THE ICONOCLAST
It is a threadbare saying that the environment moulds the man. Yet, much more than the philosophers have contended, there are chameleon tendencies in the strongest character, and one finely determining to coerce his surroundings is quite likely to end by realizing that the surroundings have appealed to unsuspected color-changings in himself. Thus it may chance that the fairest fighter, finding himself sufficiently kicked and cuffed in the rough-and-tumble, will discover how facilely easy it is to descend to the level of his antagonists, and from this discovery to the awakening of the remorseless passion for success at any price is but a step, long or short according to the exigencies of the struggle.
Checked in his luggage, if not precisely pinned openly upon his sleeve, Blount had brought with him from the scholastic banks of the Charles a choice assortment of ideals, which are things precious only as they can be preserved inviolate. But for weeks, endless weeks as they seemed to him in the retrospect, he had been rubbing shoulders with a crude world which appeared to care little for ideals and less for the man who upheld them. Inevitably, as he had admitted to Gantry, the change was wrought, or working; the exclamation springing to his lips when he recognized Gryson evinced it, and when he beckoned the shifty intruder to the chair at the desk end the ruthless zeitgeist had taken full possession of him, and the thought uppermost had grown suddenly indifferent to the means if by their employment the end might be gained.
"Come over here and sit down," he commanded; then, seeing that Gryson hesitated and flung a glance over his shoulder at the door: "What are you afraid of?"
"They've got my number," said the ward-heeler, in a convict whisper which was little more than a facial contortion. "There's a couple o' bulls waitin' f'r me down on the sidewalk."
Blount crossed the room, shut the door and locked it. Then he went back to the self-confessed fugitive.
"You're safe for the time being," he told the man. "Now talk fast and talk straight. What do you want this time?"
Gryson hammered the arm of his chair with his fist and babbled profanity. When he became coherent he told his story, or rather Blount got it out of him piecemeal, of how he had been employed by the "organization" to falsify the registration lists in certain districts; of how, when the work was done, he had been denied the price and driven out with cursings. In the accusation, which was shot through with tremulous imprecations, the "organization" and the railroad company were implicated as if they were one. In one breath the fugitive charged the "double-crossing" to Kittredge, and in the next he accused the "big boss" himself, of having passed the sentence of deportation.
"You say you were driven out? How could they drive you if you didn't want to go?" queried the cross-examiner.
"That's on me: it was a job I pulled off two years ago in another place—up north of this—and the night-watchman got in the way when I was leavin'. They jerked that on me and showed me th' rope. They had me by th' neck, with th' word passed to Chief Robertson. I'm back here now wit' my life in my hand, but I'd chance it twice over to get square wit' them welshers that have bawled me out!"
"Why have you come to me?" asked Blount briefly.
"Gawd knows; I took a chance again. I've heard your speeches, and says I, 'There's your wan chance, cully,' and I'm here to grab f'r it. If you've been meanin' the half of what you've been sayin', Mr. Blount—" There was more of it, half pleadings and half mere rageful babblings of a vengeful soul hampered by the tongue of inadequacy.
Blount left his chair and began to pace the floor, with Gryson watching him furtively. At any time earlier in the struggle the thought of using this wretched time-server as a means to any end, however desirable and just, would have been nauseating. True, if there could be any such thing as honor among thieves, the man had earned the price of his crooked work among the registration clerks; but for another man to profit by the broken bargain, and by the confessed criminal's rage and lust for vengeance, was a thing to make even a hard-pressed loser in an unequal battle hesitate.
The hesitation was only momentary. With a gesture which was more expressive than many words, Blount turned short upon the furtive watcher in the chair at the desk end.
"What do you want me to do?" he demanded.
"You're on before I could stall it f'r you. You've been swearin' you'd back th' square deal to th' limit; it ain't square; it's crooked as hell. Grab f'r this knife I'm handin' you and cut the heart out o' these welshin' bosses that are givin' you th' double-cross the same as they're givin' it to me. You're the on'y man that can do it; the on'y man on Gawd's green earth they're afraid of. I know it damn' well. That's why they handed my number to th' chief and passed th' word to have me pinched. They was afraid I'd come here and squeal to you!"
Blount stopped him with an impatient gesture. "Let that part of it rest and get down to business. What you have been telling me may be true, but I can't do anything on your bare word—the word of a man who is dodging the police. You've got to bring me proofs in black and white; lists of the faked names, and a straight-out give-away of how they are to be used; names and dates, and a written story of your bargainings with the men higher up. This is Thursday; to be of any use, these documents would have to be in my hands by Saturday noon, at the latest. You know best whether the thing can be done in time—or done at all. What do you say?"
For a little time Gryson said nothing. When he spoke it was evident that the lust for vengeance and a guilty conscience were fighting an even-handed battle.
"I could get the affidavits—maybe," he said. "There's a dozen 'r more of the cullies down-along got their notice to fade away when I got mine, and they'd jump at th' chance to get back at the bosses. But f'r Gawd's sake, look at what it means to me! Anny minute I'm on the job I'd be lookin' to see some bull with a star on 'im holdin' a gun on me; and after that, it's this f'r mine"—with a jerk of the head and a pantomimic gesture simulating the hangman's knot under his ear.
