“Damn the newspapers,” he exploded.  “They’ve printed the Sing Sing yarn on me again.  It was brought out at the arraignment.”

“Confound it, Broderick, haven’t you any influence at all?  Can’t you keep such stuff out of type?”

“Sometimes—­if I know about it in advance.  I’m sorry, Jim.”

“They tell me King of William’s going to print it in the Bulletin.  Better see him.”

“No use,” put in McGowan, “that fellow’s so straight (he sneered the word) that he leans over backward.  Somebody’ll fix him though ... you’ll see.”  The trio wandered off to Broderick’s relief, making their exit just as Cora entered the door.  The gambler approached Richardson.  They had a drink together, some rather loud, conversation.  Broderick feared it would develop into a quarrel, but evidently they patched a truce between them, for soon they went out arm in arm.

His thought turned to Alice Windham.  In a kind of reverie he left the Blue Wing, walking without sense of direction.  It was getting dark; a chilling touch of fog was in the air—­almost, it seemed to Broderick, like a premonition.  On Clay, near Montgomery, he passed two men standing in a doorway; it was too dark to see their faces.  Some impulse bade him stop, but he repressed it.  Later he heard a shot, men running.  But his mood was not for street brawls.  He went on.

CHAPTER XL

THE STORM GATHERS

It was Nesbitt who told Broderick of the murder.  Nesbitt, of whom Richardson had said the night before, “he slings a wicked pen.”

“My God, Jim, this is awful!” Broderick exclaimed.  “You’re sure there’s no mistake ...  I saw the two of them go out arm in arm.”

“Mistake!  I wish it were,” cried Nesbitt angrily.  “No, poor Billy Richardson is dead.  Cora’s in jail....  They say Cora laughed when he went to prison with Scannell....  Scannell and Mulligan!” He spat out the words with a savage distaste.

“Let me show you something, Dave.  A reporter from the New York Express was out here gathering data—­crime statistics for the year.  He showed it to me.  Listen to this:  Four hundred and eighty-nine murders in California during ten months.  Six executions by sheriffs, forty-six hanged by mobs; that makes fifty-two in all.”

He tapped the paper with his lean forefinger.  “Probably two hundred of these killings were local....  And in the entire history of this city there’s been exactly one legal execution.  That was in 1852.”

Broderick shook his head.  “What are you going to do with that stuff?” asked Broderick.

“Publish it in the Bulletin,” returned Nesbitt decisively.  “We’re going to stir things up.”

They walked along together, Broderick’s head bent in thought.  Everywhere people were discussing the evening’s tragedy.  More than once “Judge Lynch’s” name was mentioned threateningly.