clothed in his decent black suit, and he wore his black cravat tucked
stiffly under the collar that so tightly bound his thick, red neck. On
his glossy shirt front the great diamond, four carats in weight, rose
and fell with his heavy breathing. At his feet was a new yellow valise;
beside him, wedging him tightly into his seat, was Nora’s luggage, her
new bag, the roll of steamer rugs, her little umbrella, her plaid cape,
and all the things she had got at the suggestion of friends who were
interested in her journey across the sea to Ireland. Nora, in her new
traveling gown, was prettier than Malachi had ever seen her. She sat in
the front seat of the section, leaning against the double window, her
elbow on its narrow sill, her chin meditatively in her palm. There had
been some talk between them as the heavy train pulled out of the Van
Buren Street station, and in the bustle of getting away, of arranging
her bags and her bundles, and all that, Nora had beamed with pleasure,
and a fine and happy excitement had sparkled through the long, black
lashes of her blue Irish eyes. But as the train plunged recklessly
out through the bewildering yards, she had noticed her father casting
wistful glances at this or that familiar object sweeping so swiftly and
irrevocably away. There was the Harrison Street police station which
he had visited on so many mornings to help some poor devil out of the
toils; the shops shutting down for the night, their workers trooping
homeward, dead tired after the long hours; the Twelfth Street viaduct,
marking the limits of his ward; the slips in the south branch of the
dirty Chicago River, where big schooners still lay torpid at their
winter moorings, the crossings at Sixteenth Street, then the dear old
Archey Road. A silence had fallen upon him that reacted upon her, and
she grew still, and rode on in the swaying train, gazing soberly out
upon the ragged edges of that Chicago she was leaving behind for the
first time in her life.
The black porter, in spotless white jacket, was going through the car
with his stool, pulling down the inverted globes of the lamps with his
ventilating stick and lighting the four little gas-jets; the travelers
in the car were settling themselves accustomedly for the long ride to
New York, there was even a prospect of some cheer in the dinner which
was soon to be served in the dining-car, but the alderman seemed not to
notice any of these things.
Malachi had never traveled much. His only trips had been those biennial
ones to Springfield, when he had headed the First Ward delegation to
the state conventions; sometimes he had gone down there while the
legislature was in session; and once he had journeyed to Washington
with the Marching Club to attend the inauguration ceremonies. But that
was all. On these trips he had gone with his own kind, and doubtless
enjoyed them, but now, this evening, it was plain that he was not
comfortable. He could not smoke, for one thing, and the round hole in
the corner of his mouth looked forlorn in its present lack of a cigar.
He must have thought, once or twice, of escaping to the smoking-room,
but each time he had remembered Nora, and so had sat on, heavy,
imponderable and solemn.
After a while the porter got the little lights to burning, and they
illumed, though inadequately, the long coach, its heavy trappings, its
bell cord, the suspended hats and wraps swaying from side to side, as
it creaked and groaned over so many switches and curves and crossings
to get out of town. They rushed by mills, with furnaces blazing like
infernos in the gathering twilight, and black, stubby chimneys lighting
the dull sky with flames; at last they were in the outskirts where the
city helplessly degenerates into naked flat buildings, finally, into
low cottages scattered here and there in little broken rows, with high
board-walks in front of them.
Then Malachi, stooping painfully, unbuckled his new valise and took
from it a newspaper. Before he unfolded it, he drew out his spectacles
and calmly adjusted them to his nose. Then opening the paper he began
to read. He read carefully and slowly, first the front page, column
after column, then the second page, and so on, methodically, through
all the pages. His lips moved slightly as he read, for he had to
pronounce the words to himself to get their full meaning. When Malachi
had read to the last line of the last column of the last page of his
newspaper, he did not fold and lay it aside. He turned back to the
first page and studied the picture there. It was the daily cartoon, and
the central figure was intended for Malachi himself. That there could
be no question of identity, the prudent artist had labeled it “Bull
Nolan.” The figure was one that Malachi had seen in the papers, in
varying situations, for years, with the aldermanic paunch, the massive
chain and charm, the bullet head, the stubble of hair, the bell-crowned
hat, the braided plaid clothes, broad-soled shoes and checkered spats,
the briskly radiating lines to symbolize the diamond. But at last the
inevitable cigar had gone out, the First Ward no longer peeped on a
ballot, secure and safe, from his waistcoat pocket. The gentleman with
high hat, side whiskers, gloves and cane, who, labeled “Citizen,”
impersonated the better element, had it now, and while he was still
self-contained, there was a look of almost holy triumph in his face.