"That is your risk," said Blount coldly, making this small concession to the expiring sense of uprightness. "You know how badly you want to 'get square,' as you put it, and I am interested only in the results. If you get caught, I sha'n't turn my hand over to help you—you can take that straight. But if you show up here with the proofs, proofs that I can use, any time before Saturday night, I'll undertake to see that you get safely out of the State."
It was in the little pause which followed that some one in the corridor rapped smartly on the locked door. At the sound, Gryson collapsed and his face became an ashen mask of fear. Blount, the law-abiding, might have hesitated, but this newer Blount had slain his scruples. Snatching Gryson out of his chair, he thrust him silently through the half-open door of the work-room, and a moment later he was answering the rap at the corridor entrance, opening the door and calmly facing the two policemen on the threshold.
"Well?" he said brusquely.
One of the men touched his helmet.
"We're looking for a felly that ducked in below a couple of hours ago, Mr. Blount. He's in the building, somewheres, and your office being lighted, we thought maybe you'd—"
Blount threw the door wide.
"You can see for yourselves," he said. "Would you like to come in and look around?"
"Sure not; your word's as good as the search, Mr. Blount. 'Twas only on the chance that he might have faked an excuse and ducked in on you to be out of reach."
Blount left the door open and went to get his coat and hat.
"Who is the man?" he asked, while the officers lingered.
"A felly named Gryson. He's been working in the railroad shops what times he wasn't pullin' off something crooked in the p'litical line."
"What is he wanted for?" Blount was closing his desk and preparing to leave the office.
"Croaking a bank watchman up in Montana afther he'd souped the vault door for a kick-shot."
"In that case, perhaps I'm lucky that he didn't drop in and croak me," laughed Blount, turning off the lights and joining the two men in the corridor. And then: "There is a back stair to the engine-room in the basement in the other wing of the building: have you been watching that?"
The bigger of the two policemen prodded the other in the ribs with his night-stick. "That's on us, Jakey. He'll have been gone hours ago. Let's be drilling. 'Tis a fine mind ye have, Mr. Blount, to be thinking of thim back stairs right off the bat." And the pair went down in the elevator with Blount, chuckling to themselves at their own discomfiture.
Having set his hand to the plough, Blount did nothing carelessly. Sauntering slowly, and even pausing to light a cigar, he trailed the two policemen until they were safely in another street. Then he turned back to the great office building and once more had himself lifted to the upper floor. In the office corridor he waited until the car had dropped out of sight; waited still longer to give the drowsy night-boy time to settle himself on his stool and go to sleep. Then he went swiftly to the door of the private room and unlocked it.
Gryson was ready, and even in the dim light of the corridor Blount could see that he was white-faced and trembling. In the silent faring to the stair which wound down in a spiral around the freight elevator Blount gripped the arm of trembling.
"You've got to get your nerve," he gritted savagely, "or you'll be nipped before you've gone a block!" And then: "Here's the stair: follow it down until you get to the basement. There's a coal entrance from the alley, and the engineer will be with his boilers in the other wing—and probably asleep. You've got it straight, have you? You're to bring the papers to my office on or before Saturday night. I'll be looking out for you, and if you bring me the evidence, you'll be taken care of. That's all. Down with you, now, and go quietly. If you're caught, I drop you like a hot nail; remember that."
Still puffing at the cigar which glowed redly in the darkness of the wing corridor, Blount waited until his man had been given time to reach the basement. Then he walked slowly back to the main corridor and descended by the public stair without awakening the elevator boy, who was sleeping soundly in his car on the ground level.
On the short walk to the hotel the full significance of the thing he had done had its innings. Cynical criticism to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now and then an honest lawyer who regards his oath of admission to the bar—the oath which binds him to uphold the cause of justice and fair dealing—as something more than a mere form of words. Beyond all question, an honest man who has sworn to uphold the law may neither connive at crime nor shield a criminal. Blount tried the shift of every man who has ever stepped aside out of the plain path of rectitude; he told himself morosely that he had nothing to do with Gryson's past; that he had taken no retainer from the Montana authorities; that the criminal was merely a cog in a wheel which was grinding toward a righteous end, and as such should be permitted to serve his turn.
The well-worn argument is always specious to the beginner, and Blount thought he had sufficiently justified himself by the time he was pushing through the revolving doors into the Inter-Mountain lobby. But when he saw his father quietly smoking his bed-time cigar in one of the big leather-covered lounging-chairs, he realized that the first step had been taken in an exceedingly thorny path; that whatever else might be the outcome of the bargain with Thomas Gryson, a son was coldly plotting to bring disgrace and humiliation upon a father.
For this reason, and because, when all is said, blood is much thicker than water, Blount made as if he did not see the beckoning hand-wave from the depths of the big chair in the smokers' alcove; ignored it, and with set lips and burning eyes made for the nearest elevator to take refuge in his room.