"Get ready," said Micky, "for the damnedest feature story for the next issue that was ever sprung in this town. Yes sir, absolutely the damnedest. The lines are all out. I'm due for about five hours' sleep, and then I'll begin to gather 'em in, and there'll be a bouquet of suckers on every hook. I've got a lot of finishin' touches to get tomorrow, and I'll be able to begin grindin' it out early in the evenin', not before. Yes, I'll have it all. What is it? It's a slaughter, slaughter of the gang. Shaughnessy'll be wearin' stripes unless he ducks, and a lot more with him, includin' Old Whiskers Boynton. Not in time? Election only three days off? Wait till you read the story! Wait till the town reads it! They'll all be champin' the bit of Fusion and frothin' at the mouth. I've been at this for weeks, but the main stuffin' I only got tonight. It comes late, but it's a winner, and Shaughnessy, he's a dead one!" CHAPTER XVIII A COUNTER MOVE Shaughnessy stirred uneasily in his chair. Then, with a convulsive shudder, he sat erect, one hand instinctively pressed against his left side. His head reeled, his bewildered eyes strove to pierce the gloom. With a swift intake of breath the deathly smell of the drug crept into his nostrils. Then he remembered. With a snarling curse he sprang to his feet, drawing a match from his vest pocket with shaking fingers. He lighted the gas and glanced toward the safe, expecting to find it forced open. All seemed to be in order. The boss was perplexed. What had they wanted, those mysterious visitors? With a sudden apprehension he thrust his hand swiftly into an inner pocket and found it empty. Then Shaughnessy, momentarily beyond oaths, collapsed helplessly into his chair. There was expression enough in his white face now, and it was of fear. The papers were gone, filched from him in open assault, in a way of which the boss had never dreamed. He could have groaned in bitterness of spirit as he remembered what zealous care he had taken of those damning documents, veritable blood pacts of dark, unprincipled deeds, through which Shaughnessy held the wretched signers in the hollow of his hand. Though cunningly giving the impression that they were kept in his office, Shaughnessy generally had them in safe keeping elsewhere and disturbed them only when it was expedient that they serve some purpose like the cruel intimidation to which Judge Boynton had been subjected. And now they were gone. Shaughnessy cursed in his heart the fatal weakness for melodramatic effect, in which he was prone to indulge, that had exposed him to this fatal risk. But who had them? Shaughnessy sprang up and paced the floor. He clenched his fists as he thought of Judge Boynton. Was it a plot of his? He dismissed the thought with a sneer. Such a desperate expedient was beyond the nerveless old jurist.