XXVII
Elizabeth let the note fall in her lap. A new happiness suddenly enveloped her. She felt the relief of an escape. The note ran:
DEAR ELIZABETH:
I have thought it all over. I did not sleep all night, thinking of it, and of you. But–I can not do what you ask; I could not love you as I do if I were false to my duty. You know how hard it is for me to come to this conclusion, how hard it is for me to write thus. It sounds harsh and brutal and cold, I know. It is not meant to be. I know how you have suffered; I wish you could know how I have suffered and how I shall suffer. I can promise you one thing, however: that I shall do only my duty, my plain, simple duty, as lightly as I can, and nothing now can give me such joy as to find the outcome one perhaps I ought not to wish–one which in any other case would be considered a defeat for me. But I ask you to think of me, whatever may come to pass, as
Your sincereJOHN EADES.
She leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes; a sense of rest and comfort came to her. She was content for a while simply to realize that rest and comfort. She opened her eyes and looked out of the window over the little triangular park with its bare trees; the sky was solid gray; there was a gray tone in the atmosphere, and the soft light was grateful and restful to her eyes, tired and sensitive as they were from the loss of so much sleep. She felt that she could lie back then and sleep profoundly. Yet she did not wish to sleep–she wished to be awake and enjoy this sensation of relief, of escape. After that night and that day and this last night of suspense, it was like a reprieve–she started and her face darkened,–the thought of reprieve made her somehow think of Archie Koerner. This event had quite driven him out of her mind, coming as it had just at the climax. She had not thought of him for–how long? And Gusta! It brought the thought of her, too. Suddenly she remembered, with a dim sense of confusion that, at some time long ago, she and Gusta had talked of Archie's first trouble. Had they mentioned Dick? No, but she had thought of him! How strange! And then her thoughts returned to Eades, and she lifted the note, and glanced at it. She recalled the night at the Fords', and his proposal, her hesitation and his waiting. She let the note fall again and sighed audibly–a sigh that expressed her content. Then suddenly she started up! She had forgotten Dick–the trouble–her father!
Marriott knew what she had to say almost before the first sentence had fallen from her lips.
"I'll not pretend to be surprised, Elizabeth," he said. "I haven't expected it, but now I can see that it was inevitable."
He looked away from her.
"Poor boy!" he said. "How I pity him! He has done nothing more than to adopt the common standard; he has accepted the common ideal. He has believed them when they told him by word and deed that possession–money–could bring happiness and that nothing else can! Well–it's too bad."
Elizabeth's head was drooping and the tears were streaming down her cheeks. He pretended not to see.
"Poor boy!" he went on. "Well, we must save him, that's all."
She looked up at him, her gray eyes wide and their lashes drenched in their tears.
"How, Gordon?"
"Well, I don't know, but some way." He studied a moment. "Eades–well, of course, he's hopeless."
She could never tell him of her visit to Eades; she had told him merely of Hunter's interview with the prosecutor. But she was surprised to see how Marriott, instantly, could tell just what Eades would do.
"Eades is just a prosecutor, that's all," Marriott went on. "Heavens! How the business has hardened him! How it does pull character to shreds! And yet–he's like Dick–he's pursuing another ideal that's very popular. They'll elect Eades congressman or governor or something for his severity. But let's not waste time on him. Let's think." He sat there, his brows knit, and Elizabeth watched him.
"I wish I could fathom old Hunter. He had some motive in reporting it to Eades so soon. Of course, if it wasn't for that it would be easy. Hm–" He thought. "We'll have to work through Hunter. He's our only chance. I must find out all there is to know about Hunter. Now, Elizabeth, I'll have to shut myself up and do some thinking. The grand jury doesn't meet for ten days–we have time–"
"They won't arrest Dick?"
"Oh, it's not likely now. Tell him to stay close at home–don't let him skip out, whatever he does. That would be fatal. And one thing more–let me do the worrying." He smiled.
Marriott had hoped, when the murder trial was over, that he could rest; he had set in motion the machinery that was to take the case up on error; he had ordered his transcripts and prepared the petition in error and the motions, and he was going to have them all ready and file them at the last moment, so that he might be sure of delay. Archie had been taken to the penitentiary, and Marriott was glad of that, for it relieved him of the necessity of going to the jail so often; that was always an ordeal. He had but one more visit to make there,–Curly had sent for him; but Curly never demanded much. But now–here was a task more difficult than ever. It provoked him almost to anger; he resented it. It was always so, he told himself; everything comes at once–and then he thought of Elizabeth. It was for her!
