little alcove, or reception room and Craig placed a chair for her.
Farther down the corridor I could see the office, and beyond a large
main dining-room from which strains of music came and now and then the
buzz of conversation and laughter from gay parties at the immaculately
white tables.
"Boy," called Kennedy quietly, catching the eye of a passing bell hop
and unostentatiously slipping a quarter into his hand, which closed
over the coin almost automatically, "the head waiter, please.
Oh--er--by the way--what is his name?"
"Julius," returned the boy, to whom the proceeding seemed to present
nothing novel, although the whole atmosphere of the place was beyond
his years. "I'll get him in a minute, sir. He's in the main
dining-room. He's having some trouble with the cabaret singers. One of
them is late--as usual."
We sat in the easy chairs watching the people passing and repassing in
the corridor. There was no effort at concealment here.
A few minutes later Julius appeared, a young man, tall and rather
good-looking, suave and easy. A word or two with Kennedy followed,
during which a greenback changed hands--in fact that seemed to be the
open sesame to everything here--and we were in the elevator decorously
escorted by the polished Julius.
The door of the elevator shut noiselessly and it shot up to the next
floor. Julius preceded us down the thickly carpeted corridor leading
the way to a large apartment, or rather a suite of rooms, as handsomely
furnished as any in other hotels. He switched on the lights and left
us, with the remark, "When you want the waiter or anything, just press
the button."
In the largest of the rooms was a dining-table and several chairs of
Jacobean oak. A heavy sideboard and serving-table stood against
opposite walls. Another, smaller room was furnished very attractively
as a sitting-room. Deep, easy chairs stood in the corners and a wide,
capacious davenport stretched across one wall. In another nook was a
little divan or cosy corner.
Electric bulbs burned pinkly in the chandeliers and on silver
candelabra on the table, giving a half light that was very romantic and
fascinating. From a curtained window that opened upon an interior court
we could catch strains from the cabaret singers below in the main
dining-room. Everything was new and bright.
Kennedy pressed the button and a waiter brought a menu, imposing in
length and breath-taking in rates.
"The cost of vice seems to have gone up with the cost of living,"
remarked Miss Kendall, as the waiter disappeared as silently as he had
responded to the bell. It was a phrase that stuck in my head, so apt
was it in describing the anomalous state of things we found as the case
unrolled.
Craig ordered, now and then consulting Clare about some detail. The
care and attention devoted to us could not have been more punctilious
if it had been an elaborate dinner party.
"Well," he remarked, as the waiter at last closed the door of the
private dining-room to give the order in downstairs in the kitchen,
"the Little Montmartre makes a brave showing. I suppose it will be some
time before the dinner arrives, though. There is certainly some
piquancy to this," he added, looking about at the furnishings.
"Yes," remarked Miss Kendall, "risque from the moment you enter the
door."
She said it with an impersonal tone as if there were complete
detachment between herself as an observer and as a guest of the
Montmartre.
"Miss Kendall," asked Kennedy, "did you notice anything particularly
downstairs? I'd like to check up my own impressions by yours."
"I noticed that Titian beauty in the hotel office as we left the
reception room and entered the elevator."
Craig smiled.
"So did I. I thought you would be both woman enough and detective
enough to notice her. Well, I suppose if a man likes that sort of girl
that's the sort of girl he likes. That's point number one. But did you
notice anything else--as we came in, for instance?"
"No--except that everything seems to be a matter of scientific
management here to get the most out of the suckers. This is no place
for a piker. It all seems to run so smoothly, too. Still, I'm sure that
our investigators might get something on the place if they kept right
after it, although on the surface it doesn't look as if any law was
being openly violated here. What do you mean? What is your point number
two?"
"In the front window," resumed Craig, "just as you enter, I noticed one
of those little oblong signs printed neatly in black on white--'Dr.
Vernon Harris, M. D.' You recall that the letter said something about a
doctor who was very friendly with that clique the writer mentioned?
It's even money that this Harris is the one the writer meant. I suppose
he is the 'house physician' of this gilded palace."
Clare nodded appreciatively. "Quite right," she agreed. "Just how do
you think he might be involved?"
