toward the chair he had occupied, as I remembered. "Mr. Haswell was
telling Dr. Scott something in an undertone. I could not hear it.
But the old man grasped the doctor by the wrist to pull him closer
to whisper to him. The doctor's hand was toward me and I noticed
the peculiar markings of the veins.
"You perhaps are not acquainted with the fact, but the markings of
the veins in the back of the hand are peculiar to each individual
- as infallible, indestructible, and ineffaceable as finger prints or
the shape of the ear. It is a system invented and developed by
Professor Tamassia of the University of Padua, Italy. A superficial
observer would say that all vein patterns were essentially similar,
and many have said so, but Tamassia has found each to be
characteristic and all subject to almost incredible diversities.
There are six general classes in this case before us, two large
veins crossed by a few secondary veins forming a V with its base
near the wrist.
"Already my suspicions had been aroused. I sketched the arrangement
of the veins standing out on that hand. I noted the same thing just
now on the hand that manipulated the fake apparatus in the
laboratory. Despite the difference in make-up Scott and Prescott
are the same.
"The invisible rays of the ultra-violet light may have blinded Mr.
Haswell, even to the recognition of his own daughter, but you can
rest assured, Prescott, that the very cleverness of your scheme will
penetrate the eyes of the blindfolded goddess of justice. Burnham,
if you will have the kindness to summon the police, I will take all
the responsibility for the arrest of these people."
XII
THE CAMPAIGN GRAFTER
"What a relief it will be when this election is over and the
newspapers print news again," I growled as I turned the first page
of the Star with a mere glance at the headlines.
"Yes," observed Kennedy, who was puzzling over a note which he had
received in the morning mail. "This is the bitterest campaign in
years. Now, do you suppose that they are after me in a professional
way or are they trying to round me up as an independent voter?"
The letter which had called forth this remark was headed, "The
Travis Campaign Committee of the Reform League," and, as Kennedy
evidently intended me to pass an opinion on it, I picked it up.
It was only a few lines, requesting him to call during the morning,
if convenient, on Wesley Travis, the candidate for governor and
the treasurer of his campaign committee, Dean Bennett. It had
evidently been written in great haste in longhand the night before.
"Professional," I hazarded. "There must be some scandal in the
campaign for which they require your services."
"I suppose so," agreed Craig. "Well, if it is business instead of
politics it has at least this merit it is current business. I
suppose you have no objection to going with me?"
Thus it came about that not very much later in the morning we found
ourselves at the campaign headquarters, in the presence of two
nervous and high-keyed gentlemen in frock coats and silk hats. It
would have taken no great astuteness, even without seeing the
surroundings, to deduce instantly that they were engaged in the
annual struggle of seeking the votes of their fellow-citizens for
something or other, and were nearly worn out by the arduous nature
of that process.
Their headquarters were in a tower of a skyscraper, whence poured
forth a torrent of appeal to the moral sense of the electorate,
both in printed and oral form. Yet there was a different tone to
the place from that which I had ordinarily associated with political
headquarters in previous campaigns. There was an absence of the
old-fashioned politicians and of the air of intrigue laden with
tobacco. Rather, there was an air of earnestness and efficiency
which was decidedly prepossessing. Maps of the state were hanging
on the walls, some stuck full of various coloured pins denoting
the condition of the canvass. A map of the city in colours, divided
into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the
stronghold of the boss, Billy McLoughlin. Huge systems of card
indexes, loose leaf devices, labour-saving appliances for getting
out a vast mass of campaign "literature" in a hurry, in short a
perfect system, such as a great, well-managed business might have
been proud of, were in evidence everywhere.
Wesley Travis was a comparatively young man a lawyer who had early
made a mark in politics and had been astute enough to shake off
the thraldom of the bosses before the popular uprising against them.
Now he was the candidate of the Reform League for governor and a
good stiff campaign he was putting up.