He thought of nothing else all that day. He inquired about Hunter of every one he met. He went to his friends, trying to learn all he could. He picked up much, of course, for there was much to be told of such a wealthy and prominent man as Amos Hunter, especially one with such striking personal characteristics. But he found no clue, no hint that he felt was promising. Then he suddenly remembered Curly.
He found him in another part of the jail, where he had been immured away from Archie in order that they might not communicate with each other. With his wide knowledge and deeper nature Curly was a more interesting personality than Archie. He took his predicament with that philosophy Marriott had observed and was beginning to admire in these fellows; he had no complaints to make.
"I'm not worried," he said. "I'll come out all right. Eades has nothing on me, and he knows it. They're holding me for a bluff. They'll keep me, of course, until they get Archie out of the way, then they'll put me on the street. It wouldn't do to drop my case now. They'll just stall along with it until then. Of course–there's one danger–" he looked up and smiled curiously, and to the question in Marriott's eyes, he answered:
"You see they can't settle me for this; but they might dig up something somewhere else and put me away on that. You see the danger."
Marriott nodded, not knowing just what to say.
"But we must take the bitter with the sweet, as Eddie Dean used to say." Curly spoke as if the observation were original with Dean. "But, Mr. Marriott, there's one or two things I want you to attend to for me."
"Well," consented Marriott helplessly, already overburdened with others' cares.
"I don't like to trouble you, but there's no one I like to trust, and they won't let me see any one."
He hesitated a moment.
"It's this way," he presently went on. "I've got a woman–Jane, they call her. She's a good woman, you see, though she has some bad tricks. She's sore now, and hanging around here, and I want her to leave. She's even threatened to see Eades, but she wouldn't do that; she's too square. But she has a stand-in with McFee, and while he's all right in his way, still he's a copper, and you can't be sure of a copper. She can't help me any here, and she might queer me; the flatties might pry something out of her that could hurt me–they'll do anything. If you'll see Danny Gibbs and have him ship her, I'll be much obliged. And say, Mr. Marriott, when you're seeing him, tell him to get that thing fixed up and send me my bit. He'll understand. I don't mind telling you, at that. There's a man here, a swell guy, a banker, who does business with Dan. He's handled some of our paper–and that sort of thing, you know, and I've got a draw coming there. It ain't much, about twenty-five case, I guess, but it'd come in handy. Tell Dan to give the woman a piece of it and send the rest to me here. I can use it just now buying tobacco and milk and some little things I need. Dan'll understand all about it."
"Who is this swell guy you speak of–this banker?"
Curly looked at Marriott with the suspicion that was necessarily habitual with him, but his glance softened and he said:
"I don't know him myself. I never saw him–his name's Hunt, no, Hunter, or some such thing. Know him?"
Marriott's heart leaped; he struggled to control himself.
"Course, you understand, Mr. Marriott," said Curly, fearing he had been indiscreet, "this is all between ourselves."
"Oh, of course, you can depend on me."
He was anxious now to get away; he could scarcely observe the few decencies of decorum that the place demanded. And when he was once out of the prison, he called a cab and drove with all speed to Gibbs's place. On the way his mind worked rapidly, splendidly, under its concentration. When he reached the well-known quiet little saloon in Kentucky Street, Gibbs took him into the back room, and there, where Gibbs had been told of the desperate plights of so many men, Marriott told him of the plight of Dick Ward. When he had done, he leaned across the table and said:
"And you'll help me, Dan?"
Gibbs made no reply, but instead smoked and blinked at Marriott curiously. Just as Marriott's hopes were falling, Gibbs broke the silence:
"It's the girl you're interested in," he said gruffly, "not the kid." He looked at Marriott shrewdly, and when Marriott saw that he looked not at all unkindly or in any sense with that cynical contempt of the sentimental that might have been expected of such a man, Marriott smiled.
"Well, yes, you're right. I am interested in her."
Gibbs threw him one look and then tilted back, gazed upward to the ceiling, puffed meditatively at his cigar, and presently said, as if throwing out a mere tentative suggestion:
"I wonder if it wouldn't do that old geezer good to take a sea-voyage?"
Marriott's heart came into his throat with a little impulse of fear. He felt uneasy–this was dangerous ground for a lawyer who respected the ethics of his profession, and here he was, plotting with this go-between of criminals. Criminals–and yet who were the criminals he went between? These relations, after all, seemed to have a high as well as a low range–was there any so-called class of society whom Gibbs could not, at times, serve?
