Hugo walked into the hall. "You're all done for—you cheap swindlers. And I am doom." The door banged.
Melcher swayed on his feet, swallowed hard, and ran upstairs. "Pack," he said to his valet.
He had gone; Hugo had removed the first of the public enemies. Yet Hugo was not satisfied. His approach to Melcher had been dramatic, terrifying, effective. There were rumours of that violent morning. The rumours said that Melcher had been attacked, that he had been bought out for bigger money, that something peculiar was occurring in Washington. If ten, twenty men left and those rumours multiplied by geometrical progression, sheer intimidation would work a vast good.
But other facts disconcerted Hugo. In the first place, his mind kept reverting to Melcher's words: "Do you have the conceit to think that one person can buck the will of millions?" No matter how powerful that person, his logic added. Millions of dollars or people? the same logic questioned. After all, did it matter? People could be perjured by subtler influences than gold. Secondly, the parley over arms continued to be an impasse despite the absence of Melcher. Perhaps, he argued, he had not removed Melcher soon enough. A more carefully focused consideration showed that, in spite of what Hatten had said. It was not individuals against whom the struggle was made, but mass stupidity, gigantic bulwarks of human incertitude. And a new man came in Melcher's place—a man who employed different tactics. Hugo could not exorcise the world.
A few days later Hugo learned that two radicals had been thrown into jail on a charge of murder. The event had taken place in Newark, New Jersey. A federal officer had attempted to break up a meeting. He had been shot. The men arrested were blamed, although it was evident that they were chance seizures, that their proved guilt could be at most only a social resentfulness. At first no one gave the story much attention. The slow wheels of Jersey justice—printed always in quotation marks by the dailies—began to turn. The men were summarily tried and convicted of murder in the first degree. A mob assaulted the jail where they were confined—without success. Two of the mob were wounded by riot guns.
A meeting was held in Berlin, one in London, another in Paris. Moscow was silent, but Moscow was reported to be in an uproar. The trial assumed international proportions overnight. Embassies were stormed; legations from America were forced to board cruisers. Strikes were ordered; long queues of sullen men and women formed at camp kitchens. The President delivered a message to Congress on the subject. Prominent personages debated it in public halls, only to be acclaimed and booed concomitantly. The sentence imposed on two Russian immigrants rocked the world. In some cities it was not safe for American tourists to go abroad in the streets. And all the time the two men drew nearer to the electric chair.
It was then that Hugo met Skorvsky. Many people knew him; he was a radical, a writer; he lived in Washington, he styled himself an unofficial ambassador of the world. A small, dark man with a black moustache who attended one of Hugo's informal afternoon discussions on a vicarious invitation. "Come over and see Hugo Danner. He's something new in Washington."
"Something new in Washington? I shall omit the obvious sarcasm. I shall go." Skorvsky went.
Hugo listened to him talk about the two prisoners. He was lucid; he made allowances for the American democracy, which in themselves were burning criticism. Hugo asked him to dinner. They dined at Hugo's house.
"You have the French taste in wines," Skorvsky said, "but, as it is to my mind the finest taste in the world, I can say only that."