SUSPENSE
Colonel Westlake, the principal owner of the Courier and the man who
actively dictated its policy, sat in the library of his home that night
with a look upon his face different than he had worn of late. As the
leader of the Fusion movement, for which he had expended much labor and
time, things had looked black to him until today, and his face had worn
the expression that belongs to him who is fighting a grim, losing
battle. He saw the opposition forging ahead with a resistless sweep
which he and his co-workers could not stop, and it had been maddening.
But tonight a bright gleam of hope had dispelled the gloom of the
Colonel's face. He had visited the office that afternoon and had a talk
with the managing editor, who had told him of the effort that was in
progress to checkmate the plans of the ring. He could tell the Colonel
but few particulars, for Micky had not confided many of them to his
superiors as yet. Indeed, he had had no time to do so. But the
information was cheering enough to cause the Colonel to smoke his cigar
that evening with an easier mind. "That fellow can get it if anybody
can," he had been told, and the assurance fanned his dying hope into
renewed flame.
The Courier's editorial rooms were unusually replete of life that
night. To be sure, it was an old story, that record of life and death
and the things that go between, called news; ground out there three
hundred and sixty-five nights in the year. One night, generally
speaking, was very like another to the various cogs in the human
machine. Most of them were past cubhood, and the shifts of scene
entailed by succeeding assignments, that once held a fresh charm of
novelty, now spelled grim duty. Most men have illusions, but the jaded
newsgetter loses them first of all. Most men may dream of what they may
become; the newsgetter only of what he did not become. However, there is
a compensation. The newsgetter has acquired philosophy, the real salt of
the earth. It is better to watch one's Rome burning with philosophy than
to collect the insurance thereon without it.
However, on this night there was a brooding excitement in the air. The
big room fairly throbbed with it; the sense of an impending something
whose significance but few of the force divined, but which they all
felt. The harassed, anxious expressions on the faces of Harkins and a
few others of the editorial force; their frequent glances at the big
clock, their nervous onslaughts upon the mass of work, for it was a
teeming night, revealed to every rushed reporter in the great room that
there was something on and that it was something big. They stole covert
glances at their chiefs and at each other, wondering what it was.
Time wore on while the tension grew. The big calm clock reeled off the
flying minutes with exasperating insistence. The clock is the merciless
monitor of the newspaper office. Men watch it, fear it, serve it as
they must. They hurl the forces of head and hand, when the need calls,
in a desperate fight against it, till its tickings are drowned in the
roar of the presses that hold the dearly bought triumph; while the
toiler sits spent and worn, body and brain full of the numb weariness of
the reaction. Even as the roar of the presses dies in silence, there is
again audible the eternal ticking of the clock, unresting through it
all; registering in one breath the death of a day of labor, the birth of
another in the next. Always the grim spectre with the scythe stands at
the elbows of the men who write the news.
So the Courier's clock ticked on, while the hidden undercurrent of
unrest, so patent even to those ignorant of the reason for it, grew in a
fierce, irritating tug that was made manifest in disagreeable ways.
Harkins' nerves were worn to shreds. His usual urbanity withered like
dry grass in the fire of his hot impatience. The office fairly throbbed
now, for it was an extraordinarily busy night. Election was close at
hand, the entire city was wrought up over it, everything else had
seemingly happened and was all coming in at once. Still there was that
hungry gap, waiting to be filled with the story of a lifetime. Where was
the story?
It was exasperating. Everywhere men were rushing like mad and Harkins
helped them rush the more. His orders were snapped with the venom of a
cracking whip lash, accompanied by black frowns that caused backs to
bend and fingers to fly the more, or legs to hurry the faster, as his
behest might be. It became a drive, a dizzy whirl of effort, torn with
conflicting sights and sounds. There materialized hurrying figures,
sharp orders, the jingle of telephone bells, the slamming of doors, the
sleet-like rattle of typewriters, the soft rush of many pencils and the
crackle of paper; the hundred and one distractions that contribute in
the compilation of the record of a day of news. And constantly, as the
whirl gained in volume like a rising wind, Harkins' tortured eyes
re-sought the clock, and they held all the miserable apprehension of a
miser for precious, fleeting gold.
"Gee!" exclaimed Kirk to Peters, as he passed that worthy at the end of
the room, and paused a moment to wipe his moist forehead, "it's fierce,
ain't it? Harkins is getting crazy. There's something up. What is it?"
"No," replied Peters, with an apprehensive glance toward Harkins,
"there's nothing up, I guess. I think there's something ought to be up
that isn't. That's the rub. Never saw Hark' so worked up in my life."
"Yes, but what is it?" reiterated Kirk. "It's something big, that's
sure."
"I don't know anything more about it than you do, but I've noticed one
thing. O'Byrn hasn't shown up tonight. I think Hark' expected him, and
with something." He nodded meaningly and they separated.
Suddenly Harkins summoned Glenwood, who had the week previous been made
his assistant. Dick had been also growing nervous for the last
half-hour, his eyes constantly seeking the door, hopeful of a desired
arrival which was strangely delayed. The story should have been well
under way by then. Dick guessed how formidable an undertaking it had
undoubtedly proved and had at first explained Micky's delay in appearing
by the assumed magnitude of the little Irishman's task. But now Dick
had grown painfully anxious.
He hurried to Harkins' desk. The city editor looked up with a black
scowl, viciously chewing a cigar stub. His uneasy fingers drummed a
tattoo upon his desk.
"For God's sake, Glenwood," he burst out, "what's the matter? It's ten
o'clock. Have you heard anything?"
