“Memorial service?”
“Didn’t you know? I saw Mrs. Garrison there, but she was gone before I could get through the crowd.”
Julie there? She hadn’t told him. He thought he knew all her movements.
“It was wonderful; I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. They are going to screen it. It was a queer mixed crowd—artists he had saved from starvation, musicians he had sent abroad, women he had started right—they all got up and told their stories. It was like a Christian Science service. A man sang, a barber named Hippolyte, well-known on Fifth Avenue, a wonderful voice. They say an opera manager has engaged him. He sang psalms in Greek and Hebrew, wails in the minor key, just tore at your entrails. He set them all crying. One poor cripple made a scene; swore he saw the dead man’s spirit. Of course, that hypnotized the others; they all saw it. There was a tall man in a corner—the light struck him for a moment. I tell you, Garrison, I’ve got the hide of a rhinoceros, but it made my flesh creep. Now there are two left of those river shanties, we’ll pull them down and build one big office building—”
Floyd didn’t hear him; he was in the church listening to the voice of Hippolyte, the cries, the prayers for Martin—the philanthropist, the good man. He forced himself to say something.
“I knew Martin Steele all my life, but had no idea of that side of him.”
“Nor I, but most men keep the best part of them hidden.”
“Yes,” said Floyd, tracing lines on the map. “I’ll go down with you and look at those shanties. I want money and lots of it; every fool’s got it. I can be as big a fool as the next one.”
The Colonel didn’t contradict him, but he doubted if Garrison would ever be that kind of a fool.