§ 48
They dismissed Peter for the present, sending him back to his cell.
He stayed there for two days with no one to advise him, and no hint as
to his fate. They did not allow newspapers in the jail, but they had
left Peter his money, and so on the second day he succeeded in bribing
one of his keepers and obtaining a copy of the American City "Times,"
with all the details of the amazing sensation spread out on the front
page.
For thirty years the "Times" had been standing for law and order
against all the forces of red riot and revolution; for thirty years the
"Times" had been declaring that labor leaders and walking delegates and
Socialists and Anarchists were all one and the same thing, and all
placed their reliance fundamentally upon one instrument, the dynamite
bomb. Here at last the "Times" was vindicated, this was the "Times' "
great day! They had made the most of it, not merely on the front page,
but on two other pages, with pictures of all the conspicuous
conspirators, including Peter, and pictures of the I. W. W.
headquarters, and the suit-case,
and the sticks of dynamite and the fuses and the clock; also of the
"studio" in which the Reds had been trapped, and of Nikitin, the Russian
anarchist who owned this den. Also there were columns of speculation
about the case, signed statements and interviews with leading clergymen
and bankers, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the secretary
of the Real Estate Exchange. Also there was a two-column, double-leaded
editorial, pointing out how the "Times" had been saying this for thirty
years, and not failing to connect up the case with the Goober case, and
the Lackman case, and the case of three pacifist clergymen who had been
arrested several days before for attempting to read the Sermon on the
Mount at a public meeting.
And Peter knew that he, Peter Gudge, had done all this! The
forces of law and order owed it all to one obscure little secret service
agent! Peter would get no credit, of course; the Chief of Police and the
district attorney were issuing solemn statements, taking the honors to
themselves, and with never one hint that they owed anything to the
secret service department of the Traction Trust. That was necessary, of
course; for the sake of appearances it had to be pretended that the
public authorities were doing the work, exercising their legal functions
in due and regular form. It would never do to have the mob suspect that
these activities were being financed and directed by the big business
interests of the city. But all the same, it made Peter sore! He and
McGivney and the rest of Guffey's men had a contempt for the public
officials, whom they regarded as "pikers"; the officials had very little
money to spend, and very little power. If you really wanted to get
anything done in America, you didn't go to any public official, you went
to
the big men of affairs, the ones who had the "stuff," and were used to
doing things quickly and efficiently. It was the same in this business
of spying as in everything else.
Now and then Peter would realize how close he had come to ghastly
ruin. He would have qualms of terror, picturing himself shut up in the
hole, and Guffey proceeding to torture the truth out of him. But he was
able to calm these fears. He was sure this dynamite conspiracy would
prove too big a temptation for the authorities; it would sweep them away
in spite of themselves. They would have to go thru with it, they would
have to stand by Peter.
And sure enough, on the evening of the second day a
jailer came and said: "You're to be let out." And Peter
was ushered thru the barred doors and turned loose without
another word.
