Half a Rogue Part 31

McQuade hurried home. He had another appointment, vastly more important than the one he had just kept. Bolles had returned from New York. It was easy enough to buy a labor union, but it was a different matter to ruin a man of Warrington's note. Bolles had telegraphed that he would be in Herculaneum that night. That meant that he had found something worth while. Each time the car stopped to let pa.s.sengers on or off, McQuade stirred restlessly. He jumped from the car when it reached his corner, and walked hurriedly down the street to his house, a big pile of red granite and an architectural nightmare. He rushed up the steps impatiently, applied his latch-key and pushed in the door.

He slammed it and went directly to his study. Bolles was asleep in a chair. McQuade shook him roughly. Bolles opened his eyes.

"You've been on a drunk," said McQuade, quickly noting the puffed eyes and haggard cheeks.

"But I've got what I went after, all the same," replied Bolles truculently.

"What have you got? If you've done any faking, I'll break every bone in your body."

"Now, look here, Mr. McQuade; don't talk to me like that."

"What have you got, then?"

"Well, I've got something that's worth five hundred; that's what. I worked like a n.i.g.g.e.r for a month; pumped everybody that ever knew him.

Not a blame thing, till night before last I ran into the janitor of the apartments where Warrington lived."

"Go on."

"He'd been fired, and I got him drunk. I asked him if any women had ever gone up to Warrington's rooms. One. He was sitting in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was a hot night, and he was sitting up because he could not sleep. At midnight a coupe drove up, and Warrington and a woman alighted. From the looks of things she was drunk, but he found out afterward that she was very sick. The woman remained in Warrington's apartments till the following morning."

"When was all this?"

"About four years ago. She left very early."

"h.e.l.l!" roared McQuade, doubling his fists. "And I've been sending you money every week for such news as this! I want something big, you fool! What earthly use is this information to me? I couldn't frighten Warrington with it."

"I haven't told you the woman's name yet," said Bolles, leering.

"The woman's name? What's that got to do with it?"

"A whole lot. It was Katherine Challoner, the actress, Bennington's wife; that's who it was!"

McQuade sat very still. So still, that he could hear the clock ticking in the parlor. Bennington's wife!

Chapter XII

The death of his aunt gave Warrington a longing for action--swift mental and physical action. To sit in that dark, empty house, to read or to write, was utterly impossible; nor had he any desire to take long rides into the country. His mind was never clearer than when he rode alone, and what he wanted was confusion, noise, excitement, struggle. So he made an appointment with Senator Henderson the next morning. He left the Benningtons with the promise that he would return that evening and dine with them. Warrington had become the senator's hobby; he was going to do great things with this young man's future.

He would some day make an amba.s.sador of him; it would be a pleasant souvenir of his old age. Warrington was brilliant, a fine linguist, was a born diplomat, had a good voice, and a fund of wit and repartee; nothing more was required. He would give the name Warrington a high place in the diplomatic history of the United States. Some of the most capable diplomats this country had produced had been poets.

Warrington's being a playwright would add l.u.s.ter to the office. The senator was going over these things, when a clerk announced that Mr.

Warrington was waiting to see him.

"Send him right in."

Immediately Warrington entered. He was simply dressed in a business suit of dark blue. He wore a straw hat and a black tie. There was no broad band of c.r.a.pe on his hat or his sleeve. He had the poet's horror of parading grief, simply because it was considered fas.h.i.+onable to do so. He sincerely believed that outward mourning was obsolete, a custom of the Middle Ages.

"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the senator.

"Good morning. How goes the fight?"

"Fine, my boy; I'll land you there next week; you see if I don't. The main obstacle is the curious att.i.tude of the press. You and I know the reason well enough. McQuade is back of this influence. But the voter doesn't know this, and will accept the surface indications only. Now you know the newspaper fellows. Why not drop around to the offices and find out something definite?"

"It's a good idea, Senator. I'll do it this very morning."

"Has McQuade any personal grudge against you?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"He's a bad enemy, and often a downright unscrupulous one. If it's only politics, I'll have a chat with him myself. You pump the newspapers. You leave it to me to swing the boys into line at the convention."

Then they proceeded to go over the ground thoroughly. Something must be done with the newspapers. The delegates and minor bosses were already grumbling. Had nothing appeared in the newspapers, Warrington's nomination would have gone through without even minor opposition. But the Republican machine was in sore straits. If Donnelly won this time, it would mean years of Democratic rule in an essentially Republican town. McQuade must be broken, his strong barricades toppled; and now that there would be no surprise for the public, the majority of the delegates began to look doubtfully upon what they called the senator's coup. They wanted the City Hall, and they did not care how they got there. Warrington was a fine chap, and all that, but his acquaintances.h.i.+p was limited. He could not go about shaking hands like Donnelly, who knew everybody, high and low. The laboring man knew nothing about Warrington, save that he was famous for writing plays they had not seen, nor would have understood if they had. Warrington was a "swell"; he had nothing in common with the man who carried the dinner-pail.

"And there the matter stands, my boy," concluded the senator, s.h.i.+fting his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. "If I can swing the convention the rest will be plain sailing, once you start speech-making. Oh, McQuade is clever. He knew that by exposing my hand he would lessen your chances. But you tackle the newspapers and see what can be done. And good luck to you."

McQuade came down early that morning. The first thing he did was to call on the editor of the Times.

"Here's something," he said, tossing a few typewritten pages on the editor's desk. "This'll settle Warrington's hash, Walford."

"What is it?" asked Walford.

"Read it and see for yourself." McQuade sat down and picked up the early New York papers.

Walford read slowly. When he reached the last paragraph he returned to the first and read the article through again. He laid it down and faced his employer.

"Mr. McQuade, the Call and the Times are the only papers in town that pay dividends. The Times as it stands to-day is a good, legitimate business investment. Do you want the circulation to drop ten thousand and the big advertisers to cancel their contracts?"

"What's the matter with the story? Isn't it all right?"

"Frankly, it isn't."

"It's true," said McQuade, his fist thudding on the desk; "it's true, I tell you, every d.a.m.ned word of it."

"The truth of it isn't the question. It's the advisability of publis.h.i.+ng it. I say to you that if you insist on this story's publication, you'll kill the Times deader than a door-nail. I'll call the business manager in." Walford whistled through a tube, and shortly after the business manager appeared. "Read this," said Walford briefly, "and give Mr. McQuade your honest opinion regarding its publication. Mr. McQuade thinks it ought to run as local news."

The business manager read it.

"It makes good reading, Mr. McQuade, but if you want to kill the Times, run it. There are some stories that can only be rumored, not printed, and this is one of them. If this appears, you have my word that every decent advertiser will cancel his contract forthwith."

Walford looked at his employer in frank triumph. McQuade had great confidence in these two men. He ripped the ma.n.u.script into squares and filtered them through his fingers into the waste-basket.

"You boys are probably right," he said reluctantly. "I have no desire to see the paper lose its sound footing. But this would have killed the man socially and politically, so far as this town is concerned."

"Admitted," replied Walford, straightening out some proofs. "But we'll topple him over in a legitimate way."

"Go ahead, then. I'm not particular how it's done so long as you do it. Perhaps, after all, it's just as well. I've got another idea. I can see that I've made a mistake."

McQuade started down the stairs to the street and met Warrington coming up. The two men paused for a moment, then went on. Once on the sidewalk, McQuade turned and hesitated. No, he had nothing to say to Mr. Warrington. He strode down the street toward his own offices.