The Victorian Villains Megapack (61 page)

He paused, coughed slightly, and, removing from his green bag a folded paper, continued: “In addition, it is my duty to inform the Court that a person named Farlan left the jurisdiction of this tribunal upon the day after Monohan’s conviction of the offence for which my client is now on trial.

“After such an unfortunate mistake,” said Crookshanks with an almost imperceptible twinkle in his “jury eye,” “he can hardly be expected to assist voluntarily in a second prosecution. I hold in my hand his affidavit that he has left the State never to return.”

The Judge had left his chair and was striding up and down the dais. He now turned wrathfully upon poor Dockbridge.

“What do you mean by trying a case before me prepared in such a fashion? This is a disgraceful miscarriage of justice! I shall lay the matter before the District Attorney in person! Mr. Crookshan
ks has correctly stated the law. I am absolutely compelled to discharge this defendant, who, by his own statement, ought to be incarcerated in State Prison! I—I—the Court has been hoodwinked! The District Attorney made ridiculous! As for you,” casting a withering glance upon the prisoner, “if I ever have the opportunity, I shall punish you as you deserve!”

Dead silence fell upon the court-room. The clerk arose and cleared his throat.

“Mr. Foreman, have you agreed upon a verdict? What say you? Do you find the defendant guilty, or not guilty?”

“Not guilty,” replied the foreman, somewhat doubtfully.

There was a smothered demonstration in the rear of the court-room. A few spectators had the temerity to clap their hands.

“Silence! Silence in the court!” shouted the Captain.

The clerk faced the prisoner.

“James Hawkins, alias James Hawkinson, alias Supple Jim, you are discharged.”

As our hero stepped from behind the bar, Paddy was the first to grasp his hand.

“You’re the cleverest boy in New York!” he muttered enthusiastically; “and say, Jim,” he lowered his voice—could it be with a shade of embarrass
ment?—“you’re a hero all right, into the bargain.”

“Oh, cut that out!” answered Jim. “Wasn’t I playing a sure thing? And wasn’t it worth three months,—and ten dollars
per
to the old guy for staying over in Jersey,—to put ’em in a hole like that?”

And the two of them, relieved by this evasion of an impending and depressing cloud of moral superiority, went out, with others, to get a drink.

THE MAXIM
ILIAN DIA
MOND, by Arthur Train

Taken from
McAllister and His Double
(1905).

Dockbridge yawned, threw down his fountain-pen, whirled his chair away from the window, through which the afternoon sun was pouring a dazzling flood of light, crossed his feet upon the rickety old table whose faded green baize was littered with newspapers, law books, copies of indictments, and empty cigarette boxes, and idly contemplated the graphophone, his latest acquisition. To a stranger, this little office, tucked away behind an elevator shaft under the eaves of the Criminal Courts Building, might have proved of some interest, filled as it was on every side with mementoes of hard-fought cases in the courts below, framed copies of forged checks and notes, photographs of streets and houses known to fame only by virtue of the tragedies they had witnessed, and an uncouth collection of weapons of all varieties from a stiletto and long tapering bread knife to the most modern Colt automatic. On the bookcase stood an innocent-looking bottle which had once contained poison, while above it hung a faded indictment accusing someone long since departed of administering its contents to another who did “for a long ti
me languish, and languishing did die.” An enormous black leather lounge, a safe, several chairs, and some pictures of English and American jurists completed the contents of the room. Here Dockbridge had for five years interviewed his witnesses, prepared his cases, and dreamed of establishing a forensic reputation which should later by a shower of gold repay him in part for the many tedious hours passed within its walls. From the grimy windows he could look down upon the court-yard of the Tombs and see the prisoners taking their daily exercise, while from the distance came faintly the din and rattle of Broadway. An air-shaft which passed through the room communicated in some devious manner with the prison pens on the mezzanine floor far beneath, and at times strange odors would come floating up bringing suggestions of prison fare. On such occasions Dockbridge would throw wide both windows, open the transom, and seek refuge in the library.

Taken as a whole, his five years there had been invaluable both from a personal and professional point of view. He had found himself from the very first day in a sort of huge legal clinic, where hourly he could run through the whole gamut of human emotions. It was to him, the embryonic advocate, what hospital service is to the surgeon. He was, as it were, an intern practising the surgery of th
e law. And what a multitude of cases came there for treatment—every disease of the mind and heart and soul! For a year or two he had been racked nervously and emotionally, forced from laughter in one moment, to tears the next. Then the mere fascination of his trade as prosecutor, the marshalling of evidence, the tactics of trials, the thwarting of conspiracies, the analysis of motives, the exposure of cunning tricks to liberate the guilty, had so possessed his mind that the suffering and sin about him, though keenly realized, no longer cost him sleep and peace of mind. And the stories that he heard! The mysteries which were unravelled before his very eyes, and those deeper mysteries the secrets of which were never revealed, but remained sealed in the hearts of those who, rather than disclose them, sought sanctuary within prison walls!

