100%: the Story of a Patriot Part 25
After the luncheon they went out on the broad veranda which overlooked a magnificent landscape. The hostess got Peter settled in a soft porch chair with many cushions, and then waved her hand toward the view of the city with its haze of thick black smoke.
"That's where my wage slaves toil to earn my dividends," said she.
"They're supposed to stay there--in their 'place,' as it's called, and I stay here in my place. If they want to change places, it's called 'revolution,' and that is 'violence.' What I marvel at is that they use so little violence, and feel so little. Look at those men being tortured in jail! Could anyone blame them if they used violence? Or if they made an effort to escape?"
That suggested a swift, stabbing idea to Peter. Suppose Mrs. G.o.dd could be induced to help in a jail delivery!
"It might be possible to help them to escape," he suggested.
"Do you think so?" asked Mrs. G.o.dd, showing excitement for the first time during that interview.
"It might be," said Peter. "Those jailors are not above taking bribes, you know. I met nearly all of them while I was in that jail, and I think I might get in touch with one or two that could be paid.
Would you like me to try it?"
"Well, I don't know--" began the lady, hesitatingly. "Do you really think--"
"You know they never ought to have been put in at all!" Peter interjected.
"That's certainly true!" declared Mrs. G.o.dd.
"And if they could escape without hurting anyone, if they didn't have to fight the jailors, it wouldn't do any real harm--"
That was as far as Peter got with his impromptu conspiracy. Suddenly he heard a voice behind him: "What does this mean?" It was a male voice, fierce and trembling with anger; and Peter started from his silken cushions, and glanced around, thrusting up one arm with the defensive gesture of a person who has been beaten since earliest childhood.
Bearing down on him was a man; possibly he was not an abnormally big man, but certainly he looked so to Peter. His smooth-shaven face was pink with anger, his brows gathered in a terrible frown, and his hands clenched with deadly significance. "You dirty little skunk!"
he hissed. "You infernal young sneak!"
"John!" cried Mrs. G.o.dd, imperiously; but she might as well have cried to an advancing thunder-storm. The man made a leap upon Peter, and Peter, who had dodged many hundreds of blows in his lifetime, rolled off the lounging chair, and leaped to his feet, and started for the stairs of the veranda. The man was right behind him, and as Peter reached the first stair the man's foot shot out, and caught Peter fairly in the seat of his trousers, and the first stair was the only one of the ten or twelve stairs of the veranda that Peter touched in his descent.
Landing at the bottom, he did not stop even for a glance; he could hear the snorting of Mr. G.o.dd, it seemed right behind his ear, and Peter ran down the driveway as he had seldom run in his life before.
Every now and then Mr. G.o.dd would shoot out another kick, but he had to stop slightly to do this, and Peter gained just enough to keep the kicks from reaching him. So at last the pursuer gave up, and Peter dashed thru the gates of the G.o.dd estate and onto the main highway.
Then he looked over his shoulder, and seeing that Mr. G.o.dd was a safe distance away, he stopped and turned and shook his clenched fist with the menace of a street-rat, shrieking, "d.a.m.n you! d.a.m.n you!" A whirlwind of impotent rage laid hold upon him. He shouted more curses and menaces, and among them some strange, some almost incredible words. "Yes, I'm a Red, d.a.m.n your soul, and I'll stay a Red!"
Yes, Peter Gudge, the friend of law and order, Peter Gudge, the little brother to the rich, shouted, "I'm a Red, and what's more, we'll blow you up some day for this--Mac and me'll put a bomb under you!" Mr. G.o.dd turned and stalked with contemptuous dignity back to his own private domestic controversy.
Peter walked off down the road, rubbing his sore trousers and sobbing to himself. Yes, Peter understood now exactly how the Reds felt. Here were these rich parasites, exploiting the labor of working men and living off in palaces by themselves--and what had they done to earn it? What would they ever do for the poor man, except to despise him, and to kick him in the seat of his trousers?
They were a set of wilful brutes! Peter suddenly saw the happenings of last night from a new angle, and wished he had all the younger members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' a.s.sociation right there along with Mr. G.o.dd, so that he could bundle them all off to the devil at once.
And that was no pa.s.sing mood either. The seat of Peter's trousers hurt so that he could hardly endure the trolley ride home, and all the way Peter was plotting how he could punish Mr. G.o.dd. He remembered suddenly that Mr. G.o.dd was an a.s.sociate of Nelse Ackerman; and Peter now had a spy in Nelse Ackerman's home, and was preparing some kind of a "frame-up!" Peter would see if he couldn't find some way to start a dynamite conspiracy against Mr. G.o.dd! He would start a campaign against Mr. G.o.dd in the radical movement, and maybe he could find some way to get a bunch of the "wobblies" to carry him off and tie him up and beat him with a black-snake whip!
