TWO

 

THIS was the hour when time stood still. The well of the court was sunk in tepid shadow. Above the slanting half circle of shadowed seats the courtroom windows were free from the sun now, but bright with light; and Abner, leaning back in his chair, could see the north-eastern sky, a hazed hot blue behind the sunny treetops. The heavy quiet in the court was not broken so much as mildly stirred by Bunting's voice. Bunting's questions, even and dry, spoken slowly, rose in the silence and shadow, caromed off wall and ceiling, and the multiple echoes died. From the witness stand, Doctor Hill, the coroner, returned his answers with professional deliberation, the ripple of sound beginning again, widening out, echoing, dying.

On the bench Judge Vredenburgh moved his head, his double-chinned but strong and firm plethoric face turning in sharp advertence, his blue eyes glinting, from Bunting to the witness and occasionally to the jury. His right hand under the desk lamp before him could not be seen, but the light winked now and then on the metal end of a pencil as he wrote. Under the bench Joe Jackman, in the glow of his lamp, wrote too, and paused and wrote and paused, his expression bemused, his thoughts apparently far away. Next to Joe sat Nick Dowdy, grey head bowed, fat chin sunk on his chest, placidly asleep. Next to Nick, Mat Rhea, the clerk of Quarter Sessions, looked at his clasped hands, slowly and patiently twiddling his thumbs. Farther down the line, Gifford Hughes, the prothonotary, sat back, his moustache sadly drooping, his eyes dreamily fixed in space. Beyond Gifford, Hermann Mapes, the clerk of the Orphans Court, bent forward, plainly busy with some of his office work. In their elevated chairs around the circle of the rail, the tipstaffs were drowsing. Now one, now another, now two or three at once nodded slowly. Then one or another woke, lifting his head with a light practised jerk, affecting to have been awake all the time. Down by the lower doors the state police officers yawned.

At the defence's table Harry Wurts slouched debonairely, easy and smiling. He wore a suit of thin tan material a good deal wrinkled. His coat hung open. His dark blue necktie was loosened and the collar undone around his sunburned neck. Across his fleshy chest his limp white shirt strained at the buttons. Sometimes Harry tapped his teeth with a pencil, or rolled it against the reddish bristles of his little cropped moustache. Sometimes he murmured something to Stanley Howell beside him, or inclined an ear to listen.

George Stacey, between Howell and Basso, wrote industriously. George was one of the. youngest members of the bar, and he was probably glad of the Court's appointment. Starting a law practice in a country town was hard. Older people hesitated to give a boy like George important and profitable legal business; and George's contemporaries, to whom George might not look so hopelessly young and inexperienced, were not yet in a position to have important or profitable legal business. George had good sense, and he was a steady worker; but the opportunities that happened to be available for going in with an older man looked so poor that George was trying it the hard way — opening his own office. Abner, though he had enjoyed several advantages George did not have, knew all about those first years, and he was sure that George hardly earned expenses. This trial, putting George in the public eye, would do him good; and no doubt the judges chose him with that benevolent idea. Sitting there, slight, blond, and worried, George, it could be seen, was leaving no stones unturned. George could not have any serious hope of getting Basso off, which would make his job discouraging enough; and Basso, by standing mute and refusing to help himself or his counsel, made it difficult to the point of impossibility to do anything for him. George, writing so hard, must be taking most of the testimony, scrutinizing every bit of it for possible technical points, and Abner had to admire such resolute if probably futile industry.

On George's right, Basso, playing his dogged part, glowered straight in front of him, his round little face hard and contemptuous. He did not look at anything. He did not seem to hear anything. Howell, on the other hand, shifting in his seat, hitching closer to Harry, letting himself drop back, whispering, nodding, his hands always in movement heard everything and looked everywhere. He paid avid attention to Bunting and Doctor Hill. He bothered Harry constantly.

Bunting was winding up his examination. He said to Doctor Hill, 'And did you see those irons also at Mr. Westbrook's undertaking establishment the night you performed the postmortem examination?' Remote and sonorous, Doctor Hill said, 'I did.' Bunting looked at the card in his hand on which he had jotted his notes, turned it over, and put it in his pocket. 'Now, Doctor,' he said, 'referring to these wounds, would either of the wounds you have described for us as found upon this body have proved fatal to the man receiving them?'

'Indubitably both or either would, Mr. Bunting.'

'And could you tell, from your examination, how soon death must have ensued following such gunshot wounds?'

'I have no hesitation in saying within a very few minutes.'

'Doctor,' said Bunting, 'did you make any tests to ascertain whether the body of the man you examined was dead when it was placed in the water?'

'I did, sir.'

'And what conclusion did you come to, if any?'

'That body was dead when it was placed in the water.'

'Thank you, Doctor,' Bunting said. 'Cross-examine.' He came around the table and sat down by Abner. He drew a deep breath and relaxed, tilting back a little. 'That's work,' he said. 'Damned stuffed shirt. You can't tone him down any. Harry will have a field-day.' He reached out and took a paper cup of water in a plastic holder beside the little vacuum carafe on the table and swallowed some.

Harry Wurts came casually down past the jury, shrugging his wrinkled coat into place. He put his hand in his trouser pockets, tilted his head back, and looked at Doctor Hill. 'By the way, Doctor,' he said, 'just how did you ascertain whether the body was dead before it was put in the water?'

'Quite simple,' said Doctor Hill. 'I removed the lungs and found air in them. Therefore he did not drown.'

'We are quite simple people,' Harry Wurts said amicably. 'Just how do you apply this test of yours? Describe it, if you will.'

'The test is not mine, Mr. Wurts,' Doctor Hill said sharply. 'It is a standard test. You can determine whether there is air in a lung by feeling it with your hands. Put the lungs in a bucket of water, and they will float.'

'Then you opened the chest cavity, removed the lungs, and placed them in a bucket of water?'

'Quite so.'

'And because the lungs floated after you put them in water, you concluded that their former owner was dead before he was put in water. What date was this?'

