The Net Part 56

Bernie shook his head morosely.

"There's a rumor of jury-fixing. I hear one of the talesmen was approached with a bribe before the trial."

"I can scarcely believe that."

"I'll bet it's true just the same. If I'd known what they were up to I'd have got on the jury myself. I'd have taken their money, then I'd have fixed 'em!"

"You'd have voted for eleven hemp neckties, eh?"

"I'd have hung each man twice."

Although Blake at first refused to credit the rumors of corruption, the following days served to verify them, for more than one juryman confessed to receiving offers. This caused a sensation which grew as the papers took up the matter and commented editorially. A leading witness for the State finally told of an effort to intimidate him, and men began to ask if this was destined to prove as rotten as other Mafia cases in the past. A feeling of unrest, of impatience, began to manifest itself, vague threats were voiced, but the idea of a bribed or terrorized jury was so preposterous that few gave credence to it.

Nevertheless, the closing days of the trial were weighted heavily with suspense. Not only the city, but the country at large, hung upon the outcome. So strongly had racial antipathy figured that Italy took note of the case, and it a.s.sumed an international importance. Biased accounts were cabled abroad which led to an uneasy stir in ministerial and consular quarters.

During the exhaustive arguments at the close of the trial Norvin and Bernie sat together. When the opening attorneys for the prosecution had finished, Dreux exclaimed, triumphantly:

"We've got 'em! They can't escape after that."

But when the defense in turn had closed, the little man revealed an indignant face to his companion, saying:

"Lord! They're as good as free! We'll never convict on evidence like that."

Once more he changed, under the spell of the masterly State's attorney, and declared with fierce exultance:

"What did I tell you? They'll hang every mother's son of 'em. The jury won't be out an hour."

The jury was out more than an hour, even though press and public declared the case to be clear. Yet, knowing that the eyes of the world were upon her, New Orleans went to sleep that night serene in the certainty that she had vindicated herself, had upheld her laws, and proved her ability to deal with that organized lawlessness which had so long been a blot upon her fair name.

Soon after court convened on the following morning the jury sent word that they had reached a verdict, and the court-room quickly filled.

Rumors of Caesar Maruffi's double ident.i.ty had gone forth; it was hinted that he was none other than the dreaded Belisario Cardi, that genius of a thousand crimes who had held all Sicily in fear. This report supplied the last touch of dramatic interest.

Blake and Bernie were in their places before the prisoners arrived.

Every face in the room was tense and expectant; even the calloused attendants felt the hush and lowered their voices in deference. Every eye was strained toward the door behind which the jury was concealed.

There came the rumble of the prison van below, the tramp of feet upon the hollow stairs, and into the dingy, high-ceilinged hall of justice filed the accused, manacled and doubly guarded. Maruffi led, his black head held high; Normando brought up the rear, supported by two officers. He was racked with terror, his body hung like a sack, a moisture of foam and spittle lay upon his lips. When he reached the railing of the prisoners' box he clutched it and resisted loosely, sobbing in his throat; but he was thrust forward into a seat, where he collapsed.

The judge and the attorneys were in their places when a deputy sheriff swung open the door to the jury-room and the "twelve good men and true" appeared. As if through the silence of a tomb they went to their stations while eleven pairs of black Sicilian eyes searched their downcast features for a sign. Larubio, the cobbler, was paper-white above his smoky beard; Di Marco's swarthy face was green, like that of a corpse; his companions were frozen in various att.i.tudes of eager, dreadful waiting. The only sound through the scuff and tramp of the jurors' feet was Normando's lunatic murmuring. As for the leader of the band, he sat as if graven in stone; but, despite his iron control, a pallor had crept up beneath his skin.

Blake heard Bernie whisper:

"Look! They know they're lost."

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?" came the voice of the judge.

The foreman rose. "We have."

He pa.s.sed a doc.u.ment up to the bench, and silently the court examined it.

The seconds were now creeping minutes. Normando's ceaseless mumbling was like that of a man distraught by torture. A hand was used to silence him. The spectators were upon their feet and bent forward in attention; the cordon of officers closed in behind the accused as if to throttle any act of desperation.

The judge pa.s.sed the verdict down to the minute clerk, who read in a clear, distinct, monotonous tone:

"Celso Fabbri, Frank Normando, mistrial. Salvatore di Marco, Frank Garcia, Giordano Bolla"--the list of names seemed interminable-- "Gaspardo Cressi, Lorenzo Cardoni, Caesar Maruffi"--he paused for an instant while time halted--"not guilty."

