AN AFFAIR AT THE STATE HOUSE
Barbara filed the messages herself with the manager of the telegraph company, who lifted the green shade from his eyes and smiled upon her.
"We'll rush them, Miss Osborne. Shall I telephone the answers if they come to-night? No; your father likes his telegrams delivered, I remember."
"I will call for them," said Griswold. "Governor Osborne was only at home a few hours this evening and he left me in charge of these matters."
The manager's face expressed surprise.
"Oh! I didn't know the governor was at home," he remarked, as he finished counting the words and charging them against the state's account. "I will send them myself, and ask the operators at the other end to look lively about the answers. You are Mr.—"
"This is Major Griswold," said Barbara, conferring the title with a vague feeling that it strengthened her cause.
"Major," repeated the manager, and he nodded to Griswold with an air that implied his familiarity with official secrets. "You will call? In a couple of hours, Major."
As Barbara and Griswold turned to leave, a young man who had been writing a message at the standing desk in the lobby lifted his hat and addressed Barbara. He was a reporter for the Columbia Intelligencer, and his manner was eager.
"Oh, Miss Osborne, pardon me, but I've been trying to get you on the telephone. Can you tell me where your father is to-night?"
"Father was in town only a few hours, and then left on state business."
The young man glanced from one to the other. He was a polite youngster and Miss Barbara Osborne was—Miss Barbara Osborne, and this, to the people of South Carolina, was a fact of weight. Still the reporter twirled his hat uncertainly.
"Well, I thought I had met all the trains, but I guess I missed the governor."
"No; you didn't miss him," smiled Barbara, "Father drove in from the country and went back the same way. He didn't come into town at all."
The news instinct is the keenest with which man may be blessed, and the reporter scented events. Griswold, seeing the light flash in the young man's eye, felt that here was an opportunity to allay public criticism.
"Governor Osborne is engaged upon important public business. He will be absent from town for a day—perhaps a week. He will not return to Columbia until the business is thoroughly disposed of."
"May I ask if it's the Appleweight case? The Raleigh papers have wired for information and we'd like to know here."
"I can not answer that question. It's enough that the governor is absent on state business, and that the business is important. You may print that in the Intelligencer and repeat it to Raleigh. There is no harm in that, is there, Miss Osborne?"
"No; certainly not," Barbara replied.
"But the papers all over the state are talking about the Appleweight gang. They intimate that those people enjoy immunity from prosecution and that the governor—you will pardon me, Miss Osborne—will take no steps to arrest them for personal reasons."
"Your question is quite proper," replied Griswold. "The governor's acts are subject to scrutiny at all times and it is just as well to have this matter understood now. I am employed by the governor as special counsel in some state matters. My name is Griswold. Take out your book and come to the desk here and I will give you a statement which you may publish as by the authority of the governor."
The three found seats at a table and Griswold dictated while the reporter wrote, Barbara meanwhile sitting with her cheek resting against her raised hand. She was experiencing the relief we all know, of finding a strong arm to lean upon in an emergency, and she realized that Griswold was not only wise, but shrewd and resourceful.
"Please print this exactly as I give it: It having been intimated in certain quarters that the Appleweight gang of outlaws, which has been terrorizing the North Carolina frontier for several years, enjoys immunity from prosecution in South Carolina owing to the fact that Governor Osborne was at some time attorney for Appleweight, Governor Osborne begs to say that steps have already been taken for the arrest of this man and his followers, dead or alive. The governor presents his compliments to those amiable critics who have so eagerly seized upon this pretext for slurring his private character and aspersing his official acts. The governor has no apologies to proffer the people of South Carolina, who have so generously reposed in him their trust and confidence. He is intent upon safe-guarding the peace, dignity and honor of the state through an honest enforcement of law and he has no other aim or ambition."
Griswold took the reporter's note-book and read over this pronunciamiento; then he handed it to Barbara, who studied it carefully.
"I think that sounds just right, only, why not substitute for 'honest' the word 'vigorous'?"
"Excellent," assented Griswold, and thus amended the statement was returned to the reporter.
"Now," said Griswold to the young man, "you are getting a pretty good item that no other paper will have. Please wire your story to Raleigh; Governor Osborne is very anxious that the people up there shall understand fully his attitude in the Appleweight matter."