'The eleventh of May.'

'Who was present beside yourself?'

'Oh, a lot of people. You can't expect me to list them all.'

'If there were too many for you to remember all, can you remember any?'

'Well, the district attorney and his assistant, Abner Coates, there; and Westbrook; and John Costigan, and the sheriff, Hugh was there, I remember — I suppose there were fifty people there.'

'You were holding a public postmortem?'

'I didn't have a public one, no.'

'Fifty people,' Harry Wurts said. 'Do you generally make a spectacle out of it when you post a body?'

Annoyed, his dignity given an obvious cut, Doctor Hill said, 'I made no spectacle. I have no control over the morgue. I was doing the posting.'

'You have no control over it. I see.' By a motion of his head Harry managed to suggest that such an admission destroyed any possible value the coroner's testimony might have. He said, showing patience, 'Well, Doctor, you testified to these supposed bullet wounds. You mentioned what you described as points of entrance. How do you distinguish a point of entrance from a point of exit, or can't you?'

'I can distinguish them readily,' Doctor Hill said. 'It is very simple. At the point of entrance the skin will go inward with the bullet. At a point of exit, the skin breaks open, driven out.'

Bunting said to Abner, 'We might get Mrs. Zollicoffer on. I don't think she'll take more than an hour.' He looked over toward Frederick Zollicoffer's widow. 'Don't know whether she's going to act up or not —' He snapped his attention back to Harry. 'What was that?' he said to Abner.

Abner said, 'He asked whether the bullet wounds were of the same size and Hill said yes.'

'Without the other bullet, I don't think he can get anywhere,' Bunting said, 'but we'll have to watch that.'

Abner nodded. He was still looking at Mrs. Zollicoffer, surprised again to notice that she was not altogether unattractive. Not young, though she must have been younger than Frederick Zollicoffer, and not pretty in any ordinary meaning of the word, she was thin and graceful, her legs and arms narrow but round and flexible. Frederick Zollicoffer had been, in life, of much the same general appearance and build as his brother William, now sitting beside her, and it was impossible to see such physical disparity without wondering how on earth she came to marry a Zollicoffer.

Bunting would have been glad to emphasize the query, for Frederick Zollicoffer was a weak point. The truth was, and Harry would certainly bring the truth out, that Frederick Zollicoffer had been a drug peddler, an addict himself, and a man with a criminal record of a particularly low and despicable sort. Though killing him was, of course, a crime, his death was no loss — even a gain — to society at large. Thinking along this line, a jury might do something silly, like deciding the defendants were not so bad after all.

This was where Mrs. Zollicoffer could come in. To counter with law or logic was hard, for in adopting such a line of thought, a jury already had declared the intention to abandon both. Collective entities — a jury, a team, an army, a mob — often showed a collective apprehension and a collective way of reasoning that transcended the individual's reasoning and disregarded the individual's logic. The jury, not embarrassed by that need of one person arguing alone to explain and justify what he thought, could override any irrelevancy with its intuitive conviction that, irrelevant or not, the point was cogent. To this there could be no assuredly right answer; but answering that Frederick Zollicoffer's bad character did not extenuate his murder was assuredly wrong, beside the cogent point. Bunting had hoped, if the need arose, to answer with the piteous spectacle of Mrs. Zollicoffer, to let her appearance demand the punishment of the defendants, and by her appearance to suggest that, anyway, whatever Frederick Zollicoffer might have been, she was nothing like him, and was thus doubly to be pitied — for the pain caused her by his sudden death; for the pain caused her by his criminal life. That would about fill the bill, and even go Harry one better, since it not only answered irrelevancy with irrelevancy, but had the added valuable feature of a contradiction; that is, two chances, on more or less opposing grounds, to evoke another intuitive conviction, this time favouring the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately Mrs. Zollicoffer had a mind of her own, and it was a poor one. She also had her own feelings. Bunting, annoyed, regarded her feelings with incredulity; but Abner, noticing her once or twice yesterday and to-day, was prepared to believe that her feelings fell in the limited class of things that might be incredible but were, even so, real. Mrs. Meade, the tipstaff sitting with her, had sat near and observed distressed women for years and could probably distinguish, as well as such things could be distinguished, degrees of genuineness in feeling. Mrs. Meade considered this distress the real thing and felt distressed too. Though, for everyone else, Frederick Zollicoffer was an impersonal object known as 'that body' with skin that a bullet pushed inward on entering and outward on leaving, he could not have been that for Mrs. Zollicoffer. She sat there trembling while on the stand Doctor Hill, bumbling on, said, 'I have testified that it went downward, the second bullet. I removed it from between the fifth and sixth ribs on the right side in a mid-axillary line.'

'In your opinion,' said Harry Wurts casually, 'was the bullet of the same size as the one you found, the one that made the head wound?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer flinched, and Doctor Hill said, 'Similar, I should say.' Bunting touched Abner with his elbow and said, 'Pay attention. I'll want you to ask him a few questions. I don't want that to stand.'

Seeing them whisper, Harry Wurts smiled. He said to Doctor Hill, 'What bones would that bullet strike in passing through the body?'

'It would not strike any. It did not pass through any. It passed posterior to the clavicle and anterior to the scapula.'

'Now, just say that in English, if you will.'

Abner glanced again at Mrs. Zollicoffer. She had taken out a handkerchief; unfortunately, a gesture also possible to those whose anguish was neither irrepressible nor even real. The show of real feeling was, of course, all right for Bunting's purpose; but thanks to that feeble mind of hers, Mrs. Zollicoffer might not get the benefit of it. On the stand Harry would certainly show that she was a liar, and so false in everything. She had told Bunting the absurd lie that she did not know what her husband's business was; and when you thought of all the trouble that wilful piece of stupidity was going to make, it was difficult to feel much sympathy for her.

Clasping his shoulder, Harry Wurts said, 'I don't know whether I'm any different from that body, but when I feel my shoulder, I feel a bone wherever I feel. What I am trying to find out is how this bullet could pass through here and not strike any bone.'

