So Peter pledged his faith again; but, seeing his chance, he added:"Don't you think Mr. Guffey ought to do something for me, because ofthat plot I discovered?"
"Yes, I think that," said McGivney; "that's only fair."
And so they proceeded to bargain. Peter pointed out all the dangershe had run, and all the credit which the others had got. Guffeyhadn't got credit in the papers, but he had got it with hisemployers, all right, and he would get still more if Peter stood byhim with the king of American City. Peter said it ought to be wortha thousand dollars, and he said he ought to have it right away,before he went to see the king. At which Guffey scowled ferociously."Look here, Gudge! you got the nerve to charge us such a price forstanding by your frame-up?"
McGivney generally treated Peter as a coward and a feeble bluffer;but he had learned also that there was one time when the little mancompletely changed his nature, and that was when it was a questionof getting hold of some cash. That was the question now; and Petermet McGivney scowl for scowl. "If you don't like my frame-up," hesnarled, "you go kick to the newspapers about it!"
Peter was the bulldog again, and had got his teeth in the otherbulldog's nose, and he hung right there. He had seen the rat-facedman pull money out of his clothes before this, and he knew that thistime, above all other times, McGivney would come prepared. So heinsisted--a thousand or nothing; and as before, his heart went downinto his boots when McGivney produced his wad, and revealed thatthere was more in the wad than Peter had demanded!
However, Peter consoled himself with the reflection that a thousanddollars was a tidy sum of money, and he set out for the home ofNelse Ackerman in a jovial frame of mind. Incidentally he decidedthat it might be the part of wisdom not to say anything to Nellabout this extra thousand. When women found out that you had money,they'd never rest till they had got every cent of it, or at leasthad made you spend it on them!
Section 51
Nelse Ackerman's home was far out in the suburbs of the city, upon aknoll surrounded by forest. It was a couple of miles from thenearest trolley line, which forced Peter to take a hot walk in thesun. Apparently the great banker, in selecting the site of hisresidence, had never once thought that anybody might want to get toit without an automobile. Peter reflected as he walked that if hecontinued to move in these higher circles, he too would have to jointhe motor-driving class.
About the estate there ran a great bronze fence, ten feet high, withsharp, inhospitable spikes pointing outwards. Peter had read aboutthis fence a long time ago in the American City "Times"; it was soand so many thousand yards long, and had so and so many spikes, andhad cost so and so many tens of thousands of dollars. There were bigbronze gates locked tight, and a sign that said: "Beware the dogs!"Inside the gates were three guards carrying rifles and walking upand down; they were a consequence of the recent dynamite conspiracy,but Peter did not realize this, he took them for a regularinstitution, and a symbol of the importance of the man he was tovisit.
He pressed a button by the side of the gate, and a lodgekeeper cameout, and Peter, according to orders, gave the name "Arthur G.McGillicuddy." The lodge-keeper went inside and telephoned, and thencame back and opened the gate, just enough to admit Peter. "You'reto be searched," said the lodge-keeper; and Peter, who had beenarrested many times, took no offense at this procedure, but found itone more evidence of the importance of Nelse Ackerman. The guardswent thru his pockets, and felt him all over, and then one of themmarched him up the long gravel avenue thru the forest, climbed aflight of marble steps to the palace on the knoll, and turned himover to a Chinese butler who walked on padded slippers.
If Peter had not known that this was a private home he would havethought it was an art gallery. There were great marble columns, andpaintings bigger than Peter, and tapestries with life-size horses;there were men in armor, and battle axes and Japanese dancingdevils, and many other strange sights. Ordinarily Peter would havebeen interested in learning how a great millionaire decorated hishouse, and would have drunk deep of the joy of being amid suchluxury. But now all his thoughts were taken up with his dangerousbusiness. Nell had told him what to look for, and he looked.Mounting the velvet-carpeted staircase, he noted a curtain behindwhich a man might hide, and a painting of a Spanish cavalier on thewall just opposite. He would make use of these two sights.
