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[Illustration: "_Haskins quizzically looked him over_"]
THE LASH
OLIN L. LYMAN
Author of "The Trail of the Grand Seigneur"
[Illustration]
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
1909
Copyright 1909 by RICHARD G. BADGER
_All Rights Reserved_
Printed at The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
TO C. E. A
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I A Star Chamber Session 9
II An Arrival 18
III Micky 29
IV Fists and the Man 36
V The Ironworkers' Ball--and Maisie 47
VI The Web 61
VII Loneliness 67
VIII An Evening Call 77
IX Not on the Programme 87
X The Little Red Devil 99
XI In the Morning 106
XII Why She Cried 113
XIII A Wager 122
XIV A Discredited Henchman 133
XV Useful Information 145
XVI His Better Side 155
XVII The Coup in Sight 165
XVIII A Counter Move 178
XIX Suspense 187
XX Out of the Past 195
XXI The Lash 204
XXII The Story 215
XXIII Wanderlust 224
XXIV The Long Road 234
THE LASH
CHAPTER I
A STAR CHAMBER SESSION
The speaker paused for a moment to pass his handkerchief over his
fevered brow. Up from the ugly, leering, little eyes swept the swabbing
linen, traversing the smooth top of the round head and disappearing
mysteriously at the rear. The reason for this was obvious. The teeth of
time take kindly to the hirsute and the speaker was very bald. Only a
narrow fringe of reddish hair divided the rear depression of his fevered
brow from the nape of his fat red neck.
A plump and hairy fist smote the table and the glasses jingled. "Don't
fool yourselves, you young fellows," advised the bald gentleman, in a
curious gusty voice. "I've been all through it, clean to the retired
list," with a wicked wink, "and I know, that's all. You've got to work
harder this year than you did the first; you've got to a point where
there ain't no layin' down for you if you want to keep on fodderin'.
'Cause why? 'Cause they're on, or think they are, and they're gettin'
uneasy. You think everything's lovely, do you? Well, take a little
advice from the old man that's now on the sideline, and aim to get busy
from now on."
He again swabbed his illimitable brow, peering cunningly at them with
wicked little eyes that gleamed unpleasantly on either side of a
bulbous, crimsoned nose, while he chewed complacently at a black cigar.
In common with the rest of the small company he was in his
shirt-sleeves, for it was very hot. A mere ghost of a breeze stole in
through the window screen, against which foiled moths, attracted by the
light within, bumped in vain. A white-aproned waiter, summoned by an
electric bell, entered, removed the empty glasses and received a fresh
order. With his departure the bald gentleman was again heard from.
"Well," he snorted aggressively, "what's eatin' you? Don't you believe
me?"
"Why," drawled a lank, middle-aged gentleman with a generally
unsophisticated look that increased the efficiency of his talents for
the peculiar use to which he devoted them; "I suppose it's safe to be on
the safe side, but there's no use in borrowin' trouble any more than you
have to. Everything looks smooth to me."
"Pals," remarked the bald gentleman impressively, "remember this. The
only way to stave off the foreclosure is to keep borrowin', and it's the
smoothest whisky that gives you the rockiest head the next morning.
'Cause why? 'Cause you get enthused and hit it up too hard. Now that's
where our danger flag's out. We've found this an easy town, we've worked
it for all it's worth, puttin' it in plain English; the reformers ain't
never woke up and you're takin' the attitude that they never will. Boys,
it's a mistake. They do, sometimes. You don't want to plan on no sleepy
campaign, if you'll take it from a sideliner that's 'retired' but
wishes you well."
"That's all very well, Alderman." said a plump, moon-faced fellow across
the table, "but we've had these scares before and they've been for
nothing. Two years ago Fusion thought it had us beat and we was afraid
it was going to turn the trick. Remember the vote? Why, we got the laugh
from our own men. We needn't have hustled ourselves. It was a dead
open-and-shut."
"It's because the town don't believe half it hears," interpolated the
lank gentleman. "I'll say this, that the old man--drink to him,
boys!--is the best organizer in this country today, and he leaves the
blindest trail. They can't bring anything home, not while we're in
control."
"That's what I'm tellin' you," remarked the bald one grimly. "You've got
to hang on to the control. Let it slip away from you while you're
nappin' and how long would it be before the town was next? What would
the hide of any man in this room be worth?" His voice had instinctively
lowered; his head was thrust forward, his little eyes were piercing. "I
tell you it always pays to keep busy all the time."
