“Come on, Phil.”
“Hold it, Laura. I can’t resist showing our fearless young journalist his triumph of accuracy. Look, Johnny.” He took the paper from her and pointed to an inside page. “Your account of Old Man Herkimer’s funeral: ‘Today under the old oaks of Mountain View Cemetery, the last rites of Josephus R. Herkimer, 17, of this city—’ ” He laughed. “The old boy ought to enjoy that posthumous youth.”
“Seventeen, seventy-seven!” MacVeagh snorted. “If that’s all that’s gone wrong in that edition, I’m a miracle man. But, Laura—”
“You’re quite right, Mr. MacVeagh. There are far worse things wrong with that edition than the misprint that amuses Philip.”
“Will you be home tonight?” he said with harsh abruptness.
“For you, Mr. MacVeagh, I shall never be home. Good day.”
Philip followed her. He looked over his shoulder once and grinned, never knowing how close his pallid profile came to being smashed forever.
Chief Hanby was frowning miserably as MacVeagh came into the office. The delicate smoke of his cigar indicated one far above his usual standard—it was easy to guess its source—but he wasn’t enjoying it.
“ ‘Render therefore unto Caesar,’ ” he said, “ ‘the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.’ Matthew, twenty-two, twenty-one. Only who knows which is which?”
“Troubles, Chief?” MacVeagh asked.
Chief Hanby had a copy of the extra on his desk. His hand touched it almost reverently as he spoke. “He went to see you, John?”
“Yeah.”
“And still you printed this? You’re a brave man, John, a brave man.”
“You’re no coward yourself, Chief. Remember when Nose O’Leary escaped from the state pen and decided Grover’d make a nice hide-out?”
The chief’s eyes glowed with the memory of that past exploit. “But that was different, John. A man can maybe risk his life when he can’t risk— I’ll tell you this much: I’m not talking to you, not right now. Nothing’s settled, nothing’s ripe, I don’t know a thing. But I’m still groping. And I’m not going to stop groping. And if I grope out an answer to anything—whatever the answer is, you’ll get it.”
MacVeagh thrust out his hand. “I couldn’t ask fairer than that, Chief. We both want the truth, and between us we’ll get it.”
Chief Hanby looked relieved. “I wouldn’t blame H. A. too much, John. Remember, he’s under a strain. These labor troubles are getting him, and with the election coming up at the plant—”
“And whose fault are the troubles? Father Byrne’s committee suggested a compromise and a labor-management plan. The men were willing enough—”
“Even they aren’t any more. Not since Bricker took over. We’ve all got our troubles. Take Jake Willis, now— Why, speak of the devil!”
The coroner looked as though he could easily take a prize for worried expressions away from even MacVeagh and the chief. The greeting didn’t help it. He said, “There’s too much loose talk about devils. It’s as barbarous as swearing by God.” But his heart wasn’t in his conventional protest.
“What is the matter, Jake?” the chief asked. “You aren’t worried just on account of you’ve got an inquest coming up, are you?”
“No, it ain’t that—” His eyes rested distrustfully on MacVeagh.
“Off the record,” said the editor. “You’ve my word.”
“All right, only— No. It ain’t no use. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you . . . Either of you going back past my establishment?”
The chief was tied to his office. But John MacVeagh went along, his curiosity stimulated. His questions received no answers. Jake Willis simply plodded along South Street like a man ridden by the devils in which he refused to believe.
And what, MacVeagh asked himself, would Jake think of a tramp printer who claimed to grant wishes? For the matter of that, what do I think— But there was too much else going on for him to spare much thought for Whalen Smith.
Jake Willis led the way past his assistant without a nod, on back into the chapel. There was a casket in place there, duly embanked with floral tributes. The folding chairs were set up; there was a Bible on the lectern and music on the organ. The stage was completely set for a funeral, and MacVeagh remembered about Old Man Herkimer.
“They’re due here at three thirty,” Jake whined. “And how’ll I dare show it to ’em? I don’t know how it happened. Jimmy, he swears he don’t know a thing neither. God knows!” he concluded in a despairing rejection of his skepticism.
“It is Old Man Herkimer?”
“It ought to be. That’s what I put in there yesterday, Old Man Herkimer’s body. And I go to look at it today and—”
The face plate of the coffin was closed. “I’m going to have to leave it that way,” he said. “I can’t let ’em see— I’ll have to tell ’em confidential-like that he looked too— I don’t know. I’ll have to think of something.”
He opened up the plate. MacVeagh looked in. It was a Herkimer, all right. There was no mistaking the wide-set eyes and thin lips of that clan. But Old Man Herkimer, as the original copy for the item in the extra had read, was seventy-seven when he died. The boy in the coffin—
“Don’t look a day over seventeen, does he?” said Jake Willis.
“Father Byrne,” said John MacVeagh, “I’m asking you this, not as a priest, but as the best-read scholar in Grover: Do miracles happen?”
Father Byrne smiled. “It’s hard not to reply as a priest; but I’ll try. Do miracles happen? By dictionary definition, I’ll say yes; certainly.” He crossed the study to the stand that held the large unabridged volume. “Here’s what Webster calls a miracle: An event or effect in the physical world beyond or out of the ordinary course of things, deviating from the known laws of nature, or,’ and this should be put in italics, ’or transcending our knowledge of those
