Part 15

"You'll want to take this along," she said.

"Indeed, yes."

Then he followed her out on to the back porch, where earlier--ages ago, it seemed--he had deposited the stepladder.

"Now," said Margery, "you go down these stairs and diagonally across the court to that archway. See?" She pointed. "That brings you out on the other side of the block. Nobody will be looking for you there. And the Elevated station is three and one-half blocks west. Put on your hat and coat. I'll hold it."

"Thank you so much," said Merriam, as the coat slipped on.

Then he turned, took off his hat again, and held out his hand.

"Good-bye, Margery," he said, shaking hands heartily. "Thank you--for everything."

For a moment they looked at each other with mutual respect.

Then Merriam said:

"I'm going to send Simpson around to see Jennie. Shan't I?"

"You can try it," said Margery. "Good-bye."

She went back into the kitchenette and closed the door.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*RETURN*

"Madison and Wabash!" shouted the guard.

Merriam started, picked up his camera, and made for the door. He had scarcely heard the other stations called and thanked his stars that he had waked up for this one.

He descended the stairs from the Elevated platform and found Simpson waiting.

"Good morning, Simpson."

"Good morning."

"Mr. Rockwell says you can get me into the hotel unnoticed."

Simpson looked at him sideways, hesitated, then turned and started slowly west.

Merriam fell into step beside him and for a moment wondered obtusely what ailed the man. Then he understood. Of course! He wanted news of Jennie. Perhaps he was suspicious as to how Merriam might have spent his time in that apartment. Perhaps he, like Margery, knew his Jennie only too well.

To set his mind at rest, Merriam plunged at once into a sketchy summary of the events at the flat--Crockett's arrival--"almost as soon as you had left," he placed it--his own telling of his story--Crockett's being half convinced--Jennie's plan--the supper party (without reference to Jennie's change of costume or the dancing on the table)--Rockwell's telephone call--the tying up and the flash lights.

"I have the films here," he added, exhibiting the camera as tangible evidence that he was not yarning. "Can you get them developed for me in the morning?"

"Yes," said Simpson, in a much less frigid tone than before. He took the camera.

"After Crockett had gone," Merriam continued smoothly, "I talked to Jennie about you. I told her she ought to marry you, and how well you've shown up in this affair, and that Senator Norman and Rockwell are going to pay you a bit of money for it, which you've certainly earned, and that you would take her away on a little trip anywhere she wanted to go, and then set up in a business of your own somewhere, and that she would be a lot happier that way than now."

An older man, more sensitive to the dynamite in the situation, would probably have spoken less freely and less successfully. Whatever else Simpson may have felt, he could not question his companion's youthful candour and good will. After perhaps a dozen steps he spoke in a carefully controlled voice:

"What did she say?"

"She didn't answer me," lied Merriam. "I told her to think it over. She was impressed all right. And when I left I told Margery I was going to send you around."

"What did Margery say?" asked Simpson quickly.

"She said yes, you should come."

Simpson drew a deep breath and stopped short at a corner.

"I'm very much obliged to you, sir," he said, looking quickly at Merriam and quickly away again.

Merriam held out his hand.

"Good luck!" he said.

Simpson grasped the hand and shook it intensely. Then, resuming his really admirable self-control, he said:

"We turn down here. I'm going to take you up a fire escape. It's the only way. You can't go into a hotel in the regular way even at this time of night without being seen."

They turned into an alley which ran behind the Hotel De Soto, and presently came to a door--a servants' entrance--in the ugly blank wall of yellow brick.

Simpson opened the door, and they passed into a bare hallway, pine-floored, plaster-walled, lighted at intervals by unshaded, low-powered incandescents.

Many doors of yellow pine opened on both sides of this hall, but Simpson, walking rapidly and quietly, passed them all, turned into a further stretch of hallway, narrower and still more dimly lighted, and stopped before a door of iron--evidently a fire door. He got out a key and unlocked this door, and they emerged into the air again in the inner court of the hotel, a great dismal well, the depository of drifts of soot, accentuated here and there by scraps of paper and other rubbish, and the haunt, for reasons difficult to understand, of the indomitable, grimy wild pigeons of the Loop.

