CHAPTER XI THE SIMMERING SAMOVAR

One day it occurred to me to ask Fellows if he was keeping up my advertisement for Mary Doherty, from which I had heard nothing so far. His start and confusion were an obvious confession.

"N-no, not now. I did run it several times."

"I told you to keep it in until further orders. Don't you remember?"

He did not answer. I could not understand his manner.

"I am sorry if you didn't understand. We have probably lost an opportunity,--certainly have lost time. I count on getting important information from Mrs. Barker, if we can find her."

"What sort of information?" asked Fellows doggedly. I thought he was trying to minimize the results of his neglect.

"Well, almost any information that would enable us to fix Barker's associates would probably be valuable. More particularly, I want to find out whether there is anyone who wants to marry her and couldn't while Barker was alive."

I succeeded in attracting Fellows' attention, at least. He stared at me in silence, as though he were turning the thought over.

"I'll advertise again," he said, but without enthusiasm.

I think it was that day that I had a disconcerting interview with Burleigh, the editor of the Saintsbury Samovar. I have mentioned, I believe, that some independent public-spirited citizens were trying to make Clyde run for mayor. (It was one of those anti-ring waves of reform which strike a city once in so often, and are temporarily successful because good business men work at them for a season. The success is seldom, if ever, more than temporary, because the good business men go back to their jobs as soon as things are running smoothly, while the ring politicians never really drop their jobs for a minute.)

Well, Clyde had cold-shouldered the proposition, but rather half-heartedly. Probably there is no man living who does not have some political ambition. Certainly Clyde had it. With his wide interest in public matters, his natural power over men, and his ancestry and associations, I knew that nothing but the shadow of fear at his elbow had kept him out of the political game, and I was therefore not surprised when, a few days after the Barker tragedy had ceased to occupy the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the newspapers, that space was given up to announcing that Kenneth Clyde had consented to accept the reform party's nomination. I sympathized with the relief which I knew lay back of the acceptance.

This was the political situation when I met Burleigh. He was the editor of the evening paper which supported the ring and damned reform, and of course I knew where he stood as regards Clyde's candidacy. But when he stopped me on the street that noon, he didn't speak of Clyde.

"Hello, how's the lawyerman?" he said, taking my hand where it hung by my side and shaking it without regard to my wishes in the matter.

I resented his familiarity with my hand and with my profession, but the convention of politeness, which makes it impossible for us to tell people our real feelings about them, constrained me to civility.

"Very well, thank you," I said, carelessly, and made a move to go on my way.

He turned and fell into step with me.

"I'd like to ask what you lawyers call a hypothetical question," he said. "Just a joke, you understand,--a case some of the boys were talking about in our office. Read of it in some novel, I guess. Some said it would be that way and some said it wouldn't. In law, you know."

"Well, what is the question?" I asked, as politely as my feelings would permit. (Funny idea people have, that a lawyer learns law for the purpose of supplying gratuitous opinions to chance acquaintances! I shouldn't think of asking Burleigh to send me the Samovar for a year, just to satisfy my curiosity!)

"Why, it's this. If a man has been convicted of murder--the man in the story was--and then makes his escape and lives somewhere else for twenty years or so, and is finally discovered and identified, how does he stand in regard to the law?"

You may guess how I felt! The hypothetical case was so exactly Clyde's case that for a moment my brain was paralyzed. I was so afraid of betraying my surprise that I did not speak. I merely nodded and smoked and kept my eyes on the ground.

"There's no statute of limitations to run on a sentence of the court, is there?" he asked, eagerly.

"No," I said, with professional deliberation. "No, if you are sure that you have your facts all straight. But you don't often get law entirely disentangled from facts, and they often have unexpected effects on a question. What novel did you get that from?"

"Oh,--I don't know. I just heard the boys talking about it, and I wondered."

But he looked so eager that I could not help feeling the question was more significant to him than mere literary curiosity would explain.

"You think, then, that there might be some element in the situation that would perhaps complicate it?" he asked.

"It is never safe to form an opinion without knowing all the facts," I said, oracularly.

"But if the facts are as I stated them,--an escape from justice after conviction, and nothing else,--then the man is still liable to the law, isn't he?"

"Probably," I said, with a shrug intended to intimate that the matter was of no special interest to me. "How did it turn out in your story?"

Burleigh looked at me sideways for a moment. Then he said, imperturbably, "Why, I believe he made the mistake of going into politics, and so the thing came out. He was hung--in the story. Politics is no place for a man who has a past that he doesn't want to have come out."

"No doubt you are right about that," I said lightly.

"Of course I am. I'm in the business," he said emphatically. "If a man has a past--that sort of a past, I mean,--he ought to know enough to stick to--philanthropy or architecture or collecting, or something else nice and private. This your street? Well, good day, Mr. Hilton. Glad I met you." He tipped his hat and left me.

You can imagine the state of my mind. I puzzled over the situation for an hour, and then telephoned Clyde and asked him to drop into my office.

Clyde came that same afternoon. I told him of the Burleigh interview as directly as possible.

"Now you can judge for yourself whether it means anything sinister," I concluded.

"The Samovar is for the ring, of course," he said, thoughtfully.

"Of course. And Burleigh's recommendation that a man in that predicament should confine himself to architecture, or some kindred avocation, instead of trying to break into politics, didn't sound altogether accidental."

He nodded comprehendingly, and smoked in silence for a few moments. Then he looked up with a smile.

"I think I'll go on the theory that it was accidental."

I hadn't expected that, and I couldn't approve.

"As your lawyer, I must warn you that you are taking a serious risk," I said earnestly. "If Barker shared his secret with someone, who has gone with it to Burleigh, you are exactly in your old situation. It would be better to let the sleeping Samovar lie and give up the mayoralty."

He continued to smoke for a minute, but I saw the obstinate look in his eye that a mettled horse tales on when he doesn't mean to heed your hints.

"You don't understand, Hilton," he said after a moment, "but since Barker's death I have felt free for the first time in fifteen years. I like the sensation. Very likely I have gone drunk on it and lost my senses, but I like the feeling so much that I am going to snap my fingers at Burleigh and pretend that he has no more power to influence my actions than he would have had if--well, if Tom Johnson had never got into trouble."

"You think the mayoralty is worth the risk?" I asked.

"The mayoralty? No! Not for a minute. But--this sense of freedom is."

"But it is your freedom that you are risking."

He stood up, and though I could not commend his judgment, I had to admire his courage. There was something finely determined in his attitude as he tossed away his cigar and put his hands in his pockets.

"I am going to have it out with my evil destiny this time," he said, with a quick laugh. "Better be hanged than to skulk longer. I shall go on the theory that Burleigh has merely been reading some giddy detective stories."

"Don't forget that there are some crimes which don't achieve the immortality of a detective story, because they are never explained," I said warningly.

He merely smiled, but I knew my warning would go for nothing,--and secretly I was glad. There are things more to be desired than safety.