Malachi studied the cartoon a long time, never changing expression. But
even when he finished he did not fold the paper carefully and put it
back in his valise, nor bestow his spectacles in his waistcoat pocket.
He had suffered many lapses in his methodical habits of late, and they
were growing easy now. He turned to the editorial page, where a line in
big types, heading a leading editorial, had caught his little eye. It
said: “The Passing of Malachi Nolan.” Malachi began to read, slowly and
carefully, pronouncing each word to himself:
“Citizens not only of the First Ward, but of the entire city, are to
be congratulated upon the signal victory the Municipal Reform League
has won in its campaign against Malachi Nolan. This man, who so long
has misrepresented the ward mentioned in the city council, has at
last been dislodged, and driven to the obscurity of private life,
where his pernicious and dangerous tendencies, if not altogether
abated, will at least be confined to a narrower sphere of activity.
In announcing his retirement from politics, he gives as a reason
his desire to pay a visit to his native land, but the public, while
speeding his departure, will readily penetrate the gauzy excuse
he advances for it. They know that he has been forced to fly from
a field rendered utterly untenable by the onslaughts of those
public-spirited gentlemen who at great personal sacrifice have so
freely contributed of their means, their energies and their time to
the work of the Municipal Reform League, and to them and the press
they will ascribe the credit and the praise. It would seem, however,
that the Honorable Bull Nolan has lost none of his presumption, for
he insolently declares that he leaves as his personal representative
and successor in the aldermanic chair one of his henchmen, William
Brennan. But the people will take care of Mr. Brennan at the proper
time. They will see to it that Nolan’s successor shall not be a man
whose political methods are such as will enable him to take vacation
trips in Europe, and with the abundant encouragement they have now
received, will continue to widen this breach already made in the
walls of corruption and dishonesty and carry on the splendid work for
good government and honest politics--”
Malachi did not read any further. The lights in the car were poor,
after all, and then, his eyes were not so good as they used to be.
He folded the paper carefully, looked all about, then hid it at last
behind him. Then he bestowed his spectacles in his waistcoat pocket,
and, like Nora, looked out of the window. They had gone through South
Chicago, they had passed One-hundredth Street. They looked out now
upon the dull prairies that sprawled flat all about them, with no sign
of spring as yet, but dead and desolate, broken only by a black and
stunted tree here or there. At wide, wide intervals a lonely gas lamp
twinkled bravely in a legal way as if to preserve the prescription of
what was only technically a street. The prairies stretched away until
they faded into the gray gloom of the March evening, and they had left
Chicago at last behind.
THE PARDON OF THOMAS WHALEN
The private secretary turned reluctantly from his open window beside
which the trees bathed their young leaves in the sparkling sunshine of
the June morning to confront the throng that awaited audience with the
governor. The throng was larger than usual, for the state convention
was to be held on the morrow. Every county in the state was represented
in the crowd that trampled the red carpet, crushed the leather chairs
and blew the smoke of campaign cigars into the solemn faces of former
governors standing in their massive gilt frames with their hands
on ponderous law books. In one corner a woman huddled, pinching a
handkerchief to her eyes. Now and then she sobbed aloud. When Leonard
Gilman, the private secretary, saw her he knew it at once for a pardon
case, and paid no further attention to her. Big countrymen in Sunday
clothes, who wore the red badges of delegates, slapped him on the back,
city ward-heelers of checkered lives and garments called him “Len.”
There was an odor of perspiration in the room, distinguishable even in
the heavy fumes of tobacco. The real leaders, of course, William Handy
and the others, were over at the executive mansion, with the governor,
completing the final arrangements for his renomination. The governor
held the convention in the hollow of his hand.
