The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 23, 1904, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY. CALL. them out to be, they would not stop unting clemency or per- just now,” laughed 2 only avy as rudently fess that I fight chiefly know who I y mid- he y of th or to win know I b- n hor I shall which space r valty by acquaint- stroduced. “He has gouod friend to me, r elope, rather other and ugh that wondering what late our comes too t ¥ have parted with as it it had bee ra can of high explosives “He s a turn you me 1 again. Is " e to bed. What ur own counsel and yur mother supposes gone: it has gone—this the sealed envelope E and dropped the et. “Now we are the man at the rites again.” her z little and she did not e hocked e to be a party to the subter- fuge. But neither did she say she would not. am willing to believe that you sons for taking such she said. “May I in time to prevent the introduc- of another and rather uncertain into his complicated problem. an explain it more intelligibly a little later on; or if I don’t, Ormsby will. In the meantime, you must take my word for it that we shall have our railroad back in due season. It is-a question for the psychologists to answer if there be or be not crises in & man’s life when the event, weighty or trivial, turns upon that thing which, for the want of a better name, is called & premonition. Ir 7. silence that followed his dis- miy” = M the subject, Kent became of a vague prompting which was urging him to cut his visit short. There was no definite reason for his going. He had finally brought himself to the point of speaking openly to Elinor of her engagement and they were, as he fondly believed, safely beyond the dan- ger point in that field. Moreover, Pe- pelope was stirring In her hammock and the perilous privacy was at an end. Nevertheless, he rose and said good-night, and was half-way to the next corner before he realized how in- usably abrupt his leave-taking had been. ‘When he aid realize it, he was of two minds whether to go back or to let the apology excuse another call the Yol- lowing evening. Then the insistent prompting seized him again; and when next he came to a competent sense Gf things present he was standing oppo- site the capitol building, staring fixedly up at a pair of lighted windows in the second story. They were the windows of the Gov- ernor's room, and David Kent's brain red suddenly. In the earliest be- ngs of the determinate plan to wrest the Transwestern out of the grasp of the junta he had known that it must come finally to some desperate duel with the master-spirit of the ring- Bucks behind those lighted window lone? Kent had not meant to make the open attack until he should have a pon in his hands which would arm 1 to win. But now as he stood look- up at the beckoning windows a ad desire to have it out once for all with the robber in chief sent the blood tingling to his finger tips. True, he had nothing as yet in the oilfield con- spiracy that the newspapers or the public would accept as evidence ef fraud or corruption. But on the otner hand Bucks was only a man after all, a man with a buccaneer’s record, and by consequence vulnerable beneath the brazen armor of assurance. If the at- were -bold enough— not stop to argue-it out When a man’s blood is up the odds against him shrink and become as naught- Two minutes later he was in the upper corridor of the capitol, strid- ing swiftly to the door of the lighted room. Realizing it afterward he wondered if the occult prompting which had dragged him out of his chair on the Brentwood porch saw to it that he walked upon the strip of matting in the tile paved corridor and so made his approach noiseless. Also, if the same silent monitor bade him stop short of the Governor's office, at the door, namely, of the public anteroom, which stood ajar? A low murmur of voices came from beyond, and for a moment he paused, listening. Then he went boldly withig, crossing the antercom and standin fairly in the broad gleam of light pour- ing through the open door of communi- cation with the private office. Four men sat in low-toned conference around the Governor's writing table, and if any one of them had looked up the silent witness must have been dis- covered. Kent marked them down one by one. The Governor; Hendricks, the Secretary of State; Rumford, the oil man, and Senator Duvall. For five pregnant minutes he stood looking on, almost within arm’s reacn of the four, hearing distinctly what was said; see- ing the papers which changed hands across the teble. Then he turned and went away, noiselessly as he had come, the thick-piled carpet of the anteroom muffling his