How he wished sometimes that he could write—if only a little! Through what strange labyrinths of human passion and ingenuity could he conduct his readers! Sometimes he tried to scribble the stories down, but the words would not come. How could you describe your feelings while trying a man for his life, when he sat there at the bar pallid and tense, his hands clutching each other until the nails quivered in the flesh; the groan of the convicted felon; the wail of the heart-broken mother as her son
was led away by the officer? He had seen one poor fellow faint dead away on hearing his sentence to the living tomb; and had heard a murderer laugh when convicted and the day set for his execution. Sometimes, in sheer desperation at the thought of losing what he had seen and experienced, he would turn on the graphophone and talk into it, disconnectedly, by the hour. It usually came out in better shape than what he turned off with his pen. If he could only write!

“Dockbridge! Hi, there, Dockbridge!”

The door was kicked open, and the lank figure of one of his associates stood before him. His visitor grinned, and removed his pipe.

“Bob’ll be up in a minute. Come along to ‘Coney.’”

“Don’t feel kittenish enough,” answered Dockbridge.

“Oh, come on! It’ll do you good.”

The sound of rapid steps flew up the stairs, and Bob burst into the room, almost upsetting the first arrival.

“What are you doing up here in this smelly place?” he inquired. “Got a cigarette?”

Dockbridge threw him a package without altering his position.

At this moment the heavily built figure of the chief of staff entered.

“Holding a r
eception?” he asked good-naturedly.

Bob had slipped behind the owner of the graphophone and was rapidly surveying his desk. Suddenly he pounced on a pile of yellow paper, and, snatching it up, ran across the room.

“I thought so! He’s been writing.”

“Here you, Bob, give that back!” cried Dockbridge, springing up. He was blocked by the chief of staff.

“Fair play, now. It may be libellous. The censor demands the right of inspection.”

“Oh, I don’t mind if
you
see it!” said Dockbridge, “only I don’t intend that cub to snicker over it. It’s nothing, anyway.”

“‘The Maximilian Diamond!’” shouted the thief. “By George, what a rippin’ title! Full of gore, I bet!”

“You give that back!” growled its owner.

“Gentlemen, allow me to present the well-known author and brilliant young literary man, Mr. John Dockbridge, whose picture in four colors is soon to appear on the cover of the ‘Maiden’s Gaslog Companion,’” continued Bob. “I read, ‘The villain stood with his dagger elevated for an instant above the bare breast of his palpitating victim.’ My, but it’s great!”

“You see you’d better read it to us in self-defence,” re
marked the chief of staff. “Go ahead!”

“Promise, and I’ll give it back,” said Bob, from the door. “Refuse, and I send it to the ‘American.’”

“It wasn’t for publication, anyway,” explained Dockbridge.

“Of course not,” answered Bob. “We’ll pass on it. Perhaps we’ll send it in for that Five-Thousand-Dollar competition.”

“Well, shut up, and I will. Give it here!” Dockbridge recovered the manuscript and returned to his armchair. The others disposed themselves upon the lounge.

“Oyez! Oyez!” cried Bob. “All persons desiring to hear the great American novel, draw near, give your attention and ye shall be heard.”

“Keep still!” ordered the chief of staff. “Go ahead, Jack. I’ll make him shut up.”

“Mind you do,” said Dockbridge. “It’s about that big diamond, you know. The story begins in this room.”

“Well, begin it,” laughed Bob.

His companions pulled his head down on the chief’s lap and smothered him with a handkerchief.

“Well,” said Dockbridge rather sheepishly, “here goes.”

THE MAXIMIL
IAN DIAMOND

A stout, jovial-looking person, with reddish hair, sandy complexion, and watery blue eyes, stood waiting in my office, his wrist attached by means of a nickel-plated handcuff to that of a keeper. My two visitors conducted themselves with remarkable unanimity, and with but a single motion sank into the chairs I offered.

“Well, what’s the trouble?” I inquired genially.

The keeper jerked his thumb in the direction of the other, who grinned apologetically and hitched in my direction. Bending toward me, he whispered: “I am the victim of one of the most remarkable conspiracies in history. My story involves personages of the highest rank, and is stranger than one of Dumas’ romances. I am a bill-poster.”

Not knowing whether he intended to include himself among the illustrious persons alluded to, I nodded encouragingly and produced some cigars.

“My name is Riggs,” continued the prisoner, as he bit off the end of his cigar and expelled it through the window. “Got a match?”

The keeper drew a handful from his pocket. I lit a cigar for myself and assumed an attitude of attention.

“My wife is
little Flossie Riggs. Don’t know her? Why, she dances at Proctor’s, and all over. I was doing well at my trade, and would have been doing better, if it hadn’t been for that confounded diamond. It was this way. There was a fellow named Tenney, who posted bills with me about five years back, and he finally got a job down in the City of Mexico with a railroad, and I used to correspond with him.

