The section captains had kept the Businessmen’s Committee informed of events all over the city. The telephones had worked fine. There had been few surprises.

Still, it never hurt to be prepared. Preparation was the key to everything. The first principle of the lawyer was to know in advance the answers to the hard questions.

Hugh MacRae stuck his head in the door. He’d been in another parlor conferring with some businessmen, probably that so-called secret group of his. “You’re going to do great things for us in Raleigh, George—congratulations.”

Rountree shook MacRae’s hand without standing up. “You expecting any trouble tomorrow?”

MacRae winked. “Not a bit. It’s all over.”

“Looks like all our precautions were for nothing.” After Rountree had shared the Pinkertons’ report, even MacRae had agreed force would no longer be necessary.

“Never hurts to have your structure in place,” MacRae said. “Let them try and take the city from us now.”

“Right. By spring, we can have the charter amended and a special election for a mayor and board.”

“Don’t worry about all that now. You’ve got time. We’re organized, that’s the main thing.”

MacRae went out. Rountree had never entirely trusted MacRae, and he didn’t trust him now. He’d always had the impression that the secret groups—MacRae’s and Walker Taylor’s both—intended much more immediate action. But maybe that wasn’t necessary now. All the cloak-and-dagger stuff made fine melodrama, but he and other level-headed men like him would do the real work for the Cause in the light of day, by law. The Republicans or Fusionists or whatever they called themselves were finished in this county. King Numbers was dead. Rountree already had notes for a draft of a bill to limit the franchise to voters who had the education to use it wisely.

No more illiterate hordes of Negroes voting according to the orders of a white party boss. Rountree believed deeply in democracy—the democracy of educated, competent men of free will. With a little more work, it would come to pass here.

In a few hours, he would go home to sleep the sleep of the just. For now, he sat awhile longer, waiting for one more wire, enjoying the finest cigar he had smoked in years.

Solomon Fishblate hurried up Fifth Street. He had never liked the chill. He found Waddell’s house without trouble and rapped lightly at the front door. He expected the servant to open it, but instead the Colonel himself appeared. Of course, it was late—the servant must have already gone home.

“Come in, Your Honor,” Waddell said, deliberately addressing Fishblate as if he were still mayor.