Chapter 24
It was all up with Peter. He would go back into the hole. He would be tortured for the balance of his days. In his ears rang the shrieks of ten thousand lost souls and the ten thousand trumpets of doom, and yet, in the midst of all the noise and confusion, Peter managed somehow to hear the voice of Nell whispering over and over again, Stick it out, Peter, stick it out! He flung out his hands and started toward his accuser.
Mr. Guffey, as God is my witness, I don't know a thing about it but what I've told you. That's what happened, and if Joe Angel tells you anything different, he's lying. But why I don't know why. I don't know anything about it. Here was where Peter reaped the advantage of his lifelong training as an intriguer. In the midst of all his fright and his despair, Peter's subconscious mind was working, thinking of schemes. Maybe Angel was framing something
up on you. Maybe he was fixing some plan of his own, and I come along and spoiled it. I sprung it too soon, but I tell you it's straight goods I've given you. And Peter's very anguish gave him the vehemence to check Guffey's certainty. As he rushed on, Peter could read in the eyes of the detective that he wasn't really as sure as he talked. Did you see that suitcase? he demanded. No, I didn't see no suitcase, answered Peter. I don't even know if there was a suitcase. I only
know I heard Joe Angel say, suitcase, and I heard him say dynamite. Did you see anybody writing anything in the place? No, I didn't, said Peter, but I seen Henderson sitting at the table working at some papers he had in his pocket, and I seen him tear something up and throw it into the trash basket. Peter saw the others look at one another, and he knew that he was beginning to make headway. A moment later came a diversion that helped to save him. The telephone rang, and the chief of
police answered and nodded to Guffey, who came and took the receiver. A book? he cried, with excitement in his tone. What sort of a plan? Well, tell one of your men to take the car and bring that book and the plan here to the chief's office as quick as he can move. Don't lose a moment. Everything may depend on it. And then Guffey turned to the others. He says they found a book on sabotage in the bookcase, and in it there's some kind of a drawing of a house. The book has McCormick's
name in it. There were many exclamations over this, and Peter had time to think before the company turned upon him again. The chief of police now questioned him, and then the deputy of the district attorney questioned him. Still he stuck to his story. My God! he cried. Would you think I'd be mad enough to frame up a job like this? Where'd I get all that stuff? Where'd I get that dynamite? Peter almost bit off his tongue as he realized the dreadful slip he had made. No one had ever told
him that the suitcase actually contained dynamite. How had he known there was dynamite in it? He was desperately trying to think of some way he could have heard, but as it happened no one of the five men caught him up. They all knew that there was dynamite in the suitcase. They knew it with overwhelming and tremendous certainty, and they overlooked entirely the fact that Peter wasn't supposed to know it. So close to the edge of ruin can a man come and yet escape. Peter made haste to
get away from that danger spot. Does Joe Angel deny that he was whispering to Jerry Rudd? He doesn't remember that, said Guppy. He may have talked with him apart, but nothing special. There wasn't any conspiracy. Does he deny that he talked about dynamite? They may have talked about it in the general discussion, but he didn't whisper anything. But I heard him, cried Peter, whose quick wits had thought up a way of escape. I know what I heard. It was just before they were leaving, and somebody
had turned out some of the lights. He was standing with his back to me, and I went over to the bookcase right behind him. Here the deputy district attorney put in. He was a young man, a trifle easier to fool than the others. Are you sure it was Joe Angel? He demanded. My God, of course it was, said Peter. I couldn't have been mistaken. But he let his voice die away, and a note of bewilderment be heard in it. You say he was whispering? Yes, he was whispering. But mightn't it have been somebody else? Why, I
don't know what to say, said Peter. I thought for sure it was Joe Angel. But I had my back turned. I'd been talking to Grady, the secretary, and then I turned around and moved over to the bookcase. How many men were there in the room? About twenty, I guess. Were the lights turned off before you turned around, or after? I don't remember that. It might have been after. And suddenly poor, bewildered Peter cried, it makes me feel like a fool. Of course I ought to have talked to the fellow and made sure it was
Joe Angel before I turned away again. But I thought sure it was him. The idea it could be anybody else never crossed my mind. But you're sure it was Jerry Rudd that was talking to him? Yes, it was Jerry Rudd, because his face was toward me. Was it Rudd or was it the other fellow that made the reply about the sabcat? And then Peter was bewildered and tied himself up, and led them into a long process of cross- questioning. And in the middle of it came the detective bringing the book on sabotage with
