined to capitulate.

"I'll fight it out here, alone," he had told himself a thousand times,
"here, where I belong--where she is. I'll fight--I'll never run
away...."

The temptation to escape he had put behind him long ago, but there
were other things that assailed him. He had the name of everything
that was disreputable, he knew that. Even the newspapers from time
to time referred to him as being connected with fracases that never
had occurred, or if they had, had happened in his absence. Day after
day, night after night he walked the streets with shame clinging to
him. To-day he held his position, but never knowing when the merciless
hounds of the Wilkinson system would corrupt his employers and turn him
out. He grew shabby, shabbier, and all too swiftly, too. But he was
glad of one thing: his pride had never left him; he kept himself neat
and clean. He felt, though, that these were things that would slip from
him as he slumped down into the army of the unknown. Many times he had
to combat the temptation to take to drink, to drugs, to the comfortable
vices of the vagabond.

"I've got the name," he told himself, "the name,"--and unquestionably
Leslie believed it--for would not he have believed these things of his
dearest friends had the evidence been the same as it was in his own
case?--"And that's where Wilkinson was strong--he always had proofs....
Yes. I've got the name, why not the game?" he would reason, as he kept
slipping down, down, down.

But through it all the same instinct kept him straight. "I'll stick it
out alone," he kept saying over and over again. Leslie had told him
once that he was a man of destiny, and he still felt it. As long as
there was life there was hope. Help must come to him in some form some
day, and when he faced her, he must face her clean. Never once did he
blame her for his plight. He saw too well and clearly that she, too,
was the victim of the Wilkinson system, and all the more so because
she was Wilkinson's daughter. In Beekman's mind the truth was slowly
forcing itself that Leslie's plight was worse than his, for she was
unconsciously the innocent instrument of vengeance.

"I've got to stay decent for her sake," he kept repeating to himself.
But as time went on, one horrible temptation kept pressing, closing in
upon him.

Night after night he haunted the more isolated East Side piers. Night
after night he glanced down into the smooth, dark waters flowing
silently past him, with a glance that held within it some deep
meaning. Night after night as his body became lean and gaunt, as the
lines deepened in his young face, as his pockets emptied themselves,
magically, so it seemed, as he stared starvation in the face, the
waters seemed to beckon to him, and death seemed, somehow, pleasanter
than life.

The time had come when he knew, when he was assured past all mistake,
that he was at his rope's end.

"I'm down at the bottom of the pit and there's no way up," he whispered
to himself, and held out his arms for an instant toward the waters.
"There's no way out but you, you," he went on, his purpose clinging
desperately to him. He stopped and drew back from the edge and crouched
against the stringpiece. For across the pier something had arrested
his attention. A shadow deeper than the night, and part and parcel of
the night itself, was creeping toward the edge. This shadow was the
only moving thing that Beekman had ever seen upon this lonely pier. His
nerves became suddenly alert, for now he saw that this shadow was a
human being--a woman bent upon a woman's desperate purpose. He watched
the shadow spellbound.

Suddenly the woman lifted her hands high above her head, and with the
wail of a hunted animal, cast herself off the stringpiece and into the
river underneath.

In the twinkling of an eye he had jerked off his coat and shoes and
thrown himself into the stream. He caught her as she came up, but
she clutched him and struggled, not to save herself, but to cast him
off. Like a maniac she fought and the two went down together, Beekman
gurgling in distress. By some superhuman effort he conquered her
underneath the water, and coming up, held her, limp and inert with one
hand, while he swam slowly, for his strength, owing to starvation, was
fast ebbing. Somehow he managed to climb up the rough sides of the
pier, bundling her up ahead of him, and laid her down, unconscious,
on the stringpiece, where she lay for some time. When she had revived,
however, the mania once more possessed her.

"Leave me alone, please leave me alone!" she cried, her strength
returning. "You've no right to interfere--no right to touch me...."

Beekman held her tight until her paroxysm ceased, and once more she lay
inert in his arms. Finally she opened her eyes and looked about her.

"You're going to come along with me," he told her gently, forcing her
on; but she tried to tear herself loose again. After a little while he
succeeded in getting her to the street, but there, with some strength
more powerful than his, she suddenly jerked herself from him and held
him at arm's length, though he still held his grip upon her wrists.

"Let me go! Let me go, I say! I'm tired--tired of men--tired of men
like you!" she wailed. "I want to go home--I want to go back to my
father--back to my father...."

And still he held on to her, held on until he got her underneath the
street lamps, where he looked into her face. She was worn and haggard,
but her dark, lustrous eyes were something to remember. "She must have
been very beautiful," he thought, and wondered.

"Look at me!" he said in a voice that startled her into consciousness;
"you've got to trust me! I'm going to take you home----"

"My home?" she cried feebly.

"Yes. Where is your home?"

The girl made no answer, but commenced to weep. At length, she said:

"If I had a home, do you suppose I would have attempted what you have
just prevented me from doing? Home? Let me go, please let me go!" and
again she fell to sobbing.

"Then I'll take you to my own home," he said; and added to himself:
"I'm good for one more day there at any rate."

"No, no, no!" she cried, trying to break away from him. "I want my
father, just father--Oh, father...."

"Don't fight against me. I'm going to help you to find your home, your
father. Come, trust me!"

And the girl, too weak to resist him any longer, allowed herself to be
led away by him.

       *       *       *       *       *

In a cheap hotel on this same East Side a man sat among other men
of his own type, drinking with apparent gusto a huge glass of beer.
Between sips he smoked a pipe. His clothes were soiled, stained with
tobacco, they reeked with the odour of the place. He had just finished
telling a story to an English sailor, who slapped his thigh and howled
in glee.

"That's a good 'un, matey!" cried the sailor. "But I arn't got one to
match it, stow the luck!"

The storyteller's last chuckles had subsided and he had drained his
glass to the dregs, when suddenly a man entered the place and thrust
himself into the group that sat around the table. This newcomer was of
a different class from the others. He was tall, square, handsome, and
his air and clothes and manner betokened one of the better classes.
The genial storyteller set down his glass, grinned once more at the
English sailor, and then following the sailor's glance, looked up at
the stranger. He found the stranger was glancing down at him with an
intentness that was disconcerting, to say the least.

