"Excellent, Comrade Windsor," said Psmith. "Surely we must win through now. All we have to do is to get off this roof, and fate cannot touch us. Are two mammoth minds such as ours unequal to such a feat? It can hardly be. Let us ponder."
"Why not go down through the trap? They"ve all gone to the street."
Psmith shook his head.
"All," he replied, "save Sam. Sam was the subject of my late successful experiment, when I proved that coloured gentlemen"s heads could be hurt with a stick. He is now waiting below, armed with a pistol, ready--even anxious--to pick us off as we climb through the trap. How would it be to drop Comrade Gooch through first, and so draw his fire? Comrade Gooch, I am sure, would be delighted to do a little thing like that for old friends of our standing or--but what"s that!"
"What"s the matter?"
"Is that a ladder that I see before me, its handle to my hand? It is! Comrade Windsor, we win through. _Cosy Moments_" editorial staff may be tree"d, but it cannot be put out of business. Comrade Windsor, take the other end of that ladder and follow me."
The ladder was lying against the farther wall. It was long, more than long enough for the purpose for which it was needed. Psmith and Billy rested it on the coping, and pushed it till the other end reached across the gulf to the roof of the house next door, Mr.
Gooch eyeing them in silence the while.
Psmith turned to him.
"Comrade Gooch," he said, "do nothing to apprise our friend Sam of these proceedings. I speak in your best interests. Sam is in no mood to make nice distinctions between friend and foe. If you bring him up here, he will probably mistake you for a member of the staff of _Cosy Moments_, and loose off in your direction without waiting for explanations. I think you had better come with us. I will go first, Comrade Windsor, so that if the ladder breaks, the paper will lose merely a sub-editor, not an editor."
He went down on all-fours, and in this att.i.tude wormed his way across to the opposite roof, whose occupants, engrossed in the fight in the street, in which the police had now joined, had their backs turned and did not observe him. Mr. Gooch, pallid and obviously ill-attuned to such feats, followed him; and finally Billy Windsor reached the other side.
"Neat," said Psmith complacently. "Uncommonly neat. Comrade Gooch reminded me of the untamed chamois of the Alps, leaping from crag to crag."
In the street there was now comparative silence. The police, with their clubs, had knocked the last remnant of fight out of the combatants. Shooting had definitely ceased.
"I think," said Psmith, "that we might now descend. If you have no other engagements, Comrade Windsor, I will take you to the Knickerbocker, and buy you a square meal. I would ask for the pleasure of your company also, Comrade Gooch, were it not that matters of private moment, relating to the policy of the paper, must be discussed at the table. Some other day, perhaps. We are infinitely obliged to you for your sympathetic co-operation in this little matter. And now good-bye. Comrade Windsor, let us debouch."
CHAPTER XXII
CONCERNING MR. WARING
Psmith pushed back his chair slightly, stretched out his legs, and lit a cigarette. The resources of the Knickerbocker Hotel had proved equal to supplying the fatigued staff of _Cosy Moments_ with an excellent dinner, and Psmith had stoutly declined to talk business until the coffee arrived. This had been hard on Billy, who was bursting with his news. Beyond a hint that it was sensational he had not been permitted to go.
"More bright young careers than I care to think of," said Psmith, "have been ruined by the fatal practice of talking shop at dinner.
But now that we are through, Comrade Windsor, by all means let us have it. What"s the name which Comrade Gooch so eagerly divulged?"
Billy leaned forward excitedly.
"Stewart Waring," he whispered.
"Stewart who?" asked Psmith.
Billy stared.
"Great Scott, man!" he said, "haven"t you heard of Stewart Waring?"
"The name seems vaguely familiar, like Isingla.s.s or Post-toasties.
I seem to know it, but it conveys nothing to me."
"Don"t you ever read the papers?"
"I toy with my _American_ of a morning, but my interest is confined mainly to the sporting page which reminds me that Comrade Brady has been matched against one Eddie Wood a month from to-day. Gratifying as it is to find one of the staff getting on in life, I fear this will cause us a certain amount of inconvenience. Comrade Brady will have to leave the office temporarily in order to go into training, and what shall we do then for a fighting editor? However, possibly we may not need one now. _Cosy Moments_ should be able shortly to give its message to the world and ease up for a while.
Which brings us back to the point. Who is Stewart Waring?"
"Stewart Waring is running for City Alderman. He"s one of the biggest men in New York!"
"Do you mean in girth? If so, he seems to have selected the right career for himself."
"He"s one of the bosses. He used to be Commissioner of Buildings for the city."
"Commissioner of Buildings? What exactly did that let him in for?"
"It let him in for a lot of graft."
"How was that?"
"Oh, he took it off the contractors. Shut his eyes and held out his hands when they ran up rotten buildings that a strong breeze would have knocked down, and places like that Pleasant Street hole without any ventilation."
"Why did he throw up the job?" inquired Psmith. "It seems to me that it was among the World"s Softest. Certain drawbacks to it, perhaps, to the man with the Hair-Trigger Conscience; but I gather that Comrade Waring did not line up in that cla.s.s. What was his trouble?"
"His trouble," said Billy, "was that he stood in with a contractor who was putting up a music-hall, and the contractor put it up with material about as strong as a heap of meringues, and it collapsed on the third night and killed half the audience."
"And then?"
"The papers raised a howl, and they got after the contractor, and the contractor gave Waring away. It killed him for the time being."
"I should have thought it would have had that excellent result permanently," said Psmith thoughtfully. "Do you mean to say he got back again after that?"
"He had to quit being Commissioner, of course, and leave the town for a time; but affairs move so fast here that a thing like that blows over. He made a bit of a pile out of the job, and could afford to lie low for a year or two."
"How long ago was that?"
"Five years. People don"t remember a thing here that happened five years back unless they"re reminded of it."
Psmith lit another cigarette.
"We will remind them," he said.
Billy nodded.
"Of course," he said, "one or two of the papers against him in this Aldermanic Election business tried to bring the thing up, but they didn"t cut any ice. The other papers said it was a shame, hounding a man who was sorry for the past and who was trying to make good now; so they dropped it. Everybody thought that Waring was on the level now. He"s been shooting off a lot of hot air lately about philanthropy and so on. Not that he has actually done a thing--not so much as given a supper to a dozen news-boys; but he"s talked, and talk gets over if you keep it up long enough."
Psmith nodded adhesion to this dictum.
"So that naturally he wants to keep it dark about these tenements.
It"ll smash him at the election when it gets known."