Part 6

The reader will have guessed the explanation of Aunt Mary's presence, and Alicia's and Father Murray's, and I insert it here only to gratify his sense of acumen: that Alicia and Murray, "keeping an eye on" Mollie June and Aunt Mary in accordance with Rockwell's plan, in the hotel lobby, had witnessed the former's unexpected departure in response to Merriam's summons, and had joined Miss Norman to find out what had happened; and that Aunt Mary, who was more than a match for both of them, especially in their alarm over Mollie June's being dragged into the affair, had obtained first an inkling and presently the whole story of the plot, and had insisted on coming upstairs, and had entered through the bedroom.

Alicia did not reply to Aunt Mary's question. Indeed she hardly had time to do so, for Aunt Mary followed it quickly with another of a more practical character:

"What time is it?"

Merriam was the most prompt in producing his watch. "Ten o'clock," he said.

"And it was barely eight when George left the hotel. How long should it have taken to get there?"

"Less than half an hour," said Rockwell.

"Are you sure he's not there? They might have lied to you."

"They might. But I didn't think so."

"Mr. Rockwell and I can go and see," volunteered Father Murray, who seemed very eager to be helpful.

While Aunt Mary was considering this suggestion, Merriam had an idea.

"My voice is very like Senator Norman's?" he asked.

"Yes, it is," said Aunt Mary.

"Then let me telephone."

"Good!" cried Rockwell. "From the bedroom." This was, of course, to spare Mollie June.

"Very well," said Aunt Mary.

The two men stepped into George Norman's bedroom--the one into which Mollie June had earlier retreated. As they did so, Aunt Mary's eyes followed Merriam with the appraising look which they had held whenever she regarded him throughout the evening.

Rockwell shut the door.

"Harrison 3731," he said. "Say, 'This is George Norman,' and ask for 'Jennie.'"

The telephone was on the night table. Merriam sat down on the edge of the bed and raised the instrument. He realised that he had not the slightest idea what to expect. Rockwell sat beside him, close enough to hear what should come through the receiver.

In a moment Merriam had the connection. A not unmusical voice said: "Who is it, please?"

"This is George Norman. Is Jennie there?"

"Why, Georgie, boy! Don't you know me? You always do. And you ought to!" A tender little laugh followed, which thrilled Merriam in spite of himself.

"I didn't at first," he answered and stopped at a loss.

Rockwell put his mouth close to Merriam's ear and formed a tunnel from the one orifice to the other with his hands. "Can I see you to-night, dearie?" he prompted.

"Can I see you to-night, dearie?" Merriam obediently repeated.

"Oh, can you come? Goodie! But"--the unmistakably loving voice was lowered--"you must be careful, Georgie."

"Careful?" Merriam queried cautiously.

"Yes. Some one thinks you're here already."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Some man. He wouldn't tell me who he was. He called up just a minute ago. He was awfully sure you were here. He wouldn't believe me when I said you weren't. Is it dangerous?" There was a touching note of anxiety in Jennie's voice.

"I guess not."

"Can you come anyway?" eagerly.

"I'm not sure. Don't wait for me long. I'll come within an hour if I can get away."

"You'll telephone again?"

"Yes--if I can."

"Georgie, boy!" There followed a little sound of lips moved in a certain way--unmistakably a kiss.

John Merriam played up with an effectiveness that surprised himself very much.

"Dearie!" he whispered tenderly into the telephone, "good night!"--and abruptly hung up.

"You don't need much prompting!" exclaimed Rockwell, rising. "Well, she didn't lie to me."

"No," Merriam assented confusedly. Whatever else he had anticipated from Norman's mistress, the disreputable manicurist, it had not been that note of sincere affection or that he himself would be for an instant carried off his feet. As he automatically followed Rockwell, who made for the sitting room, he was unwillingly conscious of a new charity for George Norman.

"He's not there," Rockwell reported. "And he hasn't been."

"Sure?" Aunt Mary looked at Merriam.

Our hero nodded. He could not speak. And he dared not look at Mollie June, of whose bright eyes fixed on his face he was nevertheless acutely aware.

