Bannerman ruling consistently against the objections of Haddon.
The dead child had been found by a crone, who was ministering to Mrs.
Peters. She had placed it in a cot in a room adjacent to the mother’s
room, and had left both mother and child asleep at about six-thirty
o’clock while she went out to attend to some small purchases. She
returned at about a quarter to seven to find Peters just home from his
work and sitting by his wife’s bed. She was asleep. It was not for
some little time later that the beldame, going to the child’s cot,
discovered that it was dead. Her first suppressed cry had been heard
by the acute ears of the mother, even in sleep, and she awakened from
slumber to call for her babe. In the excitement that followed with the
husband and the beldame she became alarmed and, arising, made her way
to the adjoining room to discover the dreadful truth. She sank rapidly
after the shock and died within a few days.
It was not until the doctor, coming on a call to attend the mother,
examined the child, that the marks of strangulation were discovered
on its little throat. The police were promptly notified. After one
night’s detention the old woman was freed of suspicion and the police
hand fell on Peters.
He protested that he had entered the house not fifteen minutes before
the old woman, had found both mother and babe asleep, as he supposed,
and had sat down by his wife’s side to watch, until the nurse returned.
Such were the principal facts.
Lanagan, working from a stubborn conviction of Peters’ innocence, had
devoted much attention to the case. Finally, when the police brought
Peters to trial, Lanagan had enlisted the services of Haddon to defend
him. Lanagan had known Haddon for a good many years; known him when
he was a young prosecutor in the police courts. He had given him many
friendly “boosts” in those days. Haddon had never forgotten. He was
frank to admit that it was the newspaper men at police headquarters,
constantly “featuring” him in the police news, who gave him his real
start.
After Bannerman had ruled as a committing magistrate, binding Peters
over to trial for murder, Lanagan had walked to Haddon’s office,
reviewing the events of the day.
It was his own conviction, as well as that of Haddon, that in all
fairness, from the evidence presented, Bannerman should have dismissed
the charge. That he should have held Peters as guilty gave Lanagan a
freshened enthusiasm in Peters’ behalf; because it appeared to Lanagan
that Bannerman was acting under powerful pressure in finding such a
holding, even with the sentiment created by neurotic women in favour of
a conviction.
“I’ll keep you posted on developments,” said Lanagan, as he left
Haddon’s office, cheerfully helping himself to a fist-full of the
cigars which that discriminating smoker imported for his own use. “I
may need your service later.
“Sampson,” he said to his city editor a few moments later, “there’s
something funny about that Peters case, in spite of their holding him
to answer. Haddon thinks as I do. I’m going to tackle it again.”
“Tear into it, Jack,” said Sampson. “You haven’t turned much up lately,
anyhow. Think you are going stale.”
“We’ll see,” said Lanagan briefly.
The St. Germain, in the days before the fire, had a public entrance on
Stockton street and a private entrance on O’Farrell. Directly across
from the private entrance was a cigar stand, and there Lanagan loitered
for an hour or more.
“If I’m right in this thing,” he said, “Bannerman and Fogarty will
be getting together to talk over the situation. And if they do I’ll
let them know pretty pronto that we suspect a nigger in the woodpile
somewhere and see if I can’t start them to covering up in a fashion
that I can follow.”
It was about dusk when he suddenly crossed the street and went in at
the private door. Fogarty had entered a few minutes before. Lanagan
did not worry about Bannerman. He would take the front door, with his
high silk hat and his frock coat and his exaggerated impeccability.
That old French restaurant had turned up more than one good story in
its day, and the upper floor steward was one of Lanagan’s numerous
“leaks” in the night life district.
A dollar to the steward and he had been told the number of the room
where Bannerman was dining. He knocked at the door, as the waiter
might, gently. It was Fogarty who half-opened it. Lanagan caught a
glimpse of Bannerman, who passed the plate in the church on Sundays,
with a dry Martini nicely poised at his lips. A champagne cooler stood
comfortably by. Fogarty for a moment seemed about to close the door,
but was quick-witted enough not to do so.
“Want me, Jack?” he asked, suavely. He was of the full-fed type of
saloon man, a sort of a near-broker in appearance. “Come on in and join
us.”
