21 The Meeting

I was vindicated in the eyes of the world, at least the official stamp had been put upon me, but I was a lonely and unhappy man. The regular session of the Legislature had not begun, life in Frankfort was not active, and in the evenings when the work of the day was over and I went from my office to the Governor’s house, silence and gloom hung over the old mansion. Seth exerted himself to cheer me up. His feeling that we shared the responsibilities of the State and that we were united more closely than ever by our former life together continued, and inspired him with a deepening attachment. During these days, although in a sense a servant, he was also a good friend.

Jimmy Warfield came often to Frankfort, on business before the Court of Appeals he would always say, though I suspect that he invented the pretext more than once and he unfailingly brought life, light and gayety with him. I invariably compelled him to stop with me, and his going always left Frankfort the darker. He was also my messenger from those in whom I was interested the most, and from him I learned that Alicia had gone back to her home in the country, taking her mother with her. The cold-hearted manœuvring Mrs. Warren who had so wretchedly mismade her daughter’s life seemed now to be totally eliminated. It was Alicia who dominated. Grey was in Louisville, Jimmy said, and he intimated once that Pauline Harmon had appeared again upon the scene.

December came and with it extremely cold weather, enclosing our little city in icy chains. Judge Wharton and I nevertheless continued our walks on the hills and he was, as of old, the most steadfast of friends, the relationship that he bore to me, still having a touch of the paternal. I learned much of him in those days, much of the government of men and of life. His quiet sympathy and encouragement were a continued source of strength to me, nor did Peden, the Lieutenant Governor, my old ally of the Legislature, waver a particle in his friendship. Yet as Warfield and the Judge had told me and as I foresaw I encountered, despite my position, many slights and sneers, and I knew that I should encounter more. It was a matter that could be left only to “silence and slow time.”

In the second week of the month I was called to Louisville on business connected with two or three of the State institutions in that city and I took the train for the metropolis on an exceedingly cold day. The rails creaked under the car wheels, the surface of the river was a glittering sheet of ice as we crossed and the forest that covers the hills around Frankfort bent to an Arctic wind.

There were few in the train and occasionally a passenger recognizing me came to me and introduced himself. Invariably they showed respect, a respect that I wanted because of the position that I held, and the exhibition of it now was very grateful to my mind. I had resolved that so long as I was the Governor of Kentucky, chosen by the people, I should be treated as such, and the longer I fought for my honor and my honors the better I liked the fight.

We came into Louisville in the early winter twilight, the lights of the city showing warm, red and hospitable through the chilly dusk. The railroad station was almost deserted and turning up the collar of my heavy overcoat I hurried out in search of a carriage in which I was quickly taken to the largest hotel. The clerk gave me his usual lofty salute as I registered, inquired gravely about the health of Frankfort and said: “An excellent front room for you, Governor, the same that you have always had. I’ve just sent up your baggage.”

I turned away, intending to enter the reading room, where I would write a letter or two, but was stopped by several people who knew me, and I exchanged greetings with them. The large lobby was a warm-hued, cheerful place, and I was not loth to linger, because I like light and warmth.

As I talked with my friends I saw a man come out of the cafe, one door of which opens into the lobby and even before his face was disclosed I knew by the swing of his thick shoulders that it was Grey. At first I felt a deep sensation of regret that he should be there, thinking he would pick a quarrel with me, but he seemed to take no notice of my presence, lighting a cigar at the stand, staring a few minutes out of the window at the street and then going back into the cafe. His face, red and inflamed, had become brutalized and sensualized to the last degree.

One of my friends, seeing Grey, made a significant gesture by spreading out his hand and then dropping it by degrees; it meant, “sinking lower and lower,” and I understood.

A chance meeting in a hotel lobby may seem a small thing, but I had been in semi-isolation so long that I enjoyed the presence of my friends and their talk, and I lingered. A little group gathered around me and while we stood there, a striking figure entered by the front door. It was Harrison, thin to gauntness, but with the air of ease and distinction that always marked him. He came directly to me, saying: “I did not know that you were in Louisville, Mr. Clarke, but I am glad to see you,” and he held out his hand. Despite my belief that he had done much to injure me I took the hand and returned his grasp. There was good in Harrison, mixed with the evil, and no one could deny his charm of personality. He remained in our group a little while, joining incidentally in the talk, and then, making his excuses, sauntered off toward the reading room.

I changed my mind about writing the letters and went up to my own room which was on the next floor, but not being sleepy at all I sat down by the window looking out but not looking at anything. I was affected by my meeting with Harrison and Grey on the same evening, but it was not strange, as men of their temper were likely to be about the hotel. But it seemed to me that wherever I went I was likely in some way or another to meet them, and that their lives had become interwoven permanently with mine.

