Jennie Baxter, Journalist

“Oh,” cried the editor, brightening, “if it is anything to the discredit of the Board of Public Construction, I am glad you came.”

“Well, that’s not a bit complimentary to me. You should be glad in any case; but I’ll forgive your bad manners, as I wish you to help me. Please step into this hansom, because I have most startling intelligence to impart—news that must not be overheard; and there is no place so safe for a confidential conference as in a hansom driving through the streets of London. Drive slowly towards the Evening Graphite office,” she said to the cabman, pushing up the trap-door in the roof of the vehicle. Mr. Stoneham took his place beside her, and the cabman turned his horse in the direction indicated.

“There is little use in going to the office of the paper,” said Stoneham; “there won’t be anybody there but the watchman.”

“I know, but we must go in some direction. We can’t talk in front of the Café Royal, you know. Now, Mr. Stoneham, in the first place, I want fifty golden sovereigns. How am I to get them within half an hour?”

“Good gracious! I don’t know; the banks are all closed, but there is a man at Charing Cross who would perhaps change a cheque for me; there is a cheque-book at the office.”

“Then that’s all right and settled. Mr. Stoneham, there’s been some juggling with the accounts in the office of the Board of Public Construction.”

“What! a defalcation?” cried Stoneham eagerly.

“No; merely a shifting round.”

“Ah,” said the editor, in a disappointed tone.

“Oh, you needn’t say ‘Ah.’ It’s very serious; it is indeed. The accounts are calculated to deceive the dear and confiding public, to whose interests all the daily papers, morning and evening, pretend to be devoted. The very fact of such deception being attempted, Mr. Stoneham, ought to call forth the anger of any virtuous editor.”

“Oh, it does, it does; but then it would be a difficult matter to prove. If some money were gone, now–”

“My dear sir, the matter is already proved, and quite ripe for your energetic handling of it; that’s what the fifty pounds are for. This sum will secure for you—to-night, mind, not to-morrow—a statement bristling with figures which the Board of Construction cannot deny. You will be able, in a stirring leading article, to express the horror you undoubtedly feel at the falsification of the figures, and your stern delight in doing so will probably not be mitigated by the fact that no other paper in London will have the news, while the matter will be so important that next day all your beloved contemporaries will be compelled to allude to it in some shape or other.”

“I see,” said the editor, his eyes glistening as the magnitude of the idea began to appeal more strongly to his imagination. “Who makes this statement, and how are we to know that it is absolutely correct?”

“Well, there is a point on which I wish to inform you before going any further. The statement is not to be absolutely correct; two or three errors have been purposely put in, the object being to throw investigators off the track if they try to discover who gave the news to the Press; for the man who will sell me this document is a clerk in the office of the Board of Public Construction. So, you see, you are getting the facts from the inside.”

“Is he so accustomed to falsifying accounts that he cannot get over the habit even when preparing an article for the truthful Press?”

“He wants to save his own situation, and quite rightly too, so he has put a number of errors in the figures of the department over which he has direct control. He has a reputation for such accuracy that he imagines the Board will never think he did it, if the figures pertaining to his department are wrong even in the slightest degree.”

“Quite so. Then we cannot have the pleasure of mentioning his name, and saying that this honest man has been corrupted by his association with the scoundrels who form the Board of Public Construction?”

“Oh, dear, no; his name must not be mentioned in any circumstances, and that is why payment is to be made in sovereigns rather than by bank cheque or notes.”

“Well, the traitor seems to be covering up his tracks rather effectually. How did you come to know him?”

“I don’t know him. I’ve never met him in my life; but it came to my knowledge that one of the morning papers had already made all its plans for getting this information. The clerk was to receive fifty pounds for the document, but the editor and he are at present negotiating, because the editor insists upon absolute accuracy, while, as I said, the man wishes to protect himself, to cover his tracks, as you remarked.”

“Good gracious!” cried Stoneham, “I didn’t think the editor of any morning paper in London was so particular about the accuracy of what he printed. The pages of the morning sheets do not seem to reflect that anxiety.”

“So, you see,” continued Miss Jennie, unheeding his satirical comment, “there is no time to be lost; in fact, I should be on my way now to where this man lives.”