"Let's see," Gibbs was saying, "where is this now? Canada used to do, but that's been put on the bum. Mexico ain't so bad, they say, and some of them South American countries does pretty well, though they complain of the eatin', and there's nothing doing anyway. A couple of friends of mine down in New York went to a place somewhere called–let's see–called Algiers, ain't it?"
Marriott did not like to speak, but he nodded.
"Is that a warm country?"
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"It's on the shores of the Mediterranean."
"Now that don't tell me any more than I knew before," said Gibbs, "but if the climate's good for old guys with the coin, that's about all we want. It'll make the front all right, especially at this time o' year."
Marriott nodded again.
"All right, that'll do. An old banker goes there for his health–just as if it was Hot Springs."
Gibbs thought a moment longer.
"Now, of course, the kid's father'll make it good, won't he? He'll put up?"
"Yes," said Marriott. He was rather faint and sick about it all–and yet it was working beautifully, and it must be done. Even then Ward was pacing the floor somewhere–and Elizabeth, she was waiting and depending on him. "Shall I bring you his check?"
"Hell, no!" exclaimed Gibbs. "We'll want the cash. I'll get it of him. The fewer hands, the better."
Marriott was wild to get away; he could scarcely wait, but he remembered suddenly Curly's commissions, and he must attend to them, of course. He felt a great gratitude just now to Curly.
When Marriott told Gibbs of Curly's request, Gibbs shook his head decidedly and said:
"No, I draw the line at refereeing domestic scraps. If Curly wants to go frame in with a moll, it's his business; I can't do anything." And then he dryly added: "Nobody can, with Jane; she's hell!"
XXVIII
One morning, a week later, as they sat at breakfast, Ward handed his newspaper across to Elizabeth, indicating an item in the social column, and Elizabeth read:
"Mr. Amos Hunter, accompanied by his daughter, Miss Agnes Hunter, sailed from New York yesterday on the steamer King Emanuel for Naples. Mr. Hunter goes abroad for his health, and will spend the winter in Italy."
Elizabeth looked up.
"That means–?"
"That it's settled," Ward replied.
She grew suddenly weak, in the sense of relief that seemed to dissolve her.
"Unless," Ward added, and Elizabeth caught herself and looked at her father fearfully, "Hunter should come back."
"But will he?"
"Some time, doubtless."
"Oh, dear! Then the suspense isn't over at all!"
"Well, it's over for the present, anyway. Eades can do nothing, so Marriott says, as long as Hunter is away, and even if he were to return, the fact that Hunter accepted the money and credited it on his books–in some fashion–would make it exceedingly difficult to prove anything, and of course, under any circumstances, Hunter wouldn't dare–now."
Elizabeth sat a moment idly playing with a fork, and her father studied the varying expressions of her face as the shades came and went in her sensitive countenance. Her brow clouded in some little perplexity, then cleared again, and at last she sighed.
"I feel a hundred years old," she said. "Hasn't it been horrible?"
"I feel like a criminal myself," said Ward.
"We are criminals–all of us," she said, dealing bluntly, cruelly with herself. "We ought all of us to be in the penitentiary, if anybody ought."
"Yes," he acquiesced.
"Only," she said, "nobody ought. I've learned that, anyway."
"What would you do with them?" he asked, in the comfort of entering the realm of the abstract.
"With us?"
"Well–with the criminals."
"Send us to the penitentiary, I suppose."
"You are delightfully illogical, Betsy," he said, trying to laugh.
"That's all we can be," she said. "It's the only logical way."
Then they were silent, for the maid entered.
"Have we really committed a crime?" she asked, when the door swung on the maid, who came and went so unconsciously in the midst of these tragic currents. "Don't tell me–if we have."
"I don't know," said Ward. "I presume I'd rather not know. I know I've gone through enough to make me miserable the rest of my life. I know that we have settled nothing–that we have escaped nothing–except what people will say."
"Yes, mama, after all, was the only one wise enough to understand and appreciate the real significance."
"Well, there's nothing more we can do now," he replied.
"No, we must go on living some way." She got up, went around the table and kissed him on the forehead. "We'll just lock our little skeleton in the family closet, papa, and once in a while go and take a peep at him. There may be some good in that–he'll keep us from growing proud, anyway."
Ward and Marriott had decided to say as little to Elizabeth as possible of their transaction. Ward had gone through a week of agony. In a day or two he had raised the little fortune, and kept it ready, and he had been surprised and a bit perturbed when Gibbs had come and in quite a matter-of-fact way asked for the amount in cash. Ward had helplessly turned it over to him with many doubts and suspicions; but he knew no other way. Afterward, when Gibbs returned and gave him Hunter's receipt, he had felt ashamed of these doubts and had hoped Gibbs had not noticed them, but Gibbs had gone away without a word, save a gruff:
"Well, that's fixed, Mr. Ward."
