However, there was one contingency to be dared. In a way it was a risk,
yet an inevitable one. No matter what followed he must put the exposé
story into print; that absolutely was requisite to the proper
development of the plan. For Mr. Foxman well knew the psychological
effect of the sight of cold type upon the minds of men planning evil
things. He didn't know John W. Blake personally, but he knew John W.
Blake's kind, and he figured John W. Blake as being in his essentials no
different from the run of his kind. Nor was he wrong there, as will
appear. Moreover, the risk, while necessary to the carrying out of his
present designs, was a risk only in the light of possibilities arising
later. Being now fully committed to the venture, he told himself he
shouldn't much care if detection did come after the accomplishment of
his purpose. Long before that could happen, he, having made his pile and
being secure in the possession of a fortune, would be able to laugh in
the faces of his own little world, because anyhow he meant to move on
into another circle very soon thereafter. Yes; there was one risk to be
taken. On the instant that he arrived at this point in his reasonings
he set about taking it.
First off, he read Singlebury's copy through once more, amending the
wording in a few places. He made certain accusations direct and forcible
where the reporter, in his carefulness, had been a trifle vague. Then he
drew to him a block of copy paper and set about heading and subheading
the story. In the days when he sat in the slot of a copy desk Mr. Foxman
had been a master hand at headlining; with disuse his knack of hand had
not grown rusty. He built and balanced a three-column, three-decker top
caption and, to go under it, the heavy hanging indentions and the bold
cross lines. From the body of the manuscript, also, he copied off
several assertions of a particular emphasis and potency and marked them
to go at the top of the story in blackface, with a box about them. This
much done, he went to his door and hailed the night city editor, sitting
a few yards away.
"Oh, Sloan," he said, "send a boy upstairs for McManus, will you?"
"McManus isn't here to-night," answered Sloan. He got up and came over
to his chief. McManus was the make-up editor.
"This isn't McManus' night off, is it?" asked Mr. Foxman.
"No, Mac's sick," explained Sloan; "he was complaining last night and
went home early, and I stayed on to make up his last two pages for him.
A little while ago his wife telephoned in from Bayside that he was in
bed with a high fever. She said the doctor said it was a touch of
malaria and that Mac couldn't possibly get back to work for a week,
anyhow."
"I see," said Mr. Foxman slowly. He ran his eye over the city room.
"Whom did you put on in his place?"
"Gykeman."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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