"Oh, is that you, Watson?" I answered. "I was going on an errand which concerns myself. I was going alone."

"If you're looking for any one," he said, trotting along beside me, "I can find him a good deal quicker than you can, probably. And if there's news in it, I'll get it anyhow; and I'll naturally know it more from your standpoint, and look at it more as you do, if we go together. Don't you think so?"

"See here, Watson," said I, "you may help if you wish. But if you print a word without my consent, I can and will scoop the _Times_ every day, from this on, with every item of business news coming through our office. Do you understand, and do you promise?"

"Why, certainly," said he. "You've got the thing in your own hands. What is it, anyhow?"

I told him, and found that Trescott's dipsomania was as well known to him as myself.

"He's been throwing money to the fowls for a year or two," he remarked.

"It's better than two to one you don't find him at the Club: the atmosphere won't be congenial for him there."

At the Club we found Watson's forecast verified. At O'Brien's our knocking on the door aroused a sleepy bartender, who told us that no one was there, but refused to let us in. Watson called him aside, and they talked together for a few minutes.

"All right," said the reporter, turning away from him, "much obliged, Hank; I believe you've struck it."

Watson was leader now, and I followed him toward Front Street, near the river. He said that Hank, the barkeeper, had told him that Trescott had been in his saloon about nine o'clock, drinking heavily; and from the company he was in, it was to be suspected that he would be steered into a joint down on the river front. We pa.s.sed through an alley, and down a back bas.e.m.e.nt stairway, came to a door, on which Watson confidently knocked, and which was opened by a negro who let us in as soon as he saw the reporter. The air was sickening with an odor which I then perceived for the first time, and which Watson called the dope smell. There was an indefinable horror about the place, which so repelled me that nothing but my obligation could have held me there. The lights were dim, and at first I could see nothing more than that the sides of the room were divided into compartments by dull-colored draperies, in a manner suggesting the sections of a sleeping-car. There were sounds of dreadful breathings and inarticulate voices, and over all that sickening smell. I saw, flung aimlessly from the crepuscular and curtained recesses, here the hairy brawn of a man's arm, there a woman's leg in scarlet silk stocking, the foot half withdrawn from a red slipper with a high French heel. The Gate of a Hundred Sorrows had opened for me, and I stood as if gazing, with eyes freshly unsealed to its horrors, into some dim inferno, sibilant with hisses, and enwrapped in indeterminate dragon-folds--and I in quest of a lost soul.

"He wouldn't go with his pal, boss," I heard the negro say. "Ah tried to send him home, but he said he had some medicine to take, an' he 'nsisted on stayin'."

As he ceased to speak, I knew that Watson had been interrogating him, and that he was referring to the man we sought.

"Show me where he is," I commanded.

"Yes, boss! Right hyah, sah!"

In an inner room, on a bed, not a pallet like those in the first chamber, was Trescott, his head lying peacefully on a pillow, his hands clasped across his chest. Somehow, I was not surprised to see no evidence of life, no rise and fall of the breast, no sound of breathing.

But Watson started forward in amazement, laid his hand for a moment on the pallid forehead, lifted for an instant and then dropped the inert hand, turned and looked fixedly in my face, and whispered, "My G.o.d! He's dead!"

As if at some great distance, I heard the negro saying, "He done said he hed ter tek some medicine, boss. Ah hopes you-all won't make no trouble foh me, boss--!"

"Send for a doctor!" said I. "Telephone Mr. Elkins, at Trescott's home!"

Watson darted out, and for an eternity, as it seemed to me, I stood there alone. There was a scurrying of the vermin in the place to s.n.a.t.c.h up a few valuables and flee, as if they had been the crawling things under some soon-to-be-lifted stone, to whom light was a calamity. I was left with the Stillness before me, and the dreadful breathings and inarticulate voices outside. Then came the clang and rattle of ambulance and patrol, and in came a policeman or two, a physician, a _Herald_ man and Watson, who was bitterly complaining of Bill for having had the bad taste to die on the morning paper's time.

And soon came Jim, in a carriage, whirled along the street like a racing chariot--with whom I rode home, silent, save for answering his questions. Now the wife, gazing out of her door, saw in the street the Something for which she had peered past me the other night.

The men carried it in at the door, and laid it on the divan. Josie, her arms and shoulders still bare in the dress she had worn to the wedding, broke away from Cornish, who was bending over her and saying things to comfort her, and swept down the hall to the divan where Bill lay, white and still, and clothed with the mystic majesty of death. The shimmering silk and lace of her gown lay all along the rug and over the divan, like drapery thrown there to conceal what lay before us. She threw her arms across the still breast, and her head went down on his.

"Oh, pa! Oh, pa!" she moaned, "you never did any one any harm!... You were always good and kind!... And always loving and forgiving.... And why should they come to you, poor pa ... and take you from the things you loved ... and ... murder you ... like this!"

Jim fell back, as if staggering from a blow. Cornish came forward, and offered to raise up the stricken girl, whose eyes shone in her grief like the eyes of insanity. Alice stepped before Cornish, raised Josie up, and supported her from the room.

Again it was morning, when we--Alice, Jim, and I--sat face to face in our home. An untasted breakfast was spread before us. Jim's eyes were on the cloth, and nothing served to rouse him. I knew that the blow from which he had staggered still benumbed his faculties.

"Come," said I, "we shall need your best thought down at the Grain Belt Building in a couple of hours. This brings things to a crisis. We shall have a terrible dilemma to face, it's likely. Eat and be ready to face it!"

"G.o.d!" said he, "it's the old tale over again, Al: throw the dead and wounded overboard to clear the decks, and on with the fight!"

CHAPTER XIX.

In Which Events Resume their Usual Course--at a Somewhat Accelerated Pace.

