WAS HIS OBJECT MURDER?
Jack Gallagher Calls on King
and Creates a Disturbance.
JACK GALLAGHER
(From a sketch made in the Police Matron's Room at Central Station Yesterday Afternoon
Following his vicious inclinations, Jack Gallagher attempted to assault Albert King, a reporter for The Journal, who is lying seriously injured as the result of a previous attack made upon him by Gallagher, in Mr. King's apartments at 720 East Fifteenth street yesterday morning at 5 o'clock. Failing in his first attempt to satiate his brutal desires because of arrest, Gallagher returned to Mr. King's rooms after having been released on an $11 bond, and again tried to force entrance into the room, uttering violent threats while trying to break in the door. Again he was arrested, but this time he was held without bond, because he was taken before a police officer who knew his duty.
Shortly after 5 o'clock yesterday morning Gallagher went to the hotel in which Mr. King is staying and asked Mrs. Etta Condon, the proprietress, to show him to Mr. King's room. Mrs. Condon replied that it was too early for visitors, especially too early for a sick man to be awakened. Gallagher and a friend who had gone to the hotel with him insisted, saying that they were very intimate friends of Mr. King from St. Louis, and that they only had an hour to stay in Kansas City.
Mr. King, who is well known in Kansas City, had been receiving many visits from friends since he was injured; so Mrs. Condon said that she would see if Mr. King would see them.
NURSE ORDERED HIM OUT.
Gallagher did not wait until she had awakened the injured man, but brushed past her and stood over his bedside. Mr. King was aroused and turning in bead, saw his former assailant.
"Hello, Albert. How do you feel about it?" asked Gallagher.
"I feel pretty tough since you got through with me," replied King, "and I don't want to talk to you. Get out of here."
"I want to introduce my friend, Mike O'Brien, to you before I go," replied Gallagher, beckoning to the friend who had remained in the doorway. "You remember Mike, don't you, Al?"
King replied that he might have seen O'Brien before but did not recall the circumstance. Then he ordered them out of the room, saying that he did not wish to have anything to do with them. By this time Miss Mayme Lefler, Mr. Kin's nurse, had returned to the room. Noticing that her patient did not treat his visitors in a cordial manner, she bent over them and asked who they were.
Upon being told that one of them was Jack Gallagher she ordered them from the room. Gallagher stood and laughed at her until she finally pushed him towards the doors.
"Oh, I'll step outside and let you all talk it over for a minute," said he; "but I'm goin' to stay here till I see your finish," addressing the last remark to Mr. King.
Once the bully was out of the room, Miss Lefler locked the door and writing a note for passers-by, telling them to call the police station for help, she slipped to the open window ready to drop it out on the street.
Meanwhile Mrs. Condon had gone downstairs to a telephone and called the police. She was followed by O'Brien.
PACED THE HALLWAY.
Mrs. Condon returned to her hotel and saw Gallagher pacing up and down the hallway, bellowing out his mad threats to the closed door. Soon he stopped his loud talking and hid behind a turn in the hall. Every time a door would open or close he would hasten to Mr. King's door to see if King had left the room or if he might be caught in the act of leaving. Mrs. Condon tried to argue with Gallagher, but her words had no effect. Then she tried threats and told Gallagher that if he did not go she would call for help.
"Don't you dare call for help you--" he rasped between his closed teeth. "If you do I'll fix you," and he shook his fist in Mrs. Condon's face.
Just then Officer James Mulloy was seen hurrying across the street. He had been notified by the operator at No. 4 police station that Gallagher was threatening Mr. King. Miss Lefler called out to him and the officer hastened up the steps. When he reached the hallway he heard Gallagher threaten Mrs. Condon. Approaching Gallagher, the patrolman told him to come with him to the police station.
"It will take four of you to take me there," boasted the bully, as he began to beat and kick on Mr. King's door.
"Not this morning," said the officer as he dragged Gallagher to the head of the stairs. There they were met by three officers who had gone to the house with the patrol wagon from the Walnut street police station. Once in the patrol wagon Gallagher quited down.
When he was taken before Patrolman Gus Metzinger, acting desk sergeant, he was charged with disturbing the peace and locked up. His friend, O'Brien, pleaded with Officer Metzinger for his release on bond, saying that he would see that Jack went directly home and did not bother King again. The officer graciously complied and made the bond $11, which Gallagher himself deposited.
Twenty minutes afterwards Gallagher was back at Mr. King's door, demanding entrance. As Gallagher hurried up the hotel steps he was healed by Mrs. Condon, who tried to get him to go back. Finding that her p leas were of no avail she called out in a loud voice so that King could just hear her, "Jack Gallagher, you get out of this house at once."
