of justice affords ample opportunity for study to the professional or
the amateur criminalist.
Almost daily in this court one might look upon murderers, bank looters,
clever forgers, taxicab robbers, safe crackers, highwaymen,
second-story men, shoplifters, pickpockets, thieves, big and
little--all sorts and conditions of crooks come to pay the price.
The court was crowded, for the gang leaders knew that this was a
show-down for them. Carton himself, not one of his assistants, was to
conduct the case. If Dopey Jack, who had violated almost every law in
the revised statutes and had never suffered anything worse than a
suspended sentence, could not get off, then no one could. And it was
unthinkable that Dopey should not only be arrested and held in jail
without bail, but even be convicted on such a trivial matter as slight
irregularities that swung the primaries in a large section of the city
for his superior, "higher up."
Rubano's father, a decent, sorrowing old man, sat in the rear of the
courtroom, probably wondering how it had all happened, for he came
evidently of a clean, law-abiding family.
But there was nothing in the appearance of the insolent criminal at the
bar to show that he was of the same breed. He was no longer the
athlete, whom "prize fighting" had inculcated with principles of
manliness and fair play as well as a strong body. All that, as I had
seen often before, was a pitiful lie. He was rat-eyed and soft-handed.
His skin had the pastiness that comes of more exposure to the glare of
vile dance halls than the sunlight of day. His black hair was slicked
down; he was faultlessly tailored and his shoes had those high, bulging
toes which are the extreme of Fourteenth Street fashion.
Outside, overflowing into the corridor, were gangsters, followers and
friends of Dopey Jack. Only an overpowering show of force preserved the
orderliness of the court from their boasting, bragging, and threats.
The work of selecting the jury began, and we watched it carefully.
Kahn, cool and cunning, had evidently no idea of what Carton was
holding out against him. In the panel I could see the anemic-looking
fellow whom we had caught with the goods up at Farrell's. Carton's men
had shadowed him and had learned of every man with whom he had spoken.
As each, for some reason or other, was objected to by Carton, Kahn
began to show exasperation.
At last the anemic fellow came up for examination. Kahn accepted him.
For a moment Carton seemed to fumble among his papers, without even
looking at the prospective juror. Then he drew out the print which
Kennedy had made. Quietly, without letting anyone else see it, he
deliberately walked to Kahn's table and showed it to the lawyer,
without a word, in fact without anyone else in the court knowing
anything about it.
Kahn's face was a study, as he realized for the first time what it was
that Carton and Kennedy had been doing that night at Farrell's. He
paled. His hand shook. It was with the utmost effort that he could
control his voice. He had been cornered and the yellow streak in him
showed through.
In a husky voice he withdrew the juror, and Carton, in the same cold,
self-possessed manner resumed his former position, not even a trace of
a smile on his features.
It was all done so quickly that scarcely a soul in the court besides
ourselves realized that anything had happened.
"Isn't he going to say anything about it?" I whispered to Craig.
"That will come later," was all that Kennedy replied, his eyes riveted
still on Carton.
Though no one besides ourselves realized it, Carton had thrown a
bombshell that had demolished the defence. Others noticed it, but as
yet did not know the cause. Kahn, the great Kahn by whom all the forces
of the underworld had conjured, was completely unnerved. Carton had
fixed it so that he could not retreat and leave the case to someone
else. He had knocked the props from under his defence by uncannily
turning down every man whom he had any reason of suspecting of having
been approached. Then he had given Kahn just a glimpse of the evidence
that hinted at what was in store for himself personally. Kahn was never
the same after that.
Judge Pomeroy, who had been following the progress of the case
attentively, threw another bombshell when he announced that he would
direct that the names of the jurors be kept secret until it was
absolutely necessary to disclose them, a most unusual proceeding
designed to protect them from reprisals of gangmen.
At last the real trial began. Carton had been careful to see that none
of the witnesses for the people should be "stiffened" as the process
was elegantly expressed by those of Dopey Jack's class--in other words,
intimidated, bribed, or otherwise rendered innocuous. One after
another, Carton rammed home the facts of the case, the fraudulent
registration and voting, the use of the names of dead men to pad the
polling lists, the bribery of election officials at the primaries--the
whole sordid, debasing story of how Dopey Jack had intimidated and
swung one entire district.
