Chapter 22. The Canard

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_ CHAPTER XXII. THE CANARD

We did not have to wait long for the secret of the robbery of Carton to come out. It was not in any "extras," or in the morning papers the next day, but it came through a secret source of information to the Reform League.

"A clerk in the employ of the organization who is really a detective employed by the Reform League," groaned Carton, as he told us the story himself the next morning at his office, "has just given us the information that they have prepared a long and circumstantial story about me--about my intimacy with Mrs. Ogleby and Murtha and some others. The story of the robbery of my study is in the papers this morning. To-morrow they plan to publish some photographs--alleged to have been stolen."

"Photographs--Mrs. Ogleby," repeated Kennedy. "Real ones?"

"No," exclaimed Carton quickly, "of course not--fakes. Don't you see the scheme? First they lay a foundation in the robbery, knowing that the public is satisfied with sensations, and that they will be sure to believe that the robbery was put up by some muckrakers to obtain material for an expose. I wasn't worried last night. I knew I had nothing to conceal."

"Then what of it?" I asked naively.

"A good deal of it," returned Carton excitedly, "The story is to be, as I understand it, that the fake pictures were among those stolen from me and that in a roundabout way they came into the possession of someone in the organization, without their knowing who the thief was. Of course they don't know who took them and the original plates or films are destroyed, but they've concocted some means of putting a date on them early in the spring."

"What are they that they should take such pains with them?" persisted Kennedy, looking fixedly at Carton.

Carton met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be photographs of myself," he repeated. "One purports to represent me in a group composed of Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, another woman whom I do not even know, and myself. I am standing between Murtha and Mrs. Ogleby and we look very familiar. Another is a picture of the same four riding in a car, owned by Murtha. Oh, there are several of them, of that sort."

He paused as a dozen unspoken questions framed themselves in my mind. "I don't hesitate to admit," he added, "that a few months ago I knew Mrs. Ogleby--socially. But there was nothing to it. I never knew Murtha well, and the other woman I never saw. At various times I have been present at affairs where she was, but I know that no pictures were ever taken, and even if there had been, I would not care, provided they told the truth about them. What I do care about is the sworn allegation that, I understand, is to accompany these--these fakes."

His voice broke. "It's a lie from start to finish, but just think of it, Kennedy," he went on. "Here is the story, and here, too, are the pictures--at least they will be, in print, to-morrow. Now, you know nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have a scandal like this raised at this time. There may be just enough people to believe that there is some basis for the suspicion to turn the tide against me. If it were earlier in the campaign, I might accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn of events I should have really the best sort of campaign material. But it is too late now to expose such a knavish trick on the Saturday before election."

"Can't we buy them off?" I ventured, perplexed beyond measure at this new and unexpected turn of events.

"No, I won't," persisted Carton, shutting his square jaw doggedly. "I won't be held up--even if that is possible."

"Miss Ashton on the wire," announced a boy from the outer office.

The look on Carton's face was a study. I saw directly what was the trouble--far more important to him than a mere election.

"Tell her--I'm out--will be back soon," he muttered, for the first time hesitating to speak to her.

"You see," he continued blackly, "I'll fight if it takes my last dollar, but I won't allow myself to be blackmailed out of a cent-- no, not a cent," he thundered, a heightened look of determination fixing the lines on his face as he brought his fist down with a rattling bang on the desk.

Kennedy was saying nothing. He was letting Carton ease his mind of the load which had been suddenly thrust upon it. Carton was now excitedly pacing the floor.

"They believe plainly," he continued, growing more excited as he paced up and down, "that the pictures will of course be accepted by the public as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, they are right. The public will swallow it. If I say I'll prosecute, they'll laugh and tell me to go ahead, that they didn't steal the pictures. Our informant tells us that a hundred copies have been made of each and that they have them ready to drop into the mail to the leading hundred papers, not only of this city but of the state, in time for them to appear Sunday. They think that no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect."

"That's it," I persisted. "The only way is to buy them off."

"But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat--they are false. It is a plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter. Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial."

He looked from one to the other of us helplessly. "If we had a week or two, it might be all right. But I can't make any move to- day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are published, as the last big thing of the campaign. Monday and Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and hammer it in. Even if they were out now, it would not give me time to make of it an asset instead of a liability. And then, too, it means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign. That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway."

Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener, but now he asked pointedly, "You have copies of the pictures?"

"No--but I've been promised them this morning."

"H'm," mused Craig, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are alarmed, Carton,--nor that Walter suggests buying them off. But I agree with you, Carton--it's best to fight, to admit nothing, as you would imply by any other method."

"Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?" urged Carton, leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury.

"I haven't said I can do that--yet," measured Craig with provoking slowness.

"Say, Kennedy, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Carton.

Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder.

"I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been--er--foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election. I--I don't know that I'd desert you--if the pictures were true. I'd be sure there was some other explanation."

"I knew it," responded Carton heartily. "Your hand on that, Kennedy. Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more than any of them. Spare no reasonable expense and--get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up--Langhorne--anybody. And, for God's sake get it in time--there's more than an election that hangs on it!"

Carton looked Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with the bosses but also that there had been or by some possibility could be anything really in common between him and Mrs. Ogleby.

That, after all, I saw was the real question. How would Miss Ashton take it? Could she ever forgive him if it were possible for Langhorne to turn the tables and point with scorn at the man who had once been his rival for her hand? What might be the effect on her of any disillusionment, of any ridicule that Langhorne might artfully heap up? As we left Carton, I shared with Kennedy his eagerness to get at the truth, now, and win the fight--the two fights.

"I want to see Miss Ashton, first," remarked Kennedy when we were outside.

Personally I thought that it was a risky business, but felt that Kennedy must know best.

When we arrived at the Reform League headquarters, the clerks and girls had already set to work, and the office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrapbooks, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal.

Carton's office there had been in the centre of the suite. On one side were the cashier and bookkeeper, the clerical force and the speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting instructions, final tours were being laid out, and reports received of meetings already held.

On the other side was the press bureau, with its large and active force, in charge of Miss Ashton.

As we entered we saw Miss Ashton very busy over something. Her back was toward us, but the moment she turned at hearing us we could see that something was the matter.

Kennedy wasted no time in coming to the point of his visit. We had scarcely seated ourselves beside her desk when he leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. I have called to see you about a matter of vital importance to Mr. Carton."

She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her proud face what the true state of her feelings was.

"I don't know whether you know, but an attempt is being made to slander Mr. Carton," went on Kennedy.

Still she said nothing, though it was evident that she was thinking much.

"I suppose in a large force like this that it is not impossible that your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting out the "literature."

"I have sometimes thought that myself," she murmured, "but of course I don't know. There isn't anything for them to discover in THIS office, though."

Kennedy looked up quickly at the significant stress on the word "this." She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case. She was now pale and agitated.

"I--I can't believe it," she managed to say. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy--I would almost rather not have known it at all,--only I suppose I must have known it sooner or later."

"Believe me, Miss Ashton," soothed Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend for many things. But, tell me, how do you know already? I didn't think--it was known."

She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Our detective in the organization brought the pictures up here--one of the girls opened them by mistake--it got about the office--I couldn't help but know."

"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy soothingly, "I beg you to be calm. I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Remember pictures can lie--just like words."

"I--I hope you're right," she managed to reply slowly. "I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't say anything about Mr. Carton to anyone. But it cuts me to have to think that Hartley Langhorne may have been right. He always used to say that every man had his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which made me cast myself in with the League. I--I can hardly believe--"

Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics in the organization you are fighting is loyalty. Wait until--"

"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Mr. Carton for--for even knowing--" she paused just in time to substitute Mr. Murtha for Mrs. Ogleby--"such men as Mr. Murtha--secretly."

She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had seen had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay.

"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "Don't be too harsh. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it."

Kennedy was apparently doing some rapid thinking. "Let me have the photographs," he asked at length.

"They are in Mr. Carton's office," she answered, as if she would not soil her hands by touching the filthy things.

We excused ourselves and went into Carton's office.

There they were wrapped up, and across the package was written by one of the clerks, "Opened by mistake."

Kennedy opened the package again. Sure enough, there were the photographs--as plain as they could be, the group including Carton, Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, and another woman, standing on the porch of a gabled building in the sunshine, again the four speeding in a touring car, of which the number could be read faintly, and other less interesting snapshots.

As I looked at them I said nothing, but I must admit that the whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind in connection with various hints I had heard dropped by organization men about probing into the past, and other insinuations. I felt that far from aiding Carton, things were now getting darker. There was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not been in such groups to counterbalance the existence of the actual pictures themselves, on the surface a graphic clincher to Dorgan's story. Kennedy, however, after an examination of the photographs clung no less tenaciously to a purpose he already had in mind, and instead of leaving them for Carton, took them himself, leaving a note instead.

He stopped again to speak to Margaret Ashton. I did not hear all of the conversation, but one phrase struck me, "And the worst of it is that he called me up a little while ago and tried to act toward me in the same old way--and that after I know what I know. I--I could detect it in his voice. He knew he was concealing something from me."

What Kennedy said to her, I do not know, but I don't think it had much effect.

"That's the most difficult and unfortunate part of the whole affair," he sighed as we left. "She believes it."

I had no comment that was worth while. What was to be done? If people believed it generally, Carton was ruined. _

Read next: Chapter 23. The Confession

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