Chapter IX: Part 9

Which incident will serve to show that Merriam was really awake again. Also, it probably won more votes for Senator Norman's party at the next election than the whole of Aunt Mary's able speech as delivered by the human phonograph a few minutes earlier.

They reached the station and regained the private car. Merriam sank into a wonderful armchair in the sitting room compartment, glanced about him at the luxurious appointments, and lit a cigarette with gusto.

"I shouldn't mind this riches-and-fame business for quite a while," he thought. (Mollie June was for the time forgotten; thus it is with the fickle male.)

Rockwell had sat down in the next chair. Merriam made an effort of memory.

"East St. Louis next?" he asked.

"Yes," said Rockwell. "We'll have to get at the speech as soon as the train starts."

Just then a small but vociferous urchin appeared in the door of the car. His cap proclaimed him a telegraph messenger.

"Telegram for Mr. Rockwell!" he shouted, as though Mr. Rockwell were probably in the next county.

Rockwell signed the book, and the lad slowly withdrew himself, taking generous eyefuls of Rockwell, "Senator Norman," and the private car. As he lingered with a last backward stare in the doorway, Merriam winked at him, and the boy grinned and generously, democratically winked back.

Turning from that wink to Rockwell, Merriam was startled. The man sat limp with the telegram on his knee and a pencil in his hand. I will not say he was pale, but certainly he was haggard.

He handed the telegram to Merriam.

Merriam tried to read it, but could make no sense at all. It was very long but apparently a mere string of words with little intelligible meaning.

"What----?" he began.

"It's code," said Rockwell. "I've underlined the words that count."

Picking out the significant words by means of Rockwell's underlining, Merriam read:

George kidnapped from rooms whereabouts unknown doctor disappeared cancel trip return Mary.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*SIMPSON AS DETECTIVE*

A moment later Mr. Wayward, who had stopped at the station cigar stand to replenish his stock of nicotine, rejoined them and was shown the telegram.

His first comment was profane.

"We've got to go back," said Rockwell. "Now that they have Norman in their power--for Crockett is behind this, of course,--they may denounce us--may make Norman himself denounce us--any minute. They have no end of a grip on him, and he has no great love for the role of Reformer himself--nor for me. Our only hope is to get back to Chicago and find him and get hold of him again." He jumped to his feet, "I must see the station master at once."

"Yes," said Mr. Wayward, "there's nothing else for it."

Rockwell hastily departed to announce their changed plans to the station master, and Merriam and Mr. Wayward looked at each other. The latter's face had assumed the humorous smile which had been his expression towards the whole affair from the beginning.

"It's been a damn fool business all along," he said.

"I suppose it has," said Merriam.

"Good fun for you, though." Mr. Wayward lit a cigar.

"Yes," Merriam assented. But he was thinking of something else. Back to Chicago! The young rascal was realising that that meant he should see Mollie June again.

Mr. Wayward puffed meditatively.

"'Doctor disappeared,'" he quoted from the telegram. "That means Hobart was in it. Probably he was the chief agent. Crockett's bribed him."

Merriam suddenly remembered the tableau which Rockwell and he had surprised as they stepped out of the elevator at the Hotel De Soto on the previous afternoon: Dr. Hobart in confidential conference with the floor clerk.

"Probably they bribed the floor clerk, too," he said. "Hobart seemed to be sweet on her."

"So?" said Mr. Wayward. And after a minutes consideration: "Very likely. They could hardly have managed without the floor clerk in fact."

Presently he added:

"We've got to go back all right. But I don't what we can do except to surrender."

"We still have my pictures of Crockett at Jennie's."

"Well, I hope so. Unless they've bribed Simpson, too. Those pictures are one of the things that may make them give us a chance to surrender."

The two men smoked in silence for several minutes--until Rockwell returned.

"Well, that's fixed," he announced. "There's a north-bound express due in half an hour and reported on time that will take us into Chicago by nine o'clock to-night. You're sick, of course, Senator," he added to Merriam. "Bronchitis again!"

They continued to talk until the north-bound train arrived and picked up their car, and they were started on their return trip.

At Carbondale Rockwell sent off telegrams to the several cities which Merriam was to have visited, cancelling Senator Norman's speaking tour on account of a renewed attack of bronchitis. He also sent a message in code to Aunt Mary, giving the hour when they were due to arrive.

The three men talked, of course, but they had so few facts to go on that they could only formulate gloomy speculations, with nothing really in the way of definite conclusion beyond what Mr. Wayward and Merriam had reached in their first few minutes of chat immediately after the arrival of Aunt Mary's message. How the kidnapping had been managed or where Norman might be, they simply could not tell.

They had one practical point to decide, namely, their first procedure on reaching the city. It was obviously not safe for "Senator Norman" to go directly to the Hotel De Soto. They could not tell what the situation there might be since the kidnapping. It was finally agreed that Rockwell and Merriam should leave the train at Fifty-Third Street and take a taxicab to Rockwell's bachelor apartment on Drexel Boulevard, while Mr. Wayward should go on to the Twelfth Street Station and thence to the hotel to see Aunt Mary. Their next step was to depend on what he learned there. Rockwell was afraid even to telephone from his apartment, for fear the wire to the Senator's suite might be tapped. Merriam was not keen on this arrangement because it evidently postponed his seeing Mollie June and might even prevent his doing so altogether. But this was not an objection which he could raise in the discussion.

