Counsel for the Defense Part 46

"I left orders that I could see no one," he said, trying to speak sharply.

"I know," she answered quietly. "But you'll see me."

For an instant he hesitated.

"Very well--sit down," he said, resuming his chair. "Now what is it you wish?"

She seated herself and leaned across the desk toward him.

"I wish to talk to you about the fever," she said with her former composure, and looking him very steadily in the eyes. "I suppose you know what caused it?"

"I am no doctor. I do not."

"Then let me tell you. My father has just told me that there must have been a case of typhoid during the summer somewhere back in the drainage area of the water-system. That recent big storm carried the summer's acc.u.mulation of germ-laden filth down into the streams. And since the city was unguarded by a filter, those germs were swept into the water-mains, we drank them, and the epidemic----"

"That filter was useless--a complete failure!" Blake broke in rather huskily.

"You know, Mr. Blake, and I know," she returned, "that that filter has been, and still is, in excellent condition. And you know, and I know, that if it had been in operation, purifying the water, there might possibly have been a few cases of typhoid, but there would never have been this epidemic. That's the G.o.d's truth, and you know it!"

He swallowed, but did not answer her.

"I suppose," she pursued in her steady tone, "you realize who is responsible for all these scores of sick?"

"If what you say is true, then your father is guilty, for building such a filter."

"You know better. You know that the guilty man is yourself."

His face grew more yellowish-green.

"It's not so! No one is more appalled by this disaster than I am!"

"I know you are appalled by the outcome. You did not plan to murder citizens. You only planned to defraud the city. But this epidemic is the direct consequence of your scheme. Every person who is now in a sick bed, you put that person there. Every person who may later go to his grave, you will have sent that person there."

Her steady voice grew more accusing. "What does your conscience say to you? And what do you think the people will say to you, to the great public-spirited Mr. Blake, when they learn that you, prompted by the desire for money and power, have tried to rob the city and have stricken hundreds with sickness?"

His yellowish face contorted most horribly, but he did not answer.

"I see that your conscience has been asking you those same questions,"

Katherine pursued. "It is something, at least, that your conscience is not dead. Those are not pleasant questions to have asked one, are they?"

Again his face twisted, but he seemed to gather hold of himself.

"You are as crazy as ever--that's all rot!" he said huskily, with a denying sweep of a clinched hand. "But what do you want?"

"Three things. First, that you have the filter put back in commission.

Let's at least do what we can to prevent any more danger from that source."

"The filter is useless. Besides, I am no official, and have nothing to do with it."

"It is in perfect condition, and you have everything to do with it,"

she returned steadily.

He swallowed. "I'll suggest it to the mayor."

"Very well; that is settled. To the next point. Have you heard that Mrs. Sherman is sick?"

"Yes."

"She wants her husband."

"Well?"

"My second demand is to know where you have hidden Doctor Sherman."

"Doctor Sherman? I have nothing to do with Doctor Sherman!"

"You also have everything to do with Doctor Sherman," she returned steadily. "He is one of the instruments of your plot. You feared that he would break down and confess, and so you sent him out of the way.

Where is he?"

Again his face worked spasmodically. "I tell you once more I have nothing whatever to do with Doctor Sherman! Now I hope that's all. I am tired of this. I have other matters to consider. Good day."

"No, it is not all. For there is my third demand. And that is the most important of the three. But perhaps I should not say demand. What I make you is an offer."

"An offer?" he exclaimed.

She did not reply to him directly. She leaned a little farther across his desk and looked at him with an even greater intentness.

"I do not need to ask you to pause and think upon all the evil you have done the town," she said slowly. "For you have thought. You were thinking at the moment I came in. I can see that you are shaken with horror at the unforeseen results of your scheme. I have come to you to take sides with your conscience; to join it in asking you, urging you, to draw back and set things as nearly right as you can. That is my demand, my offer, my plea--call it what you will."

He had been gazing at her with wide fixed eyes. When he spoke, his voice was dry, mechanical.

"Set things right? How?"

"Come forward, confess, and straighten out the situation of your own accord. Westville is in a terrible condition. If you act at once, you can at least do something to relieve it."

"By setting things right, as you call it, you of course include the clearing of your father?"

"The clearing of my father, of course. And let me say to you, Mr.

Blake--and for this moment I am speaking as your friend--that it will be better for you to clear this whole matter up voluntarily, at once, than to be exposed later, as you certainly will be. To clear this matter at once may have the result of simplifying the fight against the epidemic--it may save many lives. That is what I am thinking of first of all just now."

"You mean to say, then, that it is either confess or be exposed?"

"There is no use in my beating about the bush with you," she replied in her same steady tone. "For I know that you know that I am after you."

He did not speak at once. He sat gazing fixedly at her, with twitching face. She met his gaze without blinking, breathlessly awaiting his reply.

Suddenly a tremor ran through him and his face set with desperate decision.