Chapter 25

The Keystone

When Senator Blair learned of Judge Latimer's death he thought himself its prime cause and suffered as only a man can who is not wholly heartless. How poorly he had rewarded the friendship which had relieved him in his need at Fort Macleod! All his passion for Mrs. Latimer had died in that fearful moment when he looked on the curiously passive husband in the doorway; remorse bit like acid into the depths of his heart. The meaning glances and the interrupted conversations that met him everywhere the morning after the judge's death drove him to solitude. He even avoided his sister, Danvers and the doctor; but most of all he shunned the Honorable Mr. Moore. He had had enough of temptation! He would not allow himself again to be approached!

His belief that in the sight of God he was a murderer made Blair collapse during the day. He was confined to his room; and it was then that he told the Fort Benton physician all that was haunting him, hour by hour. Blair did not attempt to palliate his sin, and although the doctor had known much and suspected more, he could hardly find it in his heart to forgive either Winifred's brother or the woman who had led him on. The only ray of mercy he felt was that matters were not so bad as he had feared between these old friends of his; but in his bitterness at Arthur's death, he would not give Blair the consolation of knowing that it was only a question of a short time, at best, when the judge's weak heart must have failed. Let him suffer! Arthur had! For the first time the lenient doctor did not want to relieve pain. Neither he nor Blair knew of what had taken place between Eva and her husband after Charlie had left their rooms.

The doctor's bitterness, however, was as nothing to the inward storm which shook Danvers when Eva, in the height of her hysterical remorse and fear of exposure, told him the sorry tale of her first flutterings around the arc-light of Mr. Burroughs' ambition; of her consent to aid Mr. Moore in his efforts to influence uncertain legislators to vote for Burroughs, and that gentleman's acceptance thereof; of the clandestine meetings in her apartments with the Honorable William, and of the more open but far less harmless friendship with Senator Blair, pursued until she was singed with the flame of her own kindling and nearly consumed by its fires. And lastly, her husband's reproaches; her miserable evasions and the hurt that she had deliberately given him. When she told her silent listener of that last half hour Danvers held himself forcibly in his fear of doing the woman bodily harm. That she should have done this cruel thing! Her indiscretions had been bad enough, but they had been prompted by an ambition second only to Mr. Burroughs'. But to turn the knife wantonly in Arthur's heart of gold!... How nearly his friend had gone from him, believing that he was false!... And now he was dead!... dead!

Philip's agony broke its restraint, and Mrs. Latimer never forgot his scathing denunciation.

"You killed Arthur," he concluded, white to the lips, "as surely as if you used a stiletto! So that was what Arthur meant." For a few moments Danvers could not speak as the recollection of that look of love and trust came surging back. "No one must ever know the truth," he went on, huskily. "Let it be buried with poor Arthur. There will be more or less gossip; but we will stand by you for the judge's sake--and for Miss Blair's as well. She, of all persons, must know nothing of what you have told me."

Mrs. Latimer's sobs only roused his wrath at all the misery she had wrought. He knew her tears were for herself, not for her husband. As he turned to leave the room she caught at his hand.

"I did not mean----" she began in weak defense. "You are too hard," she protested, feeling him recoil.

"Hard!" Philip laughed harshly in his pain. "You did not expect me to condole with you on the outcome of your folly? All that I can say is, may God forgive you!" and he was gone.

So resolutely did Latimer's friends ignore all previous conditions that the ready tongue of rumor was silenced immediately. Surely if Senator Danvers and the doctor from Fort Benton, as well as Miss Blair, were ever at Mrs. Latimer's side, there could have been no breath of wrong in her sudden cultivation of Senator Blair.

Only three persons--Danvers, the doctor and Moore--knew of the hidden octopus of Burroughs' insatiable vindictiveness, whose tentacles, first fastening on Eva, had finally crushed Latimer. Moore knew, if the others did not, that Blair was doomed if he once again came within its radius. Then for the others! But he made no immediate move, and decorously gave regard to the proprieties, both for himself and as a substitute for Mr. Burroughs. His chief was almost as hysterical as Eva herself over the judge's untimely death, for he thought his prospects endangered thereby. His panic made him hasten to leave Helena for a few days.