Section 65
With these reflections Peter went back to the American House, where McGivney had promised to meet him that evening. Peter went to Room 427, and being tired after the previous night's excitement, he lay down and fell fast asleep. And when again he opened his eyes, he wasn't sure whether it was a nightmare, or whether he had died in his sleep and gone to h.e.l.l with Mr. G.o.dd. Somebody was shaking him, and bidding him in a gruff voice, "Wake up!" Peter opened his eyes, and saw that it was McGivney; and that was all right, it was natural that McGivney should be waking him up. But what was this? McGivney's voice was angry, McGivney's face was dark and glowering, and--most incredible circ.u.mstance of all--McGivney had a revolver in his hand, and was pointing it into Peter's face!
It really made it much harder for Peter to get awake, because he couldn't believe that he was awake; also it made it harder for McGivney to get any sense out of him, because his jaw hung down, and he stared with terrified eyes into the muzzle of the revolver.
"M-m-my G.o.d, Mr. McGivney! w-w-what's the matter?"
"Get up here!" hissed the rat-faced man, and he added a vile name.
He gripped Peter by the lapel of his coat and half jerked him to his feet, still keeping the muzzle of the revolver in Peter's face. And poor Peter, trying desperately to get his wits together, thought of half a dozen wild guesses one after another. Could it be that McGivney had heard him denouncing Mr. G.o.dd and proclaiming himself a Red? Could it be that some of the Reds had framed up something on Peter? Could it be that McGivney had gone just plain crazy; that Peter was in the room with a maniac armed with a revolver?
"Where did you put that money I gave you the other day;" demanded McGivney, and added some more vile names.
Instantly, of course, Peter was on the defensive. No matter how frightened he might be, Peter would never fail to hang on to his money.
"I-I s-s-spent it, Mr. McGivney."
"You're lying to me!"
"N-n-no."
"Tell me where you put that money!" insisted the man, and his face was ugly with anger, and the muzzle of the revolver seemed to be trembling with anger. Peter started to insist that he had spent every cent. "Make him cough up, Hammett!" said McGivney; and Peter for the first time realized that there was another man in the room.
His eyes had been so fascinated by the muzzle of the revolver that he hadn't taken a glance about.
Hammett was a big fellow, and he strode up to Peter and grabbed one of Peter's arms, and twisted it around behind Peter's back and up between Peter's shoulders. When Peter started to scream, Hammett clapped his other hand over his mouth, and so Peter knew that it was all up. He could not hold on to money at that cost. When McGivney asked him, "Will you tell me where it is?" Peter nodded, and tried to answer thru his nose.
So Hammett took his hand from his mouth. "Where is it?" And Peter replied, "In my right shoe."
Hammett unlaced the shoe and took it off, and pulled out the inside sole, and underneath was a little flat package wrapped in tissue paper, and inside the tissue paper was the thousand dollars that McGivney had given Peter, and also the three hundred dollars which Peter had saved from Nelse Ackerman's present, and two hundred dollars which he had saved from his salary. Hammett counted the money, and McGivney stuck it into his pocket, and then he commanded Peter to put on his shoe again. Peter obeyed with his trembling fingers, meantime keeping his eye in part on the revolver and in part on the face of the rat.
"W-w-what's the matter, Mr. McGivney?"
"You'll find out in time," was the answer. "Now, you march downstairs, and remember, I've got this gun on you, and there's eight bullets in it, and if you move a finger I'll put them all into you."
So Peter and McGivney and Hammett went down in the elevator of the hotel, and out of doors, and into an automobile. Hammett drove, and Peter sat in the rear seat with McGivney, who had the revolver in his coat pocket, his finger always on the trigger and the muzzle always pointed into Peter's middle. So Peter obeyed all orders promptly, and stopped asking questions because he found he could get no answers.
Meantime he was using his terrified wits on the problem. The best guess he could make was that Guffey had decided to believe Joe Angell's story instead of Peter's. But then, why all this gun-play, this movie stuff? Peter gave up in despair; and it was just as well, for what had happened lay entirely beyond the guessing power of Peter's mind or any other mind.
Section 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 pa.s.sed 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 abas.e.m.e.nt, 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.