“Thanks,” said Lanagan, shortly. “Just ate. I was curious to see who
Bannerman was dining with. That’s all.”
The dry Martini struck the table suddenly and slopped over. “What a
miserable, weak sister of a crook!” thought Lanagan. “I can admire a
big crook, but this breed!”
“Why, my dear Mr. Lanagan!” exclaimed Bannerman, coming forward so
hastily his napkin trailed behind him from his collar, where it had
been tucked. “I just met my old friend William quite accidentally. We
went to school together, you know. I seldom see him nowadays.”
To hear the notorious “Billy” Fogarty called William made Lanagan
smile. Fogarty himself had difficulty repressing his grin.
“Judge,” said Lanagan, smoothly, “you lie. Don’t try to peddle any
of that stuff on me. You see him about three times a week right here
in this room, and you regulate your court calendar by what he tells
you. I had very particular reasons for wondering whether you were here
to-night. I see you are. So-long, Billy. Enjoy that wine, Judge. But
you better order another Martini.”
Before either could make reply he backed away from the door and left
the café.
“Pretty fair start,” he muttered to himself, grimly. “A judge with
Bannerman’s appreciation of newspapers will have a lively understanding
of the mess I caught him in. If there is anything wrong here, there
will be a get-together of some sort quick.”
His thoughts swung back to the case in hand.
“The man who was big enough to take that woman away from the night life
and make her his wife, was not the man who was killing their child,” he
repeated to himself, with stubborn reiteration. And yet there could not
be found hitherto the slightest sherd of motive on the part of anyone
else to account for the killing.
And yet, so far as Lanagan’s investigations had gone on the case,
Peters’ record was found to be ordinary enough, and neither in his life
nor that of his family was there anything irregular to be discovered
that would create the barest suspicion of any person seeking to strike
at him through the child. There could be found not the slightest sherd
of motive on the part of anyone else to account for the killing.
The life of the wife began with the meeting with Peters. What her
heritage was or her history before that time, proved a problem
absolutely insoluble to Lanagan and the police: although the police,
for their part, did little save work to fasten the crime on the
husband, even the brilliant Leslie, greatest chief of his time, taking
that line.
The records of the night life are unwritten, save where the requiescat
is inscribed when a callous deputy coroner blots the entry at the
morgue. Who she was before she came into the brooding shadow of the
night lights was a secret that, if any of the wastrels there knew,
they guarded. It is more than likely that they did not know. It is a
great, wide way, the entrance there. She had come by that way one of a
multitude; into the shadows and out. Whether she went out for happiness
or ill, whether to a free life or a sombre death, few there cared to
ask, even if they recalled her at all.
Ceaselessly Lanagan had searched that district. He could trace her
back to the time when Peters met her and no further. That incident had
made some trifling stir merely because the “guy who got ‘copped’ on
Gracie” had taken her away and really married her; or so they had heard.
Otherwise she had come into that Tenderloin district as many of her
transitory sisters, with a suit case; but whether from far or near no
one could say.
The influences that were eager to land Peters in the penitentiary were
unquestionably the same that murdered the child; so Lanagan argued
under the spell of his new theory. They had not slain the mother,
directly; but they may have shrewdly calculated the effect upon her, in
her precarious condition, of the death of the child: knowledge of which
could scarcely be kept from her.
“Let us suppose, then,” mused Lanagan, “let us suppose that someone
wanted the child out of the way and now wants the husband out of the
way. It would be possible to hang him for that crime. In the present
state of the public mind, and with Bannerman holding him to answer
for murder, life is the least he will get. What happens? The child
of ‘Gracie Dubois’ is dead. The husband is, or soon will be, civilly
dead. She is dead: but that does not appear to have a moving cause. Why
the child’s death and the father’s imprisonment? Undoubtedly so that
someone may profit. But who? Who, concealed back of the shadows of the
night lights, kept grim watch on ‘Gracie Dubois’? Who was concerned
with the fate of that poor wretched girl anxious only for redemption,
for a decent life? What ‘dead hand’ is it that has slain her issue and
blighted her poor hopes for happiness and her passionate ambition for
motherhood?”
