REUBEN Tracy rose at an unwontedly early hour next morning, under the spur of consciousness that he had a very busy day before him. While he was still at his breakfast in the hotel dining-room, John Fairchild came to keep an appointment made the previous evening, and the two men were out on the streets together before Thessaly seemed wholly awake.
Their first visit was to the owner of the building which the Citizens’ Club had thought of hiring, and their business here was promptly despatched; thence they made their way to the house of a boss-carpenter, and within the hour they had called upon a plumber, a painter, and one or two other master artisans. By ten o’clock those of this number with whom arrangements had been made had put in an appearance at the building in question, and Tracy and Fairchild explained to them the plans which they were to carry out. The discussion and settlement of these consumed the time until noon, when the lawyer and the editor separated, and Reuben went to his office.
Here, as had been arranged, he found old ’Squire Gedney waiting for him. A long interview behind the closed door of the inner office followed, and when the two men came out the justice of the peace was putting a roll of bills into his pocket.
“This is Tuesday,” he said to Tracy. “I daresay I can be back by Thursday. The bother about it is that Cadmus is such an out-of-the-way place to get at.”
“At all events, I’ll count on seeing you Friday morning,” answered Reuben. “Then, if you’ve got what I expect, we can go before the county judge and get our warrants by Saturday, and that will be in plenty of time for the grand jury next week.”
“If they don’t all eat their Christmas dinner in Auburn prison, call me a Dutchman!” was Gedney’s confident remark, as he took his departure.
Reuben, thus left alone, walked up and down the larger room in pleased excitement, his hands in his pockets and his eyes aglow with satisfaction. So all-pervasive was his delight that it impelled him to song, and he hummed to himself as he paced the floor a faulty recollection of a tune his mother had been fond of, many years before. Reuben had no memory for music, and knew neither the words nor the air, but no winged outburst of exultation from a triumphant Viking in the opera could have reflected a more jubilant mood.
He had unearthed the conspiracy, seized upon its avenues of escape, laboriously traced all its subterranean burrowings. Even without the proof which it was to be hoped that Gedney could bring from Cadmus, Reuben believed he had information enough to justify criminal proceedings. Nothing could be clearer than guilty collusion between this New Yorker, Wendover, and some of the heads of the pig-iron trust to rob Mrs. Minster and her daughters. At almost every turn and corner in the ramification of the huge swindle, Tenney and Boyce also appeared. They too should not escape. Reuben Tracy was the softest-hearted of men, but it did not occur to him to relent when he thought of his late partner. To the contrary, there was a decided pleasure in the reflection that nothing could avert well-merited punishment from this particular young man.
The triumph had its splendid public side, moreover. Great and lasting good must follow such an exposure as he would make of the economic and social evils underlying the system of trusts. A staggering blow would be dealt to the system, and to the sentiment back of it that rich men might do what they liked in America. With pardonable pride he thrilled at the thought that his arm was to strike this blow. The effect would be felt all over the country. It could not but affect public opinion, too, on the subject of the tariff—that bomb-proof cover under which these men had conducted their knavish operations. Reuben sang with increased fervor as this passed through his mind.
On his way back from luncheon—which he still thought of as dinner—Reuben Tracy stopped for a few moments at the building he and Fairchild had rented. The carpenters were already at work, ripping down the partitions on the ground floor, in a choking and clamorous confusion of dust and sound of hammering. The visible energy of these workmen and the noise they made were like a sympathetic continuation of his song of success. He would have enjoyed staying for hours, watching and listening to these proofs that he at last was doing something to help move the world around.
When he came out upon the street again, it was to turn his steps to the house of the Minsters. He had not been there since his visit in March, and there was a certain embarrassment about his going now. It was really Mrs. Minster’s house, and he had been put in the position of acting against her, as counsel for her daughters. It was therefore a somewhat delicate business. But Miss Kate had asked him to come, and he would be sincerely glad of the opportunity of telling Mrs. Minster the whole truth, if she would listen to it. Just what form this opportunity might take he could not foresee; but his duty was so clear, and his arguments must carry such absolute conviction, that he approached the ordeal with a light heart.
Miss Kate came down into the drawing-room to receive him, and Reuben noted with a deep joy that she again wore the loose robe of creamy cloth, girdled by that same enchanted rope of shining white silk. Something made him feel, too, that she observed the pleased glance of recognition he bestowed upon her garments, and understood it, and was not vexed. Their relations had been distinctly cordial—even confidential—for the past fortnight; but the reappearance of this sanctified and symbolical gown—this mystical robe which he had enshrined in his heart with incense and candles and solemn veneration, as does the Latin devotee with the jewelled dress of the Bambino—seemed of itself to establish a far more tender intimacy between them. He became conscious, all at once, that she knew of his love.
“I have asked mamma to see you,” she said, when they were seated, “and I think she will. Since it was first suggested to her, she has wavered a good deal, sometimes consenting, sometimes not. The poor lady is almost distracted with the trouble in which we have all become involved, and that makes it all the more difficult for her to see things in their proper connection. I hope you may be able to show her just how matters stand, and who her real friends are.”
The girl left at this, and in a few moments reappeared with her mother, to whom she formally presented Mr. Tracy.
If Mrs. Minster had suffered great mental anguish since the troubles came on, her countenance gave no hint of the fact. It was as regular and imperturbable and deceptively impressive as ever, and she bore herself with perfect self-possession, bowing with frosty precision, and seating herself in silence.
Reuben himself began the talk by explaining that the steps which he had felt himself compelled to take in the interest of the daughters implied not the slightest hostility to the mother. They had had, in fact, the ultimate aim of helping her as well. He had satisfied himself that she was in the clutch of a criminal conspiracy to despoil her estate and that of her daughters. It was absolutely necessary to act with promptness, and, as he was not her lawyer, to temporarily and technically separate the interest of her daughters from her own, for legal purposes. All that had been done was, however, quite as much to her advantage as to that of her daughters, and when he had explained to her the entire situation he felt sure she would be willing to allow him to represent her as well as her daughters in the effort to protect the property and defeat the conspiracy.
Mrs. Minster offered no comment upon this expression of confidence, and Reuben went on to lay before her the whole history of the case. He did this with great clearness—as if he had been talking to a child—pointing out to her how the scheme of plunder originated, where its first operations revealed themselves, and what part in turn each of the three conspirators had played.
She listened to it all with an expressionless face, and though she must have been startled and shocked by a good deal of it, Reuben could gather no indication from her manner of her feelings or her opinions. When he had finished, and his continued silence rendered it clear that he was not going to say any more, she made her first remark.
“I’m much obliged to you, I’m sure,” she said, with no sign of emotion. “It was very kind of you to explain it to me. But of course they explain it quite differently.”
“No doubt,” answered Reuben. “That is just what they would do. The difference is that they have lied to you, and that I have told you what the books, what the proofs, really show.”
“I have known Peter Wendover since we were children together,” sh............