“Here we are at the office, and I shall just run in and write a cheque for fifty pounds, which we can perhaps get cashed somewhere,” cried the editor, calling the hansom to a halt and stepping out.

“Tell the watchman to bring me a London Directory,” said the girl, and presently that useful guardian came out with the huge red volume, which Miss Baxter placed on her knees, and, with a celerity that comes of long practice, turned over the leaves rapidly, running her finger quickly down the H column, in which the name “Hazel” was to be found. At last she came to one designated as being a clerk in the office of the Board of Public Construction, and his residence was 17, Rupert Square, Brixton. She put this address down in her notebook and handed back the volume to the waiting watchman, as the editor came out with the cheque in his hand.

The shrewd and energetic dealer in coins, whose little office stands at the exit from Charing Cross Station, proved quite willing to oblige the editor of the Evening Graphite with fifty sovereigns in exchange for the bit of paper, and the editor, handing to Miss Jennie the envelope containing the gold, saw her drive off for Brixton, while he turned, not to resume his game of dominoes at the café, but to his office, to write the leader which would express in good set terms the horror he felt at the action of the Board of Public Construction.

CHAPTER III. JENNIE INTERVIEWS A FRIGHTENED OFFICIAL

It was a little past seven o’clock when Miss Baxter’s hansom drove up to the two-storeyed house in Rupert Square numbered 17. She knocked at the door, and it was speedily opened by a man with some trace of anxiety on his clouded face, who proved to be Hazel himself, the clerk at the Board of Public Construction. “You are Mr. Hazel?” she ventured, on entering.

“Yes,” replied the man, quite evidently surprised at seeing a lady instead of the man he was expecting at that hour; “but I am afraid I shall have to ask you to excuse me; I am waiting for a visitor who is a few minutes late, and who may be here at any moment.”

“You are waiting for Mr. Alder, are you not?”

“Yes,” stammered the man, his expression of surprise giving place to one of consternation.

“Oh, well, that is all right,” said Miss Jennie, reassuringly. “I have just driven from the office of the Daily Bugle. Mr. Alder cannot come to-night.”

“Ah,” said Hazel, closing the door. “Then are you here in his place?”

“I am here instead of him. Mr. Alder is on other business that he had to attend to at the editor’s request. Now, Mr. Hardwick—that’s the editor, you know–”

“Yes, I know,” answered Hazel.

They were by this time seated in the front parlour.

“Well, Mr. Hardwick is very anxious that the figures should be given with absolute accuracy.”

“Of course, that would be much better,” cried the man; “but, you see, I have gone thoroughly into the question with Mr. Alder already. He said he would mention what I told him to the editor—put my position before him, in fact.”

“Oh, he has done so,” said Miss Baxter, “and did it very effectively indeed; in fact, your reasons are quite unanswerable. You fear, of course, that you will lose your situation, and that is very important, and no one in the Bugle office wishes you to suffer for what you have done. Of course, it is all in the public interest.”

“Of course, of course,” murmured Hazel, looking down on the table.

“Well, have you all the documents ready, so that they can be published at any time?”

“Quite ready,” answered the man.

“Very well,” said the girl, with decision; “here are your fifty pounds. Just count the money, and see that it is correct. I took the envelope as it was handed to me, and have not examined the amount myself.”

She poured the sovereigns out on the table, and Hazel, with trembling fingers, counted them out two by two.

“That is quite right,” he said, rising. He went to a drawer, unlocked it, and took out a long blue envelope.

“There,” he said, with a sigh that was almost a gasp. “There are the figures, and a full explanation of them. You will be very careful that my name does not slip out in any way.”

“Certainly,” said Miss Jennie, coolly drawing forth the papers from their covering. “No one knows your name except Mr. Alder, Mr. Hardwick, and myself; and I can assure you that I shall not mention it to anyone.”

She glanced rapidly over the documents.

“I shall just read what you have written,” she said, looking up at him; “and if there is anything here I do not understand you will, perhaps, be good enough to explain it now,—and then I won’t need to come here again.”

