Seven Keys to Baldpate Part 39

"All black," he said, "when the game comes out right."

"And the other?" Kendrick persisted softly. He pointed to the remaining deck. A terrible smile of understanding drew his thin lips taut. "And the other, Mr. Cargan?"

"Red," replied Cargan. "What else could it be? All red."

He picked it up and shuffled through it to prove his point. Kendrick turned like a drunken man and staggered back down the aisle. Magee rose and hurried after him. At the door he turned, and the look on his face caused Magee to shudder.

"You heard?" he said helplessly. "My G.o.d! It's funny, isn't it?" He laughed hysterically, and drawing out his handkerchief, pa.s.sed it across his forehead. "A pleasant thing to think about--a pleasant thing to remember."

Professor Bolton pushed open the smoker door.

"I thought I'd join you," he began. "Why, David, what is it? What's the matter?"

"Nothing," replied Kendrick wildly. "There's nothing the matter. Let me--by--please." He crossed the swaying platform and disappeared into the other car.

For a moment the professor and Magee gazed after him, and then without a word moved down the car to join Cargan and Max. Magee's mind was dazed by the tragedy he had witnessed. "A pleasant thing to think about--" He did not envy Kendrick his thoughts.

The mayor of Reuton had pushed aside the cards and lighted a huge cigar.

"Well, Doc," he remarked jocosely, "how's trade? Sold any new schemes for renovating the world to the up-state rubes? I should think this would be sort of an off-season for the reform business. Peace on earth, good will toward men--that ain't exactly a good advertis.e.m.e.nt for the reformers, is it?"

"It's an excellent one," replied Professor Bolton. "The first essential of good will toward men is not to rob and debauch them."

"Oh, well, Doc, don't let's argue the matter," replied Cargan easily. "I ain't in the humor for it, anyhow. You got your beliefs, and I got my beliefs. And that ain't no reason why we should not smoke a couple of good cigars together. Have one?"

"Thanks. I--" reluctantly the old man took a gay-banded Havana from the mayor's huge fist. "You're very kind."

"I suppose it's sort of a blow to you," the mayor went on, "that your plans up there on the mountain went all to smash. It ought to teach you a lesson, Doc. There ain't nothing to the reform gag."

The train slowed down at a small yellow station. Mr. Magee peered out the window. "Hooperstown," he read, "Reuton--10 miles." He saw Mr. Max get up and leave the car.

"Not a thing to it, Doc," Cargan repeated, "Your bunch has tried to get me before. You've shouted from the housetops that you had the goods on me. What's always happened?"

"Your own creatures have acquitted you," replied the professor, from a cloud of Cargan cigar smoke.

"Fair-minded men decided that I hadn't done wrong. I tell you, Doc, there's dishonest graft, and I'm against that always. And there's honest graft--the rightful perquisites of a high office. That's the trouble with you church politicians. You can't see the difference between the two."

"I'm not a church politician," protested the professor. "I'm bitterly opposed to the lily-white crowd who continually rant against the thing they don't understand. I'm practical, as practical as you, and when--"

Noiselessly Mr. Max slid up to the group, and stood silent, his eyes wide, his yellow face pitiful, the fear of a dog about to be whipped in his every feature.

"Jim," he cried, "Jim! You got to get me out of this. You got to stand by me."

"Why, what's the matter, Lou?" asked the mayor in surprise.

"Matter enough," whined Max. "Do you know what's happened? Well, I'll tell--"

Mr. Max was thrust aside, and replaced by a train newsboy. Mr. Magee felt that he should always remember that boy, his straw colored hair, his freckled beaming face, his lips with their fresh perpetual smile.

"All the morning papers, gents," proclaimed the boy. "Get the _Reuton Star_. All about the bribery."

He held up the paper. It's huge black head-lines looked dull and old and soggy. But the story they told was new and live and startling.

"The Mayor Trapped," shrilled the head-lines. "Attempt to Pa.s.s Big Bribe at Baldpate Inn Foiled by Star Reporter. Hayden of the Suburban Commits Suicide to Avoid Disgrace."

"Give me a paper, boy," said the mayor. "Yes--a _Star_." His voice was even, his face unmoved. He took the sheet and studied it, with an easy smile. Clinging in fear to his side, Max read, too. At length Mr. Cargan spoke, looking up at Magee.

