CHAPTER XI—HOW THE BOSS STOOD AT BAY FOR HIS LIFE
WHEN I gave that knife to the Sicilian, I had not thought how on the next occasion that I encountered it I should draw it from the throat of a dead and fallen enemy. With the sight of it there arose a vision of the dark brisk face, the red kerchief, and the golden earrings of him to whom it had been presented. In a blurred way I swept the throng for his discovery. The Sicilian was not there; my gaze met only the faces of the common crowd—ghastly, silent, questioning, staring, as I stood with knife dripping blood and the dead man on the ground at my feet. A police officer was pushing slowly towards me, his face cloudy with apology.
“You mustn't hold this ag'inst me,” said he, “but you can see yourself, I can't turn my blind side to a job like this. They'd have me pegged out an' spread-eagled in every paper of th' town.”
“Yes!” I replied vaguely, not knowing what I said. “An' there's th' big Tammany Chief you're fightin',” went on the officer; “he'd just about have my scalp, sure. I don't see why you did it! Your heart must be turnin' weak, when you take to carryin' a shave, an' stickin' people like pigs!”
“You don't think I killed him!” I exclaimed.
“Who else?” he asked.
The officer shrugged his shoulders and turned his hands palm upwards with a gesture of deprecation. To the question and the gesture I made no answer. It came to me that I must give my Sicilian time to escape. I could have wished his friendship had taken a less tropical form; still he had thrown that knife for me, and I would not name him until he had found his ship and was safe beyond the fingers of the law. Even now I think my course a proper one. The man innocent has ever that innocence to be his shield; he should be ready to suffer a little in favor of ones who own no such strong advantage.
It was nine of that evening's clock before Big Kennedy visited me in the Tombs. Young Morton came with him, clothed of evening dress and wearing white gloves. He twisted his mustache between his kid-gloved finger and thumb, meanwhile surveying the grimy interior—a fretwork of steel bars and freestone—with looks of ineffable objection. The warden was with them in his own high person when they came to my cell. That functionary was in a mood of sullen uncertainty; he could not make out a zone of safety for himself, when now Big Kennedy and the Tammany Chief were at daggers drawn. He feared he might go too far in pleasuring the former, and so bring upon him the dangerous resentment of his rival.
“We can't talk here, Dave,” said Big Kennedy, addressing the warden, after greeting me through the cell grate. “Bring him to your private office.”
“But, Mr. Kennedy,” remonstrated the warden, “I don't know about that. It's after lockin'-up hours now.”
“You don't know!” repeated Big Kennedy, the specter of a threat peeping from his gray eyes. “An' you're to hand me out a line of guff about lockin'-up hours, too! Come, come, Dave; it won't do to get chesty! The Chief an' I may be pals to-morrow. Or I may have him done for an' on th' run in a month. Where would you be then, Dave? No more words, I say: bring him to your private office.”
There was no gainsaying the masterful manner of Big Kennedy. The warden, weakened with years of fear of him and his power, grumblingly undid the bolts and led the way to his room.
“Deuced wretched quarters, I should say!” murmured young Morton, glancing for a moment inside the cell. “Not at all worth cutting a throat for.”
When we were in the warden's room, that master of the keys took up a position by the door. This was not to Big Kennedy's taste.
“Dave, s'ppose you step outside,” said Big Kennedy.
“It's no use you hearin' what we say; it might get you into trouble, d'ye see!” The last, insinuatingly.
“Mr. Kennedy, I'm afraid!” replied the warden, with the voice of one worried. “You know the charge is murder. He's here for killin' Jimmy the Blacksmith. I've no right to let him out of my sight.”
“To be sure, I know it's murder,” responded Big Kennedy. “I'd be plankin' down bail for him if it was anything else. But what's that got to do with you skip-pin' into th' hall? You don't think I'm goin' to pass him any files or saws, do you?”
“Really, Mr. Warden,” said young Morton, crossing over to where the warden lingered irresolutely, “really, you don't expect to stay and overhear our conversation! Why, it would be not only impolite, but perposterous! Besides, it's not my way, don't y' know!” And here young Morton put on his double eyeglass and ran the warden up and down with an intolerant stare.
