SIX

 

1

 

ABNER's office was a small white-painted wooden temple behind the Centennial Block. The little pediment with fan-slatted ventilator, the ornate wooden entablature on four Doric columns, faced Derry Street; an alley paved in cobblestones and barred to vehicles by iron posts planted in its entrances on Court and Broad streets. The building stood behind, and belonged to, the Childerstown Savings Bank, whose janitor mowed the strips of lawn around it in summer; and whose steam pipes had been extended to heat it in winter. It had been the office of a Lawyer Coates for more than sixty years.

The peculiar form was due to the fact that it stood originally not behind the bank in the Centennial Block, but as an appendage to the Derry house, a big temple built under the influence of the Greek revival of the 1830s. Abner's grandfather, that Judge Coates who came back from the Civil War and hanged men without loss of appetite, held a mortgage on the Derry place; and after the main house burned, about 1870, he acquired the land and the little building, which had been used as a consulting room and pharmacy by old Doctor Derry. The land was sold to the savings bank when the block was put up in 1876; but Abner's grandfather retained a ninety-nine year lease on the building.

Though not in every respect convenient, changed values made this lease very advantageous. One nuisance: that the rooms had to be heated in winter by Franklin stoves, Abner's father had taken care of with the extension of the steam pipes. Another: that there were no washroom facilities and when Arlene had need of them, it was necessary for her to shut the place up and go over to the bank, Abner planned to do something about that the first time he got a little ahead. This was a change of attitude; for, when Abner began to practise, the old office struck him as absurd and a little embarrassing, and he was resolved to move as soon as possible. He would not have occupied it at all, except that his father seemed to expect him to; and, until Abner made more money, it was of course silly to give up quarters which, after all, did serve his purpose; and which, even with an extra charge for the steam heat, cost him only about a third of what he would have to pay for rooms in a modern building.

Abner's change of attitude began when, as time passed, a number of country people came to him with small businesses because they or their fathers had come to that same office to see Abner's father, or even his grandfather. They did not know where else to go when they needed legal advice. At the other end of the scale of sophistication, a lawyer named Menken, up to consult with Abner about local holdings of an estate that his firm represented, exclaimed with pleasure when he saw the temple. Far from finding the arrangement ridiculous or pitiable, he said that he found it entrancing. By commenting on them, Mr. Menken pointed out details to Abner that Abner had not particularly noticed before — the proportions of the building, the panelling of the rooms,, the fine iron work and brass of the Franklin stoves. Abner thought Menken somewhat effeminate in his interests and affected in his speech; but when he was gone, Abner could not help viewing in a new light the things that had been pointed out. Noticing these things, Abner began to see that the visitor was right; that he had something here that he would be foolish to give up.

 

 

2

Sometime during the night, those thin clouds that veiled the moon above the courthouse tower had thickened. When Abner awoke in the grey morning, he could hear steady rain on the long slate roofs and the gush of water in the spouts. Rain fell straight and quiet from a low misty sky. In the open windows of Abner's bedroom the unstirred air was warm and moist.

At ten minutes of eight Abner put his car in Hollis's Garage, beyond the bank; and, buttoned in a raincoat that was too warm, went past the shining iron posts and down the wet cobbles between the windows of the bank building and the blank brick wall of Wister's store. The oblong of clipped grass about his office was a beautiful refreshed green. He went up the worn stone steps and found the door already open. Arlene, in a transparent pink rain cape with a hood that covered her hat, was just putting down the telephone. 'Oh, Mr. Coates,' she said, 'that was Mr. Gearhart. Do you want me to call him back?'

'No,' said Abner, 'not now. I'm in a jam this morning. I've got a guilty plea at ten o'clock. You just get in?'

'Just this minute. I could have come earlier; but I didn't think —'

'No, that's all right. I was expecting some stuff from Mr. Bunting. I guess I'd better call —'

'There's Mr. Costigan now,' Arlene said. 'Maybe he has it.' She slipped out of her flimsy cape and hung it on a rack in the corner.

John Costigan came up the steps between the pillars and rapped on the frame of the screen door. ''Morning, Ab,' he said. ''Lo, Arlene. Marty asked me to bring this over. It's the Field stuff. You're going to want me to testify, aren't you?'

'I haven't talked to Marty this morning yet; but I guess you'd better. You made the arrest, didn't you?'

'Yes. Somebody busted into a shop in Milltown again last night. Kids, I think. I'd like to get over there later; but I guess this won't take long. Well, everything's here, Marty said. Oh. The carbon is for the Examiner; what he and Maynard wrote up last night. Be seeing you, then.'

'Thanks,' Abner said. He drew the file folder out of the damp Manilla envelope and went into the small room behind where he had his desk. On top of the pile, and the packet of photographs with a plain paper wrapped chastely around them, was a yellow sheet with several typed paragraphs beginning:' Samuel Field, 30, member of the Childerstown High School faculty for the past four years to-day began serving a [there was a blank] sentence at [another blank]. Field was arraigned this morning in Quarter Sessions before President Judge Horace Irwin who accepted guilty pleas on indictments presented by District Attorney Martin M. Bunting. Two charges were for assault and battery and a third for simple assault. They named the defendant as having made improper advances toward schoolgirls. District Attorney Bunting said the offences consisted of Field's conduct in summoning girls to his private office and under various pretexts of authority asking them personal questions and caressing them.'

'No girl has been violated beyond this extent,' the district attorney reported.

'The Childerstown Board of Education in a special meeting this morning accepted Field's resignation as a member of the high school faculty, where he was listed as a teacher of English, and director of audio-visual education. Field was placed under arrest last night by County Detective John Costigan and taken before Justice of the Peace Ralph Emerson Delp. Field pleaded guilty to the three specific charges based on complaints signed by parents of the girls involved and waived submission of his case to the grand jury. He was held in Childerstown jail overnight and brought before Judge Irwin by Assistant District Attorney Abner Coates at ten a.m. this morning' — underneath had been scrawled in Maynard Longstreet's large hand: to kom. in the door 'Mr. Coates,' Arlene said, her forefinger to her lip, poised. 'That Blessington stuff. We'll just have to —'

'Yes,' said Abner. 'We will. Let's have it. And take this,' he said, extending the sheet. 'You might as well know about it now. That's the start of a story going in the Examiner to-day.'

The telephone rang. 'I'm not in unless it's Mr. Bunting,' Abner said.

'One moment, please,' Arlene said. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. 'It's Mr. Gearhart again,' she said.

'I don't want to talk to him.'

'Well, it's really Hazel Finch, Mr. Coates. She mentioned she just saw you come in from their window —' Twisting her mouth up, Arlene paused significantly. 'Had I better say you're out?'

'No,' said Abner. 'Switch it on to this phone.' He dropped into the carved swivel chair covered with cracked leather that had belonged to his grandfather, tilted back, and put his feet on the desk. With the telephone balanced on his chest, he said, 'Hello.'

'Hello, Abner,' Jesse said gravely. 'Good morning. Marty tells me you're taking the Field case this morning.'

'Yes,' said Abner.

'Well, Ab, the board is having a special meeting later. I thought I'd better see the papers in the case. Marty says you have them. If I came over right away, could you let me see them before you go to court?'

Abner closed his mouth tight. Opening it, he said, 'They're a public record, Jesse. When they're filed, anybody can see them. But while they're in my custody, it isn't up to me to show them to anyone. Marty will give out as much as he thinks ought to be given out. He knows much more about it than I do, anyway.'

Jesse said, 'That's kind of foolish, Ab. Marty would have no objection to my seeing them.'

Abner said, 'If he wants them for anything, he can send for them; and what he does with them then is up to him. I'm sorry, Jesse; but that's how it is. I —'

But Jesse had hung up. Abner hung up himself, took his feet off the desk, and began to turn over some letters. He had looked at several before he realized that he was not taking in what he read.

There was a tap on the door, and Arlene carried in the yellow sheet and put it down beside him. 'Oh, isn't that awful!' she said, colouring. 'I don't see how he could do it! I mean, with girls he was teaching —'

'But otherwise you think it would be all right,' Abner said. 'No, I don't,' she said, colouring more and laughing, 'but it wouldn't be so bad.'

That was about the size of it, Abner reflected; and as to how Sam Field could do it, how he dared to do it, you had to conclude that the repeated arguments of desire somehow vacated common sense. Abner could remember one or two cases of assault by homosexuals, in which the defendant, though not unaware of the danger, nor careless of it; and not deranged, nor giving way to any impulse that he could not govern when he chose, took the risk of accosting complete strangers, or even the boys who lived next door. As far as Abner could determine it was not audacity nor deliberate recklessness, but just poor judgment. The accoster had convinced himself that he saw signs of his own bent in the stranger; or that the boys, because he was nice to them and gave them little presents, would never tell on him. In Sam Field's case, success with some girls and their silence in a few nervous preliminary ventures would be taken by Sam as proof that he was reasonably safe. Moreover, he probably imagined (like many people without experience in such matters) that as long as he didn't go too far, he could easily deny everything. He had never faced practised investigators like Bunting and John Costigan. He did not realize that his own nerves, strained by the sudden awful danger and shaking with consciousness of guilt, would betray him. Until this mental anguish was actually suffered, he had no way of knowing how soon (hadn't Marty said about ten minutes?) it would break him down. You needed hard experience, the complete knowledge of the police system enjoyed by men like Leming and Howell to be able to stand your ground and lie with any hope of success.

The telephone rang again.

Abner looked at it a moment without taking it up. He knew that if Jesse went to Marty about the papers, Marty would never refuse him. Jesse's position on the school board would make his interest legitimate enough for Marty. Since this was so, Abner could see that Jesse had been right; his own refusal was foolish. In honesty, Abner had to admit that spite more than duty made him refuse. Ashamed of himself, and yet not repentant, he lifted the receiver.

The mild, high, quick voice was Judge Irwin's. 'Ab,' he said, 'if I'm correct in understanding that you will be the one to take the Commonwealth's case before me this morning, I wanted to ask you to see me first. I'll be in chambers. There are one or two details I think it would be wise to settle.'

'Yes, sir,' Abner said. 'About what time?'

'Well, quarter to ten ought to be time enough, if that's convenient.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I understand the defendant has no counsel. I don't suppose it is necessary; but I would like you to make sure that he knows that he is free to have counsel if he wishes.'

'I'll call the district attorney.'

'Yes. Do. Since the matter seriously affects defendant's reputation; he ought perhaps to have advice about — well, character witnesses, say.'

'Oh, Lord!' thought Abner. 'The impression I got, Judge,' he said, 'was that he considered it to his own advantage to get it over as quickly as possible. Unless you feel that it would be a help to you in determining the sentence.'

'No. It seems fairly clear — I mean, of course, what has been told me seems clear. I would not come to any definite conclusion until I had heard the evidence. As you know, I have a certain scruple about these more or less summary processes — well, I won't detain you now. I'll expect you at quarter to ten.'

The line hummed in Abner's ear, and he broke the connection, held it a moment, and said, 'Four two, four two.'

Theda Heidweiler, Bunting's secretary, said, answering, 'District attorney's office. Oh, hello, Ab. Yes, he is. Did you get those papers from Mr. Costigan?' She called him Ab, when she addressed him, just as she called John Costigan, John; but, by the etiquette of local business usage, to any third person they were Mr. Costigan and Mr. Coates. Speaking to Bunting, she said, 'It's Mr. Coates, Mr. Bunting.'

Abner said, 'Marty, I got the stuff all right. Judge Irwin asked me to come up and see him first. He wanted me to ask you to be sure that Field knows he can have counsel if he wants.'

'He knows. I've just had a talk with him. His uncle, and his sister and her husband will be there, by the way. Do you know them?'

'I know Beatrice. Married a man named Wright, didn't she?'

'Yes. That's it. The uncle is a minister. Won't make it any easier; but we can't keep them out; and, as a matter of fact, it seemed to me decent of them to want to stand by. They're seeing him now. Warren Lyall will bring him up to number two at ten o'clock. When you get through, come right down. I want to put on Smalley; and then Lieutenant Dunglison and Mr. Kinsolving.'

'Anything I can do now?'

'No. Mr. Kinsolving's here. I think all you need to do upstairs is put on Costigan and the three girls. Oh. Don't let anything come out about the photographs. The Judge has seen them. I spoke to the girls and told them not to mention that unless directly questioned. So don't question them. There are some newspaper men from town around — they'll be downstairs; but I don't want them to get wind of anything.'

'Did Jesse call you?'

'No. Why?'

'He wanted to see the papers.'

'Well, he can. He'll probably be there. I forgot. The board's meeting to act on Field's resignation. Mrs. Ballinger told me she was asking Jesse to attend and get the facts for them. All right, Ab. See you later.'

'Mr. Coates,' Arlene said, tapping on the open door. 'You aren't going to forget the Blessington —'

'No,' said Abner, looking at the immense old banjo clock between the window mouldings. The brass pendulum, as big as a dinner plate, depended on four gleaming rods, winked majestically back and forth. 'Is that right?' he said. 'Well, let's have it —' The telephone rang.

'Unless it's Mr. Bunting again, tell them I've gone up to court,' Abner said.

At the phone in the outer room, Arlene said, 'I'm so sorry; he's on his way to court. Could he reach you anywhere later? I could get a message to him. Yes.'

Coming in with the Blessington folder, she said, 'That was Janet Drummond, Mr. Coates.'

'Did she say where she'd be?'

'She said she had to go over to school.' Arlene spoke primly; and Abner could guess that she was thinking that when you practised to deceive, even through your secretary, any unwished-for results served you right. 'Everything is here. Yes. There's Senator Little's last letter; and the one from Mr. Fuller —' She laid it before him on the desk and went out.

Abner looked at the folder with distaste. Last night, when he said to his father that there was a certain amount of dirty work that had to be done, but he did not have to do it, he was perhaps speaking too confidently. Abner could say in his own defence that he had refused cases — he remembered specifically a man who wanted to plead the statute of limitations against a debt. The plea was undoubtedly good; but the man had the money to pay if he wanted to, and Abner didn't like his attitude and told him he would have nothing to do with the case. It was not always as easy as that.

Abner had never known Herbert Blessington, a copy of whose last will and testament was among the papers under his hand, personally; but Abner felt as if he knew him, for twenty years ago Blessington owned an ice cream plant in Childerstown, and Abner could remember very well the red and white signs standing in front of most drug stores and confectionery parlours. They were lettered: 'Blessington's Dairy-Made Ice Cream. A Treat to Eat'; and certainly he used to find it so. The pleasure and promise associated with the name made him feel as though he were litigating the last will and testament of Santa Claus.

Like Santa Claus, old Blessington meant to use his position as a gift-giver to reward those who were good and to punish, by leaving them nothing, those he considered bad. In life Herbert Blessington had often been described as an eccentric; a short way of saying that he was a stubborn, vindictive, selfish, and unreasonable old bastard. He had never married, and his heirs were four sisters. Each of them had at one time or another served as his housekeeper, the service ending in a violent quarrel; so that at the time of his death, Herbert Blessington was not speaking to three of them; and to the fourth, who was then caring for him, he spoke as little as he could. Probably he would have quarrelled with her as soon as he got better, if he had got better.

However, in the legal meaning, Herbert Blessington was of sound mind; and the will, drawn up by Bill Fuller, the Childerstown Trust Company's attorney, was, naturally, in order. It provided that the estate be held in trust for the fourth sister, Elvira, on condition that she never live with the others, and never make them any gifts. That was the old man expressing his own malicious intent; but, next, Bill Fuller had plainly taken a hand, and told Herbert Blessington that he was running a legal risk; for a clause followed providing that, in event of the court holding the condition invalid, his estate was to go to Peck College, a small denominational school that Abner, for one, had never heard of.

Abner heard about Peck College, and also about Blessington's death and his will for the first time, when he got a letter from former Senator Enoch Little, a friend of Abner's father. The Senator wrote that it would give him great pleasure to retain his old friend's son in a matter which interested him as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of his former college. The trustees had been notified by Mr. Fuller that they were mentioned in a will about to be offered for probate, a copy of which the Senator was enclosing for Abner's consideration. In the Senator's opinion, the condition of the first bequest was clearly one in terrorem; and ought to he held contra bonos mores, and so void; bringing the alternative into effect, and giving the money to Peck College. What was Abner's opinion?

Senator Little, besides being his father's friend, was a man of importance with a long listing in the Directory of Directors. Abner looked up the point about conditions in terrorem in Corpus Juris; and though he discovered there that a condition providing that a wife's sister should not reside with or dwell in the house or place of residence of the wife had been held good, he thought that Blessington's provision about gifts would not be good, as involving or tending to encourage the violation of the duty which one member of a family owes another. At least, it would make a moot point on which the Supreme Court might be asked to rule. Arguing before the Supreme Court was always to the advantage of a young lawyer. Abner wrote the Senator that he was entering an appearance with the Register and would be happy to represent the Trustees. He was, in fact, pleased; and when he showed his father Senator Little's letter, it was plain that Judge Coates was even more pleased.

Abner went over to see Bill Fuller. Bill, a short fat man with a few strands of grey hair on his square head, was an old hand at such matters, and didn't mind being frank. He said that Blessington was a louse if ever there was one; that the sisters, who had done everything they could for him, were poor as dirt and desperately needed the money; and, of course, it was to the Trust Company's interest to maintain the original bequest. He said, 'Ab, I wish I'd let the old fool alone. In equity, I don't have to tell you, if the condition is void, the bequest's still good. Elvira would get the money and go right ahead and provide for her sisters; and that's the way it ought to be. They're old ladies, and they need that money. Two of them never married—Elvira, and what's her name, Julia. Thing was, he wouldn't let them; they had to work for him. One of the others is a widow; and the other has a husband who's an invalid, or something. I don't know what they live on.'

