Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/60

40 got to be him! And—it's got to, whether or no, ain't it?"

A month before, Randolph Bronson—the city prosecuting attorney for whose unpunished murder Crowley was under fire—had dared to try to break up and send to the penitentiary the sixteen men who formed the most notorious and dangerous gambling "ring" in the city. It grew certain that some of the sixteen would stick at nothing to put the prosecutor out of the way. The chief of police particularly charged Crowley, therefore, to see to Bronson's safety in the North Side precinct, where the young attorney boarded. But Crowley had failed; for within twelve days of the warning, early one morning, Bronson had been found dead a block from his boarding house—murdered. Crowley had been unable to fix a clew upon a single one of the sixteen. He had confidently arrested them all at once, but after his stiffest "third degree" had to release them. Now, in desperation, he had rearrested Kanlan.

"Sure," said the desk sergeant, "Kanlan or some one's got to be guilty soon—whether or no. But if you ain't got the goods on Kanlan yet, maybe you'd want to talk to a lad that's waiting in front."

"Who is he? What does he know?"

"Trant's his name—from the university, he says. And he says he can pick our man."

"What is he—student?"

"He says some sort of perfesser."

"Professor!" Crowley half turned away.

"Not that kind, Ed." The desk sergeant bent one arm and tapped his biceps. "He's got plenty of this;