The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes (93 page)

But it appears he is suffering from ulcers of the stomach, and this handicap was presented to Judge Nott late in the day. James D. C. Murray, attorney for McManus, George M. Brothers, Assistant prosecuting attorney, in charge of the case for the State, and three other assistants from District Attorney Banton’s office, gathered in front of the bench while Mark H. Simon was put back in the witness chair and examined.

The upshot of the examination was his dismissal from service by Judge Nott, which left Riker, a youngish, slightly bald man, with big horn specs riding his nose, as the only occupant of the jury box. Judge Nott let the lonesome looking Riker go home for the night after instructing him not to do any gabbing about the case.

The great American pastime of jury picking took up all the time from ten-thirty yesterday morning until four o’clock in the afternoon, with an hour off for chow at one o’clock. Thirty “blue ribboners”, well-dressed, solid looking chaps for the most part, were examined and of this number Murray challenged a total of fourteen. Each side had thirty peremptory challenges. Attorney Brothers knocked off nine and four were excused.

George McManus, the defendant, sat behind his attorney eyeing each talesman with interest but apparently offering no suggestions. McManus was wearing a well-tailored brown suit, and was neatly groomed, as usual. His big, dark-toned face never lost its smile.

Two of his brothers, Jim and Frank, were in the court room. Frank is a big, fine-looking fellow who has a nifty tenor voice that is the boast of the Roaring Forties, though he can be induced to sing only on special occasions.

Only a very few spectators were permitted in the court, because there wasn’t room in the antique hall of justice for spare chairs after the “blue ribboners” were all assembled. A squad of the Hon. Grover Whalen’s best and most neatly uniformed cops are spread all around the premises, inside and out, to preserve decorum.

Edgar Wallace, the English novelist and playwright, who is said to bat out a novel or play immediately after his daily marmalade, was given the special privilege of the chair inside the railing and sat there listening to the examination of the talesmen, and doubtless marveling at the paucity of local knowledge of the citizens about a case that he heard of over in England. Mr Wallace proved to be a fattish, baldish man, and by no means as young as he used to be.

A reflection of the average big towner’s mental attitude toward gambling and gamblers was found in the answers to Attorney Murray’s inevitable question as to whether the fact the defendant is a gambler and gambled on cards and the horses, would prejudice the talesmen against him. Did they consider a gambler a low character?

Well, not one did. Some admitted playing the races themselves. One mumbled something about there being a lot of gamblers in Wall Street who didn’t excite his prejudice.

Attorney Murray was also concerned in ascertaining if the talesmen had read anything that District Attorney Banton had said about the defendant, and if so, had it made any impression on the talesman? It seemed not. One chap said he had read Banton’s assertions all right, but figured them in the nature of a bluff.

Do you know anybody who knew Rothstein—pronounced “stine” by Mr Brothers, and “steen” by Mr Murray—or George McManus? Do you know anybody who knew either of them?

Do you know anybody who knows anybody connected with (
a
) the District Attorney’s office? (
b
) the Police Department? Were you interested in the late political campaign? Ever live in the Park Central? Ever dine there? Know anybody connected with the management? Did you ever go to a race track?

Did you ever read anything about the case? (This in a city of over 4,000,000 newspaper readers, me hearties, and every paper carrying column after column of the Rothstein murder for months!) Did you ever hear any discussion of it? Can you? Suppose? Will you? State of mind. Reasonable doubt—

Well, by the time old John Citizen, “blue ribboner” or not, has had about twenty minutes of this he is mighty glad to get out of that place and slink home, wondering if after all it is worth while trying to do one’s duty by one’s city, county and state.

20 November 1929

A client—or shall we say a patient—of the late Arnold Rothstein popped up on us in the old Criminal Courts Building in the shank o’ the evening yesterday. He came within a couple of aces of being made juror No. 8, in the trial of George C. McManus, charged with the murder of the said Rothstein.