And Bannerman, with his high silk hat and his frock coat and his
impeccable respectability, came before him insistently; Bannerman, with
his dry Martini and his quart of wine and his vis-a-vis dinner with
“William” Fogarty.
Many thoughts that apparently flash into the mind spontaneously are but
the products of a chain of thought carried consistently over a period
of time.
It was so with Lanagan and his sudden theory of the “dead hand”; of a
case that in some manner reverted back to a will or to an inheritance.
He was rather surprised that the thought had not occurred sooner; but
he had been busied with other thoughts and theories, and it was not
until the way had been cleared that, in its logical time, that theory
had suddenly struck him with conviction. And obviously it was the only
theory that had not as yet been exploited by him; that some place back
in the earlier life of that poor waif of the night life there might lie
the solution of the crime--financial reasons for desiring to be rid of
her progeny and her natural legatee, her husband.
The question intruded: why was not the husband murdered as well? There
might be many reasons, but one would answer: his imprisonment would
suffice even if he were not executed; and if he managed to avoid any
penalty, there would be time enough to see him.
And leading back to that “dead hand” theory of his, Lanagan could see
but two links: Bannerman and Fogarty.
From the neighbourhood of the St. Germain he got me on the wire.
“Cover Fogarty’s,” he said. “Pick up some of the bunch and drop in
casually. Keep your eye on him if he’s there, and who he talks to.
Spend money and get soberly drunk, if necessary to allay any suspicion
that he is being watched. Get Sampson on the ’phone by ten o’clock.
There may be a message for you.”
I hadn’t the faintest idea what it was all about, but Lanagan’s voice
was as snappy as a drill master. I went to the reporter’s room at
police headquarters and led a bunch to Fogarty’s to rattle the dice for
a round or two. It was pay night and money was free. If Fogarty, after
he came in, had any suspicions of me--he knew that Lanagan and I always
worked together--they were soon allayed. The dice rolled blithely
for an hour or two with one of the boys dropping out occasionally to
“cover” the police beat for the others while the play went on.
But nothing happened and I slipped away to get Sampson on the ’phone.
It was ten o’clock. He was didactic as usual, and as irritatingly
brief: “Report to Lanagan. Room 802 Fairmont. Take the back stairs and
make the room above all things without being seen.”
That same old tingle that always shot up my spine when Lanagan was
calling me in on the smash of one of his grand climaxes, shivered up to
my hair roots. In a general way I knew the quest he was on, but that
his search should have led him to the Fairmont hotel, on the very crest
of aristocratic Nob Hill, was sufficient without further information to
set my imagination humming.
The door was open and I entered, noiselessly. Lanagan was lying on the
bed, smoking. He jumped up.
“Here,” he said quickly, indicating a chair drawn up before the
door leading to the adjoining room--they were suite rooms but used
separately. “Sit there until I get back and take notes on what you
hear. Keep your ear glued to that hole.”
He had cut with his pocket knife an inch hole in the panelling of the
door. He had whittled it so nicely that it was not quite cut entirely
through. “You will find you can hear everything that is said in an
ordinary tone of voice. There’s no one in there now. An Englishman
named Holmes has the room. Pretty soon I expect him and Larry Leighton
in there with a girl. I am going out and get hold of Leslie. Lock the
door after me and keep your ears open for us when we get back. I won’t
knock, but will turn the handle once or twice.”
“What’s the lay?” I asked.
“No time to talk now,” he flung back over his shoulder, and was gone.
It was probably twenty minutes later when the occupants of the
adjoining room entered. There were two men and a woman. I could
distinguish perfectly Leighton’s sonorous voice. He had been a lawyer
of standing in years gone by, but lately had been involved in one or
two transactions a trifle “shady” in character, chiefly pertaining to
the administration of estates; but nothing had ever been proved against
him nor had the matter ever got into such shape that the papers could
use it. So far as the general public was concerned, he stood well
enough.
“I felt I could not be wrong,” Leighton was saying. “And I am glad that
you are satisfied. It must be a source of great satisfaction to you,
Miss Pendelton, to be restored to your name and inheritance.”
