“She did. She lived in a place called Kensington Terraces. Not for as long as she claimed, however, but for a few weeks. Recently. Very recently.”
The chief said, “One of the things a political appointee learns very early—if he wants to survive—is not to talk about powerful politicians, that is, repeat gossip about them. But hell, a few people know, and I’ll tell you if it goes no further, Howard.”
Howard hesitated. “It might have to, Bill. I’ll try to keep it as quiet as possible and look for information which will be a result of your information without revealing the source.”
“I know you lawyers,” said the chief, and looked at Howard with large cold eyes. “When it comes to a client, you’d betray your best friends—for a good fee, of course. You haven’t been exactly candid with me, and why should I be candid with you?”
“For no reason except that if I don’t hurry and get some information—and not just about our little Edna—a good fine man will find himself unjustly in prison, not to mention the loss of his reputation and profession.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you tell me? Has Edna gotten him into some mess?”
“Yes. She had an abortion,
a
criminal abortion, only
a
short time ago.”
“Ha,” said the chief, and began to laugh again. “The Senator won’t like that! Little Edna playing house when the master is away. Sneaking away from Washington to kick up her heels in a dead-dog town like Hambledon, at that! Papa won’t like it, not at all.”
“I don’t suppose he will,” said Howard, pretending to laugh deeply himself, though he felt intense exultation.
“And little Edna found herself with a cake in the oven which didn’t belong to the Senator, eh?”
“Maybe it did.”
“I thought,” said the chief, sober again, “that you were implying that Edna went into the bakery business with that friend of yours in Hambledon?”
“Let me put it this way, Bill. Edna has let drop a few remarks that my friend is—responsible.”
“I can hardly believe that of Edna! She knew how to keep her mouth shut!” The chief’s eyes were hard and suspicious again.
“Oh, not that. I mean that she is accusing my friend of performing an abortion on her.”
“Edna? Doing that openly? The Senator will kill her! He’s a Hambledon boy. Keeps his reputation all glowing and sweet-smelling. Come on! What is this all about?”
“Just what I’ve told you. Now, would you advise me,” said Howard, with a great air of earnest artlessness, “to tell the Senator?”
“My God, no! He’d murder Edna if it ever even got out that he was playing Papa and Mama with her in Washington! She’s the latest of his little friends and has lasted the longest, and only a few in Scranton know about it and they know that if the Senator ever caught them scandalizing about him, they’d land in a pitch pit. Powerful boy, the Senator, and never forgets his friends or his enemies. Look here, Howard, I don’t want any of it!”
“People must know, in Washington.”
“People know a lot of things in Washington. But they don’t talk about them.”
Howard stood up, affecting to be disappointed and downcast. He sighed. “Very well, Bill, I should have thought about your position before coming here. You have told me nothing and I am not going to ask you anything. I can appreciate your need to be discreet.”
They shook hands, the chief very relieved. It was only when Howard had left that William Simpson began to wonder sourly if Howard had been entirely candid in his disavowals, and if he himself had not been led up the garden path. In the meantime Howard was considering how best to prove Edna Beamish’s liaison with Senator Campion, the fact of her manifest pregnancy by him, and her resorting to an unknown abortionist either in Hambledon or Scranton. He also needed to know why she had appeared in Hambledon and in the of- flees of Jonathan Ferrier, though he now had a rather clear idea of the circumstances—to his incredulous horror—and the use to which Edna Beamish had been put, and the reason. As a pragmatic lawyer and paradoxically an honest man, he had always discounted the conspiratorial theory of both history and human conduct, but now he admitted freely that both were not only possible but probable. In Jonathan Ferrier’s case they were actual.
Howard thought of Senator Campion very thoroughly. He knew that the Senator regarded Hambledon privately as bucolic and simpleminded. We’ll show him how really crude he is, thought Howard, on the train home. What a striking, amateurish plot he had thought up! However, it had been Howard’s experience, amateurs could often display a boldness experienced plotters could well envy, and by their very clumsiness convince.
During the next few hurried days Howard made several other discreet investigations, and was well satisfied as well as infuriated.
