The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  He read the letter three times before unwrapping the package that accompanied it. La Scala d’amore (The Ladder of Love) was an octavo volume of 168 pages, wide-margined and beautifully set in Aldine type. Eagerly Stephen riffled through the pages, snatching a title here, a sentence there. One essay, “The Pears of Augustine,” particularly fascinated him. He read the opening paragraph, translating freely from Quarenghi’s flexible Italian. The essay told of Augustine’s boyish prank—how, with a band of “lewd companions” he pillaged a pear tree in his native village, took great loads of the fruit, and flung it to the hogs. Normal enough for boys in any climate, comments Quarenghi. But thirty years later the saint is still lamenting the theft of those pears. “O Lord, my God, I inquire what in that theft delighted me,” he cries over and over in his Confessions. And now Quarenghi begins unraveling a skein of fine argument. “Augustine’s rapined pear tree and its penitential aftermath cut to the very quick of the saint’s character, and reveal in a blossomy flash the psychic travail of all who climb the ladder of love.”

  Emphatically not to be gulped down, thought Steve. He spent that evening and the next reading in Quarenghi’s book. Then late in the third night, he came to a decision.

  “I will translate La Scala d’amore into English,” he said aloud and quite suddenly. He had no other motive than the literary challenge of rekindling in his own language the ardent flame of Quarenghi’s thought. He seized a pencil, began translating the title essay, “The Ladder of Love.” To render its precise color and meaning was like trying to pick up globules of quicksilver between thumb and forefinger. At the end of two hours, Stephen had an imperfect page—the beginning of an affectionate labor that went on in his room every night after the work of the day was done.

  ON A particularly handsome June afternoon in 1916, Dennis Fermoyle stared open-eyed at the ceiling of the operating room of St. Joseph’s Hospital while Dr. John Byrne excised the ulcered saphenous vein of the motorman’s right leg. The vein had ruptured that morning, and Din had been rushed to St. Joseph’s for an emergency operation. The pain was nothing to the elder Fermoyle. His physical safety was in the hands of an able son-in-law, and his spiritual well-being had long ago been consigned to the care of the Holy Family. Nevertheless, Din had a worry, and it was this worry that he now communicated to his priest-son, standing beside his bed.

  “Watch over Marty Timmins,” was Din’s injunction to Stephen. “Like a good boy now, Steve, see that he doesn’t knock down any company nickels.”

  Din enjoined in vain. Two days later the heavy hand of Greasy McNabb fell on Marty Timmins’ thin shoulder. “Come along,” said Greasy, with the spotter’s relish at having finally caught his man. “Manager Bailey’s waiting to see you. Like myself, he’s been waiting a long time.”

  They clapped Marty in jail on a charge of grand larceny, and fixed his bail at twenty-five hundred dollars. Stephen carried the bad news to Dennis Fermoyle.

  “Go down and plead with Bailey,” Din urged his son. “Explain the cause of Marty’s little slip-up and say that I’ll guarantee his behaving when I get back on the job.”

  Stephen got a fairly accurate notion of what was in store for him when General Manager R. W. Bailey kept him waiting forty minutes in his anteroom. Mr. Bailey did not rise or greet the young priest by word, sign, or even a grunt when he was finally admitted into the presence. As a freethinker and stanch follower of Ingersoll, Mr. Ralph Waldo Bailey had two ideas about the Romish clergy: (1) maidens were ravished in the confessional by priests; (2) maidens were ravished by priests. Mr. Bailey furthermore resented the fact that Father Fermoyle would take up much valuable time pleading for that sniveling, pint-sized nickel thief, Marty Timmins, who was now languishing without bail in the local dungeon, and could languish there, for all Mr. Bailey cared, until the grand jury met in September.

  “I’ve come to ask what can be done in the case of Martin Timmins,” Stephen began.

  “Wasting your breath,” snapped Mr. Bailey.

  “The facts surrounding this case are worth considering, Mr. Bailey. Marty is an old employee, and this is his first offense.”

  “The man’s been knocking down nickels for years,” countered Bailey. “We’ve just caught up with him, that’s all. The company intends to prosecute to the full extent of the law. Nothing you can say or do will get this man off.”

  Stephen caught the implacable note of hatred in the manager’s voice. “You’re pretty sure of that, aren’t you, Mr. Bailey?”

