"What a shrewd pair they are! I've got the fight of my life on my hands now and you, my boy"—to Gallant—"have done something for me I'll never forget. Brennan, what are you going to do with this evidence?"
Brennan explained how the matter had been presented to the publisher of their paper and related what the "chief" had said to John and P. Q. He cautioned the mayor that John's story was not to be used by him or revealed to anyone.
"Trust me," assured the mayor. "But can I rely upon you boys to keep me in touch with what develops?"
"We will tell you everything we are permitted to disclose," promised Brennan. "In return for what information we give you we will expect you to furnish us with what information comes into your hands."
"Agreed," said the mayor.
Brennan and John rose to leave. The mayor came from behind his desk and with his arms around their shoulders walked with them to the door. There he chuckled, and, leaning toward them, said:
"Boys, I guess your old Uncle Dudley isn't such a so-and-so kind of an old fool after all, is he?"
From the city hall John and Brennan, by previous arrangement, sought out Murphy, whom they found at the East Third street rooming house, the address of which he had given John. His room was cheaply furnished and the walls of it decorated with prints of boxers, sporting life notables, knockout fight pictures and photographs of shapely bathing beauties in one-piece suits. He appeared surprised when the two reporters entered as he opened the door.
"Murphy," said John, "this is Brennan, a friend of mine. We want to have a little talk with you."
"Glad to meet a friend of da Gallant kid," Murphy said, shaking hands with Brennan. He reached into a drawer and brought out a quart bottle of whisky which he placed on a table with a single glass into which he poured a generous portion.
"Drink up, gents, and do your stuff," he invited.
John did the talking. He explained to Murphy that he and Brennan were newspaper men and that he had told Brennan of their experience in the raid and their meeting with "Slim" Gray.
"Hey, back up," Murphy interrupted. "Let me get ya straight. Are you birds plannin' to show 'Slim' and the 'Gink' up?"
"Murphy," said John, "can we trust you?"
"I went da limit for you, didn't I?" asked Murphy, looking at John.
"You did," agreed John, remembering how Murphy had vouched for him to "Slim" Gray. "That's why we're here now. We figure you can help us and if you do we'll see that you are taken care of."
"You're straight with dat?"
"Absolutely."
"Well, do your stuff, then, do your stuff!"
At a nod from Brennan, John placed the whole situation before Murphy, explaining every part of it carefully.
"Now, what we want you to do is this," he said. "We want you to find out everything you can about what the 'Gink' is doing and let us know as soon as you learn it."
Murphy listened without interrupting until John had finished.
"Do you know what'll happen to me if de 'Gink' finds I'm peachin' on him?" he asked.
"We have an idea——" John began.
"An idea!" Murphy exclaimed, contemptuously. "Well, I got more than an idea, see?I know what'd happen to me, see? I get my head kicked in, see?"
"We'll promise you that for every piece of information you give us you'll get enough money to make it worth your while," put in Brennan.
"Dat's straight?" asked Murphy, turning to John.
"That's straight," John assured him.
They left a few minutes later with Murphy's pledge, given with an oath worded far stronger than the customary legal one, to act as their informant and to keep secret every word they had told him.
"De 'Gink's' no pal of mine, see?" said Murphy as they left his room. "I'm wise enough to know that he'd cross me in a minute, see?"
The interrogative "see?" that Murphy used to punctuate his sentences was invariably accompanied with a gesture of his hand that resembled a baseball umpire's gesture in calling a runner safe at a base more than anything John could think of.
Before dinner that night Mrs. Gallant handed him an envelope which she said she received in the afternoon's mail. It was addressed to him and opening it he found that it was a note from Consuello.
"My dear Mr. Gallant," he read, "could you and your dear mother accompany me home Sunday for dinner? I can arrange to call for you and bring you home in the car. I would be delighted to have you with me and am anxious for father and mother to meet Mrs. Gallant. Cordially, Consuello Carrillo."
Since the night Mrs. Gallant had gone weeping to her room after John told her that Consuello played in motion pictures, the girl had never been mentioned by either of them. John refrained from speaking of her because he decided that until he found some way to overcome the prejudice his mother held it would only cause unpleasantness. There had never been a night following that when Mrs. Gallant had displayed her disapproval of Consuello that John had not racked his brain to decide how he could eradicate his mother's intolerant attitude and bring her to know and appreciate Consuello for the girl she was.
At times he was annoyed by his mother's bigotry which gave her, in Consuello's case, an unreasonableness that amounted almost to fanaticism and embittered the natural sweetness of her character and disposition. His suspicion that her condemnation of photoplays and everyone connected with them was being fostered by someone else had been substantiated by an incident which occurred shortly after the night she had turned her back on Consuello.
That Mrs. Sprockett, "from across thestreet"—as John always thought of her—had interrupted one of the evening chats he always had with his mother. His impulsive dislike of Mrs. Sprockett caused him to leave her alone on the porch with his mother while he retired to the living room to read. The window to the porch was open.
"Isn't it terrible?" he heard Mrs. Sprockett say. "They tell me that she had been married three times and smokes cigarettes right in front of everyone. Women like her are a disgrace to a nation and we mothers should do something, I tell you."
From further snatches of the conversation John learned that Mrs. Sprockett was referring to a motion picture actress who had been given a decree of divorce that day.
"I told my Alma at dinner, tonight, that she had better not let me catch her sneaking off to the picture show," Mrs. Sprockett continued. Alma, John knew, was the oldest of Mrs. Sprockett's daughters. "What are things coming to when girls wear their skirts above their knees and bob their hair and think nothing of taking up with the first man they meet? When you and I were girls, Mrs. Gallant, we would have been locked up if we had attempted such performances.
"I tell you we owe it to our children to crush these creatures that set such wickedexamples. And Mr. Sprockett agrees with me in every word I say."
As far as John knew, Mrs. Sprockett's husband had never, never disagreed with her—for good and sufficient reasons. He had recalled how Mrs. Sprockett's husband trailed her from house to house in the neighborhood evenings while the Sprockett baby wailed for attention.
He drew Consuello's note from his pocket while he and his mother were in the living room after dinner and read it again. He debated in his mind what he should do and finally handed it to his mother without a word. Mrs. Gallant adjusted her spectacles and read the note through slowly. John studied her face and he imagined he saw her lips tremble slightly.
