Chapter 16

"They believe plainly," he continued, growing more excited as he paced up and down, "that the pictures will of course be accepted by the public as among those stolen from me, and in that, I suppose, they are right. The public will swallow it. If I say I'll prosecute, they'll laugh and tell me to go ahead, that they didn't steal the pictures. Our informant tells us that a hundred copies have been made of each and that they have them ready to drop into the mail to the leading hundred papers, not only of this city but of the state, in time for them to appear Sunday. They think that no amount of denying on our part can destroy the effect."

"That's it," I persisted. "The only way is to buy them off."

"But, Jameson," argued Carton, "I repeat--they are false. It is a plot of Dorgan's, the last fight of a boss, driven into a corner, for his life. And it is meaner than if he had attempted to forge a letter. Pictures appeal to the eye much more than letters. That's what makes the thing so dangerous. Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I'm afraid the harm will be done. I can't reach all the voters in time. Ten see such a charge to one who sees the denial."

He looked from one to the other of us helplessly. "If we had a week or two, it might be all right. But I can't make any move to-day without making a fool of myself, nothing until they are published, as the last big thing of the campaign. Monday and Tuesday morning do not give me time to reply in the papers and hammer it in. Even if they were out now, it would not give me time to make of it an asset instead of a liability. And then, too, it means that I am diverted by this thing, that I let up in the final efforts that we have so carefully planned to cap the campaign. That in itself is as much as Dorgan wants, anyway."

Kennedy had been, so far, little more than an interested listener, but now he asked pointedly, "You have copies of the pictures?"

"No--but I've been promised them this morning."

"H'm," mused Craig, turning the crisis over in his mind. "We've had alleged stolen and forged letters before, but alleged stolen and forged photographs are new. I'm not surprised that you are alarmed, Carton,--nor that Walter suggests buying them off. But I agree with you, Carton--it's best to fight, to admit nothing, as you would imply by any other method."

"Then you think you can trace down the forger of those pictures before it is too late?" urged Carton, leaning forward almost like a prisoner in the dock to catch the words of the foreman of the jury.

"I haven't said I can do that--yet," measured Craig with provoking slowness.

"Say, Kennedy, you're not going to desert me?" reproached Carton.

Kennedy laughed as he put his hand on Carton's shoulder.

"I've been afraid of something like this," he said, "ever since I began to realize that you had once been--er--foolish enough to become even slightly acquainted with that adventuress, Mrs. Ogleby. My advice is to fight, not to get in wrong by trying to dicker, for that might amount to confession, and suit Dorgan's purpose just as well. Photographs," he added sententiously, "are like statistics. They don't lie unless the people who make them do. But it's hard to tell what a liar can accomplish with either, in an election. I--I don't know that I'd desert you--if the pictures were true. I'd be sure there was some other explanation."

"I knew it," responded Carton heartily. "Your hand on that, Kennedy. Say, I think I've shaken hands with half the male population of this city since I was nominated, but this means more than any of them. Spare no reasonable expense and--get the goods, no matter whom it hits higher up--Langhorne--anybody. And, for God's sake get it in time--there's more than an election that hangs on it!"

Carton looked Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with the bosses but also that there had been or by some possibility could be anything really in common between him and Mrs. Ogleby.

That, after all, I saw was the real question. How would Miss Ashton take it? Could she ever forgive him if it were possible for Langhorne to turn the tables and point with scorn at the man who had once been his rival for her hand? What might be the effect on her of any disillusionment, of any ridicule that Langhorne might artfully heap up? As we left Carton, I shared with Kennedy his eagerness to get at the truth, now, and win the fight--the two fights.

"I want to see Miss Ashton, first," remarked Kennedy when we were outside.

Personally I thought that it was a risky business, but felt that Kennedy must know best.

When we arrived at the Reform League headquarters, the clerks and girls had already set to work, and the office was a hive of industry in the rush of winding up the campaign. Typewriters were clicking, clippings were being snipped out of a huge stack of newspapers and pasted into large scrapbooks, circulars were being folded and made ready to mail for the final appeal.

Carton's office there had been in the centre of the suite. On one side were the cashier and bookkeeper, the clerical force and the speakers' bureau, where spellbinders of all degrees were getting instructions, final tours were being laid out, and reports received of meetings already held.

On the other side was the press bureau, with its large and active force, in charge of Miss Ashton.

As we entered we saw Miss Ashton very busy over something. Her back was toward us, but the moment she turned at hearing us we could see that something was the matter.

Kennedy wasted no time in coming to the point of his visit. We had scarcely seated ourselves beside her desk when he leaned over and said in a low voice, "Miss Ashton, I think I can trust you. I have called to see you about a matter of vital importance to Mr. Carton."

She did not betray even by a fleeting look on her proud face what the true state of her feelings was.