Bill got redder, incensed by the picture; and perhaps also by a recollected disregard of his admonitions. 'Well, sir,' he said, 'when Herb told me what he was planning to do, I had a good mind to let him. Then I said to myself, "Now, Bill, my friend," I said, "evil communications are kind of corrupting you! This rat in pants here's come for legal advice; and to the best of your knowledge you've got to give it to him straight." I said, "Herb, you don't want that condition. The court would throw it out, ten to one." He says, "And what then?" I said, I had to, "Elvira gets it unconditionally." That brought him up. He says, "Not if I know it!" He used to do a lot of praying (and, boy, he needed it!) with some Christer who went to this jerkwater college. Well, I did my duty, Ab; though it damn near killed me. If you file exceptions to our account as executors, I'll fight you, of course; but I'm afraid you're going to win.'

Abner said, 'From what you tell me. Bill, I don't like it. I never knew anything about Mr. Blessington except he used to make swell ice cream. But there's this friend of father's who asked me if I'd take it. Withdrawing would be —'

Bill said, 'Hell, Ab, if it wasn't you, it'd be someone else! Go to it. The public policy point needs a ruling anyway. Make it clear just how far you can go with a condition subsequent. I know you can't require a person not to marry, that is, if the person hasn't been married; and I know you can't require a change of religion. Those are void as against public policy. Well, we'll see what the Orphans' Court thinks. Are you willing to submit on briefs?'

'Sure,' said Abner.

Submitting on briefs suited him better than having to stand up and argue; probably before Judge Irwin, who had a sharp eye for actual as well as legal equity. The cause Abner was representing might not offend right and justice; but it did do a certain violence to one's sense of fairness or human decency. Abner sat for some time looking out at the heavy fall of rain on the brick backs of the bank and the Gearheart Building beyond it. He saw then that it was twenty minutes of ten; so he quickly signed in the spaces awaiting his signature, brought the folder out to Arlene, and said, while he put on his hat and raincoat, 'All right Shoot it in.'

3

Entering the courthouse by the door under the passage to the jail, Abner found the gloomy, damp-smelling back hall already stirring with people. Nick Dowdy, who had been leaning against the radiator with his cigar, shuffled up to him and murmured, 'Ab, two fellows there; reporters. Asked to see you or Marty. You want —'

'Not now. I have to see the Judge.'

Around the bend of the hall, the door to the courtroom was open. Malcolm. Levering with little pulls and pushes was aligning the jury's chairs neatly. Abner opened the door of the Attorneys' Room. It was hazed with "tobacco smoke. Old John Clark and George Stacey and Mark Irwin sat with sections of the morning paper; but they were not reading, for Harry Wurts, standing against the fireplace, bright and clean-shaven, was saying, '... at the age of fifteen she was ruined by a travelling salesman. "What do you mean, ruined?" says Mike. "Put the boots to her last night, and she worked swell."'

John Clark's dignified 'Heh, heh' rang out. George and Mark laughed; and Mark said, 'Reminds me of the one about —!'

Harry said, 'Well, well, greetings, Mr. Commonwealth! How are all the little Commonwealths this morning? None the worse for their harrowing experience yesterday, I trust?'

'Nuts to you,' Abner said, hanging up his coat and hat. 'I have to see the Judge —'

'Now, wait, wait!' said Harry. 'What's all this about that Field, Sam Field, over at school? Hey, Mark, don't let him out! We have to get to the bottom of it.'

'Sounds like you could tell me,' Abner said. 'What?'

'Mark, here, says that Marty was over to see his father last night.'

'I wasn't there.'

'Rumour hath it that a couple of high school girls were suddenly taken enceinte — means, ungirdled, George — and that —'

'Well, that's definitely not true,' Abner said, 'so you'd better get a new Rumourer. Who told you about it?'

'Don't you wish you knew?' said Harry.

'Not much,' Abner said. 'So long.' He went out into the hall and made his way past the loitering groups to the door of Judge Irwin's chambers.

The inner room, where Judge Irwin sat, corresponded in shape and position to the Attorneys' Room on the other side. It had the same Gothic fireplace and ogee-arched door-frames to the courtroom, to the hall, to the lavatory in the corner, and to the law library. Here the two windows were on the sunny side of the building and they had been equipped with awnings, now dank and taut with rain. The darkness of the day and the lowered awnings made it necessary for the lights, in a bowl of white china hanging on bronze chains, to be on. In this wan mingling of daylight and electric light, Judge Irwin, slight and neat, wearing a suit of blue serge, a stiff linen collar, and black knitted tie with a pearl pin in it, sat restlessly looking at the latest paper-bound supplement to the Atlantic Reporter.

Seeing Abner in the door beyond, Judge Irwin took off his glasses. 'Well,' he said, 'it's a wet morning. Come in, Ab.' Joining his long-boned hands, he wrung them together gently. His acute, anxious gaze fixed itself on Abner. With a little preparatory grimace showing discomfort or distaste, he said, nodding at the folder in Abner's hand, 'This is a repellent thing; and it's for that reason that I think we ought to be careful to see that it's kept impersonal. It is natural to feel an indignation; but we should not be biased into forgetting that the offence was not worse than it was, if I may put it that way.'

Taking up his glasses, Judge Irwin produced a fresh handkerchief and began to polish the lenses. He said with active distress, 'I do not mean to minimize the element of betrayal of trust. We have a right to expect that a man will be alive to his duty and responsibility; and when he goes clean contrary to them, when, instead of helping those in his charge to self-control and the formation of wise and wholesome habits, he sets them an example of licence, and introduces them to, or at least, assists them in, debasing practices, the offence is heinous.' He cleared his throat and put the glasses carefully in their case.

'Doctor Janvier came in earlier,' he said, 'and I had a talk with him. He doesn't find any outright abnormalities in the defendant; but he thinks that psychologically he is not quite normal — whatever that may be. I mean, I have, as you must have, often wondered what is normal; and who is. I think we all recognize in ourselves occasional impulses or ideas which, if put in practice or disclosed to the world, would cast the gravest doubts on our own normality. In short, what is abnormal is not perhaps the impulse, whatever it may be; but the giving way to it, when it is one that most men's reason, or conscience, or even mere fear of the police, restrains. No man can be excused from conforming to the requirements of the social order; and it is right to penalize him when he fails to conform; but I think we should bear in mind that what is none to us, may be to him a great temptation. I don't know whether I make myself clear?'

'Yes, you do, Judge,' Abner said. When Irwin went into one of his monologues, sign always that he was greatly upset, he talked less to the person he addressed than to himself. With his great resources of knowledge and experience he assayed new explanations of the inexplicable; patiently, unwilling to despair, he argued the world around him back to some degree of reason. 'Then, I think we can go up,' Judge Irwin said. The lavatory door opened and Judge Vredenburgh came out. 'Morning, Abner,' he said. He took his robe from the hook in the corner and thrust his arms through the wide silk sleeves. His full face was drawn down a little around the firm mouth, the second chin just showing solidly above his collar. His blue eyes were shrewd and thoughtful. 'Horace,' he said, 'I was racking my brain about that Field boy. Ask Mat Rhea, when he has time, to go through the docket around 1880. I think you'll find that Field's grandfather had some trouble in connection with molesting girls. His mother's father, that was. I think the name was Ireland, or Irish.'

Judge Irwin bit his lip. That would be a curious coincidence,' he said. 'I don't know that we should consider it germane to — visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.' He grimaced.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'I understand there's a respectable precedent for doing that; but I'm not urging it. I just thought it might interest you. Afraid it's going to be a bad thing for Oliver Rawle.'

'Yes. Jesse Gearhart called me about it, though; and I think Oliver will have some support on the board.'

'Well, I must go in and get on with this,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'I hope we can finish to-day. I don't think there's much doubt about what the jury will find. Those men ought to be electrocuted; and I'm only sorry we'll have to stall around with an appeal. What with motions in arrest of judgment, and for a new trial, it may be a month before we can even sentence them.'

'If it were my life,' Judge Irwin said, 'I don't know that I would regard the delay as inordinate.' He arose and got his robe from the other hook. 'One must put one's self in the other person's place.' He smiled, took up two green-bound volumes of statutes and a yellow pad.

'Yes,' said Judge Vredenburgh, 'and let them put themselves in this Zolly, this Frederick Zollicoffer's place. They didn't wait around while someone like Harry Wurts filed motions and printed records and took appeals.'

Judge Irwin smiled again. 'I'll say this, Tom. I have heard nothing about them to make me think that they are persons on whose conduct we should model our own. I may come down for a little while later.'

'Wish you would,' Judge Vredenburgh said. He opened the courtroom door, and Abner could see, sidelong, the cavernous gloom, the partly filled benches rising to the grey windows. Nick Dowdy's mallet hit the block; and with a ripple and stir everyone stood up as the door softly closed. High in the haze of rain above the roof, the tower clock began to bang out ten.

4

 

The number two courtroom upstairs measured about twenty by thirty feet. Half this space was taken by the jury box — three rows of empty chairs ascending on shallow steps. The bench, witness stand, and railed clerk's desk formed a small unit at the end. To get to it, one had to move, with little room to spare, past counsels' tables; like the jury box, too big for the room; At the back, next to the door, were two long benches, each accommodating a dozen people. Bunting had managed to keep the affair this morning so quiet that the benches were not filled when Abner came in with Judge Irwin. Sam Field and Warren Lyall, the deputy sheriff, sat at the end of the first table. Behind them sat Abner Field's uncle, the minister; and Beatrice Wright (Abner knew her to speak to, but no more) and her husband, a beefy, solemn-looking young man.

Judge Irwin went briskly past to the bench, and Abner, following him, laid his folder on the first table. Judge Irwin said good morning to Maynard Longstreet, who had made himself at home at one side of the clerk's desk; but there was no clerk. The Judge said, 'Where is Mr. Bosenbury? Wasn't he told?'

Everitt Weitzel, who had been whispering to Norman Creveling, broke off and said, 'I'll see, sir. He knows,' and limped out the door. 'Well, we won't stand on formality,' Judge Irwin said. 'The court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace is now open. You may proceed, Mr. Coates.'

Abner slipped out the three bills of indictment, 'Samuel Pierce Field?' he said.

The girls and their parents were in the second bench; and beyond them, in the corner, sat Adelaide Maurer looking at her pencils. The door opened, and Theodore Bosenbury, the deputy clerk of Quarter Sessions, a stout ageing man with a white moustache, entered in a hurry. John Costigan, who followed him, strolled up and sat down at Abner's table. The door opened again and admitted Jesse Gearhart, carrying a wet umbrella. He glanced around, tiptoed past the minister and the Wrights, and seated himself at the far end of the front bench.

When his name was called, Field had arisen, and Abner walked over to him. Field looked haggard and ill. Beside him, Warren Lyall cast his eyes down, examining his own muscular hands with a decorous professional indifference. He was the instrument of the law, with his duty to do, which was to have ready the body of his (or Hugh Erskine's) prisoner. Warren did not let the rest of it concern him; partly because everything that could be said or done was now an old story to him; and partly because an impersonal, disinterested manner saved trouble. A prisoner could not help seeing that to argue with disinterestedness would be absurd, and to appeal to impersonality, useless.

'Sam,' said Abner as gently as he could, 'I have here indictments charging you with assault and battery on Mary Beach, Nina Friedman, and — er — Helen Hartshorn. How do you plead to them, guilty or not guilty?'

'Guilty,' said Field, in a very low voice.

'All right; if you'll just sit down, please.'

Turning, Abner said, 'I'll call John Costigan, your Honour.' Bending over his own table, Abner took a pen and began to endorse the pleas on the back of the three bills. Theodore Bosenbury said, 'John Costigan sworn,' closed his Bible and sat down under the bench. 'Mr. Costigan,' Abner said, still writing, 'what is your occupation?'

'County detective.'

'And do you know the defendant, Samuel Field?'

'Yes, sir, I do.'

'Well, will you just tell us what part you played in this case?'

'Yes, sir. Last evening at' —he looked at his notebook — 'six-forty-five o'clock I received a call —'

Jesse Gearhart, down in the corner of the front row, and half hidden from Abner by the empty chairs of the jury box, held his chin in his hand, leaning forward slightly. His pallid immobile face seemed even tireder than last night, as though sleep did not rest him. Abner looked on to the girls and their parents. Mary Beach he recognized at once from the photographs. The girl seated between Leon Friedman and the dark woman was obviously Nina. The other, the Hartshorn girl, it seemed to Abner he had seen somewhere, though without knowing her name. Her father, next to her, was, by his appearance, a farmer. He had a strong, blunt, determined face. His little worn anxious wife in a shabby hat sat on the other side. Abner's gaze encountered Adelaide Maurer's, and she lifted one eyebrow and smiled faintly.

To Costigan, Abner said, 'And after that you were present at the hearing at the justice of the peace's office?'

'Yes, sir.'

'All right. I think that's all. Unless your Honour has some questions?'

'I don't think that Mr. Costigan explained what the purpose of the search in Mr. Field's office at the school was.'

'Why, we —' Costigan began.

'I think, sir,' Abner interposed, 'it was thought that some evidence of Mr. Field's activities might be found.'

'Oh,' said Judge Irwin. 'Yes. Yes. That will be all, Mr. Costigan.'

'Mary Beach,' said Abner. 'Will you take the stand, please?' She came down with composure, perhaps to be expected in a girl who had made no objection, or none that wasn't eventually overcome, to posing as Sam directed. She was a hefty girl, bold-faced but pretty in a thick blonde way, and well-made — Abner could see Maynard Longstreet looking her up and down as she pressed her hand on Mr. Bosenbury's Bible. She went up on the witness stand with a little self-possessed flick of her skirt, and sat down, swinging one leg over the other.

'How old are you, Mary?' Abner said.

'I'm sixteen.'

'Now, Mary, you testified before Squire Delp last night that on the afternoon of March fifteenth or sixteenth last, Mr. Field requested you to report to his office for a conference. I want you to tell his Honour, Judge Irwin, in your own words, what took place there after you had reported."

'Well,' she said, lifting her shoulders a little, 'he began by asking things about my work; and then he said he would have to ask me some personal questions, and I must not mind answering them, because it was just like talking to a doctor —' She paused and said to Judge Irwin, 'Do I have to say everything he asked me?'

'No,' said Judge Irwin. 'That will probably not be necessary, if you will just indicate the general nature.'

'About, well, whether I was, well, mature or not —'

In spite of her mannerisms, she was a good witness; better, probably, than if she had been hampered by maidenly innocence. Abner recognized the type. A girl who had her reputation was almost always either an outright moron, or, like Mary Beach, entirely adult in her point of view — much more than a match for boys her own age; and often no less than a match for men as much older as Sam Field. Her testimony seemed to Abner straight and plausible; but of course she didn't, and had no reason to want to, and perhaps anyway couldn't, report along with what she said and he said, her by-play of look and tone. She did not say, as probably the case was, that at previous conferences her precocious senses had apprised her of the teacher's involuntary interest in her; and for the fun of it, and because she enjoyed her power, and because she was experienced enough not to be afraid, she kept signalling little invitations, making them, if Sam pretended to ignore them (as he very likely did at first) bolder each time and more alluring.

Abner could see that actually Mary Beach might be to blame for the whole business — the dates of the other charges were all later. She had excited his imagination, and shown him how easy it was, and he had profited by her instructions. Abner looked at Sam a moment, wondering if by any chance Sam realized this — the fact, so well known to the district attorney's office, that, unless the man were insane, or very drunk, the woman was always to blame for what happened to her. She could end it any time by an honestly meant fiat refusal.

Abner said, 'On these, or other occasions, Mr. Field never went further than that, 'did he? I mean, just putting his hands on you —' But his indirection, he saw, was ridiculous. 'In short, he never at any time had, or attempted to have, sexual intercourse with you, did he?'

'No, he never did.'

'Your Honour? That's all, then, Mary. You may step down. Nina Friedman, please.'

The Reverend Mr. Field, looking sadly at his nephew's back, shifted and swallowed, like a man who has borne up in a period of prolonged strain, and at last reaches the end; only to find that he is not through, for another one, a fresh one just like it, awaits him.

Nina Friedman came down and faced Mr. Bosenbury. She was much slighter and looked much younger than Mary Beach; but she, too, answered that she was sixteen. On the witness stand Nina was tense and jerky, her smooth head and small warm coloured face in ceaseless movement while she looked at her finger nails, sidelong at the ceiling, out the window into the dripping green summits of the trees. At each question of Abner's, she went through a high-strung pantomime—obedient attention, quick comprehension, careful reflection, ready response. Invited to tell what had happened to her in her own words, she began with vivacity, then stumbled and went scarlet at her own words. Her eyes filled with tears, and she gave a light laugh. She said, 'He never did any more than that. He really didn't —'

To accept Mary Beach's standing invitation was one thing; but to fool with a kid like this — Sam ought to have better sense! Abner exchanged a glance with Judge Irwin and checked her. He said, 'Thank you. That will be all, Nina. Helen Hartshorn.'

Mr. Hartshorn turned to his daughter and said audibly, 'Go on up there!'

By the note of brusque authority, Abner could guess that Mr. Hartshorn was an old-fashioned disciplinarian. He expected justice to be done and Field to be punished; but that was not his only concern. One of his duties, and he was the man to do it, was to see that his daughter behaved herself. Common sense must have taught him that truth about where the blame lay that the district attorney's office knew so well. Once Mr. Hartshorn was certain that Helen had not been forced to allow the familiarities by superior strength or fear of injuries, he probably came to the rough and ready conclusion that the teacher wasn't the only one who needed correction. Abner suspected that Helen, when she got home last night, had been given a good licking. She was cowed and mournful, and when she sat down in the witness chair, she did it with such care that Abner was obliged to bite his lip.