His campaign manager, Dean Bennett, was a business man whose
financial interests were opposed to those usually understood to be
behind Billy McLoughlin, of the regular party to which both Travis
and Bennett might naturally have been supposed to belong in the
old days. Indeed the Reform League owed its existence to a fortunate
conjunction of both moral and economic conditions demanding progress.
"Things have been going our way up to the present," began Travis
confidentially, when we were seated democratically with our campaign
cigars lighted. "Of course we haven't such a big 'barrel' as our
opponents, for we are not frying the fat out of the corporations.
But the people have supported us nobly, and I think the opposition
of the vested interests has been a great help. We seem to be
winning, and I say 'seem' only because one can never be certain how
anything is going in this political game nowadays.
"You recall, Mr. Kennedy, reading in the papers that my country
house out on Long Island was robbed the other day? Some of the
reporters made much of it. To tell the truth, I think they had
become so satiated with sensations that they were sure that the
thing was put up by some muckrakers and that there would be an
expose of some kind. For the thief, whoever he was, seems to have
taken nothing from my library but a sort of scrap-book or album of
photographs. It was a peculiar robbery, but as I had nothing to
conceal it didn't worry me. Well, I had all but forgotten it when
a fellow came into Bennett's office here yesterday and demanded
- tell us what it was, Bennett. You saw him."
Bennett cleared his throat. "You see, it was this way. He gave
his name as Harris Hanford and described himself as a photographer.
I think he has done work for Billy McLoughlin. At any rate, his
offer was to sell us several photographs, and his story about them
was very circumstantial. He hinted that they had been evidently
among those stolen from Mr. Travis and that in a roundabout way
they had come into the possession of a friend of his without his
knowing who the thief was. He said that he had not made the
photographs himself, but had an idea by whom they were made, that
the original plates had been destroyed, but that the person who
made them was ready to swear that the pictures were taken after
the nominating convention this fall which had named Travis. At any
rate the photographs were out and the price for them was $25,000."
"What are they that he should set such a price on them?" asked
Kennedy, keenly looking from Bennett quickly to Travis.
Travis met his look without flinching. "They are supposed to be
photographs of myself," he replied slowly. "One purports to
represent me in a group on McLoughlin's porch at his farm on the
south shore of the island, about twenty miles from my place. As
Hanford described it, I am standing between McLoughlin and J.
Cadwalader Brown, the trust promoter who is backing McLoughlin to
save his investments. Brown's hand is on my shoulder and we are
talking familiarly. Another is a picture of Brown, McLoughlin,
and myself riding in Brown's car, and in it Brown and I are
evidently on the best of terms. Oh, there are several of them, all
in the same vein. Now," he added, and his voice rose with emotion
as if he were addressing a cart-tail meeting which must be convinced
that there was nothing criminal in riding in a motor-car, "I don't
hesitate to admit that a year or so ago I was not on terms of
intimacy with these men, but at least acquainted with them. At
various times, even as late as last spring, I was present at
conferences over the presidential outlook in this state, and once
I think I did ride back to the city with them. But I know that
there were no pictures taken, and even if there had been I would
not care if they told the truth about them. I have frankly admitted
in=20my speeches that I knew these men, that my knowledge of them and
breaking from them is my chief qualification for waging an effective
war on them if I am elected. They hate me cordially. You know that.
What I do care about is the sworn allegation that now accompanies
these - these fakes. They were not, could not have been taken after
the independent convention that nominated me. If the photographs
were true I would be a fine traitor. But I haven't even seen
McLoughlin or Brown since last spring. The whole thing is a - "
"Lie from start to finish," put in Bennett emphatically. "Yes,
Travis, we all know that. I'd quit right now if I didn't believe
in you. But let us face the facts. Here is this story, sworn to
as Hanford says and apparently acquiesced in by Billy McLoughlin
and Cad. Brown. What do they care anyhow as long as it is against
you? And there, too, are the pictures themselves - at least they
will be in print or suppressed, according as we act. Now, you know
that nothing could hurt the reform ticket worse than to have an
issue like this raised at this time. We were supposed at least to
be on the level, with nothing to explain away. There may be just
enough people to believe that there is some basis for this suspicion
to turn the tide against us. If it were earlier in the campaign
I'd say accept the issue, fight it out to a finish, and in the turn
of events we should really have the best campaign material. But it
is too late now to expose such a knavish trick of theirs on the
Friday before election. Frankly, I believe discretion is the better
part of valour in this case and without abating a jot of my faith
in you, Travis, well, I'd pay first and expose the fraud afterward,
after the election, at leisure."