"I don't know whether you know, but an attempt is being made to slander Mr. Carton," went on Kennedy.

Still she said nothing, though it was evident that she was thinking much.

"I suppose in a large force like this that it is not impossible that your political enemies may have a spy or two," observed Kennedy, glancing about at the score or more clerks busily engaged in getting out the "literature."

"I have sometimes thought that myself," she murmured, "but of course I don't know. There isn't anything for them to discover in THIS office, though."

Kennedy looked up quickly at the significant stress on the word "this." She saw that Kennedy was watching. Margaret Ashton might have made a good actress, that is, in something in which her personal feelings were not involved, as they were in this case. She was now pale and agitated.

"I--I can't believe it," she managed to say. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy--I would almost rather not have known it at all,--only I suppose I must have known it sooner or later."

"Believe me, Miss Ashton," soothed Kennedy, "you ought to know. It is on you that I depend for many things. But, tell me, how do you know already? I didn't think--it was known."

She was still pale, and replied nervously, "Our detective in the organization brought the pictures up here--one of the girls opened them by mistake--it got about the office--I couldn't help but know."

"Miss Ashton," remonstrated Kennedy soothingly, "I beg you to be calm. I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Remember pictures can lie--just like words."

"I--I hope you're right," she managed to reply slowly. "I'm all broken up by it. I'm ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won't say anything about Mr. Carton to anyone. But it cuts me to have to think that Hartley Langhorne may have been right. He always used to say that every man had his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which made me cast myself in with the League. I--I can hardly believe--"

Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. "Miss Ashton," he implored, "believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics in the organization you are fighting is loyalty. Wait until--"

"Wait?" she echoed. "How can I? I hate Mr. Carton for--for even knowing--" she paused just in time to substitute Mr. Murtha for Mrs. Ogleby--"such men as Mr. Murtha--secretly."

She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had seen had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay.

"Just think it over," urged Kennedy. "Don't be too harsh. Don't do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won't regret it."

Kennedy was apparently doing some rapid thinking. "Let me have the photographs," he asked at length.

"They are in Mr. Carton's office," she answered, as if she would not soil her hands by touching the filthy things.

We excused ourselves and went into Carton's office.

There they were wrapped up, and across the package was written by one of the clerks, "Opened by mistake."

Kennedy opened the package again. Sure enough, there were the photographs--as plain as they could be, the group including Carton, Mrs. Ogleby, Murtha, and another woman, standing on the porch of a gabled building in the sunshine, again the four speeding in a touring car, of which the number could be read faintly, and other less interesting snapshots.

As I looked at them I said nothing, but I must admit that the whole thing began to assume a suspicious look in my mind in connection with various hints I had heard dropped by organization men about probing into the past, and other insinuations. I felt that far from aiding Carton, things were now getting darker. There was nothing but his unsupported word that he had not been in such groups to counterbalance the existence of the actual pictures themselves, on the surface a graphic clincher to Dorgan's story. Kennedy, however, after an examination of the photographs clung no less tenaciously to a purpose he already had in mind, and instead of leaving them for Carton, took them himself, leaving a note instead.

He stopped again to speak to Margaret Ashton. I did not hear all of the conversation, but one phrase struck me, "And the worst of it is that he called me up a little while ago and tried to act toward me in the same old way--and that after I know what I know. I--I could detect it in his voice. He knew he was concealing something from me."

What Kennedy said to her, I do not know, but I don't think it had much effect.

"That's the most difficult and unfortunate part of the whole affair," he sighed as we left. "She believes it."

I had no comment that was worth while. What was to be done? If people believed it generally, Carton was ruined.

XXIII

THE CONFESSION

Dorgan was putting up a bold fight, at any rate. Everyone, and most of all his opponents who had once thought they had him on the run, was forced to admit that. Moreover, one could not help wondering at his audacity, whatever might be the opinion of his dishonesty.

But I was quite as much struck by the nerve of Carton. In the face of gathering misfortunes many a man of less stern mettle might have gone to pieces. Not so with the fighting District Attorney. It seemed to spur him on to greater efforts.

It was a titanic struggle, this between Carton and Dorgan, and had reached the point where quarter was given or asked by neither.

Kennedy had retired to his laboratory with the photographs and was studying them with an increasing interest.

It was toward the close of the afternoon when the telephone rang and Kennedy motioned to me to answer it.

"If it's Carton," he said quickly, "tell him I'm not here. I'm not ready for him yet and I can't be interrupted."

I took down the receiver, prepared to perjure my immortal soul. It was indeed Carton, bursting with news and demanding to see Kennedy immediately.

Almost before I had finished with the carefully framed, glib excuse that I was to make, he shouted to me over the wire, "What do you think, Jameson? Tell him to come down right away. The impossible has happened. I have got under Dopey Jack's guard--he has confessed. It's big. Tell Kennedy I'll wait here at my office until he comes."

