THE WOMAN
Terhune, Albert Payson
The Woman A Novel By ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE Founded on William C. de Mille's Play Illustrated with Photographs (Copyright 1912, The Bobbs-Merrill Company) What Has Gone Before CONGRESSMAN...
...Can't a man do a decent thing for once," he grumbled, "without having his motive picked apart...
...Blake," he said, "there's one point I can't quite grasp...
...H'm...
...So, feeling his way, he shifted to the other tack...
...The Machine is seeking means to discredit Standish in the hope of pushing the bill through...
...Blake looked pained...
...And you know we've got you dead to rights...
...Standish hurried across to Wanda...
...CHAPTER VIII The Trap Is Sprung THERE was a pause...
...And he knew he had struck the one right note...
...It ends tonight...
...You've got a real brain under that metal receiver you wear...
...Louis Globe Democrat...
...And good-by then to Mr...
...Is that the one...
...But I can't figure it out...
...Think it over...
...Well, what was the number...
...He'll call her up...
...Don't decide in a rush...
...And his swarthy skin was a pallid yellow...
...You know what I mean...
...What affair,' hey...
...And now a subtle intuition, quite at variance with all his keen logic, warned him that Standish was not in the least frightened by the threat of political death...
...All right," replied Robertson, as she busied herself amid the labyrinth of switchboard plugs, "I'll wait here for it...
...By eleven o'clock or so I'll have her name...
...Robertson—my wife—on the phone," said he...
...Five years ago you spent a week with a woman at a hotel whose proprietor can and will identify you...
...We've found out all about that pretty little affair of five years ago...
...Get me a New York wire, please," he said, looking nervously down the corridor, "as quickly as you can...
...He secures all the facts except the name of the Woman and proposes to use the story as a club to force Standish to allow the Millins bill to pass...
...A'ri...
...He saw a most unruffled telephone girl absorbed in a novel...
...Blake looked at him with gentle pity, then shook his head...
...The buzz of the city crept in from outside...
...he commented...
...Blake grinned appreciation of the bit of acting, and was not in the very least deceived by it—as Wanda had perfectly well known he would not be...
...Another campaign yarn," smiled Standish, and his voice was as inexpressive as his face...
...What makes you think we can't supply the Woman's name...
...Didn't you...
...It's too valuable to put on paper—just yet...
...As he passed Wanda he glanced covertly at her through his lowered lids...
...demanded Blake...
...she echoed in a wide-eyed wonder of innocence that Saint Cecelia at her best could not possibly have equalled...
...If she's got a husband or kids or parents it'll blacken the whole world for them all...
...I've seen to it that she hasn't the slightest suspicion...
...You happened to catch every word of it," he corrected...
...You've got nerve all right...
...The Woman A Novel By ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE Founded on William C. de Mille's Play Illustrated with Photographs (Copyright 1912, The Bobbs-Merrill Company) What Has Gone Before CONGRESSMAN STANDISH and the Woman, believing themselves in love, spend a trial week as man and wife in a hotel in northern New York under assumed names...
...The warden announces that certain credits will be given each student for work performed in the course and that the consideration given applications for pardons, paroles and commutation will depend somewhat upon the progress that has been made in the college.—St...
...Good...
...Well," Blake was saying, "Could you hear anything...
...What makes you think we haven't found her...
...So tight that the knuckles showed white from the convulsive pressure...
...The Woman, too," he added, "Think of her...
...My time is limited...
...That you, Jessie...
...Standish had gone to the first of the numbered booths...
...pondered innocence's fair apostle, "how about ten thousand dollars...
...That goes...
...Here's the idea," replied Blake, wearying of matching a cudgel against a hatpin, and coming straight to the pith of the matter...
...slowly and more like a very old man than one in his prime...
...My boy," said he, "the game is up...
...repeated Blake...
...Dear me...
...Let the other party wait, and give it to me, won't you...
...Blake glanced unobtrusively toward the row of telephone booths and his half-shut eyes lighted ever so little as he made out Standish's figure behind the glass...
...drawled Blake...
...But she had barely noted the first movement of his lips when Blake and Mark Robertson appeared from the dining-room...
