XIV
THE GERRYMANDER
With Judge Marston's hint partly to point the way, Kent was no long timein getting at work on the new lead.
Having been at the time a practitioner in one of the counties affected, heknew the political deal by which MacFarlane had been elected. Brieflydescribed, it was a swapping of horses in midstream. In the preliminarycanvass it was discovered that in all probability Judge MacFarlane'sdistrict, as constituted, would not reelect him. But the adjoiningdistrict was strong enough to spare a county without loss to the party;and that county added to MacFarlane's voting strength would tip the scalein his favor. The Assembly was in session, and the remedy was applied inthe shape of a bill readjusting the district lines to fit the politicalnecessity.
While this bill was still in the lower house an obstacle presented itselfin the form of a vigorous protest from Judge Whitcomb, whose district wasthe one to suffer loss. The county in question was a prosperous one, andthe court fees--which a compliant clerk might secretly divide with thejudge appointing him--were large: wherefore Whitcomb threatened politicalreprisals if Kiowa County should be taken away from him. The outcome was acompromise. For elective purposes the two districts were gerrymandered asthe bill proposed; but it was expressly provided that the transferredcounty should remain judicially in Whitcomb's district until theexpiration of Whitcomb's term of office.
Having refreshed his memory as to the facts, Kent spent a forenoon in theState library. He stayed on past the luncheon hour, feeding on a dry dietof Digests; and it was not until hunger began to sharpen his facultiesthat he thought of going back of the statutory law to the fountain-head inthe constitution of the State. Here, after he had read carefully sectionby section almost through the entire instrument, his eye lighted upon aclause which gradually grew luminous as he read and re-read it.
"That is what Marston meant; it must be what he meant," he mused; andreturning the book to its niche in the alcove he sat down to put his facein his hands and sum up the status in logical sequence.
The conclusion must have been convincing, since he presently sprang up andleft the room quickly to have himself shot down the elevator shaft to thestreet level. The telegraph office in the capitol was closed, but therewas another in the Hotel Brunswick, two squares distant, and thither hewent.
"Hold the pool in fighting trim at all hazards. Think I have found weaklink in the chain," was his wire to Loring, at Boston; and having sent it,he went around to Cassatti's and astonished the waiter by ordering ahearty luncheon at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
It was late in the evening before he left the tiny office on the fifthfloor of the Quintard Building where one of his former stenographers hadset up in business for herself. Since five o'clock the young woman hadbeen steadily driving the type-writer to Kent's dictation. When the finalsheet came out with a whirring rasp of the ratchet, he suddenly rememberedthat he had promised Miss Van Brock to dine with her. It was too late forthe dinner, but not too late to go and apologize, and he did the thingthat he could, stopping at his rooms on the way to dress while hiscab-driver waited.
He found Portia alone, for which he was glad; but her greeting wasdistinctly accusative.
"If I should pretend to be deeply offended and tell Thomas to show you thedoor, what could you say for yourself?" she began, before he could say aword in exculpation.
"I should say every sort of excuseful thing I could think of, knowing verywell that the most ingenious lie would fall far short of atoning for theoffense," he replied humbly.
"Possibly it would be better to tell the truth--had you thought of that?"she suggested, quite without malice.
"Yes, I had; and I shall, if you'll let me begin back a bit." He drew up achair to face her and sat on the edge of it. "You know I told you I wasgoing to Gaston to sell my six lots while Major Guilford's little boom ison?"
"I'm trying to remember: go on."
"Well, I went yesterday morning and returned late last night. Do you know,it's positively marvelous!"
"Which--the six lots, the boom, or the celerity of your movements?" sheasked, with a simulation of the deepest interest.
"All three, if you please; but I meant the miraculous revival of thingsalong the Trans-Western. But that is neither here nor there--"
"I think it is very much here and there," she interrupted.