  “Dead sure,” said Bailey. He slapped some papers on his desk. “And now, sir, I’m a busy man. Good day.”

  In the street, Stephen boiled over. “Mr. R. W. Bailey isn’t going to get away with this!” All very fine and indignant—but how begin to euchre the highhanded Mr. Bailey, who held all the cards and Marty, too?

  For the first time in his life Stephen felt bewildered by a set of facts. Here was a man in jail: exactly how did one go about getting him out? The ground was unfamiliar; the procedures new and strange.

  I need advice, thought Stephen. A lawyer might help. Do I know any lawyers?

  Georgie! George Fermoyle, the night-school lawyer who worked by day on the fish pier. George should know something about these matters. Half an hour later Stephen Fermoyle was picking his way among the lobster pots on Long Wharf, looking for his younger brother. He found George, stripped to the waist, repacking and icing a shipment of Maine lobsters. Independent, hard-working George! Another year on Long Wharf, another year of night school, and he would take his bar exams.

  “Salve, advocate!” cried Stephen.

  “Stuffy!” exclaimed George. “What are you doing down here? Anything wrong with Dad?”

  “The old boy’s fine. It’s his side-kick Marty that’s in trouble. I need some legal advice, Gug.” Stephen told of Marty’s dereliction and Manager Bailey’s hard heart. “Now just where do I begin, Counselor?”

  George Fermoyle tossed a chicken lobster into a barrel, covered it with a scoopful of cracked ice. “Easy. First you bail your man out—”

  “Wait a minute. By canon law, priests aren’t allowed to go bail for anyone.”

  “Interesting idea.” The student in George was wondering how that got started. “Then get someone else. Bail commissioners do it for a fee.”

  “Fine. Except for twenty-five hundred dollars, we’ve got Marty bailed out. What happens next?”

  With judicial detachment, George packed some seaweed into the barrel. “Next, he comes before the grand jury for indictment. And make no mistake, he’ll be indicted all right. Every member of the grand jury probably owns stock in the Boston Streetcar Company.”

  Stephen’s spirit was damper than the seaweed in his brother’s hand. “No way to stop the indictment?”

  “Tamper with a grand jury? That’s bad, Stuffy.” George tossed in another lobster. “Now the way I’d handle it if it were my case, I’d let the grand jury indict. Then after that august body had expressed its property-holding indignation, I’d work a little psychology on the D.A.”

  “Psychology? D.A.?” Stephen was floundering in strange waters.

  “Sure. No district attorney likes these public-utility cases. You can see why—big corporation bears down on little runt to get a nickel back. Doesn’t look good.” George went on scooping ice and seaweed. “Whereas if all this were set in a favorable light before a smart prosecutor, he might never bring Marty’s case to trial.” Doubt beset George at this point. “Still, with a guy like Launceford Chalmers pressing the case …”

  “Who’s Launceford Chalmers?” asked Stephen.

  “A big mogul in the Streetcar Company … a tough man to shave.”

  More ice, more lobsters, more seaweed. And Marty still in the toils, unbailed, his case studded with legal quiddities and contingent ifs, ands, and buts. All very chilling.

  “So that’s what they call ‘due process of law,’” murmured Steve. “I never realized the ins and outs of it before. Well, thanks for the legal ad
vice, George. Now that I know where we stand, I’ll rustle around for Marty’s bail.”

  George Fermoyle’s sea-blue eyes read the concern in his brother’s face. “There’s another way of handling it, Stuff. You could save yourself a lot of wear and tear by mentioning the case to a certain friend of yours.”

  “Who?”

  “Cornelius J. Deegan.”

  “Corny? What can he do about it?”

  George started icing another barrel of lobsters. “What couldn’t he do? Next to Number One himself, Corny has more political say-so than anyone in Boston. D.A.’s, mayors, even street-railway lawyers are but clay in his hand.”

  “No!”

  “Ask anyone. Better yet, ask Homomagnus Deegan himself. Here’s a nickel. There’s a pay station at the end of the wharf.”

  In a daze Stephen called Corny’s number. The contractor-Knight himself answered.

  “I want to see you, Corny,” said Stephen.

  “And what’s to prevent? Come right over, Father.”

