“Oh! Do you think it will be here?”
“I want it if it is,” he said impatiently. He had finished one side of the Gladstone and turned to the other. “Stanger and I have different ideas about the use for that document,” he went on, exactly as though Lucy knew all about everything. “I don’t… hold it!” he exclaimed. “I think this is what we want.”
He tossed aside a pair of folded pajamas, emptying the suitcase, and dug with his finger nails at the edge of a fine slit in the inner cloth lining of the bag. He ripped it open and drew out a flat typewritten document with a thin packet of bills inside.
Lucy looked over his shoulder as he riffled through the bills. There were twenty of them, all of thousand-dollar denomination. He wadded them carelessly in his pocket and read swiftly through the first page of the agreement, noted the inked initials at the bottom, “G.B.” and “C.R.” and turned to the next page to verify the signatures and date.
He said, “This is what we need. Pick up the phone and call Mr. Seveir at the Gazette office. Tell him to be in my office in ten minutes.”
Shayne was waiting at the hotel room door when Lucy hung up the receiver. They went out and down to the car.
Mr. Seveir made no pretence that he wasn’t worried and frightened when he faced Centerville’s new chief of police across his desk a quarter of an hour later. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them nervously and admitted, “Frankly, Mr. Shayne, the town is so full of rumors that I disregarded all of them in today’s edition. Some people say you’ve released all the prisoners and have fired several from our police force. Others say you’ve arrested both Chief Elwood and the mayor and are torturing them frightfully. If you care to give me a statement…”
“That’s what I called you here for. First, I want to know what the facilities are in Centerville for getting dispatches out of town. Are there any press bureaus here? The AP or any of those?”
“None of the large press associations have offices here. The Gazette is a member of the Associated Press and we put anything on the wire that seems of more than local importance.”
“How fast?” Shayne leaned back and regarded the nervous publisher through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “If an important story breaks here,” he amended, “how long a period would elapse before it hit the front pages throughout the country?”
“Depending on the timing, of course. It would go over the teletype immediately and be picked up in other cities at once. You realize, of course, that the afternoon editions of most dailies are already set up by noon and the presses running. An afternoon release would make the early morning editions.”
Shayne nodded and drummed his fingertips on the desk. “I presume your teletype apparatus is the only wire medium for a message to go out after the regular telegraph office closes at night.”
“That’s correct. Since we have no railroad here, there is no all night telegraph office. The lack of a railroad is one of Centerville’s greatest economic handicaps in getting out coal, and the Gazette believes…”
“Where is the closest railroad?” Shayne interrupted absently.
“Slag Junction. That’s a forty-mile haul by truck, and you can readily understand why wages in the mines have to remain low to meet that increased cost.”
Shayne turned in his chair and called, “Lucy.”
She appeared immediately from an inner office and he said, “Get the railroad depot at Slag Junction on the telephone. I want a record of all telegraph messages filed at the station night before last. They won’t want to give them to you, but tell them this is official business.”
He turned back to Seveir. “Who owns the Gazette?”
“I’m the owner,” Seveir told him.
“No stockholders? No mortgages?” Shayne persisted.
“I built up the Gazette from a small weekly paper, Mr. Shayne. I really don’t see…”
“Who tells you what not to print?” Shayne interrupted grimly.
“I told you last night,” the publisher began, but Shayne interrupted him again:
“And I offered you a first-hand story on conditions in the local jail but you didn’t take me up. And I gave you a direct quotation to print in your paper today, but it isn’t in the edition I saw. Why not? Who told you to kill the story?”
“The Gazette’s editorial policy is my own,” said Seveir stiffly. “I have to consider what’s best for the community as a whole.”
“And what’s pleasing to your advertisers?”
“A paper like the Gazette is dependent on the good will of its subscribers and advertisers, Mr. Shayne. I wouldn’t remain in business long if I failed to recognize the duty I owe to the best interests of Centerville.”
“Meaning the mine operators… and the Roche mines particularly. I understand that, Seveir. I wanted to hear you say it out loud so we’d have a basis for further discussion.” He passed the two typewritten sheets he had taken from Stanger’s Gladstone across to Seveir just as Lucy hurried in with a slip of paper.
Lucy’s face was glowing with excitement. Disregarding the visitor, she exclaimed, “Michael! How on earth did you know?” She laid the paper before him and pointed to the second item. “There were only two wires night before last. This is the one you wanted, isn’t it?”
Shayne read the brief message and the name signed to it. He said quietly, “That’s it, Lucy. We’re ready to go now. Wait a moment.” He stopped her as she turned away. “I have a hunch I’m going to need you to draw up a little agreement between Mr. Seveir and myself.” He looked across at the perspiring publisher who was intent upon the agreement Charles Roche had prepared and signed before his death.
“This is extraordinary,” sputtered Seveir. “A damnable betrayal of his class. Heaven knows what the consequences would be now if this thing were made public. It’s absolutely subversive.”
Shayne leaned back and studied the publisher with narrowed eyes. “I take it you wouldn’t want to publish a full text of that agreement in tomorrow’s Gazette. Along with proof that Mr. Persona, chairman of the board of AMOK, had a secret agreement with George Brand to pay out a slush fund of twenty thousand dollars in the event the strike was defeated.”
“I wouldn’t touch a thing like that,” declared Seveir, pushing the document away from him in horror. “There’s no telling what repercussions might follow. The confidence of the people would be undermined. The whole structure of our society…”
“How would you like to take a long vacation, Mr. Seveir?”
“A vacation?” he faltered. “I don’t believe I understand.”
“A trip around the world. Freedom from care for a while. Forget the newspaper business and the underpinning of society. You must have promised yourself such a vacation for a long time. Hasn’t your wife urged you to do something like that?” Shayne spoke casually with an underlying tone of concern, as for an old friend.
Mr. Seveir moved his thin lips nervously before he replied, “Why yes. For a good many years I’ve been promising her… but… I don’t understand, Mr. Shayne.” Perspiration stood out on his forehead, and his glasses were misted over. He took out a snowy white linen handkerchief, unhooked his glasses, wiped them carefully, then mopped his brow.
Shayne leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk. “How much does the Gazette net you in a year?”
Seveir’s thin hands shook as he replaced his glasses. “I don’t see why I’m required to reveal my…”
“How much?” Shayne said harshly.
“Our gross earnings were slightly over twenty-five thousand last year,” said Seveir proudly. “But with salaries and overhead and taxes…”
Shayne settled back again while Seveir tried to figure what he had left after overhead and taxes were computed. He said, “I’ll make you a proposition. This is flat and final and requires an immediate yes or no. I’ll preface my offer by explaining that hell is about to break loose in Centerville. The strike you’ve just seen won’t be a patch on what’s coming. You can’t do one damned thing to prevent it by staying here and running the Gazette. Here’s my proposition: