Helen of the Old House Part 43

"I do," returned the Interpreter, gently.

"Oh, you _are_ in touch with him then?"

"He comes here sometimes. He is coming this afternoon--at four o'clock.

Will you not stay and meet him, Mr. McIver?" McIver hesitated. He decided to ignore the invitation. With more respect in his manner than he had so far shown, he said, courteously, "May I ask why Jake Vodell comes to you?"

The Interpreter replied, sadly, as one who accepts the fact of his failure, "For the same reason that McIver came."

McIver started with surprise. "You know why I came to you?"

The man in the wheel chair looked steadily into his visitor's eyes. "I know that you are not personally responsible for the death of the workman, Captain Martin."

McIver sprang to his feet. He fairly gasped as the flood of questions raised by the Interpreter's words swept over him.

"You--you know who killed Charlie Martin?" he demanded at last.

The old basket maker did not answer.

"If you know," cried McIver, "why in G.o.d's name do you not tell the people? Surely, sir, you are not ignorant of the danger that threatens this community. The death of this union man has given Vodell just the opportunity he needed and he is using it. If you dare to shield the guilty man--whoever he is--you will--"

"Peace, McIver! This community will not be plunged into the horrors of a cla.s.s war such as you rightly fear. There are yet enough sane and loyal American citizens in Millsburgh to extinguish the fire that you and Jake Vodell have started."

When Jake Vodell came to the Interpreter's hut shortly after McIver had left, he was clearly in a state of nervous excitement.

"Well," he said, shortly, "I am here--what do you want--why did you send for me?"

The Interpreter spoke deliberately with his eyes fixed upon the dark face of the agitator. "Vodell, I have told you twice that your campaign in Millsburgh was a failure. Your coming to this community was a mistake. Your refusal to recognize the power of the thing that made your defeat certain was a mistake. You have now made your third and final mistake."

"A mistake! Hah--that is what you think. You do not know. I tell you that I have turned a trick that will win for me the game. Already the people are rallying to me. I have put McIver at last in a hole from which he will not escape. The Mill workers are ready _now_ to do anything I say. You will see--to-morrow I will have these employers and all their capitalist cla.s.s eating out of my hand. To me they shall beg for mercy. I--I will dictate the terms to them and they will pay. You may take my word--they will pay."

The man paced to and fro with the triumphant air of a conqueror, and his voice rang with his exultation.

"No, Jake Vodell," said the Interpreter, calmly. "You are deceiving yourself. Your dreams are as vain as your mistake is fatal."

The man faced the old basket maker suddenly, as if arrested by a possible meaning in the Interpreter's words that had not at first caught his attention.

"And what is this mistake that I have made?" he growled.

The answer came with solemn portent. "You have killed the wrong man."

The agitator was stunned. His mouth opened as if he would speak, but no word came from his trembling lips. He drew back as if to escape.

The old man in the wheel chair continued, sadly, "_I_ am the one you should have killed--I am the cause of your failure to gain the support of the Mill workers' union."

The strike leader recovered himself with a shrug of his heavy shoulders.

"So that is it," he sneered; "you would accuse me of shooting your Captain Charlie, heh?"

"You have accused yourself, sir."

"But how?"

"By the use you are making of Captain Charlie's death. If you did not know who committed the crime--if you did not feel sure that the ident.i.ty of the a.s.sa.s.sin would remain a mystery to the people--you would not dare risk charging the employers with it."

With an oath the other returned, "I tell you that McIver or his hired gunmen did it so they could lay the blame on the strikers and so turn the Mill workers' union against us. That is what the Mill men believe."

"That is what you want them to believe. It is an old trick, Vodell. You have used it before."

The agitator's eyes narrowed under his scowling brows. "Look here," he growled, "I do not like this talk of yours. Perhaps you had better prove what you charge, heh?"

"Please G.o.d, I will prove it," came the calm answer.

Jake Vodell, as he looked down upon the seemingly helpless old man in the wheel chair, was thinking, "It would be safer if this old basket maker were not permitted to speak these things to others--his influence, after all, is a thing to consider."

"No, Jake Vodell," said the Interpreter gently, "you won't do it. Billy Rand is watching us. If you make a move to do what you are thinking, Billy will kill you."

The Interpreter raised his hand and his silent companion came quickly to stand beside his chair.

With a shrug of his shoulders Vodell drew back a few steps toward the door.

"Bah! Why should I waste my time with a crippled old basket maker--I have work to do. If you watch from the window of your shanty you will see to-morrow whether or not the Mill workers are with me. I will make for you a demonstration that will be known through the country. I told you at the first that the working people would find out who is their friend. Now you shall see what they will do to the enemies of their cla.s.s. Who can say, Mr. Interpreter, perhaps your miserable hut so high up here would make a good torch to signal the beginning of the show, heh?"

When the door had closed behind Jake Vodell, the Interpreter said, aloud, "So he has set to-morrow night for his demonstration. We must work fast, Billy--there is no time to lose."

With his hands he asked his companion for paper and pencil. When Billy brought them he wrote a few words and folding the message gave it to the big man who stood waiting.

For a few minutes they talked together in their silent way. Then Billy Rand put the Interpreter's message carefully in his pocket and hurriedly left the hut.

That evening Jake Vodell addressed the largest crowd that had yet a.s.sembled at his street meetings. With characteristic eloquence the agitator pictured Captain Charlie as a martyr to the unprincipled schemes of the employer cla.s.s.

"McIver and his crew are charging the strikers with this crime in order to set our union brothers against us," he shouted. "They think that by setting up a division among us they can win. They know that if the working people stand together, true to their cla.s.s, loyal to their comrades, they will rule the world. Why don't the police produce the murderer of Captain Charlie? I will tell you the answer, my brother workmen: it is because the law and the officers of the law are under the control of those who do not want the murderer produced--that is why. They dare not produce him. The life of a poor working man--what is that to these masters of crime who acknowledge no law but the laws they make for themselves. You workers have no laws. A slave knows no justice but the whim of his master. Think of the mothers and children in your homes--you slaves who create the wealth of your lords and masters. And now they have taken the life of one of your truest and most loyal union leaders. Where will they stop? If you do not stand like men against these cruel outrages what have you to hope for? You know as well as I that no workman in Millsburgh would raise his hand against such a fellow worker as Captain Charlie Martin."

While the agitator was speaking, Billy Rand moved quickly here and there through the crowd, as if searching for some one.

After the ma.s.s meeting on the street there was a meeting of the Mill workers' union.

Later, Vodell's inner circle met in the room back of Dago Bill's pool hall.

It was midnight when Billy Rand finally returned to the waiting Interpreter.

Evidently he had failed in the mission entrusted to him by the old basket maker.

The next morning, Billy Rand again went forth with the Interpreter's message.