CHAPTER LXXXIII

IN THE TOILS

Meanwhile Schmitz, who had but recently returned from Europe, became officially involved in the anti-Japanese agitation.

"He's summoned East to see the President," said a Burns operative to Frank one morning as they met at Temple Israel. "Lucky devil, that big fellow! Here's the town at sixes and sevens about the 'little brown brother.' Doesn't want him with its white kids in the public schools. The Mikado stirs the devil of a row with Washington about it. And Teddy sends for 'Gene. Just his luck to come back a conquering hero."

But Schmitz fared badly at the Capital, whence Roosevelt dispatched a "big stick" message to the California Legislature. At the same time George B. Keane, the Supervisors' clerk, and a State Senator as well, was working for the "Change of Venus bill," a measure which if passed, would have permitted Ruef to take his case out of the jurisdiction of Judge Dunne. But the bill was defeated. Once more Ruef's straining at the net of Justice had achieved no parting of the strands.

On March 6 Stanley greeted Mayor Schmitz as he stepped from a train at Oakland Mole. Correspondents and reporters gathered round the tall, bearded figure. Schmitz looked tired, discouraged.

Perfunctorily, uneasily, Schmitz answered the reporter's queries. He had done his level best for San Francisco. As for the charges pending against him, they would soon be disproved. No one had anything on him. All his acts were open to investigation.

"Do you know that Ruef has skipped?" Frank asked.

"Wh-a-a-t!" the Mayor set down his grip. He seemed struck all of a heap by the announcement.

"Fact!" another newsman corroborated. "Abie's jumped his bond. He's the well-known 'fugitive from justice.'"

Without a word the Mayor left them. He walked aboard the ferry boat alone. They saw him pacing back and forth across the forward deck, his long overcoat flapping in the wind, one hand holding the dark, soft hat down on his really magnificent head.

"A ship without a rudder," said Frank. The others nodded.

* * * * *

Over the municipal administration was the shadow of Ruef's flight. The shepherd had deserted his flock. And the wolves of the law were howling.

Frank was grateful to the Powers for this rushing pageant of political events. It gave him little chance to grieve. Now and then the tragedy of Bertha gripped him by the throat and shook him with its devastating loneliness. He found a certain solace in Aleta's company. She was always ready, glad to walk or dine with him. She knew his silences; she understood.

But there were intervals of grief beyond all palliation; days when he worked blindly through a grist of tasks that seemed unreal. And at night he sought his room, to sit in darkness, suffering dumbly through the hours. Sometimes Dawn would find him thus.

Robert Windham and his family had returned from the Hawaiian Islands. They had found a house in Berkeley; Windham opened offices on Fillmore street. Robert and his nephew visited occasionally a graveyard in the western part of town. The older man brought flowers and his tears fell frankly on a mound that was more recent than its neighbors. But Stanley did not join in these devotions.

"She is not here," he said one day. "You know that, Uncle Robert."

"She's up above," returned the other, brokenly. "My poor, wronged child!"

Frank stared at him a moment. "Do you believe in the conventional Heaven?"

"Why--er--yes," said Windham, startled. "Don't you, Frank?"

"No," said Stanley, doggedly. "Not in that ... nor in a God that lets men suffer and be tempted into wrongs they can't resist ... makes them suffer for it."

"What do you mean? Are you an atheist?" asked Windham, horrified.

"No ... but I believe that God is Good. And knows no evil. Sometimes in the night when I've sat thinking, Bertha seems to come to me; tells me things I can't quite understand. Wonderful things, Uncle Robert."

The other regarded him silently, curiously. He seemed at a loss.

"I've learned to judge men with less harshness," Frank spoke on. "Ruef and Schmitz, for instance.... Every now and then I see the Mayor pacing on the ferryboat. It's rather pathetic, Uncle Robert. Did God raise him up from obscurity just to torture him? He's had wealth and honor--adoration from the people. Now he's facing prison. And those poor devils of Supervisors; they've known luxury, power. Now they're huddled like a pack of frightened sheep; everybody thinks they're guilty. Ruef's forsaken them. Ruef, with his big dream shattered, fleeing from the law...."

He faced his uncle fiercely, questioning. "Is that God's work? And Bertha's body lying there, because of the sins of her forebears! Forgive me, Uncle Robert. I'm just thinking aloud."

Windham placed a hand upon his nephew's shoulder. "I'm afraid I can't answer you, Frank," he said slowly. "You're a young man. You'll forget. The world goes on. And our griefs do not matter. We fall and we get up again ... just as Ruef and the others will."

"Do you suppose they'll catch him--Ruef, I mean?"

"Not if the big fellows can prevent it. If he's caught there'll be the deuce to pay. Our Pillars of Finance will topple.... No, I think Ruef is safe."

"I don't quite understand," said Stanley.

"Ruef, himself, is nothing; a political boss, a solicitor of bribes. But our corporation heads. The town will shake when they're accused, perhaps indicted. I know what's been going on. We're close to scandals that'll echo round the world."

Frank looked at his uncle wonderingly. Windham was a corporation lawyer. Doubtless he knew. Silently the two men made their way out of the graveyard. Frank determined to ride down town with his uncle, and then telephone to Aleta. He hadn't seen her for a week.

As the car passed the Call building they noted a crowd at Third and Market streets, reading a bulletin. People seemed excited. Frank jumped from the moving car and elbowed his way forward. In the newspaper window was a sheet of yellow paper inscribed in large script: "BURNS ARRESTS RUEF AT THE TROCADERO ROADHOUSE."

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