And it was true. Green River was going to listen. In the middle of the hall, where the chief delegation from Paddy Lane was massed, a ripple of excitement promised the boy support. It was seconded by a muttering and shuffling of feet on the rear benches, devoted to the youth of the town. From here and there in the hall there were murmurs of protest, too, dying out one by one, and ceasing automatically, like the whispered consultation that went on behind him on the stage.
But the boy did not wait for support or regard interruptions. He did not need to. The audience was his in spite of them, and he knew it and they knew it. Whatever he had to say, important or not, it was what they had been waiting for; that was what the evening had been leading to, and it was here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked across the footlights at Green River. The audience was his, but he had no pride in the triumph. He began haltingly to speak.
"It will do no good to you or me, but you're going to listen. I've got a word to say about Everard.
"He's sucked your town dry for years and you know it. He's had the pick of your men and used their brains and their youth, and he's had the pick of your women. If there are any of you here that he's got no hold on, it's because you're worth nothing to him. He's got the town. Now he's driven one of your boys to his death.
"'I can't beat him.' That's what Theodore Burr said to me the night he died. 'They won't blame him for this. I want to die because I don't want to live in the world with him, but I'll do no harm to him by dying, only to Lily and me. They won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.'
"Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you where you don't blame him, whatever he does. You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You know all this and you shut your eyes. Now I'll tell you some things you don't know. Everard's been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my mouth shut, like he bribed Charlie for years. He might have saved his breath and his money. I can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or not. You won't blame him. You'll let him get away with this, too. But you're going to know."
The boy came closer still to the footlights and leaned across them, pausing and deliberately choosing his words. The pause, and the look in his dark, intent eyes as he stood there challenged Green River and dared it to interrupt him. But it was too late to interrupt, too late to stop him now. And behind him in the place of honour in the centre of the row of chairs on the stage, one man at least was powerless to stop him: Colonel Everard, who listened with a set smile on his lips, and a set stare in his eyes.
"He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to pieces," Neil's low voice went on. "Everard's the man. He got her away from town. He filled her head with him and set her wild and she had to go. When he was tired of her, he left her in a place he thought she'd be too proud to come back from. She was proud, but he's broken her pride, and she crawled back to us. The prettiest girl in the town, she was, and you all knew that, and my sister and more to me——" he broke off abruptly, and laughed a dry little laugh that echoed strangely in the silent room. His voice sounded dry and hard as he went on.
"He broke Maggie's life, but what's that to you, that give him a chance at your women, knowing well what he is, and leave them to take care of themselves with him, your own women that are yours to take care of, daughters and wives? It's nothing to you, but you're going to know it, and you're going to know this. I had it straight from Theodore Burr the night he died.
"Everard's going to sell you out at the next election, the whole of you—his own crowd, too. He's been planning it for months. He's worked prohibition for all it's worth to him; worked for it till the state went dry, and then he's made money for you that are in it with him, and more for himself, protecting places like Halloran's that sell liquor on the quiet, and the smuggling of liquor into the state. Well, he's made money enough that way, and it's getting risky, and now he sees a way to make more and let nobody in on it. He's going to sell out to the liquor interests and work against prohibition, and the big card he'll use will be exposing Halloran's and the secret traffic in liquor, and all the crowd that's been buying protection from him. There's a big campaign started already, and big money being spent. There'll be big money in it for him. There'll be arrests made here and a public scandal. He's going to sell the town.