The stranger slowly extended his hand toward the group, his forefinger
levelling itself in the direction of the genial storyteller.

"I want to talk to you," he said.

The man at whom he pointed faltered for an instant. His first instinct
was to give the signal and get his cronies to bear down upon this
stranger and throw him to the ground.

The stranger--who was no other than Leech, an Assistant District
Attorney of the County of New York, who had become famous chiefly
as the lawyer who had sent Peter V. Wilkinson up for a ten-years'
term--saw the look, interpreted it correctly, but he only laughed in
the man's face.

"There are three of my men outside," he whispered, bending down, and
then straightened up once more. "Where can we talk?" he asked.

The other man lumbered to his feet and bowed awkwardly, saying:

"Excuse me, gents."

At the foot of the stairs that opened near the street, Leech held the
other in conversation for an instant--just long enough to permit three
men without to see his man. None of the three knew who he was, but all
knew that they should know him at any future time.

The next instant the two had passed upstairs, where the man had a room.

"Well, Wilkinson," said Leech, once they were behind closed doors, and
passing over a fifty-cent cigar, "you turned it pretty neat, but you
didn't fool me."

"I see I didn't," returned Wilkinson, limply.

"You were going to stay here until you could make a get away, I
suppose," went on Leech. "You did it cleverly, but," he shook his head,
"there was a man cleverer than you in little old New York--that's me."

"You're an intruder," retorted Wilkinson, leaning over toward the
other. "I was just getting used to the life here--liked it, in fact."

"It's the butcher blood coming out in you," conceded Leech. "Reversion
to a type. I suppose this is really where a man like you belongs."

"Who else knows about me?" asked Wilkinson, coolly enough.

Leech screwed up an eye.

"Did you think I was fool enough to give you away?" He paused a moment
to watch the effect of his words upon the other, then he went on:
"Nobody followed you up--nobody knows but myself. Listen, Wilkinson,
and I'll tell you how you did it."

And Leech proceeded to detail Wilkinson's escape and the method of it
in such correct and graphic terms that Wilkinson's eyes bulged wide
with terror.

"How did you know?" gasped Wilkinson.

Leech crooked his forefinger.

"Because," he declared, "there's nothing new under the sun. The thing
you did was done by a bank cashier in California ten years ago, and one
of the few people who knew about it was myself. It's not down in the
books. You thought it was new; I knew...."

They smoked in silence for a while, Wilkinson all the time staring at
the other. Finally he spoke.

"Well, the jig is up, so far as you and I are concerned, and the
question now is, what do you want of me?"

Leech hesitated a moment, before answering:

"I want a cool million to let you go."

Wilkinson grunted.

"When you told me you were the only man who knew, I figured out that
was your game. But what about these chaps downstairs?"

"They're not county men," assured Leech, "and they don't know a thing
about it."

"A million dollars," mused Wilkinson. "Where would I get it?"

Leech blew smoke rings toward the ceiling.

"I refuse to discuss that part of it," he answered, "only it's a
million now. Later on it may be two, you know."

The banker knitted his brows.

"And what do you do for that million?" he said.

"Keep my hands off and my mouth shut, that's all."

"How long a time will you give me to think it over?"

"How long do you want?"

"Three days."

Leech shook his head.

"It will be three millions by that time; besides, this thing has cost
me money. I've got to keep these chaps on the job, you know."

Wilkinson rose, and said:

"Give me until eight o'clock to-morrow morning. You'll find me here."

Leech thought a moment, and then shaking his finger at the millionaire,
he said:

"Don't you try to get away, Wilkinson, because...."

"That part of it is all right," growled the other. "By the way,
won't you stay and have a schooner of beer? No? Well, eight to-morrow
morning, then."

Leech left, Wilkinson looking after him wistfully as he went out.

"Clean-cut proposition, that Leech," he reflected to himself.

There was a tap on the door. And to Wilkinson's "Come in," Leech
reappeared.

"I merely wanted to send my regards to Miss Leslie," he said, "in case
you call her up."

"I won't call anybody up," growled Wilkinson. "My people don't know
anything about me other than that I'm dead."

Nor did Wilkinson call anybody up. He merely stopped drinking beer,
went downstairs and got a handful of black cigars, and then returning
to his room smoked all through the long night, that is, until two
o'clock in the morning. At that hour he heard a church bell chime and
started for the window. In the moonlight the dingy backyard seemed
peaceful and deserted. He took off his shoes and stole out upon the
fire-escape; and climbing carefully down rung after rung until at
last he stood on _terra firma_, he then started for a secret alleyway
which, as he had ascertained, had been used in frequent evasions of the
police. But no sooner had he started toward it than a hand was laid
upon his arm; and turning, he found himself face to face with one of
Leech's plain-clothesmen.

"Taking the air?" queried the man, pleasantly, deepening his hold on
the arm of Wilkinson.

"No," said Wilkinson, looking about the squalid backyard, "but I saw
somebody moving around down here--must have been you--and mistook him
for a burglar. Thought I'd scare him off."

"He didn't scare," said the sleuth, drily. "Shall we--er--return?"

They returned, the detective lounging, wide-eyed and comfortable, upon
the fire-escape above, while Wilkinson drew off his clothes and slept
like a log for the remainder of the night. At eight o'clock in the
morning he was up and dressed; and at eight o'clock Leech appeared. But
no sooner was he in the room than Wilkinson drew on his slouched hat
and seized Leech by the arm, saying:

"Come on, I'm ready."

"Where are you going?" cried Leech, in alarm.

Wilkinson grinned.

"I'm going to give myself up to Murgatroyd," he said.

Leech winced. It was a blow between the eyes and he felt it.

"The devil you are!" he cried. "But why?"

"Because," said Wilkinson, slowly, "I know chaps like you. A man who
can be bought for a million, can't be bought for ten million, that's
what I mean."

"Explain yourself," stammered Leech.