At last they were running into the City. Fifty-Third Street was reached, and Rockwell and Merriam shook hands with Mr. Wayward and descended from the private car.

Rockwell's first act in the station was to buy an evening paper. He scanned the sheet anxiously, with Merriam looking over his shoulder. The first page carried a paragraph reporting the abandonment of Senator Norman's down-State speaking tour "on account of a return of his bronchitis." Rockwell had sent no word to this effect to any one in Chicago, but evidently the news had come in from some one or more of the towns to which he had wired cancellations. There were, however, no headlines in regard to the kidnapping of a United States Senator from one of the city's leading hotels and no expose of their imposture.

"They're still keeping it dark," said Rockwell, with a flash of renewed hope on his haggard face. "We're going to have a chance to make terms."

A moment later they were in a taxicab bound for his apartment. They rode in silence. Merriam wondered if he should see Mollie June again--though just what good that would do him or what he should say to her he could not have told.

"I shall see her once--alone," he said to himself, "whatever happens. I've done enough for them to have a right to demand that."

And on that scene of unhappy farewell--for what else could it be?--his thoughts halted. His mind would go no farther.

The taxicab stopped, and they got out, and Merriam found himself in front of a decidedly imposing apartment building. Rockwell hurried him through a sumptuous entry and into an elevator. They shot up three flights. Then in a hallway Rockwell unlocked a door, and they entered the sitting room of his apartment--a large room in quiet tones, furnished somewhat in the taste of a good men's club.

Merriam sank into a chair.

"Played out?" asked Rockwell, standing over him and speaking in his old manner of matter-of-fact good humour, which had deserted him during that trying day.

"Yes," said Merriam. He felt, in fact, quite exhausted, although he had done nothing since ten o'clock that morning except smoke and eat two meals and wait.

"So am I," said Rockwell, "and we must get fit again. We may have a busy night ahead. Suppose we have a shower and then coffee? That'll brace us up."

Three quarters of an hour later, the two men, much refreshed by the shock of cold water and the odd stimulation which always follows re-dressing in fresh clothes, were sitting on opposite sides of Rockwell's writing table, waiting for an electric percolator to "perk," when the doorbell rang. They looked at each other.

"Curtain up for the last act," said Rockwell as he went to answer it.

It was Mr. Wayward with Aunt Mary and Father Murray and Mayor Black. Mollie June, Merriam saw, was not with them.

"Come in," said Rockwell, oddly formal.

Merriam, as he rose, noticed the change in Aunt Mary. Always before she had seemed a creature of no age at all; now she was obviously a quite elderly woman. The Mayor's plump face was gray and drawn with anxiety. Even Mr. Wayward looked more worried than he had seemed all day.

For a moment the four of them stood together just inside the room, staring at Merriam, accusingly as it were, as if he had been the cause of their trouble.

But Rockwell, having closed the door, turned and after one glance at the group spoke loudly, with exaggerated briskness:

"Sit down, all of you--and tell me. You'll find this a comfortable chair, Aunt Mary. Over there, Mayor. You're at home here, Wayward."

Father Murray took Aunt Mary's arm and led her to the chair Rockwell had indicated. Solemnly they all sat down.

Rockwell was both daunted and impatient. After another look at Aunt Mary, he turned to the Mayor:

"When did it happen?"

But before the Mayor could reply, Aunt Mary spoke up. She was not so far gone as she looked.

"Between five minutes after eight and half past nine this morning," she said. "Mollie June and I had gone downstairs for breakfast in the Wedgewood Room and then for a short walk--over to Michigan Avenue and back. Dr. Hobart suggested both. He said we ought to get out that much before we settled down for the day in the rooms, and that he would stay with George till we returned. He said that George was much better, and he looked better. When we got back--it was exactly half past nine,--both he and George were gone."

Aunt Mary paused for an instant on this disastrous climax.

"We were terribly upset," she continued. "We could hardly believe our senses. Mollie June cried, and at first I could not think what I ought to do. But presently I had mind enough to telephone for Mayor Black and Father Murray, and by the time they came I was calm enough to think quietly and join them in making plans."

"You were wonderful," said Father Murray.

"We could make no kind of announcement or complaint. George was not supposed to be there. You"--she looked at Merriam---"were probably at that very moment making a speech in his name at Cairo. We could say nothing to anybody. We figured out that you were either still at Cairo or on your way to East St. Louis, and we sent messages to Mr. Rockwell at both places. We had to stop that insane speaking tour and get you both back here as soon as possible. We telephoned to the hotel office for Dr. Hobart, but they said he had resigned as house physician the night before. Then we sent for Simpson. He didn't seem greatly surprised. In fact, he said that Dr. Hobart had offered him money early that morning 'to help in restoring Senator Norman to his real friends.' That seems to have been the way Hobart put it. Simpson refused the money, he said, and didn't learn what the plan was. He said that he had meant to tell me of the offer but hadn't been able to get away from his work. It was still only a couple of hours since Dr. Hobart had talked with him. He said he would try to find Hobart and learn where George was, and then he went away, and we haven't heard from him since. Finally, I went out to see the floor clerk, thinking she must have seen when George was taken out, but there was a new girl. The former one had quit, she said, at nine o'clock--simply telephoned the office that she was leaving and hung up and slipped away."

