100%: the Story of a Patriot Part 9

"Well, who is he?"

"He's Jack Ibbetts."

"The devil you say!" cried McGivney, incredulously.

"Jack Ibbetts, one of the night keepers in the jail."

"I know him," said the other. "But what put that notion into your head?"

"He's a cousin of the Todd sisters."

"Who are the Todd sisters?"

"Jennie Todd is my girl," said Peter.

"Girl!" echoed the other; he stared at Peter, and a grin spread over his face. "You got a girl in two weeks? I didn't know you had it in you!"

It was a doubtful compliment, but Peter's smile was no less expansive, and showed all his crooked teeth. "I got her all right,"

he said, "and she blabbed it out the first thing--that Ibbetts was her cousin. And then she was scared, because Andrews, the lawyer, had made her and her sister swear they wouldn't mention his name to a soul. So you see, they're using him for a spy--there ain't a particle of doubt about it."

"Good G.o.d!" said McGivney, and there was genuine dismay in his tone.

"Who'd think it possible? Why, Ibbetts is as decent a fellow as ever you talked to--and him a Red, and a traitor at that! You know, that's what makes it the devil trying to handle these Reds--you never can tell who they'll get; you never know who to trust. How, d'you suppose they manage it?"

"I dunno," said Peter. "There's a sucker born every minute, you know!"

"Well, anyhow, I see you ain't one of 'em," said the rat-faced man, as he watched Peter take the roll of bills from the bed and tuck them away in an inside pocket.

Section 22

Peter was warned by the rat-faced man that he must be careful how he spent any of that money. Nothing would be more certain to bring suspicion on him than to have it whispered about that he was "in funds." He must be able to show how he had come honestly by everything he had. And Peter agreed to that; he would hide the money away in a safe place until he was thru with his job.

Then he in turn proceeded to warn McGivney. If they were to fire Ibbetts from his job, it would certainly cause talk, and might direct suspicion against Peter. McGivney answered with a smile that he wasn't born yesterday. They would "promote" Jack Ibbetts, giving him some job where he couldn't get any news about the Goober case; then, after a bit, they would catch him up on some mistake, or get him into some trouble, and fire him.

At this meeting, and at later meetings, Peter and the rat-faced man talked out every aspect of the Goober case, which was becoming more and more complicated, and bigger as a public issue. New people were continually being involved, and new problems continually arising; it was more fascinating than a game of chess. McGivney had spoken the literal truth when he said that the big business interests of American City had put up a million dollars to hang Goober and his crowd. At the very beginning there had been offered seventeen thousand dollars in rewards for information, and these rewards naturally had many claimants. The trouble was that people who wanted this money generally had records that wouldn't go well before a jury; the women nearly always turned out to be prost.i.tutes, and the men to be ex-convicts, forgers, gamblers, or what not. Sometimes they didn't tell their past records until the other side unearthed them, and then it was necessary to doctor court records, and pull wires all over the country.

There were a dozen such witnesses as this in the Goober case. They had told their stories before the grand jury, and innumerable flaws and discrepancies had been discovered, which made more work and trouble for Guffey and his lieutenants. Thru a miserable mischance it happened that Jim Goober and his wife had been watching the parade from the roof of a building a couple of miles away, at the very hour when they were accused of having planted the suit-case with the bomb in it. Somebody had taken a photograph of the parade from this roof, which showed both Goober and his wife looking over, and also a big clock in front of a jewelry store, plainly indicating the very minute. Fortunately the prosecution got hold of this photograph first; but now the defense had learned of its existence, and was trying to get a look at it. The prosecution didn't dare destroy it, because its existence could be proven; but they had photographed the photograph, and re-photographed that, until they had the face of the clock so dim that the time could not be seen.

Now the defense was trying to get evidence that this trick had been worked.

Then there were all the witnesses for the defense. Thru another mischance it had happened that half a dozen different people had seen the bomb thrown from the roof of Guggenheim's Department Store; which entirely contradicted the suit-case theory upon which the prosecution was based. So now it was necessary to "reach" these various witnesses. One perhaps had a mortgage on his home which could be bought and foreclosed; another perhaps had a wife who wanted to divorce him, and could be persuaded to help get him into trouble. Or perhaps he was engaged in an intrigue with some other man's wife; or perhaps some woman could be sent to draw him into an intrigue.

