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 t.i.tanic 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sistants 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 a.s.sistants 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 a.s.sistant 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," rea.s.sured 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 sc.r.a.p 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 a.s.sociates 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sistants, 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 inst.i.tutions 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."