Chapter 4
X. All these things and more, Peter told, thinking that he was safe now under the protection of authority. But after he had spent about two months in the hospital he was summoned one day into the office, and there stood Guffy, glowering at him in a black fury.
You damned fool! were Guffy's first words. Peter's knees went weak and his teeth began to chatter again. What, what, what? he cried. Didn't I tell you to hold your mouth? And Guffy looked as if he were going to twist Peter's wrist again.
Mr. Guffy, I ain't told a soul. I ain't said one word about the Goober case. Not one word. Peter rushed on, pouring out protests. But Guffy cut him short.
Shut up, you nut. Maybe you didn't talk about the Goober case, but you talked about yourself. Didn't you tell somebody you worked for that fellow, Calandra? Y-yes, sir. And you knew the police were after him, and after you too?
Y-yes, sir. And you said you'd been arrested for selling fake, patent medicines? Y-yes, sir. Christ almighty, cried Guffy. And what kind of a witness do you think you'll make?
But cried Peter in despair. I didn't tell anybody that would matter. I only, what do you know what would matter? roared the detective, adding a stream of furious oaths. The Goober people have got spies on us.
They've got somebody right here in this jail. Anyhow, they've found out about you and your record. You've gone and ruined us with your blabbing mouth. My lord, whispered Peter, his voice dying away, look at yourself on a witness stand. Look at what they'll do to you before a jury.
Travelling over the country, swindling people with patent medicines, and getting in jail for it. Working for that hell-blasted scoundrel Calandra. And Guffy added some dreadful words, descriptive of the loathsome vices of which the chief Magistrian had been accused.
And you mixed up in that kind of thing. I never done anything like that, cried Peter wildly. I didn't even know for sure. Tell that to the jury, sneered Guffy. Why, they've even been to that Shoemaker Smithers, and they'll put his wife on the stand to prove
you a sneak thief and tell how she kicked you out. And all because you couldn't hold your mouth as I told you to. Peter burst into tears. He fell down on his knees, pleading that he hadn't meant any harm. He hadn't any idea that he was not supposed to talk about his past life.
He hadn't realized what a witness was, or what he was supposed to do. All he had been told was to keep quiet about the Guber case. And he had kept quiet. So Peter sobbed and pleaded. But in vain.
Guffy ordered him back to the hole, declaring his intention to prove that Peter was the one who had thrown the bomb, and that Peter, instead of Jim Guber, had been the head and front of the conspiracy. Hadn't Peter signed a confession that he had helped to make the bomb? Section 11
Again Peter did not know how long he lay shivering in the Black Dungeon. He only knew that they brought him bread and water three times before Guffy came again and summoned him forth. Peter now sat huddled into a chair, twisting his trembling hands together, while the chief detective of the Traction Trust explained to him his new program.
Peter was permanently ruined as a witness in the case. The labor conspirators had raised huge sums for their defense. They had all the labor unions of the city and in fact of the entire country behind them, and they were hiring spies and informers and trying to find out all they could about the prosecution, the evidence it had collected, and the moves it was preparing.
Guffy did not say that he had been afraid to kick Peter out because of the possibility that Peter might go over to the Guber side and tell all he knew. But Peter guessed this while he sat listening to Guffy's explanation and realized with a thrill of excitement that at last he had really got a hold upon the ladder of prosperity. Not in vain had his finger been almost broken and his wrist almost dislocated.
Now, said Guffy, here's my idea. As a witness you're on the bum, but as a spy you're it. They know that you blabbed and that I know it. They know I've had you in the hole. So now what I want to do is to make a martyr of you.
Do you see? Peter nodded. Yes, he saw. It was his specialty seeing things like that. You're an honest witness, you understand?
I tried to get you to lie and you wouldn't. So now you go over to the other side and they take you in and you find out all you can and from time to time you meet somebody as I'll arrange it and send me word what you've learned. You get me?
