The Victorian Villains Megapack

by Arthur Morrison

  “The Law is a sort of hocuspocus science that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.”

  I

  A trim, neatly dressed young man, holding in one of his carefully gloved hands a bamboo cane, sat upon a bench in Union Square one brilliant October morning some ten years ago. All about him swarms of excited sparrows chattered and fought among the yellow leaves. A last night’s carnation languished in his button-hole, and his smoothly shaven lantern-jaw and high cheekbones suggested the type of upper Broadway and the Tenderloin. In spite of this, the general effect was not unpleasing, especially as his sparse curly hair, just turning gray at the temples, disclosed a forehead suggestive of more than usual intelligence in a face otherwise ordinary. A shadowy, inscrutable smile from time to time played upon his features, at one moment making them seem good-naturedly sympathetic, at another, sinister. The casual observer would have classed him as a student or actor. He was both, and more.

  From a large jewelry store across the way presently emerged a diminutive messenger-boy carrying a small, square bundle, and turned into Broadway. The man on the bench, known to his friends as “Supple Jim,” rose unobtrusively to his feet. The apostle of Hermes stopped to buy a cent’s worth of mucilaginous candy from the Italian on the corner, and then, whistling loudly, dawdled upon his way. The man followed, manœuvring for position, while the boy, now in the chewing stage and struggling violently, lingered to inspect a mechanical toy. The supple one accomplished a flank movement, approached, touched him on the shoulder, and displayed a silver badge beneath his coat.

  “Young man, I’m from the Central Office, and need your help. About a block from here a feller will come runnin’ after you and say they’ve given you the wrong bundle—see? He’ll hand you another, and tell you to give him the one you’ve got. He’s a crook—‘Paddy the Sneak’—old game! See?”

  The boy was all attention, his jaws motionless.

  “Yep!” he replied, his eyes glistening delightedly.

  “Well, I’ll be right behind you; and when he throws the game into you, just pretend you fall to it an’ hand him your box. Then I’ll make the collar. Are you on?”

  “Say, that’s easy!” grinned the boy.

  “Show us what you’re good for, then, and I’ll have the Inspector send you some passes for the theayter.”

  The boy started on in business-like fashion. As his interlocutor had predicted, a hatless “feller” overtook him, breathless, and entered into voluble explanation. The messenger exchanged bundles, and then, eyes front, continued up the street until the detective should pounce upon his victim. For some strange reason no such event took place. At the end of the block he cast a furtive glance behind him. Both Paddy and the Central Office man had vanished, to dispose in a Bowery pawnshop of the fruits of their short hour of toil, dividing between them one hundred and sixty dollars as the equivalent of the diamond stud which the box had contained.

  Half an hour later, drawn by a fascination which he found irresistible, the hero of this legal memoir took a car to the Criminal Courts Building, and made his way to the General Sessions.

  “Forgot my subpœna, Cap’n. I’m a witness. Just let me in, please!” he said, with a smile of easy good-nature.

  Old Flaherty, the superannuated door-keeper, known as The Eagle, eyed the young man suspiciously for a moment, and then, grumbling, allowed him to enter the court-room. The thief who had so easily secured admittance, fought his way persistently through the throng, elbowed by the gruff officer at the inner gate, and selecting the best seat on the front bench, compelled its earlier occupants to make room for him with a calm assurance and matter-of-course superiority which they had not the courage to oppose.

  Supple Jim listened with interest to the call of the calendar. A few lawyers, with their witnesses, whose cases had gone over until the morrow, struggled out through the crush at the door, with no perceptible diminution in the throng within. The clerk prepared to call the roll of the jury.

  “Trial jurors in the case of ‘The People against Richard Monohan,’ please answer to your names.”

  The twelve, in varying keys, had all replied; the trial was “on” again, having been interrupted, evidently, by the adjournment of the afternoon before. A venerable complainant now resumed the story of how two young men, whose acquaintance he had made in a saloon the previous Sunday evening, had followed him into the street, assaulted him on his way home and robbed him of his ring. He positively identified the prisoner as the one who had wrenched it from his finger.

