The Ear in the Wall Part 35

"But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat--they are false. It is a plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter.

Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial."

He looked from one to the other of us helplessly. "If we had a week or two, it might be all right. But I can't make any move to-day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are published, as the last big thing of the campaign. Monday and Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and hammer it in. Even if they were out now, it would not give me time to make of it an a.s.set instead of a liability. And then, too, it means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign. That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway."

Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener, but now he asked pointedly, "You have copies of the pictures?"

"No--but I've been promised them this morning."

"H'm," mused Craig, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are alarmed, Carton,--nor that Walter suggests buying them off. But I agree with you, Carton--it's best to fight, to admit nothing, as you would imply by any other method."

"Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?" urged Carton, leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury.

"I haven't said I can do that--yet," measured Craig with provoking slowness.

"Say, Kennedy, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Carton.

Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder.

"I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been--er--foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to d.i.c.ker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election. I--I don't know that I'd desert you--if the pictures were true. I'd be sure there was some other explanation."

"I knew it," responded Carton heartily. "Your hand on that, Kennedy.

Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more than any of them. Spare no reasonable expense and--get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up--Langhorne--anybody. And, for G.o.d's sake get it in time--there's more than an election that hangs on it!"

Carton looked Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with the bosses but also that there had been or by some possibility could be anything really in common between him and Mrs. Ogleby.

That, after all, I saw was the real question. How would Miss Ashton take it? Could she ever forgive him if it were possible for Langhorne to turn the tables and point with scorn at the man who had once been his rival for her hand? What might be the effect on her of any disillusionment, of any ridicule that Langhorne might artfully heap up?

As we left Carton, I shared with Kennedy his eagerness to get at the truth, now, and win the fight--the two fights.

"I want to see Miss Ashton, first," remarked Kennedy when we were outside.

Personally I thought that it was a risky business, but felt that Kennedy must know best.

When we arrived at the Reform League headquarters, the clerks and girls had already set to work, and the office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large sc.r.a.pbooks, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal.

Carton's office there had been in the centre of the suite. On one side were the cas.h.i.+er and bookkeeper, the clerical force and the speakers'

bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting instructions, final tours were being laid out, and reports received of meetings already held.

On the other side was the press bureau, with its large and active force, in charge of Miss Ashton.

As we entered we saw Miss Ashton very busy over something. Her back was toward us, but the moment she turned at hearing us we could see that something was the matter.

Kennedy wasted no time in coming to the point of his visit. We had scarcely seated ourselves beside her desk when he leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. I have called to see you about a matter of vital importance to Mr. Carton."

She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her proud face what the true state of her feelings was.

"I don't know whether you know, but an attempt is being made to slander Mr. Carton," went on Kennedy.

Still she said nothing, though it was evident that she was thinking much.

"I suppose in a large force like this that it is not impossible that your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting out the "literature."

"I have sometimes thought that myself," she murmured, "but of course I don't know. There isn't anything for them to discover in THIS office, though."

Kennedy looked up quickly at the significant stress on the word "this."

She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case. She was now pale and agitated.

"I--I can't believe it," she managed to say. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy--I would almost rather not have known it at all,--only I suppose I must have known it sooner or later."

"Believe me, Miss Ashton," soothed Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend for many things. But, tell me, how do you know already? I didn't think--it was known."

She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Our detective in the organization brought the pictures up here--one of the girls opened them by mistake--it got about the office--I couldn't help but know."

"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy soothingly, "I beg you to be calm.

I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please.

Remember pictures can lie--just like words."

"I--I hope you're right," she managed to reply slowly. "I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't say anything about Mr. Carton to anyone. But it cuts me to have to think that Hartley Langhorne may have been right. He always used to say that every man had his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which made me cast myself in with the League. I--I can hardly believe--"

Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics in the organization you are fighting is loyalty. Wait until--"

"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Mr. Carton for--for even knowing--" she paused just in time to subst.i.tute Mr. Murtha for Mrs.

Ogleby--"such men as Mr. Murtha--secretly."

She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had seen had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay.

"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "Don't be too harsh. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it."

Kennedy was apparently doing some rapid thinking. "Let me have the photographs," he asked at length.

"They are in Mr. Carton's office," she answered, as if she would not soil her hands by touching the filthy things.

We excused ourselves and went into Carton's office.

There they were wrapped up, and across the package was written by one of the clerks, "Opened by mistake."

Kennedy opened the package again. Sure enough, there were the photographs--as plain as they could be, the group including Carton, Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, and another woman, standing on the porch of a gabled building in the suns.h.i.+ne, again the four speeding in a touring car, of which the number could be read faintly, and other less interesting snapshots.

As I looked at them I said nothing, but I must admit that the whole thing began to a.s.sume a suspicious look in my mind in connection with various hints I had heard dropped by organization men about probing into the past, and other insinuations. I felt that far from aiding Carton, things were now getting darker. There was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not been in such groups to counterbalance the existence of the actual pictures themselves, on the surface a graphic clincher to Dorgan's story. Kennedy, however, after an examination of the photographs clung no less tenaciously to a purpose he already had in mind, and instead of leaving them for Carton, took them himself, leaving a note instead.

He stopped again to speak to Margaret Ashton. I did not hear all of the conversation, but one phrase struck me, "And the worst of it is that he called me up a little while ago and tried to act toward me in the same old way--and that after I know what I know. I--I could detect it in his voice. He knew he was concealing something from me."

What Kennedy said to her, I do not know, but I don't think it had much effect.

"That's the most difficult and unfortunate part of the whole affair,"

he sighed as we left. "She believes it."

I had no comment that was worth while. What was to be done? If people believed it generally, Carton was ruined.