Peter awoke next morning with a vivid sense of the pain and terror
of life. He had been clamoring to have those Reds punished; but
somehow or other he had thought of this punishment in an abstract
way, a thing you could attend to by a wave of the hand. He hadn’t
quite realized the physical side of it, what a messy and bloody job
it would prove. Two hours and more he had listened to the thud of a
whip on human flesh, and each separate stroke had been a blow upon
his own nerves. Peter had an overdose of vengeance; and now, the
morning after, his conscience was gnawing at him. He had known every
one of those boys, and their faces rose up to haunt him. What had
any of them done to deserve such treatment? Could he say that he had
ever known a single one of them to do anything as violent as the
thing they had all suffered?
But more than anything else Peter was troubled by fear. Peter, the
ant, perceived the conflict of the giants becoming more ferocious,
and realized the precariousness of his position under the giants’
feet. The passions of both sides were mounting, and the fiercer
their hate became, the greater the chance of Peter’s being
discovered, the more dreadful his fate if he were discovered. It was
all very well for McGivney to assure him that only four of Guffey’s
men knew the truth, and that all these might be trusted to the
death. Peter remembered a remark he had heard Shawn Grady make, and
which had caused him to lose his appetite for more than one meal.
“They’ve got spies among us,” the young Irishman had said. “Well,
sooner or later we’ll do a bit of spying of our own!”
And now these words came back to Peter like a voice from the grave.
Suppose one of the Reds who had money were to hire somebody to get a
job in Guffey’s office! Suppose some Red girl were to try Peter’s
device, and seduce one of Guffey’s men--by no means a difficult
task! The man mightn’t even mean to reveal that Peter Gudge was a
secret agent; he might just let it slip, as little Jennie had let
slip the truth about Jack Ibbetts! Thus Mac would know who had
framed him up; and what would Mac do to Peter when he got out on
bail? When Peter thought of things like that he realized what it
meant to go to war; he saw that he had gained nothing by staying at
home, he might as well have been in the front-line trenches! After
all, this was war, class-war; and in all war the penalty for spying
is death.
Also Peter was worried about Nell. She had been in her new position
for nearly a week, and he hadn’t heard a word from her. She had
forbidden him to write, for fear he might write something
injudicious. Let him just wait, Edythe Eustace would know how to
take care of herself. And that was all right, Peter had no doubt
about the ability of Edythe Eustace to take care of herself. What
troubled him was the knowledge that she was working on another
“frame-up,” and he stood in fear of the exuberance of her
imagination. The last time that imagination had been pregnant, it
had presented him with a suit-case full of dynamite. What it might
bring forth next time he did not know, and was afraid to think. Nell
might cause him to be found out by Guffey; and that would be nearly
as horrible as to be found out by Mac!
Peter got his morning “Times,” and found a whole page about the
whipping of the Reds, portraying the job as a patriotic duty
heroically performed; and that naturally cheered Peter up
considerably. He turned to the editorial page, and read a two column
“leader” that was one whoop of exultation. It served still more to
cure Peter’s ache of conscience; and when he read on and found a
series of interviews with leading citizens, giving cordial
endorsement to the acts of the “vigilantes,” Peter became ashamed of
his weakness, and glad that he had not revealed it to anyone. Peter
was trying his best to become a real “he-man,” a 100% red-blooded
American, and he had the “Times” twice each day, morning and
evening, to guide, sustain and inspire him.
Peter had been told by McGivney to fix himself up and pose as one of
the martyrs of the night’s affair, and this appealed to his sense of
humor. He cut off the hair from a part of his head, and stuck some
raw cotton on top, and plastered it over with surgical tape. He
stuck another big wad of surgical tape across his forehead, and a
criss-cross of it on his cheek, and tied up his wrist in an
excellent imitation of a sprain. Thus rigged out he repaired to the
American House, and McGivney rewarded him with a hearty laugh, and
then proceeded to give some instructions which, entirely restored
Peter’s usual freshness of soul. Peter was going up on Mount Olympus
again!
The rat-faced man explained in detail. There was a lady of great
wealth--indeed, she was said to be several times a millionaire--who
was an openly avowed Red, a pacifist of the most malignant variety.
Since the arrest of young Lackman she had come forward and put up
funds to finance the “People’s Council,” and the “Anti-Conscription
League,” and all the other activities which for the sake of
convenience were described by the term “pro-German.” The only
trouble was this lady was so extremely wealthy it was hard to do
anything to her. Her husband was a director in a couple of Nelse
Ackerman’s banks, and had other powerful connections. The husband
was a violent, anti-Socialist, and a buyer of liberty bonds; he
quarrelled with his wife, but nevertheless he did not want to see
her in jail, and this made an embarrassing situation for the police
and the district attorney’s office, and even for the Federal
authorities, who naturally did not want to trouble one of the
courtiers of the king of American City. “But something’s got to be
done,” said McGivney. “This camouflaged German propaganda can’t go
on.” So Peter was to try to draw Mrs. Godd into some kind of “overt
action.”
“Mrs. Godd?” said Peter. It seemed to him a singular coincidence
that one of the dwellers on Mount Olympus should bear that name. The
great lady lived on a hilltop out in the suburbs, not so far from
the hilltop of Nelse Ackerman. One of the adventures looked forward
to by Reds and pacifists in distress was to make a pilgrimage to
this palace and obtain some long, green plasters to put over their
wounds. Now was the time at all times for Peter to go, said
McGivney. Peter had many wounds to be plastered, and Mrs. Godd would
be indignant at the proceedings of last night, and would no doubt
express herself without restraint.