An Honest Confession
At the first possible moment, Gertrude and Mary went carefully through
the books and papers in their private desks. The first discovery they
made was that all notes and papers pertaining to Vickery and the
Boulevard Railway Company were missing, thus destroying every bit of
evidence, beyond their spoken word, in that particular case. Other
documents were missing also, and the trail of the corrupt politician was
over all. She sent for Robert Joyce, the district attorney, and Bailey
Armstrong, as city solicitor, and they held counsel together until the
lengthening shadows drove them home. But not until they had sent for
Otis H. Mann, and put the case strongly to him. That functionary was,
however, as smooth and oily as ever, disclaiming all knowledge of
everything.
"I assure you, gentlemen," he said, "and you, madam, that only the most
perfunctory of routine work has been done in this office while I was
acting-mayor. It was our one object to let things slide along as easily
as possible until the real mayor should return. We desired no radical
changes, and on the other hand, as few breaks in the regular routine of
city affairs as possible. I desired, above all, to be a faithful servant
to the people--to--in short, ah--"
"How about those contracts you negotiated with Watts?" broke in Joyce.
"And McAlister's new job--under the name of Peter Grayson?" added
Bailey.
Mann's face was a shade more purple for an instant, but he went on,
unctuously.
"The man who suddenly becomes the head of a city has a great
responsibility--especially if he has been, in a sense, shut out from the
confidence of its mayor up to the time of his incumbency. He cannot
expect to please everyone. He will be called 'demagogue' by the opposite
party; his motives will be misconstrued; his honesty brought in
question, his principles--"
"O, spare us," interrupted Bailey. "While you were the head of this
office, some important testimony has disappeared; private papers
belonging to the mayor and her secretary were taken away, and several
other questionable things were done. We called you here now, to explain
these things; and if you cannot produce them, to say why. The least
thing a man in your position can do is to institute a hearty search for
the missing papers, and to act in accord with us in leaving no stone
unturned to find them."
"Gentlemen," said the chairman of the board of aldermen, rising and
laying his hand impressively across his heart, "I will swear to you that
the mayor's desk and her secretary's were turned over to her exactly as
I found them. If anything has been taken from them, the robbery occurred
either before I came or after I went out."
"And you are willing to pledge yourself to aid in discovering the thief,
whoever and wherever he may be?" said Bailey, regarding Mann narrowly.
"On my word of honor," replied the chairman; and he could not help it if
his words and tone sounded rather bombastic. "But, I am sorry, my dear
lady--but I have a very important engagement at this hour--a personal
matter, very dear to my heart, which compels me to ask you to excuse me
now. I shall be glad to call upon you tomorrow morning, at any hour you
may name."
"Can you make it nine o'clock," asked Gertrude--"or even earlier?"
"Yes, we must get definitely to work tomorrow morning," added Joyce.
"Certainly, nine--or half past eight, if you choose," said Mann. "In the
meantime I will try to recall the minutest particulars of my connection
with this office. I am sure, my dear lady, you do not need to be assured
of my loyalty to you--nor to my native city. And now--I bid you
good-day." He bowed impressively and was gone.
"All the same, I don't like the cut of his jib," murmured Bailey.
"Oh, he's too much of a trimmer to go back on us now," said Joyce.
"Public sentiment is all on our side now, and election day's coming."
Gertrude smiled. "I can't imagine why anybody should trim his sails to
get an office," she said.
"Well, see what a dangerous thing it is to cultivate a taste for
politics," retorted Bailey. "There's no knowledge where it may lead
you."
"Oh, Miss Van Deusen will have a walkover when her turn for election
comes again."
Gertrude remembered this remark as she sat in her library that evening,
alone for the first time since she had set forth to call on Newton
Fitzgerald.
"Having set my hand to the plough," (her favorite expression) "I suppose
I must not look back," she soliloquized, "until the end of the furrow is
reached. But I may look forward, and--if I live through the next few
months, I wonder if anything or anybody can persuade me to be a
candidate the second time. I don't think so now. But how much more I
know than I did last year!--only, of course, I cannot own it to any
living soul. John Allingham ought to have beaten me. I wonder if he will
run next year?" But in her heart she knew very well he would not oppose
her again. "He would make an ideal mayor. Upright, honorable,
fearless--and afraid of nothing but doing wrong. Ah, well--should it
always take a man to deal with men--or shouldn't it? I don't know."
The maid entered.
"A man wishes to see you, Miss Van Deusen," said she. "He says he must
talk to you personally. His name is Fitzgerald. But if you're too tired,
Miss Van Deusen, I'll make him wait. If you'll excuse my saying so--you
are too worn-down. These people ask too much of you."
"Show him right in here, Lizzie," answered Gertrude. "And don't worry
about me. I'm all right, now I am home."
A moment later Fitzgerald entered and stood, hat in hand.
"Excuse me, Miss Van Deusen," he began apologetically. "I've got
something to confess--and I can't wait until morning--it'll be too late
then."
"Go on," said Gertrude kindly. "Just trouble to shut that door into the
hall, please, and then come over here by me."
The man did as he was told, and drew a chair near enough to her to be
heard in low tones.
