Fredric Brown - The Second Fredric Brown Megapack

He himself had never testified, or even appeared, in a courtroom. And while he knew every important underworld character in a dozen cities, no member of the underworld knew him, except fleetingly, under some transient identity which he seldom resumed.

Now, over his morning coffee, Bela Joad read through his micrographer the two stories in the Sun-Tribune which had interested him. One concerned a case that had been one of his few failures, the disappearance—possibly the kidnapping—of Dr. Ernst Chappel, professor of criminology at Columbia University. The headline read NEW LEAD IN CHAPPEL CASE, but a careful reading of the story showed the detective that the lead was new only to the newspapers; he himself had followed it into a blind alley two years ago, just after Chappel had vanished. The other story revealed that one Paul (Gyp) Girard had yesterday been acquitted of the slaying of his rival for control of North Chicago gambling. Joad read that one carefully indeed. Just six hours before, seated in a beergarten in New Berlin, Western Germany, he had heard the news of that acquittal on the video, without details. He had immediately taken the first stratoplane to Chicago.

When he had finished with the micronews, he touched the button of his wrist model timeradio, which automatically attuned itself to the nearest timestation, and it said, just loudly enough for him to hear, “Nine-oh-four.” Chief Dyer Rand would be in his office, then.

Nobody noticed him as he left the superdrug. Nobody noticed him as he walked with the morning crowds along Randolph to the big, new Municipal Building at the corner of Clark. Chief Rand’s secretary sent in his name—not his real one, but one Rand would recognize—without giving him a second glance.

Chief Rand shook hands across the desk and then pressed the intercom button that flashed a blue not-to-be-disturbed signal to his secretary. He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across the conservatively small (one inch) squares of his mauve and yellow shirt. He said, “You heard about Gyp Girard being acquitted?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Rand pushed his lips out and pulled them in again. He said, “The evidence you sent me was perfectly sound, Joad. It should have stood up. But I wish you had brought it in yourself instead of sending it by the tube, or that there had been some way I could have got in touch with you. I could have told you we’d probably not get a conviction. Joad, something rather terrible has been happening. I’ve had a feeling you would be my only chance. If only there had been some way I could have got in touch with you—”

“Two years ago?”

Chief Rand looked startled. “Why did you say that?”

“Because it was two years ago that Dr. Chappel disappeared in New York.”

“Oh,” Rand said. “No, there’s no connection. I thought maybe you knew something when you mentioned two years. It hasn’t been quite that long, really, but it was close.”

He got up from behind the strangely-shaped plastic desk and began to pace back and forth the length of the office.

He said, “Joad, in the last year—let’s consider that period, although it started nearer two years ago—out of every ten major crimes committed in Chicago, seven are unsolved. Technically unsolved, that is; in five out of those seven we know who’s guilty but we can’t prove it. We can’t get a conviction.”

“The underworld is beating us, Joad, worse than they have at any time since the Prohibition era of seventy-five years ago. If this keeps up, we’re going back to days like that, and worse.”

“For a twenty-year period now we’ve had convictions for eight out of ten major crimes. Even before twenty years ago—before the use of the lie-detector in court was legalized, we did better than we’re doing now. ’Way back in the decade of 1970 to 1980, for instance, we did better than we’re doing now by more than two to one; we got convictions for six out of every ten major crimes. This last year, it’s been three out of ten.”

“And I know the reason, but I don’t know what to do about it. The reason is that the underworld is beating the lie-detector!”

Bela Joad nodded. But he said mildly, “A few have always managed to beat it. It’s not perfect. Judges always instruct juries to remember that the lie-detector’s findings have a high degree of probability but are not infallible, that they should be weighed as indicative but not final, that other evidence must support them. And there has always been the occasional individual who can tell a whopper with the detector on him, and not jiggle the graph needles at all.”

“One in a thousand, yes. But, Joad, almost every underworld big-shot has been beating the lie-detector recently.”

“I take it you mean the professional criminals, not the amateurs.”

“Exactly. Only regular members of the underworld—professionals, the habitual criminals. If it weren’t for that, I’d think—I don’t know what I’d think. Maybe that our whole theory was wrong.”

Bela Joad said, “Can’t you quit using it in court in such cases? Convictions were obtained before its use was legalized. For that matter, before it was invented.”

Dyer Rand sighed and dropped into his pneumatic chair again. “Sure, I’d like that if I could do it. I wish right now that the detector never had been invented or legalized. But don’t forget that the law legalizing it gives either side the opportunity to use it in court. If a criminal knows he can beat it, he’s going to demand its use even if we don’t. And what chance have we got with a jury if the accused demands the detector and it backs up his plea of innocence?”

“Very slight, I’d say.”

“Less than slight, Joad. This Gyp Girard business yesterday. I know he killed Pete Bailey. You know it. The evidence you sent me was, under ordinary circumstances, conclusive. And yet I knew we’d lose the case. I wouldn’t have bothered bringing it to trial except for one thing.”

“And that one thing?”

“ To get you here, Joad. There was no other way I could reach you, but I hoped that if you read of Girard’s acquittal, after the evidence you’d given me, you’d come around to find out what had happened.”

He got up and started to pace again. “Joad, I’m going mad. How is the underworld beating the machine? That’s what I want you to find out, and it’s the biggest job you’ve ever tackled. Take a year, take five years, but crack it, Joad.”

“Look at the history of law enforcement. Always the law has been one jump ahead of the criminal in the field of science. Now the criminals—of Chicago, anyway—are one jump ahead of us. And if they stay that way, if we don’t get the answer, we’re headed for a new dark age, when it’ll no longer be safe for a man or a woman to walk down the street. The very foundations of our society can crumble. We’re up against something very evil and very powerful.” Bela Joad took a cigarette from the dispenser on the desk; it lighted automatically as he picked it up. It was a green cigarette and he exhaled green smoke through his nostrils before he asked, almost disinterestedly, “Any ideas, Dyer?”

“I’ve had two, but I think I’ve eliminated both of them. One is that the machines are being tampered with. The other is that the technicians are being tampered with. But I’ve had both men and machines checked from every possible angle and can’t find a thing. On big cases I’ve taken special precautions. For example, the detector we used at the Girard trial; it was brand-new and I had it checked right in this office.” He chuckled. “I put Captain Burke under it and asked him if he was being faithful to his wife. He said he was and it nearly broke the needle. I had it taken to the courtroom under special guard.”