'I tried to explain to you, Mr. Wurts.'

'You said a shot through the shoulder could not strike any bone?' Bunting, who was drawing a face on the pad before him, left it with one eye and said, 'Oh, no. He didn't say that.' Doctor Hill said, 'Mr. Wurts, the bullet entered the flesh and passed through the fleshy part of the lungs and lodged in the flesh again between the fifth and sixth ribs.'

'That bullet did,' said Harry. 'That bullet, although it encountered nothing but flesh, lodged. The other bullet, the one you did not recover, was obliged to pass through the hard bony skull, the brain, and came out below the angle of the jaw.' He stood delicately poised, balanced on his toes. His voice had a sudden, cocky, assertive note, and Abner looked at him, astounded. He looked at Bunting, but Bunting was biting his lip; and, jolted, Abner had to admit his own slow-wittedness in only then grasping the bold manœuvre. Harry said coolly, 'How do you try to account for one bullet having so much more force than the other? I suppose you admit it must have had?'

The play on Doctor Hill's conceit of knowledge and touchiness about his dignity was perfect. Unable to help his witness, Bunting winced; and Doctor Hill said with asperity, 'I do not "try'' to account for it, Mr. Wurts. I account for it without difficulty. There is no reason to suppose that one bullet had more force than the other. The longer passage through the tissues of the body would add up to offer more resistance than the relatively short passage through the head. The skull is only relatively hard, Mr. Wurts. A bullet fired at it point blank, at close range, would be retarded very little.'

Harry Wurts said, 'Do you mean to tell me that bullets of identically the same calibre, from identically the same gun, could behave so differently?'

'I do, indeed,' said Doctor Hill.

'Then in your opinion both bullets came from the same gun?'

'No, Mr. Wurts, I did not say that. I —'

'You said both could have come from the same gun.'

'Why, yes. I see no reason why not —'

'You see no reason why not. That is all.'

Bunting said, 'Just a moment, Doctor.' To Abner he said, 'We'll have to show he doesn't know anything about it.'

'Have trouble without crossing him,' Abner said. He saw Harry, back in his seat, looking at them with amusement.

'Yes,' said Bunting. 'You're the goat. When Harry kicks, I'll cover you with the Judge as well as I can. It's better that way, because you couldn't cover me. See?'

'Yes,' said Abner. 'Want me to barge right in?'

'Might as well.'

Abner got up and walked around to the witness stand. He paused a moment, wishing he could find a way to do it cleverly; like Harry Wurts, to make Doctor Hill out of his own self-importance, apparently of his own accord, declare now, with the same pompous insistence, that though one shot came from one gun (Bailey 's), the other probably came from another (presumably Basso's). However, if you tried being clever and failed, you were worse off for being caught at it than if you never tried. Abner said as disarmingly as he could, 'I believe that you said that the wounds made by these separate bullets were somewhat similar. Did you reach that conclusion from the diameter of the bullet holes?'

'Diameter,' said Doctor Hill, 'yes.'

'Did you judge just by eye?' Abner said, and caught himself up, waiting in apprehension. Bunting would see that it was a dumb question. You should know the answers when you questioned your own witness; and, for all Abner knew, Doctor Hill had some scientific form of measurement which might show that they were not merely similar but exactly the same. To his relief, Doctor Hül said, 'Just by eye. But—'

Abner cut in, speaking quietly, trying to offer, along with the question, a sort of encouragement or reassurance that Doctor Hill might take as a sign that he should assent, 'You are not, of course, an expert in bullet wounds, Doctor?'

'Oh, now!' said Harry. He laughed out loud. 'I object! He can't cross-examine his own witness! I never heard of such a thing!'

'Your Honour,' said Bunting, 'the Commonwealth simply is clearing up a line of questioning Mr. Wurts opened and then, having established a very misleading impression, tried to drop.'

'He can't continue my cross-examination!' Harry said. 'What is your witness? Ignorant? Unwilling? Perjuring himself? I don't know any other grounds.'

Bunting said, 'I think it is the province of the Court, and not of Mr. Wurts, to decide what questions may be put. We respectfully ask his Honour to rule.'

'He may answer,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'There is no prejudice to the defendants if the witness states whether or not he is an expert on gunshot wounds.'

'I ask an exception,' said Harry Wurts.

'Exception granted,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'Proceed, Mr. Coates.'

Abner said, 'Are you an expert in bullet wounds, Doctor Hill?'

'I never said I was,' said Doctor Hill. He gave Abner an offended look.

'Or in the calibre of bullets?'

'I don't pretend to be, Mr. Coates.'

'That's all, thank you.'

'If you please!' said Harry Wurts, starting up. 'You have had experience in examining bullet wounds, have you not, Doctor?'

I have examined them, yes.' Doctor Hill plainly viewed this deferential approach with suspicion. He felt that the Commonwealth was now against him, and Harry for him; and he had no idea what was going on. Resentful, he suspected that a plot to impair his dignity had been joined.

'More than once?' said Harry Wurts.

'More than once. Certainly.'

'You were a doctor in the army, were you not?'

'During the last war. Yes.'

'You saw gunshot wounds then?'

'Yes. I have also seen a certain number during the hunting season.' The jury laughed.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'That is no laughing matter,' but he smiled.

Harry Wurts smiled too. 'In short, Doctor,' he said, 'when you answered the question of the learned assistant district attorney you meant that while you did not pretend to know it all —'

Bunting said, 'I object to counsel's telling the witness what the witness means.'

'Correction,' Harry Wurts said. 'In short, Doctor, your experience has familiarized you perfectly with bullet wounds?'

'I think I may say that I am familiar with them.'

'When you stated that, in your opinion, the wounds, bullet wounds, in Frederick Zollicoffer's body were the same size, that was a conclusion you formed on examining and comparing the wounds at the time of the postmortem?'

'Quite so.'

'And you are still of the same opinion?'

'I am.'