She evaded meeting his eyes as she handed the note back to him. He waited for her to speak, but she was silent and he realized with a sinking feeling that her attitude toward Consuello had not changed. He determined, however, to dispose of the matter quickly.
"Well, mother," he said. "How shall I answer her?"
"It was very kind of her to include me but under the circumstances, John, I——"
"Very well, mother."
"But, my boy——"
"Yes."
"Don't let me stop you from going and please don't let it harden your heart against me."
"Mother, are you sure you're not making a sad mistake in letting your heart harden against her?" he could not resist saying.
Her lips trembled and her handkerchief went to her eyes. Leaving his chair he crossed to where she was sitting and put his arm around her.
"There, mother, we must not let anything come between us," he said, tenderly. "It's all right, mother; it's all right!"
The next day, Saturday, he telephoned to Consuello early in the morning, soon after he reached the office, in order to catch her before she left for the studio.
"I was just about to call you," she said. "Did you get my note?"
"Yes."
"I'm so sorry, but it will be impossible for me to get home, tomorrow. My director insists that we go out on location in the morning. You understand, don't you?"
"Certainly," he replied. He had decided to tell her that his mother was ill and unable to accept her invitation. His relief was beyond words when he discovered that it would be unnecessary for him to fabricate an excuse forMrs. Gallant, although he realized it was only postponing the time when he should be compelled to prevent Consuello learning of his mother's harsh judgment of her.
"I was so anxious that we should have a perfect day together, your mother, yourself, father and mother and I. But we can arrange it for some other time, can't we?"
"I'm sure we can." He felt justified somehow in taking this optimistic view.
"And I wanted to ask you, would you care to come out with us on location, tomorrow? We have several scenes to do and I'm sure you will find it interesting."
"It would be wonderful."
"If you can be at the studio at nine?"
"I'll be there."
"And you'll explain how it is to your mother and tell her how sorry I am, won't you?"
"She'll understand." He felt he was not trifling as much with truth in that answer.
Carrying out a conclusion he reached during the day, John did not tell his mother of his conversation over the telephone with Consuello. He told her only that he would be away most of Sunday, permitting her to deduce that he had accepted Consuello's invitation and had made some explanation of her absence.
A dozen automobiles were in line alongthe driveway of the Peerless studio when John arrived promptly at nine o'clock, the following morning. Consuello had evidently told the guard at the gate that she was expecting him. It was only necessary for him to mention his name.
"Miss Carrillo asks that you be directed to her dressing room," the gateman said.
With one exception the automobiles were already occupied. John recognized the cameramen with their equipment piled in one of the cars. In another he discerned his guide, "John J. Silence," and in another he caught a glimpse of the sad-eyed bass 'cello player, his huge instrument beside him.
As he left the driveway to cross to the dressing room building he saw Consuello coming toward him. She wore the dainty white "old fashioned" dress, as John had named it in his mind, that she had when they first met at the Barton Randolph lawn fete. She was Consuello and yet because of her facial "make-up," she was the girl he had seen before the camera on the occasion of his first visit to the studio.
"They're waiting for me," she explained as John met her. "You'll ride with us."
She led him to the first automobile in the line. In the front seat, beside the driver, wasthe man with the horn-rim glasses whom John recognized as her director. They took seats in the tonneau and he shook hands with the director whom Consuello introduced as "Mr. Bonwit." Heading the caravan of machines their car started out of the driveway.
"I wanted Reggie—Mr. Gibson—to come with us," she explained, "but he had other engagements, something to do with his work, and could not get away. He promised to join us later. I am anxious to hear what he has been doing and what you think of it. I know all about his raid on those places in Spring street."
His part in the raid with the suspicion it directed against Gibson as an ally of "Gink" Cummings returned to him. Principally because of the faith Consuello had in Gibson he had been unable to convince himself that the commissioner was in league with Cummings, despite the arguments advanced by Brennan and the attitude taken by the publisher of his newspaper, a view that did not reject the possibility that Gibson was a masquerader.
"He told me that what you said about newspaper men wondering why he did not attack 'Gink' Cummings caused him to decide to make the raid," she went on. "You may not believe it, but he respects your judgment andhas a great deal of admiration for you and the man who works with you, Brennan, isn't it?"
Passing the outskirts of the city the machines took them through a district being built up with pretty little bungalows of varied colors and architecture.
"I often wonder," she said, "whether the people who live in these houses ever realize what Mr. Gibson is trying to do for them. They seem so apart from the hurry and scurry of life; they see so little of the evil he is trying to save them from. They read of him, perhaps, and commend him in their minds for what he is doing and let it go at that. I don't suppose they ever feel they owe him a personal debt of gratitude."
"It is a common fault to hold aloof and think little of danger until it strikes home to you," John said. "And yet I envy them for what they do not know, for what they do not see, for their self-content."
Leaving the city behind, the automobile swung on to a boulevard leading toward the hills. She explained to him the purpose of their trip.
"It is what we call a 'retake,'" she said. "The scenes we will do today were done several weeks ago, but the photography did not satisfy Mr. Bonwit. We will do themover again, resurrecting the sweetheart you saw me mourning so sadly for back on the interior set. They are the scenes in which he asks me to marry him and in which I plight my troth, as the title writer insists upon describing it."
"Perhaps that's why Mr. Gibson isn't with us," suggested John.
"It may be," she laughed. "He saw the original scenes played and pretended to be madly jealous of the leading man."
The "location" on which the cameras were trained for the scenes enacted by Consuello was idealistic as an outdoor setting. Shasta daisies, primroses and stalks of purple and white larkspur, in riotous profusion, gave splotches of bright color that stood out vividly against the bosky green. Stately, restful trees gave bounteous shade. A brook, tumbling down the hillside, gurgled over clean, white stones and sand.
There was a lengthy conference between the photographers and Bonwit, the director, relative to the light effects. Oblongs of white cloth tacked on a wood framework, which John learned were used to reflect and deflect the sun's rays, were shifted from one spot to another and back again until the camera men were completely satisfied.
The sad-eyed bass viol player with hiscompanions, the violinist and the 'cellist, occupied folding chairs several yards to the right of the cameras, where they were protected from the sun in the shade of a tree. "John J. Silence," whom John discovered was an assistant director, made countless trips to and from the automobiles for things that everyone seemed to have forgotten and left in the machines.
