"I presume you remember me, Mr. Bra.s.sfield," said he. "Blodgett of Hazelhurst."

"Of course it's unpardonable in me," said Bra.s.sfield, "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 Bra.s.sfield 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 Bra.s.sfield. 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 Bra.s.sfield 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. Bra.s.sfield started and changed color.

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

Judge Blodgett nodded. Bra.s.sfield 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 Bra.s.sfield; 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, Bra.s.sfield 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 Bra.s.sfield, 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 Bra.s.sfield. "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 Bra.s.sfield.

"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 Bra.s.sfield. "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 att.i.tude 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. Bra.s.sfield. 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?"

Bra.s.sfield 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 Bra.s.sfield 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 Bra.s.sfield. "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 Bra.s.sfield, "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."

Bra.s.sfield 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 Bra.s.sfield, "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."

XVII

THE HONOR NEARS ITS QUARRY

And every man, and woman, too, was forged at Birmingham, And mounted all in batteries, each on a separate cam; And when one showed, in love or war or politics or fever, A sign of maladjustment, why you just pulled on his lever, And upside down and inside out and front side back he stood; And the Inspector saw which one was evil, which was good.

Chorus:

On the other side!