"Have you tried to see Crockett?" Rockwell asked.

"I have," said the Mayor. "Been trying all day. But both at his office and at his house they say he isn't in and they don't know where he is or when he will be back. And he wasn't at any of his clubs."

"It's a pretty clean get-away," said Rockwell.

Merriam spoke up. "I have some hopes of Simpson," he said. "His continued absence may mean that he is following some sort of trail."

"Maybe," said Rockwell. "Meanwhile this coffee"--he drew attention to the percolator--"is getting pretty black, and black coffee is what we all need. After that we'll see."

"Where is Mrs. Norman?" Merriam asked timidly while Rockwell was pouring and passing the coffee.

"We left her at the hotel with Alicia," said Mr. Wayward. "We had to leave some one there, in case some message should come from Simpson or from Crockett or from George himself."

The coffee was drunk in a dismal silence. Mr. Wayward attempted one or two semi-cheerful remarks, but they fell flat.

"The first question," said Rockwell when the cups had been emptied, "is: where is George Norman? Crockett may have taken him to his own house. But that is unlikely. Or to some other hotel. Or to one of his clubs. Or, if he is still really sick, to a hospital. I think myself a hotel is the most probable. That could have been managed with a minimum of explanations. In any case we have got to find him. But this is no case for amateurs. I propose to engage a professional private detective and commission him to find George. Also Hobart. It oughtn't to take him more than twenty-four hours. Then we can make further plans. If Norman is still sick, we may have to re-kidnap him. If he is up and himself again, it will be a matter of parleying with him and Crockett and making such terms as we can. Has any one a better suggestion?"

It appeared that no one had, and Rockwell was looking up the detective agency, when the doorbell rang again.

Father Murray sprang to his feet.

"Yes, you answer it," said Rockwell.

Before the priest could reach the door an impatient rat-a-tat-tat sounded on the panel.

He opened to Alicia and Simpson.

"Good heavens, you're slow!" cried Alicia. "And glum as the grave," she added, glancing about the circle of faces. "Simpson has found George."

There were exclamations.

Rockwell put down the telephone book and went to Alicia.

"Dear!" he said.

And Alicia, turning, put her arms about his neck and kissed him. "You poor fellow!" she cried.

Then Rockwell turned to Simpson.

"Sit down here, Simpson," he said. "Have some coffee? You look fagged."

"Thank you, sir. I _am_ pretty much all in."

Rockwell drew a cup of coffee and took it to him, and the waiter gulped it down.

"Thank you, sir," he said again. "Now I can tell you. I owe a good deal to that young gentleman"--he indicated Merriam,--"and when I saw the trouble you were all in I decided to do what I could. Of course we knew Mr. Crockett was at the bottom of the thing, and I decided he was the most findable person in it. I figured that he wouldn't appear at his office and wouldn't go home, but that sooner or later he would show up at one of his clubs. You remember I asked you this morning what clubs he belonged to." This to Mayor Black.

The Mayor assented.

"You mentioned five. That was a pretty large order, but I got some of my pals who are taxicab drivers to help me, and between us we kept a pretty close watch on all of them. He didn't come near the one I was watching myself, and I didn't hear anything from the others till five o'clock. Then one of the boys sent word to me that he had entered the Grill Club on Monroe Street. I went right over and hung around there for nearly three hours. It was a quarter to eight when he came out. He took a taxi, and I followed in another. He drove to St. John's Hospital over on the West Side. I was right after him and followed him into the building. He doesn't know me, of course, and paid no attention to me. He spoke to the nurse at the desk and then stepped into a waiting room. The nurse looked hard at me, but I said, 'I'm with him,' and stepped back towards the door. She thought I was his man and took no further notice of me. Pretty soon Dr. Hobart came down. He didn't see me, but I saw him plainly. He looked pretty much worried--scared, I thought. He and Mr. Crockett talked for a while in the waiting room, but I couldn't hear anything they said. Then Mr. Crockett left, and Dr. Hobart went back upstairs. I could have spoken to him after Mr. Crockett had gone out, but I thought I had better not let them know that any one was on their trail--for fear they would move him again. Then I had an idea. I went up to the desk again. I said to the nurse: 'How is Mr. Merriam?' She looked at me. 'He's pretty sick,' she said, and turned away. I didn't see what more I could do, so I took my taxi back to the De Soto and went up to the Senator's suite and found Miss Wayward and Mrs. Norman, and Miss Wayward brought me here."

For a moment Rockwell seemed sunk in thought. Then he roused himself, glanced around the circle of faces, and spoke:

"First of all, Mr. Simpson, I want to say that you have done a very clever bit of work. We were about to engage a private detective to undertake what you have already accomplished. I think I can safely say that we will see that you are suitably rewarded."

"You can," said Mr. Wayward emphatically--which was satisfactory since he was the person present from whom any substantial monetary reward must come.

"Thank you, sir," said Simpson.

The Mayor broke in:

"It's pretty clear what has happened. They got Norman downstairs while Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman were at breakfast, put him in a taxi, drove to the hospital, and entered him under the name of Merriam. And Dr. Hobart has stayed in attendance."

"And he's still sick--perhaps worse," said Aunt Mary anxiously.