'How old are you, Helen?' he said.

'Fifteen.'

'And you're a student at Childerstown High School?'

'I was. My father says I can't go back.'

Abner could see a change in Jesse Gearhart's expression. Mr. Hartshorn might be — he looked as if he would be — a member of his township sending board, the body that arranged for sending children in to the central high school. It was easy to guess that he was going to demand changes — Mr. Rawle's head; and if he felt that way, other men like him on other sending boards were bound to feel the same. Jesse was going to have bad news for the meeting.

'Well, that's too bad,' Abner said, 'but —'

Mr. Hartshorn stood up and said, 'You needn't be worrying your head about things too bad, Mr. Coates. We're looking into this school business; and it's going to be too bad for some people I could name in Childerstown, if that is what you mean. Yes, I —'

'Mr. Hartshorn!' said Judge Irwin.

'Things haven't been going right here, and —'

Judge Irwin had no gavel, but he rapped his knuckles violently on the desk. A delicate pink flush came up his cheeks and he said, 'If you do not sit down at once and be quiet, I shall hold you in contempt! This is a court of law, Mr. Hartshorn, not a public forum.'

Reddening, Mr. Hartshorn sat down. 'Proceed, Mr. District Attorney,' Judge Irwin said.

Abner said, 'Well, Helen, you were a student at the high school during last May, weren't you? And you testified that on May third —'

Sam Field had bent his head down further. The only thing Sam could have to hope for in all this was that it would soon be over, and fairly soon forgotten; and Mr. Hartshorn's contentious words perhaps reminded him that this hope was unwarranted. Four years' service had given him his place in the squabbles and schemings and jealousies and long-holding of grudges that made up so much of the life and world of the school office and the faculty room. Though no longer present, Sam Field would not be quietly released from their talk and thought. In the struggle about to be joined, the coming together in opposition about who was to blame and who would have to pay, they would expose Sam Field anew at every meeting, and retry the case every day for weeks, while his friends hated him for putting them at the disadvantage of having been his friends, and his enemies gloated quietly together, telling each other again and again that they had told each other so.

When Abner called his name, Sam Field jumped, starting erect. This made it necessary for him to stand a moment, drawing back stiffly, while Helen Hartshorn returned to her place. She slipped past him and sat by her father; and Field came down with constrained steps to where Mr. Bosenbury held the book. When he was in the stand, Abner said to him, 'Mr. Field, you have heard the evidence that has been offered' — the truth was, Abner thought, he had probably heard little of it — 'and I will not ask you anything about it in detail, unless there are details that you feel should be corrected. You have a right to question any of the witnesses if you want to.'

'No,' said Field.

'Mr. Field, can you give his Honour any explanation for these actions of yours? Can you say anything about why you were led to act this way?'

Field said, 'I don't know why.'

'That will be all, then,' Abner said with relief. 'Unless your Honour —?'

'No. That is all. I have no questions.' Judge Irwin cleared his throat, took a last look at the page of the open volume of the statutes under his hand. 'Samuel Pierce Field,' he said, 'come before the Court.'

'Right here,' Mr. Bosenbury whispered, indicating the space by the rail in front of him. When Field stood there, Judge Irwin went on, 'You have pleaded guilty to charges that are very serious. However, because you have pleaded guilty, because you have co-operated with the Commonwealth, I will not pain you, or others, by dwelling on the detestable nature of what you allowed yourself to do. I think you regret your acts. You are a young man of education and intelligence and though it is necessary for me to sentence you as I am about to, the Court feels every confidence that what you have been guilty of is merely a mis-step, and that you will in the future — er — be a useful and honourable member of society.'

Judge Irwin shifted in his chair, clearing his throat again, and went on: 'The sentence of the Court is, first — this is the first indictment, Mr. Bosenbury; number sixty-three. First, that you pay the costs of prosecution.' He paused and looked at Field. 'And that you undergo a term of imprisonment at the Blue Hills Reformatory of not less than one year, nor more than —'

Muffling an exclamation, Beatrice Wright put a hand over her face and began to cry.

To Abner, John Costigan murmured, 'Got a break. Didn't send him to the pen, at any rate.'

Coming behind Abner, Warren Lyall whispered, 'Were those to run concurrently?'

'Yes,' said Costigan. Lyall squeezed his shoulder, stepped by him, and made a gesture to Field. Maynard Longstreet, folding his copy paper, stood up, put his elbows on the front of the bench, addressing Judge Irwin, who bent forward to hear. Everitt Weitzel said to the witnesses, 'That's all. You can go now.'

Standing up, Abner found himself facing the Reverend Mr. Field, who said agitatedly, 'I just wished to ask you whether it's proper for us to speak to him; whether we can see him a few minutes —'

'Certainly,' Abner said. 'This courtroom won't be in use now. I think Mr. Lyall will be willing to let you talk to him here for a few minutes.' He glanced at Field, who stood white and silent under the high window through which the falling rain could be seen. Abner walked up to him, put out his hand, and said, 'Good luck, Sam.'

Field took the hand weakly; but he did not try to say anything. Abner saw that, like most impulsive gestures, it had only served to distress them both. He nodded, took up his file folder from the table, and started toward the door.

Jesse Gearhart was still sitting in the corner, his hands balanced on his umbrella handle; and Abner went over to him. 'Marty says he's willing for you to have this,' he said. He lifted the folder, not sure whether Jesse would take it or not.

Jesse said, 'All right, Ab. Thanks.'

Abner turned and went out the door and downstairs. In the hall below he caught up with Everitt Weitzel. 'Bad thing, that, Ab,' Everitt said, seeing who it was.

Finding that he remained somewhat shaken, Abner said, 'Yes, it is.' He lit a cigarette, took a couple of puffs, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. Coming to the courtroom door, he dropped the cigarette, trod it out, and let himself in quietly.

5

 

A gloom like that of dusk filled the great cavern of the main courtroom. Outside the morning had darkened and the fall of rain was so heavy and loud that the sound of it passed in drumming echoes across the varnished ceiling boards from slope to slope. Behind the stained glass wheel the thousand candle power electric bulbs were burning. Their diluted light, falling fifty feet on the well of the court, fell on Abner as he approached the Commonwealth's table.

Bunting, a paper in his hand, stood by the rail beside Joe Jackman's desk. Kinsolving, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agent, was on the stand. Big waisted, big shouldered, bull necked, he sat in the poor light like a rock. Abner saw his face, hard and reposed in profile, against the glow from Judge Vredenburgh's green-shaded reading lamp. When Kinsolving spoke, it was with the economy and precision of an expert witness. He might seem easy and negligent to the uninstructed; but a lawyer who knew the rules of evidence soon saw that Kinsolving knew them, too.

Bunting said to him, 'How frequently did you see Stanley Howell?'

'Oh, approximately every hour,' Kinsolving answered. By the jury's close attention Abner knew that Kinsolving was not the first witness. This was a continued story. Lieutenant Dunglison, who sat at the Commonwealth's table, must already have been examined and cross-examined. Abner took the chair beside him. Dunglison moved to give him more room, and whispered,' Morning, Mr. Coates.'

Abner whispered back, 'Good morning, Lieutenant. How are we coming?'

'All right.' He directed a short hostile stare at Harry Wurts. 'Our friend there's making trouble; but it don't do him any good.'

'Smalley been on?'

'Yeah. Corroborative, mostly. They didn't cross. Couldn't get much out of that butt pedlar.' Dunglison looked at her with disgust.

Taking them up from Joe Jackman's desk, Bunting said to Kinsolving, 'I show you a number of sheets of paper that are fastened together and marked Commonwealth's Exhibit number eighteen, and ask you whether you have seen those before?'

Bunting handed them up, and Kinsolving looked at them calmly, turning the pages over, and said, 'Yes, sir, I have. I signed them as a subscribing witness at the same time stated before, in our office.'

Bunting said, 'And you were present, Mr. Kinsolving, when Stanley Howell made a statement to a stenographer in that office?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And was that statement subsequently transcribed and reduced to typewriting?'

'It was.'

'Is that the statement which you hold in your hand; Commonwealth's Exhibit number eighteen?'

'Yes. It is marked C.X. eighteen.'

'Cross-examine.'

From his seat beside Basso, George Stacey arose, fiddled a moment with the papers spread on the table, and came down before the jury. It seemed to Abner that the jurors' faces showed disappointment. Harry Wurts' performance on Lieutenant Dunglison must have been a good and exciting one, and they had been hoping for more. Abner was surprised, and looking at Marty, he saw that Marty was surprised, too, that Harry would leave so tough a witness — and, moreover, a witness whose testimony dealt entirely with Harry's client — to George.

Slight and uneasy, looking worried but resolute, George said, 'Now, do I understand, Mr. Kinsolving, that you first saw Stanley Howell on May third?'

That was also, Abner remembered, the date on which Sam Field had 'seen' Helen Hartshorn. The two actions, moving toward the same place, had been paralleling each other; Sam 'seeing' the girls in his office on the same spring days that Bailey and Howell and Basso and Leming plotted the kidnapping of Frederick Zollicoffer, captured him, killed him, scattered for safety, and were overtaken.

'That is correct,' Kinsolving said kindly.

'And between May third and the morning of May sixth, you were with him practically all the time?'

'I was in the room, in and out, Counsellor.' Though spoken gravely, without a trace of derision, the title was wildly derisive when you looked at George pecking nervously at this bulwark of ease and experience; and suddenly Abner saw why Harry was not-doing his own cross-examining. There was little chance that Harry or anyone else could shake Kinsolving; and in a flash, Harry's acute and foxy mind must have seen how to turn Kinsolving's impregnability at least a little to the Commonwealth's disadvantage. Give him to George, who would have trouble taking candy from a baby, and let the jury feel sorry for poor George, so unfairly matched.

George said, 'Now, did you talk to Howell about making a statement?'

'Oh, yes. Several times.'

'And what was his response?'

'Why,' said Kinsolving amiably, 'he seemed undecided, Counsellor. He was considering what he ought to do, he told me.'

'And what, if anything, was done by the men in your department to help him decide?'

'Why, we told him what we already knew; the confession by Bailey implicating him.'

'You didn't inflict any punishment on Howell, did you?'

'I did not'

'You don't remember twisting his thumbs back, do you?'

'No, I do not.'

Slumped in his chair, his chin on his chest, Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Did you do it, or didn't you?'

'No, sir,' said Kinsolving, inclining his head toward him, 'I did not.'

Bunting said to Abner, 'What did he get?'

'One to three.'

'Make out all right?' Abner nodded.

George Stacey said, 'Now, while you were talking to Howell, where was he — I mean, in what position was he?'

'He was on the table with an Oregon boot on him, a leg boot.'

'What is that?' asked George. 'An instrument of torture?'

'Why, no, Counsellor,' Kinsolving said, smiling. 'It's a short length of chain that prevents a man from running.'

'He also had handcuffs on?'

'Most of the time.'

'And you don't think being loaded with chains helped him decide what be ought to do?'

'It may have,' Kinsolving said equably. 'He must have seen that he had no chance to escape this time. His record showed that he had made several escapes from various authorities who neglected to take proper precautions.'

'And where did he sleep?'

'On the table.'

'I suppose this wasn't an upholstered table?'

'Just a plain wooden table. I think he had his coat; and we put some other coats under him.'

'And that is how he had to sleep from May third to the morning of May sixth?'

'That is correct.'

'Isn't it a fact that he was not permitted to sleep at all?'

'I think that is incorrect. I know it is not correct.' Abner could see the jurors asking themselves how much sleep a man would get with his hands and feet chained, lying on a wooden table, even if he wasn't otherwise disturbed. On the faces of some of them was a faint uneasiness, an imaginative discomfort;, and George, noticing it, too, showed that he thought he had an advantage to press. He said, 'Did you ever see him when he was asleep?'

'Yes; on two different occasions.'

'And when you caught him sleeping, you woke him up, of course?'

'Why, no, Counsellor. I had a good deal on my hands just then. I just looked in occasionally to see that he was all right. When I saw that he was asleep, I caught up with my other work.'

'How about the rest of the men? There were other men working on him, weren't there?'

'I couldn't answer for other men, Counsellor. Yes, there was Special Agent Shannon, Special Agent Klapper — three or four others.' He nodded courteously.

It was, Abner told himself, like a checker game in which George, clutching his pieces, made impulsive, immediately obvious moves, jumped at certain small chances and took them; while Kinsolving, a professional player with the pattern of the whole game in his head, good-humouredly watched George imagine that he was winning. Kinsolving kept his eye not on the jury, which knew nothing about the realities of this business, anyway; and if the jury were swayed by sympathy for Howell in chains sleeping on a table, it would as readily be swayed back when the district attorney summed up the things that Howell had done. Kinsolving watched the rules of evidence, had regard for the charge of the Court, considered the record that would go up for appeal. Abner did not doubt that Kinsolving would unhesitatingly perjure himself, a risk he was prepared to take in the line of duty, to protect all really important parts of his legal position. If George thought that anything Kinsolving had assented to so far would stand in the legal meaning as coercion, it could only be because George knew less law than Kinsolving did.

George said, 'And these special agents, they were also trying to get a statement?'

'To obtain information is the duty of a special agent of the department, Counsellor.'

'And to get that information by any means at all?'

'No; that is not the policy of our department, Counsellor.'

'I don't care anything about the policy of your department,' George said. You could hear the echo of Harry Wurts; George was trying to copy that harsh backlash; but since he lacked Harry's confident, insolent gaze, and Harry's bold, overbearing voice, the effect was only querulous. Everyone looked at him, surprised; and, blushing, George said, 'I want to know what was done in this instance.'

'I have related that,' Kinsolving said mildly.

'Well, I mean what means do you take to get this information?'

'I find kindness as good means as any, Counsellor; if by "you'', you mean me personally.'

'May we have an example of your kindness?'

'Getting him a glass of water,' Kinsolving said. 'Giving him cigarettes. Talking heart to heart with him.'

'And these other agents you mentioned, were they kind to him, too — are they here in court?'

'I can't answer for them, of course. They are experienced men, however; and I should think they would agree with me that that is the best method —no, to the extent of my knowledge, they aren't here. I have not seen them.'

'Your Honour,' said George, 'I think those men ought to be here.' Judge Vredenburgh stirred. 'Do you mean that the Commonwealth should have called them, Mr. Stacey? In that event I'm afraid the district attorney must be allowed to judge. Do you mean that you should have called them yourself?' Though Judge Vredenburgh smiled, he sounded testy; and after a good deal of pleading before him, Abner could recognize Judge Vredenburgh in conflict with himself. Judge Vredenburgh was displeased not with George, but with Kinsolving; yet, since Kinsolving's behaviour and answers were scrupulously correct, and Judge Vredenburgh could find no fault of a cognizable sort in him, he made himself retain his displeasure until someone, by any little error or silly remark or hint of impertinence, tripped the trigger and opened an outlet. The Judge did not like Kinsolving's expertness, the cool choosing of what he would tell and what he wouldn't; so George was rapped for lack of expertness, for failing by some masterpiece of cross-examination, to bring out what Kinsolving had the presumption to withhold.

Red with embarrassment, both because of the reproof, and because he saw now that he had impulsively put his foot in it, George none the less managed to stand his ground, and Abner silently applauded him. George said, 'Well, sir, I am not satisfied that this witness is telling all he could if he wanted to.'

As that was probably the Judge's own opinion, he was mollified; but he said remotely, 'He will be required to answer any questions you wish to ask him, Mr. Stacey.'

'I don't think I want any more of the kind of answers the witness gives, sir. No further questions.'

Bunting stood up beside Abner and said, 'One moment, Mr. Kinsolving. I will ask you a question that Mr. Stacey has not asked you. Did Stanley Howell, before making this statement, complain to you of any physical abuse?'

'He did not.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Did he complain of any part of his treatment?'

'No, sir.'

Judge Vredenburgh pursed his lips, his sharp gaze fixed on Kinsolving's calm face. 'Did you see any sign of injuries or anything of that nature?'

'None at all.'

Judge Vredenburgh nodded, looking away. George Stacey said bitterly, 'You didn't look for them, did you?'

Turning his head with an air of surprise, Kinsolving said, 'I didn't see any on him, Counsellor.'

'I mean you didn't make any examination of him, you didn't examine his body — did he have his clothes on?'

'Why, yes. He was sitting there with his clothes on. There was no outward sign of anything on his face or what parts of his body I could see.'

'That's all.'

'That's all,' Bunting said. 'I desire to offer in evidence Commonwealth's Exhibit number eighteen.'

Harry Wurts held up his hand, and Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Are you objecting, Mr. Wurts?'

'Well, yes, your Honour; I will object, of course. But right now, I wish to ask for a recess. On account of Mr. Kinsolving's kindness, again.'

Judge Vredenburgh drew his mouth down. 'You will have an opportunity to advance what theories you may have when the defence opens, Mr. Wurts. Keep them until then. There will be a five minute recess.'

While Howell was taken out, Bunting sat down again. 'You through with us?' Lieutenant Dunglison asked.

'Yes, thanks. I'm just going to have the confession read into the record.'

Dunglison nodded and went over and sat down in the ring of seats along the outer rail by Kinsolving. Abner said, 'They don't see much, do they?'