  Next, an officer testified to having arrested the defendant upon the old gentleman’s description, and to having found in his pocket a pawn-ticket calling for the ring in question.

  The case, in the vernacular of the courts, was “dead open and shut.”

  The People “rested,” and the defendant, a miserable specimen of those wretched beings that constitute the penumbra of crime, took the stand. His defence was absurd. He denied ever before having seen his accuser, had not been in the saloon, had not taken the ring, had not pawned it, had bought the ticket from a man on the corner who, he remembered, had told him he was getting a bargain at three dollars. He could not describe this “man,” or account for his own whereabouts on the evening in question. He had been drunk at the time. It was a story as old as theft itself.

  The prosecutor winked at the jury, and the Judge once more summoned the apostolic-looking complainant to the chair.

  “You realize, sir, the terrible consequences to this young man should you be mistaken? Are you quite sure that he is one of the persons who robbed you?” he inquired with becoming gravity.

  The witness raised himself by his cane, and stepping down to where the prisoner sat, gazed searchingly into his stolid face.

  “God knows,” said he, “I wouldn’t harm a hair of his head. But by all that’s holy, I swear he’s the man who took my ring.”

  A wave of interest passed over the assembled attorneys. That was business for you! No use to cross-examine an old fellow like him. There was a great nodding of heads and shuffling of feet.

  “Do you think you could identify your other assailant if you should see him?” continued the judge.

  “I’m sure of it,” calmly replied the witness.

  “Very well, sir,” continued his Honor; “see if you can do so.”

  Half of the audience moved uneasily, and glanced longingly toward the closed means of exit. A woman tittered hysterically. The witness slowly descended, and, escorted by a policeman, began his inspection, scrutinizing each face with care. Quietly he moved along the first bench, and then, gently shaking his head, along the second. The interest became breathless. A sigh of relief rippled along the settees after him. The only spectator unmoved by what was taking place was Supple Jim, who smiled genially at the old gentleman as the latter glanced at him and passed on. Four rows—five rows—six rows—seven rows. At last there was but one bench left, and the excitement reached the point of ebullition. Would he find him? Were they going to be disappointed after all? Only half a bench left! Only two men left! Ah! What was that? People shoved one another in the back, craning their heads to see what was doing in the distant corner where the complainant stood. Suddenly the searcher faced the Judge, and, pointing to the last occupant of the rear settee, announced with conviction:

  “Your Honor, this is the other man!”

  A murmur travelled rapidly around the court-room. Honors were even between a Judge who could thus unerringly divine the presence of a malefactor and a patriarch who, out of so great a multitude, was able unhesitatingly to pick out a midnight assailant.

  The “criminal” attorneys whispered among themselves: “Well, say! What do you think of that! All right, eh? Well, I guess! Well, say!”

  This picturesque digression concluded, interest again centred in the
defendant, of whose ultimate conviction there could no longer be any doubt.

  Not that the identification of the accomplice had any real significance, since the man so ostentatiously picked out by the patriarch in court had been caught red-handed at the time of the robbery within a block of the saloon, was already under indictment as a co-defendant, and being out on bail had merely been brought in under a bench warrant and placed among the spectators. But the performance had a distinct dramatic value, and the jury could not be blamed for making the natural deduction that if the complainant was right as regards the one, ipso facto he must be as to the other. That the complainant had already identified him at the police-station and at the Tombs seemed a matter of small importance. The point was, apparently, that the old fellow had a good memory, and one upon which the jury could safely rely.

  The Judge charged the law, and the jury retired, returning almost immediately with a verdict of “Guilty of robbery in the first degree.”

  The prisoner at the bar swayed for an instant, steadied himself, and stood clinging to the rail, while his counsel made the usual motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment.

  “Clear the box! Clear the box!” shouted the clerk, and the jury, their duty comfortably discharged, filed slowly out.