"I reckon this will wake up old Dangerfield all right," said the reporter, grinning. "He'll be paralyzed. May I use your name in this connection, sir?"
"Not at all. My engagement with Governor Osborne is of the most confidential character and our purposes would be defeated by publicity. Remember, you get the exclusive use of this story—the return and immediate departure of the governor, his statement to the people in the Appleweight case—all with the understanding that you use what you have to the best advantage."
"This is all right, is it, Miss Osborne?" asked the reporter.
"Major Griswold has full authority to act, and you need question nothing he tells you," Barbara replied.
"I suppose the governor didn't see the attorney-general to-day?" asked the reporter detainingly, as Barbara rose. She exchanged a glance with Griswold.
"Father didn't see Mr. Bosworth at all, if that's what you mean!"
"Didn't see him? Well, Bosworth didn't exactly tell me he had seen him to-day, but I asked him about the Appleweight case an hour ago at his house and he said the governor wasn't going to do anything and that was the end of it so far as the administration is concerned."
"Print his story and see what happens! We have no comment to make on that, have we, Miss Osborne?"
"Nothing at all," replied Barbara scornfully.
"I'm at the Saluda House at present. See me to-morrow and I may have another story for you!" and Griswold shook the reporter warmly by the hand as they parted at the carriage door.
"Home," said Barbara for the reporter's benefit, and then, to Griswold: "I must speak of another matter. Drive with me a little way until we can throw the reporter off."
She spoke quietly, but he saw that she was preoccupied with some new phase of the situation, and as the carriage gained headway she said earnestly:
"That young man told the truth—I am sure of it—about Mr. Bosworth. I knew he would do something to injure father if he could, but I did not know he had the courage to go so far."
"It's only politics, Miss Osborne," said Griswold lightly. "Besides, you may be sure the Intelligencer will print the governor's side of it in its largest type."
"No; it is not politics. It is more despicable, more contemptible, more ungenerous even than politics. But he shall be punished, humiliated for his conduct."
"You shall fix his punishment yourself!" laughed Griswold; "but the state's business first. We have a little more to do before I am satisfied with the day's work."
"Yes, of course. We must leave nothing undone that father would do were he here to act for himself."
"We must be even more careful in his absence to safeguard his honor than the case really requires. We not only have his public responsibility but our own into the bargain in so far as we speak and act for him. And there's always the state—the Palmetto flag must be kept flying at the masthead." Their eyes met as they passed under an electric lamp and he saw how completely she was relying on his guidance.
They were now at the edge of town and she bade him stop the carriage.
"We must go to the state house," said Griswold. "We must get that requisition, to guard against treason in the citadel. Assuming that Governor Osborne really doesn't want to see Appleweight punished we'd better hold the requisition anyhow. It's possible that your father had it ready—do pardon me!—for a grand-stand play, or he may have wanted to bring Appleweight into the friendlier state;—but that's all conjectural. We'd better keep out of the principal streets. That reporter has a sharp eye."
She gave the necessary directions and the driver turned back into Columbia. It was pleasant to find his accomplice in this conspiracy a girl of keen wit who did not debate matters or ask tiresome questions. The business ahead was serious enough, though he tried by manner, tone and words to minimize its gravity. If the attorney-general was serving a personal spite, or whatever the cause of his attitude, he might go far in taking advantage of the governor's absence. Griswold's relation to the case was equivocal enough, he fully realized; but the very fact of its being without precedent, and so beset with pitfalls for all concerned, was a spur to action. In the present instance a duly executed requisition for the apprehension of a criminal, which could not be replaced if lost, must be held at all hazards, and Griswold had determined to make sure of the governor's warrant before he slept.
"Have you the office keys?" he asked.
"Yes; I have been afraid to let go of them. There's a watchman in the building, but he knows me very well. There will not be the slightest trouble about getting in."
The watchman—an old Confederate veteran—sat smoking in the entrance and courteously bade them good evening.
"I want to get some papers from father's office, Captain."
"Certainly, Miss Barbara." He preceded them, throwing on the lights, to the governor's door, which he opened with his own pass key. "It's pretty lonesome here at night, Miss Barbara."
