“Maybe,” Ned Beaumont’s lips had become thin, “but we can’t keep on losing them and come out all right.” He put his cigar in a corner of his mouth and said around it: “You know we’re not as well off as we were two weeks ago.”
Madvig grinned indulgently at the man on his desk. “Jesus, you like to sing them, Ned! Don’t anything ever look right to you?” He did not wait for a reply, but went on placidly: “I’ve never been through a campaign yet that didn’t look like it was going to hell at some time or other. They don’t, though.”
Ned Beaumont was lighting his cigar. He blew smoke out and said: “That doesn’t mean they never will.” He pointed the cigar at Madvig’s chest. “If Taylor Henry’s killing isn’t cleared up pronto you won’t have to worry about the campaign. You’ll be sunk whoever wins.”
Madvig’s blue eyes became opaque. There was no other change in his face. His voice was unchanged. “Just what do you mean by that, Ned?”
“Everybody in town thinks you killed him.”
“Yes?” Madvig put a hand up to his chin, rubbed it thoughtfully. “Don’t let that worry you. I’ve had things said about me before.”
Ned Beaumont smiled tepidly and asked with mock admiration: “Is there anything you haven’t been through before? Ever been given the electric cure?”
The blond man laughed. “And don’t think I ever will,” he said.
“You’re not very far from it right now, Paul,” Ned Beaumont said softly.
Madvig laughed again. “Jesus Christ!” he scoffed.
Ned Beaumont shrugged. “You’re not busy?” he asked. “I’m not taking up your time with my nonsense?”
“I’m listening to you,” Madvig told him quietly. “I never lost anything listening to you.”
“Thank you, sir. Why do you suppose M’Laughlin’s wiggling out from under?”
Madvig shook his head.
“He figures you’re licked,” Ned Beaumont said. “Everybody knows the police haven’t tried to find Taylor’s murderer and everybody thinks it’s because you killed him. M’Laughlin figures that’s enough to lick you at the polls this time.”
“Yes? He figures they’d rather have Shad running the city than me? He figures being suspected of one murder makes my rep worse than Shad’s?”
Ned Beaumont scowled at the blond man. “You’re either kidding yourself or trying to kid me. What’s Shad’s reputation got to do with it? He’s not out in the open behind his candidates. You are and it’s your candidates who’re responsible for nothing being done about the murder.”
Madvig put his hand to his chin again and leaned his elbow on the desk. His handsome ruddy face was unlined. He said: “We’ve been talking a lot about what other people figure, Ned. Let’s talk about what you figure. Figure I’m licked?”
“You probably are,” Ned Beaumont said in a low sure voice. “It’s a cinch you are if you sit still.” He smiled. “But your candidates ought to come out all right.”
“That,” Madvig said phlegmatically, “ought to be explained.”
Ned Beaumont leaned over and carefully knocked cigar-ash into the brass spittoon beside the desk. Then he said, unemotionally: “They’re going to cross you up.”
“Yes?”
“Why not? You’ve let Shad take most of the riffraff from behind you. You’re counting on the respectable people, the better element, to carry the election. They’re getting leery. Well, your candidates make a grandstand-play, arrest you for murder, and the respectable citizens–delighted with these noble officials who are brave enough to jail their own acknowledged boss when he breaks the law–trample each other to death in their hurry to get to the polls and elect the heroes to four more years of city-administering. You can’t blame the boys much. They know they’re sitting pretty if they do it and out of work if they don’t.”
Madvig took his hand from his chin to ask: “You don’t count much on their loyalty, do you, Ned?”
Ned Beaumont smiled. “Just as much as you do,” he replied. His smile went away. “I’m not guessing, Paul. I went in to see Farr this afternoon. I had to walk in, crash the gate–he tried to dodge me. He pretended he hadn’t been digging into the killing. He tried to stall me on what he’d found out. In the end he dummied up on me.” He made a disdainful mouth. “Farr, the guy I could always make jump through hoops.”