Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 290, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1915 — WHOPAYS? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHOPAYS?

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by EDWIN BLISS

(Ooprrlxht. Utt. by Path* Exchange. Inc. All Moving Picture Right* and all For- " eign Copyright* Strictly Reserved.)

TENTH STORY i. "-aid yon. Donald Porter, I hereby sentence to twenty years at hard labor.** How dearly those words stayed In Ms memory! It was all as though It had happened yesterday. The murky, smelly courtroom, the spectators, ’‘pleasure" bent the newshounds of tike great dailies, the striving lawyers ■fid the purblind judge. He had never been able to decide from that day to this whether the judge had been ‘bought and paid fori or no. What did it matter? The judge wasn't elementally responsible. How clearly he remembered every fluctuation of his own distrait mind during that long trial. At first he could do nothing bat laugh at the absurdity of it all. It concerned him at first only as a bothersome misunderstanding that robbed hi™ of his precious time. Then, M the trial went along, as false witnesses were Introduced, and things fixed for his railroading to prison, and he felt with sudden horror his nearness to a punishment he didn’t in the least deserve; he had become panicky at the grossness of the conspiracy against him. So cleverly had Cole looted the bank, so carefully had be planned it, that It had looked, at the trial as though he (Porter), had looted it and made Cole, Its president, his Innocent accomplice. Cole — As he thought that name, Hm ugly subtle lines of his face deepened, and his fingers twitched nervously, as though yearning for that soft throat they had once squeexed within their grasp. The day Cole’s light sentence had ended, and he had walked jauntily amongst his fellow prisoners on his way to freedom, the guards had to be quick to save that throat from those yearning fingers. He almost had him that time! Well, be would get him. He had told himself that time and time again.

husband, four years before, had died comparatively poor. He had left her and Edith with a position to maintain and nothing but a tradition on which to maintain it. Hardly nothing, but very little more. The old lady had made quite a brave struggle for one who had been indulged all the years of her life. But, there was Edith, Edith of great promise, almost ready for her first season out. It was a matter for speculation for those who knew, Just what Mrs. Hilton would have done had Edith been two or three years younger when Charles Hilton died. Would she have attempted a struggle that entailed two or three years more privation. Or, did she throw herself Into this breach because she felt that her will was just great enough to span it? Mrs. Hilton was beginning to feel worried. Here was Edith in her twentieth year, ready, primed for conquest, as it were, and nothing to conquer! The list of eligible young men was the list of (financially) desirable young men, and Mrs. Hilton’s reserve fund, both of money and energy, were rapidly becoming exhausted. She and her daughter sat on the porch of their home one evening at about the time this story opens. Edith just sitting, glad for the feeling of pulsating life within her, Mrs. Hilton sitting and speculating. Her speculations this evening were as unavailing as they had been for many a night before, and she turned almost desperately to her paj?er. What she saw there caused her old frame suddenly to stiffen with eager Interest as she read, her left hand held poised in the air before her much as might be the paw of a pointer dog that had started a bird. She finished and looked up, her face flushed and eager, her eyes bright. , "Listen, Edith!” "What?” abstractedly. “I say,” Impatiently, “listen to this.” She read aloud. "Millionaire buys palatial residence. Richard Walker, bachelor, decides to make his home in this city. Elected member of exclusive Sunset club.” Ethel’s eyebrows were raised expectant, curious, as her mother read, mouthing the words appreciatively, taking every care that they be distinct, as though they were precious sounds, and represented, each, as she spoke them correctly, certain equal portions of the fortunes so attractive to her. "At last!” she breathed, solemnly, and Ethel would have laughed aloud