After the first moment of stunned stupefaction a murmur of angry disapproval ran through the crowd; it was not loud, but hushed, as if men doubted their senses and were seeking corroboration of their ears.

From the street below, as the judgment was flashed to the waiting hundreds, came an echo, faint, unformed, like the first vague stir that runs ahead of a tempest.

The shock of Norvin Blake's amazement in part blurred his memory of that dramatic tableau, but certain details stood out clearly afterwards. For one thing he heard Bernie Dreux giggling like an overwrought woman, while through his hysteria ran a stream of shocking curses He saw one of the jurors rise, yawn, and stretch himself, then rub his bullet head, smiling meanwhile at the Cressi boy. He saw Caesar Maruffi turn full to the room behind him and search for his own face. When their eyes met, a light of devilish amus.e.m.e.nt lit the Sicilian's visage; his lips parted and his white teeth gleamed, but it was no smile, rather the nervous, rippling twitch that bares a wolf's fangs. His color had come flooding back, too; victory suffused him with a ruddy, purple congestion, almost apoplectic. Then heads came between them; friends of the prisoners crowded forward with noisy congratulations and outstretched palms; the rival attorneys were shaking hands.

Blake found himself borne along by the eddying stream which set out of the court-room and down into the sunlit street, where the curbs were lined with uplifted faces. Dreux was close beside him, quite silent now. A similar silence brooded over the whole procession which emerged from the building like a funeral cortege. When the moments brought home the truth to its members they felt, indeed, as if they came from a house of death, for they had seen Justice murdered, and the chill was in their hearts.

But there was something sinister in the hush which gagged that mult.i.tude.

Many readers will doubtless recall, even now, the shock that went through this country at the conclusion of the famous New Orleans Mafia trial of twenty years ago. They will, perhaps, remember a general feeling of surprise that an American jury would dare, in the face of such popular feeling and such apparently overwhelming evidence, to render a verdict of "not guilty." In some quarters the farcical outcome of the trial was blamed upon Louisiana's peculiar legal code.

But the truth is our Northern cities had not at that time felt the power of organized crime. New York, for instance, had not been shaken by an interminable succession of dynamite outrages nor terrorized by bands of Latin-born Apaches who live by violence and blackmail; therefore, the tremendous difficulty of securing convictions was not appreciated as it is to-day.

There was a universal suspicion that the last word concerning the New Orleans affair had not been written, so what followed was not entirely a surprise.

XXIV

AT THE FEET OF THE STATUE

Two hours after the verdict there was a meeting of the Committee of Justice, and that night the evening papers carried the following notice:

"Ma.s.s-MEETING"

"All good citizens are invited to attend a ma.s.s-meeting to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock at Clay Statue, to take steps to remedy the failure of justice in the Donnelly case. Come prepared for action."

It was signed by the fifty well-known men who had been appointed to represent the people. That incredible verdict had caused a great excitement; but this bold and threatening appeal brought the city up standing. It caused men who had been loudly cursing the jury to halt and measure the true depth of their indignation. There was no other topic of conversation that night; and when the same call appeared in the morning papers, together with a ringing column headed,

"AWAKE! ARISE!"

it stirred a swift and mighty public sentiment. Never, perhaps, in any public press had so sanguinary an appeal been issued.

"Citizens of New Orleans," it read in part, "when murder overrides law and justice, when juries are bribed and suborners go unwhipped, it is time to resort to your own indefeasible right of self-preservation.

Alien bands of oath-bound a.s.sa.s.sins have set the blot of a martyr's blood upon your civilization. Your laws, in the very Temple of Justice, have been bought, suborners have loosed upon your streets the midnight murderers of an officer in whose grave lies the majesty of American law.

"Rise in your might, people of New Orleans! Rise!"

A similar note was struck by editorials, many of them couched in language even stronger and more suited to fan the public rage. The recent trial was called an outrageous travesty on justice; attention was directed to the d.a.m.nable vagaries of recent juries which had been impaneled to try red-handed Italian murderers.

"Our city is become the haven of blackmailers and a.s.sa.s.sins, the safe vantage-ground for Sicilian stilletto bands who slay our legal officers, who buy jurors, and corrupt sworn witnesses under the hooded eyes of Justice. How much longer will this outrage be permitted?" So read a heavily typed article in the leading journal.

A wave of fierce determination ran through the whole community.