“kind of caught you fellows off base, norrie.”
bradley, star man for the herald, drawled it at me invidiously as i entered the police reporters’ room at the hall of justice. merriman of the times and a half-dozen morning paper men, their copy turned in, had drifted down to the room to await any late developments. the ratto story had been on for three days and the herald and the times had “put over” the arrest of bernardo tosci, camorrist, at the expense of lanagan and myself.
“better shoot a few absinthe drips into lanagan,” continued bradley, “and then maybe you’ll land something. he’s been sober so long he’s lost his grip.”
bradley had fared hardly at the expense of lanagan on more than one occasion. i was about to fling it back at him when lanagan’s voice interrupted me. he had entered the room unfortunately just in time to hear bradley’s words.
“possibly,” he said.
there was an embarrassed pause. lanagan had a caustic tip to his tongue and they awaited it now. he studied bradley without expression, leaning[pg 64] against the door sill. but, curiously enough, there was no outburst. it was always difficult to foresay just what form lanagan’s humour would take.
“charley,” he said at last to bradley, and there shaded into his voice a subtle colouring of unconscious pathos, “what have i ever done to you? i have never done you dirt; nor any man in the business dirt. i have played the game square. why is it that i am always singled out like that? have i ever betrayed my paper or my friends? have i ever brought dishonour to the name of the newspaperman? if i have drunk, it has been out of the public sight.
“i have fought hard, charley; fought hard to break the habit. it belongs to a past day in our game. and irrespective of that i may wish to be remembered around here some day as something other than drunken jack lanagan. i can’t help it if i have a knack of landing stories. i’ve got to play the game right with my paper, haven’t i? and here in this reporters’ room of all places i thought for a little lift and a hand along and you are trying to shove me down.”
his voice hardened in bitterness:
“i’ve played a lone hand all my life, though, charley; it seems to be in the cards that i keep it up.”
my eyes blurred because i alone knew how hard he had fought that battle. beneath his cynical exterior he had a soul as sensitive to slights as a girl.[pg 65] boyishly i made a lunge at bradley, but lanagan, with a swift move, had my arm in that lean, powerful hand of his.
“it don’t go,” he said, softly. “we are full grown men.”
there was an awkward pause. then merriman, of few words, said sententiously:
“it’s your move, charley.”
and bradley put out his hand, which lanagan took.
“jack,” said the herald man, “i’m a cad. there isn’t a righter man in the game than you.”
“forget it then,” said lanagan. “i have.”
but as we left the reporters’ room together i noticed that the whiteness that had come over lanagan’s face remained there.
“don’t let it worry you, jack,” i said anxiously.
“don’t you bother, laddie. he did me more good than liquor, and i never felt the dragging for the stuff worse than to-night. i’m going into this story now for fair, and i’m going in to smash the times and the herald flatter than a matrix.”
the ratto case was one that occupied considerable public attention several years ago, interest arising in the first instance through the peculiar manner in which the crime was disclosed. ratto, a wealthy italian commission merchant, had disappeared, no great commotion being raised for the first few days. the police made the customary desultory “search”—the “search” consisting mainly of the name and[pg 66] description of ratto being read out at the watches in the various station-houses. the mystery in the disappearance might have remained unsolved for weeks had it not been for a lineman, waters, who, perched on the cross-tree of a telegraph pole commanding a view of the windows of a room in the vacant house where ratto’s dead body lay, made the discovery. no policeman being in the vicinity, waters, with residents of the vicinity, entered the house.
there had followed much newspaper speculation and police deduction. the mafia and the camorra came in for attention, the latter organisation being one that was at that time—long before the viterbo trials—just coming to the attention of the american regular police and the secret service, as counterfeiting of american currency formed one of the camorra accomplishments.
the peculiar interest in the manner in which the ratto killing was discovered was this: three months previously a crime had been discovered under almost identical circumstances by the same lineman, waters. in that case rosendorn, a jewish tailor, was found after a several days’ disappearance by waters, at work on the lines, who happened to see the body as he glanced through the window of a vacant house from his elevated perch. following the discovery of the body by waters the case had been speedily cleared up by the police and proved to be an affair arising from conjugal jealousy.
