Traffic in Souls: A Novel of Crime and Its Cure

CHAPTER XV
THE FINISH

Burke rushed down the dilapidated steps once more to the room where Lorna had undergone her bitter punishment. Already three bluecoats had entered in time to capture the frantic old woman, while they worked to bring the miserable girl back to consciousness.

"She's coming around all right, Burke," said the sergeant. "Help me carry her downstairs."

"I'll do that myself," quoth Bobbie, feeling that the privilege of restoring her to Mary had been rightfully earned. He picked her up and tenderly lifted her from the couch where she had been placed by the sergeant. Down the stairs they went with their prisoner, while Patrolman White descended from the roof with his captive, whose hands had been shackled behind his back.

The house had the appearance of a cheap lodging place, and the dirty carpet of the hall showed hard usage. As they reached the lower floor Bobbie noticed Captain Sawyer rummaging through an imitation mahogany desk in the converted parlor, a room furnished much after the fashion of the bedroom of Madame Blanche in the house uptown.

"What sort of place is it? A headquarters for the gang?" asked Bobbie, as he hesitated with Lorna in his arms.

"No, just the same kind of joint we've raided so many times, and we've got hundreds more to raid," answered Sawyer. "I've found the receipts for the rent here, and they've been paying about five times what it is worth. The man who owns this house is your friend Trubus. This links him up once more. There's a lot of information in this desk. But hurry with the girl, Bobbie, for her sister is nearly wild."

As Burke marched down the steps, carrying the rescued one, a big crowd of jostling spectators raised a howl of "bravos" for the gallant bluecoat. The nature of this evil establishment was well enough known in the neighborhood, but people of that part of town knew well enough to keep their information from the police, for the integrity of their own skins.

Mary had been kept inside the automobile with difficulty; now she screamed with joy and sprang from the step to the street. Up the stone stairs she rushed, throwing her arms about Lorna, who greeted her with a wan smile; she had strength for no more evidence of recognition.

"Here, chief," said the chauffeur of the hired car to Burke, "I always have this handy in my machine. Give the lady a drink – it'll help her."

He had drawn forth a brandy flask, and Burke quickly unscrewed the cup-cap, to pour out a libation.

"Oh, no!" moaned Lorna, objecting weakly, but Burke forced it between her teeth. The burning liquid roused her energies and, with Mary's assistance, she was able to sit up in the rear of the auto.

"Take another, lady," volunteered the chauffeur. "It'll do you good."

"Never. I've tasted the last liquor that shall ever pass my lips," said Lorna. "Oh, Mary, what a horrible lesson I've learned!"

Her sister comforted her, and turned toward Burke pleadingly.

"Can I take her home, Bob? You know how anxious father is?"

Captain Sawyer had come to the side of the automobile. He nodded.

"Yes, Miss Barton, the chauffeur will take her right up to your house. Give her some medical attention at once, and be ready to come back with her to the station house as soon as I send for you. I'm going to get the ringleader of this gang in my net before the day is through. So your sister should be here if she is strong enough to press the first complaint. I'll attend to the others, with the Federal Government and those phonograph records back of me! Hurry up, now."

He turned to his sergeant.

"Put these prisoners in the other automobile and call out the men to clear this mob away from the streets. Keep the house watched by one man outside and one in the rear. We don't know what might be done to destroy some of this evidence."

The automobile containing the two girls started on the glad homeward journey at the Captain's signal. Bobbie waved his hat and the happy tears coursed down his face.

"Well, Captain, I've got to face a serious investigation now," he said to his superior as they went up the steps once more.

"What is it?" exclaimed Sawyer in surprise, "You'll be a medal of honor man, my boy."

"I've killed a man."

"You have! Well, tell me about your end of the raid. All this has happened so quickly that we must get the report ready right here on the spot, in order to have it exact."

"This man Shepard, who seems to be the professional whipper of this gang, as well as a procurer, fought me with a magazine revolver. I ran him up to the roof, and I had to shoot him or be killed myself. That means a trial, I know. You'll find his body back of the house, for he fell off the roof at the end."