...Why, the affair with the Woman whom you registered as your wife, under the name of Fowler, at a country hotel up in New York state...
...Shall we say a thousand dollars...
...Not a word...
...He's coming...
...What affair...
...He'll lock and double-bar nine doors to discovery...
...Don't bluff, man...
...Yes, Plaza one—o—o— ONE...
...That's just what I've been wondering," she said frankly...
...But we will before midnight...
...Wanda rolled her big eyes ceiling-ward after the manner of a stupid child who seeks in space the answer to a teacher's question...
...You got the number, of course...
...Blake unceremoniously reached over the rail and picked up the pad on which a list of numbers was...
...Why, how could a poor telephone operator like me make so much money...
...There was nothing, however, to be read in that expression...
...He grinned under his sparse mustache...
...despite his daze...
...Oh...
...But you gave out word that you'd gone to the mountains to rest...
...H'm...
...And now, why do you suppose I told such an all-important secret loud enough for a telephone girl to hear it...
...When I'm through, I'll go away...
...The whole show is over...
...Look here, young woman...
...Oh, don't make us do this thing, man...
...Then I'll tell you," retorted Blake, nodding approval at her unembarrassed candor...
...What number, please...
...And turning to Blake, he said evenly: "So you have dug all that up, have you...
...Standish watched Blake out of sight...
...I—I happened to catch part of it...
...Blake...
...You'll find me somewhere about the hotel, if I'm not over at the Capitol...
...Yes," went on Blake...
...And whatever else Jim Blake's been called, no one's yet tied 'fool' to his name...
...We'll have to get you in the secret service...
...There...
...Some one wants me on the phone...
...but it'll take a few minutes to get the connection...
...Long distance...
...Curiously, of the thirty whose names have already been enrolled, four are life convicts and supposedly will never have any use for the things they will learn in the university...
...Of course she doesn't know we're tracking her," he continued, chuckling as at his own shrewdness...
...she continued into the transmitter, shoving a plug in and out of the switchboard three or four times, "Plaza one— o—o—one...
...Knowing the insurgent's high ambitions as he did, Blake could not account for this absence of terror...
...Here's your New York wire, Governor Robertson," she called to Mark...
...she queried sweetly...
...Yes, sir," said Wanda...
...A momentary contraction of Wanda's throat...
...Wanda Kelly, telephone girl at Hotel Keswick, Washington, is loved by Tom Blake, son of the political boss of the House...
...Thank you, sir," she replied demurely...
...You're a born diplomat," he approved a trifle grudgingly...
...Jim Blake sends for Standish...
...asked Blake, with real interest...
...That's what it does...
...I've got one already," she added, glancing over her shoulder at Standish...
...he asked...
...What was the number you wanted, please...
...For he saw Standish's hands slowly clench again...
...College Courses Offered to Nebraska Convicts A CORRESPONDENCE course for ambitious convicts is to be opened by the University of Nebraska...
...Why not...
...My dear young lady," counseled Blake with his most fatherly air, "believe me when I warn you that there is such a thing as being just a trifle too ambitious...
...Then it will be early enough for you to tell me your decision...
...It's that 'some one's' number I want...
...In fact I have expected it...
...The number is 'Plaza one—double 0—one.' " There was an imperceptible pause...
...Steady there...
...You get that number for me, and you won't lose by it...
...Because you can't harm me with such a story...
...He's got too much sense for that...
...Then, evidently making up his mind, he went on: "You heard the story I was telling those men over there...
...contradicted Wanda, and her voice and face were like chilled steel, "for a victory that saves your leadership of the machine, that puts your son-in-law in the speaker's chair, that smashes your enemy and that means millions of dollars to you...
...can you get me a New York wire...
...He proposes marriage and is refused...
...And now," echoed Blake, "we've got you with the goods...
...The experiment is undertaken with the intention of preparing convicts to be self-sustaining when they are released from the prison...
...I'm afraid not—in your case," answered Standish...
...He eyed her searchingly...
...Private business...
...Maybe I'd better put them straight...
...You know perfectly well why not," answered Standish, "the story won't amount to the paper you would print it on unless you can supply the name of the Woman...