Robert G. McKay, a powerfully built, black-haired broker of No. 244 East 67th Street, a rather swanky neighborhood, was answering the do-yous and the can-yous of James D. C. Murray as amiably as you please, and as he had already passed the State’s legal lights apparently in a satisfactory manner, the gents at the press tables were muttering, “Well, we gotta another at least.”

Then suddenly Robert G. McKay, who looks as if he might have been a Yale or Princeton lineman of say, ten years back, and who was sitting with his big legs crossed and hugging one knee, remarked in a mild tone to Murray, “I suppose I might say I knew Arnold Rothstein—though none of you have asked me.”

“Ah,” said Attorney Murray with interest, just as it appeared he was through with his questioning.

“Did you ever have any business transactions with Rothstein?”

“Well, it was business on his part, and folly on mine.”

“Might I have the impertinence to ask if you bet with him?”

McKay grinned wryly, and nodded. Apparently he found no relish in his recollection of the transaction with “the mastermind,” who lies a-mouldering in his grave while the State of New York is trying to prove that George McManus is the man who tossed a slug into his stomach in the Park Central Hotel the night of 4 November, a year ago.

Attorney Murray now commenced to delve somewhat into McKay’s state of mind concerning the late Rothstein. He wanted to know if it would cause the broker any feeling of embarrassment to sit on a jury that was trying a man for the killing of Rothstein, when Judge Charles C. Nott, Jr, who is presiding in the trial, remarked, “I don’t think it necessary to spend any more time on this man.”

The late Rothstein’s customer hoisted his big frame out of the chair, and departed, a meditative expression on his face, as if he might still be considering whether he would feel any embarrassment under the circumstances.

They wangled out six jurors at the morning session of the McManus trial, which was enlivened to some extent by the appearance of quite a number of witnesses for the State in the hallways of the rusty old red brick Criminal Courts Building.

These witnesses had been instructed to show up yesterday morning with the idea that they might be called, and one of the first to arrive was “Titanic Slim”, otherwise Alvin C. Thomas, the golf-playing gambling man, whose illness in Milwaukee caused a postponement of the trial a week ago.

“Titanic Slim” was attended by Sidney Stajer, a rotund young man who was one of Rothstein’s closest friends, and who is beneficiary to the tune of $75,000 under the terms of the dead gambler’s will. At first the cops didn’t want to admit “Titanic Slim” to the portals of justice, as he didn’t look like a witness, but he finally got into the building only to learn he was excused.

The photographers took great interest in the drawling-voiced, soft-mannered, high roller from the South, and Sidney Stajer scowled at them fiercely, but Sidney really means no harm by his scowls. Sidney is not a hard man and ordinarily would smile very pleasantly for the photographers, but it makes him cross to get up before noon.

The State’s famous material witness, Bridget Farry, chambermaid at the Park Central, put in an appearance with Beatrice Jackson, a telephone operator at the same hotel. Bridget was positively gorgeous in an emerald-green dress and gold-heeled slippers. Also she had silver stockings and a silver band around her blonde hair. She wore no hat. A hat would have concealed the band.

Bridget, who was held by the State in durance vile for quite a spell, is just a bit stoutish, but she was certainly all dressed up like Mrs Astor’s horse. She sat with Miss Jackson on a bench just outside the portals of justice and exchanged repartee with the cops, the reporters and the photographers.

Bridget is nobody’s sap when it comes to talking back to folks. Finally she left the building, and was galloping lightly along to escape the photographers, when her gold-heeled slippers played her false, and she stumbled and fell.

An ambulance was summoned posthaste, as the lady seemed to be injured, but an enterprising gal reporter from a tab scooped her up into a taxicab, and departed with the witness to unknown parts. It is said Bridget’s shinbone was scuffed up by the fall.

Some of the State’s witnesses were quite busy at the telephone booths while in the building getting bets down on the Bowie races. It is a severe handicap to summon a man to such a remote quarter as the Criminal Courts Building along toward post time.