Flora Eaton said, “Howard, it is very sweet and kind
of you to call to see poor Martin, but he is very sick, you know, and needs his rest and peace and quiet.”
“Yes, I understand, Flora. But, you see, this is a matter of extreme importance to someone very important to Martin.”
They sat in the huge dim drawing room of the ugly house near the river, and Flora eyed Howard Best dubiously, plucking at her gray linen skirt and biting her lips. “Howard, Martin hasn’t been at all well since Senator Campion called on him. Visitors seem to disturb him very greatly.”
Howard sat up quickly. “The Senator was here?”
“Yes, indeed. So concerned over Martin, they are such good friends, you see. But it was too much for Martin, too much stimulation. He quite collapsed after Kenton had left and I had to call the doctor for him, and the doctor said he was not to be disturbed or upset, or even stimulated again. After all, it has not yet been a year—”
“I know, I know! But I think it will do Martin a lot of good to see me, Flora, I really do.”
“Legal business, Howard?”
“In a way. I know Martin has something on his mind, and if he tells me about it, it will be a relief to him. Please ask him to see me for five minutes, Flora.”
Still doubtful, she lifted her thin flat figure from the chair and left the room and Howard felt a sense of excitement and elation. So Campion had been here, had he, and had “disturbed” Martin Eaton? What had he threatened or said, to make Martin give up that damning instrument to Louis Hedler? This was very interesting, indeed. In spite of the closed shutters and draperies, the room was very hot and Howard, restless and more and more excited, wiped his face and his hands and looked impatiently at the door. He could hear the voice of the river, rustling softly in the morning silence, and the whirring of lawn mowers, and the bark of a dog, and he thought how peaceful the world was, or could be, without mankind.
Flora Eaton returned, uncertain and hesitant. “I’ve talked with Martin, Howard. He’s been writing and writing and is so exhausted. But when I told him you were here, he consented to see you for a few minutes. Howard, please don’t stay long, will you? He needs to rest.”
Howard stood up. “Writing? Is he writing a book?”
Flora simpered and made a foolish little gesture with her hands, crossing them at the wrists and then fluttering them out. “I am not at liberty to say, Howard.” The idea had not occurred to her before this, but the suggestion intrigued her. “But I do know it is quite voluminous, and not a letter. Such a secret!”
Howard Best had not seen Martin Eaton for months and even in his preoccupied state he was shocked at the change in a once powerful and robust man with presence. He could smell the acrid closeness in this room, and the higher odor of illness and mortality. Martin was a dying man, shattered, ruined, cavernous of face and appalling of color. He looked dully at Howard as he advanced across the room toward the desk, and sat there unspeaking like a crumbling Buddha sifting into dust in some lost temple.
Howard was so full of pity that he forgot to smile and did not wait to be asked to sit down. He sat down across from the desk and Martin, and he said, “Forgive me, Martin. I know you are ill. I should not have imposed on you if the matter were not so important and so immediate, and concerned—”
“I know,” said the faint and empty voice. “You were always Jon Ferrier’s closest friend. You moved for a change of venue and succeeded. You procured the best lawyers in Philadelphia for him.”
Howard studied him and listened to the voice to catch any echo of animosity or hatred or hostility or contempt. But there was none. The tone was lightless and unaccented and indifferent.
“So,” said Martin, “I know why you’ve come. It is about Jon Ferrier.” ,
“Yes,” said Howard. “He is in terrible danger, and he is innocent. I know you don’t believe that, but it is true.”
Martin Eaton looked down at the desk again, and now Howard saw that there was a sheaf of papers there, closely written upon, neatly stacked. Martin’s hand still held a pen.
“I do not know what is truth,” said Martin, “or what is lies any longer. I do not know even what is guilt.”
“Martin, surely you know in your heart that Jon did not kill Mavis.”
“You are wrong.” The voice was louder but still indifferent. “He killed her. I knew his guilt. I’ve always known it.”
A little chilliness ran over Howard’s warm cheeks and hands. He looked at Martin intently. Then he said, “Guilty of killing her—how?”