'They're pretty careful. They know they're going to be witnesses to the signature and will have to testify. The Judge didn't like it.' Bunting sat back stretching and yawning. 'I don't like it either. But they had the goods on Howell. There was never a doubt in the world; and they know the kind of evidence they have to present — Kinsolving, there, has a law degree. He told me this morning. A lot of the Federal men do. There's no sense, or no use, in handing over to us a case that won't stick.' Bunting shrugged. 'Of course they have no right to take it on themselves to decide whether the goods they have on a man are really good. But I'd trust them. They know when a man is guilty. You know yourself how that is. We've had cases when we knew who did it, but we didn't have the proof. Well, Field was a good case. We had to work on him. We say he confessed of his own free will. It isn't true. We broke him down. Of course, all we had to do was just talk to Field and keep after him; but how far would you get just talking to Howell? In principle there isn't a nickel's worth of difference.'

Abner said, 'Well, were you going to beat Field up, if talking didn't work?'

'No. Certainly not.'

'You mean, because it would have made such a stink?'

'I mean, because I would have felt a reasonable doubt about his being guilty,' Bunting said. His smile was dry. He struck a light emphatic fillip against Abner's arm. 'Don't work so hard at it, Ab. There is always theory and there is always practice. If you think you're going to change that, you're wrong. Theory is where you want to go; practice is how you're going to get there.'

'Yes,' said Abner, 'or else, theory is what you tell people you're going to do; and practice is what they catch you really doing. Get anything out of Susie?'

'Not much. Harry asked for an offer of proof and so I made it, and he objected. Immaterial, of course. Vredenburgh said it would show they were associated, and continued to be associated — stealing the other car, the one they wanted to use when they got rid of the one they used for Zolly.' Bunting shook his head. 'Matter of fact, Harry fooled me. I didn't expect that, because I thought he'd like to cross-examine to try to mix her up in it more. The way it came out, I couldn't risk asking her a lot of questions I might have, because I wanted to keep it narrowed down so he'd have to take a few points I'd laid for him. Harry did the smart thing by just saying no questions. The jury was disappointed, I think. They were expecting some hot stuff.' He looked toward the hall door. 'There's Howell. Now, we'll have a brawl over the objections. I want you to read the statement, if and when.' He pushed it over to Abner and stood up.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'You were making an offer in evidence, Mr. Bunting.'

'Yes, sir,' Bunting said.

George Stacey said, 'I object to the admission of any confession so far as it concerns the defendant Robert Basso.'

'Yes,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'That objection is well taken.' He leaned back and lifted off his glasses. 'I think I shall caution the jury that the statement or confession will be admitted, if it is, only as against the defendant Howell. I will so instruct in the general charge; but in order that the jury may not get a wrong impression, we will state to you at this time that this alleged confession will not be considered as in any way affecting Basso.'

Standing up, Harry Wurts said, 'And now, if your Honour please, I object to the introduction of the confession in the circumstances under which it was obtained. The testimony shows that this confession was obtained by —'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'You need not review it, Mr. Wurts. You are overruled.'

'Very good, sir. I enter a further objection on the ground that only the last sheet of this alleged confession bears the signatures of the attesting witnesses.'

'That objection is also overruled.'

'And the further objection that the confession is in no way fastened together, but consists merely of five or six loose sheets. Will your Honour rule upon that?'

'Overruled. We will grant you exceptions, Mr. Wurts,'

'If you please!' said Harry. He sat down, satisfied, Abner could see, that he had tried everything — more things than most people would think of.

Abner went around the table to face the jury. In the poor light he was obliged to hold the typed pages close to see them. He read: 'I, Stanley Howell, do make the following statement of my free will and accord, without threats or promises of immunity and with full knowledge that the same may be used against me in court. On or about April sixth —'

The dark courtroom sank in silence. For a moment no one stirred, no one coughed or murmured or moved his feet Just over the top of held-up sheets, Abner could see in the front row of jurors Louis Blandy's pop-eyes strained with attention. To the side, against the curve of the rail, Mrs. Zollicoffer's haggard face was white in the gloom. In the rising rows of benches most of the spectators had leaned forward, and Abner raised his voice: '— we, that was Robert Basso, Bailey, Roy Leming and me, we left this bungalow we had been at and drove along some roads I don't know and we got out to Zollicoffer's house at around ten-thirty at night. It was early yet and in about twenty-five minutes Zolly pulled up in his machine; and when he pulled up and put it in the garage, Basso and me and Bailey, we had been in the garage. Bailey was standing here and I was in the corner. When he came in and got out of the machine, he did not see us; and Bailey hit him with the butt of' a gun. When we carry him out, Zolly, he thought it was the law shaking him down for dope. He got hit again; and the stuff dropped out of his hand; and I was picking it up. He said, ''Let me do away with this junk and I'll pay." He went in our machine and I got in front. Bailey hit Zolly twice. Bailey said, "You bastard, many a poor soul you destroyed. I never killed anybody." There was no more conversation until we got to the bungalow.'

Abner paused for breath. It was surprising when you thought of it, that however little they feared God or regarded man, they still wanted to make out a case for themselves. The many poor souls presumably referred to were Zollicoffer's customers; Zollicoffer's business gave Bailey a chance to feel that he was the moral superior of his victim. That Bailey had never killed anyone was not, perhaps, quite true; but perhaps he never had sold narcotics. The truth, surprising to Abner when he first observed it, was that men like Bailey were often letter-perfect in any number of ethical and moral platitudes. They were usually reformatory boys; and that meant that without wishing to, with hatred and rebellion in their hearts, they had just the same absorbed certain principles. Outwardly, they might despise and deride those principles, and never think of putting them in practice; but when the need came to make moral judgments, to strike an attitude in defence of themselves or condemnation of others, they opened their mouths and out spoke the warden and the chaplain. They had not respected these men or their talk; but it was talk that perhaps corroborated the warnings of a poor old mother; and, in turn, was corroborated by laborious reading (there was so much time to kill in such a life; the days in hiding, the months in prison) of pulp paper magazines and Sunday supplement feature articles. Narcotics destroyed both body and soul; all his authorities said that; and Bailey must, in fact, have seen the destruction himself in men he knew.

Abner read, 'They took him in and put him upstairs in this room, and it was cold and I throw the coat over his feet. We stayed there talking the four of us, and he said, "I know who is in back of this.'' He said Roy Leming was. He said, "What did you have to do this for?'' Bob Basso told him that many a person — '(The elegant phrase, so often repeated, was probably Bailey's — the warden and the chaplain, again; and Basso, impressed, echoed it; and Howell, admiring, remembered it)' — he had killed. So he said to Roy Leming, "You sat in my office many a day. If you wanted anything you were welcome to it.'' Roy said, "If I went up in your office you know I'd be out on some road now." Bailey said, "Is your life worth one hundred thousand dollars?" Zolly laughed at him. He said, "They had that money one time; but no more."'

Abner cleared his throat. Though hardly begun, the statement already seemed to him long, and he began to read more rapidly, 'I went downstairs and came back in about an hour; and they left me with him. Zolly said, "Have you got anything I can smoke with?'' He says, "Haven't you got an outfit?" I said, "I don't use it." I said, "I never smoked,'' and he said, "I have been smoking eight or ten pills a day. The same way as you like liquor, I like this." I told him I only like beer. I told him I take it or I leave it alone; and he said, "I crave this just like you crave beer." When Bailey came in, he said, "How are you going?" He said, "You do not like me, do you?" and Bailey said, "No." They started arguing; and I said, "What is the use of arguing now; the people in the next house will hear us." He said, "All right. I won't say nothing more." He wanted a smoke; and I said, "I will give you a shot of booze".'

Frederick Zollicoffer must have been having a bad time. When Abner read the account before, he did not notice that point about the people next door. Abner had seen the houses and it would not be hard to make oneself heard from one to another; but Zollicoffer didn't dare. The neighbours might hear and call the police, and the police would come and release him; but that took time. In time the police might come; but Bailey and those who obeyed him were here now. Meanwhile they had been arranging meetings with Walter Cohen, a tedious and delicate negotiation. Abner read, 'We waited, myself, Bailey and Basso in the machine until three o'clock; and they didn't show up. Basso said, "I know how he is." We got back to the house; and then Zolly said, "What is the matter?" and we said we didn't see Cohen. Zolly said Cohen was afraid to go out on a lonely road; that there was some clique after him. He said he had been shot at around February. Zolly said, "You can't blame him for not coming out." So Bailey got him to write another letter to the office. We are back in the house; and Dewey has the breakfast cooked; and Basso says to me, "I am sorry I went into this God damn thing." I said, "I feel the same way." I laid on the bed and went to sleep and woke up around ten; and Bailey said, "You go down and eat and tell the others to come up." I ate and Roy Leming went up. That is the way it went on from day to day. The meet we made where we got the money, I don't know the time, a Saturday. I went to get it with Basso; but I didn't like the look; and so Basso gets it from a car. When we come back, I says, "Now we can turn him loose." Leming said to me, "He is not going to be turned loose. He is going to be killed." I said, "Well, that is murder." Basso was worried that Zolly knew him and Bailey. He did not think it would be so good for them if Zolly was let loose. He would say one minute, "Kill him"; and the next minute, "Let him go." Bailey says, "We will vote on that. What do you say?" I and Leming, we said, ''No.'''

Abner thought that very likely. Though the account did not tally at all points with Leming's statements, and neither version was necessarily the true one, Howell tacitly allowed Leming's minor part by mentioning him so seldom. They were both scared, in short; and the dangers of murder scared them more. Abner read on: 'Bailey said, "We will kill him. We will put him in the car and take him up the road and kill him." It was then agreed that he would be killed on account of him knowing them, and letting him go was not safe.

'I went upstairs and said, "Where do you want to be turned loose?" and Zolly said, ''Where is Walter's machine at?" I said, '' You will see; but we will not go there first. We will drive you around so you do not know where this is." He said, ''Can I get dressed?" and I got the pants for him to put on. He said, ''Give me my vest," and I did. After a while I went downstairs and Basso and Bailey comes up. He said, ''All right. I am ready to go home." I put his coat and overcoat on him, and Bailey said, "Do not forget I am going to put something on his face." He put a piece of blanket over his face and tied it. We took him down and put him in the machine. Bailey says I am to drive; so Bailey and Basso and Zolly are in back.

'After we had driven some, all of a sudden I hear two shots. Bailey said, ''That's another God damn monkey gone." And then I got pretty leery. Bob looked at me and I am getting pretty leery. Bailey said, '' We will stop here and put some weights on him." The weights are in the car. Bailey took care of the weights. I don't know where they came from. Then I drove up the road to the creek bridge; and Bailey said, ''Here it is deep. Stop." With the weights, they couldn't one of them lift him. He fell in the road; and Bailey said, '' Put out those lights, are you crazy. We do not know when some car is coming." So the three of us got him on the rail. He fell in. It was about half-way across the bridge we threw the body, the left side going up. We went back to the bungalow and Susie and Leming were there; and Leming says, "Where is he?" and Bailey says, "Where you will be if you ask them questions." So we left the bungalow and did not come back there. I hereby certify that the foregoing statement is true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. Signed: Stanley Howell. Witnesses: P. T. Kinsolving, Special Agent; Merrill Klapper, Special Agent; J. J. Shannon, Special Agent.'

Lowering the paper, Abner turned and walked in silence around the table and sat down. Bunting said, 'If the Court please, I desire to offer in evidence the criminal record of Stanley Howell and the criminal record of Robert Basso, for the purpose of giving the jury information on which they may base the penalty in the event that they find the defendants guilty of murder in the first degree.' Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Any objection?'

'Yes, sir,' said Harry Wurts. 'We object, sir, to the introduction of evidence of prior convictions as being prejudicial to the defendants' interests.'

'All evidence may be that, Mr. Wurts.'

'I respectfully submit, sir, that there is no authority in law for introducing the previous convictions. The Act of 1911 not only prevents the question being asked, but prohibits an answer.'

'You cannot be unaware, Mr. Wurts, that that act has been several times the subject of interpretation. The Supreme Court has frequently held the material admissible; though, of course, only for the purpose for which the district attorney says he is offering it.'

Harry said, 'Well, I submit to your Honour that when a given result is inevitable, that result may be assumed to be the real purpose of an action, all high-sounding declarations to the contrary notwithstanding. The inevitable result here is to prejudice the jury. Therefore —'

'That is an ingenious argument, Mr. Wurts; but to hear it is not within the purview of this Court. You are overruled and you may have an exception.'

Bunting, who had been standing patiently, slipped a paper from the open file folder in front of him and said, 'Members of the jury, at this time I am going to place on the record in your hearing the convictions of each of these defendants. The Commonwealth's purpose is to aid you in fixing a penalty, in the event that you find these defendants guilty of first degree murder.'

George Stacey said, 'Mr. Bunting, I understand this is just to be convictions?'

'That is right,' Bunting said. 'The defendant Stanley Howell, as Stanley Howell, sentenced to the Boys Reformatory at Enfield to an indeterminate term, January twenty-sixth —'

The door to the chambers was opened just far enough for judge Irwin to slip around it. He walked softly to the steps and went up to the bench, seating himself in the high-backed chair next to Judge Vredenburgh. Judge Vredenburgh swivelled about; asked him a question. By their expressions as they bent whispering, their heads together, Abner could see that they were discussing Field — Irwin, anxious and still visibly upset; Vredenburgh with the brusque down-in-the-mouth look that he put on when he considered matters he disapproved of. Vredenburgh grimly nodded his head several times; Irwin gave his head a faint, sad little shake; and they drew apart and turned together to listen to Bunting, who was adding in his matter-of-fact voice item after monotonous item.

Howell's present age was twenty-eight, and during the last ten years he had six recorded convictions. In addition to Stanley Howell, his name had been John Howell, and Stanley Howe and Frank Stanley; and it was plain, that his occupation was robbery. Those indictments that did not charge it charged offences that Abner knew to be the ones used when by bad luck or a legal technicality, robbery could not be made to stick — conspiring, entering, assaulting with the intent, carrying concealed deadly weapons.

Bunting paused; and then said, 'As to the defendant Robert Basso, I desire to read in your hearing and have entered upon the record, the following —'

Judge Irwin listened with his usual acute attention, his narrow lips pressed tight together, a look in his eyes that was almost chagrin; as though on behalf of the law, he took to himself great blame for the proved failure of those other judges who had pronounced sentence after sentence, punishing but not correcting, until to-day Robert Basso stood insolently mute on the verge of his grave; and it only remained for one more judge to crown the law's achievement by pushing him in.

Bunting laid his paper on the table and said to the bench, 'The Commonwealth rests:'

Judge Vredenburgh looked at the clock and said, 'We have almost half an hour before noon. I do not want to waste time, so I think I will ask the defence to open. If necessary, we can delay recessing. Is the defence ready?'

George Stacey leaned across in front of Basso and spoke to Harry. 'Yes, sir,' Harry said. 'Mr. Stacey will try not to prolong our fast beyond twelve-thirty.'

George got to his feet, gathering up his notes. He lifted his hand to adjust his necktie; but since it had been straight before, the tug he gave it moved the knot well over to one side. He moistened his hps and marched tensely up to face the jury.

Abner knew how George felt because he remembered feeling the same way himself. There was no reason to feel that way, for speaking to people who were ready to listen was the easiest thing in the world — you just went ahead and spoke. To tell George this truth was as useless as telling a person who did not know how to swim that all he had to do was jump in and go ahead. George was trying to remember to keep his voice up, to speak slowly, to look directly at the twelve staring faces of his principal hearers; not to depend too much on his notes, not to talk too long, not to forget that one especially good point that came to him just as he spoke to Harry —

George said earnestly, 'Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard Mr. Bunting and his colleague present a case for the Commonwealth. I venture to assert —'

Abner whispered to Bunting, 'Marty, I have a phone call I want to make if we're going to be late recessing. Mind if I duck out a few minutes?'

'No. There's nothing to this. Go ahead. Oh, Ab. That Willis fellow from Warwick. F and B case Pete Van Zant has. You know about it?'

'Yes. Arlene said they came around to my office yesterday. She told them to see you.'

'See the plaintiff?'

'Yes. She's a little slut.'

'They think they can prove he isn't the father. I asked Miss Wheeler to see her and find out what she could. She called me this morning and said it was pretty bad. What do you think?'

'I suppose we'd better drop it.'

'Yes. I just wanted to see whether you had any other angle.'

'Nope; except John Costigan told me Willis had been tom-catting around there for years, and it was time somebody hooked him.'

'Well, we can't enforce morals; we have trouble enough enforcing law. I think Van Zant may be outside. He said he was coming up today. If you see him, tell him we aren't going on with it. The county'll have to support her brat.'

Abner left the table and went down along the rail under the bench toward the far door so that he wouldn't add to George's troubles. At the last desk, Hermann Mapes, the clerk of the Orphans Courts, winked at him. Half lifting a hand in response, Abner remembered that he had said last night that he was going to get an application form for a marriage licence from Hermann to-day. He went around through the high deserted back hall and entered the Attorneys' Room. This was deserted, too. Abner dropped a nickel in the telephone. At the high school office an unfamiliar voice answered; and he said, 'Is Miss Drummond there?'

'Yes, she is. Bonnie! It's for you.' Bonnie said, 'Hello.'

Leaning back against the wall, Abner said, 'I am going to get an application from Hermann.'

'Oh,' she said. 'No. Don't.'

'I think I will. Look, why don't you come out and have lunch? 1'll stop by for you.'

'I can't. They're having a board meeting. Why didn't you tell me last night?'

'I didn't know until I saw Marty. I'll come over.'

'I can't leave.'

'You won't have to.' Abner hung up and went to the courtroom door. Opening it a crack, he heard George saying, '— what we are going to show you, ladies and gentlemen, will change this entire picture; and I have the utmost confidence that when you have heard—' Abner let the door close. The other door opened and Pete Van Zant walked in.