John had never seen such precaution exercised. It was fully an hour before Consuello and her sweetheart in the photoplay began rehearsing. He was a young fellow, with smooth black hair that John considered almost as perfect as that of Gibson, which had irritated him when he first met the police commissioner. And, as John had also thought of Gibson, the actor playing opposite Consuello was too immaculate.
First, Consuello and the actor came slowly toward the cameras, hand in hand, a typical pair of straying lovers, so affected by each other's presence that they spoke only with their eyes, sidelong glances of ardent devotion. Then they stood still, facing each other, their profiles toward the cameras, he holding her hands down to her sides, telling her of his love for her while she hung her head. As he finished she lifted her face, smiled, and he clasped her to his breast, looking up as if hewas thanking his Creator for giving her to him.
They held that pose for what John thought was an unnecessarily long time, and that was all of the first scene. John was happy to note, for a reason he neglected to define, even to himself, that Consuello seemed relieved as she drew back from the actor's arms. They rehearsed it a dozen times before Bonwit and the cameramen decided it could be done no better and then the cameras clicked.
Next there was a pretty little scene, without much action, in which Consuello and her "sweetheart" were seated beside each other with a background of flowers. John deduced that obstacles had evidently risen to the marriage, as the "conversation" was serious and inclined to be tearful. During this scene the three-piece orchestra, by this time coatless and collarless, played the most plaintively sad piece, John thought, that he had ever heard. The bass viol player's face was almost funereal as he gazed abstractedly up into the branches of the tree above him. The scene ended with the actor looking soulfully into the eyes of his betrothed.
When scene number two had been photographed, "John J. Silence" amazed John by suddenly shouting "Eats!" and dashing toward the automobiles. A large wickerhamper was lifted from one of the cars and carried to a clear space near the cameras. Consuello seated herself in a canvas chair near John, who sat cross-legged at her feet. They were apart from the others, who formed a group under another tree. From the hamper "John J. Silence" brought them two small baskets, covered with snow-white napkins, containing sandwiches, a piece of pie, a slice of cake, ripe olives, salted almonds and paper cups, which, at Consuello's suggestion, John filled with water from the stream.
"I don't blame him," remarked John as they settled down to enjoy the basket luncheon.
"Who?"
"Gibson," he said.
"For what?"
"For hating that make-believe sweetheart of yours," he answered.
"But he is only—only as you said—make-believe," she said. "He has the sweetest little wife and two of the darlingest children you ever saw. He probably is thinking of them while he's holding me in his arms and pledging undying love. Whenever he has to shed tears he thinks of the time the baby had pneumonia and nearly died."
"Make-believe," he repeated. "My friend Brennan—whom Gibson spoke to you of—says that life is all make-believe; that we allplay at make-believe—some of us rightfully, but most of us wrongfully."
Subconsciously he thought of Brennan's indictment of Gibson as a fraud and a dishonest "make-believe," a consummate actor in the role of a villain in real life.
"I'm often inclined to believe it," she said slowly. "Perhaps that's why life is sometimes a huge joke and sometimes nothing but sadness and disillusionment. We play our little game of make-believe and strut around proudly, making ourselves, as well as others, think that we amount to something and then comes death, like a curtain; the footlights go out and where are we? Who thinks of us then?"
"Only the few who have loved us with all our faults and vain deceit and make-believe," he replied.
A series of "close-ups," were photographed after lunch. Consuello went into the actor's embrace again to permit a "close-up" of his fervent expression of love and thankfulness as he looked upward to the sky. John didn't mind the repetition of this scene. He thought of the actor's wife and two babies, especially the one who was his father's "tear provoker." There was another in which Consuello, her head inclined, admired the fresh crisp beauty of a bouquet of daisies. She lifted her faceto gaze with a faraway look past the cameras, apparently registering longing for her absent sweetheart. John followed her gaze and discovered it was fixed on the woebegone countenance of the bass viol player, whose melancholy seemed to be increased by his dim realization that he was the object on which she concentrated in her abstract mood.
In a third "close-up" the actor registered the deepness of his love by thrusting his chin forward and staring unblinkingly over John's head. It was an effective piece of facial expression, John thought, as the actor's eyes were as soft as a fawn's. Photographs of Richard Barthelmess and John Barrymore in similar poses came back into John's mind.
John and Consuello were beside each other again on the return trip to the studio.
"I expect Reggie will be there waiting for us," she said. "We have a dinner engagement and I will have to dress at the studio. I'm sorry that he and you and I cannot have dinner together, we have so much to talk about."
"You have been kind enough," he said. "I have enjoyed myself thoroughly and I would be intruding if I occupied any more of your time."
"Intruding?" she repeated, with a rising inflection of her voice. "Why, it was kind of you to be with me."
"But you must remember—" he began.
"Remember?"
"Yes, remember there is someone else who should be considered."
"Oh, Reggie's glad that he has a substitute for trips like this and I've told you that he respects your judgment," she said.
Gibson was in his two-seated car at the entrance to the studio when they arrived. They left their machines at the gateway to meet him.
"Again?" he asked as they met. "You two certainly find each other interesting."
He smiled as he spoke, but a queer feeling went through John as he realized that Consuello had failed to tell Gibson that she had invited him to be with her.
"I'm acquainting Mr. Gallant with the process of picture making," Consuello said. However she received Gibson's salutatory remark she gave no hint of her feeling in the tone of her voice.
"When are you going to show her through a newspaper office, Gallant?" Gibson was still smiling. Consuello replied before John could speak.
"Whenever you and I can find time, I'm sure," she said. "You'll excuse me for a moment; I must hurry along so I won't keepyou waiting long, Reggie. And Mr. Gallant, I'll arrange for a car to take you home."
She hurried away, skipping toward the dressing room building. Unconscious of each other, Gibson and Gallant watched her until she disappeared from their sight. When they turned toward each other simultaneously, John had a peculiarly embarrassed feeling, as if he had been caught doing something which he had no right to do.
Gibson's smile was confusing.
"A wonderful, wonderful girl," he said, drawing a finely embossed cigarette case.
"Yes," said John, instinctively apprehensive of making a more enthusiastic concurrence.
"A whole-hearted, dear, unsuspecting girl," said Gibson, without offering the cigarette case to John.
"Yes."
"A girl who makes a friend of everyone she meets."
Wasn't that "everyone" emphasized a trifle?
"A girl a man would do almost anything for." He was still smiling.
"Yes."
"By the way, Gallant, has she told you we are engaged to be married?"