"Why did they enter him as Merriam?" asked Rockwell, thinking aloud. "It must mean that Crockett doesn't dare denounce us or doesn't wish to do so, that he means to make terms with us and preserve the secrecy of the whole affair. As I see it, there will have to be one more substitution"--he addressed the real owner of the name of Merriam,--"of you for Norman--at the hospital. You have reported yourself to your Riceville people as sick. Very well, you have gone to a hospital. From the hospital you return to your work. It will strengthen your alibi. And Norman will be restored to us--on Crockett's conditions, of course. But we shall escape the worst. We shall come off safe yet. But it must happen at once," he continued, with a note of new anxiety. "The whole State knows that Norman's speaking tour has been abandoned, that he came back to Chicago to-day, that he is in the City now. We must get hold of Crockett some way to-night. The final substitution must be made before morning."

Mr. Wayward was looking at his watch. "It's eleven o'clock now," he said. "But you'd better try telephoning. His clubs, I think."

"Yes," said Rockwell. "The Grill Club! That's where you found him, Simpson? He may have gone back there for the night. I'll try that first."

He went quickly to the telephone.

While Rockwell was looking up the number and the rest waiting in painful expectancy, the doorbell for the third time startled them.

"I'll go, sir," said Simpson.

In a moment he had opened the door.

On the threshold stood Crockett--a pale, hesitant, almost seedy Crockett, very different from the serene, confident, well-groomed financier whom Merriam had first encountered forty-eight hours before at Jennie's.

Rockwell dropped the book:

"Come in, Mr. Crockett. I was just going to 'phone to you."

Crockett advanced a couple of steps into the room. Then he stopped. There was something portentous in his air of mournful gravity. His eyes travelled from face to face. For a moment they rested on Merriam. Then they came to a full stop on Aunt Mary.

The whole roomful remained silent, fascinated by his look, which seemed to speak, not of threat, which they might have expected, but of some disaster beyond threat.

At last with an effort he turned his eyes from Aunt Mary to Rockwell.

"I have to tell you," he said, "that George Norman is dead."

*CHAPTER XXIX*

*THE FINAL DILEMMA*

I do not suppose Mr. Crockett desired to be unnecessarily cruel. Doubtless he would have preferred to break his devastating news more gently. But he was himself in a state of nervous exhaustion from fatigue, worry, and perhaps remorse, and the circle of anxious faces had proved too much for his self-control.

Realising too late the brutal bluntness of his announcement, he broke into a hurried flow of words:

"We took him from the hotel this morning to St. John's Hospital. We thought he would be just as well off there--even better off. Dr. Hobart thought he was nearly well anyway. But the ride and the effort of listening to Hobart's explanations apparently fatigued him. By the time they got to the hospital he was very sick again. His bronchitis--if it ever was bronchitis--turned into pneumonia--double acute pneumonia. He got worse and worse all day. Dr. Hobart and the physicians and nurses at the hospital did everything possible for him. But it was no use. He died at nine o'clock."

All eyes turned suddenly to Aunt Mary, who had risen, holding on to the back of her chair.

Father Murray was at her side in an instant, and Alicia hurried to her.

"No," said Aunt Mary, brokenly, "I'm not going--to faint--or anything. But I want--to be alone."

Rockwell sprang to his feet. "My bedroom," he said, and led the way to the door of his chamber, which opened off the sitting room.

In a moment Aunt Mary, walking between Father Murray and Alicia, had passed into the bedroom.

Mr. Wayward's voice broke the stillness.

"Poor fellow!" he said.

For a minute or two they all paid the tribute of silence to the dead. But it was impossible to be really very sorry for George Norman. He had had an easy, pleasure-filled life--wealth, luxury, fame, and a good time, according to his own conception of a good time, up to the very beginning of his brief illness. That his last few, largely unconscious hours had been passed in a hospital away from his friends had certainly been almost no grief to him. The only sorrow genuinely possible was over the common folly, and the universal final tragedy, of humankind. In a few moments the thoughts of the entire group that remained in Rockwell's sitting room were irresistibly drawn back to the strange and somewhat dangerous situation in which the unexpected death had left them.

Presently Rockwell spoke:

"Technically, Mr. Crockett, I suppose it is not Senator Norman but Mr. Merriam who died at St. John's Hospital."

(Merriam was somewhat startled at this turn of thought; this phase of the matter had not yet occurred to him.)

"You have made no announcement?" Rockwell asked.

"No," said Crockett. "I have done nothing. When Hobart telephoned me that--what had happened, I rushed out to the hospital again--I don't know why. I couldn't believe it. Then I telephoned from the hospital to the De Soto and got Mrs. Norman, and she told me you were all here, so I came here. I have done nothing."

While he was speaking Alicia and Father Murray returned from the bedroom.

"She is all right," said Alicia. "She asked us to leave her alone for a few minutes. Did you tell Mrs. Norman?" she added, addressing Crockett.

"What had happened? Yes," said Crockett.

Merriam's thoughts flew to Mollie June, alone in the vast, heartless hotel with the news of her husband's death.

"Ought not some one to go to her?" he asked.

"Presently," said Rockwell. "We must first consider the situation a little--hers as well as ours."

Mayor Black spoke up:

"It will be pretty awkward for her--aside from natural grief and all that--that her husband should have died in a hospital under another name without her being present, while the man to whom the other name belongs was impersonating him in public. And awkward for Miss Norman. For the rest of us, too. Damned awkward!"

