The Clarion

CHAPTER XXV

STERN LOG­IC

Be­tween Dr. Sur­taine and his son had risen a bar­ri­er built up of ret­icences. At the out­set of their re­union, they had chat­tered like a pair of school­boy friends, who, af­ter long sep­ara­tion, must re­hearse to each oth­er the whole ros­ter of ex­pe­ri­ences. The Doc­tor was an en­thu­si­ast of speech, glow­ing­ly lo­qua­cious above knife and fork, and the din­ner hours were en­livened for his son by his fund of far-​gath­ered busi­ness in­ci­dents and ad­ven­tures, point­ed with his crude but apt phi­los­ophy, and ir­ra­di­at­ed with his cen­tripetal op­ti­mism. He pos­sessed and was con­scious of this prime virtue of talk, that he was nev­er tire­some. Yet re­cent­ly he had not­ed a rest­less­ness verg­ing to ac­tu­al dis­taste on Hal's part, when­ev­er he turned the con­ver­sa­tion up­on his fa­vorite top­ic, the great­ness of Certi­na and the com­mer­cial ro­mance of the pro­pri­etary medicine busi­ness.

In his one close fel­low­ship, the old quack cul­ti­vat­ed even the mi­nor and fin­er virtues. With Hal he was scrupu­lous­ly tact­ful. If the boy found _his_ busi­ness an irk­some sub­ject, he would talk about the boy's busi­ness. And he did, sound­ing the Pæan of Pol­icy across the Sur­taine ma­hogany in a hun­dred vari­ations sup­port­ed by a thou­sand in­stances. But here, al­so, Hal grew restive. He re­spond­ed no more will­ing­ly to leads on jour­nal­ism than to en­comi­ums of Certi­na. Again the af­fec­tion­ate diplo­mat changed his ground. He dropped in­to the lighter per­son­al­ities; chat­ted to Hal of his new friends, and was met halfway. But in se­cret he puz­zled and grieved over the wan­ing of frank­ness and free­dom in their in­ter­course. Din­ner, once ea­ger­ly looked for­ward to by both as the best hour of the day, was now some­thing of an or­deal, a con­tact in which each must move war­ily, lest, all un­know­ing, he bruise the oth­er.

Of the un­der­ly­ing truth of the sit­ua­tion Dr. Sur­taine had no inkling. Had any one told him that his son dared nei­ther speak nor hear un­re­served­ly, lest the gath­er­ing sus­pi­cions about his fa­ther, against which he was fight­ing while deny­ing to him­self their very ex­is­tence, should take form and sub­stance of un­escapable facts, the Doc­tor would have failed ut­ter­ly of com­pre­hen­sion. He as­cribed Hal's un­ease and pre­oc­cu­pa­tion to a more def­inite cause. Sed­ulous in ev­ery­thing which con­cerned his “Boy­ee,” he had learned some­thing of the af­fair with Es­mé El­liot, and had sur­mised dis­tress­ful­ly how hard the blow had been: but what wor­ried him much more were ru­mors con­nect­ing Hal's name with Mil­ly Neal. Sev­er­al peo­ple had seen the two on the day of the road-​house ad­ven­ture. Mil­ly, with her vivid fem­inin­ity was a nat­ural mark for gos­sip. The mere fact that she had been in Hal's run­about was enough to set tongues wag­ging. Then, some­time there­after, she had re­signed her po­si­tion in the “Clar­ion” of­fice with­out giv­ing any rea­son, so Dr. Sur­taine un­der­stood. The whole mat­ter looked ug­ly. Not that the char­la­tan would have been par­tic­ular­ly shocked had Hal ex­hib­it­ed a cer­tain lax­ity of morals in the mat­ter of wom­en. For this sort of of­fense Dr. Sur­taine had an easy tol­er­ation, so long as it was kept de­cent­ly un­der cov­er. But that his son should be­come en­tan­gled with one of his--Dr. Sur­taine's--em­ploy­ees, a wom­an un­der the pro­tec­tion of his roof, even though it were but the fac­to­ry roof--that, in­deed, would be a shock to his feu­dal con­cep­tion of busi­ness hon­or.