[pg 67]waters was a man well advanced in years. the strain of the appearance at the coroner’s jury and the preliminary hearings in the police court appeared slightly to unbalance his mind. the spectacle of the murdered man that he beheld through the windows of the vacant house was constantly before him. he was a man who had gone through a placid life and never figured in any scene of shocking violence or of murder.
after the disposal of the rosendorn case waters became possessed of a mania for climbing telegraph poles commanding the windows of vacant houses. here and there and everywhere about the city he might be seen spiking himself up a pole, peering intently, and scuttling down. he was a familiar figure to all policemen and many citizens. he made a practice of haunting police headquarters, and, his imagination beginning evidently to visualise the first scene, once or twice led futile parties into vacant houses with the declaration that he had discovered a body. the police reporters humoured him and he came to know the most of them, particularly lanagan, who found waters’ case was of profound interest. several stories were written about him and his self-appointed cross-beam task of discovering murdered people in vacant houses.
and then—he “made good.” weeks of poking and prying and shinning up and down telegraph poles brought their reward and waters discovered another crime: that of ratto. he had been slain[pg 68] with an ordinary blackjack, which was found by the body.
during the three days of excitement following the discovery of the commission merchant’s body waters thrived upon the publicity that he received. he carried bundles of papers containing accounts of his “find” and with his picture taken in many ways: climbing up telegraph poles, peering into a window from a cross-tree—a camera man nearly lost his life slipping on a cross beam taking this picture, and as he looked ten years ago, his last “gallery” picture unearthed “exclusively” by a proud “cub” reporter. he was as tickled as a boy, and it was confidently predicted around police headquarters that he would find an end in an insane asylum from pure joy in a month.
but the ratto case did not clear up quite as easily as had the rosendorn case. it will be recalled in san francisco that a swift night ride in the police launch to black diamond had resulted in the arrest of bernardo tosci, claimed by the police to be the leader of the camorra in the west. a police theory of attempted blackmail by that organisation seemed to have been well bolstered up. the local ramifications of the camorra were proved beyond all doubt. mysterious persons, suspected of being camorra agents, who had been seen talking to ratto shortly before his disappearance, were being diligently sought. the fear of the camorra by the residents of the latin quarter seriously hindered[pg 69] the police and newspaper men in their work, even the native-speaking italian detail of upper officemen making little progress against the terror that the shadow of the camorra threw upon the quarter. police and newspaper judgment were slowly settling that ratto’s death was due to one of those far-reaching conspiracies of the camorra chieftain and his minions.
such was the situation at midnight when lanagan and i dropped out of the reporters’ room. the arrest of tosci—that we had been “scooped” on—had been made shortly after midnight the night before. a sullen “hunch” on lanagan’s part that the crime was in no way reminiscent of the methods of the camorra, as he understood those methods from a mass of inquiry and first-hand reading, had led us away from the police headquarters just a few moments before tosci had been slipped up the back elevator and placed in detinue. the man regularly assigned to the night police detail at the hall of justice, a new man on the “beat,” had missed the arrest, working against seasoned men on the times and the herald with their inside sources of prison information. however, we were supposed to be doing the “heavy” work on the story, so the burden of the “trimming” fell upon us.
lanagan was morose. he had nothing more to say as we walked down kearney street and turned up broadway. i thought he was going to c?sar’s—the original c?sar’s with the two tables and the[pg 70] marvellous cuisine that pioneered the way for the glaring café chantant of to-day’s slumming parties,—but he walked rapidly past c?sar’s and on to turn in at bresci’s, a short distance up the slope of telegraph hill. it was a dirty little place, one of the corner “wine joints” sprinkled thickly in out of the way pockets of the congested latin quarter. at bresci’s, in addition to the bar, there was a little eating place at the rear, separated from the bar by dingy curtains. one room further back held a piano, where on occasion one might hear his ash man, or the flower vendor from third and market streets, or a waiter off duty from the downtown cafés, volume forth the prologue or swing faultlessly through the toreador’s song.
