Part 2

“You dare go on lying?” shouted the man, with fresh access of rage. “And when I seen you with them Reds? I know about your plots, I’m going to get it out of you.” He grabbed Peter’s wrist and began to twist it, and Peter half turned over in the effort to save himself, and shrieked again, in more piercing tones, “I dunno! I dunno!”

“What’s them fellows done for you that you protect them?” demanded the other. “What good’ll it do you if we hang you and let them escape?”

But Peter only screamed and wept the louder.

“They’ll have time to get out of town,” persisted the other. “If you speak quick we can nab them all, and then I’ll let you go. You understand, we won’t do a thing to you, if you’ll come thru and tell us who put you up to this. We know it wasn’t you that planned it; it’s the big fellows we want.”

He began to wheedle and coax Peter; but then, when Peter answered again with his provoking “I dunno,” he would give another twist to Peter’s wrist, and Peter would yell, almost incoherent with terror and pain--but still declaring that he could tell nothing, he knew nothing about any bomb.

So at last Guffey wearied of this futile inquisition; or perhaps it occurred to him that this was too public a place for the prosecution of a “third degree”--there might be some one listening outside the door. He stopped twisting Peter’s wrist, and tilted back Peter’s head so that Peter’s frightened eyes were staring into his.

“Now, young fellow,” he said, “look here. I got no time for you just now, but you’re going to jail, you’re my prisoner, and make up your mind to it, sooner or later I’m going to get it out of you. It may take a day, or it may take a month, but you’re going to tell me about this bomb plot, and who printed this here circular opposed to Preparedness, and all about these Reds you work with. I’m telling you now--so you think it over; and meantime, you hold your mouth, don’t say a word to a living soul, or if you do I’ll tear your tongue out of your throat.”

Then, paying no attention to Peter’s wailings, he took him by the back of the collar and marched him down the hall again, and turned him over to one of the policemen. “Take this man to the city jail,” he said, “and put him in the hole, and keep him there until I come, and don’t let him speak a word to anybody. If he tries it, mash his mouth for him.” So the policeman took poor sobbing Peter by the arm and marched him out of the building.

Section 5

The police had got the crowds driven back by now, and had ropes across the street to hold them, and inside the roped space were several ambulances and a couple of patrol-wagons. Peter was shoved into one of these latter, and a policeman sat by his side, and the bell clanged, and the patrol-wagon forced its way slowly thru the struggling crowd. Half an hour later they arrived at the huge stone jail, and Peter was marched inside. There were no formalities, they did not enter Peter on the books, or take his name or his finger prints; some higher power had spoken, and Peter’s fate was already determined. He was taken into an elevator, and down into a basement, and then down a flight of stone steps into a deeper basement, and there was an iron door with a tiny slit an inch wide and six inches long near the top. This was the “hole,” and the door was opened and Peter shoved inside into utter darkness. The door banged, and the bolts rattled; and then silence. Peter sank upon a cold stone floor, a bundle of abject and hideous misery.

These events had happened with such terrifying rapidity that Peter Gudge had hardly time to keep track of them. But now he had plenty of time, he had nothing but time. He could think the whole thing out, and realize the ghastly trick which fate had played upon him. He lay there, and time passed; he had no way of measuring it, no idea whether it was hours or days. It was cold and clammy in the stone cell; they called it the “cooler,” and used it to reduce the temperature of the violent and intractable. It was a trouble-saving device; they just left the man there and forgot him, and his own tormented mind did the rest.

And surely no more tormented mind than the mind of Peter Gudge had ever been put in that black hole. It was the more terrible, because so utterly undeserved, so preposterous. For such a thing to happen to him, Peter Gudge, of all people--who took such pains to avoid discomfort in life, who was always ready to oblige anybody, to do anything he was told to do, so as to have’an easy time, a sufficiency of food, and a warm corner to crawl into! What could have persuaded fate to pick him for the victim of this cruel prank; to put him into this position, where he could not avoid suffering, no matter what he did? They wanted him to tell something, and Peter would have been perfectly willing to tell anything--but how could he tell it when he did not know it?

The more Peter thought about it, the more outraged he became. It was monstrous! He sat up and glared into the black darkness. He talked to himself, he talked to the world outside, to the universe which had forgotten his existence. He stormed, he wept. He got on his feet and flung himself about the cell, which was six feet square, and barely tall enough for him to stand erect. He pounded on the door with his one hand which Guffey had not lamed, he kicked, and he shouted. But there was no answer, and so far as he could tell, there was no one to hear.