I get you, said Peter eagerly. No words could portray his relief. He had a real job now. He was going to be a sleuth like Guffy himself. Now, said Guffy, the first thing I want to know is who's blabbing in this jail?
We can't do anything but they get tipped off. I've got witnesses that I want kept hidden and I don't dare put them here for fear of the gooper crowd. I want to know who are the traitors. I want to know a lot of things that I'll tell you from time to time.
I want you to get next to these reds and learn about their ideas so you can talk their lingo. Sure, said Peter. He could not help smiling a little. He was supposed to have been a red already, to have been one of their leading conspirators,
but Guffy had abandoned that pretence, or perhaps he had forgotten about it. It was really an easy job that Peter had set before him. He did not have to pretend to be anything different from what he was. He would call himself a victim of circumstances and would be honestly indignant against those who had sought to use him in a frame-up against Jim Goober.
The rest would follow naturally. He would get the confidence of the Labour people and Guffy would tell him what to do next. We'll put you in one of the cells of this jail, said the chief detective, and we'll pretend to give you a third degree.
You'll holler and make a fuss and say you won't tell and finally we'll give up and kick you out. And then all you have to do is just hang around. They'll come after you or I miss my guess. So the little comedy was arranged and played through.
Guffy took Peter by the collar and led him out into the main part of the jail and locked him in one of a row of open cells. He grabbed Peter by the wrist and pretended to twist it, and Peter pretended to protest. He did not have to draw on his imagination. He knew how it felt and how he was supposed to act, and he acted.
He sobbed and screamed, and again and again he vowed that he had told the truth, that he knew nothing else than what he had told and that nothing could make him tell anything more. Guffy left him there until late the next afternoon and then came again and took him by the collar and led him out to the steps of the jail and gave him a parting kick.
Peter was free. What a wonderful sensation. Freedom. God! Had there ever been anything like it, he wanted to shout and howl with joy, but instead he
staggered along the street and sank down upon a stone coping, sobbing, with his head clasped in his hands, waiting for something to happen. And sure enough, it happened. Perhaps an hour passed when he was touched lightly on the shoulder. Comrade, said a soft voice, and Peter, looking between his fingers, saw the skirts of a girl.
A folded slip of paper was pressed into his hand and the soft voice said, Come to this address. The girl walked on and Peter's heart leapt with excitement. Peter was a sleuth at last. Section 12 Peter waited until after dark in order to
indulge his sense of the romantic. He also flattered his self-importance by looking carefully about him as he walked down the street. He did not know just who would be shadowing him, but Peter wanted to be sleuthy. Also, he had a bit of genuine anxiety.
He had told the truth when he said to Guffey that he didn't know what a Red was, but since then had been making inquiries and now he knew. A Red was a fellow who sympathized with labor unions and with strikes, who wanted to murder the rich and divide their property, and believed that the quickest way to do the dividing was by means of dynamite.
All Reds made bombs and carried concealed weapons, and perhaps secret poisons. Who could tell? And now Peter was going among them, he was going to be one of them. It was almost too interesting for a fellow who aimed above everything to be comfortable. Something in him whispered, Why not skip?
Get out of town and be done with it. But then he thought of the rewards and honors that Guffey had promised him. Also, there was the spirit of curiosity. He might skip at any time. But first he would like to know a bit more about being a dick.
He came to the number which had been given him, a tiny bungalow in a poor neighborhood, and rang the doorbell. It was answered by a girl, and at a glance Peter saw that it was the girl who had spoken to him. She did not wait for him to announce himself, but cried impulsively, Mr. Guj, oh, I'm so
glad you've come. She added, Comrade, just as if Peter were a well-known friend. And then, But you are a comrade. How do you mean? asked Peter.
You're not a socialist? Well, we'll make one of you. She brought him in and showed him to a chair, saying, I know what they did to you, and you stood out against them. Oh, you were wonderful, wonderful.