“just got a tip that they are trying to hook mine host bresci into the thing as a camorra leader,” was all that lanagan said.
we sat at one of the tables while lanagan pulled the faded curtains almost together. madam bresci, she of the famed sauté mêlé, was indisposed, so the daughter, bina, would serve us, if agreeable? perfectly so, said lanagan, rather with a note of satisfaction it struck me, though when i glanced at his face in some surprise, for he was a man who was ordinarily unmoved of women, it was expressionless.
bresci went on to his bar after giving orders at the kitchen, and we sat there some time in silence; long enough for lanagan to send the nicotine of three evil manilas to his lungs. i saw that his eyes[pg 71] never left the opening through the curtains. then his cigar, from his mouth for the moment, was suspended in air on its travel back and i followed his sharp glance through the curtain.
dinoli and alberta, two plain-clothes men detailed in the latin quarter, had entered the saloon. instantly the babble from the voices of many volatile italians ceased. the saloon on the moment became quiet, save for the rattling of glasses and one click of the old-fashioned maplewood cash register. the detectives passed the time with bresci, casually “sized up” the gathering, missing lanagan and myself, and left. instantly there broke forth a riot of sputtering italian. the word “ratto” we heard and then, obviously at some motion toward our curtains from bresci, the babble stopped as suddenly as it began and within five moments the throng had idled out and the saloon was still.
“bresci,” demanded lanagan suddenly, “what were they saying out there about ratto? were they camorrists?”
bresci’s hand went straight over his head.
“corpo di christo! non! non!” he exclaimed, paling. “oh, never speek such word here! non! they say, too bad ratto he keeled!”
he mopped his brow of its perspiration, suddenly started, and glanced furtively through the curtains to see whether anyone had come in and heard the conversation.
“i think you’re a liar, bresci,” said lanagan[pg 72] pleasantly. “but as i can’t talk italian, i can’t prove it. it’s pretty funny how that pow-wow shut up the minute those coppers blew through that door. but you better wipe your streaming brow again and beat it back to the bar. you’ve got a customer. who is—” lanagan whispered to me as bresci left, “no other than lawrence morton of the secret service, just assigned here from seattle.”
then he continued, “i met him the other day on that counterfeiting story at the beach. just a shade curious, i should say, the attention bresci is attracting to-night from the big and the little hawkshaws. it bears out my ‘tip.’”
morton had a drink or two, complained of being tired, and drifted casually over to the curtains, opened them, saw us, and was backing easily away when lanagan called out from the darkness—he had turned off the incandescent earlier:
“come in, morton. nothing to get exclusive over,” switching on the light.
morton dropped into a chair. if he was perturbed at being “made” he did not show it. he was generally reputed one of the two or three cleverest operators in the government service.
“that was good work you did on iowa slim, from all i hear,” he vouchsafed.
“there’s a better coming up,” replied lanagan, indifferently. “what brings you to bresci’s?”
morton shrugged his shoulders.
“you know the two rules of our department?”
[pg 73]“guard the president and turn up counterfeiters,” said lanagan.
“well, lanagan, you’ve got the cachet to me from a good friend. the secret service man loses his job who talks; but i don’t mind taking a chance with you and telling you in confidence that in this particular case i’m not guarding the president; being as he is, as you know, in washington.”
“haven’t been sampling any—er—salami?” drawled lanagan.
morton laughed. “you sure are a clever one at that. no. i haven’t come across any that suited my palate. i’m particular.”
we had a café royale—with lanagan pouring his thimble-full of cognac in my glass—and morton left.
“the camorra, it develops,” said lanagan, “have been shipping to this country from —— excellent counterfeit american bank notes. they ship them in salami sausages. maybe if one has gone astray we will get a slice of bank note with our salami and sauté, for here it comes on a tray with the fair bina serving.”
bina, bresci’s daughter, was an italian of absolute beauty; one of those glowing faces and perfect forms you see in the old italian masters.
i noticed in a moment that the comely bina had much attention to show lanagan. we finished our meal and lanagan led the way to the inner room, where the piano was located. i had heard him at[pg 74] different times sputter out “rag,” but when nevin’s “a day in venice” suite came breathing softly beneath his finger tips from out of that wrangly piano i could but listen in amazement. man of mysterious beginnings, he had dropped into the san francisco newspaper game over night, been given his “try-out” by the brotherhood, found to speak the language of the tribe, and had thereafter been unconditionally accepted. such a mess as the bradley affair only served to emphasise his leadership.
with the last fine chord of the buona notte there was a stillness broken only by the instant and ecstatic handclapping of bina. if i ever saw the thing called love shine forth from the human eyes, it suddenly illuminated those dusky eyes that moment.
“o madonna! madonna!” she cried, softly. “encore! encore!”
lanagan zipped through a lustspeil, to drop back then to the last composition. it was truly remarkable, the manner in which he brought the encroaching blindness of the great beethoven sobbing out of the misery of the minor base.