And yet Elizabeth had wondered about it all. Her conscience troubled her acutely, so acutely that when Marriott came over that evening for the praise he could not forego, and perhaps for a little spiritual corroboration and comfort, she said:
"Gordon, you have done wonders. I can't thank you."
"Don't try," he said. "It's nothing."
She looked troubled. Her brows darkened, and then, unable to resist the impulse any longer, she asked:
"But, Gordon, was it right?"
"What?" he asked, quite needlessly, as they both knew.
"What you–what we–did?"
"Yes, it was right."
"Was it legal?"
"N-no."
"Ah!" She was silent a moment. "What is it called?"
"What?"
"You know very well–our crime. I must know the worst. I must know just how bad I am."
"You wish to have it labeled, classified, as Doctor Tilson would have it?"
"Yes, tell me."
"I believe," said Marriott looking away and biting his upper lip, "that it's called compounding a felony, or something of that sort."
He was silent and she was silent. Then he spoke again.
"They disbarred poor old Billy Gale for less than that."
She looked at him, her gray eyes winking rapidly as they did when she was interested and her mind concentrated on some absorbing problem. Then she impulsively clasped her white hands in her lap, and, leaning over, she asked out of the psychological interest the situation must soon or late have for her:
"Tell me, Gordon, just how you felt when you were–"
"Committing it?"
She nodded her head rapidly, almost impatiently.
"Well," he said with a far-away expression, "I experienced, especially when I was in Danny Gibbs's saloon, that pleasant feeling of going to hell."
"You just won't reassure me," she said, relaxing into a hopeless attitude.
"Oh, yes, I will," he replied. "Don't you remember what Emerson says?" He looked up at the portrait of the beautiful, spiritual face above the mantel.
She looked up in her vivid literary interest.
"No; tell me. He said everything."
"Yes, everything there is to say. He said, 'Good men must not obey the laws too well.'"
XXIX
When Eades read the announcement of Hunter's departure for Italy he was first surprised, then indignant, then relieved. Hunter had reported Dick's crime in anger, the state of mind in which most criminal prosecutions are begun. The old man had trembled until Eades feared for him; as he sat there with pallid lips relating the circumstances, he was not at all the contained, mild and shrewd old financier Eades so long had known.
"We must be protected, Mr. Eades,"–he could hear the shrill cry for days–"we must be protected from these thieves! They are the worst of all, sir; the worst of all! I want this young scoundrel arrested and sent to the penitentiary right away, sir, right away!"
Eades had seen that the old man was in fear, and that in his fear he had turned to him as toward that ancient corner-stone of society, the criminal statute. And now he had fled!
Eades knew, of course, that some one had tampered with him; and, of course, the defalcation had been made good, and now Hunter would be an impossible witness. Even Eades could imagine Hunter on the stand, not as he had been in his office that day, angry, frightened, keenly conscious of his wrong and recalling minutely all the details; but senile, a little deaf, leaning forward with a hand behind his ear, a grin on his withered face, remembering nothing, not cognizant of the details of his bookkeeping–sitting there, with his money safe in his pocket, while the case collapsed, Dick was acquitted in triumph–and he, John Eades, made ridiculous.
But what was he to do? After all, in the eye of the law, Hunter was not a witness; and, besides, it was possible that, technically, the felony might not have been compounded. At any rate, if it had been he could not prove it, and as for proceeding now against Ward, that was too much to expect, too much even for him to exact of himself. When a definite case was laid before him with the evidence to support it, his duty was plain, but he was not required to go tilting after wind-mills, to investigate mere suspicions. It was a relief to resign himself to this conclusion. Now he could only wait for Hunter's return, and have him brought in when he came, but probably, in the end, it would come to nothing. Yes, it was a relief, and he could think hopefully once more of Elizabeth.
The fourteenth of May–the date for the execution of the sentence of death against Archie–was almost on him before Marriott filed his petition in error in the Appellate Court and a motion for suspension of sentence. He had calculated nicely. As the court could not hear and determine the case before the day of execution, the motion was granted, and the execution postponed. Marriott's relief was exquisite; he hastened to send a telegram to Archie, and was happy, so happy that he could laugh at the editorial which Edwards printed the next morning, calling for reforms in the criminal code which would prevent "such travesties as were evidently to be expected in the Koerner case."