He had hung up the receiver before I could question him further. I think it cured Kennedy, temporarily of asking me to fib for him over the telephone. He was as anxious as I to see Carton, now, and plunged into the remaining work on the photographs eagerly.

He finished much sooner than he would, otherwise, and only to preserve the decency of the excuse that I had made did not hasten down to the Criminal Courts Building before a reasonable time had elapsed. As we entered Carton's office we could tell from the very atmosphere of the halls that something was happening. The reporters in their little room outside were on the qui vive and I heard a whisper and a busy scratching of pencils as we passed in and the presence of someone else in the District Attorney's office was noted.

Carton met us in a little ante-room. He was all excitement himself, but I could see that it was a clouded triumph. His mind was really elsewhere than on the confession that he was getting. Although he did not ask us, I knew that he was thinking only of Margaret Ashton and how to regain the ground that he had apparently lost with her. Still, he said nothing about the photographs. I wondered whether it was because of his confidence that Kennedy would pull him through.

"You know," he whispered, "I have been working with my assistants on Dopey Jack ever since the conviction, hoping to get a confession from him, holding out all sorts of promises if he would turn state's evidence and threats if he didn't. It all had no effect. But Murtha's death seems to have changed all that. I don't know why--whether he thinks it was due to foul play or not, for he won't say anything about that and evidently doesn't know--but it seems to have changed him."

Carton said it as though at last a ray of light had struck in on an otherwise black situation, and that was indeed the case.

"I suppose," suggested Craig, "that as long as Murtha was alive he would rather have died than say anything that would incriminate him. That's the law of the gang world. But with Murtha no longer to be shielded, perhaps he feels released. Besides, it must begin to look to him as though the organization had abandoned him and was letting him shift pretty much for himself."

"That's it," agreed Carton. "He has never got it out of his head that Kahn swung the case against him and I've been careful not to dwell on the truth of that Kahn episode."

Carton led us into his main office, where Rubano was seated with two of Carton's assistants who were quizzing him industriously and obtaining an amazing amount of information about gang life and political corruption. In fact, like most criminals when they do confess, Dopey Jack was in danger of confessing too much, in sheer pride at his own prowess as a bad man.

Outside, I knew that it was being well noised abroad, in fact I had nodded to an old friend on the Star who had whispered to me that the editor had already called him up and offered to give Rubano any sum for a series of articles for the Sunday supplement on life in the underworld. I knew, then, that the organization had heard of it, by this time--too late.

Most of the confession was completed by the time we arrived, but as it had all been carefully taken down we knew we had missed nothing.

"You see, Mr. Carton," Rubano was saying as we three entered and he turned from the assistant who was quizzing him, "it's like this. I can't tell you all about the System. No one can. You understand that. All any of us know is the men next to us--above and below. We may have opinions, hear gossip, but that's no good as evidence."

"I understand," reassured Carton. "I don't expect that. You must tell me the gossip and rumours, but all I am bartering a pardon for is what you really know, and you've got to make good, or the deal is off, see?"

He said it in a tone that Dopey Jack could understand and the gangster protested. "Well, Mr. Carton, haven't I made good?"

"You have so far," grudgingly admitted Carton who was greedy for everything down to the uttermost scrap that might lead to other things. "Now, who was the man above you, to whom you reported?"

"Mr. Murtha, of course," replied Jack, surprised that anyone should ask so simple a question.

"That's all right," explained Carton. "I knew it, but I wanted you on record as saying it. And above Murtha?"

"Why, you know it is Dorgan," replied Dopey, "only, as I say, I can't prove that for you any better than you can."

"He has already told about his associates and those he had working under him," explained Carton, turning to us. "Now Langhorne--what do you know about him?"

"Know about Langhorne--the fellow that was--that I robbed?" repeated Jack.

"You robbed?" cut in Kennedy. "So you knew about thermit, then?"

Dopey smiled with a sort of pride in his work, much as if he had received a splendid recommendation.

"Yes," he replied. "I knew about it--got it from a peterman who has studied safes and all that sort of thing. I heard he had some secret, so one night I takes him up to Farrell's and gets him stewed and he tells me. Then when I wants to use it, bingo! there I am with the goods."

"And the girl--Betty Blackwell--what did she have to do with it?" pursued Craig. "Did you get into the office, learn Langhorne's habits, and so on, from her?"

Dopey Jack looked at us in disgust. "Say," he replied, "if I wanted a skirt to help me in such a job, believe me I know plenty that could put it all over that girl. Naw, I did it all myself. I picked the lock, burnt the safe with that powder the guy give me, and took out something in soft leather, a lot of typewriting."

We were all on our feet in unrestrained excitement. It was the Black Book at last!

"Yes," prompted Carton, "and what then--what did you do with it?"

"Gave it to Mr. Murtha, of course," came back the matter-of-fact answer of the young tough.