It was clever, as he presented it, with scarcely a reference to the
name of Murtha, the beneficiary of such tactics--as though, perhaps,
Murtha's case was in his mind separate and would be attended to later
when his turn came.
Rapidly, concisely, convincingly, Carton presented the facts. Now and
then Kahn would rise to object to something as incompetent, irrelevant,
and immaterial. But there was lacking something in his method. It was
not the old Kahn. In fact, one almost felt that Carton was disappointed
in his adversary, that he would have preferred a stiff, straight from
the shoulder, stand-up fight.
Now and then we could hear a whisper circulating about among the
spectators. What was the matter with Kahn? Was he ill? Gangdom was in a
daze itself, little knowing the smooth stone that Carton had slung
between the eyes of the great underworld Goliath of the law.
At last Carton's case was all in, and Kahn rose to present his own, a
forced smile on his face.
There was an attempt at a demonstration, but Judge Pomeroy rapped
sharply for order, and alert court attendants were about to nip
effectively any such outburst. Still, it was enough to show the
undercurrent of open defiance of the court, of law, of the people.
What it was no one but ourselves knew but Kahn was not himself. Others
saw it, but did not understand. They had waited patiently through the
sledge-hammer pounding of Carton, waiting expectantly for Kahn to
explode a mine that would demolish the work of the District Attorney as
if it had been so much paper. Carton had figuratively dampened the
fuse. It sputtered, but the mine did not explode.
Once or twice there were flashes of the old Kahn, but for the most part
he seemed to have crumpled up. Often I thought he was not the equal of
even a police court lawyer. The spectators seemed to know that
something was wrong, though they could not tell just what it was.
Kahn's colleagues whispered among themselves. He made his points, but
they lacked the fire and dash and audacity that once had caused the
epigram that Kahn's appearance in court indicated two things--the guilt
of the accused and a verdict of acquittal.
Even Justice Pomeroy seemed to notice it. Kahn had tried many a case
before him and the old judge had a wholesome respect for the wiley
lawyer. But to-day the court found nothing so grave as the strange
dilatoriness of the counsel.
Once the judge had to interfere with the remark, "I may remind the
learned counsel for the defence that the court intends to finish this
case before adjournment for the day, if possible; if not, then we shall
sit to-night."
Kahn seemed not to grasp the situation, as he had of old. He actually
hurried up the presentation of the case, oblivious to the now black
looks that were directed at him by his own client. If he had expected
to recover his old-time equanimity as the case proceeded, he failed.
For no one better than he knew what that little photograph of Carton's
meant--disgrace, disbarment, perhaps prison itself. What was this Dopey
Jack when ruin stared himself so relentlessly in the face in the person
of Carton, calm and cool?
At last the summing up was concluded and both sides rested. Judge
Pomeroy charged the jury, I thought with eminent fairness and
impartiality, even, perhaps, glossing over some points which Kahn's
weak presentation might have allowed him to make more of if Kahn had
been bolder and stronger in pressing them.
The jury filed out and the anxious waiting began. On all sides was the
buzz of conversation. Kahn himself sat silent, gazing for the most part
at the papers before him. There must have been some wrangling of the
jury, for twice hope of the gangsters revived when they sent in for the
record.
But it was not over an hour later when the jury finally filed back
again into their box. As Judge Pomeroy faced them and asked the usual
question, the spectators hung, breathless, on the words of the foreman
as the jurors stood up silently in their places. There was a tense hush
in the courtroom, as every eye was fastened on the face of the foreman.
The hush seemed to embarrass him. But finally he found his voice.
Nervously, as if he were taking his own life in his hands he delivered
the verdict.
"We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment!"
Instantly, before anyone could move, the dignified judge faced the
prisoner deliberately.
"You have heard the verdict," he said colourlessly. "I shall sentence
you Friday."