"I suppose nobody comes at night," remarked Griswold.
"Not usually, sir. But one or two students are at work in the library, and Mr. Bosworth is in his office."
The veteran walked away jingling his keys. Barbara was already in the private office bending over the governor's desk. She found the right key, drew out a drawer, then cried out softly. She knelt beside the desk, throwing the papers about in her eagerness, then turned to Griswold with a white face.
"The drawer has been opened since I was here this morning. The requisition and all the other papers in the case are gone."
Griswold examined the lock carefully and pointed to the roughened edges of the wood.
"A blade of the shears there, or perhaps the paper cutter—who knows? The matter is simple enough, so please do not trouble about it. Wait here a moment. I want to make some inquiries of the watchman."
He found the old fellow pacing the portico like a sentry. He pointed out the attorney-general's office, threw on a few additional lights for Griswold's guidance, and resumed his patrol duty outside.
The attorney-general's door was locked, but in response to Griswold's knock it was opened guardedly.
"I am very sorry to trouble you, Mr. Bosworth," began Griswold, quietly edging his way into the room, "but one never gets wholly away from business these days."
He closed the door himself, and peered into the inner rooms to be sure the attorney-general was alone. Bosworth's face flushed angrily when he found that a stranger had thus entered his office with a cool air of proprietorship; then he stared blankly at Griswold for a moment before he recalled where he had seen him before.
"I don't receive visitors at night," he blurted, laying his hand on the door. "I'm engaged, and you'll have to come in office hours."
He shook the door as though to call Griswold's attention to it.
"Do you see this thing—it's the door!" he roared.
"I have seen it from both sides, Mr. Bosworth. I intend to stay on this side until I get ready to go."
"Who the devil are you? What do you mean by coming here at this time of night?"
"I'm a lawyer myself, if you will force the ignoble truth from me. Now, when you are perfectly quiet, and once more the sane, reasonable human being you must be to have been trusted with the office you hold, we'll proceed to business. Meanwhile, please put on your coat. A man in his shirt-sleeves is always at a disadvantage; and we Virginians are sticklers for the proprieties."
The attorney-general's fury abated when he saw that he had to deal with a low-voiced young man who seemed unlikely to yield to intimidation. Griswold had, in fact, seated himself on a table that was otherwise covered with law books, and he sniffed with pleasure the familiar atmosphere of dusty law calf, which no one who has had the slightest acquaintance with a law office ever forgets. To his infinite amusement Bosworth was actually putting on his coat, though it may have been a little absent-mindedly to give him an opportunity to decide upon a plan for getting rid of his visitor. However this may have been, Bosworth now stepped to the side of the room and snatched down the telephone receiver.
Griswold caught him by the shoulder and flung him round.
"None of that! By calling the police you will only get yourself into trouble. I'm bigger than you are and I should hate to have to throw you out of the window. Now"—and he caught and hung up the receiver, which was wildly banging the wall—"now let us be sensible and get down to business."
"Who the devil are you?" demanded Bosworth, glaring.
"I'm special counsel for Governor Osborne in the Appleweight case. There's no use in wasting time in further identification, but if you take down that volume on Admiralty Practice just behind you, you will find my name on the title page. Or, to save you the trouble, as you seem to be interested in my appearance, I will tell you that my name is Griswold and that my address is Charlottesville, Virginia."
"You are undoubtedly lying. If you are smart enough to write a book you ought to know enough about legal procedure to understand that the attorney-general represents the state and special counsel would not be chosen without his knowledge."
"Allow me to correct you, my learned brother. You should never misquote the opposing counsel—it's one of the rules of the game. What I said a moment ago was that I represented the governor—Governor Osborne. I didn't say I represented the state, which is a different matter, and beset with ultra vires pitfalls. There is no earthly reason why a governor should not detach himself, so to speak, from his office and act in propria persona, as a mere citizen. His right to private remedy is not abridged by the misfortune of office-holding. Whether he can himself be made defendant in an action at law touches that ancient question, whether the monarch or the state can be sued. That's a question law students have debated from the beginning of time, but we must not confuse it with the case at issue. The governor, as a citizen, may certainly employ such counsel as he pleases, and just now I represent him. Of course, if you want me to furnish a brief—"
Griswold's manner was deliberate and ingratiating. He saw that the attorney-general had not the slightest sense of humor and that his play upon legal phrases was wasted. Bosworth grinned, but not at the legal status of monarchs and states. He had thought of a clever stroke and he dealt the blow with confidence.
