The newspapers next morning were quite certain that Commissioners Waldo and Dougherty had quarrelled, and when the journalists went down to report Montani’s examination in court they were decidedly partial to the taxicab man.
Dougherty had told the newspaper men beforehand that he had evidence enough to have Montani held for trial. He had made very positive statements about this. Montani would be arraigned, he predicted, and if discharged on one count, would be immediately arrested on something else. If he was discharged on that, he would still be arraigned on further charges.
It needs no very brilliant imagination, therefore, to picture the effect upon the newspapers when Montani, after being arraigned on the doubtful points in his own account of the crime, and those not too vigorously pressed, was discharged, with comment by the court upon the flimsiness of the police case. There was one striking discrepancy in the evidence presented at that examination which, if pressed, should have resulted in the holding of Montani for trial. He still insisted that he had stopped his cab because an old man had got in front of it, but this was denied by a witness. That point was permitted to pass by Lieutenant Riley, who appeared for the police. Montani could have been re-arrested on charges based upon his attempt to defraud the insurance company. But he was permitted to go free. That course had been decided on at Police Headquarters after some difference of opinion.
The newspapers were now more pessimistic than ever in their comment. They contrasted this outcome with Dougherty’s promises that the chauffeur would be re-arrested. It was taken as a confession of police incompetency and bewilderment—which, as will be seen in its proper place, was very useful in its way. Montani went free, and was jubilant, calling on the Commissioner next morning to thank him. But from the moment he left court until he was arrested again the Italian chauffeur never got out of sight of the Police Department.
What Developed on a Busy Tuesday
It was on the day after Montani’s release that Commissioner Dougherty began to uncover more interesting characters in the taxicab drama.
Bit by bit, through points supplied by informants and persons who had come in contact with him in various ways, a very good working knowledge of the fugitive Kinsman was pieced together. It appeared that he had come to New York the previous summer, from Boston, and after a brief career as a boxer, had gone to work in a Sixth avenue resort known as the “Nutshell Café,” where he was a waiter. Among his associates there had been two characters who invited further inquiry.
The first of these was a fellow called “Gene,” described as having a “parrot nose,” and a criminal record. He had been a close pal of Kinsman, and had also introduced another intimate, a wily little Italian called “Jess,” who had formerly owned a thieves’ resort which he called the “Arch Café.” A good description of Jess was secured.
There was some delay while the Commissioner “surrounded” this last-mentioned resort to find out if it was a place where any information might be obtained openly. The question was decided in the negative. So a plain-clothes man was quietly “planted” there to pick up information.
When a criminal is arrested (or “falls”) it is customary in the underworld to raise a fund for his defense. The Arch Café was a center for the deposit of such “fall money.” It was learned that a hundred dollars had been raised for the defense of a man named Clarke, alias “Molloy,” under arrest in Brooklyn for robbery. This was the same Molloy to whose fine character Kinsman had asked his landlady to swear in court. The Italian named Jess had taken charge of Molloy’s defense fund, but squandered it in a spree. Later, making it good, he had sent it over to Molloy’s relief by Kinsman’s pal, “Dutch,” and an Italian known as “Matteo.”