IX
THE SHOCKING OF HUNNICOTT
It was two weeks after the date of the governor's fishing trip, and byconsequence Judge MacFarlane's court had been the even fortnight insession in Gaston, when Kent's attention was recalled to the forgottenVarnum case by another letter from the local attorney, Hunnicott.
"Varnum _vs_. Western Pacific comes up Friday of this week, and they aregoing to press for trial this time, and no mistake," wrote the localrepresentative. "Hawk has been chasing around getting affidavits; for whatpurpose I don't know, though Lesher tells me that one of them was sworn byHouligan, the sub-contractor who tried to fight the engineer's estimateson the Jump Creek work.
"Also, there is a story going the rounds that the suit is to be made ablind for bigger game, though I guess this is all gossip, based on thefact that Mr. Semple Falkland's private car stopped over here two weeksago, from three o'clock in the afternoon till midnight of the same day.Jason, of the _Clarion_, interviewed the New Yorker, and Falkland told himhe had stopped over to look up the securities on a mortgage held by one ofhis New York clients."
Kent read this unofficial letter thoughtfully, and later on took it in tothe general manager.
"Just to show you the kind of jackal we have to deal with in the smallertowns," he said, by way of explanation. "Here is a case that Stephen Hawkbuilt up out of nothing a year ago. The woman was put off one of ourtrains because she was trying to travel on a scalper's ticket. She didn'tcare to fight about it; but when I had about persuaded her to compromisefor ten dollars and a pass to her destination, Hawk got hold of her andinduced her to sue for five thousand dollars."
"Well?" said Loring.
"We fought it, of course--in the only way it could be fought in the lowercourt. I got a continuance, and we choked it off in the same way at thesucceeding term. The woman was tired out long ago, but Hawk will hang ontill his teeth fall out."
"Do you 'continue' again?" asked the general manager.
Kent nodded.
"I so instructed Hunnicott. Luckily, two of our most important witnessesare missing. They have always been missing, in point of fact."
Loring was glancing over the letter.
"How about this affidavit business, and the Falkland stop-over?" he asked.
"Oh, I fancy that's gossip, pure and simple, as Hunnicott says. Hawk issharp enough not to let us know if he were baiting a trap. And Falklandprobably told the _Clarion_ man the simple truth."
Loring nodded in his turn. Then he broke away from the subject abruptly."Sit down," he said; and when Kent had found a chair: "I had a caller thismorning--Senator Duvall."
State Senator Duvall had been the father, or the ostensible father, of theSenate amendment to House Bill Twenty-nine. He was known to thecorporations' lobby as a legislator who would sign a railroad'sdeath-warrant with one hand and take favors from it with the other; andKent laughed.
"How many did he demand passes for, this time? Or was it a special trainhe wanted?"
"Neither the one nor the other, this morning, as it happened," said thegeneral manager. "Not to put too fine an edge upon it, he had something tosell, and he wanted me to buy it."
"What was it?" Kent asked quickly.
Loring was rubbing his eye-glasses absently with the corner of hishandkerchief.
"I guess I made a mistake in not turning him over to you, David. He wastoo smooth for me. I couldn't find out just what it was he had for sale.He talked vaguely about an impending crisis and a man who had someinformation to dispose of; said the man had come to him because he wasknown to be a firm friend of the Trans-Western, and so on."
Kent gave his opinion promptly.
"It's a capitol-gang deal of some sort to hold us up; and Duvall iswilling to sell out his fellow conspirators if the price is right."
"Have you any notion of what it is?"
Kent shook his head.
"Not the slightest. The ways have been tallowed for us, thus far, and Idon't fully understand it. I presented our charter for re-filingyesterday, and Hendricks passed it without a word. As I was coming out ofthe secretary's office I met Bucks. We were pretty nearly open enemies inthe old days in Gaston, but he went out of his way to shake hands and tocongratulate me on my appointment as general counsel."
"That was warning in itself, wasn't it?"
"I took it that way. But I can't fathom his drift; which is the moreunaccountable since I have it on pretty good authority that the ring iscinching the other companies right and left. Some one was saying at theCamelot last night that the Overland's reorganization of itswithin-the-State lines was going to cost all kinds of money in excess ofthe legal fees."
Loring's smile was a wordless sarcasm.
"It's the reward of virtue," he said ironically. "We were not in the listof subscribers to the conditional fund for purchasing a certain veto whichdidn't materialize."
"And for that very reason, if for no other, we may look out for squalls,"Kent asserted. "Jasper G. Bucks has a long memory; and just now the fateshave given him an arm to match. I am fortifying everywhere I can, but ifthe junto has it in for us, we'll be made to sweat blood before we arethrough with it."
"Which brings us back to Senator Duvall. Is it worth while trying to doanything with him?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm opposed to the method--the bargain and saleplan--and I know you are. Turn him over to me if he comes in again."
When Kent had dictated a letter in answer to Hunnicott's, he dismissed theVarnum matter from his mind, having other and more important things tothink of. So, on the Friday, when the case was reached on JudgeMacFarlane's docket--but really, it is worth our while to be present inthe Gaston court-room to see and hear what befalls.
When the Varnum case was called, Hunnicott promptly moved for a thirdcontinuance, in accordance with his instructions. The judge heard hisargument, the old and well-worn one of the absence of important witnesses,with perfect patience; and after listening to Hawk's protest, which washardly more than mechanical, he granted the continuance.
Then came the after-piece. Court adjourned, and immediately Hawk askedleave to present, "at chambers," an amended petition. Hunnicott waswaylaid by a court officer as he was leaving the room; and a moment later,totally unprepared, he was in the judge's office, listening in some dazedfashion while Hawk went glibly through the formalities of presenting hispetition.