"Of course I can't say. But I think, without going any further, that a
man like that in a place like this will bear watching anyway, without
our needing more than the fact that he is here. Naturally we don't know
anything about him as a doctor, but he must have some training; and in
an environment like this--well, a little training may be a dangerous
thing."
"The letter said something about drugs," mused Clare.
"Yes," added Kennedy. "As you know, alcohol is absolutely necessary to
a thing like this. Girls must keep gay and attractive; they must meet
men with a bright, unfaltering look, and alcohol just dulls the edge of
conscience. Besides, look over that wine list--it fills the till of the
Montmartre, judging by the prices. But then, alcohol palls when the
pace is as swift as it seems to be here. Even more essential are drugs.
You know, after all, it is no wonder so many drug fiends and drunkards
are created by this life. Now, a doctor who is not over-scrupulous, and
he would have to be not over-scrupulous to be here at all, would find a
gold mine in the dispensing of drugs and the toning up of drug fiends
and others who have been going the pace too rapidly."
"Yes," she said. "We have found that some of these doctors are a great
factor in the life of various sections of the city where they hang out.
I know one who is deeply in the local politics and boasts that any
resort that patronizes him is immune. Yes, that's a good point about
Dr. Harris."
"I suppose your investigators have had more or less to do with watching
the progress of drug habits?" ventured Craig.
"Very much," she replied, catching the drift of his remarks. "We have
found, for instance, that there are a great many cases where it seems
that drugs have been used in luring young and innocent girls. Not the
old knockout drops--chloral, you know--but modern drugs, not so
powerful, perhaps, but more insidious, and in that respect, I suppose,
more dangerous. There are cocaine fiends, opium smokers; oh, lots of
them. But those we find in the slums mostly. Still, I suppose there are
all kinds of drugs up here in the White Light District--belladonna to
keep the eyes bright, arsenic to whiten the complexion, and so on."
"Yes," asserted Craig. "This section of the city may not be so brutal
in its drug taking as others, but it is here--yes, and it is over on
Fifth Avenue, too, right in society. Before we get through I'm sure
we'll both learn much more than we even dream of now."
The door opened after a discreet tap from the waiter and the lavish
dinner which Craig had ordered appeared. The door stayed open for a
moment as the bus boy carried in the dishes. A rustle of skirts and low
musical laughter was wafted in to us and we caught a glimpse of another
gay party passing down the hall.
"How many private dining-rooms are there?" asked Craig of the waiter.
"Just this one, sir, and the next one, which is smaller," replied the
model waiter, with the air of one who could be blind and deaf and dumb
if he chose.
"Oh, then we were lucky to get this."
"Yes, sir. It is really best to telephone first to Julius to make sure
and have one of the rooms reserved, sir."
Craig made a mental note of the information. The party in the next room
were hilariously ordering, mostly from the wine list. None of us had
recognized any of them, nor had they paid much attention to us.
Craig had eaten little, although the food was very good.
"It's a shame to come here and not see the whole place," he remarked.
"I wonder if you would excuse me while I drop downstairs to look over
things there--perhaps ingratiate myself with that Titian? Tell Miss
Kendall about our visit to Langhorne's office while I am gone, Walter."
There was not much that I could tell except the bare facts, but I
thought that Miss Kendall seemed especially interested in the broker's
reticence about his stenographer.
I had scarcely finished when Craig returned. A glance at his face told
me that even in this brief time something had happened.
"Did you meet the Titian?" I asked.
"Yes. She is the stenographer and sometimes works the switchboard of
the telephone. I happened to strike the office while the clerk was at
dinner and she was alone. While I was talking to her I was looking
about and my eye happened to fall on one of the letter boxes back of
the desk, marked 'Dr. Harris.' Well, at once I had an overwhelming
desire to get a note which I saw sticking in it. So I called up a
telephone number, just as a blind, and while she was at the switchboard
I slipped the note into my pocket. Here it is."
He had laid an envelope down before us. It was in a woman's hand,
written hastily.
"I'd like to know what was in it without Dr. Harris knowing it," he
remarked. "Now, the secret service agents abroad have raised
letter-opening to a fine art. Some kinds of paper can be steamed open
without leaving a trace, and then they follow that simple operation by
reburnishing the flap with a bone instrument. But that won't do. It
might make this ink run."