In a moment, however, it was of Aunt Mary's gaze that he was sensible. She seemed to read him through. He thought, ridiculously, that that momentary telephonic tenderness could not be hid from her.

But when she spoke her question both relieved and startled him.

"At what hour in the morning does your train go?"

"It goes to-night. At 2:00 A.M."

"If George is back here by then, it does," said Aunt Mary. "If not, you stay."

"But I _must_ go to-night," cried Merriam, suddenly awakened to realities and feeling as though the curtain had descended abruptly on some mad combination of melodrama and farce. "I must meet my classes in the morning!"

Aunt Mary, who must have sat down while the two men were telephoning, rose and walked up to Merriam.

"Mr. Merriam," she said, "you more than any one else are responsible for the present situation--because of your sending for Mrs. Norman. I don't ask why you did that, but you did it. If you hadn't stepped outside your part that way, I verily believe, when I look at you, that the trick could have been played as Mr. Rockwell planned it. The Mayor would not have seen Crockett downstairs. I don't believe he would have recognised you. He would have signed the Ordinance and gone away committed and ignorant of the deception. Now he's only half committed, and he has recognised you as an impostor. If he doesn't hear from George Norman by noon to-morrow as I promised, if he turns against us and tells his story, he can ruin us--all." (She said "all," but she glanced at Mollie June.) "And now we don't know where George is. As soon as we find him, you can go. But Mayor Black must get a message from Senator Norman before noon to-morrow--from the true one or the false one! Do you see? Until we find George you must stay."

"Yes, by Jove!" cried Rockwell. "You can't back out now. You can telegraph to--where is it?"

"Riceville," said Alicia, who was leaning excitedly forward in her chair. "Oh, you will!"

Merriam looked at Alicia. The same combination of appeal and admiration in her eyes which he had seen her work a few minutes before on the Mayor did not move him.

His eyes travelled to the face of Mollie June. She was not leaning forward, but sat erect on the edge of her chair. There was a flush of excitement--was it eagerness?--on her cheeks. Unwillingly he compared her with the warm seductiveness of the voice on the telephone. She was not like that,--though perhaps she could be. But she was radiantly bright and pure, a girl, a woman, to be worshipped--and protected from all evil. He remembered how he had wished to help her. He had said he would be always ready. Now was his chance. And he desired passionately to expiate his involuntary infidelity of feeling and tone over the telephone. He rose superior to the cares, the duties, of a "professor," even before she spoke.

"Oh, please--Mr. Merriam," she said.

Merriam smiled at her, but looked back at Aunt Mary.

"You think it very necessary?" he asked--not because he had not decided but to avoid any shadow of compromising Mollie June by seeming to yield directly to her.

"I do," said Aunt Mary.

"Then of course I'll stay," said Merriam.

*CHAPTER XI*

*CONFESSIONS OF WAITER NO. 73*

From a sleep which had been heavy but was becoming restless and dreamful, Merriam was awakened about seven o'clock the next morning by a knocking at his door. He leaned over and pulled the little chain of the night lamp, and as the light glowed asked, "Who is it?"

"Rockwell," came the answer.

By a rather athletic bit of stretching Merriam was able to turn the key in his lock without getting out of bed. "Come in," he called.

Rockwell entered, closed the door behind him, and stood looking down at Merriam, who had lain back on his pillow.

"Slept well?" he asked.

"Like a football player," laughed Merriam, somehow ashamed of this fact.

"Feeling fit?"

"Certainly. Always feel fit."

For a moment longer Rockwell looked, with perhaps a touch of an older man's envy of the unconscionable imperturbability of youthful health. Then he said:

"Well, I have news."

Merriam waited.

"About half an hour ago I called up 'Jennie' again. When I said I was a friend of Norman's, she admitted he was there. By asking a good many questions I learned that he turned up about two o'clock this morning and that he was very drunk. I judge he's having a touch of D.T. 'Jennie' was evidently rather disgusted at his arriving so late and in that condition--after your affectionate tone earlier in the evening, you know."

Merriam evaded this thrust with a question:

"Where can he have been in the meantime?"