“did a lot of that sort of thing when i was younger,” he said, apologetically. “before the wanderlust hit me.”
he was through. bina fluttered about him and lanagan’s head was close to hers. she was a full-sexed creature but young; and i balked. i spoke to lanagan sharply after a moment or two and we[pg 75] departed. she gave him a shy little glance as he left.
he laughed. “what a covenanter you are! a psalm singer gone wrong for fair!”
“i don’t like it,” i said, stubbornly, but with the best of intentions. “she’s only a child.” i didn’t yet know all the sides of this man lanagan.
he whirled on me: and i got a swift sense of the power that could flash from those dark eyes, and i felt, with the intimacy of personal experience, how effective they must be when working upon a guilty mind.
“let me tell you, howard,” he bit out, using my given name for the first time in our friendship, “norrie” being his ordinary salutation, “that i’m working on the ratto story. get me? what do you take me for, anyhow? i’ve stood one welt from my own kind to-night and i don’t want another.”
lanagan received his second apology of the night; but he didn’t appear to want it at that. his uncanny faculty of reading men’s minds seemed to tell him that my remark was in good faith.
“forget it,” he laughed. “but just for that, norrie, i’ll keep to myself for the present the interesting bit of information that bina gave me; for bresci is a camorra agent after all, and bina, who is all eyes and ears, knows precisely the truth about ratto’s death in so far as it pertains to the camorra. i guess that will hold you for a while? but what[pg 76] a lover of music she is! let’s call it a day. don’t look for me to-morrow. i’m off on a little lay of my own. keep in general reach of a telephone so i can get you in a hurry and give that slavedriver of a sampson my distinguished compliments and tell him i will show up when it pleases me to get d—— good and ready.”
i hammered away at the routine of the story the next day—i was just a plain plodder, ordinarily dependable, but never particularly brilliant—and neither saw lanagan nor heard from him. a lively angle was given to the story when dinola and alberti discovered, concealed in one of ratto’s game refrigerators, six choice salami sausages that his death had evidently prevented him disposing of in the proper way, for neatly rolled in a half-inch wad in the dead centre of each, was a roll of ten $100 gold bills of u. s. currency.
the secret service men, apprised, raged at the information being given to the press, claiming that they had been working to round up the entire gang for months, and that the publication would serve as warning to the others. but leslie, more concerned with solving the ratto mystery, and hanging it on tosci than with handling uncle sam’s minor details, and being also a great believer in the assistance intelligent newspaper publicity could be to the police, gave the facts out. the facts would appear to link ratto indubitably with the camorra ring engaged in the importation of counterfeit currency and obviously[pg 77] eliminated the camorra blackmail theory with respect to his death.
with ratto now definitely established as a leader of the slippery camorra—it was a hard organisation to get definite proof on—the police were thrown back on a theory of a fight between camorra leaders, possibly over some division of the profits or some breach of faith. the camorra history shows that it was not—nor is not—slow to take vengeance even on its own people.
lanagan was missing the next day again, and i was surprised, in view of the sensational developments. i was following the police lead and it all pointed to the camorra to me. nor did he appear for work the third day nor give me word of himself. and on this day the police had an admission from tosci that he had visited ratto on the evening of his disappearance!
it may be well to say here, too, that the secret service men, although working at cross-purposes with the regular police, had been putting the screws to tosci and morton had finally gotten enough information to supplement his own investigations, and in a swift swoop five members of the tosci gang were in the federal cells at the oakland jail charged with handling counterfeit money.
all in all, the situation was growing highly complex for a routine plodder, and still no lanagan! i had just about made up my mind to go on a still hunt for him, confident that he must have broken[pg 78] his vows of abstinence, when he called me up. his message was curt:
“suggest to sampson to stick personally until he hears from me. meet me at once at hyde and lombard.”
sampson usually left the office at midnight. lanagan preferred his dynamic energy on the desk when a big smash was on; and when he asked for sampson personally i knew he had landed. and sampson always preferred being at the city desk when lanagan was swinging home on the bit.
“fine work!” was all sampson said; it was not in his cold-blooded cosmos to show disinterested enthusiasm. possibly it was that characteristic, coupled with twenty years’ seasoning at the wheel, that made him the greatest city editor in the west.
lanagan’s clothes had that peculiarly hand-dog appearance that the newest suit will get when a man has slept in it once or twice; and lanagan’s clothes were seldom new, so the appearance was emphasised. he had evidently found no time either to shave or change his collar. worn lines were about his mouth and eyes such as you see in athletes who have “pulled off” weight in hard training. but his eyes, those dark, mesmeric eyes, were sparkling and the old engaging trick of smiling was there.