John hesitated and chose to keep the confidence she had placed in him.
"No," he said. "You ARE to becongratulated." He had a secret satisfaction in stressing the "are."
Gibson lighted his cigarette.
"I just thought I'd tell you," he said and John thought—or was it his imagination?—that Gibson's set smile flattened a little at the corners.
Under Brennan's patient tutelage John progressed rapidly, learning thoroughly the rudiments of newspaper reporting in its two branches, news gathering and writing. P. Q. occasionally gave advice which John knew came from a man who took a secret pride in supervising the remarkable metamorphosis of a "cub" into a well trained reporter. It was the gossip of newspaper workers that P. Q. excelled in the training of his reporters whom he handled with the tact of a psychologist and the care of a manager of a baseball team for his players. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to develop a "cub" into a star and there were dozens of star men throughout the country whom he brought to the top and who still thought him the "greatest of them all."
Brennan was one of the star men who broke into newspaper work under P. Q. Between P. Q. and his star reporter there was a peculiar relationship which John studied with interest. When Brennan performed some especially clever piece of work the city editor treated him as though it was unnecessary for him to give any praise or commendation. When Brennan disappointed him, which was seldom,P. Q. would berate him with the same caustic fervor that lashed a stupid, thick-headed reporter to a point of self-abnegation that gave him thoughts of suicide as the only way out of his misery.
The praise Brennan received from P. Q. came to him in a roundabout way and the star reporter drank it in as eagerly as a "cub," knowing as he did it that it was a "master" who praised. P. Q. would summon some offending reporter to his desk and after scolding him would laud Brennan to the skies.
"If you had only one-tenth the sense that Brennan has there might be some hope for you," the city editor would say. "Brennan is a real newspaper man, a real reporter. I wouldn't trade him for any dozen men in the country. Watch Brennan, read the stuff he writes and study the way he does things if you want to become a reporter."
These words, P. Q. knew, would get back to Brennan, who would cross-examine the reporter to get every word of the city editor's commendation. Yet between them, except for rare occasions when they went out to lunch together, there was a "strictly business" attitude that was deceiving. Brennan's loyalty to P. Q. was only rivaled by the city editor's covert admiration for him as a reporter. Several times John overheard wordy altercationsbetween P. Q. and Brennan in which the city editor would threaten to discharge him and Brennan would reply with a threat to resign, but nothing ever came of these quarrels and they were forgotten within an hour after they occurred.
From Brennan John received precious bits of advice.
"Never argue with a city editor," Brennan warned him. "It's useless. Don't ever, no matter how friendly he is, get familiar with one of them. It's ruinous."
Gradually John learned Brennan's story. An Englishman by birth and a university man, Brennan was a rancher in Alberta for a year before he joined the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. He had been everywhere and seen everything. He became a reporter under P. Q. in a Middle West city, and his first training received, he became restless again. He went to Central America to participate in a revolution and then to the South Sea islands. For a time he had been in China, Japan and India, and Kipling's verse was given its proper swing when he recited it. He was a fast, hard boxer and John had to extend himself to hold his own when they sparred for exercise at Blake's gymnasium.
"Something of a soldier; something of a dreamer; something of a poet—but only anewspaper man," he once described himself, adding a few seconds later, "Oh, forget it," as though he was ashamed to soliloquize about himself.
To John he was unstinted in his laudation of P. Q., whose eccentricities he knew so well.
"P. Q. has always believed that a hungry reporter is the best reporter," Brennan told John. "He swears that a reporter works twice as well when he is hungry as when he is well fed. He says a person can't help but become somewhat soggy mentally when his stomach is full, while an empty stomach makes a keen brain. That's why he never has breakfast until after the first edition is away. He practices what he preaches."
Assigned to work as Brennan's "leg man," the newspaper term for understudy, John became acquainted with the men in Los Angeles who appear almost daily in the news. He met Le Compte Davis, Paul Schenck, Joe Ford, Dick Kittrelle, Al MacDonald, W. I. Gilbert, Frank Dominguez and Jud Rush among the lawyers; the district attorney and his staff of deputies; "Bud" Hill, the county counsel; police detectives, deputy sheriffs, private detectives, city and county officials, federal agents and a host of others, including such picturesque characters as Martin Aguirre, court bailiff, former sheriff and one-time warden of SanQuentin; Charlie Sebastian, whom the reporters declared unanimously was a capable chief of police, despite his faults; Billy Wong, representing the Bing Kong Tong of Chinatown, and "Cap" Gillis, Chinatown "lookout" and undying friend of the police reporters.
Le Compte Davis they met in his turret-like office room in the Bryson block, examining a tattered book under a microscope. He learned that Davis had a private library of more than 8,000 volumes and was one of the rare old book lovers of the city. His office room was stacked with books he had purchased, several of which were to be sent to England to be handsomely bound by hand. On the wall were several oil paintings, one of which Davis bought at an auction for $75 and which he had been offered more than $1,000 for.
"Sometimes Le Compte Davis disappears in the middle of a busy day and scouts are sent out to look for him," Brennan told him. "Invariably they find him at some bookstore, pawing over a recent purchase of old books, or in some second-hand store where he picks up rare and costly things for a few dollars.
"He's such a shark on books that whenever he goes into a bookstore the proprietor details a clerk to follow him around. When Le Compte takes a book from a shelf, examines it and returns it to its place, the clerk takes thebook down and immediately doubles the price of it.
"He would rather get some old book that's listed in his catalogue as valuable for a few cents than win the most important law case."
The offices of Davis and his partner, Jud Rush, who was once a cowboy in California, were picturesque in themselves because of the furnishings, as quaint and dusty as those pictured by Dickens. The furniture was mid-Victorian, the rugs and carpets worn by the feet of countless clients, and a musty odor of old books and papers permeated the air. It was like stepping back fifty years to enter the waiting room.
"I don't know whether Le Compte realizes it," Brennan said, "but it's good psychology for him to keep his office as it is. It suggests stability, dignity, soundness. A person feels like he is entering the office of secure, reliable, established lawyers when he comes in here. It has twice the effect of entering a bright, shiny, new office, smelling of varnish and neatly kept."
Frequently Brennan and John lunched with Paul Schenck and his partner, Dick Kittrelle, at a little eating place in West Second street frequented by lawyers, newspaper men, police officers, deputy sheriffs and others who were thrown into contact daily in the making andgathering of news. There Schenck would discourse on psychiatry and psychology, his two hobbies, talking of "phobias" and "complexes" and maintaining that everyone in the eyes of others has a touch of insanity.