The death of Mr. Trescott was treated with that consideration which the affairs of the locally prominent always receive in towns where local papers are in close financial touch with the circle affected. Nothing was said of suicide, or of the place where the body was found; and in fact I doubt if the family ever knew the real facts; but the property matters were looked upon as a legitimate subject for comment.

"Yesterday," said, in due time, the _Herald_, "the Trescott estate pa.s.sed into the hands of Will Lattimore, as administrator. He was appointed upon the pet.i.tion of Martha D. Trescott, the widow. His bond, in the sum of $500,000, was signed by James R. Elkins, Albert F.

Barslow, J. Bedford Cornish, and Marion Tolliver, as sureties, and is said to be the largest in amount ever filed in our local Probate Court.

"Mr. Lattimore is non-committal as to the value of the estate. The bond is not to be taken as altogether indicative of this value, as additional bonds may be called for at any time, and the individual responsibility of the administrator is very large. He will at once enter upon the work of settling up the estate, receiving and filing claims, and preparing his report. He estimates the time necessary to a full understanding of the extent and condition of his trust at weeks and even months.

"The pet.i.tion states that the deceased died intestate, leaving surviving him the pet.i.tioner and an only child, a daughter, Josephine. As Miss Trescott has attained her majority, she will at once come into the possession of the greater part of this estate, becoming thereby the richest heiress in this part of the West. This fact of itself would render her an interesting person, an interest to which her charming personality adds zest. She is a very beautiful girl, pet.i.te in figure, with splendid brown hair and eyes. She is possessed of a strong individuality, has had the advantages of the best American and Continental schools, and is said to be an artist of much ability. Mrs.

Trescott comes of the Dana family, prominent in central Illinois from the earliest settlement of the state.

"President Elkins, of the L. & G. W., who, perhaps, knows more than any other person as to the situation and value of the various Trescott properties, could not be seen last night. He went to Chicago on Wednesday, and yesterday wired his partner, Mr. Barslow, that business had called him on to New York, where he would remain for some time."

In another column of the same issue was a double-leaded news-story, based on certain rumors that Jim's trip to New York was taken for the purpose of financing extensions of the L. & G. W. which would develop it into a system of more than a thousand miles of line.

"Their past successes have shown," said the _Herald_ in editorial comment on this, "that Mr. Elkins and his a.s.sociates are resourceful enough to bring such an undertaking, gigantic as it is, quite within their abilities. The world has not seen the best that is in the power of this most remarkable group of men to accomplish. Lattimore, already a young giantess in stature and strength, has not begun to grow, in comparison with what is in the future for her, if she is to be made the center of such a vast railway system as is outlined in the news item referred to."

From which one gathers that the young men left by Mr. Giddings in charge of his paper were entirely competent to carry forward his policy.

Jim had gone to Chicago to see Halliday, hoping to rouse in him an interest in the Belt Line and L. & G. W. properties; but on arriving there had telegraphed to me that he must go to New York. This message was followed by a letter of explanation and instructions.

"Halliday spends a good deal of his time in New York now," the letter read, "and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I'm going. I shall stay as long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won't get the condition of the estate worked out for a month, and until we know about that, there won't anything come up of the first magnitude, and even if there should, you can handle it. I don't really expect to come back with the two million dollars for the L. & G. W., but I do hope to have it in sight!

"In all your prayers let me be remembered; 'if it don't do no good, it won't do no harm,' and I'll need all the help I can get. I'm going where the lobster a la Newburg and the Welsh rabbit hunt in couples in the interest of the Sure-Thing game; where the bird-and-bottle combine is the stalking-horse for the Frame-up; and where the Flim-flam (I use the word on the authority of Beaumont, Fletcher & Giddings) has its natural habitat. I go to foster the entente cordiale between our friends Pendleton and Halliday into what I may term a mutual cross-lift, of which we shall be the beneficiaries--in trust, however, for the use and behoof of the captives below decks.

"Giddings and Laura are here. I had them out to a box party last night.

They are most insufferably happy. Clifford is not sane yet, but is rallying. He is rallying considerably; for he spoke of plans for pushing the _Herald_ Addition harder than ever when he gets home. And you know such a thing as business has never entered his mind for six months--unless it was business to write that 'Apostrophe to the Heart,'

which he called a poem, and which, I don't mind admitting now, I hired his foreman to pi after the copy was lost.

"Keep everything as near ship-shape as you can. Watch the papers, or they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch the _Times_, although there's mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend as much time at the Trescotts' as you can spare. You'll hear from me almost daily. Wire anything of importance fully. Keep the L. & G. W.

extension story before the people; it may make some impression even in the East, but it's sure to do good in the local fake market. Don't miss a chance to jolly our Eastern banks. I should declare a dividend--say 4%--on Cement stock. At Atlas Power Company meeting ask Cornish to move pa.s.sing earnings to surplus in lieu of dividend, on the theory of building new factories--anyhow, consult with the fellows about it: that money will be handy to have in the treasury before the year is out, unless I am mistaken. Sorry I can't be at these meetings. Will be back for those of Rapid Transit and Belt Line Companies.

"Yours, "Jim.

"P. S.--Coming in, I saw a group of children dancing on a bridge, close to a schoolhouse, down near the Mississippi. I guess no one but myself knew what they were doing; but I recognized our old 'Weevilly Wheat'

dance. I could imagine the ancient Scotch air, which the noise of the train kept me from hearing, and the old words you and I used to sing, dancing on the Elk Creek bridge:

"'We want no more of your weevilly wheat, We want no more your barley; But we want some of your good old wheat, To make a cake for Charley!'

"You remember it all! How we used to swing the little girls around, and when we remembered it afterwards, how we would float off into realms of blissful companionship with freckled, short-skirted, bare-legged angels!