Old Judge Priest

“Moon knew the combination of the safe, didn’t he? He carried the keys for the inside door of the safe, didn’t he? And a key to the door of the building, too, didn’t he?”

“Hiram,” countered Judge Priest, looking Mr. Blair straight in the eye, “ef you expect the authorities to go ahead on that kind of evidence I reckin we’d have to lock you up too.”

Mr. Blair started as though a physical blow had been aimed at his head.

“Why – why – What do you mean by that, Judge?” he demanded, gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles showed white through the skin.

“You carry the keys of the bank yourself, don’t you? And you know the combination of the safe, don’t you? And so does Herbie Kivil.”

“Do you mean to insinuate – ”

“Hiram, I don’t mean to insinuate nothin’. Insinuations don’t make the best of evidence in court, though I will admit they sometimes count for a good deal outside of court. No, Hiram; I reckin you and your detective friend from St. Louis will have to dig up somethin’ besides your personal beliefs before you kin expect the Grand Jury of this county to lay a charge aginst a man who’s always enjoyed a fair standin’ in this here community. That’s all I’ve got to say to you on the subject.”

Taking the hint, Mr. Blair, red-faced and agitated, took his departure. After he was gone Judge Priest remained immersed in reflection for several hours.

So Emanuel went free. But he might almost as well have stayed in jail, for the smell of it seemed to cling to his garments – garments that grew shabbier as the weeks passed, for naturally he did not go back to the bank and just as naturally no one cared to offer employment to one who had been accused by his late employer of a crime. He fell behind with his board at Mrs. Morrill’s. He walked the streets with drooping shoulders and face averted, shunning people and shunned by them. And, though he kept to his room in the evening, he no longer played on his clarinet. And the looting of the Commonwealth Bank’s vault continued, as the Daily Evening News more than once remarked, to be “shrouded in impenetrable mystery.”

One evening at dusk, as Judge Priest was going home alone from the courthouse, on a back street he came face to face with Emanuel.

The younger man would have passed by him without speaking, but the old man thrust his broad shape directly in the little man’s course.

“Son,” he said, putting a hand on the other’s arm, “I want to have a little talk with you – ez a friend. Jest you furgit all about me bein’ a judge. I wisht, ef you ain’t got anythin’ else to do, you’d come up to my house to-night after you’ve had your supper. Will you, son?”

Emanuel, his eyes filling up, said he would come, and he did; and in the judge’s old sitting-room they spent half an hour together. Father Minor always said that when it came to hearing confessions the only opposition he had in town came from a nonprofessional, meaning by that Judge Priest. It was one of Father Minor’s little jokes.

“And now, Judge Priest,” said Emanuel, at the latter end of the talk, “you know everything – why I wouldn’t tell ‘em how I got my new clarinet and where I spent that night. If I had to die for it I wouldn’t bring suspicion on an innocent party. I haven’t told anybody but you – you are the only one that knows.”

“You’re shore this here friend of yourn – Caruthers – is an innocent party?” suggested the judge.

“Why, Judge, he’s bound to be – he’s just naturally bound to be. If he’d been a thief he’d have robbed the bank that night when I was asleep in his room at the hotel. I had the keys to the bank on me and he knew it.”

“Thai why didn’t you come out and say so.”

“Because, as I just told you, it would be bringing suspicion on an innocent party. He holds a responsible position with that big New York firm I was telling you about and it might have got him into trouble. Besides” – and Emanuel hung his head – “besides, I hated so to have people know that I was ever under the influence of liquor. I’m a church member, Judge, as you know. I never drank – to excess – before that night, and I don’t ever aim to touch another drop as long as I live. I’d almost as lief be called a drunkard as a thief. They’re calling me a thief – I don’t aim to have them calling me the other thing too.”

Judge Priest cloaked an involuntary smile behind a pudgy hand.

“Well, Emanuel,” he said, “jest to be on the safe side, did it ever occur to you to make inquiry amongst the merchants here as to whether a travelling gent named Caruthers sold goods to any of ‘em?”

“No, Judge; I never thought of that.”

“Did you look up Gatling & Moore – I believe that’s the name – in Bradstreet’s or Dun’s to see ef there was sech a firm?”

“Judge, I never thought of that either.”