For the first time Martin smiled, a dreary, painful smile. “You lawyers. I made a simple statement which would be accepted by anyone but you. I said Jon Ferrier was guilty of Mavis’ death; that should have satisfied you. I don’t he. But you say ‘how?’”
Howard’s hopes rose. Martin lifted his living hand, which held the pen. “Kenton Campion has been here and has told me everything, so it is not necessary for you to tell me the detestable tale of the plot against Jon. I assume Louis Hedler told you. Poor Louis. I know there are other ramifications of this plot not concerned with me and Mavis. So, spare yourself, Howard.” He looked again at the papers on his desk and sighed a long and gusty sigh.
“I have written the whole story here, lest it die with me and evil again be done. I am glad you came. I did not know to whom to intrust this story. But, as you are Jon’s friend, I know I can trust you. I have but a few more lines to write, and it is finished. Then you may read it for yourself and save both you and me from copious explanations and words. I am so weary these days. So—beset.”
Howard felt that this was a momentous time. He sat in silence as the pen painfully scratched its way across the page. He saw it dipped into the ink, saw it write, saw it dipped again. The dead hand lay on the paper, unmoving. The shutters were open here and the hot bright wind entered, fluttering the written pages, stirring the dust, lifting the pages of open books, glittering on the edges of furniture. The large dying face of Martin Eaton was intent, and there was gray sweat on his parched forehead and fallen cheeks.
There was something to be said in favor of a man who was dying with dignity, thought Howard Best, a man who asked for no pity, no sentimentality, no false denial of the truth. Howard had not the slightest doubt that the agonizingly written document he was about to read would right an evil and save a man from complete ignominy and injustice.
Martin laid down the pen and stared at the final paragraphs he had written. He said, “I have made this out in the form of an affidavit. I had thought of you to act as the notary, or the witness.” He looked at Howard now, raising his eyes with a conspicuous effort, and what life remained in him shone, for the last time, with indomitable life and determination. “This has not been easy for me to do. I know this will destroy others. But there comes an hour when a man must do as he must do, and there is nothing else.” He nodded at the papers, spent, and Howard reached to the desk and took them. Martin lay back in his chairs and closed his eyes.
The writing was amazingly clear and careful, as if written so there could be no conjecture over a single word. It was small and sharp though sometimes wavering, but every period and comma were there, every large capital.
“I, Martin Joseph Eaton, of River Road, Hambledon, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, make this statement, on this date, August 29th, 1901, of my own free will and desire,
and in my own handwriting, which can be verified, in order that Jonathan Ferrier of this town will no longer be the subject of calumny, odium, disgrace and scandal and libel, as he has been since November 5th, 1900. It has been in my power, and in the power of someone else to be named, to have righted this wrong, but I have refrained for reasons I will now set forth.
“The dead are beyond our feeble hatred and our derision, and this I should have known long ago. To protect the name of the dead is not only futile and sentimental—when they have caused misery and despair—but they would not have it so and perhaps do not wish it so. If God is a God of love, He is also the God of Justice and even of wrath, and so I dare not die until I have written all that must be written on this day.
“My niece, Mavis Alicia Eaton, was not my niece. She was the daughter of my brother’s wife, Hilda, Mrs. Jerome Eaton.
“In my youth and young manhood I loved Marjorie Farmington, now Mrs. Adrian Ferrier of this town. But she married Adrian Ferrier, and I believed that I would care for no other woman. Then my brother, two years my junior, Jerome, met a young lady of considerable family and fortune in Pittsburgh, where he was a teacher of history. Her name was Hilda Gorham, and she resembled Marjorie Ferrier in a most extraordinary way. I did not know her until she had married my brother, for I was in Heidelberg at the time for a year’s supplementary study. When I returned and saw Hilda for the first time, it was as if my whole life had been renewed, and Hilda told me later that she had loved me instantly. However, she had no reason to divorce my brother, and she was fond of him, and we both decided he must not be hurt, as he was a man of singular innocence and kindness and trust.