# Tangles; Tales of Some Droll Predicaments/The Mighty Trifle

pp. 247–277. First published in Harper's Magazine, 1911.

### THE MIGHTY TRIFLE

BOBBY FARQUHAR often wondered afterward why it should have been Reynolds whom he met that night, rather than any one of half a dozen other men who would have extended a similar invitation. "It was just one of those things," he once said to me, "that some people call coincidence, and some people call the working of Fate, and in which some other people see 'the hand of Providence'; but whatever you choose to call it, it begins with what looks like a trifle and ends by knocking the most careful plans into pi and changing a fellow's whole life for him."
Bobby, who was the Governor's private secretary, had been spending that particular Sunday with certain of his chiefs confidential friends and advisers, in the principal commercial city of the State, conferring about the approaching nominating convention; and inasmuch as it was desirable that neither reporters nor politicians should know of his presence in town, he had not cared either to register at a hotel or to be seen about the clubs, where he was well known. Consequently, upon arriving in the city that morning, he had sent his bag by messenger to Bruce Hayward's, where he often stayed, together with a note promising to get out to the house himself in time for a chat that night, if possible.
Early in the afternoon he was told that the Haywards were out of town, and then he began trying to locate his bag. Eventually he learned that it had been received, apparently by a servant of Hayward's, who must have left the house immediately thereafter, for, although Bobby telephoned out there at intervals through the afternoon and evening, he was unable to get any response.
About ten o'clock that night he was on his way to his last appointment, when he unexpectedly met Jack Reynolds, an old college friend whom he had not seen in seven or eight years. Both men were in haste, and when Reynolds learned that Bobby must take an early morning train back to the capital, and therefore could not possibly join him at luncheon the next day, he insisted upon his spending the night with him at his home in Glenwood. To Bobby's protest against going to a suburb when he had to make so early a start next morning, Reynolds retorted:
"Suburb nothing! Your train stops at Glenwood, man! You'll save twenty-five minutes on your starting-time. No, you won't inconvenience anybody," he rapidly continued. "Mother and the girls are still in Europe, and Dad's in Canada. Business brought me East unexpectedly, and I'm keeping bachelor hall out there, with Annie, our old cook, looking after me. Here's my latch-key. I've got to meet my aunt, who's coming in about half past eleven, and take her to a hotel, so you'll get there before I do. Go in and make yourself at home, just as you used to. You'll find pajamas and things in my room."
"Same old room?"
"Same old room. If you hunt around, you'll probably find another one ready for you somewhere. Annie always keeps one fixed up for my unexpected friends. By the way, you'd better take the latch off the front door when you go in. Annie's a good cook, but she has the disposition of a Tartar, and one thing she won't stand for is being rung up in the wee sma' to let somebody in. Whatever you do, don't wake Annie! Good-by, Bob. See you later."
Something over an hour thereafter the Governor's secretary, still without his bag, was on his way to Glenwood, his mind intent, as it had been all day, on the plans and purposes of "the Chief."
Curtis Rhodes, the Governor, had been elected only after a disrupting struggle in his own party; his first term of office had been much like that of other governors who had steadfastly tried to work the will of the people rather than that of "the organization," and now that he sought re-election, he had to reckon with the envenomed and reorganized opposition of disappointed and powerful politicians. And him Bobby Farquhar served with. the whole-hearted and ardent devotion that idealistic youth has ever given to noble leaders, combined with a practical, clear-headed ability which the older man was not slow to recognize. Consequently, when Governor Rhodes himself had been unexpectedly called away from the capital on Saturday, by urgent private business, which would detain him several days, he had still desired Bobby to spend the following day in the city, as had previously been arranged. In addition, the secretary had been intrusted with the Governor's veto message in the matter of the railroad bill, then agitating the whole State, with instructions to maintain the strictest secrecy concerning the message and its content, lest some one should use the information for his own profit in the stock-market.
Thus it was that Farquhar had spent a long, hot, fatiguing day in the city, hard at work for "the Chief," as he delighted to call the Governor; and thus it was, too, that on no account whatsoever must he fail to take the early morning train to the capital, which would enable him to deliver to the Legislature before noon on Monday, the last day when it could be presented, the message that he carried meanwhile in his breast pocket.