They went down a hall, like a corridor in the Hotel de Soto, and atthe end of it the butler tapped softly upon a door, and Peter wasushered into a big apartment in semi-darkness. The butler retiredwithout a sound, closing the door behind him and Peter stoodhesitating, looking about to get his bearings. From the other sideof the room he heard three faint coughs, suggesting a sick man.There was a four-poster bed of some dark wood, with a canopy over itand draperies at the side, and a man in the bed, sitting propped upwith pillows. There were more coughs, and then a faint whisper,"This way." So Peter crossed over and stood about ten feet from thebed, holding his hat in his hands; he was not able to see very muchof the occupant of the bed, nor was he sure it would be respectfulfor him to try to see.
"So you're--(cough) what's your name?"
"Gudge," said Peter.
"You are the man--(cough) that knows about the Reds?"
"Yes, sir."
The occupant of the bed coughed every two or three minutes thru theconversation that followed, and each time Peter noticed that he puthis hand up to his mouth as if he were ashamed of the noise.Gradually Peter got used to the twilight, and could see that NelseAckerman was an old man with puffy, droopy cheeks and chin, and darkpuffy crescents under his eyes. He was quite bald, and had on hishead a skull cap of embroidered black silk, and a short, embroideredjacket over his night shirt. Beside the bed stood a table coveredwith glasses and bottles and pill-boxes, and also a telephone. Everyfew minutes this telephone would ring, and Peter would waitpatiently while Mr. Ackerman settled some complex problem ofbusiness. "I've told them my terms," he would say with irritation,and then he would cough; and Peter, who was sharply watching everydetail of the conduct of the rich, noted that he was too polite evento cough into the telephone. "If they will pay a hundred andtwenty-five thousand dollars on account, I will wait, but not a centless," Nelse Ackerman would say. And Peter, awe-stricken, realizedthat he had now reached the very top of Mount Olympus, he was at thehighest point he could hope to reach until he went to heaven.
The old man fixed his dark eyes on his visitor. "Who wrote me thatletter?" whispered the husky voice.
Peter had been expecting this. "What letter, sir?"
"A letter telling me to see you."
"I don't know anything about it, sir."
"You mean--(cough) you didn't write me an anonynious letter?"
"No, sir, I didn't."
"Then some friend of yours must have written it."
"I dunno that. It might have been some enemy of the police."
"Well, now, what's this about the Reds having an agent in my home?"
"Did the letter say that?"
"It did."
"Well, sir, that's putting it too strong. I ain't sure, it's just anidea I've had. It'll need a lot of explaining."
"You're the man who discovered this plot, I understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, take a chair, there," said the banker. There was a chair nearthe bedside, but it seemed to Peter too close to be respectful, sohe pulled it a little farther away, and sat down on the front sixinches of it, still holding his hat in his hands and twisting itnervously. "Put down that hat," said the old man, irritably. SoPeter stuck the hat under his chair, and said: "I beg pardon, sir."
Section 52
The old plutocrat was feeble and sick, but his mind was all there,and his eyes seemed to be boring Peter through. Peter realized thathe would have to be very careful--the least little slip would befatal here.
"Now, Gudge," the old man began, "I want you to tell me all aboutit. To begin with, how did you come to be among these Reds? Begin atthe beginning."
So Peter told how he had happ
ened to get interested in the radicalmovement, laying particular stress upon the dangerousness of theseReds, and his own loyalty to the class which stood for order andprogress and culture in the country. "It ought to be stopped, Mr.Ackerman!" he exclaimed, with a fine show of feeling; and the oldbanker nodded. Yes, yes, it ought to be stopped!
"Well," said Peter, "I said to myself, `I'm going to find out aboutthem fellows.' I went to their meetings, and little by little Ipretended to get converted, and I tell you, Mr. Ackerman, our policeare asleep; they don't know what these agitators are doing, whatthey're preaching. They don't know what a hold they've got on themobs of the discontented!"
Peter went on to tell in detail about the propaganda of socialrevolution, and about conspiracies against law and order, and theproperty and even the lives of the rich. Peter noticed that when theold man took a sip of water his hand trembled so that he couldhardly keep the water from spilling; and presently, when the phonerang again, his voice became shrill and imperious. "I understandthey're applying for bail for those men. Now Angus, that's anoutrage! We'll not hear to anything like that! I want you to see thejudge at once, and make absolutely certain that those men are heldin jail."
