Seven Keys to Baldpate

"All the morning papers, gents," proclaimed the boy. "Get the Reuton Star. All about the bribery."

He held up the paper. It's huge black head-lines looked dull and old and soggy. But the story they told was new and live and startling.

"The Mayor Trapped," shrilled the head-lines. "Attempt to Pass Big Bribe at Baldpate Inn Foiled by Star Reporter. Hayden of the Suburban Commits Suicide to Avoid Disgrace."

"Give me a paper, boy," said the mayor. "Yes – a Star." His voice was even, his face unmoved. He took the sheet and studied it, with an easy smile. Clinging in fear to his side, Max read, too. At length Mr. Cargan spoke, looking up at Magee.

"So," he remarked. "So – reporters, eh? You and your lady friend? Reporters for this lying sheet – the Star?"

Mr. Magee smiled up from his own copy of the paper.

"Not I," he answered. "But my lady friend – yes. It seems she was just that. A Star reporter you can call her, and tell no lie, Mr. Mayor."

CHAPTER XXI

THE MAYOR IS WELCOMED HOME

It was a good story – the story which the mayor, Max, the professor and Magee read with varying emotions there in the smoking-car. The girl had served her employers well, and Mr. Magee, as he read, felt a thrill of pride in her. Evidently the employers had felt that same thrill. For in the captions under the pictures, in the head-lines, and in a first-page editorial, none of which the girl had written, the Star spoke admiringly of its woman reporter who had done a man's work – who had gone to Baldpate Inn and had brought back a gigantic bribe fund "alone and unaided".

"Indeed?" smiled Mr. Magee to himself.

In the editorial on that first page the triumphant cry of the Star arose to shatter its fellows in the heavens. At last, said the editor, the long campaign which his paper alone of all the Reuton papers had waged against a corrupt city administration was brought to a successful close. The victory was won. How had this been accomplished? Into the Star office had come rumors, a few days back, of the proposed payment of a big bribe at the inn on Baldpate Mountain. The paper had decided that one of its representatives must be on the ground. It had debated long whom to send. Miss Evelyn Rhodes, its well-known special writer, had got the tip in question; she had pleaded to go to the inn. The editor, considering her sex, had sternly refused. Then gradually he had been brought to see the wisdom of sending a girl rather than a man. The sex of the former would put the guilty parties under surveillance off guard. So Miss Rhodes was despatched to the inn. Here was her story. It convicted Cargan beyond a doubt. The very money offered as a bribe was now in the hands of the Star editor, and would be turned over to Prosecutor Drayton at his request. All this under the disquieting title "Prison Stripes for the Mayor".

The girl's story told how, with one companion, she had gone to Upper Asquewan Falls. There was no mention of the station waiting-room, nor of the tears shed therein on a certain evening, Mr. Magee noted. She had reached the inn on the morning of the day when the combination was to be phoned. Bland was already there, shortly after came the mayor and Max.

"You got to get me out of this," Magee heard Max pleading over Cargan's shoulder.

"Keep still!" replied the mayor roughly. He was reading his copy of the Star with keen interest now.

"I've done your dirty work for years," whined Max. "Who puts on the rubber shoes and sneaks up dark alleys hunting votes among the garbage, while you do the Old Glory stunt on Main Street? I do. You got to get me out of this. It may mean jail. I couldn't stand that. I'd die."

A horrible parody of a man's real fear was in his face. The mayor shook himself as though he would be rid forever of the coward hanging on his arm.

"Hush up, can't you?" he said. "I'll see you through."

"You got to," Lou Max wailed.

Miss Rhodes' story went on to tell how Hayden refused to phone the combination; how the mayor and Max dynamited the safe and secured the precious package, only to lose it in another moment to a still different contingent at the inn; how Hayden had come, of his suicide when he found that his actions were in danger of exposure – "a bitter smile for Kendrick in that" reflected Magee – and how finally, through a strange series of accidents, the money came into the hands of the writer for the Star. These accidents were not given in detail.

"An amusing feature of the whole affair," said Miss Evelyn Rhodes, "was the presence at the inn of Mr. William Hallowell Magee, the New York writer of light fiction, who had come there to escape the distractions of a great city, and to work in the solitude, and who immediately on his arrival became involved in the surprising drama of Baldpate."

"I'm an amusing feature," reflected Magee.

"Mr. Magee," continued Miss Rhodes, "will doubtless be one of the state's chief witnesses when the case against Cargan comes to trial, as will also Professor Thaddeus Bolton, holder of the Crandall Chair of Comparative Literature at Reuton University, and Mr. David Kendrick, formerly of the Suburban, but who retired six years ago to take up his residence abroad. The latter two went to the inn to represent Prosecutor Drayton, and made every effort in their power to secure the package of money from the reporter for the Star, not knowing her connection with the affair."