'I have no more questions,' Harry Wurts said.

Bunting said, 'That is all, Doctor Hill.' He looked at the clock above the door to the Attorneys' Room. He said to Abner, 'Quarter of four.' He looked at his list of witnesses. 'I think we could get through with Mrs. Z. if she behaves herself. If she makes a mess of it, it would be all to the good if Harry can't cross-examine until to-morrow morning. We'll let Cholendenko wait.' Ida Cholendenko, the Zollicoffers' servant, had presented a little problem. Though, in one sense, her testimony corroborated Mrs. Zollicoffer 's, she could testify to events preceding by a few minutes on that night of the kidnapping anything Mrs. Zollicoffer could testify to.

Abner said, 'There's this about it, Marty. If Harry wrecks Mrs. Z., it would be handy to have Cholendenko. She could straighten some of it up; and I don't think Harry could do a thing with her.'

'We'll need her,' Bunting said. He turned and looked sharply at Mrs. Zollicoffer, pushed his chair back, and arising, called out her name. To Abner, he said, 'Look through that folder and get what she said about the telephone calls. Just lay it open so I can look at it if I need to.'

Mrs. Zollicoffer sat first in the row of the Commonwealth's witnesses, with Mrs. Meade in the tipstaffs chair beside her. Mrs. Zollicoffer hesitated, dazed and quailing; and Mrs. Meade confirmed Abner's guess. Mrs. Meade, with gentle solicitude, arose and helped Mrs. Zollicoffer to arise. Though she did no more than her duty, her duty now served the Commonwealth in a way the record would not show. The jurors all looked at Mrs. Meade, who made a good figure. Her white hair was tidily waved. Mrs. Meade wore a blue skirt, and a blue jacket which did not differ from the jacket the men wore, with the word tipstaff embroidered on the sleeve, and the silver badge pinned to the breast; but Mrs. Meade wore with it a white blouse with a lace-edged open collar, pretty and neat. She was the widow of a former clerk of the Orphans Court, and came of good people, and looked it. Sympathetically showing Mrs. Zollicoffer how to go, even giving Mrs. Zollicoffer's arm a reassuring pat, Mrs. Meade offered in evidence her opinion that Mrs. Zollicoffer was an unfortunate, unhappy woman who should be treated considerately. Because of Mrs. Meade's official position, her lady-like appearance, and the fact that she was well known to all or most of the jurors, her evidence was at once accepted as excellent. Though, subsequently, the jury might themselves observe, or hear other people say, things to change the picture, a general prepossession in Mrs. Zollicoffer's favour would remain, mysteriously breaking the force of good arguments against her, persistently suggesting that, even so, how could you be sure?

Mrs. Zollicoffer passed behind the jury; and Malcolm Levering, from the tipstaff's seat at the end by the door of the Attorneys' Room, came to meet her. The two state police officers drew back to make more room, and Malcolm gave her an encouraging smile, bobbing his mostly bald head politely, half offering his arm, which she did not take, half shooing her along to the steps of the witness stand. He remained a moment while she dragged herself up them. Nick Dowdy had come in behind Joe Jackman's desk and proffered his Bible. Mrs. Zollicoffer stood dazed; so Nick indicated, with a gesture, that she should put her hand on the open page. He reeled off the oath and looked at her inquiringly, nodded himself, to show her that she should nod, and said, 'Your name, please?' She whispered something, and Nick turned away, saying loudly, 'Marguerite Zollicoffer.'

Joe Jackman twisted in his chair, looking up from the light on his ruled paper, and said, '-g-u-e-r-i-t-e?'

Starting at the unexpected voice from an unexpected direction, she nodded, continuing to stand; and Judge Vredenburgh said, 'You may sit down.'

Bunting, who had been looking at her closely, his sharp nose up, his eyes narrowed, came down before the jury and said to her, 'Mrs. Zollicoffer, where do you live?'

Running through the piled folders of notes and stenographic transcripts, Abner had found the conversations about the telephone calls. He twitched the open folder around and pushed it up to the edge of the table behind Bunting.

Bunting said evenly, in a mild clear voice with the slight stiffness of good control that betrayed to Abner, who knew of it, but probably to no one else, the annoyance and contempt he felt, 'You are the widow of the late Frederick Zollicoffer?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer's appearance, the black clothes, the gaunt but regular features, the faded blonde (and not, as you would have expected, in any way retouched) hair that showed under a simple, and even becoming, hat, spoke for her, just as Bunting hoped; but now, speaking against her, was something else, like her appearance, like Mrs. Meade's solicitude, not part of the record, yet incontestably part of the evidence. In the office it had not seemed so apparent; but here, set off by silence, her speaking voice was bad. Abner saw the change in one or two members of the jury as they recognized, surprised and then displeased, strong traces of a tough and uneducated accent.

The jurors were plain or homely speakers themselves, indifferent to grammar and disdainful of elegant pronunciations; but that particular accent of Mrs. Zollicoffer's served as a reminder that she, like all the rest of these people, came from the city. With irritation the jury heard the foreigners, the people from somewhere else, having their presumptuous say. Justice for all was a principle they understood and believed in; but by 'all' they did not perhaps really mean persons low-down and no good. They meant that any accused person should be given a fair, open hearing, so that a man might explain, if he could, the appearances that seemed to be against him. If his reputation and presence were good, he was presumed to be innocent; if they were bad, he was presumed to be guilty. If the law presumed differently, the law presumed alone.

Bunting said, 'And did you see your husband, Frederick Zollicoffer, on the night of the sixth of April?'

'No, sir.'

'Do you know of your own observation whether your husband returned to your home that night?'

Bunting had been at pains to go over this part of it with her, explaining to her what the question meant, and what the Court would and would not allow her to answer. She hesitated, and Abner knew that there was a good chance she would either forget or deliberately answer as she pleased. She said finally, 'No, sir.'

'You don't know, of your own observation,' Bunting said, probably with inward relief. 'Did you hear anything at or near your home in the course of the evening?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer hesitated again. 'Why,' she said, 'do you mean his horn? He blew his horn about twenty minutes after ten.'

