And so in a couple of weeks Peter had succeeded in his purpose of
carrying little Jennie by storm. And then, how enraptured he was!
Peter, with his first girl, decided that being a detective was the
job for him! Peter knew that he was a real detective now, using the
real inside methods, and on the trail of the real secrets of the
Goober case!

And sure enough, he began at once to get them. Jennie was in love;
Jennie was, as you might say, "drunk with love," and so she
fulfilled both the conditions which Guffey had laid down. So Jennie
told the truth! Sitting on Peter's knee, with her arms clasped about
him, and talking about her girlhood, the happy days before her
mother and father had been killed in the factory where they worked,
little Jennie mentioned the name of a young man, Ibbetts.

"Ibbetts?" said Peter. It was a peculiar name, and sounded
familiar.

"A cousin of ours," said Jennie.

"Have I met him?" asked Peter, groping in his mind.

"No, he hasn't been here."

"Ibbetts?" he repeated, still groping; and suddenly he remembered.
"Isn't his name Jack?"

Jennie did not answer for a moment. He looked at her, and their eyes
met, and he saw that she was frightened. "Oh, Peter!" she whispered.
"I wasn't to tell! I wasn't to tell a soul!"

Inside Peter, something was shouting with delight. To hide his
emotion he had to bury his face in the soft white throat.
"Sweetheart!" he whispered. "Darling!"

"Uh, Peter!" she cried. "You know--don't you?"

"Of course!" he laughed. "But I won't tell. You needn't mind
trusting me."

"Oh, but Mr. Andrews was so insistent!" said Jennie, "He made Sadie
and me swear that we wouldn't breathe it to a soul."

"Well, you didn't tell," said Peter. "I found it out by accident.
Don't mention it, and nobody will be any the wiser. If they should
find out that I know, they wouldn't blame you; they'd understand
that I know Jack Ibbetts--me being in jail so long."

So Jennie forgot all about the matter, and Peter went on with the
kisses, making her happy, as a means of concealing his own
exultation. He had done the job for which Guffey had sent him! He
had solved the first great mystery of the Goober case! The spy in
the jail of American City, who was carrying out news to the Defense
Committee, was Jack Ibbetts, one of the keepers in the jail, and a
cousin of the Todd sisters!






Section 20





It was fortunate that this was the day of Peter's meeting with
McGivney. He could really not have kept this wonderful secret to
himself over night. He made excuses to the girls, and dodged thru
the chicken-yard as before, and made his way to the American House.
As he walked, Peter's mind was working busily. He had really got his
grip on the ladder of prosperity now; he must not fail to tighten
it.

McGivney saw right away from Peter's face that something had
happened. "Well?" he inquired.

"I've got it!" exclaimed Peter.

"Got what?"

"The name of the spy in the jail."

"Christ! You don't mean it!" cried the other.

"No doubt about it," answered Peter.

"Who is he?"

Peter clenched his hands and summoned his resolution. "First," he
said, "you and me got to have an understanding. Mr. Guffey said I
was to be paid, but he didn't say how much, or when."

"Oh, hell!" said McGivney. "If you've got the name of that spy, you
don't need to worry about your reward."

"Well, that's all right," said Peter, "but I'd like to know what I'm
to get and how I'm to get it."

"How much do you want?" demanded the man with the face of a rat.
Rat-like, he was retreating into a corner, his sharp black eyes
watching his enemy. "How much?" he repeated.

Peter had tried his best to rise to this occasion. Was he not
working for the greatest and richest concern in American City, the
Traction Trust? Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars they were
worth--he had no idea how much, but he knew they could afford to pay
for his secret. "I think it ought to be worth two hundred dollars,"
he said.

"Sure," said McGivney, "that's all right. We'll pay you that."

And straightway Peter's heart sank. What a fool he had been! Why
hadn't he had more courage, and asked for five hundred dollars? He
might even have asked a thousand, and made himself independent for
life!

"Well," said McGivney, "who's the spy?"

Peter made an agonizing, effort, and summoned yet more nerve.
"First, I got to know, when do I get that money?"

"Oh, good God!" said McGivney. "You give us the information, and
you'll get your money all right. What kind of cheap skates do you
take us for?"