“began to think maybe i had ‘lost my grip,’” he said, with a short laugh. “but i have either turned up one of the finest police stories in my time or i have gone plumb crazy. we will soon know.”
[pg 79]without more words, he walked quickly several blocks down over the eastern slope of the hill and turned into a narrow tradesman’s alley. i noticed that he was watching keenly before and after us. he slipped through a gate in a high board fence and we were in a yard overgrown with shrubbery and weeds. the house was a corner one and of that familiar type of old family residence, seen in most localities, that has gone to seed on a mortgage. it was vacant. he opened the kitchen door with a skeleton key and we walked upstairs, turning into a large room commanding a view of the street. he kept away from the window, i noticed.
“draw up the morris chair,” he said facetiously, as he squatted on his legs. i sat down against the wall and pulled out a cigar but he stopped me.
“can’t take a chance. smell of smoke might give the whole thing away. see anything curious about this room?”
i looked at the bareness of it and shook my head.
“examine it,” he said. “you haven’t even looked it over.”
i knew he was not given to joking, so i got up and went over the room carefully. the door to the hall was swung back against the wall and i closed it.
hanging on the door knob by the leather wrist thong was a blackjack, a duplicate of the one with which ratto was slain. lanagan was laughing quietly.
[pg 80]“what are your sensations at being in a prospective death chamber?” he asked.
visions of being suddenly pocketed in that vast, out of the way mansion by a ring of camorrists, assailed me, and i instinctively felt for my revolver.
“don’t worry,” said the baffling lanagan. “the trap won’t spring for several hours yet. but after it does spring,” he went on, “and this mess is over, i’m prepared to present the fair bina with the biggest box of french mixed in town. that is,” quizzically, “if my puritanical mentor will permit me to? but seriously, norrie,”—his next words came forth rather hurriedly, and much as a shamed school-boy might make a confession,—“seriously these italian girls are mature women at sixteen. and though you may not think it, i am only thirty-four.”
when it filtered into me what he was driving at i jumped to my feet and pulled him to his.
“jack,” i cried delightedly, “you don’t mean—”
“no,” he said, shortly, “i don’t mean anything, now or any other time, norrie, until i’ve taken a seat on this water wagon that i know i can ride for life.”
my thoughts shot back to that declaration in the reporters’ room that i had pondered often since uttered. it was clear enough now. he was a man’s man, jack lanagan; and looking back now even after the years that have passed since then, looking back from the content of my own cosy[pg 81] home, the tears spring and i stop writing. he did not marry bina.
“that’s about enough of that,” he said. “i wanted you to get the lay of the house by daylight. let’s get out of here. i’ve got to see leslie.”
but we were only as far as the head of the stairs leading to the lower floor when a key grated in a lock some place beneath us and lanagan gripped my arm, his finger to his lips, his eyes glittering like a snake’s. we swung back on tiptoes to a small closet at the end of the hall, pulling the door almost shut after us. lanagan dropped, his eye to the keyhole. he had drawn his revolver and i drew mine; my heart was beginning to thump like a big bass drum. there came to my ears the sound of footfalls up the creaking stairs. at first it seemed like a dozen men and i concluded for once that one of lanagan’s traps was going to spring the wrong way.
the footfalls disintegrated as they came nearer and i found there was but one person. lanagan’s eye might have been stuck fast to that keyhole, for his hat brim did not waver the fraction of an inch as he held his rigid, cramped position for long minute after minute.
finally the footfalls sounded back down the stairs. lanagan did not move until, to our taut ear drums, came the sound of the closing rear door.
“well?” i asked him, wiping the perspiration from my forehead.
[pg 82]all he said was “fine! fine! wait a bit yet, norrie! that was merely a scout, taking a last look to be sure that blackjack hadn’t been removed by any prospective tenants who might have been here.”
he glanced at his dollar watch. it was six o’clock.
