The Poisoned Pen [134]
possible. "'What success?" inquired Travis eagerly. "I'm afraid," replied Kennedy, and the candidate's face fell at the tone, "I'm afraid you will have to meet them, for the present. The time limit will expire to-morrow, and I understand Hanford is coming up for a final answer. We must have copies of those photographs, even if we have to pay for them. There seems to be no other way." Travis sank back in his chair and regarded Kennedy hopelessly. He was actually pale. "you - you don't mean to say that there is no other way, that I'll have to admit even before Bennett - and others that I'm in bad?" "I wouldn't put it that way," said Kennedy mercilessly, I thought. "It is that way," Travis asserted almost fiercely. "Why, we could have done that anyhow. No, no, - I don't mean that. Pardon me. I'm upset by this. Go ahead," he sighed. "You will direct Bennett to make the best terms he can with Hanford when he comes up to-morrow. Have him arrange the details of payment and then rush the best copies of the photographs to me." Travis seemed crushed. We met Miss Ashton the following morning entering her office. Kennedy handed her a package, and in a few words, which I did not hear, explained what he wanted, promising to call again later. When we called, the girls and other clerks had arrived, and the office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrap-books, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal. The room was indeed crowded, and I felt that there was no doubt, as Kennedy had said, that nothing much could go on there unobserved by any one to whose interest it was to see it. Miss Ashton was sitting at her desk with her hat on directing the work. "It works," she remarked enigmatically to Kennedy. "Good," he replied. "I merely dropped in to be sure. Now if anything of interest happens, Miss Ashton, I wish you would let me know immediately. I must not be seen up here, but I shall be waiting downstairs in the corridor of the building. My next move depends entirely on what you have to report." Downstairs Craig waited with growing impatience. We stood in an angle in which we could see without being readily seen, and our impatience was not diminished by seeing Hanford enter the elevator. I think that Miss Ashton would have made an excellent woman detective, that is, on a case in which her personal feelings were not involved as they were here. She was pale and agitated as she appeared in the corridor, and Kennedy hurried toward her. "I can't believe it. I won't believe it," she managed to say. "Tell me, what happened?" urged Kennedy soothingly. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, why did you ask me to do this?" she reproached. "I would almost rather not have known it at all." "Believe me, Miss Ashton," said Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend most. We saw Hanford go up. What occurred?" She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Mr. Bennett came in about quarter to ten. He stopped to talk to me and looked about the room curiously. Do you know, I felt very uncomfortable for a time. Then he locked the door leading from the press bureau to his office, and left word that he was not to be disturbed. A few minutes later a man called." "Yes, yes," prompted Kennedy. "Hanford, no doubt." She was racing on breathlessly, scarcely giving one a chance to inquire how she had learned so much. "Why," she cried with a sort of defiant ring in her tone, "Mr. Travis is going to buy those pictures after all. And the worst of it is that I met him in the hall coming in as I was coming down here, and he tried to act toward me in the same old way and that after all I know now about him. They have fixed it all up, Mr. Bennett acting for Mr. Travis, and this Mr. Hanford. They are even going to ask me to carry the money in a sealed envelope to the studio of this fellow Hanford, to be given to a third person who will be there at two o'clock this afternoon." "You, Miss Ashton?"