Mr. Tutt placed his hat, bottom side up, on the carpet and lowered himself into a huge leather armchair, furnished to the county by a political friend of Mr. Peckham and billed at four hundred per cent of the regular retail price. Then he reinserted the stogy between his lips and produced from his inside pocket a typewritten sheet.
"There's Watkins--murdered his stepmother--indicted seven months ago. Give you murder in the second?"
"I'll take it," assented Peckham, lighting a cigar in a businesslike manner. "What else you got?"
"Joseph Goldstein--burglary. Will you give him grand larceny in the second?"
"Sorry I can't oblige you, old top," he said regretfully. "He's called the King of the Fences. If I did, the papers would holler like hell. I'll make it any degree of burglary, though."
"Very well. Burglary in the third," agreed Mr. Tutt, jotting it down. "Then here's a whole bunch--five--indicted together for assault on a bartender."
"You can have third degree for the lot," grunted Peckham laconically.
"All right," said Mr. Tutt. "Now for the ones that are going to trial. Here's Jennie Smith, indicted for stealing a mandarin chain valued at sixty-five dollars up at Monahaka's. The chain's only worth about six-fifty and I can prove it. Monahaka don't want to go to trial because he knows I'll show him up for the Oriental flimflammer that he is. But of course she took it. What do you say? I'll plead her to petty and you give her a suspended sentence? That's a fair trade."
"Sure," he said finally. "I'm agreeable. Only tell Jennie that next time I'll have her run out of town."
"I'll whisper it to her. Now then, here's Higgleby--"
"Bee--by--Higgleby," explained Mr. Tutt. "For bigamy. I want you to dismiss the indictment for me."
"Just because you never will!" Mr. Tutt assured him with earnestness. "And you might as well wipe him off the list."
"Anything the matter with the indictment?" asked the D.A. "Caput Magnus drew it. He's a good man, you know."
Mr. Tutt drew sententiously on his stogy.
"I would like to tell you all my secrets," he replied after a pause, "but I can't afford to. The indictment is in the usual form. But just between you and me, you'll never convict Higgleby as long as you live."