CHAPTER XIX

SUSPENSE

Colonel Westlake, the principal owner of the Courier and the man who actively dictated its policy, sat in the library of his home that night with a look upon his face different than he had worn of late. As the leader of the Fusion movement, for which he had expended much labor and time, things had looked black to him until today, and his face had worn the expression that belongs to him who is fighting a grim, losing battle. He saw the opposition forging ahead with a resistless sweep which he and his co-workers could not stop, and it had been maddening.

But tonight a bright gleam of hope had dispelled the gloom of the Colonel's face. He had visited the office that afternoon and had a talk with the managing editor, who had told him of the effort that was in progress to checkmate the plans of the ring. He could tell the Colonel but few particulars, for Micky had not confided many of them to his superiors as yet. Indeed, he had had no time to do so. But the information was cheering enough to cause the Colonel to smoke his cigar that evening with an easier mind. "That fellow can get it if anybody can," he had been told, and the assurance fanned his dying hope into renewed flame.

The Courier's editorial rooms were unusually replete of life that night. To be sure, it was an old story, that record of life and death and the things that go between, called news; ground out there three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year. One night, generally speaking, was very like another to the various cogs in the human machine. Most of them were past cubhood, and the shifts of scene entailed by succeeding assignments, that once held a fresh charm of novelty, now spelled grim duty. Most men have illusions, but the jaded newsgetter loses them first of all. Most men may dream of what they may become; the newsgetter only of what he did not become. However, there is a compensation. The newsgetter has acquired philosophy, the real salt of the earth. It is better to watch one's Rome burning with philosophy than to collect the insurance thereon without it.

However, on this night there was a brooding excitement in the air. The big room fairly throbbed with it; the sense of an impending something whose significance but few of the force divined, but which they all felt. The harassed, anxious expressions on the faces of Harkins and a few others of the editorial force; their frequent glances at the big clock, their nervous onslaughts upon the mass of work, for it was a teeming night, revealed to every rushed reporter in the great room that there was something on and that it was something big. They stole covert glances at their chiefs and at each other, wondering what it was.

Time wore on while the tension grew. The big calm clock reeled off the flying minutes with exasperating insistence. The clock is the merciless monitor of the newspaper office. Men watch it, fear it, serve it as they must. They hurl the forces of head and hand, when the need calls, in a desperate fight against it, till its tickings are drowned in the roar of the presses that hold the dearly bought triumph; while the toiler sits spent and worn, body and brain full of the numb weariness of the reaction. Even as the roar of the presses dies in silence, there is again audible the eternal ticking of the clock, unresting through it all; registering in one breath the death of a day of labor, the birth of another in the next. Always the grim spectre with the scythe stands at the elbows of the men who write the news.

So the Courier's clock ticked on, while the hidden undercurrent of unrest, so patent even to those ignorant of the reason for it, grew in a fierce, irritating tug that was made manifest in disagreeable ways. Harkins' nerves were worn to shreds. His usual urbanity withered like dry grass in the fire of his hot impatience. The office fairly throbbed now, for it was an extraordinarily busy night. Election was close at hand, the entire city was wrought up over it, everything else had seemingly happened and was all coming in at once. Still there was that hungry gap, waiting to be filled with the story of a lifetime. Where was the story?

It was exasperating. Everywhere men were rushing like mad and Harkins helped them rush the more. His orders were snapped with the venom of a cracking whip lash, accompanied by black frowns that caused backs to bend and fingers to fly the more, or legs to hurry the faster, as his behest might be. It became a drive, a dizzy whirl of effort, torn with conflicting sights and sounds. There materialized hurrying figures, sharp orders, the jingle of telephone bells, the slamming of doors, the sleet-like rattle of typewriters, the soft rush of many pencils and the crackle of paper; the hundred and one distractions that contribute in the compilation of the record of a day of news. And constantly, as the whirl gained in volume like a rising wind, Harkins' tortured eyes re-sought the clock, and they held all the miserable apprehension of a miser for precious, fleeting gold.

"Gee!" exclaimed Kirk to Peters, as he passed that worthy at the end of the room, and paused a moment to wipe his moist forehead, "it's fierce, ain't it? Harkins is getting crazy. There's something up. What is it?"

"No," replied Peters, with an apprehensive glance toward Harkins, "there's nothing up, I guess. I think there's something ought to be up that isn't. That's the rub. Never saw Hark' so worked up in my life."

"Yes, but what is it?" reiterated Kirk. "It's something big, that's sure."

"I don't know anything more about it than you do, but I've noticed one thing. O'Byrn hasn't shown up tonight. I think Hark' expected him, and with something." He nodded meaningly and they separated.

Suddenly Harkins summoned Glenwood, who had the week previous been made his assistant. Dick had been also growing nervous for the last half-hour, his eyes constantly seeking the door, hopeful of a desired arrival which was strangely delayed. The story should have been well under way by then. Dick guessed how formidable an undertaking it had undoubtedly proved and had at first explained Micky's delay in appearing by the assumed magnitude of the little Irishman's task. But now Dick had grown painfully anxious.

He hurried to Harkins' desk. The city editor looked up with a black scowl, viciously chewing a cigar stub. His uneasy fingers drummed a tattoo upon his desk.

"For God's sake, Glenwood," he burst out, "what's the matter? It's ten o'clock. Have you heard anything?"

