All the King's Men

by Robert Penn Warren

  The Judge had had bad luck with his wives, and people felt sorry for him. Both of them sickly for a long time and then had died on his hands. He got a lot of sympathy for that.

  But this second wife, I was told, was rich. That explained why the face I called up was not pretty–not the kind of face you would expect to find on Judge Irwin’s wife–but a sallowish, thin face, not even young, with only the big dark eyes to recommend it.

  So she had been rich, and that disposed of my notion that back in 1913 or 1914 the Judge had been broke and had stepped over the line. And that made Anne Stanton Happy. Happy because now Adam hadn’t played, even unwittingly, stool pigeon to the Boss. Well, if it made her happy, it made me happy too, I reckoned. And maybe she was happy to think, too, that Judge Irwin was innocent. Well, that would have made me happy too. All I was doing was trying to prove Judge Irwin innocent. I would be able, sooner or later, to go to the Boss and say, “No sale, Boss. He is washed in the Blood.”

  “The son-of-a-bitch is washed in whitewash,” the Boss would say. But he’d have to take my word. For he knew I was thorough. I was a very thorough and well-trained research student. And truth was what I sought, without fear or favor. And let the chips fly.

  Anyway, I could cross 1913 off the ticket. Anne Stanton had settled that.

  Or has she?

  When you are looking for the lost will in the old mansion, you tap, inch by inch, along the beautiful mahogany wainscoting, or along the massive stonework of the cellarage, and listen for the hollow sound. Then upon hearing it, you seek the secret button or insert the crowbar. I had tapped and had heard something hollow. Judge Irwin had been broke. “But, oh, no,” Anne Stanton had said, “there is no secret hiding place there, that’s just where the dumb-waiter goes.”

  But I tapped again. Just to listen to that hollow sound, even if it was just the place where the dumb-waiter went.

  I asked myself: If a man needs money, where does he get it? And the answer is easy: He borrows it. And if he borrows it, he has to give security. What would Judge Irwin have given as security? Most likely his house in Burden’s Landing or his plantation up the river.

  If it was big dough he needed, it would be the plantation. So I got in my car and headed up the river for Mortonville, which is the county seat of La Salle County, a big chunk of which is the old Irwin plantation where the cotton grows white as whipped cream and the happy darkies sing all day, like Al Jolson.

  In the courthouse at Mortonville, I got hold of the abstract on the Irwin place. There it was, from the eighteenth-century Spanish grant to the present moment. And in 1907, there was the entry: Mortgage, Montague Irwin to Mortonville Mercantile Bank, $42,000, due January 1, 1910_. Late in January, 1910, a chunk had been paid, about $12,000 and the mortgage redrawn. By the middle of 1912, interest payments were being passed. In March, 1914, foreclosure proceedings had been instituted. But the Judge had been saved by the bell. In early May there was an entry for the satisfaction of the mortgage in full. No further entries were on the abstract.

  I had tapped again, and there was the hollow sound. When a man is broke there is always a hollow sound, like the tomb.

  But he had married a rich wife.

  But was she rich?

  I had only the word of old Cousin Mathilde for that. And the evidence of Mrs. Irwin’s sallow face. I decided to put in the crowbar.

  I would check the date of marriage with the dates on the abstract. That might tell something. But whatever that said, I would put in the crowbar.

  I knew nothing about Mrs. Irwin, not the date of her marriage, not even her name or where she came from. But that was easy. An hour in the newspaper files of the public library back in the city, looking at the society pages, which after more than twenty years were yellow and crumbling and somewhat less than gay or grand and I came out again into the light of day with my collar wilted and my hands begrimed but with the words scribbled on the back of an envelope in my inside coat pocket: Mabel Carruthers, only child of Le Moyne Carruthers, Savannah, Georgia. Married, January 12, 1914._

  The date of marriage didn’t tell me much. True, the foreclosure proceedings had been instituted after the marriage, but that didn’t prove that Mabel wasn’t rich: it might have taken the Judge all the honeymoon to work around to the gross subject of the long green. The Judge would not have been crude. So she might have been rich as goose grease. But nevertheless, that night I was on the train for Savannah.

