was really elsewhere than on the confession that he was getting.
Although he did not ask us, I knew that he was thinking only of
Margaret Ashton and how to regain the ground that he had
apparently lost with her. Still, he said nothing about the
photographs. I wondered whether it was because of his confidence
that Kennedy would pull him through.

"You know," he whispered, "I have been working with my assistants
on Dopey Jack ever since the conviction, hoping to get a
confession from him, holding out all sorts of promises if he would
turn state's evidence and threats if he didn't. It all had no
effect. But Murtha's death seems to have changed all that. I don't
know why--whether he thinks it was due to foul play or not, for he
won't say anything about that and evidently doesn't know--but it
seems to have changed him."

Carton said it as though at last a ray of light had struck in on
an otherwise black situation, and that was indeed the case.

"I suppose," suggested Craig, "that as long as Murtha was alive he
would rather have died than say anything that would incriminate
him. That's the law of the gang world. But with Murtha no longer
to be shielded, perhaps he feels released. Besides, it must begin
to look to him as though the organization had abandoned him and
was letting him shift pretty much for himself."

"That's it," agreed Carton. "He has never got it out of his head
that Kahn swung the case against him and I've been careful not to
dwell on the truth of that Kahn episode."