footfalls. It was midnight when he reached his quarters in the Clarendon and flung himeelf full length upon the bed, sod- den with weariness. For two hours he had tramped the deserted streets, striv- ing in sharp travail of soul to fit the irvincible, chance-given weapon to his hand. When he came in the thing was done and he slept the sieep of an out- worn laborer. Down, Bruno! For six days after the night of revel- ations Kent dived deep, personally and by paid proxy, in a sea of secrecy, which, but for the five pregnant min- utes in the doorway of the Governor’s office, might casily have proved fath- omless. On the seventh day the conflagration broke out. The editor of the Belmont efiner was the first to smell smoke and raise the cry of “Fire!” but by midnight the wires were humming with the news and the enure State was ablaze. The story as it appeared under the scare headlines the next morning was crisply told- An oil company had been formed with Senator Duvall at its head. After its incorporation it was ascertajned that it not only held op- tions on all the most valuable wells in the Belmount region, but that its charter gave it immunity from the law requiring all corporations to have their organizations, officers, and operating headquarters in the State. By the time the new company was three days old it had quietly taken up its options and was the single big fish in the pool by virtue of its having swallowed all the little ones. “I didn’t know, until I saw your bulle- tin a few hours ago, that the thing had been pulled off. In fact, I've been too busy with other things to pay much attention to the Belmount end of it.” “The ded-devil you have!” sputtered Hildreth, chewing savagely on the gift cigar. “T’d like to know what business you had to mix up in other things to the detriment of my news columns. You were the one man who Laew all about it; or at least you did a week or two ago. “Yes; but other and more important -things have intervened. I have been desperately busy, as I say.” “Well, you'-e lost your chance to get your grip on the capitol gang, anyway; that is one comfort,” growled the edi- tor, getting what consolation he could out of Kent's apparent failure. “They played it too fuf-fine for you.” “Did they?” sald Kent. “It looks pretty much that way, doesn’t it? Duvall is the scapegoat and Jthe only one. About day after to-nfor- row Bucks' organ, the Tribune, will come out with an ‘inspired’ editorial, whitewashing the entire capitul outfit. It will show that Rumford’s applica- tion for the charter was refused and how a truly good and beneficent State government has been hoodwinked and betrayed by one of its most trusted sufporters.” Kent threw off his street coat and ‘went to get hia dressing-gown from the Orr 3287 REMARKED ... .. J3AT 188 GOVERIVE. WAT IHE COURT MAN IV IHE GROVE ZND 20 IHE cax. . Theu came 1A wAISMNE SroKe wnicn had set the wires to humming. On the sixth day It was noised about that Senator Duvall had transferred his controlling interest to Rumford—other- wise to the Universal Oil Company— that he had served only as a figurehead in the transaction, using his standing, sccial and political, to secure the char- ter which had been denied Rumford and his assoclates. It had all been managed very skill- fully; the capping of the wells by the Universal's agent, the practical seal- ing up of the entire district, being the first pablic intimation of the result of Duvall's treachery and the complete triumph of a foreign monepoly. The storm that swept the State when the facts came out was cyclonic and it was reported, as it needed to be. that Senator Duvall had disappeared. Never in the history of the State had public feeling risen so high; and there were not lacking those who said that if Duvall showed himself his life would not be safe in the streets of the capi- It was after the Argus had gone to press on the night of explosions that Editor Hildreth sought and found David Kent in his rooms at the Claren- don and poured out the vials of his wrath. y. I'd like to know if you cuc-call this giving me a fair show!” he de- manded, filnging into Kent's sitting- room and dropping into a chalr. *“Did 1, or did I not understand that I was to have the age on this oil business \’hen there was anything fit to print?” Kent gave the night editor a cigar and was otherwise exasperatingly im- perturbable. “Keep your clothes on and don’t ac- cuse a man of disloyalty until you have all the documents in the case,” he said. wararobe in the bedroom. When he came back he said: “Hildreth, -you have taken me at my word thus far and you haven’t had occasion to call me either a knave or a fool. Do it a