The results of the day's work were, on the whole, not entirely disappointing, although Governor Rhodes's friends had confessed themselves puzzled by the attitude of Tom Parker, "the Big Boss," who was at once the most formidable and the wiliest of the Governor's enemies. More than any other, Parker, as the head of the party organization in that State, had felt the ignominy of defeat when Rhodes was elected; more than any other, he had suffered when the power of bestowing patronage was stripped from him; and in his present grim silence the friends of the administration read a sinister portent. He was known to be in frequent conference with men who had formerly been his aides, yet, although there were many theories, no one of the Governor's adherents had been able to learn anything definite concerning Parker's purpose, except that his implacable hatred of Rhodes had intensified from month to month, and that he was undoubtedly plotting night and day to defeat him.
This inability to discover Parker's probable line of attack troubled Farquhar, for the time before the convention was growing short, and the Big Boss's political methods and movements were obscure at best. All the way out to Glenwood he pondered over the situation, and he was still thinking of it when he walked through the quiet, moonlit streets of that fashionable suburb.
Presently he stopped before a large house, set back amid smooth lawns, scrutinized it a moment, glanced at the houses to left and right of it, nodded reminiscently, and turned in toward its entrance. When he and Jack Reynolds were in college together, Bobby had often been a guest here, and now, after an absence of several years, he noticed few changes. As he mounted the steps, fumbling the while for the key Jack had given him, he remembered sundry other occasions when he and Jack had approached this selfsame portal, whispering and on tiptoe, long after the house had been closed for the night, and had felt their way through halls beset with pitfall and with snare, and up shrieking stairs, to snatch a scanty sleep before the seven-o'clock call to breakfast upon which the elder Reynolds had insisted. Soon after graduation Farquhar had gone abroad to continue his university work, and just before his return Jack Reynolds had gone West to live; but now, immediately after their reunion, here was Bobby, again trying to fit a rebellious key into a reluctant lock in the Reynoldses' door.
He chuckled to himself in the darkness, remembering how often he and Jack had threatened to replace that lock with one more indulgent, and he was glad that after all these years even the lock was unchanged. Indeed, it began to appear that time had added to its rigors. Try as he would, he could not make it yield to his pressure. He made vain search through his pockets, on the chance that he was not using the key Jack had given him, although he knew he was. Then he lighted successive matches and by their uncertain light experimented with every possible position and angle of the key. In the end he admitted to himself that Reynolds, in his haste, had given him the wrong one, and his enjoyment grew as he reflected that even this situation was not without precedent.
Of course, he could ring the bell, arouse the tartaric Annie, and attempt to explain himself and his presence to her, or he could sit down on the steps and await Jack's arrival; but neither of these methods of procedure fitted in with the memories now crowding Bobby's mind. He chuckled again as he remembered a night when he and Jack had found themselves out without a latch-key, and a window that had subsequently saved them from ignominious resort to the door-bell. There still remained the window.
When he found it, it was locked. But the zest of adventure had now entered into Bobby Farquhar, and he determined not to be outwitted by an insensate latch-key. Therefore he stole furtively around the house, careful not to make a sound that could arouse the acrimonious cook, and eventually, from a side veranda, found an open window protected only by a screen which moved at his touch.
Reconnoitering, he decided that this window must be in the dining-room, whereupon, grinning gleefully, he proceeded to push up the screen and swing himself over the sill. Very quietly he lowered the screen again, paused a moment to get his bearings, and slipped across the dining-room and into the hall, where, in contrast to his memories, a dim light was burning; the stairs, however, creaked as loudly as of yore. When, still smiling widely, he had tiptoed up half their length, he remembered Jack's instruction to take the latch off the door, and as carefully let himself down, step by step, to the floor again.
As he turned he noticed a little movement of the curtains in the doorway leading to the dark drawing-room. He stopped for perhaps five seconds, looking fixedly at it, but it was perfectly still again; and deciding that it had been stirred by a little breeze from the open windows, he resumed his careful descent, took the latch off the outside door, and again crept up-stairs.
Attaining the upper hall, he abandoned the game he had been playing with himself, boldly struck a match, entered the room that he had always known as Jack's, and switched on the lights.
Then for the first time a certain unaccustomedness in his surroundings, dimly felt in the lower hall, impressed itself upon him. He looked about, half unconsciously seeking something familiar and suggestive of earlier days, and with a vague feeling of disappointment that this room was not at all as he remembered it. However, he reflected, the women of one's family are always changing things about and replacing cherished old possessions with new ones unhallowed by any dear association. Then it began to dawn upon him that this was not a bed-room at all, but a sort of study or office, with book-cases and a writing-table and a filing-cabinet. He stepped to an open door leading to another room, which proved to be a bedroom, and decided that in the years after his departure and before Jack went West his friend had probably been given this additional room as a tribute to his man's estate.
