The Ear in the Wall Page 2

  II

  THE BLACK BOOK

  I had scarcely finished pouring out my suspicions to Kennedy when thetelephone rang.

  It was Carton on the wire, in a state of unsuppressed excitement.Kennedy answered the call himself, but the conversation was brief and,to me, unenlightening, until he hung up the receiver.

  "Dorgan--the Boss," he exclaimed, "has just found a detectaphone in hisprivate dining-room at Gastron's."

  At once I saw the importance of the news and for the moment it obscuredeven the case of Betty Blackwell.

  Dorgan was the political boss of the city at that time, apparentlyentrenched, with an organization that seemed impregnable. I knew him asa big, bullnecked fellow, taciturn to the point of surliness, owing hisinfluence to his ability to "deliver the goods" in the shape of graftof all sorts, the archenemy of Carton, a type of politician who now israpidly passing.

  "Carton wants to see us immediately at his office," added Craig,jamming his hat on his head. "Come on."

  Without waiting for further comment or answer from me, Kennedy, caughtby the infectious excitement of Carton's message, dashed from ourapartment and a few minutes later we were whirling downtown on thesubway.

  "You know, I suppose," he whispered rather hoarsely above the rumbleand roar of the train, but so as not to be overheard, "that Dorganalways has kept a suite of rooms at Gastron's, on Fifth Avenue, fordinners and conferences."

  I nodded. Some of the things that must have gone on in the secret suitein the fashionable restaurant I knew would make interesting reading, ifthe walls had ears.

  "Apparently he must have found out about the eavesdropping in time andnipped it," pursued Kennedy.

  "What do you mean?" I asked, for I had not been able to gather muchfrom the one-sided conversation over the telephone, and the lightningchange from the case of Betty Blackwell to this had left me somewhatbewildered. "What has he done?"

  "Smashed the transmitter of the machine," replied Kennedy tersely. "Cutthe wires."

  "Where did it lead?" I asked. "How do you know?"

  Kennedy shook his head. Either he did not know, yet, or he felt thatthe subway was no place in which to continue the conversation beyondthe mere skeleton that he had given me.

  We finished the ride in comparative silence and hurried into Carton'soffice down in the Criminal Courts Building.

  Carton greeted us cordially, with an air of intense relief, as if hewere glad to have been able to turn to Kennedy in the growingperplexities that beset him.

  What surprised me most, however, was that, seated beside his desk, inan easy chair, was a striking looking woman, not exactly young, but ofan age that is perhaps more interesting than youth, certainly moresophisticated. She, too, I noticed, had a tense, excited expression onher face. As Kennedy and I entered she had looked us over searchingly.

  "Let me present Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson, Mrs. Ogleby," said Cartonquickly. "Both of them know as much about how experts use those littlemechanical eavesdroppers as anyone--except the inventor."

  We bowed and waited for an explanation.

  "You understand," continued Carton slowly to us in a tone that enjoinedsecrecy, "Mrs. Ogleby, who is a friend of Mr. Murtha, Dorgan'sright-hand man, naturally is alarmed and doesn't want her name toappear in this thing."

  "Oh--it is terrible--terrible," Mrs. Ogleby chimed in in greatagitation. "I don't care about anything else. But, my reputation--itwill be ruined if they connect my name with the case. As soon as Iheard of it--I thought of you, Mr. Carton. I came here immediately.There must be some way in which you can protect me--some way that youcan get along without using--"

  "But, my dear Mrs. Ogleby," interrupted the District Attorney, "I havetold you half a dozen times, I think, that I didn't put thedetectaphone in--"

  "Yes, but you will get the record," she persisted excitedly. "Can't youdo something?" she pleaded.

  I fancied that she said it with the air of one who almost had someright in the matter.

  "Mrs. Ogleby," reiterated Carton earnestly, "I will do all I can--on myword of honour--to protect your name, but--"

  He paused and looked at us helplessly.

  "What was it that was overheard?" asked Craig point-blank, watchingMrs. Ogleby's face carefully.

  "Why," she replied nervously, "there was a big dinner last night whichMr. Dorgan gave at Gastron's. Mr. Murtha took me and--oh--there werelots of others--" She stopped suddenly.

  "Yes," prompted Kennedy. "Who else was there?"

  She was on her guard, however. Evidently she had come to Carton for onepurpose and that was solely to protect herself against the scandalwhich she thought might attach to having been present at one of therather notorious little affairs of the Boss.

  "Really," she answered, colouring slightly, "I can't tell you. Imustn't say a word about who was there--or anything about it. Goodheavens--it is bad enough as it is--to think that my name may bedragged into politics and all sorts of false stories set in motionabout me. You must protect me, Mr. Carton, you must."

  "How did you find out about the detectaphone being there?" askedKennedy.