little longer and I'll put you in the way of touching off a set-piece of pyrotech- nics that will double discount this mild little snap-cracker ‘of the Belmount business.” “Can’t you do it now?" “No, the time isn’t ripe yet. We must let the Tribune’s coat of whitewash dry in first.”” Hildreth wriggled in his chair. “Kent, if I thought it would do any good, I'd cuc-curse you out; I would for a fact. You are too blamed close- mouthed for any ordinary newspaper use.” But Kent only laughed at him. Now that the strain was in some measure relaxed he could stand any amount of abuse from so good a friend as the night editor, “Turn on the hot water if you want - to, and if it will relieve the pres- sure. I know about how you feel; and I'd be as sore as you are if I didn’t know that I am going to make it up to you a little later on. But about this oil blaze and to-morrow’s—or to- day’s—issue of the Argus. I hope you haven’t said too much.” “I haven't sus-sald anything. The stuff trickled in by Associated wire at the last minute, and we had to cut and slash for space and run it pretty much as it came—the bare story.” “All right; that's better. Now sup- pcse you hint darkly that only half of the truth has come out; that more —and more startling—developments may be safely predicted In the imme- diate herjce. Hit it up hard toward the capitol, and don't be afraid of libeling anybody.” ~ Hildreth’s eyes narrowed. “Say, Kent; you have grown a lot in these last few weeks: what is your diet?” . “Hard work—and a to make my brag good.” 0 down the ring, you mean?"” Yes; to down the ring.” “Are you any nearer to it than you were when you began?” “A good many parasangs.” “By Jove! I more than half be- lieve you've got hold of something ded-definite at last!” “I have, indeed. Hildreth, I have evidence—printable evidence—enough to dig a dozen political graves, one of them big enough to hold Jasper G. Bucks' six-feet-two.” “Let me see i said the night edi- tor, eagerly; but Kent laughed and pushed him toward the door. “Go home and go to bed. I wouldn't show it to you to-night if I had it here —as I have not. I don’t go around with a stick of dynamite in my pocket.” “Where is it?"” Hildreth asked. “It is in a safety-deposit box in the vault of the Security Bank; where it is going to stay until I am ready to use it. Go home, I say, and let me go to bed. I'm ragged enough to sleep the clock around.” In spite of his weariness, which was real enough, Kent was up betimes the next morping. kHe had & wire ap- determination pointment with Bilashfleld Hunnicott and two others in Gaston, and he took an early train to keep it. The ex-local attorney met him at the station with 4 two-seated rig; and on the way to the western suburbs they picked up Frazee, the County Assessor, and Or- ton, the appraiser of the Apache Building and Loan Association. ‘‘Hunnicott has told you what I am after,” said Kent, when the surrey par-, ty was made up. “We all know the property weil erough, but to have it all fair and,aboveboard, .we'll drive out and look it over so that our knowledge may be said to be fully up to date.” Twenty minutes afterward the quar- tet was locating the corners of a square in Gaston’s remotest suburb; an “addi- tion” whose only improvements were the weathered and rotting street and lot stakings on the bare, brown plain. *‘Lots 1 to 56 in block 10, Guilford & Hawk's Addition,” ” said Kent, read- ing from a memorandum in his note- book. “It lies beautifully, doesn’t it?” “Yes, for a chicken farm,” chuckled the assessor. “Well, give’me your candid opinion, yau two; what is the property worth?"” The Building and Loan man scratch- ed his chin. . “Say fifty dollars for the plot—if you’ll fence it.” “No, put it up. You are having a little boom here now; give it the top boom price, if you like.” The two referees drew apart and laid their heads together. “As property is going here just now, fifty dollars for the inside lots, and one hundred dollags apiece for the corners; say three thousand. for the plot. And that is just about three times as much as anybody but a land-crazy idiot would give for it." It was Frazee who announced the decision. “Thank you both until you are better paid. Now we’ll go back to town and you can write me a joint letter stating the fact. If you think it will get you disliked here at home. make the higher; make it high enough so that all Gaston will be dead sure to approve.” “You are going to print it?” . asked the Building ané Loan appraiser. “I may want to. You may shape it to that end.” “I'll! stand by my figures,” said Fra- zee. “It will give me my little chance to get back at the Governor. I had it assessed