divers places, widely scattered, the twelve good and true men were
snoring snugly in bed. To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death
without a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not whither, into
the night. His brain no longer worked. He had become a peripatetic
automaton self-dedicated to nocturnal perambulation.
With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight
in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed
to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again
through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth
Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric
lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted
shadows in the wrong direction. He was utterly exhausted. He looked
eagerly for some place to sit down, but the doors of the hotels were
dark and tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without moving in
the open air.
Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go home and snatch a few
hours' sleep before court should open, but each block seemed miles in
length. Presently he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were
tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright blue. Suddenly all
the street lamps went out. He told himself that he had never realized
before the beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eternity,
typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He remembered having heard
that a cathedral was never closed, and looking toward the door he
perceived that it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the steps
and entered its dark shadows. A faint light emanated from the tops of
the stained-glass windows. Down below a candle burned on either side of
the altar while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the
sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, faint for want of
food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon one of the rear seats by the door, and
resting his head upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of him
fell fast asleep.
He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden throne upon which sat
Babson in a black robe and below him twelve red-faced angels in a double
row with harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" An
organ was playing somewhere, and there was a great noise of footsteps.
Then a bell twinkled and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was
full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad daylight. Horrified
he looked at his watch, to find that it was ten minutes after ten. His
joints creaked as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half
closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a taxi.
"Criminal Courts Building--side door. And drive like hell!" he muttered
to the driver.
He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attendant were coming into
the courtroom and the crowd were making obeisance. Everybody else was in
his proper place.
"You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after the roll of the jury
had been called.
But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think or speak. There was
a curious rustling in his ears and his sight was somewhat blurred. The
atmosphere of the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the jury sat
with averted faces. He rose feebly and cleared his throat.
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I--I think I covered everything I
had to say yesterday afternoon. I can only beseech you to realize the
full extent of your great responsibility and remind you that if you
entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are sworn to give the
benefit of it to the defendant."
He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands, while a
murmur ran along the benches of the courtroom. The old man had
collapsed--tough luck--the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien leaped
to his feet. There had been no defense. The case was as plain as a
pike-staff. There was only one thing for the jury to do--return a
verdict of murder in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made
no difference! He read them the statute, applied it to the facts, and
shook his fist in their faces. They must convict--and convict of only
one thing--and nothing else--murder in the first degree. They gazed at
him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing everything but bleat.
Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity expounded the law to
the sheep in a rich mellow voice, in which he impressed upon them the
necessity of preserving the integrity of the jury system and the
sanctity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of great beauty upon
the deceased barber--who could not, as he pointed out, speak for
himself, owing to the fact that he was in his grave. He venomously
excoriated the defendant who had deliberately planned to kill an
unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his place of business, and
expressed the utmost confidence that he could rely upon the jury, whose
character he well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how
disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded.
"You may retire, gentlemen."
Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant gleam in his eye. He
had driven in the knife to the hilt and twisted it round and round.
Angelo had almost as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. Mr.
Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the jury as they went out.
They would not be long--and he could hardly face the thought of their
return. Never in his long experience had he found himself in such a
desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been some argument,
some construction of the facts upon which he could make an appeal,
however fallacious or illogical.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was chatting with O'Brien,
the court officers were betting with the reporters as to the length of
time in which it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of murder
in the first. The funeral rites were all concluded except for the final
commitment of the corpse to mother earth.
And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose and addressed the court in
a defiant shriek.
"I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka small of my wife! He no
good! He bad egg! I killa him once--I killa him again!"
"So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You want to make a
confession? You hope for mercy, do you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish
to do under the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen the
case by consent?"
Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet.
"The case is closed, Your Honor," he replied. "I will consent to a
mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of manslaughter. I cannot agree to
reopen the case. I cannot let the defendant go upon the stand."
The spectators and reporters were pressing forward to the bar, anxious
lest they should lose a single word of the colloquy. Angelo remained
standing, looking eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin
like that of a hyena.
"I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if you want."
"Sit down!" thundered the judge. "Enough of this! The law does not
permit me to accept a plea to murder in the first degree, and my
conscience and my sense of duty to the public will permit me to accept
no other. I will go to my chambers to await the verdict of the jury.
Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen."
He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo was led away. The
crowd in the courtroom slowly dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt,
went out in the corridor to smoke.
"Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain Phelan, amiably
accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an act of Providence c'd save that
Eyetalian from the chair. An' him guilty at that!"
An hour passed; then another. At half after four a rumor flew along the
corridors that the jury in the Serafino case had reached a verdict and
were coming in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. Phelan
descended the iron stairs to bring up the prisoner, while Tutt to
prevent a scene invented an excuse by which he lured Rosalina to the
first floor of the building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of
nowhere and poured into the courtroom. The reporters gathered
expectantly round their table. The judge entered, his robes, gathered in
one hand.
"Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the prisoner at the bar."
