This Spellman (later Pentecost) had been plugging along in the law game out there for something like two years before he attracted attention. Then it began to be noticed in what is referred to as the underworld, that a young attorney in the Ashland Block seemed to be having extraordinary success in the cases of a number of small-caliber crooks for whose defense he’d been engaged or appointed. The court named him the first time, in a petty-larceny case where the accused was unable to get counsel. It was the ingenuity of this fellow’s tactics that first made him talked about, and a couple of instances of his lightning quickness and audacity went the rounds of crookdom. This underworld comment was hardly more than beginning when one of the high-up operators—a super-crook you might say—who’d been rounded up after a six months’ hunt—got Spellman to defend him, and from that time he was in the middle of the map. The upper world now began to take notice, and inquiries regarding the man flew about, but found nothing to light on. More business than he could handle came in—and, with hardly an exception, from below. Of course he didn’t get verdicts for his clients every time, but his average was amazing. There was always a surprise in some quick turn he’d make—some entirely unexpected stroke—the finding of new and vital evidence and the throwing it at them just when it would knock them silly. He’d get at them this way nearly every time, and of course there was a rush to find a flaw, but there wasn’t a screw or a bolt missing. Don’t get the idea that he was in the least spectacular. Nothing of the kind. No oratory nor impassioned pleading, nor any of those fancy things you read about. He’d sit hunched up like a toad in court, solid and motionless, never speaking unless necessary, and then in a voice so low that spectators, if there were any, found it difficult to hear. But—again like a toad—he struck with lightning quickness when the time came. To witnesses for the prosecution he was a scourge and a terror. His gentle questioning, his weary manner and sleepily drooping eyelids, nursed his victims into unguarded confidence, and then came the lightning out of a clear sky, striking upon the least contradiction or misstatement. His very appearance at such times—the backward slant of his forehead, the sudden scorching fire of usually somnolent eyes—confused and disconcerted.