as unimproved suburban prop- erty at so much the lot, but he made a kick to the board of ecualization and got it put in as unimproved farm land at fifty dollars an acre.” Then, look- ing at his watch; “We'd better be get- ting back, if you have to catch the Accommodation. Won't you stay over and visit with us?” “I can’t, this time, much obliged,” said Kent; and they drove to the Bulld- ing and Loan office, where the joint let- ter of appraisal was wFitten and signed. Kent caught his train with something to spare, and was back at the capital in good time to keep a dinner engage- ment at Miss Van Brock’s. He had un- derstood that Ormsby would be the only other guest. But Portia had a lit- tle surprise in store for him. Loring had dropped in, unan- nounced, from the KEast; and Por- tia, having first ascertained that Mrs- Brentwood's asthma was prohibitive of late dining out, had insiructed Ormg- by to bring Elinor and Penelope. Kent had been saving the resuits of his deep sea divings In the oilfield in- vestigations to spread them out before Miss Van Brock and Ormsby “in com- mittee,” but he put a padlock on his lips when he saw the others. Portia gave him Elinor te take out, and he would have rejoiced brazenly If the table talk, from the bouillon to the ices, had not been persistently gen- eral, turning most naturally upon the Universal Oil _ ompany's successful ccup in the Belmount fleld. Kent kept out of it as much as he could, striving manfully to monopolize Elinor for his own especial behoof, but finally Portia laid her commands upon him. “You are not to be allowed to maroon yourself with Miss Brentwood any longer,” she said dictatorially. “You know more about the unpublished part of this Belmount consplracy than any one else excepting the conspirators themselves. and you are to tell us all about it.” Kent looked up rather helplessly. “Really, I—I'm not sure that I know anything worth repeating at your din- ner table,” he protested. But Miss Van Brock made a mock of his caution. “You needn't be afraid. I pledged everybody to secrecy before you came. It I1s understood that we are in ‘exec- utive session.” And if you don’'t know much, you may tell us what you know now more than you knew before you knew so little as you know now.” “Hold on,” said Kent; “will you please say that over again and say it slowly?” L “Never mind,” laughed Ormsby. “Miss Portia has a copyright on that. But before you begin, I'd like to know if the newspapers have it straight as far as they have gone into it?” “They have. All but one small detail. They are saying that Senator Duvall has left the city and the State.” “Hasn’t he?” Loring asked. “He hadn’t yesterday.” “My-oh!” said Peortia. “They will mob him if he shows himself.” Kent nodded assent. ““He knows it; he is hiding out. But I found him.” “Where?" chorus. “In his own house out in Pentland place. The family has been away since April and the place has been shut up. I took him the first meal he’d had in thirty-six hours.” Portia clapped her hands. The but- ler came in with the coffee and she dismissed him and bade him shut the doors. ~Now begin at the very tip end of the beginning,” she commanded. Kent had a sharp little tussle with his inborn reticence, thrust it to the wall and told a plain tale. “It begins in a plece of reckless folly. Shortly after I left Mrs. Brentwood's last Thursday evening I had a curious experience. . The shortest way down- town is diagonally through the Capitol grounds, but some undetinable impulse led me to go around om the Capitol avenue side- As I was passing the right wing of the building I saw lights in the Governor’'s room and in & sud- den fit of desperation resolved to go up and have it out with Bucks. It was abnormally foolish, I'll confess: I had nothing definite to go on; but I— well. I was keyed up to just about the right pitch and I thought I might bluff him.” from the three women in “Mercy me! You do need a guardian angel worse than anybsdy I know!"” Portia cut in. *“Do go oa.” Kent nodded. “I had one that night; angel or de- mon, whichever you please. I was fairly dragged into doing what I did. When I reached the upper corridor the door of the public anteroom was ajar and I heard voices. The outer room was not lighted, but the door between it and the Governors private office was open. I went in and stood in that doorway for as much as five minutes, I think, and none of the four men sit- ting around the Governor's writing ta- ble saw me.” He had his small audience well in hand by this time and Ormsby’'s ques- tion was almost mechanical. “Who were the four?” “After the newspaper rapid fire of this morning you might guess them