"Everything ready?"
"Sure, Billy. We"re waiting for your copy."
"Good! First of all get these engraved." He excitedly handed the foreman Katherine"s two doc.u.ments. "Each of "em three columns wide.
We"ll run "em on the front page. And, Jake, if you let those get lost, I"ll shoot you so full of holes your wife"ll think she"s married to a screen door! Now chase along with you!"
Billy threw off his drenched coat, slipped into an old one hanging on a hook, dropped into a chair before a typewriter, ran in a sheet of paper, and without an instant"s hesitation began to rattle off the story--and Katherine, in a sort of fascination, stood gazing at that worth-while spectacle, a first-cla.s.s newspaperman in full action.
But suddenly he gave a cry of dismay and his arms fell to his sides.
"My mind sees the story all right," he groaned. "I don"t know whether it"s that ice-water or the drink, but my arms are so shaky I can"t hit the keys straight."
On the instant Katherine had him out of the chair and was in his place.
"I studied typewriting along with my law," she said rapidly. "Dictate it to me on the machine."
There was not a word of comment. At once Billy began talking, and the keys began to whir beneath Katherine"s hands. The first page finished, Billy s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her, gave a roar of "Copy!" glanced it through with a correcting pencil, and thrust it into the hands of an in-rushing boy.
As the boy scuttled away, a thunderous cheering arose from the Court House yard--applause that outsounded a dozen-fold all that had gone before.
"What"s that?" asked Katherine of Old Hosie, who stood at the window looking down upon the Square.
"It"s Blake, trying to speak. They"re giving him the ovation of his life!"
Katherine"s face set. "H"m!" said Billy grimly, and plunged again into his dictation. Now and then the uproar that followed a happy phrase of Blake almost drowned the voice of Billy, now and then Old Hosie from his post at the window broke in with a sentence of description of the tumultuous scene without; but despite these interruptions the story rattled swiftly on. Again and again Billy ran to the sink at the back of the office and let the clearing water splash over his head; his collar was a shapeless rag; he had to keep thrusting his dripping hair back from his forehead; his slight, chilled body was shivering in every member; but the story kept coming, coming, coming, a living, throbbing creation from his thin and twitching lips.
As Katherine"s flying hands set down the words, she thrilled as though this story were a thing entirely new to her. For Billy Harper, whatever faults inheritance or habit had fixed upon him, was a reporter straight from G.o.d. His trained mind had instantly seized upon and mastered all the dramatic values of the complicated story, and his English, though crude and rough-and-tumble from his haste, was vivid pa.s.sionate, rousing. He told how Doctor West was the victim of a plot, a plot whose great victim was the city and people of Westville, and this plot he outlined in all its details. He told of Doctor Sherman"s part, at Blake"s compulsion. He told of the secret league between Blake and Peck. He declared the truth of the charges for which Bruce was then lying in the county jail. And finally--though this he did at the beginning of his story--he drove home in his most nerve-tw.a.n.ging words the fact that Blake the benefactor, Blake the applauded, was the direct cause of the typhoid epidemic.
As a fresh sheet was being run into the machine toward the end of the story there was another tremendous outburst from the Square, surpa.s.sing even the one of half an hour before.
"Blake"s just finished his speech," called Old Hosie from the window.
"The crowd wants to carry him on their shoulders."
"They"d better hurry up; this is one of their last chances!" cried Billy.
Then he saw the foreman enter with a look of concern. "Any thing wrong, Jake?"
"One of the linotype men has skipped out," was the answer.
"Well, what of that?" said Harper. "You"ve got one left."
"It means that we"ll be delayed in getting out the paper. I hadn"t noticed it before, but Grant"s been gone some time. We"re quite a bit behind you, and Simmons alone can"t begin to handle that copy as fast as you"re sending it down."
"Do the best you can," said Billy.
He started at the dictation again. Then he broke off and called sharply to the foreman:
"Hold on, Jake. D"you suppose Grant slipped out to give the story away?"
"I don"t know. But Grant was a Blake man."
Billy swore under his breath.
"But he hadn"t seen the best part of the story," said the foreman.
"I"d given him only that part about Blake and Peck."
"Well, anyhow, it"s too late for him to hurt us any," said Billy, and once more plunged into the dictation.
Fifteen minutes later the story was finished, and Katherine leaned back in her chair with aching arms, while Billy wrote a lurid headline across the entire front page. With this he rushed down into the composing-room to give orders about the make-up. When he returned he carried a bunch of long strips.
"These are the proofs of the whole thing, doc.u.ments and all, except the last part of the story," he said. "Let"s see if they"ve got it all straight."
He laid the proofs on Katherine"s desk and was drawing a chair up beside her, when the telephone rang.
"Who can want to talk to us at such an hour?" he impatiently exclaimed, taking up the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo! Who"s this?... What!... All right. Hold the wire."
With a surprised look he pushed the telephone toward Katherine.
"Somebody to talk to you," he said.
"To talk to me!" exclaimed Katherine. "Who?"
"Harrison Blake," said Billy.
CHAPTER XXV
KATHERINE FACES THE ENEMY
Katherine took up the receiver in tremulous hands.
"h.e.l.lo! Is this Mr. Blake?"
"Yes," came a familiar voice over the wire. "Is this Miss West?"
"Yes. What is it?"
"I have a matter which I wish to discuss with you immediately."
"I am engaged for this evening," she returned, as calmly as she could.
"If to-morrow you still desire to see me, I can possibly arrange it then."
"I must see you to-night--at once!" he insisted. "It is a matter of the utmost importance. Not so much to me as to you," he added meaningly.