CHAPTER I
A CALL FOR HELP
The agitated transit of Mr. Lewis Copewell through the anteroom of the Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow created a certain stir. With all the lawless magnificence of a comet that runs amuck through the heavens, he burst upon the somewhat promiscuous assemblage already seated there. The assemblage sat in dumb and patient expectancy. Quite obviously it was a waiting-list, already weary with enforced procrastination. Its many eyes were anxiously focussed on the door that sequestered the great man in the aloofness of his sanctum.
A young woman gazed across her typewriter at the supplicants seeking audience, with a calm hauteur which seemed to say, “Wait, varlets, wait! The great do not hurry.”
They returned her gaze sullenly but in silence. None ventured to penetrate beyond her desk to the portal forbiddingly placarded, “Private.” None, that is, until Mr. Copewell arrived.
“Where’s Aleck?” demanded that gentleman, mopping his perspiring brow with a silk handkerchief. “I want to see him quick!”
The young woman looked up blankly. She knew that Mr. Copewell and her employer were, in their private capacities, on terms of intimacy, but duty is duty, and law is impartial. Many persons wanted to see him quick. Since the triumph of civic reform had converted the attorney who paid her salary from a mere Aleck, who was even as other Alecks, into Alexander the Great, she felt that his friends in private life must adapt themselves to the altered condition of affairs.
Accordingly her reply came with frigid dignity. “Mr. Burrow instructed that he was not to be, on any account, interrupted.”
“Huh?” Into Mr. Copewell’s surprised voice crept the raucous note that the poet describes as “like the growl of the fierce watch-dog.”
“Huh?”
The young woman became glacial. “Mr. Burrow can’t see you.”
The glance which Mr. Copewell bent on this deterring female for a moment threatened to thaw her cold reserve into hot confusion. The waiting assemblage shuffled its feet, scenting war.
At the same moment the private door swung open and Mr. Burrow himself stood on the threshold. At the sight of him several gentlemen who were patriotically willing to serve their city in the police and fire departments came respectfully to their feet. One contractor, who had for sale a new paving-block, saluted in military fashion. Mr. Lewis Copewell took a belligerent stride toward the door as though he meant to win through by force of assault.
But Mr. Burrow made violence unnecessary. His smile revealed a welcoming row of teeth, which in modern America means “dee-lighted.”
“Trot right in, old chap,” he supplemented.
The young woman looked crestfallen. She felt that her chief had failed to hold up her hands in the stern requirements of discipline.
“Good morning, everybody!” rushed on Mr. Burrow, with a genial wave of his hand and a smile of benediction for the waiting minions. This second Alexander the Great knew that you can abuse a man’s patience if you are a person of importance and smile blandly enough. Some of the Cæsars could even massacre and remain popular—but they had to smile very winningly. “Terribly busy! Must make all interviews brief this morning,” went on the new dictator. “Must get over to the City Hall!” Then in view of congealing acidity on the visages of three newspaper men, he added, since no man is great enough to offend a reporter: “I’ll have a big story for you boys to-morrow. You know I’m your friend.” He swept Mr. Copewell into the private office and the door slammed on his smile.
“I haf been sedding here for an hour alretty,” confided Alderman Grotz to his next neighbor. The Alderman’s heavy lids blinked with a stolid, bovine disapproval. “Der more I vait, der more I do not see him. Id iss nod right!” Alderman Grotz was reported to carry the lager and bratwurst vote about in the pocket of his ample, plaid waistcoat. Such discrimination against him was venturesome politics.
“That guy that went in there ain’t like us,” explained Tommy Deveran, whose florid oratory had been the machine’s prized asset until the drift of political straws had guided him toward reform. “He wears silk half-hose where you an’ me wears cotton socks. This here is a classy, high-brow administration. Myself not bein’ no cotillion-leader, I’m goin’ to beat it!” The Hon. Thomas rose and beat it in all the majesty of affronted dignity.
Inside, Mr. Copewell threw his hat and stick on the desk and himself into a chair. He commenced to speak and suddenly stopped. A fine flow of high-pressure language was arrested by the sight of Chief-of-Police Swager, sitting just across the room. The Chief rose and took up his gold-trimmed cap. The new administration had added to the pulchritude of its police officials by more jaunty uniforms. The Colonel felt conscious of a distinguished and military bearing.