"That is a point on which we shall have to seek information from our friend Simpson. Since telephoning I have seen Miss Norman, and we have agreed to order breakfast for all of us in Senator Norman's rooms with Simpson to serve us. He goes on duty again at seven o'clock, and I have asked that he be sent here as soon as he reports to take a breakfast order."

"Why here?"

"Well, he will be more likely to talk freely to you and me alone than to you and me and Miss Norman--to say nothing of Mrs. Norman. And, if he has played some trick on us, he might refuse to go to Senator Norman's suite, but this room will mean nothing to him. Of course, he may not show up at all this morning. Ah, there he is, I hope!"

A vigorous knock had sounded at the door. It proved, however, to be only a porter with Merriam's suit case and hand bag, for which the industrious Rockwell had also sent so early that morning to the more modest hotel at which Merriam had been registered.

"Now I can dress," said Merriam. "I was afraid I should have to turn waiter myself, having only evening clothes to put on."

"Yes, get into your things," said Rockwell, "and let me think some more. This conspiracy business takes a lot more thinking than mere Reform!"

Merriam hurried through a bath--a tubful of hot water early in the morning was so unwonted a luxury to a citizen of Riceville that he could not bring himself to forego it even on this occasion--and began to dress carefully, realising with pleasant excitement that he was to have breakfast with Mollie June.

He had no more than got into his trousers when another knock came at the door.

Rockwell motioned to Merriam to step into the bathroom and himself went to the door. "Come in," he said and opened it, keeping behind it.

Sure enough, Simpson stepped into the room with his napkin and order pad.

Rockwell promptly closed the door behind him, locked it, and stood with his back against it. He also pushed the switch for the center chandelier--for only the dim night lamp had been on.

In the sudden light Simpson whirled with a startled and most unprofessional agility to face Rockwell.

"Good morning, Simpson."

The waiter fairly moistened his lips before he could answer.

"Good morning, Mr. Rockwell."

The man's face was certainly haggard. His eyes even were a trifle bloodshot. It was clear he had had a strange night. But after a moment of hostile confrontation the professional impassivity of a waiter--which is perhaps the ultimate perfection of _sang froid_--descended about him like a cloak and mask.

"I was sent to this room--Mr. Wilson's room, I understood--to take a breakfast order."

"Right, Simpson!" cried Merriam cheerily, emerging from the bathroom in his shirt sleeves.

For a moment the human gleamed again through the eyes of the functionary.

"Are you Mr. Wilson?" he asked. His manner was perfect servility, but there was mockery and malice in the tone.

"Yes, Simpson," said Merriam. "This morning I am Mr. Wilson. I have read of an English duke who puts on a new pair of trousers each morning. But I go him one better. I put on an entire new personality each morning."

"Very good, sir," was the ironical, stage-butler reply to this sally. "The grapefruit is very good this morning. Will you have some?"

Merriam glanced at Rockwell.

"Very likely we'll have some," said the latter, "but we want something else first."

"Before the grapefruit?" inquired Simpson.

"Yes, before the grapefruit," said Rockwell, a trifle sharply. "And what we propose to have before the grapefruit is a bit of talk with you, Mr. Simpson--about last night. Do you care to sit down?" He pointed to a chair.

Simpson was undoubtedly agitated, but he controlled himself excellently. He even lifted his eyebrows:

"I hope I know my place, sir."

He raised his pad and wrote on it.

"Grapefruit," he said with insolent suavity. "For two? And then what? We have some excellent ham."

"Damn your ham!" cried Rockwell. He snatched the man's pad and threw it on the floor. "Sit down in that chair and drop this damned pose! We're going to talk to you man to man."

But Simpson only stooped and picked up his pad.

"Mr. Rockwell," he said, "I know my place. It is a very humble one. It is to take orders--for meals, to be served in this hotel. So long as that is what you want I am yours to command. But"--the American citizen stood up in him; no European waiter could have said it--"outside of that I am my own master as much as you are. When you call me 'Mr. Simpson' and tell me to sit down, I don't have to do it. And I don't have to talk of my personal affairs unless I choose, any more than any one else!"

For an instant he glared at Rockwell as one angry man at another, his equal. Then he quietly became the waiter again. He lifted his pad and poised his pencil:

"Shall we say some ham?"