  "Why," she replied evasively, "I thought it was just an ordinary littlesocial dinner. That's what Mr. Murtha told me it was. I didn't thinkanyone outside was interested in it or in who was there or what wenton. But, this morning, a--a friend--called me up and told me--somethingthat made me think others besides those invited knew of it, knew toomuch."

  She paused, then resumed hastily to forestall questioning, "I began tothink it over myself, and the more I thought of it, the stranger itseemed that anyone else, outside, should know. I began to wonder how itleaked out, for I understood that it was a strictly private affair. Iasked Mr. Murtha and he told Mr. Dorgan. Mr. Dorgan at once guessedthat there had been something queer. He looked about his rooms there,and, sure enough, they found the detectaphone concealed in the wall. Ican't tell any more," she added, facing Carton and using her bewitchingeyes to their best advantage. "I can't ask you to shield Mr. Dorgan andMr. Murtha. They are your opponents. But I have done nothing to you,Mr. Carton. You must suppress--that part of it--about me. Why, it wouldruin---"

  She cut her words short. But I knew what she meant, and to a certainextent I could understand, if not sympathize with her. Her husband,Martin Ogleby, club-man and man about town, had a reputation none toosavoury. But, man-like, I knew, he would condone not even theappearance of anything that caused gossip in his wife's actions. Icould understand how desperate she felt.

  "But, my dear lady," repeated Carton, in a manner that showed that hefelt keenly, for some reason or other, the appeal she was making tohim, "must I say again that I had nothing whatever to do with it? Ihave sent for Mr. Kennedy and---"

  "Nothing--on your honour?" she asked, facing him squarely.

  "Nothing--on my honour," he asserted frankly.

  She appeared to be dazed. Apparently all along she had assumed thatCarton must be the person to see, that he alone could do anything forher, would do something.

  Her face paled as she met his earnest look. She had risen and now, halfchagrined, half frightened, she stood irresolute. Her lips quivered andtears stood in her eyes as she realized that, instead of protectingherself by her confidence, she had, perhaps, made matters worse bytelling an outsider.

  Carton, too, had risen and in a low voice which we could not overhearwas trying to reassure her.

  In her confusion she was moving toward the door, utterly oblivious,now, to us. Carton tactfully took her arm and led her to a privateentrance that opened from his office down the corridor and out of sightof the watchful eyes of the reporters and attendants in the outer hall.

  I did not understand just what it was all about, but I could seeKennedy's eye following Carton keenly.

  "What was that--a plant?" he asked, still trying to read Carton's face,as he returned to us alone a moment later. "Did she come to see whetheryou got the record?"

  "No--I don't think so," replied Carton quickly. "No, I think that wasal
l on the level--her part of it."

  "But who did put in the instrument, really--did you?" asked Kennedy,still quizzing.

  "No," exclaimed Carton hastily, this time meeting Craig's eye frankly."No. I wish I had. Why--the fact is, I don't know who did--no one seemsto know, yet, evidently. But," he added, leaning forward and speakingrapidly, "I think I could give a shrewd guess."

  Kennedy said nothing, but nodded encouragingly.

  "I think," continued Carton impressively, "that it must have beenLanghorne and the Wall Street crowd he represents."

  "Langhorne," repeated Kennedy, his mind working rapidly. "Why, it washis stenographer that Miss Blackwell was. Why do you suspect Langhorne?"

  "Because," exclaimed Carton, more excited than ever at Kennedy's quickdeduction, bringing his fist down on the desk to emphasize his ownsuspicion, "because they aren't getting their share of the graft thatDorgan is passing out--probably are sore, and think that if they canget something on the Boss or some of those who are close to him, theymay force him to take them into partnership in the deals."

  Carton looked from Kennedy to me, to see what impression his theorymade. On me at least it did make an impression. Hartley Langhorne, Iknew, was a Wall Street broker and speculator who dealt in real estate,securities, in fact in anything that would appeal to a plunger aspromising a quick and easy return.

  Kennedy made no direct comment on the theory. "In what shape is therecord, do you suppose?" he asked merely.

  "I gathered from Mrs. Ogleby," returned Carton watchfully, "that it hadbeen taken down by a stenographer at the receiving end of thedetectaphone, transcribed in typewriting, and loosely bound in a bookof limp black leather. Oh," he concluded, "Dorgan would give almostanything to find out what is in that little record, you may be sure.Perhaps even, rather than have such a thing out, he would come to termswith Langhorne."

  Kennedy said nothing. He was merely absorbing the case as Cartonpresented it.

  "Don't you see?" continued the District Attorney, pacing his office andgazing now and then out of the window, "here's this record hidden awaysomewhere in the city. If I could only get it--I'd win my fight againstDorgan--and Mrs. Ogleby need not suffer for her mistake in coming tome, at all."

