The Landloper by Holman Day (ereader ebook .txt) 📖

free-lance organization to which Mullaney belonged.
"I'm here reading a paper--supposed it's what the room is for," returned Detective Mullaney. "But excuse me--I'll get out. Room seems to be reserved for prize-fighters."
"You keep your mouth shut about that--that insult."
"I never talk--it would hurt my business."
"I don't fight in a public place. I'm a gentleman. I want you to remember what you saw, Mullaney! I'll get to that cheap bum in a way he won't forget."
"Do you mind telling me who your friend is?" asked the detective.
Dodd shot him a sour side-glance and muttered profanity.
"I couldn't help wondering what particular kind of business you and he could have, seeing how it was transacted," pursued the detective.
Dodd glowered at the floor. "Look here, Mullaney! There's a whole lot about that man I want to know, if you can help me and keep your mouth closed. I haven't got much confidence in the work you fellows do--they tell me you can't detect mud on your own boots."
Mr. Mullaney pulled his chair out from behind the papers and leaned back in it and crossed his hands over his stomach and smiled without a trace of resentment.
"I might tell you something right now about that tall friend of yours that would jump you, Mr. Dodd--I'm that much of a detective!"
"Tell me, then."
"Just as it stands it's guesswork--considerable guesswork."
"What does that amount to?"
"A great deal in my business. Take this city of one hundred thousand! I'm the only man in it who is making guesswork about strangers his special line of work. The rest of the citizens rub elbows with all passers and don't give a hoot. There are a good many thousand men in this country whom the law wants and whom the law can't find. That fellow may be one of them, for all I know. I guess he is, for instance. Then I make it my business to prove guesswork."
"You must be doing a devil of a rushing business!" sneered Dodd.
"I manage to make a good living. I don't talk about my business, for if I should blow it I wouldn't have any. I say, I _guess_! Then I spend my spare time hunting through my books of pointers. For ten years I have read every newspaper I could get hold of. I come in here and study papers from all over. Every crime that has been committed, every man wanted, every chap who has got away, I write down all I can find out about him. Then, if anything comes up to make me guess about a man I begin to hunt my books through."
"Well, if I'm any good on a guess," snorted Dodd, "that renegade who just insulted me is down in your books, somewhere. You'd better hunt."
"It's slow work and eats up time," sighed Mr. Mullaney.
Dodd looked at him for a time and then began to pull crumpled bills from his waistcoat pocket. He straightened five ten-dollar bills, creased them into a trough, and stuck the end toward the detective.
"Follow his trail back. I never heard of your book scheme before. Take this money for a starter. If you can't find him in your books, pick out half a dozen of the worst crimes any man can commit and hitch 'em on to him somehow," urged Dodd, with fury. "Go after him. And when we get him good and proper I want to do some gloating through the bars. He's the first man who ever smacked my face for me--and I'll see that he gets his."
He left Mr. Mullaney stowing the money away in a big wallet which was stuffed with newspaper clippings. He hurried in to the bar, gulped down a drink, and then went to the office desk and examined the hotel register. Anger and zest for revenge were stimulating in him a lively interest in that meeting which Farr seemed to be promoting. Mr. Dodd did not care especially what kind of meeting it was. He had set forth to camp on Walker Farr's trail and do him what hurt he could.
Dodd was a well-posted political worker. The names of the men were not names especially prominent in state politics, but his suspicions were stirred when he saw that all counties in the state were represented. And no more were arriving. He decided that the conference must be in session.
Dodd avoided the elevator. He tramped up the broad stairs to the floor above the office. The doors of the large parlor were closed. He turned the knob cautiously; the doors were locked. He heard within the dull mumble of many voices--men in conversation. It was evident that the formal meeting, whatever it might be, had not begun its session. He tiptoed away from the door and climbed another flight of stairs.
There were no nooks and corners of the old National Hotel which Richard Dodd did not understand in all their intricacies. As his uncle's political scout it had been his business to know them.
He hunted along the corridor until he found a maid.
"Is there anybody in Number 29?" he asked.
"Two of that new crowd that just came in have it, Mr. Dodd. But they have gone down-stairs again."
He wadded a bill in his palm and jammed it into her hand. "Let me in with your pass-key, that's a good girl. It's all right. I won't disturb their stuff. I only want to listen. You understand! There's a political game on. I want to get to that ventilator in the closet--you know it!"