“Son,” said the old man, “it sorter looks to me like you ain’t been doin’ much thinkin’ lately.” Then his tone changed and became warmly consoling. “But I reckin ef I was the trouble you’re in I wouldn’t do much thinkin’ neither. Son, you kin rest easy in your mind – I ain’t a-goin’ to betray your confidences. But ef you don’t mind I aim to do a little inquirin’ round on my own account. This here robbery interests me powerfully, someway. I’ve been frettin’ a heap about it lately.

“And – oh, yes – there’s another thing that I was purty nigh furgittin’,” continued Judge Priest. “I ain’t purposin’ to pry into your personal affairs – but tell me, son, how are you off fur ready money these days?”

“Judge, to tell you the truth, I’m just about out of money,” confessed Emanuel desperately. “I owe Mrs. Morrill for three weeks’ board now. I hate to keep putting her off – her being a widow lady and dependent for her living on what she takes in. I’d pack up and go somewhere else – to some other town – and try to get work, only I can’t bear to go away with this cloud hanging over my good name. It would look like I was running away; and anyway I guess the tale would follow me.”

The judge dug into his right-hand trousers pocket. He exhumed a small wad of bills and began counting them off.

“Son,” he said, “I know you won’t mind my makin’ you a temporary loan to help you along till things git brighter with you. By the way, how would you like to go to work in the circuit clerk’s office?”

“Me, Judge! Me?” Fresh-kindled hope blazed an instant in Emanuel Moon’s voice; then the spark died.

“I reckon nobody would hire me,” he finished despondently.

“Don’t you be so shore. Lishy Milam come to me only yistiddy sayin’ he needed a reliable and experienced man to help him with his books, and askin’ me ef I could suggest anybody. He ain’t had a capable deputy sense little Clint Coombs died on him. I sort of figger that ef he gave you a job on my say-so it’d go a mighty long way toward convincin’ this town that we both regarded you ez an honest citizen. I’ll speak to ‘Lishy Milam the very first thing in the mornin’ – ef you’re agreeable to the notion.”

“Judge,” exclaimed Emanuel, up on his feet, “I can’t thank you – I can’t tell you what this means – ”

“Son, don’t try,” bade the old judge. “Anyhow, that ain’t whut I want to hear frum you now. Set down there agin and tell me all you kin remember about this here friend of yourn – Caruthers; where you met up with him and whut he said and how he said it, and the way he looked and walked and talked. And how much beer you drunk up that night and how much he drunk up, and how you felt when you woke up, and whut Hiram Blair said to you when you showed up at the bank – the whole thing all over agin from start to finish. I’m interested in this here Mr. Caruthers. It strikes me he must ‘a’ been a mighty likely feller.”

When Emanuel Moon walked out of Judge Priest’s front door that night he was pumped dry. Also, for the first time in weeks, he walked with head erect and gaze straightforward.

In the morning, true to his promise, Judge Priest made recommendations to Circuit Clerk Milam. This done, he left the courthouse and, going down Legal Row, dropped in at the law office of Fairleigh & Fairleigh, to find young Jere Fairleigh, junior member of the firm, sitting by the grate fire in the front room.

“Jere,” asked Judge Priest, directly the young man had made him welcome, “whutever become of them three post-office robbers that hired you to defend ‘em – still over in the Marshallville jail, ain’t they?”

“Two of them are,” said young Fairleigh. “The one they call the Waco Baby got out on bail and skipped. But the other two – Frisco Slim and Montreal Red – are in jail over there awaiting trial at the next term of United States Court.”

Judge Priest smiled softly.

“Young man,” he said, “it certainly looks to me like you’re climbin’ mighty fast in your chosen profession. All your clients ‘pear to have prominent cities named alter ‘em. Tell me,” he went on, “whut kind of persons are the two that are still lingerin’ in Marshallville?”

“Well,” said the young lawyer, “there’s a world of difference between ‘em. Frisco is the glum, morose kind; but Montreal Red – his real name is Mooney, he tells me, though he’s got half a dozen other names – he’s certainly a wise individual. Just associating with him in my capacity as his counsel has been a liberal education to me in the ways of the underworld. I firmly believe he knows every professional crook in the country.”

“Aha! I see,” said Judge Priest. “I figger Mister Montreal is the party I want to meet. I’m thinkin’ of runnin’ down to Marshallville on business right after dinner to-day. I reckin you wouldn’t mind – in strict confidence – givin’ me a little note of introduction to your client, tellin’ him I seek his advice on a private matter, and sayin’ that I kin be trusted?”