"Well, that's all right," said Peter. "But you know, Mr. Guffey
didn't give me any reason to think he loved me. I still can hardly
use this wrist like I used to."

"Well, he was trying to get some information out of you," said
McGivney. "He thought you were one of them dynamiters--how could you
blame him? You give me the name of that spy, and I'll see you get
your money."

But still Peter wouldn't yield. He was afraid of the rat-faced
McGivney, and his heart was thumping fast, but he stood his ground.
"I think I ought to see that money," he said, doggedly.

"Say, what the hell do you take me for?" demanded the detective.
"D'you suppose I'm going to give you two hundred dollars and then
have you give me some fake name and skip?"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that!" cried Peter.

"How do I know you wouldn't?"

"Well, I want to go on working for you."

"Sure, and we want you to go on working for us. This ain't the last
secret we'll get from you, and you'll find we play straight with our
people--how'd we ever get anywheres otherwise? There's a million
dollars been put up to hang that Goober crowd, and if you deliver
the goods, you'll get your share, and get it right on time."

He spoke with conviction, and Peter was partly persuaded. But most
of Peter's lifetime had been spent in watching people bargaining
with one another--watching scoundrels trying to outwit one
another--and when it was a question of some money to be got, Peter
was like a bulldog that has got his teeth fixed tight in another
dog's nose; he doesn't consider the other dog's feelings, nor does
he consider whether the other dog admires him or not.

"On time?" said Peter. "What do you mean by `on time'?"

"Oh, my God!" said McGivney, in disgust.

"Well, but I want to know," said Peter. "D'you mean when I give the
name, or d'you mean after you've gone and found out whether he
really is the spy or not?"

So they worried back and forth, these snarling bulldogs, growing
more and more angry. But Peter was the one who had got his teeth in,
and Peter hung on. Once McGivney hinted quite plainly that the great
Traction Trust had had power enough to shut Peter in the "hole" on
two occasions and keep him there, and it might have power enough to
do it a third time. Peter's heart failed with terror, but all the
same, he hung on to McGivney's nose.

"All right," said the rat-faced man, at last. He said it in a tone
of wearied scorn; but that didn't worry Peter a particle. "All
right, I'll take a chance with you." And he reached into his pocket
and pulled out a roll of bills--twenty dollar bills they were, and
he counted out ten of them. Peter saw that there was still a lot
left to the roll, and knew that he hadn't asked as much money as
McGivney had been prepared to have him ask; so his heart was sick
within him. At the same time his heart was leaping with
exultation--such a strange thing is the human heart!






Section 21





McGivney laid the money on the bed. "There it is," he said, "and if
you give me the name of the spy you can take it. But you'd better
take my advice and not spend it, because if it turns out that you
haven't got the spy, by God, I believe Ed Guffey'd twist the arms
out of you!"

Peter was easy about that. "I know he's the spy all right."

"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 God!" 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 prostitutes, 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 class 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 competition 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
reassert 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 shield
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?"

"But, my God!" said McGivney. "What did you have to go and get that
kind of a girl for?"

"I had to take what I could," answered Peter. "Besides, they're all
alike--they get into trouble, and you can't help it."

"Sure, you can help it!" said McGivney. "Why didn't you ask long
ago? Now if you've got yourself tied up with a marrying proposition,
it's your own lookout; you can't put it off on me."

They argued back and forth. The rat-faced man was positive that
there was no way Peter could pretend to marry Jennie and not have
the marriage count. He might get himself into no end of trouble and
certainly he would be ruined as a spy. What he must do was to pay
the girl some money and send her somewhere to get fixed up. McGivney
would find out the name of a doctor to do the job.

"Yes, but what excuse can I give her?" cried Peter. "I mean, why I
don't marry her!"

"Make something up," said McGivney. "Why not have a wife already?"
Then, seeing Peter's look of dismay: "Sure, you can fix that. I'll
get you one, if you need her. But you won't have to take that
trouble--just tell your girl a hard luck story. You've got a wife,
you thought you could get free from her, but now you find you can't;
your wife's got wind of what you're doing here, and she's trying to
blackmail you. Fix it up so your girl can't do anything on account
of hurting the Goober defense. If she's really sincere about it, she
won't disgrace you; maybe she won't even tell her sister."

