Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927
- Автор: Alexander R. W., Ames John
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“What did Stannistreet say to that?”
“He thought I was cracked, at first,” Ruggles replied; “but after he’d got it straight, he said they could run it off as fast as they liked.
“The dummy was in the chair at the desk and could do everything except smoke a cigarette, and Stannistreet himself was ready and would try not to hit you too hard when he domed you.”
“He forgot about that part of it,” I said, resentfully, for my head still ached. “Why did he have to soak me that way? Why didn’t he let me explain things to him and then have me wait in one of the other rooms or come home here?”
“Don’t you see,” Ruggles asked. “Stannistreet had to have a witness of what Markley did, and you, under all the circumstances, were the logical one.”
“Why?”
“Because Markley expected to find you there — he was sure you would be there — sure that Stannistreet would be sure you were Markley himself and would therefore capture you and after that be off his guard and in a position easy to kill. And, you see, Markley was only a couple of steps behind you, I mean behind us, when we reached Stannistreet’s apartment.”
“ ‘Us,’ you say,” I demanded. “What do you mean — ‘us’?”
“I was on the back of your taxi,” Ruggles said. “I came up the stairs only one turn behind you.”
“Followed me from Luigi’s all the way to Stannistreet’s, then let him beat me up that way, bind and gag me?”
“Yes, because, as you’ve said yourself, Dan, it was the only sure way we had of saving Stannistreet’s life, capturing Markley, and not having Markley blab the story of my past out to Stannistreet — Markley knew too much about me, Dan, altogether too much about me.”
“What Markley knows, you needn’t worry about any more,” I said, “for Markley’s dead.”
“Cottrell is not dead,” Ruggles said gravely; “neither is Branley, or Hilliard, or Mueller, and they know of me all that Markley knew. They know, and it is only fair that you should know: I was the ‘fixer’ for that gang. You know what that means.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to.”
“You’ll hear it, sooner or later, from one of the four if you don’t hear it from me,” Ruggles said unwillingly. “Those four crooks know enough about me to put me where I’ve put a good many men, and they won’t rest, to the end of their days, until they’ve ‘got’ me.”
“You should worry,” I said; “they’re beating it away from New York as fast as they can, at this moment, and they won’t show up here again in a dog’s age! You’ve nothing to fear from them, Ruggles! Besides, they ought to feel only gratitude toward you: in the old days, as Markley himself said, you got them out of many a bad hole.”
“Yes, I did that,” Ruggles admitted; “but they’ll hold me responsible for Stannistreet getting Markley; and I am responsible for that, though I did it only because Markley broke his word to me — you remember, I said I’d stand by him only on his promise not to try to kill Stannistreet.”
“Well, that lets you out, doesn’t it?”
“Not in their eyes — not in Hilliard’s Cottrell’s, Brantley’s, or Mueller’s; they’ll say I double crossed Markley, and they’ll come back here, all at the same time, or one by one, to get me. I’ve brought you into danger enough before this, old man, but it will be just a case of living from minute to minute from now on. You’d better leave me.”
“I’m not quitting.”
Ruggles’s powerful hand closed over my fingers. “I’m glad you’re not! Dan, remember this, though: I warned you.”
Fresh Fish! Fresh Fish!
by Joseph Fulling Fishman
Herein is exposed that little known but widely established institution of our american jails — the kangaroo court.
In spite of the fact that this sounds as though it may have been taken from a child’s book of animal verses, it is just a part of an old jail song. A “fresh fish” is merely a new prisoner coming into jail, while “kangaroo” refers to the kangaroo court, one of the most curious organizations existing anywhere in the civilized world. And not only curious but practically unknown to those outside of prisons and jails.
It would seem impossible that an organization known to hundreds of thousands of men who have been in jail, and which has existed in this country for many years, should be so little known by the world at large that no mention of it has ever got into an encyclopedia or dictionary.
It is a fact; nevertheless. In the New York Public Library I searched every dictionary and encyclopedia I could find. The only reference any of them contained to a kangaroo was that it was an animal of Australia which carried its young, in a pouch, and so on.
As a matter of fact, outside of books about jails, I have never seen the word in print, and dozens of authors and playwrights constantly writing stories about the underworld and underworld characters don’t even know that it exists.
Nothing could better illustrate what a “close corporation” the criminal class is, and why it is so difficult to those “on the outside” to understand the workings of the prisoner’s mind.
When a thing known to thousands and thousands of criminals can be kept from spreading to such an extent as to keep it out of the encyclopedias, it shows how really closemouthed the prisoner is about things in which he is interested.
For there are, in all probability, at least a thousand kangaroo courts in the United States. There are approximately three thousand county jails, and at a conservative estimate one-third of them have this organization existing among the prisoners.
In a few jails the sheriff or jail officials exercise a supervisory power over it, but in the vast majority the prisoners organize it, operate it, and mete out its punishments and penalties on the other prisoners without the slightest interference from the authorities.
The announced purpose of the kangaroo court, according to the jail authorities and the prisoners, is to maintain discipline and keep the institution in good condition. Sometimes it accomplishes these desirable ends.
In the majority of cases, however, it is simply an organization designed to levy tribute on the weaker prisoners or those known to have some money, and also for the purpose of providing amusement for the prisoners in order to while away the days, weeks, and even months of doing nothing.
The judge of the court is either the most popular or the most dominating among the prisoners. Perhaps the “toughest” would be the better word. For toughness is an asset not to be sneezed at when a man is in jail, as it undoubtedly saves him from considerable discomfort at the hands of the other prisoners.
He immediately appoints his assistants and the other court officers, these officers corresponding with the officers of a court on the outside. Sometimes the jail officials refuse to permit a kangaroo court to operate, but the majority of them look upon it as a help in maintaining discipline and keeping the jail clean and the prisoners contented.
More often than not it’s simply tolerated by lazy or indifferent jail officials because it relieves them of responsibility, although even this type of jailer often has to step in to prevent the injury of an unpopular prisoner at the hands of a brutal court.