A Poor Wise Man

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The strike had been carried on with comparatively little disorder.In some cities there had been rioting, but half-hearted andeasily controlled. Almost without exception it was the foreign andunassimilated element that broke the peace. Alien women spat on thestate police, and flung stones at them. Here and there propertywas destroyed. A few bomb outrages filled the newspapers with greatscare-heads, and sent troops and a small army of secret service men hereand there.

  In the American Federation of Labor a stocky little man grimly fought tooppose the Radical element, which was slowly gaining ground, and at thesame time to retain his leadership. The great steel companies, unitedat last by a common danger and a common fate if they yielded, stooddoggedly and courageously together, waiting for a return of sanity tothe world. The world seemed to have gone mad. Everywhere in the countryproduction was reduced by the cessation of labor, and as a result thecost of living was mounting.

  And every strike lost in the end. Labor had yet to learn that to ceaseto labor may express a grievance, but that in itself it righted nowrongs. Rather, it turned that great weapon, public opinion, withoutwhich no movement may succeed, against it. And that to stand behindthe country in war was not enough. It must stand behind the country inpeace.

  It had to learn, too, that a chain is only as strong as its weakestlink. The weak link in the labor chain was its Radical element. Rioterswere arrested with union cards in their pockets. In vain the unionsprotested their lack of sympathy with the unruly element. The vastrespectable family of union labor found itself accused of the sins ofthe minority, and lost standing thereby.

  At Friendship the unruly element was very strong. For a time it held itsmeetings in a hall. When that was closed it resorted to the open air.

  On the fifteenth of July it held an incendiary meeting on the unusedpolo field, and the next day awakened to the sound of hammers, andto find a high wooden fence, reenforced with barbed wire, being builtaround the field, with the state police on guard over the carpenters. Ina few days the fence was finished, only to be partly demolished the nextnight, secretly and noiselessly. But no further attempts were made tohold meetings there. It was rumored that meetings were being secretlyheld in the woods near the town, but the rendezvous was not located.

  On the restored fence around the polo grounds a Red flag was found onemorning, and two nights later the guard at the padlocked gate was shotthrough the heart, from ambush.

  Then, about the first of August, out of a clear sky, sporadic riotingsbegan to occur. They seemed to originate without cause, and to end assuddenly as they began. Usually they were in the outlying districts,but one or two took place in the city itself. The rioters were notall foreign strikers from the mills. They were garment workers, hotelwaiters, a rabble of the discontented from all trades. The riots were tono end, apparently. They began with a chance word, fought their furiousway for an hour or so, and ended, leaving a trail of broken heads andtorn clothing behind them.

  On toward the end of July one such disturbance grew to considerablesize. The police were badly outnumbered, and a surprising majority ofthe rioters were armed, with revolvers, with wooden bludgeons, lengthsof pipe and short, wicked iron bars. Things were rather desperate untilthe police found themselves suddenly and mysteriously reenforced bya cool-headed number of citizens, led by a tall thin man who limpedslightly, and who disposed his heterogeneous support with a few wordsand considerable skill.

  The same thin young man, stopping later in an alley way to investigatean arm badly bruised by an iron bar, overheard a conversation betweentwo roundsmen, met under a lamppost after the battle, for comfort and alittle conversation.

  "Can you beat that, Henry?" said one. "Where the hell'd they come from?"

  "Search me," said Henry. "D'you see the skinny fellow? Limped, too.D'you notice that? Probably hurt in France. But he hasn't forgotten howto fight, I'll tell the world."

  The outbreaks puzzled the leaders of the Vigilance Committee. WillyCameron was inclined to regard them as without direction or intention,purely as manifestations of hate, and as such contrary to the plans oftheir leaders. And Mr. Hendricks, nursing a black eye at home after therecent outburst, sized up the situation shrewdly.

  "You can boil a kettle too hard," he said, "and then the lid pops off.Doyle and that outfit of his have been burning the fire a little high,that's all. They'll quit now, because they want to get us off guardlater. You and your committee can take a vacation, unless you can setthem to electioneering for me. They've had enough for a while, thedevils. They'll wait now for Akers to get in and make things easy forthem. Mind my words, boy. That's the game."

  And the game it seemed to be. Small violations of order still occurred,but no big ones. To the headquarters in the Denslow Bank came anincreasing volume of information, to be duly docketed and filed. Some ofit was valueless. Now and then there came in something worth followingup. Thus one night Pink and a picked band, following a vague clew, wentin automobiles to the state borderline, and held up and captured twotrucks loaded with whiskey and destined for Friendship and Baxter. Hereported to Willy Cameron late that night.

