"Just a second, counsellor--I wish you'd draw a cheque for five for me."
"Dollars?"
"No."
"Hundreds?"
"No."
"Five thousand!" Thorne whistled. "Coming it just a bit strong,
Broderick."
Broderick vigorously shook his head.
"Now, look here, Thorne, I've got no complaint to make of you, and
you've got no complaint to make of me. You've paid me well, but you've
had blamed good returns for it, haven't you? Come now!"
"Yes," admitted Thorne. "But----"
"No buts," interrupted Broderick. "This is a crisis."
Thorne drew down the corners of his mouth.
"Do you think that I don't know it's a crisis?" He went back to his
desk, drew forth a cheque-book and wrote a cheque. Before passing it
over to Broderick, he looked him squarely in the eye, and added:--
"Peter, I've always paid you by cheque and taken your receipt."
"Sure!" returned Broderick. "I'm no office-holder. You could publish it
in the newspapers; nobody could find fault."
"The point is," continued Thorne, referring to a memorandum, "that I've
passed over to you a sight of money."
"And you got a sight of influence in return," retorted Broderick.
Thorne passed over the five thousand dollar cheque, seized Broderick by
the arm, marched him out, then he began to relieve his mind.
"Broderick, I want more influence. I've got a pet scheme, a great
ambition that is overweening, overwhelming. It won't down; it owns me
body and soul." He paused a moment before finally coming to the point.
"I want some day to sit in the Senate of the United States."
"Phew!" whistled Broderick. "Nothing stingy about you!"
"I shall want every iota of your influence," Thorne went on; "I shall
need it. And, Peter, I want to know whether I'm going to have it. I want
to know that _now_."
Broderick stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk and shook him by the
hand.
"Thorne," he exclaimed, "there isn't a man I'd rather send to the United
States Senate than you! I mean it; there's my hand on it." And pushing
Thorne into the waiting taxicab he commanded the driver to take them to
Cradlebaugh's back entrance.
"Quick as you can!" he added, as they drove off.
Once in Cradlebaugh's, the domineering influence of Broderick again
asserted itself.
"Where's Pemmican?" he inquired gruffly; and without waiting for an
answer: "send him along right away!"
The liveried man who did his bidding bowed a bit familiarly to him, but
very deferentially to Thorne. The latter he knew as a patron of the
place, but one who did not play.
Almost instantly Pemmican came. His face was haggard, pale, his eyes
heavy with sleeplessness, and upon him generally was the air of a man
who had passed through some nightmare that with the dawn had turned out
to be hideously true. He took them at once to the private room where the
captain of police was waiting.
"Captain," said Broderick, "this is my counsel. He's a rattler for
advice when a man's in a tight hole, and I thought I'd just fetch him
along. Captain Whally--Counsellor Thorne." And turning at once upon
Pemmican, Broderick proceeded to interrogate him.
"Now just where did this thing happen?"
Pemmican looked at the captain, at Broderick and then at Thorne before
answering. Then he said:--
"Room A."
"Then it _was_ pulled off in here?"
"Yes."
"And how did he get out there on the street?"
Pemmican rubbed his hands together, looking first to Thorne and then to
the captain for approval.
"I dragged him out."
"Good work!" was Broderick's brief comment.
"Who did this thing?" asked Thorne.