Good Men and True; and, Hit the Line Hard/Good Men and True/Chapter 10
Chapter X
"And then he will say to himsel'. The son of Duncan is in the heather and has need of me."
SO George went on: "As Mr. Pringle says, the fact of Jeff's disappearance at this exact time and possible place strengthened all of the otherwise far-fetched 'ifs' twenty-fold. For that reason I stopped any translation of Jeff's letter, though I had barely begun it, to state in full my theory, or rather my hypothesis, based on the remarkable conjunction of a hinted conspiracy, the occasion and motive of a conspiracy, and what was in all likelihood the consummation of that conspiracy, with both Jeff and Tillotson as victims.
"We will now take up the consideration of the letter. See if it does not reinforce my hypothesis on every point, until, as block after block falls inevitably into place, ordered and measured, it becomes a demonstration.
"To begin with, the reference to the 'French Revolution' is to the paragraph that I finished reading to him a few minutes before he left me, telling of a man secretly and falsely imprisoned in the Bastille by a lettre de cachet; a letter of hiding, procured by some powerful personage; a man whose one vain thought and hope and prayer was to have some word of his wife—of his dear wife. And there, I have no doubt, is where Jeff got the idea for this dear, sudden wife of his. Shall I read the paragraph for you?"
He should; and did.
"And from that paragraph—as I told Jeff in the very last words I spoke to him—Dickens got the inspiration for his novel, 'A Tale of Two Cities.' What did Jeff say? In effect, that a great writer could find material for a novel from any page. 'A Tale of Two Cities!' And here are the two cities, El Paso and Juarez, side by side—as closely associated as Sodom and Gomorrah, of which, indeed, they remind me at times. Could he, under the circumstances, say any plainer: 'I am in Juarez, in a strong and secret prison'?"
"That seems likely enough," admitted Leo grudgingly.
"It is plain," said Billy. "It is there; it must mean something; it means that."
"Keep that in mind, then, and consider all the other hints in the light of that admitted message. Weigh them and their probable meaning in connection with this plain warning.
"He speaks of Antony's great oration. He actually quotes two words of it: 'Honorable men!' Therefore, it was important; he wished to put unusual emphasis on it. Three other important things were called to our attention by being mentioned twice: one vital point, which I will take up later—in fact, the last of all—was distinctly referred to no less than four times. But this is the only direct quotation in the letter.
"Yet of all the words in the play, these two are precisely the two that least need quoting to bring them to remembrance. No one who has read Antony's speech will ever forget them. Jeff had no need to reiterate here; Antony has done it for him. They were the very heart and blood of it; the master of magic freighted those two words, in their successive differing expression, with praise, uncertainty, doubt, suspicion, invective, certainty, hate, fury, denunciation and revenge. 'Honorable men!' And Thorpe, too, is an honorable man! The Honorable S. S. Thorpe! Is that chance?
"More yet! Jeff went out of the way to drag in the wholly superfluous statement that Antony said some things after that which would bear reading. As a literary criticism this is beneath contempt. The words of Antony, as reported by William Shakspere, would be all that without the seal of his approval. But let us see! He says 'after' Cæsar's funeral oration. Look at the words, Mr. Ballinger. Do you observe anything unusual?"
"I see a blot," said Leo.
"You see a blot—and you speak of it, unhesitatingly, as unusual. Why? Because Jeff was a man of scrupulous neatness, over-particular, old-maidish. If that blot had been made by accident he would have written the page over again. It was made purposely. And so anxious was he that we should not overlook it, that he has fairly sprinkled the blank half-page below his signature with blots, trusting that we would then notice and study out the other one. Let us do it. 'After' the funeral oration, he said—but wait. You look, Mr. Beebe; look closely. Do you see anything else there? Pass your finger over it."
"I see and feel where he has twice thrust the pen through the paper," said Billy, changing color. "And I begin to see, and feel, and believe."
"You mean, doubtless, that you begin to believe and tremble," said George spitefully. "Now we will find what Antony says 'after' the oration, so well worth looking into. Gentlemen, the first words Shakspere puts into Antony's mouth after the funeral scene are these—and remember it is where the Triumvirs are proscribing senators to death, and that Thorpe was formerly a senator, if only a state senator—hear Mark Antony:
"These many, then, shall die; their names are prick'd."
"Pricked!" echoed George triumphantly. "He has denounced them—two of them—the two we know! Thorpe and Patterson. But perhaps that is a gross improbability—a mere coincidence. If anything is lacking to make the denunciation complete, terrible and compelling, it is now supplied. The next words Antony speaks"
"Wait a minute," said Pringle, eying Beebe. "Let's see if Billy can carry on your argument. Can you, Billy?"
Billy put a shaky finger on the blot. His voice was hoarse with passion.
"‘He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him!’"
"He shall not live," repeated Pringle, "this honorable senator—not if I have to strangle him with my bare hands!"
"I—I suppose you are right," gasped Leo, aghast. "But, suffering saints, he must think we are remarkable men to study out anything so obscure as all that. Why, there isn't one chance in a million for it!"
"Well—so we all are, just that kind of men," said George modestly, "even if some of us are chiefly remarkable for incredulity and—firmness. Obscure? Why, dear man, it had to be obscure! If it hadn't been obscure it would never have been allowed to reach us—I mean, of course, to reach Mrs. Bransford. And yet, in a way, it was neither so obscure nor so remarkable. In the first place, this is not a case of solving puzzles, with a nickel-plated Barlow knife for a prize, or a book for good little girls. This letter means something; it is the urgent call of a friend in need; we are friends indeed, grown-up men, and it is our business to find out what it means. We have to find out; a man's life is the prize—and more than that, as it turns out. He sent you to me as interpreter, not because he wanted Mr. Pringle to take orders from me, but for the one only reason that it was not obscure to me, and that he knew it would not be obscure to me. Do you notice that I did not have to turn to the play to verify the quotations? It is fresh in my mind and in his: we read it aloud together, we spouted it at each other, we used phrases of it instead of words to carry on ordinary conversation. Mr. Beebe here, when once he was on the right track, could supply the words for the most difficult of all the allusions, though he had probably not read the book for years."
"I ain't never read this Mr. Shakspere much, myself," said Pringle meditatively. "But oncet—'twas the first time I was ever in love—I read all that stuff of Tennyson's about King Arthur's 'Ten Knights in a Bar Room,' and I want to tell you that I couldn't even think of anything else for a month. So it seems mighty natural that Jeff, with his head full of this Shakspere party, would try that particular way of getting word to us, and no other. You spoke of a message for me, Mr. Aughinbaugh?"
"I did. Of a message sent in the knowledge that for all your daring, for all your devotedness, you may not be able to avert the threatened danger. In his desperate pass he sends to you, as if he spoke with you face to face for the last rime, the words of Brutus to his friend:
"‘Therefore, our everlasting farewell take:
Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made.’"
Silence fell upon them. Pringle went to the window and stood looking out at the night; the clock ticked loudly. Aughinbaugh, keeping his eyes on the blurred typewritten lines, went on:
"And the other message, of hope, and confidence, and trust, is this:
"‘My heart doth joy that yet, in all my life,
I found no man but he was true to me.’"
"All of which adds force to his injunction that when the society of good men and true come to his aid, they shall be careful to make no move so quick as to jeopardize Jeff. Q.E.D."
"Since the majority is plainly against me, and also since I am convinced myself, I'll give up," said Ballinger. "And the next thing plainly is, what are we going to do—or who are we going to do?"