I had left my door open and in the hall outside the usual dim lights burned. From the lobby below came now and then the faint noise of talk and laugh, making a steady and pleasing hum in my ears, but I do not know how long I sat there, until suddenly the soft murmur ceased, making the silence by contrast painful. Then came a sharp, terrible sound, breaking the silence, the report of a pistol shot, and after it a cry that I knew, a cry that any one would know, though he had never heard it before. It was the death cry of a man struck down by a bullet.

Every nerve in me thrilled with horror, and for a moment, I sat motionless. Then I sprang to my feet, and ran into the hall, thence down the great stair-case to the lobby. The place was deserted. The clerk had left his desk and the loungers were gone. All were crowding into the cafe, and I followed them to witness a ghastly sight. The first thing that caught my eyes was the spectacle of a heavy, red-faced man shoved violently against the wall, and held there by a half dozen barkeepers, porters and night watchmen. A revolver had been taken from his hand by one of the porters. Another man lay upon the floor, and a dark clot of blood had gathered upon his light waistcoat.

I ran to Harrison, the fallen man, and knelt beside him. His face, as pale as the death that was so near, was distorted into a kind of grin, but I felt only an overwhelming sense of horror. He knew me and the thought that was in his mind came at once to the surface.

“You are the victor again, Mr. Clarke,” he gasped in tones, so low that I only heard him. “I’ll soon be out of your way and when Grey hangs he’ll be out of it too. And to think that he has killed me, not because of his wife, but for the sake of a str—”

He was interrupted by a fit of coughing and the blood rose to his lips. When the spasm ceased he said:

“I want to tell you that I did not reveal your identity with Charlie Johnson. I knew your secret or rather I divined it, but I could not fight you in quite that way. It was Connor who worked up the proof and made the campaign against you.”

“I might have guessed it!” I exclaimed. “I wronged you there! But you will get over this!”

My feeling of horror was succeeded by a personal grief. I did not want him to die, although I knew, and he knew, that he was going fast. Now he seemed almost like a friend who was slipping away. I lifted up his head, and when he died five minutes later, he died with his head on my arm. Death, I am convinced, has no terrors for those who are face to face with it, and when Harrison passed, the old simile of a little child going to sleep came back to me.

I laid his head back upon the floor and then rising I turned my attention to his slayer. The police had come and he stood handcuffed between two officers. My eyes met his squarely, and I have never before seen such a look of mingled savagery, terror and despair on a man’s face. The hour had struck for George Grey, and he knew he had committed murder for a woman of unclean name. Yet his eyes made a kind of appeal to me, but I turned away with an uncontrollable shudder of repulsion and disgust,

They seemed to pay a deference to me and to await my order or suggestion because I was the Governor of the State, but I merely said to the policemen, “Take him to jail at once,” and the grim procession moved away.

“It was practically an assassination,” said one of the barkeepers as they went out at the door—he had been a witness of the scene and he knew whereof he spoke.

The body of Harrison was carried to his home and the city thrilled with the most sensational tragedy of its generation. Perhaps I did not realize how much it involved until I read the newspapers the next morning, because into the accounts came not only the names of Grey and Harrison, but Pauline Harmon’s, Alicia’s and mine. Again was the fair fame of Alicia blown upon, but only by indirect suggestion and the inference was so weak that it must soon fall to the ground. Far down one of the columns in the most sensational journal occurred the insinuation that after Grey was hanged the Governor would marry his widow.

When I read this sentence the paper fell from my hand and fluttered to the floor. As God is my witness this thought had never come to me, that I should profit by the murder of one man and the execution of another, and I rejected it now with horror. I would not win Alicia in such a way and she would not have herself won in such a way. Surely fate was making its grimmest jest of her.

I took the most conservative of the newspapers, carefully reread the account and the editorial comment upon it. It was well known, said the paper, that Grey was insanely jealous of Harrison, because of a beautiful woman of a reputation none too good, but no quarrel had immediately preceded the murder. Grey had caught sight of Harrison in the cafe and by a sudden murderous impulse had snatched out his pistol and killed him. The editorial comment was of a general nature, not mentioning Grey’s name, but speaking of Kentucky’s reputation for a too free use of weapons, and demanding the enforcement of the laws, a demand with which I was bound to agree. I think that throughout our union the crime of murder is far too common and is far too little punished, and, stripping myself of all personal interest, and looking at the crime of Grey in cold blood, it seemed to me of a character that could not easily be more atrocious. I knew well that it would give the whole State a shock of horror.

My next news, that is, direct personal news, came from Jimmy Warfield. He seemed to divine that I would be eager for details of a kind not to be found in the newspapers, and I have never known another man so ready and skillful in the service of his friends. He returned to me in the afternoon and he was very grave.

“I do not know anything that has stirred the State so much as this murder,” he said. “Harrison was conspicuous, powerful, and he had many friends, and Grey cannot enter the plea of self defense. I do not think that all his money will save him. I understand that he is in a state of complete collapse.”

