"I make the claims on the weights as you give them to me, Peters. Do you
mean to tell me that you've been giving me false figures?"
The yard clerk stuck his tongue in his cheek. "I'm not telling you
anything. You know as well as I do that it's against the law to give or
receive rebates. But if you're not a heap greener than you look, you
know that we're getting our cut rates, just the same. All we need is a
man right here at your desk who has the nerve to make out the claims, and
is fly enough to do a little bluffing and ask no questions. You're all
right, Bertie."
"But the figures of the weights," I insisted. "You are the man who gives
them to me, and you are responsible if they are wrong."
"Not in a thousand years!" was the prompt retort. "I never put anything
on paper--you're the man that does that--and if the Interstate Commerce
people should break in, I'd have the best little forgettery of any
clock-watcher in the works. Nix for me, Weyburn; you are the chap with
the figures, and the only man in the shop who has them down in black on
white. When the roar comes, it'll be up to you, and Mullins will throw
up his hands and accuse you of having a private graft of some sort with
the railroad clerks in the claim office. That's about what he'll do."
My overtime companion had finished his job and was putting on his coat.
I let him go without further talk, but after he had gone, I stayed long
enough to check over the files of the yard-master's blotter. When the
checking was completed I knew perfectly well why I had been hired so
promptly, and why Mullins had been willing to take on an ex-convict. My
basing figures, which Peters had been giving me verbally, were all wrong.
The majority of the claims I had been making from day to day were
fraudulent, and in paying them the railroad company was merely rebating
the coal rates for Consolidated Coal.
It was easy to see where I stood. A scapegoat was necessary, and with a
prison record behind me I had about as much show as a rat in a trap. If
there should be an investigation, Mullins would swear that I had entire
charge of the claim department. And having no written data to fall back
upon, I should be helpless.
The date of this disheartening discovery chanced to be the 25th of the
month--our regular pay-day, and I had my month's salary in my pocket when
I left the office about eleven o'clock to go to my boarding-house. At
the nearest street corner I met the patrolman on the beat.
"Hello, cully!" he growled as I was passing him; and then with a hand on
my arm he stopped me. "You're forgettin' somethin', ain't you?"
"I guess not," I answered.
"I guess yes," he retorted. "It's pay-day at the works, and you gotta
come across."
Here was the remainder of the conspiracy made plain as day. The crooked
chief of police had turned me over to the crooked coal company to do
crooked work, and I was to be held up for a graft on my salary. With a
swift return of the blood-boiling which had once helped me to manhandle
the deputy, Simmons, I faced the patrolman.
"And if I don't come across--what then?"
The policeman grinned good-naturedly. "You're goin' to 'produce' all
right. You're a paroled man, and you can't afford to have the chief get
it in for you."
It was just here that the three nerve-breaking years got in their work.
I couldn't face the grafter down, and--I confess it with shame--I was
horribly afraid.
"How much?" I asked, and my tongue was dry in my mouth.
"This is the first mont', and we'll let you down easy. You fork over a
ten-spot for the campaign fund and we'll call it square. Next mont'
it'll be more."
I paid the blackmail with trembling hands, and when the patrolman was out
of sight around the corner I ran to reach my boarding place, intent only
upon flight, instant and secret, from this moral cesspool of a city. I
remembered that there was a westbound train passing through at midnight,
and by hurrying I hoped to be able to catch it.
V