  He was apparently thinking aloud. Kennedy did not attempt to quiz him.He was considering the importance of the situation. For, as I havesaid, it was at the height of the political campaign in which Cartonhad been renominated independently by the Reform League--of which, morelater.

  "You don't think that Langhorne is really in the inner ring, then?"questioned Craig.

  "No, not yet."

  "Well, then," I put in hastily, "can't you approach him or someoneclose to him, and get---"

  "Say," interrupted Carton, "anything that took place in that privatedining-room at Gastron's would be just as likely to incriminateLanghorne and some of his crowd as not. It is a difference in degree ofgraft--that is all. They don't want an open fight. It was just a pieceof finesse on Langhorne's part. You may be sure of that. No, neither ofthem wants a fight. That's the last thing. They're both afraid. WhatLanghorne wanted was a line on Dorgan. And we should never have knownanything about this Black Book, if some of the women, I suppose, hadn'ttalked too much. Mrs. Ogleby added two and two and got five. Shethought it must be I who put the instrument in."

  Carton was growing more and more excited again, "It's exasperating," hecontinued. "There's the record--somewhere--if I could only get it.Think of it, Kennedy--an election going on and never so much talk aboutgraft and vice before!"

  "What was in the book--mostly, do you imagine?" asked Craig, stillimperturbable.

  Carton shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, almost anything. For instance, youknow, Dorgan has just put through a new scheme of city planning--withthe able assistance of some theoretical reformers. That will be a bigpiece of real estate graft, unless I am mistaken. Langhorne and hiscrowd know it. They don't want to be frozen out."

  As they talked, I had been revolving the thing over in my head.Dorgan's little parties, as reported privately among the men on theStar whom I knew, were notorious. The more I considered, the morepossible phases of the problem I thought of. It was not even impossiblethat in some way it might bear on the Betty Blackwell case.

  "Do you think Dorgan and Murtha are hunting the book as anxiouslyas--some others?" I ventured.

  "You have heard of the character of some of those dinners?" answeredCarton by asking another question, then went on: "Why, Dorgan has hadsome of our leading lawyers, financiers, and legislators there. Heusually surrounds them with brilliant, clever women, as unscrupulous ashimself, and--well--you can imagine the result. Poor little Mrs.Ogleby," he added sympathetically. "They could twist her any way theychose for their purposes."

  My own impression had been that Mrs. Ogleby was better able to takecare of herself than his words gave her credit for, but I said nothing.

  Carton paused before the window and gazed out at the Bridge of Sighsthat led from his building across to the city prison.

  "What a record that Black Book must hold!" he exclaimed meditatively."Why, if it was only that I could 'get' Murtha--I'd be happy," headded, turning to us.

  Murtha, as I have said, was Boss Dorgan's right bower, a clever andunscrupulous politician and leader in a district where he succeededsomehow or other in absolutely crushing opposition. I had run acrosshim now and then in the course of my newspaper career and, aside fromhis well-known character in delivering the "goods" to the organizationwhenever it was necessary, I had found him a most interesting character.

  It was due to such men as Murtha that the organization kept its grip,though one wave of reform after another lashed its fury on it. ForMurtha understood his people. He worked at politics every hour--whetherit was patting the babies of the district on the head, or bailing theirfathers out of jail, handing out shoes to the shiftless or judiciouslydistributing coal and ice to the deserving.

  Yet I had seen enough to know the inherent viciousness of thecircle--of how the organization took dollars from the people with oneconcealed hand and distributed pennies from the other hand, held aloftand in the spotlight. Again and again, Kennedy and I in our excursionsinto scientific warfare on crime in the underworld had run squarely upagainst the refined as well as the debased creatures of the "System."Pyramided on what looked like open-handed charity and good-fellowshipwe had seen vice and crime of all degrees.

  And yet, somehow or other, I must confess to a sort of admiration forMurtha and his stamp--if for nothing else than because of the franknesswith which he did what he sought to do. Neither Kennedy nor I could beaccused of undue sympathy with the System, yet, like many who had beenbrought in close contact with it, it had earned our respect in manyways.

  And so, I contemplated the situation with more than ordinary interest.Carton wanted the Black Book to use in order to win his political fightfor a clean city and to prosecute the grafters. Dorgan wanted it inorder to suppress and thus protect himself and Murtha. Mrs. Oglebywanted it to save her good name and prevent even the appearance ofscandal. Langhorne wanted it in order to coerce Dorgan to share in thegraft, yet was afraid of Carton also.

  Was ever a situation of such peculiar, mixed motives?

  "I would move heaven and earth for that Black Book!" exclaimed Cartonfinally, turning from the window and facing us.

  Kennedy, too, had risen.

  "You can count on me, then, Carton," he said simply, as therecollection of the many fights in which we had stood shoulder toshoulder with the young District Attorney came over him.

  A moment later Carton had us each by the hand.

  "Thank you," he cried. "I knew you fellows would be with me."