Chapter XVI: The Office Goes in Quest of the Man

Victory brings peace without;
Amity conquers within.
How can my thought hide a doubt?
Doubt in the mighty is sin!
Yet, as I watch from my height,
Rearing his spears like a wood,
On swarms the dun Muscovite--
Slavish, inebriate, rude!
Dim-seen, within the profound,
Shapeless, insensate, malign,
Fold within dragon-fold wound,
Opes the dread Mongol his eyne!
_One waking, one in the field--
Foe after foe still I see.
Last of them all, half-revealed
Prophecy's eye rests on--Me!_
--_A Racial Reverie_.

Mr. Brassfield sat alone, listening to Barney Conlon's retreating footsteps. A few years ago I could have described the solitude of the deserted counting-house, and made a really effective scene of it. Now, however, telephones exist to deny us the boon. No sooner do we find ourselves a moment alone, than we think of some one to whom we imagine we have something to say, and call him up over the wire; or, conversely, he thinks of us with like results. Conlon's back was scarcely turned before Brassfield took down the receiver and asked for Alvord's residence.

"Jim," said he, "I've just found out that Sheol is popping about town. . . . Yes, it's Edgington. Conlon tells me he's out for McCorkle and against me. . . . Well, maybe not, but Conlon generally knows. You must go out and run it down. We can't have McCorkle nominated--you can see why. . . . All right. I'll wait for you somewhere out of sight. . . . In the Turkish room at Tony's? . . . Very well: I had another engagement, but I must call that off. Thanks, old man. I shall rely on you! Good-by!"

Up went the receiver, and then, almost at once was lifted to Brassfield's ear again as he sent in a call for Miss Waldron's residence.

"Is this 758? Is Miss Waldron at home? . . . Yes, if you please. . . . This you, Bess? Well, I'm in the hardest of hard luck. Things have come up which will keep me cooped up all the evening. . . . You're awfully good to say so! Good night, dearest!"

The lock clicked behind him, and he was out on the street once more. Came into view a figure which was clearly that of a stranger to Bellevale, and yet had an oddly familiar air to Brassfield, as it moved uncertainly along the darkening highway. It came to the point of meeting and halted, facing Brassfield squarely.

"I peg bardon," it said, "but haf I the honor of attressing Herr Brassfield, or Herr Amidon?"

"My name is Brassfield," was the reply. "What can I do for you?"

"I am stopping at the Bellevale House," said the professor. "Blatherwick is my name. I hat hoped that you might rekonice me, as----"

"I am sorry to dispel your hope," said Brassfield. "What do you want with me?"

"I should pe klad to haf you aggompany me to my rooms," said the professor, "vere I shouldt esdeem it a brifiliche to bresent you to my daughter, and show you some dests in occult phenomena. As the shief citizen of the city----"

"My good man," said Brassfield, "whatever would be my attitude ordinarily toward your very kind, if rather unlooked-for, invitation, permit me now to decline on account of pressure of business. Ordinarily I should be curious to know just what kind of game you've got, as I haven't enough in my pockets to be worth your while to flimflam me. Pardon me, if I seem abrupt."

And he hurried down the street, leaving the professor drifting aimlessly in his wake, vibrating between anger and perplexity.

"I wonder where I've seen that man?" thought Brassfield. Dim reminiscences of such a figure sitting in shadowy background, while a glorious tigrine woman ruled over some realm only half-cognized, vexed the crepuscular and terror-breeding reaches of his mind. He met a policeman, who respectfully saluted him. Brassfield stopped as if for a chat with the officer.

"A fine evening, Mallory," said he.

"Fine, indeed, sir," said the officer.

"Who is the old gentleman whom you just passed?" asked Brassfield. "The one with the glasses."

"That?" asked the policeman. "Why, didn't you recognize him? That's your friend the hypnotist, up at the hotel--Professor Blatherwick."

"Oh," said Brassfield as he walked on, "I didn't know him in the dusk. We'll have to have better street lighting, eh, Mallory?"

"No bad idea!" said Mallory. "Well, it'll be for you to say, I'm thinking."

"You don't think there's anything in this new movement, do you?" asked Brassfield.