Peter hated to do anything like that. He had a vision of little
Jennie lying on the sofa in hysterics as he had left her, and he
dreaded the long emotional scene that would be necessary. However,
it seemed that he must go thru with it; there was no better way that
he could think of. Also, he must be quick, because in a couple of
hours Sadie would be coming home from work, and it might be too
late.






Section 25





Peter hurried back to the Todd home, and there was white-faced
little Jennie lying on the bed, still sobbing. One would think she
might have used up her surplus stock of emotions; but no, there is
never any limit to the emotions a woman can pour out. As soon as
Peter had got fairly started on the humiliating confession that he
had a wife, little Jennie sprang up from the bed with a terrified
shriek, and confronted him with a face like the ghost of an escaped
lunatic. Peter tried to explain that it wasn't his fault, he had
really expected to be free any day. But Jennie only clasped her
hands to her forehead and screamed: "You have deceived me! You have
betrayed me!" It was just like a scene in the movies, the bored
little devil inside Peter was whispering.

He tried to take her hand and reason with her, but she sprang away
from him, she rushed to the other side of the room and stood there,
staring at him as if she were some wild thing that he had in a
corner and was threatening to kill. She made so much noise that he
was afraid that she would bring the neighbors in; he had to point
out to her that if this matter became public he would be ruined
forever as a witness, and thus she might be the means of sending Jim
Goober to the gallows.

Thereupon Jennie fell silent, and it was possible for Peter to get
in a word. He told her of the intrigues against him; the other side
had sent somebody to him and offered him ten thousand dollars if he
would sell out the Goober defense. Now, since he had refused, they
were trying to blackmail him, using his wife. They had somehow come
to suspect that he was involved in a love affair, and this was to be
the means of ruining him.

Jennie still would not let Peter touch, her, but she consented to
sit down quietly in a chair, and figure out what they were going to
do. Whatever happened, she said, they must do no harm to the Goober
case. Peter had done her a monstrous wrong in keeping the truth from
her, but she would suffer the penalty, whatever it might be; she
would never involve him.

Peter started to explain; perhaps it wasn't so serious as she
feared. He had been thinking things over; he knew where Pericles
Priam, his old employer, was living, and Pericles was rich now, and
Peter felt sure that he could borrow two hundred dollars, and there
were places where little Jennie could go--there were ways to get out
of this trouble--

But little Jennie stopped him. She was only a child in some ways,
but in others she was a mature woman. She had strange fixed ideas,
and when you ran into them it was like running into a stone wall.
She would not hear of the idea Peter suggested; it would be murder.

"Nonsense," said Peter, echoing McGivney. "It's nothing; everybody
does it." But Jennie was apparently not listening. She sat staring
with her wild, terrified eyes, and pulling at her dress with her
fingers. Peter got to watching these fingers, and they got on his
nerves. They behaved like insane fingers; they manifested all the
emotions which the rest of little Jennie was choking back and
repressing.

"If you would only not take it so seriously!" Peter pleaded. "It's a
miserable accident, but it's happened, and now we've got to make the
best of it. Some day I'll get free; some day I'll marry you."

"Stop, Peter!" the girl whispered, in her tense voice. "I don't want
to talk to you any more, if that's all you have to say. I don't know
that I'd be willing to marry you--now that I know you could deceive
me--that you could go on deceiving me day after day for months."

Peter thought she was going to break out into hysterics again, and
he was frightened. He tried to plead with her, but suddenly she
sprang up. "Go away!" she exclaimed. "Please go away and let me
alone. I'll think it over and decide what to do myself. Whatever I
do, I won't disgrace you, so leave me alone, go quickly!"






Section 26





She drove him out of the house, and Peter went, though with many
misgivings. He wandered about the streets, not knowing what to do
with himself, looking back over the blunders he had made and
tormenting himself with that most tormenting of all thoughts: how
different my life might have been, if only I had had sense enough to
do this, or not to do that! Dinner time came, and Peter blew himself
to a square meal, but even that did not comfort him entirely. He
pictured Sadie coming home at this hour. Was Jennie telling her or
not?