"Miss Van Deusen," he began; "it's just as I told you; I didn't know
anything about the message they sent you, nor about the trap they set
for you. But I have been knowing a good deal, and now--he's running
away--and I'll be d----d if I won't tell you!"
"Sh--sh--who's running away?" interrupted Gertrude. "Calm yourself,
Newton, and tell me."
"Mann--the dirty whelp, after lining his pockets, and doing you all the
harm he dares," he went on. "I've stood for him all I will. I've
supported him and his cliques, and given house-room to his workers; and
now he's--"
Gertrude saw it was useless to try to calm him, and wisely decided to
let him work off his excitement by telling his story in his own way.
"And it's because Otis H. Mann, the people's friend, as he calls
himself," explained Fitzgerald, impulsively, "has left town, bag and
baggage, and will sail for foreign ports as soon as he strikes New York,
that I'm telling."
"Tell me all you know, Newton. I've been wanting a good long talk with
you for a long time. Begin at the beginning, please."
"Well, of course you know I'm a democrat. I've always voted with that
party, and would have done so last fall, even against you--if it hadn't
been for the job they put up on you. Yes--I mean the night before
election. They talked it all over in a little room back of my saloon.
The boss was there himself that night--"
"You mean Burke?" interrupted Gertrude.
"No--Mann. Burke's under his orders every time. Whatever Burke done, it
was Mann behind him; and when Burke got a rake-off of a thousand, Mann
got two. As I'm tellin' you, they arranged the whole affair in my rooms.
There was Mann and Burke, and McAdoo, and one or two others, and myself.
I ain't claiming to be any better than the rest. I was there--not that I
was ag'in you, but because it was my room, and my liquor, and I'd always
been in their confabs. I didn't approve of them electric cabs and
seizing you by main force, as it were, and rushing you out into the
country; but Mann and Burke were determined to have it--and when I saw
they were bound to do it, anyhow, I just had to agree; and to see that
nothing happened to you, I went along, too. If they'd tried any funny
business with you, I'd--well, I took my irons along."
"Newton!" cried Gertrude. "Were you there? You!"
"Yes," replied the man, grimly. "I was your chauffeur. I wouldn't trust
you to anyone else. I ain't forgot all you and your father done for me
when I was a kid."
"Newton, you've a queer sense of gratitude," she laughed, for the
situation seemed not without humor. "You ran away with me to protect
me."
"That's about the size of it. I didn't know what the others might do; I
did know I should bring you in safely."
"Where did you get that cab?" she asked him.
"It was one I ran all last summer out to my summer place at Itosco. It's
stored there now. The other we got at Bonborough from a friend of
Mann's. His chauffeur ran that. The third man was McAdoo."
"Then it was you who brought me--and Mr. Allingham--home?"
"Yes'm. And it was Mann's friend's machine that was wrecked; and they
had hard work to get the remains of it dragged off and hidden before
morning; but Mann is a slick one. As soon as we got in we reported to
him and he had his men out there with plenty to help. But it's more
about Mann I want to tell you. It ain't Vickery, you want to haul into
court. It's Mann. He's made more'n a hundred thousand off'n the city.
He's pulled off already over thirty thousand on that Boulevard Railway
scheme. Vickery's only a tool. If you'd bitten his bait and taken what
they offered you, they had it planned that Mann was to be general
manager. That railway would have swallowed up all the others; and then
he was to be president. He means to be a millionaire yet. He will be, if
you don't get him--and quick."
"Wait; let's call Bailey." She rang up on the telephone. "But you knew
nothing about the trap they caught Miss Snow and me in?"
"No." He waited until she called up Bailey Armstrong, and requested him
to come to the house at once.
"No," he went on. "I swear it. They knew I hadn't much sympathy for
their plots against you and got shy of letting me in on them. But
there's a barkeep in my saloon--or was--who kept them posted. When you
telephoned me that day, he put 'em wise right off, quick. Mann was the
one who planned your imprisonment. He thought out all the details--I've
only just found this out--and since his talk with you this afternoon, he
thought you were getting wise, too. So he went right out, got his bag
(which has been packed for some time) and took the night train East. He
owes me a big bill--and more promises than he can ever pay. I've been
getting sick of this kind of thing for weeks; now that he's proved the
biggest kind of a coward, I've come straight to you. And I'm glad I
did."
"Would you be willing to go into court and swear to all this?" asked
Gertrude. "For that is what it will come to, Newton."
"All this and more," he answered. "If you can catch the dirty whelp
before he sails for foreign parts, I'll do my part to put him where he
belongs. I'm sick of living the life of a dirty dog. I want to be a
clean man. I want to be a respectable citizen for the sake of my boy and
girl, Miss Van Deusen; and their mother thinks the world of you--and so
do I, when you come to that."
"I am sure of that," answered Gertrude, smiling again at the thought
that it was his loyalty which made of him her chauffeur on that
memorable ride. "I shall depend on you now."
Thus it happened that Bailey Armstrong, who would trust no man to go
alone, took the midnight train for the East, accompanied by the sheriff
of Roma; and that, in due course of time, they returned to Roma,
"bringing their sheaves with them" in the form of Otis H. Mann, Esq.