"Oh, no, sir," said the officer. "And yet, in politics you never know. But I feel sure it'll be all right. They can't do much this evening and to-morrow. Time's too short."

Brassfield hurried on with an air of anxiety. The policeman's words were not reassuring. He turned down a side street and entered a restaurant, the proprietor of which at once placed himself and his establishment at Mr. Brassfield's command.

"Give me the Turkish room, Tony," said Brassfield.

"Yes, sir, the Turkish room: and Charles to wait?"

"Yes," said Brassfield. "Cook me a tenderloin; and don't let any one come into the room."

"Certainly, Mr. Brassfield! The Turkish room, and a steak, and no one admitted----"

"Except such people as Mr. Alvord may bring. We shall want some good cigars, and a few bottles of that blue seal."

"Yes, sir," said Tony. "Will you speak to this gentleman before you go up, sir?"

Brassfield turned and confronted an elderly man of florid countenance, whose white mustache and frock-coat presented a most respectable appearance. Mr. Brassfield bent on him a piercing look, and strove mentally to account for the impression that he had met this man before, wondering again at that hazy association with the mystical, dreamy region of the woman in yellow and black. It was as if he saw everything that evening through some medium capable of imparting this mystic coloring. The stranger faced him steadily.

"I presume you remember me, Mr. Brassfield," said he. "Blodgett of Hazelhurst."

"Of course it's unpardonable in me," said Brassfield, "but I don't remember you, and I fear I've never heard of the place."

"Well," said Judge Blodgett, "it's entirely immaterial. I merely wanted to say that I've some matters of very great importance to communicate to you, if you'll just step up to my rooms at the Bellevale House."

"I can hardly conceive of anything you may have to say," said Brassfield guardedly, "which can not be as well said here. We are quite alone."

"I--the fact is," said the judge, floundering, "what I have to say must be communicated in the presence of a person who is there, a person----"

"May I ask whom?"

"A lady--Madame--Miss Blatherwick."

The cunning of mental limitation again served Brassfield. He recognized the name as the one mentioned by the professor on the street. Why this conspiracy to bring him to this strange woman at the hotel? Was it a plot? Was it blackmail or political trickery, or what?

"I am very much engaged to-night," said he. "Whatever you have to say, say here, and at once."

The judge felt like seizing his man forcibly, and taking him to Madame le Claire for restoration. The Brassfield cunning was an impenetrable defense. Bellevale's chief business man seemed to be himself again, a keen, cool man of affairs, to whom Judge Blodgett, Professor Blatherwick and Clara were, except for the brief and troubled intervals during which the Amidon personality had been brought uppermost, strangers,--until she could once more bring him within the magic ring of her occult power. Brought within it he must be, but how? The judge felt beaten and baffled. Yet he would try one more device.

"The matter can hardly be discussed here," said he, "but I may say that it relates to the evidence you lack in the Bunn's Ferry well cases. I happen to know of your desire for proof of certain facts in the spring of 1896, and----"

Mr. Brassfield started and changed color.

"You know--this woman knows," he said, "something to my advantage in the matter?"

Judge Blodgett nodded. Brassfield looked at his watch, paced back and forth, and made as if to follow Blodgett to the door. Blodgett's heart beat stiflingly.

"You are coming?" said he.

Something in the tone betrayed his anxiety. Again suspicion rose to dominance in the mind of Brassfield; and entering at the door came Jim Alvord, and one or two hulking, mustachioed citizens of the ward-heeler type. He turned on the judge.

"No," said he, "it is impossible for me to go now. But I am much interested in what you say, and to-morrow---- No, not to-morrow, for I shall be very busy; but the day after we will take it up with you, if quite convenient to you. In the meantime, if you will be so kind as to call on my lawyer, Mr. Edgington, I shall be very glad. He is authorized to make terms--anything reasonable, you know. Good night, Mr. Blodgett. I hope we shall meet again!"

"Your old friend Blodgett seems agitated to-night," said Alvord, as they sat alone in the Turkish room. "He's got to be quite a fellow here on the strength of your friendship. Wish he was a voter. We could use him. Maybe he can help in a quiet, way. Anything wrong with him? Seemed worked up."

Smilingly, as if Alvord's remarks had been as plain to him as they were charged with mystery, Brassfield replied that so far as he knew Blodgett was all right, and that he might be of use further along in the campaign.

"And now," said he, "tell me what on earth has sent Edgington off on this tangent. He's the man who first suggested to me that I ought to run. It was his scheme. He's my lawyer and my friend. What does it mean?"

"Well, I saw Edge, and he's got a list of reasons longer'n an anaconda's dream. He says that since your return from your New York trip you've seemed different. I don't mind saying that there's others say the same thing."

"Different?" said Brassfield, in an anxiety rendered painful by the missing time and these strangers whom he was accused of knowing, but who behaved as strangers to him. "How?"

"Well," said Alvord, "kind of not the same in manner--offish with the gang, an' sort of addicted to the professor and the hypnotist--no kick from me, old chap, you understand, but I'm filing a kind of bill of exceptions, an' these things go in."

"I see," said Brassfield. "Go on!"

"Then you'll have to own you've done some funny stunts," continued Alvord. "You've fired old Stevens, and you've been going over your books with this man Blodgett, and talking of selling him an interest----"

"Talking of what?" exclaimed Brassfield.

"Oh, it's your own business, you know, but a sort of shock to the feelings and finances of the community all the same. Not that it affects me, or that many know of it, but the inner circle is disturbed--and, mind, I'm leading up to Edgington's flop."

"I see," said Brassfield. "Go on!"

"Well," said Alvord, "the mystery comes in right here. He says he went up to see you and you flew up and took a high moral attitude and said it was a dirty mess, and you wouldn't touch it. He thought it was some of Bess's isms that she brought home from college--civic purity, and all that impractical rot that these intellectual women get, and he says he began hunting for some one to run in to fill the vacancy caused by the declination of E. Brassfield. He was knocked numb when he found out that you were out for the place. You must have said _something_ to him, you know. Now what in the name of Dodd was it?"

Brassfield walked up and down the room for a few moments, wringing his hands and alternately hardening and relaxing the muscles of his arms as if engaged in some physical culture exercise, but saying never a word. This blank Cimmeria of his past, into which he had stared vainly for five years, seemed about to deliver up its secret, or a part of it. Already, it was clear, it had disgorged this man Blodgett, and these other questionable characters at the inn. But they would find him ready for them. This man that was looking over his books would discover that what Eugene Brassfield wanted he took, and what he took he held. They were after his money, no doubt. Well, he would see. And in the meantime, Edgington's defection should not be allowed to disarrange matters. The business interests involved were too great. When he turned to answer Alvord, he was pale as death, but calm as ever.

"Oh, Edgington misconstrued entirely what I said," he answered. "I can't just repeat it--we had some talk along the lines he mentioned, but I never said anything that he ought to have understood in that way. Is he on the square, do you think?"

"On the dead square," said Alvord. "I'll stake my life on that."

"Well, what has he done?"

"He's got McCorkle out for the nomination."

"To stay?" asked Brassfield. "Can't we give Mac something else, later?"

"No, Edgington says not: you see, the colonel has wanted to be mayor a long time. Edgington can't pull him off, and as long as he sticks, Edge's got to stick by him. Edgington's for you as hard as ever after the caucuses--if you win."

"Yes," said Brassfield, "most everybody will be. You've run your eye over the line-up: can we win?"

"It depends," said Alvord, "on the two men down in the restaurant--Sheehan and Zalinsky. You know their following, and what they want. Our crowd stands in with the better element. McCorkle can't hold more than half his own church, and we're as strong as horseradish with the other gospel plants. The A. O. C. M. gang Edgington won't try to split, but will leave to us, and through them we'll get the liberal element in line--the saloons, and the seamy side generally, I mean, of course. The labor vote we need help with, and I've brought in Sheehan and Zalinsky to sort of arrange a line of policy that'll round 'em up. With their help we'll control the caucuses. After the caucuses, it's plain sailing."

Brassfield made a few figures on a card, and handed it to Alvord, who looked at it attentively and nodded approvingly.

"That ought to be an elegant sufficiency," said he.

"All right," said Brassfield, "you handle that end of it, and I'll discuss the interests of labor. We'll show Colonel McCorkle what a fight without interests means in this town. Are the wine and cigars here? Then go down and bring the patriots up, Jim."