Van Zant was a man of middle age with an odd, duck-legged fussy walk. He carried his gross friendly red face cocked back, his prominent light grey eyes bulging with, or as though with, a mingling of sensuality, surprise, and sardonicism. His cropped blond hair had a ripple in it 'Well, well,' he said. He snapped on the electric light switch, which someone had economically turned off when the room emptied. He was much shorter than Abner, but by putting his head far back he managed to look down his nose at him. 'How's tricks, Ab?' he said. He came up and punched Abner in the arm. 'Getting much?'

'Anyhow,' Abner said, 'I hear this client of yours, Willis, gets plenty. Marty wanted me to tell you we'll drop it.'

'Now, wait a minute!' Van Zant slid his big rump onto the table edge and half-sat, swinging his foot. He produced two cigars. 'Don't want one, do you?' he said. Abner shook his head, and Van Zant put the first back and stuck the second, unlighted, in his mouth. 'What do you mean, drop it,' he said, working the dry cigar up and down. 'You mean, nolle pros?'

'Isn't that what you want?'

'No, sir!' Van Zant said, rolling up his eyes. 'That is not what I want. Now, Ab, why don't you fellows be decent? Now, here's the situation. Hank's no criminal, for God's sake! He's a substantial and respected citizen of Warwick. That girl hasn't any idea of who the father of that child is. Hank gave her a lay, sure; but that was more than a year before the child was born. We can prove it. She names him because he's a generous guy and a good sport. But, hell, everyone in Warwick had been there — if you want to know, I have myself. She worked at a house, and if you weren't in Marty's office I'd tell you where. Now, you nolle pros, and what is it? Why, it's nothing but a damned kind of stay! No, sir! I want him vindicated!'

'Well, it's not up to me,' Abner said. 'I think you're out of luck, Pete. How about that motion to quash I heard you were planning? You wouldn't be any better off.'

'Now, Ab; what do you'want to be technical for? Sure, if the Commonwealth was going to bring it to trial, I might move to quash; and I could make the motion lie, too. But Marty admits there's no case. As good as admits it. Now, why can't we have it tried before a judge without a jury, and give him an acquittal? On the weight of the evidence you know he'd get it; and I think he ought to have it. Why, I'll tell you how bum your evidence is! I'm even ready to plead nolo contendere; because when the judge has heard it, he'll direct the verdict, direct an acquittal.'

'That may be what you think. But if you put that up to Marty, I can tell you what he's going to think. If you want to know.'

'What?'

'What anyone with any sense would think. He'd think there must be something in this. Why would you care, unless you knew the real story was liable to come out sometime; and if it did come out, the only way your man could beat it would be pleading autrefois acquit? I don't say that's how it is. I just say that's how it looks.'

'Why, that's the most unreasonable, unjustified, — why, I'm going to see Marty!'

'Suit yourself. He ought to be through pretty soon.'

They looked at each other while Van Zant produced a match slowly, struck it on the stretched seat of his pants, and held the little liquid burst of flame suspended. He began to grin then. 'You don't do so bad for a young fellow,' he said. He applied the flame to his cigar end. 'You're all right, Ab. Don't know it's to my best interest, but I hate to see a sap in the D.A.'s office. Hank's my client, and I do what I can; but between you and me, he's a son of a bitch. If he can't keep his nose clean, I'm not going to wipe if tor him.' He blew a long plume of smoke across the table. 'You going to run in the fall?'

Disconcerted, Abner said, 'I don't know who's running. You'd have to ask Jesse.'

'O.K., if it's a secret. I don't want to know Jesse's secrets. He's another son of a bitch. That's why, if Marty's quitting and I hear he is, I'd like to see you in there. Government of checks and balances. When you get ready to come out with it, anything I can do for your campaign, let me know. I mean that. We don't want Art Wenn.' There was a muffled, rising murmur behind the closed courtroom door, and Van Zant went and opened it a crack. 'Recess to one-thirty,' he said. 'Say, those defendants are mean looking bastards! Going to burn them?'

'If we possibly can,' Abner said. He took his hat and raincoat. 'So long, Pete. I've got to run.'

6

 

Empty and gleaming in the rain, a line of automobiles stretched along the curve of the greystone gravel drive up to the main door of the high school building. Abner, who had not bothered to get his own car, walked past them. In the Board Room, to the right of the principal's office, the lights were bright against the white ceiling. Abner went up the steps and came under the arch of the wide doorway. Affixed below the label was a stone shield bearing a seal on which was represented a lampadedromy.

Nine people out of ten wouldn't know the meaning of that word; but anyone who went to Childerstown High School could tell you at once that it meant a race with a torch held in ancient Greece. On the seal were the runners running, and the torch being handed over (for it appeared to be a kind of relay race); and a line of Scripture: 'So run that ye may obtain the prize.' Abner could remember thinking resentfully that that was just what a teacher would say. The prize could be obtained only by one person, so the others were, when you got right down to it, bound to be running for nothing; and so were being what was then called gypped by their designing elders. It had always seemed to Abner a lot like (another phrase of those days) scrambling a nickel; for five cents, the thrower of the coin got more action than he had right to expect. In Abner's hand the big worn, slightly loose knob turned and he came into the hall.

A telephone was ringing in the office; and, stepping in, Abner was in time to meet Bonnie who rushed out the opposite door, which led to the principal's room. She gave Abner a distracted glance, lifted the telephone from the desk and stood resting one knee on the seat of the chair while she answered. Abner closed the hall door behind him and dropped his wet hat on the bench along the wall under a big framed print that displayed the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was a bench he could remember occupying once or twice in considerable anxiety, waiting to see the principal, a Mr. Metzger, now many years gone.' The desk beside which Bonnie stood with the telephone belonged in those days to a Miss O'Brien. She was probably little older than Bonnie; but Abner used to think of her scornfully as an old maid. When he looked back on it, most details about school seemed to Abner depressing or distasteful — like that characteristic smell, neither very strong nor very unpleasant, but definite; whose source was the simple circumstance that most of the children could not or did not take as many baths as they needed.

Frowning, Bonnie said to the lifted telephone, 'No, I can't. No. Never mind about me.' She wore a plain white blouse and a short flaring black shirt. She looked pale and tense; and Abner, feeling an inarticulate concern for her, came across the room and sat on the edge of the desk. He took her free hand between his.

Turning her mouth from the telephone, Bonnie murmured, 'Don't sit there. You're all wet.' She tried to draw her hand away, and then let him hold it. She moved her head wearily and closed her eyes. 'Oh, Mother, no!' she said. 'I can't tell you now. I don't know. I have to go back. I'll call you when I can.' She hung up.

Through the door, left open a little, Abner could look across Mr. Rawle's office and through a second half-open door into the lighted Board Room. Leaning forward, he could see Mrs. Ballinger, her stout bosom hung with a fussy cascade of black ruffles, sitting as chairman at the head of the oval table. Her face was sunk in lines of vexation and discouragement. She slumped dejectedly, opening and closing on the table her hand, whose fingers bore a number of old-fashioned diamond rings. From the general movement in there, it seemed plain that the meeting was over; and it could not have ended to Mrs. Ballinger's satisfaction. The view of her was cut off by Alfred Hobbs whose grey hair was disordered above his stern face. He went, balanced like a stork on one leg, and Abner could see that he was angrily pulling on one of a pair of rubbers.

Still holding Bonnie's hand, Abner said, 'It's over, isn't it? What happened?'

'Yes,' said Bonnie. She took the hand away. 'I can't leave, though. I'll have to help Mr. Rawle with a statement he's preparing. I don't really know what's going to happen. Mr. Hobbs tried to force a resolution censuring him.'

'Don't worry about it,' Abner said.

'How can I help worrying about it?' she said impatiently, 'I'll lose my job. I haven't any tenure.' She bit her lip. 'I'm just as bad as the rest of them. All I worry about is what's going to happen to me.'

'We fixed up what was going to happen to you last night,' Abner said. 'I'm sorry about Mr. Rawle; but if you want to know, I hope you will lose your job. That would be fine. We won't have to argue any more. Now, I'm going to get an application when I get back to the courthouse. You can just tell your mother you're getting married.'

'And I can just tell you I'm not!' Bonnie said. She jerked her chin up bitterly. 'Ab, haven't you any sense? I told you not to come over here now. You just have a genius for picking a time when —'

'You don't have to do anything now,' Abner said. 'I'll bring the application form over to-night; and all you have to do is fill in your part of it. By the new law, you also have to go down to Doc Mosher for a serologic test for syphilis, because we have to file the reports with the application. If I don't get it started, we'll still be fooling around —'

'Ab,' she said, 'I won't have you treating me this way! You seem to think I haven't anything to say about it —'

'You do nothing but say,' Abner said. He had meant to speak placatingly; but what she said, sinking in, began to sting; and in an eruption of anger he could not help pointing out to himself that, as a matter of fact, it was she who seemed to think that he hadn't anything to say about it. She seemed to think she was the only one with any worries. She seemed to think he had no right to open his mouth until, at her good pleasure, she told him he might.

Abner opened his mouth; but Bonnie had already turned to walk away with a movement for which the hostile word was flouncing. She could not have been looking where she was going, for at the door she nearly collided with Jesse Gearhart who had been coming out through Mr. Rawle's office. 'Oh, beg pardon, Bonnie,' he said.

She said with difficulty, 'I'm sorry.' She stepped aside and went by him; and Jesse came slowly and heavily into the room. 'Here's your stuff, Ab,' he said, holding the folder out. 'Much obliged.'

'That's all right,' Abner said, swallowing.

It was not the moment Abner would have chosen for a talk with Jesse; but because he did not know what if anything Jesse had heard, he felt like a fool; and in order not to appear like one, it seemed necessary to say something more. He said, 'I didn't mean to make a fuss about it this morning, Jesse. It wasn't an ordinary case; and it seemed better to try to keep it as quiet as we could —' Abner found himself remembering what his father said last night about people having rows; and he had just had a row with Bonnie; but you couldn't say that he brought it on by being a little remote, or apathetic, or — he searched for the last word, the one he liked least — phlegmatic! He didn't like it any better now. It was a word that seemed to him somewhat fancy, not a word he would be apt to use himself; but if he had to use it, he would probably apply it to someone like Jesse — the flat lifeless hair, the grey lumpish face, the pale fishy eyes.

Jesse, standing still, by a motion of the head acknowledged the apology, or at least, the excuse, taking his due; but at the same time and by the same motion, he thanked Abner for offering it; and then, still in the same motion, he disembarrassed them both of the whole matter, implying that they need think no more about it. Since none of this could be expressed in words, Abner was astonished both by the feat, whatever it was, of unmistakably conveying it; and by the delicacy of perception that told Jesse when to hold his tongue.

Abner saw with confusion that he knew nothing at all about Jesse. He knew the face that he had just thought of as phlegmatic; and he knew a half a dozen stories or parts of stories — or even, mere epithets: Van Zant saying in passing, but positively, 'He's another son of a bitch.' They were all more or less defamatory, the relations of Jesse's enemies: but out of them Abner manufactured his idea. He had not even troubled to see whether the idea squared with the evidence of his senses, whether his picture of Jesse corresponded with what he could see. The picture was that of the politician of popular legend, tough, cynical, and corrupt; yet if Abner asked himself when he had noted those qualities in Jesse, he could not answer. He had certainly never seen Jesse in that well-known room, little and smoke-filled, trafficking in offices, dividing booty, making deals with similar scoundrels at the cost of the just and the upright. Indeed, when you considered this familiar figure, a difficulty presented itself. How did such a man, who must by definition be disliked on sight and distrusted by everyone, win himself a position of power? Jesse said, 'Ab, what do you think about this?'

'I think it's too bad it happened,' Abner said. Granted that the wicked man in the little smoke-filled room — like Lucius' 'gangsters'; perhaps, like a good many other every-day fantasies to which nothing had yet happened to attract Abner's critical attention — was at variance with plain facts, Abner still found it difficult to be easy with Jesse. At Jesse's question he was filled with uncontrollable suspicions; something baulked in him again at the note of consultation, which must be meant for flattery, and must mean that Jesse wanted something. Abner realized that his tone bristled. To cover it up, he said, 'What's the board think?'

'I don't know that we're really thinking as a board yet,' Jesse said. 'We're thinking as individuals; so, of course, we don't agree. Going home to lunch?'

'I haven't time,' Abner said. 'We resume it one-thirty.' He looked at his watch. 'I'll run down to the Acme and get a sandwich, I guess.'

'Can I give you a lift? I'm going that way.' Abner was sorry that he had not brought his car. 'All right, thanks,' he said. He took up his hat from the bench and Jesse opened the door.

'Yes,' Jesse said, when they were out in the rain, 'we haven't reached any agreement yet. One attitude is that Mr. Rawle is personally responsible, and we'd better clean house. I don't know how fair that is.'

They got into the car and Jesse started it. He had the old man's driving habit of doing dangerous things-calmly and ill-considered things with great care. He came out the drive into Academy Street without looking for oncoming cars; but when he got himself in a position where such a car, if there were one, would have the most trouble to avoid hitting him, he stopped and peered around. Slowly starting again, he then observed a car turning in half a block ahead. He was well out toward the middle of the street, so when he put his brakes on with no warning and no apparent reason, a laundry truck that left the kerb and came up close behind had to swing away, missing him by a miracle. The shaken driver yelled through the rain, 'Whyn't you stick your hand out, stupid!' but Jesse was not perturbed. He said to Abner, 'Strike you Rawle's to blame?'

'I don't know,' Abner said, somewhat shaken, too. 'I suppose you have to trust someone. I should think the point would be what was best for the school system. Whether this shows Rawle isn't able to run things —'

'You like him?'

'Why, yes,' Abner said. 'I hardly know him.' He felt himself stiffening again; for it crossed his mind that Jesse, who knew all about Bonnie's position, might think — Abner didn't know what, exactly.

'Would you be interested in helping him?' Jesse said. He had been driving faster; and, passing a car, he cut in in front and carefully slowed down. Abner instinctively looked over his shoulder. Collecting himself, for the other driver had fortunately been paying attention and was able to get his brakes on in time, Abner said, 'Well, sure. But I don't see exactly what I could do.'

'There's one thing,' Jesse said. 'If we have a hearing, it would be more or less formal; a lot of testimony and so on. Would you care to act as his counsel?' Turning his attention soberly from where he was going, he looked at Abner. 'I don't think you'd be expected to do it for nothing,' he said. 'It would take time and be a good deal of trouble. We couldn't afford much; but —'

'I don't mind about that part of it,' Abner said, rubbed the wrong way again, 'but I'm not up on the law in the case. It would be all new to me; and I don't see how I'd be much use to him.' He paused, trying to keep still; but Jesse continued to drive without looking where he was going, so Abner said hastily, 'Car coming out there, Jesse.'

'Oh. Thanks. Didn't see it.' Jesse avoided the car by a few inches. 'Well, what I was thinking, Ab, was that, after all, you were the one who prosecuted Field. It wouldn't really be a matter of law, I think. It's knowing how to question witnesses and so on. I think you could do him a great service. Mrs. Ballinger and I are pretty much alone at the moment; but I don't think we'll be helpless by any means. The Department of Public Instruction can be brought in on it; and I know Ed Holstrom, the County Superintendent, thinks Rawle's a good man. Well, would you think it over and let me know, Ab? We're meeting again this evening, and Holstrom will be there then.' He slowed down in the thickest traffic of Broad Street; and Abner said, 'This will do me fine, thanks, Jesse. Why, I don't know that I need to think it over. I'll do what I can.'

Jesse said, 'Well, I certainly appreciate that, Ab; and I know Rawle will. I'll tell them, if it's all right with you.' He stopped, holding up a long line of cars, and Abner jumped out.

'I'll call you later, then,' Jesse said.

One or two of the drivers behind began to blow their horns indignantly; and Abner waved a hand, and crossed the pavement to the Acme Lunch. With the immediate pressure of Jesse's presence removed, he could not understand why he had said he would — except that it was hard to know what else to say when you were asked to help a man who was in trouble.

 

 

7

 

In the Acme Lunch there was one vacant place at the end of the counter. Going to it, Abner found that Everitt Weitzel sat next to him. Everitt was finishing a bowl of cornflakes and milk. Peering up sideways, he said, 'Well, Ab, coming down in the world?'

In court, in his neat tipstaff's jacket, Everitt had an air of authority and importance; but when he put the jacket in his locker, he put the air away with it. He was an obliging and gentle old man. The minor court-attendant jobs were dealt out to the deserving and necessitous. It was policy, since the purpose was vote-getting, to select a member of some lodge or association who was well-liked and who, through illness or misfortune, badly needed the small salary. As a likeable person, as the recipient of political favour, as a sufferer from considerable troubles, the selected man tended to be affable but anxious, to be free with little jokes and slow to contradict, to be philosophic and yet melancholy because of his life's ups and downs.

Everitt said, 'That Jesse you were with? I noticed him there upstairs this morning. I guess Field's making a lot of trouble for the School Board. Well, if a fellow wants some of that, he ought to take them a little older; that's what I say. Get a superior article, too. They ought to be properly developed for best results.' His amiable coarseness had the sad overtone of age, the half-heartedness of a discussion now purely academic, in which he obligingly catered more to what he knew was the normal interest of other men than to his own. 'They going to fire Mr. Rawle?' he asked. 'I don't know,' Abner said. 'How about some service here?'

'Willard's sick to-day,' Everitt said. 'There's more than one man can do. Hey, Al, you got company!'

