An Important Appointment
When John Allingham arrived at City Hall Thursday morning he was first of all impressed with the changed interior of the place,—the absence of loafers, the clean corridors, the blossoming plants. Neither could he help seeing that in place of the old spirit of listlessness in the various departments, everyone seemed busy and interested. "If this is what women can do in politics," he began to say to himself,—but the idea of incongruity was so deeply fixed in his mind that he at once supplemented his unfinished sentence,—"but they have no business here, just the same. It is no place for women."
He displayed none of the sense of awkwardness he felt, however, when he entered the Mayor's office and bade her good-morning.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked, taking the seat close to her desk.
"I sent for you," returned Miss Van Deusen, "because I am in special need of good, reliable men. Mr. Armstrong thinks you might be willing to help us in the struggle to get our city government on the right basis."
"I have already told you, I think," answered Allingham, with a slight sense of reserve, "that you can depend upon me."
"Yes, I know," said the Mayor; "I am proving it by now offering you the position of street commissioner. Will you take it?"
Allingham was distinctly taken by surprise. He had not expected—had he deserved?—a prominent place in the city government. He was not sure that he wanted it.
"Perhaps you would like a day to consider the proposition," she went on, divining his hesitation. "And won't you talk with Mr. Armstrong about it? He knows as well as anybody what the work of the street department is going to involve. Can you think this over and let me know tomorrow?"
"I thank you for the honor you do me, anyway," answered he, rising to go, "and I will talk with Mr. Armstrong as you suggest. Of course you know, Miss Van Deusen, we all want to uphold your work, now."
"Yes, yes, I believe so," she returned seriously. "And, Mr. Allingham, it is because I want some thorough work done in the street department—by a fearless, trustworthy official, that I sent for you."
"Thank you," said Allingham—and went down stairs in a tumult. Had he a right to such treatment? Had he not done everything in his power to prevent her election? Had he not used pen and tongue in all bitterness against her? And here she was, offering him one of the "plums" of the municipal pudding, just as if he had been her devoted henchman. But stay,—was she doing this to win him over, to make him come out before the public as her supporter? What would people say?
No. He would go over to his office and write a letter, declining the offer. A very polite letter it should be, acknowledging her distinguished kindness in offering him so responsible a post on her corps of working officials; but his private affairs—his law practice, the work of the Municipal League, his health, all combined to make it impossible for him to accept a position which would entail so great an obligation to the city—and to her. Yes, to her! That was it, he knew.
And yet—to her? Why not? How capable and strong and self-reliant she had looked that morning in the mayor's chair. How different from any other women he had ever seen! What must she have been made of—this woman who had been the social equal of the best people in Washington, that she could lay aside for the moment all social preferences, all refined and educated tastes, to become mayor of such a city as Roma?—to sit there in the temple of the money-changers and try to wrestle with its problems. Bah! he had no taste for such modern women, or for such—
But he had promised to do everything he could to help her,—and to see Armstrong. Pshaw! He would go back and have it out with Bailey.
He turned and climbed the stairs to the city solicitor's office. Armstrong welcomed him with a cordial bluffing way the two always used towards each other.
"About time you came," began Bailey. "Here I am occupying one of the seats of the high and mighty, and you make off as if I were nobody. I've a mind to take it out of you somehow."
"If you dared," returned Allingham. "But you can't. You've a character to maintain and I'm a guest. I say—was it you who put it into Miss Van Deusen's head that I'd take any little plum she chose to offer me? Because I won't, you know."
"O, yes, you will," said Bailey, "when it's pro bono publico. And say, if you've any civic pride whatever—if you want to discover graft in its most rampageous form and help to suppress or expose it—here's your chance. And you a boasted 'Municipal Reformer!'"
"What do you mean?" asked Allingham.
"Well, just this. One of Burke's contractors came into the Mayor's office the other day and complained that I was about to 'rip his contracts up the back,'—at least, that's the classic language in which he chose to present his ideas to a lady. I hadn't begun to look into these matters at all; but what he said led Miss Van Deusen to send for me and we have since been looking him up. I find that he is paving several streets—or will do so—on no end of little contracts of three hundred yards for each. He makes a nice fat sum on each,—an aggregate of several thousand dollars, I won't undertake to say how much. That sets us to thinking and investigating some more. Say, Jack, remember the franchise the Boulevard Railway asked for and almost got last year? It's still pending, you know. Well, I've reason to think the Mayor was in on it—and Burke—for no end of boodle. That's why he wanted to be mayor. So you see, 'there's a reason' why a man like you should be willing to take the job of street commissioner this year. It will be no 'plum' this time, I can assure you. It looks now, as if it would be a fight instead—and perhaps a good hot one."
"That puts a different look to it," said Jack. "You know I'm not afraid of a fight—a good one."
"Don't I know it?" retorted Bailey. "Haven't I gone to bed sore and stiff, too many times, as a boy, to forget it? It's because you are a fair fighter and not a boodler that we want you at the head of the street department now. Come, Jack, will you do it?"
"You can be sure of it, Bailey," returned Allingham. "I'll accept at once. Tell me more of what you are finding out. That is, if you think she won't mind."
"She won't mind your knowing some of it anyhow, because you'll be expected to help us look into certain matters," said Bailey.
They talked together for an hour or so, and when John Allingham finally departed he felt a deeper interest in city reform than ever, and believed the time had come when he could be of real use to his community.
"By the way, Jack," said Armstrong, as he was leaving, "have you found out anything more about the originators of your strange ride the night before election?"
"I have detectives working on it now—or pretending to," replied Jack, "but they don't seem to get anywhere. Whoever was behind the scheme covered his tracks well."
"Yes, we, too, have had a detective working," said Bailey, "though Miss Van Deusen has called him off now. No use, she says, and thinks perhaps any further work in that direction may hinder what she wants to do in another."
"Perhaps she's right," responded Allingham. "All we have been able to discover is that two electric cabs, both provided with outside means of locking the doors and windows, took the opposing candidates and went off twenty miles or so into the country, on the night before election, breaking up an important debate that might have turned the current of affairs in another direction—"
"—Um, perhaps," interrupted Bailey. "Perhaps not. Anyway, all this we knew before midnight, the evening it happened."
"Yes. And while there are no electric cabs in Roma, there are plenty of them within a radius of twenty-five miles of us. And the Burke gang could easily have brought any of them here. I've been having a hunt made for cabs with outside locks; but so far, none have been discovered. Between you and me, I doubt if we can ever find out."
"Between you and me, I shall not be surprised if we run up against further deviltry of that sort," said Bailey, "before we get through with—"
The telephone interrupted him, and after a short one-sided conversation, Bailey arose, too.
"I'll go along with you," he said. "Miss Van Deusen wants to see me."