Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Coal mines and mining -- Pennsylvania -- Fiction; Labor leaders -- Fiction
The little boss whirled his chair about. He began picking up the papers
scattered about his desk. When he spoke his voice was again soft and
mild. “It was Andy Brown,” he said. “Whisper the word about. Let a
_Tribune_ man locate Brown for you. Handle this right and you will save
your own scalp and get the fool papers off the back of the First.”
* * * * *
The arrest of Brown brought respite to the ward. The prediction of the
shrewd little boss made good. The newspapers dropped the clamorous
cry for reform and began demanding instead the life of Andrew Brown.
Newspaper artists rushed into police headquarters and made hurried
sketches to appear an hour later blazoned across the face of extras
on the streets. Grave scientific men got their pictures printed at the
heads of articles on “Criminal Characteristics of the Head and Face.”
An adept and imaginative writer for an afternoon paper spoke of Brown as
a Jekyll and Hyde of the Tenderloin and hinted at other murders by
the same hand. From the comparatively quiet life of a not markedly
industrious yeggman Brown came out of the upper floor of a State Street
lodging house to stand stoically before the world of men--a storm centre
about which swirled and eddied the wrath of an aroused city.
The thought that had flashed into the mind of Henry Hunt as he sat in
the office of the soft-voiced boss was the making of an opportunity for
McGregor. For months he and Andrew Brown had been friends. The yeggman,
a strongly built slow talking man, looked like a skilled mechanic of a
locomotive engineer. Coming into O'Toole's in the quiet hours between
eight and twelve he sat eating his evening meal and talking in a half
bantering humorous vein to the young lawyer. In his eyes lurked a kind
of hard cruelty tempered by indolence. It was he who gave McGregor the
name that still clings to him in that strange savage land--“Judge Mac,
the Big 'un.”
When he was arrested Brown sent for McGregor and offered to give him
charge of his case. When the young lawyer refused he was insistent. In
a cell at the county jail they talked it over. By the door stood a guard
watching them. McGregor peered into the half darkness and said what he
thought should be said. “You are in a hole,” he began. “You don't want
me, you want a big name. They're all set to hang you over there.” He
waved his hand in the direction of the First. “They're going to hand you
over as an answer to a stirred up city. It's a job for the biggest and
best criminal lawyer in town. Name the man and I'll get him for you and
help raise the money to pay him.”
Andrew Brown got up and walked to McGregor. Looking down at him he spoke
quickly and determinedly. “You do what I say,” he growled. “You take
this case. I didn't do the job. I was asleep in my room when it was
pulled off. Now you take the case. You won't clear me. It ain't in the
cards. But you get the job just the same.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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