Marrineal gave the subject his habitual calm and impersonal consideration. “He hasn’t been lately,” he observed. “Several of his editorials have had quite the air of challenge.”
“That was before he turned blackmailer. Blackmail,” philosophized the astute Ives, “is a gun that you’ve got to keep pointed all the time.”
“I see. So long as he has Bussey covered by the muzzle of The Patriot, The Searchlight behaves itself.”
“It does. But if ever he laid down his gun, Bussey would make hash of him and his lady-love.”
“What about her?” interrogated Marrineal. “Do you really think—” His uplifted brows, sparse on his broad and candid forehead, consummated the question.
For reply the factotum gave him a succinct if distorted version of the romance in the desert.
“She dished him for Eyre,” he concluded, “and now she’s dishing Eyre for him.”
“Bussey’s got all this?” inquired Marrineal, and upon the other’s careless “I suppose so,” added, “It must grind his soul not to be able to use it.”
“Or not to get paid for suppressing it,” grinned Ives.
“But does Banneker understand that it’s fear of his pen, and not of being killed, that binds Bussey?”