Such dis­mal con­sid­er­ations the Doc­tor had sup­pressed dur­ing an un­usu­al­ly un­com­fort­able din­ner, on a hot and thun­der-​breed­ing evening when both of the Sur­taines had painful­ly talked against time. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the meal, Hal, on pre­text of beat­ing the storm to the of­fice, left. His fa­ther took his fore­bod­ings to the club and at­tempt­ed to lose them along with sev­er­al rub­bers of ab­sent-​mind­ed bridge. Mean­time the wom­an for whom his loy­al­ty was con­cerned as well as for his son, was stim­ulat­ing a res­olu­tion with the slow poi­son of liquor around the cor­ner from the “Clar­ion” of­fice.

Nine P.M. is slack tide in a morn­ing news­pa­per of­fice. The af­ter­noon news is cleared up; the night wires have not yet be­gun to buzz with out­er-​world tid­ings of im­por­tance; the re­porters are still afield on the evening's as­sign­ments. As the cham­pi­on short-​dis­tance sleep­er of his craft, which dis­tinc­tion he claimed for him­self with­out fear of suc­cess­ful con­tra­dic­tion, McGuire El­lis was wont to de­vote half an hour or more, be­gin­ning on the ninth stroke of the clock, to the cul­ti­va­tion of Mor­pheus. In­trud­ers were not pop­ular at that hour.

To re­spect for this habi­tude, Regi­nald Cur­ri­er, known to mor­tals as Bim, Guardian of the Sa­cred Gates, had been rig­or­ous­ly ed­ucat­ed. But Bim had a creed of his own which mol­li­fied the rigid­ity of spe­cif­ic stan­dards, and one tenet there­of was the apothegm, “Once a 'Clar­ion' man, al­ways a 'Clar­ion' man,” the same ap­ply­ing to wom­en. There­fore, when Mil­ly Neal ap­peared at the gate at 9.05 in the evening, the Cer­berus greet­ed her pro­fes­sion­al­ly with a “How goes it, Miss Cutie?” and passed her in with­out ques­tion. She went straight to the in­ner of­fice.

“Hoong!” grunt­ed McGuire El­lis, rub­bing his eyes in a des­per­ate en­deav­or to dis­en­tan­gle dreams from ac­tu­al­ities. “What are _you_ do­ing here?”

“I want to see Mr. Sur­taine.”

Some­thing in the girl's as­pect put El­lis on his guard. “What do you want to see him about?” he asked.

“I don't see any Ex­am­ina­tion Bu­reau li­cense pinned to you, El­lis,” she re­tort­ed hardi­ly.

“The Boss is out.”

“I don't be­lieve it.”

“All right,” said McGuire El­lis equably. “I'm a liar.”

“Then you're the prop­er man for a 'Clar­ion' job,” came the sav­age re­tort.

“Come off, Kit­ty. Don't be young!”

“I want to see Hal Sur­taine,” she said with sullen in­sis­tence.

Shak­ing him­self out of his chair, the as­so­ciate ed­itor start­ed across the room to the tele­phone at Hal's desk, but halt­ed sharply in front of the girl.

“You've been drink­ing,” he said.

“What's it to you if I have?”

The man's hand fell on her shoul­der. There was no fa­mil­iar­ity in the act; on­ly com­rade­ship. Com­rade­ship in the voice, al­so, and con­cern, as he said, “Cut it, Neal, cut it. There's noth­ing in it. You're too good stuff to throw your­self away on that.”

“Don't you wor­ry about me.” She shook off his hand, and seat­ed her­self.

“Still work­ing at the Certi­na joint?”

“No. I'm not work­ing.”

“See here, Neal: what made you quit us?”

The girl with­held speech back of tight-​pressed lips.

“Oh, well, nev­er mind that. The point is, we miss you. We miss the 'Cutie' col­umn. It was good stuff. We want you back.”

Still si­lence.

“And I guess you miss us. You liked the job, didn't you?”

The girl gazed past him with ashen eyes. “Oh, my God!” she said un­der her breath.

“Your job back and no ques­tions asked,” pur­sued El­lis, with an out­er cheer­ful­ness which cost him no small ef­fort in the face of his grow­ing con­vic­tion of some trag­ic is­sue pend­ing.