“But he's charged, I tell you,” objected the warden, “with killin' Jimmy th' Blacksmith. I can't go to givin' him privileges an' takin' chances; I'd get done up if I did.”
“You'll get done up if you don't!” growled Big Kennedy.
“It is as you say,” went on young Morton, still holding the warden in the thrall of that wonderful eyeglass, “it is quite true that this person, James the Horseshoer as you call him, has been slain and will never shoe a horse again. But our friend had no hand in it, as we stand ready to spend one hundred thousand dollars to establish. And by the way, speaking of money,”—here young Morton turned to Big Kennedy—“didn't you say as we came along that it would be proper to remunerate this officer for our encroachments upon his time?”
“Why, yes,” replied Big Kennedy, with an ugly glare at the warden, “I said that it might be a good idea to sweeten him.”
“Sweeten! Ah, yes; I recall now that sweeten was the term you employed. A most extraordinary word for paying money. However,” and here young Morton again addressed the warden, tendering him at the same time a one-hundred-dollar bill, “here is a small present. Now let us have no more words, my good man.”
The warden, softened by the bill, went out and closed the door. I could see that he looked on young Morton in wonder and smelled upon him a mysterious authority. As one disposed to cement a friendship just begun, the warden, as he left, held out his hand to young Morton.
“You're th' proper caper!” he exclaimed, in a gush of encomium; “you're a gent of th' right real sort!” Young Morton gazed upon the warden's outstretched hand as though it were one of the curious things of nature. At. last he extended two fingers, which the warden grasped.
“This weakness for shaking hands,” said young Morton, dusting his gloved fingers fastidiously, “this weakness for shaking hands on the part of these common people is inexcusable. Still, on the whole, I did not think it a best occasion for administering a rebuke, don't y' know, and so allowed that low fellow his way.”
“Dave's all right,” returned Big Kennedy. Then coming around to me: “Now let's get down to business. You understand how the charge is murder, an' that no bail goes. But keep a stiff upper lip. The Chief is out to put a crimp in you, but we'll beat him just th' same. For every witness he brings, we'll bring two. Do you know who it was croaked th' Blacksmith?”
I told him of the Sicilian; and how I had recognized the knife as I drew it from the throat of the dead man.
“It's a cinch he threw it,” said Big Kennedy; “he was in the crowd an' saw you mixin' it up with th' Blacksmith, an' let him have it. Them Dagoes are great knife throwers. Did you get a flash of him in the crowd?”
“No,” I said, “there was no sign of him. I haven't told this story to anybody. We ought to give him time to take care of himself.”
“Right you are,” said Big Kennedy approvingly. “He probably jumped aboard his boat; it's even money he's outside the Hook, out'ard bound, by now.”
Then Big Kennedy discussed the case. I would be indicted and tried; there was no doubt of that. The Chief, our enemy, had possession of the court machinery; so far as indictment and trial were concerned he would not fail of his will.
“An' it's th' judge in partic'lar, I'm leary of,” said Big Kennedy thoughtfully. “The Chief has got that jurist in hock to him, d'ye see! But there's another end to it; I've got a pull with the party who selects the jury, an' it'll be funny if we don't have half of 'em our way. That's right; th' worst they can hand us is a hung jury. If it takes money, now,” and here Big Kennedy rolled a tentative eye on young Morton, “if it should take money, I s'ppose we know where to look for it?”
Young Morton had been listening to every word, and for the moment, nothing about him of his usual languor. Beyond tapping his white teeth with the handle of his dress cane, he retained no trace of those affectations. I had much hope from the alert earnestness of young Morton, for I could tell that he would stay by my fortunes to the end.
“What was that?” he asked, when Big Kennedy spoke of money.
“I said that if we have to buy any little thing like a juror or a witness, we know where to go for the money.”
“Certainly!” he lisped, relapsing into the exquisite; “we shall buy the courthouse should the purchase of that edifice become necessary to our friend's security.”