all. They were his Excellency, Grafton Hendricks, Rumford and Senator Du- vall. They were in the act of closing the deal as I became an onlooker. Rumford had withdrawn his applica- tion for a charter and another ‘straw’ company had been formed with Du- vall at its head. I saw at once what I fancy Duvall never suspected; that he was going to be made the scapegoat for the ring. They all promised to stand by him—and you see how that promise has been kept.” “Good heavens!” ejaculated Loring. “What a despicable lot of scoundrels! But the bribe, did you learn anything about that?” “I saw it,” said Kent impressively- “It was a slip of paper pasgsed across the table by Rumford to Bucks, face down. Bucks glanced at it before he thrust it into his pocket and I had my glimpse, too. It was a draft on a Chi- cago bank, but I could not read the figures and I doubt if either of the other conspirators knew the amount. Then the Governor tossed a folded pa- per over to the oil man, saying, ‘There is your deed to the choicest piece of property in all Gaston, and you've got it dirt cheap.” I came away at that.” Elinor’s sigh was almost a sob, but Miss Van Brock's eyes were dancing. “Go on, go on,” she exclaimed. “That is only the beginning.” Kent's smile was of reminiscent wear- iness. “I found it so, I assure you. So far as any usable evidence was concerned I was no better off than before; it was merely my assertion against their de- nial—one man against four. But I have had a full week, and it has not been wasted. 1 needn't bore you with the mechanical details. One of my men followed Bucks’ messenger to Chicago— he wouldn’t trust the banks here or the malls—and we know now, know it in black on white, with the proper affi- davits, that the draft was for $200,000, payable to the order of Jasper G. Bucks. The ostensible censideration was the transfer from Bucks to Rum- ford of a piece of property in the out- skirts of Gaston. I had this piece of land appralsed for me to-day by two disinterested citizens of Gaston, and they valued it at a possible, but highly improbable, $3000.” “Oh; how clumsy!” said Portia, in figure fine scorn. “Did his Excellency imagine for a moment that any one would be deceived by such a primitive bit of dust throwing?”” and Ormsby also had some- thing to say about the fatal mistakes of the shrewdest criminals. “It was not so bad,” said Kent. “If it should ever be charged that he took money from Rumford, here is a plain business transaction to account for it. The deed as recorded has nothing to say of the enormous price paid. The phrasing is the common form used ‘when the parties to the transfer do not wish to make the price pubiic: ‘For $1 to me in hand paid and other valuable considerations.” Luckily we are able to establish conclusively what the ‘other valuable considerations’ were.” “It seems to me that these documents arm and equip you for anything you want to do,” said Loring, polishing his eye-glasses after his ingrained habit. Kent shook his head. *“No; thus far the evidence is all cir- cumstantial. But I picked up the final link in the chain—the human link—yes- terday. Onme of the detectives had been dogging Duva.. Two days ago the Senator disappeared, unaccountably. I put two and two together, and late last evening .took the liberty of break- ing Into his house."” “Alone?" said Elinor, with the cour- age-worshiping light in the blue-gray eyes. )"Yes: it didn’t seem worth while to double the risk. I did it rather clumsily, I suppose, and my greeting was a shot fired at random in the dark- ness—the Senator mistaking me for a burglar, as he afterward explained. There was no harm done, and the pistol welcome effectually broke the ice in what might otherwise have been a rather difficult interview. We had it out in an upper room, with the gas turned low and the window curtains drawn. To cut a long story short, [ finally succeeded in making him un- derstand wl he was in for; that his confederates had used him and thrown him aside. Then I went and bromght him some supper.” Ormsby smote softly upon the edge of the table with an extended fore- finger. “Will he testify?” he asked. Kent's rejoinder was definitive. “He has put himself entirely in my hands. He is a ruined man, politically and socially, and he is desperate. While I couldn’t make him give me any of the details in the Transwestern affair, he made a clean breatst of the oil-fleld deal, and I have his statement locked up with the other papers in the Secur- ity vaults.” It was Penelope who gave Kent his due meed of praise. “I am neither a triumphant politiclan nor a successful detective, but I recog- nize both when t are pointed out to me,” she said. “Mr. Kent, will you serve these gentlemen up hot for din- ner, or cold for luncheon?” “Yes,” Portia chimed in. “You have outrun your pace-setters, and I'm proud of you. Tell us what you mean to do next.” Kent laughed. “You want to make me say some melodramatic thing about having the shackles forged and snapping them upon the Gubernatorial wrists, don't you? It will be prosaic enough from this on.