21 November 1929

Twelve good men, and glum, are now hunched up in the jury box, in Judge Nott’s court, and they are all ready to start in trying to find out about the murder of Arnold Rothstein.

But the hours are really tough on a lot of folks who will figure more or less prominently in the trial. Some of the boys were wondering if Judge Nott would entertain a motion to switch his hours around and start in at four p.m., the usual hour of adjournment, and run to ten-thirty a.m., which is a gentleman’s bedtime. The consensus is he wouldn’t.

George Brothers, one of District Attorney Banton’s assistants, who is in charge of the prosecution, will probably open the forensic fury for the State of New York this morning, explaining to the dozen morose inmates of the jury box just what the State expects to prove against the defendant, to wit, that George McManus is the party who shot Arnold Rothstein in the stomach in the Park Central Hotel the night of 4 November, a year ago.

You may not recall the circumstances, but McManus is one of four persons indicted for the crime. Another is Hyman Biller, an obscure denizen of the brightlights region of Manhattan Island, who probably wouldn’t be recognized by more than two persons if he walked into any joint in town, such is his obscurity.

Then there is good old John Doe and good old Richard Roe, possibly the same Doe and Roe who have been wanted in forty-nine different spots for crimes ranging from bigamy to disorderly conduct for a hundred years past. Tough guys, old John and Richard, and always getting in jams. McManus is the only one on trial for the killing of Rothstein, probably for the reason he is the only one handy.

22 November 1929

“Give me a deck of cards,” said “Red” Martin Bowe plaintively, peering anxiously around Judge Nott’s court room in the dim light of yesterday afternoon, as if silently beseeching a friendly volunteer in an emergency.

“Get me a deck of cards, and I’ll show you.”

You see Red Martin Bowe had suddenly come upon a dilemma in his forty-odd years of traveling up and down the earth. He had come upon a fellow citizen who didn’t seem to savvy the elemental pastime of stud poker, and high spading, which Martin probably thought, if he ever gave the matter any consideration, is taught in the grammar schools of this great nation—or should be.

So he called for a deck of cards. He probably felt the question was fatuous but he was willing to do his best to enlighten this apparently very benighted fellow, Ferdinand Pecora, the chief representative of Old John Law on the premises, and to show the twelve good men, and glum, in the jury box just how that celebrated card game was conducted which the State of New York is trying to show cost Arnold Rothstein his life at the hands of George McManus.

But no deck of cards was immediately forthcoming. So Martin Bowe didn’t get to give his ocular demonstration to the assembled citizens, though a man came dashing in a little later with a nice red deck, while even Judge Nott was still snorting over Martin Bowe’s request.

Possibly if Mr Pecora can show a night off later some of the boys who sat in the back room yesterday might be induced to give him a lesson or two in stud poker. Also high spading.

Martin Bowe is a big, picturesque looking chap, who is getting bald above the ears, and who speaks with slow drawl and very low. In fact all the witnesses displayed a remarkable tendency to pitch their voices low in marked contrast with their natural vocal bent under ordinary circumstances and the attorneys had to keep admonishing them to talk louder.

“Gambler,” said Bowe, quietly, and without embarrassment, when asked his business. Then he went on to tell about the card game that will probably be remarked for many years as Broadway’s most famous joust. It began on a Saturday night and lasted into the Sunday night following. Martin said he previously played five or six hours at a stretch, and then would lie down and take a rest. He stated:

“It started with bridge, then we got to playing stud. The game got slow, and then some wanted to sport a little so they started betting on the high spade.”

“I lose,” remarked Bowe calmly, when Pecora asked how he came out. McManus was in the game. Also Rothstein, “Titanic”, Meyer Boston, Nate Raymond, “Sol—somebody”. A chap named Joe Bernstein was present, and several others he didn’t remember, though Sam Boston later testified Bernstein was “doing something and he wasn’t playing”. It is this Bernstein, a California young man, who “beat” Rothstein for $69,000 though Bernstein was never actually in the play. He bet from the outside.