"I believe, with Le Compte Davis, that the two things that a successful lawyer must have are tact and an instinctive knowledge of psychology," Schenck would tell them.
They were interesting days for John. He heard the "inside" stories of famous murder cases, municipal upheavals, political battles, celebrated trials and notable "beats" scored by reporters in the history of newspaper work in Los Angeles. He saw behind the scenes and what he learned made a distinct impression on his receptive brain. He was surprised to find that most of those he met, whom Brennan described as the "head-line boys," shared Brennan's skeptical viewpoint, rejoicing as he did when their doubts were overcome and their faith in their fellow men re-established.
These men differed on the question of Gibson's sincerity in his "clean up" crusade. Some of them believed him to be an altruist, while others, without evidence to support their views, regarded him with suspicion. The opinion of the skeptics was that Gibson was either a plain "glory-seeker" or, despite his denials of the reports to that effect, a potential candidate for mayor.
"He knows that no man can become mayor of Los Angeles unless he has the support of respectable citizenry, represented by the churches and business and civic welfare associations, as well as the women's clubs," one of them said. "After he is elected mayor he may break his pledges to these organizations, but as soon as he does he's through."
Late one afternoon, two weeks after his last meeting with Consuello and Gibson, Brennan and John were gossiping at the office, speculating on Gibson's next move.
"He'll pull another stunt soon," Brennan declared. "When he does it's up to us to dig in and find out what's behind it. If we can get a little more evidence like that you stumbled on to when he raided the Spring street bookmakers, we'll be on the trail of the biggest story that's broken here in years."
"Isn't there a chance that he's straight?" asked John, still unable to believe that the man Consuello had such unfailing faith in was the man Brennan suspected him to be.
"If he is it won't be the first time I've been wrong," said Brennan, "but it will be the biggest jolt I ever got, let me tell you that."
* * * * *
They received no word from Murphy until nearly a month after Gibson's spectacular Spring street raid. He appeared at the officelate one afternoon with the information that he had "hot stuff" concerning "Gink" Cummings.
He declared that Cummings had ordered that all crime stop immediately in the city.
"Da 'Gink' has passed out da word dat da boys gotta lay off," said Murphy. "He gives orders dat there's to be no rough stuff until he says so."
"You mean that the 'Gink' is closing up the town?" asked Brennan.
"Dat's what I say," replied Murphy. "He says there ain't to be no stick-ups, no gamblin', no bootleggin', no pocket pickin', no house jobs, no bunko stuff, no nothin' and dat goes. Da first bird dat tries workin' is gonna be run outa town, see?"
"Where do you pick up that information, Murphy?" Brennan asked.
"Well, da 'Gink' don't tell me poisonally, see? But I gets it straight, see? Da stick-ups, da sure-thing guys, da dips, everybody gets orders to lay off, see?"
Brennan whistled softly.
"What's the 'Gink' got up his sleeve now, I wonder?" he said.
"Soich me," said Murphy.
"Are they obeying the 'Gink's' orders?"
"I'll say they are!" asserted Murphy. "All the gamblin' places are closed and everybodystopped doin' business, see? Even da girls is behavin' and only enough dope to keep da boys goin' bein' peddled, see?"
"I see," said Brennan, "but it's got me. I can't figure out what his game is."
With P. Q. approving the cashier's voucher for the money, Murphy was paid $25 for the information he gave Brennan and John, who told him to watch the situation in Spring street closely and report to them often.
The information furnished by Murphy that "Gink" Cummings had ordered that crime be stopped in Los Angeles was substantiated by the developments of the following week. The crime wave that had been sweeping the city, as it had the nation, came to an abrupt halt. During the week only one holdup was reported to the police and prohibition officers were surprised to find that bootleggers had stopped their work. There were no burglaries, gambling, picking of pockets, bunko swindling or handbook betting. The traffic in narcotics, police and federal officers reported, was the lowest in years.
Police Chief Sweeney and the mayor were baffled by the sudden stop of crime and frankly admitted their bewilderment to Brennan and John.
"It's beyond me," said the mayor. "All we can do is wait and see what happens. Theyare up to something big, that's a certainty, but I can't figure it out."
Then, after peace and quiet had reigned in the city for ten days, Gibson issued a statement claiming that he and the forces supporting him, including his investigators and detectives, had done what the mayor and Chief Sweeney were unable to do, stopped crime in Los Angeles.
"I call the attention of the citizens of Los Angeles to the fact that within the past ten days there has been less crime in the city than in years," Gibson's statement read. "There has been but one holdup, no burglaries, no violence, no banditry and no open gambling, bootlegging, thievery or trafficking in narcotics.
"My investigators report that the lid is down tight, solely and exclusively because 'Gink' Cummings, the notorious boss of the underworld, and his gang of crooks know that I mean business and that those behind me are in the fight to a finish for a clean city.
"I am gratified, of course, to find that the crusade is having its effect and that Los Angeles is beginning to enjoy the protection to which it is entitled, although the entire situation discloses the deplorable state of inefficiency in the police department and thefailure of Chief Sweeney and the mayor to enforce the law."
Brennan smiled broadly when he read the Commissioner's latest proclamation.
"That modest, shrinking violet we hear of so often is a shrieking braggart alongside of our grand young crusader," he remarked. "What a dumb-bell I was not to have seen what was coming!"
John realized that Brennan believed he had discovered the reason for "Gink" Cummings' order to close the city to crime and unlawfulness.
"Well, what is it?" he asked.
"It's a mighty slick trick," explained the star reporter. "Don't you see how it works? Cummings, wanting everyone to believe Gibson really has the ability to close up the town, gives orders for the bandits and crooks to 'lay off,' as Murphy put it. Then Gibson comes out and claims credit for closing up the city. The 'Gink' and Gibson planned this stunt together; otherwise, how did Murphy happen to find out about it? And what was the 'Gink's' reason for closing the town if it wasn't to give Gibson a chance to claim the credit?"
"Still, there's a chance that it was only a coincidence, that the 'Gink' had some otherreason to call his men off and that Gibson, believing that he really had frightened Cummings and his gang, took advantage of an opportunity and claimed the credit for it," suggested John.
Brennan inhaled deeply on his cigarette before answering.