"It is a hard thing to have to close the career of George Norman with such a story," said Mr. Wayward.

"It must never happen!" said a voice behind them.

They all turned. Aunt Mary was standing in the door of the bedroom. She already looked more like herself. She was one of those souls who may sink under passive anxiety and suspense but find themselves again immediately when a call for action comes. She had scarcely been left alone, apparently, when the same thought which the Mayor and Mr. Wayward had expressed had occurred to her--the peril to the name of Norman, which was perhaps even more dear to her than her brother himself had been. And instantly, by some powerful effort of will, she had put grief behind her and turned to face this new danger.

"It must never happen," she repeated, advancing into the room, where Alicia, and the men too, unmindful of the etiquette which should have brought them to their feet, sat staring at her. "The secret must be kept. It is more important now than ever. With George alive, it would not have mattered so much. He would have lived it down triumphantly. Only the rest of us would have suffered--not he, nor the Name. But now--_it must be kept_!"

"But how _can_ it be kept?" said Crockett, in a tone of desperation.

For a moment no one spoke.

Then Rockwell, looking from face to face, drew a deep breath.

"There is just one way," he said. "It was John Merriam who died. Senator Norman is alive." He waved his hand at Merriam. "He must go on living!"

"But that is impossible," said Mayor Black and Merriam together.

"Face the alternative first," said Rockwell. "George--the real George--was admitted to the hospital about nine o'clock this morning. At that same hour Senator Norman was making a speech at Cairo before an audience representing the entire county. That is known all over the State. He took the next train back to Chicago. But that train did not reach Chicago until after--after the death."

"We could have the hour of the death changed on the records," proposed Mr. Wayward. "It is already announced all over the State that Senator Norman is ill again. He could be rushed from the train to the hospital and die there during the night."

"Then we should have two deaths on our hands," said Rockwell, "and only one body. Unless we bring Merriam to life again. How are we to do that? It is pretty hard to get hospital authorities to falsify their records. And dozens of people must know the supposed facts--nurses, doctors, clerks at the hospital. We could never keep them all from talking. The reporters would get hold of it within twenty-four hours. No, Senator Norman cannot have died at the hospital. He is alive. He must go on living!"

"Can't he die at the hotel--to-night or to-morrow?" said Merriam.

"Then what becomes of you?" asked Rockwell.

"Why, I should go back to Riceville."

"You can't. You're dead! And how can Senator Norman die at the hotel when we should not be able to produce his body there?"

"We could get the body," said Mr. Wayward, speaking in a lowered tone. "As Mr. Merriam's friends we would take his body away from the hospital to be buried and bring it to the hotel."

"We shall have to send for the real Merriam's friends," said Rockwell. "From Riceville and--wherever your people live." He looked at Merriam. "We should have no body to show them. We could bury a loaded casket. But why should we, who must be strangers to him from their point of view, have been in such a hurry when they could get here in a few hours? Probably they would want to take his body elsewhere for burial. Very likely they would have the coffin we had buried raised and opened. And how could we get a dead body into the Hotel De Soto? Up a fire escape?"

In the earnestness of his argument Rockwell evidently did not realise the gruesomeness of his language.

Aunt Mary shuddered.

"No!" she said. "I will not have George's body smuggled about the city."

She paused, looking strangely at Merriam. None of the others, not even Rockwell, ventured to speak.

"Alicia told me, I believe, that you have no near relatives?" she said presently.

"None nearer than cousins," Merriam replied.

For a long minute more Aunt Mary stared at him. She closed her eyes, opened them, and looked again. Then her lips shut tight for a moment in an expression of momentous decision. She leaned forward.

"You have the Norman blood in you," she said to Merriam, "on your mother's side. You are fine stuff. We have all seen that. We will make a Norman of you, if you will. You shall take George's place--to save his name!"

"But----" Merriam began.

But Rockwell cut in:

"It's absolutely the only way," he cried. "The only other alternative is to let the whole story come out."

"Then that's what we have to do," said Mr. Wayward. "Make a clean breast of it."

"No!" said Aunt Mary.

"No!" echoed Rockwell. "Think what that means--to George's memory, first of all. That in his last hours his relatives and friends were conspiring against him, with the help of a stranger double, to force him to abandon the kind of life he was leading and the disreputable interests with which he was associated.--I beg your pardon, Mr. Crockett!"

Crockett waved a feeble hand to indicate forgiveness or indifference.

"And then to Mollie June," Rockwell continued. "That she had connived at the impersonation of her husband during his last illness by another man. How far did that other man take her husband's place, will be the question every man and woman in the State will ask. And all the rest of us. Aunt Mary. And Mr. Merriam, who will lose his job and his professional standing. And the Mayor and myself, who will be ruined politically and every other way. Even you, Mr. Wayward, would find yourself in an exceedingly unpleasant situation. And Mr. Crockett, on the other side, would be no better off. For the story of the kidnapping must come out."

The wilted financier uttered a sort of groan.

"But can the other thing be done?" asked the Mayor, the perspiration of mental anguish showing on his forehead.

