Part 32 (1/2)
”Paying for the job! Do you think he knew of this plot?” cried George as Evans stood at the telephone.
”Oh, no. He just knew, in a leer from Doolittle, that they had extraordinary need for Eve thousand dollars or so in your behalf--that they had consulted you. And then Doolittle winked and Noonan c.o.c.ked his head rakishly, and Uncle Martin put--h.e.l.lo, Mr. Jaffry. This is Penny.
Dress and come down to the office quickly. We are in serious trouble.”
Twenty minutes later Uncle Martin was sitting with the two young men in the office of Remington and Evans. When they explained the situation to him his dry little face screwed up.
”Well, at least Genevieve will be all right,” he muttered. ”E. Eliot will take care of her. But, boys--boys,” he squeezed his hands and rocked in misery, ”the devil of it is that I gave Doolittle the money in a check and then went and got another check from the Owners' Protective a.s.sociation and took the peak load off myself, and Doolittle was with me when I got the P. A. check. We've simply got to protect him. And, of course, what he knows, Noonan knows. We can't go tearing up Jack here, calling police and raising the town!”
George Remington rose.
”Then I've got to let my wife lie in some dive with that unspeakable Turk and that Mike the Goat while you men d.i.c.ker with the scoundrels who committed this crime!” he said. ”My G.o.d, every minute is precious! We must act. Let me call the chief of police and the sheriff----”
”All dear friends of Noonan's,” Penny quietly reminded him. ”They probably have the same tip about what is on as you and Uncle Martin have! Calm down, George! First, let me go out and learn when Noonan and Doolittle are coming home! When we know that, we can----”
”Penny, I can't wait. I must act now. I must denounce the whole d.a.m.nable plot to the people of this country. I must not rest one second longer in silence as an accessory. I shall denounce----”
”Yes, George, you shall denounce,” exclaimed his partner. ”But just whom--yourself, that you did not warn Miss Eliot all day yesterday!”
”Yes,” cried Remington, ”first of all, myself as a coward!”
”All right. Next, then, your Uncle Martin Jaffry, who was earnestly trying to help you in the only way he knew how to help! Why, George, that would be----” ”That would be the least I could do to let the people see----”
”To let the people see that Mrs. Brewster-Smith and all your social friends in this town are a.s.sociated with Mike the Goat and his gang----”
Before Evans could finish, his partner stopped him.
”Yes, yes--the whole d.a.m.ned system of greed! The rich greed and the poor greed--our criminal cla.s.ses plotting to keep justice from the decent law-abiding people of the place, who are led like sheep to the slaughter. What did the owners pay that money for? Not for the dirty job that was turned--not primarily. But to elect me, because they thought I would not enforce the factory laws and the housing laws and would protect them in their larceny! That money Uncle Martin collected was my price--my price!”
He was standing before his friends, rigid and white in rage. Neither man answered him.
”And because the moral sense of the community was in the hearts and heads of the women of the community,” he went on, ”those who are upholding the immoral compact between business and politics had to attack the womanhood of the town--and Genevieve's peril is my share in the shame. By G.o.d, I'm through!”
CHAPTER XIII. BY MARY AUSTIN
Close on Young Remington's groan of utter disillusionment came a sound from the street, formless and clumsy, but brought to a sharp climax with the crash of breaking gla.s.s.
Even through the closed window which Penfield Evans hastily threw up, there was an obvious quality to the disturbance which revealed its character even before they had grasped its import.
The street was still full of morning shadows, with here and there a dancing glimmer on the cobbles of the still level sun, caught on swinging dinner pails as the loosely a.s.sorted crowd drifted toward shop and factory.
In many of the windows half-drawn blinds marked where spruce window trimmers added last touches to masterpieces created overnight, but directly opposite nothing screened the offense of the Voiceless Speech, which continued to display its accusing questions to the pa.s.ser-by.
Clean through the plate-gla.s.s front a stone had crashed, leaving a heap of s.h.i.+ning splinters, on either side of which a score of men and boys loosely cl.u.s.tered, while further down a ripple of disturbance marked where the thrower of the stone had just vanished into some recognized port of safety.
It was a clumsy crowd, half-hearted, moved chiefly by a cruel delight in destruction for its own sake, and giving voice at intervals to coa.r.s.e comment of which the wittiest penetrated through a stream of profanity, like one of those same splinters of gla.s.s, to the consciousness of at least two of the three men who hung listening in the window above:
”To h.e.l.l with the----suffragists!”
At the same moment another stone hurled through the break sent the Voiceless Speech toppling; it lay crumpled in a pathetic feminine sort of heap, subject to ribald laughter, but Penny Evans' involuntary cry of protest was cut off by his partner's hand on his shoulder. ”They're Noonan's men, Penny; it's a put-up job.”