"Well, Mr. Magee?" asked Professor Bolton, laying down the paper which he had been perusing at a distance of about an inch from his nose.

"Once again, Professor," laughed Magee, "reporters have entered your life."

The old man sighed.

"It was very kind of her," he said, "not to mention that I was the person who compared blondes of the peroxide variety with suffragettes. Others will not be so kind. The matter will be resurrected and used against me at the trial, I'm sure. A plucky girl, Mr. Magee – a very plucky girl. How times do change. When I was young, girls of her age would scarcely have thought of venturing forth into the highways on such perilous missions. I congratulate you. You showed unusual perception. You deserve a great reward – the young lady's favor, let us say."

"You got to get me out of this," Max was still telling the mayor.

"For God's sake," cried Cargan, "shut up and let me think." He sat for a moment staring at one place, his face still lacking all emotion, but his eyes a trifle narrower than before. "You haven't got me yet," he cried, standing up. "By the eternal, I'll fight to the last ditch, and I'll win. I'll show Drayton he can't play this game on me. I'll show the Star. That dirty sheet has hounded me for years. I'll put it out of business. And I'll send the reformers howling into the alleys, sick of the fuss they started themselves."

"Perhaps," said Professor Bolton. "But only after the fight of your life, Cargan."

"I'm ready for it," cried Cargan. "I ain't down and out yet. But to think – a woman – a little bit of a girl I could have put in my pocket – it's all a big joke. I'll beat them – I'll show them – the game's far from played out – I'll win – and – if – I – don't – "

He crumbled suddenly into his seat, his eyes on that unpleasant line about "Prison Stripes for the Mayor". For an instant it seemed as though his fight was irrevocably lost, and he knew it. Lines of age appeared to creep from out the fat folds of his face, and stand mockingly there. He looked a beaten man.

"If I don't," he stammered pitifully, "well, they sent him to an island at the end. The reformers got Napoleon at the last. I won't be alone in that."

At this unexpected sight of weakness in his hero, Mr. Max set up a renewed babble of fear at his side. The train was in the Reuton suburbs now. At a neat little station it slowed down to a stop, and a florid policeman entered the smoking-car. Cargan looked up.

"Hello, Dan," he said. His voice was lifeless; the old-time ring was gone.

The policeman removed his helmet and shifted it nervously.

"I thought I'd tell you, Mr. Cargan," he said "I thought I'd warn you. You'd better get off here. There's a big crowd in the station at Reuton. They're waiting for you, sir; they've heard you're on this train. This lying newspaper, Mr. Cargan, it's been telling tales – I guess you know about that. There's a big mob. You better get off here, sir, and go down-town on a car."

If the mighty Cargan had looked limp and beaten for a moment he looked that way no more. He stood up, and his head seemed almost to touch the roof of the car. Over that big patrolman he towered; his eyes were cold and hard again; his lips curved in the smile of the master.

"And why," he bellowed, "should I get off here? Tell me that, Dan."

"Well, sir," replied the embarrassed copper, "they're ugly. There's no telling what they might do. It's a bad mob – this newspaper has stirred 'em up."

"Ugly, are they?" sneered Cargan. "Ever seen the bunch I would go out of my way for, Dan?"

"I meant it all right, sir," said Dan. "As a friend to a man who's been a friend to me. No, I never saw you afraid of any bunch yet, but this – "

"This," replied Cargan, "is the same old bunch. The same lily-livered crowd that I've seen in the streets since I laid the first paving stone under 'em myself in '91. Afraid of them? Hell! I'd walk through an ant hill as scared as I would through that mob. Thanks for telling me, Dan, but Jim Cargan won't be in the mollycoddle class for a century or two yet."

"Yes, sir," said the patrolman admiringly. He hurried out of the car, and the mayor turned to find Lou Max pale and fearful by his side.

"What ails you now?" he asked.

"I'm afraid," cried Max. "Did you hear what he said? A mob. I saw a mob once. Never again for me." He tried to smile, to pass it off as a pleasant jest, but he had to wet his lips with his tongue before he could go on. "Come on, Jim. Get off here. Don't be a fool."

The train began to move.

"Get off yourself, you coward," sneered Cargan. "Oh, I know you. It doesn't take much to make your stomach shrink. Get off."

Max eagerly seized his hat and bag.

"I will, if you don't mind," he said. "See you later at Charlie's." And in a flash of tawdry attire, he was gone.