Part 43 (1/2)
Senator Corson's secretary was waiting in the hall; he showed the Governor up to the Senator's study.
Either because the outdoors was not cheerful that morning or because the Senator had been too much engrossed in meditation to remember that daylight would serve him, the curtains of the study were drawn and the electric lamps were on.
Corson was walking up and down the room, chewing on one end of a cigar and making a soggy torch of the other end. He continued to pace while North pulled off his coat.
”I have sent word to Morrison to come here,” reported the host.
The mantel clock reported the hour as nine; His Excellency scowled at the clock's face. ”And you got word back, I suppose, that after he has come out of his mill at ten o'clock and has washed his hands and--”
”He's at City Hall,” snapped Corson, with an acerbity that matched the Governor's. ”I called the mill and was referred to Morrison at City Hall.
He's on his way up here! At any rate, he said he'd start at once.”
”Did he condescend to intimate in what capacity he proposes to land on us this time?”
”I'm going to allow you to draw your own conclusions. I've been trying to draw some of my own from what he said.”
”What did he say?”
”Apologized because I was put to any trouble in locating him. Said he was expecting to be called by me and thought he would go to City Hall and await my summons in order to put himself and the whole situation on a strictly official basis.” The Senator delivered that information sullenly.
”What kind of a devilish basis does he think he's been operating on?”
”Look here, North! If you have come up here to fight with me after the row you have been having down-town this morning I warn you--”
”I have had no row down-town. I wouldn't see anybody. I wouldn't talk with anybody. Blast it! Corson, I don't know what to say to anybody!”
”Well, that's one point, at least, on which you and I can get together even if we can't agree on anything else. If you have been so cursedly exclusive as all that, North, perhaps you haven't been in touch with any of the justices of the supreme court, as I have.”
”You have, eh?”
”I called Davenport and Madigan on the telephone.”
”What excuse could they give for sending their snap opinions over the wire on the inquiry of a fool?”
”They offered no excuse. They couldn't. They knew nothing about any telegrams till I informed 'em. They received no inquiry. They sent no replies, naturally.”
”That--that--Did that--” The Governor pawed at his scraggly neck. ”He faked all that stuff?”
”Absolutely!”
Comment which could not have been expressed in long speeches and violent denunciation was put into the pregnant stare exchanged by the two men.
Then the Senator took another grip on his cigar with bared teeth and began to march again.
”Corson, what's going to be done with that blue-blazed understudy of Ananias?”
”Depend on the wrath of Heaven, perhaps,” said the Senator, sarcastically.
”I haven't had time to look in Holy Writ this morning and ascertain just what kind of a lie Ananias told. But whatever it was, it was tame beside what Morrison told that mob about me last night.”
”You've had your fling at me about my exclusiveness! What are you putting out yourself this morning in the way of statements?” The Governor banged his fist down on the newspapers which littered the study table.