“Nonsense!” said Fownes.
“The headquarters of it is the Lakeside Hotel. That is the point of distribution.... Deputy Sheriff Jenney, whom this man has come to ask you to appoint sheriff in Mr. Churchill’s place, is a crony of the proprietor. He is in it, as I shall prove. But he is not the head of it.... These men, because I printed in my paper what I discovered, came to wreck my plant. I believe they are ready to do with me as they did with Sheriff Churchill.... So I have come, I have forced my way to you, to beg you not to make that appointment. It gives these lawbreakers, these murderers, control of the legal machinery of the county. Governor, do you know Jared Whitefield?”
“I—do,” said the Governor.
“He is a good man, a capable man, an honest man, and he has agreed to accept the appointment as sheriff and to clean out this association of lawbreakers. That is my purpose in coming here—to ask his appointment of you.”
“Whitefield!—Whitefield!... What’s this? What’s this about Whitefield, Fownes?” The Governor was bewildered. Whitefield’s name completed his consternation. He despised conflict of any sort and political conflict most of all. When influential men fell out it agitated him, especially if he were asked to take sides. He had gone forward in the world by keeping in mid-channel, making no contacts with either shore. He had done extraordinarily well by never making up his mind and by availing himself of the opportunities other people dropped.... If there was trouble between Whitefield and Fownes it would mean taking sides.... Whitefield! He knew what Whitefield was capable of, and Fownes—Fownes was supposed to control his county. He quite lost sight of the specific matter in hand in his agitation over distant political aspects.
“Whitefield’s out of politics. This woman’s just raked up his name. He’s dead.... She lies.”
“But—he’s got a following. Not only in his county. There was talk of his running for Governor once.”
“There would be again if you gave him this appointment,” said Fownes, adroitly. “Now Jenney deserves the place. He knows the machinery of the office—and I want him to have the job.”
“Jenney’s a brute and a criminal. If you appoint him you’ll outrage the decent people of the whole county—and I’ll take care they know how and why you appointed him,” said Carmel. Her courage was in its place again. She was not afraid, but she was desperate. “I’ll tell the people how the Governor of this state rewards a man for being a party to the murder of a public official. It won’t sound well.”
“But Churchill wasn’t murdered. He—he absconded,” said the Governor.