  The court-room rapidly emptied itself into the corridors. Supple Jim waited on the steps of the building until a young woman, carrying a baby, came wearily out, and, as she passed, thrust a roll of bills into her hand.

  “Your feller’s been done dirt!” he growled. “Take that, and put it out of sight. Don’t give it to any lawyer, now! You’ll need it yourself.” Then he sprang lightly upon the rear platform of a surface car as it whizzed by, and vanished from her astonished gaze.

  Thus was an innocent man convicted, while crime triumphant played the part of benefactor.

  II

  The next morning Supple Jim, sitting in the warm sunshine in the bay-window of his favorite restaurant, lazily finished a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs, glancing casually, meanwhile, at the morning paper which lay open before him. At a respectful distance his attendant awaited the moment when this important guest should snap his fingers, demand his damage, and call for a Carolina Perfecto. These would be forthcoming with alacrity, for Mr. James Hawkins was more of an autocrat on Fourteenth Street than a Pittsburg oil magnate at the Waldorf. Just now the Supple James was reading with keen enjoyment how, the day before, a quick-witted old gentleman had brought a malefactor to justice. At one of the paragraphs he broke into a gentle laugh, perusing it again and again, apparently with intense enjoyment.

  Had ever such a farce been enacted in the course of justice! He tossed away the paper and swore softly. Of course, the only thing that had rendered such a situation possible at all was the fact that the aged Farlan was a superlative old ass. To hear him tell his yarn on the stand, you would have thought that it gave him positive pain to testify against a fellow being. Did you ever see such white hair and such a big white beard? Why, he looked like Dowie or Moses, or some of those fellows. When Jim had tripped him up and slipped off the ring, the old chap had already swallowed half a dozen “County Antrims,” and wasn’t in a condition to remember anything or anybody. The idea of his going so piously into court and swearing the thing on to Monohan; it gave you the creeps! A fellow might go to “the chair” as easy as not, in just the same way. Of course, Jim had not intended to get the young greenhorn into any trouble when he had sold him the pawn-ticket. He had been just an easy mark. And when the police had arrested him and found the ticket in his pocket, there was not any call for Jim to set them straight. That was just Monohan’s luck, curse him! Let him look out for himself.

  But to see the patriarch carefully forging the shackles upon the wrong man, had filled Jim with a wondering and ecstatic bewilderment. The stars in their courses had seemed warring in his behalf.

  Think of it! That fellow Monohan could get twenty years! It made him mad, this infernal conspiracy, as it seemed to him, between judges and prosecutors. It mattered little, apparently, whether they got the right man or not, so long as they got someone! What business had they to go and convict a fellow who was innocent, and put him, “Jim,” the cleverest “gun” in the profession, in such a position? He wondered if folks in other lines of business had so many problems to face. The stupidity of witnesses and the trickery of lawyers was almost beyond belief. It was a perennial contest, not only of wit against wit, strategy against strategy, but, worst of all, of wit against impenetrable dulness. Why, if people were going to be so careless about swearing a man’s liberty away, it was time to “get on the level.” You might be nailed any time by mistake, and then your record would make any defence impossible. You had the right to demand common honesty, or, at least, intelligence, on the part of the prosecution.

  But the main question was, What was going to become of Monohan? Well, the boy was convicted, and that was the end of it. It was quite clear to Jim that, had he been victimized in the same way, no one would have bothered about it at all. It was simply the fortune of war.

  But twenty years! His own pitiful aggregate of six, with vacations in between, as it were, looked infinitesimal beside that awful burial alive. He’d be fifty when he came out—if he ever came out! Sometimes they died like flies in a hot summer. And then there was always Dannemora—worst of all, Dannemora! It would kill him to go back. He couldn’t live away from the main stem now. Why, he hadn’t been in stir for five years. All his prison traits, the gait, the hunch, were effaced—gone completely. His brows contracted in a sharp frown.

  “What’s the use?” he muttered as he rose to go. “He ain’t worth it! I can stake his wife and kids till his time’s up! But, God! I could never go back!”

