Brown's automobile, probably at rest, with Brown in it. The matter
of faking Travis or any one else by his side is simple. If with an
enlarging lantern the image of this faked picture is thrown on the
paper like a lantern slide, and if the right hand side is a little
further away than the left, the top further away than the bottom,
you can print a fraudulent high speed ahead picture. True,
everything else in the picture, even if motionless, is distorted,
and the difference between this faking and the distortion of the
shutter can be seen by an expert. But it will pass. In this case,
however, the faker was so sure of that that he was careless.
Instead of getting the plate further from the paper on the right
he did so on the left. It was further away on the bottom than on
the top. He got distortion all right, enough still to satisfy the
uninitiated. But it was distortion in the wrong way! The top of
the wheel, which goes fastest and ought to be most indistinct, is,
in the fake, as sharp as any other part. It is a small mistake,
but fatal. That picture is really at high speed - backwards!
It is too raw, too raw."
"You don't think people are going to swallow all that stuff, do
you?" asked Hanford coolly, in spite of the exposures.
Kennedy paid no attention. He was looking at McLoughlin. The Boss
was regarding him surlily. "Well," he said at length, "what of all
this? I had nothing to do with it. Why do you come to me? Take
it to the proper parties."
"Shall I?" asked Kennedy quietly.
He had uncovered another picture carefully. We could not see it,
but as he looked at it McLoughlin fairly staggered.
"Wh - where did you get that?" he gasped.
"I got it where I got it, and it is no fake," replied Kennedy
enigmatically. Then he appeared to think better of it. "This,"
he explained, "is what is known as a pinhole photograph. Three
hundred years ago della Porta knew the camera obscura, and but for
the lack of a sensitive plate would have made photographs. A box,
thoroughly light-tight, slotted inside to receive plates, covered
with black, and glued tight, a needle hole made by a number 10
needle in a thin sheet of paper and you have the apparatus for
lensless photography. It has a correctness such as no
image-forming means by lenses can have. It is literally
rectigraphic, rectilinear, it needs no focussing, and it takes a
wide angle with equal effect. Even pinhole snapshots are possible
where the light is abundant, with a ten to fifteen second exposure.
"That picture, McLoughlin, was taken yesterday at Hanford's. After
Miss Ashton left I saw who came out, but this picture shows what
happened before. At a critical moment Miss Ashton stuck a needle
in the wall of the studio, counted fifteen closed the needle-hole,
and there is the record Walter, Hanford, - leave us alone an instant."
When Kennedy passed out of the Boss's office there was a look of
quiet satisfaction on his face which I could not fathom. Not a word
could I extract from him either that night or on the following day,
which was the last before the election. I must say that I was keenly
disappointed by the lack of developments, however. The whole thing
seemed to me to be a mess. Everybody was involved. What had Miss
Ashton overheard and what had Kennedy said to McLoughlin? Above
all, what was his game? Was he playing to spare the girl's feelings
by allowing the election to go on without a scandal for Travis?
At last election night arrived. We were all at the Travis
headquarters, Kennedy, Travis, Bennett, and myself. Miss Ashton
was not present, but the first returns had scarcely begun to trickle
in when Craig whispered to me to go out and find her, either at her
home or club. I found her at home. She had apparently lost
interest in the election, and it was with difficulty that I persuaded
her to accompany me.
The excitement of any other night in the year paled to insignificance
before this. Distracted crowds everywhere were cheering and blowing
horns. Now a series of wild shouts broke forth from the dense mass
of people before a newspaper bulletin board. Now came sullen groans,
hisses, and catcalls, or all together with cheers as the returns
swung in another direction. Not even baseball could call out such a
crowd as this. Lights blazed everywhere. Automobiles honked and
ground their gears. The lobster palaces were thronged. Police were
everywhere. People with horns and bells and all manner of
noise-making devices pushed up one side of the thoroughfares and
down the other. Hungrily, ravenously they were feeding or the meagre
bulletins of news.
Yet back of all the noise and human energy I could only think of the
silent, systematic gathering and editing of the news. High up in
the League headquarters, when we returned, a corps of clerks was
tabulating returns, comparing official and semi-official reports.
As first the state swung one way, then another, our hopes rose and
fell. Miss Ashton seemed cold and ill at ease, while Travis looked
more worried and paid less attention to the returns than would have
seemed natural. She avoided him and he seemed to hesitate to seek
her out.
Would the up-state returns, I had wondered at first, be large enough
to overcome the hostile city vote? I was amazed now to see how
strongly the city was turning to Travis.
"McLoughlin has kept his word," ejaculated Kennedy as district after
district showed that the Boss's pluralities were being seriously cut
into. "His word? What do you mean?" we asked almost together.
"I mean that he has kept his word given to me at a conference which
Mr. Jameson saw but did not hear. I told him I would publish the
whole thing, not caring whom or where or when it hit if he did
not let up on Travis. I advised him to read his Revised Statutes
again about money in elections, and I ended up with the threat,
'There will be no dough day, McLoughlin, or this will be prosecuted
to the limit.' There was no dough day. You see the effect in the
returns."