“Very well,” said Hazel. The man had no suspicion that his visitor was not a member of the staff of the paper he had been negotiating with. She was so thoroughly self-possessed, and showed herself so familiar with all details which had been discussed by Alder and himself that not the slightest doubt had entered the clerk’s mind.

Jennie read the documents with great haste, for she knew she was running a risk in remaining there after seven o’clock. It might be that Alder would come to Brixton to let the man know the result of his talk with the editor, or Mr. Hardwick himself might have changed his mind, and instructed his subordinate to secure the papers. Nevertheless, there was no sign of hurry in Miss Jennie’s demeanour as she placed the papers back in their blue envelope and bade the anxious Hazel good-bye.

Once more in the hansom, she ordered the man to drive her to Charing Cross, and when she was ten minutes away from Rupert Square she changed her direction and desired him to take her to the office of the Evening Graphite, where she knew Mr. Stoneham would be busy with his leading article, and probably impatiently awaiting further details of the conspiracy he was to lay open before the public. A light was burning in the editorial rooms of the office of the Evening Graphite, always a suspicious thing in such an establishment, and well calculated to cause the editor of any rival evening paper to tremble, should he catch a glimpse of burning gas in a spot where the work of the day should be finished at latest by five o’clock. Light in the room of the evening journalist usually indicates that something important is on hand.

A glance at the papers Miss Baxter brought to him showed Mr. Stoneham that he had at least got the worth of his fifty pounds. There would be a fluttering in high places next day. He made arrangements before he left to have the paper issued a little earlier than was customary, calculating his time with exactitude, so that rival sheets could not have the news in their first edition, cribbed from the Graphite, and yet the paper would be on the street, with the newsboys shouting, “‘Orrible scandal,” before any other evening journal was visible. And this was accomplished the following day with a precision truly admirable.

Mr. Stoneham, with a craft worthy of all commendation, kept back from the early issue a small fraction of the figures that were in his possession, so that he might print them in the so-called fourth edition, and thus put upon the second lot of contents—bills sent out, in huge, startling black type, “Further Revelations of the Board of Construction Scandal;” and his scathing leading article, in which he indignantly demanded a Parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the Board, was recognized, even by the friends of that public body, as having seriously shaken confidence in it. The reception of the news by the other evening papers was most flattering. One or two ignored it altogether, others alluded to it as a rumour, that it “alleged” so and so, and threw doubt on its truth, which was precisely what Mr. Stoneham wished them to do, as he was in a position to prove the accuracy of his statement.

Promptly, at five o’clock that afternoon a hansom containing Miss Jennie Baxter drove up to the side entrance of the Daily Bugle office, and the young woman once more accosted the Irish porter, who again came out of his den to receive her.

“Miss Baxter?” said the Irishman, half by way of salutation, and half by way of inquiry. “Yes,” said the girl.

“Well, Mr. Hardwick left strict orders with me that if ye came, or, rather, that whin ye came, I was to conduct ye right up to his room at once.”

“Oh, that is very satisfactory,” cried Miss Jennie, “and somewhat different from the state of things yesterday.”

“Indeed, and that’s very true,” said the porter, his voice sinking. “To-day is not like yesterday at all, at all. There’s been great ructions in this office, mum; although what it’s about, fly away with me if I know. There’s been ruunin’ back and forrad, an’ a plentiful deal of language used. The proprietor himself has been here, an’ he’s here now, an’ Mr. Alder came out a minute ago with his face as white as a sheet of paper. They do be sayin’,” added the porter, still further lowering his voice, and pausing on the stairway, “that Mr. Hardwick is not goin’ to be the editor any more, but that Mr. Alder is to take his place. Anyway, as far as I can tell, Mr. Hardwick an’ Mr. Alder have had a fine fall out, an’ one or other of them is likely to leave the paper.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” said Miss Jennie, also pausing on the stairs. “Is it so serious as all that?”

“Indeed it is, mum, an’ we none of us know where we’re standin’, at all, at all.”

The porter led the way to Mr. Hardwick’s room, and announced the visitor.

“Ask her to come in,” she heard the editor say, and the next instant the porter left them alone together.