"So," he remarked. "So--reporters, eh? You and your lady friend?

Reporters for this lying sheet--the _Star_?"

Mr. Magee smiled up from his own copy of the paper.

"Not I," he answered. "But my lady friend--yes. It seems she was just that. A _Star_ reporter you can call her, and tell no lie, Mr. Mayor."

CHAPTER XXI

THE MAYOR IS WELCOMED HOME

It was a good story--the story which the mayor, Max, the professor and Magee read with varying emotions there in the smoking-car. The girl had served her employers well, and Mr. Magee, as he read, felt a thrill of pride in her. Evidently the employers had felt that same thrill. For in the captions under the pictures, in the head-lines, and in a first-page editorial, none of which the girl had written, the _Star_ spoke admiringly of its woman reporter who had done a man's work--who had gone to Baldpate Inn and had brought back a gigantic bribe fund "alone and unaided".

"Indeed?" smiled Mr. Magee to himself.

In the editorial on that first page the triumphant cry of the _Star_ arose to shatter its fellows in the heavens. At last, said the editor, the long campaign which his paper alone of all the Reuton papers had waged against a corrupt city administration was brought to a successful close. The victory was won. How had this been accomplished? Into the _Star_ office had come rumors, a few days back, of the proposed payment of a big bribe at the inn on Baldpate Mountain. The paper had decided that one of its representatives must be on the ground. It had debated long whom to send. Miss Evelyn Rhodes, its well-known special writer, had got the tip in question; she had pleaded to go to the inn. The editor, considering her s.e.x, had sternly refused. Then gradually he had been brought to see the wisdom of sending a girl rather than a man. The s.e.x of the former would put the guilty parties under surveillance off guard. So Miss Rhodes was despatched to the inn. Here was her story. It convicted Cargan beyond a doubt. The very money offered as a bribe was now in the hands of the _Star_ editor, and would be turned over to Prosecutor Drayton at his request. All this under the disquieting t.i.tle "Prison Stripes for the Mayor".

The girl's story told how, with one companion, she had gone to Upper Asquewan Falls. There was no mention of the station waiting-room, nor of the tears shed therein on a certain evening, Mr. Magee noted. She had reached the inn on the morning of the day when the combination was to be phoned. Bland was already there, shortly after came the mayor and Max.

"You got to get me out of this," Magee heard Max pleading over Cargan's shoulder.

"Keep still!" replied the mayor roughly. He was reading his copy of the _Star_ with keen interest now.

"I've done your dirty work for years," whined Max. "Who puts on the rubber shoes and sneaks up dark alleys hunting votes among the garbage, while you do the Old Glory stunt on Main Street? I do. You got to get me out of this. It may mean jail. I couldn't stand that. I'd die."

A horrible parody of a man's real fear was in his face. The mayor shook himself as though he would be rid forever of the coward hanging on his arm.

"Hush up, can't you?" he said. "I'll see you through."

"You got to," Lou Max wailed.

Miss Rhodes' story went on to tell how Hayden refused to phone the combination; how the mayor and Max dynamited the safe and secured the precious package, only to lose it in another moment to a still different contingent at the inn; how Hayden had come, of his suicide when he found that his actions were in danger of exposure--"a bitter smile for Kendrick in that" reflected Magee--and how finally, through a strange series of accidents, the money came into the hands of the writer for the _Star_. These accidents were not given in detail.

"An amusing feature of the whole affair," said Miss Evelyn Rhodes, "was the presence at the inn of Mr. William Hallowell Magee, the New York writer of light fiction, who had come there to escape the distractions of a great city, and to work in the solitude, and who immediately on his arrival became involved in the surprising drama of Baldpate."

"I'm an amusing feature," reflected Magee.

"Mr. Magee," continued Miss Rhodes, "will doubtless be one of the state's chief witnesses when the case against Cargan comes to trial, as will also Professor Thaddeus Bolton, holder of the Crandall Chair of Comparative Literature at Reuton University, and Mr. David Kendrick, formerly of the Suburban, but who retired six years ago to take up his residence abroad. The latter two went to the inn to represent Prosecutor Drayton, and made every effort in their power to secure the package of money from the reporter for the _Star_, not knowing her connection with the affair."