The boy in the dirty chef's apron who was pressing half a dozen hissing pats of meat on the hot griddle with a spatula turned his sweating face and smiled. 'Be right there, Mr. Coates.' Abner said, 'A ham and egg sandwich and some coffee.'

'It's mainly a matter of politics,' Everitt said. 'Perhaps it shouldn't be; but it is. Somebody has an eye on Rawle's job. That's the size of it. I don't think Mr. Hobbs gets along very well with Jesse.' The workings of the system which had found him his own job were familiar to Everitt, and he was cautious about criticizing them; but a man had a right to speak his mind. As long as he didn't get too positive (as though he were trying to run things), and didn't make remarks that, if repeated, would offend and anger those to whom he should be grateful, he was free enough.

Abner watched the progress of his ham and eggs in a skillet over the gas flame. He said, 'I don't know, Everitt.' Everitt's art of being meek, but with dignity, was a good art, and took skill and judgment; but, supposing he had any skill and judgment, Abner wondered if he wanted to use it that way — to get and keep a job. His situation there, he saw, had points in common with the situation he had got himself into with Bonnie. In both cases he wanted what he wanted, but on his own terms. When you were as old as Everitt, you probably found that what you wanted could never be got that way. The only things you could have just the way you wanted them were those things you could give yourself.

Everitt coughed and said, 'Got to be getting back up there. Can't start without me! Think it will go to the jury this afternoon?'

'I hope so.' A plate bearing the sandwich rattled down on the counter in front of Abner. 'What's your hurry?' he said, feeling that he had not been very cordial to Everitt, whom he liked. Everitt patted his back gently, turning away. 'Don't move as fast as you do', he said. He made a gesture with the old umbrella that had been leaning against his stool. Peering out the wide window, he said, 'Looks to me like it's easing up.'

Following him five minutes later, Abner found that the rain had stopped. The warm air was grey and still, almost as wet as rain. Water ran in the gutters of Broad Street, and Abner looked at the weathervane, an elaborate little iron banner, on the cupola of the county office building. It remained pointing south-east, so the rain was probably not over. Abner crossed behind the courthouse and walked up under the silent, dripping trees to the door at the arch.

In the depressing gloom of the hall, Hugh Erskine methodically chewing a tooth pick, waited by the bars of the passage to the jail. 'Ab,' he said, 'that Field business was a rotten thing! I never would have thought it of him! Warren says he only got a year —'

Hugh wheeled around, hearing steps in the passage. Unconsciously he touched a hand to his left armpit; and by the mechanical gesture he showed that there under his coat was strapped a holster with an automatic pistol. Hugh did not ordinarily bother to go armed; but it might have occurred to him that these prisoners of his, whom he was about to acknowledge taking into his own hand, were in as desperate a case as men can be. The grill opened and the warden came out carrying his book. He and Hugh bent over the open page on the radiator top while Hugh signed.

Abner went up the passage to the door of the Attorneys' Room. It was crowded. Joe Jackman sat in the corner with Bob Fuller, thumbing over the pages of a thick brief. Pete Van Zant was still there, talking to John Clark. Abner saw George Stacey and Mark; and Jake Riordan telling them something. Mr. Servadei was speaking to Bunting by the fireplace. At the telephone by the lavatory door were two city reporters. A hubbub of conversation arose. 'Suppose you had to bring five or six separate suits —'

'I ought to go over to the office, but if I do my girl will have something —'

'That on for argument? I thought I saw —'

'I always found him a very fair fellow to deal with. Can't control his client, I guess —'

'Yeah, but won't equity leave them where it found them —'

'If that's constitutional, I give up —'

'John, you're the attorney for Saratoga Township, aren't you. Well—'

'You don't know how they're going to construe the crazy thing —'

'Listen, that's setting up a new statute of limitations—' Mr. Servadei in his soft somewhat accented voice was saying to Bunting, 'Mr. Bunting, I want to tell you how much I appreciate —' The reporter at the telephone, the receiver pressed to one ear, his hand covering the other, proved to be expostulating loudly, 'No! This is Duffy; Duffy, at Childerstown courthouse! Now, give me the city desk —'

In the lavatory Abner found himself face to face with Harry Wurts who was drying his hands on a paper towel. 'Ah!' Harry said, 'don't think nobody saw you! Making peace?'

Abner said, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'And how was Mr. Gearhart this fine morning? His usual candid upright self? God damn, boy, you must want to be the county's chief hired assassin bad!' He threw the crumpled towel in the waste basket. 'Oh, now you're getting to know him, I suppose you find he's been cruelly misjudged? Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace? Well, has the hugging started?'

The morning had been a trying one; and Abner could feel, like bruises in his mind, numerous sore points at which the touch of a thought made him wince. Harry's taunting tone, provocative both because Harry meant it to be, and because, in ways Harry probably never dreamed of — that trick of quoting verse or something made you tired — stirred anger. Abner thought a moment of giving him a short hard jab in the mouth; but to do that he would have to let his temper go and, as his sore and subdued mind could tell him, bruise himself farther and make himself more trouble. With a great effort, Abner said indifferently, 'Not yet.'

Abner had seen how impossible it was to start a brawl here, with the next room full of people, and with court about to resume. He saw now from Harry's expression that Harry had thought of it, too; that Harry, for reasons best known to his secretive, sensitive self, hoped Abner would start something. Harry was ready to take a sudden punch in the jaw as the price of getting Abner into an absurd and humiliating position.

Since they were looking each other in the eye, Harry probably realized that Abner had grasped his intention. He looked sheepish; and Abner, baffled a moment, knew then from the sensation on his own face that he himself was looking the same way. In fact, it was no more Harry's nature to pick a quarrel than Abner's; and if Harry felt like quarrelling, there was a reason; and the reason could only be that Abner was himself provoking — no doubt because of those qualities, or some tricks of manner or attitude derived from them, which Judge Coates had mentioned last night.

Harry said in a not-quite-natural voice, 'Kidding aside, Ab, you going to run for D.A.?'

'I honestly don't know who's running,' Abner said.

'If Jesse knows what's good for him, he'll run you. Hell, Ab, don't let the racket get you down! Onward, Christian soldiers!' He turned to the door.

'Thanks for the kind words,' Abner said, conscious of a considerable triumph, if not over Harry, over himself. 'But if you're marching as to war, you'd better button your fly, hadn't you?'

 

 

8

 

'Oyez,' said Nick Dowdy, 'oyez, oyez —'

He crouched, bent forward over his desk, supporting himself by the gavel with which he had just struck the block, blinking up at all the people on their feet. 'The several courts this day holden are open in their entirety!' He let himself plump the short distance into his seat and smiled contentedly at Abner.

Judge Vredenburgh who had been standing, too, straight and stiff, now held up his glasses, polishing them, and said, his chins down, his eyes up, addressing Joe Jackman, 'Note that the defendants and their counsel are in court.'

To Everitt Weitzel, he said, 'You may call the jury.' He put the glasses on and sat down, looking about the well of the court, where in renewed movement everyone else was sitting down. 'Mr. Wurts!' he said, and beckoned to Harry, who came up to side bar where they whispered to each other a moment.

Turning, Harry said, 'Stanley Howell, take the stand.'

During the recess Howell had slicked his hair with water. His cheap and badly fitting brown suit seemed to have been brushed or somehow made a little neater. With a qualm at the futility of it, Abner supposed Howell had done what he could according to a reformatory boy's forlorn idea of recommending himself. Above the buttoned coat, under the plastered hair, Howell's furtive, unfirm little mouth and wild sick-looking eyes made the effort repulsive and unconvincing.

Harry, waiting while the jury was seated, compressed his lips with ironic resignation. Harry meant (and perhaps he was right) that, given anything like an even break, he could get his man off; but who could get Howell, a person like Howell, off? Harry fingered the cropped hairs of his smudge of reddish moustache. He looked at the jury with an appraising eye, marshalling his faculties for an engagement that he was too wise to expect to win. Whoever had advised Howell to get Harry—Abner suspected that it was Mr. Servadei's firm had not advised Howell badly. Howell had to fight. There was nothing to be gained by throwing himself on the mercy of the court; for that chance was open only until Leming had taken it. There was nothing the Commonwealth wanted from Howell but his life; and, Howell's choice was between pleading guilty (a plea which would not be accepted) and throwing his life away at once; or pleading not guilty and forcing them to come and take it. They were coming; and Harry had found no way to stop them; but Howell for his last money had bought the only chance; and if, in the long run, it did him no good, in the long run money saved would be no good to a dead man, either.

Harry turned a cool reprehensive gaze on his client. Raising his voice so that the sounds fell strong and clear, struck out like the round opening notes of a solemn composition, he said, 'What is your full name?'

The jury had settled itself and grown as quiet as it is possible for twelve human beings to be. For them, the name might be Cain; and since they could feel no reasonable doubt that they looked at a participant in murder, Harry's distant, level manner was the right one. To pretend to be defending an innocent man only invited scorn, if the jurors believed him sincere, because he was such a fool; and if they believed him insincere, he invited their anger, because he showed in that case that he thought he was smarter than they were. Harry's tactic was to put it to the jurors that he was a shrewd man, and they were shrewd, too; and they all disliked Howell; but more than they disliked Howell, they loved justice, he and they. Harry phrased his formal questions — where Howell had been born and raised; where he lived; how long he had known Leming and Basso and Bailey; just when he moved to the Rock Creek bungalow; and who was there.

These monotonous facts, the bare names and dates, bored the jury. In most cases they could not or did not carry any exact earlier statements in their heads, so whether Howell gave answers agreeing with what Leming or someone else said mattered little to them. They already knew that Howell was acquainted with these people. They knew about the bungalow and who was there. They began to cross and uncross their legs, to scratch their noses and ears. A boy like George Stacey might have seen these symptoms with dismay; but Harry bore them calmly, with ease and assurance; figuring, Abner supposed, that when he got ready to interest them they would welcome it, less alert to contend.

Harry said, 'Now, Howell, before we go any further, the Commonwealth has introduced in evidence, C.X. eighteen —' He extended his hand to Joe Jackman, who searched his desk a moment, found the right papers, and gave them to Harry. 'Thank you,' Harry said. 'This' purports to be a statement made by you on May sixth, last. Will you look at it?'

Howell said, 'Yes; I guess you would have made a statement, too, if you —' Here was the chance he had been waiting for; and he snatched it with a convulsion of face and mind, his words tumbling over each other in his hurry to take his own part.

Harry said sharply, for he had to keep Howell from assuming the ridiculous role of injured innocence, 'Just answer the question!'

'That is the statement,' Howell said sulkily. Abner could see that he hated and feared Harry; and it was a hard thing when you hated and feared the man you had to cling to.

Harry said, still dissociating himself from Howell's wrong attitude, 'Don't you think you'd better read it?'

Howell took the sheets held up to him, his hand shaking, and made a pretence, moving his eyes over the first page or two. 'Well,' said Harry, 'you heard it read here in court this morning?'

'Yes.'

'And that was the statement you signed?'

'I signed it. They made me. They kept me there, the Federals —'

'Just a moment! How long were you in their custody?'

'Until, I think, the seventh.'

'The day after you signed this paper?'

'I think so. My mind was a blank —'

Harry frowned, for the phrase, as Howell offered it, would not be acceptable to anyone in his right senses. That was something he had read somewhere; and so he naturally spoke it like a liar. Harry cut in, 'Do you recall the time of day or night when you signed?'

'I guess I do!' Howell said. 'It was around one o'clock in the morning.'

'One o'clock in the morning. Now, Mr. Kinsolving expressed the opinion that you signed at one o'clock that morning of the fourth day because of the constant kindness shown you by him and his associates—'

Beside Abner, Bunting said, 'Your Honour, I think before Mr. Wurts goes on, he should ask the witness directly about the truth or falsity of his statement. I submit —'

'I am happy to ask him,' Harry said. 'You are familiar with the statement that was read here this morning by Mr. Coates?'

'I am, yes.'

'Are the facts contained in that statement true or untrue?'

'Not all the facts is true.'

'You mean that part of it is true, and part of it is false.'

'Part is truth; and part of it is just to keep them off my ear.' Howell turned an appealing glance to the jury. He twisted his mean little mouth to a sort of smile, as though asking them to appreciate this wry joke. They looked at him coldly; and Abner found himself uncomfortable; not, certainly, sympathetic; but exercised by the shame that the heart feels to see any human being caught in a weak and sickly trick, and that the head resents as a clumsy insult to all human intelligence.

Bunting said, 'I'm sorry to interrupt again; but I think the witness should be asked which parts are true and which parts are false.'

'If you please, Mr. Bunting!' said Harry. 'We will get to that. Now, Howell, what did they do to you when they brought you up there?'

'Well, they put shackles on me.'

'You mean, on your wrists?'

'No, on my legs; and then they put handcuffs on me, and then they got to working around. Bust me on the chin; twist my ears; twist my arms. Then they took my overcoat off and then they got to working on me with hoses they had.' He spoke jerkily, expelling the phrases with bitter little grunts. It had the ring of truth to Abner. The pain and panic Howell must have felt burned those moments into his mind. He spoke what he knew. Harry, seeing that he had at least evoked something genuine, said gently, 'Yes. What then?'

'They put me on the table after they took my coat off, put me on the table, like the table you got there.' Howell brought his knuckle up and scraped it with his teeth. For nerves in as bad shape as his, the memory was agitating; but Abner could see that the jury was not responding. They saw his suffering; but it disgusted them. They were moved; but with revulsion, less as though he were a wounded man than as though he were a wounded snake.

'That is the table Mr. Kinsolving described this morning?' Harry said.

'Yes. That is right.'

'Go ahead and tell us.'

'So they taken the handcuffs off, taken my other coat off, and put my handcuffs on me; and put me on the table. I am lying on my stomach and one is holding the handcuffs up this way —' He raised his wrists over his head. 'They got my hands out this way.'

'Just a moment,' Harry said kindly, 'that won't mean anything in the record. Your arms were stretched over your head?'

'Yes,' Howell said. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 'They are holding me there, so I cannot move.'

'And your coat was off?'

'My coat was off. The only thing I have on is a vest and shirt. Then they beat me over the kidneys with the hoses.' Harry Wurts said, 'What do you mean by hoses?'

'It's a little piece of hose, see? About a foot long; about like a garden hose.'

'Who are "they"?'

'Why, two of the men. That wasn't all. After they —'

'Just a minute!' Harry said. 'Take your time. You say they were beating you this way. How long did they beat you?'

Howell said, 'Well, to my knowledge, it seemed like eight hours; but I guess it was around an hour and a half or something around there. Every bit of clothes on me was wringing wet. I couldn't sit down, couldn't stand up. I was weak —'

Harry cut him off. 'As a result of this treatment was your back lacerated?'

'Oh, yes. Then they —'

'What other effects did this treatment have on you?'

'Oh, well, it put my kidneys on the bum. My kidneys is on the bum yet.'

'That is the reason that you have to be withdrawn at frequent intervals?'

'That is the reason.'

'As a result of this treatment did you pass blood?'

'Yes. When I first got it, for twenty-four hours I urinated blood.'

'Did those officers there who had charge of you see that?'

'Yes. They seen it. I asked for a doctor. They said, "You don't need any doctor.'' They said, "We will doctor you.'' '

Harry Wurts nodded. He took a turn down past the jury, looking at the floor, his face morose, making to them the simple appeal of his troubled mind. Leaving Howell aside, and no matter whether Howell repelled them or not, or whether he told the exact truth or not, the suspicion and possibility (and anyone could see it was more than that) put the jury's back up. The law was aspersed. They could joke about the law, and speak of it disrespectfully; and say that there was no justice, or that the rich could get away with murder, or that political influence was what counted; but, in fact, they never believed it. It could not be true because they had the final say. When they swore that they would well and truly try and true deliverance make between the Commonwealth and the prisoners at the bar, they meant it. Their minds shared Harry's trouble. They did not like any of this.

Harry said, 'You saw Lieutenant Dunglison on the stand here this morning and heard him testify that when you were turned over to him you had not been injured. You saw Mr. Kinsolving on the stand. Was he in the room at the time this treatment was given to you?'

Howell screwed his eyes up, looking in the gloom of the court along the row of chairs below the rail until he found Mr. Kinsolving sitting there with Lieutenant Dunglison. 'The lieutenant may have been there outside, I don't know. He was there right away when they called him. That big fellow, huh! He said he didn't do nothing to me! He only twisted my arm pretty near off and my ears.'

'That is Mr. Kinsolving?'

'Yes. Kinsolving.'

The jury looked, too; and Kinsolving, undisturbed, let the trace of a faint contemptuous smile appear at the corners of his strong mouth. Unselfconscious, he gave his head a slight pitying shake.

Harry said, 'Now, this treatment you describe, this show of kindness; just when did it occur, how soon after you were taken into custody?'

'Well, I will tell you the truth,' Howell said. 'I don't know if it was day or night. I am in a room with glass all around, and on the outside is a big office. I didn't see no daylight, and they had electric lights on all the time, and I don't know if it was day time or night time. I would say I had been there a day or two. They would leave me sleep a few minutes, so I suppose it was night when that was.'

'And the rest of the time they beat you?'

'No,' said Howell. 'They only beat me once with the hose. They only need to beat you once.'

'Yes?'

'Then a man come in, you know, and my back was so sore —' Howell bent forward and touched himself gingerly. My back here. And they come in and press down on it; and then I was getting alcohol baths three times a day to take the marks off.'

'Who was giving you alcohol baths?'

'I don't know their names. The chief inspector, I guess it is, come in and says to me, "How did you get that, Stanley?" I said, "Fell down the stairs." He said, "What do you mean, fell down the stairs?" If I had opened my mouth I would have just got it over again; so he said to me, "You look like you have hives." I said, "Yes. I guess I have got them".'

