Bruce stood up, his face hard and glowering, and his fist crashed explosively down upon the table.
"Of all the d.a.m.ned flimsy defenses that ever a man made, that"s the limit!"
"It certainly won"t go down with the people of Westville," commented the prosecutor. "And I can see the smile of the jury when he produces that defense in court."
"I should say they would smile!" cried Bruce. "But what was his motive?"
"That"s plain enough," answered the prosecutor. "We both know, Mr.
Bruce, that he has earned hardly anything from the practice of medicine since we were boys. His salary as superintendent of the water-works was much less than he has been spending. His property is mortgaged practically to its full value. Everything has gone on those experiments of his. It"s simply a case of a man being in a tight fix for money."
Bruce was striding up and down the room, scowling and staring fiercely at the worn linoleum that carpeted the prosecutor"s office.
"I thought you"d take it rather hard," said Kennedy, a little slyly.
"It sort of puts a spoke in that general munic.i.p.al ownership scheme of yours--eh?"
Bruce paused belligerently before the prosecutor.
"See here, Kennedy," he snapped out. "Because a man you"ve banked on is a crook, does that prove a principle is wrong?"
"Oh, I guess not," Kennedy had to admit.
"Well, suppose you cut out that kind of talk then. But what are you going to do about the doctor?"
"The grand jury is in session. I"m going straight before it with the evidence. An hour from now and Doctor West will be indicted."
"And what about to-morrow"s show?"
"What do you think we ought to do?"
"What ought we to do!" Again the editor"s fist crashed upon the desk.
"The celebration was half in Doctor West"s honour. Do we want to meet and hurrah for the man that sold us out? As for the water-works, it looks as if, for all we know, he might have bought us a lot of old junk. Do we want to hold a jubilee over a junk pile? You ask what we ought to do. G.o.d, man, there"s only one thing to do, and that"s to call the whole d.a.m.ned performance off!"
"That"s my opinion," said the prosecutor. "What do you think, Doctor Sherman?"
The young minister wiped his pale face.
"It"s a most miserable affair. I"m sick because of the part I"ve been forced to play--I"m sorry for Doctor West--and I"m particularly sorry for his daughter--but I do not see that any other course would be possible."
"I suppose we ought to consult Mr. Blake," said Kennedy.
"He"s not in town," returned Bruce. "And we don"t need to consult him.
We three are a majority of the committee. The matter has to be settled at once. And it"s settled all right!"
The editor jerked out his watch, glanced at it, then reached for his hat.
"I"ll have this on the street in an hour--and if this town doesn"t go wild, then I don"t know Westville!"
He was making for the door, when the newspaper man in him recalled a new detail of his story. He turned back.
"How about this daughter of Doctor West?" he asked.
The prosecutor looked at the minister.
"Was she coming home for the celebration, do you know?"
"Yes. She wrote Mrs. Sherman she was leaving New York this morning and would get in here to-morrow on the Limited."
"What"s she like?" asked Bruce.
"Haven"t you seen her?" asked Kennedy.
"She hasn"t been home since I came back to Westville. When I left here she was a tomboy--mostly legs and freckles."
The prosecutor"s lean face crinkled with a smile.
"I guess you"ll find she"s grown right smart since then. She went to one of those colleges back East; Va.s.sar, I think it was. She got hold of some of those new-fangled ideas the women in the East are crazy over now--about going out in the world for themselves, and----"
"Idiots--all of them!" snapped Bruce.
"After she graduated, she studied law. When she was back home two years ago she asked me what chance a woman would have to practise law in Westville. A woman lawyer in Westville--oh, Lord!"
The prosecutor leaned back and laughed at the excruciating humour of the idea.
"Oh, I know the kind!" Bruce"s lips curled with contempt.
"Loud-voiced--aggressive--bony--perfect frights."
"Let me suggest," put in Doctor Sherman, "that Miss West does not belong in that cla.s.sification."
"Yes, I guess you"re a little wrong about Katherine West," smiled Kennedy.
Bruce waved his hand peremptorily. "They"re all the same! But what"s she doing in New York? Practising law?"
"No. She"s working for an organization something like Doctor Sherman"s--The Munic.i.p.al League, I think she called it."
"Huh!" grunted Bruce. "Well, whatever she"s like, it"s a pretty mess she"s coming back into!"
With that the editor pulled his hat tightly down upon his forehead and strode out of the Court House and past the speakers" stand, across whose front twin flags were being leisurely festooned. Back in his own office he picked up the story he had finished an hour before. With a sneer he tore it across and trampled it under foot. Then, jerking a chair forward to his typewriter, his brow dark, his jaw set, he began to thump fiercely upon the keys.
CHAPTER III
KATHERINE COMES HOME
Next morning when the Limited slowed down beside the old frame station--a new one of brick was rising across the tracks--a young woman descended from a Pullman at the front of the train. She was lithe and graceful, rather tall and slender, and was dressed with effective simplicity in a blue tailored suit and a tan straw hat with a single blue quill. Her face was flushed, and there glowed an expectant brightness in her brown eyes, as though happiness and affection were upon the point of bubbling over.
Standing beside her suit-case, she eagerly scanned the figures about the station. Three or four swagger young drummers had scrambled off the smoker, and these amba.s.sadors of fashion as many hotel bus drivers were inviting with importunate hospitality to honour their respective board and bed. There was the shirt-sleeved figure of Jim Ludlow, ticket agent and tenor of the Presbyterian choir. And leaning cross-legged beneath the station eaves, giving the effect of supporting the low roof, were half a dozen slowly masticating, soberly contemplative gentlemen--loose-jointed caryatides, whose lank sculpture forms the sole and invariable ornamentation of the facades of all Western stations. But nowhere did the young woman"s expectant eyes alight upon the person whom they sought.