Simpson closed the iron door behind them and began a searching scrutiny of the rows of windows. All but half a dozen or so were dark. It looked safe.

Satisfied, Simpson walked twenty feet or more along the side of the court and stopped below a fire escape. The platform at the lower end of the iron stairway was placed too high for a man to reach it from the ground unaided.

"Give me a boost," said Simpson. He stooped and placed the camera on the ground.

In a moment Merriam had hoisted him up, so that he could catch hold of the end of the platform and pull himself on to it. Then Simpson lay down on his stomach and dropped his arms over the edge of the platform. Merriam first handed up the camera and then with a little jump caught his hands and was drawn up until he in his turn could get hold of the edge of the landing and scramble on to it.

A moment later they were erect and had begun stealthily to mount the narrow stairs.

It seemed to Merriam that they went up interminably--a short flight--a turn--another short flight--along a platform past sleeping windows--another flight. He got out of breath, and began to feel very tired. The effect of Margery's coffee was wearing off.

But at last Simpson stopped on one of the platforms and peered through a window. It was one of which the shades were not drawn at all and was open about two inches at the bottom.

"This is it," said Simpson, and he stooped, opened the window, and climbed in.

As soon as Merriam had followed, Simpson closed the window and drew the shade. Then he crossed the dark room and pushed a switch.

"Where are we?" asked Merriam.

"This room is next to Senator Norman's bedroom," said Simpson, "on the other side from the sitting room. The couple who had it left this evening, and Mr. Rockwell has taken it for you under the name of Wilson. Mr. Rockwell will be expecting us."

He moved to a door at the side and knocked softly four times--once, twice, and once again.

Almost immediately a key was turned on the other side, the door was opened, and Rockwell stood surveying them.

There was only a dim light in the room behind him. With a glance over his shoulder at the bed where the sick Senator lay--the same bed in which Merriam had played at being sick on the previous afternoon,--he entered the new room and closed the door.

"You've made it!" he said. "Thank Heaven! You weren't seen, Simpson?"

"I think not, sir."

He looked closely at Merriam. "You're tired," he said.

"I sure am."

"Well, so am I. What a day! And to-morrow will be as bad. Maybe worse. Never again will I father an impostor. But we've got to see it through this time. Sit down. Have a cigarette, and tell me what happened at the flat. Then I'll let you go to bed and snatch a few hours' sleep. You must be in fighting trim to-morrow, you know--for the speech!"

Merriam took the proffered cigarette and dropped gratefully into a chair. Rockwell and Simpson also sat down.

"How's Senator Norman?" Merriam asked.

"Sick. Hobart looks serious, but he says he'll pull around in a day or two. He's dosing him heavily. You've simply got to stay by us and play the game until he's on his feet again."

"I suppose so. Well----"

He was about to repeat the summary of the events of his evening which he had already given Simpson, so as to get it over and get to bed. But before he could begin a knock sounded at the side door through which Rockwell had entered.

Simpson went to the door and opened it. It was Dr. Hobart.

"Miss Norman and Mrs. Norman want to come in," he said.

Rockwell hesitated. No doubt he would have preferred to hear Merriam's story himself first, without even Aunt Mary present.

Merriam meanwhile sat up, suddenly forgetting his fatigue: he was to see Mollie June still that night. He had not hoped for that.

"I supposed they would have gone to bed," he said, to cover his involuntary show of interest.

"No," said Rockwell. "After the dinner party they waited for me to come back with Norman, of course. Then he was so ill that Hobart kept us all busy for a couple of hours doing things. We didn't want to get in a nurse on account of--you, you know. And then they wanted to wait till you came. We expected you a long time ago. Well," he added, turning to the physician, "tell them to come along."

It was at least a minute before they arrived. Merriam was oddly nervous. He had been through strange scenes since he had left Mollie June in the Peacock Cabaret, and she must have divined as much.

They entered, Aunt Mary first with Mollie June behind her, and Merriam and Rockwell rose. The two women were dressed just as they had been at the dinner party--Aunt Mary in the black evening gown and Mollie June in the filmy rose. Mollie June looked just a little pale and tired, but Aunt Mary had not turned a hair.

