"I have detectives working on it now--or pretending to," replied Jack, "but they don't seem to get anywhere. Whoever was behind the scheme covered his tracks well." "Yes, we, too, have had a detective working," said Bailey, "though Miss Van Deusen has called him off now. No use, she says, and thinks perhaps any further work in that direction may hinder what she wants to do in another." "Perhaps she's right," responded Allingham. "All we have been able to discover is that two electric cabs, both provided with outside means of locking the doors and windows, took the opposing candidates and went off twenty miles or so into the country, on the night before election, breaking up an important debate that might have turned the current of affairs in another direction--" "--Um, perhaps," interrupted Bailey. "Perhaps not. Anyway, all this we knew before midnight, the evening it happened." "Yes. And while there are no electric cabs in Roma, there are plenty of them within a radius of twenty-five miles of us. And the Burke gang could easily have brought any of them here. I've been having a hunt made for cabs with outside locks; but so far, none have been discovered. Between you and me, I doubt if we can ever find out." "Between you and me, I shall not be surprised if we run up against further deviltry of that sort," said Bailey, "before we get through with--" The telephone interrupted him, and after a short one-sided conversation, Bailey arose, too. "I'll go along with you," he said. "Miss Van Deusen wants to see me." CHAPTER XIV Graft Two weeks later, the fluffy little member of the Progressive Workers presented herself one morning at the rooms of the Mayor and requested a private interview. Probably she was the last woman in Roma one would have suspected of wanting to take a hand in politics. Yet, here she was. "Why, Bella, is it you?" asked Gertrude. "What is it? Don't they keep your street clean? or empty your ash can often enough?" "Well, I hope I should know enough, Gertrude Van Deusen," retorted the fluffy lady, "to go to the street-cleaning department about that. No, I've something really important to tell you." "Indeed. You may close the door after you, Minnie," she said to the stenographer. "Now, what is it, Bella?" For the life of her, she could not help using the same tone she would have used to a pretty child who had dropped in to complain of her teacher. "Well, Mary Flynn,--that's my laundress, you know,--has overworked lately, and to keep up her strength, I'm sorry to say, has indulged in her habit of toning up for her day's work with more of the 'crathur' than is good for--, By the way, when are you going to tackle the saloons, Gertie?" She did not wait for an answer, but rattled on. "And so, you know, she gets rather talkative. Yesterday she was about half-seas over and talked every minute, and when I went down stairs to show her about my new lingerie waists--well, you should have heard her!"