After giving his order he ran hastily through the local news in the
papers. There was no mention of the arrest of one Thomas Gryson in any
of the police notes, and he breathed freer. But in _The Plainsman_ there
was an editorial which was vaguely disturbing. Blenkinsop, who wrote his
own leaders, hinted pointedly at coming disclosures which would change
the political map of the State for all time. Blount, trying to determine
how much or how little the editorial was based upon his talk with the
editor on the Wednesday night, found his omelet tasteless. Ready enough,
as he was persuaded, to fire the disrupting mine with his own hand, he
was not ready to surrender the match to any one else. Manifestly he must
see Blenkinsop and caution him.
Breakfast over, he walked, by the longest way around, to his office in
the Temple Court, hoping to find work which would help him through the
forenoon. It was an idle hope. From a State-wide shower of political
correspondence the daily mail had dropped suddenly to an inconsequential
drizzle, and there were no callers. Here, again, he saw, or thought he
saw, the all-powerful hand of the machine. He had been used for a
purpose, the purpose of hoodwinking and deceiving the voters. That
purpose having been served, he was to be dropped--was already dropped,
as it seemed. By noon the sheer time-killing effort became blankly
unbearable, and in desperation he broke with another of the ideals--the
one labelled sincerity--and going boldly to the Inter-Mountain he waited
in the lobby for the family party of three to come down to the
one-o'clock luncheon in the public _cafe_.
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