Micky went straight from Shaughnessy's to the Courier office that night, and, after his brief communication with Harkins, he repaired to his lodgings. He lighted his heater, and, with a fresh cigar between his teeth, sat down to peruse at leisure the documents he had previously glanced over sufficiently to warrant him in making his triumphant prediction to the city editor. A damning array of evidence was marshaled in them, illustrating at once Shaughnessy's ruthless manner of binding a cabal to his interests and his weakness in recording in black and white such condemnatory proofs of the infamy of the forces of which he was the leader, and for whose deeds he was responsible. It was a quixotic idea of the boss', effective to bend his tools to his desires, but fatal if the accredited proofs ever became public property. Perhaps, Micky reflected, he had intended them for use if treachery ever compelled him to leave in a hurry, in which case the traitors would suffer while the arch-conspirator went scot-free. If this was the intent, events had anticipated it.
The most important exposure, for O'Byrn's purpose, was the one, duly fortified with proof in the papers before him, that Judge Boynton was a hypocrite. He could only conjecture how the Judge had placed himself in Shaughnessy's power, but that he had long since done so, through some official act of weakness or worse, was evident. For the papers proved that the old jurist, supposed to be a power for good, had been for years a power for evil. It was as a secret instigator of lobbies at the State House that he had shone, while the world remained in ignorance. Not alone notorious Consolidated Gas, but many another nefarious movement had owed its progress in no small degree to his secret machinations, and he had been well aided. Micky opened his eyes at some names which appeared in that damning record, as well he might, for they were those of the elect. Indeed, the evidence utterly condemned one of the pillars of the present Fusion movement. Oh, it would be a slaughter, in very truth; one of whose extent the optimistic Micky had not dreamed.
As he read the record, O'Byrn marvelled at one salient fact. These men, of brains and influence, of power and standing, were after all but the tools of Shaughnessy, the liquor dealer, the local boss. Local boss! Micky could have laughed. Why, this genius of the slums had his pallid hand at the throat of the State, and his snaky eyes were even now fixed on victims in higher places, even beyond its too-confined borders. O'Byrn was lost in admiration of the man whose power was the greater because unsuspected by the great public. He moved with much sinuous subtlety, like a serpent wriggling through the grass. He tempted through the cupidity of men worth while, and when they were in his coils they were held there irrevocably. He was a Napoleon of graft, and his ambition was as boundless as that of the Corsican.
There were in the record, too, the hints of several matters that would bear amplifying; stupendous election frauds, fraudulent registration lists and corrupt local deals. Micky knew where to get them, but it would be a strenuous day. It was with a mingled thrill and a sigh that he finally tumbled into bed for a little sleep before the deluge to come.
He awoke unrefreshed, his sleep having been disturbed by wild dreams of conflict with Shaughnessy in which the boss was invariably the victor. Despite the reassuring presence of the materials for a sensation, Micky felt depressed while dressing. There was still much to do, there were some hard propositions to solve during the day, and there might yet be a fatal slip somewhere. Besides, he felt physically wretched. He had caught cold in some way and his head ached miserably. Then, too, in the depths of his heart there was a sick, unacknowledged apprehension; for the old enemy, after too brief a period of quiescence was returning.
Micky finished dressing, and left the house for the restaurant, at which he was accustomed to obtain his meals. On the way he passed an attractive door. He hesitated, halted and turned back. "One won't hurt," he muttered, as he disappeared inside. "Just for an appetizer."
Breakfast finished, Micky, with a renewed sparkle in his eyes, plunged headlong into his self-appointed task, and it was a formidable one. There were sundry peculiar documents to scan. Obstacles in getting at them had to be surmounted, either through subtlety or a bluff, and O'Byrn was a past master in both departments. There were some men to see. Some could be handled with a convenient disguising of the real intention. Others, made to admit damaging matters through cowardly fears, were left in the hope that they had secured immunity for themselves. There was also the omnipresent danger, most dreaded by newspaper men on the track of a big story, of competitors who must be sedulously avoided. O'Byrn dodged them all, though with some narrow escapes, and it became evident that the story, in every detail, was to be his and his alone.
As Micky pursued his perilous though fascinating task, the story grew, gathering black force and sinister proportions. As the busy hours swept on, crowded with strained effort, the Irishman felt to the full the strange, breathless zest felt only by the veteran newsgetter; hot on the trail of a big story, warned constantly by the remorseless ticks of his watch of fast slipping time that waits for no man. The hungry presses must be fed at the appointed hour. Brain, hand, resource and tireless effort must combine to furnish the monster's food. So O'Byrn rushed through the teeming hours. He cut out luncheon, gulping down a glass of whisky in place of it. He had been dramming at intervals since breakfast, and he no longer approached the bar with hesitancy. The excitement of his quest made him reckless and the stuff served as an exhilarant, though he had not yet begun to seriously feel its effects.
He was completely engrossed in his story. He scurried here and there, as need required, gathering force like a machine under the quickening beat of the controlling engine. He was driven resistlessly on by that steadiest, most unfaltering of human impulses, the quickened news instinct. It was a task before which many a veteran would have quailed, but O'Byrn did not know how to lie down. He had, too, a distinct advantage in his wonderful memory. It enabled him to carry away valuable material gained in conversations where the producing of a notebook would have been fatal.
It was well toward evening that Slade met him unostentatiously in a quiet place. "What luck?" he inquired eagerly.