Part 12

What had he to be afraid of, anyway? They hadn’t a single thing on him, and there was no possible way they could get anything. His hands were clean all the way thru, and all he had to do was to stick it out; he must make up his mind in advance, that no matter what happened, he would never break down, he would never vary from the story he had rehearsed with her. She made him go over the story again; how on the previous evening, at the gathering in the I. W. W. headquarters, they had talked about killing Nelse Ackerman as a means of bringing the war to an end. And after the talk he had heard Joe Angell whisper to Jerry Rudd that he had the makings of a bomb already; he had a suit-case full of dynamite stored there in the closet, and he and Pat McCormick had been planning to pull off something that very night. Peter had gone out, but had watched outside, and had seen Angell, Henderson, Rudd and Gus come out. Peter had noticed that Angell’s pockets were stuffed, and had assumed that they were going to do their dynamiting, so he had phoned to McGivney from the drug-store. By this phoning he had missed the crowd, and then he had been ashamed and afraid to tell McGivney, and had spent the night wandering in the park. But early in the morning he had found the note, and had understood that it must have been slipped into his pocket, and that the conspirators wanted him to come in on their scheme. That was all, except for three or four sentences or fragments of sentences which Peter had overheard between Joe Angell and Jerry Rudd. Nell made him learn these sentences by heart, and she insisted that he must not under any circumstances try to remember or be persuaded to remember anything further.

At last Peter was adjudged ready for the ordeal, and went to Room 427 in the American House, and threw himself on the bed. He was so exhausted that once or twice he dozed; but then he would think of some new question that McGivney might ask him, and would start into wakefulness. At last he heard a key turn, and started up. There entered one of the detectives, a man named Hammett. “Hello, Gudge,” said he. “The boss wants you to get arrested.”

“Arrested!” exclaimed Peter. “Good Lord!” He had a sudden swift vision of himself shut up in a cell with those Reds, and forced to listen to “hard luck stories.”

“Well,” said Hammett, “we’re arresting all the Reds, and if we skip you, they’ll be suspicious. You better go somewhere right away and get caught.”

Peter saw the wisdom of this, and after a little thought he chose the home of Miriam Yankovitch. She was a real Red, and didn’t like him; but if he was arrested in her home, she would have to like him, and it would tend to make him “solid” with the “left wingers.” He gave the address to Hammett, and added, “You better come as soon as you can, because she may kick me out of the house.”

“That’s all right,” replied the other, with a laugh. “Tell her the police are after you, and ask her to hide you.”

So Peter hurried over to the Jewish quarter of the city, and knocked on a door in the top story of a tenement house. The door was opened by a stout woman with her sleeves rolled up and her arms covered with soap-suds. Yes, Miriam was in. She was out of a job just now, said Mrs. Yankovitch. They had fired her because she talked Socialism. Miriam entered the room, giving the unexpected visitor a cold stare that said as plain as words: “Jennie Todd!”

But this changed at once when Peter told her that he had been to I. W. W. headquarters and found the police in charge. They had made a raid, and claimed to have discovered some kind of plot; fortunately Peter had seen the crowd outside, and had got away. Miriam took him into an inside room and asked him a hundred questions which he could not answer. He knew nothing, except that he had been to a meeting at headquarters the night before, and this morning he had gone there to get a book, and had seen the crowd and run.

Half an hour later came a bang on the door, and Peter dived under the bed. The door was burst open, and he heard angry voices commanding, and vehement protests from Miriam and her mother. To judge from the sounds, the men began throwing the furniture this way and that; suddenly a hand came under the bed, and Peter was grabbed by the ankle, and hauled forth to confront four policemen in uniform.

It was an awkward situation, because apparently these policemen hadn’t been told that Peter was a spy; the boobs thought they were getting a real dynamiter! One grabbed each of Peter’s wrists, and another kept him and Miriam covered with a revolver, while the fourth proceeded to go thru his pockets, looking for bombs. When they didn’t find any, they seemed vexed, and shook him and hustled him about, and made clear they would be glad of some pretext to batter in his head. Peter was careful not to give them such a pretext; he was frightened and humble, and kept declaring that he didn’t know anything, he hadn’t done any harm.