"I see you don't want me to tell the truth--the whole truth; but I amdetermined. The first man I met after dinner was Hunnicott, and when I hadmade him my broker in the real estate affair we fell to talking about therailroad steal. Speaking of MacFarlane's continued absence, Hunnicottsaid, jokingly, that it was a pity we couldn't go back to the methods of afew hundred years ago and hire the Hot Springs doctor to 'obliterate' him.The word stuck in my mind, and I broke away and took the train chiefly tohave a chance to think out the new line. In the smoking-room of thesleeper I found--whom, do you suppose?"
"Oh, I don't know: Judge MacFarlane, perhaps, coming back to give you achance to poison him at short range?"
"No; it was Marston."
"And he talked so long and so fast that you couldn't get here in time fordinner this evening? That would be the most picturesque of the littlefictions you spoke of."
Kent laughed.
"For the first hour he wouldn't talk at all; just sat there wooden-faced,smoking vile little cigars that made me think I was getting hay-fever. ButI wouldn't give up; and after I had worn out all the commonplaces I beganon the Trans-Western muddle. At that he woke up all at once, and before Iknew it he was giving me an expert legal opinion on the case; meaty andsound and judicial. Miss Van Brock, that man is a lawyer, and anexceedingly able one, at that."
"Of course," she said coolly. "He was one of the justices of the SupremeCourt of his own state at forty-two: that was before he had to come Westfor his health. I found that out a long time ago."
"And you never told me!" said Kent, reproachfully. "Well, no matter; Ifound out for myself that he is a man to tie to. After we had canvassedthe purely legal side of the affair, he wanted to know more, and I went infor the details, telling him all the inferences which involve Bucks,Meigs, Hendricks, MacFarlane and the lot of them."
Miss Portia's eyes were flashing.
"Good, good, good!" she said. "David, I'm proud of you. That tookcourage--heaps of it."
"I did have to forget pretty hard that he was the lieutenant-governor andnominally one of the gang. But if he is not with us, neither is he againstus. He took it all in quietly, and when I was through, he said: 'You havetold me some things that I knew, and some others that I only suspected.'"
"Was that all?" asked Miss Van Brock, eagerly.
"No; I took a good long breath and asked his advice."
"Did he give it?"
"He did. He said in sober earnest just what Hunnicott had said in a joke:'If I had your case to fight, I should try to obliterate JudgeMacFarlane.' I began to say that MacFarlane's removal wouldn't help us solong as Bucks has the appointing of his successor, and then he turned onme and hammered it in with a last word just as we were leaving the train:'I didn't say remove; I said obliterate.' I caught on, after so long atime, and I've been hard at work ever since."
"You are obliterating me," said Miss Portia. "I haven't the slightest ideawhat it is all about."
"It's easy from this on," said Kent, consolingly. "You know how MacFarlanesecured his reelection?"
"Everybody knows that."
"Well, to cut a long story short, the gerrymander deal won't stand thelight. The constitution says--"
"Oh, please don't quote law books at me. Put it in English--woman-English,if you can."
"I will. The special act of the Assembly is void; therefore there was nolegal election, and, by consequence, there is no judge and no receiver."
Miss Van Brock was silent for a reflective minute. Then she said:
"On second thought, perhaps you would better tell me what the constitutionsays, Mr. David. Possibly I could grasp it."
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br /> "It is in the section on elections. It says: 'All circuit or districtjudges, and all special judges, shall be elected by the qualified votersof the respective circuits or districts in which they are to hold theircourt.' Kiowa County was cut out of Judge Whitcomb's circuit and placed inJudge MacFarlane's for electoral purposes only. In all other respects itremains a part of Judge Whitcomb's circuit, and will so continue untilWhitcomb's term expires. Without the vote of Kiowa, MacFarlane could nothave been elected; with it he was illegally elected, or, to put it theother way about, he was not elected at all. Since he is not lawfully ajudge, his acts are void, among them this appointment of Major Guilford asreceiver for the Trans-Western."