"No, I won't," persisted Travis, shutting his square jaw doggedly.
"I won't be held up."
The door had opened and a young lady in a very stunning street
dress, with a huge hat and a tantalising veil, stood in it for a
moment, hesitated, and then was about to shut it with an apology for
intruding on a conference.
"I'll fight it if it takes my last dollar," declared Travis, "but I
won't be blackmailed out of a cent. Good-morning, Miss Ashton. I'll
be free in a moment. I'll see you in your office directly."
The girl, with a portfolio of papers in her hand, smiled, and Travis
quickly crossed the room and held the door deferentially open as he
whispered a word or two. When she had disappeared he returned and
remarked, "I suppose you have heard of Miss Margaret Ashton, the
suffragette leader, Mr. Kennedy? She is the head of our press
bureau." Then a heightened look of determination set his fine face
in hard lines, and he brought his fist down on the desk. "No, not
a cent," he thundered.
Bennett shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and looked at Kennedy in
mock resignation as if to say, "What can you do with such a fellow?"
Travis was excitedly pacing the floor and waving his arms as if he
were addressing a meeting in the enemy's country. "Hanford comes
at us in this way," he continued, growing more excited as he paced
up and down. "He says plainly that the pictures will of course be
accepted as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, he
is right. The public will swallow it. When Bennett told him I
would prosecute he laughed and said, 'Go ahead. I didn't steal the
pictures. That would be a great joke for Travis to seek redress
from the courts he is criticising. I guess he'd want to recall the
decision if it went against him hey?' Hanford says that a hundred
copies have been made of each of the photographs and that this
person, whom we do not know, has them ready to drop into the mail to
the one hundred leading papers of the state in time for them to
appear in the Monday editions just before Election Day. He says no
amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect - or at least
he went further and said 'shake their validity.'
"But I repeat. They are false. For all I know, it is a plot of
McLoughlin's, the last fight of a boss for his life, driven into a
corner. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter.
Pictures appeal to the eye and mind much more than letters. That's
what makes the thing so dangerous. Billy McLoughlin knows how to
make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election, and
even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid
the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten
see such a charge to one who sees the denial."
"Just so," persisted Bennett coolly. "You admit that we are
practically helpless. That's what I have been saying all along.
Get control of the prints first, Travis, for God's sake. Then raise
any kind of a howl you want - before election or after. As I say,
if we had a week or two it might be all right to fight. But we can
make no move without making fools of ourselves until they are
published Monday as the last big thing of the campaign. The rest
of Monday and the Tuesday morning papers do not give us time to
reply. Even if they were published to-day we should hardly have
time to expose the plot, hammer it in, and make the issue an asset
instead of a liability. No, you must admit it yourself. There
isn't time. We must carry out the work we have so carefully planned
to cap the campaign, and if we are diverted by this it means a
let-up in our final efforts, and that is as good as McLoughlin wants
anyhow. Now, Kennedy, don't you agree with me? Squelch the pictures
now at any cost, then follow the thing up and, if we can, prosecute
after election?"
Kennedy and I, who had been so far little more than interested
spectators, had not presumed to interrupt. Finally Craig asked,
"You have copies of the pictures?"
"No," replied Bennett. "This Hanford is a brazen fellow, but he was
too astute to leave them. I saw them for an instant. They look bad.
And the affidavits with them look worse."
"H'm," considered Kennedy, turning the crisis over in his mind.
"We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged
stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you
are alarmed, Bennett, nor that you want to fight, Travis."