  CORNY’S HEADQUARTERS in Pemberton Square was a ground-floor layout so accessible to the street that it seemed to Stephen—and indeed was—little more than a vestibule off the sidewalk. The outer office had the look of a public waiting room; a stale brown smell hung on the air, and high brass cuspidors quivered under a steady drumfire from the legmen, bagmen, and camp followers of Cornelius J. Deegan, Knight of St. Sylvester, Boss of Bosses, and contractor with full portfolio to the city of Boston.

  There was a momentary cessation of spitting as Stephen entered. Regard for the cloth caused some of the men to reach for the brim of their hats; more could scarcely be expected, since the hats were of the iron-pot type which, once jammed on in the morning, could not be removed till the wearer lay down to sleep at night. Stephen approached a purple-faced, sergeant-at-armish fellow leaning against a door on the further side of the room.

  “Is there something I can do for you, Father?” asked the man, getting his suety shoulders respectfully off the door panel.

  “Please tell Mr. Deegan that Father Fermoyle is here.”

  A business of opening door slightly and thrusting derby through crack reminded Stephen of the quick-change vaudeville act in which the head goes in Bill Sykes and comes out George Washington. But the purple face that went into the crack came out unchanged.

  “The boss’ll see you.” He flung open the door a full eighteen inches, and Stephen squeezed through into the presence of Corny Deegan.

  The contractor-Knight, sitting comfortably in two chairs, arose as Father Stephen entered. His freckled hod of a hand was out, and his face glowed like a kiln-fresh brick. It glowed with good reason—two good reasons. First, he was seeing Stephen (almost pleasure enough for one day), and second, the city council had just accepted Corny’s $900,000 bid for the paving of Causeway Street with granite cobblestones. “Accepted” was scarcely the word; Corny had snatched the contract bald-headed from a New York paving company that had neglected the little matter of getting a pocket majority in the city council.

  News of Din’s operation had already reached Corny. A bonfire of candles lighted by his own hand was blazing at this very moment before the shrine of St. Anthony in the Cathedral; and on a more material level, tins of pipe tobacco, fine cut-plug, and boxes of cigars were making the journey from S. S. Peirce’s humidors to Din’s bedside.

  “He’ll have the leap of his old hurling days in that leg when he gets up again,” said Corny reassuringly. “So rub the worried look off your high forehead, lad.”

  “It’s not Din that’s worrying me. It’s Marty Timmins.” Briefly Stephen told of Marty’s unbailed plight. “Din said something about the Whiteboys of Hoodie Head marching against the Orangemen.”

  “March, they shall,” said Corny. He bellowed the single word “Hector” into a side office about as big as a butler’s pantry, where a pallid hare of a man sat on a high stool, scratching away at a ledger. The man hopped down off the stool and came running as though the beagles were after him.

  “Hector, this is Father Fermoyle.” Corny inserted a footnote of explanation: “Hector’s a hard-shell Baptist, Father, but more to the point, he’s the best double-entry bookkeeper in Boston. Double entry, ha-ha … eh, Hector?”

  Hector scrunched up his high shoulders in appreciation of a good thing often said. What’s Corny got on this fellow? thought Stephen. Embezzlement at least, the way he hops. Stephen’s speculations were interrupted by a businesslike change in the Knight’s manner.

  “Hector, what mortgages have we on hand?”

  “Residential, city of Boston and suburbs, seventeen parcels totaling $195,670,” recited Hector. “Business properties, Boston proper, eight parcels amounting to $210,500.”

  “Pick me out a nice $5000 residential, top cut,” said Corny.

  Hector darted into his office and reappeared with a warranty mortgage in his hand.

  “Best bail in the world.” Corny tapped the document as though it were a sovereign cure for all ills. “Ask Joe Faye to step in here.”

  Joe Faye turned out to be the suety twin of the doorkeeper. Same iron hat, sliding manner, and blue veins on bulb of nose. A type.

  “Joe, there’s a friend of ours—Father Fermoyle’s and mine—lying in the Suffolk County lockup,” said Corny.

  “The one we supplied gravel for?” asked Joe Faye, a kind of horror in his voice.

  “The same. They’ve trumped up a charge of larceny against him. Marty Timmins is the name. One of our own.” Corny held out the mortgage bond. “Trot down to the clerk of the court and post this bail for the dear man. Find out if he needs any small thing, some groceries, or a pint maybe, to cheer him up when he steps out onto the hot street. And tell him that the Whiteboys said not to worry.”

