IV
When Burgess appeared at the bank at ten o’clock the next morning he found his friends of the night before established in the directors’ room waiting for him. They greeted him without their usual chaff, and he merely nodded to all comprehendingly and seated himself on the table.
“We don’t want to bother you, Web,” said Colton, “but I guess we’d all feel better if we knew what happened after we left you last night. I hope you don’t mind.”
Burgess frowned and shook his head.
“You ought to thank God you didn’t have to see the rest of it! I’ve got a reservation on the Limited tonight: going down to the big city in the hope of getting it out of my mind.”
“Well, we know only what the papers printed this morning,” said Ramsay; “a very brief paragraph saying that Avery had been pardoned. The papers don’t tell the story of his crime as they usually do, and we noticed that they refrained from saying that the pardon was signed at one of your dinner parties.”
“I fixed the newspapers at the governor’s request. He didn’t want any row made about it, and neither did I, for that matter. Avery is at my house. His wife was there waiting for him when I took him home.”
“We rather expected that,” said Colton, “as we were planted at the library windows when you left the club. But about the other man: that’s what’s troubling us.”
“Um,” said Burgess, crossing his legs and clasping his knees. “That was the particular hell of it.”
“Tate was guilty; we assume that of course,” suggested Fullerton. “We all saw him signing his death warrant right there at the table.”
“Yes,” Burgess replied gravely, “and he virtually admitted it; but if God lets me live I hope never to see anything like that again!”
He jumped down and took a turn across the room.
“And now—— After that, Web?”
“Well, it won’t take long to tell it. After the governor signed the pardon I told the warden to take Avery downstairs and get him a drink: the poor devil was all in. And then Tate came to, blubbering like the vile coward he is, and began pleading for mercy: on his knees, mind you; on his knees! God! It was horrible—horrible beyond anything I ever dreamed of—to see him groveling there. I supposed, of course, the governor would turn him over to the police. I was all primed for that, and Tate expected it and bawled like a sick calf. But what he said was—what the governor said was, and he said it the way they say ‘dust to dust’ over a grave—‘You poor fool, for such beasts as you the commonwealth has no punishment that wouldn’t lighten the load you’ve got to carry around with you till you die!’ That’s all there was of it! That’s exactly what he said, and can you beat it? I got a room for Tate at the club, and told one of the Japs to put him to bed.”
“But the governor had no right,” began Ramsay eagerly; “he had no right——”
“The king can do no wrong! And, if you fellows don’t mind, the incident is closed, and we’ll never speak of it again.”