By Advice of Counsel
"It's the devil himself!" answered Mr. Asche with sudden vehemence.
"Tutt, Tutt! Come in here!" shouted the head of the firm. "Mine enemy
hath been delivered into mine hands!"
"Hey? What?" inquired Tutt, popping across the threshold. "Who--I
mean--"
"Raphael B. Hogan!"
"The devil!" ejaculated Tutt.
"You've said it!" declared Mr. Asche devoutly.
* * * * *
That evening under cover of darkness Mr. Ephraim Tutt descended from a
dilapidated taxi at the corner adjacent to Froelich's butcher shop, and
several hours later was whisked uptown again to the brownstone dwelling
occupied by the Hon. Simeon Watkins, the venerable white-haired judge
then presiding in Part I of the General Sessions, where he remained
until what may be described either as a very late or a very early hour,
and where during the final period of his intercourse he and that
distinguished member of the judiciary emptied an ancient bottle
containing a sparkling rose-colored liquid of great artistic beauty.
Then Mr. Tutt returned to his own library at the house on Twenty-third
Street and paced up and down before the antiquated open grate, inhaling
quantities of what Mr. Bonnie Doon irreverently called "hay smoke," and
pondering deeply upon the evils that men do to one another, until the
dawn peered through the windows and he bethought him of the all-night
lunch stand round the corner on Tenth Avenue, and there sought
refreshment.
"Salvatore," he remarked to the smiling son of the olive groves who
tended that bar of innocence, "the worst crook in the world is the man
who does evil for mere money."
"_Si, Signor Tutti_," answered Salvatore with Latin perspicacity. "You
gotta one, eh? You giva him hell?"
"_Si! Si!_" replied Mr. Tutt cheerily. "Even so! And of a truth,
moreover! Give me another hot dog and a cup of bilge water!"
* * * * *
"People versus Mathusek?" inquired Judge Watkins some hours later on the
call of the calendar, looking quite vaguely as if he had never heard of
the case before, round Part I, which was as usual crowded, hot, stuffy
and smelling of unwashed linen and prisoners' lunch. "People versus
Mathusek? What do you want done with this case, Mr. O'Brien?"
"Ready!" chanted the red-headed O'Brien, and, just as he had expected,
the Hon. Raphael Hogan limbered up in his slow, genial way and said: "If
Your Honor please, the defendant would like a few days longer to get his
witnesses. Will Your Honor kindly adjourn the case for one week?"
He did not notice that the stenographer was taking down everything that
he said.
"I observe," remarked Judge Watkins with apparent amiability, "that you
have had five adjournments already. If The People's witnesses are here I
am inclined to direct you to proceed. The defendant has been under
indictment for six weeks. That ought to be long enough to prepare your
defense."
"But, Your Honor," returned Hogan with pathos, "the witnesses are very
hard to find. They are working people. I have spent whole evenings
chasing after them. Moreover, the defendant is perfectly satisfied to
have the case go over. He is anxious for an adjournment!"
"When did you last see him?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
The judge unfolded the papers and appeared to be reading them for the
first time. He wasn't such a bad old actor himself, for he had already
learned from Mr. Tutt that Hogan had not been near Tony for three weeks.
"Um--um! Did you represent the defendant in the police court?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"Why did you waive examination?"
Hogan suddenly felt a lump swelling in his pharynx. What in hell was it
all about?
"I--er--there was no use in fighting the case there. I hoped the grand
jury would throw it out," he stammered.
"Did anybody ask you to waive examination?"
The swelling in Hogan's fat neck grew larger. Suppose McGurk or Delany
were trying to put something over on him!
"No! Certainly not!" he replied unconvincingly. He didn't want to make
the wrong answer if he could help it.
"You have an--associate, have you not? A Mr. Simpkins?"
"Yes, Your Honor." Hogan was pale now and little beads were gathering
over his eyebrows.
"Where is he?"
"Downstairs in the magistrate's court."
"Officer," ordered the judge, "send for Mr. Simpkins. We will suspend
until he can get here."
Then His Honor occupied himself with some papers, leaving Hogan standing
alone at the bar trying to work out what it all meant. He began to wish
he had never touched the damn case. Everybody in the courtroom seemed to
be looking at him and whispering. He was most uncomfortable. Suppose
that crooked cop had welshed on him! At the same instant in the back of
the room a similar thought flashed through the mind of Delany. Suppose
Hogan should welsh on him! Coincidentally both scoundrels turned sick at
heart. Then came to each the simultaneous realization that neither could
gain anything by giving the other away, and that the only thing possible
for either was to stand pat. No, they must hang together or assuredly
hang separately. Then the door opened and a tall officer entered,
followed by a very nervous Mr. Joey Simpkins.
"Come up here!" directed the judge. "You are Mr. Hogan's assistant, are
you not?"
"Yes, sir!" quavered the anxious Simpkins.
"How much money have you taken from Mrs. Mathusek?"
"Four hundred and thirty-five dollars."
"For what?" sharply.
"For protecting her son."
"Where? How?"
"Why--from his arrest to the present time--and for his defense here in
General Sessions."
"Have either you or Mr. Hogan done anything as yet--except to waive
examination in the police court?"
Mr. Simpkins turned hastily to Mr. Hogan, who realized that things were
going badly.