There was a big mass meeting called by the Goober Defense Committee
that evening, and Peter attended, and it proved to be the worst
thing he could have done. His mind was in no condition to encounter
the, fierce passions of this crowded assemblage. Peter had the
picture of himself being exposed and denounced; he wasn't sure yet
that it mightn't happen to him. And here was this meeting--thousands
of workingmen, horny handed blacksmiths, longshoremen with shoulders
like barns and truckmen with fists like battering rams, long-haired
radicals of a hundred dangerous varieties, women who waved red
handkerchiefs and shrieked until to Peter they seemed like gorgons
with snakes instead of hair.

Such were the mob-frenzies engendered by the Goober case; and Peter
knew, of course, that to all these people he was a traitor, a
poisonous worm, a snake in the grass. If ever they were to find out
what he was doing--if for instance, someone were to rise up and
expose him to this crowd--they would seize him and tear him to
pieces. And maybe, right now, little Jennie was telling Sadie; and
Sadie would tell Andrews, and Andrews would become suspicious, and
set spies on Peter Gudge! Maybe they had spies on him already, and
knew of his meetings with McGivney!

Haunted by such terrors, Peter had to listen to the tirades of
Donald Gordon, of John Durand, and of Sorensen, the longshoremen's
leader. He had to listen to exposure after exposure of the tricks
which Guffey had played; he had to hear the district attorney of the
county denounced as a suborner of perjury, and his agents as
blackmailers and forgers. Peter couldn't understand why such things
should be permitted--why these speakers were not all clapped into
jail. But instead, he had to sit there and listen; he even had to
applaud and pretend to approve! All the other secret operatives of
the Traction Trust and of the district attorney's office had to
listen and pretend to approve! In the hall Peter had met Miriam
Yankovich, and was sitting next to her. "Look," she said, "there's a
couple of dicks over there. Look at the mugs on them!"

"Which?" said Peter.

And she answered: "That fellow that looks like a bruiser, and that
one next to him, with the face of a rat." Peter looked, and saw that
it was McGivney; and McGivney looked at Peter, but gave no sign.

The meeting lasted until nearly midnight. It subscribed several
thousand dollars to the Goober defense fund, and adopted ferocious
resolutions which it ordered printed and sent to every local of
every labor union in the country. Peter got out before it was over,
because he could no longer stand the strain of his own fears and
anxieties. He pushed his way thru the crowd, and in the lobby he ran
into Pat McCormick, the I. W. W. leader.

There was more excitement in this boy's grim face than Peter had
ever seen there before. Peter thought it was the meeting, but the
other rushed up to him, exclaiming: "Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"Little Jennie Todd has killed herself!"

"My God!" gasped Peter, starting back.

"Ada Ruth just told me. Sadie found a note when she got home. Jennie
had left--she was going to drown herself."

"But what--why?" cried Peter, in horror.

"She was suffering so, her health was so wretched, she begs Sadie
not to look for her body, not to make a fuss--they'll never find
her."

And horrified and stunned as Peter was, there was something inside
him that drew a deep breath of relief. Little Jennie had kept her
promise! Peter was, safe!






Section 27





Yes, Peter was safe, but it bad been a close call, and he still had
painful scenes to play his part in. He had to go back to the Todd
home and meet the frantic Sadie, and weep and be horrified with the
rest of them. It would have been suspicious if he had not done this;
the "comrades" would never have forgiven him. Then to his dismay, he
found that Sadie had somehow come to a positive conviction as to
Jennie's trouble. She penned Peter up in a corner and accused him of
being responsible; and there was poor Peter, protesting vehemently
that he was innocent, and wishing that the floor would open up and
swallow him.

In the midst of his protestations a clever scheme occurred to him.
He lowered his voice in shame. There was a man, a young man, who
used to come to see Jennie off and on. "Jennie asked me not to
tell." Peter hesitated a moment, and added his master-stroke.
"Jennie explained to me that she was a free-lover; she told me all
about free love. I told her I didn't believe in it, but you know,
Sadie, when Jennie believed in anything, she would stand by it and
act on it. So I felt certain it wouldn't do any good for me to butt
in."

Sadie almost went out of her mind at this. She glared at Peter.
"Slanderer! Devil!" she cried. "Who was this man?"

Peter answered, "He went by the name of Ned. That's what Jennie
called him. It wasn't my business to pin her down about him."

"It wasn't your business to look out for an innocent child?"