Then again, it appeared that very soon after the explosion some of Guffey's men had taken a sledge hammer and smashed the sidewalk, also the wall of the building where the explosion had taken place.

This was to fit in with the theory of the suit-case bomb, and they had taken a number of photographs of the damage. But now it transpired that somebody had taken a photograph of the spot before this extra damage had been done, and that the defense was in possession of this photograph. Who had taken this photograph, and how could he be "fixed"? If Peter could help in such matters, he would come out of the Goober case a rich man.

Peter would go away from these meetings with McGivney with his head full of visions, and would concentrate all his faculties upon the collecting of information. He and Jennie and Sadie talked about the case incessantly, and Jennie and Sadie would tell freely everything they had heard outside. Others would come in--young McCormick, and Miriam Yankovitch, and Miss Nebbins, the secretary to Andrews, and they would tell what they had learned and what they suspected, and what the defense was hoping to find out. They got hold of a cousin of the man who had taken the photograph on the roof; they were working on him, to get him to persuade the photographer to tell the truth. Next day Donald Gordon would come in, cast down with despair, because it had been learned that one of the most valuable witnesses of the defense, a groceryman, had once pleaded guilty to selling spoilt cheese! Thus every evening, before he went to sleep, Peter would jot down notes, and sew them up inside his jacket, and once a week he would go to the meeting with McGivney, and the two would argue and bargain over the value of Peter's news.

Section 23

It had become a fascinating game, and Peter would never have tired of it, but for the fact that he had to stay all day in the house with little Jennie. A honeymoon is all right for a few weeks, but no man can stand it forever. Little Jennie apparently never tired of being kissed, and never seemed satisfied that Peter thoroughly loved her. A man got thru with his love-making after awhile, but a woman, it appeared, never knew how to drop the subject; she was always looking before and after, and figuring consequences and responsibilities, her duty and her reputation and all the rest of it. Which, of course, was a bore.

Jennie was unhappy because she was deceiving Sadie; she wanted to tell Sadie, and yet somehow it was easier to go on concealing than admit that one had concealed. Peter didn't see why Sadie had to be told at all; he didn't see why things couldn't stay just as they were, and why he and his sweetheart couldn't have some fun now and then, instead of always being sentimental, always having agonies over the cla.s.s war, to say nothing of the world war, and the prospects of America becoming involved in it.

This did not mean that Peter was hard and feelingless. No, when Peter clasped trembling little Jennie in his arms he was very deeply moved; he had a real sense of what a gentle and good little soul she was. He would have been glad to help her--but what could he do about it? The situation was such that he could not plead with her, he could not try to change her; he had to give himself up to all her crazy whims and pretend to agree with her. Little Jennie was by her weakness marked for destruction, and what good would it do for him to go to destruction along with her?

Peter understood clearly that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who eat, and those who are eaten; and it was his intention to stay among the former, group. Peter had come in his twenty years of life to a definite understanding of the things called "ideas" and "causes" and "religions." They were bait to catch suckers; and there is a continual compet.i.tion between the suckers, who of course don't want to be caught, and those people of superior wits who want to catch them, and therefore are continually inventing new and more plausible and alluring kinds of bait. Peter had by now heard enough of the jargon of the "comrades" to realize that theirs was an especially effective kind; and here was poor little Jennie, stuck fast on the hook, and what could Peter do about it?

Yet, this was Peter's first love, and when he was deeply thrilled, he understood the truth of Guffey's saying that a man in love wants to tell the truth. Peter would have the impulse to say to her: "Oh, drop all that preaching, and give yourself a rest! Let's you and me enjoy life a bit."

Yes, it would be all he could do to keep from saying this--despite the fact that he knew it would ruin everything. Once little Jennie appeared in a new silk dress, brought to her by one of the rich ladies whose heart was touched by her dowdy appearance. It was of soft grey silk--cheap silk, but fresh and new, and Peter had never had anything so fine in his arms before. It matched Jennie's grey eyes, and its freshness gave her a pink glow; or was it that Peter admired her, and loved her more, and so brought the blood to her cheeks? Peter had an impulse to take her out and show her off, and he pressed his face into the soft folds of the dress and whispered, "Say kid, some day you an me got to cut all this hard luck business for a bit!"

He felt little Jennie stiffen, and draw away from him; so quickly he had to set to work to patch up the damage. "I want you to get well,"

he pleaded. "You're so good to everybody--you treat everybody well but yourself!"

