Counsel for the Defense Part 17

"Yes. I have come to ask you that again."

"Well--you see--as I told you----"

"But the situation has changed since I first came to you," she put in quickly, not quite able to restrain a little laugh. "I have found something out!"

He started. "You have found--you say----"

"I have found something out!"

She smiled at him happily, triumphantly.

"And that?" said he.

She leaned forward.

"I do not need to tell you, for you know it, that the big corporations have discovered a new gold mine--or rather, thousands of little gold mines. That all over the country they have gained control, and are working to gain control, of the street-car lines, gas works and other public utilities in the smaller cities."

"Well?"

She spoke excitedly, putting the case more definitely than it really was, to better the chance of winning his aid.

"Well, I have just discovered that there is a plan on foot, directed by a hidden some one, to seize the water-works of Westville. I have discovered that my father is not guilty. He is the victim of a trick to ruin the water-works and make the people willing to sell. The first thing to do is to find the man behind the scheme. I want you to help me find this man."

A greenish pallor had overspread his features.

"And you want me--to find this man?" he repeated.

"Yes. I know you will take this up, simply because of your interest in the city. But there is another reason--it would help you in your larger ambition. If you could disclose this scheme, save the city, become the hero of a great popular grat.i.tude, think how it would help your senatorial chances!"

He did not at once reply, but sat staring at her.

"Don't you see?" she cried.

"I--I see."

"Why, it would turn your chance for the Senate into a certainty! It would--but, Mr. Blake, what's the matter?"

"Matter," he repeated, huskily. "Why--why nothing."

She gazed at him with deep concern. "But you look almost sick."

In his eyes there struggled a wild look. Her gaze became fixed upon his face, so strangely altered. In her present high-wrought state all her senses were excited to their intensest keenness.

There was a moment of silence--eyes into eyes. Then she stood slowly up, and one hand reached slowly out and clutched his arm.

"Mr. Blake!" she whispered, in an awed and terrified tone. She continued to stare into his eyes. "Mr. Blake!" she repeated.

She felt a tensing of his body, as of a man who seeks to master himself with a mighty effort. He tried to smile, though his greenish pallor did not leave him.

"It is my turn," he said, "to ask what is the matter with you, Katherine."

"Mr. Blake!" She loosed her hold upon his arm, and shrank away.

He rose.

"What is the matter?" he repeated. "You seem upset. I suppose it is the nervous strain of to-morrow's trial."

In her face was stupefied horror.

"It is what--what I have discovered."

"What you call your discovery would be most valuable, if true. But it is just a dream, Katherine--a crazy, crazy dream."

She still was looking straight into his eyes.

"Mr. Blake, it is true," she said slowly, almost breathlessly. "For I have found the man behind the plan."

"Indeed! And who?"

"I think you know him, Mr. Blake."

"I?"

"Better than any one else."

His smile had left him.

"Who?"

She continued to stare at him for a moment in silence. Then she slowly raised her arm and pointed at him.

The silence continued for several moments, each gazing at the other.

He had put one hand upon his desk and was leaning heavily upon it. He looked like a man sick unto death. But soon a shiver ran through him; he swallowed, gripped himself in a strong control, and smiled again his strained, unnatural smile.

"Katherine, Katherine," he tried to say it reprovingly and indulgently, but there was a quaver in his voice. "You have gone quite out of your head!"

"It is true!" she cried. "All unintentionally I have followed one of the oldest of police expedients. I have suddenly confronted the criminal with his crime, and I have surprised his guilt upon his face!"

"What you say is absurd. I can explain it only on the theory that you are quite out of your mind."

"Never before was I so much in it!"

In this moment when she felt that the hidden enemy she had striven so long to find was at last revealed to her, she felt more of anguish than of triumph.

"Oh, how could you do such a thing, Mr. Blake?" she burst out. "How could you do it?"

He shook his head, and tried to smile at her perversity--but the smile was a wan failure.