peter had an appointment to meet nell on a street corner at eleven o’clock that same night, and when she stepped off the street-car, peter saw that she was carrying a suit-case. “did you get your job done?” she asked quickly, and when peter answered in the affirmative, she added: “here’s your bomb!”
peter’s jaw fell. he looked so frightened that she hastened to reassure him. it wouldn’t go off; it was only the makings of a bomb, three sticks of dynamite and some fuses and part of a clock. the dynamite was wrapped carefully, and there was no chance of its exploding—if he didn’t drop it! but peter wasn’t much consoled. he had had no idea that nell would go so far, or that he would actually have to handle dynamite. he wondered where and how she had got it, and wished to god he was out of this thing.
but it was too late now, of course. said nell: “you’ve got to get this suit-case into the headquarters, and you’ve got to get it there without anybody seeing you. they’ll be shut up pretty soon, won’t they?”
“we locked up when we left,” said peter.
“and who has the key?”
“grady, the secretary.”
“there’s no way you can get it?”
“i can get into the room,” said peter, quickly. “there’s a fire escape, and the window isn’t tight. some of us that know about it have got in that way when the place was locked.”
“all right,” said nell. “we’ll wait a bit; we mustn’t take chances of anyone coming back.”
they started to stroll along the street, nell still carrying the suit-case, as if distrusting the state of peter’s nerves, meantime she explained, “i’ve got two pieces of paper that we’ve got to plant in the room. one’s to be torn up and thrown into the trash-basket. it’s supposed to be part of a letter about some big plan that’s to be pulled off, and it’s signed ‘mac.’ that’s for mccormick, of course. i had to type it, not having any sample of his handwriting. the other piece is a drawing; there’s no marks to show what it is, but of course the police’ll soon find out. it’s a plan of old ackerman’s home, and there’s a cross mark showing his sleeping-porch. now, what we want to do is to fix this on mccormick. is there anything in the room that belongs to him?”
peter thought, and at last remembered that in the bookshelves were some books which had been donated by mccormick, and which had his name written in. that was the trick! exclaimed nell. they would hide the paper in one of these books, and when the police made a thorough search they would find it. nell asked what was in these books, and peter thought, and remembered that one was a book on sabotage. “put the paper in that,” said nell. “when the police find it, the newspapers’ll print the whole book.”
peter’s knees were trembling so that he could hardly walk, but he kept reminding himself that he was a “he-man,” a 100% american, and that in these times of war every patriot must do his part. his part was to help rid the country of these reds, and he must not flinch. they made their way to the old building in which the i. w. w. headquarters were located, and peter climbed up on the fence and swung over to the fire-escape, and nell very carefully handed the suit-case to him, and peter opened the damaged window and slipped into the room.
he knew just where the cupboard was, and quickly stored the suit-case in the corner, and piled some odds and ends of stuff in front of it, and threw an old piece of canvas over it. he took out of his right-hand pocket a typewritten letter, and tore it into small pieces and threw them into the trash-basket. then he took out of his left-hand pocket the other paper, with the drawing of ackerman’s house. he went to the bookcase and with shaking fingers struck a match, picked out the little redbound book entitled “sabotage,” and stuck the paper inside, and put the book back in place. then he climbed out on the fire-escape and dropped to the ground, jumped over the fence, and hurried down the alley to where nell was waiting for him.
“it’s for my country!” he was whispering to himself.
