The Clarion

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PART­ING

The door­bell buzzed.

“That's the de­tec­tive,” said Dr. Sur­taine to Hal. “Stay here.”

He wormed him­self painful­ly in­to an over­coat which con­cealed his scar­ified shoul­der, and went out. In a few mo­ments he and the of­fi­cer reap­peared. The lat­ter glanced at the body.

“Heart dis­ease, you say?” he asked.

“Yes: valvu­lar le­sion.”

“Bet­ter 'phone the coro­ner's of­fice, eh?”

“Not nec­es­sary. I can give a cer­tifi­cate. The coro­ner will be all right,” said Dr. Sur­taine, with an as­sur­ance de­rived from the fact that a year be­fore he had giv­en that func­tionary five hun­dred dol­lars for not find­ing mor­phine in the stom­ach of a ba­by who had been dosed to death on the “Sure Soother” pow­ders.

“That goes,” agreed the de­tec­tive. “What un­der­tak­er?”

“Any. And, Murtha, while you're at the 'phone, call up the 'Clar­ion' of­fice and tell McGuire El­lis to come up here on the jump, will you?”

Left to them­selves, with the body be­tween them, fa­ther and son fell in­to a si­lence, in­stinct with the dread of es­trang­ing speech. Hal made the first ef­fort.

“Your shoul­der?” he said.

“Noth­ing,” de­clared the Doc­tor. “Lat­er on will do for that.” He brood­ed for a time. “You can trust El­lis, can you?”

“Ab­so­lute­ly.”

“It's the news­pa­pers we have to look out for. Ev­ery­thing else is easy.”

He con­duct­ed the de­tec­tive, who had fin­ished tele­phon­ing, in­to the li­brary, set out drinks and cigars for him and re­turned. Noth­ing fur­ther was said un­til El­lis ar­rived. The as­so­ciate ed­itor's face, as he looked from the dead girl to Hal, was both sor­row­ful and stern. But he was there to act; not to judge or com­ment. He con­sult­ed his watch.

“Eleven forty-​five,” he said. “Bet­ter give out the sto­ry to-​night.”

“Why not wait till to-​mor­row?” asked Dr. Sur­taine.

“The longer you wait, the more it will look like sup­press­ing it.”

“But we _want_ to sup­press it.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” agreed El­lis. “I'm telling you the best way. Fix the sto­ry up for the 'Clar­ion' and the oth­er pa­pers will fol­low our lead.”

“If we can ar­range a sto­ry that they'll be­lieve--” be­gan Hal.

“Oh, they won't be­lieve it! Not the kind of sto­ry we want to print. They aren't fools. But that won't make any dif­fer­ence.”

“I should think it would be just the sort of pos­si­ble scan­dal our en­emies would catch at.”

“You've still got a lot to learn about the news­pa­per game,” replied his sub­or­di­nate con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “One news­pa­per doesn't print a scan­dal about the own­er of an­oth­er. It's an un­writ­ten law. They'll pub­lish just what we tell 'em to--as we would if it was their dis--I mean mis­for­tune. Come, now,” he added, in a hard, busi­nesslike voice, “what are we go­ing to call the cause of death?”

“Miss Neal died of heart dis­ease.”

“Call it heart dis­ease,” con­firmed the oth­er. “Cir­cum­stances?”

This was a pos­er. Dr. Sur­taine and Hal looked at each oth­er and looked away again.

“How would this do?” sug­gest­ed El­lis briskly. “Miss Neal came here to con­sult Dr. Sur­taine on an emer­gen­cy in her de­part­ment at the fac­to­ry, was tak­en ill while wait­ing, and was dead when he--No; that don't fit. If she died with­out med­ical at­ten­dance, the coro­ner would have to give a per­mit for re­moval. Died short­ly af­ter Dr. Sur­taine's ar­rival in spite of his ef­forts to re­vive her; that's it!”

“Just about how it hap­pened,” said Dr. Sur­taine grate­ful­ly.

“For pub­li­ca­tion. Now give me the re­al facts--un­der that over­coat of yours.”

Dr. Sur­taine start­ed, and winced as the move­ment tweaked the raw nerves of his wound. “There's noth­ing else to tell,” he said.

“You brought me here to lie for you,” said the jour­nal­ist. “All right, I'm ready. But if I'm to lie and not get caught at it, I must know the truth. Now, when I see a man wear­ing an over­coat over a painful arm, and dis­cov­er what looks like a new bul­let hole in the wall of the room, I think a dead body may mean some­thing more than heart dis­ease.”

“I don't see--” be­gan the char­la­tan.

But Hal cut him short. “For God's sake,” he cried in a voice which seemed to gouge its way through his strain­ing throat, “let's have done with lies for once.” And he blurt­ed out the whole sto­ry, ek­ing out what he lacked in de­tail, by in­sis­tent ques­tion­ing of his fa­ther.

When they came to the part about the Re­lief Pills, El­lis looked up with a bit­ter grin.