She was not as enthusiastic as he thought she ought to be. In the soilprepared for it by the political confidences of the winter there had grownup a many-branching tree of intimacy between these two; a frank, sexlessfriendship, as Kent would have described it, in which a man who was notvery much given to free speech with any one unburdened himself, and thewoman made him believe that her quick, apprehending sympathy was the onething needful--as women have done since the world began.
Since the looting of the railroad which had taken him out of the steadyinggrind of regular work, Kent had been the prey of mixed motives. From thefirst he had thrown himself heartily into the problem of retrieval, butthe pugnacious professional ambition to break the power of the machine haddivided time pretty equally with sentiment. Elinor had said little aboutthe vise-nip of hardship which the stock-smashing would impose upon threeunguardianed women; but Penelope had been less reticent. Wanting barejustice at the hands of the wreckers, Elinor would go to her wedding withOrmsby as the beggar maid went to King Cophetua; and all the loyalty of anunselfish love rose up in Kent to make the fight with the grafters apersonal duel.
At every step in the hitherto discouraging struggle Portia Van Brock hadbeen his keen-sighted adviser, prompter, ally of proof. He told himselfnow and again in a flush of gratitude that he was coming to owe her morethan he had ever owed any woman; that where other men, more--orless--fortunate, were not denied the joy of possession, he, thedisappointed one, was finding a true and loyal comradeship next best, ifnot quite equal to the beatitudes of passion.
In all of which David Kent was not entirely just to himself. However muchhe owed to Portia--and the debt was large--she was not his only creditor.Something he owed to the unsatisfied love; more, perhaps, to the goodblood in his veins; but most of all to the battle itself. For out of thesoul-harrowings of endeavor was emerging a better man, a stronger man,than any his friends had known. Brutal as their blind gropings were, theFlagellants of the Dark Ages plied their whips to some dim purpose.Natures there be that rise only to the occasion; and if there be nooccasion, no floggings of adversity or bone-wrenchings upon the rack ofthings denied, there will be no awakening--no victory.
David Kent was suffering in both kinds, and was the better man for it.From looking forward to success in the narrow field of professionaladvancement, or in the scarcely broader one of the righting of one woman'sfinancial wrongs, he was coming now to crave it in the name of manhood; toburn with an eager desire to see justice done for its own sake.
So, when he had come to Portia with the scheme of effacing JudgeMacFarlane and his receiver at one shrewd blow, the first of the manyplans which held out a fair promise of success as a reward for daring, hewas disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm.
"What is the matter with it?" he demanded, when he had given her five fullminutes for reflection.
"I don't know, David," she said gravely. "Have I ever thrown cold water onany of your schemes thus far?"
"No, indeed. You have been the loyalest partizan a man ever had, I think;the only one I have to whom I can talk freely. And I have told you morethan I have all the others put together."
"I know you have. And it hurts me to pull back now when you want me topush. But I can't help it. Do you believe in a woman's intuition?"
"I suppose I do: all men do, don't they?"
She was tying little knots in the fringe of the table scarf, but theprophetess-eyes, as Penelope called them, were not following the deftintertwinings of the slender fingers.
"You mean to set about 'obliterating' Judge MacFarlane forthwith?" sheasked.
"Assuredly. I have been whipping the thing into shape all afternoon: thatis what kept me from dining with you."
"It involves some kind of legal procedure?"
"Yes; a rather complicated one."
"Could you explain it so that I could understand it?"
"I think so. In the first place the question is raised by means of aninformation or inquiry called a _quo warranto_. This is directed to thereceiver, and is a demand to know by what authority he holds. Is it clearthus far?"
"Pellucidly," she said.
"In reply the receiver cites his authority, which is the order from JudgeMacFarlane; and in our turn we proceed to show that the authority does notexist--that the judge's election was illegal and that therefore his actsare void. Do I make it plain?"
"You make it seem as though it were impossible to fail. And yet I know youwill fail."
"How do you know it?"
"Don't ask me; I couldn't begin to tell you that. But in some spiritual ormental looking-glass I can see you coming to me with the story of thatfailure--coming to ask my help."
