Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/402

380 campaign which his paper alone of all the Reuton papers had waged against a corrupt city administration was brought to a successful close. The victory was won. How had this been accomplished? Into the Star office had come rumors, a few days back, of the proposed payment of a big bribe at the inn on Baldpate Mountain. The paper had decided that one of its representatives must be on the ground. It had debated long whom to send. Miss Evelyn Rhodes, its well-known special writer, had got the tip in question; she had pleaded to go to the inn. The editor, considering her sex, had sternly refused. Then gradually he had been brought to see the wisdom of sending a girl rather than a man. The sex of the former would put the guilty parties under surveillance off guard. So Miss Rhodes was despatched to the inn. Here was her story. It convicted Cargan beyond a doubt. The very money offered as a bribe was now in the hands of the Star editor, and would be turned over to Prosecutor Drayton at his request. All this under the disquieting title "Prison Stripes for the Mayor".

The girl's story told how, with one companion,