“Won’t you sit down, Miss Baxter?” said Mr. Hardwick, with no trace of that anger in his voice which she had expected. “I have been waiting for you. You said you would be here at five, and I like punctuality. Without beating round the bush, I suppose I may take it for granted that the Evening Graphite is indebted to you for what it is pleased to call the Board of Public Construction scandal?”

“Yes,” said the young woman, seating herself; “I came up to tell you that I procured for the Graphite that interesting bit of information.”

“So I supposed. My colleague, Henry Alder, saw Hazel this afternoon at the offices of the Board. The good man Hazel is panic-stricken at the explosion he has caused, and is in a very nervous state of mind, more especially when he learned that his documents had gone to an unexpected quarter. Fortunately for him, the offices of the Board are thronged with journalists who want to get statements from this man or the other regarding the exposure, and so the visit of Alder to Hazel was not likely to be noticed or commented upon. Hazel gave a graphic description of the handsome young woman who had so cleverly wheedled the documents from him, and who paid him the exact sum agreed upon in the exact way that it was to have been paid. Alder had not seen you, and has not the slightest idea how the important news slipped through his fingers; but when he told me what had happened, I knew at once you were the goddess of the machine, therefore I have been waiting for you. May I be permitted to express the opinion that you didn’t play your cards at all well, Miss Baxter?”

“No? I think I played my cards very much better than you played yours, you know.”

“Oh, I am not instituting any comparison, and am not at all setting myself up as a model of strategy. I admit that, having the right cards in my hands, I played them exceedingly badly; but then, you understand, I thought I was sure of an exclusive bit of news.”

“No news is exclusive, Mr. Hardwick, until it is printed, and out in the streets, and the other papers haven’t got it.”

“That is very true, and has all the conciseness of an adage. I would like to ask, Miss Baxter, how much the Graphite paid you for that article over and above the fifty pounds you gave to Hazel?”

“Oh! it wasn’t a question of money with me; the subject hasn’t even been discussed. Mr. Stoneham is not a generous paymaster, and that is why I desire to get on a paper which does not count the cost too closely. What I wished to do was to convince you that I would be a valuable addition to the Bugle staff; for you seemed to be of opinion that the staff was already sufficient and complete.”

“Oh, my staff is not to blame in this matter; I alone am to blame in being too sure of my ground, and not realizing the danger of delay in such a case. But if you had brought the document to me, you would have found me by far your best customer. You would have convinced me quite as effectually as you have done now that you are a very alert young woman, and I certainly would have been willing to give you four or five times as much as the Graphite will be able to pay.”

“To tell the truth, I thought of that as I stood here yesterday, but I saw you were a very difficult man to deal with or to convince, and I dared not take the risk of letting you know I had the news. You might very easily have called in Mr. Alder, told him that Hazel had given up the documents, and sent him flying to Brixton, where very likely the clerk has a duplicate set. It would have been too late to get the sensation into any other morning paper, and, even if it were not too late, you would have had something about the sensation in the Bugle, and so the victory would not have been as complete as it is now. No, I could not take such a risk. I thought it all out very carefully.”

“You credit us with more energy, Miss Baxter, than we possess. I can assure you that if you had come here at ten or eleven o’clock with the documents, I should have been compelled to purchase them from you. However, that is all past and done with, and there is no use in our saying anything more about it. I am willing to take all the blame for our defeat on my shoulders, but there are some other things I am not willing to do, and perhaps you are in a position to clear up a little misunderstanding that has arisen in this office. I suppose I may take it for granted that you overheard the conversation which took place between Mr. Alder and myself in this room yesterday afternoon?”

“Well,” said Miss Baxter, for the first time in some confusion, “I can assure you that I did not come here with the intention of listening to anything. I came into the next room by myself for the purpose of getting to see you as soon as possible. While not exactly a member of the staff of the Evening Graphite, that paper nevertheless takes about all the work I am able to do, and so I consider myself bound to keep my eyes and ears open on its behalf wherever I am.”

“Oh, I don’t want to censure you at all,” said Hardwick; “I merely wish to be certain how the thing was done. As I said, I am willing to take the blame entirely on my own shoulders. I don’t think I should have made use of information obtained in that way myself; still, I am not venturing to find fault with you for doing so.”

