United States or Burkina Faso ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"No, Kahn," he said in a low tone, but firmly, "no compromise." Kahn bent his ferret eyes on Carton's face as if to bore through into his very mind. "No," added the District Attorney, "Murtha was just here, and I may as well repeat what I said to him although I might fairly assume that he went from this room directly across the street to your office and that you know it already.
Other maps of the city in colours, divided into all sorts of districts, told how fared the battle in the various strongholds of Boss Dorgan and Sub-boss Murtha.
Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few years in order to keep him out of mischief.
And yet I could not but reflect on the strangeness of it all the fact that the organization, of which Murtha was a part, had by its neglect and failure to care for the human side of government when there was graft to be collected, brought about the very conditions which had made possible such neglect of the district leader's body, as it had been bandied back and forth, unwittingly by many who owed their very positions to the organization.
You needn't tell me anything about his respectable old father and his sorrowing mother and weeping sister. Murtha, I've been in this business too long for that heart throb stuff. Leave that to the lawyers the System will hire for him. Let's cut that out, between ourselves, and get down to brass tacks." It was a new and awkward role for Murtha as suppliant, and he evidently did not relish it.
"Well, without admitting anything because there's nothing to admit I'd like to know, if you don't mind, how you dope it out that I had anything to do with Sonntag's being killed that is if you're not lying about him being killed?" "I don't mind," said Murtha blithely. "It makes quite a tale, but I can boil it down. I wasn't on duty to-night by rights this was a night off for me.
"I do, for one," replied Murtha cheerfully. "Still that's neither here nor there, unless you feel like telling me all about what came off over in Thirty-ninth Street to-night. "You've always been a safety player so far as I know and I'm curious to know what made you start in using a cannon on folks all of a sudden. At that, I might guess knowing Sonntag like I did."
"You see, Miss Ashton," explained Carton, "someone has placed a detectaphone in the private dining-room of Dorgan at Gastron's. I heard of it first through Mrs. Ogleby, who attended one of the dinners and was terribly afraid her name would be connected with them if the record should ever be published." "Mrs. Ogleby?" cried Miss Ashton quickly. "She at a dinner with Mr. Murtha?
Evidently, now, he was willing to force the fight, if the other side would accept the issue. It meant much to him but he did not balk at it. "No, Kahn," he repeated firmly, "no compromise." Kahn drew back a bit and hastily scanned the face of the prosecutor. Evidently he saw nothing in it to encourage him. Yet he was too smooth to let his temper rise, as Murtha had.
Murtha shook hands with us suspiciously, but did not sit down. He continued to stand, his hat tilted back over his head and his huge hands jammed down into his trousers pockets. "What's this I hear about Jack Rubano, Carton?" he opened fire. "They tell me you have arrested him and secured an indictment." "They tell the truth," returned Carton shortly.
Word Of The Day