Three court attendants were at Dopey Jack's side in a moment, but none
too soon. The pent-up feeling of the man idolized by blackmailers, and
man-killers, and batteners on street-women, who held nothing as
disgrace but a sign of respect for law or remorse for capture, burst
forth.
He cast one baleful look at Kahn as they hurried him to the
wire-screened passageway. "It's all a frame-up--a damned frame-up!" he
shouted.
As he disappeared a murmer of amazement ran through the room. The
unthinkable had happened. An East Side idol had fallen.
XIV
THE BEAUTY PARLOUR
"It seems strange," remarked Kennedy the following morning when we had
met in his laboratory for our daily conference to plan our campaign,
"that although we seem to be on the right trail we have not a word yet
about Betty Blackwell herself. Carton has just telephoned that her
mother, poor woman, is worrying her heart out and is a mere shadow of
her former self."
"We must get some word," asserted Miss Kendall. "This silence is almost
like the silence of death."
"I'm afraid I shall have to impose on you that task," said Kennedy
thoughtfully to her. "There seems to be no course open to us but to
transfer our watch from Dr. Harris to this Marie. Of course it is too
early to hear from our search by means of the portrait parle. But we
have both seen Dr. Harris and Marie enter the beauty parlour of Madame
Margot. Now, I don't mean to cast aspersions on your own good looks,
Miss Kendall. They are of the sort with which no beauty parlour except
Nature can compete."
A girl of another type than Clare would probably have read a half dozen
meanings into his sincere compliment. But then, I reflected that a man
of another type than Craig could not have made the remark without
expecting her to do so. There was a frankness between them which, I
must confess, considerably relieved me. I was not prepared to lose
Kennedy, even to Miss Kendall.
She smiled. "You want me to try a course in artificial beautification,
don't you?"
"Yes. Walter doesn't need it, and as for me, nothing could make me a
modern Adonis. Seriously, though, a man couldn't get in there, I
suppose. At least that is one of the many things I want you to find
out. Under the circumstances, you are the only person in whom I have
confidence enough to believe that she can get at the facts there. Find
out all you can about the character of the place and the people who
frequent it. And if you can learn anything about that Madame Margot who
runs the place, so much the better."
"I'll try," she said simply.
Kennedy resumed his tests of the powder in the packets which Dr. Harris
had been distributing, and I endeavoured to make myself as little in
the way as possible. It was not until the close of the afternoon that a
taxicab drove up and deposited Miss Kendall at the door.
"What luck?" greeted Kennedy eagerly, as she entered. "Do you feel
thoroughly beautified?"
"Don't make me smile," she replied, as she swept in with an air that
would have done credit to the star in a comic opera. "I'd hate to crack
or even crease the enamel on my face. I've been steamed and frozen,
beaten and painted and---"
"I'm sorry to have been the cause of such cruel and unusual
punishment," apologized Craig.
"No, indeed. Why, I enjoyed it. Let me tell you about the place."
She leaned against the laboratory table, certainly an incongruous
picture in her new role as contrasted with the stained and dirty
background of paraphernalia of medico-legal investigation. I could not
help feeling that if Clare Kendall ever had decided to go in for such
things, Marie herself would have had to look sharp to her laurels.
"As you enter the place," she began, "you feel a delightful warmth and
there is an odour of attar of roses in the air. There are thick
half-inch carpets that make walking a pleasure and dreamy Sleepy Hollow
rockers that make it an impossibility. It is all very fascinating.
"There are dull-green lattices, little gateways with roses, white
enamel with cute little diamond panes of glass for windows, inviting
bowers of artificial flowers and dim yellow lights. It makes you feel
like a sybarite just to see it. It's a cosmetic Arcadia for that
fundamental feminine longing for beauty.
"Well, first there are the little dressing-rooms, each with a bed, a
dresser and mirror, and everything in such good taste. After you leave
them you go to a white, steamy room and there they bake you. It's a
long process of gentle showers, hot and cold, after that, and massage.
"I thought I was through. But it seems that I had only just started.