Now she looked di­rect­ly at him, and there was a flick­er of flame in her re­gard.

“Do you know what a Hard­scrab­bler is, El­lis?” she asked.

The oth­er rubbed his head in puz­zle­ment. “I don't be­lieve I do,” he con­fessed.

“Then you won't un­der­stand when I tell you that I'm one and that I'd see your 'Clar­ion' blaz­ing in hell be­fore I'd take an­oth­er cent of your mon­ey.” The fire died from her face, and in her for­mer tone of dulled sto­lid­ity she re­peat­ed, “I want to see Mr. Sur­taine.”

With ev­ery word ut­tered, McGuire El­lis's fore­bod­ings had grown dark­er. That Hal Sur­taine, car­ried away by the girl's vivid­ness and al­lure, might have in­volved him­self in a _li­ai­son_ with her was cred­ible enough. He re­called the episode of the road-​house, on that stormy spring day. That Hal would have de­sert­ed her af­ter­ward, El­lis could not be­lieve. And yet--and yet--why oth­er­wise should she come with the marks of fierce mis­ery in her face, de­mand­ing an in­ter­view at this time? On one point El­lis's mind was swift­ly made up: she should not see Hal.

“Miss Neal,” he said qui­et­ly, “you can sit there all night, but you can't see the Boss un­less you tell me your er­rand.”

The girl rose, slow­ly. “Oh, I guess you all stand to­geth­er here,” she said. “Well, re­mem­ber: I gave him his chance to square him­self.”

When Hal came up from a vis­it to the new press half an hour lat­er, El­lis had de­cid­ed to say noth­ing of the call. Lat­er, he must have it out with his em­ploy­er, for the sake of both of them and of the “Clar­ion.” But it was an or­deal which he was glad to post­pone. Noth­ing more, he judged, was to be feared that night, from Mil­ly Neal; he could safe­ly sleep over the prob­lem. Hav­ing a cer­tain suf­fi­cient re­li­gion of his own, McGuire El­lis still be­lieves that a mer­ci­ful Heav­en for­gives us our sins; but, look­ing back on that evening's de­ci­sion, he some­times won­ders whether it ev­er ful­ly par­dons our mis­takes.

While he sat read­ing proof on the sta­tus of a flick­er­ing for­eign war, the Hard­scrab­bler's daugh­ter, in a qui­et back room far­ther down the block, slow­ly sipped more gin; and gin is fire and fury to the Hard­scrab­bler blood.

At eleven o'clock that evening, Dr. Sur­taine, re­turn­ing to that mas­sive hy­brid of ar­chi­tec­ture which he called home, found Mil­ly Neal wait­ing in his study.

“Well, Mil­ly: what's up?” he asked, cheer­ful­ly enough in tone, but with a sink­ing heart.

“I want to know what you're go­ing to do for me?”

“Some­thing wrong?”

“You've got a right to know. I'm in trou­ble.”

“What kind of trou­ble?”

“The kind you make mon­ey out of with your Re­lief Pills.”

“Mil­ly! Mil­ly!” cried the quack, in hon­est dis­tress. “I wouldn't have be­lieved it of you.”

“Yes: it's ter­ri­ble, isn't it!” mocked the girl. “What are you go­ing to do about it? It's up to you.”

“Up to me?” queried the Doc­tor, brac­ing him­self for what was com­ing.

“Don't you promise, with your Re­lief Pills to get wom­en out of trou­ble?”

Dr. Sur­taine's breath came a lit­tle eas­ier. Per­haps she was not go­ing to force the is­sue up­on him by men­tion­ing Hal. If this were diplo­ma­cy, he would play the game.

“Cer­tain­ly not! Cer­tain­ly not!” he protest­ed with a scan­dal­ized air. “We've nev­er made such a claim. It would be against the law.”

“Look at this.” She held up in her left hand a clip­ping, show­ing a line-​cut of a smil­ing wom­an, over the cap­tion “A Hap­py La­dy”; and an­nounc­ing in wide print, “Ev­ery form of sup­pres­sion re­lieved. The most ob­sti­nate cas­es yield at once. Thou­sands of once des­per­ate wom­en bless the name of Re­lief Pills.”