Mr. Tutt took his place beside his client at the railing, while the
jury, carrying their coats and hats, filed slowly in. Their faces were
set and relentless. They looked neither to the right nor to the left.
O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself nonchalantly with his back to
the court, studying their faces. Yes, he told himself, they were a
regular set of hangmen--he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd
had his choice of the whole panel.
The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tompkins, _et al._, stated
that they were all present.
"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" inquired the
clerk.
"We have!" replied Mr. Walsh sternly.
"How say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?"
Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with one hand and put
his other arm round Angelo. He felt that now in truth murder was being
done.
"We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh defiantly.
There was a momentary silence of incredulity. Then Babson and O'Brien
shouted simultaneously: "What!"
"We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. Walsh stubbornly.
"I demand that the jury be polled!" cried the crestfallen O'Brien, his
face crimson.
And then the twelve reiterated severally that that was their verdict and
that they hearkened unto it as it stood recorded and that they were
entirely satisfied with it.
"You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. "Strike the names of
these men from the list of jurors--as incompetent. Haven't you any other
charge on which you can try this defendant?"
"No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He didn't take the stand, so
we can't try him for perjury; and there isn't any other indictment
against him."
Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt:
"This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of criminal justice; a
disgrace to the city! It is an unconscionable verdict; a reflection upon
the intelligence of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This court is
adjourned."
The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, bewildered. The judge
and prosecutor hurried from the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar,
trying to grasp the full meaning of what had occurred.
He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exultation such as he had
never known before. Some miracle had happened! What was it?
Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand clasped over his own upon
the rail and heard the voice of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying:
"At first we couldn't see that there was much to be said for your side
of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into the cathedral on me way
down to court this morning and spied you prayin' there for guidance I
knew you wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and so we
decided to give him the benefit of the doubt."
Mock Hen and Mock Turtle
"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the
twain shall meet."
--BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST.
"But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the
law of the pack is only for the pack."
--OTHER SAYINGS OF SHERE KHAN.
A half turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham Square and you are in
Chinatown, slipping, within ten feet, through an invisible wall, from
the glitter of the gin palace and the pawn-shop to the sinister shadows
of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men pad swiftly
along greasy asphalt beneath windows glinting with ivory, bronze and
lacquer; through which float the scents of aloes and of incense and all
the subtle suggestion of the East.
No one better than the Chink himself realizes the commercial value of
the taboo, the bizarre and the unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car
swinging gayly with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, the
spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the fake fan-tan and faro
game, with a farewell call at Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the
well-stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visitors see what they
expect to see, for the Chinaman always gives his public exactly what it
wants.
But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To some the ivories will
always be but crudely carven bone, the jades the potter's sham, the musk
and aloes the product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store
Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the scrappings of a Yankee
grocery store. Yet behind the shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets,
as behind Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown--a strange,
inhuman, Oriental world, not necessarily of trapdoors and stifled
screams, but one moved by influences undreamed of in our banal
philosophies. Hearken then to the story of the avenging of Wah Sing.
_'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang_.
In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seventeen Chinamen sat
cross-legged in a circle round an octagonal teakwood table. To an
Occidental they would have appeared to differ in no detail except that
of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered before a joss near
by, and the place reeked with the odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice
whisky and the incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns
from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese Chinaman with a walnutlike
countenance in which cunning and melancholy were equally commingled was
speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mustaches, while the
others listened with impassive decorum. It was a special meeting of the
Hip Leong Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great Shanghai
Tea Company, and conducted according to rule.
"Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor it is necessary that
our brother be avenged and that no chances be taken. A much too long
time has already elapsed. I have written the letter and will read it."
He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of brown paper covered
with heavy Chinese characters unwinding it from a strip of bamboo.
_To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong:_
Whereas it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved
friend and relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy
and the utmost regret that we inform you that it is
necessary for us likewise to remove one of your esteemed
society, and that we shall proceed thereto without delay.
Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe
myself with profound appreciation,
For the Hip Leong Tong,
WONG GET.
He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory grunt of approval from
round the circle. Then he turned to the official soothsayer and directed
him to ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter tossed
into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, carefully studied their
arrangement when fallen, and nodded gravely.
"The omens are favorable, O honorable one!"
"Then there is nothing left but the choice of our representatives,"
continued Wong Get. "Pass the fateful box, O Fong Hen."
Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official slipper, or messenger,
of the society, rose and, lifting a lacquered gold box from the table,
passed it solemnly to each member.
"This time there will be four," said Wong Get.
Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from the box a small sliver of
ivory. At the conclusion of the ceremony the four who had drawn red
tokens rose. Wong Get addressed them.
"Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing--to you it is confided to
avenge the murder of our brother Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose!"
And the four answered unemotionally: "Those to whom it is confided will
not fail."
Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed out of the cellar.
Wong Get glanced round the table.
"If there is no further business the society will disperse after the
customary refreshment."
Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table and filled them
with rice whisky scented with aniseed and a dash of powdered ginger. At
a signal from Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and
drank.
"The meeting is adjourned," said he.
* * * * *
Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren two yellow men had
fought over a white woman, and one had killed the other. They had
belonged to different societies, or tongs. The associates of the
murdered man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one of the
members of the other organization, and these in turn had retaliated thus
establishing a vendetta which became part and parcel of the lives of
certain families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love and death.
As regularly as the solstice they alternated in picking each other off.
Branches of the Hip Leong and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco
and New York--and the feud was transferred with them to Chatham Square,
a feud imposing a sacred obligation rooted in blood, honor and religion
upon every member, who rather than fail to carry it out would have
knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear and swung himself gently
off a table into eternal sleep.
Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had created a distinct place
for himself in Chinatown by making a careful study of New York
psychology. He was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and supple;
he knew very well how to capitalize his attractiveness. By day he
attended Columbia University as a special student in applied
electricity, keeping a convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he
employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside Heights. By night he
vicariously operated a chop-suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where
congregated the worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was in
the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers Street, and where anyone
who knew the knock could have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock
had given him the once-over through the little sliding panel.
Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, purely for business
reasons--for what he got out of it and the standing that it gave him--he
attended the Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson House, the
social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea taught him to play ping-pong
and other exciting parlor games, and read to him from books adapted to
an American child of ten. He was a great favorite at both places, for he
was sweet-tempered and wore an expression of heaven-born innocence. He
had even been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absenting himself
for that purpose of a Sunday morning from the steam-heated flat
where--unknown to her, of course--he lived with his white wife, Emma
Pratt, a lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents.
Except when engaged in transacting legal or oilier business with the
municipal, sociologic or religious world--at which times his vocabulary
consisted only of the most rudimentary pidgin--Mock spoke a fluent and
even vernacular English learned at night school. Incidentally he was the
head of the syndicate which controlled and dispensed the loo, faro,
fan-tan and other gambling privileges of Chinatown.
* * * * *
Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney
Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the
foreign element since the administration--of which he was an
ornament--came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in
Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip
silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's
grocery--and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk.
"Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. "Where you goin'?"
Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely spread open palms.
"'Lo yourself!" replied blandly. "Me go buy li'l' glocery."
Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisking him for a possible
forty-four.
"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed, tearing open Quong's blouse. "What
sort of an undershirt is that?" Quong grinned broadly as the detective
lifted the suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under his blue
blouse from his shoulders to his knees.
"So-ho!" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble brewin', eh?"
He knew already that something was doing in the tongs from his
lobby-gow, Wing Foo.
"Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd like to see the pill that
would go through that!" It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest
steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet.
"Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!"
He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed
his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets
were deserted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby, and were
pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. Most of the shutters on
the lower windows were down. Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened
was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his
shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased
some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened
the door to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon the knob
and facing the afternoon sun four shadows fell aslant the window and a
man whom he positively identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of
powder--afterward proved to be red pepper--upon Quong's face; then
another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a knife, the effect of
which he did not observe, as almost at the same instant Mock Hen felled
him with a blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth, Mock
Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body with a revolver one of
which glanced off and fractured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined
four boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he ducked behind
the counter, and when sufficiently revived he crawled forth to find what
had once been Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, and
the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with a hip splintered by a
stray bullet. On the sidewalk outside the window lay the remnants of the
bag of pepper, a knife broken short off at the handle, a heavy bar of
soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied forty-four-caliber
revolver. Quong's suit of mail had effectually protected him from the
knife thrust and the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond
repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged in due and proper form.
Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hundred feet, rushed back to
the corner at the sound of the first shot--just in time to catch a side
glimpse of Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disappeared into
the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Company. The Italian woman was
filling the air with her outcries, but the detective did not pause in
his hurtling pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door
withstood all his efforts to break it open.
Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko once on the stage of the
old Grand Opera House in 1913, had been promenading with Mollie Malone,
of the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. Both heard the
fusillade and saw Mock--a streak of flying blue--pass within a few feet
of them.
"God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's Mock Hen--and he's
murdered somebody!"
"It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That puts us in as witnesses
or strike me!" And he looked at his watch--four one.
"Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted Mooney from the cellar
steps. "Now then!"
The two of them threw their combined weight against it, the lock flew
open and they fell forward into the darkness. Three doors leading in
different directions met the glare of Mooney's match. But the fugitive
had a start of at least four minutes, which was three and a half more
than he required.
* * * * *
Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors and crept along a passage
opening into an empty opium parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom.
Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his body between the lower
planking at the back and the cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve
feet, raised a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which and
others he eventually reached the end of the block and the rooms of his
friend Hong Sue.
Here he changed from the Oriental costume according to Chinese etiquette
necessary to the homicide, into a nobby suit of American clothes, put on
a false mustache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just behind
him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with bluecoats and excited
citizenry.