The Thumbless Black Hand, or the Coming of Gonfardino

by George Kibbe Turner

 

The Thumbless Black Hand, or
the Coming of Gonfardino

By GEORGE KIBBE TURNER

ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN

THIS is the deep-down dope on matter of the thumbless black hand, concerning which the ward captains still question one another so anxiously on stormy nights when they sit alone together in the dull, empty political clubrooms of Chibosh, that marvelous modern metropolis that was governed by a press agent; on the thumbless black hand and the parting of the ways of Mayor Herman J. True, the guardian of the plain, honest common people, and the publicity factory which had made him, and of Michael F. Melody, its manager, still, though under a most terrific mental strain, the most carefully unknown man in the great city

It was now the month of May in the year of municipal election, and the most singular of its kind in all the political history of Chibosh. For it was during this month, as all ward captains knew, that they must be prepared to appear at any time before Chinese Meeghan, that great unseen influence which governed those who governed Chibosh, to report to him their opinions upon candidates before he decided finally whom the citizens of Chibosh would nominate and elect mayor of that vast city in the coming fall.

And as yet no suggestion of such attendance had come from him—nothing but a sinister silence

This in itself was strange and menacing. But more extraordinary still were the strange and inexplicable events and hidden political moves, never previously duplicated in the memory of the oldest ward captain, in that great political field—the field of international ward politics, in which the publicity factory of Mayor True had been previously so strong—playing, as on a great organ, day after day, all the national anthems on the hearts and minds and hates of those voters of that city who are European-born or born of European parents.

The remarkable episode of the German ambassador's silk hat was the first of these, alienating at one blow the vote of that huge national block of voters in Chibosh who, through his loyalty to their cause during the Great War, had become so devoted to Mayor True and his administration.

Following this, almost immediately, had come the unfortunate incident of the discovery of lard as an adulterant in the ice cream of Mayor True's Hebrew Voters' Children's Association, at its annual May festival—given by him—which could not but have the most serious political consequences.

During all this there was no move, apparently, by Chinese Meeghan, the hard master of all the masters of Chibosh.

Was there some new game on? Was he about to change the next nominee and mayor of Chibosh? Was he, baffled like the rest, sitting back, watching, studying a series of unfortunate and almost unbelievably bad breaks in the great field of international ward politics in Chibosh? Or could there be, somewhere underneath, in the great mysterious depths of the great and mysterious city, some new power arising so great and resourceful that it menaced even Chinese Meeghan into irresolution and hesitation?

It was this power—the power which held him so strangely captive—with which Mr. Melody was consulting so frequently through the month of May; and to which, in their headquarters, he was now secretly stating his personal anxieties concerning Mr. Meeghan.

“It's all wrong. It's unnatural. What's he doing? What's he waiting for? Why don't he call me in and start bawling me out about all this stuff—the way he would naturally?” he inquired almost plaintively, for he was very much alarmed.

“There's only one possible answer to your questions,” replied the older of the two women politicians, the school-teacher. “He's afraid.”

Illustration: “You'd Have the Whole Lot of Them Biting Their Thumbs Off, Climbing Up to Stick You Fall of Knives.” “That's What They Told Me,” Said Mr. Melody

“Don't you think that must be it?” said the younger one with the curly bobbed hair. “He's very wise. He's watching you, trying to get evidence.”

“He'll speak—if you hit him hard enough,” said the more implacable-voiced older one.

“Haven't I hit him hard enough for you yet?”

“You haven't started him loose yet, have you?” she answered him.

“Well,” said Mr. Melody bitterly, “I will this time if he wants any voters left in his organization.”

For he was desperate, that was all. This silence of Meeghan showed probably just what they said of him. He was sitting watching, trying to get hard-and-fast evidence on Mr. Melody, the administration press agent, before he called him in and struck him down. But in the meanwhile the waiting—for Mr. Melody—grew fast unbearable.

Thinking gloomily of this, Mr. Melody found himself again inside Room 913, at his accustomed desk in the Phantom Factory. The great, sincere, identical poster portraits of the people's mayor stared moodily down on him. The whole place seemed full of his own apprehension and gloom. On the one side of him stood these two wild women politicians, satisfied with nothing that he could pull for them, always asking for new stunts. On the other, Chinese Meeghan, waiting, waiting to strike him down in the dark, send him back to prison when he got the proper dope on him, resisting all his efforts to bring on a crisis in the open.

Nervous, too anxious to sit still, Mr. Melody arose and gazed out of his front window across the frantically hurrying people in the city street. It was soon after luncheon. There, on the steps of the great city hall opposite him, he could see—a calm spectacle—the man himself, the mayor of all the people, picking his teeth at the great solemn stone entrance before taking up the official duties of his afternoon. Here was one at least who was neither nervous nor down-hearted.

The whisper—the terrible whisper of the Roman-nosed baby and the lone lady in black—left him still unmoved. The police department might search and search, the fate of the unfortunate and mysterious girl might be still unsolved, the mothers' votes of Chibosh might be lost forever. He passed on unconscious and unwarned. Impervious as a turtle in a thunderstorm, he walked always solidly forward, equally unpenetrated by forebodings, terrors or ideas.