He smiled.
"You don't need to be the prophetess Penelope says you are to foresee partof that. I always come to you with my woes."
"Do you?--oftener than you go to Miss Brentwood?"
This time his smile was a mere tightening of the lips.
"You do love to grind me on that side, don't you?" he said. "I and myaffairs are less than nothing to Miss Brentwood, and no one knows it anybetter than you do."
"But you want to go to her," she persisted. "I am only the alternative."
He looked her full in the eyes.
"Miss Van Brock, what is it you want me to say? What can I say more than Isaid a moment ago--that you are the truest friend a man ever had?"
The answering look out of the brown eyes was age-old in its infinitewisdom.
"How little you men know when you think you know the most," she saidhalf-musingly; then she broke off abruptly. "Let us talk about somethingelse. If Major Guilford is wrecking the railroad, why is he spending somuch money on improvements? Have you thought to ask yourself thatquestion?"
"A good many times," he admitted, following her promptly back to firstprinciples.
"And you have not found the answer?"
"Not one that fully satisfies me--no."
"I've found one."
"Intuitively?" he smiled.
"No; it's pure logic, this time. Do you remember showing me a letter thatMr. Hunnicott wrote you just before the explosion--a letter in which herepeated a bit of gossip about Mr. Semple Falkland and his mysteriousvisit to Gaston?"
"Yes, I remember it."
"Do you know who Mr. Falkland is?"
"Who doesn't?" he queried. "He has half of Wall Street in his clientele."
"Yes; but particularly he is the advisory counsel of the PlantagouldSystem. Ever since you showed me that letter I have been trying to accountfor his presence in Gaston on the day before Judge MacFarlane's springterm of court. I should never have found out but for Mrs. Brentwood."
"Mrs. Brentwood!"
Miss Van Brock nodded.
"Yes; the mother of my--of the young person for whom I am the alternative,is in a peck of trouble; I quote her _verbatim_. She and her two daughtershold some three thousand shares of Western Pacific stock. It was purchasedat fifty-seven, and it is now down to twenty-one."
"Twenty and a quarter to-day," Kent corrected.
"Never mind the fractions. The mother of the incomparable--Penelope, hasheard that I am a famous business woman; a worthy understudy for Mrs.Hetty Green; so she came to me for advice. She had a letter from a NewYork broker offering her a fraction more than the market price for herthree thousand shar
es of Western Pacific."
"Well?" said Kent.
"Meaning what did I do? I did what you did not do--what you are not doingeven now; I put two and two together in the twinkling of a bedstaff. Whyshould a New York broker be picking up outlying Western Pacific at afraction more than the market when the stock is sinking every day? I wascurious enough to pass the 'why' along to a friend of mine in WallStreet."
"Of course he told you all about it," said Kent, incredulously.
"He told me what I needed to know. The broker in question is a Plantagouldman."
"Still I fail to 'connect up,' as the linemen say."
"Do you? Ah, David, David! will you leave it for a woman to point out whatyou should have suspected the moment you read that bit of gossip in Mr.Hunnicott's letter?"
Her hand was on the arm of her chair. He covered it with his own.
"I'll leave it for you, Portia. You are my good angel."
She withdrew the hand quickly, but there was no more than playfulresentment in her retort.
"Shame on you!" she scoffed. "What would Miss Brentwood say?"
"I wish you would leave her out of it," he frowned. "You are continuallyignoring the fact that she has promised to be the wife of another man."
"And has thereby freed you from all obligations of loyalty? Don't deceiveyourself: women are not made that way. Doubtless she will go on and marrythe other man in due season; but she will never forgive you if you smashher ideals. But we were talking about the things you ought to haveguessed. Fetch me the atlas from the book-case--lower shelf; right-handcorner; that's it."