'You mean that you would have been beaten over again if you had not agreed?'

'He just asked to see what I was going to say. If I had said anything — well, you know, I would have got it again.'

'How often were you asked to make a statement?'

'I was asked all the time. One would stay in twenty minutes, and another would come in, and another one, and another one. I don't know how many?'

'And what did you answer?'

'I would answer I don't know nothing.'

'Then they would go out?'

'Yes. Then they said, "I will put that laugh on the back of your face".'

'Who said that?'

'A couple of them. I don't know them by name.'

'And did the punishment which was inflicted on you, which you have described here, have any influence in making you willing to give a statement?'

'I would have told them anything,' Howell said. 'I couldn't stand no more of that.'

'Then the part of the statement in which you say that you are making it of your own free will and accord is not true.'

'Not true.'

'Not true. Now, I call your attention to another statement you made, about obtaining the ransom money: "I went to get it with Basso, but I didn't like the look, and so Bob gets it from a car." Is that correct in all particulars?'

'It says what I did. It don't say why I did it. I have to go with him because Bailey give me orders; but I — to tell you the truth, I never wanted to be mixed up in this job; so when we are out, I said, "I will not do this. I don't like the look".'

'And what did you do?'

'I stayed at a drug store, like, until he is through.'

'You told him that you were not taking any part in it. You withdrew before the money was obtained?'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Mr. Wurts, if I understand what you are driving at, I must remind you that the only time when one of the persons conspiring to commit a crime may repent and withdraw and so avoid liability is before the commission of the act constituting the crime. No person can purge himself of an offence once committed by an act subsequent — at least, not unless he marries the girl.' He smiled.

'I simply wished to show, sir, that under the influence of pain and duress the defendant allowed it to appear that he had taken a larger part in the business than in fact he did take.'

'Proceed.'

'Now, when you returned with Basso and this money that he had obtained, was there a conversation in reference to taking Frederick Zolltcoffer home?'

'That is where I thought he was going.'

'I say,' said Harry, less patiently, 'there was a conversation in reference to that?'

'Not just then there wasn't.'

Harry weighed this perverse display of scrupulosity — Abner could see Harry asking himself what the hell this half-wit Howell thought he was doing —and threw it out contemptuously. 'Well, when was the conversation?'

'I went upstairs,' Howell said, sulky again, 'and some time later, Bob Basso come up and told me Bailey wanted to do away with him.' His air was aggrieved; but fundamentally he was still in good spirits, the next thing to vivacious. Howell rose to the occasion of showing off. He resented Harry's refusal to let him do it his own way, but even his resentment helped to keep his mind busy and excited. He had forgotten the fear of death and the anguish of suspense in the strong conceit of I, I, I.

Harry said, 'You were upstairs guarding Zollicoffer?'

'Yes. I was playing pinochle with him. Bob gives me a sign to stop the game; so I go out, and he says about doing away with him. I said, "Positively no. I do not go in for that," and me and Bob went on talking, saying we did not want to go in for that; so I go downstairs, and I —'

'Now, just a minute! You went downstairs. Where was Basso?'

'He stayed with Zolly. He says, "You punk," he was speaking in fun, "you want to take me on?'' He means the pinochle game, where I had laid the cards down — ''

Abner had been over the bungalow and seen this bare upstairs room. He could set the grim little scene, the gross prisoner, dishevelled by his capitivity, marked by his use of drugs; the cards; the slow game to kill time; Basso's pleasantry while Frederick Zollicoffer's life entered its last half hour. Howell said, 'So I went down and I began to reason with Bailey; and he said, "Oh, all right, all right, all right. Go ahead upstairs; everything will be all right".'

'Who said that?'

'Bailey. So I went upstairs again and told Bob; and Bob went down again to make sure; so when he came up, everything is supposed to be O.K.'

'What do you mean, everything was supposed to be O.K.?'

'That he was going to be let go home.'

'You mean that Bailey had satisfied you that no harm was to come to Frederick Zollicoffer?'

'I was satisfied. I said, "Should I get the car?'' and Bailey says, "Yes." He told us, "You needn't carry no guns; we will let him go." So I get the car out. Bailey said, "You haven't got no guns, have you? We do not want any accidents." I said, "No, I have not." I said, "You told me before".' Howell gave the jury a bold look, as though he did not believe that he could be failing to impress them with his essential innocence. 'Bailey said, "Are you sure!'' I said, "Yes, I am sure." 'He said, "All right." So we go and put him in the car.'

Harry said, 'Now, just tell us how you put him in the car.'

'He was on the floor. His back was to the right hand door in the back of the car, with his face facing the left hand door, and his head was like by Bailey's knee. Bob is next to Bailey. So I am driving, and —'

'Were you told to drive any particular place?'

'We agreed so we would drive the other way, we would drive out in the country, so he could not tell where we had kept him at.'

'Did you know where you were going? Did you know that you had entered this county.'

'Not then, I never knew. They tell me we did. I never done it intentionally. I drove like at random.' It would have saved this court a lot of trouble, Abner reflected, if, in his driving like at random, Howell had just stayed over there. 'So I drove quite some time, taking different turns. So I hear Zolly, not very good, he had this blanket over him, say, "Come on. I want to get home." So Bailey says, "Do not worry. Here you go." So all of a sudden these shots went. I come near running the car off the road. I flinch.'

'And why did you — er — flinch?' said Harry.

'I thought I — who wouldn't? Say, when they tell you not to have guns, what do you think would enter your mind?'

'The question,' said Harry, 'is not what would enter my mind, I wasn't there. What entered your mind?'

'Well,' said Howell, spreading his hands for the jury. 'I thought maybe I was going to get it, too. I didn't know.'

'And after you had finished flinching?'

'I look around. Bailey was saying, "There is another monkey that will never kill any more".'

'Did Bailey have his gun in his hand at the time?'

'He had something in his hand. It is dark in the back. I couldn't say for positive it was a gun he had.'

'And did Robert Basso have a gun in his hand?'

'No. Bob didn't have no gun. I am sure of that. He got the same orders I got when we left. I know neither of us have guns. That was when it entered my mind. I thought: I and Bob are going next. Bailey says, "Turn around. Get off the road".'

'And you did?'

'Yes. And then I pulled off on some kind of a road up there, country road. You know, it was dark. There was no lights on that road; and Bailey says, "Stop".'

'And what did you do then?'

'We took out the body, and laid him in this lot, this field, and put the irons, tried to put the irons on him. I said, '' Leave him here; what is the use of putting them around him?" I wanted to get out of there, I am telling you. I did not feel so good; so anyway, I said, "You are never going to lift him; put those weights in the car." Bailey said, "Yes, pile him back again".'

Howell paused. Now that he was picturing to himself the grisly incidents of that night, some cold sense of what all this meant to him had probably begun to dilute the warmth of so much self-expression. He remembered now how he had felt when the thought 'entered his mind' that he was going next; and suddenly it must have come home to him that danger of death, which he was describing as though it were something past, faced him this very minute. Bailey with his gun and his contorted mind was never so implacable and dangerous, never so far beyond the reach of argument or the influence of pity, as Mr. Bunting and Mr. Coates, sitting silent at the table there regarding him. In their expressionless faces and disinterested eyes he could probably read a good enough equivalent of Bailey's epitaph on Frederick Zollicoffer: There is another monkey that will never kill any more; and this time, the monkey was Howell himself, already done for, by due process of law bleeding invisibly to death from wounds which he could not feel, but which would prove as fatal to him as the wounds of Bailey's bullets to Frederick Zollicoffer. Harry said, 'Go on.'

Howell wet his lips. 'So we all put him back in the car,' he said mechanically. 'So Bailey ordered Basso in the front seat, so he should drive. So he said to me, "Come on back here." So I got in back and figured — well, he told me to get in back of the car, so I figured: well, what is he going to do?' He paused again uncertainly, the terror of that moment perhaps a little dim beside the quiet but real terror of this moment, the present. 'He said, "-Hold him here — "' Bunting said, 'Just keep your voice up, please. I can't hear you.'

'Talk into the microphone there,' Harry said. 'Nobody can hear you.'

Howell said, louder, 'So he said, "Hold him here a minute." I am holding him, I didn't like to hold that man. I am trying to hold him; and he said, "Come on and hold him; we will see if we can get the weights around him.' So then Basso drives out on the road, and we come down toward this bridge.'

'You got the weights on?'

'Not me, I didn't do none of it. Bailey did. So we come to the bridge.'

'The state road bridge over Fosher's Creek?'

'Yes. In the middle of it we stop. We take him out.'

'Who?'

'Zolly, his body —'

'I mean, who took him out? Who is "we"?'

'The whole three of us. So we heave him in. So we go along and down the road, and Bailey says, "If any of this ever leaks out, you know the consequences''.'

'He said that to you?'

'To me and Bob Basso, both.'

'All right,' said Harry. He turned abruptly to Bunting and said, 'Cross-examine.'

Bunting tore off a sheet of his yellow pad on the table before him and looked a moment at his notes, but he did not bother to take them with him. He got up and went over to Joe Jackman, who gave him the confession. Lifting it, Bunting said to Howell with a note of good-humoured longsuffering, 'Now, Stanley, I show you your statement, Commonwealth's Exhibit number eighteen. What part of that statement, if any, is untrue?'

Howell considered the question with visible caution. He said, 'There is some true, there is some isn't true.'

Bunting said, 'I will ask you what part, if any, is untrue?'

Howell took his time. He said guardedly,' I would have to read the whole thing, and then tell you after I read it.'

Bunting said, 'Can't you, just off-hand, think of anything in it that is not true?'

Howell said, 'Well, the first part; that isn't.'

'You mean,' said Bunting, 'the part that says you are making it of your own free will, and without any threats or promises having been made you?'

'That is positively untrue.'

Bunting looked off to the high corner of the sloping ceiling. 'What else is not true?'

'Well, I would have to read the whole statement.'

'Can't you think of anything else, if you know of anything that is not true?'

'No,' said Howell doggedly, 'not just at the present time.'

'You can't think of a thing in it that is not true. Isn't that because it's all true?'

'Some,' said Howell, 'is true, and there is some is not true.'

'I want to know what part is not true.'

Harry Wurts said, 'If your Honour please, this statement is several pages of typewriting, and if the witness is given a chance to read the statement —'

Bunting turned to him and said, 'If I have to take the time, I will permit him to read it, if you would prefer to have it done that way.'

Harry said, 'I don't see why not.'

'Well, I do, Mr. Wurts,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'In my opinion, it is unnecessary to take all that time.'

'If I may say so, sir,' Harry said, 'when the district attorney keeps repeating a question which, he is well aware, cannot be answered offhand, there is a certain loss of time, too.'

'And I think you are aggravating it, Mr. Wurts.' Harry sat down, and Bunting said, 'You signed this statement, Stanley?'

'Yes.'

'And you read it before you signed it?'

'Yes.'

Harry said, 'I object to the district attorney going on with this statement unless he lets the witness take it as he requested, sentence by sentence —'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'He is not asking anything about its contents just now.'

'He probably will.'

Judge Vredenburgh pouted. 'There is no question asked at this time. You will have to wait.'

'Has your Honour ruled on my objection?' Judge Vredenburgh laid down his pencil and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. 'I suggest to the district attorney that he shall not press that line of examination if it involves having the witness read us the whole statement. However, he has a right to, if he wants to.'

Bunting said, 'I don't want to, your Honour. I'm not going to do it.'

'Well,' said Harry, shrugging, 'if he is not going to comment on it, I will withdraw my objection.'

'So that counsel will understand,' Bunting said, 'what I mean is, that I am not going to ask again what part is true and what part is not true.'

'But you are going to take up the different sentences?'

Harry said. 'When necessary, I purpose to read them to him, just as you did.'

'Then I ask that the witness be permitted to read out the statement,' Harry said to Judge Vredenburgh. 'This is simply beating around the bush.'

Judge Vredenburgh shook his head. 'The district attorney is the judge of how he is going to do it. Objection overruled.'

To himself, Abner thought, 'My God!' It could not be said to have taken many minutes; but when you heard them waste time and waste more time complaining about whether they were wasting time or not, what could you say, except that the law was an ass? They acted as though all eternity were at their disposal. If it did not get through this afternoon, there was always to-morrow, and the next day; and next week, and for that matter, next month, and even next year.

Below the bench Abner could observe the faces of those paid to wait it out, and by practice prepared to: Mat Rhea and Theodore Bosenbury side by side, their eyes fixed in space; Gifford Hughes, who was asleep, and Hermann Napes, who had as usual brought down some work and was inconspicuously doing it; Nick Dowdy, also asleep; Joe Jackman, his alert face and half bald head turning a little from sound to sound while with steady precision he marked up column after column and sheet after sheet of his ruled paper. Above them, in the glow of his desk lamp, Judge Vredenburgh had now begun again to write steadily, too; and though he darted occasional sharp glances at the witness, or at Bunting questioning him, he was probably working on the draft of his charge with the hope that he would have a chance to use it before the afternoon was over.

Leaning back, Abner looked at the wheel of stained glass, bright with light, above him and thought, 'Maybe I am in the wrong business,' Reviewing his career, it seemed to him that he had never shown much aptitude for law. They had expected him to go into it, and he had gone — but had he ever taken to law the way Harry. Wurts took to it? To Harry, all was as natural as breathing. Harry did not put to himself (Abner surely would have) needless questions when he was asked to assume Howell's defence. Harry estimated the hard work in the almost hopeless case, found out how much could be paid, decided it was enough, and accepted — partly because he did not mind hard cases, partly no doubt because he did not mind obliging Servadei, or his firm. Having taken it on, Harry flung himself into it, working furiously and well, though not through a sense of duty or obligation to his client. Tuesday in the Attorneys' Room he had made no bones about his client being guilty; and the way he treated Howell showed the contempt he felt for him. That it would profit Harry to oblige or impress Servadei was problematic; and Howell's last few hundred dollars (they must have come from the division of Walter Cohen's payment) were poor pickings; so Harry was really defending Howell for the fun of it. He enjoyed the intellectual tussle with Bunting. It was a pleasure to obstruct the Commonwealth; and if, in fact, the ends of justice could be defeated, that was justice's tough luck. It did not seem to Abner that he himself had ever managed to feel quite that way, or to litigate for the sheer love of litigating.

On the stand Howell was in difficulties. Abner had been paying no attention. There could be nothing new after five weeks of turning over and over this complicated yet meagre material, and Abner was fed up with the detail; but he could see the virtue of Bunting's unwearied pertinacity, the steady plodding and pressing. Like a man doing a jigsaw puzzle, Bunting searched and searched for the piece he wanted; and in the end, sure enough, he found it, fitted it into place, and looked for the next piece. He must just have found one, and Howell was apprehensive. Bunting said to him, 'Stanley, I never got on your ear, did I?' His voice was mild and dry; he smiled. Bunting was capable of subtleties, too; and it occurred to Abner that leaving Leming to him had served a double purpose and that Marty had planned it to serve the double purpose. Not only would Leming do better with Abner, but Marty would be left freer to make a personal approach to Howell. Howell was not silly enough to trust anyone; yet he might not distrust Bunting quite so much as he would distrust a person who let it be seen that he had the traitor, Leming's confidence. With an answering uncertain smile, Howell said, 'On my ear?'

'Yes.'

'You only asked me down there, "Do you want to talk to me?'' '

'Did you get the impression that if you refused to talk to me that I would beat you up?'.

'Oh, no. I never said you, down here, made threats or done anything.'

'So what you told me, anything you said to me was not said in fear?'

'Not in fear, no.'

'Do you remember telling me how Zolly was killed?'

Howell said, 'You spoke to me how Zolly was killed; and I said, "Put in the machine," didn't I?'

'Well, now, Stanley,' Bunting said. 'I can't very well testify. I'm not a witness. I'm asking you.'

'Yes.'

'And at that time, when you were not in fear of being beaten up, you told me, didn't you —'

Harry Wurts said, 'Now, if the Court please, I am going to enter an objection here to these questions of Mr. Bunting's in reference to any conversations he had with the defendant, unless Mr. Bunting is going to take the stand and be cross-examined.'

'No,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'I don't know of any rule that requires that.'

'Well, sir,' said Harry,' he is asking Howell about a conversation he had with him.'

'And the defendant is answering,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'If it is not contradicted, it is acceptable.'

'Well, I enter an objection.'

'Overruled. You may except.'

Bunting said, 'Stanley, you remember talking to me when they brought you up here, don't you?'

'Yes,' said Howell, 'I said, "I will see you when I get a lawyer," didn't I?'

'And this gentleman was there, wasn't he?' Bunting turned and indicated Abner.

'I don't know whether he was then. I seen so many people.' Abner had been there. He remembered Howell producing a slip of paper and explaining that this was his lawyer. Somebody had written down Harry Wurts's name. Afterward, Bunting said, 'It would be Harry!'

Bunting had a job to do; and he knew Harry well enough to be sure that Harry would make things no easier. Though good at them, Bunting did not enjoy contests of wits. Abner had seen him faced with a smart trick often enough to remember as characteristic that change that came over him; Marty's dry expression getting drier. He did not lose his temper, for it was no inconvenience to him to have to think fast; and he could usually meet tricks with a trick of his own worth two of those; but he was disgusted. The truth was, Marty had no sense of humour. Seriously absorbed in a serious and absorbing piece of work, he saw himself interrupted by some idle buffoon's attempt to play a pointless practical joke on him. He might see it in time to stop it, and even to put it in reverse; but he still did not like being interrupted, and he stared with astonished contempt at the person who would seize such a moment to do such a thing. Though a sense of humour was generally spoken of with approval, and a man was pitied for lacking one, Abner supposed that he must lack one himself. When he saw a sense of humour in action, it always seemed to Abner a lucky thing, since somebody had to do the work of an unappreciative world, that a certain number of people could be relied on to lack it.

