Part 39

Pauline smiled and bade him follow her. They went to her private sitting-room and she showed him the safe, in a small closet built into the lower part of the book-case. "You have the combination?" asked Culver, as he put the package away.

"I see that you don't lock this door often."

"How fortunate you spoke of it!" said she.

"The combination is on a bit of paper in one of the little drawers."

Culver found it in the first drawer he opened, and handed it to her without looking at it.

"You mustn't let me know it," said he. "I'll just fix the time lock so that it won't interfere." And when he had done so, he closed the safe. As he left, he said, "I shall only bother you to let me sleep in the house. I'll be very busy all day each day I'm here." When she thought he had gone he returned to add: "Perhaps I'd better explain to you that there's forty-five thousand dollars in cash in the package. That's why I was so anxious for no one to know."

"I'll say nothing about it," Pauline assured him.

Larkin came down from Indianapolis the next day and registered at the Palace Hotel. As soon as he could escape from the politicians and newspaper correspondents in the hotel office, he went by a devious route to a room on the floor below his own and, knocking, was admitted to Culver and Merriweather. He nodded to Dumont's political agent, then said to Culver: "You've got the dough?"

"Yes," Culver answered, in his best imitation of the tone of the man of large affairs. "In twenties, fifties and hundreds."

"I hope, mighty few hundreds," said Larkin. "The boys are kind o' shy about changing hundred-dollar bills. It seems to attract attention to them." He had large, dreamy, almost sentimental, brown eyes that absurdly misrepresented his character, or, at least, his dominant characteristics. His long, slightly bent nose and sharp chin and thin, tight mouth were more truthful.

"How do things look, Joe?" asked Merriweather.

"Yes, Mr. Dumont asked me to telegraph him after I'd talked with you," said Culver. "Has Scarborough made much headway?"

"I must say, he's raised a darn sight more hell than I thought he would," Larkin answered.

"The people seem to be in a nasty mood about corruption. Darn their fool souls, as if they wouldn't be in the rottenest kind of a fix, with no property and no jobs, if we didn't keep the ignorant vote under control and head off such firebrands as this fellow Scarborough."

"Got any figgers?" demanded Merriweather, who had listened to this tirade with an expression suggesting cynicism. He thought, and he knew Joe Larkin thought, politics a mere game of chance--you won or you didn't win; and principles and oratory and likes and dislikes and resentments were so much "hot air." If the "oil can" had been with Scarborough, Merriweather would have served him as cheerfully and as loyally as--well, as would Joe Larkin in those circumstances.

Larkin wrenched a big bunch of letters and papers from the sagged inside pocket of his slouchy sack coat; after some fumbling and sorting, he paused upon the back of a dirty envelope.

"Here's how the convention stands, to a man," he said. "Sure, two hundred and sixty-seven-by 'sure' I mean the fellows we own outright. Safe, two hundred and forty-five-by 'safe' I mean those that'll stand by the organization, thick and thin. Insurgents, two hundred and ninety-five--those are the chaps that've gone clean crazy with Scarborough. Doubtful, three hundred and eighty-six-some of 'em can be bought; most of 'em are waiting to see which way the cat jumps, so as to jump with her."

"Then we've got five hundred and twelve, and it takes five hundred and ninety-seven to elect," said Merriweather, the instant the last word was out of Larkin's mouth. Merriweather was a mite of a man, could hardly have weighed more than a hundred pounds, had a bulging forehead, was bald and gray at the temples, eyes brown as walnut juice and quick and keen as a rat-terrier's. His expression was the gambler's--calm, watchful, indifferent, pallid, as from years of nights under the gas-light in close, hot rooms, with the cards sliding from the faro box hour after hour.

"Eighty-five short--that's right," assented Larkin. Then, with a look at Culver: "And some of 'em'll come mighty high."

"Where are you going to do business with them?" inquired Merriweather. "Here?"

"Right here in this room, where I've done it many's the time before," replied Larkin. "To-morrow night Conkey Sedgwick and my boy Tom'll begin steerin' 'em in one at a time about eight o'clock."

"Then I'll turn the money over to you at seven to-morrow night," said Culver. "I've got it in a safe place."

"Not one of the banks, I hope," said Merriweather.

"We noted your suggestions on that point, and on all the others," Culver answered with gracious condescension. "That's why I brought cash in small denominations and didn't go near anybody with it."

Larkin rose. "I've got to get to work. See you here to-morrow night at seven, Mr. Culver--seven sharp. I guess it'll be Judge Graney on the third ballot. On the first ballot the organization'll vote solid for Graney, and my fellows'll vote for John Frankfort. On the second ballot half my Frankfort crowd'll switch over to Graney. On the third I'll put the rest of 'em over, and that'll be enough to elect--probably the Scarborough crowd'll see it's no use and let us make it unanimous. The losers are always hot for harmony."

"That sounds well," said Merriweather--his was a voice that left his hearers doubtful whether he meant what his words said or the reverse.

Culver looked with secret admiration from one man to the other, and continued to think of them and to admire, after they had gone. He felt important, sitting in and by proxy directing the councils of these powerful men, these holders and manipulators of the secret strings whereto were attached puppet peoples and puppet politicians. Seven years behind the scenes with Dumont's most private affairs had given him a thoroughgoing contempt for the mass of mankind. Did he not sit beside the master, at the innermost wheels, deep at the very heart of the intricate mechanism? Did not that position make him a sort of master, at any rate far superior to the princeliest puppet?

At five the next afternoon--the afternoon of the day before the convention--he was at the Eyrie, and sent a servant to say to Mrs. Dumont that he would like to see her. She came down to him in the library.