"Then you will take up the case?" urged the latter eagerly,
forgetting both his campaign manager and his campaign manners, and
leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the
words of the foreman of the jury. "You will trace down the forger
of those pictures before it is too late?"
"I haven't said I'll do that yet," answered Craig measuredly. "I
haven't even said I'd take up the case. Politics is a new game to
me, Mr. Travis. If I go into this thing I want to go into it and
stay in it - well, you know how you lawyers put it, with clean hands.
On one condition I'll take the matter up, and on only one."
"Name it," cried Travis anxiously.
"Of course, having been retained by you," continued Craig with
provoking slowness, "it is not reasonable to suppose that if I find
- how shall I put it - bluntly, yes? - if I find that the story of
Hanford has some - er - foundation, it is not reasonable to suppose
that I should desert you and go over to the other side. Neither is
it to be supposed that I will continue and carry such a thing
through for you regardless of truth. What I ask is to have a free
hand, to be able to drop the case the moment I cannot proceed
further in justice to myself, drop it, and keep my mouth shut. You
understand? These are my conditions and no less."
"And you think you can make good?" questioned Bennett rather
sceptically. "You are willing to risk it? You don't think it would
be better to wait until after the election is won?"
"You have heard my conditions," reiterated Craig.
"Done," broke in Travis. "I'm going to fight it out, Bennett. If
we get in wrong by dickering with them at the start it may be worse
for us in the end. Paying amounts to confession."
Bennett shook his head dubiously. "I'm afraid this will suit
McLoughlin's purpose just as well. Photographs are like statistics.
They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard
to tell what a liar can accomplish with either in an election."
"Say' Dean, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Travis.
"You're not offended at my kicking over the traces, are you?"
Bennett rose, placed a hand on Travis's shoulder, and grasped his
other. "Wesley," he said earnestly, "I wouldn't desert you even if
the pictures were true."
"I knew it," responded Travis heartily. "Then let Mr. Kennedy have
one day to see what he can do. Then if we make no progress we'll
take your advice, Dean. We'll pay, I suppose, and ask Mr. Kennedy
to continue the case after next Tuesday."
"With the proviso," put in Craig.
"With the proviso, Kennedy," repeated Travis. "Your hand on that.
Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of
this state since I was nominated, but this means more to me than
any of them. Call on us, either Bennett or myself, the moment you
need aid. Spare no reasonable expense, and - and get the goods, no
matter whom it hits higher up, even if it is Cadwalader Brown
himself. Good-bye and a thousand thanks oh, by the way, wait. Let
me take you around and introduce you to Miss Ashton. She may be
able to help you."
The office of Bennett and Travis was in the centre of the suite.
On one side were the cashier and clerical force as well as the
speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting=20
instruction, tours were being laid out, and reports received from
meetings already held.
On the other side was the press bureau with a large and active force
in charge of Miss Ashton, who was supporting Travis because he had
most emphatically declared for "Votes for Women" and had insisted
that his party put this plank in its platform. Miss Ashton was a
clever girl, a graduate of a famous woman's college, and had had
several years of newspaper experience before she became a leader in
the suffrage cause. I recalled having read and heard a great deal
about her, though I had never met her. The Ashtons were well known
in New York society, and it was a sore trial to some of her
conservative friends that she should reject what they considered
the proper "sphere" for women. Among those friends, I understood,
was Cadwalader Brown himself.
Travis had scarcely more than introduced us, yet already I scented
a romance behind the ordinarily prosaic conduct of a campaign press
bureau. It is far from my intention to minimise the work or the
ability of the head of the press bureau, but it struck me, both then
and later, that the candidate had an extraordinary interest in the
newspaper campaign, much more than in the speakers' bureau, and I am
sure that it was not solely accounted for by the fact that publicity
is playing a more and more important part in political campaigning.