Peter was at a loss what to say. There was in this girl's voice a note of affection, as well as of admiration, and Peter in his hard life had little experience with emotions of this sort. Peter had watched the gushings and excitements of girls who were seeking flirtations, but this girl's attitude he felt at once was not flirtatious.
Her voice, though soft, was just a trifle too solemn for a young girl. Her deep-set, wistful grey eyes rested on Peter with the solicitude of a mother whose child has just escaped a danger. She called, Sadie, here's Mr. Gudge, and there entered another girl, older, taller, but thin and pale like her sister.
Jenny and Sadie taught were their names, Peter learned. The older was a stenographer and supported the family. The two girls were in a state of intense concern. They started to question Peter about his experiences, but he had only talked for a minute or two before the elder went to the telephone.
There were various people who must see Peter at once, important people who were to be notified as soon as he turned up. She spent some time at the phone, and the people she talked with must have phoned to others, because for the next hour or two there was a constant stream of visitors coming in, and Peter had to tell his story over and over again.
The first to come was a giant of a man with tight-set mouth and so powerful a voice that it frightened Peter. He was not surprised to learn that this man was the leader of one of the most radical of the city's big labor unions, the Siemens. Yes, he was a red all right.
He corresponded to Peter's imaginings. A grim, dangerous man, to be pictured like Sampson, seizing the pillars of society and pulling them down upon his head. They've got you scared, my boy, he said, noting Peter's hesitating answers to his questions. Well, they've had me scared for forty-five years, but I've never let them know it yet.
Then in order to cheer Peter up and strengthen his nerves, he told how he, a runaway seaman, had been hunted through the Everglades of Florida with bloodhounds and tied to a tree and beaten into insensibility. Then came David Andrews, whom Peter had heard of as one of the lawyers in the Goober case, a tall, distinguished-looking man with keen, alert features.
What was such a man doing among these outcasts? Peter decided that he must be one of the shrewd ones who made money out of inciting the discontented. Then came a young girl, frail and sensitive, slightly crippled. As she crossed the room to shake his hand, tears rolled down her cheeks and Peter stood embarrassed, wondering if she had just lost a near relative and what he was to say about
it. From her first words he gathered, to his great consternation, that she had been moved to tears by the story of what he himself had endured. Ada Ruth was a poet, and this was a new type for Peter. After much groping in his mind, he set her down for one of the dupes of the movement,
a poor little sentimental child with no idea of the wickedness by which she was surrounded. With her came a Quaker boy with a pale, ascetic face and black locks, which he had to shake back from his eyes every now and then. He wore a Windsor tie and a black felt hat and other marks of eccentricity, and from his speeches Peter gathered that he was ready to blow up all the governments in the world
in the interests of pacifism. The same was true of McCormick, an IWW leader who had just served 60 days in jail, a silent young Irishman with drawn lips and restless black eyes who made Peter uneasy by watching him closely and saying scarcely a word. Section 13 They continued to come, one at a time or in
groups, old women and young women, old men and young men, fanatics and dreamers, agitators who could hardly open their mouths without some white-hot words escaping, revealing a blaze of passion spouldering in the deeps of them. Peter became more and more uneasy, realizing that he was actually in the midst of all the most dangerous spreads of American city.
They it was whom our law-abiding citizens dreaded, who were the objects of more concern to the police than all the plain everyday burglars and bandits. Peter now could see the reason. He had not dreamed that such angry and hate-tormented people existed in the world. Such people would be capable of anything.
He sat with his restless eyes wandering from one face to another. Which one of this crowd had helped to set off the bomb, and would they boast about it to him this evening? Peter half expected this, but then again he wondered. They were such strange criminals.
They called him comrade, and they spoke with that same affection that had so bewildered him in little Jenny. Was this just a ruse to get his confidence, or did these people really think that they loved him? Peter Gudge, a stranger and a secret enemy?