Bunting bit his lip. 'If you do not understand any of my questions, Mrs. Zollicoffer, just ask me to repeat them. Who blew what horn?'

'My husband did. He blew it like he did — always when he came in he blew it so I would know who it was.'

'Objected to,' said Harry Wurts.

'Sustained,' Judge Vredenburgh said. He gazed intently at Mrs. Zollicoffer, as though trying to make up his mind about her. 'Just how did he blow this horn?' Bunting asked. George Stacey, half arising beside Basso, said, 'I also object to it, implying this "he" was her husband, and whether he blew his horn or not, unless it is shown he was in his car.' The effort made him turn red, but Harry gave him a cordial nod and George sat down.

Bunting said, 'Mrs. Zollicoffer, you say you heard a horn blown. Is that correct?'

'Yes. My husband's horn.'

'I object to that!' Harry Wurts said. 'That is what we object to!'

'Yes,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'That part of the answer is stricken.' Bunting said, 'Now, please answer only what I ask. You say you heard a horn that night.'

'Yes.'

'How was that horn blown?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer shook her head distractedly. 'I don't know how you mean did he blow it. Just about twice. Like a little tune on it.'

'Exactly,' said Bunting, 'that is just what I mean —' Everitt Weitzel, the tipstaff who usually acted as doorman, came down the sloping aisle from the main door and limped carefully, as though making himself invisible, across the well of the court. Coming up beside the Commonwealth's table, he bent low past Abner's shoulder and spread out a half sheet of printed stationery. It was headed 'Earl P. Foulke, Justice of the Peace.' In Earl's fancy, but now senile, curlique script was written: 'Mr. Bunting or Coates. Like to have you get touch with me at once. Important. E. P. F.'

'Where did get this?' Abner murmured.

'Kid up there brought it in. One of Mr. Foulke's grandsons, I think.'

'He didn't say what the trouble was?'

'Just said Mr. Foulke said to see you got it right away.'

'Well, tell him we did get it. Tell him to say we'll call him when court adjourns.'

Bunting, his left arm doubled behind his back where he clasped and unclasped his fingers, took a turn past the end of the table. 'After you heard this horn blown,' he said to Mrs. Zollicoffer, 'did you hear anything else?'

George Stacey got to his feet and said, 'I object again to this witness testifying in relation to the blowing of any horn unless she can some way identify it. All cars of the same make have the same horn. This is on a travelled thoroughfare.'

Judge Vredenburgh took off his glasses. 'That objection was sustained as to the identification at this particular time.' George Stacey's father had been a close friend of his, and the glint of his eye was affable, the light of amusement over seeing the children grow up. 'There is no objection, however, to her stating that she heard a horn. That she can testify to. Objection overruled.' He shook his head, smiled faintly, and put his glasses on. Bunting said to Joe Jackman, 'Will you repeat the question?' Jackman drew a breath, stared at his notes, and read it. 'No, I did not,' said Mrs. Zollicoffer. 'Did your husband return to your home that night?'

'I heard him down as far as the garage.'

'That I object to,' Harry Wurts said with an accent of long-suffering. 'Objection sustained,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'She has not shown how she knew it was her husband.'

Looking at Abner, Bunting rolled his eyes up, though he took care to keep his face turned away from the jury. Pushing out the sheet of paper with Foulke's message on it, Abner tapped it; and Bunting gave it a quick look. 'Old fool!' he said softly. He faced the witness stand and said, 'Madam, you stated that you heard sounds down as far as the garage, after you heard this horn. Did you see anything?'

'No, sir.'

'When was the last time that you saw your husband?'

'In the morning. That morning. The sixth of April.'

'That was the last time you saw him alive.'

Mrs. Zollicoffer brought up a handkerchief from the wadded ball she had made of her gloves and put it to her nose. 'Yes.'

"When did you next see him?'

'When they found him, brought him up to the —' She began to cry.

'You were present when he was brought to the undertaking establishment of Mr. Westbrook in Childerstown?'

She nodded, the handkerchief in the palm of her hand pressed over her mouth. Judge Vredenburgh said to Malcolm Levering, 'Bring her a glass of water.'

'You saw the body and you were able to identify it?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer took the paper cup Malcolm Levering held up to her, swallowed a little water, coughed, and nodded.

'Whose body was it?'

'My husband's.'

'Take a little more water,' Bunting said. 'The jury can't hear you. It was the body of Frederick Zollicoffer?'

'Yes.'

'Mrs. Zollicoffer,' said Judge Vredenburgh,'you must try to control yourself.'

Mrs. Zollicoffer began to sob aloud, catching her breath with wailing gasps, letting it out in lamentable broken groans that carried clearly to the statuelike rows of spectators in the gloom. The shadows of the latening afternoon filled the great wood-panelled vault, but now a little slanting sunlight was reaching the inside edges of the north-western windows. Reflected from black walnut, the radiance was melancholy; less than the light now falling from the thousand-watt bulbs behind the stained glass wheel of the skylight.

Bunting said, 'Do you wish me to stop, sir?'

'Well, does she go on like this? She'll have to be examined. She must know that —' Judge Vredenburgh looked at Harry Wurts, and jerked his chin, beckoning him up. 'What about this, Harry?' he said.

Harry Wurts said, 'We don't like it, naturally, your Honour. I don't think the district attorney ought to provoke such a display —'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'I think it is beyond the district attorney or anyone else's control.'

'Well, sir,' said Harry, 'if Mr. Bunting stops harping on the body, there might be some other line he could take, I suppose. I'm perfectly willing to waive cross-examination to-day, if the Commonwealth will recall her to-morrow morning.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'We will recess for ten minutes. Mrs. Meade, will you come and take the witness out, please? Very well, Mr. Wurts. Make whatever agreement you like. Perhaps we'can have another witness.'

Bunting turned from the sidebar and, looking at Abner, formed with his lips the word, Foulke.

