He withdrew, to walk home with the dear shrined image of her in his swelling heart; with her tender words of faith in him to summon a maze of happy dreams.
CHAPTER XVII
THE COUP IN SIGHT
THE succeeding fortnight found the Fusionists much exercised in mind. Do what they could, the trend was steadily, and with gathering impetus, the other way; the way of the devil, as the Fusion leaders firmly believed, but they could not induce the balance of voting power to think likewise. With the election now but a few days off, the chances for the Reform ticket looked hopeless.
"Oh!" groaned Colonel Westlake, in a conversation with the Courier's managing editor one evening, "if only we could nail 'em somewhere! But there was never a time when everything was locked up as it is now. You can't get anything. We've whaled all the chaff out of the old straw, but it doesn't do any good. It's a different proposition from what it looked to be in the first place, isn't it? I'm convinced, though, that if we could only dig up what's beneath the surface on this deal, we'd win out yet, late as it is. It's a forlorn hope, but everybody must keep his eyes open, that's all. I'll tell you one thing, the man that happened to turn the trick would have no occasion to regret it, and don't you forget it!"
Unknown to the Colonel, as it was unknown also to the managing editor and to Harkins, the man who was to turn the trick was steadily forging ahead in the process. Micky, however, had kept his own counsel. This was not a matter to be bawled from the house-tops, or even whispered in secret, until the moment came in which he might confidently warn his superiors to prepare to exploit the story. The task was one to be prosecuted with infinite caution, and he was pursuing it alone. It would be time to speak of it when he had it so flanked by facts, and fortified by proof, that the town should read it aghast and rally at the eleventh hour to save itself.
Meanwhile O'Byrn was not idle. He had already satisfied himself, by actual proof, of the value of Slade's tips. The time spent by that worthy in subterranean research had evidently been well expended. There was, clinched and ready for publication, much that was startling. The information had been gained, moreover, from various sources involving difficulties in handling, yet Micky had proceeded thus far without causing a ripple of uneasiness in the turbid waters, and the knaves whose undoing he sought were in blissful ignorance of the formidable net that was closing about them. The layman will wonder how this could be, but the trained newspaper man will readily understand how a "star" worker like O'Byrn, gifted with far more than ordinary subtlety, could accomplish a result which a good reporter, in less degree perhaps, has frequently to negotiate in his arduous calling.
The crowning fact, however, must be nailed home before the Irishman could spring his story; the fact to which all other things led and upon which they were dependent. The sublimely audacious hoax of the Democratic convention, the spectacle of hordes of unconscious puppets of Shaughnessy in the background, the exposure of masterly effrontery hitherto unparalleled in the history of political bossism; these were the culminating, dramatic features of the story, without which it would be as Samson shorn of power. To use these features, and invest them with facts to insure public credence, a difficult proposition presented itself. Judge Boynton must be revealed to the people as he had been, and, no matter how unwillingly, in case of his election would have to be again; an abject tool of Shaughnessy's ring.
Slade and O'Byrn both knew that the Democratic candidate for the mayoralty was running unwillingly; that he revolted from the ignoble part he would be forced to play. They knew also that he was compelled to "stand the gaff," as Slade expressed it, through some sinister, secret hold which Shaughnessy had upon him. But what was this hold? Whatever it was, upon its revelation rested the whole superstructure of O'Byrn's story. The Democratic party had nominated for the mayoralty a jurist of high reputation, during his years upon the bench, and in his retirement the recipient of general public esteem. Micky realized fully that an attack, through mere inference of wrong-doing, upon such a man, would be not only libelous but abortive in its effect upon the public. The people, judging from externals, looked upon the candidate as a true, untrammeled reformer. Micky knew that he was,—perhaps originally by choice and now assuredly of necessity,—a servile tool of the most corrupt political ring in the country; but the public statement of the Irishman to that effect would have to be backed up by incontrovertible proof.
It was truly a formidable difficulty, and one that O'Byrn chafed under as the swift days passed, bringing the election uncomfortably close, with not an effective blow as yet to stay the victorious progress of the "regenerated" Democracy. Micky had exerted himself to the utmost, continuously yet cautiously, in the attempt to possess himself, by hook or crook, of that hidden secret which was the still unlocated fibre of his story; but without success. With everything else practically "clinched," was he to fail with the goal in sight?