The woman huddled in her corner until eleven o’clock, and then Gilman,
happening into her quarter of the room, asked her what she wanted,
listening with official respect for her reply. It was an old story to
him. When she told him he smiled a strange smile and turned away. At
noon the governor ran the gauntlet of the waiting crowd and gained
the sanctuary of his private office. Once there, breathing a sigh of
relief, he stood for a moment in one of the tall windows looking out
upon the smooth lawns stretching lazily in the sun, and rolling away
to the elms surrounding the state house. He was a tall man and strong.
If he had a physical fault, it was that he carried his head too low,
denoting him a thinker, but if his gaze was fixed upon the earth,
his thoughts were in the stars. Presently he shook his splendid head
vigorously, wrapped his long coat determinedly about him, and settled
himself at his desk.
Gilman entered, bearing a pile of papers demanding the governor’s
personal attention, but the morning conference was very brief on this
day. As Gilman turned to go, the governor said:
“I desire to be alone to-day. I have that speech of acceptance to
write. If Handy comes, send him in, but no one else.”
Gilman laid his hand upon the door-knob and the governor asked:
“No one of importance out there, is there?”
“No,” said Gilman. “There’s a woman--what do you think she wants?”
“A pardon, of course.”
“Yes, but for whom? You’d never guess in a thousand years.” Gilman was
smiling.
“Then tell me.”
“Tom Whalen!” Gilman laughed at the humor of it.
The governor’s features relaxed with a smile, but quickly his brow
contracted again, and he said:
“Well--poor things--I pity them. I could wash my hands in women’s tears
every week.”
“Well,” said Gilman, opening the door, “I told her she could see you.
I’ll slide her out.”
The governor bent to his desk, but just as the door was closing he
called:
“Oh, Gilman!”
Gilman stopped.
“Don’t do that--tell her I’ll see her after a while.”
Gilman, as he returned to his desk, smiled and shook his head at the
governor’s weakness.
Thomas Whalen was a life convict in the penitentiary. The crime was
committed on the night of the election at which John Chatham had
been chosen chief executive of his state. Whalen was a boss in the
nineteenth ward and a Chatham man. The campaign had developed such
bitterness that Whalen found it necessary to name himself a judge of
election in the fourth precinct of his ward. Many times during the day
blue patrol wagons had rolled into the precinct.
The polling place of the fourth precinct was a small barber shop
in Fifteenth Street. During the evening, as the ballots were being
counted, it had become apparent that an altercation was in progress
behind the yellow blinds. It was abruptly terminated by a shot. The
lights in the shop were extinguished at the same moment. A man burst
from the door and fled. When the police arrived, they found a dead
election judge face downward on the table. His name had been Brokoski.
The bullet had passed entirely through his body, and reddened with
his blood the ballots that gushed from the overturned box. The window
at his back had been completely shattered by the ball as it flew out
into the alley. This was a large bullet, a thirty-eight caliber. The
police found a revolver gleaming in the light of the dark lanterns
they flashed down the alley. It was a thirty-eight caliber with one
empty chamber. It was evident that the murderer had discarded it in
his flight. A lieutenant of police at the Market Place police station
easily identified the gun as one he had given to Whalen several weeks
previously. The judges and clerks had rushed after Whalen. The shock,
the sudden failure of light, the horror of the dead man in the dark had
jangled their nerves. They were too excited to give a clear account
of the affair. They knew that Whalen and Brokoski, sitting on opposite
sides of the table, had been quarreling. They had heard the shot, had
been blinded by the flash, and had seen Whalen bolt. Brokoski had
fallen heavily upon the table, and died with an oath upon his lips.
Gilman never forgot that wild night. He had spent it with the governor
at the headquarters of the state central committee. In the dawn, when
the east was yellowing, and sparrows began to scuffle and splutter on
the eaves of the federal building looming dour just over the way, the
news of the murder and frauds had come to them. The governor’s face,
white with excitement and fatigue, had suddenly darkened. Had it been
the shadow cast by the passing of a great ambition?
* * * * *
At the close of the long day the woman, beckoned by Gilman into the
governor’s presence, lingered on the threshold of the chamber. The room
was full of shadows. The figure of the governor, standing in the tall
window, shut out the waning light, and was silhouetted, big and black,
against the twilight sky. He did not hear the woman enter. She coughed
to attract his attention. This did not arouse him from his reverie, and
after a moment’s timid hesitation, she said:
“May I come in?”
