“Two things remain to be proved,” said Portia, in one of their many connings of the intricate course; “two things that must be proved before you can attack openly:  that Rumford is really representing the Universal Oil Company; and that he is bribing the junto to let the Universal incorporate under the mask of his ‘straw’ company.  Now is the time when you can not afford to be economical.  Have you money?”

Since it was the day after the Hunnicott remittance, Kent could answer yes with a good conscience.

“Then spend it,” she said; and he did spend it like a millionaire, lying awake nights to devise new ways of employing it.

And for the abutments of the arch of proof the money-spending sufficed.  By dint of a warm and somewhat costly wire investigation of Rumford’s antecedents, Kent succeeded in placing the Belmount promoter unquestionably as one of the trusted lieutenants of the Universal; and the leaky clerk in the secretary of State’s office gave the text of the application for the “straw” company charter, showing that the powers asked for were as despotic as the great monopoly could desire.

But for the keystone of the arch, the criminal implication of the plotters themselves, he was indebted to a fit of ill-considered anger and to a chapter of accidents.

XVII

THE CONSPIRATORS

It was chiefly due to Portia’s urgings that Kent took Ormsby into his confidence when the campaign was fairly opened.  She put it diplomatically on the ground of charity to an exiled millionaire, temporarily out of a job; but her real reason went deeper.  From its inception as a one-man fight against political chicanery in high places, the criticism of the Bucks formula was beginning to shape itself in a readjustment of party lines in the field of State politics; and Miss Van Brock, whose designs upon Kent’s future ran far in advance of her admissions to him, was anxiously casting about for a managerial promoter.

A little practice-play in municipal politics made the need apparent.  It came in the midst of things, basing itself upon the year-gone triumph of agrarianism in the State.  In the upheaval, the capital city had participated to the extent of electing a majority of the aldermen on the People’s Party ticket; and before long it developed that a majority of this aldermanic majority could be counted among the spoilsmen—­was in fact a creature of the larger ring.

[Illustration:  HE JAMMED THE FIRE END OF HIS CIGAR AMONG THE FINGERS OF THE GRASPING HAND.]

Late in the summer an ordinance was proposed by the terms of which a single corporation was to be given a franchise granting a complete monopoly of the streets for gas and water mains and transit rights of way.  Thereupon a bitter struggle ensued.  Party lines were obliterated, and men who shunned the primaries and otherwise shirked their political duties raised the cry of corruption, and a Civic League was formed to fight the ring.