But that did not greatly comfort Mr. Melody. Sighing, he turned back into the Phantom Factory of Mayor True and got busy on his next publicity stunt for his captors—those insatiable new women politicians with their card catalogue. He pushed the button for his assistant, Mr. Nott. That tall, emotionless young man came in with his usual unhurried nonchalance.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Melody.

He did so without haste.

“I want a man without a thumb.”

Mr. Nott, with no change of expression on his abnormally sad face, deeply inhaled the smoke from his cigarette.

“Right away!”

Mr. Nott exhaled his cigarette smoke.

“Not just only without a thumb,” went on Mr. Melody, “but one where it shows—some edges you can see and feel.”

Mr. Nott nodded, regarding him with his violet-shadowed eyes, and yet merely waiting, asking nothing in explanation.

“And when you get him I want you to take ten impressions—on paper—in ink. No, twelve, so's to give some extras.”

Mr. Nott still merely regarded him.

“Impressions on cheap common paper—typewritersize—big enough to show them—the full impression of the hand in ink.”

“Red ink?” asked Mr. Nott, speaking for the first time.

“No; black,” said Mr. Melody; “as black as they make it. And then a good clear impression, around the thumb especially,” he directed, “showing the edges.”

“The puckers where it came off,” said Mr. Nott.

“You've got it!” said Mr. Melody. “That's the idea. Now you go ahead on that. But first send over to old Mike Boogan of the Black-Hand Squad and tell him I want to see him. Right off now!”

II

IT WAS on Wednesday, the second morning after this, that the citizens of Chibosh received their first intimation of the thumbless black hand which was to shatter their nerves so completely. At the head of Peoples Pictures was the thick black line:

THUMBLESS BLACK-HAND THREAT TO MAYOR

Beneath this, blacker still, the facsimile of the actual imprint of a thumbless hand, which occupied the page like the inky benediction of a devil, showed to the people of Chibosh the exact appearance of this ghastly warning to their official leader. That it was the imprint of a genuinely thumbless hand was shown without possible question by the ragged scallops at the edges of the missing member. Below this, at the bottom of the page, also in facsimile, appeared the only lettering—the three simple words which formed the sole message of the unusual document:

NO GO GONFARDINO!

Printed crudely, in the large, broken, laborious hand of the extremely illiterate, these words sprawled across all the lower page. Upon the inner pages, on which the secant reading matter of Peoples Pictures is to be found, the headlines explained partially:

MURDER MESSAGE IN MAYOR'S MAIL

Menace of Italian Society Meeting
Strange Warning Which Mayor True Will Disregard
Detective Boogan Speaks

The brief text beneath this opened with an interpretation of the striking happening of the day:

Believed to be an anarchist's warning to Mayor True not to attend the meeting of the local Italian-American societies to welcome Gen. Giuseppe Gonfardino, the world-famous hero of Fiume, a menace of death more potent than any written word—the inky imprint of a raggedly thumbless hand, stamped upon a sheet of cheap typewriter paper, and bearing but the three words, “No Go Gonfardino!” printed in what is said by experts to be the writing of a violent and uneducated criminal of Italian origin—was received yesterday, inclosed in an old and spotted envelope, in Mayor True's daily mail. Both letter and envelope are now in the hands of the police—of Lieutenant Boogan, of the Black-Hand Squad. Mayor True takes the whole episode most calmly, saying that nothing will prevent him from attending the reception for General Gonfardino, the hero of Fiume, and offering the freedom of the city at the meeting of welcome to be held for him on Satt wae night by the italian-American societies of Chibosh in the Great Coliseum Gardens.

The Morning Truth, in its headlines, said:

INKY HAND WITHOUT THUMB
Does Not Deter Mayor True

Old Mike Boogan, the Veteran Black-Hand Bomb Expert of the Police Department, Gives Explanation

Illustrating this were a fair-sized likeness of the thumbless Black-Hand message, the photograph of Mayor True on a rostrum above an American flag, speaking in its praise; and a picture of old Mike Boogan, the one-eyed Black-Hand bomb expert of the Chibosh Police Department.

The picture of Boogan was taken in his laboratory, with his collection of Black-Hand bombs, said to be the largest in the United States, if not, as it was believed, in the world.

Speaking to a Morning Truth reporter, Lieutenant Boogan said:

“Without a doubt, this is the work of a gang of Black-Handers we chased out of this country, back to their native turf, in 1919. And only here last week we got word they were back again in Chibosh looking for trouble. Without a doubt, these are the boys, the old gang we have put to flight before; the same old gang.

“This gang I'm telling you about is without a doubt the worst in the world, and I know what I'm talking about. How do I know? How am I sure who it is?” said the veteran Black Hand expert, looking at the representative of the Morning Truth with his one remaining eye. “I'll tell you how I know.

