Chapter 9. The Jury Fixer

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_ CHAPTER IX. THE JURY FIXER

"Let's visit Farrell's," remarked Craig, after looking over the apparatus and slinging it over his shoulder.

It was early yet, and the theatres were not out, so that there were comparatively few people in the famous all-night cafe. We entered the bar cautiously and looked about. Kahn at least was not there.

In the back of this part of the cafe were several booths, open to conform to the law, yet sufficiently screened so that there was at least a little privacy.

Above the booths was a line of transoms.

"What's back there?" asked Kennedy, under his breath.

"A back room," returned Carton.

"Perhaps Kahn is there," Craig suggested. "Walter, you're the one whom he would least likely recognize. Suppose you just stick your head in the door and look about as quietly as you can."

I lounged back, glanced at the records of sporting events posted on the wall at the end of the bar, then, casually, as if looking for someone, swung the double-hinged door that led from the bar into the back room.

The room was empty except for one man, turned sidewise to the door, reading a paper, but in a position so that he could see anyone who entered. I had not opened the door widely enough to be noticed, but I now let it swing back hastily. It was Kahn, pompously sipping something he had ordered.

"He's back there," I whispered to Kennedy, as I returned, excitedly motioning toward one of the transoms over the booths back of which Kahn was seated.

"Right there?" he queried.

"Just about," I answered.

A moment later Kennedy led the way over to the booth under the transom and we sat down. A waiter hovered near us. Craig silenced him quickly with a substantial order and a good-sized tip.

From our position, if we sat well within the booth, we were effectually hidden unless someone purposely came down and looked in on us. We watched Kennedy curiously. He had unslung the little black camera-like box and to it attached a pair of fine wires and a small pocket storage battery which he carried.

Then he looked up at the transom. It was far too high for us to hear through, even if those in the back room talked fairly loud. Standing on the leather wall seats of the booth to listen or even to look over was out of the question, for it would be sure to excite suspicion among the waiters, or the customers who were continually passing in and out of the place.

Kennedy was watching his chance, and when the cafe emptied itself after being deluged between the acts from a neighbouring theatre, he jumped up quickly in the seat, stood on his toes and craned his neck through the diagonally opened transom. Before any of the waiters, who were busy clearing up the results of the last theatre raid, had a chance to notice him, Craig had slipped the little black box into the shadow of the corner.

From it dangled down the fine wires, not noticeable.

"He's sitting just back of us yet," reported Kennedy. "I don't know about that flaming arc light in the middle of the room, but I think it will be all right. Anyhow, we shall have to take a chance. It looks to me as if he were waiting for someone--didn't it to you, Walter?"

I nodded acquiescence.

"He has wasted no time in getting down to work," put in Carton, who had been a silent spectator of the preparations of Kennedy. "What's that thing you put on the ledge up there--a detectaphone?"

Kennedy smiled. "No--they're too clever to do any talking, at least in a place like this, I'm afraid," he said, carefully hiding the wires and the battery beside him in the shadow of the corner of the booth. "It may be that nothing will happen, anyhow, but if it does we can at least have the satisfaction of having tried to get something. Carton, you had better sit as far back in the booth as I am. The longer we can stay here unnoticed the better. Let Walter sit on the outside."

We changed places.

"Lawyers have been complaining to me lately," remarked Carton in a well modulated voice, "about jury fixing. Some of them say it has been going on on a large scale and I have had several of my county detectives working on it. But they haven't landed anything yet,-- except rumours, like this one about the Dopey Jack jury. I've had them out posing as jurymen who could be 'approached' and would arrange terms for other bribable jurymen."

"And you mean to say that that's going on right here in this city?" I asked, scenting a possible newspaper story.

"This campaign I have started," he replied, "is only the beginning of our work in breaking up the organized business of jury bribing. I mean to put an end to the work of what I have reason to believe is a secret ring of jury fixers. Why, I understand that the prices for 'hanging' a jury range all the way from five to five hundred dollars, or even higher in an important case. The size of the jury fixer's 'cut' depends upon the amount the client is willing to pay for having his case made either a disagreement or a dismissal. Usually a bonus is demanded for a dismissal in criminal cases. But such things are very difficult to--"

"Sh!" I cautioned, for from my vantage point I saw two men approaching.

They saw me in the booth, but not the rest of us, and turned to enter the next one. Though they were talking in low tones, we could catch words and phrases now and then, which told us that we ourselves would have to be very careful about being overheard.

"We've got to be careful," one of them remarked in a scarcely audible undertone. "Carton has detectives mingling with the talesmen in every court of importance in the city."

The reply of the other was not audible, but Carton leaned over to us and whispered, "One of Kahn's runners, I think."

Apparently Kahn was taking extreme precautions and wanted everything in readiness so that whatever was to be done would go off smoothly. Kennedy glanced up at the little black leather box perched high above on the sill of the partition.

"The chief says that a thousand dollars is the highest price that he can afford for 'hanging' this jury--providing you get on it, or any of your friends."

The other man, whose voice was not of the vibrating, penetrating quality of the runner, seemed to hesitate and be inclined to argue.

"We've had 'em as low as five dollars," went on the runner, at which Carton exchanged a knowing glance with us. "But in a special case, like this, we realize that they come high."

