there. He sent me home in his car. I’m going to dine there again next week.”
“If you’re telling the truth, will you kindly explain how you got to know him?”
“Through his daughter.”
“And how did you get to know her?”
Hugh blew a few desultory smoke rings.
“I met her—socially—in a way. She’s a friend of mine.”
O’Hara eyed him suspiciously from beneath his shaggy brows.
“I’ll wager she picked you up!”
“Well, what if she did? She was willing to make an honest man of me by taking me home to dinner.”
O’Hara reached over and pinched Hugh’s leg just above the knee.
“Do you mean to tell me you didn’t know that Richard Devens is one of the richest men in New York? That he is the organizer and president of the Associated Architects and Builders, with a capital of fifteen million dollars, and that he has nearly as much political influence as Murphy himself?”
“No,” answered Hugh. “I hadn’t an idea of it.”
“Well, that is the fact. They’re the people who build all the State capitols, and viaducts, and giant hotels, and railway terminals—they plant ’em overnight—work while you sleep. My boy, you’re in clover! Richard Devens could make you governor if he’d a mind to.”
“I don’t want his money!” said Hugh. “And I don’t believe he could make anybody governor.” He glanced sharply at O’Hara. “Is the Associated Architects and Builders the corporation there was such a howl about last year—where the syndicate that marketed some of its bonds was supposed to have made such an unholy profit, and——”
“And where the syndicate and the board of directors looked so much alike you couldn’t tell ’em apart?—That’s it!” finished his partner.
“I also met an amiable ancient called Uncle Danny Shay. Who’s he?”
“Devens’ side partner and alter ego. They grew up together. Dick has the brains; Dan does what Dick tells him.”
“The voice is the voice of Shay, but the hand is the hand of Devens?”
“You’ve said it! Dick pulled him out of a hole one time, and since then Dan thinks he’s the voice of Almighty God.”
“How do you know so much about them?”
“Because we have a retainer from the A. A. and B.—we act as counsel to them in some things. Dan is secretary and treasurer. Devens is chairman of the board—’way out of reach. So if anybody gets into trouble it will be Dan. He won’t mind! He’d go to jail for Dick any time. I guess that’s fair enough too, considering Dick kept him out.”
He reached for his pipe and refilled it.
“Ever been up to the Devens’ house?” asked Hugh, endeavouring to conceal his interest under a veil of nonchalance.
“Sure I have. Not so often as Hoyle, though. He’s Devens’ confidential attorney. When anything comes up that’s likely to attract public attention, he retains fellows like Choate, or Stanchfield, or Elihu Root. But they’re only window dressings. We do the work.”
Quirk had retired to the corner and was immersed in his book.
“Did you ever know Mrs. Devens?” asked Hugh. “There’s a picture of her in the dining-room. If she was anything like it she must have been a beauty.”
“She was!” agreed O’Hara, lighting his pipe upside down from the lamp. “A famous one. Supposed to be the prettiest woman in New York—daughter of old Tibbetts, the dry-goods man—but cold as a stone, and socially on the make. She married Devens for his money and then turned sour because he couldn’t give her the social position that she wanted. Lucky for all of them she died when she did!”
“Why couldn’t he give her what she wanted?” inquired Hugh.
“She wanted to be in the smart set—the Newport and Long Island crowd. But as the wife of an Irish Roman Catholic contractor she found she couldn’t make it, even with all his money. It smelt a bit too strong of—well—to use a euphemism—of politics.”
“Of graft, I suppose you mean?”
“Oh, say not so!” protested O’Hara. “But I believe Devens did build some hospitals and courthouses for the city—not to mention a few insane asylums, incinerating plants, almshouses, et cetera, et cetera. The swells took her money and went to her big entertainments, ate her suppers, drank her champagne, listened to Jean de Reszke and Melba—and then dropped her. It was too much for her!”
“From your account of the lady’s character, I shouldn’t say her daughter resembled her in the least,” remarked Hugh.
O’Hara knocked the ashes from his pipe.
“She takes more after the old man!” he said. “How about bed?”
CHAPTER IV
The sun, which had been deflected so obliquely into the Criminal Court room the afternoon before, lifted over Chinatown and the Five Points and hit Hugh squarely between the eyes. Through the crack of the door leading into the kitchen crept the smell of bacon and coffee, and the murmur of voices. He was possessed with a fierce desire for food, tempered only by his aversion to getting out of bed. It was going to be cold. He could tell that by his frosty breath. Then his alarm clock went off with the clatter of a steam riveter.
Grabbing up the coverlet, he wrapped it about his shoulders, seized the still sputtering clock, and cleared the intervening space to the kitchen in a single leap.
Ignatius O’Hara, his face covered with lather, was shaving himself by the window in his undershirt. Jeffrey Quirk, his wig hanging from the gas jet, was in his customary posture before the stove, the line of separation between his features and his bald pate so definitely marked as to give almost the impression of his having on a false face, made, possibly, of green cheese.
A copper boiler simmered on one side of the stove, and on the other a steaming coffee-pot.
Hugh bade the others good morning, filled a tin basin from the boiler, and carried it to the sink.
“Fried, poached, or boiled, Mr. Dillon?” inquired Quirk mechanically.
“Fried for me!—Three of ’em!” grunted O’Hara between scrapes. “I haven’t made up yet for the meal I lost last night. I dreamt of a mutton chop as big as a rubric, and a mug of musty the size of a bishop’s chalice.”
“I’ll do my own!” spluttered Hugh from behind the roller towel. “Why don’t you put on your wig, Quirk?”
“I thought it was on!” replied Quirk, trying to adjust it with