At any rate, however unfamiliar to him, it was a very comfortable and masculine sort of room. A book lying upon the writing-table attracted him, and he took it up, wondering why Jack, who was not given to serious reading, should keep Bryce's American Commonwealth on his desk. As he opened the book a name written boldly on the fly-leaf caught his attention, and he stood stupidly staring at it. "Thos. L. Parker." With it still in his hand, he looked again about the room, which repelled him more and more by its strangeness and unfamiliarity. His glance fell on a bookcase, and he strode over to it and pulled out a volume. "Thos. L. Parker," said the fly-leaf again. Another—another—another—every one bearing the same inscription. Then the truth crashed across his mind. He had entered the house of Tom Parker, the Big Boss.
In a flash he saw the interpretation that would naturally be put upon his presence there, and what it would mean to him, to the man whom he served, to the party they both represented, and to the cause for which together they worked, if he, the private secretary of the Governor, should be found at night prowling alone through the house of this man.
Instantly he switched off the lights, holding his breath, and listened with a tensity he and Jack had never even imagined when they were boys. Silence! Cautiously, on tiptoe, he slipped out of the room and looked down to the hall below, which was perfectly dark. The dim light had been extinguished. He hesitated only for the space of a breath, however, and went on, wincing at every creak. He reached the landing, and was about to start on the last descent, hoping that he should escape undetected, after all, when lights flashed up all over the lower floor, and he found himself staring down into the defiant face of a young woman, who stood with her back against the hall door, one hand behind her and the fingers of the other still on an electric switch-button.
"Well?" said she. "Did you find what you came for?"
"Oh," stammered Bobby, "I beg your pardon! I'm afraid I've frightened you. I'm not a burglar—honestly, I'm not. But I—I seem to be in the wrong house."
"Really!" The girl eyed him scornfully.
"Yes." He put out one foot to continue his descent of the stairs. "You see, I thought—"
"Don't do that!" she sharply commanded, whipping out the concealed hand, which held a revolver. "Stay where you are." Then, as he stood speculatively regarding her, she added, quietly: "Perhaps I'd better tell you that this is not a bluff. I'm an excellent shot. I've used firearms all my life. You'd better stay exactly where you are."
"Oh, I have frightened you," deprecated Farquhar. I'm sorry."
I'm not in the least frightened," she stated. "Merely—determined."
"Oh, I see," said Bobby, reflecting that she looked the part. "That being the case, may I ask what you're determined upon?"
"Wait a little and you'll learn," she dryly recommended.
"I've always been opposed to the laissez-faire policy," he objected. "Aren't you going to do something?"
"Nothing except this—at present. Unless you attempt to come down," she added.
"Very well, then. I won't attempt to come down—at present." Fortunately for him, Bobby was accustomed to keeping a cool head through emergencies and crises, and his training stood him in good stead now. While his brain desperately sought any way out of this trap Fate had set for him, his manner remained easy and his tone steady, and both were full of a courteous consideration for the girl who stood below, revolver in hand, looking up at him. He laid his hand lightly on the stair-rail and leaned against it, mentally estimating his chances of vaulting over and making a run for it. But there was no immediate way of escape. The door, he noticed, was now chained, and was probably bolted as well. Doubtless the windows were still open, but they were all screened, and there were both courage and purpose in the firm lips and steady eyes of this young woman, as well as in the way she handled her revolver. Meanwhile he was saying, with apparent serenity: "I'll stay here, if you like. But if Mr. Parker is at home—by the way, I'm not mistaken about that? This is Mr. Parker's house?"
"It is."
"You see, I'm here by accident, so I wasn't sure."
"Oh! You fell in, I suppose. How unfortunate!"
"No, I climbed in—under the impression that this was the house of an old friend. But now that I'm here, if Mr. Parker is at home, I'd like to see him." Bobby had decided upon a bold policy. He argued that, if Parker were at home, this girl would not be standing guard alone, and he wished to know whether she expected the immediate return of the head of the house, or whether she had summoned other assistance, and how much time he had, in any case, to make his escape.
"Mr. Parker is not at home—at the moment."
"I infer that you expect him—soon?"
"I do."
"Then it's particularly fortunate for me that you are here." Again Bobby's smiling mask and smooth tone gave no hint of the vortex that his mind was.
"You flatter me!" she murmured ironically.
"On the contrary, I'm entirely selfish. You see"—Bobby had a very engaging way of saying "you see"—"since I'm here under a—a misapprehension, as it were—"
"Oh!" interrupted the girl. "I thought perhaps you were going to say 'under a cloud.'"