"Certainly it can," said, Rockwell eagerly. "Senator Norman has come back to Chicago. Here he is. Presently he will arrive at the hotel. He will be pretty sick. You and I"--he looked at Mr. Wayward--"will support him to the elevator and to his rooms. He will be ill for several days. We must get hold of Hobart again to attend him. Then we will announce that he is threatened with tuberculosis and is to retire from public life. He must resign his seat in the Senate. We daren't go ahead with that. It would be too dangerous--and too serious a fraud besides." (Evidently there was some limit to a Reformer's unscrupulousness.) "He will go to his ranch in Colorado to recuperate. You will actually go." He was addressing Merriam now. "You must live there for a year or so. During that time only a few of Norman's private friends will visit you. We will coach you up on these a few at a time. If any of them notice any slight changes in you, they will lay it to your illness. You will easily take your place in the whole circle of his private life."

"But the property," said Mr. Wayward. "The Norman fortune."

"Reverts to me and Mollie June," said Aunt Mary, who was evidently heart and soul with Rockwell. "If we are satisfied----"

She stopped. The mention of Mollie June had recalled a phase of the situation which Rockwell and the Mayor and even Mr. Wayward had apparently forgotten--so little are men accustomed to consider their women folk when the real game of business or politics is on. Merriam and Alicia had not forgotten it, but had not been able so far to get a word in. As for Aunt Mary I cannot say--she was so near to being a man herself.

"Mollie June!" repeated Rockwell aghast.

"Exactly," said Merriam, somewhat bitterly. Him, too, Rockwell had been treating pretty much as a lifeless pawn in the game.

But Aunt Mary, when roused, was equal to anything.

"We shall manage that," she said. "I will go to Colorado with Mr. Merriam. Mollie June can return to her father for a time. We can arrange a separation--or----"

Even Aunt Mary hesitated. But Alicia took the cue.

"Or they can be married--or remarried," she said, fixing her bright eyes, with a gleam of mischievous understanding in them, on Merriam.

The argument had come to a full stop. The whole roomful sat looking at Merriam, who tried to think and found he could not, except that he realised that all the rest had tacitly accepted Rockwell's plan.

"Come!" said Alicia vivaciously. "It isn't so bad, is it? The Norman fortune and--Mollie June!"

Bad! The prospect was so dazzling to Merriam that he could not take his mind off it in order to think calmly. To die to his old self--to his poverty and loneliness, to his teaching with which he had long been bored,--and to step as if by magic into a new life with wealth, leisure--and Mollie June! For surely she loved him, and she had not loved George Norman. She would marry him--after an interval, of course.

"I must think," he said, weakly, in response to Alicia's exhortation.

"Of course you must," said Rockwell. "You must accustom your mind to it. But it will all be perfectly easy. You were brought up on a farm, weren't you? You will take to the ranch life like anything. It's mostly stock-raising. You can go in for scientific farming. After a few months it would probably be a good thing for you to travel, perhaps for a year or two--especially if you and Mollie June should marry. Get out of the country, so as to leave Norman's old life entirely behind you for a while. You might take a trip around the world."

Merriam's youthful heart bounded in spite of himself. A trip around the world with Mollie June!

"As to your old self," Rockwell continued, "that's quite simple, too. Norman was entered at the hospital under your name. A death certificate must have been given by now." He looked at Crockett.

"I don't know," said Crockett. "Hobart may have held off on that."

"At any rate it can be. In fact, it will have to be. Hobart shall telegraph to Riceville and to your cousins, wherever they are. He was the house physician at the De Soto where you took sick. That was how he came to be attending you. When you got bad he took you to the hospital. Nothing more natural. The rest of us will not need to appear at all."

"Aunt Mary will have to appear," said Alicia. "She will want to attend the funeral."

"She became acquainted with you at the hotel, then," said Rockwell. "Took an interest in a young man who was alone and ill. When your relatives and friends come Hobart will have the body already laid out in a casket. He can advise immediate burial here in the city. Aunt Mary can offer a lot in the Norman plot at Lakewood. Would your cousins probably consent to that?"

"Very likely," said Merriam, rather in a daze. It was confusing to be discussing the details of one's own interment.

"Then everything will follow in regular course," said Rockwell, speaking as if all difficulties were solved. "George will be buried with his family, and you can start for Colorado."

For a second time the talk came to a full stop. The new plan was outlined in full. It remained only to decide upon it or to reject it and face the alternative of a public confession. All of them except Merriam had already accepted the scheme, apparently, gruesome and bizarre as it was. It was for all the rest so much the easiest way and the most advantageous. But it did not require any of them to die--to die to his own self, his friends, his very name. On the other hand it did not offer them any such positive rewards as were proffered to Merriam--a fortune and love. We can hardly wonder that he was somewhat stupefied by the alternatives that beat upon his mind. The loss of all that up to this point in his life had been his identity versus Mollie June--that was the essence of the struggle within him.

He sat beside Rockwell's table, staring at the now silent percolator, trying to think but able only to feel. The others were looking uneasily at him and at one another. Aunt Mary's eyes and Alicia's demanded of Rockwell, who had always managed everything, that he should manage this too. Once he started to speak, but gave it up and looked appealingly at Alicia instead. Indeed he might justifiably feel that this was Alicia's job. She acknowledged as much in her own mind and was trying to decide what to do or say, when the one person present who had not spoken throughout the entire scene came to the rescue.