“We’ll see about that, young fellow!” said the officer, as he snapped the handcuffs on Peter’s wrists. Then, while one of them remained on guard with the revolver, the other three proceeded to ransack the place, pulling out the bureau-drawers and kicking the contents this way and that, grabbing every scrap of writing they could find and jamming it into a couple of suit-cases. There were books with red bindings and terrifying titles, but no bombs, and no weapons more dangerous than a carving knife and Miriam’s tongue. The girl stood there with her black eyes flashing lightnings, and told the police exactly what she thought of them. She didn’t know what had happened in the I. W. W. headquarters, but she knew that whatever it was, it was a frame-up, and she dared them to arrest her, and almost succeeded in her fierce purpose. However, the police contented themselves with kicking over the washtub and its contents, and took their departure, leaving Mrs. Yankovitch screaming in the midst of a flood.

Section 46

They dragged Peter out thru a swarming tenement crowd, and clapped him into an automobile, and whirled him away to police headquarters, where they entered him in due form and put him in a cell. He was uneasy right away, because he had failed to arrange with Hammett how long he was to stay locked up. But barely an hour had passed before a jailer came, and took him to a private room, where he found himself confronted by McGivney and Hammett, also the Chief of Police of the city, a deputy district attorney, and last but most important of all--Guffey. It was the head detective of the Traction Trust who took Peter in charge.

“Now, Gudge,” said he, “what’s this job you’ve been putting up on us?”

It struck Peter like a blow in the face. His heart went down, his jaw dropped, he stared like an idiot. Good God!

But he remembered Nell’s last solemn words: “Stick it out, Peter; stick it out!” So he cried: “What do you mean, Mr. Guffey?”

“Sit down in that chair there,” said Guffey. “Now, tell us what you know about this whole business. Begin at the beginning and tell us everything--every word.” So Peter began. He had been at a meeting at the I. W. W. headquarters the previous evening. There had been a long talk about the inactivity of the organization, and what could be done to oppose the draft. Peter detailed the arguments, the discussion of violence, of dynamite and killing, the mention of Nelse Ackerman and the other capitalists who were to be put out of the way. He embellished all this, and exaggerated it greatly--it being the one place where Nell had said he could do no harm by exaggerating.

Then he told how after the meeting had broken up he had noticed several of the men whispering among themselves. By pretending to be getting a book from the bookcase he had got close to Joe Angell and Jerry Rudd; he had heard various words and fragments of sentences, “dynamite,” “suit-case in the cupboard,” “Nelse,” and so on. And when the crowd went out he noticed that Angell’s pockets were bulging, and assumed that he had the bombs, and that they were going to do the job. He rushed to the drug-store and phoned McGivney. It took a long time to get McGivney, and when he had given his message and run out again, the crowd was out of sight. Peter was in despair, he was ashamed to confront McGivney, he wandered about the streets for hours looking for the crowd. He spent the rest of the night in the park. But then in the morning he discovered the piece of paper in his pocket, and understood that somebody had slipped it to him, intending to invite him to the conspiracy; so he had notified McGivney, and that was all he knew.

McGivney began to cross-question him. He had heard Joe Angell talking to Jerry Rudd; had he heard him talking to anybody else? Had he heard any of the others talking? Just what had he heard Joe Angell say? Peter must repeat every word all over. This time, as instructed by Nell, he remembered one sentence more, and repeated this sentence: “Mac put it in the `sab-cat.’” He saw the others exchange glances. “That’s just what I heard,” said Peter--“just those words. I couldn’t figure out what they meant?”

“Sab-cat?” said the Chief of Police, a burly figure with a brown moustache and a quid of tobacco tucked in the corner of his mouth. “That means `sabotage,’ don’t it?”

“Yes,” said the rat-faced man.

“Do you know anything in the office that has to do with sabotage?” demanded Guffey of Peter.

And Peter thought. “No, I don’t,” he said.

They talked among themselves for a minute or two. The Chief said they had got all McCormick’s things out of his room, and might find some clue to the mystery in these. Guffey went to the telephone, and gave a number with which Peter was familiar--that of I. W. W. headquarters. “That you, Al?” he said. “We’re trying to find if there’s something in those rooms that has to do with sabotage. Have you found anything--any apparatus or pictures, or writing--anything?” Evidently the answer was in the negative, for Guffey said: “Go ahead, look farther; if you get anything, call me at the chief’s office quick. It may give us a lead.”

Then Guffey hung up the receiver and turned to Peter. “Now Gudge,” he said, “that’s all your story, is it; that’s all you got to tell us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well then, you might as well quit your fooling right away. We understand that you framed this thing up, and we’re not going to be taken in.”

Peter stared at Guffey, speechless; and Guffey, for his part, took a couple of steps toward Peter, his brows gathering into a terrible frown, and his fists clenched. In a wave of sickening horror Peter remembered the scenes after the Preparedness Day explosion. Were they going to put him thru that again?