"Misapprehension is the more discriminating word, I think," he submitted. "As I was saying, under the circumstances, upon discovering my mistake, I should naturally be obliged to go away at once—"
"Very quietly—not to say stealthily—as you were doing," she suggested.
"Very quietly, as I was doing, if I hadn't met you. But your being here makes all the difference in the world, because now I can stay—with your permission—until the arrival of Mr. Parker, with whom I have business."
"I think you'll stay until he comes," she remarked.
"Thank you. By the way, have you any idea how long that will be?" He looked at his watch and found it to be after half past eleven. "Because I'm expected at Judge Reynolds's to-night, and I mustn't be too late."
In spite of her scorn of him, she yielded a grudging smile to his cheerful manner, but in no way relaxed either her vigilance or the readiness in which she held her weapon.
"He should be here by ten minutes of twelve," she told him, "if he caught the quarter-past-eleven train."
It seemed impossible to overcome this woman's suspicion, or to break down her guard, in the sixteen minutes intervening, yet Bobby knew that in one or the other of these lay his only chance of escape before the arrival of Parker, who would instantly recognize him and his political value as a captive under these circumstances. He shut his teeth hard as he had a vision of the head-lines in the morning papers, and of the indignities to which he might be subjected in the mean time. It was even possible that the man might have him searched. Then, for the first time since he had discovered his predicament, he remembered the Governor's message in his breast pocket, and turned sick and cold as he was swept by a realization of the uses to which this paper might be put in the hands of Tom Parker. Of these uses, hasty operations in the stock-market for the benefit of the Big Boss and his friends were the least. For an instant everything went black, and Farquhar thought he reeled. Then his sight cleared, fear left him, and his brain became steady and abnormally active. He spoke rapidly, but he saw the far consequences of every word before it was uttered, and he noticed every flickering shade of expression in the sensitive face of the woman in whose power he was. Meanwhile, he had been talking, except for that one moment of sick realization, smoothly and steadily.
"Then since you have a little time," he had replied to her last speech, "perhaps you'll permit me to explain to you how I happened to be here at all."
"That would be very interesting." Her tone was still dry.
"First, will you tell me how long it is since Judge Reynolds lived in this house?"
"I don't know who Judge Reynolds is, or that he ever lived here."
"You must be a stranger in Glenwood."
"I have been here only a few months."
"Because everybody who has lived here long knows the Reynoldses. They built this house, and when I last visited them seven years ago they still lived in it."
"Ah?"
"To-day, in town, I met Jack Reynolds, who has lived out West for a long time, and he asked me to spend the night with him. I haven't been out here before since Jack and I were in college together, but I suppose he forgot that. So I came to the old house—and evidently they now live elsewhere."
"Evidently."
"That's the reason, of course, why the latch-key Jack gave me didn't fit your door." For the first time a gleam of startled attention replaced the mockery in her face. Bobby saw it and pressed the advantage. "He said the family was away, and the cook was a Tartar, and not on any account to be awakened; so when I found the latch-key wouldn't work—perhaps you heard me trying to unlock the door?"
"I did."
"Where were you?"
"At the drawing-room window—watching you."
"Why didn't you scream?"
"For reasons of my own."
"Oh!" He studied her a moment, wondering what those reasons could have been, but immediately resumed his light tale. "Well, of course the key didn't fit, but I thought simply that Jack had given me the wrong one. He was in a desperate hurry. So I went around to a window we used once when we were kids, but it was locked. Then I poked around until I found one that was open and came in—as I supposed, to the Reynoldses' house."
"And went directly to my uncle's office," supplied the girl, her face hardening to suspicion again.
"Oh, then you are Mr. Parker's niece. Miss—?"
"Miss Herrick."
"Thank you. I went directly to the room that was always Jack's, Miss Herrick, in the old days."
"After carefully taking the latch off the outside door, so you could escape quickly if it proved not to be 'Jack's' now," she mentioned. "Such foresight is rather remarkable, isn't it?"
"You forget that I have Jack's key," he reminded her, and again caught that quick response in her face. "He asked me to leave the door open for him." There was the briefest pause, during which he thought he saw a little softening shadow of self-doubt in her eyes. "So that is why I am here."
"It's an ingenious explanation," she granted.
"Does it satisfy you?"
"You will perhaps pardon my not finding it altogether convincing—under the circumstances. However, my uncle may. You can try. By the way, I don't think you have told me ¥o you are.'
For a mad moment Bobby contemplated telling her the truth—the whole truth—and relying upon the sincerity of his personality, and the fair-mindedness of which her face seemed an index, to extricate him from the situation, but his judgment warned him that this would be worse than folly in that house. So, not being a ready liar, he compromised on a half-truth.