“I’m going to shift Captain McGarvey from the Tenderloin—if you don’t object,” he announced.
Mr. Burrow did not object. He did not know who Captain McGarvey was, but that fact he did not mention. “What for, Chief, what for?” he inquired brightly. His air was that of a field-marshal for whom no little thing is too small to merit consideration.
“Well,” thoughtfully pursued Colonel Swager, “I doubt if he’s on the level, though I haven’t got him dead to rights yet—can’t prefer charges. McGarvey’s a machine hold-over and he’s likely to be a little blind in one eye where some of the thieves and yeggs that used to buy protection are concerned. ‘Rat’ Connors was seen last night, down at Corkhill’s place. You know ‘Rat’ Connors?”
Mr. Burrow had not that honor. The name was not on the membership books of his clubs. “Let’s see—” he repeated carefully, “Rat Connors, Rat Connors. I don’t, at the moment, seem to place him.”
“Second-story man, drum-snuffer, stone-pincher, porch-climber—general all-round expert,” illuminatingly itemized the Chief, “variously wanted for a large assortment of felonies. McGarvey ought to have ditched him.”
“Ah, yes, quite so,” agreed Mr. Burrow. Mr. Copewell petulantly shifted in his chair. These matters seemed to him extremely trivial in view of his own more engrossing affairs.
“This Connors party,” enlarged the Chief, halting a moment by the door and inspecting with pride the gold oak-leaves that went around his cap like a garland of greatness, “he’s a solemn little runt with one front tooth broke and one finger gone off the left hand. He’s got straight black hair and a face like a rat. He looks like a half-witted kid, but he’s there with the goods.”
Mr. Burrow nodded. “Go right after him, Chief,” he authorized, “I give you carte blanche.”
Exit the Chief, and in his wake appears at the door the accusing face of the young woman stenographer.
“Alderman Grotz insists——” she began.
“Impossible!” sighed Mr. Burrow dropping into an easy chair. “I’m rushed to death just now.” He gazed off across the roofs and searched his pockets for a cigarette. “Let him wait—let ’em all wait,” he murmured restfully. “That’s good politics.” Then, turning to Copewell, whose frantic pacing of the floor disturbed his composure, he demanded:
“What’s your trouble?”
“Trouble!” exploded the visitor. “Trouble! Why it’s plural multiplied by many, then squared and cubed and——”
“Well, just for a starter, give us one or two and build up from that,” suggested Mr. Burrow placidly. “Another girl, I’ll bet.”
“Another girl!” snorted Mr. Copewell. “There isn’t any other girl! All the rest are counterfeits! There never was but one girl, and I’m going to lose her!” This with deep stress of tragedy. “You must help me.”
“Certainly, I’ll help you.” Mr. Burrow waved his cigarette with airy assurance. “But what’s the matter? Can’t you lose her yourself?”
On the facetious and Honorable Alexander Mr. Copewell permitted the withering blight of his scorn to beat for one awful moment in silence, then he proceeded to enlighten. “I’ve got to steal this girl, or it’s all off. You’ve got to help steal her!”
Mr. Burrow appeared shocked. “But my dear lad,” he demurred, “I’m supervising a police force and a city administration in the interests of Righteousness with a large R. I doubt if it would be just exactly appropriate for me to go into the girl-stealing business on the side.”
“All politicians steal,” dogmatized Mr. Copewell, who had failed to be properly impressed with the piety of the new administration. “It’s time you were learning your new trade.”
“If it comes to that,” explained Mr. Burrow with a smile, “I have subordinates who——”
“I tell you this is serious!” interrupted the other tempestuously. “It’s desperate!”
“I’m very —— busy,” evasively suggested the new political power.
“If you’re too —— busy to help an old friend who needs you,” stormed Mr. Copewell, “you can eternally go to ——”
“Hold on! Hold on!” placated the other before Mr. Copewell had enjoyed the opportunity of designating the locality to which Mr. Burrow had his permission to go. “I merely meant to point out that when you want something done, it is well to go to a busy man. The other kind never have time.”