Moore had tried to secure some other man to change to Burroughs, someone who did not hold himself as high as Blair had done on the night of the club dinner; but he had finally been obliged to report his non-success. He suggested to Burroughs that he approach Senator Blair once more, offering twenty thousand dollars. He felt sure that Charlie would take less--now!

Just before Burroughs ordered a special train to hurry him away from the prevailing gloom, the two conspirators had their final word on the subject of Senator Blair.

"We've got to get this thing over," said Burroughs, savagely. "There's too much talk. We'll be hung as high as Haman or sent to the pen for twenty years if we don't get a move on. And there are but six days more of the session. Give Charlie Blair his price--and be damned to him!"

"That's all right, Bob," retorted Moore, angrily. "I'll give him the money if you say so. But I don't think the whole business of being a United States senator is worth thirty thousand dollars. And if I do get it to him (and the Lord knows how I can)--what then? He is sick in bed, and who can tell when he can get to the capitol?"

"_Get_? We'll _take_ him, alive or dying! Thirty thousand! It's my money, isn't it? You are nothing out of pocket. Get it to him while the rest of his folks are at the--the funeral!" The word chilled them both. Were they responsible for this death? "Get it to him! He'll keep it! Montana'll be too hot for him from now on, let me tell you! He'll take the money, vote for me, and skip--all in the same day. There's been too much talk to be agreeable to a man who's never before been mixed up with a woman--except that squaw!" Burroughs walked nervously back and forth, then: "You wire me when you've given the money to him and I'll come back. It'll all be clear sailing then."

This delay! As Burroughs reviewed the results of his schemes he felt that he had been hardly used. Not so had fortune treated him in the past. Most of all he bewailed the inclusion of a woman in the necessary chicanery of diverting votes. Catch him again being over-persuaded by Bill Moore's sophistry!

In truth Senator Blair had begun to think that he should have to take Burroughs' money. How could he ever face his sister, his world again? He made sure that he was not only called a murderer, but that he was one. He might as well be other things. No appellation could be so terrible as that first. He would take the thirty thousand dollars if it should be forthcoming, vote and take the first train west the same day. In the Orient he could lose his identity as a bribe-taker and a murderer. The torture never relaxed during the days preceding the judge's funeral.

Late on the afternoon of the day of the burial of the man whom he had so nearly wronged the senator's attention was drawn to a low rustle near the door opening from his room to the hall outside. Something white and long was being cautiously pushed under the door. Charlie was alone, and he weakly pulled himself to that mysterious package. The soft _feel_ of it thrilled him like brandy. Burroughs had come to his terms! He could get away! But he must previously acknowledge before all men that he had been bought at a price. The odium.... A flirt of the devil's tail brought a new thought to his fevered brain--fevered by remorse and the effects of long-continued and unwonted alcoholic stimulants. Suppose that he did not vote? Suppose that he kept this fortune (he counted it over to assure himself of its reality), pleading his sickness until the last day of the session, and go ... go.... The thought swung him to uneasy sleep.

While he slept the doctor and the senator from Chouteau came into the room as they returned from the cemetery. Blair had been too much occupied in his dizzy thought to remember to hide his ill-gotten money, and on the white counterpane lay those proofs of Burroughs' infamy.

"Thirty thousand dollars!" gasped the doctor, in undertones, counting the large bills and sheafing them in one trembling hand. "What shall we do?"

"Nothing," responded Danvers, very quietly. "When Charlie wakes I will talk with him. I do not believe that he will keep that money or vote for Burroughs."

"How fortunate that Winifred did not come in with us!" said the older man. "You stay here, Phil, and I will keep her away for an hour. He will not sleep long. He is too feverish." Danvers nodded acquiescence, and the physician tiptoed away.

Before many minutes the sick man awoke. Danvers sat near the bed, reading the evening paper. Blair looked around with the impersonal eyes of the sick, then saw the pile of bank notes on the stand beside his bed. He started and gave a furtive look at Philip. Their eyes met squarely.

"You will send that money back, Charlie." The words were not so much query as certainty. Blair, shamed, was long in replying.

"I can't afford to, Danvers," he said finally. "I'm not only a poor man, but a ruined one as well. I may keep it and--get out of the State."

"And vote for Bob Burroughs?" The head of the opposition still kept his calm acceptance of his discovery. Curiously enough it threshed the sick senator, after a few words, into stubborn silence.