KING WAS ARMED THIS TIME.
But Gallagher thrust her aside and went directly to the door of King's room. Miss Lefler had locked the door and helped King to a sitting posture in the bed. Armed with a large revolver which had been secured after the first disturbance, King sat ready for his assailant should he manage to break through the door.
Gallagher was demanding entrance, but he got no answer from behind the door. Through the door Mr. King and his nurse could hear Mrs. Condon pleading with him to desist in his bestial endeavors, saying that Mr. King was not in the room and that he had gone home immediately after Gallagher's first visit.
But Gallagher would not be satisfied. He demanded that the door be unlocked. Mrs. Condon replied that the maid had the keys and that he would have to wait until she could be found.
Inside the room, Albert King sat in bed with the revolver pointed at the door.
"I am going to shoot through the door at him," he told his nurse.
"No, don't do that," she cautioned, "you might hit Mrs. Condon. You can't tell just where she might be standing.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Condon was standing between Gallagher and the door, keeping him from reaching the knob as he had attempted. For five minutes they stood at the door and argued whether or not King was in the room.
"Haven't you enough trouble already?" asked the woman of Gallagher.
"Yes, but King and The Journal have given it all to me, and now I'm going to give King his. He and The Journal run the whole police department, and they have put me down and out, so it's me or King now."
"Well, he's gone home now, out on Wabash avenue, so you can't find him here. You had better go on and leave me alone."
"I don't believe King has gone, I'm going to see, anyhow."
WAS READY TO SHOOT.
The it occurred to Gallagher to look over the transom and see for himself.
"Stand clear of the door," wh ispered Mr. King to Miss Lefler. "The minute his head comes up over that transom I'm going to shoot. I believe that I will be justified in doing so."
Gallagher grasped hold of the knob, with one hand upon the top of the door, which he with his great height could easily reach. He was just in the act of swinging up to the transom when Patrolman W. K. Latcham came bounding up the stairs. He had been called by H. F. Hollecker, a saloonkeeper at 716 East Fifteenth street.
"You're under arrest, Gallagher," he called, being warned by Mrs. Condon that Mr. King was inside the door waiting to shoot at the first opportunity. That stopped Gallagher, and probably saved his life; for if his head had appeared above the transom Mr. King says that he would surely have shot.
Then Gallagher began to beg to get inside the door or to look over the transom. By signs only Mrs. Condon had told Officer Latcham that Mr. King was in the room waiting for a sight of Jack Gallagher. The officer would not allow him to climb up the door.
"You've got to come with me," said the officer, "and you've got to come at once. You know I'm able to take you and take you alone, so come along and behave."
GALLAGHER KNEW HIS MASTER.
Officer Latcham said afterwards: "The coward began to crawl like a whipped cur and came right along, not giving a bit of trouble. I did not even have to draw my revolver on him. When we got downstairs we found the patrol wagon waiting for us and nothing else happened."
At the station the day shift of police had come on and Sergeant Halligan booked Gallagher for disturbing the peace and refused to allow him to be released on bond. He was taken to police headquarters with the rest of the prisoners who had been arrested during the night.
Gallagher said that he would not go in the patrol wagon with the rabble, but he found out that the officers were determined that he should and soon stopped his bullying and took his seat in the wagon beside a drunken man.
"S-a-y," was the word used by Gallagher when he was brought before Theodore Remley, acting police judge.
"Now you keep quiet until your time comes," remonstrated Judge Remley.
"All right, judge," Gallagher replied in his blustering, bullying manner. "I suppose you are going to fine me because Albert King said for you to."
After James Mulloy, the policeman making the arrest, Miss Lefler, the nurse, and several witnesses had told their stories to the court, Gallagher asked permission to ask questions of Miss Lefler.
His first question was so insulting and foreign to the case that Judge Remley told her not to answer.
"That's right," Gallagher snarled at the judge, "you take away my rights after convicting me on their testimony. Now fine me if you dare to."
"Your fine is $500," replied the judge.
"How about signing a personal bond' asked Gallagher.
"Wait a minute, Gallagher, I have another case against you," Cliff Langsdale, the city attorney, said as Gallagher was being led back to the holdover.
"That's right, stick me, fine me another $500, the police and papers are against me and I guess you are, too."
A few necessary steps required by law and Judge Remley levied a fine of $500 on the second charge of disturbing the peace.
Looking over towards the table occupied by the newspaper men, Gallagher said: "I know when the police reporters leave the station They leave here at 2:45." Swearing vengeance against the police and the newspapers, Gallagher was placed in the holdover, later to be removed to the matron's room.
