The Mighty Dead Part 6

Doak sipped his coffee. His voice was casual. "Why did he hate the printed word?"

"He couldn't read anything but the simplest words. The tutors his father hired and fired to get some learning into that man! He was just hopeless, that's all."

Doak smiled. "Well, he seems to have done all right without it. I'd like to have his money."

"And his brain?" Martha asked.

"Just his money," Doak said. "And maybe I'll get some of it before I give up on him."

He happened to glance at Martha after he finished saying that. Her face was coldly skeptical and he had an uncomfortable feeling that his lie hadn't registered with her at all.

In his room, as he undressed, as he hung his clothes in the small closet, he felt the folded thickness of the dupligraphed magazine in his jacket pocket.

What more did he need? Tomorrow he'd take the first train back to Milwaukee and the first plane from Milwaukee. Here was evidence and he realized now it wasn't something he would be wise to tackle alone. A few weeks' work by a half dozen operatives and the entire publisher-reader organization would be spotted and ready for one unified move.

Local authorities were subject to local loyalties and one leak could scare off the whole organization. He could be back in Was.h.i.+ngton before noon, which would give him a full day and a half of free time, of June time. To say nothing of the nights.

Why should he hang around this whistle stop for a wasted week-end, holding kitchen conversations with the unmighty living?

But that Martha, that lovely, that proud and knowing gal.... The crickets helped him to Dreamland.

The morning sun was bright on the quilted bedspread when he opened his eyes. There was no sound of meal preparation in the house, no dialogue. Was it early?

It was ten o'clock. Not since he was a child had he enjoyed as long and satisfying a sleep as this.

When he came out of the bathroom Mrs. Klein was in the hall. "About five minutes?" she asked.

"Make it two," he told her and winked. "I'm starving."

Martha had already gone to work. Doak sat down alone to popovers and oatmeal, eggs and Canadian bacon. And real coffee. He had an almost animal sense of well being. His decision to go back to Was.h.i.+ngton, which had seemed so final last night, was fading under the Dubbinville spell.

After breakfast he walked down to the station and inquired about Milwaukee-bound trains.

"There's one due at noon," the agent told him. "Stops on signal. You want me to stop it?"

"That's kind of early," Doak said. "When's the next?"

"At six tonight. A local. Doesn't need a signal."

That would be soon enough. Doak left and walked slowly up the main street of Dubbinville. He was walking past the bank when the beard caught his gaze.

It was the Burns quoter of last night. He was sitting behind the biggest desk in the open portion of the bank, and there was a sign on his desk.

The sign read, _Malcolm S. Sutherland--President_.

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy--the president of the bank! That showed the strata this subversion was reaching. Didn't the man realize what a risk he was taking?

In the drugstore he saw another of the faces he had seen last night.

It was the man who had administered the hypodermic. He was talking to the druggist. Doak turned and went in.

"All right, Doctor," the druggist said. "I'll have it about one o'clock. Will that be all right?"

"Fine," the doctor said. He went out.

Doak bought a package of cigarettes. "Was that Doctor Ryan by any chance?"

"No. Doctor Helgeson. I don't recall a Doctor Ryan. Doctor Helgeson's the only medical doctor in town."

"This Ryan's a Ph.D." Doak said. "Senator Arnold told me about him.

Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Beautiful," the druggist agreed.

Walking back to the house Doak wondered if this couldn't be handled without punitive measures being taken. The only doctor in town and the president of the bank--and they were probably only a small part of the picture. It could disrupt this town if Senator Arnold had his way.

And what was their crime? Reading. A law as stupid as the ancient prohibition law had been, pushed through a bewildered Congress under much the same conditions. Supported by a strange blend of the divine and ridiculous, the nave and the clever, the gullible and the knowing.

Well, was it his business? _He_ didn't make the laws--he only helped to enforce them. It was a logical answer and why didn't it satisfy him?

He had a job, a good job at the public trough in a woman-heavy city, a security that was as solid as his country. Why should he fret over a gang of law-breakers? Unless it was that cow-town cutie, that Martha.

Unless he was so dame-happy he'd sell out the Department. That corrupt he certainly wasn't--at least, not yet.

And they weren't readers anyway--they were publishers. He had almost forgotten that. Inciters to violence, instigators of strife, polluters of the mind ... Good Lord, he was beginning to sound like crack-brained ex-Senator Arnold!

V

Mrs. Klein was shaking out a rug on the front porch. She smiled at him. "Not much to do here, for a city man, is there?"

"I'm not bored," he said, "for some reason. You have a beautiful daughter, Mrs. Klein."

"I'd feel happier about her looks if she'd marry somebody," Mrs. Klein said dryly. "Seems to me they're wasted this way."

Doak sat on the glider. What was it someone had said about marriage?

Oh, yes--that it combined the ultimate in temptation with the ultimate in opportunity.

He said, "I'm surprised she isn't married. The men around here must be blind or mute."

"Oh, she's had enough offers," Mrs. Klein answered. She laid the rug over the porch railing. "But she's a fussy stubborn girl." She sat in her chair. "You a married man, Mr. Parker?"

He shook his head. "Never had the time nor the money--and besides they all said no to me."

"I'll bet. With that hair of yours and that fine head, with those eyes, I'll _bet_ they said no."

"Why, thank you!" Doak said. "You have a number of good points, yourself, Mrs. Klein."