“It's this,” he said, leaning down and showing the reporter of the Morning Truth the Black-Hand letter itself. “It's this. This is the hand of the head of them all—old Thumbless Giovanni—old T. G., as we call him—who has probably more bomb atrocities to his credit than any other Black-Hand gang leader now alive.

“Now about the meeting Saturday night. Don't let that worry you. The Black-Hand Squad of Chibosh is on the job. I ain't saying anything, but we've got them right this time. My boys are out after them now. Most any time I'm liable to get a call from one of my men on the telephone saying he's made the pinch.

“Now I can tell you this,” said the old bomb expert, looking up at the cabinet which contains his bomb collection, “and that's all I can tell you now. They're the worst in the business! But we know where they are, and we've got our eye right on them—every minute. And it won't be long before you'll see another Black-Hander's scalp hanging in the headquarters of the old Black-Hand Squad of the city of Chibosh, And that's all, boys, for today.”

Reading this, and all the other literature of the morning, Mr. Melody called on his assistant, Mr. Nott, again for advice.

“Who's running the publicity end for the Great Chibosh Business Detective Agency now?”

“It's All Wrong. It's Unnatural. What's He Waiting For? Why Don't He Call Me In and Start Bawling Me Out About All This Stuff?”

“The old man—Doheney himself,” said Nott. “He devotes at least three-quarters of his time to his publicity.”

“Get him on the wire,” said Mr Melody.

In a short time he was in deeply personal conversation on the wire with Francis X. Doheney, the great international private business detective.

III

IT WAS on Thursday, the following morning, that the citizens of Chibosh were apprised of the second warning of the thumbless black hand by their morning journals. The Peoples Pictures again gave it in facsimile on its full front page—a black and thumbless horror. The words scrawled beneath, though evidently in the same crude handwriting—clearly, the handwriting experts of Chibosh declared, of a hand without a thumb—were this time slightly different, and more menacing. Written in the form of question and answer, they said:

GO GONFARDINO? DEATH!

On the second page were pictures of Mayor True, smiling steadily as he perused the missive and as he handed it to Chief Charley Spoofenberger, head of the great Chibosh Police Department, standing at attention in full uniform a portrait of old Mike Boogan, standing in his bomb laboratory, holding in his hand the remains of the Black Hand bomb of 1907, which cost him his right eye. Also a photograph of Gen. Giuseppe Gonfardino, the hero of Fiume, who was now nearing the shores of America in a transatlantic steamer to speak before the Italian citizen of Chibosh at Great Coliseum Gardens on Saturday evening. The short text which supplemented its pictures followed the headlines:

MAYOR TRUE UNDAUNTED
By Definite Death Threat

Old Mike Boogan, the Police Black-Hand Expert, Says One Eye is Enough to Watch Black-Handers

In explanation of the last line Lieutenant Boogan was quoted briefly, in part:

Yellow dogs, they don't scare us none. I've got my one good eye still right on them, and they know it,” said old Mike Boogan, of the Chibosh Black-Hand Squad, to a Peoples Pictures representative, laying down the last Black-Hand bomb he was examining. “Without a doubt we've got their number, and they know it. Our men are with them now—right down in amongst them, in the nests of highbinders and dope fiends and desperate panhandlers that these big Black-Handers frequent. Without a doubt we'll hear from them tonight; they'll bring in that old T. G., as we call him—that Thumbless Giovanni, the biggest Black-Hander of them all, that's without a doubt responsible for this.

That's all I can tell you now, boys. Naturally, you can see for yourself, it wouldn't do for us in the bureau to talk much just when we're on the eve of making one of the biggest pinches in the history of the department, said old Mike Boogan. “So that's all I can say now, unless who's this—that one of you feller that wanted to see the Black-Hand bomb that cut out my eye in 1907 still wants to interview me about it.”

The Morning Truth, on the other hand turned an entirely new light upon the apprehension which was now holding the people of Chibosh enthralled. The top of its front page was ornamented with a portrait which many thousands recognized at first glance; the portrait of a man of tremendous force, with a neck and jaw still heavier than old Mike Boogan's, and a steady, relentless gaze—the quite-often-published likeness of Francis X. Doheney, the great detective. Above this and below, the general and detailed headlines said:

DETECTIVE DOHENEY UNCOVERS INTERNATIONAL PLOT

Thumbless Back Hand or Mt. Vesuvius

Seen by Great Detective in Sensational Threat Against Mayor True

Following this the text of the article said in part:

The Morning Truth, first of all the newspapers of Chibosh, has at last induced Francis X. Doheney, the great detective, to lay bare the secrets of the motives and agencies which lie behind the strange thumbless Black-Hand warning to Mayor True not to attend the welcome to be extended at Coliseum Gardens on Saturday night to Gen Giuseppe Gonfardino, the world-acclaimed hero of Fiume. Although the mayor still insists that nothing will prevent his attendance at this great patriotic festival of Italian-American citizens, yet the statement of this country's great expert on crime will explain clearly the dangerous situation as it stands today, following the receipt of a second death warning to the mayor, and should be read with attention by every thinking citizen of Chibosh.