  "Smashed it all up and spilled it in the road," he said. "Hurt likesin to do it, though. Felt like the fellow who shot the last passengerpigeon."

  But if the situation in the city was that of armed neutrality, in theBoyd house things were rapidly approaching a climax, and that throughDan. He was on edge, constantly to be placated and watched. The strikewas on his nerves; he felt his position keenly, resented Willy Cameronsupporting the family, and had developed a curious jealousy of hismother's affection for him.

  Toward Edith his suspicions had now become certainty, and an open breakcame on an evening when she said that she felt able to go to work again.They were at the table, and Ellen was moving to and from the kitchen,carrying in the meal. Her utmost thrift could not make it other thanscanty, and finally Dan pushed his plate away.

  "Going back to work, are you?" he sneered. "And how long do you thinkyou'll be able to work?"

  "You keep quiet," Edith flared at him. "I'm going to work. That's allyou need to know. I can't sit here and let a man who doesn't belongto us provide every bite we eat, if you can." Willy Cameron got up andclosed the door, for Mrs. Boyd an uncanny ability to hear much that wenton below.

  "Now," he said when he came back, "we might as well have this out. Danhas a right to be told, Edith, and he can help us plan something." Heturned to Dan. "It must be kept from your mother, Dan."

  "Plan something!" Dan snarled. "I know what to plan, all right. I'llfind the--" he broke into foul, furious language, but suddenly WillyCameron rose, and there was something threatening in his eyes.

  "I know who it is," Dan said, more quietly, "and he's got to marry her,or I'll kill him."

  "You know, do you? Well, you don't," Edith said, "and I won't marry himanyhow."

  "You will marry him. Do you think I'm going to see mother disgraced,sick as she is, and let you get away with it? Where does Akers live? Youknow, don't you? You've been there, haven't you?"

  All Edith's caution was forgotten in her shame and anger.

  "Yes, I know," she said, hysterically, "but I won't tell you. And Iwon't marry him. I hate him. If you go to him he'll beat you to death."Suddenly the horrible picture of Dan in Akers' brutal hands overwhelmedher. "Dan, you won't go?" she begged. "He'll kill you."

  "A lot you'd care," he said, coldly. "As if we didn't have enoughalready! As if you couldn't have married Joe Wilkinson, next door, andbeen a decent woman. And instead, you're a--"

  "Be quiet, Dan," Willy Cameron interrupted him. "That sort of talkdoesn't help any. Edith is right. If you go to Akers there will be afight. And that's no way to protect her."

  "God!" Dan muttered. "With all the men in the world, to choose thatrotten anarchist!"

  It was sordid, terribly tragic, the three of them sitting there in thebadly lighted little room around the disordered table, with Ellen grimlylistening in the doorway, and the
odors of cooking still heavy inthe air. Edith sat there, her hands on the table, staring ahead, andrecounted her wrongs. She had never had a chance. Home had always been aplace to get away from. Nobody had cared what became of her. And hadn'tshe tried to get out of the way? Only they all did their best to makeher live. She wished she had died.

  Dan, huddled low in his chair, his legs sprawling, stared at nothingwith hopeless eyes.

  Afterwards Willy Cameron could remember nothing of the scene in detail.He remembered its setting, but of all the argument and quarreling onlyone thing stood out distinctly, and that was Edith's acceptance of Dan'saccusation. It was Akers, then. And Lily Cardew was going to marry him.Was in love with him.

  "Does he know how things are?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Yes."

  "Does he offer to do anything?"

  "Him? He does not. And don't you go to him and try to get him to marryme. I tell you I'd die first."

  He left them there, sitting in the half light, and going out into thehall picked up his hat. Mrs. Boyd heard him and called to him, andbefore he went out he ran upstairs to her room. It seemed to him, as hebent over her, that her lips were bluer than ever, her breath a littleshallower and more difficult. Her untouched supper tray was beside her.

  "I wasn't hungry," she explained. "Seems to me, Willy, if you'd letme go downstairs so I could get some of my own cooking I'd eat better.Ellen's all right, but I kind o' crave sweet stuff, and she don't likemaking desserts."

  "You'll be down before long," he assured her. "And making me pies.Remember those pies you used to bake?"

  "You always were a great one for my pies," she said, complacently.

  He kissed her when he left. He had always marveled at the strange lackof demonstrativeness in the household, and he knew that she valued hissmall tendernesses.

  "Now remember," he said, "light out at ten o'clock, and no goingdownstairs in the middle of the night because you smell smoke. When youdo, it's my pipe."