- I fancy we shall have no dif- ficulty now in convincing his Excel- lency of the justice of our proceedings to quash Judge MacFarlane and his re- ceiver.” “But how will you go about it? Surely you cannot go personally and threaten the Governor of the State!™ this from Miss Brentwood. “Can’t 1?” said Kent. “Having the score written out and safely committed to memory that will be quite the easiest number on the programme, I assure you.” But Loring had about the risk. “Thus far you have not considered your personal safety—haven’t had to, perhaps. But you are coming to that now. You are dealing with a desperate man, David; with a gang of them, in fact.” “That is so,” said Ormsby. “And, as chairman of the executive committee, I shall have to take steps. We can't afford to bury you just yet, Kent.” “I think you needn’t select the pall- bearers yet a while,” laughed the un- daunted one; and then iliss Van Brock gave the signal and the “executive committee” adjourned to the drawing- room. Here the talk, already so deeply channeled {n the grove political, ran easily to forecastings and predictions for another electoral year; and when Penelope began to yawn behind her fan, Ormsby took pity on her and the party broke up. It was at the moment of leave-taking that Elinor sought and found her chance to extract a promise from David Kent. “I must have a word with you before you do what you say you are going to do,” she whispered hurriedly. “Will “you come to see me?"” “Certainly, if you wish it. But you mustn’t let Loring’s nervousness infect you. There is no danger.” “There is a danger,” she Insisted, “s much greater danger than the one Mr. Loring fears. Come as soon as you can, won't you?” It was a new thing for her to plead with him, and he promised in an accesg of tumultuous hope reawakened by her changed attitude. But afterward, when he was walking downtown with Lor- ing, the episode troubled him a little; would have troubled him more if he had not been so deeply interested In Loring’s story of the campaign In the East Taking it all in all, the ex-manager’'s report was encouraging.- The New Englanders were by no means disposed to lie down in the harness, and since the Western Pacific proper was an in- terstate line, the advisory board had taken its grievance to Washington, Many of the small stockholders were standing firm, though there had been panicky defections in spite of all that could be done. Loring had no direct evidence to sustain the stock deal the- ory; but it was morally certain that the Plantagould brokers were picking up Western Pacific by littles wherever they could find it. “I am inclined to believe we haven't .much time to lose,” was Kent's com- ment. “Things will focus here long before Washington can get action. The other lines are bringing a tremendous pressure to bear on Guilford, whese cut rates are demoralizing business fright- fully. The fictitious boom in Trans- western traffic is about worked out: and for political reasons Buecks can't afford to have the road in the hands of his henchmen when the collapse comes. The major is bolstering things from week to week now until the Planta- gould people get what they are after—a controlling majority of the stock—and then Judge MacFarlane will come, back.” They were within two squares of the Clarendon, and the cross-street was de- serted save for a drunken cowboy in chaps and sombrero staggering aimless- ly around the corner. “That’s curious,” Loring remarked. “Don’t you know, I saw that same fel- low, or his double, lurching across the avenue as we came out of -Alameda square, and I wondered "wm he was doing out in that region. “It was his double, I guess,” said Kent. “This one is many pegs too drunk to cover the distance as fast as we have been walking.” But drunk or sober, the cowboy turned up again most unexpectedly: this time at the entrance of the alley half-way down the block. In passing he stumbled heavily against Kent: there was a thick-tongued oath, and Loring struck out smartly with his walkiflg-stick. By consequence the man’s pistol went off harmlessiy in the air. The shot brought a policeman lum- bering heavily from the street bevond, and the skirling of rellef whistles shrilled on the night. But the man David something to say