"Jennie herself said she wasn't an innocent child, she knew exactly
what she was doing--all Socialists did it." And to this parting shot
he added that he hadn't thought it was decent, when he was a guest
in a home, to spy on the morals of the people in it. When Sadie
persisted in doubting him, and even in calling him names, he took
the easiest way out of the difficulty--fell into a rage and stormed
out of the house.

Peter felt pretty certain that Sadie would not spread the story very
far; it was too disgraceful to her sister and to herself; and maybe
when she had thought it over she might come to believe Peter's
story; maybe she herself was a "free lover." McGivney had certainly
said that all Socialists were, and he had been studying them a lot.
Anyhow, Sadie would have to think first of the Goober case, just as
little Jennie had done. Peter had them there all right, and realized
that he could afford to be forgiving, so he went to the telephone
and called up Sadie and said: "I want you to know that I'm not going
to say anything about this story; it won't become known except thru
you."

There were half a dozen people whom Sadie must have told. Miss
Nebbins was icy-cold to Peter the next time he came in to see Mr.
Andrews; also Miriam Yankovich lost her former cordiality, and
several other women treated him with studied reserve. But the only
person who spoke about the matter was Pat McCormick, the I. W. W.
boy who had given Peter the news of little Jennie's suicide. Perhaps
Peter hadn't been able to act satisfactorily on that occasion; or
perhaps the young fellow had observed something for himself, some
love-glances between Peter and Jennie. Peter had never felt
comfortable in the presence of this silent Irish boy, whose dark
eyes would roam from one person to another in the room, and seemed
to be probing your most secret thoughts.

Now Peter's worst fears were justified. "Mac" got him off in a
corner, and put his fist under his nose, and told him that he was "a
dirty hound," and if it hadn't been for the Goober case, he, "Mac,"
would kill him without a moment's concern.

And Peter did not dare open his mouth; the look on the Irishman's
face was so fierce that he was really afraid for his life. God, what
a hateful lot these Reds were! And now here was Peter with the worst
one of all against him! From now on his life would be in danger from
this maniac Irishman! Peter hated him--so heartily and genuinely
that it served to divert his thoughts from little Jennie, and to
make him regard himself as a victim.

Yes, in the midnight hours when Jennie's gentle little face haunted
him and his conscience attacked him, Peter looked back upon the
tangled web of events, and saw quite clearly how inevitable this
tragedy had been, how naturally it had grown out of circumstances
beyond his control. The fearful labor struggle in American City was
surely not Peter's fault; nor was it his fault that he had been
drawn into it, and forced to act first as an unwilling witness, and
then as a secret agent. Peter read the American City "Times" every
morning, and knew that the cause of Goober was the cause of anarchy
and riot, while the cause of the district attorney and of Guffey's
secret service was the cause of law and order. Peter was doing his
best in this great cause, he was following the instructions of those
above him, and how could he be blamed because one poor weakling of a
girl had got in the way of the great chariot of the law?

Peter knew that it wasn't his fault; and yet grief and terror gnawed
at him. For one thing, he missed little Jennie, he missed her by day
and he missed her by night. He missed her gentle voice, her fluffy
soft hair, her body in his empty arms. She was his first love, and
she was gone, and it is human weakness to appreciate things most
when they have been lost.

Peter aspired to be a strong man, a "he-man," according to the slang
that was coming into fashion; he now tried to live up to that role.
He didn't want to go mooning about over this accident; yet Jennie's
face stayed with him--sometimes wild, as he had seen it at their
last meeting, sometimes gentle and reproachful. Peter would remember
how good she had been, how tender, how never-failing in instant
response to an advance of love on his part. Where would he ever find
another girl like that?

Another thing troubled him especially--a strange, inexplicable
thing, for which Peter had no words, and about which he found
himself frequently thinking. This weak, frail slip of a girl had
deliberately given her life for her convictions; she had died, in
order that he might be saved as a witness for the Goobers! Of course
Peter had known all along that little Jennie was doomed, that she
was throwing herself away, that nothing could save her. But somehow,
it does frighten the strongest heart when people are so fanatical as
to throw away their very lives for a cause. Peter found himself
regarding the ideas of these Reds from a new angle; before this they
had been just a bunch of "nuts," but now they seemed to him
creatures of monstrous deformity, products of the devil, or of a God
gone insane.






