Part 30 (1/2)
Portia gave him Elinor to take out, and he would have rejoiced brazenly if the table talk, from the bouillon to the ices, had not been persistently general, turning most naturally upon the Universal Oil Company's successful _coup_ in the Belmount field. Kent kept out of it as much as he could, striving manfully to monopolize Elinor for his own especial behoof; but finally Portia laid her commands upon him.
”You are not to be allowed to maroon yourself with Miss Brentwood any longer,” she said dictatorially. ”You know more about the unpublished part of this Belmount conspiracy than any one else excepting the conspirators themselves, and you are to tell us all about it.”
Kent looked up rather helplessly.
”Really, I--I'm not sure that I know anything worth repeating at your dinner-table,” he protested.
But Miss Van Brock made a mock of his caution.
”You needn't be afraid. I pledged everybody to secrecy before you came. It is understood that we are in 'executive session.' And if you don't know much, you may tell us what you know now more than you knew before you knew so little as you know now.”
”Hold on,” said Kent; ”will you please say that over again and say it slowly?”
”Never mind,” laughed Ormsby. ”Miss Portia has a copyright on that. But before you begin, I'd like to know if the newspapers have it straight as far as they have gone into it?”
”They have, all but one small detail. They are saying that Senator Duvall has left the city and the State.”
”Hasn't he?” Loring asked.
”He hadn't yesterday.”
”My-oh!” said Portia. ”They will mob him if he shows himself.”
Kent nodded a.s.sent.
”He knows it: he is hiding out. But I found him.”
”Where?” from the three women in chorus.
”In his own house, out in Pentland Place. The family has been away since April, and the place has been shut up. I took him the first meal he'd had in thirty-six hours.”
Portia clapped her hands. The butler came in with the coffee and she dismissed him and bade him shut the doors.
”Now begin at the very tip end of the beginning,” she commanded.
Kent had a sharp little tussle with his inborn reticence, thrust it to the wall and told a plain tale.
”It begins in a piece of reckless folly. Shortly after I left Mrs.
Brentwood's last Thursday evening I had a curious experience. The shortest way down-town is diagonally through the capitol grounds, but some undefinable impulse led me to go around on the Capitol Avenue side. As I was pa.s.sing the right wing of the building I saw lights in the governor's room, and in a sudden fit of desperation resolved to go up and have it out with Bucks. It was abnormally foolish, I'll confess. I had nothing definite to go on; but I--well, I was keyed up to just about the right pitch, and I thought I might bluff him.”
”Mercy me! You do need a guardian angel worse than anybody I know!” Portia cut in. ”Do go on.”
Kent nodded.
”I had one that night; angel or demon, whichever you please. I was fairly dragged into doing what I did. When I reached the upper corridor the door of the public anteroom was ajar, and I heard voices. The outer room was not lighted, but the door between it and the governor's private office was open. I went in and stood in that open doorway for as much as five minutes, I think, and none of the four men sitting around the governor's writing-table saw me.”
He had his small audience well in hand by this time, and Ormsby's question was almost mechanical. ”Who were the four?”
”After the newspaper rapid-fire of this morning you might guess them all.
They were his Excellency, Grafton Hendricks, Rumford, and Senator Duvall.
They were in the act of closing the deal as I became an onlooker. Rumford had withdrawn his application for a charter, and another 'straw' company had been formed with Duvall at its head. I saw at once what I fancy Duvall never suspected; that he was going to be made the scapegoat for the ring.