Nevertheless such innovations as her card index system by election
districts all over the state, showing the attitude of the various
newspaper editors, of local political leaders, and changes of
sentiment, were very full and valuable. Kennedy, who had a regular
pigeon-hole mind for facts, was visibly impressed by this huge
mechanical memory built up by Miss Ashton. Though he said nothing
to me I knew he had also observed the state of affairs between the
reform candidate and the suffrage leader.
It was at a moment when Travis had been called back to his office
that Kennedy, who had been eyeing Miss Ashton with marked approval,
leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can
trust you. Do you want to do a great favour for Mr. Travis?"
She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her face what the
true state of her feelings was, although I fancied that the
readiness of her assent had perhaps more meaning than she would
have placed in a simple "Yes" otherwise.
"I suppose you know that an attempt is being made to blackmail Mr.
Travis?" added Kennedy quickly.
"I know something about it," she replied in a tone which left it
for granted that Travis had told her before even we were called
in. I felt that not unlikely Travis's set determination to fight
might be traceable to her advice or at least to her opinion of him.
"I suppose in a large force like this it is not impossible that
your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy,
glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting
out "literature."
"I have sometimes thought that myself," she agreed. "But of course
I don't know. Still, I have to be pretty careful. Some one is
always over here by my desk or looking over here. There isn't
much secrecy in a big room like this. I never leave important stuff
lying about where any of them could see it.
"Yes," mused Kennedy. "What time does the office close?"
"We shall finish to-night about nine, I think. To-morrow it may be
later."
"Well, then, if I should call here to-night at, say, half-past nine,
could you be here? I need hardly say that your doing so may be of
inestimable value to - to the campaign."
"I shall be here," she promised, giving her hand with a peculiar
straight arm shake and looking him frankly in the face with those
eyes which even the old guard in the legislature admitted were
vote-winners.
Kennedy was not quite ready to leave yet, but sought out Travis and
obtained permission to glance over the financial end of the campaign.
There were few large contributors to Travis's fund, but a host of
small sums ranging from ten and twenty-five dollars down to dimes
and nickels. Truly it showed the depth of the popular uprising.
Kennedy also glanced hastily over the items of expense - rent,
salaries, stenographer and office force, advertising, printing and
stationery, postage, telephone, telegraph, automobile and travelling
expenses, and miscellaneous matters.
As Kennedy expressed it afterwards, as against the small driblets
of money coming in, large sums were going out for expenses in lumps.
Campaigning in these days costs money even when done honestly. The
miscellaneous account showed some large indefinite items, and after
a hasty calculation Kennedy made out that if all the obligations had
to be met immediately the committee would be in the hole for several
thousand dollars.
"In short," I argued as we were leaving, "this will either break
Travis privately or put his fund in hopeless shape. Or does it
mean that he foresees defeat and is taking this way to recoup himself
under cover of being held up?"
Kennedy said nothing in response to my suspicions, though I could
see that in his mind he was leaving no possible clue unnoted.
It was only a few blocks to the studio of Harris Hanford, whom
Kennedy was now bent on seeing. We found him in an old building on
one of the side streets in the thirties which business had captured.
His was a little place on the top floor, up three flights of stairs,
and I noticed as we climbed up that the room next to his was vacant.
Our interview with Hanford was short and unsatisfactory. He either
was or at least posed as representing a third party in the affair,
and absolutely refused to permit us to have even a glance at the
photographs.
"My dealings," he asserted airily, "must all be with Mr. Bennett,
or with Mr. Travis, direct, not with emissaries. I don't make any
secret about it. The prints are not here. They are safe and ready
to be produced at the right time, either to be handed over for the
money or to be published in the newspapers. We have found out all
about them; we are satisfied, although the negatives have been
destroyed. As for their having been stolen from Travis, you can put
two and two together. They are out and copies have been made of
them, good copies. If Mr. Travis wishes to repudiate them, let him
start proceedings. I told Bennett all about that. To-morrow is the
last day, and I must have Bennett's answer then, without any
interlopers coming into it. If it is yes, well and good; if not,
then they know what to expect. Good-bye."