The governor turned. “Be seated, madam,” he said. “I shall be quite
frank with you. I am acquainted with this case, and do not believe it
to be one justifying executive clemency.”
When she spoke her voice was tremulous.
“Will you hear my story?”
“You may proceed,” the governor replied. He had pushed the papers aside
and was drumming lightly with his long, white fingers on his desk.
The woman nervously pleated her handkerchief, fearing to begin. “You
must excuse me,” she said presently, “I can not tell my story very
well. I do not come here for mercy or anything like that. It is only a
matter of justice.”
Had it not been for the gloom, she might have seen a smile steal
over the face of the dark figure at the desk. Once plunged into her
narrative, her words flowed rapidly, until--suddenly she ceased to
speak.
“That was five years ago,” she said, her voice dropping to a sadly
reminiscent whisper. “We were to have been married that spring, but--I
would rather not tell the rest.”
The woman probably felt her cheeks flush with warmth.
The governor could hear her quick breathing. In a minute he said kindly:
“Well?”
The woman hesitated an instant, and then fairly blurted out the rest
of her tale. The governor, through the darkness, saw the woman lean,
panting, toward him. Convulsively she pressed her hands to her face.
She collapsed in tears. When her sobs became more regular, though still
labored, the governor said:
“And Whalen--he knew this?”
“He must have known.”
“Then why did he not tell?”
The woman hung her head and said, in a low voice:
“I was mistaken, sir. The other woman lied.”
“Ah, I see.” The governor turned and looked out of the windows. The
old-fashioned iron lamps on the broad steps that led up to the state
house were blinking in the dark trees, and the arc light swinging
in the street swayed the shadows of their foliage back and forth on
the white walks. A flash of heat lightning quivered over the purple
outlines of the elms.
The governor sat for a long time in somber silence. The woman could
hear the ticking of his watch. Presently he drew it from his pocket and
struck a match.
“It is growing late,” he said. “The tale you tell is a very remarkable
tale. My time is so fully occupied that it will be impossible for me to
devote any thought to it just now. If you will leave your address with
my secretary I shall communicate with you. Meanwhile--do not talk.”
When the private secretary had conducted the woman from the room the
governor went to his window. The voices of the June night floated up to
him, but he no longer heard their music. For the second time, at the
name of Whalen, and even in the darkness, there swept over his face the
shadow of the passing of a great ambition.
The convention met. The secretary never got down to _S_ in calling the
roll of counties, and the governor was renominated by acclamation. But
never in all the exciting scenes of those two days, in the black moment
of suspense before the roll-call began, in the white instant of agony
pending the poll of the Richland County delegation, in the golden hour
of triumph, when he stood pale and bending before the mad applause
rolling up to him in mighty billows, did he forget the name of Thomas
Whalen, or did the face of that woman pass from him. They followed him
persistently, they glimmered in his dreams. There was no escape from
their pursuit.
After a week in which he found no ease, with the determination
that characterized him when once aroused, he undertook a judicial
investigation of the case. He obtained a transcript of record, and read
it as carefully as if he had been retained in the case and sought error
upon which to carry it to the supreme court. In the familiar work he
found for a time relief.
Gilman, meanwhile, had forgotten the incident of the woman’s visit.
The idea of pardoning Tom Whalen was too preposterous to merit
serious consideration. But, when the governor told him to go to
the penitentiary and interview Whalen, and then to the city and the
locality of the crime for the purpose of learning all he could about
Brokoski’s death, he damned himself for having mentioned the fact of
the woman’s presence on that crowded, tobacco-clogged, perspiring
morning. And as he left the capitol he resolved that his visit should
be astonishingly barren of results.
Inside the warden’s private office at the penitentiary he saw Whalen.
The man had found the convict’s friend, consumption, and Gilman hardly
knew him. When the private secretary told him of the application for
his pardon, Whalen only smiled. Gilman found him strangely reticent,
and after an effort to induce him to talk, said:
“Whalen, really now, did you kill Brokoski?”
