Criminals -- Fiction; Social problems -- Fiction; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918 -- Fiction
When he heard of the crime, Kouka realized that if he could discover the
murderers of Margaret Flanagan he might come into a notoriety that would
be the making of him. And he had wondered how he might achieve this.
He had visited Lulu Corners, and all day his mind had been at work,
incessantly revolving the subject; he had recalled all the criminals he
knew, trying to imagine which of them might have done the deed, trying
to decide on which of them he might fasten the crime. For his mind
worked like the minds of most policemen--the problem was not necessarily
to discover who had committed the crime, but who might have committed
it, and this night, with the criticism of the newspapers, and with the
abuse of the superintendent, he felt himself more and more driven to the
necessity of doing something in order to show that the police were
active. And when he heard from Quinn that he had arrested Archie
Koerner on Friday, and that Bostwick had ordered him out of the city, he
instantly suspected that it was Archie who had murdered Margaret
Flanagan. Quinn had laughed at the notion, but this only served to
convince Kouka and make him stubborn. The problem then was to find
Archie. When Inspector McFee made his details for that night, all with
special reference to the Flanagan murder, Kouka asked for a special
detail, intimating that he had some clue which he wished to follow
alone, and McFee, who was at his wits’ end, was willing enough to let
Kouka follow his own leading.
The night detail tramped heavily down the dark halls and out into Market
Place; the detectives left the building and separated, stealing off in
different directions. An hour later, patrol wagons began to roll up to
the station; the tenderloin was in a turmoil; saloons, brothels and
dives were raided, the night was not half gone before the prison was
crowded with miserable men and women, charged with all sorts of crimes,
and, when no other charge could be imagined, with suspicion.
Meanwhile, Archie and Curly were trudging through dark side-streets and
friendly alleys on their way to Archie’s home; for Archie had determined
to see his father and his mother once more before he left the city.
Archie was armed with a revolver he had procured from Gray.
IV
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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