  Joe Faye stowed the bond into the inner breast pocket of his cardigan, buttoned it to his neck, and was off.

  The whisking celerity of the business amazed Stephen. “Corny, you’re a deus ex machina, a ‘god from the machine,’ as the Greeks used to say.”

  Corny’s hair crackled with pleasure at Stephen’s praise. “In Boston we give it a shorter name, Stevie. The ‘fix.’ Watch me now, while I pin a large farewell bow on the case of Marty vs. the knocked-down nickel.”

  Corny unlocked the top drawer of his desk and consulted a small black book, too confidential, apparently, for Hector’s double-entry gaze. “Tackle we have for every fish, Stevie. I’ll bait this hook myself.” He thumbed through his private directory. “Ah, here’s the speckled beauty we’re looking for. …”

  The Knight of St. Sylvester popped a black cough drop into his mouth. “Sweetens the pipes,” he explained, reaching for his phone.

  “This is Cornelius J. Deegan,” he announced clearly, after getting the number. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Launceford Chalmers.”

  Stephen recognized the name, unfamiliar to him an hour ago, as that of the Streetcar Company’s official. A large fish indeed. What kind of hook would Corny be baiting for him now?

  “Top of the afternoon to you, Launce.” Corny’s tongue was pivoted in the middle and greased at both ends with butter. “I have news for you, news cheering in nature, I think you’ll say.” Corny let his voice find a confidential level. “The city council has just voted a new tenyear issue of paving bonds, par 100 to yield 7.3. We’re letting a few of our old friends in at 65.” Corny paused to let the good tidings resound. “Write you down for the usual? Double the usual? A pleasure, Launceford.”

  Corny grimaced at Stephen, made a hooking motion with his forefinger. “And while I’ve got your ear, Launce … there’s an unfortunate case … my old friend and countryman, Martin Timmins … conductor for twenty years on your Medford run … seems to be in a bit of a jam … I think your Mr. Bailey can tell you the whole story. Mrs. Deegan and myself would take it as a personal favor if the company … Oh, restitution, of course. Thank you, Mr. Chalmers.”

  Corny hung up. “Well,” his grin asked, “and what do you think of us now?�
��

  Stephen shook his head in puzzlement and distaste. “Is—is this the way things are done in Boston?”

  “It’s the way they’re done the world over, Steve,” said the contractor cheerfully. “Boston, Washington, Rome—anywhere you go.”

  The Deegan formula for universal fixery brought a protest from Stephen. “I don’t like it, Corny.”

  “What don’t you like?”

  Stephen had some trouble stating the precise nature of his scruples. After all, he had come here for the express purpose of getting Marty (an acknowledged thief) out of jail. And now, mission accomplished, he was suffering moral qualms. Why?

  “I think what bothers me most”—Stephen tried hard to put his finger on the sore spot—”is the bribe you offered Launceford Chalmers just now.”

  “Bribe is too harsh a word, Steve. In politics we call it ‘a little favor.’ Three little favors gets you one big one.” As if to apologize for his thick-skinned realism, Corny spread his hands, palms upward, across the desk. “Callouses are nothing to be proud of, Steve, and they’d be out of place on the hands of a young priest. But in a life of toil and battle, ordinary men sometimes develop them. They’re the mark of Adam, you might say, and I don’t know that they’ll ever disappear.”

  Corny wound up his little homily by pulling a fat butter-gold watch from his pocket. “Come along, Father, hop into my new Caddy, and we’ll drive over to see Din the Down-Shouter while he can’t lift hand or foot against us.”

  DIN’S LEG healed, but the leap of his old hurling days never came back into it. And when he returned to duty, his beloved No. 3 was no more. They gave him a brand-new, sixteen-wheeled monster, a one-man job fitted up with a mechanical contrivance for taking nickels at the front door. With Marty gone (Corny Deegan gave him a berth as timekeeper—no money to handle, out of temptation’s way), Din’s voice was not the joyous organ it had been. He continued to sing “The False Bride of O’Rourke,” but pianissimo and sadly, as if commenting on the passage of temporal loves. Yet, he still lofted his hat proudly a dozen times a day as he passed the center door of the Immaculate Conception Church, where, on the high altar within, dwelt the Everlasting Presence—Dennis Fermoyle could not tell you how.