Not until the papers were served upon him as the company's attorney, andthe judge was naming three o'clock of the following afternoon as the timewhich he would appoint for the preliminary hearing, did the local attorneycome alive.
"But, your Honor!--a delay of only twenty-four hours in which to prepare arejoinder to this petition--to allegations of such astounding gravity?" hebegan, shocked into action by the very ungraspable magnitude of the thing.
"What more could you ask, Mr. Hunnicott?" said the judge, mildly. "Youhave already had a full measure of delay on the original petition. Yet Iam willing to extend the time if you can come to an agreement with Mr.Hawk, here."
Hunnicott knew the hopelessness of that and did not make the attempt.Instead, he essayed a new line of objection.
"The time would be long enough if Gaston were the headquarters of thecompany, your Honor. But in such a grave and important charge as thisamended petition brings, our general counsel should appear in person,and----"
"You are the company's attorney, Mr. Hunnicott," said the judge, dryly;"and you have hitherto been deemed competent to conduct the case in behalfof the defendant. I am unwilling to work a hardship to any one, but I cannot entertain your protest. The preliminary hearing will be at threeo'clock to-morrow."
Hunnicott knew when he was definitely at the string's end; and when he wasout of the judge's room and the Court House, he made a dash for hisoffice, dry-lipped and panting. Ten minutes sufficed for the writing of atelegram to Kent, and he was half-way down to the station with it when itoccurred to him that it would never do to trust the incendiary thing tothe wires in plain English.
There was a little-used cipher code in hisdesk provided for just such emergencies, and back he went to laborsweating over the task of securing secrecy at the expense of the preciousminutes of time. Wherefore, it was about four o'clock when he handed thetelegram to the station operator, and adjured him by all that was good andgreat not to delay its sending.
It was just here he made his first and only slip, since he did not stay tosee the thing done. It chanced that the regular day operator was off onleave of absence, and his substitute, a young man from thetrain-despatcher's office, was a person who considered the company wiresan exclusive appanage of the train service department. At the moment ofHunnicott's assault he was taking an order for Number 17; and observingthat the lawyer's cipher "rush" covered four closely written pages, hehung it upon the sending hook with a malediction on the legal departmentfor burdening the wires with its mail correspondence, and so forgot it.
It was nine o'clock when the night operator came on duty; and being acareful man, he not only looked first to his sending hook, but wasthoughtful enough to run over the accumulation of messages waiting to betransmitted, to the end that he might give precedence to the mostimportant. And when he came to Hunnicott's cipher with thethrice-underlined "RUSH" written across its face, and had marked the hourof its handing in, he had the good sense to hang up the entire wirebusiness of the railroad until the thing was safely out of his office.
It was half-past nine when the all-important cipher got itself written outin the headquarters office at the capital; and for two anxious hours thereceiving operator tried by all means in his power to find the generalcounsel--tried and failed. For, to make the chain of mishaps complete inall its links, Kent and Loring were spending the evening at Miss PortiaVan Brock's, having been bidden to meet a man they were both willing tocultivate--Oliver Marston, the lieutenant-governor. And for this cause itwanted but five minutes of midnight when Kent burst into Loring's bedroomon the third floor of the Clarendon, catastrophic news in hand.
"For heaven's sake, read that!" he gasped; and Loring sat on the edge ofthe bed to do it.
"So! they've sprung their mine at last: this is what Senator Duvall wastrying to sell us," he said quietly, when he had mastered the purport ofHunnicott's war news.
Kent had caught his second wind in the moment of respite, and was settlinginto the collar in a way to strain the working harness to the breakingpoint.
"It's a put-up job from away back," he gritted. "If I'd had the sense of apack-mule I should have been on the lookout for just such a trap as this.Look at the date of that message!"
The general manager did look, and shook his head. "'Received, 3:45, P.M.;Forwarded, 9:17, P.M.' That will cost somebody his job. What do we do?"
"We get busy at the drop of the hat. Luckily, we have the news, thoughI'll bet high it wasn't Hawk's fault that this message came through withno more than eight hours' delay. Get into your clothes, man! The minutesare precious, now!"
Loring began to dress while Kent walked the floor in a hot fit ofimpatience.
"The mastodonic cheek of the thing!" he kept repeating, until Loringpulled him down with another quiet remark.
"Tell me what we have to do, David. I am a little lame in law matters."
"Do? We have to appear in Judge MacFarlane's court to-morrow afternoonprepared to show that this thing is only a hold-up with a blank cartridge.Hawk meant to take a snap judgment. He counted on throwing the whole thingup against Hunnicott, knowing perfectly well that a little local attorneyat a way-station couldn't begin to secure the necessary affidavits."
Loring paused with one end of his collar flying loose.
"Let me understand," he said. "Do we have to disprove these charges byaffidavits?"
"Certainly; that is the proper rejoinder--the only one, in fact," saidKent; then, as a great doubt laid hold of him and shook him: "You don'tmean to say there is any doubt about our ability to do it?"
"Oh, no; I suppose not, if it comes to a show-down. But I was thinking ofyour man Hunnicott. Doesn't it occur to you that he is in just about asgood a fix to secure those affidavits in Gaston as we are here, David?"
"Good Lord! Do you mean that we have to send to Boston for ourammunition?"
"Haven't we? Don't you see how nicely the thing is timed? Ten days laterour Trans-Western reorganization would be complete, and we could swear ourown officers on the spot. These people know what they are about."
Kent was walking the floor again, but now the strength of the man wascoming uppermost.
"Never mind: we'll wire Boston, and then we'll do what we can here. Couldyou get me to Gaston on a special engine in three hours?"
"Yes."
"Then we have till eleven o'clock to-morrow to prepare. I'll be ready bythat time."
"David, you are a brick when it comes to the in-fighting," said thegeneral manager; and then he finished buttoning his collar.
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