Peter was warned by the rat-faced man that he must be careful how he
spent any of that money. Nothing would be more certain to bring
suspicion on him than to have it whispered about that he was “in
funds.” He must be able to show how he had come honestly by
everything he had. And Peter agreed to that; he would hide the money
away in a safe place until he was thru with his job.
Then he in turn proceeded to warn McGivney. If they were to fire
Ibbetts from his job, it would certainly cause talk, and might
direct suspicion against Peter. McGivney answered with a smile that
he wasn’t born yesterday. They would “promote” Jack Ibbetts, giving
him some job where he couldn’t get any news about the Goober case;
then, after a bit, they would catch him up on some mistake, or get
him into some trouble, and fire him.
At this meeting, and at later meetings, Peter and the rat-faced man
talked out every aspect of the Goober case, which was becoming more
and more complicated, and bigger as a public issue. New people were
continually being involved, and new problems continually arising; it
was more fascinating than a game of chess. McGivney had spoken the
literal truth when he said that the big business interests of
American City had put up a million dollars to hang Goober and his
crowd. At the very beginning there had been offered seventeen
thousand dollars in rewards for information, and these rewards
naturally had many claimants. The trouble was that people who wanted
this money generally had records that wouldn’t go well before a
jury; the women nearly always turned out to be prostitutes, and the
men to be ex-convicts, forgers, gamblers, or what not. Sometimes
they didn’t tell their past records until the other side unearthed
them, and then it was necessary to doctor court records, and pull
wires all over the country.
There were a dozen such witnesses as this in the Goober case. They
had told their stories before the grand jury, and innumerable flaws
and discrepancies had been discovered, which made more work and
trouble for Guffey and his lieutenants. Thru a miserable mischance
it happened that Jim Goober and his wife had been watching the
parade from the roof of a building a couple of miles away, at the
very hour when they were accused of having planted the suit-case
with the bomb in it. Somebody had taken a photograph of the parade
from this roof, which showed both Goober and his wife looking over,
and also a big clock in front of a jewelry store, plainly indicating
the very minute. Fortunately the prosecution got hold of this
photograph first; but now the defense had learned of its existence,
and was trying to get a look at it. The prosecution didn’t dare
destroy it, because its existence could be proven; but they had
photographed the photograph, and re-photographed that, until they
had the face of the clock so dim that the time could not be seen.
Now the defense was trying to get evidence that this trick had been
worked.
Then there were all the witnesses for the defense. Thru another
mischance it had happened that half a dozen different people had
seen the bomb thrown from the roof of Guggenheim’s Department Store;
which entirely contradicted the suit-case theory upon which the
prosecution was based. So now it was necessary to “reach” these
various witnesses. One perhaps had a mortgage on his home which
could be bought and foreclosed; another perhaps had a wife who
wanted to divorce him, and could be persuaded to help get him into
trouble. Or perhaps he was engaged in an intrigue with some other
man’s wife; or perhaps some woman could be sent to draw him into an
intrigue.
Then again, it appeared that very soon after the explosion some of
Guffey’s men had taken a sledge hammer and smashed the sidewalk,
also the wall of the building where the explosion had taken place.
This was to fit in with the theory of the suit-case bomb, and they
had taken a number of photographs of the damage. But now it
transpired that somebody had taken a photograph of the spot before
this extra damage had been done, and that the defense was in
possession of this photograph. Who had taken this photograph, and
how could he be “fixed”? If Peter could help in such matters, he
would come out of the Goober case a rich man.
Peter would go away from these meetings with McGivney with his head
full of visions, and would concentrate all his faculties upon the
collecting of information. He and Jennie and Sadie talked about the
case incessantly, and Jennie and Sadie would tell freely everything
they had heard outside. Others would come in--young McCormick, and
Miriam Yankovitch, and Miss Nebbins, the secretary to Andrews, and
they would tell what they had learned and what they suspected, and
what the defense was hoping to find out. They got hold of a cousin
of the man who had taken the photograph on the roof; they were
working on him, to get him to persuade the photographer to tell the
truth. Next day Donald Gordon would come in, cast down with despair,
because it had been learned that one of the most valuable witnesses
of the defense, a groceryman, had once pleaded guilty to selling
spoilt cheese! Thus every evening, before he went to sleep, Peter
would jot down notes, and sew them up inside his jacket, and once a
week he would go to the meeting with McGivney, and the two would
argue and bargain over the value of Peter’s news.