Miles sat with his eyes glued on the smirking face of the burly giant who, with his wily lawyer, was receiving wild congratulations from the crowd.
“There’s something I can do about it!” Miles ground out.
There was no bravado in his words. Griffin knew that, for he had watched Miles Murdock grow from a kid into the great surgeon he was now. He knew Miles was not given to idle boasting. A wild thrill surged through the detective-captain’s being because this man wanted to take up his dead brother’s fight, yet at the same time it made him afraid.
“I wouldn’t do anything rash, Doc,” he cautioned.
“It won’t be anything rash, Griff. It will be something quite sane.” He turned and sternly looked at his friend. “Don’t think I’m blaming you or the law because Martin got away. You aren’t at fault. Things unfortunately turn out that way sometimes. But my brother was murdered without a chance to fight back or defend himself. I let the law have its chance and the law muffed. Now I’m going to have my crack!”
“I wouldn’t, Miles,” the detective-captain advised worriedly. “I know how you feel, but—”
“I don’t intend breaking any laws,” Miles assured him, “at least not intentionally. But rats have to be treated like rats. They can’t be allowed even one small hole, or they’ll slip through it. During these past few days, sitting here in this courtroom, I’ve been doing a lot of figuring, piecing things together. Gus Martin killed my brother. Maybe the jury couldn’t see that, but I could. Every minute he was in the witness box, I watched him. He did it, all right.”
“I know, but you can’t take the law into your own hands. He had his trial. He happened to beat the rap.”
Miles either didn’t hear Griffin, or didn’t want to hear him.
“Martin did the actual killing, but it wasn’t his idea,” he went on. “Somebody ordered that murder, then pulled Korpuli into the case to spring Martin. Gus Martin never saw the kind of money Korpuli asks, and I don’t believe Korpuli knew Martin even existed until the day he took over. Somebody hired both of them. I’m going to find out who that somebody is and why my brother was killed. And when I do, we’ll have a new trial that will end a lot differently from this one!”
Chapter VI
No Escape From Judgment
A frail hand came down on Doc Murdock’s big shoulder as he sat in the courtroom. Doc twisted, looked up into the long, sad, colorless face of Peter de Gaul.
Peter de Gaul was a soft, smallish man who liked to be called “the wise man of Down Street” and spoke always of the slum people as his people. He ran the Mission House, a dingy little hall a few doors down the block from Doc’s clinic. He offered bingo and checkers as main attractions to draw people into the hall so he could preach to them.
Just what he was preaching, or what his doctrine amounted to, few people understood. But to those who believed in him, he was sort of a one-man domestic relations board, community mail-box, advisor. For the illiterate he read and wrote letters and documents. He had a “sardine can” safe in his office in which he would store their “valuables.”
He charged for these services always, no matter how trivial the task. With the pennies and small donations he could wheedle out of susceptible social workers, he ran his haven for the “downtrodden.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor Murdock,” de Gaul said in a slow, solemn, sermon-preaching voice. “I’ve sat here in this courtroom and watched this great injustice done to your brother. Believe me when I say that I have suffered with you in this crisis, for your brother was not only a protector of my people, he was one of us.”
“Thanks,” Miles said.
He had known de Gaul since the days when he had been an intern in the city hospital. He wasn’t overly impressed with the little man, but he tolerated him. de Gaul seemed harmless enough. Since every slum appeared to have one of these characters, Miles supposed that de Gaul was no better or worse than the average.
De Gaul was always dropping in and out of the clinic with his people. Doc recalled that just a few weeks ago he had come in with “Crazy George,” one of the derelicts who flopped in the foul cellar of the Mission House and paid for his food and bed by working as handy man around the hall.
Crazy George had burned both his hands badly. Doc Murdock found it necessary to graft flesh from other parts of the body. During this episode Peter de Gaul really displayed the brotherly love he preached. Out of his own pocket he paid for the costly medicants that Doc needed and didn’t have in the clinic to patch the man’s hands. So, Doc conceded, maybe underneath it all Peter de Gaul wasn’t a half-bad sort.
It was natural that this odd little character of the slums should be in the courtroom today. Doc Murdock was an important cog in the workings of the slum section. Besides, John Murdock, as de Gaul intimated, had once patrolled that part of town as his beat.
People would want to know firsthand just what had happened at the trial. They would come to the mission head, as they always did about such matters, and ask questions. He wanted to be able to give them eyewitness details, for there was a certain inflation of ego that went with his being known as a “wise man.”
Korpuli and Punchy Gus Martin were getting ready to leave the courtroom. On his way out, the giant stepped over to taunt Dan Griffin.
“You shoulda took my advice, sad eyes,” he jeered out of the corner of his mouth. “I told ya that you was makin’ a bad mistake.”
Miles laid a restraining hand on the detective-captain’s square shoulder. This was neither the time nor the place to settle scores. Peter de Gaul elbowed through and waved a horny finger in the big thug’s face.
“You can’t escape the day of judgment!”
“Shut up, screwball!” Punchy Gus Martin growled.
With one sweep of his hamlike hand, he brushed the little man back into the row of seats. Then, with a smirk, he rejoined his mouthpiece.
As he assisted de Gaul to his feet, Miles stared after the human ox. Miles’ face was a mask for his true feelings. Only the spade over his right eye revealed the fury in his heart.
Later, on their way from the courthouse in his roadster, Miles asked Captain Griffin:
“What cases was John working on when he was killed?”
“Nothing officially. I’ve gone through his reports with a fine-tooth comb, hoping for the very thing you’re thinking — that maybe I could twist it back to the motivation for this murder. His files gave me nothing to work on. I just can’t figure it. I keep askin’ myself, why would anybody want to kill a swell guy like John Murdock?”
“How about the murder of Mrs. Small?” Doc brought out. “Wasn’t John sort of persistent about that?”
The Small case was one of the unsolved mysteries of the slums. Mrs. Small, an old Italian woman, had lived with her aged husband in one of Arnold Wisply’s tenements. Just two weeks before she was found dead, her husband passed away. Old age and a heart that had been strained by the shock of extreme poverty thrust upon them had caused his death.
There was a great deal more mystery and horror attached to the death of his wife. She was found in the squalor of her two-room flat, the victim of a fiendish explosion. There wasn’t a trace of a clue for the police to follow, not the semblance of a lead. They worked doggedly on the case, but the riddle of what had caused the explosion and why anyone would want to kill a destitute old lady went into the records unsolved.
“Not a chance of its having anything to do with the Small case,” replied Griffin to Miles’ question. “Why, the best brains in the Department couldn’t find anything! Not that John wasn’t just as capable. He was one of the best cops that ever lived, but — well, it just isn’t plausible.”