"When you get the million you'll come back for more. You'll never lose
sight of me--eh?" Wilkinson's grin widened as he saw the telltale flush
upon the cheek of the man before him. "You'd come back for more and
more. That I wouldn't mind, but in the end when I refused you'd call my
bluff--you'd kill the goose that was laying the golden egg. You'd give
me up one year, two years hence--you know you would."

Leech was silent; he was floored.

"Besides," went on Wilkinson, calmly, "there would always be the danger
of my discovery by Murgatroyd. The sword of Damocles would forever be
over my head. I'll make an end of it; I'll give myself up...."

"Just as you say, Wilkinson," returned Leech, feeling all the while
that the other was bluffing. "I'll take you down to Murgatroyd's
myself," he went on, now bluffing, too. "By George, that's just what
I will do! Hereafter it will be said that Wilkinson may have been too
smart for Murgatroyd, but that there was one man he couldn't fool; and
that was Assistant District Attorney Leech. That ought to get me the
chief's job next November. Come on! I've got a taxi-cab--my men will
follow in another."

Wilkinson climbed into the cab. At the second corner he called out to
the driver: "Turn west!" Leech leaned back smiling at this new turn,
and let Wilkinson do his own ordering.

"I want to get out here for a minute, Leech," he said, presently
stopping the cab before a white marble building. "Come in with me.... I
want to telephone to someone I know."

The two men, each occupied with his own thoughts, stalked up the
steps of the Millionaires' Club. At the entrance they were stopped,
and Wilkinson was rudely thrust aside. Leech got a cold and distant
obeisance from the doorman, who nevertheless politely asked:

"Beg your pardon, sir, did you desire to see any member of the club?"

Wilkinson came forward and roared out:

"Confound you, I'm a member of the club--I'm Peter V. Wilkinson!"

The doorman laughed in his face, and again bowing to Leech, asked if
the other was with him.

"Why, Bowles," roared Wilkinson, "I know you like a book. I'm Peter V.
Wilkinson, I tell you."

Bowles started at the voice. He recognised it as Wilkinson's, but the
man before him bore no resemblance to the Wilkinson that he knew, and
he refused to believe him. And in the end, Wilkinson and Leech were
forced, to their discomfiture, to retire.

"Hang it!" muttered Wilkinson. "He ought to know me if anybody does. He
doesn't know me, and yet you did. How do you account for that?"

"I was looking for a bigger tip," laughed Leech.

At the next corner they stopped and Wilkinson entered a public
telephone booth, closed the glass door behind him and then called
up the Barristers' Club. Presently the man he called for was at the
other end, was answering "Hello." Wilkinson smiled, for the voice held
excitement in it.

"Peter!" yelled Morehead in delight.

"Yes, and I'm coming to the Barristers'."

"In broad daylight?"

"Yes, right now. I want to talk to you and talk to you hard. I've read
all the New York papers and know all that's going on.... And say, look
here, you'd better tell your people there to be on the look-out for a
tramp and a con man, for they'll never let us in unless you do."

"Who's the con man?" queried the Colonel, not fully recovered from the
shock that Wilkinson had given him.

Whereupon Wilkinson without reply rang off.

Fifteen minutes later Colonel Morehead threw open his bedroom door in
the Barristers' Club and threw his arms about his disreputable-looking
client.

"Peter, the sight of you is good for sore eyes!" he cried.

Colonel Morehead stiffened for an instant at the sight of the other
man, and bowing gravely merely said:

"How do you do, sir?"

"Colonel," began Wilkinson, as he threw himself into a chair and
stretched his legs wide apart. "I'll come to the point at once." The
Colonel was all attention. "I note by the papers that you are keeping
the legislature a devil of a long time selecting a new man to replace
Beekman. You will naturally want to know," Wilkinson went on, "why we
call upon you in such haste this morning." He waved his hand toward
Leech. "Allow me to introduce you to Mr. Leech, at present an assistant
district attorney of this county, and the next Governor of the State of
New York."

Morehead stared at Wilkinson as one hypnotised.

"Why?" he demanded, at length.

Wilkinson did not answer at once, but drew him into the adjoining room
where he related, among other things, the happenings of the last two
days. At the conclusion, he remarked:

"A man who asks for a million-dollar bribe is our man, isn't he,
Morehead? But there is one thing more I want to say: Don't you forget
it that I figured out this thing myself."




XXII


Some few weeks after his visit to Colonel Morehead at the Barristers'
Club, Peter V. Wilkinson presented himself at the Riverside Drive
house. He had waited until he had grown a stubbly beard once more
before introducing himself to his family, and then one morning,
feeling very much as he looked, he had come in straggling, half-dazed,
tired, bedraggled, a sad object to behold, but in spite of all he was
received, like the proverbial prodigal, with open arms.

Then followed days of explanation and secret conferences. His family
physician had diagnosed his case as one of loss of memory; Murgatroyd
had thrown up his hat in glee; the county force at once became active;
the newspapers chattered in cold type like magpies; and what is more,
the final stay obtained by Colonel Morehead was drawing to a close.

But all the time that Murgatroyd felt that he had at last landed
Wilkinson, Leech kept his own counsel, and secretly he was very happy.
For did he not hold within his grasp the governorship, wealth, and in
his arms, almost, the daughter of Peter V. Wilkinson?

They were sitting in Leslie's room at the top of the house one
morning, Wilkinson and his daughter. The father was puffing away at
a big black cigar, and looking very much out-of-place in the dainty
apartment with its poppy-covered walls and chintz furnishings, the girl
wearing a far more cheerful look than had been on her face for many
moons, was luxuriating in a silken-covered chair.

"It's coming out all right, isn't it, father? How many nights have I
prayed that you would get away--even if I never saw you again. And now
it's coming out all right." She smiled a sad little smile; presently
she added: "You've got a man that the National Banks can't buy...."

Her tone was the least bit cautious and reserved--as one who withholds
judgment. This did not escape Wilkinson. But he pressed his point.

"You're sure you want Leech?" he asked. "I don't want to force you, but
he's a loyal friend of ours. He's run the National conspiracy to earth,
is brave enough to face fire for me--he's a true friend, girlie."