There was a battery of white manicure tables, and then the hairdressers
and the artists who lay on these complexions--what do you think of
mine? I can't begin to tell all the secrets of the curls and puffs, and
reinforcements, hygienic rolls, transformations, fluffy puffers, and
all that, or of the complexions. Why, you can choose a complexion, like
wall-paper or upholstery. They can make you as pale as a sickly heroine
or they can make you as yellow as a bathing girl. There is nothing they
can't do. I asked just for fun. I could have come out as dusky as a
gipsy.
"They tried electrolysis on my eyebrows, and one attendant suggested a
hypodermic injection of perfume. Ever hear of that? She thought 'new
mown hay' was the best to saturate the skin with. Then another
suggested, as long as I had chosen this moonbeam make-up, that perhaps
I'd like a couple of dimples. They could make them permanent or lasting
only a few hours. I declined. But there is nothing so wild that they
haven't either thought of themselves or imported from Paris or
somewhere else. I heard them discussing someone who wanted odd
eyes--made by pouring in certain liquids. They don't seem to care how
they affect sight, hearing, skin, or health. It is decoration run mad."
"How about the people there?" asked Kennedy.
"Oh, I must tell you about that. There's so much to tell, I hardly know
where to begin--or stop. I saw some flashy people. You know one
customer attracts her friends and so on. There is every class there
from the demi-monde up to actresses and really truly society. And they
have things for all prices from the comparatively cheap to the most
extravagant. They're very accommodating and, in a way, democratic."
"Did it seem--straight?" asked Kennedy.
"On the surface, yes, as far as I could judge. But I'll have to go back
again for that. For instance, there was one thing that seemed queer to
me. I had finished the steaming and freezing and was resting. A maid
brought a tray of cigarettes, those dainty little thin ones with gilt
tips. There seemed to be several kinds. I managed to try some of them.
One at least I know was doped, although I only had a whiff of it. I
think after they got to know you they'd serve anything from a cocktail
in a teacup to the latest fads. I am sure that I saw one woman taking
some veronal in her coffee."
"Veronal?" commented Craig. "Then that may be where Dr. Harris comes
in."
"Partly, I think. I've got to find out more about what is hidden there.
Once I heard a man's voice and I know it was Dr. Harris's."
"Harris! Why, the elevator boy at the Montmartre said he was painting
the town," I observed.
"I don't believe it. I think he has all he can do keeping up with the
beauty shop. You see, it is more than a massage parlour. They do real
decorative surgery, as it is called. They'll engage to give you a new
skin as soft and pink as a baby's. Or they will straighten a nose, or
turn an ear. They have light treatment for complexions--the ruby ray,
the violet ray, the phosphorescent ray.
"You would laugh at the fake science that is being handed out to those
gullible fools. They can get rid of freckles and superfluous hair, of
course. But they'll even tell you that they can change your mouth and
chin, your eyes, your cheeks. I should be positively afraid of some of
their electrical appliances there. They sweat down your figure or build
it up--just as you please.
"Oh, no one need be plain in these days, not as long as Madame Margot's
exists. That is where I think Dr. Harris comes in. He can pose as a
full-fledged, blown-in-the-bottle cosmetic surgeon. I'll bet there is
no limit to the agonized beautification that they can put you through
if they think they can play you for a sucker."
"By the way, did you see Madame Margot herself?" asked Craig.
"No. I made all sorts of discreet inquiries after her, but they seemed
to know nothing. The nearest I could get was a hint from one of the
girls that she was away. But I'll tell you whom I think I heard,
talking to the man whose voice sounded like Dr. Harris's, and that was
Marie. Of course I couldn't see, but in the part of the shop that looks
like a fake hospital I heard two voices and I would wager that Marie is
going through some of this beautification herself. Of course she is.
You remember how artificial she looked?"
"Did you see anyone else?"
"Oh, yes. You know the place is two doors from the Montmartre. Well, I
think they have some connection with that place between them and the
Montmartre. Anyhow it looks as if they did, for after I had been there
a little while a girl came in, apparently from nowhere. She was the
girl we saw paying money to Ike the Dropper, you remember--the one none
of us recognized? There's something in that next house, and she seems
to have charge of it."
"Well, you have done a good day's work," complimented Kennedy.
