“Now you’d better call up your parties and tell them everything’s all right — that we made a deal.”
Woodward was looking at the rug. He pursed his lips, shook his head slowly.
“There’s a direct line in the other room,” Kells wept on, “if you’d rather not make it through the switchboard.”
Woodward didn’t move except to shake his head slowly; he stared at the floor, smiled a little.
“Hurry up.” Kells stood up.
Then the phone in the bedroom rang; Kells could faintly hear Beery say “Hello.” It was quiet for a moment and then the bedroom door opened and Fenner stood in the doorway looking back at Beery.
Beery said: “You sure?... Just the press and the forms... All out?... All right, I’ll be right over.” The receiver clicked and Beery came into the doorway. He glanced at Woodward, grinned crookedly at Kells.
“They blew up the joint,” he said. “But nearly all the stuff was out. A hand press and a couple of linotypes were cracked up and one guy’s got a piece of iron in his shoulder, but they discovered it in time and got everybody else and the sheets out. The originals are in the safe.”
He struck an attitude, declaimed: “The first issue of The Coast Guardian; A Political Weekly for Thinking People, is on the stands.”
Kells turned slowly, sat down. He looked steadily at Woodward for a while and then he said: “As representative of the Bellmann estate” — he paused, coughed gently — “do you think you’re strong enough to beat charges of coercion, conspiracy to defeat justice, dynamiting, abduction — a few more that any half-smart attorney can figure out?”