Rockwell looked at him a moment longer. Then he laughed: "Ham let it be!"

"Yes, sir," said Simpson, deferentially writing. "And some baked potatoes, perhaps? And coffee?"

"Yes," said Rockwell, "and the telephone book. Hand me the telephone book, please."

Simpson hesitated, but this was clearly within the line of his duties.

"Yes, sir," he said, and stepped towards the stand on which the book lay.

"Wait!" said Rockwell. "Perhaps it isn't necessary. I think you can tell me the number I want."

He paused a moment to let this sink in. Then:

"Miss Alicia Wayward's number. I see I shall have to bring her here. You see," he explained pleasantly, "I have locked the door. There are two of us against you."

He indicated Merriam, who still stood in the bathroom door, following the progress of the interview with excited interest.

"We are going to keep you here, not by any authority that we as guests of this hotel may have over you--as you have very well pointed out, we have none in such a matter,--but by simple force, till Miss Wayward can come down. We shall see whether she can make you talk."

To Merriam's astonishment the waiter, with a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan, sank into the chair which he had thus far so pertinaciously refused to take. For a moment he stared at the floor. Then he raised his eyes to Rockwell:

"What do you want to know?"

"That's better," said Rockwell, leaving the door and preparing to sit down opposite Simpson. "Will you have a cigar?"

Simpson shook his head and repeated his question.

"What do you want?"

Rockwell dropped into his chair and glancing at Merriam pointed to another seat. Merriam was too much excited to care to sit down, but he came forward and leaned on the back of the chair.

"We want to know about last night, of course," said Rockwell. "At five minutes to eight Senator Norman got into the taxi which you were driving. At about two o'clock this morning he tumbled into Madame Couteau's, delirious with drink. We want the whole story of what happened between eight and two."

Simpson sat on the edge of his chair, his hands on his knees. His order pad was under one hand, and its flexure showed that he was exerting intense pressure. His napkin dangled loosely half off his arm. He was looking at the floor again.

He remained in this position for a number of seconds, the other two men intently regarding him. Then he straightened up, pushed himself farther back in his chair, and looked at Rockwell.

"You shall have it," he said.

For a moment he stared. Then:

"I hate Senator Norman--enough to kill him."

The reader will observe that I use no exclamation points in punctuating Simpson's sentence. There were none in his delivery of it. But it was the more startling on that account.

"Do you know why?" he unexpectedly demanded.

"No," said Rockwell.

"Five years ago I was butler to Mr. Wayward. The--the-girl you call Madame Couteau was the parlour maid there. Her real name is Jennie Higgins. I was in love with her, and she had promised to marry me. I had a little money saved up. At that time Senator Norman's first wife was still alive, who was Mr. Wayward's sister, you know, Miss Wayward's aunt. Senator Norman came often to the house. He took a fancy to Jennie and turned her head. The fact that she was in his own brother-in-law's house made no difference to him. She--went off with him--on a lake cruise, in his yacht. When they came back he set her up in that flat and got her work as a manicurist. Ever since he has been her paramour!"

The odd, old-fashioned word, which Simpson must have gleaned from some novel, came out queerly. But it served to express his bitterness as no ordinary word could have done.

"That's all. A parlour maid ruined. A butler cheated of his wife. It's nothing, of course."

He was looking down again. Neither Rockwell nor Merriam ventured to speak. When he raised his eyes there was a gleam in them.

"Last night I had him in my power." (One sensed novels again.) "In my taxi, not knowing who I was. I was minded to kill him. You had told me to drive him directly to--to Jennie's. Not much! I drove as fast as I dared out Michigan Avenue. For a long time he suspected nothing. He thought he was on his way to the Mayor's, and that was the right direction. But when I turned into Washington Park he got scared. He called through the tube to know where in hell I was going. I answered, 'This is Simpson. You can try jumping, if you like--into hell!' I put the machine up to forty miles an hour. He opened the door once, but I guess he didn't dare try it. He shut it again. Of course, it was pure luck I didn't get stopped for speeding. But I got through Washington Park and across the Midway and out into a lonely place at the south end of Jackson Park. Then I stopped and got down and opened the door and ordered him out."

The man stopped. When he spoke again there was more contempt than hatred in his voice.

