A Dumbfounded Populace
Just one week after Vickery's last call, the district attorney and the
city solicitor met in the mayor's office. The former official, Robert
Joyce, was a young man with most of his reputation to gain; and he had
welcomed the Vickery case as an excellent weapon with which to gain it.
How he had happened to win his office was a cause for wonder to some
people, until they stopped to remember that all interest in the election
of the previous winter had been centered on the mayor; and that although
the rank and file of voters knew that Joyce was making a fight for his
candidacy, none of them had believed he could win over the old
incumbent, and had paid little heed to his political efforts. His
election was one of the surprises of the campaign, but even that was not
much talked about, in the excitement of proclaiming the woman for mayor
of Roma.
Now, as once before, he saw his opportunity and seized it. For the past
week he had done little else but probe the affairs of the Boulevard
Railway scheme, scarcely eating or sleeping while he pursued the case
with all the eagerness of a hound after his first fox. Gertrude Van
Deusen could not have found a better ally than Robert Joyce, and she
knew it. He had already secured evidence and managed his case so well
that the grand jury would bring in a bill for indictment, not only
against Orlando Vickery, but against Otis H. Mann, chairman of the board
of aldermen. The case was to be brought up in court on the following
morning.
"I must congratulate you, Mr. Joyce, upon your quick and able work,"
said she. "I wanted the case hurried along, and you have surely done
it."
"Mr. Armstrong has helped greatly," returned Joyce. "He has a good deal
of inside knowledge, and it didn't take long to convince us both that
there was a vast amount of corruption. How to clinch the evidence has
been the problem. But you say you are willing to go on the witness
stand?"
"I am--and Miss Snow also," answered the mayor. "I should think our
evidence enough."
"It is; and yet, while we are about it we want to catch the whole
outfit. We don't want to leave any loop-holes for the criminals--for
they will have an expert to defend them; you may be sure of that. Some
of the old aldermen may confess. They will pin their faith to
confession as the rock of salvation for them. But that is just the
beginning. We are after the big man, the man who debauches as well as
the man who receives. This is no partial house-cleaning. Fordham, the
agent of the Roma Telephone Company, who handed the old board $1,000
each, is now on his way back from China. To save his skin, he may tell
us about the money which his corporation has so generously handed over
to the supervisors. Then the Telephone Company, composed of men high in
the social circles of this city (with its franchise bought for a paltry
few thousand dollars) will have to show its books, and if we can reach
the guilty ones, on the top, indictments will soon be moving their way.
I think within the next month we will have indictments from the grand
jury for at least four of the more-holier-than-thou sort. That is where
the bomb is going to fall, unless my plans miscarry most woefully."
"You see there are lively times ahead," added Bailey Armstrong. "There
is a man--one on whom a great deal depends--whom we want to bring to
confession. He is the son of your father's old coachman--Fitzgerald."
"Newton Fitzgerald?" asked Gertrude. "The one who has a saloon over on
the south side?"
"Yes--and, unfortunately for us, a properly certified license," answered
Bailey. "He is a tough character, but when a boy he had a soft side. Do
you suppose you could reach him, Gertie?"
"Possibly," she answered thoughtfully. "I used to have a good deal of
influence over Newton when he lived in our cottage as a boy. Don't you
remember--I got him to go to school regularly, and saved him from the
truant officer's clutches on two or three occasions?"
"He used to swear by you," said Bailey. "Couldn't you manage to see him
now, and get him to talk?"
"Get him to confess, if you can," added Joyce. "Offer him immunity if he
will tell you all he knows--and I suspect that is a good deal."
"Yes, I'll do that," answered the mayor. "I'll telephone now to his
place and ask him to come over and see me."
They talked on for another half-hour, and when the two men left, their
plans were all made. Gertrude and Mary Snow were to appear at the court
house next morning, both ready to give valuable testimony against the
grafters, testimony which would convict them out of Vickery's own mouth.
When she was alone, Gertrude at once took up her telephone and called up
Newton Fitzgerald's saloon.
"Is Mr. Fitzgerald in?" she asked.
"He has just stepped out," was the answer.
"Tell him, when he comes in, to please call at the mayor's office before
he goes home," replied Gertrude, "Miss Van Deusen wishes to speak with
him."
She hung up her receiver and turned back to the duties of her desk. It
was nearly five o'clock before she heard anything further. Then her
telephone rang and a strange voice came over the wire.
"Mr. Fitzgerald has fallen and sprained his knee. He has to be put to
bed, but wants to know if you won't come to see him tonight. He wants to
talk with you about the investigation--has something to tell you."
"Where does he live?" asked the mayor.
"In the Sutherland," was the reply, "the big apartment building back of
the American House."
"Very well. Tell him I will be there with Miss Snow at eight o'clock,"
she answered; and then she called Mary Snow and told her of the
appointment.
"Don't you think we ought to take someone else along?--a man--Bailey
Armstrong, say?"
"O, no," returned the Mayor, confidently. "Fitzgerald would not talk
before him--or any other man--in my opinion. He was a peculiar boy, but
I could manage him. It will be better for us to go alone--and quietly.
We won't even take the carriage. I'll come down on the car at a quarter
before eight and meet you at Harne's drug store. Then we'll just go
quietly up to Fitzgerald's flat. I know his wife."
"Very well," said Mary. If she did not feel quite satisfied with the
plan, it was not for her to question the mayor's authority, and she said
no more.
But the next morning the newspapers brought a new sensation to a
startled city. Two important pieces of news furnished excitement enough
to arouse even the staid and respectable old _Atlas_. People gathered in
knots on street corners to discuss them. The air was breezy with
excitement. The street corners were blocked with gathering knots of
indignant citizens, eager crowds gathered in front of newspaper bulletin
boards, questioning among themselves whether there was any respect for
law and order left in Roma; whether life was safe on the open street;
whether the public was to be fooled any longer by charlatans and
tricksters; whether the police could or would do anything in the
premises. In short, every citizen of Roma, rich or poor, old or young,
was aroused at last by these two bits of news.
The startling news was--
Orlando Vickery had "jumped his bail" and disappeared; and
The Mayor and her private secretary had not been seen nor heard from
since they left the drug-store the previous evening at a quarter before
eight.