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Show Aft the End off fthe String h cffi Illustrated ly R. Tandlvr. ORONIN was a fixer. That was his business and you might as well know it now hie vocation. vo-cation. He had been, always, a sneaking stool-pigeon in every walk that he had stepped, and a go-between in delicate and indelicate matters. He would have been a blackmailer had he the courage to take chances and take a chance there is a difference between these; ponder over it. His status, professionally, was that of a disbarred lawyer. He had been kicked away from the bar for a job of disreputable disreputa-ble business, early in his practice. Since then he had subsisted ostensibly as an "investigator." Whenever you hear of an "Investigator," look out. He is usually something else, something worse. Investigating Investi-gating may be a lawful and decent call-Ing. call-Ing. But an "investigator" seldom is on .sr the level, At times Cronln prospered. There are cases from time to time, in big cities, which find rich men panic-driven. It is then that these men clutch the lapels of their attorneys and tell them to spare no expense, stand by no rules of right or law, but for heaven's sake get them out of the nasty mess. That is the harvest of the 4 "investigator," who is brought in to help ' the lawyer. What he is to do depends on his own conscience, sincerity and degree of vl-ciousness. vl-ciousness. The least he is ever asked to accomplish is to snake or buy or scare pivotal witnesses out of jurisdiction, try to "get something on" the prosecutor, the opposing counsel, the main figures of the other side's case, the Judge If possible, the jurors, and put over any unfair advantage, strategical, psychological, crooked or criminal crim-inal that an oblique mind and a liberal expense ex-pense account can deliver. Jury bribing is one of the advanced specialties of the fixer. A good jury fixer is worth his weight in double eagles, and many a supposedly ethical attorney has him on his telephone card. But most of , the species never hope to attain this splendor, splen-dor, and look with envious eye upon the rival fixer who has to his credit a juror who has hung a case for a few hundred, or an acquittal for a guilty man bought jSk through enough of the twelve mcngood and true to swing the balance against the truth. Cronln was an all-around man. He had scored with Juries several times in tight pinches, and he had rustled witnesses and . driven a famous jurist to cover in one little lit-tle affair by bringing into court and seating seat-ing in a forward row a certain woman who, at a critical stage of the proceeding, reached over and communed at Intimate propinquity, In whispers, with the defendant. defend-ant. He had "thrown" several historical cases against the percentage and had brought about some inexplicable not gulltles. So he was the logical specialist to call in when a number of saloon-keepers were suddenly arrested on complaints signed by a committee of fussy reformers who had quietly gathered bottled evidence, sworn evidence, eyewitness evidence and earshot evidence of all the violations of all the paragraphs relating to the legal restrictions restric-tions on the sale of malt, vinous and spirituous spir-ituous liquors, theatrical performances in places where liquors were sold and the abuse of restaurant licenses as filmy cloaks for distribution out of lawful hours. The saloon-keepers were pooled and organized. or-ganized. They saw that they had a long, hard fight against them, and that If it was lost to them there would be dangerous precedents. The most unsavory of the clan had been arrested for the test cases, which would make it harder. The drys jCj had been hammering and battering and y had won a point after a point, and this looked like about the last stand, when the booze sellers would see whether a man could violate an ordinance in a free country coun-try or whether he was going to be pestered by but.ters-in who had no real estate and no visible means of support, by jingo. The barroom trust had a regularly constituted con-stituted set of lawyers. Their chief defender de-fender was a former prosecutor who knew all the ropes and all the strings. An indignant in-dignant committee locked itself into his office with him and his staff, pounded his good mahogany desk with their hardwood fists and said money was no object no, sir. What they wanted was to teach these blatherskite reformers a lesson they'd never forget to learn them that when they go against business men with their bum law and their scurvy code-books they were biting off something that would break their jaws in trying to chew It. Again money was no object. This had reached a point where an example had to bo established, where these blue noses had to be driven to the "understanding that they didn't have a chance. The lawyer said all right all right. They needn't be so emphatic; he would look to the matter. He knew how this was to be handled. , Wn. iifter they departed, he sent for d onin. Ci'inin an ived. He had read the papers and he had a fair Idea of what he had been sent for for. His interview didn't take ten minutes. He walked out with some new money In his pockets and carte blanche to unhorse the parties with the side-whfskers and the law-and-order foolishness. fool-ishness. He looked into the pasts of all the prosecuting pros-ecuting witnesses. The search proved discouraging!