Leslie's eyes glowed. She caught her father about the neck, and hiding
her face against his shoulder, she whispered:

"Of course I want him, father. I--I would not have anybody else...."

"I'm glad of that," answered her father, nodding. "He's head over heels
in love with you, dear--and he seems, somehow, to make it a condition
of----"

"Father," she interrupted, "I knew long, long ago that he admired me. I
could tell--why, I'm so glad, so glad...."

Nevertheless the girl was very tired, was keyed up to the highest
pitch. Her father had but three short weeks of respite, Morehead could
do no more, and the legislature was ready to appoint its man in the
place that Morehead with some desperate instinct had held vacant for
so long. It was still a race, a running fight with Leslie, and she
revelled in the fight. It was all a part of a desperate game, with her
father for the stakes; and she played it with all her might and main.

"You will grant a pardon to my father?" she had implored of Leech,
struggling feebly in his warm embrace.

"Yes," he had answered, drawing her still closer; and Leslie had
submitted, persuading herself into the belief that this man was the one
man for her.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Ten days later he resigned his office as Assistant District Attorney of
New York; and two weeks later he was lifted into the high place by the
legislature. One day after he took his oath of office the petition for
the pardon of Peter V. Wilkinson was handed to him; and faithful to
his promise, he signed it on the spot.

For what did it matter to him or to Wilkinson, either, that there was a
storm of protest--the storm of protest coming chiefly from the office
of Murgatroyd? What did it matter to Leech that his name henceforth
would be upon the black list at the Criminal Courts Building? He had
made good and had won his reward--or almost. At any rate, for one
thing, he was Governor....

The _Morning Mail_ made but a feeble protest, for the _Star_ and the
_Reporter_ had become bitter and exultant adversaries and gave harder
than they took.

To Leslie the whole thing was a triumph.

"And yet it's a funny thing," she thought to herself, "that Eliot
Beekman, who defended father, wouldn't pardon him, and here is Newton
Leech, who persecuted him, now lets him go."

It was in the Den a few days later that Leslie found upon the leather
lounging seat two fat volumes of the printed case of her father's
trial. She picked them up listlessly and started in to read them. But
she had not gotten very far when voices forced themselves upon her ear.
One was Leech's--he had come down from Albany. For some unaccountable
reason she did not want to see him just at this time. There was a
wedding day to be set--he had pressed her on this subject --and she
was not ready to set it. She slipped temporarily behind the thick
curtains that hung suspended by the wall, just as Leech and her father
stepped into the Den.

Leech's attitude toward the head of the family, as time went on, had
been growing more and more insolent; and to-day he was worse than ever.

"Mr. Wilkinson," he said, "I've done my part and I've been well roasted
for it."

"That's immaterial to me," gurgled Wilkinson, who had become a
different man. The lines had faded from his face, he was rounding out
once more, he slept nights and ate with regularity, within him all was
peace and happiness. The shadow of the prison had slipped from him
like a noose--he was free. He looked at the other tantalisingly for a
moment, and then asked: "Well, what do you want ...?"

"Just what you promised me," said Governor Leech, "for setting you
free. I want my million dollars, to begin with."

"Come now," grumbled Wilkinson, lighting a cigar, "you've got the
governorship--that's enough for any man, my boy."

"It's not enough for me," insisted Leech, alarmed. "I want two things
right away--two things you promised me: A million dollars and your
daughter Leslie; and the sooner she can marry me, the better."

Wilkinson laughed until he was red in the face, then he said:

"Look here, Leech, I'll compromise with you. You take half a
million...."

"Not in a hundred years!" exclaimed Leech, threateningly.

Wilkinson continued to chuckle.

" ... a half million," he repeated, "and I'll let the old lady, my
wife, get a divorce, and you can have her. But Leslie...."

Leech gripped the table with both hands.

"Wilkinson," he said firmly, "the girl will marry me, never fear!
She likes me, loves me, and she's promised to be my wife. But you've
promised to cough up a million to me, and I want it."

"What if I don't?" growled the other.

"If you don't," cried Leech, "I'll let the whole world know that you've
got a hundred million or so salted away in your daughter Leslie's name,
and then you'll have a hornet's nest about your head."

"Never thought of that," returned Wilkinson, paling slightly. "By
the way," he mused, "after Leslie marries you I'll have to find some
other dummy to hold those stocks and bonds for me, otherwise, you'll
get your hooks on them." He laughed. "Cleverest scheme in the world,
boy--Flomerfelt and I concocted it. Why, look here, I've been joking,
nothing else. I'm not going to give you a million."

"You're not!" cried Leech, growing white.

"No!" roared Wilkinson. "Hang it all, I'm going to give you two...."

"That's better," assented Leech, sinking back into his seat. "But when?"

"Leslie's got to sign."

"Can you close this to-day?"

"As soon as I can get her. Come on--she's probably upstairs."

Wilkinson and Leech left the room, and Leslie, her face flushed with
the knowledge of what she had heard, crept from the room and through
the hall back to the postern stair. There, in an empty room she
crouched down until she heard them coming down again, then made a dash
for her boudoir and locked herself in. After a while a servant rapped
on her door and informed her that he had been looking all over for her.

"Who wants me?" she inquired.

"Your father, Miss, and Mr. Leech," he told her.

"Tell my father to come up," said Leslie.

Presently her father, with a document in his hand, entered the room,
and smilingly announced:

"Just wanted you to sign this, girlie."

Leslie glanced at it cursorily, saw that it was what she believed it to
be--a means of payment to Leech, and signing, passed it over without
looking at her father. He stood for an instant at the door.

"Newton has come up to see you," he said. "The Governor is getting kind
of lonely up in Albany--he can hardly wait to get a Mrs. Governor up
there."

Leslie drew her hand across her face.

"Please tell Mr. Leech," she answered, "that I'm ill. I can't possibly
see him to-day--no," she persisted, "don't ask me--not to-day." She
pushed her father playfully from the room and once more locked the
door. Then she went back to the window and read the printed case of
the People _versus_ Peter V. Wilkinson until the shadows deepened into
darkness.