When he had exhausted himself, he sank down, and fell into a haunted sleep; and then he wakened again, to a reality worse than any nightmare. That awful man was coming after him again! He was going to torture him, to make him tell what he did not know! All the ogres and all the demons that had ever been invented to frighten the imagination of children were as nothing compared to the image of the man called Guffey, as Peter thought of him.

Several ages after Peter had been locked up, he heard sounds outside, and the door was opened. Peter was cowering in the corner, thinking that Guffey had come. There was a scraping on the floor, and then the door was banged again, and silence fell. Peter investigated and discovered that they had put in a chunk of bread and a pan of water.

Then more ages passed, and Peter’s impotent ragings were repeated; then once more they brought bread and water, and Peter wondered, was it twice a day they brought it, or was this a new day? And how long did they mean to keep him here? Did they mean to drive him mad? He asked these questions of the man who brought the bread and water, but the man made no answer, he never at any time spoke a word. Peter had no company in that “hole” but his God; and Peter was not well acquainted with his God, and did not enjoy a tete-a-tete with Him.

What troubled Peter most was the cold; it got into his bones, and his teeth were chattering all the time. Despite all his moving about, he could not keep warm. When the man opened the door, he cried out to him, begging for a blanket; each time the man came, Peter begged more frantically than ever. He was ill, he had been injured in the explosion, he needed a doctor, he was going to die! But there was never any answer. Peter would lie there and shiver and weep, and writhe, and babble, and lose consciousness for a while, and not know whether he was awake or asleep, whether he was living or dead. He was becoming delirious, and the things that were happening to him, the people who were tormenting him, became monsters and fiends who carried him away upon far journeys, and plunged him thru abysses of terror and torment.

And yet, many and strange as were the phantoms which Peter’s sick imagination conjured up, there was no one of them as terrible as the reality which prevailed just then in the life of American City, and was determining the destiny of a poor little man by the name of Peter Gudge. There lived in American City a group of men who had taken possession of its industries and dominated the lives of its population. This group, intrenched in power in the city’s business and also in its government, were facing the opposition of a new and rapidly rising power, that of organized labor, determined to break the oligarchy of business and take over its powers. The struggle of these two groups was coming to its culmination. They were like two mighty wrestlers, locked in a grip of death; two giants in combat, who tear up trees by the roots and break off fragments of cliffs from the mountains to smash in each other’s skulls. And poor Peter--what was he? An ant which happened to come blundering across the ground where these combatants met. The earth was shaken with their trampling, the dirt was kicked this way and that, and the unhappy ant was knocked about, tumbled head over heels, buried in the debris; and suddenly--Smash!--a giant foot came down upon the place where he was struggling and gasping!

Section 6

Peter had been in the “hole” perhaps three days, perhaps a week--he did not know, and no one ever told him. The door was opened again, and for the first time he heard a voice, “Come out here.”

Peter had been longing to hear a voice; but now he shrunk terrified into a corner. The voice was the voice of Guffey, and Peter knew what it meant. His teeth began to rattle again, and he wailed, “I dunno anything! I can’t tell anything!”

A hand reached in and took him by the collar, and he found himself walking down the corridor in front of Guffey. “Shut up!” said the man, in answer to all his wailings, and took him into a room and threw him into a chair as if he had been a bundle of bedding, and pulled up another chair and sat down in front of Peter.

“Now look here,” he said. “I want to have an understanding with you. Do you want to go back into that hole again?”

“N-n-no,” moaned Peter.

“Well, I want you to know that you’ll spend the rest of your life in that hole, except when you’re talking to me. And when you’re talking to me you’ll be having your arms twisted off you, and splinters driven into your finger nails, and your skin burned with matches--until you tell me what I want to know. Nobody’s going to help you, nobody’s going to know about it. You’re going to stay here with me until you come across.”

Peter could only sob and moan.

“Now,” continued Guffey, “I been finding out all about you, I got your life story from the day you were born, and there’s no use your trying to hide anything. I know your part in this here bomb plot, and I can send you to the gallows without any trouble whatever. But there’s some things I can’t prove on the other fellows. They’re the big ones, the real devils, and they’re the ones I want, so you’ve got a chance to save yourself, and you better be thankful for it.”

Peter went on moaning and sobbing.

