“Do you know anything in the office that has to do with sabotage?” demanded Guffey of Peter.
And Peter thought. “No, I don’t,” he said.
They talked among themselves for a minute or two. The Chief said they had got all McCormick’s things out of his room, and might find some clue to the mystery in these. Guffey went to the telephone, and gave a number with which Peter was familiar—that of I. W. W. headquarters. “That you, Al?” he said. “We’re trying to find if there’s something in those rooms that has to do with sabotage. Have you found anything—any apparatus or pictures, or writing—anything?” Evidently the answer was in the negative, for Guffey said: “Go ahead, look farther; if you get anything, call me at the chief’s office quick. It may give us a lead.”
Then Guffey hung up the receiver and turned to Peter. “Now Gudge,” he said, “that’s all your story, is it; that’s all you got to tell us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well then, you might as well quit your fooling right away. We understand that you framed this thing up, and we’re not going to be taken in.”
Peter stared at Guffey, speechless; and Guffey, for his part, took a couple of steps toward Peter, his brows gathering into a terrible frown, and his fists clenched. In a wave of sickening horror Peter remembered the scenes after the Preparedness Day explosion. Were they going to put him thru that again?
“We’ll have a show-down, Gudge, right here,” the head detective continued. “You tell us all this stuff about Angell—his talk with Jerry Rudd, and his pockets stuffed with bombs and all the rest of it—and he denies every word of it.”
“But, m-m-my God! Mr. Guffey,” gasped Peter. “Of course he’ll deny it!” Peter could hardly believe his ears—that they were taking seriously the denial of a dynamiter, and quoting it to him!
“Yes, Gudge,” responded Guffey, “but you might as well know the truth now as later—Angell is one of our men; we’ve had him planted on these ‘wobblies’ for the last year.”