"Let us assume," he said, "that you represent Mr. Osborne. May I ask the whereabouts of your client?"
"Certainly. You may ask anything you please, but it will do you no good. It's an old rule of the game never to divulge a client's secret. Governor Osborne has his own reasons for absenting himself from his office. However, he was at home to-night."
"I rather guess not, as I had all the trains watched. You'll have to do a lot better than that, Mr. Griswold."
"He has issued a statement to the public since you lied to the Intelligencer reporter about him to-day. I suppose it's part of your official duty to misrepresent the head of the state administration in the press, but the governor is in the saddle and I advise you to be good."
The attorney-general felt that he was not making headway. His disadvantage in dealing with a stranger whose identity he still questioned angered him. He did not know why Griswold had sought him out, and he was chagrined at having allowed himself to be so easily cornered.
"You seem to know a good deal," he sneered. "How did you get into this thing anyhow?"
"My dear sir, I was chosen by the governor because of my superior attainments, don't you see? But I'm in a hurry now. I came here on a particular errand. I want that requisition in the Appleweight case—quick!—if you please, Mr. Bosworth."
He jumped down from the table and took up his hat and stick.
"Mr. Griswold, or whoever you are, you are either a fool or a blackguard. There isn't any requisition for Appleweight. The governor never had the sand to issue any, if you must know the truth! If you knew anything about the governor you would know that that's why Osborne is hiding himself. He can't afford to offend the Appleweights, if you must know the disagreeable truth. Your coming here and asking me for that requisition is funny, if you had the brains to see it. Poor old Osborne is scared to death and I doubt if he's within a hundred miles of here. You don't know the governor; I do! He's a dodger, a trimmer and a coward."
"Mr. Bosworth," began Griswold deliberately, "that requisition, duly signed and bearing the seal of the secretary of state as by the statutes in such cases made and provided, was in Governor Osborne's desk this morning at the time you were so daintily kicking the door in your anxiety to see the governor. It has since been taken from the drawer where the governor left it when he went to New Orleans. You have gone in there like a sneak-thief, pried open the drawer and stolen that document; and now—"
"It's an ugly charge," mocked the attorney-general.
"It's all of that," and Griswold smiled.
"But you forget that you represent Mr. Osborne. On the other hand I represent Governor Osborne, and if I want the Appleweight papers I had every right to them."
"After office hours, feloniously and with criminal intent?" laughed Griswold.
"We will assume that I have them," sneered Bosworth, "and such being the case I will return them only to the governor."
"Then,"—and Griswold's smile broadened—"if it comes to concessions, I will grant that you are within your rights in wishing to place them in the governor's own hands. The governor of South Carolina is now, so to speak, in camera."
"The governor is hiding. He's afraid to come to Columbia, and the whole state knows it."
"The papers, my friend; and I will satisfy you that the governor of South Carolina is under this roof and transacting business."
"Here in the state house?" demanded Bosworth, and he blanched and twisted the buttons of his coat nervously.
"The governor of South Carolina, the supreme power of the state, charged with full responsibility, enjoying all the immunities, rights and privileges unto him belonging."
It was clear that Bosworth took no stock whatever in Griswold's story; but Griswold's pretended employment by the governor and his apparent knowledge of the governor's affairs, piqued his curiosity. If this was really the Griswold who had written a widely accepted work on admiralty and who was known to him by reputation as a brilliant lawyer of Virginia, the mystery was all the deeper. By taking the few steps necessary to reach the governor's chambers he would prove the falsity of Griswold's pretensions to special knowledge of the governor's whereabouts and plans. He stepped to an inner office, came back with a packet of papers and thrust a revolver into his pocket with so vain a show of it that Griswold laughed aloud.
"What! Do you still back your arguments with fire-arms down here? It's a method that has gone out of fashion in Virginia!"
"If there's a trick in this it will be the worse for you," scowled Bosworth.
"And pray, remember on your side, that you are to give those documents into the hands of the governor. Come along."