Among the ornaments were several with flat wooden bases. Kennedy took
one and placed it on the edge of the table, which was perfectly square.
Then he placed the envelope between the table and the base.
"When other methods fail," he went on, "they place the envelope between
two pieces of wood with the edges projecting about a thirty-second of
an inch."
He had first flattened the edge of the envelope, then roughened it, and
finally slit it open.
"Scientific letter-opening," he remarked, as he pulled out a little
note written on the hotel paper. It read:
DEAR HARRY:
Called you up twice and then dropped into the hotel, but you seem to be
out all the time. Have something VERY IMPORTANT to tell you. Shall be
busy to-night and in the morning, but will be at the dansant at the
Futurist Tea Room to-morrow afternoon about four. Be sure to be there.
MARIE.
"I shall," commented Kennedy. "Now the question is, how to seal up this
letter so that he won't know it has been opened. I saw some of this
very strong mucilage in the office. Ring the bell, Walter. I'll get
that impervious waiter to borrow it for a moment."
Five minutes later he had applied a hair line of the strong, colourless
gum to the inside of the envelope and had united the edges under
pressure between the two pieces of wood. As soon as it was dry he
excused himself again and went back to the office, where he managed to
secure an opportunity to stick the letter back in the box and chat for
a few minutes longer with the Titian.
"There's a wild cabaret down in the main dining-room," he reported on
his return. "I think we might just as well have a glimpse of it before
we go."
Kennedy paid the cheque, which by this time had mounted like a
taximeter running wild, and we drifted into the dining-room, a rather
attractive hall, panelled in Flemish oak with artificial flowers and
leaves about, and here and there a little bird concealed in a cage in
the paper foliage.
As cabarets go, it was not bad, although I could imagine how wild it
might become in the evening or on special occasion.
"That Dr. Harris interests me," remarked Kennedy across the table at
us. "We must get something in writing from him in some way. And then
there's that girl in the office, too. She seems to be right in with all
these people here."
Evidently the cabaret had little of interest to Miss Kendall, who,
after a glance that took in the whole dining-room and disclosed none
there in the gay crowd who, as far as we could see, had any relation to
the case, seemed bored.
Craig noticed it and at once rose to go.
As we passed out and into the corridor, Miss Kendall turned and
whispered, "Look over at the desk--Dr. Harris."
Sure enough, chatting with the stenographer was a man with one of those
black bags which doctors carry. He was a young man in appearance, one
of those whom one sees in the White Light District, with unnaturally
bright eyes which speak of late hours and a fast pace. He wore a flower
in his buttonhole--a very fetching touch with some women. Debonair,
dapper, dashing, his face was not one readily forgotten. As we passed
hurriedly I observed that he had torn open the note and had thrown the
envelope, unsuspectingly, into the basket.
VII
THE GANG LEADER
With the arrest of Dopey Jack, it seemed as if all the forces of the
gang world were solidified for the final battle.
Carton had been engaged in a struggle with the System so long that he
knew just how to get action, the magistrates he could depend on, the
various pitfalls that surrounded the snaring of one high in gangland,
the judges who would fix bail that was prohibitively high.
As he had anticipated and prepared for, every wire was pulled to secure
the release of Rubano. But Carton was fortunate in having under him a
group of young and alert assistants. It took the combined energies of
his office, however, to carry the thing through and Kennedy and I did
not see Carton again for some time.
Meanwhile we were busy gathering as much information as we could about
those who were likely to figure in the case. It was remarkable, but we
found that the influence of Dorgan and Murtha was felt in the most
unexpected quarters. People who would have talked to us on almost any
other subject, absolutely refused to become mixed up in this affair. It
was as though the System practised terrorism on a large scale.
Late in the afternoon we met in Carton's office, to compare notes on
the progress made during the day.
The District Attorney greeted us enthusiastically.
"Well," he exclaimed as he dropped into his big office chair, "this has
been a hard day for me--but I've succeeded."
"How?" queried Kennedy.
"Of course the newspapers haven't got it yet," pursued Carton, "but it
happened that there was a Grand Jury sitting and considering election
cases. It went hard, but I made them consider this case of Dopey Jack.
