An Honest Confession
At the first possible moment, Gertrude and Mary went carefully through the books and papers in their private desks. The first discovery they made was that all notes and papers pertaining to Vickery and the Boulevard Railway Company were missing, thus destroying every bit of evidence, beyond their spoken word, in that particular case. Other documents were missing also, and the trail of the corrupt politician was over all. She sent for Robert Joyce, the district attorney, and Bailey Armstrong, as city solicitor, and they held counsel together until the lengthening shadows drove them home. But not until they had sent for Otis H. Mann, and put the case strongly to him. That functionary was, however, as smooth and oily as ever, disclaiming all knowledge of everything.
"I assure you, gentlemen," he said, "and you, madam, that only the most perfunctory of routine work has been done in this office while I was acting-mayor. It was our one object to let things slide along as easily as possible until the real mayor should return. We desired no radical changes, and on the other hand, as few breaks in the regular routine of city affairs as possible. I desired, above all, to be a faithful servant to the people—to—in short, ah—"
"How about those contracts you negotiated with Watts?" broke in Joyce.
"And McAlister's new job—under the name of Peter Grayson?" added Bailey.
Mann's face was a shade more purple for an instant, but he went on, unctuously.
"The man who suddenly becomes the head of a city has a great responsibility—especially if he has been, in a sense, shut out from the confidence of its mayor up to the time of his incumbency. He cannot expect to please everyone. He will be called 'demagogue' by the opposite party; his motives will be misconstrued; his honesty brought in question, his principles—"
"O, spare us," interrupted Bailey. "While you were the head of this office, some important testimony has disappeared; private papers belonging to the mayor and her secretary were taken away, and several other questionable things were done. We called you here now, to explain these things; and if you cannot produce them, to say why. The least thing a man in your position can do is to institute a hearty search for the missing papers, and to act in accord with us in leaving no stone unturned to find them."
"Gentlemen," said the chairman of the board of aldermen, rising and laying his hand impressively across his heart, "I will swear to you that the mayor's desk and her secretary's were turned over to her exactly as I found them. If anything has been taken from them, the robbery occurred either before I came or after I went out."
"And you are willing to pledge yourself to aid in discovering the thief, whoever and wherever he may be?" said Bailey, regarding Mann narrowly.
"On my word of honor," replied the chairman; and he could not help it if his words and tone sounded rather bombastic. "But, I am sorry, my dear lady—but I have a very important engagement at this hour—a personal matter, very dear to my heart, which compels me to ask you to excuse me now. I shall be glad to call upon you tomorrow morning, at any hour you may name."
"Can you make it nine o'clock," asked Gertrude—"or even earlier?"
"Yes, we must get definitely to work tomorrow morning," added Joyce.
"Certainly, nine—or half past eight, if you choose," said Mann. "In the meantime I will try to recall the minutest particulars of my connection with this office. I am sure, my dear lady, you do not need to be assured of my loyalty to you—nor to my native city. And now—I bid you good-day." He bowed impressively and was gone.
"All the same, I don't like the cut of his jib," murmured Bailey.
"Oh, he's too much of a trimmer to go back on us now," said Joyce. "Public sentiment is all on our side now, and election day's coming."
Gertrude smiled. "I can't imagine why anybody should trim his sails to get an office," she said.
"Well, see what a dangerous thing it is to cultivate a taste for politics," retorted Bailey. "There's no knowledge where it may lead you."
"Oh, Miss Van Deusen will have a walkover when her turn for election comes again."
Gertrude remembered this remark as she sat in her library that evening, alone for the first time since she had set forth to call on Newton Fitzgerald.
"Having set my hand to the plough," (her favorite expression) "I suppose I must not look back," she soliloquized, "until the end of the furrow is reached. But I may look forward, and—if I live through the next few months, I wonder if anything or anybody can persuade me to be a candidate the second time. I don't think so now. But how much more I know than I did last year!—only, of course, I cannot own it to any living soul. John Allingham ought to have beaten me. I wonder if he will run next year?" But in her heart she knew very well he would not oppose her again. "He would make an ideal mayor. Upright, honorable, fearless—and afraid of nothing but doing wrong. Ah, well—should it always take a man to deal with men—or shouldn't it? I don't know."
The maid entered.
"A man wishes to see you, Miss Van Deusen," said she. "He says he must talk to you personally. His name is Fitzgerald. But if you're too tired, Miss Van Deusen, I'll make him wait. If you'll excuse my saying so—you are too worn-down. These people ask too much of you."
"Show him right in here, Lizzie," answered Gertrude. "And don't worry about me. I'm all right, now I am home."
A moment later Fitzgerald entered and stood, hat in hand.
"Excuse me, Miss Van Deusen," he began apologetically. "I've got something to confess—and I can't wait until morning—it'll be too late then."
"Go on," said Gertrude kindly. "Just trouble to shut that door into the hall, please, and then come over here by me."
The man did as he was told, and drew a chair near enough to her to be heard in low tones.