It had been something in his tone rather than his actual words that had frightened the girl. "Oh Peter!" she cried. "What does it matter about me, or about any other one person, when millions of young men are being shot to fragments, and millions of women and children are starving to death!"

So there they were, fighting the war again; Peter had to take up her burden, be a hero, and a martyr, and a "Red." That same afternoon, as fate willed it, three "wobblies" out of a job came to call; and oh, how tired Peter was of these wandering agitators--insufferable "grouches!" Peter would want to say: "Oh, cut it out! What you call your 'cause' is nothing but your scheme to work with your tongues instead of with a pick and a shovel." And this would start an imaginary quarrel in Peter's mind. He would hear one of the fellows demanding, "How much pick and shovel work you ever done?" Another saying, "Looks to me like you been finding the easy jobs wherever you go!" The fact that this was true did not make Peter's irritation any less, did not make it easier for him to meet with Comrade Smith, and Brother Jones, and Fellow-worker Brown just out of jail, and listen to their hard-luck stories, and watch them take from the table food that Peter wanted, and--the bitterest pill of all--let them think that they were fooling him with their patter!

The time came when Peter wasn't able to stand it any longer. Shut up in the house all day, he was becoming as irritable as a chained dog.

Unless he could get out in the world again, he would surely give himself away. He pleaded that the doctors had warned him that his health would not stand indoor life; he must get some fresh air. So he got away by himself, and after that he found things much easier.

He could spend a little of his money; he could find a quiet corner in a restaurant and get himself a beefsteak, and eat all he wanted of it, without feeling the eyes of any "comrades" resting upon him reprovingly. Peter had lived in a jail, and in an orphan asylum, and in the home of Shoemaker Smithers, but nowhere had he fared so meagerly as in the home of the Todd sisters, who were contributing nearly everything they owned to the Goober defense, and to the "Clarion," the Socialist paper of American City.

Section 24

Peter went to see Andrews, the lawyer, and asked for a job; he wanted to be active in the case, he said, so he was set to work in the offices of the Defense Committee, where he heard people talking about the case all day, and he could pick up no end of valuable tips. He made himself agreeable and gained friends; before long he was intimate with one of the best witnesses of the defense, and discovered that this man had once been named as co-respondent in a divorce case. Peter found out the name of the woman, and Guffey set to work to bring her to American City. The job was to be done cleverly, without the woman's even knowing that she was being used.

She would have a little holiday, and the spell of old love would rea.s.sert itself, and Guffey would have a half dozen men to spring the trap--and there would be a star witness of the Goober defense clean down and out! "There's always something you can get them on!"

said McGivney, and cheerfully paid Peter Gudge five hundred dollars for the information he had brought.

Peter would have been wildly happy, but just at this moment a dreadful calamity befell him. Jennie had been talking about marriage more and more, and now she revealed to him a reason which made marriage imperative. She revealed it with downcast eyes, with blushes and trembling; and Peter was so overcome with consternation that he could not play the part that was expected of him. Hitherto in these love crises he had caught Jennie in his arms and comforted her; but now for a moment he let her see his real emotions.

Jennie promptly had a fit. What was the matter with him? Didn't he mean to marry her, as he had promised? Surely he must realize now that they could no longer delay! And Peter, who was not familiar with the symptoms of hysterics, lost his head completely and could think of nothing to do but rush out of the house and slam the door.

The more he considered it, the more clearly he realized that he was in the devil of a predicament. As a servant of the Traction Trust, he had taken it for granted that he was immune to all legal penalties and obligations; but here, he had a feeling, was a trouble from which the powerful ones of the city would be unable to s.h.i.+eld their agent. Were they able to arrange it so that one could marry a girl, and then get out of it when one's job was done?

Peter was so uneasy that he had to call up the office of Guffey and get hold of McGivney. This was dangerous, because the prosecution was tapping telephone wires, and they feared the defense might be doing the same. But Peter took a chance; he told McGivney to come and meet him at the usual place; and there they argued the matter out, and Peter's worst fears were confirmed. When he put the proposition up to McGivney, the rat-faced man guffawed in his face.

He found it so funny that he did not stop laughing until he saw that he was putting his spy into a rage.

"What's the joke?" demanded Peter. "If I'm ruined, where'll you get any more information?"