The Washington herald., 1914-08-02
(Copyight, lnL)

~
usual quality of my friend Billie
u Rawson's genius / should be false
to him and to myself as well if ! failed
to point out one respect in which Raw
son has differed from, and is therefore,
4 venture to say, because of his greater
humanness, superior to all his rivals in
= the affections Of the readers of the his
tory of detection of the day. Sherlock
Holmes. Dupin, Hawkshaw, Monsieur
Lecoq, all the detectives of historical fc-
ton, have invariably been successful in
all their undertakings, large or small.
None of them has ever been known to
fail With an almost clocklike regular
ity they have come, they have seen, they
have deducted and they have conquered.
With Rawson, l rejoice to say, it is
different. for Rawson, aye, even Raw
son the perfect, has been known to fail.
His best laid schemes have been known
on occasions, very rare occasions, OF
course. but still humanity frequent, to
come down with a crash.
The story of the Dictagrafters is one
of these failures, and record it with
pleasure, not alone for the dramatic
climax which ultimately sent Rawson's
plans astray, but for the purpose of
showing Rawson's human superiority
over the rest of his contemporary he
roes: Since have it from Rawson him
self, it may be regarded as a very true
and accurate presentation OF portion
of the secret history of the famous city
Of Grafton.
The state of affairs municipal
at Grafton was suspiciously sug-
gestive of the name of that thriving
burg The mayor, who had been elected
upon the reform ticket, alone of all the
members of the city council was gener-
ally looked upon as wholly untainted,
but, as some of the taxpayers chose to
put it. this was not due so much to his
proclivities as a reformer as to the fact
that. like most reformers, he was hardly
practical enough to be useful to the
malefactors of great enterprise who
were reaching out to grab everything in
the nature of a franchise within the
range of human vision. The interlock-
ing directorates of all the public service
corporations of Grafton were made up
of men of not only keenly prophetic Wis
ion, but of almost supernatural first
sight as well in the matter of profitable
adventurings for the benefit of the
Greater Grafton, of which the taxpay-
ers nightly dreamed and daily boasted.
They had control of the gas and electric
companies through whose benehcent op-
erations Grafton had become center of
light and living; and the several trolley
lines that threaded the city streets,
though presumably independent of each
other, were in point of fact the secret
property of two individuals who thor
) oughly understood each other and who,
though outwardly quarrelling, and cut
ting each others financial throats, were
privately as firmly knit together by their
mutual interests as ever were Damon
and Pythias.
There was one fly, however, in the
ointment of benehcent monopoly at
Grafton that irritated these worthless
beyond expression. In one very popu-
lous quarter of the city was thorough
fare through which up to this time no
steel rails had been laid, and year after
year, in spite of the best efforts and most
insidious appeals of the promoters, the
right to lay tracks therein had been de-
MED by the ever-matchful city fathers.
Packed mass meetings, personal appeals,
every instrument of persuasion, open
and secret, had failed to convince the
honorable board of aldermen that pub
lie interest demanded the extension of
the electric lines through Heights ave-
nue.; but now, since the new board had
been elected on the reform wave, it had
come to the ears of those back of the
enterprise that some of its members
were open to argument" How much
argument" would be required was not
definitely known, but there were certain
channels of information that led the
promoters to believe that $4,000 suit
ably distributed where it would do the
most good might turn the trick in their
favor
Fifty thousand dollars was a goodly
sum, and it might take the road all of
three months to get it back, but never
theless the suggestion seemed to Col
Woglom to be worth considering if only
for the advantage to be gained from
turning it down. Unfortunately, how
ever, it turned out that Brother Jimp-
son, of the combine, president of the
Grafton National Bank, trustee of the
orphan asylum, and pillar-in-chief of all
spiritual movements in the community,
was averse to committing State prison
oHenses exceof hxy oro1y and uybe1 thA