“What about Pauline Harmon?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he replied. “I think she is in this city, but she certainly has not been to see Grey.”

He paused and gave me an odd glance.

“But some one else has,” he said.

“I knew that she would,” I said.

“Yes, George Grey’s wife came at once, from her country home. She had not spoken to him in months as you know, but she did not forget that she was his wife, in law at, least. She tried to persuade herself that it might have been self defense. She went to his cell and sought to encourage him and she has promised to do everything possible under the sun to save him. A woman can do much.”

Yes, a woman can do much in our State before impulsive and sentimental juries, and I had divined that Alicia would come to the help of George Grey. It was like her high strung sense of honor and duty. This man, murderer that he was, and though she had never loved him, was her husband, and her strong, almost sacred, sense of loyalty would compel her to stand by him to the last. I could not blame her. It was the Alicia that I knew, and knowing her so well I knew that she would take no other course. But she would be pilloried again before the public, and though clothed in her armor of the spirit she might be indifferent, I could not even pretend to stoicism. I wished to go to her, I wished to see her, and to hear her speak, but I was the one person in the world who would serve her best by staying away from her, and late the same afternoon I took the train for the Capital.

I shall not dwell upon the days that followed, when the trial of the famous Grey case was agitating the State, because it was a black period to me, and those who wish the details have only to look at the files of the newspapers for that time. They will find there all that happened, stated in its most highly-colored form, but I tried to shut my eyes to the lurid picture and to see only its essential facts. There was a movement at one time to call me as a witness, as I had entered the cafe so close upon the murder, but the Judge ruled that it was unnecessary, and I was spared.

I sought to bury myself in work in Frankfort, but the case in Louisville was always before me. I sent messages of faith and hope to Alicia by Guthrie and Warfield and I heard from them of her unlimited devotion. She was still seeking to convince herself that Harrison had made the first attack, and her courage and spirit almost galvanized Grey into the semblance of a man. Pauline Harmon was put once upon the stand and her black eyes shot hate at Grey. Her testimony was distinctly against him.

Grey had great wealth and many powerful relatives and friends, and he made a desperate fight. He employed the most skilled criminal lawyers that the State affords and they used every technicality and evasion allowed by the law. But the plain facts of the murder were there. It was an assassination because of jealousy and the jealousy was for a woman not his wife. The overwhelming tide of public opinion was against Grey. Murder was too common, and the public conscience was ashamed and aroused. So gross a case as this should be punished, and the jury after brief deliberation brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree with the punishment of death. An appeal was taken at once, but the judges who sat then on our highest bench were a stern set of men, and it was known in advance with absolute certainty that the appeal would be rejected.

Grey’s fate seemed sealed and despite myself—I write it here with shame—I felt a thrill of joy. Alicia would be a widow and I might yet win her honestly and fairly, as a man should win a woman. But the thrill soon passed, as it passed in the first instance in Louisville, when I recognized the facts. Alicia would not be won in any such way, and I could do nothing now, but wait and let events occur without me. Little I knew the problem that was soon to be set before me. We were now in the depths of winter and the Legislature had convened again, forcing from me the utmost attention, although my mind, in spite of itself, would wander elsewhere. I was oppressed, too, by a question that grew more serious from day to day. As soon as Grey was convicted I was besieged with petitions for his pardon. The Governor of the State may pardon any criminal he chooses, and he need not give any reason unless he choose.

All of Grey’s great wealth was exerted in his behalf, and it raised up for him many friends who were willing to work to save him. The petitions poured in to me, and delegations came to see me. Often their suggestions became personal. I was reminded by indirection that I myself was none too white, I, too, had a black past; it was intimated to me more than once that I probably had my own share in this tragedy, gossip had credited me with the love of George Grey’s wife—that scene in the hall could never be forgotten—and it was not the worst thing in the world that a man losing his wife should turn to another woman. Mercy had been shown to me, then why should not I show it to another, when now of all times it would so well become me? Something was said about him who was without sin throwing the first stone. It was urged that Grey was in a state of intoxication, mentally irresponsible, and that Harrison himself was full of blame.

I listened to all the speeches, I read all the petitions, I passed over the slurs upon myself and the insinuations against my motives and I always shook my head. If I could have spoken for myself alone I should have pardoned him, because he was Alicia Grey’s husband, and because I loved Alicia Grey. But I was the Governor of the State, and it was an atrocious murder, it seemed to me absolutely without palliation and a jury had so said. I must say so too.

But it cost me many terrible moments, gossip and a portion of the press raked up my past again, the hideous tale that I would profit by this man’s execution was started and grew. Once again I was a storm centre, but Guthrie and Warfield and Judge Wharton, men to whom I could speak my intimate thoughts, counselled me to stand firm, and I refused to yield. Moreover, the bulk of the State was behind me.

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