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I have the money, and Bob or Bill will never dare to ask for it back. If you ever see me in the Assembly again you'll know that I'm going to vote for Burroughs--curse him!"

"Let me have that money, Charlie," Danvers pleaded. "Think of your sister. It will break her heart if you do this thing. And," he continued huskily, for he suddenly found that he could not control his voice, "hearts enough have been broken over this business of electing a United States senator." He reached out his hand, persuasively, expectantly. "I will see that it goes to the men who gave it to you."

But Senator Blair was obdurate; and when Philip left him he felt that his long fight was to end in defeat, and that Robert Burroughs would be elected by the high-priced vote of Winifred's brother. Senator Danvers had kept in too close touch with the situation not to know that Moore would never have paid such a sum to Senator Blair if he were not their last hope for a majority of even one.

The next day of the Legislature Senator Blair was again reported not present on account of sickness, and William Moore thought it best not to show his full strength. The next, and the last day of the session, Blair was still absent. Ballot after ballot was taken. One by one men responded to the crack of Moore's whip and changed their votes to Burroughs, while the spectators indulged in significant laughter. One by one the several candidates withdrew their names as their former adherents shamelessly went over the fast increasing list for Burroughs. Still Senator Danvers held most of his men, and not until long after nightfall did the ballots come within one of electing Burroughs. The last man to change, amid hoots of derision, was Joseph Hall.

Mr. Burroughs and the Honorable William were both in the rear of the House of Representatives, for the first time during the session.

"We must get Charlie Blair here!" hissed Burroughs, hearing Senator Danvers make a motion for a ten minutes' recess. Senator Hall opposed the motion. He did not know that Senator Blair's vote would elect Burroughs, or he would not have tried to block Danvers' desire to speak to some of the turncoats. But the motion prevailed and there was much seeking of the various places where a man might refresh himself after such arduous toil. "He _shall_ come," continued the candidate for Congress, "if he dies in the next hour!" Moore, feeling sure of the men he had already lined up, consented to be the one to bring the sick senator from the hotel, only five minutes away.

In the meantime Senator Danvers was vainly trying to stem the tide. The doctor reported that Senator Blair was in bed and apparently sleeping, so Philip was comparatively easy. All that remained for him to do was to see that no other man went over to the enemy; and it had been agreed that the Legislature should adjourn at two o'clock that night.

Senator Blair, meanwhile, had made up his mind to get away that very hour. No matter if he were too sick to stand, he would get up and dress, get a carriage and go.... It was better than staying and going mad. The hotel was practically empty, he knew, for everybody who could be at the capitol was there to witness the closing hours of the Assembly. Word had spread that Robert Burroughs would surely be elected before midnight. The whole city and most of the State's inhabitants of voting age and sex were crowded into the capitol. Charlie knew that Winifred was with Mrs. Latimer across the hall. Hurriedly he dressed, trembling with fear and physical weakness, packed a suit case, felt to see if the thirty thousand dollars was safe, and cautiously opening the outer door, peeped into the hall to see if the way was clear. But it was not. There stood the Honorable William, in the very act of putting his hand on the door-knob!

"No, you don't, my beauty!" snarled Moore, pushing the sick man back and seeing in a glance what was planned. "You'll not leave Helena until you've earned that thirty thousand! Don't you ever think it! You're coming over to the capitol right now, with me, and vote for Bob! We need you in the business! And, if you don't, by God I'll make you sorry for it! It's come to a show down. This business has killed Judge Latimer and it may as well kill you--you miserable, white-livered----" Moore's language and voice were raised to the highest power.

"Charlie!" At the disturbance, Winifred came from Eva's rooms. "You up--and out in the hall! What is the trouble? You surely are not going to the capitol in your condition?"

Blair was past all words in his rage, and Moore explained with what grace he might that it was imperative for Charlie to cast his vote. Winifred insisted that she accompany them if her brother must go, and Moore did not dare to delay long enough to argue the matter. Every moment counted now.

In the cab Winifred, knowing nothing of the blood-money in her brother's pocket, begged him not to vote for Mr. Burroughs. She had heard the last of Moore's tirade. But he would not answer, and she felt Moore's foot seeking Blair's to freshen his resolve. Though her tears wet the hand she held, it did not return her caress.