“there’ll be two good hours before darkness,” he said. “we’ll take a chance and leave the house uncovered while i get hold of the chief. unless you want to stay here?” he asked banteringly. i did not want to stay there, but he had me squarely in the door, as it were, and i had to say i would if he wanted it. i sometimes think many a man is made a hero against his will. then a great shaft of illumination struck me and i asked:
“here, jack; why should they bring that blackjack here? they could bring a dozen with them and nobody be any the wiser.”
but all the satisfaction i got out of that inscrutable, irritating man was: “how bright the understudy is becoming! you’ll be tackling high c yourself next!”
“however,” he went on, “i’m not going to permit you to remain here. firstly and mainly, because i am confident nothing will happen until after dark, although for a moment i thought my theory had gone wrong, and in the second place, because you might scramble the whole platter on me and get to shooting recklessly.”
[pg 83]we slipped out of the alley after lanagan had reconnoitred long. he had good reason for not wishing to appear at police headquarters. it was generally known that he was off on some sort of a still hunt. he had been seen occasionally by some of the boys, and it was known, too, that he was not drinking. his appearance at headquarters in conference with leslie therefore might bring a corps of sharp-eyed newspaper men on our trail.
he got leslie on the wire, and within thirty minutes was in deep conversation with that astute thief-taker in the rear room at allenberg’s. there were few sections of the city where lanagan was not on intimate terms with saloonmen. there are many times when they can be valuable to the police reporter, particularly in the tenderloin and down town. the two did not take me into their confidence, but once i heard leslie say, explosively:
“jack, you’re as daffy as a horned toad.”
i caught only part of lanagan’s answer. he was talking earnestly.
“i tell you, chief, my information is correct. i’ve got the only leak in san francisco into the camorra and neither you nor the secret service have a man who can tap it. it’s worth a chance, i tell you. we’ll want brady, wilson and maloney. we’ve got to cover every point, take no chances of a murder getting by on us, and smash this thing right on the nose.”
[pg 84]leslie studied lanagan long and carefully. he had never been wrong yet.
“not drinking, jack?” he asked at last.
“not a smell in three months,” said lanagan.
“you’re on,” the chief finally said, decisively.
i grew restive at not being taken “in,” but lanagan said i was becoming so very bright that a little discipline would do me good; harkening back, i suppose, to that remark about the blackjack. i said no more. they outlined their plan. maloney was to hide in the yard of the house directly across from the alley gate—in that old-fashioned neighbourhood, tight board fences and hedgerows are common—and wilson across the street where he could command the window to the room where the blackjack hung. we three, with brady, were to take our position inside the house. the moment anybody entered the alley gate, or by the front door—lanagan considered it likely that that approach might be taken under cover of darkness—maloney was to lift himself to the fence top and strike a match. wilson, in turn, as though lighting a cigar, would strike a match, and one or the other of us, watching back from the room window of the house, would know that the trap was set. in addition to watching for maloney’s signal, wilson’s position enabled him easily to cover the front door. lanagan, it appeared, had planned the coup hours before and had his coverts already selected.
their vigil ended on the outside, maloney and[pg 85] wilson were then to jump and cover the front and rear doors, respectively, in case of any miscue inside that might permit of an escape. “miscue” was lanagan’s word: and i reflected with some apprehension, that any “miscue” with such nervy officers as leslie and brady that would permit an escape out of that house would mean that probably all of us would be candidates for morgue slabs.
dusk found us all drifting one by one to our stations. when i finally entered through the alley door, i could see neither maloney nor wilson, and yet i knew they had both gone before me and were in position. i was the last one in and lanagan was waiting there to lock the kitchen door after me. we trooped silently upstairs, shoes off and in hand.
it was an unreal situation, waiting there as the deeper blackness of night settled down and the night sounds of an empty house assailed us magnified. brady was standing the watch at the window for the signal. the rest of us were lined up in the broad hall. it was so dark you couldn’t see a man a foot in front of you. hours it seemed to me must have passed, with no conversation save a scattered whisper or so. we had tried the hall and room floors and the door to the hall closet and they gave out no squeaks.