There was a moment's silence. The half dozen companions of the speaker
surveyed him minutely but with visible respect. After all, he could give
any and all of them pointers in the gentle art of grafting and they knew
it. Moreover, his words had at last struck home, had awakened them from
a false sense of security. Alderman Goldberg had been through the mill,
and had fed at the public crib at intervals no better judged than times
when he elected to remain in discreet retirement, in his cyclone cellar,
until ominous signs on the municipal weather horizon had disappeared.
So, because they knew that he spoke by the card, his companions now paid
him the tribute of uneasy silence.
The lanky individual, Dick Peterson by name, finally resumed the
conversation. "Well," said he, "this is only a preliminary to the main
event anyway. Wonder what's keepin' the old man? Here we've been waitin'
an hour. We'll see what he says. I haven't mentioned 'campaign' to him
myself."
"I know what he'll say," retorted Goldberg. "Just what I've been tellin'
you, to get busy. That's why he called you here tonight, to dig in the
spurs a little. The old man's no fool. Hark! I guess he's comin' now."
There was a soft tread outside, a door opened and a man entered the
room. Nodding slightly in response to their greeting, he seated himself
in a chair, at the head of the table, which had evidently been reserved
for him. Peterson pushed some cigars toward him, at the same time
thrusting an interrogative finger toward the electric bell. The newcomer
shook his head, and selecting one of the cigars, leaned back in his
chair as he leisurely lighted it.
John Shaughnessy was as unlike the cartooned type of political boss as
could be imagined. He looked decidedly ordinary, and might have been
taken for anything from a dejected clerk of middle age to an
unostentatious gambler. His garb was quiet; there was an utter absence
of vociferous jewelry. In person he was lank and slightly over middle
height. The face was singularly impassive; that of a gambler to whom
nothing apparently mattered. A hawk nose and small black moustache had
Shaughnessy, also a pair of heavy-lidded eyes.
These eyes, when they glanced casually at you, held a lustreless,
ennuied expression that impressed you, did you trouble to entertain any
impression at all, with a definite idea of somnolence in Shaughnessy. A
discouraged gambler, you might think casually, had you not the honor of
his acquaintance. But did you happen to kindle Shaughnessy's interest in
any way, lo! a startling change. The heavy lids contracted ever so
little about the black eyes, which shot forth gleams that revealed
Shaughnessy in a new and sinister light. They bared a sleepless
vigilance, an unpleasant concentration, which inspired the person
regarded with a nervousness that was justified. For when those eyes, but
a moment before lustreless and dead, lightened with that strange gleam,
the dispirited clerk or discouraged gambler vanished. In his stead,
regarding you with a cold, basilisk, snaky stare that pierced you
through and through, there was revealed--Shaughnessy.
It was his wonted mask of impassive features and lustreless eyes that
long caused Shaughnessy to be surprisingly and generally underestimated.
Men chose not to believe that one whose general appearance so lacked
significance was capable of the stealth and finesse in large, dark
matters that a portion of the press emphatically but rather gropingly
attributed to Shaughnessy. So it was Shaughnessy's good fortune, for his
nefarious ends, that most men refused to take him too seriously. The
majority chanced never to rouse his interest; hence, never saw the
optical gleam. For the minority who did, Shaughnessy was a man
transformed, invested with power, genuine and unmistakable.
Following the leader's entrance, the company waited silently for him to
speak. He favored them with a moment's reflective stare, puffing
billowing smoke clouds. Then he spoke, and his voice was as cold and
impersonal as his white face.
"I called you together, boys," said he, "because there's work ahead for
us." There was a significant nod from Goldberg. "It doesn't look bad at
a first glance," continued Shaughnessy, "but a look-in will show you
that it will pay to hump some. There's nothing open yet, but we've got
to face the hottest fight we have had. Well," with a grim smile, "we'll
do it and we'll win out. We've got to."
"Yes," remarked Peterson, with a deep sigh. "We've got to, all right,
governor."
"That's what I was tellin' 'em, Shaughnessy," put in Goldberg, rolling
his cigar to the lee corner of his mouth. "They wanted to give me the
laugh. Thought everything was lovely. They'll know when they've
sidestepped the shivers as often as we have. I tell you, the clearest
day is the one you want to have your umbrella ready for, and that's no
lie."
"No," assented Shaughnessy, "that's no lie. It's going to rain votes
this fall and we've got to get busy in mortgaging the majority of 'em.