"Self-defense and carrying out the law will cover you, my boy. Don't worry about that. This city has been kept terror-stricken by these gangsters long enough, because honest citizens have been compelled by a ward politician's law to go without weapons of defense. A man is not allowed to have a revolver in his own home without paying ten dollars a year as a license fee. But a crook can carry an arsenal; I've always had a sneaking opinion that there were two sides to the reasons for that law. Then the city officials have given the public the idea that the police were brutes, and have reprimanded us for using force with these murderers and robbers. Force is the only thing that will tame these beasts of the jungle. You can't do it with kisses and boxes of candy!"

Burke was rubbing his left forearm.

"By Jingo! I believe I hurt myself."

He rolled up his sleeve, and saw a furrow of red in his muscular forearm. It was bleeding, but as he wiped it with his handkerchief he was relieved to find that it was a mere flesh wound.

"If Shepard had hit the right instead of the left – I would have been left in the discard," he said, with grim humor. "Can you help me tie it up for now. This means another scolding from Doctor MacFarland, I suppose."

"It means that you've more evidence of the need for putting a tiger out of danger!"

The coroner was called, and the statements of the policemen were made. The Captain, with Burke and several men, deployed through the back yard to the other house, leaving the grewsome duty of removing the body to the coroner. The two waiting automobiles on the rear street were crowded with policemen, as Sawyer ordered the chauffeur to drive speedily to the headquarters of the Purity League.

"We must clean out that hole, as we did this one!" muttered Sawyer. "You go for Trubus, Burke, with one of the men, while I will take the rest and close in on their 'Mercantile' office downstairs. We'll put that slave market out of business in three minutes."

They were soon on Fifth Avenue. The elevators carried the policemen up to the third floor, and they sprang into the offices of the "Mercantile Association" with little ado.

The small, wan man who sat at the desk was just in the act of sniffing a cheering potion of cocaine as the head of Captain Sawyer appeared through the door. With a quick movement the lookout pressed two buttons. One of them resulted in a metallic click in the door of the strong iron grating. The other rang a warning bell inside the private office of John Clemm.

Sawyer pushed and shoved at the grilled barrier, but it was safely locked with a strong, secret bolt.

"Open this, or I'll shoot!" exclaimed the irate Captain.

"You can't get in there. We're a lawful business concern," replied the little man, squirming toward the door which led to the big waiting room. "Where's your search warrant. I know the law, and you police can't fool me."

"This is my search warrant!" exclaimed Sawyer, as he sent a bullet crashing into the wall, purposely aiming a foot above the lookout's head. "Quick, open this door. The next shot won't miss!"

There was a sound of overturned chairs and cries of alarm inside the door. The little man felt that he had sounded his warning and lived up to his duty. Had he completed that sniffing of the "koke," he would doubtless have been stimulated to enough pseudo-courage to face the entire Police Department single-handed – as long as the thrill of the drug lasted. A majority of the desperate deeds performed by the criminals in New York, so medical examinations have proved, are carried on under the stimulus of this fearful poison, which can be obtained with comparative ease throughout the city.

But the lookout was deprived of his drug. He even endeavored to take a sniff as the captain and his men shoved and shook the iron work of the grating.

"Drop it!" cried Sawyer, pulling the trigger again and burying another bullet in the plaster.

"Oh, oh! Don't shoot!" cried the lookout weakly. He trembled as he advanced to the grating and removed the emergency bolt.

"Grab him!" cried Sawyer to one of his men. "Come with me, fellows." He rushed into the waiting room. There consternation reigned. Fully a dozen pensioners of the "system" of traffic in souls were struggling to escape through the barred windows in the rear. These bars had been placed as they were to resist the invaders from the outside. John Clemm's system of defense was extremely ingenious. In time of trouble he had not deemed the inmates of the middle room worth protecting – his purpose was to exclude with the iron grating and the barred windows the possible entry of raiders.

Three revolvers were on the floor. Their owners had wisely discarded them to avoid the penalty of the concealed weapon law, for they had realized that they were trapped.

"Open that door!" cried Sawyer, who had learned the arrangement of the rooms from Burke's description.

Two men pushed at the door, which was securely locked. They finally caught up the nearest church pew, and, using it as a battering ram, they succeeded in smashing the heavy oaken panels. The door had been barricaded with a cross bar. As they cautiously peered in through the forced opening they saw the room empty and the window open.

"He's escaped!" exclaimed Sawyer.

Just then a call from the outer vestibule reached his ears.