“I am only sorry now it did not happen before poor father went,” the
girl replied, with a tremble in her voice, and I fancied she was crying.
“Personally,” it was the Englishman’s voice, “I am satisfied of the
identity. But of course my principals in London will also have to be
satisfied. It would be best to leave at once, I think, for England. For
the sake of the Pendelton name we must work secretly and quietly. I
would not want the matter in the public prints for the world.”
I was listening with such intentness that it was some time before the
soft and insistent grating of the doorknob caught my attention. I
tiptoed to the door. Lanagan entered. In another moment Leslie came in
and after a few moments of interval, Brady and Wilson, two of Leslie’s
steadiest thief-takers, stepped in softly. There was big game afoot of
some sort!
Leslie had his ear to the door. He remained there for some time, and
then motioned Brady, who took his turn, followed by Wilson.
Lanagan was sitting on a corner of the little table, swinging his feet
lazily, but following every move made by the officers, and watching
every shade of expression in their faces. Leslie took another turn and
a half smile played over Lanagan’s face as that veteran Chief finally
stepped over to him and put out his hand. Lanagan gripped it. Not a
word was spoken. Motioning to Brady and Wilson, Leslie stepped out and
we followed.
He rapped on the door to the adjoining room. Leighton opened it, a look
of enquiry on his rotund features. As swiftly as though a swab had
been rubbed over it, his look of enquiry shaded into one of alarm, as
he recognised Leslie. We filed in and Wilson snapped the lock behind
him and stood at the door, Brady walking quickly to the window and
taking his position there. Not a word had as yet been spoken. Leighton
stood as though stupefied. The Englishman, a dapper, well-dressed man
of probably forty, smoking a cigarette at ease, raised his brows as we
entered, but said nothing.
On the edge of the bed the girl was sitting, her wide eyes following
Leslie. It was evident that she knew him by sight. Her resemblance to
Mrs. Peters was striking. Both were women of that blonde, doll-faced
type so frequently found in the night life.
“Leighton,” said Leslie, “the jig is up.”
Leighton sank into a chair. The Chief went to the connecting door,
tapped for a moment, and then jabbed his knife through Lanagan’s ear
hole.
“See?” he said, laconically. “We’ve been listening there for thirty
minutes. Gertrude Pendelton is dead; you know she is dead and her child
with her. And this woman here,” turning sharply to the girl, “knows
that she is not Gertrude Pendelton. She knows perfectly well that she
is playing a crooked ‘lost heir’ case for you, Leighton.”
As though he had been a jack in the box, Holmes jumped to his feet.
“Heavens, Sir!” he cried, “why, what are you saying! Who are you?”
Leslie threw back his coat, displaying his diamond-studded shield.
“Chief of Police Leslie of San Francisco,” He said, shortly.
With a swift movement the girl’s hand went to her corsage and in a
flash Lanagan had hurtled across the room and a tiny dagger spun to the
floor. She threw herself back upon the bed, crying in sudden hysteria:
“You might have let me done it! You might have let me done it!” she
wailed bitterly. Lanagan was wrapping up his hand. He had got the point
of the dagger through the ball of his thumb in the rush. She jumped up
again and threw herself at the feet of Leslie.
“It’s my first crooked trick, so help me, Chief! He dragged me into
it! What was I to do? It looked easy and it was a way out of the
Tenderloin!”
Leighton was glancing heavily, his lips apart, from the door to the
window as though planning an attempt to escape by either means.
“You’ve been shading pretty close on one or two things lately,
Leighton,” said the Chief grimly. “But I didn’t think you had it in you
to take a chance at the scaffold.”
“What do you mean by that, Chief?” gasped Leighton, with a sickly
attempt at composure.
“He means,” thundered Lanagan, “that you are the man back of the
murder of the real Gertrude Pendelton’s child, and the indirect killing
of Gertrude Pendelton, who was Mrs. Peters! He means that you are the
man back of Fogarty, who is the man who secured the conviction, in
Bannerman’s court, of Peters. That’s what he means!”
Lanagan wheeled on the Englishman.