“If the merchants and manufacturers of this country realized what they were up against in this thing—this plot against Mayor True,” said the great detective, sitting in his palatial headquarters, “they would throw off their lethargy and get up from their office chairs and set some competent agency at work to combat this menace which overhangs not only the city of Chibosh but this nation today.

“This warning to Mayor True is undoubtedly the work of the so-called Dynamite Saviors, the executive end of the widely known Fifth Internationale of Syndicalists, Communists and Anarchists, which has sworn a bloody oath to wipe out the institutions and industries of the United States, the chief enemy to their intended world rule. It was sent out by the Italian branch—the inner circle that call themselves the Thumbless Enemies, meaning, of course, enemies of everything that now exists—all the institutions that we in America love and reverence.

“The Italian anarchists have their headquarters today—right now—on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, in Italy. We know, because we've got our men, our stool pigeons, right in amongst them, on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, and some on Mt. Etna.

“You ask me why,” said Mr. Doheney, fastening his extraordinary keen gray eyes on the representative of the Morning Truth, “why Mt. Vesuvius and Mt. Etna. I'll tell you why. Wireless! Wireless, that's why! The great international wireless of the anarchists! It came about by accident in a way, you might say, in the first place, like so many things do. They were always meeting—the anarchists—in out-of-the-way, God-forsaken places—woods and seashores and mountains; especially mountains. Take Switzerland, for instance—you must have noticed how they always get together in Switzerland, in the mountains. All over those high mountains there!

“And so being there, up always in the mountains, naturally, they got the idea that way of the wireless, the International Wireless Workers of the World; of the I. W. W. W. that you see allusions to all the time in the papers. For mountains, of course, are the best wireless stations in the world. So they sit there day after day on the banks of Mt. Vesuvius and sometimes Mt. Etna—these Italians—talking with the Russians in the Ural Mountains and the notorious mountain headquarters of the outlaw anarchists from all nations in Switzerland, framing up the downfall of the world day after day; planning out the downfall of our land and our country and everything we hold dear, while the merchants and bankers and manufacturers in this country, who should be out fighting this tooth and nail, sit dreaming in their armchairs—waiting till it is too late.

“Now then,” said Mr. Doheney, the great detective, fastening his eye again upon the representative of the Morning Truth, “the Thumbless Enemies! You ask me about the Thumbless Enemies, as they call themselves—that's showing up here in this warning to Mayor True. I'll tell you what that is too. It comes from the national customs in Italy, from the way they have in some of those old provinces over there of still cutting off the thumbs of criminals—and especially anarchists—like they did a thousand years ago.

“It came first from two of the local anarchist leaders in Italy that had lost their thumbs like this from the government, and who got to sending out their warnings that way—the usual black hand, only without a thumb—as a kind of slam on and warning to the government. And that led on to an inner circle, which everybody that belonged to had to be more or less cut up and mutilated someway by the government or by dynamite explosions—honorable wounds, they'd call them, in the line of their profession. That's the way their minds work. You know how it is with those rats.

“So that's it,” said the great detective, rising and walking to and fro in his handsome office, about to dismiss the reporter of the Morning Truth, to receive the crowd who were waiting in his anteroom. “That's what's going on here, The Thumbless Enemies of Italy are the boys in this, first. They naturally are out against the government of Italy, as it is now getting after them the way it does today. And nothing would suit them better than to bump off General Gonfardino, the hero of Fiume, who from first to last has come right out and never given any quarter to them; that's gone right after them from the first, the way the merchants and manufacturers of this country ought to be doing today.

“I've got to go now—to see all these gentlemen out there,” said the great detective to the reporter of the Morning Truth. “I've given you too much time already. Only I want the people to understand. And when you're telling them, remember this: Back of all this always is the bigger thing. Remember that. The great International Dynamite Saviors of the anarchist party—the great I. W. W. W. that sees a chance here to make a ten-strike—and a big spectacular play to mess up both Italy and this country and the world. And Mayor True deserves a lot of credit for standing out and fighting this, and going right after it with all the police department of Chibosh, and if the merchants and manufacturers of this country would do the same—come out as a unit and employ some competent agency to fight this thing—the future wouldn't look so dark as it does today, to those on the inside, who know what's threatening the Constitution and industries and everything else in this country that all good Americans love and cherish and revere.”

IV

IT WAS Friday in the morning newspapers of Chibosh. The third of the thumbless Black-Hand warnings to Mayor True, received the previous night, was again illustrated. The people of the great city were tenser, more alert than ever from it. The gruesome warning to the mayor, it seemed, became every time uglier and more menacing. This time it said underneath, as shown on the Peoples Pictures opening page:

MEET GONFARDINO? THEN DEATH!

The postal service of Chibosh was on the alert; the police force straining every nerve; an officer stood at nearly every letter box. The underground agents of the Black-Hand Bureau and the business detective agencies had made no arrests as yet. Both old Mike Boogan and Detective Doheney were still holding back, biding their time, it was thought, for the arrests which might occur now any minute.