"I've caught the go-between, Captain. Here's Mr. John Clemm, the executive genius of this establishment," sung out Burke, who was standing inside the door with the rueful fat man wearing the handcuffs.

"Where did you get him, Burke?"

"He tried to make a quiet getaway through the rescue department of the Purity League," answered Officer 4434. "I nabbed him as he came up the fire-escape from this floor."

"Where is Trubus?"

"He has gone home, so one of the stenographers tells me."

"Then we will get him, too. Hurry now. White, I leave you in charge of this place. Send for the wagon and take these men over to our station house. Get every bit of paper and the records. We had better look around in that private office first before we go after Trubus."

They finished the demolition of the door and entered.

"What's this arrangement?" queried Sawyer, puzzled, as he looked at the automatic pencil box.

"That is an arrangement by which this fellow Clemm has been making duplicates of all his transactions in his own writing," explained Burke. "You see this Trubus has trusted no one. He has a definite record of every deal spread out before him by the other pencil on the machine upstairs, just as this go-between writes it out. Then here is the dictagraph, under the desk."

Burke pointed out the small transmitting disc to the surprised captain.

"Well, this man learned a lot from the detectives and applied it to his trade very scientifically, didn't he?"

"Yes, the records we have on the phonograph show that every word which passed in this room was received upstairs by Trubus. No one but Clemm knew of his connection or ownership of the establishment. Yet Trubus, all the time that he was posing as the guardian angel of virtue, has been familiar with the work of every procurer and every purchaser; it's a wonderful system. If he had spent as much energy on doing the charitable work that he pretended to do, think of how much misery and sickness he could have cured."

"Well, Burke, it's the same game that a lot of politicians on the East Side do. They own big interests and the gambling privileges in the saloons, and they get their graft from the gangsters. Then about twice a year they give a picnic for the mothers and babies of the drunkards who patronize their saloons. They send a ticket for a bucket of coal or a pair of shoes to the parents of young girls who work for the gangsters and bring the profits of shame back tenfold on the investment to these same politicians. They will spend a hundred dollars on charity and the newspapers will run columns about it. But the poor devils who cheer them and vote for them don't realize that every dollar of graft comes, not out of the pockets of property owners and employers, but from reduced wages, increased rents, and expensive, rotten food. Trubus would have been a great Alderman or State Senator: he wasted his talents on religion."

Burke turned to the door.

"Shall I go up to his house, Captain? I'd like to be in at the finish of this whole fight."

"You bet you can," said Sawyer. "It's now nearly six o'clock, and we will jump into the machine and get up there before he can get out to supper. The men will take care of these prisoners."

After a few skillful orders, Sawyer led the way downstairs. They were soon speeding up to the Riverside Drive residence of the philanthropist, Sawyer and Burke enjoying the machine to themselves.

"This is a joy ride that will not be so joyful for one man on the return trip, Burke!" exclaimed Sawyer, as he took off his cap to mop the perspiration from his brow. He had been through a strenuous afternoon and was beginning to feel the strain.

"How shall we approach his house?" asked Burke.

"You get out of the machine and go to the door. There's no need of alarming his family. Just tell the servant who answers the door that you want to speak to the boss – say that there's been a robbery down at his office, and you want to speak to him privately. Tell the servant not to let the other members of the family know about it, as it would worry them."

"That's a good idea, Captain. I understand that his wife and daughter are very fine women. It will save a terrible scene. What a shame to make them suffer like this!"

"Yes, Burke. If these scoundrels only realized that their work always made some good woman suffer – sometimes a hundred. Think of the women that this villain has made to suffer, body and soul. Think of the mothers' hearts he has broken while posing with his charity and his Bible! All that wickedness is to be punished on his own wife and his own daughter. I tell you, there's something in life which brings back the sins of the fathers, all right, upon their children. The Good Book certainly tells it right."

The auto was stopped before the handsome residence of the Purity League's leader. It seemed a bitter tangle of Fate that in these beautiful surroundings, with the broad blue Hudson River a few hundred yards away, the green of the park trees, the happy throng of pedestrians strolling and chatting along the promenade of the Drive, it should be Burke's duty to drag to punishment as foul a scoundrel as ever drew the breath of the beautiful spring air. The sun was setting in the heights of Jersey, across the Hudson, and the golden light tinted the carved stone doorway of Trubus's home, making Burke feel as though he were acting in some stage drama, rather than real life. The spotlight of Old Sol was on him as he rang the bell by the entry.