- unprofitable. He found that one of the Uly-pures had been sued for a rent bill; but that wasn't very strong. Ho learned that another had once been a newspaper reporter; but he had outlived that and had been good so long that the past probably wouldn't break him. He went through and after the whole list. It was most fruitless. Cronln felt injured and picked on. That was just his luck. The enemy had rung In a lot of airtight saints on him. It was an attack against his means of livelihood. "Well," said the fixer, "if you give me a chance to talk a minute and not leap on me every time I separate my face, maybe I'll tell you." It wasn't honest and it certainly wasn't good sportsmanship. So he went into the record of the public" attorney who was to push the cases. Nothing Noth-ing doing. The man was as clean and white as a washerwoman's thumb. And the judge who was to try the first case the big one was the superintendent of a Baptist Sunday school, had never looked to right nor left and had left a trail of pious decency behind him' that made Cronln Cro-nln sick. There was nothing left, then, but the jury. All the hope was wrapped up in the twelve peers of the blackleg underworld dive proprietor whose trial was set to open the court campaign. , ..,-..,. As quickly as jurors were tentatively accepted Cronin and his lieutenants swarmed about their home neighborhoods and "looked them up." They found that two or three had bad records one was a total abstainer and another was a member of a Christian Endeavor circle, and a third had caused a janitor to be fired because he was drunk and abusive. These were peremptorily and tartly challenged. The jury box was filled at last. Cronin had not reached any of the dozen, but he H A new character of the underworld the "fixer" p Jj who creates humor and vice wherever he works fg had passed on them all as reasonable possibilities pos-sibilities for missionary work with attractive at-tractive inducements. ' The trial began. The defendant's flock of lawyers began entering objections, impugning im-pugning the sincerity of the prosecution, throwing out flimsy technical hurdles, introducing in-troducing innuendo of subtle depth against the veracity of the state testimony and appealing to the judge for their constitutional constitu-tional rights, privileges and advantages. They thundered the principle that their client was innocent until proven guilty beyond be-yond a reasonable doubt, and that an indictment in-dictment was no evidence of guilt, and that the burden of proof was on the side of the authorities They wrangled and they fought with the experts who said they knew whisky from cold tea when they chemically analyzed it, and they demanded de-manded that the jury be discharged and a verdict of not guilty ordered by the court. But all In vain. The court refused to take the case from the jury. All the demanded de-manded rights were yielded. Some of the objections were sustained and exceptions freely entered where otherwise. But the evidence went right along, and, to a man up a tree, had there been a tree in the courtroom, it would have seemed very likely that the jury would convict. The law was plain. The facts were nearly as palpable. The defendant wiped his brow., The lawyers flew to their feet and tried to dam the .tidal rush of unfriendly truths with far-fetched straws of obscure and irrelevant legal interpositions. The liquor world felt before the trial was half over that that idiotic jury would hang "guilty" on that bewildered and helpless whisky merchant, and that they all would suffer that they all would be forced to give up certain sacred rights to violate the law which had so long been rights that the law had died of atrophy aud old age. The word "obsolete" was prominent in their arguments. The word "hell" was conspicuous in their Irritated comment. Meantime, what had Cronln and his worthies been doing? Ah let us see. Busier than rats, they had been nosing about the homes of the twelve Jurors. 1 They couldn't get at the men themselves, who were guarded by unapproachable bailiffs, night and day. But they could find the wives, the children, the other relatives, rel-atives, the employers and the cronies of the jurors. It was through thein or some of them or one of them that a little suggestion sug-gestion might percolate. A cousin twice removed had been known to open a leak into a jury-room. Judges are inclined to be liberal in permitting communications to sealed jurors from their families. The work was cut twelve ways, and each of these ways was subcut many more. And failure after failure tumbled on the spinning and ringing head of Cronin. Cro-nin. Here was one of the biggest cases that had ever been intrusted to him, and from one of his best patrons, and out of a bottomless bot-tomless bank roll, and he couldn't turn a wheel, he couldn't move a cog. f The work grew raw in his desperation. Cold and open propositions of money were made to the nearest kin of the imprisoned jurors nothing gained and a lot of risks taken. The lawyer was on Cronin's neck night-lv night-lv after the court sessions demanding to know what progress had been made, if any. And Cronin promised and stalled and equivocated, but was always forced to admit that no leverage had been engineered, engi-neered, no foothold had been built, no spark had been fired. The time was growing short. The de fense was extending and stretching Its piffling pif-fling and transparent side of the case to give Cronin another day and another day and yet a third to get his handle In. He didn't. The finish couldn't be held off any longer. The Judge gave the case to the jury and it retired. "Well," said the lawyer to Cronln, as he fingered a corpulent expense sheet and looked searlngly at the fixer, "you're some little deliverer, you are. You've spent thousands and you didn't earn a dime." "I ain't through