In the meanwhile the great city was one step nearer the test—the mass meeting of welcome of Italian-Americans to the hero of Fiume in Great Coliseum Gardens on the next, or Saturday, evening. It was officially announced that, Black Hand or no Black Hand, Mayor True would positively appear. A wireless from the incoming guest, the hero of Fiume, still approaching on shipboard, said simply, when translated, “Giuseppe Gonfardino will be there.”

The time was set. The great city was again agog. Meanwhile Michael F. Melody, perhaps the most active mind in all that great active-minded population, sat in the publicity factory of Mayor True in conference with a small dark man, with a small neat mustache and curly hair and wood-brown eyes—the expert upon Italian impulses and reactions who had so often been his personal agent and adviser in his international ward politics among the voters of that population. Having something on him—in the way of knowledge of his previous record—Mr. Melody could trust him implicitly.

“How do they go about it, Jimmy,” he was asking—“the Italians, when they salute their flag?”

It seemed that the process was not so different from other flag salutes. Mr. Melody, apparently noting this, went on after a time to other questions:

“What's the fighting motion, Jimmy, for the Italians—that insult of death? What is it that they do? What is that movement that they say will always make an Italian fight?”

The other showed him—the simple two-handed gesture of double shame, at which he explained, the Italian spirit, as he knew it, could not fail to rise up and drink blood.

“If anybody should do that to the Italian flag anywhere,” asked Mr. Melody, “what would happen?”

“You'd have the whole lot of them biting their thumbs off, climbing up to stick you full of knives.”

“That's what they told me,” said Mr. Melody.

“They tell you right, boss,” said his informant earnestly. “And more, too, when a man like General Gonfardino speaks in Italian—on Italia Irredenta and stuff like that he believes in and they're proud of. You know how the Italians are when they're set going; when anybody talks in Italian to them about themselves, and how good they are, and about their country!”

Dismissing him, after further researches concerning the sentiment of Italy upon the great national enthusiasm of redawning glory, of retrieving ancient shores and regal memories, Mr. Melody, the unseen publicity agent of the great and complex interests which lay behind the much-seen mayor of Chibosh, called by his push button for his assistant, Mr. Stillman Nott.

“When'll you have your speech ready,” he asked him, “for the royal hodcarrier tomorrow night?”

Mr. Nott gazed at him with sad indifference.

“Four o'clock,” he said briefly.

“You're putting it all in—on Garibaldi and Gonfardino and the red and black shirts?”

Mr. Nott indicated that he was doing so rather by his general air than by any definite, specific gesture.

“And you'll write in the pronunciation over the words as usual?”

Mr. Nott nodded shortly.

“Make it good and plain this time,” directed Mr. Melody; “especially that Fascisti and stuff like that, and I'll go over and explain it to him.”

“You'd better,” said Mr. Nott, now looking up and speaking more at length. “Do you can what he thinks now—from all I can see?”

“I dunno,” said Mr. Melody negligently. “He thinks probably Fascisti is an Italian fish.”

“Worse than that, I believe. He's all tied up in knots on this thing. From all I've heard him say, he thinks Fiume is the capital of Italy and somebody called the Fascisti is trying to take it away from them. Honest, that's what I think he thinks.”

“Where would he get that?” asked Mr. Melody, regarding him closely.

“That's what I'd like to know,” said the other.

“Where does he get anything, huh?” said Mr. Melody.

Mr. Nott again lapsed into conversation by nodding.

“Well, I'll tell him different,” said Mr. Melody. “I'll straighten him out when I go over to coach him, and I'll take his copy of his speech over when I go. You'll give out the press copies tomorrow afternoon as per usual. But I'll pass him his myself.”

Mr. Nott, nodding, soon withdrew to his own labors of speech-making, while Mr. Melody was at once absorbed in the framing of his own—the second and somewhat altered speech for Mayor True. He worked carefully, conscientiously. It was early evening before he was suited. It was an unusual and entirely novel enterprise for the publicity bureau of Mayor True. Never before had it engaged in the switching or substitution of speeches in its relation with its principal.

And even now, Mr. Melody reserved this important activity entirely to himself.

V

IT WAS Saturday evening in the great city of Chibosh—the evening of the great reception and delivery of the freedom of the city by Mayor Herman J. True, the guardian of the people of Chibosh regardless of race or circumstance, to Gen. Giuseppe Gonfardino, the hero of Fiume, the flaming instrument of fate in the high hope of Italia Irredenta.

Again in the papers of the morning the fourth of the thumbless black hands from the mayor's mail of yesterday had blocked the way of the reading public with an infernal finality. Again the police department of Chibosh was tense to the breaking point. Again the Black-Hand Squad of old Mike Boogan and the far-flung fingers of Francis X. Doheney, poised above the haunts and lairs of the thumbless black-hander, had not yet fallen. And again Mayor True, head of all the people, white or black, had stated through the public address that he would not fail, for any foolish fears, the Italian-American citizens in the granting of the freedom of Chibosh to General Gonfardino, the idol of Italy, who, though still on the ocean, somewhat delayed, yet sent ahead once more his reassuring message: “Giuseppe Gonfardino will be there.”