Then again the old banker had a coughing fit. "Now, Gudge," he said,"I know more or less about all that. What I want to know is aboutthis conspiracy against me. Tell me how you came to find out aboutit."
And Peter told; but of course he embellished it, in so far as itrelated to Mr. Ackerman--these fellows were talking about Mr.Ackerman all the time, they had a special grudge against him.
"But why?" cried the old man. "Why?"
"They think you're fighting them, Mr. Ackerman."
"But I'm not! That's not true!"
"Well, they say you put up money to hang Goober. They callyou--you'll excuse me?"
"Yes, yes, of course."
"They call you the `head money devil.' They call you the financialking of American City."
"King!" cried the banker. "What rubbish! Why, Gudge, that's foolnewspaper talk! I'm a poor man today. There are two dozen men inthis city richer than I am, and who have more power. Why--" But theold man fell to coughing and became so exhausted that he sank backinto his pillows until he recovered his breath. Peter waitedrespectfully; but of course he wasn't fooled. Peter had carried onbargaining many times in his life, and had heard people proclaimtheir poverty and impotence.
"Now, Gudge," the old man resumed. "I don't want to be killed; Itell you I don't want to be killed."
"No, of course not," said Peter. It was perfectly comprehensible tohim that Mr. Ackerman didn't want to be killed. But Mr. Ackermanseemed to think it necessary to impress the idea upon him; in thecourse of the conversation he came back to it a number of times, andeach time he said it with the same solemn assurance, as if it were abrand new idea, and a very unusual and startling idea. "I don't wantto be killed, Gudge; I tell you I don't want to let those fellowsget me. No, no; we've got to circumvent them, we've got to takeprecautions--every precaution--I tell you every possibleprecaution."
"I'm here for that purpose, Mr. Ackerman," said Peter, solemnly."I'll do everything. We'll do everything, I'm sure."
"What's this about the police?" demanded the banker. "What's thisabout Guffey's bureau? You say they're not competent?"
"Well now, I'll tell you, Mr. Ackerman," said Peter, "It's a littleembarrassing. You see, they employ me--"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the other. "_I_ employ you! I'm putting up themoney for this work, and I want the facts!--I want them all."
"Well," said Peter, "they've been very decent to me--"
"I say tell me everything!" exclaimed the old man. He was a mostirritable old man, and couldn't stand for a minute not having whathe asked for. "What's the matter with them?"
Peter answered, as humbly as he could: "I could tell you a greatdeal that'd be of use to you, Mr. Ackerman, but you got to keep itbetween you and me."
"All right!" said the other, quickly. "What is it?"
"If you give a hint of it to anybody else," persisted Peter, "thenI'll get fired."
"You'll not get fired, I'll see to that. If necessary I'll hire youdirect."
"Ah, but you don't understand, Mr. Ackerman. It's a machine, and youcan't run against it; you gotta understand it, you gotta handle itright. I'd like to help you, and I know I can help you, but yougotta let me explain it, and you gotta understand some things."
"All right," said the old man. "Go ahead, what is it?"
"Now," said Peter, "it's like this. These police and all thesefellows mean well, but they don't understand; it's too complicated,they ain't been in this movement long enough. They're used todealing with criminals; but these Reds, you see, are cranks.Criminals ain't organized, at least they don't stand together; butthese Reds do, and if you fight 'em, they fight back, and they makewhat they call `propaganda.' And that propaganda is dangerous--ifyou make a wrong move, you may find you've made 'em stronger thanthey were before."
"Yes, I see that," said the old man. "Well?"
"Then again, the police dunno how dangerous they are. You try totell them things, they won't really believe you. I've known for along time there was a group of these people getting together to killoff all the rich men, the big men all over the country. They've beenspying on these rich men, getting ready to kill them. They know alot about them that you can't explain their knowing. That's how Igot the idea they had somebody in your house, Mr. Ackerman."
"Tell me what you mean. Tell me at once."