Nodding, Abner got up and crossed over to the door of the Attorneys' Room. Inside he leaned against the wall by the telephone, waiting while the number was rung. Above the fireplace, empty, unused for forty years, hung a big framed photograph, faded and a little blurred, taken in 1866 of the county bench and bar gathered in the old courthouse. Abner's grandfather, who was then, like George Stacey now, one of the youngest members, peered over a couple of heads at one side. Despite fading, and the handicaps that the photographer, using a wet plate indoors, had to overcome, the faces were mostly clear, and Linus Coates, despite his youth, carried an air that you didn't find in George Stacey.

Linus Coates had, in fact, been to the wars. He served in a nine months' regiment and got a bullet through his hip at Chancellorsville. In those days it was not the fashion to be embittered or disillusioned by such an experience, so what Linus Coates looked was simply grown-up, self-possessed, ready for responsibilities. When, years later, the duty confronted him as a judge, you could understand how he sentenced men to hang, just as he said, without loss of appetite.

As though to emphasize the point, George Stacey came in then, headed for the lavatory. Seeing Abner at the telephone, he said, 'Well, how's the assistant superintendent of the waterworks?'

'You're a hard man, George,' Abner said. 'Shut up, will you? Yes. Mr. Foulke. Mr. Foulke, this is Abner Coates. Mr. Bunting is in court Can I help you?'

Earl Foulke's voice was high and rapid, and hearing it, Abner could see Earl's face, his prominent pale eyes magnified by his silver-rimmed glasses, his lips tucked in over his toothless gums — he put in his teeth only when he held what he took care to call, not a hearing, but Court; or when he performed marriage ceremonies under a portable white-painted wood arbour covered with artificial roses which stood ready in the corner of his parlour. When his teeth were not in, the ends of his scanty, scraggly long moustache hung well below his chin. Earl owned and Wore a black frock coat — one of the only two such garments remaining in the county (the other belonged to a Baptist minister who wore it at rustic funerals). He was a preposterous figure, and even the farmers of Kingstown Township could see that he was; but Earl had been Squire for twenty-five years, and Abner supposed that the voters kept re-electing him because they felt that he now had a vested interest in the office; and, moreover, was too old and incompetent to go back to farming for a livelihood.

As well as preposterous in appearance, Earl was stupid and officious; and Marty, who had been obliged to straighten out several senseless legal snarls in which Earl had involved both himself and the district attorney's office, no longer regarded Earl as merely pathetic or comic. Earl Foulke was a damned old nuisance who ought to be forcibly retired. It was an opinion that Abner was obliged, in common sense, to share.

'Yes, Mr. Foulke,' Abner said when Earl seemed to have finished. 'We know about the Williams case. That was assault and battery. Marty has your transcript, I know. He'll want to see Mrs. Williams —'

'Now, just a minute, just a minute, Ab,' Earl Foulke said. An annoying habit of Earl's was his trick of beginning in the middle. He would describe a situation and ask what he should do; and when he was told, he began at once to scruple or object; and in support of his objections, he trotted out new, not-before-mentioned circumstances leading up to or ensuing from the situation described, which, Earl was quite right in maintaining, certainly did change the picture.

'Oh, Lord!' said Abner to himself. 'Well, Mr. Foulke,' he said, 'I'm afraid you couldn't do that. You accepted bail for Williams' appearance here in court, you know. That exhausts your jurisdiction.'

Earl Foulke's voice went squeak, squeak, squeak; and Abner said, 'No, Mr. Foulke. It's impossible. You wouldn't be competent; a justice of the peace isn't allowed — no, I can't off-hand cite the act, or whatever it is. You must have one of those handbooks. Your powers are defined there. Marty wouldn't have any authority to do it. Even Judge Irwin or Judge Vredenburgh couldn't authorize you to reopen the case, because it is out of your hands. If Williams decides to plead guilty, he'll have to come in and tell Marty. He can't just go to you —' Sudden suspicion seized Abner, and he said, 'You haven't done anything about it, have you?'

'Course I did something about it!' shrilled Earl Foulke. 'Tell you exactly what I did. I want to amend the record, my record —' With each new phrase his voice got higher and higher; a nervous, obviously alarmed, gabbling.

'Mr. Foulke,' Abner said, 'do you mean that what you have done is accept Williams' plea of guilty and fine him ten dollars, and discharge him?'

Earl Foulke said defiantly, 'Certainly did!' But he faltered, his voice quavering. 'Now, Ab,' he said placatingly,'those Williamses, I know about them. He's a drinking man, but he's a good provider. Amy Williams don't want him to go to jail. Be much better this way. You tell Marty I know what I'm doing.' Abner said, 'Mr. Foulke, that isn't the point. You have no authority to do what you've done. When you do it, it's no more valid than if Mrs. Williams herself fined Mr. Williams ten dollars and discharged him. It's not she, it's not you, it's the Commonwealth that's prosecuting Williams. Don't you see that?'

'Prosecuting him for what?' said Earl Foulke.

'For assault and battery, of course. For beating his wife up.'

'What evidence you got?'

'His wife's evidence. What else? What did you swear the warrant out on?'

'That was then,' Earl Foulke said. 'Now, why, she isn't going to give evidence against him. Changed her mind. No case against him. That's why I—'

Such a change of mind was common, even customary, in these cases. In exasperation, Abner said, 'Why should he plead guilty, then?'

'Now, Ab,' Earl Foulke said, 'he beat her up. Blacked her eye; everything. He hadn't any right to do that. I told him he'd have to plead guilty. I wasn't going to let him off, like nothing happened. They stopped in to see me after lunch to-day. Anyone could see she didn't want to go on with it. She'd have to testify in court, a lot of trouble, scandal, all that. See?'

