§ 66
They went to the office of the secret service department of the
Traction Trust, a place where Peter had never been allowed to come
hitherto. It was on the fourteenth floor of the Merchant's Trust
Building, and the sign on the door read: "The American City Land &
Investment Company. Walk In." When you walked in, you saw a conventional
real estate office, and it was only when you had penetrated several
doors that you came to the secret rooms where Guffey and his staff
conducted the espionage work of the big business interests of the city.
Peter was hustled into one of these rooms, and there stood
Guffey; and the instant Guffey saw him, he bore down upon him, shaking
his fist. "You stinking puppy!" he exclaimed. "You miserable little
whelp! You dirty, sneaking hound!" He added a number of other
descriptive phrases taken from the vocabulary of the kennel.
Peter's knees were shaking, his teeth were chattering,
and he watched every motion of Guffey's angry fingers, and
every grimace of Guffey's angry features. Peter had been
fully prepared for the most horrible torture he had experienced
yet; but gradually he realized that he wasn't going
to be tortured, he was only going to be scolded and raged
at, and no words could describe the wave of relief in his
soul. In the course of his street-rat's life Peter had been
called more names than Guffey could think of if he spent the
next month trying. If all Guffey was going to do was to
pace up and down the room, and shake his fist under Peter's
nose every time he passed him, and compare him with every
kind of a domestic animal, Peter could stand it all night
without a murmur.
He stopped trying to find out what it was that had happened,
because he saw that this only drove Guffey to fresh fits of
exasperation. Guffey didn't want to talk to Peter, he didn't want to
hear the sound of Peter's whining gutter-pup's voice. All he wanted was
to pour out his rage, and have Peter listen in abject abasement, and
this Peter did. But meantime, of course, Peter's wits were working at
high speed, he was trying to pick up hints as to what the devil it could
mean. One thing was quite clear — the damage, whatever it was, was done;
the jig was up, it was all over but the funeral. They had taken Peter's
money to pay for the funeral, and that was all they hoped to get out of
him.
Gradually came other hints. "So you thought you were
going into business on your own!" snarled Guffey, and his
fist, which was under Peter's nose, gave an upward poke
that almost dislocated Peter's neck.
"Aha!" thought Peter. "Nelse Ackerman has given me
away!"
"You thought you were going to make your fortune
and retire for life on your income!"
Yes, that was it, surely! But what could Nelse Ackerman
have told that was so very bad?
"You were going to have a spy of your own, set up
your own bureau, and kick me out, perhaps!"
"My God!" thought Peter. "Who told that?"
Then suddenly Guffey stopped in front of him. "Was that what you
thought?" he demanded. He repeated the question, and it appeared that he
really wanted an answer, and so Peter stammered, "N-n-no, sir." But
evidently the answer didn't suit Guffey, for he grabbed Peter's nose and
gave it a tweak that brought the tears into his eyes.
"What was it then?" A nasty sneer came on the head detective's
face, and he laughed at Peter with a laugh of venomous contempt. "I
suppose you thought she really loved you! Was it that? You thought she
really loved you?" And McGivney and Hammett and Guffey ha-ha-ed
together, and to Peter it seemed like the mockery of demons in the
undermost pit of hell. Those words brought every pillar of Peter's dream
castle tumbling in ruins about his ears. Guffey had found out about
Nell!
Again and again on the automobile ride to Guffey's office Peter
had reminded himself of Nell's command, "Stick it out, Peter! Stick it
out!" He had meant to stick it out in spite of everything; but now in a
flash he saw that all was lost. How could he stick it out when they knew
about Nell, and when Nell, herself, was no longer sticking it out?
Guffey saw these thoughts plainly written in Peter's
face, and his sneer turned into a snarl. "So you think
you'll tell me the truth now, do you? Well, it happens
there's nothing left to tell!"
Again he turned and began pacing up and down the room. The
pressure of rage inside him was so great that it took still more time to
work it off. But finally the head detective sat down at his desk, and
opened the drawer and took out a paper. "I see you're sitting there,
trying to think up some new lie to tell me," said he. And Peter did not
try to deny it, because any kind of denial only caused a fresh access of
rage. "All right," Guffey said, "I'll read you this, and you can see
just where you stand, and just how many kinds of a boob you are."
So he started to read the letter; and before Peter had
heard one sentence, he knew this was a letter from Nell,
and he knew that the castle of his dreams was flat in the
dust forever. The ruins of Sargon and Nineveh were not
more hopelessly flat!
"Dear Mr. Guffey," read the letter, "I am sorry to throw you
down, but fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money, and we all get tired
of work and need a rest. This is to tell you that Ted Crothers has just
broke into Nelse Ackerman's safe in his home, and we have got some
liberty bonds and some jewels which we guess to be worth fifty thousand
dollars, and you know Ted is a good judge of jewels.
"Now of course you will find out that I was working in Mr.
Ackerman's home and you will be after me hot-foot, so I might as well
tell you about it, and tell you it won't do you any good to catch us,
because we have got all the inside dope on the Goober frame-up, and
everything else your bureau has been pulling off in American City for
the last year. You can ask Peter Gudge and he'll tell you. It was Peter
and me that fixed up that dynamite conspiracy,
but you mustn't blame Peter, because he only did what I told him to do.
He hasn't got sense enough to be really dangerous, and he will make you
a perfectly good agent if you treat him kind and keep him away from the
women. You can do that easy enough if you don't let him get any money,
because of course he's nothing much on looks, and the women would never
bother with him if you didn't pay him too much.
"Now Peter will tell you how we framed up that dynamite job, and
of course you wouldn't want that to get known to the Reds, and you may
be sure that if Ted and me get pinched, we'll find some way to let the
Reds know all about it. If you keep quiet we'll never say a word, and
you've got a perfectly good dynamite conspiracy, with all the evidence
you need to put the Reds out of business, and you can just figure it
cost you fifty thousand dollars, and it was cheap at the price, because
Nelse Ackerman has paid a whole lot more for your work, and you never
got anything half as big as this. I know you'll be mad when you read
this, but think it over and keep your shirt on. I send it to you by
messenger so you can get hold of Nelse Ackerman right quick, and have
him not say anything to the police; because you know how it is — if those
babies find it out, it will get to the Reds and the newspapers, and
it'll be all over town and do a lot of harm to your frame-up. And you
know after those Reds have got beaten up and Shawn Grady lynched, you
wouldn't like to have any rumor get out that that dynamite was planted
by your own people. Ted and me will keep out of sight, and we won't
sell the jewels for a while, and everything will be all right.
"Yours respectfully,
"Edythe.
"P. S. It really ain't Peter's fault that he's silly about
women, and he would have worked for you all right if it
hadn't been for my good looks!"