"But how did you do it?" I asked, not comprehending. "The faked
photographs did not move him, that I could see."
The words, "faked photographs," caused Miss Ashton to glance up
quickly. I saw that Kennedy had not told her or any one yet, until
the Boss had made good. He had simply arranged one of his little
dramas.
"Shall I tell, Miss Ashton?" he asked, adding, "Before I complete
my part of the compact and blot out the whole affair?"
"I have no right to say no," she answered tremulously, but with a
look of happiness that I had not seen since our first introduction.
Kennedy laid down a print on a table. It was the pinhole photograph,
a little blurry, but quite convincing. On a desk in the picture
was a pile of bills. McLoughlin was shoving them away from him
toward Bennett. A man who was facing forward in the picture was
talking earnestly to some one who did not appear. I felt
intuitively, even before Kennedy said so, that the person was Miss
Ashton herself as she stuck the needle into the wall. The man was
Cadwalader Brown.
"Travis," demanded Kennedy, "bring the account books of your
campaign. I want the miscellaneous account particularly."
The books were brought, and he continued, turning the leaves, "It
seemed to me to show a shortage of nearly twenty thousand dollars
the other day. Why, it has been made up. How was that, Bennett?"
Bennett was speechless. "I will tell you," Craig proceeded
inexorably. "Bennett, you embezzled that money for your business.
Rather than be found out, you went to Billy McLoughlin and offered
to sell out the Reform campaign for money to replace it. With the
aid of the crook, Hanford, McLoughlin's tool, you worked out the
scheme to extort money from Travis by forged photographs. You knew
enough about Travis's house and library to frame up a robbery one
night when you were staying there with him. It was inside work, I
found, at a glance. Travis, I am sorry to have to tell you that
your confidence was misplaced. It was Bennett who robbed you and worse.
"But Cadwalader Brown, always close to his creature, Billy McLoughlin,
heard of it. To him it presented another idea.=20 To him it offered a
chance to overthrow a political enemy and a hated rival for Miss
Ashton's hand. Perhaps into the bargain it would disgust her with
politics, disillusion her, and shake her faith in what he believed
to be some of her 'radical' notions. All could be gained at one
blow. They say that a check-book knows no politics, but Bennett has
learned some, I venture to say, and to save his reputation he will
pay back what he has tried to graft."
Travis could scarcely believe it yet. "How did you get your first
hint?" he gasped.
Kennedy was digging into the wall with a bill file at the place
where he had buried the little vulcanised disc. I had already
guessed that it was a dictograph, though I could not tell how it
was used or who used it. There it was, set squarely in the plaster.
There also were the wires running under the carpet. As he lifted
the rug under Miss Ashton's desk there also lay the huge circles
of wire. That was all.
At this moment Miss Ashton stepped forward. "Last Friday," she
said in a low tone, "I wore a belt which concealed a coil of wire
about my waist. From it a wire ran under my coat, connecting with
a small dry battery in a pocket. Over my head I had an arrangement
such as the telephone girls wear with a receiver at one ear
connected with the battery. No one saw it, for I wore a large hat
which completely hid it. If any one had known, and there were
plenty of eyes watching, the whole thing would have fallen through.
I could walk around; no one could suspect anything; but when I stood
or sat at my desk I could hear everything that was said in Mr.
Bennett's office."
"By induction," explained Kennedy. "The impulses set up in the
concealed dictograph set up currents in these coils of wire
concealed under the carpet. They were wirelessly duplicated by
induction in the coil about Miss Ashton's waist and so affected
the receiver under her very becoming hat. Tell the rest, Miss
Ashton."
"I heard the deal arranged with this Hanford," she added, almost
as if she were confessing something, "but not understanding it as
Mr. Kennedy did, I very hastily condemned Mr. Travis. I heard
talk of putting back twenty thousand into the campaign accounts,
of five thousand given to Hanford for his photographic work, and
of the way Mr. Travis was to be defeated whether he paid or not.
I heard them say that one condition was that I should carry the
purchase money. I heard much that must have confirmed Mr. Kennedy's
suspicion in one way, and my own in an opposite way, which I know
now was wrong. And then Cadwalader Brown in the studio taunted me
cynically and - and it cut me, for he seemed right. I hope that Mr.
Travis will forgive me for thinking that Mr. Bennett's treachery
was his"
A terrific cheer broke out among the clerks in the outer office.
A boy rushed in with a still unblotted report. Kennedy seized it
and read:
"McLoughlin concedes the city by a small majority to Travis,
fifteen election districts estimated. This clinches the Reform
League victory in the state."
I turned to Travis. He was paying no attention except to the pretty
apology of Margaret Ashton.
Kennedy drew me to the door. "We might as well concede Miss Ashton
to Travis," he said, adding gaily, "by induction of an arm about
the waist. Let's go out and watch the crowd."