“We’ll have a show-down, Gudge, right here,” the head detective continued. “You tell us all this stuff about Angell--his talk with Jerry Rudd, and his pockets stuffed with bombs and all the rest of it--and he denies every word of it.”

“But, m-m-my God! Mr. Guffey,” gasped Peter. “Of _course_ he’ll deny it!” Peter could hardly believe his ears--that they were taking seriously the denial of a dynamiter, and quoting it to him!

“Yes, Gudge,” responded Guffey, “but you might as well know the truth now as later--Angell is one of our men; we’ve had him planted on these `wobblies’ for the last year.”

The bottom fell out of Peter’s world; Peter went tumbling heels over head--down, down into infinite abysses of horror and despair. Joe Angell was a secret agent like himself! The Blue-eyed Angell, who talked dynamite and assassination at a hundred radical gatherings, who shocked the boldest revolutionists by his reckless language--Angell a spy, and Peter had proceeded to plant a “frame-up” on him!

Section 47

It was all up with Peter. He would go back into the hole! He would be tortured for the balance of his days! In his ears rang the shrieks of ten thousand lost souls and the clang of ten thousand trumpets of doom; and yet, in the midst of all the noise and confusion, Peter managed somehow to hear the voice of Nell, whispering over and over again: “Stick it out, Peter; stick it out!”

He flung out his hands and started toward his accuser. “Mr. Guffey, as God is my witness, I don’t know a thing about it but what I’ve told you. That’s what happened, and if Joe Angell tells you anything different he’s lying.”

“But why should he lie?”

“I don’t know why; I don’t know anything about it!”

Here was where Peter reaped the advantage of his lifelong training as an intriguer. In the midst of all his fright and his despair, Peter’s subconscious mind was working, thinking of schemes. “Maybe Angell was framing something up on you! Maybe he was fixing some plan of his own, and I come along and spoiled it; I sprung it too soon. But I tell you it’s straight goods I’ve given you.” And Peter’s very anguish gave him the vehemence to check Guffey’s certainty. As he rushed on, Peter could read in the eyes of the detective that he wasn’t really as sure as he talked.

“Did you see that suit-case?” he demanded.

“No, I didn’t see no suit-case!” answered Peter. “I don’t even know if there was a suit-case. I only know I heard Joe Angell say `suit-case,’ and I heard him say `dynamite.’”

“Did you see anybody writing anything in the place?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Peter. “But I seen Henderson sitting at the table working at some papers he had in his pocket, and I seen him tear something up and throw it into the trash-basket.” Peter saw the others look at one another, and he knew that he was beginning to make headway.

A moment later came a diversion that helped to save him. The telephone rang, and the Chief of Police answered and nodded to Guffey, who came and took the receiver. “A book?” he cried, with excitement in his tone. “What sort of a plan? Well, tell one of your men to take the car and bring that book and the plan here to the chief’s office as quick as he can move; don’t lose a moment, everything may depend on it.”

And then Guffey turned to the others. “He says they found a book on sabotage in the book-case, and in it there’s some kind of a drawing of a house. The book has McCormick’s name in it.”

There were many exclamations over this, and Peter had time to think before the company turned upon him again. The Chief of Police now questioned him, and then the deputy of the district attorney questioned him; still he stuck to his story. “My God!” he cried. “Would you think I’d be mad enough to frame up a job like this? Where’d I get all that stuff? Where’d I get that dynamite?”--Peter almost bit off his tongue as he realized the dreadful slip he had made. No one had ever told him that the suit-case actually contained dynamite! How had he known there was dynamite in it? He was desperately trying to think of some way he could have heard; but, as it happened, no one of the five men caught him up. They all knew that there was dynamite in the suit-case; they knew it with overwhelming and tremendous certainty, and they overlooked entirely the fact that Peter wasn’t supposed to know it. So close to the edge of ruin can a man come and yet escape!

Peter made haste to get away from that danger-spot. “Does Joe Angell deny that he was whispering to Jerry Rudd?”

“He doesn’t remember that,” said Guffey. “He may have talked with him apart, but nothing special, there wasn’t any conspiracy.”

“Does he deny that he talked about dynamite?”

“They may have talked about it in the general discussion, but he didn’t whisper anything.”

“But I heard him!” cried Peter, whose quick wits had thought up a way of escape, “I know what I heard! It was just before they were leaving, and somebody had turned out some of the lights. He was standing with his back to me, and I went over to the book-case right behind him.”

Here the deputy district attorney put in. He was a young man, a trifle easier to fool than the others. “Are you sure it was Joe Angell?” he demanded.