"Gallant," he said, "you really don't think it happened that way, do you? Don't let your credulousness put you on the wrong track. Who do you suppose it was who told Gibson's investigators that it was his crusade that was closing up the town? Remember, the 'Gink' is the mayor's enemy and he isn't going to do anything unless it's against the mayor. He simply passed out the word he was afraid of Gibson to give Gibson a chance to claim the glory."
The mayor and Sweeney, as well as P. Q., who knew that Murphy had given Brennan and John advance information regarding the ceasing of crime, agreed with Brennan that Gibson and the "Gink" had framed the whole affair.
Gibson's announcement that the ebb of the crime wave was the result of his crusade brought renewed expressions of commendation and pledges of support from organizations and individuals lined up behind him. Churches, women's clubs, civic and businessorganizations, groups of citizens and prominent men and women of the city were outspoken in their praise of the police commissioner, hailing him as the "man of the hour." A well known minister addressed a mass meeting at his church, his subject being "Police Commissioner Gibson's Remarkable Success and the Disgrace of Having a Mayor Who Fails to Do His Duty." Other preachers delivered sermons extolling Gibson, one of the sermons being advertised as "A Modern Crusader Against Graft, Booze, Boodle and Sin."
Accepting every invitation, Gibson spoke at churches, mass meetings, clubs and luncheons of business men's organizations. Brennan declared that the commissioner was showing signs of weakening on his vow that he would not become a candidate for mayor under any circumstances.
"You mark my words," he said to John. "Some of these days Gibson will announce himself as a candidate. He'll say that he has been persuaded that he would be failing to perform his full duty unless he heeded the call. He'll excuse himself from his stand that he had no political ambitions by saying that when he undertook his crusade he had no thought of ever becoming a candidate."
"What about the $1,000 he told us he'd give to charity the moment he announced himselfas a candidate for any public office?" asked John.
"We'll see that he turns it over to the Children's hospital if it's the last thing we do," said Brennan, smiling.
At a moment when he was the most conspicuous man in the city, Gibson disappeared. Brennan and John joined the reporters of other Los Angeles newspapers in a night and day search for the missing commissioner, but, as it had been when Gibson disappeared before he foiled "Red Mike" in his attempted wreck of the "Lark," no trace of him could be found.
Gibson had not been missing for more than twenty-four hours before a tidal wave of crime swept the city. In a single night there were a score of robberies, holdups, burglaries and bandit raids. The gamblers and handbook agents resumed their business, women were attacked on the streets, bootleg liquor flowed like a river and pickpockets victimized a dozen men and women. The sudden resumption of unlawfulness, far more severe than it had ever been, caught the police unprepared and only a few arrests were made.
Brennan and John sought out Murphy.
"Da 'Gink' has canceled his orders and told da boys to go to it strong," Murphy told them. "He gave da word da day after this bird Gibson ducks out."
"Two and two make four," commented Brennan. "Gibson goes out of town and Cummings gives orders to his gang to open up. Another slick trick. Gibson will come back in a few days and the 'Gink' will call them off again. Result, the people will believe that Gibson is the only man to keep the lid down in Los Angeles, that as soon as he leaves crime begins and as soon as he returns it stops. Oh, what a smart pair they are!"
John took time to analyze the situation and decided that the coordination of the moves of Gibson and "Gink" Cummings was more than a series of coincidences. He accepted, for the first time without reservation or qualification, the theory that there was an alliance between the commissioner and the underworld boss. The realization shocked him and he felt a hate for Gibson, the deceiver, surge through him. But he knew that this hate was engendered more by the fact that Gibson was misleading Consuello than that he was a political Judas, betraying his city for "Gink" Cummings' stolen silver.
In the midst of the excitement caused by Gibson's disappearance and the outbreak of crime, while fears were being expressed in some quarters that the commissioner had met with foul play at the hands of Cummings' "bashers," John heard from Consuello.
They had luncheon together in a cozy booth of a sweet shop in Broadway. Consuello accepted his invitation to luncheon when she telephoned to him that she was downtown and wished to see him. Her first question over the phone was whether John had learned anything concerning Gibson's disappearance.
"I'm downtown for an hour or so and thought you might have heard something about Mr. Gibson," she said.
To P. Q. he explained that he might be away from the office for lunch longer than usual.
"An angle concerning Gibson's disappearance that may develop something," he said, hoping it would be sufficient.
"What is it?" demanded the city editor.
"Well, Miss Carrillo—you remember—Gibson's friend—called me and I invited her to have lunch with me," John answered.
"Hop to it," said P. Q.
Consuello was in sport costume, silk knit jacket, saucy white hat, white skirt, shoes and hose; a trim, dainty figure, cool and refreshing. He had a curious feeling that their meeting was somewhat clandestine.
"I thought you knew where Gibson went, but I refrained from calling you to ask," John said after they were seated in the booth.
"Why didn't you?"
"I didn't want you to become involved in this—business." He almost said, "This mess."
"And why not?"
"If I had called you and you had told me where Gibson was, the other reporters would not rest until they found out my source of information and you would be brought into the whole affair," he explained.
"I understand," she said. "Truly, though, I am beginning to worry. He gave me no hint that he even intended leaving the city and that is what puzzles me. Tell me, do you think there is any reason to fear that anything has happened to him?"
"It's very improbable," he assured her. His conviction that Gibson and "Gink" Cummings were allied caused him to have no apprehension concerning the commissioner's safety. "He'll be back in a few days."
"I do hope so," she said. "He is making such a success, isn't he?"
"Yes." He was reluctant to give the affirmation. He conquered an impulse to tell her, to warn her, that it was more than probable Gibson was not the man she believed him to be. He wondered what she would say if hetold her what had caused him to turn against Gibson.
"I am very, very proud and happy," she said. "If anything should happen to him I don't know what I would do."
The potentiality of the words, "If anything should happen to him," struck home hard on John.
"It would be—terrible," he said, avoiding her eyes.
"He has been so considerate, so good," she said. "I feel that I owe him so much I can never repay."
A decision flashed into his brain as she spoke. If the time ever came when enough evidence was obtained to expose Gibson, he would go to the commissioner and plead with him to renounce Cummings, for her sake. There might yet be a chance to save Consuello from the disillusionment that was approaching. The fearfulness of Gibson's perfidy was almost incomprehensible.
"I'm certain he does not think so," he said.
