Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-10
By
Gardner
Hunting.
gNIXNEVNLWNUW0NlWQV WU0g1E1WUTlVEIESgg1E0yE0s2

lievable thing to him that he could not
put his finger upon anything in Bal
iard,s life through which he coulo
wiring the man. Ballard had lightly re-
ferred to the frolics of his youth; nc
had cheerfully admitted intentions OF
violence toward Brainard But any dis
creditable act in Billiards. life was fan
behind the man of today-and Billiards.
whole painted character of himself In
that memorable interview had been part
of his trick to draw Brainard into self
betrayal! If Brainard and his partner
had been shrewd in business, If they
had played the game hard and ruth
lessly, if business had been to them war
they had still played it as a game within
rules.
If Mortimer, under strain of impend-
ing ruin, had limited at means of self
defense outside the rules. there was still
no overt act of his on which Brainard
could fasten.
Some one had once suggested that
Brainard's enemies might attempt to
kidnap him and devise means to make
him reveal his secrets. Here was a
method ready made, if he chose to use
| it, for dealing with Jerry Ballard. Sup
posing Jerry Ballard spirited away on a
yacht down the Mexican coast, with no
aulilOTlty llhSLy W Uc ~tCbAfC Ala tIlfcoti-
CATION of his absence when plausibly ex-
plained-Supposing as Jerry Billiards.
companions on board were certain men
Brainard knew who were familiar with
the methods of the third degree. Was
it supposable that Ballard would return
from such a cruise still clinging to a
secret he could exchange for restoration
to his long-accustomed comforts and
luXurieS of life?
He already knew how to deal with the
Arden woman. His dragnet had one
night brought him clue to her shall
low little footsteps. And as to Van
Winkle-it would be simple to put him
away in some institution from which
he might easily be proved to have
escaped, and where he would appear to
on the outside.
Pain grew in his wounded arm as ne
walked and thought of these things
now. Many of them would hardly have
occurred to him six months ago even
as possibilities; he had travelled far on
the road of deSpotism. But 1t was as If
one feeble movement involved his body
and brain. His very thought inflamed
his wound, and it in turn reacted to In
fame his brain.
His mind turned back to Phyllis
again. From time immemorial jealous
woman had tried to wreck some interest
dear to the man whose sole devotion
she had craved. She cut the canvas
and broke the marble over which he
dreamed. She flung manuscript into
a fire or vitrol in face! She forever
knew how to strike a near and deadly
wound.
But with the first shock of the thing
past, with his mind beginning to take
hold of the fact that Phyllis had done
nothing irretrievable-i the light of
that cruise for Ballard down the Next
can coast-he began to see that her
motive had been complex. She had at
least known that she was forestalling
his enemies. He tood-perfectly,
as he had said-that she had not looked
at that record she had held in her hand
at a moment of opportunity. And she
had faced him afterward-faced him
and challenged him as to what revenge
he meant to take-with implications
that reached his depths! There was
something arresting in all this-arrest-
ing even for man whose brain was on
fire with Inflammation that seemed now
to associate itself with q physical
wound.
Yet she was aligned with the rest
against nun! he paused ana looked
from his north windows. There was
the crowd, down there-the crowd that
swayed daily, hourly now, to and fro
at his beck and call. He moved them
with the movement of his finger as
truly as If they danced on a string.
Up street or down, according as he dis
tributed the bait they wanted! Sacri-
ficing everything else to obey him!
Forgetting other interests!
Discarding former standards! They
were not against him! They were doc
lie as sheep-they were clay in his
hands, All over this wide land-far,
far of over the stretches of the earth
the mass of men moved to his wish,
bowed to his will, ate from his hand.
Only the small, small few rebeiled-and
he held the whip for them. Maybe the
mass understood that, too. Van Wrinkle
had once laughed at the idea of dis
comfort In being "the Weari-ee!" Even
men who had not paid specially for
special privilege to scan other peoples
lives were not less docile for having
thought of that. Blackmail? Every
bargain on earth could be called black
malt
Go be continued tomorrow.)