“Well—poor things—I pity them. I could wash my hands in women’s tears every week.”
“Well,” said Gilman, opening the door, “I told her she could see you. I’ll slide her out.”
The governor bent to his desk, but just as the door was closing he called:
“Oh, Gilman!”
Gilman stopped.
“Don’t do that—tell her I’ll see her after a while.”
Gilman, as he returned to his desk, smiled and shook his head at the governor’s weakness.
Thomas Whalen was a life convict in the penitentiary. The crime was committed on the night of the election at which John Chatham had been chosen chief executive of his state. Whalen was a boss in the nineteenth ward and a Chatham man. The campaign had developed such bitterness that Whalen found it necessary to name himself a judge of election in the fourth precinct of his ward. Many times during the day blue patrol wagons had rolled into the precinct.
The polling place of the fourth precinct was a small barber shop in Fifteenth Street. During the evening, as the ballots were being counted, it had become apparent that an altercation was in progress behind the yellow blinds. It was abruptly terminated by a shot. The lights in the shop were extinguished at the same moment. A man burst from the door and fled. When the police arrived, they found a dead election judge face downward on the table. His name had been Brokoski. The bullet had passed entirely through his body, and reddened with his blood the ballots that gushed from the overturned box. The window at his back had been completely shattered by the ball as it flew out into the alley. This was a large bullet, a thirty-eight caliber. The police found a revolver gleaming in the light of the dark lanterns they flashed down the alley. It was a thirty-eight caliber with one empty chamber. It was evident that the murderer had discarded it in his flight. A lieutenant of police at the Market Place police station easily identified the gun as one he had given to Whalen several weeks previously. The judges and clerks had rushed after Whalen. The shock, the sudden failure of light, the horror of the dead man in the dark had jangled their nerves. They were too excited to give a clear account of the affair. They knew that Whalen and Brokoski, sitting on opposite sides of the table, had been quarreling. They had heard the shot, had been blinded by the flash, and had seen Whalen bolt. Brokoski had fallen heavily upon the table, and died with an oath upon his lips.
Gilman never forgot that wild night. He had spent it with the governor at the headquarters of the state central committee. In the dawn, when the east was yellowing, and sparrows began to scuffle and splutter on the eaves of the federal building looming dour just over the way, the news of the murder and frauds had come to them. The governor’s face, white with excitement and fatigue, had suddenly darkened. Had it been the shadow cast by the passing of a great ambition?