“How much money have you already paid Leighton?”
“One thousand pounds for producing this girl. He was to get four
thousand more when final proof of identity was accepted by my
principals in London.”
Leslie and Lanagan exchanged glances. It was big pickings for Larry
Leighton. Twenty-five thousand dollars in all; properly handled by
Fogarty, it would go a long way to grease the wheels of justice in the
police court.
Leighton arose, shaking like a palsied man, and tottered, rather than
walked, to the Chief. He extended his wrists.
“Put on the bracelets, Chief,” he said, in a voice that was but a
shadow of his rich voice. “I took my chances, I’ll take my medicine.
The girl hasn’t done anything yet you can hold her on. She knows
nothing about the other thing. The doctors had given me two years to
live--kidneys gone--and I saw a chance for a big clean-up and the
German springs. It might have saved me.”
“Big!” interrupted the Englishman, awed, “one hundred and fifty
thousand pounds!”
“That’s all, Chief,” resumed Leighton. “I did the trick with the child
myself, I wouldn’t trust anybody else. The night was pitch black and
there are no houses right near there, you know. I waited till the
old lady went out. After I finished the child, I was going to get
the mother, but the front gate slammed. It was Peters coming home. I
slipped out the back door again. I wanted the husband out of the way,
on general principles. I did not know what his wife might have told him
and he was better off, in case any publicity attended the restoration
of the girl here, where he couldn’t squeak, in case his wife had ever
told him her real name and story.
“This girl here, a Tenderloiner, that I picked up because she looks a
good bit like Mrs. Peters, seemed to have nerve enough for the deal,
and she was to collect the estate and give me half. It was a big
gamble. You’re right about the scaffold, Chief. I never took any such
chance before, but this was a ‘get-away’ stake for life for me, and I
took it.
“I had no direct dealings with Bannerman. There’s nothing on him. I had
talks with Fogarty but paid no money. In a general way he gathered I
wanted the man across, and I guess he gathered, too, that there would
be a big clean-up all around at the end of it. There’s no case on
anybody except myself.”
“Nothing on Bannerman or Fogarty that would make a case in court,
possibly,” said Lanagan, curtly, “but plenty that the _Enquirer_ can
print. You’re loyal to your pals, Leighton.”
It appeared that Leighton, through a newspaper advertisement, got into
communication with the London firm of lawyers of which Holmes was the
confidential representative. They had a theory that the girl they
sought had gone to San Francisco. A runaway at the age of fifteen,
Gertrude Pendelton had been estranged from her father. She had taken
the downward path, but the father, relenting on his death bed, willed
his estate to her, and his executors had for months been endeavouring
to locate her.
Leighton immediately began his plotting to foist an impostor upon
the executors and their lawyers. It must be remembered that they
had accepted him as a reputable lawyer. He had made a secret trip
to England and had secured a fairly complete record of the places
the Pendeltons had lived in while the daughter was still with them.
Originally residents of various parts of the British possessions, the
family had settled at Applegate, where the mother died, the father
following her some months later. At Applegate there were none who had
ever known the daughter. Leighton’s investigations in England failed
to reveal anyone who had in fact ever known her, the Pendeltons only
coming to England to settle down there a few years before.
To Leighton’s scheming brain, the thing looked perfectly simple.
The murder plot was secondary. It had been his original plan to find
the real Gertrude Pendelton and if possible strike some bargain with
her. Equipped with a picture of her taken at the age of fifteen, he
had finally traced her, to find her respectably married. Consequently,
it was hardly likely that he could strike any combination with her
that would give him the “haul” that he sought to make. Then, with her
alive, there was always danger that she would disclose her identity to
her husband. When the child came along, Leighton, keeping close tab on
the Peters, concluded that inevitably motherly pride in the redeemed
woman would bring about an attempt at a family reconciliation. Then
would come to her the knowledge of her father’s death and of her own
inheritance.
He determined on one bold stroke: kill mother and child on the gamble
that what did happen, would happen: that the husband would be accused.
With the husband safely imprisoned, or possibly executed, his path with
the impostor would be unimpeded. He had coached his impostor well on
the information gained on his English trip.