"Well, sir, every once in a while I pick up scraps of conversation.One day I heard Mac--"
"Mac?"
"That's McCormick, the one who's in jail. He's an I. W. W. leader,and I think the most dangerous of all. I heard him whispering toanother fellow, and it scared me, because it had to do with killinga rich man. He'd been watching this rich man, and said he was goingto shoot him down right in his own house! I didn't hear the name ofthe man--I walked away, because I didn't want him to think I wastrying to listen in. They're awful suspicious, these fellows; if youwatch Mac you see him looking around over his shoulder every minuteor two. So I strolled off, and then I strolled back again, and hewas laughing about something, and I heard him say these words; Iheard him say, `I was hiding behind the curtain, and there was aSpanish fellow painted on the wall, and every time I peeked out thatbugger was looking at me, and I wondered if he wasn't going to giveme away.'"
And Peter stopped. His eyes had got used to the twilight now, and hecould see the old banker's eyes starting out from the crescents ofdark, puffy flesh underneath. "My God!" whispered Nelse Ackerman.
"Now, that was all I heard," said Peter. "And I didn't know what itmeant. But when I learned about that drawing that Mac had made ofyour house, I thought to myself, Jesus, I bet that was Mr. Ackermanhe was waiting to shoot!"
"Good God! Good God!" whispered the old man; and his tremblingfingers pulled at the embroidery on the coverlet. The telephonerang, and he took up the receiver, and told somebody he was too busynow to talk; they would have to call him later. He had anothercoughing spell, so that Peter thought he was going to choke, and hadto help him get some medicine down his throat. Peter was a littlebit shocked to see such obvious and abject fear in one of the gods.After all, they were just men, these Olympians, as much subject topain and death as Peter Gudge himself!
Also Peter was surprised to find how "easy" Mr. Ackerman was. Hemade no lofty pretence of being indifferent to the Reds. He puthimself at Peter's mercy, to be milked at Peter's convenience. AndPeter would make the most of this opportunity.
"Now, Mr. Ackerman," he began, "You can see it wouldn't be any useto tell things like that to the police. They dunno how to handlesuch a situation; the honest truth is, they don't take these Redsserious. They'll spend ten times as much money to catch a plainburglar as they will to watch a whole gang like this."
"How can they have got into my home?" cried the old man.
"They get in by ways you'd never dream of, Mr. Ackerman. They have
people who agree with them. Why, you got no idea, there's somepreachers that are Reds, and some college teachers, and some richmen like yourself."
"I know, I know," said Ackerman. "But surely--"
"How can you tell? You may have a traitor right in your own family."
So Peter went on, spreading the Red Terror in the soul of this oldmillionaire who did not want to be killed. He said again that he didnot want to be killed, and explained his reluctance in some detail.So many people were dependent upon him for their livings, Petercould have no conception of it! There were probably a hundredthousand men with their families right here in American City, whosejobs depended upon plans which Ackerman was carrying, and whichnobody but Ackerman could possibly carry. Widows and orphans lookedto him for protection of their funds; a vast net-work ofresponsibilities required his daily, even his hourly decisions. Andsure enough, the telephone rang, and Peter heard Nelse Ackermandeclare that the Amalgamated Securities Company would have to putoff a decision about its dividends until tomorrow, because he wastoo busy to sign certain papers just then. He hung up the receiverand said: "You see, you see! I tell you, Gudge, we must not let themget me!"
Section 53
They came down to the question of practical plans, and Peter wasready with suggestions. In the first place, Mr. Ackerman must giveno hint either to the police authorities or to Guffey that he wasdissatisfied with their efforts. He must simply provide for aninterview with Peter now and then, and he and Peter, quiteprivately, must take certain steps to get Mr. Ackerman thatprotection which his importance to the community made necessary. Thefirst thing was to find out whether or not there was a traitor inMr. Ackerman's home, and for that purpose there must be a spy, afirst-class detective working in some capacity or other. The onlytrouble was, there were so few detectives you could trust; they werenearly all scoundrels, and if they weren't scoundrels, it wasbecause they didn't have sense enough to be--they were boobs, andany Red could see thru them in five minutes.
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