“I’ll be mighty glad to,” said Fairleigh, Junior, reaching across his desk for pen and paper. “I’ll write it right now. Turning detective, Judge?”

“Well, son,” conceded Judge Priest, “you mout call it that and not make sech an awful big mistake.”

“Sort of a Sherlock Holmes, eh?”

The judge made a gesture of modest disclaimer.

“No; I reckin Sherlock would be out of my class. By all accounts Sherlock knowed purty nigh ever’thing wuth knowin’. If he’d struck two different trails, both seemin’ly p’intin’ in the same direction, he’d know right off which one of ‘em to take. That’s where he’d be one pawpaw above my tallest persimmon. Sometimes I git to thinkin’ I’m a poor purblind old idiot that can’t see a thing when it’s shoved right up under my nose. No; I ain’t aspirin’ none to qualify ez a Sherlock. I’m only endeavourin’ to walk ez an humble disciple in the hallowed footsteps of Old Cap Collier.”

“What do you know about Old Cap Collier?” demanded Fairleigh, astonished. “I thought I was the only grown man in town that still read nickel libraries – on the sly.”

“Boy,” said Judge Priest, “you and me have got a secret bond between us. Wasn’t that there last one that come out a jim-dandy? – the one called Old Cap Collier and the Great Diamond Robbery.

“It was so,” stated Fairleigh. “I read it last night in bed.”

Three o’clock of that same day disclosed Judge Priest perched on the side of a bunk in a cell in the Marshallville jail, close up alongside a blocky person of unkempt appearance whom we, for convenience, may call Montreal Red, more especially as this happens to be the title to which he commonly answered within the fraternity of which he was a distinguished member.

They made a picture sitting there together – the old man, nursing his soft black hat between his hands, with the half light bringing out in relief his bald round skull, his chubby pink face and his tuft of white beard; the captive yeggman in his shirt sleeves, with no collar on and no shoes on, holding Mr. Fairleigh’s note in his hand and, with the look upon his face of one who feels a just pride in his professional knowledge, hearkening while the Judge minutely described for him a certain individual. Before the Judge was done, Montreal Red interrupted him.

“Sufficiency, bo,” he said lightly; “you’ve said enough. I know the gun you’re talkin’ about without you goin’ any farther – it’s Shang Conklin, the Solitary Kid.”

“But this here gentleman went by the name of Caruthers!” demurred the Judge.

“Wot else did you figure he’d be doin’?” countered Montreal Red. “He might ‘a’ called himself Crowley, or Lord Copeleigh, or half a dozen other things. He might ‘a’ called himself the King of Bavaria – yes, and got away with it, too, because he’s there with the swell front and the education. The Solitary Kid’s got a different monniker for every day in the week and two for Sundays. It couldn’t be nobody else but him; you’ve called the turn on him same as if you’d mugged him for the Gallery.”

“You know him personally, then?” asked Judge Priest.

“Who don’t know him?” said Montreal Red. “Everybody that knows anybody knows Solitary. And I’ll tell you why! You take ‘most any ordinary gun and he’s got just one regular line – he’s a stick-up, or he’s a moll buzzer, or a peterman, or a con man; or he belongs to the hard-boiled people, the same as me. But Shang he doubles in brass; it’s B. and O. for him. Bein’ there with the front, he’s worked the wire; and before that he worked the bat. Knowin’ all there is to know about the pasteboard papes, he’d done deep-sea fishin’ in his time – playin’ for rich guys on the big liners, you know.

“And when it comes to openin’ boxes – bo, since old Jimmy Hope quit the game and sneezed in, I guess Shang Conklin’s the wisest boxman that ever unbuttoned a combination crib with his bare hands. He’s sure the real McCoy there – not no common yegg, you understand, with a steel drill and a gat in his kicks and a rubber bottle full of soup tied under his coat; but doin’ the real fancy stuff, with nothin’ to help him but the old ten fingers and the educated ear. And he never works with a mob neither. Any time you make Shang he’ll be playin’ the lone hand – providin’ his own nut and goin’ south with all the clean-up. No splittin’ with anybody for Shang – it’s against his business principles. That’s why he’s labelled the Solitary Kid.”

Most of this was as pure Greek to Judge Priest, who, I may say, knew no Greek, pure or otherwise. Suddenly aware of the bewilderment revealed in the countenance of his interviewer, Montreal Red checked up and took a new track.

“Say, bo, you ain’t makin’ me, are you? Well, then, maybe I’d better spiel it out slow. Know wot a peterman is?”