"Only that telephone message he sent me early this afternoon," replied Dick. "It was short but significant. You know I told you."

Harkins groaned. "Yes," he assented, "he said he'd need the whole paper tomorrow and a few extras. And now where the devil is he, anyway? Where was he when he sent you that message?"

"I don't know," Dick answered. "Richards called me to the 'phone, said someone wanted me. I recognized Micky's voice. He just blurted out that information and broke away before I could reply. I tried to get him to ask him if he needed any help and when he would get here, but he had gone."

Harkins' eyes contracted. "Dick, do you think--" he began meaningly.

"No!" interrupted Dick vehemently, "not at a time like this! Still--Oh, the poor devil!" he broke off, for the remembrance swept over him of a certain shamed admission to him of O'Byrn's own, the acknowledgment of the reason for a bootless career.

There was a brief silence, broken by Harkins' voice, raised in loud summons. "Has anyone seen O'Byrn tonight?" he asked.

Peters glanced significantly at Kirk. There was no immediate answer, but a fat figure, waddling on its way from the elevator to the desk, hesitated and finally halted. An odd breathless voice broke the sudden silence, the voice of Fatty Stearns.

"O'Byrn?" he queried, "did you say O'Byrn, Mr. Harkins?"

"Yes," exploded Harkins, frowning heavily upon the quailing Stearns. "Have you seen him?"

"Why, yes," assented Fatty faintly, while fidgeting upon his chubby feet. "That is, I did," explosively, "about eight o'clock."

"Well," fairly shouted his irritated chief, "where was he? What's the matter with you?"

"Why, nothin'," ejaculated Fatty desperately. "I wasn't with him! I kept out of sight so he and the gang wouldn't see me. They were heading for O'Sullivan's saloon."

There was a moment's silence. "Stearns," said Harkins finally, his tone now one of quiet resignation, "why didn't you tell me this before?"

"You didn't ask me," Fatty answered in an injured way, sidling toward his desk. "And besides," as an afterthought, "you couldn't, for I wasn't here. You'd sent me out on that armory business, don't you know?"

Harkins and Glenwood looked hopelessly at each other. "No telling where he is now," said the city editor wearily, "or the shape he's in. It's all up, I guess."

Dick's fist rapped his desk smartly, his lips met in a grim line. "Not yet!" he exclaimed. "It's worth a try, anyway. I'm going to see if I can find him."

He turned away, nearly colliding with a meagre little man who was hurrying toward him from the elevator. "You're Mr. Glenwood?" asked this worthy.

"Yes," assented Dick, with a glance of inquiry.

"I know you by sight," rapidly pursued the visitor. "I was mixed up once in a little deal at Goldberg's with a friend of yours, Micky O'Byrn. You came on after I slid," with a dry grin. "But that's nothin' to do with this. You fellows are waitin' for somethin'," with a shrewd glance at Harkins' worried face, "and the man who's got it is gettin' drunker every minute. I thought you ought to know."

"Do you know where he is?" exclaimed Dick, grasping Slade's arm in his eagerness. The ex-heeler winced.

"Sure," he assented. "I've got a pal watchin' 'em so as to cop whether they do a duck into another joint."

"What shape is he in?" asked Glenwood.

"Bad," replied Slade dubiously. Then, with a ready grasp of the situation, "I know a medicine cove that I'll bet could put him right in short order, that is for while you'd need him. Makes a regular specialty of it, one of his own patients in fact. But you'd have to hurry. I'm with you on the deal, for between us I've got a bone to pick with Shaughnessy myself and I want to see that story in tomorrow's paper. Why, I put O'Byrn onto it."

Dick turned sharply to Harkins. "Get everything ready, I'll have him here," he said confidently. "We'll fix him up some way. Hang it, we've got to! Of course, it'll have to be dictation. I'll 'phone you outlook just as soon as I can," he added, seizing coat and hat, "and you clear the decks. Now, Slade," and the two hurried to the elevator.

Dick hailed a cab. "To Lawrence's saloon, on Forty-Fifth, and be quick about it!" directed Slade, and the two sprang in.

"I had supper with him," explained Slade, as the cab rolled rapidly northward, "and he insisted on a couple of drinks. He'd had several then, I guess. Then he was going to start for the office, but a gang blew along. Then it was all off," with an expressive shrug. "Stuff seemed to go to his head all in a flash, and he wouldn't listen to anything. I kept along for a while and tried to sneak him away. He'd start all right, but the gang would drag him back and play rough-house with me and chuck me out. About eight we came near running into some parties I didn't want to see and I simply had to duck for a while. He was in a gin-mill near the City Hall then, and I lost him some way. It was two hours, pretty near, before I copped him again, this time in Lawrence's. I got a friend o' mine to watch the place, then I caught a car for your office."

The cab stopped before a brilliantly lighted cafe and the men tumbled out. A young fellow, loitering about, approached Slade. "Well, he's gone," said he.

"Gone!" echoed Slade. "Where?"

"I dunno. No call for me buttin' in. He got in a carriage with Dick Peterson and another fellow and they drove off."

"Shaughnessy!" exclaimed Slade, with a livid oath. "Come on, there's no time to lose!" He dragged Dick toward the cab. "Shaughnessy's rooms, you know 'em--drive like hell!" he told the driver, and they were off like the wind.