"Well, young man," began the older woman briskly, "you've kept us up till a pretty time of night. What was happening there where you were when Mr. Rockwell telephoned? Sit down and tell us."

Evidently Aunt Mary, conscious of the ungodly hour, did not think it necessary to allow Merriam time for even a formal greeting of her young sister-in-law, who had stopped uncertainly in the doorway.

But Merriam was not to be hurried to quite that degree, whatever the time of night or morning might be. He turned to Mollie June.

"You're coming in, aren't you? Take this chair."

He pushed a rocker towards her, concerned at her evident fatigue.

She came forward and sat down, then raised her eyes to him with a grave "Thank you."

For a moment Merriam did not understand that steady, unsmiling look. Then he thought he did understand. It had a questioning quality. Mollie June's mind was at ease now about her husband, since he was back and not supposed to be seriously ill, and she, like Simpson earlier, was wondering--not that it concerned her, of course--how Merriam had spent the night--so large a part of it--at Jennie's flat. She, too, knew Jennie, to the extent at least of having seen and in a measure comprehended her. Perhaps even in a Mollie June there is that which enables her to understand a Jennie and her lure for a youthful male. He remembered Mollie June's description of her and the cool detachment with which it had been uttered: "She's pretty and sweet, and--warm."

For just an instant Merriam was slightly confused. He had verified that description--all of it.

It is to be feared that his embarrassment, slight and merely instantaneous though it was, did not escape Mollie June. She dropped her eyes, still unsmiling.

Merriam's second sketch of his evening's adventures differed from the one he had given Simpson in being fuller and in two particular points: first, of course, in omitting reference to his missionary efforts in Simpson's behalf, which, however laudable, were hardly for the ears of Mollie June; and, second, in including mention of Jennie's change into her ballet costume--because he realised as he talked that the pictures, to be developed in the morning, would exhibit that detail most unmistakably and that he would do well to prepare Mollie June's mind--and Simpson's, for that matter--in advance. But he laid his emphasis on the more dramatic episodes--the hurled revolver, the tying up, the flash lights, and Crockett's angry exit. He told it humorously and well, and was rewarded by Mollie June's interest. Her questioning gravity disappeared, and she followed him with eager attention and with a return of pretty colour to her cheeks.

Aunt Mary and Rockwell--not to mention Simpson--also listened attentively. When Merriam had finished they looked at each other.

"Well," said Rockwell, "I'm not sure but that it would have been better to let him go as soon as you had told him your yarn, but on the whole I think you did mighty well. Those pictures may come in handy."

Aunt Mary rose. "You certainly are an enterprising young man, Mr. Merriam," she said dryly. "Now go to bed and get some sleep. You make your debut as an orator at noon, you know! Come, Mollie June."

"Good night, Miss Norman," said Merriam, and he advanced to Mollie June, who had also risen.

"Good night, Mrs. Mollie June." He dropped his voice for the last three words and held out his hand.

She took it with an unconscious happy smile.

"Good night--Mr. John," she said.

Whatever she may have feared or suspected his story had established an alibi for him.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*THE REFORM LEAGUE*

"Quarter to ten," said Rockwell cheerily. "I've let you sleep to the last possible moment. Here's your breakfast on the stand. Better eat it and drink your coffee first. Then a shave and get at this." He indicated a small pile of manuscript on the writing table. "Your speech, Senator!" he grinned.

"Good Lord!" groaned Merriam, remembering everything. He perceived also that he was to breakfast alone--no Mollie June. But the sight of the manuscript fascinated and aroused him. He realised, as he had not done before, that within a few hours he was to make a public address in a great Chicago club before many of the city's most prominent men and women--on what subject even he had no idea!

"Good Lord!" he said again and put his feet out. "How's Senator Norman?" he asked.

"Sleeping now," said Rockwell. "Hobart thinks he can get him on his feet by night. He's due to start for Cairo this evening, you know, on a stumping trip." Then quickly: "You'll find these sliced oranges refreshing. Have your bath first if you want to."

Merriam was in the midst of his breakfast when Rockwell returned. "By the way," he said, "here are your pictures," and he took some unmounted prints from an envelope.