The judge shook his head.

“Well, you know wot a box is, don’t you?”

“I’m skeered that I don’t, though I believe I’m beginnin’ to git a faint idea,” said Judge Priest.

As though deploring such ignorance Montreal Red shook his flame-coloured head.

“I’ll frame it for you different – in sucker language,” he said.

And accordingly he did, most painstakingly.

“Now then,” he said at the end of five minutes of laborious translation, “do you get me?”

“I git you,” said Judge Priest. “And I’m mighty much obliged. Now, then, ef it ain’t too much trouble, I’d like to git in touch with this here Mister Conklin, et cetery. Do you, by any chance, know his present whereabouts?”

Before replying to this the Montreal Red communed with himself for a brief space.

“Old-timer,” he said finally, “if I thought you was playin’ in with the dicks I’d see you in Belgium before I tipped you off to anything. But this here mouthpiece of mine” – he indicated the note from young Mr. Fairleigh – “says you’re on the level. I judge he wouldn’t take my good fall-money and then cross me this way. I take it you ain’t tryin’ to slip one over on Shang? All right, then; I’ll tell you where he is – he’s in Atlanta, Georgia.”

“And whut is his address there?” pursued Judge Priest.

“The Federal prison – that’s all,” said Montreal tied. He smiled softly. “If I don’t beat this little case of mine I’m liable to meet him down there along toward spring, or maybe even sooner. The bulls nailed him at Chattanooga, Tennessee, about a month ago for a little national-bank job, and right quick he taken a plea and got off with a short bit in Uncle Sammy’s big house. I was readin’ about it in the papers. You wouldn’t have no trouble findin’ him at Atlanta – he’ll be in to callers for the next five years.”

“Bein’ an amateur Old Cap Collier certainly calls fur a lot of travellin’ round,” murmured Judge Priest, half to himself, and he sighed a small sigh of resignation as he arose.

“Wot’s that? I don’t make you?” asked Montreal Red.

“Nothin’,” said Judge Priest; “nothin’ a-tall. I was jest thinkin’ out loud; it’s a sort of failin’ of mine ez I git older. You said, didn’t you, that these here sleepin’ potions which you was mentionin’ a minute ago are mostly administered in beer?”

“Mostly in beer,” said Montreal Red. “The little old knock-out seems to work best in the lather stuff. I don’t know why, but it does.

“It’s like this: You take the beer – ”

“Oh, I wasn’t figgerin’ on usin’ it myself,” explained Judge Priest hastily. “Much obliged to you all the same, young man.”

A night in a sleeping car brought Judge Priest to Atlanta. A ride in a trolley car brought him to the warden’s office of a large reformatory institution beyond the suburbs of that progressive city. A ten-minute chat with the warden and the display of divers credentials brought him the privilege of an interview, in private, with a person who, having so many names to pick from, was yet at this time designated by a simple number. Even in convict garb, which is cut on chastely plain lines and which rarely fits perfectly the form of its wearer, this gentleman continued somehow to bespeak the accomplished metropolitan in his physical outlines and in his demeanour as well, maintaining himself, as you might say, jauntily.

In the first few moments of his meeting with Judge Priest there was about him a bearing of reserve – almost of outright suspicion. But half a dozen explanatory sentences from the judge served speedily to establish an atmosphere of mutual understanding. I believe I stated earlier in my tale that Judge Priest had a little knack for winning people’s confidences. Perhaps I should also explain that at a suitable time in the introductory stages of the conversation he produced a line in the characteristic handwriting of Mr. Montreal Red. Being thereby still further enlightened as to the disinterestedness of the venerable stranger’s motives, the Solitary Kid proved frankness itself. Preliminarily, though, he listened intently while Judge Priest recited in full a story that had mainly to do with the existing plight of Emanuel Moon.

“Now then, suh,” said Judge Priest at the conclusion of his narrative, “I’ve laid all the cyards that I hold on the table right in front of you. Ef I’m correct in my guess that you’re the party of the second part in this here transaction. I don’t need to go on, because you know a sight more about the rest of it than whut I do. The way I figger it, a decent, honest little man is in serious trouble, mainly on your account. Ef you’re so minded I calculate that you kin help him without hurtin’ yourself any. Now then, presumin’ sech to be the case, is there anythin’ you’d like to say to me – ez his friend?”