"Only that telephone message he sent me early this afternoon," replied
Dick. "It was short but significant. You know I told you."
Harkins groaned. "Yes," he assented, "he said he'd need the whole paper
tomorrow and a few extras. And now where the devil is he, anyway? Where
was he when he sent you that message?"
"I don't know," Dick answered. "Richards called me to the 'phone, said
someone wanted me. I recognized Micky's voice. He just blurted out that
information and broke away before I could reply. I tried to get him to
ask him if he needed any help and when he would get here, but he had
gone."
Harkins' eyes contracted. "Dick, do you think--" he began meaningly.
"No!" interrupted Dick vehemently, "not at a time like this! Still--Oh,
the poor devil!" he broke off, for the remembrance swept over him of a
certain shamed admission to him of O'Byrn's own, the acknowledgment of
the reason for a bootless career.
There was a brief silence, broken by Harkins' voice, raised in loud
summons. "Has anyone seen O'Byrn tonight?" he asked.
Peters glanced significantly at Kirk. There was no immediate answer,
but a fat figure, waddling on its way from the elevator to the desk,
hesitated and finally halted. An odd breathless voice broke the sudden
silence, the voice of Fatty Stearns.
"O'Byrn?" he queried, "did you say O'Byrn, Mr. Harkins?"
"Yes," exploded Harkins, frowning heavily upon the quailing Stearns.
"Have you seen him?"
"Why, yes," assented Fatty faintly, while fidgeting upon his chubby
feet. "That is, I did," explosively, "about eight o'clock."
"Well," fairly shouted his irritated chief, "where was he? What's the
matter with you?"
"Why, nothin'," ejaculated Fatty desperately. "I wasn't with him! I kept
out of sight so he and the gang wouldn't see me. They were heading for
O'Sullivan's saloon."
There was a moment's silence. "Stearns," said Harkins finally, his tone
now one of quiet resignation, "why didn't you tell me this before?"
"You didn't ask me," Fatty answered in an injured way, sidling toward
his desk. "And besides," as an afterthought, "you couldn't, for I wasn't
here. You'd sent me out on that armory business, don't you know?"
Harkins and Glenwood looked hopelessly at each other. "No telling where
he is now," said the city editor wearily, "or the shape he's in. It's
all up, I guess."
Dick's fist rapped his desk smartly, his lips met in a grim line. "Not
yet!" he exclaimed. "It's worth a try, anyway. I'm going to see if I can
find him."
He turned away, nearly colliding with a meagre little man who was
hurrying toward him from the elevator. "You're Mr. Glenwood?" asked this
worthy.
"Yes," assented Dick, with a glance of inquiry.
"I know you by sight," rapidly pursued the visitor. "I was mixed up once
in a little deal at Goldberg's with a friend of yours, Micky O'Byrn. You
came on after I slid," with a dry grin. "But that's nothin' to do with
this. You fellows are waitin' for somethin'," with a shrewd glance at
Harkins' worried face, "and the man who's got it is gettin' drunker
every minute. I thought you ought to know."
"Do you know where he is?" exclaimed Dick, grasping Slade's arm in his
eagerness. The ex-heeler winced.
"Sure," he assented. "I've got a pal watchin' 'em so as to cop whether
they do a duck into another joint."
"What shape is he in?" asked Glenwood.
"Bad," replied Slade dubiously. Then, with a ready grasp of the
situation, "I know a medicine cove that I'll bet could put him right in
short order, that is for while you'd need him. Makes a regular specialty
of it, one of his own patients in fact. But you'd have to hurry. I'm
with you on the deal, for between us I've got a bone to pick with
Shaughnessy myself and I want to see that story in tomorrow's paper.
Why, I put O'Byrn onto it."
Dick turned sharply to Harkins. "Get everything ready, I'll have him
here," he said confidently. "We'll fix him up some way. Hang it, we've
got to! Of course, it'll have to be dictation. I'll 'phone you outlook
just as soon as I can," he added, seizing coat and hat, "and you clear
the decks. Now, Slade," and the two hurried to the elevator.
Dick hailed a cab. "To Lawrence's saloon, on Forty-Fifth, and be quick
about it!" directed Slade, and the two sprang in.
"I had supper with him," explained Slade, as the cab rolled rapidly
northward, "and he insisted on a couple of drinks. He'd had several
then, I guess. Then he was going to start for the office, but a gang
blew along. Then it was all off," with an expressive shrug. "Stuff
seemed to go to his head all in a flash, and he wouldn't listen to
anything. I kept along for a while and tried to sneak him away. He'd
start all right, but the gang would drag him back and play rough-house
with me and chuck me out. About eight we came near running into some
parties I didn't want to see and I simply had to duck for a while. He
was in a gin-mill near the City Hall then, and I lost him some way. It
was two hours, pretty near, before I copped him again, this time in
Lawrence's. I got a friend o' mine to watch the place, then I caught a
car for your office."
The cab stopped before a brilliantly lighted cafe and the men tumbled
out. A young fellow, loitering about, approached Slade. "Well, he's
gone," said he.
"Gone!" echoed Slade. "Where?"
"I dunno. No call for me buttin' in. He got in a carriage with Dick
Peterson and another fellow and they drove off."
"Shaughnessy!" exclaimed Slade, with a livid oath. "Come on, there's no
time to lose!" He dragged Dick toward the cab. "Shaughnessy's rooms, you
know 'em--drive like hell!" he told the driver, and they were off like
the wind.