The Copper Frame Read Free

was on the ground floor of the city hall, with its outside entrance facing the alley. A second door, used only in the daytime when the city hall was open, led into an inner corridor. Saxon took the corridor to the front stairs and started to climb.
    It took him fifteen minutes to reach the top because the big, open stairway was the main artery of traffic in the city hall and people were always moving up and down it. He was stopped a dozen times by city-hall employees, councilmen, and citizens with business in the building, all of whom wanted to express their condolences.
    Eventually he managed to work his way to the second floor and the mayor’s office.
    Benjamin Foley, after twenty-four years as mayor of Iroquois, was now in the unenviable position of being a lame-duck mayor. In the previous November elections he had finally met political defeat at the hands of a younger man, and the new mayor was scheduled to take office January second.
    A plump, affable man of sixty-five, Foley had shown no bitterness at being turned out to pasture after nearly a quarter of a century in harness, but Saxon suspected he was deeply hurt. The loss of income meant nothing to him, Saxon knew, since the position of mayor was only a parttime job paying fifteen hundred dollars a year, and Foley was a shrewd lawyer with a thriving practice. But Ben Foley sincerely loved his small city, and he had been under the impression that it returned the love. It had been a blow to his pride to have a whopping 70 per cent of the electorate turn against him after his many years of service.
    When Saxon entered the always-open door of the mayor’s office, Ben Foley glanced up from the letter he was reading, then got to his feet and stretched his right hand across the desk.
    â€œI was utterly shocked to hear about your dad, Ted. The town’s going to miss him.”
    â€œThanks, Ben,” Saxon said, dropping into a chair. “Dad always regarded you as his closest friend.”
    Foley lit a pipe. When he had it going, he said, “The chief and I were a team, Ted. I don’t think I’m bragging when I say the two of us are responsible for Iroquois’s being the clean town it is today.”
    â€œI’ve heard Dad say the same thing,” Saxon agreed.
    Foley reflectively puffed on his pipe. “You’d be surprised at the pressures public officials such as your dad and I are subject to, Ted. Particularly in a tourist town like ours. There are always some businessmen eager to attract more tourists by letting things open up a bit. You know what I mean. They want the police to wink at a little illegal gambling, or maybe a red-light district.”
    â€œ Some businessmen?” Saxon said dryly. “I’d say the majority in this town. Isn’t that what won Adam Bennock the election?”
    The mayor grinned a little sourly. “Harness racing isn’t illegal, Ted. Maybe if Adam can live up to his campaign promise and get the new track put here, it will make the town grow.”
    â€œThen why’d you fight him on the issue?”
    â€œBecause I don’t think a growing town is necessarily a better town. Take a look at what we already have. No one’s starving here. Most of our businesses are small, but they all seem solvent enough for the merchants to buy new cars every year and belong to the country club. We have fine schools, an excellent hospital, and the best beaches between Buffalo and Erie. There’s nothing even approaching a slum district. I think it’s a pretty nice place to live as it is. But maybe I’m an old fogey.”
    â€œNo,” Saxon disagreed. “I’m not too hot about a harness track here, either. It’s bound to bring in a different tourist element from the one we’re used to.”
    â€œIt’s not just the track that worries me,” the mayor said, puffing on his pipe and finding that it had gone out. He felt for another match, struck it on the