CHAPTER XI

THE NOTIFICATION

Where was Wint? Others beside Bentley were asking that question, as the afternoon of election wore along. Where was Wint?

No one had seen him. Every one was asking the question. No one was answering. But the inquirers, casting back and forth along the trail, at length hit upon one fact. Wint, for days past, had been consistently in the company of Jack Routt.

Where, then, was Routt?

On the morning after Amos Caretall’s announcement at the Rink that he would vote for a Chase for Mayor, Jack Routt had gone to the Congressman with questions on his lips. He had come away with instructions, instructions to keep much in Wint’s company and to keep the young man out of harm’s way till election day.

He had done this zealously. Until Monday evening, he and Wint were almost constantly together. That evening, Wint went to Joan’s house, and bluntly rebuffed Jack’s offer to accompany him. But when Wint came out--and he came out in a sulky and defiant manner--Jack was waiting for him at the gate.

Jack did not appear to be waiting. He seemed to be merely passing, on his way downtown; and Wint hailed him.

“Hello--you!”

“Hello, Wint! Just going home?”

“Home? It’s early yet. Going uptown?”

“Yes.” Routt hesitated, as though confused. “I--we--I’m going up to get a prescription filled.”

Wint laughed. “For snake bite?”

“Oh, no. A real prescription.”

“You don’t say!”

Jack protested. “Sure. So--good night.”

Wint thrust his arm through the other’s. “What do you want to get rid of me for? I’ll walk up with you.”

Jack balked. “Oh, now, Wint--you--your father will be down on you. You ought to cut it out, Wint. There’s nothing in it for you. You never know when to stop!”

Wint stiffened sulkily, but his voice was gentle. “That’s tough! Too bad about me! And it’s a shame what dad will do to me, now isn’t it?” He took a step forward. “Coming, Jack?”

So they departed together.

At daylight, the elder Chase, arising early to go to the polls, met Routt. Jack was homeward bound; and he was a weary young man. Wint was not with him. They exchanged greetings, but no more.

Routt did not again appear in public until something after noon, election day. When he came downtown then, he was as spruce as ever, his eyes clear, and his cheeks pink with health. He showed no signs of the--fatigue that the elder Chase had remarked in him.

Forthwith, men began to ask him: “Where is Wint?”

The first man that put the question was Peter Gergue. This was a big day for Peter. He had been busy, whispering and advising and suggesting and laughing a little behind the back of the elder Chase. He had been too busy getting out the votes and directing the voters to think much about Wint until Jack appeared; but the sight of Jack reminded him of Wint; and so he asked:

“Where is Wint, anyway?”

Jack looked to right and left. “I don’t know,” he said.

Gergue drawled: “It’s your job to know.”

“I know it is. But--he got away from me.”

“Got away from you?”

“Yes. Last night. I couldn’t stop him.”

Gergue frowned and ran his fingers through his back hair.

“It was your job to stop him.”

Jack threw out his hands. “You never saw him when he’s going good.”

Peter nodded and spat. “No,” he said slowly. “No--that’s right. Where d’you say you left him?”

Routt shook his head. “I wish I knew. He dodged me....”

Gergue shook his head. “Go along. Don’t let ’em see you talking--too much.”

As the afternoon passed and especially after that final two hours of scurry and effort began, the inquiries for Wint increased in volume. But at six o’clock Wint was still listed as missing, and he was still missing at eight, and he was still missing when the count of the ballots was completed.

But fifteen minutes later, Skinny Marsh, a man without visible means of support, met V. R. Kite on the street and drew him into the dark mouth of an alleyway.

“Kite,” he said huskily, “I got something to tell you.”

“What is it?” V. R. asked crisply.

“You know where Wint is?”

“No. Do you?”

“Yes.”

Kite was interested enough now. “Where?”

Marsh told him; and ten seconds later, Kite was walking briskly up the street, gathering his clans.

* * * * *

In the valley on the northeast side of Hardiston, there is a network of railway tracks, the freight and coal yards of the D. T. & I. Acres of ground are covered with slack, deposited through many years, and sprinkled over with the cinders from a thousand puffing engines.

This is low land. At one spot, a stagnant pool forms every year, and furnishes some ragged skating for the children of the locality. The ice factory is on a hill above this pool. At the other end of the yards, there is a gaunt and ruined brick structure that was once a nail mill; and this mill gives its name to the section.

Across the tracks, there are half a dozen streets, lined for the most part with well-kept little cottages of workingmen. But in one street there is a larger structure that was once a hotel.

This hotel is called the Weaver House. It fronts on the street, is flanked on one side by a railway track, and is backed by the creek whose muddy waters lap its sills at flood time. This was, in its days of glory, a railroad hotel, catering to the train crews in the days before the roads frowned on drink among the men. When the road threatened to discharge any man seen in the place, its business languished. But prohibition brought the Weaver House a measure of prosperity. There was strategic merit in its situation. A rear room overhung the creek; and a section of the floor of this room was so arranged that when a bolt was pulled the floor would swing downward and drop whatever it bore into the concealing waters.