“Among other things, he told me about a great big diamond that the Emperor Maximilian used to wear in the middle of his crown. According to Tenney, it was one of the biggest on record. He said that Maximilian was so stuck on it that he had it taken out and made into a pendant for the Empress Carlotta, and that she used to wear it around at all the court functions, and so on. About the same time he took two other diamonds out of the crown and made them into finger-rings for himself.

“After a while the Mexicans got tired of having an empire and put Maximilian out of business. They stood him and two of his generals up in the parade ground at Queretaro and shot ’em. Now when he was stood up to get shot he had those two rings on his fingers, and the funny part of it was that when the people rushed up to see whether he was dead or not, both the rings were gone. Just about that
time, while Carlotta was in prison, the diamond with the big pendant disappeared too. It weighed thirty-three carats. I got all this from Tenney. I don’t know where he found out about it. But it all happened way back in ’67.

“Somehow or other I used to think quite a lot about that diamond—partly because I was sorry for Max, who looked to have come out at the small end; and there didn’t seem to be any occasion for shooting him anyhow, that I could see.

“Well, I went on bill-posting, and got a good job with the Hair Restorer folks and was doing well, as I said, until one day I happened to take up a paper and read that there were two Mexicans out in St. Louis trying to sell an enormous diamond, but that the dealers there were all afraid to buy it. Finally the police got suspicious, and the Mexicans disappeared. Then all of a sudden it came over me that this must be the diamond that Tenney had wrote about, for all that it had been lost for nearly forty years, and I made up my mind that the Mexicans, having failed in St. Louis, would probably come to New York. I knew they had no right to the diamond anyway, first because it belonged to Maximilian’s heirs, and second because it hadn’t paid no duty; and I said to myself, ‘Next time I write to Tenney he will hear something that will make him sit up.’ So every morning, when I started out
with my paste-pot and roll of posters, I would keep my eye peeled for the two Mexicans.

“But I didn’t hear any more about the diamond for a long time, and I had ’most forgot all about it, until one day I was plastering up one of those yellow-headed Hair Restorer girls in Madison Square, when I saw two chaps cross over Twenty-third Street toward the Park. They were the very gazeebos I’d been looking for. Both were dark and thin and short, and, queerer still, one of them carried a big red case in his hand.

“With my heart rattling against my teeth, I jumped down from the ladder and started after them. They hurried along the street until they came to a jeweller’s on Broadway, about a block from the Square. They went in, and I peeked through the window. Presently out they came in a great hurry. They still had the red case, and I made a dash for the door and rushed in. There was the store-keeper with eyes bulgin’ half-way out of his head.

“‘Say,’ says I, ‘did those men try to sell you a diamond?’

“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘the biggest I ever saw. They wanted forty thousand dollars for it, and I offered them fifteen thousand, but they wouldn’t take it.’

“I didn’t give him time for another word, but turned around and made another jump for the door. The Me
xicans were almost out of sight, but I could still see them walking toward the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and I hustled after them tight as I could, picked up two cops on the way down, and, just as they were turning in at the entrance, we pounced on ’em.

“‘You’re under arrest!’ I yelled, so excited I didn’t really know what I was doing. The fellow with the red case dodged back and handed it over to a big chap who had joined them. This one didn’t appear to want to take it, and seemed quite peevish at what was happening. He turned out afterward to have been a General Dosbosco of the Haytien Junta. Well, the cops grabbed all three of them and collared the leather case. Sure enough, so help me—! There inside was the big diamond, and not only that, but a necklace with eighteen stones, and two enormous solitaire rings. The big stone was yellowish, but the others were pure white, sparklin’ like one of those electric Pickle signs with fifty-seven varieties. By that time the hurry-up wagon had come, and pretty soon the whole crew of us, diamonds, Mexicans, cops, paste-pot, and me, were clattering to the police-station for fair. There I told ’em all about the diamond, and they telephoned over to Colonel Dudley, at the Custom-house, and the upshot of the whole matter was that the two Mexicans were held on a cha
rge of smuggling diamonds into the United States.

“If you don’t believe what I tell you,” said Riggs, noticing, perhaps, a suggestion of incredulity in my face, “just look at these”; and fumbling in his pocket, he produced some very soiled and crumpled clippings, containing pictures of Maximilian, the Empress Carlotta, and of a very large diamond which appeared to be about the size of the “Regent.” It was then that I dimly remembered reading something of a diamond seizure a short time before, and it was with a renewed interest that I listened to the continuation of my client’s story.

“Well,” said Riggs, “that was strange, now, wasn’t it?

“You can imagine how I felt when I went home and told little Flossie about the diamond; that I was entitled to a fifty percent informer’s reward; how I was going to give up bill-posting and just be her manager, and how we could take a bigger flat, and all that; and I thought so much about it, and talked so much about it, that I began to feel like I was Rockefeller already, which may account in part for what happened afterward.”