Port O' Gold Part 64

"It would be quite legal," Ruef contended. "The Mayor and Board have power to remove a district attorney and select his successor."

Henry Ach, advisor of the boss, looked dubious. "I'm not sure of that.

Moreover, it's bad politics. It would be better seemingly to cooperate with Langdon. He has the public confidence. We've not.... Besides, whom would we put in Langdon's place?"

"Ruef," said "Big Jim," with his ready admiration. "He's the man."

"Hm!" the little boss exclaimed, reflectively. "Well we shall see."

Frank liked Langdon. He was rather a slow-thinking man; not so clever at expedient as Ruef. But he was grounded in the Law--and honest. Moreover, he had courage. Powerful enemies and their machinations only stirred his zest.

Single-handed Langdon might have been outwitted by the power and astuteness of his foes. But another mind, a keener one was soon to add its force to Langdon's. Francis J. Heney, special investigator of the Roosevelt government, who had unmasked and overthrown corruption in high places, was in town.

Frank knew that he had come to San Francisco for a purpose. He met this nervous, wiry, sharp-eyed man in the managing editor's office now and again. Once he had entered rather unexpectedly upon a conference of Heney, former Mayor James D. Phelan, Rudolph Spreckels, son of the sugar nabob, and William J. Burns. Frank, who guessed he was intruding, made a noiseless exit; not, however, till he heard that there would be a thorough, secret search into the trolley franchise and some other actions of the Ruef administration. Spreckels and Phelan guaranteed to raise $100,000 for this purpose. Burns and his detectives had for several months been quietly at work.

On October 24 District Attorney Langdon publicly announced the appointment of Francis J. Heney as his a.s.sistant, stating that a thorough and fearless search into the actions of the city government would ensue.

On October 25 the Supervisors met. Frank, himself, went to the council chamber to learn what was afoot. He suspected a sensation. But the Board met quietly enough at 2:30 o'clock, with Jim Gallagher in the chair. At 2:45 a special messenger called the acting Mayor to Ruef's office. Three hours later he was still absent from the angry and impatient Board.

That some desperate move was imminent Frank realized. Here was Ruef between two bodeful dates. Yesterday had come the news that Langdon had appointed Heney--the relentless enemy of boodlers--to a place of power.

Tomorrow would begin the impaneling of a Grand Jury, whose avowed purpose it was to "investigate munic.i.p.al graft."

"What would I do if I were Ruef?" Frank asked himself. But no answer came. He paced up and down the corridor, pondering the situation. At intervals he paused before the Supervisors' chamber. Once he found the door slightly ajar and listened shamelessly. He saw Big Jim Gallagher, red-faced, excited, apparently much fl.u.s.tered, reading a paper. He thought he heard Langdon's name and Heney's. There seemed to be dissension in the board. But before he learned anything definite a watchful attendant closed the portal with an angry slam. Frank resumed his pacing.

Finally he went out for a bite to eat.

Frank returned half an hour later to find the reporters' room in an uproar. Big Jim Gallagher had dismissed Langdon from office with the corroboration of the Board of Supervisors, as a provision of the city ordinance permitted him to do. Ruef had been appointed district attorney.

Langdon's forces were not disconcerted by the little boss's coup. Late that evening Frank advised his paper of a counterstroke. Heney had aroused Judge Seawell from his slumbers and obtained an order of the court enjoining Ruef from actual a.s.sumption of the t.i.tle he had arrogated to himself.

Judge Graham upheld it. Langdon remained the district attorney. Though Ruef imposed every possible obstacle, the Grand Jury was impaneled, November 7, and began its work of investigation with such startling celerity that Ruef and Schmitz faced charges of extortion on five counts, a week later.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xIII

IN THE TOILS

Meanwhile Schmitz, who had but recently returned from Europe, became officially involved in the anti-j.a.panese agitation.

"He's summoned East to see the President," said a Burns operative to Frank one morning as they met at Temple Israel. "Lucky devil, that big fellow! Here's the town at sixes and sevens about the 'little brown brother.' Doesn't want him with its white kids in the public schools.

The Mikado stirs the devil of a row with Washington about it. And Teddy sends for 'Gene. Just his luck to come back a conquering hero."