“Aint he a dandy!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, surveying young Morton in a rapt way. Then coming back to me: “I've got some news for you that you want to keep under your waistcoat. You know Billy Cassidy—Foxy Billy—him that studied to be a priest? You remember how I got him a post in th' Comptroller's office. Well, I sent for him not an hour ago; he's goin' to take copies of th' accounts that show what th' Chief an' them other highbinders at the top o' Tammany have been doin'. I'll have the papers on 'em in less'n a week. If we get our hooks on what I'm after, an' Foxy Billy says we shall, we'll wipe that gang off th' earth.”
“Given those documents, we shall, as you say, obliterate them,” chimed in young Morton. “But speaking of your agent: Is this Foxy Billy as astute as his name would imply?”
“He could go down to Coney Island an' beat th' shells,” said Big Kennedy confidently.
“About the knife which gave James the Horseshoer his death wound,” said young Morton. His tones were vapid, but his glance was bright enough. “They've sent it to the Central Office. The detectives are sure to discover the pawnbroker who sold it. I think it would be wise, therefore, to carry the detectives the word ourselves. It will draw the sting out of that wasp; it would, really. It wouldn't look well to a jury, should we let them track down-this information, while it will destroy its effect if we ourselves tell them. I think with the start he has, we can trust that Sicilian individual to take care of himself.”
This suggestion appealed to Big Kennedy as good. He thought, too, that he and young Morton might better set about the matter without delay.
“Don't lose your nerve,” said he, shaking me by the hand. “You are as safe as though you were in church. I'll crowd 'em, too, an' get this trial over inside of six weeks. By that time, if Foxy Billy is any good, we'll be ready to give the Chief some law business of his own.”
“One thing,” I said at parting; “my wife must not come here. I wouldn't have her see me in a cell to save my life.”
From the moment of my arrival at the Tombs, I had not ceased to think of Apple Cheek and her distress. Anne would do her best to comfort her; and for the rest—why! it must be borne. But I could not abide her seeing me a prisoner; not for her sake, but for my own.
“Well, good-by!” said young Morton, as he and Big Kennedy were taking themselves away. “You need give yourself no uneasiness. Remember, you are not only right, but rich; and when, pray, was the right, on being backed by riches, ever beaten down?”
“Or for that matter, the wrong either?” put in Big Kennedy sagely. “I've never seen money lose a fight.”
“Our friend,” said young Morton, addressing the warden, who had now returned, and speaking in a high superior vein, “is to have everything he wants. Here is my card. Remember, now, this gentleman is my friend; and it is not to my fancy, don't y' know, that a friend of mine should lack for anything; it isn't, really!”
As Big Kennedy and young Morton reached the door, I bethought me for the first time to ask the result of the election.
“Was your father successful?” I queried. “These other matters quite drove the election from my head.”
“Oh, yes,” drawled young Morton, “my father triumphed. I forget the phrase in which Mr. Kennedy described the method of his success, but it was highly epigrammatic and appropriate. How was it you said the old gentleman won?”
“I said that he won in a walk,” returned Big Kennedy. Then, suspiciously: “Say you aint guying me, be you?”
“Me guy you?” repeated young Morton, elevating his brows. “I'd as soon think of deriding a king with crown and scepter!”
My trial came on within a month. Big Kennedy had a genius for expedition, and could hurry both men and events whenever it suited his inclinations. When I went to the bar I was accompanied by two of the leaders of the local guild of lawyers. These were my counsel, and they would leave no stone unturned to see me free. Big Kennedy sat by my side when the jury was empaneled.
“We've got eight of 'em painted,” he whispered. “I'd have had all twelve,” he continued regretfully, “but what with the challengin', an' what with some of 'em not knowin' enough, an' some of 'em knowin' too much, I lose four. However, eight ought to land us on our feet.”
There were no Irishmen in the panel, and I commented on the fact as strange.
“No, I barred th' Irish,” said Big Kennedy. “Th' Irish are all right; I'm second-crop Irish—bein' born in this country—myself. But you don't never want one on a jury, especially on a charge of murder. There's this thing about a Mick: he'll cry an' sympathize with you an' shake your hand, an' send you flowers; but just th' same he always wants you hanged.”