"It's all so clear now," she sighed. "How could they have acquitted
him? How could Eliot Beekman have pardoned him, even if he had wanted
to? Oh, he's guilty, guilty, guilty!"

Completely exhausted, Leslie laid down the volume and threw herself
upon the bed, where she lay until the early morning sunlight peered in
through the windows. Throughout the long night she had not closed her
eyes, but lay there thinking, planning, some way out of it all. The
morning found her resolved upon one point: She would never marry the
man her father wanted her to marry.

And so it happened that some weeks later Governor Leech, looking
down upon her, his face suddenly gone pale, his breath coming short,
protested:

"But, Leslie, you can't mean it. Don't you know that I've held you in
my arms, that my kisses are on your lips! Those made you mine. You've
promised, your eyes have answered mine, you belong to me just as much
as though--by heaven! if you don't belong to me for any other reason,
you belong to me because I've earned you! Look what I did for your
father--what I did for you!"

"You've been paid enough," she answered stubbornly. "I've paid you out
of the money in my hands. Oh, don't stare! I know--I know...." She
paused a moment, her face flushing, her breath coming fast. "Governor
Leech," she resumed, "while my father was in danger I could think of
nothing but to save him; but now that strain, that terrific strain is
over, and I have come to my senses. I can't even think of you, much
less marry you with this taint on you. Yes, I broke my promise to you,
it is true, but I had to, don't you see?" She lifted her head proudly,
and then added: "I had to for the reason that I am just beginning to
find out that I'm a woman, and that you, Governor--you are not--a man."

The following evening while Leslie waited in a small waiting-room near
the entrance to the house a man was ushered in--a man with grey hair
and bowed shoulders, a man enveloped in a long cloak--for the mist
was heavy and the night was wet without. Leaping to her feet, Leslie
grasped him by the hand, and said:

"It was good of you to come, Mr. Ilingsworth, and you've found him, I
can see by your eyes. Oh, how can I thank you enough! I was to help
you, and here you're helping me."

"I'm helping him," said Giles Ilingsworth, steadily, but kindly. He
straightened up, and went on: "I haven't seen him, but I've located
him--I know the floor he lives on. He--he's always in evenings. They
say he has a job with some labourers on the new subway."

"Come!" she cried, seizing his arm.

"Wait," he said, "why don't you send for him?"

Leslie shook her head.

"He would never come. I've got to go to him to-night. I can't wait
another minute--not another minute."

In the open doorway while she drew her cloak tight about her, they
stood and peered out into the Drive.

"We'll get a cab," she said, taking his arm; but Ilingsworth was
adamant.

"There's one thing that I forgot to tell you," he went on,
hesitatingly. "I--it's only what they tell me down there--they say
Beekman does not live alone. I thought you ought to know...."

Leslie flushed for an instant and drew back, and then pressed on again.

"I know," she said, "that is, I suppose--but never mind that. I've
wronged this man and I won't let another day pass over my head without
trying to right the wrong--if it ever can be righted." She tightened
her grasp on the man's arm. "How can a wrong like that ever be
righted?" she asked.

But Ilingsworth himself knew something about wrongs, and muttered
half-aloud as he glanced at the darkened heavens:

"Are my wrongs ever to be righted?"




XXIII


Before one of a long row of dilapidated tenement houses away over on
the East Side of the city, the cabman halted. Leslie had ordered him
to drive like the wind, promising double fare; and consequently he had
covered the ground in a ridiculously short period of time.

To the girl, familiar only with the better localities of the city,
the squalor of the place was appalling. It all looked so dark and
mysterious that she hesitated for a time before consenting to go in;
but at last, overcoming her repugnance, she brought herself to the
point where she could make the ascent of the narrow stairway which led
to Beekman's room, and she began to climb the stairs, clutching at
Ilingsworth as they went.

"They said he was always at home," repeated Ilingsworth, knocking
gently at the door.

A moment more and the door was suddenly thrust open, flooding the hall
with light, and a woman, wearing a hat and a long coat, stood in the
doorway. It was Madeline Braine.

For a second that lapsed into another, the women stood staring at each
other, but did not speak.

"I was just going home," finally announced Miss Braine. "I----"

"It isn't true, then, you don't live here?" faltered Ilingsworth,
blurting out things in his excitement that should have been left unsaid.

"Were you looking for me?" asked the woman. "I live at...."

"For Mr. Beekman," interrupted Leslie, in a low voice. "Can we find him
here?"

Madeline Braine pressed her hand against her lips.

"He's asleep," she whispered. "They're both asleep."

"Both!" The exclamation fell from Leslie's lips.

"Who else is there here?" proceeded Ilingsworth, without formality.

"Nellie, the girl that lives here," she told him in lowered tones. "He
takes care of her. She's been sick--he's had to stay up nights and work
all day, and it's a pity to wake him up...."

"He hasn't retired yet, then?" asked Leslie, inanely, for want of
something better to say.

But whatever would have been the woman's reply it did not reach her
lips, for just at that moment there was a stir, an exclamation from the
corner of the room, and a man rising to his full height--a man, tall,
strong, bronzed, clad in workman's clothes, cried out sharply:

"Who's voice was that? I thought I heard a voice...."

The woman waved the two out in the hall, and answered:

"No, she hasn't stirred."

Beekman stretched his arms, and replied, lowering his voice:

"I don't mean Nell. I mean her voice--Leslie's. Who's out there, Miss
Braine?"

Madeline motioned to Ilingsworth and Leslie to come in, but at the very
moment they entered a young voice rose from the next room, and cried in
all its weakness:

"Madeline! Eliot! Oh, Eliot...."

"We've awakened her," said Madeline Braine, contritely, hurrying toward
the inner door. But Giles Ilingsworth interrupted her flight and caught
her as in a grip of iron.

"Just wait a moment, if you please," he said.

Again the voice raised itself in supplication.

"Madeline! Eliot...."

"You recognised a voice," said Ilingsworth to Beekman, "but I recognise
a voice, too." He caught up the lamp and started for the next room, but
Beekman was before him standing at the threshold.

"That's a bedroom," he explained.

"Let go of me, Beekman!" cried the old man. "I know what I'm about!"
And with a steady step he marched on into the next room.

