Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Leaving the others clustered in a group outside, he and Mr. Blair
entered Mr. Blair's office. Mr. Fogarty closed the door and faced Mr.
Blair.
“This here,” said Mr. Fogarty, “was what we call an inside job. Somebody
here in this town--somebody who knew all there was to know about your
bank--done it. Now, who do you suspicion?”
Lowering his voice, Mr. Blair told him, adding that only a deep sense
of his obligations to himself and to his bank inspired him now to
detail certain significant circumstances that had come to his personal
attention within the past three weeks--or, to be exact, on a certain
Wednesday morning in the latter part of September.
In his earlier movements Mr. Fogarty might have been deliberate; but
once he made up his mind to a definite course of conduct he acted
promptly. He came out of Mr. Blair's presence, walked straight up to
Emanuel Moon, where Emanuel sat at his desk, and, putting his hand on
Emanuel's shrinking shoulder, uttered the words:
“Young man, you're wanted! Put on your--”
Then Mr. Fogarty silently turned and beckoned to Chief Henley, invoking
the latter's official co-operation and assistance.
Between the imported detective and the chief of police, Emanuel Moon, a
silent, pitifully shrunken figure, walked round the corner to the City
Hall, a crowd following along behind, and was locked up in a cell in
the basement calaboose downstairs. Lingering about the hall after the
suspect had been taken inside.
Divers citizens ventured the opinion that if the fellow wasn't guilty
he certainly looked it. Well, so far as that goes, if a face as pale as
putty and downcast eyes brimming with a numbed misery betokened guilt
Emanuel had not a leg left to stand on.
However, looks alone are not commonly accepted as competent testimony
under our laws, and Emanuel did not abide for very long as a prisoner.
The Grand Jury declined to indict him on such dubious proof as the bank
people and Mr. Fogarty could offer for its consideration. Undoubtedly
the Grand Jury was inspired in its refusal by the attitude the
Commonwealth's attorney maintained, an attitude in which the circuit
judge concurred.
It was known that Mr. Blair went to Commonwealth's Attorney Flournoy,
practically demanding that Emanuel be held for trial, and, failing in
that quarter, visited Judge Priest with the same object in view. But
perversely the judge would not agree with Mr. Blair that the evidence
in hand justified such a course; would not on any account concede
that Emanuel Moon was the only person, really, who might properly be
suspected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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