McCormick's name written in the flyleaf and with the ground plan of a house between the pages. They all crowded around to look at the plan, and the idea occurred to several of them at once. Could it be Nels Ackerman's house? The chief of police turned to his phone and called up the great banker's secretary. Would he please describe Mr. Ackerman's house? And the chief listened to the description. There's a cross mark on this plan, the north side of the house, a little to
the west of the center. What could that be? Then, my God! And then, will you come down here to my office right away and bring the architect's plan of the house so we can compare them? The chief turned to the others and said, that cross mark in the house is the sleeping porch on the second floor where Mr. Ackerman sleeps. So then they forgot for a while their doubts about Peter. It was fascinating, this work of tracing out the details of the conspiracy and fitting
them together like a picture puzzle. It seemed quite certain to all of them that this insignificant and scared little man whom they had been examining could never have prepared so ingenious and intricate a design. No, it must really be that some mastermind, some devilish intriguer was at work to spread red ruin in American city. They dismissed Peter for the present, sending him back to his cell. He stayed there for two
days with no one to advise him and no hint as to his fate. They did not allow newspapers in the jail, but they had left Peter his money, and so on the second day he succeeded in bribing one of his keepers and obtaining a copy of the American City Times with all the details of the amazing sensation spread out on the front page. For 30 years the Times had been standing for law and order against all the forces of red riot and revolution. For 30 years the Times had been declaring that
labor leaders and walking delegates and socialists and anarchists were all one in the same thing, and all placed their reliance fundamentally upon one instrument, the dynamite bomb. Here at last the Times was vindicated. This was the Times' great day. They had made the most of it, not merely on the front page, but on two other pages, with pictures of all the conspicuous conspirators, including Peter, and pictures of the IWW headquarters, and the suitcase, and the sticks
of dynamite, and the fuses, and the clock, of the studio in which the Reds had been trapped, and of Nikitin, the Russian anarchist who owned this den. And also there were columns of speculation about the case, signed statements and interviews with leading clergymen and bankers, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the secretary of the real estate exchange. There was a two-column, double-leaded editorial pointing out how the Times had been saying this for 30 years,
and not failing to connect up the case with the Guber case, the Lackman case, and the case of three pacifist clergymen who had been arrested several days before for attempting to read the Sermon on the Mount at a public meeting. And Peter knew that he, Peter Gudge, had done all this. The forces of law and order owed it all to one obscure little secret service agent. Peter would get no credit, of course. The chief of police and the district attorney were issuing solemn statements, taking
the honors to themselves, and with never one hint that they owed anything to the secret service department of the Traction Trust. That was necessary, of course. For the sake of appearances, it had to be pretended that the public authorities were doing the work, exercising their legal functions in due and regular form. It would never do to have the mob suspect that these activities were being financed and directed by the big business interests of the city. But all the same,
it made Peter sore. He and McGivney and the rest of Guffey's men had contempt for the public officials whom they regarded as pikers. The officials had very little money to spend and very little power. If you really wanted to get anything done in America, you didn't go to any public official. You went to the big men of affairs, the ones who had the stuff, and were used to doing things quickly and efficiently. It was the same in this business of spying as in
everything else. Now and then, Peter would realize how close he had come to ghastly ruin. He would have qualms of terror picturing himself shut up in the hole, and Guffey proceeding to torture the truth out of him. But he was able to calm these fears. He was sure this dynamite conspiracy would prove too big a temptation for the authorities. It would sweep them away in spite of themselves. They would have to go through with it. They would have to stand by Peter. And sure enough,
on the evening of the second day, a jailer came and said, You are to be let out. And Peter was ushered through the bar doors and turned loose without another word. End of sections 47 and 48.
