The Lash Part 17

"Why did you drag me in again?" the Judge was inquiring. "Were there not others; less tired, more calloused? For I was never calloused. You got your talons into me by a trick!" He clenched impotent hands. "I did--as I had to--for years, and, when the time came, I went thankfully enough into retirement. I thought I had done with you forever. And now--isn't the memory of the past enough without such a future as you have marked out for me--far worse than the past? It's not to be borne!"

Shaughnessy lowered his eyes. His cold, snaky gaze met the other's fairly. "You talk like an old woman," he sneered. "You sound like a paper-covered novel. I got hold of you by a trick, eh? Now you know how I got you, well enough. I put out bait that always lands supposedly honest men, like yourself, and you swallowed it, hook and all, just like a lot of other respectable suckers before you, and since. Well, what are you kicking about? You put yourself where you had to be useful to me, didn't you? Well, it's paid you, hasn't it? And this little programme we've got mapped out for the next two years, it's going to pay you, and all of us, so we can retire for good." He chuckled insolently.

The old man's lips set in a grim line. "I'm praying that I may be defeated," he said, "but if not, I'll be mayor of this town. I may--"

Shaughnessy straightened in his chair. His mouth grew repellently cruel, his eyes a.s.sumed the fixed glare of a serpent about to strike. "Now see here!" He spat out the words like venom. "I'll be elected next week, and I'll be mayor these two years coming. You're a decoy just now, and nothing more; but after the first of January you'll be a live duck, with a string on you, that's all. You must be getting into your second childhood to play the d.a.m.n fool as you have been playing it ever since this thing started. You can't squeal, you can't afford to. If you ever did, it would be all up with me and a lot of others--but you'd go with us, so help me G.o.d! Now just you cast your eye on this bunch of teasers for a minute, and get sensible!" Reaching into a secret compartment of his desk he slapped down a bundle of doc.u.ments.

The gray discouragement crept back into the old man's face. Shaughnessy smiled cruelly. Outside the office O'Byrn eagerly clutched Slade's arm.

"We've got to have them!" he breathed in the tout's ear. "After they go," returned Slade.

The next moment brought dismay to the watchers. "I think I'll deposit these elsewhere," observed Shaughnessy casually, with a glance toward the badgered Judge. "I don't think they're safe here." He slipped them into an inner pocket of his coat.

Micky's blank stare of dismay was instantly succeeded by a sudden inspiration, a plan daring but desperate. He plucked at Slade's sleeve, drawing him away from the window. "He mustn't leave here with 'em," he whispered, and proceeded briefly to unfold his plan. Slade, who was of kin with O'Byrn in recklessness, was enthusiastic.

"All right if they stay long enough," he muttered. "Let's take a look."

A glance through the gla.s.s showed the two occupants of the office, with chairs close together, conversing in low tones. Shaughnessy was evidently elaborating his programme.

"You stay here and keep watch," whispered Slade. "I can get over and back quick. There's a drug store two blocks away, and I've got an awful toothache," with a nudge. "Matches? No, I can get around here like a cat, and as still." He glided silently away. Micky resumed his watch at the office door.

The moments dragged by slowly. Micky grew impatient. What if Slade should return too late? And now the Judge was rising, donning his coat and hat. Shaughnessy was seeing him to the door; it opened--he was gone.

Micky strained his ears, no sounds of a returning Slade.

Shaughnessy walked leisurely to his desk. Ah! it was all right, he was going to sit down. But no, he closed the lid of his desk; donned his hat, took down his coat from the hook, was leisurely getting into it.

Then Micky with difficulty repressed a startled cry. Out of nowhere, without a sound in the intense stillness, Slade materialized from darkness at his side.

"Quick!" gasped Micky, "he's going!" But for Slade's restraining hand he would have thrown himself bodily against the door.

"Hold on! do you want him to see us?" he whispered savagely. "Here!

quick, put this on." He thrust an object into Micky's hand. "It's a mask," he explained, adjusting one of his own. "Gettin' 'em is what kept me."

The masks were of the grotesque little variety affected alike by house breakers and masqueraders. Micky learned afterward that Slade had a dubious friend in the vicinity who possessed such conveniences. After leaving the office he had bethought himself of the awkwardness of Shaughnessy's recognizing them in the prospective encounter. Slade had a long head.