The other man grumbled a bit and we could catch the word, "risky."

Back and forth the argument went. The runner, however, was a worthy representative of his chief, for at last he succeeded in carrying both his point and his price.

"All right," we heard him say at last, "the chief is in the back room. Wait until I see whether he is alone."

The runner rose and went around to the swinging door. From the other side of the transom we could, as we had expected, hear nothing. A moment later the runner returned.

"Go in and see him," he whispered.

The man rose and made his way through the swinging door into the back room.

None of us said a word, but Kennedy was literally on his toes with excitement. He was holding the little battery in his hand and after waiting a few moments pressed what looked like a push button.

He could not restrain his impatience longer, but had jumped up on the leather seat and for a moment looked at the black leather box, then through the half open transom, as best he could.

"Press it--press it!" he whispered to Carton, pointing at the push button, as he turned a little handle on the box, then quickly dropped down and resumed his seat.

"Craig--one of the waiters," I cried hurriedly.

The outside bar had been filling up as the evening advanced and the sight of a man standing on one of the seats had attracted the attention of a patron. A waiter had followed his curious gaze and saw Kennedy.

With a quick pull on the wire, Kennedy jerked the black leather box from its high perch and deftly caught it as it fell.

"Say--what are youse guys doin', huh?" demanded the waiter pugnaciously.

Carton and I had risen and stood between the man and Craig.

The sound of voices in high pitch was enough to attract a crowd ever ready to watch a scrap. Mindful of the famous "flying wedge" of waiters at Farrell's for the purpose of hustling objectionable and obstreperous customers with despatch to the sidewalk, I was prepared for anything.

The runner who was sitting alone in the next booth, leaned out and gazed around the corner into ours.

"Carton!" he shouted in a tone that could have been heard on the street.

The effect of the name of the District Attorney was magical. For the moment, the crowd fell back. Before the tough waiters or anyone else could make up their minds just what to do, Kennedy, who had tucked the box into his capacious side pocket, took each of us by the arm and we shoved our way through the crowd.

The head waiter followed us to the door, but offered no resistance. In fact no one seemed to know just what to do and it was all over so quickly that even Kahn himself had not time to get a glimpse of us through the swinging door.

A moment later we had piled into a taxicab at the curb and were speeding through the now deserted streets uptown to the laboratory.

Kennedy was jubilant. "I may have almost precipitated a riot," he chortled, "but I'm glad I stood up. I think it must have been at the psychological moment."

At the laboratory he threw off his coat and prepared to plunge into work with various mysterious pans of chemicals, baths, jars, and beakers.

"What is it?" asked Carton, as Kennedy carefully took out the dark leather box, shielding it from the glare of a mercury vapour light.

"A camera with a newly-invented electrically operated between-lens shutter of great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always been practically impossible to get such pictures as I wanted, but this new shutter has so much greater speed than anything else ever invented before, that it is possible to use it in this sort of detective work. I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It may or may not have worked, but if it has we've caught someone, right in the act."

Kennedy had a "studio" of his own which was quite equal to the emergency of developing the two pictures which he had taken with the new camera.

Late as it was, we waited for him to finish, just as we would have waited down in the Star office if one of our staff photographers had come in with something important.

At last Kennedy emerged from his workshop. As he did so, he slapped down two untoned prints.

Both were necessarily indistinct owing to the conditions under which they had had to be taken. But they were quite sufficient for the purpose.

As Carton bent over the second one, which showed Kahn in the very act of handing over a roll of bills to the rather anemic man whom his runner had brought to him, Carton addressed the photograph as if it had been Kahn himself.

"I have you at last," he cried. "This is the end of your secret ring of jury fixers. I think that will about settle the case of Kahn, if not of Dopey Jack, when we get ready to spring it. Kennedy, make another set of prints and let me lock them in a safe deposit vault. That's as precious to me as if it were the Black Book itself!"

Craig laughed. "Not such a bad evening's work, after all," he remarked, clearing things up. "Do you realize what time it is?"

Carton glanced perfunctorily at his watch. "I had forgotten time," he returned.

"Yes," agreed Craig, "but to-morrow is another day, you know. I don't object to staying up all night, or even several nights, but there doesn't seem to be anything more that we can do now, and it may be that we shall need our strength later. This is, after all, only a beginning in getting at the man higher up."

"The man highest up," corrected Carton, with elation as we parted on the campus, Kennedy and I to go to our apartment.

"See you in the morning, Carton," bade Kennedy. "By that time, no doubt, there will be some news of the Black Book."

We arrived at our apartment a few minutes later. On the floor was some mail which Kennedy quickly ran over. It did not appear to be of any importance--that is, it had no bearing on the case which was now absorbing our attention.

"Well, what do you think of that?" he exclaimed as he tore open one diminutive letter. "That was thoughtful, anyhow. She must have sent us that a few minutes after we left headquarters."

He handed me an engraved card. It was from Miss Ashton, inviting us to a non-partisan suffrage evening at her studio in her home, to be followed by a dance.

Underneath she had written a few words of special invitation, ending, "I shall try to have some people there who may be able to help us in the Betty Blackwell matter." _

Read next: Chapter 10. The Afternoon Dance

Read previous: Chapter 8. The Shyster Lawyer

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