  Yet the same irresistible force which had directed him to the court-room the day before, now led him to the Grand Central Station. Like one walking in a dream, he bought a ticket and took the noon train alone to Ossining.

  Following a path that led him quickly to a hill above the town not far from the prison walls, he threw himself at full length beside a bowlder, and gazed upon the familiar outlook. Across the broad, shining river lay the dreamy blue hills he had so often watched while working at his brushes. Here and there a small boat skimmed down the stream before the same fresh breeze that sent the red and brown leaves fluttering along the grass. The sunlight touched everything with enchantment, the cool autumn air was an intoxicant—it was the Golden Age again. No, not the Golden Age! Just below, two hundred yards away, he noticed for the first time a group of men in stripes breaking stones. Some were kneeling, some crouching upon their haunches. They worked in silence, cracking one stone after another and making little piles of the fragments. At the distance of only a few feet two guards leaned upon their loaded rifles. Jim shut his eyes.

  III

  The day of sentence came. Once more Jim found himself in the stifling court. He saw Monohan brought to the bar, and watched as he waited listlessly for those few terrible words. The Court listened with grim patience to the lawyer’s perfunctory appeal for mercy, and then, as the latter concluded, addressed the prisoner with asperity.

  “Richard Monohan, you have been justly convicted by a jury of your peers of robbery in the first degree. The circumstances are such as to entitle you to no sympathy from the Court. The evidence is so clear and positive, and the complainant’s identification of you so perfect, that it would have been impossible for a jury to reach any other verdict. Under the law you might be punished by a term of twenty years, but I shall be merciful to you. The sentence of the Court is—” here the Judge adjusted his spectacles, and scribbled something in a book—“that you be confined in State Prison for a period of not less than ten nor more than fifteen years.”

  Monohan staggered and turned white.

  The whole crowded court-room gasped aloud.

  “Come on there!” growled the attendant to his prisoner. But suddenly there wa
s a quick movement in the centre of the room, and a man sprang to his feet.

  “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop! There’s been a mistake! You’ve convicted the wrong man! I stole that ring!”

  “Keep your seats! Keep your seats!” bellowed the court officers as the spectators rose impulsively to their feet.

  Those who had been present at the trial two days before were all positive now that they had never taken any stock in the old gentleman’s identification.

  “Silence! Silence in the court!” shouted the Captain pounding vigorously with a paper-weight.

  “What’s all this?” sternly demanded the Judge. “Do you claim that you robbed the complainant in this case? Impossible!”

  “Not a bit, yer ’Onor!” replied Jim in clarion tones. “You’ve nailed the wrong man, that’s all. I took the ring, pawned it for five dollars, and sold the ticket to Monohan on the corner. I can’t stand for his gettin’ any fifteen years,” he concluded, glancing expectantly at the spectators.

  A ripple of applause followed this declaration.

  “Hm!” commented his Honor. “How about the co-defendant in the case, identified here in the court-room? Do you exonerate him as well?”

  “I’ve nothin’ to do with him,” answered Jim calmly. “I’ve got enough troubles of my own without shouldering any more. Only Monohan didn’t have any hand in the job. You’ve got the boot on the wrong foot!”

  Young Mr. Dockbridge, the Deputy Assistant District Attorney, now asserted himself.

  “This is all very well,” said he with interest, “but we must have it in the proper form. If your Honor will warn this person of his rights, and administer the oath, the stenographer may take his confession and make it a part of the record.”

  Jim was accordingly sworn, and informed that whatever he was about to say must be “without fear or hope of reward,” and might be used as evidence against him thereafter.

  In the ingenious and exhaustive interrogation which followed, the Judge, a noted cross-examiner, only succeeded in establishing beyond peradventure that Jim was telling nothing but the truth, and that Monohan was, in fact, entirely innocent. He therefore consented, somewhat ungraciously, to having the latter’s conviction set aside and to his immediate discharge.