“Shut up!” cried the man. And then, fixing Peter’s frightened gaze with his own, he continued, “Understand, you got a chance to save yourself. All you got to do is to tell what you know. Then you can come out and you won’t have any more trouble. We’ll take good care of you; everything’ll be easy for you.”

Peter continued to gaze like a fascinated rabbit. And such a longing as surged up in his soul--to be free, and out of trouble, and taken care of! If only he had known anything to tell; if only there was some way he could find out something to tell!

Section 7

Suddenly the man reached out and grasped one of Peter’s hands. He twisted the wrist again, the sore wrist which still ached from the torture. “Will you tell?”

“I’d tell if I could!” screamed Peter. “My God, how can I?”

“Don’t lie to me,” hissed the man. “I know about it now, you can’t fool me. You know Jim Goober.”

“I never heard of him!” wailed Peter.

“You lie!” declared the other, and he gave Peter’s wrist a twist.

“Yes, yes, I know him!” shrieked Peter.

“Oh, that’s more like it!” said the other. “Of course you know him. What sort of a looking man is he?”

“I--I dunno. He’s a big man.”

“You lie! You know he’s a medium-sized man!”

“He’s a medium-sized man.”

“A dark man?”

“Yes, a dark man.”

“And you know Mrs. Goober, the music teacher?”

“Yes, I know her.”

“And you’ve been to her house?”

“Yes, I’ve been to her house.”

“Where is their house?”

“I dunno--that is--”

“It’s on Fourth Street?”

“Yes, it’s on Fourth Street.”

“And he hired you to carry that suit-case with the bombs in it, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he hired me.”

“And he told you what was in it, didn’t he?”

“He--he--that is--I dunno.”

“You don’t know whether he told you?”

“Y-y-yes, he told me.”

“You knew all about the plot, didn’t you?”

“Y-y-yes, I knew.”

“And you know Isaacs, the Jew?”

“Y-y-yes, I know him.”

“He was the fellow that drove the jitney, wasn’t he?”

“Y-y-yes, he drove the jitney.”

“Where did he drive it?”

“H-h-he drove it everywhere.”

“He drove it over here with the suit-case, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And you know Biddle, and you know what he did, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know.”

“And you’re willing to tell all you know about it, are you?”

“Yes, I’ll tell it all. I’ll tell whatever you--”

“You’ll tell whatever you know, will you?”

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“And you’ll stand by it? You’ll not try to back out? You don’t want to go back into the hole?”

“No, sir.”

And suddenly Guffey pulled from his pocket a paper folded up. It was several typewritten sheets. “Peter Gudge,” he said, “I been looking up your record, and I’ve found out what you did in this case. You’ll see when you read how perfectly I’ve got it. You won’t find a single mistake in it.” Guffey meant this for wit, but poor Peter was too far gone with terror to have any idea that there was such a thing as a smile in the world.

“This is your story, d’you see?” continued Guffey. “Now take it and read it.”

So Peter took the paper in his trembling hand, the one which had not been twisted lame. He tried to read it, but his hand shook so that he had to put it on his knee, and then he discovered that his eyes had not yet got used to the light. He could not see the print. “I c-c-can’t,” he wailed.

And the other man took the paper from him. “I’ll read it to you,” he said. “Now you listen, and put your mind on it, and make sure I’ve got it all right.”

And so Guffey started to read an elaborate legal document: “I, Peter Gudge, being duly sworn do depose and declare--” and so on. It was an elaborate and detailed story about a man named Jim Goober, and his wife and three other men, and how they had employed Peter to buy for them certain materials to make bombs, and how Peter had helped them to make the bombs in a certain room at a certain given address, and how they had put the bombs in a suit-case, with a time clock to set them off, and how Isaacs, the jitney driver, had driven them to a certain corner on Main Street, and how they had left the suit-case with the bombs on the street in front of the Preparedness Day parade.

It was very simple and clear, and Peter, as he listened, was almost ready to cry with delight, realizing that this was all he had to do to escape from his horrible predicament. He knew now what he was supposed to know; and he knew it. Why had not Guffey told him long ago, so that he might have known it without having his fingers bent out of place and his wrist twisted off?

“Now then,” said Guffey, “that’s your confession, is it?”

“Y-y-yes,” said Peter.

“And you’ll stand by it to the end?”

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“We can count on you now? No more nonsense?”

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“You swear it’s all true?”

“I do.”

“And you won’t let anybody persuade you to go back on it--no matter what they say to you?”

“N-n-no, sir,” said Peter.

