-Caveat Lector- An excerpt from: The Ohio Gang Charles L. Mee, Jr.�1981 M. Evans and Company, Inc. 216 East 49th Street New York, New York 10017 ISBN 0-87131-340-5 218 pps � out-of-print/one edition --[13]-- XXXVII. What Gaston Means Found Out MEANS SENT SEVERAL men at once to Marion, and working from grammar school up, they soon discovered two young women who had gone all through school with Nan. "These girls knew little or nothing at first hand of Nan Britton. They said�she was a prude, a stick, a frost. That she didn't care for boys." >From the young women, the detectives learned of several boys who had had "crushes" on Nan. The boys�by this time young men�" separately and candidly stated that Nan Britton never allowed any boy to take privileges." Everyone in Marion recalled Nan as a "good and virtuous girl," who might have kissed a boy�or, to be precise, allowed a boy to kiss her�but that was all. The investigators followed Nan's journey out into the world, interviewed her former landladies, found out what her expenses had been, what she had paid for room and board, where she had bought her clothes and what she had paid for them, where she had worked and what her salary had been, what she had earned and what she had spent, "almost to the penny." Means's men learned that Nan was a "very careful and prudent young woman." Her laundry bills were small�she did her own washing much of the time. She made sure her shoes were mended and did not splurge on shoes and clothes. She bought "only the barest necessities." The detectives learned that Nan was vivacious and popular, "but cared nothing for men." Many young men had sought her�all in vain. "One landlady reported that she had but one picture of a man in her room and that one picture was always on her dresser. We made a quick deduction." In short, Means concluded, "Nan Britton had no lover but Mr. Harding." She lived modestly, did her own laundry, had a winter coat dyed to save money, bought sparingly, paid her bills, and had "the respect and admiration of everybody who knew her." She was entirely faithful to Harding; it may even be that she loved him. This news was dreadful enough; but, what was worse, Means had managed to get into Nan's apartment in Chicago, and he had brought back some letters that Harding had written to Nan. When Means told Mrs. Harding about the letters, "she gazed at me in amazement.... Her frozen countenance for the moment forgot its mask of immobility. The muscles and nerves of her face worked. She swallowed hard once or twice." She could not speak. At last, when she asked to see them, Means said he could not show them to her. She had asked only for information, not for stolen goods. He would keep them. "Are you a machine�or a human being? Have you no heart in you? Don't you know I've got to have and see those letters?" Means resisted. Mrs. Harding walked up and down the room, her Spanish shawl, having slipped from her shoulders, dragging behind her on the floor. She insisted on seeing the letters. Means resisted still. "Go get me those letters," she screamed at him." I want to see those letters with my own eyes." In the end, of course, he gave them to her�forty-page and sixty-page letters, all tied together just as he had found them, "the same pink silk corset ribbon, the same knots�and all arranged in chronological order." Mrs. Harding grabbed one of the letters at random from the bundle as she asked Means to tell her just how and where he had found them. Means replied as she began to look at the first letter, but she heard nothing he said. Nor was she reading the letter she had taken from its envelope. She had glanced at it only and put it aside and had taken another and then another until all the letters were scattered on the table. She went on taking the letters from the envelopes, glancing at them frantically, taking up still another bundle and scattering it on the table. Her face, said Means, was as "white as chalk" and her hands "were like transparent wax." He decided to slip out and leave her with the letters, and as he went out of the room, he could hear her saying, "Could you believe it.... Oh-oh! . . ." pps. 194-196 ===== XXXVIII. No Escape "WARREN HARDING," THE Duchess declared another day to Gaston Means, having thought of a new way to escape the news that Means had brought her, "is not capable of having a child, therefore he is not the father of Nan Britton's child." "If sure of your premise," said the old deducer. "We have had no children. I have demonstrated my ability. I've had a living son by a former marriage. . . . The thing I want you to do-is to prove for me that Warren Harding cannot be the father of a child." Once again, Means's men hit the road. Harding had been so often troubled by his chronic indigestion that he had consulted a string of doctors. Evidently, he, too, had wondered whether he was capable of having a child: at least several of the doctors had examined him with a view to settling these doubts. Means acquired documents from a physician's office in Columbus, Ohio, and from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In the Johns Hopkins documents, "the chemical and microscopic tests were designated by a number." Both tests indicated that Harding could father a child. When Means broke the news to Mrs. Harding, she was adamant. "I don't care," she said, "if a million eminent specialists said he could be a father�I know it is not true." Means could not think what to say. "Wait!" said Mrs. Harding. "All I want now to confirm my own proof is a good look into the face of that child.... Your next assignment from me is this: bring that child here for me to see!" "Mrs. Harding ... you want to turn me into a kidnapper." Her face, said Means, "her face flamed. She was furious." "You won't do that?" "No. I won't." pps.197-198 ===== XXXIX. The King of the Bootleggers Cashes in His Chips REMUS WENT ON trial in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, flanked by six attorneys and thirteen of his employees who had been named as codefendants. He was confident and smiling. No one had been caught selling any liquor at the farm: on other matters, he was covered by permits and the provisions of the law. Unfortunately, on the first day of the trial, a sworn statement was introduced saying that at least one man had bought a case of whiskey at the farm. The next day, the wife of one of Remus's night watchmen testified that trucks came and went all the time transporting whiskey. On the third day, the government produced a string of witnesses who said they had bought whiskey at the farm. Remus was sentenced to two years at the federal penitentiary at Atlanta. "We will, of course, file our appeal," said Remus, "and I hope for better results if we can obtain a new trial." Within a few days, Remus was in Washington to see Jess Smith, and Remus was beginning to lose his patience. Had he known he was going to lose the case, he said, he would have pleaded guilty himself, taken all the blame, and made sure his thirteen employees did not have to go to jail. Smith was unperturbed. The court of appeals would surely reverse the verdict. If not, then a commutation of sentence would be forthcoming or a reversal in the Supreme Court. Remus had nothing to worry about. Jess had it on the authority of the attorney general that neither Remus nor any of his associates would ever be sent away to Atlanta. Remus put aside his worries, and to welcome in 1923, Remus invited a hundred couples to a New Year's Eve party. By this time, Remus's estate had been handsomely landscaped; the home had been furnished with antiques; the walls were hung with early American paintings; the swimming pool alone had cost more than $100,000. Small dining tables had been placed around the pool, which had been built to resemble a Roman bath, and flowers and Plants decorated the room; young women in white tights served champagne, Bourbon, and gin, and an orchestra played at one end of the pool, while a professional troupe from Chicago performed a water ballet. Imogene herself appeared at one moment in a revealing one-piece suit, and dove into the water to the applause of the guests. Remus himself, because he did not drink, slipped away from the party in the middle of the night and retired to his library with a dish of ice cream to read for a while. As dawn approached, he emerged again, in time for the giving of party favors. The young women in white tights brought a small gift to each of the male guests�a box containing a diamond tiepin or diamond cuff links, or some similar bit of jewelry. Then, as the party was breaking up and it was time for the guests to leave, they went to the front door�and there they saw the presents that Remus had in mind for the women. Up the long driveway, in the dawn light, came a grand stream of fifty brand-new 1923 Pontiacs, one for each woman, as a gesture of Remus's friendship. Shortly thereafter, Remus's case came up on appeal. The court of appeals upheld the verdict of the lower court. Remus was sentenced to serve two years and six months in the Atlanta penitentiary. It could not be fixed. He went to jail. He had paid Jess Smith $500,000�or perhaps twice that amount-for nothing. pps.199-201 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. 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