'Well, of course we can't make her testify,' Abner said. 'She can withdraw her complaint —'

'Of course,' Earl Foulke said with alacrity. 'What I told her myself. She just didn't think it out. So what I said, I said, "Look it here, Amy. He beat you up bad and he can't do that. So I'm going to fine him for that. If," I said, "you agree not to testify against him, we'll settle this right now." So I said to Williams, "You got to plead guilty, so I can fine you. That's only fair to Amy, if she says she won't testify. Now, you make up your minds." So I left them in my office awhile; and they said they agreed.'

'You mean,' said Abner, flabbergasted, 'that Mrs. Williams was ready to testify, and you told her that if she wouldn't, you'd fine him ten dollars, discharge the case, and save her a lot of trouble?'

'She was still kind of mad, Ab,' Earl Foulke said defensively. 'You got to look at it from her standpoint. She got a pretty good beating. But if she goes up to court, testifies, and maybe he has a jail term, why, what about her? First she gets beat up; then she has all that embarrassment; then maybe for a couple of months, or however much, she gets no support. Punishes her more than it punishes him.'

This sudden deviation into sense astonished Abner; but Marty was right; something clearly ought to be done about Earl Foulke. He said, 'Mr. Foulke, that may be all true; but do you know what misprision of felony is? Well, one thing it is, is a criminal neglect to bring to justice a man who commits a felony. Williams commits a felony, and you step in and persuade the only witness, for a consideration, not to testify against him, with the idea of preventing the case from coming to trial. Now, it doesn't matter why you did it. I'm pretty sure Marty could prosecute you for that —'

In law, of course, it was true that it didn't matter why Foulke did it. Foulke had probably told plenty of people in his time that ignorance of the law was no excuse; and just plain ignorance was no excuse either; and why should Earl Foulke be excused? Abner said vainly, 'Mr. Foulke, you had no business to do that —'

To rebuke a man who had been older than Abner was now when Abner was born was awkward; and, anyway, not Abner's business. What he had to do was report Foulke's action to Marty, and Marty would take care of it, all right; and without any such qualms. That Foulke, the old fool, meant well, that he had effected a probably just disposal of the Williams case, with no real harm to anyone, and much trouble saved the Commonwealth as well as Mr. and Mrs. Williams, would not weigh with Marty. Marty would say — and it was true; it was the truth that all experience confirmed; it was, in little, the exemplar of the greatest and hardest truth in the world: the good end never has justified, and never will justify, the wrong, bad, or merely expedient means — that the law, whatever it might be in this case, would have to take its course, and Foulke would have to take the consequences.

The long thought filled only part of a second. Abner leaned against the wall in the shadowed room, his eyes on the old photograph above the fireplace — the quaint stiff throng of dead attorneys, the dead be-whiskered judge, the gas fixtures on the bench, the tall spittoons conveniently placed, all the plain outmoded furnishings of the little courthouse pulled down more than half a century ago. George Stacey came out the lavatory door, saluted Abner ironically, and left the room. Abner said, 'Mr. Foulke, you understand that I haven't any authority to deal with this. But I'll tell you what I think you'd better do. Get hold of Williams and give him back his ten dollars. Tell him he's not discharged; he's still out on bail. I'll have to tell Marty why you called; so you'd better come up to his office about five this afternoon. You'll have to explain that you misunderstood your position and thought Williams was under your jurisdiction until the case came to trial. Don't say anything about what you told Mrs. Williams. Just say they came to you to-day and wanted to settle the matter.'

Abner paused, aware that if what Earl Foulke had done was misprision of felony, what he himself was doing might very well be called misprision of misdemeanour, at least. He said, 'This conversation is not in any way official. If you put a case to me, I can tell you what I think this office's attitude will probably be; but that's all. Then it's up to you. Do you understand that, Mr. Foulke?'

Earl Foulke said, 'I know Marty's got a grudge against me. Don't have to tell me that. He always has had. Well, if that's what you want me to do —'

Anticipating with some discomfort the old man's thanks, the well-intended but necessarily offensive thanks for his humanitarian gesture, but also for his not-wholly-straightforward decision to keep a counsel that was not his to keep, but Marty's; and which he could keep only because Marty trusted him, Abner had been ready to cut Foulke short. He did not want any thanks; but when he did not get any, that too was offensive; and more offensive still, was the crowning effrontery with which Foulke consented to oblige Abner by letting Abner save him. About to set Mr. Foulke right on that last point, about to say that Mr. Foulke was wrong if he thought Abner wanted him to do anything, or cared what he did, Abner could see suddenly that old Foulke, the old fool, was not in fact wrong at all. Who else but Abner volunteered to get Foulke out of his predicament? Abner himself was the only one who could make Abner suppress those worse than asinine, those definitely illegal, acts of telling Williams he had to plead guilty and telling Mrs. Williams that she must not give evidence; and if Abner did not do it because he wanted to, why did he do it?

Abner could find no satisfactory answer. He said curtly, 'Be there at five o'clock, Mr. Foulke.' He hung up and went into the courtroom.

Judge Vredenburgh sat back in his tall carved chair, holding his glasses patiently. His face looked tired in the reflected light of his reading lamp. Mrs. Meade had just brought Mrs. Zollicoffer in. The only available washroom was upstairs, off the women jurors' room, and getting there and back took some time. Mrs. Zollicoffer was still pale and red-eyed, and the trip did not appear to have done her any good.

Bunting stood by the Commonwealth's table. He said to Abner, 'What did he want?'

Abner said, 'He's coming up to see you at five. It's that Williams A and B case. He thought he could discharge him if Williams pleaded guilty. I told him he couldn't.'

Bunting nodded. Preoccupied, he said without intensity, 'I wish he'd go drop dead! Yes, your Honour. If Mrs. Zollicoffer feels able, we are ready.'

Abner sat down and Bunting went over to the witness stand. 'Now, Madam,' he said, 'after April sixth, the night of the kidnapping, did you receive any communications from your husband?'

The jurors shifted and settled, taking up again the burden of listening. There was a slight movement in the high ranges of spectators — three women making exaggerated efforts to be quiet while they gained the aisle. Judge Vredenburgh glanced toward them and they slunk quickly to the door.