“My God! Of course it was!” said Peter. “I couldn’t have been mistaken.” But he let his voice die away, and a note of bewilderment be heard in it.

“You say he was whispering?”

“Yes, he was whispering.”

“But mightn’t it have been somebody else?”

“Why, I don’t know what to say,” said Peter. “I thought for sure it was Joe Angell; but I had my back turned, I’d been talking to Grady, the secretary, and then I turned around and moved over to the book-case.”

“How many men were there in the room?”

“About twenty, I guess.”

“Were the lights turned off before you turned around, or after?”

“I don’t remember that; it might have been after.” And suddenly poor bewildered Peter cried: “It makes me feel like a fool. Of course I ought to have talked to the fellow, and made sure it was Joe Angell before I turned away again; but I thought sure it was him. The idea it could be anybody else never crossed my mind.”

“But you’re sure it was Jerry Rudd that was talking to him?”

“Yes, it was Jerry Rudd, because his face was toward me.”

“Was it Rudd or was it the other fellow that made the reply about the `sab-cat’?” And then Peter was bewildered and tied himself up, and led them into a long process of cross-questioning; and in the middle of it came the detective, bringing the book on sabotage with McCormick’s name written in the fly-leaf, and with the ground plan of a house between the pages.

They all crowded around to look at the plan, and the idea occurred to several of them at once: Could it be Nelse Ackerman’s house? The Chief of Police turned to his phone, and called up the great banker’s secretary. Would he please describe Mr. Ackerman’s house; and the chief listened to the description. “There’s a cross mark on this plan--the north side of the house, a little to the west of the center. What could that be?” Then, “My God!” And then, “Will you come down here to my office right away and bring the architect’s plan of the house so we can compare them?” The Chief turned to the others, and said, “That cross mark in the house is the sleeping porch on the second floor where Mr. Ackerman sleeps!”

So then they forgot for a while their doubts about Peter. It was fascinating, this work of tracing out the details of the conspiracy, and fitting them together like a picture puzzle. It seemed quite certain to all of them that this insignificant and scared little man whom they had been examining could never have prepared so ingenious and intricate a design. No, it must really be that some master mind, some devilish intriguer was at work to spread red ruin in American City!

Section 48

They dismissed Peter for the present, sending him back to his cell. He stayed there for two days with no one to advise him, and no hint as to his fate. They did not allow newspapers in the jail, but they had left Peter his money, and so on the second day he succeeded in bribing one of his keepers and obtaining a copy of the American City “Times,” with all the details of the amazing sensation spread out on the front page.

For thirty years the “Times” had been standing for law and order against all the forces of red riot and revolution; for thirty years the “Times” had been declaring that labor leaders and walking delegates and Socialists and Anarchists were all one and the same thing, and all placed their reliance fundamentally upon one instrument, the dynamite bomb. Here at last the “Times” was vindicated, this was the “Times” great day! They had made the most of it, not merely on the front page, but on two other pages, with pictures of all the conspicuous conspirators, including Peter, and pictures of the I. W. W. headquarters, and the suit-case, and the sticks of dynamite and the fuses and the clock; also of the “studio” in which the Reds had been trapped, and of Nikitin, the Russian anarchist who owned this den. Also there were columns of speculation about the case, signed statements and interviews with leading clergymen and bankers, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the secretary of the Real Estate Exchange. Also there was a two-column, double-leaded editorial, pointing out how the “Times” had been saying this for thirty years, and not failing to connect up the case with the Goober case, and the Lackman case, and the case of three pacifist clergymen who had been arrested several days before for attempting to read the Sermon on the Mount at a public meeting.

And Peter knew that he, Peter Gudge, had done all this! The forces of law and order owed it all to one obscure little secret service agent! Peter would get no credit, of course; the Chief of Police and the district attorney were issuing solemn statements, taking the honors to themselves, and with never one hint that they owed anything to the secret service department of the Traction Trust. That was necessary, of course; for the sake of appearances it had to be pretended that the public authorities were doing the work, exercising their legal functions in due and regular form. It would never do to have the mob suspect that these activities were being financed and directed by the big business interests of the city. But all the same, it made Peter sore! He and McGivney and the rest of Guffey’s men had a contempt for the public officials, whom they regarded as “pikers”; the officials had very little money to spend, and very little power. If you really wanted to get anything done in America, you didn’t go to any public official, you went to the big men of affairs, the ones who had the “stuff,” and were used to doing things quickly and efficiently. It was the same in this business of spying as in everything else.