Hilt thought, this unquenchable hate for the man who had so tricked Mm was the only thing that kept the Ufa tn his poor emaciated frame —the eat thing that had enabled him to ■faint the frightful routine of prison Hfe these long, weAry years. It was mo wonder to Don Porter that he re* ■tembered it all so clearly as he did. The whole thing had had a dally rehearsal In his mind, and for years now he had awakened each morning to a fresh realisation of the unspeakable horror of his position, and had gone to bed each night with a curse in his heart and on his lips for the man who M so tricked him —had so spoiled his life, and the lives of those few who had put their faith in him. He been very good these past years. Oh. so good!—all but that once. He had almost had him that time! That thought always gave him a moment’s brief, phantom pleasure that always gave way again to despair: a despair that seemed duller, that the moment before had been touched with light. This despair was despair that he should not live to be revenged. He made a mad. insane attack on him then, but the guard was too quick. But that was fully five years ago, and he had been good since then —good With the goodness of a child who expects a reward —patient with the patience of a man who sees each day bring him nearer to his heart’s desire. Bis heart’s desire! It seemed strange to him at odd moments that he who had always been gentle and sensitive, he who had always felt an instinctive kinship for things gentle and sensitive should now have for his heart’s desire the death of another man. And yet it was so. It was so, and he was jealously glad of It. With the best years of his life scooped out. literally thrown away—freedom after his release held forth bo promise to him —no promise but one. * 11. Edith Hilton had arrived at her twentieth year. It would be difficult to say how she had arrived at her twentieth year, unless one might say ■he aigxsgged to it. For Edith was like most of us, that queer admixture of decision and hesitancy that set her over out of the analyxable ‘type’ class, selected and labeled, and ever made her next act as uncertain as was the motive of her last. Whatever queer twist nature had endowed her mind with, it had certainly been governed by the beautiful when it made her body, for she was of that perfection of physical beauty makes most of us feel must rean inner light, as the exquisite odor of cologne suggests a deliciousbsss of taste. ffor b»Mcir hair, glossy and crisp, Undulated In tiny wares down her white neck as though loath to leave t head "* 1 such delicate loveliness, her warm brown eyes, pouting Ups and ■Hm. lithe figure, making an ensemble that her worldly wise mother treasured and counted on as their ultimate salvation from the awful impecunious prestige of their social position. It was • joke that social position. Her

had she not known from former intonations of the sort just how serious her mother was. The fact that she was considered as a highly valuable asset to be invested for the best returns, irked her more than she thought it polite to show; and her lack of remonstrance was taken by her mother as her daughter’s mute assent to the furtherance of her obvious plans. Edith felt that there was a time coming, and that shortly, in which she and her mother would have to have an understanding, and she was secretly glad that it was not just yet, as she felt that her sense of obligation might cause her to see seriously that side of the question she knew least interested her. “What’s his name?” p''" said at length. “Richard Walker bachelor,** — meaningly. “And elected to the Sunset club. We should have an opportunity to meet him shortly. You know, dear —it’s time we met someone. The place is becoming absolutely impossible.’’ „ “Oh, I find the society quite congenial" “Congenial! It’s easy for a beautiful girl to find society congenial; leave Upt to the plain ill-bred ones. Con-