If we don't, we get caught napping, that's all, and it's us to the
woods. I needn't tell you, of course, that as late as a year ago we
could have defied 'em to put the hooks on us, even if they'd got a
look-in at the polls. We had things tied up so they couldn't have
touched us; we could have stayed right on. But there've been some bad
mistakes made; some instructions exceeded and some things we couldn't
help, being forced into 'em. Truth is, boys, that if through any chance
we're done up in this coming election, we're caught right out in the
open with a wagonload of goods, and there's no time to hide 'em. That's
the situation we're facing and it's one that calls for cutting out sleep
till after election day."
"Well, we've done it before," remarked Willie Shute, the moon-faced
gentleman, as he pressed the button for another round of drinks. "What
the devil is sleep, anyway? Waste of time."
"It's a waste of time in politics," assented the leader, "unless you
want to wake up to find you've been buried alive with no air tube."
Willie Shute, following the laughter which greeted this grisly
pleasantry, was discovered looking about him with vague apprehension.
"Thought I heard someone snickerin'," he explained. "Before we did."
Peterson glanced significantly at Shute's whisky glass. "Preliminary to
the main event," he commented. "Saw off, or you'll be hearing bands of
music in the morning."
Shaughnessy leaned forward upon the table. "Well, let's get down to
business," he remarked. "Let's talk things over, look at all we've got
to buck against and plan to buck it in the good old way. Give us another
whack at this and in the next two years we'll be ready to retire with a
trail blinder than an eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave. But it would be
all day with us to lose just now; we can't afford it. In some ways we're
better fixed for the fight than we've been before. We own one newspaper
body and soul, though we're not advertising it. We've practically
clinched another of 'em, there's a couple that don't count anyway, and
then, there's that damned Courier."
"What figure does it cut?" sneered Goldberg. "What do you care? You've
got good organs of your own."
"I'd give the lot of 'em, pro and con," responded Shaughnessy
reflectively, "if I could either switch that sheet onto my line or work
it for a neutral sidetrack. It's got more real, solid influence than the
lot of 'em put together. It's always been against me, more or less, said
I was 'some' back in the days when the other papers gave it the laugh.
Last election it let up a little. I was beginning to get in. Then old
Westlake bought up the controlling interest unexpectedly a while ago,
and they're getting ready to lam it to us this fall, boys, and don't you
forget it. We can't do anything with Westlake. You know I was trying,
through sources that ought to have been influential, to get in an
entering wedge by practically throwing the whole batch of city printing
at Westlake's head. Well, what do you think? Westlake was on all right
and it's a case of no compromise. Matter went to the business office and
was referred directly to him, as a matter of course. He sent back word
that the Courier was planning to print a great deal about the city
"gov." during the next few months that it wouldn't charge anything for."
"Well," inquired Goldberg, after a moment's silence, "what good is that
going to do him?"
"Nothing yet," replied Shaughnessy, the light of battle kindling in his
strange eyes. "He's got nothing that'll do us any real harm, and I think
we can see to it that there'll be no leaking on anything that will. It's
up to us just to pull down the blinds, and keep 'em pulled, and then let
Westlake howl about what he suspects; he won't know anything. We've got
respectable papers," with an ugly sneer, "controlled by respectable men
on our side, too. If Westlake or any man of Westlake's can dig up
anything after we've nailed it down, why, he's welcome to it. But now
let's get busy and talk things over."
A colloquy followed which would have electrified the citizens of this
community, could they have heard it. Ancient, mysterious skeletons were
exhumed in that talk, skeletons which had been in the flesh the source
of much speculation. There were recent dark issues, too, and there was a
murky present and a future that would be murkier, did things go well.
All told, an opportunity to listen to that conversation would have
benefited the adherents of municipal decency.
After two hours of reminiscence, of planning for the campaign and
speculating on the future, Shaughnessy rose with a yawn. "Get a good
night's sleep, boys," he suggested dryly, "and then don't sleep again
till the day after we do the old ladies at the polls." They laughed as
they followed him out of the private room and down stairs.
There was a slight stir in a corner of the room. It subsided as a waiter
entered to clear and tidy the table. With the receding steps of the
servitor down the stairs, from behind the sideboard in the corner softly
stepped a man. He looked cautiously about him, then, walking to the
window, he quietly withdrew the screen, and, gaining a convenient roof
outside, replaced the screen carefully. Upon the roof his stealthily
receding footsteps were audible.