...Do you want to make a hundred dollars...
...He knew men, as a pianist knows his key-board...
...No bluff ever won a penny after the cards were laid face upward...
...Besides," with an easy lapse into sweet innocence, "Mr...
...The course will include instruction in arithmetic, American history, grammar and literature, bookkeeping and agriculture...
...He's got more sense than I thought...
...Standish protests undying devotion...
...She turned her attention to them...
...A mighty good one, since it saves you your political skin, instead of forcing us to nail it to the barn...
...Nor could Wanda read anything from his utterly expressionless face, Then he said: "Do you know why I did that...
...Even your admiration for my worthy qualities and your very kind desire to save me trouble, can not wholly explain your action in telling me...
...snarled Blake, his habitual calm giving place to a sort of vulpine savagery...
...But her face gave no sign that her reply had been intended as impertinence...
...Please explain...
...In fact, he was talking interestedly to Robertson on indifferent topics...
...And now—" pursued Standish turning to go...
...Good-by...
...No," answered Wanda, still deeply offended at Standish's request...
...echoed the puzzled Standish, instinctively following Blake to the corner...
...If you're referring to your time in politics, it is...
...drawled Blake in genuine admiration...
...Hell's full of 'nice men.' But there's no time, now, to haggle about prices...
...Nor was the laugh wholly assumed...
...You seem to have this situation worked out as clear as I have...
...To be Continued...
...Standish had closed the booth door and, from the corner of her eye, Wanda could see him through the glass pane, speaking into the transmitter...
...asked Standish, unmoved...
...Standish came toward the switchboard, from the dining-room whither a page had at last tracked him...
...Plaza one—o—o—one...
...Miss Kelly," he went on...
...grunted Blake...
...That and a man's career—a woman's shame—a girl's self-respect...
...For an instant the innocent wondering smile again illumined Wanda's upturned face...
...But he made no other sign that he noted the successful springing of the trap he had so painstakingly set...
...Sheer innocence had reached its towering acme—the summit whereon rests pure wisdom...
...Or, if you want a job in my office at double what you're getting here —but we can talk about all that afterward...
...It's a cinch...
...Well, I'll—I'll have to think it over...
...Wanda drove a plug into the switchboard and droned: "H'lo...
...I—" "You didn't tell me the number," she reminded him...
...That isn't the one...
...Standish to come here...
...New York...
...CHAPTER VII The Trap FOR a moment Blake did not answer...
...Still, there's no time to argue...
...But it hasn't worried me...
...And her dainty lower jaw moved slowly up and down in a gum-chewing cadence that bespoke years of practice...
...A whole hundred dollars...
...Well, I'll admit we haven't found her —yet...
...Say, get me a New York wire—on the jump, please...
...Why are you giving away your hand like this...
...Don't you try to hold me up...
...she droned into the transmitter...
...The Woman awakens to the fact that she does not love Standish and calls their engagement off...
...Blake regarded the girl from under his bushy brows...
...Huh...
...Again he glanced at her moveless features in quick doubt...
...And a telegram would be too risky...
...Pure, unadulterated, sky-blue hell...
...Ten thousand dollars...
...You'll get the number...
...After a moment or two he crossed hastily to the telephone switchboard...
...The half-stifled rhythm of the dining-room orchestra reached them in snatches...
...Any name, Mr...
...I—I'll have to think it over," said Wanda confusedly...
...Mr...
...Still keep as close in touch with her as all that...
...Nothing stingy about your ideas, young lady...
...So he won't dare to go to her in person with his warning or send her a letter...
...Robertson, the happy light of anticipation dying out of his face at sight of his foe, turned his back ostentatiously upon him...
...How about it...
...We've got every fact proved...
...At its door he paused...
...The public doesn't stand for them now-a-days...
...All right," agreed Blake in no whit chagrined...
...Don't get huffy...
...The arrangements have been made by the state board of control in conjunction with university authorities and several interested Omaha men, among whom are former Governor Aldrich, Chief Justice Reese and officials of the Y. M. C. A. By special arrangements, the state will furnish the books used by the convicts in their studies...