Section 28





There was only one person whom Peter could take into his confidence,
and that was McGivney. Peter could not conceal from McGivney the
fact that he was troubled over his bereavement; and so McGivney took
him in hand and gave him a "jacking up." It was dangerous work, this
of holding down the Reds; dangerous, because their doctrines were so
insidious, they were so devilishly cunning in their working upon
people's minds. McGivney had seen more than one fellow start fooling
with their ideas and turn into one himself. Peter must guard against
that danger.

"It ain't that," Peter explained. "It ain't their ideas. It's just
that I was soft on that kid."

"Well, it comes to the same thing," said McGivney. "You get sorry
for them, and the first thing you know, you're listening to their
arguments. Now, Peter, you're one of the best men I've got on this
case--and that's saying a good deal, because I've got charge of
seventeen." The rat-faced man was watching Peter, and saw Peter
flush with pleasure. Yes, he continued, Peter had a future before
him, he would make all kinds of money, he would be given
responsibility, a permanent position. But he might throw it all away
if he got to fooling with these Red doctrines. And also, he ought to
understand, he could never fool McGivney; because McGivney had spies
on him!

So Peter clenched his hands and braced himself up. Peter was a real
"he-man," and wasn't going to waste himself. "It's just that I can't
help missing the girl!" he explained; to which the other answered:
"Well, that's only natural. What you want to do is to get yourself
another one."

Peter went on with his work in the office of the Goober Defense
Committee. The time for the trial had come, and the struggle between
the two giants had reached its climax. The district attorney, who
was prosecuting the case, and who was expecting to become governor
of the state on the strength of it, had the backing of half a dozen
of the shrewdest lawyers in the city, their expenses being paid by
the big business men. A small army of detectives were at work, and
the court where the trial took place was swarming with spies and
agents. Every one of the hundreds of prospective jurors had been
investigated and card-cataloged, his every weakness and every
prejudice recorded; not merely had his psychology been studied, but
his financial status, and that of his relatives and friends. Peter
had met half a dozen other agents beside McGivney, men who had come
to question him about this or that detail; and from the conversation
of these men he got glimpses of the endless ramifications of the
case. It seemed to him that the whole of American City had been
hired to help send Jim Goober to the gallows.

Peter was now getting fifty dollars a week and expenses, in addition
to special tips for valuable bits of news. Hardly a day passed that
he didn't get wind of some important development, and every night he
would have to communicate with McGivney. The prosecution had a
secret office, where there was a telephone operator on duty, and
couriers traveling to the district attorney's office and to Guffey's
office--all this to forestall telephone tapping. Peter would go from
the headquarters of the Goober Defense Committee to a
telephone-booth in some hotel, and there he would give the secret
number, and then his own number, which was six forty-two. Everybody
concerned was known by numbers, the principal people, both of the
prosecution and of the defense; the name "Goober" was never spoken
over the phone.

After the trial had got started it was hard to get anybody to work
in the office of the Defense Committee--everybody wanted to be in
court! Someone would come in every few minutes, with the latest
reports of sensational developments. The prosecution had succeeded
in making away with the police court records, proving the conviction
of its star witness of having kept a brothel for negroes. The
prosecution had introduced various articles alleged to have been
found on the street by the police after the explosion; one was a
spring, supposed to have been part of a bomb--but it turned out to
be a part of a telephone! Also they had introduced parts of a
clock--but it appeared that in their super-zeal they had introduced
the parts of _two_ clocks! There was some excitement like this every
day.






Section 29





The time came when the prosecution closed its case, and Peter was
summoned to the office of Andrews, to be coached in his part as a
witness. He would be wanted in two or three days, the lawyers told
him.

Now Peter had never intended to appear as a witness; he had been
fooling the defense all this time--"stringing them along," as he
phrased it, so as to keep in favor with them to the end. Meantime he
had been figuring out how to justify his final refusal. Peter was
eating his lunch when this plan occurred to him, and he was so much
excited that he swallowed a piece of pie the wrong way, and had to
jump up and run out of the lunch-room. It was his first stroke of
genius; hitherto it was McGivney who had thought these things out,
but now Peter was on the way to becoming his own boss! Why should he
go on taking orders, when he had such brains of his own? He took the
plan to McGivney, and McGivney called it a "peach," and Peter was so
proud he asked for a raise, and got it.