"Is Mr. Trubus home?" asked Burke of the portly butler who answered the summons.

"Hi don't know, sir," responded the servant, in a conventional monotone. "What nyme, sir?"

"Just tell him that it is a policeman. His office has been robbed, and we want to get some particulars about it."

"Well, sir, he's dressing for dinner, sir. You'll 'ave to wyte, sir. Hi wouldn't dare disturb 'im now, sir."

"You had better dare. This is very important to him. But don't mention it to anyone else, for it would worry his wife and daughter."

As Burke was speaking, a big fashionable car drew up behind the one in which Captain Sawyer sat, awaiting developments. A young man, wearing a light overcoat, whose open fold displayed a dinner coat, descended and approached the door.

"What's the trouble here?" he curtly inquired.

"None of your business," snapped Burke, who recognized the fiancé, Ralph Gresham.

"Don't you sauce me – I'll find out myself."

The butler bowed as Gresham approached.

"Come in, sir. Miss Trubus is hexpecting you, sir. This person is wyting to see Mr. Trubus, sir."

Gresham, with an angry look at the calm policeman, went inside.

The door shut. Burke for a minute regretted that he had not insisted on admission. It might have been possible for Trubus to have received some sort of warning. The "best-laid plans of mice and men" had one bad habit, as Burke recollected, just at the moment when success was apparently within grasp.

But the door opened again. The smug countenance, the neatly brushed "mutton-chops," the immaculate dinner coat of William Trubus appeared, and Bobbie looked up into the angry glint of the gentleman's black eyes.

"What do you mean by annoying me here? Why didn't you telephone me?" began the owner of the mansion. "I am just going out to dinner."

He looked sharply at Burke, vaguely remembering the face of the young officer. Bobbie quietly stepped to his side and caught the knob of the big door, shutting it softly behind Trubus.

"Why, you…"

Before he could finish Burke had deftly clipped one handcuff on the right wrist of the man and with an unexpected movement pinioned the other, snapping the manacle as he did so.

"Outrageous!" exclaimed the astounded Trubus. But Burke was dragging him rapidly into the car.

"If you don't want your wife to know about this, get in quickly," commanded Sawyer sharply.

Trubus began to expostulate, but his thick lips quivered with emotion.

"Down to the station house, quick!" ordered the captain to the chauffeur. "No speed limit."

"I'll have you discharged from the force for this, you scoundrel!" Trubus finally found words to say. "Where is your warrant for my arrest? What is your charge?"

Sawyer did not answer.

As they reached a subway station he called out to the driver:

"Stop a minute. Now, Burke, you had better go uptown and get the witness; hurry right down, for I want to end this matter to-night."

Bobbie dismounted, while Trubus stormed in vain. As the car sped onward he saw the president of the Purity League indulging in language quite alien to the Scriptural quotations which were his usual stock in discourse. Captain Sawyer was puffing a cigar and watching the throng on the sidewalks as though he were stone deaf.

Burke hurried to the Barton home. There he found a scene of joy which beggared description. Lorna had recovered and was strong enough to run to greet him.

"Oh, Mr. Burke, can you ever forgive me for my silliness and ugly words?" she began, as Mary caught the officer's hand with a welcome clasp.

"There, there, Miss Lorna, I've nothing to forgive. I'm so happy that you have come out safe and sound from the dangers of these men," answered Burke. "We have trapped the gang, even up to Trubus, and, if you are strong enough to go down to the station, we will have him sent with the rest of his crew to the Tombs to await trial."

Old Barton reached for Burke's hand.

"My boy, you have been more than a friend to me on this terrible yet wonderful day. You could have done no more if you had been my own son."

The excitement and his own tense nerves drove Bobbie to a speech which he had been pondering and hesitating to make for several weeks. He blurted it out now, intensely surprised at his own temerity.

"Your own son, Mr. Barton… Oh, how I wish I were… And I hope that I may be some day, if you and some one else are willing … some day when I have saved enough to provide the right sort of a home."

He hesitated, and Lorna stepped back. Mary held out her hands, and her eyes glowed with that glorious dilation which only comes once in a life-time to one woman's glance for only one man's answering look.

