Two men were standing by a parked car one hot August morning last year in tiny Uxbridge, Mass. "Are you coming to Worcester?" one said. "Have you got anything before the court?" The other replied: "No, I have to go to Boston to see the Attorney General." Then he supposedly took a fat roll of bills from his pocket, flipped through them, and mumbled something. "Man, that looks like a lot of dough." The other answered: "It's $2,000." "Great, where did you get this fee?" The other stated: "That isn't a fee. I've got to take that in to Frankie Kelly. You don't get favors unless you pay for them."

This conversation supposedly took place between Alfred B. Cenedella, the District Attorney of Worcester, and John S. Derham, an Uxbridge lawyer. When it was reported to a crime investigating group last summer by Cenedella, it started one of the biggest graft investigations in Massachusetts history.

Derham served as an attorney for the Waucantuk Mills of Uxbridge in a land damage case against the state. Out of the $19,698 total settlement, the mills received $14,000 and Derham got $5,698 in fees. If Derham had not made the alleged remark to Cenedella, the case would probably have been forgotten along with the fifty or more other land damage cases during 1950.

But Cenedella, a wiry, tough attorney with 17 years of experience in the District Attorney's office, would not forget it. And when the House Rules Committee started an investigation of organized crime in Massachusetts, his chance came. First Lawrence R. Goldberg, police reporter for the Boston Post, was tipped off that something would break. Under a maze of headlines, the Post ran this vague story, "A prominent state detective's report is in the possession of one of the state's highest officials charging that one of the Commonwealth's top officials, evidently in collusion with courts of equal importance is involved knee deep in racketeering, graft, corruption, and police protection in a certain section of Massachusetts."

While state officials were trying desperately to find out whom Goldberg was accusing, Cenedella publicly alleged that "a friend of mine in whom I have confidence said that he had paid graft to a high state official." Cenedella said he would appear before the committee the next day and name names. But the state's Attorney General, Francis E. Kelly, was too fast for Cenedella and announced that he was the "high state official."

The Rules Committee summoned both Cenedella and the Post's Goldberg in a secret session. Goldberg refused to reveal his source, but it became clear during Cenedella's testimony that either Cenedella or an associate had planted the story with him.

Finally the Rules group, composed of 12 Democrats and three Republicans, voted that Republican Cenedella should either resign or be ousted from office. It cleared both Derham and Kelly.

Cenedella, however, promptly announced that he would stay where he was, and Kelly sent a band of assistants to take over Cenedella's office. But the House of Representatives rejected the recommendations of the Rules Committee and ordered the case turned over to the Massachusetts Bar Association. The Bar Association decided that it did not have the necessary powers for such an investigation and requested that the Supreme Judicial Court investigate.

This is where the case is now. The investigation is unique in that it is a public judicial inquiry. The court is not bound by rules of evidence; counsels for Derham and Kelly cannot cross-examine court witnesses; and there is no final adjudication. As a matter of fact, nothing will come out of the hearings except a report by Chief Justice Stanley E. Qua. In it he will make recommendations to the Supreme Court stating whether he thinks that Derham, Kelly, and possibly Cenedella are qualified to be lawyers. It will have no direct bearing on their status as public officials. Any disbarment or disciplinary action will have to be taken by the Supreme Court.

The court has been able to catch both Derham and Kelly on several crucial issues. First, it has proved that Derham received the check from the Waucantuk Mills on August 7 and deposited it on August 8, not August 28 as Cenedella first stated. Cenedella, however, changed his story, explaining that he got the two dates mixed up. The court has shown that Derham was incorrect when he said he had deposited $2,000. The court proved that he had only half this.

Investigators working for the court examined Kelly's state house files and found that everything relating to the Waucantuk damage case, a relatively unimportant one, was mysteriously missing. Kelly could give no information as to the whereabouts of this material. The court also has shown that Kelly, who earned $51,000 net income in 1950 on a salary of $12,000, had deposited $1,000 on September 5. The court is presently trying to show that this $1,000 is the "bribe" money. But Kelly contends that it was only payment from an insurance company for an accident case settlement.

The court now must find out if and when Kelly actually received $1,000 from Derham. It must also show that Derham actually gave the money as a bribe. And if these two possibilities do not prove true, then it can recommend that Cenedella be indicted for perjury. No matter which way the case turns, someone is going to be caught.