Chapter 3

Hence, because O’Brien was not only an asset but a valuable political
go-between, the Honorable John Henry Peckham smothered his personal
dislike for the dog and encouraged it to lick his hand. He also was
forced to put up with his noise, and his overbearing and swashbuckling
ways. For outside the court-room—as well also, to be accurate, sometimes
inside it—Billy the Bloodhound was a swaggering, blustering sort of
legal bravo—wherever he went preceded, surrounded, and followed by a
cohort of sycophants, clerks, process servers, and police officers on
special detail, who ran his errands, carried his books, bags, and
papers, bought his theatre tickets, did his telephoning, acclaimed his
coming and did him lip service—much as we may imagine some Roman senator
of the same type to have been accompanied by his bodyguard of lictors
who shoved the crowd aside at his approach. All this to Billy the
Bloodhound was as the breath of his life, and he played the part,
bellowing down the corridors, shouting from the elevators, kicking his
slaves in the shins and then handing them out cigars, whispering out of
the corner of his mouth about “the big fellow” and “the one next,” with
so effective an air of mystery that he had everybody buffaloed; and the
crowd all swore among themselves and to him that he was the greatest
little man on earth.

He was thickset, bullet-headed, with closely cropped reddish hair and
freckly sandy skin, and his short aquiline nose and square chin would
have made the features of a cigar-store Indian—alas, poor redskin, he
deserves an apology!—seem filled with the milk of human kindness.

Everybody feared and kowtowed to him. People who wanted favors of
Peckham went first to placate O’Brien, who was supposed to have the boss
in his pocket; cops and detectives sought to have him handle their
cases; judges were apt to try to conciliate him as a coming man
politically, and as possibly the next district attorney. Whenever a
“star case,” a _cause célèbre_, or any matter attracting public
attention came into the office, O’Brien sent to the chief clerk for the
papers and grabbed it. He had even been known to send for the papers in
a case already assigned to another assistant and grab that too. He gave
out interviews to the papers, assumed the office of “acting district
attorney” whenever Peckham absented himself, and likewise frequently
when the latter was there, and constituted himself pretty much the whole
show.

If one stood for him he wasn’t so bad, and if he hadn’t been a crook he
might easily have been a power for good instead of a power for evil. It
is not easy to overestimate that power, for he was the grand vizier of
the most powerful public office-holder in the United States, not even
excepting the President himself. He could make or break a cop or blast
the reputation of any man in the community at will. This the Honorable
William Francis O’Brien!

Alas “the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that
patient merit of the unworthy takes”! What price beside him, poor old
Ephraim Tutt?

But wait! There is life in the old dog yet—old Tutt, we mean! So far
Billy the Bloodhound has but opened the door and entered the court-room,
and Mr. Tutt has but turned to gaze at him. Let us reserve our
lamentations until we see what will happen when they meet. Will not the
gods lend courage and strength to the kindly old lawyer, who never yet
did aught but good, although mayhap he may have done it in queer ways?
And who never retired wholly vanquished from the field of honorable
battle?

So, heralds, your fanfares! And summon all to the lists to behold the
contest between the Bloodhound and the Knight of the Stovepipe Hat.
Blow, bugles, blow! Set the echoes of the forum ringing for the legal
joust! Court officers, bawl your best, with “Oyez! Oyez!” and “Hear ye!
Hear ye!” Pound the railings and shout the honest burghers out of their
hats and into their seats, make them move up and on, close the windows,
lock the door so that none may escape, and let all who have business in
our Honorable Court now with due deference draw near, give your
attention, and let Mr. Tutt be heard!

III

Billy the Bloodhound strutted into the inclosure in front of the dais,
bowed to the judge and preened himself before the gaping crowd—the
little czar, the Pooh-Bah, the high-cockalorum of the Sessions—as the
old lawyer was in the act of consulting his new client. Something about
Mr. Tutt inspired Paddy Mooney with instant confidence, and while the
court waited he hastily explained to him the circumstances surrounding
his arrest. He had no witnesses, he said; he was being framed and he
wanted to be tried at once. O’Brien swaggered to the bar.

“Well,” he inquired roughly, “how do you plead? What are you going to
do? You can’t talk there forever.”

Mr. Tutt smiled with the old-time courtesy he invoked when in his most
dangerous mood.

“I am sorry to have unduly delayed the proceedings, Mr. O’Brien. We
plead not guilty, and we ask an immediate trial.”

It was at this moment that the Devil, in the shape of Delaney the cop,
leaned over the rail and plucked the Bloodhound’s sleeve.

“S-st, Mr. O’Brien! Put the screws on him and he’ll plead guilty. We’ve
got him cold. Here’s the gun I took off him—loaded.”

He shoved the revolver into O’Brien’s hand, and the latter, always
willing to oblige, slipped it into his pocket.

“Has he got a record?” he asked sideways.

“Sure! Just out of stir. Caught him with a valise full of stuff he took
out of a cigar store. He’s an old-timer—Gas House Gang. If he won’t
plead, stick him right on trial. It’s a pipe! A conviction sure!”

The Bloodhound nodded.

“Leave him to me! Here, you!”—addressing Mooney and Mr. Tutt together
and as one—“plead guilty and I’ll give you attempted grand in the
second.”

Mr. Tutt gravely shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “I cannot let an innocent man falsely admit under any
conditions that he is guilty.”

O’Brien’s face hardened.

“Suit yourself!” he snapped back. “If he doesn’t he’ll get the limit.”

“Not unless he’s convicted!” murmured Mr. Tutt.

“Oh!” sneered his adversary. “You think you can get him off, do you?
Don’t fool yourself! It’s a dead open-and-shut case. Will you or won’t
you? If you won’t he’ll be on his way up the river by two o’clock.”

Mr. Tutt’s blood boiled and tingled.

“Mister District Attorney,” he said sternly, “may I ask if you have
examined into the merits of this case?”

“I’ve seen the only witness there is!” retorted O’Brien. “This man is an
ex-convict. His picture is in the gallery. So are his thumb tracks. He’s
guilty all right, all right! He’s got no more chance than an icicle in
Hades.”