“I don't want to look at it,” said the Doc­tor.

“No, I guess you don't! It's from the 'Clar­ion,' that clip­ping. And the Nev­er­fail Com­pa­ny that makes the fake abor­tion pills is _you_.”

“It doesn't mean--that. You've mis­read it.”

“It _does_ mean just that to ev­ery poor, sil­ly fool of a girl that reads it. What else can it mean? 'The most ob­sti­nate cas­es'--”

“Don't! Don't!” There was a pause, then:

“Of course, you can't stay in the Certi­na fac­to­ry af­ter this.”

A bit­ter ac­cess of mirth seized the girl. The sound of it

“rang cracked and thin, Like a fiend's laugh­ter, heard in Hell, Far down.”

“Of course!” she mocked. “The pi­ous and holy Dr. Sur­taine couldn't have an em­ploy­ee who went wrong. Not even though it was his lies that helped tempt her.”

“Don't try to put it off on me. You are suf­fer­ing for your own sin, my girl,” ac­cused the quack.

“I'll stand my share of it; the suf­fer­ing and the dis­grace, if there is any. But you've got to stand your share. You promised to get me out of this and I be­lieved you.”

“_I_! Promised to--”

“In plain print.” She tossed the clip­ping at him with her left hand. The oth­er she held in her lap, un­der a light wrap which she car­ried. “And I be­lieved you. I thought you were square. Then when the pills didn't help, I went to a doc­tor, and he laughed and said they were noth­ing but sug­ar and fla­vor­ing. He wouldn't help me. He said no de­cent doc­tor would. _You_ ain't a de­cent doc­tor. You're a ly­ing dev­il. Are you go­ing to help me out?”

“If you had come in a prop­er spir­it--”

“That's enough. I've got my an­swer.” She rose slow­ly to her feet. “Af­ter I found out what was wrong with me, I went home to my fa­ther. I didn't tell him about my­self. But I told him I was quit­ting the Certi­na busi­ness. And he told me about my moth­er, how you sent her to her death. One word from me would have brought him here af­ter you. _This_ time he wouldn't have missed you. Then they'd have hung him, I sup­pose. That's why I held my tongue. You killed my moth­er, you and your quack medicines; and now you've done this to me.” Her hand jerked up out of the wrap. “I don't see where you come in to live any longer,” said Mil­ly Neal de­lib­er­ate­ly.

Dr. Sur­taine looked in­to the muz­zle of a re­volver.

There was a step on the soft rug out­side, the cur­tain of the door to Dr. Sur­taine's right part­ed, and Hal ap­peared. He car­ried a light stick.

“I thought I heard--” he be­gan. Then, see­ing the re­volver, “What's this! Put that down!”

“Don't move, ei­ther of you,” warned the girl. “I haven't said my say out. You're a fine-​matched pair, you two! Him with his sug­ar-​pills and you, Hal Sur­taine, with your ly­ing promis­es.”

Ly­ing promis­es! The phrase, thus used in the girl's mouth against the son, struck to the fa­ther's heart, con­firm­ing his dread. It _was_ Hal, then. For the mo­ment he for­got his in­stant per­il, in his sor­row and shame.

“I don't know why I shouldn't kill you both,” went on the half-​crazed girl. “That'd even the score. Two Sur­taines against two Neals, my moth­er and me.”

The light of slay­ing was in her eyes, as she stiff­ened her arm. Just a frac­tion of an inch the arm swerved, for a streak of light was dart­ing to­ward her. Hal had tak­en the on­ly chance. He had flung his cane, whirling, in the hope of di­vert­ing her aim, and had fol­lowed it at a leap.

The two shots were al­most in­stan­ta­neous. At the sec­ond, the quack reeled back against the wall. The girl turned swift­ly up­on Hal, and as he seized her he felt the cold steel against his neck. The touch seemed to par­alyze him. Strange­ly enough, the thought of death was summed up in a vast, re­gret­ful cu­rios­ity to know why all this was hap­pen­ing. Then the weapon fell.

