Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

In constant touch, through his agents, with the strike situation, he had watched the swiftly forming sentiment of the public. He knew that the turning point of the industrial war was near. He did not deceive himself. He knew Jake Vodell's power. He knew the temper of the strikers. He saw clearly that if the assassin who killed Captain Charlie was not speedily discovered the community would suffer under a reign of terror such as the people had never conceived. And, what was of more vital importance to McIver, perhaps, if the truth was not soon revealed, Jake Vodell's charges that the murder was inspired by McIver himself would become, in the minds of many, an established fact. With the full realization of all that would result to the community and to himself if the identity of the murderer was not soon established, McIver was certain in his own mind that he alone knew the guilty man.

To reveal what he believed to be the truth of the tragedy would be to save the community and himself—and to lose, for all time, the woman he loved. McIver did not know that through the tragedy Helen was already lost to him.

In his extremity the factory owner had come at last to the man who was said to wield such a powerful influence over the minds of the people. He had never before seen the interior of that hut on the cliff nor met the man who for so many years had been confined there. Standing just outside the door, he looked curiously about the room with the unconscious insolence of his strength.

The man in the wheel chair did not speak. When Billy looked at him he signaled his wishes in their silent language, and, watching his visitor, waited.

For a long moment McIver gazed at the old basket maker as if estimating his peculiar strength, then he said with an unintentional touch of contempt in his heavy voice, "So you are the Interpreter."

"And you," returned the man in the wheel chair, gently, "are McIver."

McIver was startled. "How did you know my name?"

"Is McIver's name a secret also?" came the strange reply.

McIver's eyes flashed with a light that those who sat opposite him in the game of business had often seen. With perfect self-control he said, coolly, "I have been told often that I should come to see you but—" he paused and again looked curiously about the room.

The Interpreter, smiling, caught up the unfinished sentence. "But you do not see how an old, poverty-stricken and crippled maker of baskets can be of any use to you."