The striped convict picked at the cap he held in his lap. A bitter
smile wrinkled his pale, moist face.
“Suspected again, eh?” he said, without looking up.
Finally Whalen tired of the examination. He breathed with difficulty,
but that may have been due to his disease. At last he raised his shaven
head.
“Mr. Gilman,” he said, “I see what you’re getting at. I have told you
I did not commit the crime for which I am here. For that matter, any
of the three thousand other prisoners within these walls and wearing
these clothes will tell you the same thing. I don’t know whether you
believe me or not. It doesn’t make much difference. It doesn’t matter
what becomes of me any more. I ain’t long for this world. So just let
it drop--what’s the use of opening it up again?”
“But you haven’t answered my question,” said Gilman, interested in
spite of himself, for a great fear was growing up within him; “you have
not told me who did kill Brokoski.”
The convict lifted his eyelids slowly, and fastened his vision upon his
interlocutor. And then he said very deliberately and distinctly:
“No, Mr. Gilman, and I never will!”
Gilman left the penitentiary with more than its gloom upon him. He
declined the warden’s effusive invitation to stay to dinner. He wanted
to get away. He could not forget the shine in Whalen’s eyes. And the
fear within possessed him.
When he reached the city, after dining at the chop house where his old
friends foregathered, he went out to Fifteenth Street. Costello had
sold his barber shop, and the place had become a saloon. The saloon
was quiet that night. Gilman drank with the bartender, and, of course,
talked about the Brokoski killing. The bartender had made a study of
that case, and discussed it with the curled lip of the specialist.
“They didn’t do a t’ing to Tom but t’row the hooks into ’im all right,
all right. It was a case of him in the stripes from the start. Say,
them lawyer guys and fly-cops’d frost you.”
Then carefully locating the actors in the tragedy, he reproduced it
vividly before Gilman’s eyes. Brokoski had faced the wall where the
hole was. Whalen’s back had been to it. Brokoski had sat with his back
to the window. The barkeeper plunged his red hands into a drawer,
rattled a corkscrew, a knife, a revolver and a jigger, and then drew
out a small piece of lead. It was a thirty-eight caliber bullet.
“That’s the boy that done Brokoski,” he said.
“Where did you get it?” asked Gilman, with the mild awe a curio excites
in men.
The bartender pointed to a ragged hole in the wainscoting.
“Dug it out o’ there with the icepick. I’m a Sherlock, see? Sure,” he
sneered, “it might ’a’ bounced off the Polock’s breast.”
The man wiped his towel over the bar in disgust.
Then seriously:
“On the dead, Mr. Gilman, if Tom had his rights, he’d be sent back to
the ward to die.”
Gilman was troubled. He returned in the morning and examined the
premises carefully. At two-twenty that afternoon he was on the Limited,
flying back to the capital.
That evening he was sitting with the governor in the library of the
executive mansion. The windows were open and the odor of lilacs was
borne in from the summer night. A negro who had served half a dozen
governors, shuffled into the room, bearing a tray.
“That’s excellent whisky,” observed the private secretary.
“That was excellent whisky, Gilman,” said the governor, “before you
were born.”
The private secretary was rolling a cigarette. He rolled it with
unusual deliberation, licking the rice paper many times before trusting
himself to paste it down.
The governor bit the end from a black cigar. A blazing match passed
between them.
Then Gilman told of his interview with Whalen. He did not display much
spirit in the telling. When he had done, he flecked the ash from his
cigarette in a thoughtful way. Resting his forearms on his knees, he
regarded the floor between his feet.
“Has it ever struck you as peculiar,” he said, “that the bullet was not
introduced in evidence?”
“No,” said the governor, “not very.”
The private secretary paused. When he had done he laughed. The governor
was seriously silent for many minutes, and then he said:
“Leonard, I want you to tell me your theory of this whole business.”
Gilman sat up. “Well,” he said, “had it never occurred to you that it
would have been significant to determine where that bullet lodged as
showing its direction? It bored a hole clear through Brokoski, but at
which end had it entered?”
“I presume the medical testimony settled that,” replied the governor.
He seemed to find a species of relief in this thought.