A Woman for Mayor: A Novel of To-day

by Helen M. Winslow

A Dumbfounded Populace

Just one week after Vickery's last call, the district attorney and the city solicitor met in the mayor's office. The former official, Robert Joyce, was a young man with most of his reputation to gain; and he had welcomed the Vickery case as an excellent weapon with which to gain it. How he had happened to win his office was a cause for wonder to some people, until they stopped to remember that all interest in the election of the previous winter had been centered on the mayor; and that although the rank and file of voters knew that Joyce was making a fight for his candidacy, none of them had believed he could win over the old incumbent, and had paid little heed to his political efforts. His election was one of the surprises of the campaign, but even that was not much talked about, in the excitement of proclaiming the woman for mayor of Roma.

Now, as once before, he saw his opportunity and seized it. For the past week he had done little else but probe the affairs of the Boulevard Railway scheme, scarcely eating or sleeping while he pursued the case with all the eagerness of a hound after his first fox. Gertrude Van Deusen could not have found a better ally than Robert Joyce, and she knew it. He had already secured evidence and managed his case so well that the grand jury would bring in a bill for indictment, not only against Orlando Vickery, but against Otis H. Mann, chairman of the board of aldermen. The case was to be brought up in court on the following morning.

"I must congratulate you, Mr. Joyce, upon your quick and able work," said she. "I wanted the case hurried along, and you have surely done it."

"Mr. Armstrong has helped greatly," returned Joyce. "He has a good deal of inside knowledge, and it didn't take long to convince us both that there was a vast amount of corruption. How to clinch the evidence has been the problem. But you say you are willing to go on the witness stand?"

"I am—and Miss Snow also," answered the mayor. "I should think our evidence enough."

"It is; and yet, while we are about it we want to catch the whole outfit. We don't want to leave any loop-holes for the criminals—for they will have an expert to defend them; you may be sure of that. Some of the old aldermen may confess. They will pin their faith to confession as the rock of salvation for them. But that is just the beginning. We are after the big man, the man who debauches as well as the man who receives. This is no partial house-cleaning. Fordham, the agent of the Roma Telephone Company, who handed the old board $1,000 each, is now on his way back from China. To save his skin, he may tell us about the money which his corporation has so generously handed over to the supervisors. Then the Telephone Company, composed of men high in the social circles of this city (with its franchise bought for a paltry few thousand dollars) will have to show its books, and if we can reach the guilty ones, on the top, indictments will soon be moving their way. I think within the next month we will have indictments from the grand jury for at least four of the more-holier-than-thou sort. That is where the bomb is going to fall, unless my plans miscarry most woefully."

"You see there are lively times ahead," added Bailey Armstrong. "There is a man—one on whom a great deal depends—whom we want to bring to confession. He is the son of your father's old coachman—Fitzgerald."

"Newton Fitzgerald?" asked Gertrude. "The one who has a saloon over on the south side?"

"Yes—and, unfortunately for us, a properly certified license," answered Bailey. "He is a tough character, but when a boy he had a soft side. Do you suppose you could reach him, Gertie?"