"Do you know what he is planning for me now?" she asked, and then, before he attempted to reply, she added, "He plans to restore the wealth of the Carrillos."
Her eyes sparkled as she spoke and she looked to him for his approval.
"Oil has been struck within a mile or so ofour ranch," she explained. "They have asked father to sell or lease and Reggie has taken charge of it for us. Father has placed the whole business in his hands; he has so much confidence in him. He gave him an option on the ranch property and Reggie hopes to dispose of it for enough to bring back our lost fortune to us. Isn't it wonderful?"
"It certainly is," he agreed. "The discovery of oil is the only get-rich-quick proposition that is above reproach. A person can be poverty stricken one day and a millionaire the next and no one suffers by his quick acquisition of wealth. Oil is a treasure of nature bestowed by fate and it is needless for me to add that I hope that fate is good to you."
"It's all so complicated and technical that I cannot grasp it and father never was a business man. That is why Reggie is handling it for us," she said. "A new well is being bored only a few hundred yards from the ranch and everything depends upon whether oil is struck there. If they find oil it is almost certain that there is oil on our place. If no oil is found, then, of course, the value of the ranch diminishes."
"Oil, like gold, they say, is where you find it," John said.
"And so is happiness—where you find it," Consuello said. "That is what comforts me.Money does not necessarily bring happiness. Even if it turns out that no oil is found I can still be happy. I am happy now and why should I let anything like the loss of wealth, that never came to me, disappoint me?"
Their luncheon finished, they walked to the street, where John found that the automobile placed at Consuello's disposal by Gibson—he was certain of that now—was waiting for her.
"Back to the studio and work again," she said. "I'm so glad we were able to meet, today. I have enjoyed it more than you know. When Reggie returns we must arrange a dinner party—the three of us. And before long you and your mother must come out to the ranch. I haven't forgotten that."
Her parting words brought back to John the bitter thought of his mother's intolerant prejudice against Consuello as he returned to the office.
He stopped at the city editor's desk to tell P. Q. that his meeting with Consuello had failed to develop a single clew to Gibson's whereabouts.
"Nothing doing," he reported.
"What do you mean, nothing doing?" asked P. Q. Then he added:
"Gibson showed up about an hour ago."
"He's back?" asked John.
"Back again," confirmed the city editor. "Says he only went away to rest up. Claims he went some place where he received no word from Los Angeles and didn't know crime had opened up again."
"What's he going to do about it?"
"Oh, he came through with just about what was expected," said P. Q. "Said he'd get right to work and put a stop to it. Blamed it all on the mayor and Sweeney. Says it's further proof that the police department is rotten."
The last edition that night carried the banner-line, "Gibson Returns to Stop Crime Wave."
Brennan and John sought Murphy, but being unable to locate him, had dinner downtown and continued their search during the evening. An hour before midnight they met him as he was returning to his room.
"Well, what's the word?" asked Brennan.
"I got what you're lookin' for," Murphy said. "Da 'Gink' has called off da boys again. He passes out da word dat dere's to be nuttin' doin' tonight, tomorrow night or until he says 'go.'"
"When did he give these orders, before or after Gibson came back?" asked Brennan.
"After," replied Murphy. "And there'll be nuthin' doin', see?"
"All right, Murphy. Keep on the lookout and drop in tomorrow and we'll fix you up for this."
"I gotcha," said Murphy.
"Three and three make six," said Brennan to John as they left Murphy at the door of his rooming house. "Gibson goes away and the 'Gink' opens things up, Gibson comes back and he shuts down again. That's how they make it appear that they are enemies and that Gibson is the only man who can keep the town closed."
That night the crime wave stopped as suddenly as it began. There was not a robbery, holdup or ordinary theft reported to the police. The same order that prevailed when the "Gink" first decreed a "lay-off" prevailed and Gibson issued a triumphant statement to the reporters for the first editions in the morning.
"It demonstrates what little fear bandits and crooks have for the police under Chief Sweeney," a part of the statement read. "It shows that the administration is so inefficient and corrupt that law and order must be enforced by citizens instead of by the officials whose duty it is to keep the lid down in Los Angeles."
Another avalanche of resolutions praising Gibson followed the publication of this statement. The mayor was hotly condemned for his failure to remove Chief Sweeney atGibson's request and the commissioner was hailed as a man whose very name was enough to intimidate criminals and whose presence in the city was enough to keep outlawry and banditry at a minimum. One prominent citizen demanded that the mayor resign and that Gibson be appointed in his place by acclamation.
Brennan, John and P. Q. held another conference with the publisher. It was decided that while the evidence before them—John's experience in the Spring street raid and Murphy's information concerning "Gink" Cummings' moves in opening and closing the city while Gibson was in and out of it—was enough to convince them all that there was an alliance between Cummings and the commissioner, they lacked sufficient ammunition to "break" the story and expose the perfidious plot.
"Just a little more information, boys, something to show meetings between Gibson and Cummings or communications between them and we'll be ready to open fire," said the publisher.
A week later Gibson summoned Brennan and John to his office.
"How are you, boys?" he asked smiling. "I called you up here because I have something to give you."
He handed them a slip of paper. It was a check—his personal check—for $1,000. Thespace where the name of the recipient should appear was blank.
"This means——" began Brennan.
"It means that I'm a candidate for mayor," said Gibson. "Remember, I promised you I'd donate $1,000 to charity the minute I became a candidate for any public office. What shall it be?"
"The Children's hospital," said Brennan.
Gibson seated himself at his desk and wrote in the name, blotted it carefully and tossed it toward them on the table.
* * * * *
The formal announcement of Gibson's candidacy, which he gave to Brennan and John immediately after turning over to them the check for $1,000, made out to the Children's hospital, followed the lines foretold by Brennan when he predicted the commissioner's entry in the mayoralty race.
He declared he became a candidate at the persistent urging of organizations and individuals who had convinced him that he would deliberately evade a duty and service he owed the city if he refused. He reiterated his charges against the mayor and the administration, asserting that conditions as he found them in the city government were an intolerable disgrace.
His campaign committee, chosen a few days after he announced his candidacy, included the names of seventy-five per cent of the prominent and respected men and women of the city, as well as clubs and organizations representing the churches, civic improvement associations, manufacturers, business men and thousands of citizens. The Church Federation and the Ministerial Union, those two great bodies working always for the welfare of the city, gave him unqualified indorsements. The best people of the city advocated his election.