Peter had been at great pains to fool them, but they seemed to him so easy to fool that his pains were wasted. He despised them for this, and all the while he listened to them he was saying to himself, the poor nuts. They had come to hear his story, and they plied him with questions and made him tell
over and over again every detail. Peter of course had been carefully instructed. He was not to mention the elaborate confession he had been made to sign. That would be giving too dangerous a weapon to these enemies of law and order. He must tell as brief a story as possible.
How he had happened to be near the scene of the explosion, and how the police had tried to force him to admit that he knew something about the case. Peter told this according to orders, but he had not been prepared for the minute questioning to which he was subjected by Andrews, the lawyer, aided by John Durand, the leader of the seaman.
They wanted to know everything that had been done to him, and who had done it, and how and when and where, and why. Peter had a sense of the dramatic, and enjoyed being the center of attention and admiration, even though it was from a room full of criminal reds. So he told all the picturesque details of how Guffy had twisted his wrist and shot him
in a dungeon. The memory of the pain was still poignant, and came out of him now, with a realism that would have moved a colder group. So pretty soon, here were all these women sobbing and raging. Little Ada Ruth became inspired and began reciting a poem.
Or was she composing it right here before his eyes? She seemed entranced with indignation. It was something about the workers arising, the outcry of a mob. No further patience with a heedless foe. Get off our backs, or else to hell you go.
Peter listened and thought to himself, the poor nut. And then Donald Gordon, the Quaker boy, took the floor and began shaking his long black locks and composing a speech, it seemed. And Peter listened and thought again. The poor nut.
Then another man, the editor of a labor journal, revealed the fact that he was composing an editorial. He knew Guffy, and he was going to publish Guffy's picture and brand him as an Inquisitionist. He asked for Peter's picture, and Peter agreed to have one taken and to be headlined as the Inquisitionist's Victim.
Peter had no idea what the long word meant, but he assented and thought again. The poor nut. All of them were nuts. Taking other people's troubles with such excitement. But Peter was frightened, too.
He couldn't altogether enjoy being a hero in this vivid and startling fashion, having his name and fame spread from one end of the country to the other, so that organized labor might know the methods which the great traction interests of American city were employing to send a well-known labor leader to the gallows. The things seemed to grow and grow before Peter's frightened eyes.
Peter, the ant, felt the earth shaking and got a sudden sense of the mountain size of the mighty giants who were stamping in combat over his head. Peter wondered had Guffy realized what a stir his story would make, what a powerful weapon he was giving to his enemies. What could Guffy expect to get from Peter to compensate for this damage to his own case?
Peter, as he listened to the stormy oratory in the crowded little room, found himself thinking again and again of running away. He had never seen anything like the rage into which these people worked themselves. The terrible things they said. The denunciations, not merely of the police of American city, but of the courts and the
newspapers, the churches and the colleges. Something that seemed respectable and sacred to law-abiding citizens like Peter Gudge. Peter's fright became apparent. But why shouldn't he be frightened? Andrews, the lawyer, offered to take him away and hide him lest the opposition should try
to make way with him. Peter would be a most important witness for the Goober defense, and they must take good care of him. But Peter recovered his self-possession and took up his noble role. No, he would take his chances with the rest of them.
He was not too much afraid. Sadie Todd, the stenographer, rewarded him for his heroism. They had a spare bedroom in their little home, and if Peter cared to stay with them for a while, they would try to make him comfortable. Peter accepted this invitation, and at a late hour in the evening the gathering broke up.
The various groups of reds went their way, their hands clenched, and their faces portraying a grim resolve to make out of Peter's story a means of lashing discontented labor to new frenzies of excitement. The men clasped Peter's hand cordially, the ladies gazed at him with soulful eyes, and whispered their admiration for his brave course, their hope, indeed their conviction, that
he would stand by the truth to the end and would study their ideas and join their movement. All the while Peter watched them and continued saying to himself, Oh, poor nuts. End of sections 10, 11, 12 and 13.