All of a sudden a loud cry, a woman's cry of sudden joy, reached their
ears. Madeline hastened in. The next instant, while Leslie and Beekman
stood facing one another, they heard a muffled groan and Ilingsworth
came out again. Holding up the light to Beekman's eyes, he looked into
them sternly.

"My daughter," he said, "she's a living wreck, almost."

"You should have seen her when she first came here, Mr. Ilingsworth,"
answered Beekman, returning the other's gaze with interest.

"You saved my life, Beekman," went on Giles Ilingsworth, his voice
trembling; "but for how much of this are you responsible?"

Madeline Braine pressed to his side and said:

"Let me answer that. Governor Beekman did more than save your life, he
saved hers--saved her from drowning, nursed her, fed her, lodged her,
he has brought her back to life--back to you."

But Giles Ilingsworth was not satisfied.

"Let him answer," he persisted.

"There is nothing more to tell. Upon my honour, there is not," spoke up
Beekman.

In sudden relief, then, Giles Ilingsworth started for the room; and
Leslie, pressing close to him, asked if she might see the girl.

"She needed someone to take care of her, and she found Eliot," she
sighed a moment later as she stood in the shadow and saw Elinor lying
propped up against white pillows, her eyes very large and lustrous, a
faint smile on her lips. And then she softly left the room.

Within, Ilingsworth sat on the edge of the bed and babbled like a
child, happiness suffusing his countenance; a little while longer and
his voice became firm once more, had the ring of conviction in it,
weakness had dropped from him as a mantle.

"I'm happy, oh, so happy, Elinor!" he cried.

There were no questions on his lips for her to answer; she knew there
never would be. Nothing mattered to her nor to him now save that they
were together and were happy in each other's love.

Madeline knelt suddenly on the other side of the couch.

"Mr. Ilingsworth," she whispered in a choking voice, "there's something
that I've got to tell you, something that's been driving me almost mad,
for a long time." Her face grew white and her eyes widened as she met
the old man's gaze. "It was I," she confessed, "I shot Mr. Pallister."

In a bound Ilingsworth was on his feet, his eyes fixed upon hers.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You ...!"

"Don't--don't let them hear!" she moaned, hiding her face in her hands.
"I'm weak--I've always been weak, and if it hadn't been for me none of
this would have happened."

"It was Wilkinson," cried Ilingsworth, clenching his hands, "Wilkinson
is at the bottom of it all!"

The woman grasped at his sympathetic tone.

"Yes, yes," she answered; and turning to Elinor: "I was like you,
dear--I had nobody to take care of me."

"But," he protested, "it was my gun...."

"Yes. That day when you talked to his daughter I was there--behind the
hangings. You laid the gun behind you on a table, dropped it there
behind a book."

Ilingsworth placed his hand against his forehead and thought a moment.

"So I did. It all comes back to me now," he returned. "I forgot
even that at my trial. I have never been able to account for its
disappearance."

"I picked it up and kept it here," said the woman, placing her hand
upon her bosom. "Some instinct made me do it. I was going to break
with Wilkinson--I had made up my mind never to see him again, and I
didn't know but that I would need it to threaten him, so I kept it."
Her eyes grew dark with anger. "Afterwards he treated me cruelly, told
something, well, something that has ruined my life. I was in the crowd
that day, and,--well, you know the rest. Don't--don't tell anybody,"
she pleaded. "They'd kill me, kill me before I had a chance to redeem
myself. I don't want to die--I can't die. I did my best for you, Mr.
Ilingsworth,--after I had done my worst," she ended in a sob.

Ilingsworth crossed to her side and looked down upon her kindly.

"My dear child, it was you that saved me. We all know what would have
happened if the Governor had never seen you. I don't want to tell
anybody, and I'm sure Elinor doesn't, either; nor am I sure that I am
under obligations to tell anybody. I bought the gun to kill; you killed
in a fit of anger. We're in precisely the same position, aren't we? We
had murder in our souls and this man Wilkinson put it there."

"I want you to know," she went on falteringly, "that all the lies I've
told, all the things I've done, all the weakness that's in me; he's
responsible for them all. There was never anybody in my life but Peter
Wilkinson."

There was a long silence. Giles Ilingsworth was the first to break it.

"Miss Braine, I've been trying to figure out some way so that we can
all take care of each other. We all seem to need looking after. Perhaps
my courage and strength will come back now that my own little girl has
been returned to me. I've got to make a home for her, you see--there'll
be a place there for you, too, always, if you'll come."

Madeline had not expected so much kindness, and the tears began to roll
down her cheeks.

"May we come in?" asked a voice at the door.

And Leslie Wilkinson, a new light in her face--a light that was worth
while, for she had solved a weighty problem in the last half-hour--once
more entered, Beekman following close at her heels.

"There are some things I wish to say to ex-Governor Beekman in the
presence of you all--some things that you don't know, though I've heard
some of you charge my father with them," she went on, her face paling.
"I learned the truth myself less than a month ago, Eliot," now turning
to him, "that somewhere and somehow there are standing in my name
securities amounting to a hundred million dollars. I know it's so--I
can testify to it--they don't belong to me."

"They belong to Wilkinson," broke in Ilingsworth. "I've known it all
along, but I've never been able to prove it."

"They don't belong to my father," went on Leslie, her eyes meeting
Beekman's in triumph, "but to the depositors in my father's trust
companies."

Beekman looked at the girl in amazement, Ilingsworth muttered something
to himself and was about to speak, but Leslie interrupted him.

"One word more, Mr. Ilingsworth, if you please," she said. And again
turning to Beekman, she went on: "Eliot, you know that I have money
in my own right--money to do with as I wish. Therefore, I retain you
now, not on my own behalf, but on behalf of half a million depositors
in three States, to start a fight to get that money back. We'll begin
right now," she concluded, her voice ringing with determination, "with
Giles Ilingsworth. You are retained by him...."

The fire leaped into Beekman's eyes; he sniffed with excitement.