"I? Oh—I'm a representative of a morning paper!"
"Oh—really?" Her lip curled in a disdainful smile, and the mocking gleam returned to her eyes. "And did you find what you were looking for in my uncle's office?"
"I have already explained to you," said Bobby, gently, although he colored at her tone, "that I went to Mr. Parker's office under the impression that it was the bedroom of my friend Jack Reynolds, and that when I learned otherwise I left it."
"So you have. And I have intimated to you that I do not find that explanation convincing—Mr. Robert Farquhar."
"Good Lord!" said Bobby. "You know me?"
"I do."
"Why in the name of Heaven didn't you say so in the first place?" he demanded. "We've wasted a lot of time!"
"Why didn't you say so? I gave you the opportunity."
"Then you've known all along?"
"Why do you think I permitted you to enter the house? Why do you think I stood there in the window and watched you trying to unlock my uncle's door with your badly made key? Why do you think I let you go to his office, stay as long as you liked, and come out of your own accord, before I stopped you? Because I recognized you as you came up the walk in the moonlight, Mr. Private Secretary!"
"Well, do you think I'd be fool enough to walk up to a house in that fashion, if I meant to commit a felony?"
"It was quite evident that you thought us all away and the house empty," she returned. "So I decided that I would wait and catch you red-handed—as you see."
"By the Lord, You've got nerve!" fervently commented her captive; whereat, for the first time, she flushed. "Now we can talk business!"
"Stay where you are," she commanded, raising her revolver, as he hastily descended a step or two.
"But you've got me! Don't you see that you've got me—since you know me? It won't help me to run away now," he urged. "Even if I did, you would only have to say that I was here, and it would be up to me to prove that I wasn't—which I couldn't do. Don't you see? Now I've got to talk to you."
"Talk all you like—but stay on that landing, she advised. "As you so pregnantly phrase it, I've got you, and I have no intention of letting you get away, to use whatever you may have about you belonging to my uncle, until he has seen you."
"Look here. I mean it. Look at me!" She looked, and Bobby's clear gray eyes never wavered or faltered under her scrutiny. "I swear to you," said he, holding her gaze, "that I have nothing in my possession that belongs to your uncle, or that concerns him in any way. I swear to you that I looked at nothing in his office except some printed books, and I looked at them only because I was startled by finding his name on the fly-leaf of one I picked up supposing it to belong to Jack Reynolds. I solemnly swear to you, so help me God, that I have told you the whole and absolute truth both about this and about my reasons for entering this house as I did.... Do you believe me?" Bobby's eyes were deep wells of truth, his lips were clean and honest, and his voice was vibrant with sincerity. She looked at him and wavered.
"Why, then, if you came expecting to stay all night, have you no luggage?" she asked. "Where is your bag?"
"I might tell you that I hadn't time to go to the hotel after it," he replied, "but that wouldn't be true. I sent my bag out to Bruce Hayward's by a messenger this morning, not knowing that the Haywards were away. A servant accepted it, receipted for it, and then went out for the day, so I haven't been able to get it since. That sounds fishy, I suppose," he answered her shadowy smile, "but if I were lying I'd tell a better one than that. It would be easy."
"As, for example, that you were a newspaper man, come to see my uncle on business," she suggested.
"That wasn't entirely untrue," he returned. "I am not in the pay of any newspaper, but I supply a good many of them with items, from time to time."
"And just what are you going to say to my uncle when he comes?"
For a moment Farquhar hesitated, wishing to spare her, and then he decided to tell her and put her to the test. Therein lay his only hope now, and time was perilously short.
"I'm going to tell him that two of his men have deserted him, and advise him to get into line himself before he loses what little power he has left," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"A bill has been introduced into the Legislature making the patrons of a gambling-house equally guilty with the keeper."
"Yes, I know. Well?"
"You know of that measure?"
"Yes."
"And approve of it?"
"Of course. Why not?"
"I take it your uncle doesn't discuss these things with you."
"Why?"
"Does he?"
"No. He says a woman shouldn't try to understand politics—but I can't help it. Things interest me."
"Precisely. Now, the Henderson bill—that's the one about the gambling-houses—is coming up to-morrow, and I have to-day received authentic information that two of your uncle's men, Con Clafflin and Jerry Kincaid, members of the Legislature, are going to vote in favor of it."
"Well, what of it?" she queried. He was watching her closely, but could detect nothing of defiance or bravado in her straight glance.
