Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/76

 last of all, Julia Shane, her old eyes lighted by a strange new spark and her thin lips framed in an ironic smile of triumph.

The carriage appeared and the two visitors climbed in and were driven away on sagging springs across the soot-covered snow. When they had gone, the mother summoned Lily inte the library, closed the door and then sat down, her thin smile growing at the same time into a wicked chuckle.

"They've been caught . . . the pair of them," she said. "And Cousin Charlie did it. . . . They've been trying to get me to call him off."

Lily regarded her mother with eyebrows drawn together in a little frown. Plainly she was puzzled. "But how Cousin Charlie?" she asked. "How has he caught them?"

The mother set herself to explaining the whole story. She went back to the very beginning. "Cousin Charlie, you know, is county treasurer. It was Judge Weissman who elected him. The Jew is powerful. Cousin Charlie wouldn't have had a chance but for him. Judge Weissman only backed him because he thought he'd take orders. But he hasn't. That's where the trouble is. That's why they're worried now. He won't do what Judge Weissman tells him to do!"

Here she paused, permitting herself to laugh again at the discomfiture of her early morning callers. So genuine was her mirthful satisfaction that for an instant, the guise of the worldly woman vanished and through the mask showed the farm girl John Shane had married thirty years before.

"You see," she continued, "in going through the books, Cousin Charlie discovered that the Cyclops Mills owe the county about five hundred thousand dollars in back taxes. He's sued to recover the money together with the fines, and he cannot lose. Judge Weissman and Mrs. Harrison have just discovered that and they've come to me to call him off because he is set on recovering the money. He's refused to take orders. You see, it hits their . The man who was treasurer before Cousin Charlie has disappeared neatly. There's a pretty scandal somewhere. Even if it doesn't come out, the Harrisons and Judge Weissman will lose a few hundred thousands. The Jew owns a lot of stock, you know."

The old woman pounded the floor with her ebony stick as