geniality Is what they strive for, because they realise there’s nothing better possible for them. Congenial! As though finding society congenial were the end-all of a beautiful, cultured girl’s life. Being congenial won’t help you any, when you see the wrinkles coming. Congenial! Oh, Indeed.” “You speak of people in this place as though they were inconsiderable. I’m afraid —” "So they are inconsiderable,” she cut In, “rising young men, promising young men, young men of intelligence —in sact —all young men, but young men without money. There’s no sense in our trying to evade what’s in each of our minds. When you say, ‘it’s quite congenial here,’ —you mean Hugh Keene; and when I say ‘inconsiderable people and young men of every kind but young men with money,* I mean Hugh Keene.” She rose to go indoors. "But that’s all nonsense. One can’t live on promises or inconvertible intelligence. You really should appreciate that. I’ll do my best to meet this Mr. Walker; we can arrange It at the club—and you—” her shoulders shrugged expressively. Then suddenly her bard face softened (Ethel thought It looked much nicer inflexible), and she came quickly toward her daughter. "It’s been an awful drag, dear — more of a drag than you at this time can appreciate. It’s because I don’t want that you should ever have to appreciate what denial means that I’m so anxious you should be comfortable. Anything but a lack of money. That is doubly unbearable for those who are used to luxury. Think of that —try to imagine yourself without the luxuries you have come to consider the necessities of life, andvyou might get an inkling of what I mean.” She turned and went into the house. 11l Edith was splendidly, vibrantly alive as she mixed with the many people in the reception room of the exclusive Sunset club the night of the annual ball. She wore a wonderfully filmy cream colored gown that artistically subordinated itself to the soft beauty of her face. Mrs. Hilton was there, seeing all, understanding all, her deep piercing eyes darting everlastingly about the busy room, ready at any moment to appreciate anything that happened any place—in visual touch every second with the entire room. Both Edith and her mother were the guests of Hugh Keene. In one corner of the room, surrounded by a group of worshipers of the shrine of gold, stood Walker. When Hugh led Edith back after the first dance, Mrs. Hilton spoke to him, drawing him slightly out of the range of passing guests. “That man over in the corner, the one in the center of that group, darkhaired, rather coarse featured, he’s Mr. Walker, I believer’ "Yes.” "Can you arrange so’s we’ll meet him?” “Certainly, if you care to—l’ll bring him over.” “Of course you won’t say—” “Nonsense, he’ll come to meet you!” He started for the far corner of the room and in a few moments returned, Walker In tow. Introductions were soon over. Walker bowed deferentially to Age, gallantly to Beauty, and all stood talking until Mrs. Hilton graciously indicated that Hugh offer her his Arm. He did, rather reluctantly, and they moved off, leaving Edith and Walker alone. Hugh was worried at the evident attraction that Walker and Edith seemed to have for each other; so worried that he proposed to her during the very next dance —proposed and was put off w ? ith a—“This is so sudden, Hugh. .1 hardly know my own mind.” The worry did not leave him the next day, did not even leave him that afternoon when Walker called on him and gave him a stock-buying commission, and showed his confidence by leaving with him a certified check for $250,000, though the prospect of the commissions on the trading did open up possibilities. Thoughts of Edith filled Hugh’s every working moment. Now came this stranger to their city and into their society, and opened up prospects of wealth and luxury to their vain souls that made his offering seem inconsiderable. It was Impossible, utterly, to contend with him from this angle, it would take years—unless— He shook the thought from him, feeling unutterably wicked that he should have allowed It a place in his mind at all. All the way home, and before he got into bed that night, he tried to think of some way of overcoming the tremendous advantage of Walker's money—and always came back that dark thought, each banishment seeming only to increase the subtle insidiousness of the next attack, until he fell asleep, alternately hating himself and returning to the thought that darkly, fascinatingly followed that word, “unless —” The next morning, on arising, he felt free of the fearful temptation of last evening. It was a cheerless freedom, however, when he realised fully ngufn the hopelessness of his position. I might better say it was a cheerless freedom until he realised again the hopelessness of his position; for with that full realization he was no longer free, except in the sense that the vicious, dark thoughts that had so harassed him all the night before, were now only seeking the entrance he so dreaded yet wanted to give them. The fact that he could keep them out made him less vigilant than he vaguely, indefinitely felt he should

have been, and he felt a canning, perverse joy in that thought that if the thought got in, in a moment when his assurance left his mind unguarded, why he would not be entirely responsible, would he? His fearfully shrinking, yet none the less certain, desire that the thought possess him (without his consent, pf course) made his power to avoid it seem to him unreasonably strong; and this same sense of strength was, in turn, sufiiclent excuse for his disregarding the ever recurrent, warily persistent supplicant. He found it there, suddenly, and of his strength of a moment before there remained not a trace. He felt, however, none of that absolution he had been so sure of, should the thought possess him while he was “off guard.” Indeed, now that it was there, he knew, with an awful loathing of himself, that he bad made that low palliation merely in order that he might entertain by subterfuge those ideas he was not brave enough to accept full knowingly. Well, there they were, and their first act directed his hands to his check book, where he drew, on the account Walker had left with him, a check for $5,000. This he sent around to George Sum-

ner, broker, with an order to use it as margin and purchase for his account 500 shares of A. & M. at par. Then he sent a note to Edith Hilton, begging that he be allowed to see her that night, and giving forth a promise born of the momentary enthusiasm of his plunge, that he would shortly be in a position to make his plea on his own appeal, with the disqualifying entity of poverty entirely eliminated. IV. Don Porter, serving a 20-year sentence for looting a bank actually looted by John Cole, its president, awaited in his cell, with well concealed impatience, the coming of the prison electrician to fix a globe. What if he wouldn’t come! What if he had told the warden of their little scheme! — and the warden, not the electrician, would visit his cell tonight? If he was coming, he surely should be there now. Why wasn’t he? And of a million things might keep him, but there wasn’t one of them could in the least do his prospects any good. He was possessed of doubt and apprehension, and a vague, sinking fright that he had ever decided on such a daring plan. If it were balked —if they caught him —he decided it would mean an additional sentence. More years of fruitless yearning, and an almost unattainable perspective of “his heart’s desire;” but with this thought, this possibility, of quick, certain vengeance, his pulse quickened and a determined-to-risk-all expression permeated his every part, and he had surcease of his cowardly fears of a moment before. He stopped suddenly in his nervous pacing, the sound of footsteps on the uncompromising cement floor adown the corridor causing his heart to beat such inbounding thumps as his highly sensitive imagination made him certain would be heard in the adjacent cells. When they arrived outside his door and the turnkey inserted his key, its grating in the iron door aroused the cell’s occupant, and he jumped up, shielding his eyes in well-feigned fear, as he approached the light. “Good evening, turnkey,” and then, without looking at the other, ”‘Lo, 'lectrician. Come to fix that globe?” “Yeah.” The door swung wide and the electrician entered and swung his leather bag on the cot The turnkey stood outside for a moment, then turned and started to pace with slow, even steps outside the door. The electrician opened his bag, and with his right hand took out a heavy roll of green-wound wire. It entirely hid his left hand (furthest from the cell door), which hand deftly lifted something blue and shining and slipped it under the mattress. The job took but a few minutes, the old wire was pieced, a new globe screwed Into the socket, and the cell lit. With a cheerless goodnight the two left, and Porter waited till their footsteps died away, his power of inhalation seeming inadequate to supply greedy lungs. A Colt, three files and a note! He read it, holding it in the palm of his great hand, With his back to the cell door. “Have tip. Cole gone to Los Angeles. Name of Richard Walker.” That was all. But, It was, to the man who read it, an epistle satisfying and complete. Slowly his month twisted itself into a terrible smile, threatening, hideous, his eyes stared