  Twenty-five years is not a long time in the eye of God, but it damned near takes the eye of God to spy much about the inside story of even a leading citizen like Le Moyne Carruthers who has been dead twenty-five years. I didn’t have the eye of God. I had to poke and pry and work newspaper files and pump the broken-down old bird who was city editor and cultivate the society of a fellow I had once known who was now a local hot-shot in the insurance game and get to know his friends. I ate roast duck stuffed with oysters and yams and that wonderful curry they make in Savannah, which tastes good even to a man like me who loathes food, and drank rye whisky, and walked down those beautiful streets General Oglethorpe laid out, and stared at the beautiful severe fronts of the houses, which were more severe than ever now, for the last leaves were off the arching trees of the streets and it was the season when the wind blows great chunks of gray sky in off the Atlantic which come dragging in so low their bellies brush the masts and chimney pots, like gravid sows crossing a stubble field.

  I saw the Le Moyne Carruthers house. The old boy must have been rich, all right, all right. And when he died in 1904 he had been rich, according to the probate of the will. But it was nine years between 1904 and 1913, and a lot can happen. Mabel Carruthers had lived high. That was the story. But they all said she could afford it. And, according to what I could pick up, there was no reason to believe that the uncle in New York, who was the executor of the will, hadn’t known his business about handling Mabel’s investments.

  It looked absolutely level. But there is one thing you must never forget: the judgment docket book in the courthouse.

  I did not forget it. And there I found the name of Mabel Carruthers. People had had some trouble getting money out of Mabel. But this didn’t prove anything. Lots of rich girls are so rich they are just above paying bills and you have to pinch them to make them disgorge. But I noticed one thing. Mabel didn’t get the bad habit until 1911. In other words, she had paid her bills all right for the first seven years she had had her money. Now, I argued, if this amiable failing had been merely the result of temperament and not of necessity, why did it come on her all at once? It had come on her all at once, and in a flock. Not that it was the corner grocer by himself. He had some fast company, for Mabel didn’t like to pay Le Clerc in New York for a diamond pendant, and didn’t like to pay her dress maker, and didn’t like to pay a local vintner for some pretty impressive stuff. Mabel had lived high, all right.

  The last judgment was to the Seaboard Bank for a loan, amounting to $750. Small change for Mabel. Now there was no Seaboard Bank in Savannah. The telephone directory told me that. But an old fellow sitting in a split-bottom chair in the courthouse told me that the Seaboard Bank had been bought out by the Georgia Fidelity back about 1920. Down at the Georgia Fidelity, they told me, Yes, back in 1920. Who was president of the Seaboard then? Why, just a minute, and they’d find out. Mr. Percy Poindexter had been. Was he in Savannah? Well, they couldn’t say for sure, times changed so fast. But Mr. Pettis would know, Mr. Charles Pettis, who was his son-in-law. Oh, you are welcome, sir. Quite welcome.

  Mr. Percy Poindexter was not in Savannah now, and scarcely in this world, for after the exhalation of each breath you waited and waited for that delicate little contraption of matchwood and transparent parchment and filigree of blue veins to gather strength enough for one more effort. Mr. Poindexter reclined in his wheel chair, his transparent hands lying on the wine-colored silk of his dressing gown, his pale-blue eyes fixed on the metaphysical distance, and breathed each breath, saying, “Yes, you
ng man–you have lied to me, of course–but I do not care–care why you want to know–it could not matter now–not to anyone–for they are all dead–Le Moyne Carruthers is dead–he was my friend–my dearest friend–but that was very long ago and I do not clearly recollect his face–and his daughter Mabel–I did what I could for her–even after her financial reverse she would have had enough to live decently–even in modest luxury–but no, she threw money away–always more–I loaned her a great deal at the bank–some of it I shamed her into paying–two or three notes I paid myself–for the memory of Le Moyne–and sent them canceled to her to shame her to discretion–but no–but she would come back to me without shame and stare at me out of her big eyes–they were dark and sullen and hot looking like a fever–and would say, I want money–and at last I brought a note to judgment–to shame her–to frighten her–for her own good–for she spent money like water–she spent in a fever to give balls and parties–to adorn herself, and she was plain–to get a husband–but men gave her no mind beyond courtesy–but she got a husband–from the West somewhere, a wealthy man, they said–he married her quickly and took her away–she died and was brought back here–the burial–it was a bad day and few came–not even in respect to Le Moyne–not even his friends, some of them–dead twelve years and they had forgotten him–people forget–”

  The breath gave out, and for a long moment I thought there would not be any more. But some more came, and he said, “But–that–doesn’t matter–either.”