"What did he do with it?" demanded Carton.

Dopey Jack shook his head dubiously. "It ain't no use trying to kid you, Mr. Carton. If I told you a fake you'd find it out. I'd tell you what he did, if I knew, but I don't--on the level. He just took it. Maybe he burnt it--I don't know. I did my work."

Unprincipled as the young man was, I could not help the feeling that in this case he was telling only the truth as he knew it.

We looked at each other aghast. What if Murtha had got it and had destroyed it before his death? That was an end of the dreams we had built on its capture. On the other hand, if he had hidden it there was small likelihood now of finding it. The only chance, as far as I could see, was that he had passed it along to someone else. And of that Dopey Jack obviously knew nothing.

Still, his information was quite valuable enough. He had given us the first definite information we had received of it.

Carton, his assistants, and Kennedy now vigorously proceeded in a sort of kid glove third degree, without getting any further than convincing themselves that Rubano genuinely did not know.

"But the stenographer," reiterated Carton, returning to the line of attack which he had temporarily abandoned. "Something became of her. She disappeared and even her family haven't a trace of her, nor any other institutions in the city. We've got something on you, there, Rubano."

Jack laughed. "Mr. Carton," he answered easily, "the police put me through the mill on that without finding anything, and I don't believe you have anything. But just to show you that I'm on the square with you, I don't mind telling you that I got her away."

It was dramatic, the off-hand way in which the gangster told of this mystery that had perplexed us.

"Got her away--how--where?" demanded Carton fiercely.

"Mr Murtha gave me some money--a wad. I don't know who gave it to him, but it wasn't his money. It was to pay her to stay away till this all blew over. Oh, they made it worth her while. So I dolled up and saw her--and she fell for it--a pretty good sized wad," he repeated, as though he wished some of it had stuck to his own hands.

We fairly gasped at the ease and simplicity with which the fellow bandied facts that had been beyond our discovery for days. Here was another link in our chain. We could not prove it, but in all probability it was Dorgan who furnished the money. Even if the Black Book were lost, it was possible that in the retentive memory of this girl there might be much that would take its place. She had seen a chance for providing for the future of herself and her family. All she had to do was to take it and keep quiet.

"You know where she is, then?" shot out Kennedy suddenly.

"No--not now," returned Dopey. "She was told to meet me at the Little Montmartre. She did. I don't think she knew what kind of place it was, or she wouldn't have come."

He paused, as though he had something on his mind.

"Go on," urged Kennedy. "Tell all. You must tell all."

"I was just thinking," he hesitated. "I remember I saw Ike the Dropper and Marie Margot there that day, too, with Martin Ogleby--"

"Martin Ogleby!" interrupted Carton in surprise.

"Yes, Martin Ogleby. He hangs about the Montmartre and the Futurist, all those joints. Say--I've been thinking a heap since this case of mine came up. I wonder whether it was all on the level--with me. I gave the money. But was that a stall? Perhaps they tried to get back. Perhaps she played into their hands--I saw her watching the sports, there, and believe me, there are some swell lookers. Oh well, _I_ don't know. All I know is my part. I don't know anything that happened after that. I can't tell what I don't know, can I, Mr. Carton?"

"Not very well," smiled the prosecutor. "But you can tell us anything you suspect."

"I don't know what I suspect. I was only a part of the machine. Only after I read that she disappeared, I began to think there might have been some funny business--I don't know."

Eager as we were, we could only accept this unsatisfactory explanation of the whereabouts of Betty.

"After all, I was only a part," reiterated Jack. "You better ask Ike--that's all."

Just then the telephone buzzed. Carton was busy and Kennedy, who happened to be nearest, answered it. I fancied that there was a puzzled expression on his face, as he placed his hand over the transmitter and said to Carton, "Here--it's for you. Take it. By the way, where's that thing I left down here for recording voices?"

"Here in my desk. But you took the cylinder with you."

"Haven't you got another? Don't you ever use them for dictating letters?"

Carton nodded and sent his stenographer to get a new one.

"Just a minute, please," cut in Kennedy. "Mr. Carton will be here in a few moments, now."

Carton took the telephone and placed his hand over it, until, with a nod from Kennedy as he affixed the machine, he answered.

"Yes--this is the District Attorney," we heard him answer. "What? Rubano? Why you can't talk to him. He's a convicted man. Here? How do you know he's here? No--I wouldn't let you talk to him if he was. Who are you, anyway? What's that--you threaten him--you threaten me? You'll get us both, will you? Well, I want to tell you, you can go plumb--the deuce! The fellow's cut himself off!"

As Carton finished, a peculiar smile played about Rubano's features. "I expected that, but not so soon," he said quietly. "New York'll be no place for me, Mr. Carton, after this. You've got to keep your word and smuggle me out. South Africa, you know--you promised."