§ 46
They dragged Peter out thru a swarming tenement crowd, and clapped
him into an automobile, and whirled him away to police headquarters,
where they entered him in due form and put him in a cell. He was uneasy
right away, because he had failed to arrange with Hammett how long he
was to stay locked up. But barely an hour had passed before a jailer
came, and took him to a private room, where he found himself confronted
by McGivney and Hammett, also the Chief of Police of the city, a deputy
district attorney, and last but most important of all — Guffey. It was
the head detective of the Traction Trust who took Peter in charge.
"Now, Gudge," said he, "what's this job you've been
putting up on us?"
It struck Peter like a blow in the face. His heart went
down, his jaw dropped, he stared like an idiot. Good God!
But he remembered Nell's last solemn words: "Stick
it out, Peter; stick it out!" So he cried: "What do you
mean, Mr. Guffey?"
"Sit down in that chair there," said Guffey. "Now, tell us what
you know about this whole business. Begin at the beginning and tell us
everything — every word." So Peter began. He had been at a meeting at the
I. W. W. headquarters the previous evening. There had been a long talk
about the inactivity of the organization, and what could be done to
oppose the draft. Peter detailed the arguments, the discussion of
violence, of dynamite and killing, the mention of Nelse Ackerman and the
other capitalists who were to be put out of the way. He embellished all
this, and exaggerated it greatly — it being the one place where Nell had
said he could do no harm by exaggerating.
Then he told how after the meeting had broken up he had noticed
several of the men whispering among themselves. By pretending to be
getting a book from the bookcase he had got close to Joe Angell and
Jerry Rudd; he had heard various words and fragments of sentences,
"dynamite," "suit-case in the cupboard," "Nelse," and so on. And when
the crowd went out he noticed that Angell's pockets were bulging, and
assumed that he had the bombs, and that they were going to do the job.
He rushed to the drug-store and phoned McGivney. It took a long time to
get McGivney, and when he had given his message and run out again, the
crowd was out of sight. Peter was in despair, he was ashamed to confront
McGivney, be wandered about the streets for hours looking for the crowd.
He spent the rest of the night in the park. But then in the morning he
discovered the piece of paper in his pocket, and understood that
somebody had slipped it to him, intending to invite him to the
conspiracy; so he had notified McGivney, and that was all he knew.
McGivney began to cross-question him. He had heard Joe Angell
talking to Jerry Rudd; had he heard him talking to anybody else? Had he
heard any of the others talking? Just what had he heard Joe Angell say?
Peter must repeat every word all over. This time, as instructed by Nell,
he remembered one sentence more, and repeated this sentence: "Mac put
it in the `sab-cat.' " He saw the others exchange glances. That's just
what I heard," said Peter — "just those words. I couldn't figure out what
they meant?"
"Sab-cat?" said the Chief of Police, a burly figure with
a brown moustache and a quid of tobacco tucked in the
corner of his mouth. "That means `sabotage,' don't it?"
"Yes," said the rat-faced man.
"Do you know anything in the office that has to do with
sabotage?" demanded Guffey of Peter.
And Peter thought. "No, I don't," he said.
They talked among themselves for a minute or two. The Chief said
they had got all McCormick's things out of his room, and might find some
clue to the mystery in these. Guffey went to the telephone, and gave a
number with which Peter was familiar — that of I. W. W. headquarters.
"That you, Al?" he said. "We're trying to find if there's something in
those rooms that has to do with sabotage. Have you found anything — any
apparatus or pictures, or writing — anything?" Evidently the answer was
in the negative, for Guffey said: "Go ahead, look farther; if you get
anything, call me at the chief's office quick. It may give us a lead."
Then Guffey hung up the receiver and turned to Peter.
"Now Gudge," he said, "that's all your story, is it; that's
all you got to tell us?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well then, you might as well quit your fooling right
away. We understand that you framed this thing up, and
we're not going to be taken in."
Peter stared at Guffey, speechless; and Guffey, for his part,
took a couple of steps toward Peter, his brows gathering into a terrible
frown, and his fists clenched. In a wave of sickening horror Peter
remembered the scenes after the Preparedness Day explosion. Were they
going to put him thru that again?
"We'll have a show-down, Gudge, right here," the head detective
continued. "You tell us all this stuff about Angell — his talk with Jerry
Rudd, and his pockets stuffed with bombs and all the rest of it — and he
denies every word of it."
"But, m-m-my God! Mr. Guffey," gasped Peter. "Of course he'll deny it!" Peter could hardly believe
his ears — that they were taking seriously the denial of a dynamiter, and
quoting it to him!
"Yes, Gudge," responded Guffey, "but you might as well know the
truth now as later — Angell is one of our men; we've had him planted on
these `wobblies' for the last year."
The bottom fell out of Peter's world; Peter went tumbling heels
over head — down, down into infinite abysses of horror and despair. Joe
Angell was a secret agent like himself! The Blue-eyed Angell, who talked
dynamite and assassination at a hundred radical gatherings, who shocked
the boldest revolutionists by his reckless language — Angell a spy, and
Peter had proceeded to plant a "frame-up" on him!