"It's flat insubordination, that's all."
"You mean—you mean that Uncle Tom— How dare you say such a thing about him! You!"
"I'm sorry," he said, quietly, "but it's true. He is opposing that bill with all his remaining strength, and until to-day he had us beaten, but the defection of these two men will throw the balance against him."
"It is not true!" she stormed. "You have no right to say such things to me just because you know I must stay here and listen to them! You—the tool of canting hypocrites and liars! My uncle—why, my uncle is as far above you— He's the best—the kindest—the gentlest! Did you think you could make me believe a thing like that of him?"
"Listen to me," said Farquhar, leaning over the stair-rail and again holding her gaze, his own clear and steady. "Gentle and kind and thoughtful Tom Parker may be to you, but are you perfectly sure that he is always—always—honest?" Just for an instant her glance fell, and in that instant Bobby triumphed. "Good!" he cried. "Now I know that you are honest, anyway, and I'm going to trust you. I'm going to tell you the whole truth."
"Again?" she scornfully questioned. "Another version of it? And you—you—question the honesty of my uncle!"
"You have questioned it before now!" he hazarded, keenly; and as her eyes flashed a loyal negation, he lifted an impressive hand, adjuring her. "The truth, remember! The whole truth, now, between you and me! You have doubted him."
"If I have, it only proves my own unworthiness," she declared, with spirit. "People have said things—I've just come home—I've been abroad a long time, out of touch with it all—and people have said things that—well, that disturbed me. And it has sometimes seemed that Governor Rhodes was doing the right thing, even when Uncle Tom said— But what do I know about it? How can I judge? Uncle Tom is in the fight. He knows—and he is right!" Defiantly she challenged him, and solemnly he answered.
"Again I swear to you, by all a man holds sacred, that I have told you nothing but the absolute truth. Now, I am utterly in your power. If Tom Parker finds me here at this hour, under these circumstances—you know as well as I what will happen. I'll have no chance in the world."
"What do you think he'll do?" she asked.
"The least he will do will be to spread the story broadcast in to-morrow's papers."
"Well? You can then spread yours."
"Mine! My story of how and why I entered this house? Who'd believe it—then?"
"Evidently you expect me to."
"Now—yes! You saw me come in. You know the time I spent fiddling with that fool key and lighting matches—why, can't you see that I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't been straight?"
"Very well. Tell that to the reporters."
"But they wouldn't believe it—to-morrow—as defense. Nobody would believe it who hadn't seen it, not even the men of my own party—perhaps not even the Chief himself. But it's true. You know it's true." She was eying him gravely, thoughtfully, and he began to hope that he was at last undermining her determination. "And that's the least of it—the scandal," he pressed. "Parker will never stop at that."
"What else do you think he'll do?"
"Perhaps the worst he can do, under the circumstances—and that is what he will do—will be to accuse me of thievery and have me searched. I have taken a solemn oath before you that I have nothing in my possession belonging to him. But I have in my pocket—and this is what I meant when I said I'd tell you the whole truth, and I could give no greater proof of my faith in you—I have in my pocket one very important confidential paper, with which Governor Rhodes has intrusted me, and which I am pledged not to let any one know about. If that paper falls into Tom Parker's hands—"
"He wouldn't read confidential papers!"
"Wouldn't he! This paper is the Governor's veto message—his signed veto of the Railroad Bill, which I am pledged to deliver to the Legislature before noon to-morrow. Parker is deeply interested, financially and otherwise, in that bill!"
"I don't believe it!"
"Nevertheless he is. It's the whole truth now, remember. And unless I deliver the message to the Legislature before noon to-morrow—that bill will become a law. It's a matter of the State—of the people, don't you see? And he has only to detain me here with that paper a few hours—"
"Uncle Tom wouldn't do that!"
"I tell you he will! You can't mean to bring that about!" Again he started down the steps toward her, and again she drove him back at the mouth of her revolver.
"Don't try that!" she warned. "Stay on that landing!"
"Are you going to let the people suffer for this thing?"
"I tell you it isn't true! You don't know Uncle Tom. He wouldn't—he couldn't—do these things. You are trying—"
"He will do any or all of these things"—Farquhar stopped short, caught his breath, and blanched—"and more. I hadn't thought of it before, but that's what he'll do. After he has secured the passage of that bill by detaining me, he'll say that I came here, either of my own accord—no, he'll say at the Chiefs bidding—to sell out—to sell out—to him! He'll discredit us both—me with the Chief, and both of us with the whole country! Don't you see that I stumbled into this thing, that it's all a gigantic blunder? Don't you see that it's not only my own future, but the future of the Chief, the rights of the people, the work? Everything we stand for is at stake! No matter how innocent we are, if the people lose faith in us—" He made a slight tragic gesture. "It's all in your hands. It's up to you. Don't you see what a big thing it is?"