Merriam reached for them with curiosity and something like trepidation. They were not good flash lights--a little blurred,--but the faces and attitudes were unmistakable. Jennie's foot and leg extending forward across the table were very much in evidence in the first of them.

"Rather striking poses," commented Rockwell.

"Jennie's invention," said Merriam defensively.

"No doubt. Well, they could hardly be better for their purpose. I think Crockett will go slow all right."

"Have--has Miss Norman seen them?"

"Yes. And Simpson, of course." For a moment Rockwell quizzically regarded Merriam's face, in which a further unspoken question was anxiously plain. Then he answered it: "No one else. Mrs. Norman is still sleeping. I'm not sure Aunt Mary will consider them proper pictures for her to see anyway. Come," he added briskly, "you've eaten only one piece of toast. You must get outside of at least one more piece. And then shave. I'll strop your razor for you. I'm your valet this morning, Senator."

With a sigh Merriam glanced at the waiting speech and tackled a second piece of toast, with the feeling that its mastication was a task of almost impossible difficulty. He achieved it, however, to the rhythmic accompaniment of Rockwell's stropping, consumed another cup of coffee--his third, I regret to say,--and proceeded to shave.

At last Merriam was collared and tied and was slipping into his coat. Rockwell rose and laid down the manuscript.

"Ready?" he said. "Very good. You can get to work. It's a quarter past ten. The luncheon is at twelve-thirty. But we shan't appear at the luncheon itself. Too dangerous. You'd have to meet a lot of men who know the Senator--meet them face to face in cold daylight and talk to them. We'd never get away with it. So I'll telephone that you've been detained by important business but will be in for the speeches. That way we'll come in by ourselves, with everybody else set and no opportunity for personal confabulations. You'll have to run the gauntlet of their eyes, of course. But you can do that."

Earnestly for a moment he scrutinised Merriam's face and figure, as if to reassure himself that the astounding imposture had been and was still really possible.

"Yes," he continued confidently, "that'll be all right. The speeches are scheduled to begin at one-fifteen. We'll leave here at five or ten minutes after one. That gives you nearly three hours to salt down the speech. You can learn it verbatim or only master the outline and substance and give it in your own words. Perhaps you'd better learn a good deal of it just as it is. Aunt Mary has it chock-full of the Senator's pet words and phrases. Your own style might be too different. Do you commit easily?"

"Fairly so," said Merriam. As a matter of fact the speech itself presented few terrors to him. He had done a good deal of debating and declaiming in college, and of course in his capacity as principal of the high school he was called upon for "a few words" on every conceivable occasion in Riceville.

"Good. Go to it, then. I'll make myself scarce. Here are cigarettes. You won't be disturbed. _Au revoir_, Senator! If you want anything, knock on this door. Either Hobart or I will answer."

Grinning, Rockwell departed into the real, the sick Senator's, bedroom, leaving Merriam with the typewritten manuscript.

He worked away for a couple of hours, sometimes sitting down, more often walking back and forth, occasionally refreshing himself with a cigarette, and faithfully learning by heart Aunt Mary's Senator Norman's speech on "Municipal Reform."

By half past twelve he had mastered it to his satisfaction. He decided to go through with it once more by the clock. It was designed, as he knew from a pencil note at the top of the first page, to take thirty minutes. He did so, and came out at the end by five minutes to one.

Evidently his delivery was a little more rapid than Senator Norman's. He must remember to speak slowly.

He had just reached this conclusion when a knock sounded at the side door and Rockwell entered.

"I've got it by heart," said Merriam.

"Good! Come into the sitting room, then. You're to have a cup of coffee and a sandwich before you start."

"Fine. I am a bit hollow. How's the Senator?"

Rockwell looked worried, but answered, "Sleeping again now. Come along if you're ready."

"In a minute."

Merriam bathed his face and hands, folded the speech and put it in his pocket, and followed Rockwell across the Senator's bedroom, with just a glance at the sick man in the bed and a nod to Dr. Hobart, who sat by the window with a newspaper into the sitting room.