  I thanked him and shook his hand, which was like cold wax and left a chill in my palm, and went out and got into my rented car and drove back to the city, where I got a drink, not to celebrate but to take the ice out of my marrow, which not the weather but the old man had put there.

  I had found out that Mabel Carruthers had been broken, but had married a rich man from the West. Or rather what in Savannah they called “the West.” Well, that was a joke. Not doubt the rich man from the West had married her for the money, too. There must have been some gay times as the truth emerged. I left Savannah the next day, but not before I had gone out to the cemetery to look at the Carruthers vault, where moss encroached upon the great name and the angel lacked one arm. But that didn’t matter, for all the Carruthers were inside now.

  I had knocked and the sound had been very, very hollow. I sunk the crowbar in deeper. Judge Irwin had not paid off his mortgage in 1914 with his wife’s money. What had he been doing in 1914 to get the money? He had been running a plantation, and he had been, under Governor Stanton, the state’s Attorney General. Well, you don’t clear $44,000 a season off a cotton plantation (it was that amount he had paid, for the $12,000 he had paid in 1910 had come from a mortgage on the house in the Landing, I discovered, which he cleared at the same time as the plantation). And his salary as Attorney General had been $3,400. You don’t get rich being an Attorney General in a Southern state. At least, you aren’t supposed to.

  But in March of 1915 the Judge had a good job, a very good job. He resigned as Attorney general to become counsel and vice-president for the American Electric Power Company, at a very good figure of $20,000 a year. There was no reason why they shouldn’t have hire a lot of good lawyers for a lot less than $20,000 a year. But a job in 1915 doesn’t pay off the bailiff in 1914. When I knocked, it still sounded hollow.

  So I took my one plunge in the stock market. One share of common stock of the American Electric Power Company, and it was cheap as dirt in the middle of the Depression. But it turned out to be a very expensive piece of paper. For a lot of people.

  It was a coupon-clipper now, and I wanted to know how they were going to take care of my investment. So I took advantage of the stockholder’s right. I went down to look at the stock records of the American Electric Power Company. From the literal dust of time, I dug up certain facts: In May, 1914, Montague M. Irwin had sold five hundred shares of common stock, at par, to Wilbur Satterfield and Alex Cantor, who were, I was to discover later, officials of the company. That meant that Irwin had plenty in his pocket in late May to pay off the mortgages and have some change left over. But when had he got hold of the stock? That was easy. In March, 1914, the company had been reorganized and a big chunk of new stock issued. Irwin’s stock was part of the new chunk. The boys had passed it to Irwin (or has he bought it?) and some of the other boys had bought it back. (Irwin must have kicked himself about selling it, for it began to climb shortly and kept on climbing for quite a spell. Had Messrs. Satterfield and Cantor taken Irwin? They were old hands, on the inside. But Irwin had had to sell, and quick. There was the mortgage.)

  Irwin had had the stock, and had sold it to Messrs. Satterfield and Cantor. So far, so good. But how had Irwin got the stock? Had they just given it to him out of the blue? Not likely. But why do people give you great big chunks of nice new stock issues with gold seals? The answer is simple: Because you are nice to them.

  The job, then, was to find out if Judge Irwin–then state’s Attorney General–had been nice to the American Electric Power Company. And that meant a long dig. With exactly nothing in the bottom of the hole. For the entire period when Judge Irwin was Attorney General, the American Electric Power Company had been an exemplary citizen. It had looked every man in the eye and had asked no favors. There was nothing in the hole.

  Well, how had Judge Irwin spent his time as Attorney General?