In the morning, Peoples Pictures had published an authentic picture—which was afterward denied by the Morning Truth—of a piece of iron pipe, found beneath the speakers' stand in the midst of Great Coliseum Gardens, which old Lieut. Mike Boogan identified as undoubtedly left there by a Black-Hand dynamiter who had been scared away at the last moment by the activities of the city's Black-Hand Squad.

Mr. Doheney, the great international business detective, disputed this, saying that from sources which had never failed yet he could state quite positively that the bomb to be exploded that night would be released from an aëroplane. This was the latest decision of the Seven—the inside council of the Thumbless Enemies of Italy. His last word was to warn all with responsibility—especially merchants and manufacturers and business men—to keep away from Great Coliseum Gardens that evening. For though it might yet be prevented, anything might happen there at that time.

Nevertheless, on that evening the citizens of Chibosh in thousands, even tens of thousands, gathered around, and at some little distance, to see the spectacle of the conferring of the freedom of the great American city upon General Gonfardino, the representative of one of the oldest and most imperial civilizations in the world. They were not disappointed; the spectacle was imposing—most unusual.

The police guard of Chibosh moved first, led by Chief Charles Y. Spoofenberger himself, straight, red-faced and solid, upon a slim white horse. Other equestrian police followed; still others upon motorcycles and bicycles. From the dim air above the aura of radiance which surrounded Great Coliseum Gardens was heard the incessant hum of the aërial police squad of Chibosh, patrolling the air to avert any possible bomb from an anarchist, syndicalist or Black-Hand aëroplane.

Following the police guard and the reception committee—in a limousine, with a profusion of green, white and red rosettes upon the equipage and its occupants came, in another open limousine, the two chief figures of the day, Herman True, the mayor of all the people of Chibosh, and General Gonfardino, the world-heralded hero of Fiume, who, by the unexpected delay in his steamship's docking, had arrived only just in time for the evening ceremonies.

Dressed in black, with a black silk hat, the mayor of this great American city lay back, easy and unafraid, with a toothpick in his mouth after a rich and splendid dinner, which, though spread in the hope of entertaining the foreign celebrity, he and his staff had been compelled to eat alone. Beside him a tall, handsome, military-headed man, the hero of Fiume, sat erect at his full height, in his flashing uniform and the glitter of the medieval jeweled necklace which commemorated his achievements, as a gift of the people.

So far, and until they entered the immense hall and passed through the police cordon to its center, no untoward happening had come. The police discipline was perfect. The great hall, blazing with flags, held an expectant and resolute body of citizens of Italian and American birth, who, though not unnaturally nervous, showed themselves unaffected by any threats which would keep them from doing honor to a great national enthusiasm. It was without doubt the greatest single demonstration in ail the history of the international ward politics of this great American metropolis.

A tremendous roar, beginning when the cortège entered the great auditorium, subsided only after some half hour, when, at a high gesture of the magnificent military figure of General Gonfardino, a perfect silence fell upon the great audience. The speakers now all being seated, the police-department glee club gave a medley of Italian and American national airs.

In the center of the central platform, underneath the two immense Italian and American flags, which hung above and slightly before the principals of the occasion, sat the two main figures, Mayor True, who was to offer, and General Gonfardino, the idol of Italy, who was to receive the formal freedom of the city of Chibosh.

Lolling at his ease, looking about the hall, the chief magistrate turned with an easy familiarity to his guest, enabled to speak to him now personally after their hurried greeting and their previous preoccupation with the deafening ovations of the public. Looking at him, as one who wishes to establish pleasant personal relations, he said confidentially to the guest of the evening, patting his knee:

“Good fella!”

“Pardon?” asked General Gonfardino, not feeling that he fully understood.

“You good fella. I good fella,” said the mayor of Chibosh warmly, in the style of conversation used to communicate pleasantly with Chinese or other extremely foreign nationalities; and pointing explicitly first to General Gonfardino and then to himself, with the dry end of his toothpick.

General Gonfardino, a distinguished linguist as well as soldier, drew somewhat away, and to a still stiffer height—puzzled, as he had been several times before during his ride through Chibosh that evening, by the customs of the officials of this great new country he was visiting for the first time,

But the fire-department band, now playing a second medley of national tunes, prevented his answering.

At the close of this, leaning over again toward him, the mayor of Chibosh, with every appearance of ease, now made a motion, a gesture. Seeing it, General Gonfardino, the intense, haughty and impulsive idol of Italy, gave a sudden start. He was wrong, he told himself then—he must be wrong. For he had thought he saw that gesture—that two-handed gesture of shame before which, though seen only in the lowest strata, the blood of every son of Italy must start madly to his eyes and ears.