Through all their long discussion Simpson had stood unobtrusive and unnoticed in the background, but he had followed every word. For his fortunes too, humble, indeed, but sufficiently important to him, were bound up in this decision. If the deception was to be continued, his assistance, in the matter of silence at least, would be necessary, and he could expect a large--honorarium; if it came to a public confession, he could still expect something, but probably a good deal less; and to win and hold Jennie he needed a considerable sum of money.

So now he advanced a step and spoke:

"Shall I call a taxi for you, Mr. Merriam, to take you to the hotel?"

"Of course!" cried Alicia, jumping up. "You must go and see Mollie June. It all depends now upon her."

The others too stirred and expressed more or less audible acquiescence, and Simpson had his reward in the shape of approving glances from Rockwell and Mr. Wayward.

Merriam got to his feet with the other men because Alicia had risen. He was not so obtuse nor so much dazed that he did not see what they were doing. They were trying to rush him. They calculated that though Mollie June in the abstract might contend indecisively with other abstract considerations, Mollie June in the flesh would decide him in the twinkling of an eye. He saw that plainly enough. Nevertheless, for his part it did now depend altogether upon Mollie June. If he was to do this thing--to abandon his old self and enter upon what must be in some degree a lifelong career of deception,--it would be for her sake--not only in order to win her sooner, years sooner, than he could otherwise have the slightest hope of doing, but to save her from scandal, and because she loved him and wanted him too at once (comparatively speaking) as he wanted her.

So his decision was made almost as soon as he was on his feet. He looked with some dignity from one waiting face to another about the circle.

"Yes," he said quietly, "it does depend on her. You may call a taxi, Simpson."

*CHAPTER XXX*

*MOLLIE JUNE*

Almost before Merriam's brief sentence was out of his mouth Simpson had started for the telephone. But Mayor Black spoke up:

"My car and chauffeur are below. We came up from the hotel in it. You can use it."

"You go with him, Aunt Mary," said Rockwell, again taking command. "You see her first," he continued. "Mr. Merriam can wait somewhere--in 'Mr. Wilson's' room. When you have explained the general situation you can call him in and leave them together and--give him his chance."

Even at this moment it was a slight shock to Merriam to realise that the state of feeling between himself and Mollie June, which they had supposed completely hidden, had been clearly perceived by the others--or at least, he thought swiftly, by Rockwell and Aunt Mary and Alicia. He smiled a little cynically to himself as he understood that they had been willing to use this interest of his as a motive in securing his easy acquiescence in their previous schemes. Evidently they were counting on it in Mollie June too. That gave him a thrill of hope which made him forget his cynicism.

Father Murray had put Aunt Mary's wrap about her, and Rockwell had got Merriam's hat and his own.

Merriam found Alicia by his side. She held out her hand, and when he took it she squeezed his fingers in the way she had and said significantly, with all of a woman's interest in a romance:

"Good luck!"

"Thank you," said Merriam, but his answering smile was again a little cynical.

Then he opened the door for Aunt Mary and waved his hand to the others, with some amusement at the anxious looks with which they were regarding him. Even Simpson's countenance was perturbed!

Rockwell and the Mayor went down to the street with them and put them in the limousine. The Mayor directed the chauffeur to drive them to the hotel and then to return for himself and the others. Rockwell spoke to Aunt Mary:

"You put the essential facts before her and then leave them--leave Mr. Merriam to do the rest!"

And again Merriam smiled with an acid amusement that is commonly supposed to belong to the middle-aged and old but is really most characteristic of those who are under thirty.

Rockwell glanced at Merriam as if about to give him too a parting exhortation, but hesitated, checked perhaps by the younger man's expression, and spoke to the driver instead: "All right!"

They had started, and Merriam tried to think. His whole life turned in a very peculiar sense on the events of the next hour--whether he should continue to be himself or take up the life of another man. He got that far. But what he should say to Mollie June--even what it was he wanted to say to her--he could not get on with it. The mood of youthful cynicism was by no means the right mood for the business in hand.

And then--too soon for him now--they were at the hotel.

So little had he been able to think clearly that it was not until he was helping Aunt Mary out of the machine that he realised that in entering the hotel with her again this way, in the character of the dead Senator, he was already in effect consenting to Rockwell's plan and binding its consequences upon himself and Mollie June.

He had a wild idea of getting back into the limousine and driving away and later entering the hotel via the fire escape again. But Aunt Mary was already on the pavement.

As they entered the lobby Merriam glanced about to see whether he was noticed and recognised as the Senator. He was. At least three men whom he did not know bowed and raised their hats, and one of them took a step forward as if to approach them. But Merriam looked away and guided Aunt Mary as rapidly as possible to the elevators.

When they emerged on Floor Three, Merriam asked for the key, explaining casually that "Mr. Wilson" was a friend.

In a couple of minutes he had escorted Aunt Mary to the door of her sitting room--Senator Norman's no longer--or was it still to be Senator Norman's?--and had himself entered "Mr. Wilson's" room.

His first act there was to call up the hotel florist--as he had done once before on this same telephone. But this time Merriam's order was for roses, to be sent up at once.

He hung up the receiver and walked nervously about the room.

Was it not time for him to go to Mollie June? Aunt Mary was being terribly long about her explanation. Had Mollie June broken down under her grief--grief for George Norman?--or merely from anxiety and conflicting emotions? Was she refusing to see him? Was she ill?