"I understand that you are basing this whole argument on the supposition that my uncle is a base and dishonorable man," she said, "which I refuse to believe. Listen!" Through the quiet, suburban night sounded the distant tap of footsteps on cement walks. "There he comes. Now we'll see."
"But you're giving me no chance," he protested. "Be fair! I claim a fighting chance."
"Well, what do you want?" she asked, and at the words Bobby vaulted over the stair-rail and dropped lightly near her.
"No, no!" he cried, as she raised her revolver. "Don't be foolish! I couldn't get away now if 1 tried. But if I can prove to you that he is fighting this Henderson bill—if I can prove to you that he's determined to beat it—will you then believe that he'd read my papers if he got the chance? Will you?"
"Y-yes; but you can't—"
"'Sh! Your uncle himself owns one of the biggest gambling-places in the city."
"That's a lie!"
"Listen! That's one reason why he's so keen about this bill. Another is that he's in the pay of the gamblers' association. Now, you tell him that a man came to see him in a great hurry to-night and left a message that Con and Jerry—that's Clafflin and Kincaid, you know—that Con and Jerry have slumped and the deal to-morrow is a dead one. Can you remember that? Say it!"
"Con and Jerry have slumped, and the deal to-morrow is a dead one," she repeated, impelled by his insistence.
"That's right. And it's true. You tell him that, and FU hide somewhere until—"
"And escape? No, you won't!" she retorted.
"No, no! I won't even try to escape! Isn't there some place I can't get out of? Isn't there a closet?"
"There's a coat-closet."
"Window in it?"
"No."
"Well, there you are! Where is it?" He hurried after her to the back of a large square foyer, talking in a rapid whisper. Already Parker's approach was distinctly audible. "Now, if you decide that he is not opposed to the Henderson bill, you may give me up. But if he shows that he is fighting it, you'll believe me about the other things, too, and help me get away."
No, I will not!" she cried, under her breath. "I will not set a trap for him!"
"Yes, you will," whispered Bobby, through the crack of the closing door. "You'll have to. It's the only way that you'll ever learn, now, whether or not you can trust him." With that he pulled the door shut. She laid her lips against the crack and said:
"I will not! I will not!"
To this he made no reply, having planted his last barb, but he dug his nails into his palms and wondered. Which would she do? She was honest. He believed that. But she was a woman, and her heart and all her instincts of personal as well as of family loyalty were involved. He heard Parker fumbling at the door, then the fall of the chain, followed by the heavy voice of the Big Boss.
"Hullo, Joan! What's the matter? Anything wrong?" Her low reply did not reach him, but he heard Parker ask: "Then why have you got all the lights going on a hot night and the door bolted and chained?... Afraid! Why, you're not alone in the house, are you? Aren't some of the maids here?... Oh, just lonely, eh?" The man laughed indulgently. "Foolish little girl! Been having bad dreams?"
"Yes, I have," said Joan, clearly. "I've been having awful dreams lately. Uncle Tom. I—I have been afraid!"
"Humph! Well, there are others. I've had a nightmare or two myself, girlie. Let's forget 'em. Let's go up to the office, and have a cool drink and a smoke and a nice cozy chat before we go to bed—shall we?"
"Why not here?"
"Here! In the ball?" He laughed again. "You are rattled, aren't you? Hold on a minute, until I hang up my hat and get some bottles out of the ice-box, and we'll go up together."
He stepped toward the coat-closet, and behind the closed door Bobby braced himself for a spring, determined not to be captured without a fight and believing all other hope to be lost. It seemed to him that Parker's hand must be on the door, when Joan's voice rang out, sharply:
"Uncle Tom!"
"Yes? What's the matter, girlie?" Genuine concern colored the tone, and the footsteps receded again. "Are you ill?"
"No—no, of course I'm not ill—only nervous." She achieved a little laugh. "Uncle Tom, there was—a man here."
"A man? What man? Did he frighten you?"
"Yes—that is—no. He asked if you were at home."
"Who was he?"
"He didn't tell me his name. He seemed in a great hurry—and rather—upset."
"So? What did he look like?"
"He was young—gray eyes—"
"Smooth-shaven? Big, athletic chap?"
"Yes."
"Ned Keene, I guess. Didn't he leave any message?"
"Y-yes. He said to tell you— Oh, I don't believe it matters!"