  The usual odds and ends, it developed. But there had almost been a case. The suit to recover royalties from the Southern Belle Fuel Company, which had operated, under lease, the state coal lands. There had been some hullabaloo about it, a little stir in the Legislature, and some editorials, and some speechmaking, but it was only the ghost of a whisper now. It was probably the only person in the state who knew about it now.

  Unless Judge Irwin knew, and woke up in the night and lay in the dark.

  It was all about the interpretation of a royalty contract between the state and the company. It was a very ambiguous contract. Perhaps it had been designed to be that way. In any case, by one reading, the state stood to gain about $150,000 in back royalties and God knew how much before the end of the contract period. But it was a very ambiguous contract. It was so ambiguous that, just as the shooting was about to start, the Attorney General decided that there was no case. “We feel, however,” he said in his public statement, “that it is most reprehensible that those responsible for this agreement should have been so lax in their protection of the public interest as to accept the figures of this contract by which the state has sold for a song one of her richest assets. But we also feel that, since the contract exists and is susceptible of only one reasonable interpretation, this state, which wished to encourage industry and enterprise within her borders, cannot do otherwise than bow to an arrangement which, though obviously unjust in its working, is binding in the law. And we must remember, even in circumstances such as this, that it is by law that justice herself lives.”

  I read that in the old Times-Chronicle_ of February 26, 1914, which was dated a couple of weeks before the foreclosure proceedings were instituted against the Irwin plantation. And about three weeks before the final reorganization of the American Electric and the issue of the new stock. The relationship was a relationship in time.

  But is any relationship a relationship in time and only in time? I eat a persimmon and the teeth of a tinker in Tibet are put on edge. The flower-in-the-crannied-wall theory. We have to accept it because so often our teeth are on edge from persimmons we didn’t eat. So I plucked the flower out of its cranny and discovered an astonishing botanical fact. I discovered that its delicate little root, with many loops and kinks, ran all the way to New York City, where it tapped the lush dung heap called the Madison Corporation. The flower in the cranny was the Southern Belle Fuel Company. So I plucked another little flower called the American Electric Power Company, and discovered that its delicate little root tapped the same dung heap.

  I was not prepared to say that I knew what God and men are, but I was getting ready t
o make a shrewd guess about a particular man. But just a guess.

  It was just a guess for a long time. For I had reached the stage in my problem where there was nothing to do but pray. That stage always comes. You do all you can, and you pray till you can’t pray, and then you go to sleep and hope to see it all in the dream, by grace. “Kubla Khan,” the benzine ring, Caedmon’s song–they all came in the dream.

  It came to me. Just as I fell asleep one night. It was only a name. A funny name. Mortimer L. Littlepaugh_. The name drifted around inside my head, and I thought how funny it was and went to sleep. But when I woke up in the morning, my first thought was: Mortimer L. Littlepaugh_. Then walking down the street that day, I bought a newspaper and as I looked at it I saw the name Mortimer L. Littlepaugh_. Only it was not in the newspaper I had just bought. It was on a yellow, crumbling, old-cheese-smelling sheet, which I saw, suddenly, in my mind’s eye. Mortimer L. Littlepaugh’s Death Accident, Coroner’s Jury Decides_. That was it. Then, wavering slowly up, like a chunk of waterlogged wood stirred loose from the depth, the phrase came: Counsel for the American Electric Power Company. _That was it.

  I went back to the files, and found the story. Mortimer had fallen out of a hotel window, or rather, off the little iron-railed balcony outside the window. He had fallen from the fifth floor, and that was the end of Mortimer. At the inquest her sister, who lived with him, said he had recently been in ill health and had complained of fits of dizziness. There had been some theory of suicide, for Mortimer’s affairs were in a tangled condition, it developed, and the railing was high for an accidental fall. And there was a little mystery about a letter a bellhop swore Mortimer had given him the evening before his death, with a four-bit tip and instructions to go out and mail it immediately. The bellhop swore it had been addressed to Miss Littlepaugh. Miss Littlepaugh swore that she had received no letter. Well, Mortimer had been dizzy.