CHAPTER V

THE TRIUMVIRATE

A consciousness of having acted unworthily does not make for a man’s peace of mind. The plain truth of the matter is that after his talk with Wint at supper that night, Winthrop Chase, Senior, was ashamed of himself. Not that he admitted it, even in his thoughts; but it was obvious enough in his uneasiness, his inability to sit still, his restless movements here and there about the sitting room. Wint was not blind. He guessed something of what was passing in his father’s mind, and wished there were some way for them to come together. But there seemed no move he could make to that end.

The older man at last announced that he was going to walk downtown for the mail. Wint said: “Good idea. I’ll go along.” But Chase said:

“I’ve got to see a man,” and Wint understood that his father did not want his company, so he stayed at home when the older man departed.

Chase wanted to see Kite. He had no definite idea why he wanted to see Kite, but he felt the need of reassurance from some one, and he knew Kite would reassure him as to what he had done. So he went downtown to find Kite and talk to him. The Bazaar was closed. He telephoned Kite’s home, and the old woman who kept house for him said Mr. Kite had gone uptown to see Mr. Routt. So Chase went to the building on the second floor of which Routt had his office, and saw a light behind the drawn blind in Routt’s window and went up. He heard their voices inside, Kite’s and Routt’s, before he tried the door. The door was locked; and when he touched the knob, silence fell inside. Routt called: “Hello, who’s there?”

Chase told him, and Routt said: “In a minute,” and unlocked the door and let him in. Chase saw Kite sitting by the desk, his side whiskers bristling angrily.

There are no modern office buildings in Hardiston. Routt’s office was on the second floor of the three-story building at the corner of Main and Broad streets. There was a hardware store on the first floor, and a lodge room on the floor above Routt’s office. Routt and three or four others had quarters on the second floor. Routt’s office faced the street; a single room with a hot-air register in the wall near the door. There were shelves around the wall, with a meager library of brand-new and little-used law books. Routt’s desk was shiny, yellow oak. A diploma, or perhaps a certificate of admission to the bar, framed in mission oak, hung on the wall above the desk. There was an electric light in the middle of the ceiling, and it shed a bald and naked light over the three men who faced each other in the room.

Kite said: “Hello, Chase,” and Chase responded to the greeting. Routt asked:

“How’d you happen to drop in? Glad to see you.”

“I was looking for Kite,” Chase said. “Heard he was with you.”

Kite asked eagerly: “Looking for me, Chase? Good news? What’s happened?”

Chase looked at Routt, with a curious, dull inquiry. The man was moving in something like a daze; he had not yet found himself in this new alliance. He was hating himself for opposing Wint, and he was flogging his courage to the venture. He wondered what Kite and Jack Routt were doing together. Routt was a Caretall man in politics; also he was a friend of Wint. Chase tried to puzzle this out, and Kite asked again:

“What’s happened?”

“I--spoke to Wint,” Chase said slowly.

Routt asked: “About withdrawing his orders to Radabaugh? He’ll never do it.”

“No,” said Chase. “He’ll never do it.”

Kite cried fiercely: “He’s got to. He doesn’t understand. Didn’t you tell him, Chase? Didn’t you make him see?”

“I couldn’t make him see anything. He would not change.”

“He’ll never change unless he’s forced to,” Routt said; and Chase looked at the young man and asked slowly:

“I thought you and Wint were friends, Routt?”

“We are,” Routt declared. “He’s the best friend I’ve got. That’s why I don’t want to see him made a fool of. That’s why I don’t want to see Amos make a fool of him. You’re his father, but you feel the same as I do, that he’s wrong, that he’s got to be made change his mind.”

“I thought you were with Amos,” Chase insisted mildly.

“Amos and I have broken,” said Routt hotly. “He tried to trick me as he tricks every one, and I wouldn’t stand for it. That’s all. I’m out to even things with him.”

Chase looked around for a chair and sat down. Routt sat on the desk. Kite had not risen when Chase came in. The little man asked Chase now: “What did you say to Wint anyway? I should think he’d take your advice before he’d take Caretall’s.”

“I told him Caretall was using him, that he was being used to play politics.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“Said this wasn’t Amos’s doing at all. Said it was his own idea, that he had given the orders, that he meant to carry them through. Said, even if it were Caretall’s move, it was a good thing, and he was for it.”

Kite snarled: “He’s damnably moral, all of a sudden.” And Chase felt a surge of resentment at the other’s tone, and countered:

“He’s right, you know. Booze is dirty business.”

“It’s my business,” Kite snapped, stamping to his feet; and if Routt had not intervened, the old feud between Kite and Chase might have been revived, then and there. But Routt had no notion of permitting a break between these strange allies. He said cheerfully:

“Sit down, Kite. We’re not talking about booze. We’re talking about Amos Caretall. We’re not trying to settle the moral issue. We’re trying to settle Amos Caretall’s hash. Question is, how are we going to do it?”

“That’s right,” Chase agreed. Caretall’s name was like an anchor, to which he could make fast his disturbed thoughts. So long as he was opposing Amos, he could not go wrong.

Kite sat down, thinking; and he asked: “You say Wint told you Amos had nothing to do with this, Chase?”

“Yes. He probably thinks that’s true. Caretall got around him, somehow.”

Routt said: “Caretall’s a shrewd man, he can get around other men. He knows the trick of it.” Kite said nothing. He was thinking over what Chase had said. Routt continued: “What we want to do is to go out and get him.”

Chase suddenly found the atmosphere of this room unbearable; he wanted to get out in the air. So he got up, and said harshly: “I’m with you on that. I’ll do anything I can against Amos. Let me know what you decide.”

Routt said: “Don’t run away. Let’s talk things over.” But Chase told him he had business elsewhere; and Kite made no objection to his going. When he was gone, Routt told Kite:

“He’ll have to be handled carefully. He’s naturally a dry man, you know.”

Kite said thoughtfully, as though he were considering another matter: “Yes, that’s so.”

“I’ve been figuring on what you suggested--getting a handle to control Wint,” Routt told him. “You know, I think there’s a way.”

“To get something on Wint?”

“Yes. He’s not such a terribly upright young man. Any one’s foot is apt to slip.”

“You mean his has slipped?” Kite asked eagerly. Routt only grinned.

“I’ll let you know what I mean, in good time,” he said.

Kite grunted. It was evident that his mind was busy with another angle of the situation. A little later, still abstracted, he took himself away.

While he walked home, he turned over and over in his thoughts his new idea.