  "I don't think you hardly ever go to bed, Willy."

  "Me? Get too much sleep. I'm getting fat with it."

  The stale little joke was never stale with her. He left her smiling, andwent down the stairs and out into the street.

  He had no plan in his mind except to see Louis Akers, and to find outfrom him if he could what truth there was in Edith Boyd's accusation.He believed Edith, but he must have absolute certainty before he didanything. Girls in trouble sometimes shielded men. If he could get thefacts from Louis Akers--but he had no idea of what he would do then. Hecouldn't very well tell Lily, but her people might do something. Or Mrs.Doyle.

  He knew Lily well enough to know that she would far rather die thanmarry Akers, under the circumstances. That her failure to marry LouisAkers would mean anything as to his own relationship with her he nevereven considered. All that had been settled long ago, when she said shedid not love him.

  At the Benedict he found that his man had not come home, and for an houror two he walked the streets. The city seemed less majestic to him thanusual; its quiet by-streets were lined with homes, it is true, but thosevery streets hid also vice and degradation, and ugly passions. Theysheltered, but also they concealed.

  At eleven o'clock he went back to the Benedict, and was told that Mr.Akers had come in.

  It was Akers himself who opened the door. Because the night was hot hehad shed coat and shirt, and his fine torso, bare to the shoulders andat the neck, gleamed in the electric light. Willy Cameron had not seenhim since those spring days when he had made his casual, bold-eyedvisits to Edith at the pharmacy, and he had a swift insight into thepower this man must have over women. He himself was tall; but Akers wastaller, fully muscled, his head strongly set on a neck like a column.But he surmised that the man was soft, out of condition. And he had lostthe first elasticity of youth.

  Akers' expression had changed from one of annoyance to watchfulness whenhe opened the door.

  "Well!" he said. "Making a late call, aren't you?"

  "What I had to say wouldn't wait."

  Akers had, rather unwillingly, thrown the door wide, and he went in.The room was very hot, for a small fire, littered as to its edges withpapers, burned in the grate. Although he knew that Akers had guessed themeaning of his visit at once and was on guard, there was a moment or twowhen each sparred for an opening.

  "Sit down. Have a cigarette?"

  "No, thanks." He remained standing.

  "Or a high-ball? I still have some fairly good whiskey."

  "No. I came to ask you a question, Mr. Akers."

  "Well, answering questions is one of the best little things I do."

  "You know about Edith Boyd's condition. She says you are responsible. Isthat true?"

  Louis Akers was not unprepared. Sooner or later he had known that Edithwould tell. But what he had not counted on was that she would tellany one who knew Lily. He had felt that her leaving the pharmacy hadeliminated that chance. "What do you mean, her condition?"

  "You know. She says she has told you."

  "You're pretty thick with her yourself, aren't you?"

  "I happen to live at the Boyd house."

  He was keeping himself well under control, but Akers saw his handclench, and resorted to other tactics. He was not angry himself, but hewas wary now; he considered that life was unnecessarily complicated, andthat he had a distinct grievance.

  "I have asked you a question, Mr. Akers."

  "You don't expect me to answer it, do you?"

  "I do."

  "If you have come here to talk to me about marrying her--"

  "She won't marry you," Willy Cameron said steadily. "That's not thepoint I want your own acknowledgment of responsibility, that's all."

  Akers was puzzled, suspicious, and yet relieved. He lighted a cigaretteand over the match stared at the other man's quiet face.

  "No!" he said suddenly. "I'm damned if I'll take the responsibility. Sheknew her way around long before I ever saw her. Ask her. She can't lieabout it. I can produce other men to prove what I say. I played aroundwith her, but I don't know whose child that is, and I don't believe shedoes."

  "I think you are lying."

  "All right. But I can produce the goods."

  Willy Cameron went very pale. His hands were clenched again, and Akerseyed him warily.

  "None of that," he cautioned. "I don't know what interest you've got inthis, and I don't give a God-damn. But you'd better not try any funnybusiness with me."

  Willy Cameron smiled. Much the sort of smile he had worn during therioting.

  "I don't like to soil my hands on you," he said, "but I don't mindtelling you that any man who ruins a girl's life and then tries to getout of it by defaming her, is a skunk."

  Akers lunged at him.

  Some time later Mr. William Wallace Cameron descended to the street.He wore his coat collar turned up to conceal the absence of certainarticles of wearing apparel which he had mysteriously lost. And he wore,too, a somewhat distorted, grim and entirely complacent smile.