He did it; and in further obedience opened the thin quarto at the map ofthe United States. There were heavy black lines, inked in with a pen,tracing out the various ramifications of a great railway system. Thenucleus of the system lay in the middle West, but there was a growingnetwork of the black lines reaching out toward the Pacific. And connectingthe trans-Mississippi network with the western was a broad red lineparalleling the Trans-Western Railway.
She smiled at his sudden start of comprehension.
"Do you begin to suspect things?" she asked.
He nodded his head.
"You ought to be a man. If you were, I should never give you a moment'speace until you consented to take a partnership with me. It's as plain asday, now."
"Is it? Then I wish you would make it appear so to me. I am not half assubtile as you give me credit for being."
"Yet you worked this out."
"That was easy enough; after I had seen Mrs. Brentwood's letter, and yoursfrom Mr. Hunnicott. The Plantagould people want your railroad, and thereceivership is a part of a plan for acquiring it. But why is MajorGuilford spending so much money for improvements?"
"His reasons are not far to seek now that you have shown me where to look.His instructions are to run the stock down so that the Plantagould can buyit in. Cut rates and big expenditures will do that--have done it. On theother hand, it is doubtless a condition of the deal that the road shall beturned over whole as to its property values--there is to be no wrecking inthe general acceptance of the word. The Plantagould doesn't want a pickedskeleton."
Miss Portia's eyes narrowed.
"It's a skilful bit of engineering, isn't it?" she said. "You'd admire itas artistic work yourself if your point of view were not so hopelesslypersonal."
"You don't know half the artistic skill of it yet," he went on. "Besidesall these different ends that are being conserved, the gang is taking careof its surplus heelers on the pay-rolls of the company. More than that, itis making immense political capital for itself. Everybody knows what thepolicy of the road was under the old regime: 'All the tariff the trafficwill stand.' But now a Bucks man has hold of it, and liberality is theword. Every man in Trans-Western territory is swearing by Bucks andGuilford. Ah, my dear friend, his Excellency the governor is a truly greatman!"
She nodded.
"I've been trying to impress you with that fact all along. The mistake youmade was in not joining the People's Party early in the campaign, David."
But Kent was following out his own line of thought and putting it in wordsas it came.
"Think of the brain-work it took to bring all these things into line.There was no hitch, no slip, and nothing was overlooked. They picked theirtime, and it was a moment when we were absolutely helpless. I had filedour charter, but our local organization was still incomplete. They hadtheir judge and the needful case in his court, pending and ready for useat the precise moment. They had Hawk on the ground, armed and equipped;and they knew that unless a miracle intervened they would have nobody butan unprepared local attorney to obstruct them."
"Is that all?" she asked.
"No. The finest bit of sculpture is on the capstone of the pyramid. Sincewe have had no hearing on the merits, Guilford is only a temporaryreceiver, subject to discharge if the allegations in Hawk's amendedpetition are not sustained. After the major has sufficiently smashed thestock, Judge MacFarlane will come back, the hearing on the merits will begiven, we shall doubtless make our point, and the road will revert to thestock-holders. But by that time enough of the stock will have changedhands on the 'wreck' price to put the Plantagould people safely in thesaddle, and the freeze-out will be a fact accomplished."
Miss Van Brock drew a long breath that was more than half a sigh.
"You spoke the simple truth, David, when you said that his Excellency is agreat man. It seems utterly hopeless now that we have cleared up all thelittle mysteries."
Kent rose to take his leave.
"No; that is where they all go out and I stay in," he said cheerfully."The shrewder he is, the more credit there will be in making him let go.And you mark my words: I am going to make him let go. Good night."
She had gone with him to the door; was in the act of closing it behindhim, when he turned back for a belated question.
"By the way, what did you tell Mrs. Brentwood to do?"
"I told her not to do anything until she had consulted you and Mr. Loringand Brookes Ormsby. Was that right?"
"Quite right. If it comes up again, rub it in some more. We'll save heralive yet, if she will let us. Did you say I might come to dinnerto-morrow evening? Thank you: you grow sweeter and more trulycompassionate day by day. Good night again."
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