He had not seen correctly, that was it! It must be some American gesture, which this American official, his host, was giving him, with every expression of friendliness and familiarity upon his sincere and honest face. But there was no time to ask further concerning it, for now, at the close of the medley of the fire-department brass band, it was time for the brief but striking exercises of conferring the freedom of Chibosh. The two arose, now facing each other.

Mayor Herman J. True stood for the moment, gazing sincerely above his Roman nose—heavy mustache at his highly uniformed guest. He held a document in each hand, one evidently the token of the freedom of the city, the other a typewritten speech. Nothing could have been more cordial or reassuring than the tone in which he started reading from the second one. Pausing, he gazed over the edge of his manuscript at the guest of the city, of the nation, whom he was about to honor, and uttered his first words.

“Fiume must be free!” said Mayor Herman J. True, gazing deeply into the eyes of the high and military figure before and above him, “from those who have taken it!”

The tone was low and inadequate for so great a hall; the audience, though tensely silent, did not hear it plainly, as a whole. But no one at all near could fail to note the sudden appearance of interest and expectation which seemed to overtake the tall haughty military figure which stood up opposite the mayor of Chibosh as he spoke sincerely on.

“Fiume must be free,” he continued; “free from the Fascisti! This is the great message, General Gonfardino, which you have given the world, and which all the world associates with your name.”

Though held rigidly, at an extreme military stillness, the face and form of the great general of Fiume nevertheless expressed a sharp and growing wonder as his opposite upon the great stage—that seemed so small in this immense assembly of the people—went on to elaborate his opening theme. His voice rose as it reached more emotional matter.

“As one man they cried”—or so it seemed to General Gonfardino that he said—“Gonfardino comes! Fiume must be free! Down, down with the Fascisti! Down, down with Italia Irredenta! Down! Gonfardino comes!”

There was a great silence in the convention hall; the silence of doubt and wonder. Those in the back, of course, could not hear. They watched closely those in front. Those in front sat spellbound, motionless, in deep doubt. The reading of the speaker was somewhat thick; moreover many in his audience were not adept in the English tongue.

Yet those within sight of the features of General Gonfardino could not fail to see the expression that was now possessing them—the strange conflict of wonder and anger and self-control, as he still stood rigidly at attention.

And now, turning away from him, the speaker faced forward, noting as he did so the unusual expressions and gestures of some of the nearer faces beneath him and the one or two who were already biting at their thumbs—a gesture which he had been told he was the next to expect—as a part of the ceremony of the salute to the Italian flag.

There, on the Steps of the Great City Hall He Could See the Man Himself, the Mayor of All the People

Smiling confidently, gladly, sincerely, a smile of genuine welcome, Mayor Herman J. True, chief executive of Chibosh, walked to the edge of the central platform of the great hall, and in the hush, that awful hush of silent thousands, looking upward to where it hung, made leisurely and at ease the Italian salute to the great Italian flag before and above him, which in learning his speech for the evening he had been coached to give as its supreme gesture. It was an unusual gesture—a two-handed motion of a very foreign type.

“Fiume, capital of Italy!” cried Mayor True, making it. “Italia, I salute you!”

A brittle silence and then a roar—the wild, hearty and spontaneous roar of a great popular emotion—filled the hall. All about him he could see, as he had been told to expect, thousands biting their thumbs—completing their salute to their flag, and even advancing in their enthusiasm toward him. Smiling warmly, confidently, sincerely back at them, Mayor Herman J. True, prepared to go on to his conclusion—when something hit him.

It was General Gonfardino. Suddenly reaching forward, his jeweled necklace awry, his bright military hat on one ear, seizing the certificate of the freedom of Chibosh, he was beating its mayor violently over the head with it.

“Traitor! Hen! Wild goat of the world!” cried General Gonfardino. “The people of Italia award you this—and this—and this!”

Around him and in front, the mayor of Chibosh gazed down upon a sea of dark, agitated faces, some of them with weapons brandished over them, many of them biting thumbs.

And just at this time—as Chief Spoofenberger stepped forward with his cordon of police and the fire-department band began to play the medley of mixed national airs—Mayor True realized dimly that his second document, his typewritten speech, also was gone.

VI

THE Sunday morning press of Chibosh gave widely varying interpretations of the incident of the preceding night in the Great Coliseum Gardens. The Morning Truth asked in its leading headlines:

WILL WAR BE SEQUEL

Or Mayor's Misinterpreted Salute?

Francis X. Doheney, the Great Detective, Shows How Naturally But Insidiously the National Misunderstanding He Predicted was Fomented by Anarchist Plot. Full Text of Mayor True's Speech

The Peoples Pictures, upon its first page, showed flashlight scenes of Great Coliseum Gardens, full of action, after it was entirely cleared by the police, and while the hospital attendants were still at work—all pores about the bushel basket full of knives and other weapons collected by the authorities. On its inside pages it said:

STARTED BY BLOW FROM BEHIND!

Unfortunate National Misunderstanding

Old Mike Boogan, of Black-Hand Squad, Sees First Blow Struck by Black-Hand Conspirator, Which Causes Great Coliseum Gardens Riot. Actual Full Text of Mayor's Speech.