This was a simple and effective way of destroying evidence; and the owner of the place made good use of it.

The office of this hostelry was a square room at one corner in front. At eleven o’clock on the night of election day, there were five creatures in this room.

Four were human; one was a dog.

The office was lighted by a single oil lamp. The chimney of this lamp had once been badly smoked, and subsequently cleaned by a masculine hand. It was, to put it gently, dingy. Also, its wick needed trimming. As a result of these defects, the light it gave was not blinding.

This lamp stood on a square table in one corner of the room. A wall bench ran along two sides of the table. At the corner, a checkerboard was set on the table, and over this board two old men leaned. They were engrossed in their game. Both were gray, both were unclean, both were ragged. Both were bearded, and the beards of both were stained, below the mouth, with tobacco. Nevertheless, they played keenly, and at the conclusion of each game broke into bitter, cackling arguments. These arguments lasted only so long as it took them to rearrange the men, when the one whose turn it was made the first move, and silence instantly descended on them again.

These gusts of debate which broke from the old men now and then were the only sounds in the room.

Beside one of the men, and leaning forward over the table in a strained and awkward position, was the boy. He may have been fourteen years old. But it was strange and pitiful to see in his face, in his eyes, an air of age and grim experience almost equaling that of his two old companions. This boy was dressed in clothes too small for him, so that his wrists stuck out from his sleeves, his neck reared itself bare and gaunt above his coat collar, and his pale ankles and shins were exposed above the shoes he wore.

This boy was reading. He was reading a copy of the bulletin of the Ohio Brewers’ Association. He was spelling it out word by word, with the closest attention. When the old men burst into argument, the boy shook his head a little as though annoyed by their outcries. But for the rest, he read steadily, passing his fingers along the lines as he read.

The dog slept on the floor at his feet. The dog was just a dog.

The other person in the room was the manager of the Weaver House. The manager was a woman. The manager was also the owner. She sat in a chair beside what had been the bar, at one side of the room. Her hands were folded in her lap, her head lolled on one shoulder, her mouth was open, and she was asleep.

This woman was a virago. In the old days, she once hit a brakeman with a rubber bung starter, and he died. She was acquitted because the brakeman was drunk and she pleaded self-defense. She was feared and respected by the men among whom she lived. In Paris, in ’93, she would have been a commanding figure. In the Nail Mill Addition of Hardiston she was a plague. But as she sat here now, asleep, her old hands folded in her lap, she invited not fear nor disgust but just compassion.

She was merely a tired old woman, asleep.

She was still asleep when the street door opened and four men came in.

The floor of the office was a foot below the level of the street. The first of the four men tripped and stumbled over this descent; and this slight sound woke the woman. She got to her feet with scrambling quickness, and from behind the breastwork of the dusty bar, surveyed her visitors. Her eyes were failing, and she thrust her head forward and twisted it on one side that she might see the better.

When she saw who the leader of the four men was, she straightened up with relief and said, her voice openly contemptuous:

“Oh, it’s you, Kite?”

It was. V. R. Kite, Jack Routt, and two of Kite’s satellites. Kite glanced at the men over the checkerboard, and at the boy. The old men, at their entrance, had looked up in fretful hostility, surrendered to the inevitable, and returned to their game. The boy continued to read.

“Hello, Mrs. Moody!” said Kite to the woman; and he stepped toward her and lowered his voice. “Is there a man--Wint Chase--staying here?”

Mrs. Moody grinned. The grin revealed a startlingly perfect set of false teeth, as beautiful as those of a girl of twenty. Their very beauty made them hideous in Mrs. Moody’s mouth. She nodded.

“I want to see him.”

“He’s upstairs. I’ll show you.”

She turned around and took a lamp from a shelf behind her and lighted it. Then, with this in her right hand, and her petticoats gathered up in her left, she emerged from behind the bar and led the way to the stairs.

The four men followed in silence. Kite led, and Routt was on his heels.

The stairs were uncertain; but they made the ascent without disaster. Mrs. Moody led the way along a narrow hall to an open door, and stood aside here so that the others might enter. She was enjoying herself.

The four men went into the dark room, and the woman followed and set the lamp on the mantel. This lamp illumined the place.

The room contained a bed, a chair, and a wardrobe. On the chair were set two shoes. On the floor lay a hat and a coat and one sock. In the bed, sprawling on his back upon the dirty coverlet, was Wint.

The woman crossed and shook him by the shoulder. She screamed at him:

“Wake up, deary! Here’s gentlemen to see you!”

Routt crossed quickly to her side, his face working. “Here. Let me!”

She pushed him scornfully. “And don’t I know the ways of a drunk, at my age? Get back with you. It’s me that has a right to bring him out of it.”

She shook Wint again; and this time he came slowly back to consciousness. He gasped, flung out his arms, stirred. His mouth twisted as though at a bad taste on his tongue. They waited for his eyes to open, but after a moment he settled back into sleep again.

The woman looked up over her shoulder. “He’s had a full dose. Since noon he’s been so.” She shook Wint again, yelled into his ear, cuffed him.

Thus presently he woke.

His eyes opened, though he still lay on his back. His eyes opened, and they wandered idly about the room, fixing a dull gaze now on this face and now on that. Wint was usually amiable when he was drunk, and so when he discovered Routt, he grinned and tried to sit up.

“Good ol’ Jack,” he said thickly. “Tried be a guardian t’ me. I fooled ’m. No hard feelin’s, Jack. Shake, ol’ man.”

He leaned on one elbow and thrust out an unsteady hand. V. R. Kite grinned wickedly, and Routt stepped forward and sat down on the bed and put his arms about Wint’s shoulders.

“Wint,” he begged. “Stiffen up! We’ve got to get you out of here.”

Wint shook his head. “I’m comf’ble here. My hostess--” He waved a hand toward Mrs. Moody. “She’s a lady. I’ll stay right here. I’m always go’n’ stay here, Jack.”

Routt shook him gently, cuffed his cheeks smartly. “Wint! Wint! Come out of it! Come on. Let’s go to my house. Let’s go home.”

Wint recognized the others. “H’lo, V. R.,” he said amiably. “V. R., why this sudd’n s’lic’tude?”

V. R. Kite was not a bashful man. He was enjoying himself. “I came to take you home--take you to some respectable house,” he declared. “This is no place for you.”

Mrs. Moody broke into objurgations. But one of Kite’s companions deftly hustled her into the hall, and silenced her there. Wint persisted:

“Why don’ this place suit me all right? I wanna know, V. R.”

Routt looked at Kite, and Kite said oracularly: “Because, my friend, the voters of Hardiston have elected you their next Mayor.”

Wint was swaying a little in Routt’s arms; and for a time his face remained blank. Then it assumed a puzzled look. In the end he asked, his voice less unsteady: “What’s--that?”

“You’re elected Mayor, Wint,” Routt told him. “Brace up.”

Wint sat up slowly, pushing Routt’s arms aside. “You mean--my father, don’t you?”

Routt shook his head; and Kite said pompously: “No, not your father. Yourself. The voters wrote in your name on the ballots....”

They saw a slow sweep of red flood Wint’s face; and for an instant his eyes closed as though he were fainting. The flush passed and left him pale. He got up, stood erect, unsteady, then firm. He shed drunkenness as though it were a cloak, throwing it off with a backward movement of his shoulders.

They watched him, waiting; and V. R. Kite suddenly moved a little toward the door, half afraid.

Then Wint burst out on them. He waved his hands furiously. “Routt!” he shouted. “This is a poor joke. It’s a damn poor joke. You Kite, you old whited sepulchre. You panderer, you worse than a prostitute--get out of here! Jack--I counted you my friend. You’re all dogs, cowards, rascals! Get out! If I choose to lie drunk in this shack--I’ll lie here. None of you shall stop me. It’s not your affair. It’s mine. Mine! Get out! The last one of you! Get out!”

He was so furious that they obeyed him. Routt tried to protest, but Wint gripped him by the shoulders and whirled him and thrust him toward the door.

They tumbled over each other into the hall. Even V. R. Kite lost his dignity. Wint pursued them, cursing them. He drove them to the stairs, down, stood above them with brandished fists. And when they had gone he still stood there for a space, trembling and alone.

Then he turned and went haltingly back into the room. He was no longer drunk. He was as sober as hell. He went into the room, stood at the door, frozen, ghastly white.

The lamp still stood on the mantel, and he crossed to it without knowing what he did. He stood before it.

There was a cracked mirror behind the lamp, above the mantel. Wint saw himself in it.

He looked into his own eyes for a long instant; and then his face twitched into a terrible, shamed, disgusted grimace. He lifted the lamp in both hands and sent it crashing into the grate in the fireplace. It splintered and shivered into fragments. The flame of the wick still burned, however, and the oil that had spilled caught fire, so that for a time the hearth and the grate were wreathed in blue flame.

Then the oil burned itself out. The room was left in darkness.

Wint went slowly across to the miserable bed and sat down on it. He gripped his head in his hands. After a little he lay down on his back on the bed.

Presently his misery and shame became so poignant that tears filled his eyes and welled over and flowed down his cheeks to the pillow. He ignored them.

Eventually, the silence in the room was torn by a single, racking sob.

END OF BOOK ONE