This plan had the double advantage that not merely would it save
Peter's prestige and reputation, among the Reds, it would ruin
McCormick, who was one of the hardest workers for the defense, and
one of the most dangerous Reds in American City, as well as being a
personal enemy of Peter's. McGivney pulled some of his secret wires,
and the American City "Times," in the course of its accounts of the
case, mentioned a rumor that the defense proposed to put on the
stand a man who claimed to have been tortured in the city jail, in
an effort to make him give false testimony against Goober; the
prosecution had investigated this man's record and discovered that
only recently he had seduced a young girl, and she had killed
herself because of his refusal to marry her. Peter took this copy of
the American City "Times" to the office of David Andrews, and
insisted upon seeing the lawyer before he went to court; he laid the
item on the desk, and declared that there was his finish as a
witness in the Goober case. "It's a cowardly, dirty lie!" he
declared. "And the man responsible for circulating it is Pat
McCormick."

Such are the burdens that fall upon the shoulders of lawyers in
hard-fought criminal trials! Poor Andrews did his best to patch
things up; he pleaded with Peter--if the story was false, Peter
ought to be glad of a chance to answer his slanderers. The defense
would put witnesses on the stand to deny it. They would produce
Sadie Todd to deny it.

"But Sadie told me she suspected me!"

"Yes," said Andrews, "but she told me recently she wasn't sure."

"Much good that'll do me!" retorted Peter. "They'll ask me if
anybody ever accused me, and who, and I'll have to say McCormick,
and if they put him on the stand, will he deny that he accused me?"

Peter flew into a rage against McCormick; a fine sort of radical he
was, pretending to be devoted to the cause, and having no better
sense than to repeat a cruel slander against a comrade! Here Peter
had been working on this case for nearly six months, working for
barely enough to keep body and soul together, and now they expected
him to go on the and have a story like that brought out in the
papers, and have the prosecution hiring witnesses to prove him a
villain. "No, sir!" said Peter. "I'm thru with this case right now.
You put McCormick on the witness stand and let him save Goober's
life. You can't use me, I'm out!" And shutting his ears to the
lawyer's pleading, he stormed out of the office, and over to the
office of the Goober Defense Committee, where he repeated the same
scene.






Section 30





Thus Peter was done with the Goober case, and mighty glad of it he
was. He was tired of the strain, he needed a rest and a little
pleasure. He had his pockets stuffed with money, and a good fat bank
account, and proposed to take things easy for the first time in his
hard and lonely life.

The opportunity was at hand: for he had taken McGivney's advise and
got himself another girl. It was a little romance, very worldly and
delightful. To understand it, you must know that in the judicial
procedure of American City they used both men and women jurors; and
because busy men of affairs did not want to waste their time in the
jury-box, nor to have the time of their clerks and workingmen
wasted, there had gradually grown up a class of men and women who
made their living by working as jurors. They hung around the
courthouse and were summoned on panel after panel, being paid six
dollars a day, with numerous opportunities to make money on the side
if they were clever.

Among this group of professional jurors, there was the keenest
competition to get into the jury-box of the Goober case. It was to
be a long and hard-fought case, there would be a good deal of
prestige attached to it, and also there were numerous sums of money
floating round. Anybody who got in, and who voted right, might be
sure of an income for life, to say nothing of a life-job as a juror
if he wanted it.

Peter happened to be in court while the talesmen were being
questioned. A very charming and petite brunette--what Peter
described as a "swell dresser"--was on the stand, and was cleverly
trying to satisfy both sides. She knew nothing about the case, she
had never read anything about it, she knew nothing and cared nothing
about social problems; so she was accepted by the prosecution. But
then the defense took her in hand, and it appeared that once upon a
time she had been so indiscreet as to declare to somebody her
conviction that all labor leaders ought to be stood up against the
wall and filled with lead; so she was challenged by the defense, and
very much chagrined she came down from the stand, and took a seat in
the courtroom next to Peter. He saw a trace of tears in her eyes,
and realizing her disappointment, ventured a word of sympathy. The
acquaintance grew, and they went out to lunch together.