“To find fault with me!” cried Miss Jennie somewhat warmly, “that would be the pot calling the kettle black indeed. Why, what better were you? You were bribing a poor man to furnish you with statistics, which he was very reluctant to let you have; yet you overcame his scruples with money, quite willing that he should risk his livelihood, so long as you got the news. If you ask me, I don’t see very much difference in our positions, and I must say that if two men take the risk of talking aloud about a secret, with a door open leading to another room, which may be empty or may be not, then they are two very foolish persons.”

“Oh, quite so, quite so,” answered Hardwick soothingly. “I have already disclaimed the critical attitude. The point I wish to be sure of is this—you overheard the conversation between Alder and myself?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Would you be able to repeat it?”

“I don’t know that I could repeat it word for word, but I could certainly give the gist of it.”

“Would you have any objection to telling a gentleman whom I shall call in a moment, as nearly as possible what Alder said and what I said? I may add that the gentleman I speak of is Mr. Hempstead, and he is practically the proprietor of this paper. There has arisen between Mr. Alder and myself a slight divergence of memory, if I may call it so, and it seems that you are the only person who can settle the dispute.”

“I am perfectly willing to tell what I heard to anybody.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Hardwick pressed an electric button, and his secretary came in from another room.

“Would you ask Mr. Hempstead to step this way, if he is in his room?”

In a few minutes Mr. Hempstead entered, bowed somewhat stiffly towards the lady, but froze up instantly when he heard that she was the person who had given the Board of Public Construction scandal to the Evening Graphite.

“I have just this moment learned, Mr. Hempstead, that Miss Baxter was in the adjoining room when Alder and I were talking over this matter. She heard the conversation. I have not asked her to repeat it, but sent for you at once, and she says she is willing to answer any questions you may ask.”

“In that case, Mr. Hardwick, wouldn’t it be well to have Henry Alder here?”

“Certainly, if he is on the premises.” Then, turning to his secretary, he said, “Would you find out if Mr. Alder is in his room? Tell him Mr. Hempstead wishes to see him here.”

When Henry Alder came in, and the secretary had disappeared, Miss Baxter saw at once that she was in an unenviable situation, for it was quite evident the three men were scarcely on speaking terms with each other. Nothing causes such a state of tension in a newspaper office as the missing of a piece of news that is important.

“Perhaps it would be better,” suggested Hardwick, “if Miss Baxter would repeat the conversation as she heard it.”

“I don’t see the use of that,” said Mr. Hempstead. “There is only one point at issue. Did Mr. Alder warn Mr. Hardwick that by delay he would lose the publication of this report?”

“Hardly that,” answered the girl. “As I remember it, he said, ‘Isn’t there a danger that some other paper may get this?’ Mr. Hardwick replied, ‘I don’t think so. Not for three days, at least’; and then Mr. Alder said, ‘Very good,’ or ‘Very well,’ or something like that.”

“That quite tallies with my own remembrance,” assented Hardwick. “I admit I am to blame, but I decidedly say that I was not definitely warned by Mr. Alder that the matter would be lost to us.”

“I told you it would be lost if you delayed,” cried Alder, with the emphasis of an angry man, “and it has been lost. I have been on the track of this for two weeks, and it is very galling to have missed it at the last moment through no fault of my own.”

“Still,” said Mr. Hempstead coldly, “your version of the conversation does not quite agree with what Miss Baxter says.”

“Oh, well,” said Alder, “I never pretended to give the exact words. I warned him, and he did not heed the warning.”

“You admit, then, that Miss Baxter’s remembrance of the conversation is correct?”

“It is practically correct. I do not ‘stickle’ about words.”

“But you did stickle about words an hour ago,” said Mr. Hempstead, with some severity. “There is a difference in positively stating that the item would be lost and in merely suggesting that it might be lost.”

“Oh, have it as you wish,” said Alder truculently. “It doesn’t matter in the least to me. It is very provoking to work hard for two weeks, and then have everything nullified by a foolish decision from the editor. However, as I have said, it doesn’t matter to me. I have taken service on the Daily Trumpet, and you may consider my place on the Bugle vacant”—saying which, the irate Mr. Alder put his hat on his head and left the room.