Octavus Roy Cohen

“ A certain number of those facts printed starkly and insinuatingly in Blair's “Spotlight” had effectually robbed the girl of all shred of character. And Walter McBride had killed the man who was responsible.
HE reached his apartment and sat stiffly in a chair. Thoughts were beginning to right themselves: to become ideas rather than impressions. He lighted a pipe. He reviewed again the details of the case and the impulse which had actuated him. As yet no tinge of regret had come: unwritten law or no unwritten law; conviction by jury or no conviction. ”

“ And, Morgan, aside from Mary and Bonham, there are only two persons in the world who knew of that perfectly innocent occurrence: one is myself and the other is you.”
“I?”
“Yes—you. It was you and I who stumbled across them in the hotel where they had been driven by a storm and a puncture. I was rather amused; you were apparently not interested. But the story in the 'Spotlight' details absolutely what you and I saw. Mary's reputation is a choice morsel on the tongue of every scandalmonger in the city this afternoon. Everybody who knows her knows that the thing is a lie. ”

“ Morgan was much given to friendships in the underworld; he claimed as intimates a score or more of men and women whose means of livelihood were exceedingly shady, and they fed upon him like leeches. He was a man utterly without morals of any sort, devoid of ethical standards, and for a year or more McBride had known that it was Dennis Morgan who supplied to a shrieking local scandal sheet some of its most unsavory morsels.
This publication—Blair's 'Spotlight'—was a particularly obnoxious thing; a stench in the nostrils of a decent community. ”

“ Yes, I saw Mary down there with Bonham; and yes, I gave the facts to Blair. Blair printed nothing but the facts: he left it to the public to draw its own conclusions. I have no doubt Mary was deliciously innocent, hut it didn't look that way. And now”—he poked his head forward as he fired the question—“what in hell are you going to do about it?”
McBride stared amazedly. It was inconceivable that even consuming anger could drive the man to such an admission. His voice was quite steady as he answered Morgan's question. “I'm going to kill you,” he said evenly. ”

“ He determined to interview the chief of police and make a clean breast of it. But quick and keen reflection showed him the impossibility of that. A man who avenges in the heat of passion and then delivers himself over to the police may be adequately protected by the unwritten law, but the man who shoots and then hides for three weeks loses the theatrical effect of the heroic gesture which can be made only immediately after the commission of the legal offense.
It was not that McBride feared punishment: he had killed Dennis Morgan in fine disregard of his own safety. ”

“ I've been solicitor in this county for going on nineteen years. Chances are I'll be here nineteen more. In all that time I've never knowingly prosecuted a man who didn't deserve to be prosecuted. I may have been wrong sometimes—everybody is. But I've tried mighty hard to be fair and merciful. And I've learned to recognize truth.
“As to your story, son—I believe it. I believe every word of it. And somehow I couldn't bring myself to ask the Grand Jury to indict you for killing Morgan. ”

“ The shooting furnished excellent newspaper copy, both because of its mystery and because of the victim's prominence. Those who knew ill of the deceased did not speak it ... no one connected his death with the recent scandal involving Mary Caveny and Dick Bonham. As a matter of fact, had either been suspected, the suspicions would have died a-bornin'; for both were able to account for every minute of their time during that twenty-four hours; each having been surrounded by friends who sought in the hour of trouble to prove their loyalty in the face of vicious gossip. ”

“ No one who knows you believes—”
“Perhaps not. But a good many who do not believe do enjoy talking as though they did. And there are thousands of people in town who don't know me and who do believe. I'd rather face this alone. Oh, how could anybody print such a vile thing?”
McBride scrupulously avoided mention of Dennis Morgan's death, save in the presence of others, and then he allowed himself to be drawn into its discussion only when silence might have been regarded as strange. ”

“ Roger Hardiman was an institution in the county: it was as though he held the office of county solicitor as an inalienable right. For eighteen years he had been solicitor and, so far as political forecasters were able to determine, he would hold it until his death. Usually he was unopposed at election time, and those who did occasionally offer against him found bitter regret the day after election.
He was a picturesque character: a man without a party, bound by no rigid political affiliations. ”

“ The day the scandal was flung to the public, he asked her to marry him. Her refusal had been based upon the hypothesis that he was doing it to save some portion of her reputation. Then he asked that she permit their engagement to be made public, and that also she refused. She was a prideful girl, stunned by this calamity, not knowing whence the blow had been struck, but game enough to bear her cross alone.
The second day after the killing, McBride read in the morning paper that the maid in Morgan's apartment had been arrested on suspicion. ”

“ Peculiar that he was no more excited over the taking of a human life. He stood in the middle of the room waiting for the other residents of the apartment to come charging in. He was glad that it had seen done this way: it would be better for them to take the revolver from him and summon the police. ”

“ But that does not deter them from mouthing it around. The fact that there is not a scintilla of truth behind the rotten innuendo makes no difference.”
Walter McBride paused. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead, and he felt his nerves jumping like electric wires.
“Before I go any farther let me tell you that the minute the story appeared Bonham went to Mary and asked her to marry him. ”

“ Ten. Fifteen. It was mighty awkward and uncomfortable in the room: one does not overly relish the society of the body of the man whom one has just killed—no matter how justifiable that killing. McBride found it necessary to take a grip upon his overwrought nerves. They were leaping and crawling—now that the thing was over.
SO the neighbors had not heard. Perhaps he'd better tell them. No—that was silly: cheap. Thing to do was telephone the police. Hello—headquarters: this is Walter McBride—I've just shot Dennis Morgan. ... ”

“ It is a difficult thing.”
“Go ahead, son—go right ahead. Take all the time you want.”
McBride started. He started nearly a year before, with the day when he realized that he was in love with Mary Caveny: he told night when, with Dennis Morgan, of the of their engagement; they happened to seek shelter from the storm in the same hotel which had offered sanctuary to Dick Bonham and the girl; of seeing them come out of the same room together; of their laughter over the situation. ...
He told of his knowledge of Morgan's astounding connection with Blair's “Spotlight” ”