I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have succeeded in forcing
action in record time. They have found an indictment on the election
charges, and if that falls through, we shall have time to set up other
charges against him. In fact we are 'going to the mat,' so to speak,
with this case."
The office telephone rang and after a few sentences of congratulation,
Carton turned to us, his spirits even higher than before. "That was one
of my assistants," he explained, "one of the cleverest. The trial will
be before Judge Pomeroy in General Sessions and it will be an early
trial. Pomeroy is one of the best of them, too--about to retire, and
wants to leave a good record on the bench behind him. Things are
shaping up as well as we could wish for."
The door opened and one of Carton's clerks started to announce the name
of a visitor.
"Mr. Carton, Mr.--"
"Murtha," drawled a deep voice, as the owner of the name strode in,
impatiently brushing aside the clerk. "Hello, Carton," greeted the
Sub-boss aggressively.
"Hello, Murtha," returned Carton, retaining his good temper and seeing
the humour of the situation, where the practice of years was reversed
and the mountain was coming to Mahomet. "This is a
little--er--informal--but I'm glad to see you, nevertheless," he added
quietly. "Won't you sit down? By the way, meet Mr. Kennedy and Mr.
Jameson. Is there anything I can do for you?"
Murtha shook hands with us suspiciously, but did not sit down. He
continued to stand, his hat tilted back over his head and his huge
hands jammed down into his trousers pockets.
"What's this I hear about Jack Rubano, Carton?" he opened fire. "They
tell me you have arrested him and secured an indictment."
"They tell the truth," returned Carton shortly. "The Grand Jury
indicted Dopey Jack this afternoon. The trial---"
"Dopey Jack," quoted Murtha in disgusted tones. "That's the way it is
nowadays. Give a dog a bad name--why,--I suppose this bad name's going
to stick to him all his life, now. It ain't right. You know, Carton, as
well as I do that if they charged him with just plain fighting and got
him before a jury, all you would have to say would be, 'Gentlemen, the
defendant at the bar is the notorious gangster, Dopey Jack.' And the
jurors wouldn't wait to hear any more, but'd say, 'Guilty!' just like
that. And he'd go up the river for the top term. That's what a boy like
that gets once the papers give him such an awful reputation. It's
fierce!"
Carton shook his head. "Oh, Murtha," he remonstrated with just a
twinkle in his eye, "you don't think I believe that sort of soft stuff,
do you? I've had my eye on this 'boy'--he's twenty-eight, by the
way--too long. You needn't tell me anything about his respectable old
father and his sorrowing mother and weeping sister. Murtha, I've been
in this business too long for that heart throb stuff. Leave that to the
lawyers the System will hire for him. Let's cut that out, between
ourselves, and get down to brass tacks."
It was a new and awkward role for Murtha as suppliant, and he evidently
did not relish it. Aside from his own interest in Dopey Jack, who was
one of his indispensables, it was apparent that he came as an emissary
from Dorgan himself to spy out the land and perhaps reach some kind of
understanding.
He glanced about at us, with a look that broadly hinted that he would
prefer to see Carton alone. Carton made no move to ask us to leave and
Kennedy met the boss's look calmly. Murtha smothered his rage, although
I knew he would with pleasure have had us stuck up or blackjacked.
"See here, Carton." he blurted out at length, approaching the desk of
the District Attorney and lowering his big voice as much as he was
capable, "can't we reach some kind of agreement between ourselves? You
let up on Rubano--and--well, I might be able to get some of my friends
to let up on Carton. See?"
He was conveying as guardedly as he could a proposal that if the
District Attorney would consent to turn his back while the law stumbled
in one of the numerous pitfalls that beset a criminal prosecution, the
organization would deliver the goods, quietly pass the word along to
knife its own man and allow Carton to be re-elected.
I studied Carton's face intently. To a man of another stripe, the
proposal might have been alluring. It meant that although the
organization ticket won, he would, in the public eye at least, have the
credit of beating the System, of going into office unhampered, of
having assured beyond doubt what was at best only problematical with
the Reform League.