hard as though through the heavy walls, as though at something, clear, distinct, attainable beyond, and he drew bis fingers in a gentle caress across the barrel of the steel-blue Colt. An hour later, after changing clothes with a scare-crow in the fields, he swung aboard a slowly moving freight train and started westward toward Los Angeles to find John Cole, now Richard Walker—toward the attainment of "his heart’s desire! 1 ’ That same night, Richard Walker was a welcome visitor at the Hilton residence. He spoke long and earnestly to Edith, pleading the sincerity of his love, and painting well, though not too obviously well, the splendid social future of the future Mrs. Richard Walker. When he left that night he was happier than he had been in many years; in fact the vision of a gaunt man behind uncompromising steel bars was almost obliterated from his mind —almost, but not quite. For Walker had made his.plea well, and had sealed it with a kiss. V The bottom had dropped out of A. & M., and Hugh Keene, unable to cover, stared ruin in the face. He had already drawn $5,000 on Richard Walker's deposit with him, and felt it would be unsafe to go further. The funds of the Sunset club, of which he was treasurer, were in his possession, and he thought, uncertainly, of them in considering “just where he stood.” A. & M. had broken badly, there was no escaping that; but he felt sure it was only a "bear” raid, from which the stock would quickly rally. If only he could hold on! He knew that, essentially, all this “trading” was the rankest form of gamble. But this — this particular case of his, it was so sure —so absolutely certain. He soothed himself with the thought that if he, as a broker, knowfhg the risk of playing the market,-was sure of A. & M., why then, If A ft M. disappointed, whose fault was that? To have stopped where he was, with the already certain loss of $5,000, not his, would have been more level headed than to have gone on; but to stop now would have been tantamount to an admission that his judgment had in the first place been faulty, and to admit that would be to admit that his appropriation of Walker’s money was Just stealing. Of course, it was not stealing for him to borrow money from a business associate, to help him out, in a deal that entailed no risk whatever for the money borrowed! The next check he wrote to cover his margins with George Sumner was drawn from the account of the Sunset club. After that, he started briskly to go through his afternoon’s' mail, and stopped suddenly, with apprehension, at an envelope addressed to him in Richard Walker’s hand. He opened it clumsily, and read: “My Dear Keene: “I pen you a special invitation to attend a dinner at my residence tonight, where I will announce the engagement of Miss Edith Hilton and myself. You know, I consider you initially responsible for my meeting Miss Hilton, and am correspondingly grateful. “Very sincerely; “RICHARD WALKER.” The page dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he was unconscious for a few moments of any definite feeling other than a heavy, obsessing pain, physical, mental, spiritual, that started to become more acute and unendurable as he began consciously to realize things. Then, with the utteir despair of hopeless disappointment, and as though to make his pain absolute and complete, now that it was so deep, he called Edith on the phone. When he put the receiver down, he had reached the lowest point of dee pair to which he had, or would ever descend. It rather stupefied him with Its dull aching heaviness, a heaviness out of which he dreaded to come. It was in this condition that George Sumner found him when he came to “jack him up” on his margins. “She’s broken ten points more, Keene. Do you want to go on?” No answer. “If you do, you know, you’ll have to cover. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.” No answer. - “I say, do you want to cover, or shall I sell?” An impatient wave of his hand was all the answer Hugh Keene gave. The other was a man of few words, and he had already spoken those few. “Very well then, if you can’t cover, you’re wiped out!” It was those last words that Richard Walker heard as he paused for a moment outside the door. It was these words that changed his smile of affable patronage to one of unpleasant menace as he entered Keene’s office. He wasted no time in preliminaries, but began, very abruptly. “There’s a report about town, Keene, that is, in the financial district, that you’ve been loading yourself down with the worthless A. & M. Is it true, and if it is, what, man, in heaven’s name, have you been buying It with?” Keene was immediately attentive. “You need have no fear,” he said. “I’m glad of that,” said the other, “because, to be frank with you, I’ve had an unavoidable fear that, er — well, that you’d been something that the word reckless wouldn’t, adequately describe.” «>.. “You need have Ho fear,” the young man reiterated heavily. Walker held out his hand, and Keene took it listlessly. \ “I’ll see you tonight?” “Yes, tonight," dully, "and congratulations.”

