He seized a pad and wrote hastily for a moment, and finally handing the slip of paper to the sergeant, added:—
"First, try these four addresses. If he's not at any of these, then try his home; you'll be sure to find him there. But see him—don't take no for an answer, and after you have told him the whole story, get his orders—see?"
It took an hour and a half to locate Chairman Peter Broderick; the sergeant found him home—in his rooms on the ground floor of the Iroquois Club. He waited for some time before he could gain access to that estimable gentleman, for Peter Broderick's hour for rising was high noon. The boy who aroused him awakened a slumbering lion; the Iroquois Club cowered when Broderick woke up; others cowered, too. Broderick's word was law everywhere, and yet he wore no badge of authority, held no office—he did not even want one. He was higher than authority, stronger than civic force: he was power personified. He had attained that mystical position in the universe, known wherever men cast ballots as Chairman of the County Committee, which meant to owe no man a duty, but to demand servitude and fealty from every man. It meant more—it meant to hold the bag! It meant that whatever Peter Broderick wanted he got.
"Well!" roared Broderick to the sergeant; "what in thunder do you want?"
The desk-sergeant briefly set forth his credentials and authority, and then plunged boldly into the purpose of his presence.
"The captain wants to know what he's to do about this Hargraves murder?"
Broderick stared hard at him.
"Hargraves murder?" he repeated. "What Hargraves?"
The sergeant told him.
"Great Scott! So he's dead. Confound him! He bled me like thunder at draw the last time I met him!"