The plotters took another look at the interior. Shaughnessy was standing with his back to them, leisurely selecting a cigar from his case, preparatory to going. "Now for it!" whispered Slade, and the two, looking like two simon-pure burglars, crept forward. Slade's hand fell upon the handle of the office door. Contrary to his expectations, it was unlocked. He nudged Micky, immediately behind, to impose caution, and softly opened the door.

The two pa.s.sed inside as stealthily as Indians and crept slowly toward the unsuspecting Shaughnessy. Even in the silence his keen ear caught some sound--perhaps the repressed breathing of his a.s.sailants. At all events, he half-turned. As he did so, however, Micky leaped forward and pinioned his arms from the rear. The wiry Irishman drew the struggling boss backward, throwing him into the chair he had lately vacated and holding him there helpless. With a lithe spring, like a cat's, Slade was at his side, his hand over Shaughnessy's mouth, stifling a gurgling outcry in its infancy. With the free hand he applied a saturated handkerchief to the struggling man's face and held it there. The deathly odor of chloroform filled the air.

After a little, Slade removed the handkerchief. "I guess he'll do," he muttered. O'Byrn thrust his hand into the inner pocket of the boss' coat and extracted the papers, carefully transferring them to his own. With an afterthought, he also possessed himself of the unconscious man's keys.

He grinned. "It's us out through the front door," he said. "I'll keep the keys. He needs exercise, this fellow. He can get it chasin' round, when they let him out tomorrow, gettin' some more made."

They surveyed the inert boss, huddled horribly in his chair, his eyes closed in his ghastly face. "G.o.d!" breathed Micky, a creeping chill in his spine, "he looks like a corpse! Do you suppose you gave him too much?"

"Naw!" returned Slade, disgustedly. "Was I born yesterday? It's only his d.a.m.ned eyes. When they're shut, he looks like a dead one, for fair.

Let's get out before he has us countin' our fingers."

They opened the door cautiously and looked out. The coast was clear.

Extinguis.h.i.+ng the lights in the office, they emerged, locked the door and departed. Huddled in the darkness sat Shaughnessy, his chin sunk on his breast, his hands clenched convulsively upon the arms of his chair.

A little later, Micky, with crimsoned face and eyes unnaturally bright, approached Harkins' desk in the Courier office. He bent confidentially toward his chief with an electrifying communication.

"Get ready," said Micky, "for the d.a.m.nedest feature story for the next issue that was ever sprung in this town. Yes sir, absolutely the d.a.m.nedest. The lines are all out. I'm due for about five hours' sleep, and then I'll begin to gather 'em in, and there'll be a bouquet of suckers on every hook. I've got a lot of finis.h.i.+n' touches to get tomorrow, and I'll be able to begin grindin' it out early in the evenin', not before. Yes, I'll have it all. What is it? It's a slaughter, slaughter of the gang. Shaughnessy'll be wearin' stripes unless he ducks, and a lot more with him, includin' Old Whiskers Boynton. Not in time? Election only three days off? Wait till you read the story! Wait till the town reads it! They'll all be champin' the bit of Fusion and frothin' at the mouth. I've been at this for weeks, but the main stuffin' I only got tonight. It comes late, but it's a winner, and Shaughnessy, he's a dead one!"

CHAPTER XVIII

A COUNTER MOVE

Shaughnessy stirred uneasily in his chair. Then, with a convulsive shudder, he sat erect, one hand instinctively pressed against his left side. His head reeled, his bewildered eyes strove to pierce the gloom.

With a swift intake of breath the deathly smell of the drug crept into his nostrils. Then he remembered.

With a snarling curse he sprang to his feet, drawing a match from his vest pocket with shaking fingers. He lighted the gas and glanced toward the safe, expecting to find it forced open. All seemed to be in order.

The boss was perplexed. What had they wanted, those mysterious visitors?

With a sudden apprehension he thrust his hand swiftly into an inner pocket and found it empty. Then Shaughnessy, momentarily beyond oaths, collapsed helplessly into his chair. There was expression enough in his white face now, and it was of fear.

The papers were gone, filched from him in open a.s.sault, in a way of which the boss had never dreamed. He could have groaned in bitterness of spirit as he remembered what zealous care he had taken of those d.a.m.ning doc.u.ments, veritable blood pacts of dark, unprincipled deeds, through which Shaughnessy held the wretched signers in the hollow of his hand.

Though cunningly giving the impression that they were kept in his office, Shaughnessy generally had them in safe keeping elsewhere and disturbed them only when it was expedient that they serve some purpose like the cruel intimidation to which Judge Boynton had been subjected.