After his morning of intense, solitary labour he was somewhat nonplused for a moment by the size of the company he found assembled there--Aunt Mary and Mollie June, of course, Alicia, Mr. Wayward, and Father Murray. He said good morning to each of them.

Alicia reminded him that it was really afternoon now.

"We shall meet Black in the car," said Rockwell. "Then the roll of the conspirators will be complete!"

Mollie June, who had had no speech to learn, had slept late and was now as blooming as ever.

"We're all going to hear you," she said as she gave Merriam her hand.

"Good Heavens!" he said, with a twinge of the stage fright which he had thus far had no time to feel. "I shouldn't mind the others, but you----"

He left that dangerous remark unfinished.

To Aunt Mary he said: "I've learned the speech by heart. I admire it very much," and was pleased to note that even Aunt Mary had an author's susceptibility to praise.

Meanwhile Simpson, who was in attendance, had poured out a cup of coffee, and Mollie June brought it to him with a sandwich on a plate.

"Won't you sit down to eat it?" she asked, regarding him with a look of awe which flattered him enormously and served to quiet his rising nervousness.

(Mollie June had taken oratory of all degrees and on all possible occasions on the part of Norman as a matter of course, but the thought that John Merriam, who was only a little older than herself and had taken her to "sociables" and had wanted to make love to her but had not dared, was about to address the distinguished Urban Club of Chicago at one of its formidable luncheons filled her with admiration.)

"Thank you," he said, taking the coffee and the sandwich. "No, I think I'll eat it standing." But he smiled at her with the confidence which her admiration had given him, thereby increasing the admiration--a pleasing psychological circle.

But now Rockwell was at his side and barely gave him time to finish his sandwich and gulp down the coffee.

"Miss Norman and the Senator and I go with Mayor Black in the Senator's car," said that master of ceremonies and conspiracies. "The other four of you are to follow in the Mayor's machine. Here's your coat and hat."

Along the hall--down in the elevator--through the lobby to the pavement--Merriam had only a dazed sense of being part of an irresistible, conspicuous procession which was carrying him whither he had no strong desire to go.

A limousine was already drawn up at the curb, and the hotel starter was deferentially holding the door.

Mayor Black was already within the car.

"Ah, Senator," the Mayor ejaculated, "I'm glad to see you up again, and to have you--really you--coming to the Reform League!"

For an instant Merriam did not understand. Then he realised that the Mayor thought he was addressing the real Senator Norman. It was a good omen for the continued success of his impersonation.

He sank into the seat opposite the Mayor, who was facing forward with Aunt Mary beside him. Rockwell climbed in and sat next to Merriam. The door slammed, and the machine started.

Then, as the Mayor still beamed at him and as neither of the others spoke, Merriam said gently:

"I'm still the impostor, I'm afraid, Mr. Mayor."

"Eh!"

The Mayor leaned forward to scrutinise his face and then turned as if bewildered and still unconvinced to Rockwell.

"Yes," said Rockwell. "I tried to get you on the 'phone this morning, but your line was busy, and I didn't have a chance to try again. The Senator is still sick. Worse, in fact. Mr. Merriam is going to keep the Senator's engagement at the Urban Club for him."

"My God!" cried the Mayor. "Speak before all those people! You never can do it!"

"Yes, we can," said Rockwell, with smiling serenity. "You were fooled again yourself just now," he pointed out.

The Mayor groaned. "Then we still don't know where Senator Norman himself will stand when he's up," he said.

"I telephoned you yesterday that he had agreed to everything," said Aunt Mary coldly. "That was true."

"While he was sick," said Black. "Will he stick to it when he's well again?"

"He'll have to stick," said Rockwell. "Ten times more so after this speech. He can't possibly go back on that."

"If this Mr.--Mr. Merriam," said the Mayor, eyeing him with profound dislike, "is unmasked at the Urban Club, it would be the utter ruin of us all."

"It undoubtedly would," replied Rockwell cheerfully. "All the more reason why we should all keep a stiff upper lip and play up for him."

"No!" cried the Mayor. "It's insane! Stop the car! I'll step into the nearest store and telephone that the Senator has fainted in the cab and can't appear. Anything is better than this awful risk."