“I can't kill _you_!” cried the girl, in a burst­ing sob, and fell, face down, up­on the floor.

Hal, snatch­ing up the re­volver, ran to his fa­ther.

“I'm all right,” de­clared the quack. “On­ly the shoul­der. Just winged. Get me a drink from that de­canter.”

His son obeyed. With swift, care­ful hands he got the coat off the bulky-​mus­cled arm, and saw, with a heart-​lift­ing re­lief, that the bul­let had hard­ly more than grazed the flesh. Mean­time the girl had crawled, still sob­bing, to a chair.

“Did I kill him?” she asked, cov­er­ing her eyes against what she might see.

“No,” said Hal.

“Lis­ten,” com­mand­ed Dr. Sur­taine. “Some one's com­ing. Keep qui­et.” He walked steadi­ly to the door and called out, “It's noth­ing. Just ex­per­iment­ing with a new pis­tol. Go back to your bed.”

“Who was it?” asked Hal.

“The house­keep­er. There's just one thing to do for the sake of all of us. This has _got_ to be hushed up. I'm go­ing out to tele­phone. Don't let her get away, Hal.”

“Get away! Oh, my God!” breathed the girl.

Hal walked over to her, his heart wrung with pity.

“Why did you come here to kill my fa­ther, Mil­ly?” he asked.

She stooped to pick up the “Hap­py La­dy” clip­ping from the floor.

“That's why,” she said.

“Good God!” said Hal. “Have you been tak­ing that--those pills?”

“Tak­ing 'em? Yes, and be­liev­ing in 'em, till I found out it was all damned lies. And your fine and no­ble and hon­est 'Clar­ion' ad­ver­tis­es the lies just as your fine and no­ble and hon­est fa­ther makes the pills. They're no good. Do you get that? And when I came here and told your fa­ther he'd got to help me out of my trou­ble, what do you think he told me? That I'd lost my job at the fac­to­ry!”

“Who is the man, Mil­ly?”

“What busi­ness is that of yours?”

“I'll go af­ter him and see that he mar­ries you if it takes--”

“Oh, he'd be on­ly too glad to mar­ry me if he could. He can't. Poor Max has got a wife some­where--”

“Max? It's Velt­man!” cried Hal. “The dirty scoundrel.”

“Oh, don't blame Max,” said the girl weari­ly. “It isn't his fault. Af­ter you threw me down”--Hal winced--“I start­ed to run wild. It's the Hard­scrab­bler in me. I took to drink­ing and run­ning around, and Max pulled me out of it, and I went to live with him. I didn't care. Noth­ing mat­tered, any­way. And I wasn't afraid of any­thing like this hap­pen­ing, be­cause I thought the pills made it all safe.”

Here Dr. Sur­taine reap­peared. “I've got a de­tec­tive com­ing that I can trust.”

“A de­tec­tive?” cried Hal. “Oh, Dad--”

“You keep out of this,” re­tort­ed his fa­ther, in a tone such as his son had nev­er heard from him be­fore. “I guess you've done enough. The ques­tion is”--he con­tin­ued as re­gard­less of Mil­ly as if she had been deaf--“how to hush her up.”

“You've had your chance to hush me up,” said the girl sul­len­ly.

“Any mon­ey with­in rea­son--”

“I don't want your mon­ey.”

“Lis­ten here, then. You tried to mur­der me. That's ten years in State's prison. Now, if ev­er I hear of you open­ing your mouth about this, I'll send you up. I guess that will keep you qui­et. Now, then, what's your an­swer?”

“Give me a glass of whiskey, and I'll tell you.”

Hal poured her out a glass. She passed a swift hand above it.

“Here's peace and qui­et in the pro­pri­etary medicine busi­ness,” she said, and drank. “I guess that'll--make--some--stir,” she added, with an ef­fect of care­ful­ly tim­ing her words.

Her body lapsed quite gen­tly back in­to the chair. The two men ran and bent over her as the glass tin­kled and rolled on the floor. There was an acrid, bit­ter scent in the air. They lift­ed their heads, and their eyes met in a hag­gard re­al­iza­tion. No longer was there any need of hush­ing up Mil­ly Neal.