Mrs. Zollicoffer said, 'Yes, sir. Two or three letters.'

'In your husband's handwriting?'

'Yes.'

'And after that date did you receive any telephone calls?' Harry Wurts stood up wearily. 'I'm sorry, your Honour,' he said, 'I don't want to interfere unnecessarily; but I will have to ask for an offer of proof from the Commonwealth. I want to know what they purpose to show by these letters and telephone calls.'

'I will say to Mr. Wurts,' said Bunting, 'that I don't intend to go into the subject matter of these letters and calls at the moment.'

'All right,' said Harry.

'Mrs. Zollicoffer, do you recall whether you received a telephone call on the night of April eleventh?'

'I don't recall the date; but I got calls.'

'Did the person who called you on the telephone give any identifying symbol or name?'

'Some man said I have got Fred —'

'No. Please listen to the question —'

Harry Wurts lifted his hand and said, 'I move that be stricken.' Judge Vredenburgh said, 'That may be stricken as not responsive.'

'Did any of the persons who talked to you give any names?' Mrs. Zollicoffer gazed at him, distraught, probably throwing her mind back in search of what she had said before, either in the office or to the grand jury. 'Just asking whether it was me, Marguerite,' she said.

'Just a moment,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'You should answer yes or no.'

'No. I didn't know who that was.'

Bunting came back to the Commonwealth's table. To Abner, he said, 'I'll drop it. She isn't making any sense.'

'Want to ask her about Walter Cohen?'

'Well —' Bunting faced about and said, 'Mrs. Zollicoffer, do you know a man named Walter Cohen?'

Since Walter Cohen, her husband's partner or associate, had been sitting two seats away from her all day, she looked bewildered. Then she said, 'Yes, sir.'

'That's all,' Bunting said. 'Mr. Wurts?'

'No questions,' said Harry.

Howell, apparently not understanding the arrangement, put a hand on Harry's arm, his sickly face stricken; for he doubtless felt that in the important matter of his life everything ought to be gainsaid, every inch of the Commonwealth's course contested. Harry took the hand between two fingers, lifted it, and returned it to Howell's lap. George Stacey said something to Basso, who scowled and shrugged.

Judge Vredenburgh said to Mrs. Zollicoffer, 'That is all for now. You may return to your seat.' In answer, Mrs. Zollicoffer took out her handkerchief and began again to cry. 'Mrs. Meade,' said Judge Vredenburgh, 'come and get her, please.'

Back at the table, Bunting took up the bill of indictment and put it down again. He said to Abner, 'I don't want Cholendenko until I see what Harry does to-morrow. If the cross-examination is bad, we'd be more or less stuck with it —' he said to the bench, 'I don't know exactly what your Honour would like. The Commonwealth has no witness that could be briefly disposed of. It's quarter of five, and —' Judge Vredenburgh looked at the clock. 'Yes,' he said, 'I think that's enough. I think we will adjourn.' Nick Dowdy had turned his face up and the Judge nodded to him. Nick struck the block with his mallet. 'All persons take notice that this Court now stands adjourned until to-morrow morning, June the fifteenth, Wednesday —'

Judge Vredenburgh came down from the bench, going toward the door of his chambers. In the well of the court, he stopped, faced the jury getting to its feet, and said, 'You will bear in mind what was told you about discussion of the case. You understand what is meant by separation. You will now go to the hotel. You are in the bailiffs' charge, in the charge of Mr. Levering and Mr. Unruh, the tipstaffs who have been with you. In short, no one of you can go home until the trial is concluded. Somebody sometimes thinks he can, and so makes us a great deal of trouble. Good night.' Unhooking his robe, he went into his chambers.

Piling papers together, Bunting said to Abner, 'Now, what about Foulke?'

'He ought to be over at your office.'

'I suppose I'll have to give him hell. Going on the barge party?'

'I thought I was,' Abner said.

'Well, go ahead. It's all right.'

'We've got plenty of time, Marty. I'll go over with you.'

'I have to speak to the Judge. Do you want to go right over?'

'Not me,' said Abner. 'I'll wait for you.' He took up his brief case and went into the Attorneys' Room.

Joe Jackman was seated in the old leather chair by the window reading the afternoon's copy of the Examiner. Looking at Abner over the top of it, he said, 'I see where Mr. Coates, the assistant district attorney, in a clear and forceful opening speech for the Commonwealth said that it was a long time between drinks —'

The door opened and Harry Wurts, preceded by his loud voice chanting, 'Loyal and true, Calumet Club, to you —' came in. He added, 'Drinks! That's the word I was trying to think of! Now for the barge party, and the drinks that cheer, and thank God, inebriate! Go put your white pants on, Ab. Court's over.'

'It may be for you,' Abner said. 'We've got a date with Mr. Foulke. 'Not old Lawless; not my old pal, Squire Necessity?' said Harry. 'Say, did I tell you about the time he had in Zeb Smith — you remember him —for a certain offence; scilicet, a crime against nature; scilicet: sodomy with a goat —'

'You did,' said Jackman, 'about twelve times.'

'Just for that, I won't tell you,' Harry said. 'Well, teach him some law, if you can. And don't worry about the party, if you can't make it. I'll take care of Bonnie for you. I'll tell you what she said to-morrow.'

'That will be swell,' said Abner. 'About eleven o'clock, don't forget to fall overboard.'

'I don't like your inference!' said Harry. 'Say, do you know the legal distinction there? It's time you did. A witness who swears that he saw a woman walking with a man pushing a baby carriage with a baby in it is stating an alleged fact. If he concludes that the baby belongs to the woman and the man doing the work is her husband, that is inference; but if he concludes further that the woman's husband is the father of the woman's baby, he soars into realms of pure conjecture. All for to-day, students.' The door swung closed after him. 'Quite a card!' said Joe Jackman. 'Really, aren't you going?'

'Sure. We may be a little late. We can catch the barge down the line, somewhere.'

'O.K. Be seeing you.'