make yourself a party to a conspiracy.”
“Shut the transom,” says I to Crowder.
“I'm under no pledge, I say,” shouted Farwell, “and I do not compound felonies. You're not conducting my campaign. I'm doing that, and I don't conduct it along such lines. It's precisely the kind of fraud and corruption that I intend to stamp out in this town, and this is where I begin to work.”
“How?” said I.
“You'll see—and you'll see soon! The penitentiaries are built for just this—”
“Sh, sh!” said I, but he paid no attention.
“They say Gorgett owns the Grand Jury,” he went on. “Well, let him! Within a week I'll be mayor of this town—and Gorgett's Grand Jury won't outlast his defeat very long. By his own confession this man Genz is party to a conspiracy with Gorgett, and you and Crowder are witnesses to the confession. I'll see that you have the pleasure of giving your testimony before a Grand Jury of determined men. Do you hear me? And tomorrow afternoon's Herald will have the whole infamous story to the last word. I give you my solemn oath upon it!”
All three of us, Crowder, Genz, and I, sprang to our feet. We were considerably worked up, and none of us said anything for a minute or so, just looked at Knowles.
“Yes, you're a little shocked,” he said. “It's always shocking to men like you to come in contact with honesty that won't compromise. You needn't talk to me; you can't say anything that would change me to save your lives. I've taken my oath upon it, and you couldn't alter me a hair's breadth if you burned me at a slow fire. Light, light, that's what you need, the light of day and publicity! I'm going to clear this town of fraud, and if Gorgett don't wear the stripes for this my name's not Farwell Knowles! He'll go over the road, handcuffed to a deputy, before three months are gone. Don't tell me I'm injuring you and the party by it. Pah! It will give me a thousand more votes. I'm not exactly a child, my friends! On my honour, the whole thing will be printed in to-morrow's paper!”
“For God's sake—” Crowder broke out, but Knowles cut him off.
“I bid you good-afternoon,” he said, sharply. We all started toward him, but before we'd got half across the room he was gone, and the door slammed behind him.
Bob dropped into a chair; he was looking considerably pale; I guess I was, too, but Genz was ghastly.
“Let me out of here,” he said in a sick voice. “Let me out of here!”
“Sit down!” I told him.
“Just let me out of here,” he said again. And before I could stop him, he'd gone, too, in a blind hurry.
Bob and I were left alone, and not talking any.
Not for a while. Then Bob said: “Where do you reckon he's gone?”
“Reckon who's gone?”
“Genz.”
“To see Lafe.”
“What?”
“Of course he has. What else can he do? He's gone up any way. The best he can do is to try to square himself a little by owning up the whole thing. Gorgett will know it all any way, tomorrow afternoon, when the Herald comes out.”
“I guess you're right,” said Bob. “We're done up along with Gorgett; but I believe that idiot's right, he won't lose votes by playing hob with us. What's to be done?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “You can't head Farwell off. It's all my fault, Bob.”
“Isn't there any way to get hold of him? A crazy man could see that his best friend couldn't beg it out of him, and that he wouldn't spare any of us; but don't you know of some bludgeon we could hang up over him?”
“Nothing. It's up to Gorgett.”
“Well,” said Bob, “Lafe's mighty smart, but it looks like God-help-Gorgett now!”
Well, sir, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to go around and see Gorgett; so, after waiting long enough for Genz to see him and get away, I went. Lafe was always cool and slow; but I own I expected to find him flustered, and was astonished to see right away that he wasn't. He was smoking, as usual, and wearing his hat, as he always did, indoors and out, sitting with his feet upon his desk, and a pleasant look of contemplation on his face.
“Oh,” says I, “then Genz hasn't been here?”
“Yes,” says he, “he has. I reckon you folks have 'most spoiled Genz's usefulness for me.”
“You're taking it mighty easy,” I told him.
“Yep. Isn't it all in the game? What's the use of getting excited because you've blocked us on one precinct? We'll leave that closet out of our calculations, that's all.”
“Almighty Powers, I don't mean that! Didn't Genz tell you—”
“About Mr. Knowles and the Herald? Oh, yes,” he answered, knocking the ashes off his cigar quietly. “And about the thousand votes he'll gain? Oh, yes. And about incidentally showing you and Crowder up as bribing Genz and promising to protect him—making your methods public? Oh, yes. And about the Grand Jury? Yes, Genz told me. And about me and the penitentiary. Yes, he told me. Mr. Knowles is a rather excitable young man. Don't you think so?”
“Well?”
“Well, what's the trouble?”
“Trouble!” I said. “I'd like to know what you're going to do?”
“What's Knowles going to do?”
“He's sworn to expose the whole deal, as you've just told me you knew; one of the preliminaries to having us all up before the next Grand Jury and sending you and Genz over the road, that's all!”
Gorgett laughed that old, fat laugh of his, tilting farther back, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes twinkling under his last summer's straw hat-brim.
“He can't hardly afford it, can he,” he drawled, “he being the representative of the law and order and purity people? They're mighty sensitive, those folks. A little thing turns 'em.”
“I don't understand,” said I.
“Well, I hardly reckoned you would,” he returned. “But I expect if Mr. Knowles wants it warm all round, I'm willing. We may be able to do some of the heating up, ourselves.”
This surprised me, coming from him, and I felt pretty sore. “You mean, then,” I said, “that you think you've got a line on something our boys have been planning—like the way we got onto the closet trick—and you're going to show us up because we can't control Knowles; that you hold that over me as a threat unless I shut him up? Then I tell you plainly I know I can't shut him up, and you can go ahead and do us the worst you can.”
“Whatever little tricks I may or may not have discovered,” he answered, “that isn't what I mean, though I don't know as I'd be above