"Miss Van Deusen," he began; "it's just as I told you; I didn't know anything about the message they sent you, nor about the trap they set for you. But I have been knowing a good deal, and now—he's running away—and I'll be d——d if I won't tell you!"
"Sh—sh—who's running away?" interrupted Gertrude. "Calm yourself, Newton, and tell me."
"Mann—the dirty whelp, after lining his pockets, and doing you all the harm he dares," he went on. "I've stood for him all I will. I've supported him and his cliques, and given house-room to his workers; and now he's—"
Gertrude saw it was useless to try to calm him, and wisely decided to let him work off his excitement by telling his story in his own way.
"And it's because Otis H. Mann, the people's friend, as he calls himself," explained Fitzgerald, impulsively, "has left town, bag and baggage, and will sail for foreign ports as soon as he strikes New York, that I'm telling."
"Tell me all you know, Newton. I've been wanting a good long talk with you for a long time. Begin at the beginning, please."
"Well, of course you know I'm a democrat. I've always voted with that party, and would have done so last fall, even against you—if it hadn't been for the job they put up on you. Yes—I mean the night before election. They talked it all over in a little room back of my saloon. The boss was there himself that night—"
"You mean Burke?" interrupted Gertrude.
"No—Mann. Burke's under his orders every time. Whatever Burke done, it was Mann behind him; and when Burke got a rake-off of a thousand, Mann got two. As I'm tellin' you, they arranged the whole affair in my rooms. There was Mann and Burke, and McAdoo, and one or two others, and myself. I ain't claiming to be any better than the rest. I was there—not that I was ag'in you, but because it was my room, and my liquor, and I'd always been in their confabs. I didn't approve of them electric cabs and seizing you by main force, as it were, and rushing you out into the country; but Mann and Burke were determined to have it—and when I saw they were bound to do it, anyhow, I just had to agree; and to see that nothing happened to you, I went along, too. If they'd tried any funny business with you, I'd—well, I took my irons along."
"Newton!" cried Gertrude. "Were you there? You!"
"Yes," replied the man, grimly. "I was your chauffeur. I wouldn't trust you to anyone else. I ain't forgot all you and your father done for me when I was a kid."
"Newton, you've a queer sense of gratitude," she laughed, for the situation seemed not without humor. "You ran away with me to protect me."
"That's about the size of it. I didn't know what the others might do; I did know I should bring you in safely."
"Where did you get that cab?" she asked him.
"It was one I ran all last summer out to my summer place at Itosco. It's stored there now. The other we got at Bonborough from a friend of Mann's. His chauffeur ran that. The third man was McAdoo."
"Then it was you who brought me—and Mr. Allingham—home?"
"Yes'm. And it was Mann's friend's machine that was wrecked; and they had hard work to get the remains of it dragged off and hidden before morning; but Mann is a slick one. As soon as we got in we reported to him and he had his men out there with plenty to help. But it's more about Mann I want to tell you. It ain't Vickery, you want to haul into court. It's Mann. He's made more'n a hundred thousand off'n the city. He's pulled off already over thirty thousand on that Boulevard Railway scheme. Vickery's only a tool. If you'd bitten his bait and taken what they offered you, they had it planned that Mann was to be general manager. That railway would have swallowed up all the others; and then he was to be president. He means to be a millionaire yet. He will be, if you don't get him—and quick."
"Wait; let's call Bailey." She rang up on the telephone. "But you knew nothing about the trap they caught Miss Snow and me in?"
"No." He waited until she called up Bailey Armstrong, and requested him to come to the house at once.
"No," he went on. "I swear it. They knew I hadn't much sympathy for their plots against you and got shy of letting me in on them. But there's a barkeep in my saloon—or was—who kept them posted. When you telephoned me that day, he put 'em wise right off, quick. Mann was the one who planned your imprisonment. He thought out all the details—I've only just found this out—and since his talk with you this afternoon, he thought you were getting wise, too. So he went right out, got his bag (which has been packed for some time) and took the night train East. He owes me a big bill—and more promises than he can ever pay. I've been getting sick of this kind of thing for weeks; now that he's proved the biggest kind of a coward, I've come straight to you. And I'm glad I did."
"Would you be willing to go into court and swear to all this?" asked Gertrude. "For that is what it will come to, Newton."
"All this and more," he answered. "If you can catch the dirty whelp before he sails for foreign parts, I'll do my part to put him where he belongs. I'm sick of living the life of a dirty dog. I want to be a clean man. I want to be a respectable citizen for the sake of my boy and girl, Miss Van Deusen; and their mother thinks the world of you—and so do I, when you come to that."
"I am sure of that," answered Gertrude, smiling again at the thought that it was his loyalty which made of him her chauffeur on that memorable ride. "I shall depend on you now."
Thus it happened that Bailey Armstrong, who would trust no man to go alone, took the midnight train for the East, accompanied by the sheriff of Roma; and that, in due course of time, they returned to Roma, "bringing their sheaves with them" in the form of Otis H. Mann, Esq.