"Oh, if it's only politics, Mr. Dodd!" she sniffed, with the scorn of a girl who has seen many conventions come and go, knew the little tricks, and had developed for the whole herd of politicians lofty disdain; she knew them merely as loud-talking men who had little consideration for hotel maids, men who littered their rooms with cigar stubs and whisky-bottles. She started for the door, swinging the pass-key on its cord. "If it's just politics, sure you can go in. Many a buck I've let in to listen to their old palaver down in that parlor."
Dodd bolted the door behind him.
He felt entirely safe, for he understood that the rightful tenants of that room were locked into the parlor below. He climbed upon a chair in the closet and put his ear to the grating of the ventilator.
He heard only one man's voice. He recognized its crisp tones--it was the Honorable Archer Converse.
"I repeat, gentlemen, that this interest of yours would amaze me if I had not been prepared by reports from our agents who have been so well captained by Mr. Walker Farr. Remember that this is simply a conference, prior to organization. Every man of you is a chief in it. Let us be calm, discreet, sensible, and silent.
"I'm not going over the details of the unrest in this state. The fact that so many of you are present here from all sections is sufficient commentary on that unrest. We understand perfectly well that a certain clique of self-seekers has arrogated to itself supreme control of the party. A party must be controlled, I admit. If that control were in the hands of honest and patriotic men we would not be here today.
"I'm not going to bother you with details of what has been going on in departments in our State House. The employees are the tools of the ring and they have misused their power. I'm afraid of what may be uncovered there when the house-cleaning begins. But the honor of our party demands such a house-cleaning."
Richard Dodd's hands trembled as he clung to the ventilator bars.
"However, we are faced by something in the way of an issue that's bigger than graft."
Now his earnestness impressed more than ever the listener at the grating.
"Gentlemen, to a certain extent graft is bound to be fostered and protected by any party; but when a party is used to protect and aggrandize those who monopolize the people's franchise rights it's time for the honest men in that party to be _men_ instead of partisans. Don't you allow those monopolists to hold you in line by whining about party loyalty. And don't let them whip you into line by their threats, either. I refuse, for one, as much as I love my party, to have its tag tied into my ear if that tag isn't clean!"
The assemblage applauded that sentiment.
"I'm going to call names, gentlemen. Colonel Symonds Dodd has this state by its throat. With Colonel Dodd stand all the financial interests--the railroads, the corporations, even the savings-banks. He is intrenched behind that law which limits the indebtedness of our cities and towns. Municipalities cannot own their own plants under present conditions. Those men are even using the people's own money against them! They scare depositors by threats of financial havoc if present conditions and the big interest are bothered by any legislation.
"I must warn you, gentlemen, that it's a long and difficult road ahead of us. But we must start. I have not intended to discourage you by stating the obstacles to be overcome.
"I have explained them so that, if we make slow progress at first, we shall not be discouraged.
"We will organize prevailing unrest and the innate honesty in this state. We will establish a branch of the Square Deal Club in every town and city. It must be done carefully, conservatively, and as secretly as possible." The lawyer's cautious fear of too much haste now displayed itself. "The most we can hope to do is send to the state convention some men who will leaven that lump of ring politics. Party usage and tradition are so strong that we must renominate Governor Harwood, I suppose, for a complimentary second term."
"I think we can do better," cried a voice.
"Possibly," returned Mr. Converse, dryly, "but we must do that 'better' carefully and slowly. In politics, gentlemen, we cannot transform the ogre into the saint merely by waving the magic wand and expecting the charm to operate instantly. Possibly we can control the next legislature. I do not know just what legislation we may be able to devise and pass, but I hope for inspiration.
"I will say now that I am with you. My purse is open. Command my services for all questions of law. I will establish myself at the capital for the legislative session.
"But there is one thing I will not do under any circumstances--I will not accept political office."
"You bet you won't," muttered young Dodd, at the grating. "You wouldn't be elected a pound-keeper in the town of Bean Center."
But if Mr. Dodd could have seen through that grating as well as hear he would have been greatly interested just then in the expression on the face of Walker Farr. The face was not exactly the face of a prophet, but it had a large amount of resolution written over it.
"I don't want to be the first one to throw any cold water on our prospects," declared a voice, after Mr. Converse had announced that the meeting was open for general discussion; "it really does seem to me that we stand a good show of getting control of the next legislature. But after we do get control what prospect is there of passing any legislation that will help us? Wherever there is a water system in this state the municipality has been so loaded down with debts our machine politics have plastered into it that the legal debt limit has been reached. The only way this water question can be cleared up is by taking the systems away from those monopolists--making them the property of towns and cities. But if towns and cities can't borrow any more money, just how is this to