“Works out quite log­ical­ly, doesn't it?” he ob­served. Then, walk­ing over to the body, he looked down in­to the face, with a changed ex­pres­sion. “Poor lit­tle girl!” he mut­tered. “Poor lit­tle Kit­ty!” He whirled swift­ly up­on the Sur­taines. “By God, _I'd_ like to write her sto­ry!” he cried. The out­burst was but mo­men­tary. In­stant­ly he was his cool, ca­pa­ble self again.

“You've had ex­pe­ri­ence in this sort of thing be­fore, I sup­pose?” he in­quired of Dr. Sur­taine.

“Yes. No! Whad­dye mean?” blus­tered the quack.

“On­ly that you'll know how to fix the po­lice and the coro­ner.”

“No call for any fix­ing.”

“So all that I have to do is to han­dle the news­pa­pers,” pur­sued the oth­er im­per­turbably. “All right. There'll be no more than a para­graph in any pa­per to-​mor­row. 'Work­ing-​Girl Drops Dead,' or some­thing like that. You can sleep easy, gen­tle­men.”

So ob­vi­ous was the taunt that Hal stared at his friend, as­tound­ed. Up­on the Doc­tor it made no im­pres­sion.

“Say, El­lis. Do some­thing for me, will you?” he re­quest­ed. “Wire to Belford Couch, the Willard, Wash­ing­ton, to come on here by first train.”

“Couch? Oh, that's Certi­na Charley, isn't it? Your pro­fes­sion­al fix­er?”

“Nev­er mind what he is. You'll be sure to do it, won't you?”

“No. Do it your­self,” said El­lis curt­ly, and walked out with­out a good-​night.

“Well, whad­dye think of that!” splut­tered Dr. Sur­taine. “That fel­low's get­ting the big-​head.”

Hal made no re­ply. He had dropped in­to a chair and now sat with his head be­tween his hands. When he raised his face it was hag­gard as if with famine.

“Dad, I'm go­ing away.”

“Where?” de­mand­ed his fa­ther, star­tled.

“Any­where, away from this house.”

“No won­der you're shak­en, Boy­ee,” said the oth­er sooth­ing­ly. “We'll talk about it in the morn­ing. Af­ter a night's rest--”

“In this house? I couldn't close my eyes for fear of what I'd see!”

“It's been a tough busi­ness. I'll give you a sleep­ing pow­der.”

“No; I've got to think this out: this whole busi­ness of the Re­lief Pills.”

Dr. Sur­taine was in­stant­ly on the de­fen­sive. “Don't go get­ting any sen­ti­men­tal no­tions now, Hal. It's a per­fect­ly le­gal busi­ness.”

“So much the worse for the law, then.”

“You talk like an an­ar­chist!” re­turned his fa­ther, shocked. “Do you want to be bet­ter than the law?”

“If the law per­mits mur­der--I do,” said Hal, very low.

In­dig­na­tion rose up with­in Dr. Sur­taine: not whol­ly un­jus­ti­fied, con­sid­er­ing his be­lief that Hal was pri­mar­ily re­spon­si­ble for the tragedy. “Are your hands so clean, then?” he asked sig­nif­icant­ly.

“God knows, they're not!” cried the son, with pas­sion. “I didn't know. I didn't re­al­ize.”

“Yet you turn on me--”

“Oh, Dad, I don't want to quar­rel with you. All I know is, I can't stay in this house any more.”

Dr. Sur­taine pon­dered for a few min­utes. Per­haps it was bet­ter that the boy should go for a time, un­til his con­science worked out a more sat­is­fac­to­ry state of mind. His own con­science was clear. He was do­ing busi­ness with­in the lim­its set for him by the law and the Post Of­fice au­thor­ities, which had once in­ves­ti­gat­ed the “Pills” and giv­en them a clean bill. Mil­ly Neal should not put the onus of her own reck­less­ness and im­moral­ity up­on him. Nev­er­the­less, he was glad that Belford Couch was com­ing on; and, by the way, he must tele­phone a dis­patch to him. Ris­ing, he ad­dressed his son.

“Where shall you go?”

“I don't know. Some ho­tel. The Dun­stan.”

“Very well. I'll see you at the of­fice soon, I sup­pose. Good-​night.”

All Hal's world whirled about him as he saw his fa­ther leave the room. What seemed to him a mon­strous man­ifes­ta­tion of chance had over­whelmed and swept him from all moor­ings. But was it chance? Was it not, rather, as McGuire El­lis had sug­gest­ed, the ex­em­pli­fi­ca­tion of an ex­act log­ic?

The clos­ing of the door be­hind his fa­ther sent a cur­rent of air across the room in which a bit of pa­per on the floor wa­vered and turned. Hal picked it up. It was the clip­ping from the “Clar­ion”--his news­pa­per--which Mil­ly Neal had brought as her jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. One line of print stood out, writhing as if in an un­con­trol­lable ac­cess of di­abol­ic glee: “On­ly $1 A Box: Sat­is­fac­tion Guar­an­teed”; and above it the face of the Hap­py La­dy, dis­tort­ed by the crum­pling of the pa­per, smirked up at him with a taunt. He thought to in­ter­pret that taunt in the words which Velt­man had used, afore­time:--

“What's _your_ per­cent­age?”