yet," said Cronin, fussing fuss-ing with a penholder on the desk. "No?" said the lawyer. "Well, we are. That jury will bring In a verdict as sure as taxes. And you know what It will be. And there isn't a good error In the whole record. And we're through. I'll lose the liquor trade and you'll lose me." "I said," said Cronin, "I ain't through "Welt," said the fixer, "if you give me a chance to talk a minute and not ' &-:vi- V '?", leap on me every time I separate my &$0$ -y! . " face, maybe I'll tell you." X r s W ' " Zlt r1 i Ja f c y ' Si it if J yet. The jury hasn't come In yet, has It?" "No, but it will at 9 tomorrow morn- . ing," said the lawyer. "All right It's a long time between now and then," barked Cronln. "What's your plan?" "Well," said the fixer, "if you'll give me a chance to talk a minute and not leap on me overy time I separate my face, maybe I'll tell you." The lawyer petulantly Indicated that he would do these little things, difficult as they might be. "I got the lowdown on every one of the twelve of them," said Cronin. "I know everything they ever did from tho cradle to the Jury box. And I find that out of the dozen nine are drinking men," "Oh, what's that got to do with the law and the evidence? Tou ought to have heard that Baptist Judge Instruct those putty-faced roundheads. This Is past any matter of personal prejudice I toll you they went out to convict." "If you'll let me talk some more," aid Cronin, with pained Irony, "I'll say what I got to say. As I said, when unnecessarily unneces-sarily Interrupted, nine of the twelve are drinking men. You're a drinking man yourself. Now you know what It Is to be shut off from your little nip of Scotch or your little jigger of gin, or your occasional V:ri''V - - ;; . 'i : : t tst j? i ' " - - "... ..- 1 etein or your dally highball or do you?" "You bet," said the lawyer wryly. "Very well then you'll get my Idea. Now these men have been In the hands of bailiffs for six days and five nights. In those days and nights they haven't been allowed a drop of anything stronger than soup. I take It that by now they're pretty thirsty eh?" "Perhaps probably," acquiesced the lawyer. "Fine," said Cronln. "Now, then: they're deliberating In a big room in a hotel, locked in. They don't get any sleep till they come to an understanding. Arguing Argu-ing Is pretty dry work to a lot of dry drinking men who haven't had a smell of their pet goods for six days and five nights." "That's so," said the lawyer. WTiat then?" "This. The bailiffs arent permitted In-eido In-eido the room, are they? No. Nobody Is In there except the Jurors. Nobody and jnothlng can get past the door of that room. But if somebody could sneak In a little welcome stuff through tho outside window the bailiffs would never know it, would they?" "You wouldn't dare," said the lawyer. "If you were caught on a fire escape or whatever other means you might use to get through that window you'd go to the penitentiary." "Who's going to a window?" demanded the fixer. "My boys have found out what room those twelve men good and dry are In. And I've hired the room directly above It. By now my little plan is about to begin be-gin operating." "Spill It," said the lawyer. "Got to brass tacks." "Nothing more or loss than this," said Cronln easily. "Prom the window of our room the room above tho other room my boys are to let down a little cheer, tied to the end of ropes. Let's go down there and see what we can see." The lawyer grabbed his hat and accompanied accom-panied Cronin to the hotel. They elova-tored elova-tored to the room Cronin had engaged, gave the password and were admitted. At the window were two of Cronin's helpers In their shirtsleeves, busily tying bottler of beer, bourbon and wine to the end of a stout string, which was lot down as rap-Idly rap-Idly as it was loaded. A moment or two later the string came up limp and empty and was again slnkerod with a bottle. The lawyer and the squarer leaned out of the window and saw eager and willing hands etretch out to take the corded goodies in and return the string. Down went a pail of cracked Ice. Next a syphon of seltzer. Then a squirt-gun of bitters. Then a box of long filler por-fectos. por-fectos. And every time the string went down It was pilfered hungrily. : "Now, get this," eafd Cronln, wtien th last of the generous load had been plumbed. "No writing or any othor communication com-munication wont with any of that. But you know those cotton-spitting boobs will know that tho reformers never nent thera that cargo of good liquor and all tho fixings. fix-ings. They'll know that the stuff came from the headquarters of tho right guys. And from the way they're seizing tho barleycorn bar-leycorn they must be going to It pretty good; and from that I judge well, I guess the cane don't look so bad, what?" The lawyer slapped Cronin on the back, smiled and went out. Next morning at 9 court assembled. The lawyer flourished Into tho Jnclosure with a defiant look of triumph In hfs eye. Cronin himself had ventured to attend, eitl.ing in a remote corner. Tho usual frumperies wer observed, the Jury reported that It had agreed, and It was brought In. Tho men lookod pb though they had had a hard, high-riding night. The foreman reed the verdict-Guilty! verdict-Guilty! The lawyer wlnned. Cronln almost foil off his chair. A just About that time two HUFpeTrlor drummers staggered out of tho hotel. They rolled about, wobbllngly, arm in arm. Thfly were very drunk. They had occupied the room bMow th room that Cronin had hlrd. The Jury had dm; ita deliberating In another hotol, far away. Somebody had fixed the fixer. Copyright, YAb, by J. K"I'y |