"Half a million depositors!" he cried, hope growing in his voice. "That
means half a million clients. I'm still a counsellor-at-law--the good
old Appellate Division withstood all attempts to disbar me. Half a
million clients--yes, I accept."

"What about the evidence?" queried Ilingsworth.

Beekman held up his hand.

"The Bank Le Boeuf of Buffalo--they charged these things. They must
have evidence...."

"I can furnish some," said Ilingsworth.

"I have overheard Peter Wilkinson," faltered Madeline Braine.

"And so have I," cried Leslie; "and besides, everything is in my
name, and I won't sign another paper or pay out another dollar until
everybody has had his rights."

Leaving Ilingsworth with his two charges joyfully planning their
future, Eliot and Leslie returned to the next room.

"We've got a long fight ahead, Leslie--a running fight, as Colonel
Morehead calls it, but I'm ready. Come, we begin to-night--we cannot
start too soon."

"You remind me of that night," Leslie whispered, "that night when
you brought the ring." He seemed scarcely to hear her, the room was
reeling about him. But the girl, knowing that she must do the wooing
if she were to win him back at all, went over to him, and, laying an
affectionate hand upon his shoulder as she looked up into his eyes, she
said very tenderly now:

"Eliot, if we're going to fight, don't you think we'll fight better
if we fight together? I wouldn't dare to ask you this if I didn't see
the hunger in your eyes for me just as the hunger is in my heart for
you. And Eliot," she went on, nestling closer all the while, "won't you
marry me to-night--won't you say you will?"

This sudden rush of happiness was too much for Beekman, and he could
hardly speak. For answer he drew his arm round her waist and pressed
her close to him, their lips meeting in one long kiss, as they had that
night so long ago, when she had promised herself to him.

A little while later, Beekman drew his shabby coat about him, but
Leslie saw nothing but the man underneath it. His shoulders that had
been drooping under the burden of adversity, when she entered the room,
now squared themselves; his mouth was firm, and his eyes sparkled as
side by side they passed out into the darkness.

       *       *       *       *       *

"What do you want of me?" Wilkinson was saying as he glanced first at
Flomerfelt and then at his wife. They had bearded him in his Den a
little while before, broken in upon his reverie, and instinctively he
felt that their presence there augured no good to him.

It was Flomerfelt who answered:

"Thirds, Wilkinson. One-third for me and one for Mrs. Wilkinson."

"By what right do you demand it?" asked Peter V., lolling back in his
chair. "And you?" he added, looking at his wife.

"I'll tell everything----" began Mrs. Peter V. But Flomerfelt
interposed with:

"She's your wife, Wilkinson." And lowering his voice, he continued:
"Your property is personalty, stocks and bonds. In case of your death
she would be entitled to a third. She merely asks her right."

"In case of my death," mused Wilkinson. "But I'm not going to die--not
yet," he added, a moment later.

Flomerfelt's brows contracted, his eyes narrowed, he looked Wilkinson
full in the face.

"How do you know you're not?" he asked.

"Is that a threat?" asked Wilkinson, rising.

Flomerfelt, who hoped in the long run to wind up in Paris with
two-thirds of Peter's hidden fortune, for he expected that Mrs. Peter
V., with her third, in time would join him there, was glad to note that
at his suggestion of death the woman had regarded him once more with
fear. She had believed him responsible for the death of Roy Pallister,
and he had fostered this belief, had held her within the circle of
conspiracy, had held her as one chargeable, too, with death of the boy.
It was a safe venture, for not once had he by word of mouth connected
himself with that tragedy. Indeed, he had not the slightest idea as to
who was responsible for it, but all through he felt that Mrs. Peter
V., believing him responsible, felt herself mixed up, felt, too,
perhaps, that they had gone too far. And, watching her out of the tail
of his eye, he held his glance impudently upon Wilkinson's face.

[Illustration: "We've got a long fight ahead, Leslie--a running fight,
as Colonel Morehead calls it, but I'm ready"]

"Not a threat, but a surmise," he answered in the same even tone.
"People have sought your life before, you know," he went on, his face
breaking out into a disagreeable smile, "and even you have attempted
suicide. If you should die, what would become of her?"

"When I die will be time enough to talk about it," snarled Wilkinson.
And thrusting his face now into that of the other, he demanded: "Come,
what's the game? Lay your cards down on the table--out into the open.
Why do you want a third ...?"

"Chiefly because I've earned it."

"Earned it! I took you out of the gutter, you ingrate!"

Flomerfelt shrugged his shoulders.

"If I haven't earned it so far, then I shall earn it in the future," he
said.

"How?"

"By keeping silent in the presence of one person."

"Who?"

Flomerfelt smiled, but did not answer.

"Leslie Wilkinson, of course," put in Mrs. Peter V.

"I don't understand," muttered Wilkinson, once more puffing on his
cigar. "Why silent in her presence? What's that to me?"

"It isn't necessary to go over the facts," returned Flomerfelt. "To be
brief, you've got a mint of money in her hands, which she knows nothing
about. You know where it is, the missus knows, and I know. Some chaps
in Vienna know, thirds for us, or tell her ...?"

Peter laughed aloud.

"Tell her if you want to," he roared. "But do you suppose she'd give
the game away? She! Why, she's the only trump I ever had about me!
She'll stick through thick and thin! Tell her and be hanged!"

Flomerfelt held up his hands, saying:

"I must say that you don't know your own daughter."

"You're a fool, Peter!" said his wife, sharply.

"The instant the girl knows, it's all up with you, my friend," went
on Flomerfelt. "But she needs managing, watching. It takes more than
you to manage, to watch her, too. What is it--thirds for us, or tell
her...."

Peter turned his back upon them.

"Tell her and be hanged!" he said.

Flomerfelt's eyes sought those of the lady. "What's the next move?"
hers seemed to ask of him. A smile of cunning crossed his face.

"Then, Peter, we'll tell the public," he ventured.

Peter swung about, crying:

"Ah, why didn't you get down to that in the first place! I can
understand that--I've understood it all along--you were bound to hold
me up. I'm used to that--have had it all my life. Now, look here,
Flomerfelt, I'm through with you--through with both of you. But I'm
willing to be fair. I bought Leech with a million dollars, as you know.
And I'll do the same with you--with her. You can take it or leave it,
just as you please."