And now they were gone. Shaughnessy cursed in his heart the fatal weakness for melodramatic effect, in which he was p.r.o.ne to indulge, that had exposed him to this fatal risk.

But who had them? Shaughnessy sprang up and paced the floor. He clenched his fists as he thought of Judge Boynton. Was it a plot of his? He dismissed the thought with a sneer. Such a desperate expedient was beyond the nerveless old jurist.

He felt mechanically for his keys and started to find them gone. What new deviltry was this? Then, for a moment, the impa.s.sive mask was utterly discarded. The white face of the baited boss grew absolutely diabolical, and he cursed as best he knew, and he was not an indifferent expert. Finally, with a weary shrug, he ceased and walked to a drawer in the bookkeeper's desk. He wrenched it open and took out two keys he kept there for emergency's sake. One was for the office door and the other would admit him to his lodgings.

Shaughnessy picked up his hat, which had fallen off in the recent melee, dusted it and replaced it. He kicked the cigar, from whose enjoyment he had been riotously debarred, into a corner and drew a fresh one from his case. Reaching into his vest pocket for a match, his fingers encountered something. Drawing it forth, his eyes rested upon the card which O'Byrn, on a recent evening, had with easy insolence handed him.

The boss' eyes, indifferent at first, stared fixedly at the card. Slowly kindling into the interest born of sudden recollection of the incident, the sparks deepened till they glowed like the orbs of an angry cat.

Shaughnessy pondered, his face an evil thing to see.

"d.a.m.n you!" muttered Shaughnessy, at last, still staring balefully at the card, "I believe one of 'em was you, G.o.d help you!"

Micky went straight from Shaughnessy's to the Courier office that night, and, after his brief communication with Harkins, he repaired to his lodgings. He lighted his heater, and, with a fresh cigar between his teeth, sat down to peruse at leisure the doc.u.ments he had previously glanced over sufficiently to warrant him in making his triumphant prediction to the city editor. A d.a.m.ning array of evidence was marshaled in them, ill.u.s.trating at once Shaughnessy's ruthless manner of binding a cabal to his interests and his weakness in recording in black and white such condemnatory proofs of the infamy of the forces of which he was the leader, and for whose deeds he was responsible. It was a quixotic idea of the boss', effective to bend his tools to his desires, but fatal if the accredited proofs ever became public property. Perhaps, Micky reflected, he had intended them for use if treachery ever compelled him to leave in a hurry, in which case the traitors would suffer while the arch-conspirator went scot-free. If this was the intent, events had antic.i.p.ated it.

The most important exposure, for O'Byrn's purpose, was the one, duly fortified with proof in the papers before him, that Judge Boynton was a hypocrite. He could only conjecture how the Judge had placed himself in Shaughnessy's power, but that he had long since done so, through some official act of weakness or worse, was evident. For the papers proved that the old jurist, supposed to be a power for good, had been for years a power for evil. It was as a secret instigator of lobbies at the State House that he had shone, while the world remained in ignorance. Not alone notorious Consolidated Gas, but many another nefarious movement had owed its progress in no small degree to his secret machinations, and he had been well aided. Micky opened his eyes at some names which appeared in that d.a.m.ning record, as well he might, for they were those of the elect. Indeed, the evidence utterly condemned one of the pillars of the present Fusion movement. Oh, it would be a slaughter, in very truth; one of whose extent the optimistic Micky had not dreamed.

As he read the record, O'Byrn marvelled at one salient fact. These men, of brains and influence, of power and standing, were after all but the tools of Shaughnessy, the liquor dealer, the local boss. Local boss!

Micky could have laughed. Why, this genius of the slums had his pallid hand at the throat of the State, and his snaky eyes were even now fixed on victims in higher places, even beyond its too-confined borders.

O'Byrn was lost in admiration of the man whose power was the greater because unsuspected by the great public. He moved with much sinuous subtlety, like a serpent wriggling through the gra.s.s. He tempted through the cupidity of men worth while, and when they were in his coils they were held there irrevocably. He was a Napoleon of graft, and his ambition was as boundless as that of the Corsican.

There were in the record, too, the hints of several matters that would bear amplifying; stupendous election frauds, fraudulent registration lists and corrupt local deals. Micky knew where to get them, but it would be a strenuous day. It was with a mingled thrill and a sigh that he finally tumbled into bed for a little sleep before the deluge to come.

He awoke unrefreshed, his sleep having been disturbed by wild dreams of conflict with Shaughnessy in which the boss was invariably the victor.