The Ear in the Wall

by Arthur B. Reeve

"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.