Conklin, alias Caruthers, alias Crowley, and so on, put a question of his own now:

“You say the president of that bank is the one that tried to fasten this job on Moon, eh? Well, then, before we go any further, suppose you tell me what that president looks like?”

Judge Priest sketched a quick word picture of Mr. Hiram Blair – accurate and fair, therefore not particularly complimentary.

“That’s enough,” said the convict grimly; “that’ll do. Why, the long-whiskered old dog! Now then, Judge – you said you were a judge, didn’t you? – I’m going to spill a funny yam for you. Never mind what my reasons for coming through are. Maybe I want to get even with somebody that handed me a large disappointment. Maybe I don’t want to see that little Moon suffer for something he didn’t do. Figure it out for yourself afterward, but first listen to me.”

“I’m listenin’, son,” said Judge Priest.

“Good!” said Conklin, lowering his voice cautiously, though he knew already they were alone in the warden’s room.

“Up to a certain point you’ve got the thing figured out just as it came off. That day on the train going into Louisville I started to take the little man at cards. I was going to deal him the big mitt and then clean him for what he had; but when he told me he worked in a bank – a nice, fat little country bank – I switched the play, of course. I saw thousands of dollars where I’d seen lunch money before. Inside of an hour I knew everything there was to know about that bank – what he knew and what I could figure from what he told me. All I had to do was to turn the spigot once in a while and let him run on. And then, when he began to spill his cravings for a new clarinet, I almost laughed in his face. The whole thing looked like a pipe.

“The dope was working lovely when I hit that town of yours two weeks later. At the right minute I flashed the clarinet on him and made him forget to throw the combination of the vault. So far, so good. Then, when I got him where I wanted him – over in my room – I slipped the drops into his beer; not enough to hurt him but enough to start him pounding his ear right away. That was easy too – so easy I almost hated to do it.

“Then I waited until about two o’clock in the morning, him lying there all the time on my bed, dead to the world.. So I took his keys off him and dropped across the street without being seen by anybody – the main street of your town is nice and quiet after midnight – I’ll say that much for it anyway – and walked into the bank the same as if I owned it – in fact, I did own it – and made myself at home. I opened up the vault and went through it, with a pocket flash to furnish light; and then after a little I locked her up again, good and tight, leaving everything just like I’d found it, and went back to the hotel and put the keys in the little man’s pocket, and laid down alongside of him and took a nap myself. D’ye see my drift?”

“I reckin I don’t altogether understand – yit,” said Judge Priest.

“You naturally wouldn’t,” said Conklin with the air of a teacher instructing an attentive but very ignorant pupil. “Here’s what happened: When I took a good look at the inside door of that vault and tried the tumblers of the outside door I knew I could open her any time I wanted to – in five minutes or less. Besides, I wouldn’t need the keys any more, seeing as I could make impressions of ‘em in wax, which I did as soon as I got back inside of my room at the hotel. So I was sure of having duplicates whenever I needed ‘em.”

“I’m feared that I’m still in the dark,” said Judge Priest. “You see it’s only here right recently that I took up your callin’ in life – ez a study.”

“Well, figure it out for yourself,” said Conklin. “If I made my clean-up and my getaway that night it was a cinch that they’d connect up Moon with his strange friend from New York; even a hick bull would be wise enough to do that. And inside of twenty-four hours they’d be combing the country for a gun answering to my general plans and specifications. At the beginning I was willing to take that chance; but after I had a look at that combination I switched my play. Besides, there wasn’t enough coin in the box that night to suit me. I always play for the big dough when I can, and I remembered what the little man told me about that lumber company – you know the one I mean: that big crosstie concern – depositing its pay roll every other Friday night. So why wouldn’t I hold off?”

“I begin to see,” said Judge Priest. “You’re makin’ me see a number of things that’ve been pesterin’ me fur three-four days now.”

“Wait till you get the final kick,” promised the convict. “That’ll open your eyes some, I guess. Well, I skinned out next morning and I went elsewhere – never mind where, but it wasn’t far away. Then on the night of the fifteenth – the third Friday in the month – I came back again, travelling incog., as they say on the other side of the duck pond; and about two o’clock in the morning I paid another call to your little old Commonwealth Bank and opened up the vault – outside door and inside door – in four minutes by my watch, without putting a mark on her. That’s my specialty – nice, clean jobs, without damaging the box or making any litter for the janitor to sweep up in the morning. But I didn’t clean her out that time either.”

“Ahem!” said Judge Priest doubtfully. “You didn’t?”