"It's not enough," spoke up Flomerfelt.

"I should think not," said the lady.

Peter V. took out his watch and said:

"I'll give you just one minute to accept."

Flomerfelt took out his watch, and answered:

"I'll give you two minutes to divide with us."

At the end of a minute they were glaring into each other's faces like
beasts of prey. Wilkinson held up his hand and repeated:

"You can take it or leave it, just as you please."

"Thirds or nothing," answered the other stubbornly, at which reply
Wilkinson thrust his watch into his pocket and strolled toward the
door, where he waited until Flomerfelt raised his hand; and in that
brief moment it was borne in upon him that he was not the Wilkinson of
old, that he had, somehow, lost his grip.

"You decline?" asked Flomerfelt. "All right! Then to-morrow the whole
story goes to Leslie Wilkinson."

"What whole story, Mr. Flomerfelt?" asked a young woman, now entering
the room, and so pleasantly that for a moment Flomerfelt fell back
aghast.

"What story, Mr. Flomerfelt?" she repeated. But again he did not
answer. And her father, taking his courage in both hands, came forward
and said:

"The time has come, girlie, when you've got to make a choice for
life--you've got to tell me where you stand--on my side or theirs."

Leslie slowly retreated to the door; a man entered and stood beside her.

"I've made my choice, father. This is Eliot Beekman, my husband," she
announced bravely, a smile on her lips.

Wilkinson could not believe his ears. For a moment he did not speak,
but looked helplessly from one to the other; and Leslie, waiting
for the words that did not come, saw her step-mother grow pale, saw
Flomerfelt's fingers stealthily grope into the depths of his sleeves,
draw down his cuffs, and heave a sigh as he watched the latter settle
into place.

"Yes, father, I've made my choice," she repeated, placing her hand in
Beekman's.

It was indeed an odd-looking pair that Wilkinson looked upon: the
girl all smiles and gladness, happy in the love that she had at last
won; the man, a scarecrow, almost, his ragged coat revealing a ragged
flannel shirt and clothes worn thread-bare. He frowned. For an instant
he seemed vengeance personified.

"You----" faltered her father.

"Mr. Wilkinson," cried Beekman, advancing to that individual, "I've
come back to strip you naked as the day you were born, and I'm going to
do it, too."

"You'll have a good time doing it," Wilkinson answered with bravado,
although a growing fear was upon him.

"I expect to, I assure you," returned the other, "for I represent
the depositors in your rotten banks. Once they sought your life, Mr.
Wilkinson,"--for even he didn't know the truth,--"and now they're after
money--the money that belongs to them and not to you. I've started in
to get it, I've come to get possession of it, to find out where it is."

"You'll have a good time doing it," was all that Peter V. could find,
apparently, to say.

"All I want to know is the name of the safe deposit vault where you
keep your securities. I'll be content with that, Mr. Wilkinson."

"What securities?" Wilkinson paled.

"All of them--everything," answered Beekman.

Wilkinson started, glared at Leslie, then he sank into a chair, for he
saw that she knew and had judged him, condemned him.

"You see, what you got for your pains," Wilkinson said presently to
Flomerfelt, sneeringly.

Flomerfelt nodded; but as the two men stared at each other, they
registered a silent pact; Flomerfelt agreed with Wilkinson, and
Wilkinson agreed with Flomerfelt, that there should be a truce.

This Beekman was a common enemy, and there must be no disclosures now:
to give the game away would be to rob them both of everything.

"You may as well answer, Mr. Wilkinson," continued Beekman, "for I'm
determined on cleaning you up from top to toe. I'm your enemy and I
shall make it my business to represent every other enemy you have. I've
begun with Ilingsworth. I'm going to clear his name, put him where he
belongs; I'm going to clear up mysteries and let daylight into the
hidden places,--every mystery from the giving of your million-dollar
bail bond to the secret of your pardon. Nothing shall escape me, I'll
even ferret out the mystery of the death of Pallister, for," and his
finger pointed straight toward Wilkinson, "for all I know you're at the
bottom of that thing yourself."

"Fidelity Deposit vaults," came gasping from the throat of Mrs.
Peter V. from the other side of the room; and holding out her hands
pleadingly toward Beekman, she added:

"I had nothing, nothing whatever, to do with the murder of Roy. I am
innocent, I can prove my innocence. I'll tell all I know. The Fidelity
Deposit vaults--that's where...." She sank cowering into a chair.

Flomerfelt realised now that he had made an egregious blunder in his
method of the past: this wholesome fear that he had instilled in her
had been his own undoing, a boomerang. But he was not yet through; he
saw another loophole open for him.

"Peter," he cried, "come to my terms and I'll help you to fight. If you
don't----"

Beekman stood by with folded arms. He had come there in a sort of
frenzy, to give vent to his pent-up sense of injury. He had regretted
his coming, it is true, the instant he stepped inside of the room. Yet
it was this same frenzy, this determined air of his, this sweeping into
the open and offering fight, they had really done the trick, struck
terror to the hearts of all three.

And now he actually smiled. Flomerfelt's game suddenly became clear,
and Beekman knew that they were playing right into his hands. So he
waited in silence.

"Wilkinson," cried Flomerfelt, with quick, incisive tones, like dagger
thrusts they were, "which shall it be?"

"Neither!" exclaimed Wilkinson, his clenched hand crashing down
upon the table, and then going over to his son-in-law, he laid his
chubby hand upon his shoulder and said: "Eliot, my boy, you've got me
beat--but I'm going to surrender, and--" he leered at Flomerfelt and
Mrs. Peter V.; then added: "and not be given up."

A moment later Flomerfelt started softly for the door, followed by Mrs.
Peter V. But Beekman barred the way.

"Hold on there!" he cried. "Peter V. Wilkinson possibly is immune from
further criminal prosecution, but I don't know about you two. But
whatever part you've had in the conspiracy you may be sure that I'll
find out. There's no escape for you."




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber's note:

  Obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected.

  Blank pages opposite illustrations have been removed.




        
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