He jumped up and walked back and forth in his nervousness, watching the door to the other bedroom, at which he might expect to receive Aunt Mary's summons.

A knock at last! But it was at the wrong door, the hall door. In a sort of hesitating amazement he went to answer it. It was the boy with the roses. He had forgotten ordering them.

He signed for the flowers and brought them into the room and took them out of their box and tissue paper. They were lovely--the most exquisite colour, between pink and red, that has no name but that of the flower itself--pink and red harmonised in soft coolness and fragrance--Mollie June's flowers without a doubt.

But had he done well in ordering them? Was this a time for lover-like gifts? Should he not have got white roses, such as one sends to a funeral?

And then, as he stood in this anxiety, came Aunt Mary's knock at the bedroom door.

He started as if caught in a guilty action and thrust the flowers back into their box before he went to open to her.

"How is she?"

But Aunt Mary herself looked so broken that he led her to a chair.

Then, "How is she?" he repeated. He could not wait.

"She is very quiet."

"You told her the--the plan?"

"Yes."

"She understood it?"

"I think so."

"Am I to go to her?"

"I suppose so," said Aunt Mary with a sigh. "Mr. Rockwell said----" She stopped.

Merriam showed her the roses.

"Should I take these to her?"

Aunt Mary looked at him and at the flowers.

"I think perhaps you might," she said, and then sat staring out across the fire escape.

She looked so very miserable that Merriam impulsively patted her shoulder. She glanced up quickly at that, then turned her eyes to the window again. He could not read her look, but he was not sorry he had betrayed his affectionate sympathy. If he was to be her brother for the rest of their lives----

After a moment more of hesitation he picked up the flowers and passed through the former sick room to the sitting room.

Mollie June was sitting in a small straight-backed chair by the window, looking out. But Merriam was sure at the first glance that she saw nothing. She had merely turned automatically towards the light, as all but the old or the self-conscious tend to do. As Aunt Mary had said she was very quiet. Her back was of course towards the room and Merriam.

He waited for a moment just inside the door, looking at her, forgetting the flowers in his hands. He was sorry for her and very uncertain what he ought to do. Then he became a little frightened, because she sat so still. She gave no sign of having heard him.

With conscious effort, because he must do something, he crossed the room till he stood beside her. Still she did not turn her eyes from the window.

He stood looking down at her. She was a pathetic figure as she sat there--the more pathetic, to the eyes of youth at least, because she was so lovely, so young and fresh really, although a little pale and heavy-eyed. He saw dark shadows under her eyes which must have come from tears.

The sight of these unlocked him, drowned all his hesitations in pitying love. He dropped on his knees beside her chair, laying the long-stemmed roses regardlessly on the floor and putting one hand on the back of her chair.

"Mollie June!" he said.

She did not start. Evidently she had known he was there. She looked first at the flowers on the floor and then at his face.

"I am so sorry," he cried.

"Are you sorry or glad?" she asked.

"I am terribly sorry for you," he answered. Her hands lay together in her lap, and he attempted to take one of them.

But she moved them slightly.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't make me strange to you, Mollie June," he cried.

"How can I help it?" she answered. "I am strange to myself too. You see, I am glad! I am sorry for George," she went on quickly. "It is terrible to me that he is dead. But I am so glad I do not have to be his wife any more!"

Once more, as on a former occasion, some dim notion came to Merriam of what it must mean to a girl to be connubially in the power of a man she does not love. He pitied and loved her greatly. Also he marvelled. How had she come through it all so fresh and unchanged? The answer, of course, was youth. But youth could not know the answer.

"I am glad too," he said.

Her eyes, which as she dropped them had rested on the roses on the floor, came back to his face.

"You are glad I have to marry you."

"But you don't!"

"You know I do."

Instantly he saw that Aunt Mary had not put the thing fairly before her. In Aunt Mary's mind it was settled. The course of action which promised to save the precious Norman name from scandal was the only possible course of action. She had so represented it to Mollie June.

"No, no!" Merriam cried. "You shall not be forced into this. You shall never be forced in anything again if I can help it. I will not be forced myself--even to marry you."

"What else can we do?" asked Mollie June, searching his face.

"It's fairly simple," he said, a little bitterly. "Not easy, but simple. I will write a brief, plain account of the whole affair--the impersonation--from beginning to end, and send for a reporter and give it to him. That will end everything. I will sit down now at that desk and write it and call for a man and give it to him while Aunt Mary thinks we are still talking--unless you tell me not to."

"Would you do that?"

"Indeed I will!"

He rose to his feet. He meant it, and she saw that he meant it. To be forced in this thing was, in fact, even less to his liking perhaps than to hers.

Standing, he saw the roses at his feet. He stooped and picked them up and handed them to her.

"You'll let me give you these?" he said, his manner more determined than lover-like. "I saw them from the elevator as I was coming up here with Aunt Mary. They were so like you that I could not help buying them and bringing them to you."

She accepted them passively, looking up at him. Perhaps she liked him determined rather than lover-like.

"I am not giving you up," he went on gravely. "But you will go away somewhere with Aunt Mary, and I will go back to Riceville. I have my contract for the rest of this year at least. And if you will wait a few years--you will want to wait and rest a while,--I will come back and win you in my own right."

She did not answer but looked up at him, still searching his face.