"I feel that I have made a start, anyhow," she admitted. "There is a
lot yet to be learned of Margot's. You remember it was early in the day
that I was there. I want to go back sometime in the afternoon or
evening."
"Dr. Harris is apparently the oracle on beauty," mused Kennedy.
"Yes. He must make a lot of money there."
"They must have some graft, though, besides the beauty parlour," went
on Kennedy. "They wouldn't be giving up money to Ike the Dropper if
that was all there was."
"No, and that is where the doped cigarette comes in. That is why I want
to go again. I imagine it's like the Montmartre. They have to know you
and think you are all right before you get the real inside of the
place."
"I don't doubt it."
"I can't go around looking like a chorus girl," remarked Miss Kendall
finally, with a glance at a little mirror she carried in her bag.
"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me until I get rid of this
beautification."
The telephone rang sharply.
As Kennedy answered, we gathered that it was Carton. A few minutes of
conversation, mostly on Carton's part, followed. Kennedy hung up the
receiver with an exclamation of vexation.
"I'm afraid I did wrong to start anything with the portrait parle yet,"
he said. "Why, this thing we are investigating has so many queer turns
that you hardly know whom to trust."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know who could have given the thing away, but Carton says it
wasn't an hour after the inquiries began about Marie that it became
known in the underworld that she was being looked for in this way. Oh,
they are clever, those grafters. They have all sorts of ways of keeping
in touch. I suppose they remember they had one experience with the
portrait parle and it has made them as wary as a burglar is over
finger-prints. Carton tells me that Marie has disappeared."
"I could swear I heard her or someone at Margot's," said Clare.
"And Harris has disappeared. Of course you thought you overheard him,
too. But you may have been mistaken."
"Why?"
"As nearly as Carton can find out," said Kennedy quickly, "Marie is
Madame Margot herself."
XV
THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT
"I want to go to Margot's again to-day," volunteered Miss Kendall the
following morning, adding with a smile, "You see, I've got the habit.
Really, though, there is a mystery about that place that fascinates me.
I want to find out more about this Marie, or Margot, or whoever it was
that I thought I heard there. And then those doped cigarettes interest
me. You see, I haven't forgotten what you said about dope the first
time we talked about Dr. Harris. They will be more free with me, too,
now that I am no longer a stranger."
"That is a good idea," agreed Kennedy, who was now chafing under the
enforced inaction of the case. "I hope that this time they will let you
into some of the secrets. There is one thing, though, I wish you'd look
out for especially."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I should like to know what ways there are of communicating with the
outside. You realize, of course, that it is very easy for them, if they
come to suspect you, to frame up something in a place like that. There
are strong-arm women as well as men, and I'm not at all sure that there
may not be some men besides Dr. Harris who are acquainted with that
place. At any rate Dr. Harris is unscrupulous enough himself."
"I shall make it a point to observe that," she said as she left us. "I
hope I'll have something to tell you when I come back."
"Walter," remarked Craig as the door closed, "that is one of the gamest
girls I ever knew."
I looked across at him inquiringly.
"Don't worry, my boy," he added, reading my expression. "She's not of
the marrying kind, any more than I am."
The morning passed and half of the afternoon without any word from Miss
Kendall. Kennedy was plainly becoming uneasy, when a hurried footstep
in the hall was followed by a more hurried opening of the door.
"Let me sit down, just a minute, to collect myself," panted Miss
Kendall, pressing her hands to her temples where the blue veins stood
out and literally throbbed. "I'm all in."
"Why, what is the matter?" asked Kennedy, placing a chair and switching
on an electric fan, while he quickly found a bottle of restorative
salts which was always handy for emergencies in the laboratory.
"Oh--such a time as I've had! Wait--let me see whether I can recollect
it in order."
A few minutes later she resumed. "I went in, as before. There seemed to
be quite a change in the way they treated me. I must have made a good
impression the first time. A second visit seemed to have opened the way
for everything. Evidently they think I am all right.
"Well, I went through much the same thing as I did before, only I tried
to make it not quite so elaborate, down to the point where several of
us were sitting in loose robes in the lounging-room. That was the part,
you know, that interested me before.