"The coward. He went down on his knees on the wet road and cried and begged me not to hurt him. He said he was sorry, and he didn't know I cared so much, and he would make it all right yet. He would give me a lot of money and get me up in a business, and I could marry Jennie after all, and wouldn't I forgive him and go back to town and have a drink? The worm! I could have spit on him. _Senator_ Norman!

"He saved his life all right," he added reflectively. "If he had showed fight I would have strangled him and thrown his body in the Lake." Simpson shuddered a little. "But you couldn't strangle a crying baby. I kicked him once or twice. But what more could I do? He kept begging me not to hurt him but to go back to town and have a drink. That gave me an idea. I jerked him up and pitched him into the car and drove back to a saloon. We sat at a table and drank, and he kept offering me money and saying I should marry Jennie. As if I would take his leavings! He drank a lot. I only took one or two to steady my nerves--poured out the rest. But he drank four or five cocktails. Then we went on in the taxi to another saloon and did it again. And then to another. And about midnight we ended up at a cheap dance hall on the West Side, and I turned him loose among the roughnecks and the women there.

"He was pretty drunk--told everybody who he was and showed his money,--and in a few minutes a lot of the girls were around him to get the money away from him. Most of the men they were with didn't mind--egged them on. Pretty soon he had a dozen couples in the bar with him and was paying for drinks all around. But one big foreigner, who was with the prettiest girl in the room, was ugly. When Norman, after buying a second round of drinks, tried to kiss his girl, he roared out at him and knocked him down. But Norman only stumbled up again with his lip bleeding and begged his pardon and handed the girl a fifty-dollar bill and bought drinks again. And then he got his arm about another girl and took her out to dance. It was an hour before I found him again. He was sitting on the stairs, with his collar off, crazy drunk--seeing things--and all cleaned out as to money.

"I though then he was about ripe for what I wanted. I carried him downstairs and put him in the taxi and drove to--Madame Couteau's! There I carried him up to her flat and propped him against the door and knocked and then waited part way down the stairs. When the door was opened he fell in, and I ran downstairs and took my taxi home."

Evidently Simpson had finished his tale. And it had done him good to tell it. He was much less agitated than when he began. He looked steadily rather than angrily at Rockwell.

"That's the story you wanted," he said. "Of course now you can get me fired and blacklisted. It's little I'll care."

Rockwell had let his cigar go out while Simpson talked. Now he lit it again with a good deal of deliberation. He was evidently thinking. Even Merriam perceived the point that was uppermost in his mind, namely, that with Norman still at Jennie's they had need of Simpson's silence and would be likely to need his help again. They must try to conciliate him and win his loyal support.

"I see no reason why I should do anything like that," Rockwell began, referring to Simpson's defiant suggestion. "I can hardly pronounce your conduct virtuous. But it was very natural--very excusable. It's lucky you did no worse!"

(Merriam had a sudden vision of the horrid predicament they would have been in if Norman had actually been murdered in Jackson Park at the very time when he was impersonating him at the hotel.)

"Still," continued Rockwell, "I think you made a mistake."

"A mistake!" echoed Simpson.

"Yes.--Do you still love--Miss Higgins?"

"What's that to you?"

"Evidently you do. Why didn't you take his offer--his money, and marry her? It would have been the sensible thing to do and the kind thing to her. You might be happy after all. Of course, if you're too stern a moralist!"

The man's face worked queerly. "It's not that. But she wouldn't have a waiter now. And he wouldn't have done it--let her alone."

"Well, perhaps not, as things stood. But he will now. Have you seen the morning papers?"

"The papers? No, sir."

"If you'll read them you'll find that Senator Norman has broken with all his old life and turned over a new leaf entirely, which he can't turn back. You have helped him do it, in fact!"

"What's the idea?" growled Simpson suspiciously.

"Listen, Mr. Simpson."

Rapidly Rockwell sketched the principal events which had taken place at the hotel while the waiter was driving his enemy about Chicago: Merriam's impersonation, the Mayor's failure to veto the Ordinance in time, and the necessity which both the Mayor and Norman were now under of breaking with the "interests" and coming out as the candidates of the Reform League.