As Big Kennedy had apprehended, the Judge on the bench was set hard and chill as Arctic ice against me; I could read it in his jadestone eye. He would do his utmost to put a halter about my neck, and the look he bestowed upon me, menacing and full of doom, made me feel lost and gallows-ripe indeed. Suppose they should hang me! I had seen Sheeny Joe dispatched for Sing Sing from that very room! The memory of it, with the Judge lowering from the bench like a death-threat, sent a cold thought to creep and coil about my heart and crush it as in the folds of a snake.
There came the pawnbroker to swear how he sold me the knife those years ago. The prosecution insisted as an inference drawn from this, that the knife was mine. Then a round dozen stood up to tell of my rush upon Jimmy the Blacksmith; and how he fell; and how, a moment later, I fronted them with the red knife in my clutch and the dead man weltering where he went down. Some there were who tried to say they saw me strike the blow.
While this evidence was piling up, ever and again some timid juryman would glance towards Big Kennedy inquiringly. The latter would send back an ocular volley of threats that meant death or exile should that juror flinch or fail him.
When the State ended, a score of witnesses took the stand in my behalf. One and all, having been tutored by Big Kennedy, they told of the thrown knife which came singing through the air like a huge hornet from the far outskirts of the crowd. Many had not seen the hand that hurled the knife; a few had been more fortunate, and described him faithfully as a small lean man, dark, a red silk cloth over his head, and earrings dangling from his ears.
“He was a sailorman, too,” said one, more graphic than the rest; “as I could tell by the tar on his hands an' a ship tattooed on th' back of one of 'em. He stood right by me when he flung the knife.”
“Why didn't you seize him?” questioned the State's Attorney, with a half-sneer.
“Not on your life!” said the witness. “I aint collarin' nobody; I don't get policeman's wages.”
The Judge gave his instructions to the jury, and I may say he did his best, or worst, to drag me to the scaffold. The jurors listened; but they owned eyes as well as ears, and for every word spoken by the Judge's tongue, Big Kennedy's eyes spoke two. Also, there was that faultless exquisite, young Morton, close and familiar to my side. The dullest ox-wit of that panel might tell how I was belted about by strong influences, and ones that could work a vengeance. Wherefore, when the jury at last retired, there went not one whose mind was not made up, and no more than twenty minutes ran by before the foreman's rap on the door announced them as prepared to give decision. They filed soberly in. The clerk read the verdict.
“Not guilty!”
The Judge's face was like thunder; he gulped and glared, and then demanded:
“Is this your verdict?”
“It is,” returned the foreman, standing in his place; and his eleven fellow jurors, two of whom belonged to my Red Jackets, nodded assent.
Home I went on wings. Anne met me in the hallway and welcomed me with a kiss. She wore a strange look, but in my hurry for Apple Cheek I took no particular heed of that.
“Where is she—where is my wife?” said I.
Then a blackcoat man came from the rear room; he looked the doctor and had the smell of drugs about him. Anne glanced at him questioningly.
“I think he may come in,” he said. “But make no noise! Don't excite her!”
Apple Cheek, who was Apple Cheek no longer with her face hollowed and white, was lying in the bed. Her eyes were big and bright, and the ghost of a smile parted her wan lips.
“I'm so happy!” she whispered, voice hardly above a breath. Then with weak hands she drew me down to her. “I've prayed and prayed, and I knew it would come right,” she murmured.
Then Anne, who had followed me to the bedside, drew away the coverings. It was like a revelation, for I had been told no word of it, nor so much as dreamed of such sweet chances. The dear surprise of it was in one sense like a blow, and I staggered on my feet as that day's threats had owned no power to make me. There, with little face upturned and sleeping, was a babe!—our babe!
—Apple Cheek's and mine!—our baby girl that had been born to us while its father lay in jail on a charge of murder! While I looked, it opened its eyes; and then a wailing, quivering cry went up that swept across my soul like a tune of music.