But Schmitz fared badly at the Capital, whence Roosevelt dispatched a "big stick" message to the California Legislature. At the same time George B. Keane, the Supervisors' clerk, and a State Senator as well, was working for the "Change of Venus bill," a measure which if pa.s.sed, would have permitted Ruef to take his case out of the jurisdiction of Judge Dunne. But the bill was defeated. Once more Ruef's straining at the net of Justice had achieved no parting of the strands.

On March 6 Stanley greeted Mayor Schmitz as he stepped from a train at Oakland Mole. Correspondents and reporters gathered round the tall, bearded figure. Schmitz looked tired, discouraged.

Perfunctorily, uneasily, Schmitz answered the reporter's queries. He had done his level best for San Francisco. As for the charges pending against him, they would soon be disproved. No one had anything on him.

All his acts were open to investigation.

"Do you know that Ruef has skipped?" Frank asked.

"Wh-a-a-t!" the Mayor set down his grip. He seemed struck all of a heap by the announcement.

"Fact!" another newsman corroborated. "Abie's jumped his bond. He's the well-known 'fugitive from justice.'"

Without a word the Mayor left them. He walked aboard the ferry boat alone. They saw him pacing back and forth across the forward deck, his long overcoat flapping in the wind, one hand holding the dark, soft hat down on his really magnificent head.

"A ship without a rudder," said Frank. The others nodded.

Over the munic.i.p.al administration was the shadow of Ruef's flight. The shepherd had deserted his flock. And the wolves of the law were howling.

Frank was grateful to the Powers for this rushing pageant of political events. It gave him little chance to grieve. Now and then the tragedy of Bertha gripped him by the throat and shook him with its devastating loneliness. He found a certain solace in Aleta's company. She was always ready, glad to walk or dine with him. She knew his silences; she understood.

But there were intervals of grief beyond all palliation; days when he worked blindly through a grist of tasks that seemed unreal. And at night he sought his room, to sit in darkness, suffering dumbly through the hours. Sometimes Dawn would find him thus.

Robert Windham and his family had returned from the Hawaiian Islands.

They had found a house in Berkeley; Windham opened offices on Fillmore street. Robert and his nephew visited occasionally a graveyard in the western part of town. The older man brought flowers and his tears fell frankly on a mound that was more recent than its neighbors. But Stanley did not join in these devotions.

"She is not here," he said one day. "You know that, Uncle Robert."

"She's up above," returned the other, brokenly. "My poor, wronged child!"

Frank stared at him a moment. "Do you believe in the conventional Heaven?"

"Why--er--yes," said Windham, startled. "Don't you, Frank?"

"No," said Stanley, doggedly. "Not in that ... nor in a G.o.d that lets men suffer and be tempted into wrongs they can't resist ... makes them suffer for it."

"What do you mean? Are you an atheist?" asked Windham, horrified.

"No ... but I believe that G.o.d is Good. And knows no evil. Sometimes in the night when I've sat thinking, Bertha seems to come to me; tells me things I can't quite understand. Wonderful things, Uncle Robert."

The other regarded him silently, curiously. He seemed at a loss.

"I've learned to judge men with less harshness," Frank spoke on. "Ruef and Schmitz, for instance.... Every now and then I see the Mayor pacing on the ferryboat. It's rather pathetic, Uncle Robert. Did G.o.d raise him up from obscurity just to torture him? He's had wealth and honor--adoration from the people. Now he's facing prison. And those poor devils of Supervisors; they've known luxury, power. Now they're huddled like a pack of frightened sheep; everybody thinks they're guilty. Ruef's forsaken them. Ruef, with his big dream shattered, fleeing from the law...."

He faced his uncle fiercely, questioning. "Is that G.o.d's work? And Bertha's body lying there, because of the sins of her forebears! Forgive me, Uncle Robert. I'm just thinking aloud."

Windham placed a hand upon his nephew's shoulder. "I'm afraid I can't answer you, Frank," he said slowly. "You're a young man. You'll forget.

The world goes on. And our griefs do not matter. We fall and we get up again ... just as Ruef and the others will."

"Do you suppose they'll catch him--Ruef, I mean?"

"Not if the big fellows can prevent it. If he's caught there'll be the deuce to pay. Our Pillars of Finance will topple.... No, I think Ruef is safe."