The Chronicle, the more conservative morning paper, which had followed the thumbless black-hand mystery with little warmth, now spoke out editorially to say:

If the United States had entered the League of Nations—as every thinking man knows it should have done from the first—such grotesque episodes of national misunderstanding as that in Great Coliseum Gardens last evening would be unthinkable. How much longer can this nation afford to ignore the fact, patent to all the remainder of the world, that, through the simple process of assumption by this country of a proper responsibility for the peace, debts and food supply of Europe and Asia, the possibility of international hostilities will at once automatically disappear and war become, as it should be now, a horrid anachronism?

Yet however varied the interpretation of the untoward incident of the night before, every journalist, every politician, every press agent in the teeming press agencies and phantom factories of Chibosh was assured now of one fact: Mayor True, at one time mayor of all the people of Chibosh, was through—through with the women's vote, the international-ward-politics vote, the vote at large of the city. It was not only impossible but inconceivable that he should be next fall's nominee of any party for another term as mayor.

This, however, was but a poor satisfaction to Mr. Michael F. Melody, the press agent of Mayor True. His own personal problem was still unsolved—the main question of his immediate future: Would Chinese Meeghan finally speak—break that terrible silence? Had he or had he not finally forced him to come out in the open and bawl him out—as he had always done before—so that he could tell him face to face how impossible it would be for even Mr. Meeghan to attack and send Mr. Melody back to prison, with what the latter and the women with their card catalogue could pin on Mr. Meeghan himself?

Mr. Melody, although it was Sunday morning, was back sitting in Room 913, the Phantom Factory of Mayor True, which tomorrow no doubt he must leave for the last time. Nothing had been heard from Mr. Meeghan yet. Should he call him, cut short the agony, tell him where he stood before by any chance—contrary to his previous habit—he might start the Federal authorities loose on Mr. Melody without warning.

Mr. Melody sat thinking, undetermined, anxious, as to his course with Mr. Meeghan; melancholy and bitter when he thought of what these two women politicians with their card catalogue had driven him to. The dingy second-class office building lay silent around him, the streets of the central city unnaturally still, the great stone city hall across the way as devoid of life as a sarcophagus; and close around him, the place of the successful activities of his recent years, the Phantom Factory, with its brooding likenesses of Mayor True, that great imaginative political fiction, which was his own creation. Tomorrow, without doubt, he must leave it, with comparatively little money, abruptly, by the act of these two women, without even gathering up the various bits of graft which he had expected, lingering, to secure. He must leave all this now. Possibly, if Meeghan should act without a warning—much more, for a much longer time!

Suddenly his desk telephone rang. He snatched it quickly. It was those women again—those demon women politicians. They had found him here again, in this most unlikely Sunday resort. It was the voice of the younger one speaking.

“Has he called you up yet?” it asked.

“Have you heard from Mr. Meeghan, she means?” explained the second one, speaking from her second telephone.

“No,” said Mr. Melody in a gruff and surly voice.

“You will.”

“Right away.”

“How? Why?” asked Mr. Melody quickly.

“We've arrested the Seven Dead Men.”

“You've what?” cried Mr. Melody.

“Yes.”

“He's in the hands of the Federal authorities now.”

“You've arrested him!” cried Mr. Melody, aghast.

“Yes.”

“Then what'll become of me?”

“The first thing is, Mr. Meeghan will be calling you up,” said the young one.

“To feel you out,” said the other.

“And what you know. And you'll tell him where he stands.”

“And then what?” asked Mr. Melody, done, shot, flabbergasted.

“And then you'll come over here,” they told him—and they both shut off; shut off and left him silent, gasping, staring forward at the wall.

It was about fifteen minutes later that the telephone rang again. It was exactly as they had told him. The voice of Chinese Meeghan came across the wire. The silent one was speaking in a voice that was very hoarse.

“Where the hell have you been?” he said. “I've been calling all over town for you.

“I've been here,” said Mr. Melody, sitting up with a new light in his eyes, leaning forward toward the telephone. “Why?”

“Why? I'll tell you why. I want you over here right now,” called the hoarse, hurrying tones over the telephone.

“You do, huh? Well, you won't get me!” said Mr. Melody briskly, in a high and vibrant voice. “I know what you want me for without your telling me.”

“What do I want you for?” asked the hoarse, heavy voice upon the telephone.

“The Seven Dead Men—that's what you want me for! The arrest of the Seven Dead Men, and just how bad we've got you!”

“You'll come over!” said the hoarse and threatening voice.

“Yes, I will! When you and he are rolling marbles in jail,” said Mr. Melody, shutting down his telephone, keeping him guessing—the way you always want to do, in politics, in Chibosh when you've got something good and strong on them—like that Seven Dead Men.

Who were these Seven Dead Men? What were or was they, he or it? This matter of final importance, which was destined so to change the face of popular government in Chibosh, will certainly be revealed in the next and concluding revelation of this series.

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Editor's Note—This is the fourth of a series of stories by Mr. Turner. The next will appear in an early issue.