Carton did not hesitate a moment. I thought I saw in his face the same
hardening of the lines of his features in grim determination that I had
seen when he had been talking to Miss Ashton. I knew that, among other
things, he was thinking how impossible it would be for him ever to face
her again in the old way, if he sold out, even in a negative way, to
the System.
Murtha had shot his huge face forward and was peering keenly at the man
before him.
"You'll--think it over?" he asked.
"I will not--I most certainly will not," returned Carton, for the first
time showing exasperation, at the very assumption of Murtha. "Mr.
Murtha," he went on, rising and leaning forward over the desk, "we are
going to have a fair election, if I can make it. I may be beaten--I may
win. But I will be beaten, if at all, by the old methods. If I win--it
will be that I win--honestly."
A half sneer crossed Murtha's face. He neither understood nor cared to
understand the kind of game Carton played.
"You'll never get anything on that boy," blustered Murtha. "Do you
suppose I'm fool enough to come here and make a dishonest
proposition--here--right in front of your own friends?" he added,
turning to us. "--I ain't asking any favours, or anything dishonest.
His lawyers know what they can do and what you can do. It ain't because
I care a hang about you, Carton, that I'm here. If you want to know the
truth, it's because you can make trouble, Carton,--that's all. You
can't convict him, in the end, because--you can't. There's nothing 'on'
him. But you can make trouble. We'll win out in the end, of course."
"In other words, you think the Reform League has you beaten?" suggested
Carton quietly.
"No," ejaculated Murtha with an oath. "We don't know--but maybe YOU
have us beaten. But not the League. We don't want you for District
Attorney, Carton. You know it. But here's a practical proposition. All
you have to do is just to let this Rubano case take its natural course.
That's all I ask."
He dwelt on the word "natural" as if it were in itself convincing.
"Why," he resumed, "what foolishness it is for you to throw away all
your chances just for the sake of hounding one poor fellow from the
East Side. It ain't right, Carton,--you, powerful, holding an important
office, and he a poor boy that never had a chance and has made the most
of what little nature gave him. Why, I've known that boy ever since he
hardly came up to my waist. I tell you, there ain't a judge on the
bench that wouldn't listen to what we can show about him--hounded by
police, hounded by the District Attorney, driven from pillar to post,
and---"
"You will have a chance to tell the story in court," cut in Carton.
"Pomeroy will try the case."
"Pomeroy?" repeated Murtha in a tone that quite disguised the anger he
felt that it should come up before the one judge the System feared and
could not control. "Now, look here, Carton. We're all practical men.
Your friend--er--Kennedy, here, he's practical."
Murtha had turned toward us. He was now the Murtha I had heard of
before, the kind that can use a handshake or a playful slap on the
back, as between man and man, to work wonders in getting action or
carrying a point. Far from despising such men as Murtha, I think we all
rather admired his good qualities. It was his point of view, his
method, his aim that were wrong. As for the man himself he was
human--in fact, I often thought far more human than some of the
reformers.
"I'll leave it to Kennedy," he resumed. "Suppose you were running a
race. You knew you were going to win. Would you deliberately stop and
stick your foot out, in order to trip up the man who was coming in
second?"
"I don't know that the cases are parallel," returned Kennedy with an
amused smile.
Murtha kept his good nature admirably.
"Then you would stick your foot out--and perhaps lose the race
yourself?" persisted Murtha.
"I'll relieve Kennedy of answering that," interrupted Carton, "not
because I don't think he can do it better than I can, perhaps, but
because this is my fight--my race."
"Well," asked Murtha persuasively, "you'll think it over, first, won't
you?"
Carton was looking at his opponent keenly, as if trying to take his
measure. He had some scheme in mind and Kennedy was watching the faces
of both men intently.
"This race," began Carton slowly, in a manner that showed he wanted to
change the subject, "is different from any other in the politics of the
city as either of us have ever known it, Murtha."
Murtha made as though he would object to the proposition, but Carton
hurried on, giving him no chance to inject anything into the
conversation.
"It may be possible--it is possible," shot out the young District
Attorney, "to make use of secret records--conversations--at
conferences--dinners--records that have been taken by a new invention
that seems to be revolutionizing politics all over the country."
The look that crossed Murtha's face was positively apoplectic. The
veins in his forehead stood out like whipcords.