Counsel for the Defense Part 57

"Yes, Mr. Hollingsworth."

"I was looking for you." He turned and they walked out of the yard together. "I went to your house, and your aunt told me you were here.

I've got it!" he added excitedly.

"Got what?"

"The agreement!"

She stopped short and seized his arm.

"You mean between Blake, Peck, and Manning?"

"Yes. I've got it!"

"Signed?"

"All signed!" And he slapped the breast pocket of his old frock-coat.

"Let me see it! Please!"

He handed it to her, and by the light of a street lamp she glanced it through.

"Oh, it's too good to believe!" she murmured exultantly. "Oh, oh!" She thrust it into her bosom, where it lay beside Doctor Sherman's confession. "Come, we must hurry!" she cried. And with her arm through his they set off in the direction of the Square.

"When did Mr. Manning get this?" she asked, after a moment.

"I saw him about an hour ago. He had then just got it."

"It's splendid! Splendid!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "But I have something, too!"

"Yes?" queried the old man.

"Something even better." And as they hurried on she told him of Doctor Sherman's confession.

Old Hosie burst into excited congratulations, but she quickly checked him.

"We've no time now to rejoice," she said. "We must think how we are going to use these statements--how we are going to get this information before the people, get it before them at once, and get it before them so they must believe it."

They walked on in silent thought. From the moment they had left the Shermans' gate the two had heard a tremendous cheering from the direction of the Square, and had seen a steady, up-reaching glow, at intervals brilliantly bespangled by rockets and roman candles. Now, as they came into Main Street, they saw that the Court House yard was jammed with an uproarious mult.i.tude. Within the speakers' stand was throned the Westville Bra.s.s Band; enclosing the stand in an imposing semicircle was ma.s.sed the Blake Marching Club, in uniforms, their flaring torches adding to the illumination of the festoons of incandescent bulbs; and spreading fanwise from this uniformed nucleus it seemed that all of Westville was a.s.sembled--at least all of Westville that did not watch at fevered bedsides.

At the moment that Katherine and Old Hosie, walking along the southern side of Main Street, came opposite the stand, the first speaker concluded his peroration and resumed his seat. There was an outburst of "Blake! Blake! Blake!" from the enthusiastic thousands; but the Westville Bra.s.s Band broke in with the chorus of "Marching Through Georgia." The stirring thunder of the band had hardly died away, when the thousands of voices again rose in cries of "Blake! Blake! Blake!"

The chairman with difficulty quieted the crowd, and urged them to have patience, as all the candidates were going to speak, and Blake was not to speak till toward the last. Kennedy was the next orator, and he told the mult.i.tude, with much flinging heavenward of loose-jointed arms, what an unparalleled administration the officers to be elected on the morrow would give the city, and how first and foremost it would be their purpose to settle the problem of the water-works in such a manner as to free the city forever from the dangers of another epidemic such as they were now experiencing. As supreme climax to his speech, he lauded the ability, character and public spirit of Blake till superlatives could mount no higher.

When he sat down the crowd went well-nigh mad. But amid the cheering for the city's favourite, some one shouted the name of Doctor West and with it coupled a vile epithet. At once Doctor West's name swept through the crowd, hissed, jeered, cursed. This outbreak made clear one ominous fact. The enthusiasm of the mult.i.tude was not just ordinary, election-time enthusiasm. Beneath it was smouldering a desire of revenge for the ills they had suffered and were suffering--a desire which at a moment might flame up into the uncontrollable fury of a mob.

Katherine clutched Old Hosie's arm.

"Did you hear those cries against my father?"

"Yes."

"Well, I know now what I shall do!"

He saw that her eyes were afire with decision.

"What?"

"I am going across there, watch my chance, slip out upon the speakers'

stand, and expose and denounce Mr. Blake before Mr. Blake's own audience!"

The audacity of the plan for a moment caught Old Hosie's breath. Then its dramatic quality fired his imagination.

"Gorgeous!" he exclaimed.

"Come on!" she cried.

She started across the street, with Old Hosie at her heels. But before she reached the opposite curb she paused, and turned slowly back.

"What's the matter?" asked Old Hosie.

"It won't do. The people on the stand would pull me down before I got started speaking. And even if I spoke, the people would not believe me. I have got to put this evidence"--she pressed the doc.u.ments within her bosom--"before their very eyes. No, we have got to think of some other way."

By this time they were back in the seclusion of the doorway of the _Express_ Building, where they had previously been standing. For several moments the hoa.r.s.e, vehement oratory of a tired throat rasped upon their heedless ears. Once or twice Old Hosie stole a glance at Katherine's tensely thoughtful face, then returned to his own meditation.

Presently she touched him on the arm. He looked up.

"I have it this time!" she said, with the quiet of suppressed excitement.

"Yes?"

"We're going to get out an extra!"

"An extra?" he exclaimed blankly.

"Yes. Of the _Express_!"

"An extra of the _Express_?"

"Yes. Get it out before this crowd scatters, and in it reproductions of these doc.u.ments!"

He stared at her. "Son of Methuselah!" Then he whistled. Then his look became a bit strange, and there was a strange quality to his voice when he said:

"So you are going to give Arnold Bruce's paper the credit of the exposure?"

His tone told her the meaning that lay behind his words. He had known of the engagement, and he knew that it was now broken. She flushed.

"It's the best way," she said shortly.