...If you'll decide suddenly to let this Mullins bill pass, and if you'll support Mark Robertson for the speakership, everything will be perfectly smooth and harmonious...
...Standish got to his feet...
...jotted down...
...Congressman Standish, turned insurgent, is fighting the Mullins bill, a measure in the interests of the railroads...
...For again he saw Standish's hands clench...
...Here you are—number one booth, please...
...Then, in her everlasting professional monotone she droned into the receiver: "H'lo...
...Oh," he laughed...
...Standish...
...Maybe—maybe a—a million dollars," she hazarded timidly, at length...
...Some one wants you over there in the amen corner for a minute or two, if you can spare the time...
...Hardly worth mentioning, hey...
...Let's see...
...Just the number...
...At last he raised his eyes—the dark tired eyes in whose depths Self and Love and Happiness had so long ago burned out...
...A bargain...
...That's the trouble with a man who has something to hide...
...Standish...
...His voice trailed off into a self-satisfied laugh...
...As he spoke he was running over the pages of one of the telephone books on the desk...
...Standish ought to be here by now...
...She's walking blindly, unsuspectingly, right straight into the trap we've set for her...
...Get Mrs...
...Not with me, it doesn't...
...Does it...
...He let his mildly wandering glance shift, as if by accident, to Standish's hands...
...Oh, no," said Wanda, recovering her pad and laying it back in its place on the desk with a little slam to emphasize Blake's rudeness in taking it away...
...And we won't have to use these painful means—" "Oh, I see...
...he vouchsafed...
...Because," began Standish...
...I've got the idea...
...You're sure the number will give you the clue to the Woman...
...That's what the telephone number means to you, Mr...
...Yes...
...Congress was still in session...
...Thanks...
...But the number...
...His face, now that the mask was no longer needful, worked almos grotesquely...
...Nor did he speak again till Standish had gone away...
...Jim Blake was leaning negligently against the switchboard rail, looking with dreamy half-shut eyes along the nearly deserted corridor...
...Yet he had missed not one detail of the younger man's expression...
...One that you won't lose by," said Blake...
...And if you can hear what he says on the phone I'll make it two hundred...
...He was thinking rapidly...
...Ten thousand dollars for—for one measly telephone number...
...Really...
...It's a pity to—" "Oh, he's a nice man," laughed Blake...
...But Blake was far too wise a reader of men to go by the sign in a face...
...I forgot I wasn't talking to my secretary...
...It was in March...
...Isn't it rather old-fashioned to spring lies of that sort...
...and leave the tenth wide open with a 'Welcome' sign over it...
...The story about Standish and the Woman...
...Tom Blake and his father have a family row over the father's political theories...
...Dazzles me...
...Yes," answered Robertson, his face brightening at mention of his wife's name, "either tonight or tomorrow morning...
...Private business...
...Of a thousand dollars for you...
...Tom tells me," Wanda heard him say, "that Grace is coming down...
...It'll be hell for her...
...The work will be confined to prisoners at the state penitentiary and already thirty men have applied to have their names enrolled as students...
...He strolled off toward the dining-room...
...No," drawled Blake, before the girl could reply...
...Say...
...I—" He stopped as Standish came out of the booth and laid down a bill for Wanda to change...
...I've sent for Standish to come here because I want to have a talk with him...
...You're a bright girl...
...Mark's detectives must be foolish-house graduates...
...Take your time...
...Man, can't you see I'm trying to help you...
...The Woman's name," replied Wanda, at once...
...he demanded, "if a 'whole hundred dollars' has shrunk so quickly into a 'little hundred dollars,' what price strikes you as fair...
...That's all...
...If she's not in, get one of the servants...
...As he had talked, Blake had let his gaze wander over the ceiling, the walls —anywhere except at Matthew Standish...
...A hundred dollars...
...then he cheeked himself and said somewhat lamely, "because—I have good reasons for knowing you haven't...
...Then, like Blake, she evidently wearied of futile word-fencing, for she said, incisively: "I see...
...And in his deep tones there was more of sorrow than of nervous dread...
...Then he looked around, to find his father-in-law in eager conversation with the telephone operator...
...Standish's heavy face was mask-like, blank, save for a faint tinge of polite bewilderment...