They met the watchman in the corridor and he saluted them and passed on. Bosworth strode eagerly forward in his anxiety to prick the bubble of Griswold's pretensions.
Griswold threw open the door of the governor's reception-room, and they blinked in the stronger light that poured in from the private office. There, in the governor's chair by the broad official desk, sat Barbara Osborne reading a newspaper.
"Your Excellency," said Griswold, bowing gravely and advancing; "I beg to present the attorney-general!"
"Barbara!"
The papers fell from the attorney-general's hands. He stood staring until astonishment began to yield to rage as he realized that a trap had been sprung upon him. The girl had risen instantly and a smile played about her lips for a moment. She had vaguely surmised that Griswold would charge Bosworth with the loss of the papers, but her associate in the conspiracy had now given a turn to the matter that amused her.
"Barbara!" blurted the attorney-general, "what game is this—what contemptible trick is this stranger playing on you? Don't you understand that your father's absence is a most serious matter and that in the present condition of this Appleweight affair it is likely to involve him and the state in scandal?"
Barbara regarded him steadily for a moment with a negative sort of gaze. She took a step forward before she spoke and then she asked quickly and sharply:
"What have you done, Mr. Bosworth, to avert these calamities, and what was in your mind when you pried open the drawer and took out those papers?"
"I was going to use the requisition—"
"How?"
"Why, I expected—"
"Mr. Bosworth expected to effect a coup for his own glory during the governor's absence," suggested Griswold.
"How?" and Barbara's voice rang imperiously and her eyes flashed.
"Send this unknown person, this impostor and meddler, away and I will talk to you as old friends may talk together," and he glared fiercely at Griswold, who stood fanning himself with his hat.
"I asked you how you intended to serve my father, Mr. Bosworth, because you sent me this afternoon a letter in which you threatened me—you threatened me with my father's ruin if I did not marry you. You would take advantage of my trouble and anxiety to force that question on me when I had answered it once and for all long ago. Before this stranger I want to tell you that you are a despicable coward and that if you think you can humiliate me or my father or the state by such practices as you have resorted to you are very greatly mistaken. And further, Mr. Bosworth, if I find you interfering again in this matter I shall print that letter you wrote me to-day in every newspaper in the state! Now, that is all I have to say to you, and I hope never to see you again.”
"Before you go, Mr. Bosworth," said Griswold, "I wish to say that Miss Osborne has spoken of your conduct with altogether too much restraint. I shall add, on my own account, that if I find you meddling again in this Appleweight case, I shall first procure your removal from office and after that I shall take the greatest pleasure in flogging you within an inch of your life. Now go!"
The two had dismissed him, and before Bosworth's step died away in the hall, Griswold was running his eye over the papers.
"That man will do something nasty if he is clever enough to think of anything."
"He's a disgusting person," said Barbara, touching her forehead with her handkerchief.
"He's all of that," remarked Griswold, as he retied the red-tape round the packet of papers. "And now, before we leave we may as well face a serious proposition. Your father's absence and this fiction we are maintaining that he is really here can not be maintained forever. I don't want to trouble you, for you, of course, realize all this as keenly as I. But what do you suppose actually happened at New Orleans between your father and the governor of North Carolina?"
She leaned against her father's desk, her hands lightly resting on its flat surface. She was wholly serene now, and she smiled and then laughed.
"It couldn't have been what the governor of North Carolina said to the governor of South Carolina in the old story, for father is strongly opposed to drink of all kinds. And in the story—"
"I've forgotten where that story originated."
"Well, it happened a long time ago, and nobody really knows the origin. But according to tradition, at the crisis of a great row between two governors, the ice was broken by the governor of North Carolina saying to the governor of South Carolina those shocking words about it's being a long time between drinks. What makes the New Orleans incident so remarkable is that father and Governor Dangerfield have always been friends, though I never cared very much for the Dangerfields myself. The only tiffs they have had have been purely for effect. When father said that the people of North Carolina would never amount to anything so long as they fry their meat it was only his joke with Governor Dangerfield—but it did make North Carolina awfully mad. And Jerry—she's the governor's daughter—refused to visit me last winter just on that account. Jerry Dangerfield's a nice little girl, but she has no sense of humor."