Gibson's nominating petition was completed in less than a week. The rapidity of the completion of the petition was viewed as a criterion of the respective strength of the commissioner and of the mayor, whose supporters encountered considerable difficulty in obtaining signatures. It was three weeks before the mayor's petition could be got ready for filing.
With the primary election two months away the candidates began their campaigns at once. Gibson was everywhere, addressing meetings night and day. The enthusiasm with which he was received surpassed that ever given to any candidate in Los Angeles. Daily he was paraded through the downtown section of the city by cheering admirers. "Gibson for Mayor" banners and cards decorated the entire city. From their pulpits the ministersurged his election and took up his attack upon the administration. He was given credit unanimously for having clamped the lid down in Los Angeles tighter than it had ever been and he was acclaimed as a "fighting man" because of his duel with "Red Mike" and his personal leadership of the officers who raided the Spring street handbook makers.
The mayor was without ammunition to return Gibson's crossfire of charges against the administration. He was deserted, except for a few loyal supporters, who struggled vainly to stem the tide of popular favor as it swung to Gibson's side.
Gibson scored heavily three weeks after his campaign was opened by hurling charges that "Gink" Cummings was contributing to the mayor's campaign fund and placing his sinister strength at his disposal to aid him to be re-elected. Astounded by his opponent's audacity, the mayor sent for Brennan and John. His mild blue eyes were blazing and he chewed vigorously at his cigar.
"I'm licked, boys, unless I do something soon," he said. "I have to play a waiting game, but I can't afford to wait too long. I can't come out with the charge that Cummings and Gibson are plotting to steal the city. I haven't enough evidence. People would think I am crazy. As it is, he's getting away witheverything. If the primary was tomorrow he'd snow me under."
"He's pulling all the tricks in the bag," admitted Brennan.
"And I have nothing to come back at him with," the mayor complained.
"Why don't you fire him from his position as police commissioner?" suggested Brennan.
The mayor stopped short on the invisible path he had been pacing back and forth across his office.
"Brennan," he said, "I thought you had more sense than to suggest a thing like that. What reason could I give for firing him?"
"Say it's for the good of the service, that's all."
"And give him a chance to wail that I fired him because I am afraid of him, that I did it in desperation to save myself. Why, it would give him 10,000 votes of sympathy. No, Brennan, I must get something real to show that Gibson and 'Gink' Cummings are partners."
He turned and walked to the window, placing his hands on both sides of it, and leaned forward, his arms supporting him as he looked down into the busy traffic on Broadway. It was a position similar to that he had taken when John first met him, when he vowed to expose Gibson's alliance with Cummings,but the shoulders drooped and the outlines of his figure, silhouetted against the light streaming in the window suggested great bodily and mental weariness.
"Is it possible that I'm to go down to defeat, to disgrace, to ignominy, at the hands of such a despicable rascal?" he said, without turning, as though he was speaking to himself. "Is this to be my reward—my end? Are the people of my city to be led like blind sheep into a carnage of crime and graft?"
Above the roar of the traffic in the street below the strident voice of a newsboy, shouting his immature conception of the most important news in the latest editions of the afternoon papers, came up to them.
"Gibson says de mayor's de bunk?" he shrieked. "Just out—pa—p—er!"
The voice from the street broke the tense silence that had followed the mayor's soliloquy. He turned from the window quickly and strode back to his desk and the suggestion of weariness dropped from him like a cloak and he emerged, alert, taut, energetic, in fighting trim.
"This won't do," he snapped, "this standing around and feeling sorry for myself. If I'm going down to defeat I'm going down fighting and when the day comes that the people discover what a hypocrite and crook this manGibson is, they'll remember, at least, that I fought him to the last.
"And I'm not licked yet, not by a damn sight. I'm going to plug right along and before another month passes I'm going to show this crook up if it's the last thing I do on earth."
"That's more like it," approved Brennan. "I've been in a few forlorn hope fights before and have seen the impossible happen, in fact, helped it happen."
"I'm depending on you more than anyone else," said the mayor. Turning to John he added: "And you, too, Gallant."
"The fault of crooks—and we're dealing with crooks—is that they can't think straight, all the time," said Brennan. "They always make a slip, some time. I've never known it to fail. No matter how smart a crook is, he always makes one mistake. He can't help it. It's because he's a crook and can't think straight. It's up to us to see that we don't overlook the mistake that Gibson and the 'Gink' will make."
"Let's hope they make it soon enough," said the mayor. "The primary is only five weeks away and if Gibson is to be exposed it must be within the next four weeks at the latest."
"I don't agree with you fully in that," said Brennan. "It might be a good idea, if we getwhat we're looking for, to hold off until a few days before the election so that Gibson won't have enough time to reach the entire city with the story he'll frame up to come back with."
"We won't worry about that until we find enough to blast Gibson and Cummings once and for all," the mayor said. "I have men working night and day trying to link the two together. I have tried fairly and honestly to discover where Gibson obtained the money he has. He was broke, flat broke, about the time I was elected and suddenly he had all the money he required. Where it came from I can't find out. There is only one conclusion that I can see and that is that Cummings gave it to him; just as I have contended from the start."
Brennan and John saw Murphy regularly, meeting him at least once a day, hoping each time that he would bring them the information they sought. But he had little to tell them except that Cummings was enforcing his order that there should be no crime in the city. One night he brought them a story of how a rebellious gangster becoming restless, had planned to commit a robbery despite the "Gink's" prohibitory order and had been promptly "beaten up" by Cummings' thugs.
A week after their last conference with the mayor, Brennan and John received a telephonemessage from Gibson's secretary, who told them that the commissioner wanted them to see him at his office immediately.
"Another grandstand stunt, I'll bet," Brennan speculated as they hurried to Gibson's office. "It's about time for one."
Gibson greeted them as affably as ever. As they entered his office he closed and locked the door behind them.
"Well, boys," he said, "how do you think my campaign is coming?"
"You're going strong," replied Brennan, truthfully.
"And how is my friend, the mayor?"
"He isn't ready to concede defeat yet," Brennan said. "He realizes, though, that you're gaining ground on him every day, or rather increasing the lead you had at the start."
Gibson laughed.
"He had his chance," he said. "I gave him warning, although I believe I don't have to tell you again, that I had no idea of ever running against him when he appointed me a commissioner. By the way, why doesn't he fire me?"