...We've got the dates...
...The full story— names and all—can be circulated on the floor as soon as the House sits, tonight...
...she cried in pretty terror...
...What's the one thing we need to turn that story from a windy piece of campaign gossip into the deadliest weapon ever forged in Washington...
...He looked like a pugilist who tries dazedly to rise after a knock-out...
...You'll make him think you've almost got her in your net You'll try to scare him into hustling to the nearest telephone and warning her...
...He made me hang up the receiver...
...There...
...Let's look at it from a business standpoint, then...
...Standish, his face still a mask, was staring at the floor...
...This is Wanda...
...Just a minute," she interrupted...
...The men select their own studies and the entire curriculum is open to any convict who chooses to take advantage of it...
...You left some pretty easy clues and they're being followed...
...And that's just what you did...
...Throw all that into the balance and the price won't look so fancy...
...Plaza one—o— o—one...
...One thousand and one, Plaza," he answered, looking up from the directory...
...Well...
...Maybe, now, you can guess what that Woman's name is worth to us...
...Wasn't there a question of—of...
...Chaplain Johnson will be principal...
...She was raptly absorbed in the novel she was reading...
...And that makes our work all the easier...
...And then it'll be a cinch for your men to find the Woman's name in no time, and all about her...
...And you can't do that...
...Think of the Woman...
...exclaimed Wanda, smiling brightly at her own comprehension...
...I might have expected it...
...applauded Blake...
...Robertson came across to the rail...
...He generally calls up my New York home for me...
...And don't you think one little hundred dollars is a pretty cheap price to pay for information that will bring you millions...
...Any expert can swear that the registered name, 'Fowler,' is in your handwriting...
...Standish seems to be such a nice man...
...So nothing's left but the phone...
...And there's no one to warn her...
...Rot...
...Robertson, son-in-law of Jim Blake and the latter's candidate for Speaker of the House, tries to win Standish over, and failing threatens to dig into his past...
...No,'" he answered huskily...
...And that reminds me: I meant to call her up and ask which...
...And, anyway," she added, "there's no use making a price till I've got what you want, is there...
...Careless of me...
...You'll spring this story of the Woman on him...
...I'm leaving the line blank, so I can fill in the number later...
...If you do you'll find you've got a wildcat by the tail...
...Probably," replied Wanda gravely, "because you wanted Mr...
...And that's worth a hundred dollars...
...And the chances are that he'll go straight to the telephone and call up some one...
...I tell you once more, we'll have her name by midnight at the very latest...
...Despite his confidence Blake was vaguely worried...
...He'll know you're having him watched...
...And a few beads of sweat were beginning to show themselves upon the insurgent's forehead...
...I took the liberty of sending that message about your being wanted on the phone, because," leading the way to the amen corner, "I have a matter of private business to talk over with you...
...And every word you can overhear is worth a three-carat diamond...
...Proofs are needed...
...Certainly," she answered in evident ill-temper at the slur implied by the request...
...Why, Standish, sometimes your knowledge of up-to-date conditions simply dazzles me...
...I want to meet her at the station...
...Jim Blake finds out about the episode five years back at the northern New York hotel...
...And they're face upward now...
...Miss Kelly," said he, "would you mind taking that receiver off your head while I'm telephoning...
...Why, son," he went on, noting Stan-dish's half-smile of incredulity, "if I wasn't dead sure of getting her, would I be such a fool as to tell you all this...
...She doesn't know...
...I grant you that...
...Oh, have you...
...Yes, there was...
...But he looked down with crass stolidity at his tormentor...
...Between you and me...
...H'lo New York...
...Give me a chance to...
...Good...
...She carefully removed and hung up the metal crescent that held the receiver to her left ear...
...They were tight-clenched...
...Neither man seemed desirous to be first to return to the attack...
...You've sure got a brain...
...She gives as one of the reasons her determination to get revenge on Jim Blake for ruining her father, Congressman Prank E. Kelly...
...Absolutely...
...Oh, yes," she returned, "I got the number, all right...
...he asked, pointing to the last number inscribed there...
Vol. 5 • December 1913 • No. 52