"Go on, Joan; what did he say?"
"Uncle Tom, did anybody named Reynolds ever live in this house?"
"What the deuce has that to do with it? Did he ask for John Reynolds?"
"No—no, it has nothing to do with it. I just want to know. Did a Reynolds—Judge Reynolds—ever live here?"
"Yes. He built the house. Sold it about six years ago."
"Oh!"
"Why? What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I—I just wish he hadn't."
"Hadn't what? Joan, child, what's the matter with you? Have you a fever?"
"No—no, I'm all right."
"Then give me that message—straight, if you can. What did Ned say?"
"He said—the man said—to tell you that Con and Jerry—Uncle Tom, who are Con and Jerry?"
"Some political friends of mine. What about 'em?"
"He said to tell you they had—slumped."
"What?" roared the Boss.
"And that the deal to-morrow was—was a dead one," she finished, faintly.
"The devil he did! When was this? What time?"
"O-oh, Uncle Tom!"
"What time? Quick!"
"About—half-past eleven, I think. Oh!" It was a catch of the breath rather than an exclamation. "Is it really—important?"
"Important! It's about the last straw, that's what it is! But I'll stop it," savagely, through set teeth, "or break somebody! I've just time to catch the twelve-three."
"Where are you going?"
"Back to town—and on to Hades, if necessary, to fix this thing! They think I'm down and out, do they? Well, I'll show 'em! I won't be back to-night. 'By." There was a sound of hurrying footsteps, the door slammed, and silence followed.
After a moment Bobby softly opened the door of the closet and peered out. The lights had been extinguished. He stepped out into the hall, and found only darkness and silence. Although the way now lay open, he still lingered, not wishing to go without seeing Joan Herrick again, but uncertain as to where she was or how to reach her. For a long time he stood in absolute silence, waiting, hoping she would come back for a final word with him. Then a shuddering sob from the moonlit drawing-room solved his doubt, and he went quietly to where she lay prone, face down, across a divan.
"Bless you!" he said, brokenly. "Oh, bless you!" The sobs ceased, but she gave no other acknowledgment of his presence. He knelt beside her, longing, yet not daring to touch her hand. "I can't thank you ever, but won't you let me try?"
"Go away," she whispered.
"I know," he said. "You must hate me. You have saved—oh, it isn't just that you have saved me, now, at the moment, but you have saved the Chief. You have greatly served the people and saved to them their faith in him. You have saved the whole thing. It sounds trite and cheap to say that I shall always thank you—and bless you. But I shall."
"Oh, will you go!" she gasped.
"Yes, at once. But first I want you to know that I realize—fully—what this has cost you."
"You don't! You can't!" The restraint in which she held herself broke, and she sprang up and went, sobbing, to the window, whither he presently followed her. "You can't know! He was all I had. My own people died years ago. He has always, always taken care of me, and now you have taken away—my faith in him. I have betrayed him, and he was—all I had!"
"I know," said Bobby, his voice deep and tender and broken by emotion. "I wish—I have wished all along—that I could spare you that. But I couldn't."
"Oh, isn't anything real?" she cried. "Isn't anybody sincere and simple and honest?"
"Yes; you are," said Bobby. "And big and brave and strong and fine. And there are men in the world who are as honest and as big. Some day you'll meet one of them, and then you'll be more than ever glad that you did the right thing to-night, no matter how it hurt you or him or anybody."
"You don't understand," she said. "I've lost my faith in him, and he was all I had. There's no faith left in me."
"You believed me," ventured Bobby, softly. "I told you the truth, and you believed me."
"It was the truth?" searchingly. "This has not been for nothing?"
"It was the absolute truth. Do you believe that?... Do you?"
"Yes," she whispered, at last, and turned away her face.
"Thank God!" After a moment's hesitation he took her hand in his warm, firm grasp and kissed it. "Will you let me see you again some day?"
"No." She shook her head. "You must never come here again."
"You can't forgive me?"
"No, no! You were right. But because you were right, for your own sake—" She broke off with a negative gesture.
"There is nothing of that sort between you and me that can't be bridged," he asserted.
"I am his niece—in effect, his daughter," she cried, "and you are—what you are. What can ever bridge that?"
"The truth," said Bobby, simply. "Time and the truth. May I try—some day?"
It was enough for him that she did not forbid him. Once more he kissed her hand before he released it, and very quietly left the room and the house. When he had descended the steps he took off his hat and stood for a moment looking up at the motionless figure in the window. Then he turned, his head still bared, and walked quickly out to the bright, empty street.