She held out her hands as she approached him.

"Oh, Bob … as though you had to ask!" was all she said, as the strong arms caught her in their first embrace. Her face was wet with tears as Bob drew back from their first kiss.

John Barton was wiping his eyes as Burke looked at him in happy bewilderment at this curious turn to his fortune.

"My boy, Bob," began the old man softly, "would you take the responsibility of a wife, earning no more money than a policeman can?"

Bob nodded. "I'd do it and give up everything in the world to make her happy if it were enough to satisfy her," he asserted.

Barton lifted up a letter which had been lying on the table beside him. He smiled as he read from it:

"DEAR MR. BARTON:

"The patents have gone through in great shape and they are so basic that no one can fight you on them. The Gresham Company has offered me, as your attorney, fifty thousand dollars as an advance royalty, and a contract for your salary as superintendent for their manufacture. We can get even more. It may interest you to know that your friend on the police force won't have to worry about a raise in salary. I have been working on his case with a lawyer in Decatur, Illinois. His uncle is willing to make a payment of twenty-four thousand dollars to prevent being prosecuted for misappropriation of funds on that estate. I will see you…"

Barton dropped the letter to his lap.

"Now, how does that news strike you?"

"I can't believe it real," gasped Burke, rubbing his forehead. "But I am more glad for you than for myself. You will have an immense fortune, won't you?"

Smiling into the faces of the two radiant girls, Old Barton drew Lorna to his side and, reaching forward, tugged at the hand of Mary.

"In my two dear girls, safe and happy, I have a greater wealth for my old age than the National City Bank could pay me, Burke. Lorna has told me of her experience and her escape when all escape seemed hopeless. She has learned that the sensual pleasures of one side of New York's glittering life are dross and death. In the books and silly plays she has read and seen it was pictured as being all song and jollity. Now she knows how sordid and bitter is the draught which can only end, like all poison, in one thing. God bless you, my boy, and you, my girls!"

Bobbie shook the old man's hand, and then remembered the unpleasant duty still before him.

"We must get down town as soon as possible," syd he. "Come, won't you go with us, Mary?"

The two girls put on their hats and together they traveled to the distant police station as rapidly as possible. It was a bitter ordeal for Lorna, whose strength was nearly exhausted. The welts on her shoulders from Shepard's whip brought the tears to her eyes. As they reached the station house the girl became faint. The matron and Mary had to chafe her hands and apply other homely remedies to keep her up for the task of identifying the woman who had been captured.

"Now, Burke," began Sawyer, "I have been saving Trubus for a surprise. He has been locked up in my private office, and still doesn't know exactly how we have caught him. I've broken the letter of the rules by forbidding him to telephone anyone until you came. I guess it is important enough, in view of our discovery, for me to have done this – he can call up his lawyer as soon as we have confronted him with Clemm and this young girl. Bring me the phonograph records."

They went into his private office, where White was guarding Trubus.

"How much longer am I to be subject to these Russian police methods?" demanded Trubus, with an oath.

"Quiet, now, Mr. Purity League," said Sawyer, "we are going to have ladies present. You will soon be allowed to talk all you want. But I warn you in advance that everything you say will be used as evidence against you."

"Against me – me, the leading charity worker of our city!" snorted Trubus, but he watched the door uneasily.

"Bring in the young ladies, Burke," directed Captain Sawyer.

Bobbie returned with Mary and Lorna. Trubus started perceptibly as he observed the new telephone girl whom his wife had induced him to employ that day.

Sawyer nodded again to Burke.

"Now the go-between." He turned to Mary. "Do you know this man, Miss Barton?"

The name had a strangely familiar sound to Trubus. He wondered uneasily.

"He is William Trubus, president of the Purity League. I worked for him to-day."

"Do you recognize this man?" was queried, as Clemm shuffled forward, with the assistance of Burke's sturdy push.

"This is the one who was embracing the other telephone girl. But he did not stay there long. I never saw him before that, to my recollection."

"What do you know about this man, Officer 4434?" asked the captain. Clemm fumbled with his handcuffs, looking down in a sheepish way to avoid the malevolent looks of Trubus.