“psst!”
softly, sibilantly, came brady’s signal. we backed into the closet. brady in a second was with us. the door was opened six inches with lanagan[pg 86] and leslie ready for a spring. i was in some fashion away back in the rear of the closet.
a key grated in the kitchen lock, and it sounded through the vast empty house with a peculiarly sinister harshness. it was a situation certainly unique in crime! the stairs creaked—there was the sound of heavy, laboured breathing. but there was but one set of footfalls! we heard the door open to the room where the ugly blackjack hung, and as it did leslie swung our door out and, silently as so many black ghosts, we moved to the other door.
against the window we could see a man’s form dimly outlined. and then—
there was a flash of blinding brilliance, a report that crashed in the empty stillness of the abandoned mansion with the reverberation of a twelve-pound gun, and under the arcs of the swiftly flashing pocket lights of brady and leslie, we beheld, stretched almost at our feet as the form toppled backward and stiffened out—
waters!
there was a gushing wound in the temple. death had been instantaneous. with an eagerness that was more animal than human, lanagan tore back waters’ coat, ran his hands swiftly through his every pocket, and finally, with a “ha!” of satisfaction like a snarl, pulled out from an unsealed envelope in an inside pocket a page of writing:
“daffy, chief: daffy, as a horned toad? well, here’s the proof!”
[pg 87]written in the hand and phraseology of a fairly intelligent man, it was as follows:
“i killed ratto. i guess i have been crazy. i went crazy looking for murdered people in vacant houses from telegraph poles. i couldn’t find any more, and then i thought i would kill somebody. i told ratto on the street that i had seen a man’s body in that house and he went in with me. i had never seen him before. i had left the door open as i ran out to him, but he didn’t suspect anything. i killed him with a blackjack and then found the body in three days, from the telegraph pole. i had picked out the place several days ahead. i got everything ready and came up several times and it was funny no one saw me. i thought ratto would say get the police but he was nervy all right and jumped right in after me.
”the room in this house i discovered in the same way. it was even better than the flat where ratto was killed because the neighbourhood didn’t have so many people. the blackjack is on the door knob. i put it there so as i went into the room first to light a match i could take it off the inside door knob and hit my man as he followed me in.
“that reporter lanagan and another man were hanging around this neighbourhood to-day. he has been talking to me kind of suspicious lately and i guess the jig is up. it’s funny the police never suspected me.
[pg 88]”i guess i have been crazy all right. i would hang anyhow. but i am all right now and i will kill myself in the room. it’s all the return i can make for ratto. if nobody hears the shot i hope somebody finds me from a telegraph pole. it will give the newspapers lots to write about. that’s what made me crazy. i got too much fame, i guess.
“william waters”
there was a prolonged pause. then:
“humph,” growled leslie savagely. “the ‘fame’ you got isn’t a marker to the fame that reporter lanagan has heaped on me. for the original ass i’m it. i took that fellow for a loon. jack, shake.”
lanagan could not forbear a soft sarcasm. that “daffy as a horned toad” rankled:
“give your men a little class in kraft-ebing, lombroso, nordau or some of those specialists and you will get a better understanding of the pulling power of crime,” he said, dryly. “i hadn’t figured quite this kind of a finish,” he went on. “but the minute he blazed that shot into his brain i was sure he had left a confession. if he couldn’t get notoriety in life he would in death.”
quickly lanagan told of his suspicions settling on waters after bina, his “leak” to the camorra, had told him that the death of ratto was as much of a mystery to the camorrists as it was to the police. with bresci a camorra leader, the wise-eyed[pg 89] and wise-eared little bina heard and saw much that lanagan in turn was told. on her say-so, he had absolutely dismissed the camorra. he set himself to watch waters and for three days and nights scarcely ever let the lineman out of his sight. from safe vantage points he had watched waters at his grisly work of climbing innumerable telegraph poles. at times he had casually picked him up and talked with him. it was evident that he had also aroused waters’ suspicions. he noticed him lingering in the neighbourhood of the house where we now were and finally sneak in by the alley door. after he left the house lanagan had hunted up a locksmith, secured a set of skeleton keys himself, and let himself into the house, not knowing exactly what to expect.
he found the blackjack on the door knob, saw the telegraph pole out of the window and in a flash had realised the entire plan of the crazed lineman.
lanagan assumed that waters would not attempt to lure his victim in daylight. he had come back to the house while we were there merely moved by some insane morbidity to visit again the scene selected for the crime; picture possibly the slain man on the floor, himself peering in from the telegraph pole; and then the columns of newspaper space. that the room was commanded by a telegraph pole i had not noticed during the day or even my sluggish wits might have given me a hint of the truth.
[pg 90]“the shot seems to have raised no stir outside, chief,” said lanagan, briskly, when the recital was done. “call in wilson and maloney and stick around and give us two hours lee-way before you get the morgue. it’s twelve-thirty.
“now, son, you hit the pike with me for the enquirer!”