"Your Honor," he interposed thickly, "this money was an agreed fee for
my services as counsel. This examination seems to me somewhat uncalled
for and unfair."
"Call Tony Mathusek to the bar!" suddenly ordered the judge.
It was a dangerous play, but Hogan decided to bluff it through.
"In view of the fact that I have not received my fee I shall refuse to
appear for the defendant!" he announced brazenly.
"Indeed!" retorted the judge with sarcasm. "Then I will assign Mr.
Ephraim Tutt to the defense. You two gentlemen will please sit down--but
not leave the courtroom. We may need you."
At that moment, just as the defendant was led to the bar, Mr. Tutt
emerged from behind the jury box and took his stand at Tony's side.
Nothing much to look at before, the boy was less so now, with the prison
pallor on his sunken little face. There was something about the thin
neck, the half-open mouth and the gaunt, blinking, hollow eyes that
suggested those of a helpless fledgling.
"Impanel a jury!" continued the judge, and Mr. Tutt conducted Tony
inside the rail and sat down beside him at the table reserved for the
defendant.
"It's all right, Tony!" he whispered. "The frame-up isn't on you this
time, my lad."
Cowering in the back of the room Delany tried to hide himself among the
spectators. Some devilish thing had gone wrong. He hadn't heard all that
had passed between the judge and Hogan, but he had caught enough to
perceive that the whole case had gone blooey.
Judge Watkins was wise! He was going after Hogan just as old Tutt would
go after him, Delany. There was a singing in his head and the blood
smarted in his eyes. He'd better beat it! Half bent over he started
sneaking for the door.
"Who is that man trying to go out?" shouted the judge in terrifying
tones that shook Delany to the ankles. Hastily he tried to sit down.
"Bring that man to the bar!"
Half blind with fear Delany attempted to make a show of bravado and
swagger to the rail.
"What is your name?"
"Delany. Officer attached to the Second Precinct."
"What were you leaving the room for?"
Delany could not answer. His wits were befogged, his throat numb. He
simply stared vacuously at Judge Watkins, his lips vibrating with fear.
"Sit down. No; take the stand!" cried Judge Watkins. "I'll try this case
myself."
As if his foot were already attached to a ball and chain Delany dragged
himself up--up--hundreds of feet up, it seemed--to the witness chair. As
if from a mountain side he saw dim forms moving into the jury box, heard
the judge and Mr. Tutt exchanging meaningless remarks. The faces before
him grinned and gibbered at him like a horde of monkeys. They had got
him at last--all for a few pieces of rotten beef! That lean, hungry
wolfhound would tear his tongue out by the roots if he even opened his
mouth; claw wide open his vitals. And old Tutt was fixing him with the
eye of a basilisk and slowly turning him to stone. Somebody sure had
welshed! He had once been in a side show at Coney Island where the room
simulated the motion of an ocean steamer. The courtroom began to do the
same--slanting this way and that and spinning obliquely round and round.
Through the swirl of its gyrations he could see old Tutt's vulture eyes,
growing bigger, fiercer, more sinister every instant. It was all up with
him! It was an execution, and the crowd down below were thirsting for
his blood, waiting to tear him to bits!
"You saw this boy throw a brick through Mr. Froelich's window, didn't
you?" coaxed Judge Watkins insinuatingly. Delany sensed that the old
white fox was trying to trick him--get him for perjury. No! He wouldn't
perjure himself again! No! But what could he do? His head swung
stupidly, swaying like a dazed bull's. The sweat poured from every pore
in his vast bulk. A hoarse noise--like a death rattle--came from his
throat. The room dissolved in waves of white and black. Then in a
vertigo he toppled forward and pitched headlong to the floor.
* * * * *
Deacon Terry, star reporter for the _Tribune_, who happened to be there,
told his city editor at noon that he had never passed such a pleasant
morning. What he saw and heard really constituted, he alleged, a great
big full front-page story "in a box"--though it got only four sticks on
the eleventh page--being crowded out by the armistice. Why, he said, it
was the damnedest thing ever! There had been no evidence against the
defendant at all! And after the cop had collapsed Judge Watkins had
refused to dismiss the case and directed Mr. Tutt to go on in his own
way.
The proceeding had resolved itself into a criminal trial of Hogan and
Simpkins. Tony's good character had been established in three minutes,
and then half a dozen reputable witnesses had testified that the brick
had been thrown by an entirely different boy. Finally, Sussman and his
assistant both swore positively that Delany had been in the back of the
tobacco shop with his back to the door, holding them up for cigars, when
the crash came.
Terry wanted two columns; he almost cried when they cut his great big
full-page story to:
SHYSTERS ACCUSED OF EXTORTION
A dramatic scene was enacted at the conclusion of a minor case in
Part I of the General Sessions yesterday, when upon the motion of
Ephraim Tutt, of the firm of Tutt & Tutt, Judge Simeon Watkins,
sitting as a committing magistrate, held for the action of the grand
jury Raphael B. Hogan and Joseph P. Simpkins, his assistant, for the
crime of extortion, and directed that their case be referred to the
Grievance Committee of the County Lawyers' Association for the
necessary action for their disbarment.
Earlier in the trial a police officer named Delany, the supposed
chief witness for the prosecution, fainted and fell from the witness
chair. Upon his recovery he was then and there committed for
perjury, in default of ten thousand dollars bail. It is understood