At two o’clock Tony, a mere chip tossed aimlessly hither and yon by eddies and cross currents, the only person in this melodrama of motive whose interests were not being considered by anybody, was arraigned at the bar and, without being consulted in the matter, heard Mr. Hogan, the fat, kindly lawyer whom his mother had retained to defend him, tell the judge that they were going to waive examination and consent to be held for the action of the grand jury.

“You see how it is, judge,” Hogan simpered.  “You’d have no choice but to hold my client on the officer’s testimony.  The easiest way is to waive examination and let the grand jury throw the case out of the window!”

Delany heard this announcement with intense relief, for it let him out.  It would relieve him from the dangerous necessity of testifying before Judge Harrison and he could later spill the case before the grand jury when called before that august body.  Moreover, he could tip off the district attorney in charge of the indictment bureau that the case was a lemon, and the latter would probably throw it out on his own motion.  The D.A.’s office didn’t want any more rotten cases to prosecute than it could help.  It seemed his one best bet, the only way to get his feet out of the flypaper.  What a mess for a few pieces of rotten beef!

“You understand what is being done, do you?” inquired the keen-faced judge sharply.  “You understand this means that unless you give bail you will have to stay in jail until the grand jury dismisses the case or finds an indictment against you?”

Underneath the cornice of the judge’s dais Hogan patted his arm, and Tony, glancing for encouragement at the big friendly face above him, whispered “Yes.”

So Tony went to the Tombs and was lodged in a cell next door to Soko the Monk, who had nearly beaten a Chinaman to death with a pair of brass knuckles, from whom he learned much that was exciting if not edifying.

Now, as Delany was wont to say for years thereafter, that damn Mathusek case just went bad on him.  He had believed that in the comparative secrecy of the inquisitorial chamber he could easily pretend that he had originally made an honest mistake and was no longer positive of the defendant’s identity, in which case when the grand jury threw out the case nobody would ever know the reason and no chickens would come home to roost on him.

But when the cop visited the office of Deputy Assistant District Attorney Caput Magnus the next morning, to inform him that this here window-breaking case was a Messina, he found Mr. Nathan Asche already solidly there present, engaged in advising Mr. Magnus most emphatically to the exact contrary.  Indeed the attorney was rhetorical in his insistence that this destruction of the property of law-abiding taxpayers must stop.