The Grafters Part 53

"No, I didn't, Judge Marston. I want my railroad."

"You shall have it," was the prompt response. "What have you done since our last discussion of the subject?"

"I tried to 'obliterate' Judge MacFarlane, as you suggested. But I failed in the first step. Bucks and Meigs refused to approve the _quo warranto_."

The judge knitted his brows thoughtfully.

"That way is open to you now; but it is long and devious, and delays are always dangerous. You spoke of the receivership as being part of a plan by which your road was to be turned over to an eastern monopoly. How nearly has that plan succeeded?"

Kent hesitated, not because he was afraid to trust the man Oliver Marston, but because there were some things which the governor of the State might feel called upon to investigate if the knowledge of them were thrust upon him. But in the end he took counsel of utter frankness.

"So nearly that if Bucks and the receiver had reached Gaston last night, our road would now be in the hands of the Plantagoulds under a ninety-nine-year lease."

The merest ghost of a smile flitted over the lieutenant-governor's face when he said, with his nearest approach to sarcasm:

"How extremely opportune the confusion of train-orders becomes as we go along! But answer one more question if you please--it will not involve these singularly heedless railway employees of yours: is Judge MacFarlane in Gaston now?"

"He is. He was to have met the others on the arrival of the special train."

There were footsteps on the stair and in the corridor, and Marston rose.

"Our privacy is about to be invaded, Mr. Kent. This is a miserable business; miserable for everybody, but most of all for the deceived and hoodwinked people of an unhappy State. G.o.d knows, I did not seek this office; but since it has fallen on me, I shall do my duty as I see it, and my hand shall be heaviest upon that man who makes a mockery of the justice he is sworn to administer. Come to the capitol a little later in the day, prepared to go at once to Gaston. I think I can promise you your hearing on the merits without further delay."

"Thank you," said Kent, simply, grasping the hand of leave-taking. Then he tried to find other and larger words. "I wish I could do something to show my appreciation of your--"

But the lieutenant-governor was pushing him toward the door.

"You have done something, Mr. Kent, and you can do more. Head those people off at the door and say that for the present I refuse positively to be seen or interviewed. They will find me at the capitol during office hours."

It was seven o'clock in the evening of the fiercest working day Kent had ever fought through when the special train--his own private special, sent to Gaston and brought back again over the strike-paralyzed road by the express permission and command of the strikers themselves--set him down in the Union Station at the capital.

Looking back to the gray of the morning when he had shaken hands with Governor Marston at the door of the room on the top floor of the Kittleton Building, the crowding events made the interval seem more like a week; and now the events themselves were beginning to take on dream-like incongruities in the haze of utter weariness.

"_Evening Argus_! all about the p'liminary trial of Governor Bucks.

_Argus_, sir?" piped a small boy at the station exit; but Kent shook his head, found a cab and had himself conveyed quickly through streets still rife with excitement to the Clarendon Hotel.

In the lobby was the same bee-buzzing crowd with which he had been contending all day, and he edged his way through it to the elevator, praying that he might go unrecognized--as he did. Once safe in his rooms he sent for Loring, stretching himself on the bed in a very ecstasy of relaxation until the ex-manager came up. Then he emptied his mind as an overladen a.s.s spills its panniers.

"I'm done, Grantham," he said; "and that is more different kinds of truth than you have heard in a week. Go and reorganize your management, and M'Tosh is the man to put in Halkett's place. The strike will be declared off at the mere mention of your name and his. That's all. Now go away and let me sleep."

"Oh, hold on!" was the good-natured protest; "I'm not more curious than I have to be, but I'd like to know how it was done."

"I don't know, myself; and that's the plain fact. But I suspect Marston fell upon Judge MacFarlane: gave him a wire hint of what was due to arrive if he didn't give us a clean bill of health. I had my preliminary interview with the governor at daybreak this morning; and I was with him again between nine and ten. He went over the original papers with me, and about all he said was, 'Be in Gaston by two o'clock this afternoon, and MacFarlane will give you the hearing in chambers.' I went on my knees to the Federative Council to get a train."

"You shouldn't have had any trouble there."

"I didn't have, after the men understood what was in the wind. Jarl Oleson took me down and brought me back. The council did it handsomely, dipping into its treasury and paying the mileage on a Pullman car."

"And MacFarlane reversed his own order?"

"Without a question. It was the merest formality. Jennison, Hawk's former law partner, stood for the other side; but he made no argument."

"Good!" said Loring. "That will do for the day's work. But now I'd like to know how last night's job was managed."

"I'm afraid you want to know more than is good for you. What do the papers say? I haven't looked at one all day."

"They say there was a misunderstanding of orders. That will answer for the public, perhaps, but it won't do for me."

"I guess it will have to do for you, too, Grantham," said Kent, yawning shamelessly. "Five men, besides myself--six of us in all--know the true inwardness of last night's round-up. There will never be a seventh."

Loring's eye-gla.s.ses fell from his nose, and he was smiling shrewdly when he replaced them.

"There is one small consequence that doesn't please you, I'm sure. You'll have to bury the hatchet with MacFarlane."

"Shall I?" flashed Kent, sitting up as if he had been struck with a whip.

"Let me tell you: Marston is going to call an extra session of the a.s.sembly. There is a death vacancy in this district, and I shall be a candidate in the special election. If there is no other way to get at MacFarlane, he shall be impeached!"

"H'm: so you're going into politics?"

"You've said it," said Kent, subsiding among the pillows. "Now will you go?"

It took the general manager a wakeful twenty-four hours to untangle the industrial snarl which was the receiver's legacy to his successor; and David Kent slept through the major part of that interval, rising only in time to dress for dinner on the day following the retrieval of the Trans-Western.

In the grill-room of the Camelot he came face to face with Ormsby, and learned, something to his astonishment, that the Breezeland party had returned to the capital on the first train in from the west.

"I thought you were going to stay a month or more," he said, with his eyes cast down.

"So did I," said Ormsby. "But Mrs. Brentwood cut it short. She's a town person, and so is Penelope." And it was not until the soup plates had been removed that he added a question. "Are you going out to see them this evening, David? You have my royal permission."

"No"--bluntly.

"Isn't it up to you to go and give them a chance to jolly you a little? I think they are all aching to do it. Mrs. Hepzibah has seen the rising stock quotations, and she thinks you are It."

"No; I can't go there any more," said Kent, and his voice was gruffer than he meant it to be.

"Why not?"

"There were good reasons before: there are better ones now."

"A seven-hundred-thousand-dollar difference?" suggested Ormsby, who had had speech with Loring.

Kent flushed a dull red.

"I sha'n't strike you, Ormsby, no matter what you say," he said doggedly.

"Humph! There is one difference between you and Rabbi Balaam's burro, David: it could talk sense, and you can't," was the offensive rejoinder.