Bunting said, 'Now, Stanley, whether you remember that, or not, do you remember telling me —'

The door of the Attorneys' Room opened to let out Malcolm Levering. He had been in the tipstaff's chair at the far end where he must have been able to hear the telephone ring through the closed door. He passed quietly along behind the jury, skirted Harry and Basso and George Stacey in their seats at the second table, and came across on tiptoe to Abner. He bent and said hoarsely in Abner's ear, 'Ab, a Sergeant LaBarre, I think his name is, State Police, Newmarket substation, wants to talk to Marty as soon as he can. Very important'

'Is he on the phone?'

'No. I told him Marty was in court.'

'Ring him back and ask if I can do anything. Tell him Marty has a witness on the stand. Oh, never mind; I'll do it.' On his pad Abner wrote, State Police, Newmarket, drew a circle around it, and laid it where Marty would see it if he looked. He crossed over after Malcolm, who climbed into his chair, and Abner passed him and went into the Attorneys' Room.

Both of the wide screened windows had been left open to air out the tobacco smoke; and the entering dampness of the day filled the shadows with mustiness from the shelves of leather-backed books and the old plaster and wood. It had been raining; but now the rain had stopped again. The big trees, extending down to the corner where High Street intersected North Broad Street, hung wet and heavy with a kind of haze around them. Abner dialed the operator.

At the Newmarket sub-station the man on the switchboard said, 'State Police'.

Abner said, 'This is Abner Coates of the district attorney's office, Childerstown. The sergeant was calling the district attorney a moment ago. He said it was important'

'O.K.,' said the operator. 'Here it is.' There was a click, and a voice said, 'LaBarre speaking. Mr. Coates? Look, I've been off since Tuesday night. I just came on. That Mason case, the manslaughter, the motor vehicle thing. You know which one I mean?'

'Yes.'

'I don't know what you're doing about it; but it seems there's a misunderstanding, or something. Now, let me tell you the facts. I was there myself two or three minutes after it happened — it was right down beyond here; you could see it from here. Private Lynd, he's the arresting officer, actually saw the cars hit. He was just going to his car — I mean, the patrol car in front of the station.'

'I think Mr. Bunting has the report,' Abner said. 'The inquest is set for to-morrow. Wasn't your man notified?'

'Yes, he was. Now, here's the thing. Somebody was squawking about us holding this Mason for manslaughter.'

'What do you mean, squawking?' Abner said. With a start of cold annoyance the thought came to him that Jesse, leaving no stone unturned in his anxiety to serve and please George Guthrie Mason, had approached the police as well as the district attorney. 'Who is somebody?'

Sergeant LaBarre said, 'Well, if you want to know, we heard it was you, Mr. Coates. We heard you said he ought to have been just charged with being involved in a fatal accident; and you were going to make a complaint higher up.'

Disconcerted, Abner said, 'I don't know who told you that. It isn't what I said.' Jake Riordan wouldn't be likely to go down and gossip at the sub-station; but what he could do and probably had done was make a remark to somebody who told somebody else, who told somebody else. 'What I said was that I would have to see the report and talk to the arresting officer. The J.P., Wiener, told me he didn't think it was Mason's fault. Mason told me the same thing; and said you, or some other officer, said the tyre marks showed the other fellow ran into him. What I said was, if there were no specific grounds for charging him with manslaughter the J.P. should have been allowed to set bail, and there was no reason to jail Mason. If it wasn't Mason's fault, if the other driver caused the accident, your man, your Private Lynd, ought to know better than to charge Mason with manslaughter. I don't know what they do other places; but in this county we're certainly going to squawk.'

'Now, look it,' Sergeant LaBarre said. 'The reason we charged Mason with manslaughter was reckless driving. I can't help what he told you. I mean, reckless in the language of the statute. Means negligently; the absence of care under the circumstances. Right?'

'Yes.'

'While doing that, he accidentally kills a man. That's manslaughter, as far as I know; and that's what we charged him with.'

'Then it was his fault?'

'Sure! Lynd sees this car going a pretty good rate, but not more than fifty, come up the road and take this other car, it's going the same way, just off the left rear corner. Like he's come up to it, and then he saw it too late, and tried to pass, and didn't get by. See? The other car drives into the guard rail on its right and folds up on this other driver, a coloured man, this victim. It was just an old pile of junk; and Mason has this big car, and they can take it; so Mason only bangs his head on the dashboard a little.'

'Sounds to me as if the other driver put his brakes on,' Abner said, remembering the laundry truck when he was driving down town with Jesse.

'No, there were no marks; but Mason's brakes, you could see he slammed them on. First thing Lynd thought was he, Mason, was drunk. But I saw him myself, and he wasn't. So what I am pretty sure of is, he went to sleep; he just nodded off, and woke up too late. That's too bad, but it's his job to stay awake.'

'Did he admit it?'

'No. He said he didn't see the other car until he hit it. Well, now the other car had a reflector on its tail light; and here he is, a clear night, with headlights like they have on a big car, coming up behind on a straight highway — no. Either he dozed off, or he wasn't looking where he was going. Either way, we charge him with manslaughter. Right?'

'If that's how it was, yes.'

'Well, Mr. Coates, I didn't want a misunderstanding about us making an improper charge.'

'If it was that way, it sounds proper to me. I think we'd like to have you come up yourself, to-morrow. I think you'd better be ready to testify.'

'O.K. See you then.'

Abner hung up and looked out at the damp afternoon. Jake Riordan must have told Mason what to say, or what not to say — admit nothing until you saw what the case against you was. That was certainly his right, and good practical advice, too; but Abner could feel a sort of weariness, a distaste of mind — what did the kid mean, the other car ran into him? If the police told him anything about the tyre marks, they told him that they showed that the accident was his, not the unfortunate Negro's, fault.

Getting to the bottom of things like that was impossible. You just had to take the practical view that a man always lied on his own behalf, and paid his lawyer, who was an expert, a professional liar, to show him new and better ways of lying. Abner remembered a passage his father was fond of quoting from a life of Chief Justice Parsons, or someone like that, about the plaintiff who brought action against a neighbour for borrowing and breaking a cooking pot. Advice of counsel was that the defendant should plead that he never borrowed the pot; and that he used it carefully and returned it whole; also, that the pot was broken and useless when he borrowed it; also, that he borrowed the pot from someone not the plaintiff; also, that the pot in question was defendant's own pot; also, that plaintiff never owned a pot, cooking or other; also, that — and so on, and so on.

Beyond the screened windows, the afternoon seemed to be brightening a little, as though the rain were over; and Abner, rousing himself, went back to the courtroom and resumed his seat. Harry glanced at him casually and winked. Bunting was still cross-examining Howell; and the jury, tired of sitting still, and tired of hearing the same thing, looked restless.

Restless, too, in the rising semi-circle of gloomy benches, singly or in groups of three or four, sat eighty or ninety spectators. There was plenty of room lower down, but many of them were content to sit well back. Abner knew a few by name, and a good many more by sight — there was old John Hughes, generally called Grandpa, who always attended court, hardly missed a day in the last five or six years. He received a small pension of some kind, and had nothing else to do. At Harry Wurts's urging, Grandpa had been elected an honorary member of the Bar Association; but if the intention was to have some fun with him, it failed. He came to the yearly dinners, and though he ate everything offered to him, and even got quite drunk, he could not be persuaded to make a speech. Grandpa was very deaf and did not try to hear when spoken to. He simply nodded a little, smiled a little, grunted a little, and watched brightly—at first glance, you might think with the detachment of a philosopher; but it was soon apparent that the gleam in his seventy-year old eyes was only the aimless curiosity of a baby. Even Harry ended by letting him alone. Grandpa probably had little or no idea of what was going on this afternoon; but the strange faces kept his eyes busy, and the activities down in the well of the court beguiled him; and when he went home to supper he would probably feel that he had passed a pleasant afternoon.

What the others felt was harder to guess. Abner supposed they felt that same devouring curiosity that brought people, often in crowds, to stand staring at the scene of an accident or a crime hours or even days after it happened. (What did they hope to see? What did they want?) Many of those present now had been present since the opening of the trial. The oak benches were as hard as iron to their buttocks; they did not know these people who were on trial; they could hardly hear what was being said; they did not understand the procedure of the court well enough to follow the drama if it could be called one; but still they sat. They looked thirstily, drinking it in, slaking their indescribable but obstinate and obscene thirst. They looked, but never quite their fill, at Howell and Basso who were probably (terrible and titillating thought!) going to die; at Leming, who took his drugs before breakfast; at the widow of a murdered man, the whilom sharer of his bed; at Susie Smalley, the lewd object of what lewd passions; at Judge Vredenburgh in his robe whose word was law; at the clerks serving some purpose they did not know under the bench; at the jury, whose word was life and death; at the attorneys making their assured gestures, familiars of the solemn mystery in which, all jumbled together, the just entered into judgment with the unjust.

Bunting said, 'Now, then, Stanley, you knew Zolly was to be killed when you took him out that night, didn't you?'

Howell said, 'I never knew'. He was feeling the strain. His water-slicked hair had long ago dried and some strands of it toppled forward, so he kept pushing them back. 'You told me you knew, didn't you?'

'You are wrong there.'

'You told me in the presence of Mr. Coates and Mr. Costigan that you knew Zolly was to be killed when you took him out that night, didn't you?'

'No,' said Howell. 'You are wrong. No.'

As a matter of fact, Bunting was right. Abner had heard Howell say it. Bunting said, 'That isn't true?'

'That positively isn't true.'

'You didn't say it?'

'No.'

The jury, obliged to choose between Howell and Bunting, chose Bunting, of course. When they were charged to disregard Howell's confession if they thought it had been obtained by force they would understand why Bunting had been so careful to let them know that Howell had told him much the same story, and by Howell's own admission, told it freely. This was a nice piece of work. The jury might not realize it; but Bunting was now testifying, yet in a way that those who did realize what he was doing could not challenge. Calmly, disarmingly, calling him by his first name, Bunting was sewing Howell up so tight he would never get out. Abner looked at Kinsolving, grave and reflective beyond the sheriff. An F.B.I. man must feel relief when he found a country district attorney who knew his business. Abner saw George Stacey bend to the side and speak to Harry; but Harry rolled his eyes, shrugging silently.

Bunting said, 'Now, Stanley, after Zolly was killed, did you ever go out on any job with Bailey and Basso?'

Jerking himself forward, throwing off his resignation, Harry half-arose. He said, 'I object to any questioning of this defendant as to any offences other than the one for which he stands trial.'

Bunting turned patiently, and Judge Vredenburgh said, 'That would be the general rule. This witness has testified, however, that he was afraid of Bailey.' He turned back the pages of his notes, the lamplight brightening on his bent face. 'Yes. While he did not definitely say so, he implied that the reason that he accompanied them was that.'

'Exactly, sir,' said Harry with alacrity. 'There can be no doubt that he acted only through fear.'

'The doubt, or lack of doubt, belongs to the jury, Mr. Wurts,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'We will agree that the witness may have feared Bailey, that he may have thought, if he refused to go with them, that his own life would be in danger.'

'It seems to me a strong presumption, your Honour.'

'It is one that the Commonwealth is entitled to attack. I think it would be greatly weakened if the Commonwealth showed that Howell continued to associate with Bailey. I take it that such evidence would be admissible for that purpose, at least.'

Bunting said, 'It is also offered for the purpose of showing the jury what kind of men these were.'

Judge Vredenburgh nodded. 'Showing their character; on the question of punishment, if that should arise. Yes.'

Harry Wurts said, 'Well, sir, I object.'

'Overruled.'

Bunting said, 'Didn't you go with Bailey and Basso a few nights after the killing of Frederick Zollicoffer, before Bailey went away to hide, and attempt to steal a car —'

'If your Honour please,' George Stacey said, 'I desire to make an objection to that question on behalf of the defendant Basso, for the reason that Mr. Wurts assigned for the previous objection; and for the further reason, that though there may be exceptions to the other rule, this is a misuse of that exception by the Commonwealth to throw something into the jury box that has no right there. Therefore, I object.'

'I think I understand you, Mr. Stacey,' Judge Vredenburgh said, 'but suppose this defendant testified that he was afraid for his life while he was with Bailey; and then suppose that the Commonwealth were to show that he continued with him in other affairs. Wouldn't that throw doubt on the genuineness of his fear, very serious doubt?'

George Stacey blushed. 'My objection, sir, on that point is this,' he said. He paused a moment, collecting himself with a doggedness Abner admired. Abner could remember such painful moments of his own during his first years of practice, when, on his feet, every eye bent on him, and the Court waiting, confusion scattered his thoughts in all directions and he could not catch the one he wanted.

'The reason was,' George said, 'the reason he was in fear that night, was because they were involved in the disposal of Zollicoffer, who was in their custody and alive. They were now returning him. The testimony of the witness was that he was under the impression that Zollicoffer was to be released.'

Judge Vredenburgh resumed the minute movements of shaking his head. 'That would be a matter of argument, but not a matter of law.'

'That is true, sir,' George Stacey said, 'but I will make my objection.'

'No. You may have an exception.'

Abner guessed that George's point, unfortunately left out, was that Howell and Basso feared Bailey under the particular circumstances of that evening; and the fact that they did not fear him so much under different circumstances did not mean that their fear had not been genuine. George, back in his seat beside Basso, sat tense, undoubtedly going over — how well Abner remembered! —' what he had said, trying to show himself that it could have meant what he intended to say. Abner felt like standing up and straightening it out for him.

Bunting said, 'You and Basso went on this attempted robbery, this garage job, with Bailey, didn't you?'

'No,' said Howell.

He produced the word with furtive suddenness. It made Abner think of a poor card player boggling an instant, so that his desperation was betrayed; then making an asinine lead and fatuously pluming himself on the general surprise. 'You didn't?' said Bunting. 'No.'

'You didn't tell me and Mr. Coates, and Lieutenant Dunglison, that you took part in it?'

'No.'

Bunting said, 'Is Lieutenant Dunglison in court?' Where he sat over by Kinsolving, Dunglison raised his hand and said, 'Yes, Mr. District Attorney.'

'Oh. All right, thanks, Lieutenant.' Bunting came back to the table. Abner said, 'Want to put Dunglison on?'

'No,' said Bunting. 'Just give Harry a chance to drag out some cross-examination. Let him go.' He looked at Howell and said, 'That is all.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Will you want to offer anything in rebuttal, Mr. Bunting?'

'No, your Honour.'

'The defence rests as to Howell,' Harry said. 'Mr. Stacey?' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'Yes, sir, I rest, too. Defence rests as to Basso.' On the stand, Howell said, 'Could I be excused a minute, Judge?'

'Yes. You may. Sheriff, take out the defendant. If you have points to submit for charge, Mr. Wurts, you may submit them now. The jury will be withdrawn.. Mr. Bunting, come to side bar, please.'

Abner looked across at Harry Wurts who was snapping the loose leaf binder on the sheets of his trial brief. George Stacey's blond head was bent, asking Harry some long anxious question. Hugh Erskine, down from his seat, came over to Basso, touched him on the shoulder and spoke to him. Basso shook his head. Howell, with Max Eich, seemed to be waiting to speak to Harry; and Harry, now on his way to join Bunting at the end of the bench, stopped, facing Howell. Abner could not hear what Howell said; but Harry answered, 'No. We've closed. It's all over. I'll see you in a minute.'

Harry walked on, and Howell convulsively made a movement. Max Eich tapped his arm, and Howell turned, as though to back away. Right behind him he found Warren Lyall, who had come along the front of the now empty jury box. Warren stood stock still, and said, 'Take it easy, Bud!' He was so close to Howell that Howell could not move without touching him; and, crowded together, they stood an instant, nothing spoken, nothing done. Howell let himself relax then, swinging his pinched face from side to side. Max closed a hand on Howell's left coat sleeve, deftly, neatly, so it was hardly noticeable, snapping on the handcuff. Abner saw the instant's wink of the bright steel and heard the little click.

They moved off then, and Abner found that he had been holding his breath. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably. It was one of those moments, fortunately rare, in which you saw, under the forms, the human facts; the terrified prisoner; the stout burly guard with the ready manacles; the young tough impassive deputy-sheriff. Warren spoke his hard, but not harsh or brutal, word to the wise; with a delicacy, with a consideration almost incredible when you saw Max's beefy face, Max understood and mitigated all he could the shame of the steel chain, the guerdon of a dog. In Howell's heart, even despair must have died, and they marched the man out to relieve himself.

Bunting made his way clear of the empty seats of Nick Dowdy and Joe Jackman and came back to Abner. 'Well,' he said, 'that could have been worse. In fact, it was a damn good case. I'd like to get more like that.'

'Nice going,' said Abner. 'Surprised when he lied to you?'

'The first time. When he said he hadn't told us about knowing they were going to kill Zolly. Not the second time.' Bunting smiled. 'The Judge had just finished telling him to lie. I was watching him while the Judge explained to Harry and George what it would mean. Right then Stanley changed his mind. Well, I hope we cooked his goose. I think we did.'

'I think you did,' Abner said. 'They got it, all right, when you asked if Dunglison was there.'

Bunting said, 'It's not the kind of thing I like; but, if you don't know it already, take a tip. Never give anyone like Harry any opening of any kind. The way those smart alecks get to a jury is just on some foolish side issue. Let's grab a cigarette.'