Walkcr*smlled affably, turned and was gone. Keene listened to his footsteps as they echoed and died out down the long corridor. Then he went to his desk 'luickly and opened the bottom drawer with a key from his safe. His hand sought its dark recesses and at a olid touch he smiled cunningly as he looked toward the door, and his llpo framed two words his expression made 'hideous: “Tonight.” VI. ” That nlght lights blazed throughovt the palatial residence of Itch aid Walker. It was the night of his formal announcement of his engagement to Edith Hilton. Liveried servants bustled hither and thither about the rooms, making all ready for the expected guests. They came on time, all but Hugh Keene, who was tardy. There was another guest, early, uninvited, and unexpected. He had followed Walker home from Keene’s office that afternoon, and now patiently hid behind the folds of the heavy curtains that separated the reception room from the dining room. He kept very quiet, this guest, and when he could, watched intently Walker's face. He noted also the pale tragic look on the face of the young man who came late, but was too Interested In hie own affair to indulge bis sympathy. Sympathy! Strange thing, that, in one who had come for what he had come. Strange that those years in a prison cell had not entirely killed that. He thought, passably, how strange it was that he entertain a thought of sympathy—*<«•, whose heart’s denJhw — But his interest m the pale young man.jwas, perforce, concentrated when he noted, after dinner, and just as Walker was about to crown his future bride with a magnificent diadem, that the young man’s hand sought indecisively his hip pocket. Porter’s Interest changed quickly to apprehension at the sudden thought that this pale young man might cheat him out of what he felt to be specifically hiß. “His heart’s desire.” He would give him no further opportunity. Quickly, nervously his own hand found his coat pocket—quickly, nervously his arm was stuck through the luxurious folds of the heavy curtains that concealed him. He fired, and Walker, spasmodically clutching his shirt front, sank lifeless to the floor. Don Porter made no attempt to escape. When they took him, he was smiling with frightful content. They thought him insane, for, as he was taken off, he kept ever repeating an (to them) incomprehensible phrase whose burden was “my heart’s desire!” Keene left hurriedly, his step hardly more buoyant than when he had come. VII. The next morning Edith Hilton seemed peculiarly unaffected for a girl who had so tragically lost her sweetheart. , But the sense of her own perfidy in bartering her soul for this man’s gold was only borne in upon her when she realized how unaffected his death leCt

her. She wanted to see Hugh Keene. It was the strongest feeling she had. She rushed off to his office, although it was much before opening time. He was there, dressed as he had been the night before. His head was thrown forward between his outstretched arms on the desk; his body was alarmingly still. She went to him, a chill freezing the very nerves of her. His eyes were open, but they saw her not They seemed to be gazing through the very walls themselves, mayhap after his departed soul- —out into infinite space, where the Pomp of Earth harries not the soul of man. Later, when men came, they opened his fingers tightly clenched about a dainty little revolver, and a note. The note was from the Sunset club, and read: “My Dear Mr. Keene: “The governors of the Sunset dub request that* you deliver to them tomorrow an accounting of the funds Intrusted to you as treasurer. "JOHN BRUCE, "Secretary.** WHO PAYS? * - (End of Tenth Btory.) The Next Story Is "The Fruit of Folly.") * '

The Convict’s Fingers Closed About the Neck of the Man Who Had Tricked Him.

“This is So Sudden, Hugh. I Hardly Know My Own Mind.”

His Eyes Were Open, but He Saw Her Not—He Was Dead.