"He is known as John Clemm, although we have found a police record of him under a dozen different aliases. He formerly ran a gambling house, and at different times has been involved in bunco game and wire-tapping tricks. He is one of the cleverest crooks in New York. In the present case he has been the go-between for this man Trubus, who, posing as a reformer to cover his activities, has kept in touch with the work of the Vice Trust, managed by Clemm. They had a dictagraph and a mechanical pencil register which connected Trubus's office with Clemm's."

"It's a lie!" shouted Trubus, furiously. "Some of these degraded criminals are drawing my famous and honored name into this case to protect themselves. It is a police scheme for notoriety."

"You'll get the notoriety," retorted Sawyer. "There is a young man who is taking notes for the biggest paper in New York. He has verified every detail. They'll have extras on the streets in fifteen minutes, for this is the biggest story in years. You are cornered at last, Trubus. Send in the rest of those people arrested in that house owned by Trubus." The woman was brought in with the others of the gang who had been apprehended in the old house.

"Now, Mr. Trubus, this woman rented from you and paid a very high rental. The man Shepard was killed in resisting arrest. We have rounded up Baxter, Craig, Madame Blanche and a dozen others of your employees. Have you anything to say?"

Trubus whirled around and would have struck Clemm had not White intervened.

"You squealer! You've betrayed me!"

"No, I didn't!" cried Clemm, shrinking back. "I swear I didn't!"

Sawyer reached for the phonograph records and held them up with a laconic smile.

"There's no use in accusing anyone else, Trubus. You're your own worst enemy, for these records, with your own dictagraph as the chief assistant prosecutor, have trapped you."

Trubus raised his hands in terror and his iron nerve gave way completely.

"Oh, my God!" he cried. "What will my wife and daughter think?"

"You should have figured that out when you started all this," retorted Sawyer. "Take them into the cells, and we'll have them arraigned at Night Court. Make out the full reports now, men."

The prisoners were led out.

Trubus turned and begged with Sawyer for a little time.

"Let me tell my wife," he pleaded. "I don't want any one else to do it."

"You stay just where you are, until I am through with you. You're getting war methods now, Trubus – after waging war from ambush for all this time. Burke, you had better have the young ladies taken home. Go up with them. Use the automobile outside. You can have the evening off as soon as we get through the arraignment at court."

It took an hour before the first charges could be brought to the Magistrate, through whose hands all cases must first be carried. The sisters decided to stay and end their first ordeal with what testimony was desired. This was sufficient for the starting of the wheels of justice. Trubus had called up his lawyer, who was on hand with the usual objections and instructions. But he was held over until the day court, without bail.

"Only let me go home, and break the news to my wife and daughter," begged the subdued man. "Oh, I beg that one privilege."

The judge looked at Captain Sawyer, who nodded.

"I will send a couple of men up with him, your honor. I understand his wife is a very estimable lady. It will be a bitter blow to her."

"All right. You will have to go in the custody of the police. But I will not release you on bail."

Bobbie and the girls had already sped on their way to the happy Barton home. Trubus, under the watchful eyes of two policemen and with his lawyer, lost no time in returning to his mansion.

As he rang the bell the butler hurried to the door in a frightened manner.

"It can't be true, sir, wot the pypers say, can it?" he gasped. But Trubus forced his way past, followed by the attorney and his two guards.

In the beautiful drawing-room he saw two maids leaning over the Oriental couch. They were trying to quiet his daughter.

"Why, Sylvia, my child," he cried.

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed the girl, forcing herself free from the restraining hands of the servants. She laughed shrilly as she staggered toward her father. Her eyes were wide and staring with the light of madness. "Here's father! Dear father!"

Trubus paled, but caught her in his arms.

"My poor dear," he began.

"Oh, look, father, what it says in the papers. We missed you – ha, ha! – and the newsboys sold us this on the street. Look, father, there's your picture. He, he! And Ralph bought it and brought it to me."

She staggered and sank half-drooping in his arms. Her head rolled back and her eyes stared wildly at the ceiling. Her mad laughter rang out shrilly, piercing the ears of her miserable father. The two policemen and the lawyer watched the uncanny scene.

"Ha, ha! Ralph read it, and he's gone. He wouldn't marry me now, he said, – ha, ha! Father! Who cares? Oh, it's so funny!" She broke from her father's hold and ran into the big dining room, pursued by the sobbing maids.

"She's gone crazy as a loon," whispered one of the policemen to the other.