“All right,” said Guffey; and his voice showed the relief of a business man who has closed an important deal. He became almost human as lie went on. “Now, Peter,” he said, “you’re our man, and we’re going to count on you. You understand, of course, that we have to hold you as a witness, but you’re not to be a prisoner, and we’re going to treat you well. We’ll put you in the hospital part of the jail, and you’ll have good grub and nothing to do. In a week or so, we’ll want you to appear before the grand jury. Meantime, you understand--not a word to a soul! People may try to worm something out of you, but don’t you open your mouth about this case except to me. I’m your boss, and I’ll tell you what to do, and I’ll take care of you all the way. You got that all straight?”

“Y-y-yes, sir,” said Peter.

Section 8

There was once, so legend declares, a darky who said that he liked to stub his toe because it felt so good when it stopped hurting. On this same principle Peter had a happy time in the hospital of the American City jail. He had a comfortable bed, and plenty to eat, and absolutely nothing to do. His sore joints became gradually healed, and he gained half a pound a day in weight, and his busy mind set to work to study the circumstances about him, to find out how he could perpetuate these comfortable conditions, and add to them the little luxuries which make life really worth living.

In charge of this hospital was an old man by the name of Doobman. He had been appointed because he was the uncle of an alderman, and he had held the job for the last six years, and during that time had gained weight almost as rapidly as Peter was gaining. He had now come to a condition where he did not like to get out of his armchair if it could be avoided. Peter discovered this, and so found it possible to make himself useful in small ways. Also Mr. Doobman had a secret vice; he took snuff, and for the sake of discipline he did not want this dreadful fact to become known. Therefore he would wait until everybody’s back was turned before he took a pinch of snuff; and Peter learned this, and would tactfully turn his back.

Everybody in this hospital had some secret vice, and it was Mr. Doobman’s duty to repress the vices of the others. The inmates of the hospital included many of the prisoners who had money, and could pay to make themselves comfortable. They wanted tobacco, whiskey, cocaine and other drugs, and some of them wanted a chance to practice unnamable horrors. All the money they could smuggle in they were ready to spend for license to indulge themselves. As for the attendants in the hospital, they were all political appointees, derelicts who had been unable to hold a job in the commercial world, and had sought an easy berth, like Peter himself. They took bribes, and were prepared to bribe Peter to outwit Mr. Doobman; Mr. Doobman, on the other hand, was prepared to reward Peter with many favors, if Peter would consent to bring him secret information. In such a situation it was possible for a man with his wits about him to accumulate quite a little capital.

For the most part Peter stuck by Doobman; having learned by bitter experience that in the long run it pays to be honest. Doobman was referred to by the other attendants as the “Old Man”; and always in Peter’s life, from the very dawn of childhood, there had been some such “Old Man,” the fountain-head of authority, the dispenser of creature comforts. First had been “Old Man” Drubb, who from early morning until late at night wore green spectacles, and a sign across his chest, “I am blind,” and made a weary little child lead him thru the streets by the hand. At night, when they got home to their garret-room, “Old Man” Drubb would take off his green goggles, and was perfectly able to see Peter, and if Peter had made the slightest mistake during the day he would beat him.

When Drubb was arrested, Peter was taken to the orphan asylum, and there was another “Old Man,” and the same harsh lesson of subservience to be learned. Peter had run away from the asylum; and then had come Pericles Priam with his Pain Paralyzer, and Peter had studied his whims and served his interests. When Pericles had married a rich widow and she had kicked Peter out, there had come the Temple of Jimjambo, where the “Old Man” had been Tushbar Akrogas, the major-domo--terrible when he was thwarted, but a generous dispenser of favors when once you had learned to flatter him, to play upon his weaknesses, to smooth the path of his pleasures. All these years Peter had been forced to “crook the pregnant hinges of the knee”; it had become an instinct with him--an instinct that went back far behind the twenty years of his conscious life, that went back twenty thousand years, perhaps ten times twenty thousand years, to a time when Peter had chipped flint spear-heads at the mouth of some cave, and broiled marrow-bones for some “Old Man” of the borde, and seen rebellious young fellows cast out to fall prey to the sabre-tooth tiger.

Section 9

Peter found that he was something of a personality in this hospital. He was the “star” witness in the sensational Goober case, about which the whole city, and in fact the whole country was talking. It was known that he had “turned State’s”; but just what he knew and what he had told was a mighty secret, and Peter “held his mouth” and looked portentous, and enjoyed thrills of self-importance.