Marriott could laugh, because he knew how hypocritical Edwards was, but Edwards's editorials had influence in other quarters, and Marriott more and more regretted his simple little act of kindness–or of weakness–in loaning Edwards the ten dollars. If the newspapers would desist, he felt sure that in time, when public sentiment had undergone its inevitable reaction, he might secure a commutation of Archie's sentence; but if Edwards, in order to vent his spleen, continued to keep alive the spirit of the mob, then there was little hope.
"If he could only be sent to prison for life!" said Elizabeth, as they discussed this aspect of the case. "No,"–she hastened to correct herself–"for twenty years; that would do."
"It would be the same thing," said Marriott.
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth leaned forward with a puzzled expression in her gray eyes.
"All sentences to the penitentiary are sentences for life. We pretend they're not, but if a man lives to get out–do we treat him as if he had paid the debt? No, he's a convict still. Look at Archie, for instance."
"Look at Harry Graves! Oh, Gordon,"–Elizabeth suddenly sat up and made an impatient gesture–"I can't forget him! And Gusta! And those men I saw as they were taken from the jail!"
"You mustn't worry about it; you can't help it."
"Oh, that's what they all tell me! 'Don't worry about it–you can't help it!' No! But you worried about Archie–and about"–she closed her eyes, and he watched their white lids droop in pain–"and about Dick."
"I knew them."
"Yes," she said, nodding her head, "you knew them–that explains it all. We don't know the others, and so we don't care. Some one knows them, of course, or did, once, in the beginning. It makes me so unhappy! Don't, please, ever any more tell me not to worry, or that I can't help it. Try to think out some way in which I can help it, won't you?"
Meanwhile, Edwards's editorials were doing their work. They had an effect on Eades, of course, because the Courier was the organ of his party, to which he had to look for renomination. And they produced their effect on the judges of the Appellate Court, who also belonged to that party, but, not knowing Edwards, thought his anonymous utterances the voice of the people, which, at times, in the ears of politicians sounds like the voice of God. The court heard the case early in June; in two weeks it was decided. When Marriott entered the court-room on the morning the decision was to be rendered, his heart sank. On the left of the bench were piled some law-books, and behind them, peeping surreptitiously, he recognized the transcript in the Koerner case. It was much like other transcripts, to be sure, but to Marriott it was as familiar as the features of a friend with whom one has gone through trouble. The transcript lay on the desk before Judge Gardner's empty chair and therefore he knew that the decision was to be delivered by Gardner, and he feared that it was adverse, for Gardner had been severe with him and had asked him questions during the argument.
The bailiff had stood up, rapped on his desk, and Marriott, Eades and the other lawyers in the courtroom rose to simulate a respect for the court entertained only by those who felt that they were likely to win their cases. The three judges paced solemnly in, and when they were seated and the presiding judge had made a few announcements, Gardner leaned forward, pulled the transcript toward him, balanced his gold glasses on his nose, cleared his throat, and in a deep bass voice and in a manner somewhat strained, began to announce the decision. Before he had uttered half a dozen sentences, Marriott knew that he had lost again. The decision of the lower court was affirmed in what was inevitably called by the newspapers an able opinion, and the day of Archie's death was once more fixed–this time for the twenty-first of October.
A few weeks later, Marriott saw Archie at the penitentiary. He had gone to the state capital to argue to the Supreme Court old man Koerner's case against the railroad company. Several weeks before he had tried the case in the Appellate Court, and had won, the court affirming the judgment. This case seemed now to be the only hope of the family, and Marriott was anxious to have it heard by the Supreme Court before the learned justices knew of Archie's case, lest the relation of the old man and the boy prejudice them. He felt somehow that if he failed in Archie's case, a victory in the father's case would go far to dress the balance of the scales of justice and preserve the equilibrium of things. It was noon when Marriott was at the penitentiary, and he was glad that the men who were waiting to be killed were then taking their exercise, for he was spared the depression of the death-chamber. He met Archie under the blackened locust tree in the quadrangle. Archie was hopeful that day.
"I feel lucky," said Archie. "I'll not have to punish,–think so, Mr. Marriott?"
"We've got lots of time," Marriott replied, not knowing what else to say, "the Supreme Court doesn't sit till fall."
Pritchard, the poisoner, laid his slender white hand on Archie's shoulder.
"Good boy you've got here, Mr. Marriott," he said jokingly, "but a trifle wild."
Marriott laughed, and wondered how he could laugh.
Just then a whistle blew, and the convicts in close-formed ranks filed by on their way to dinner. As they went by, one of them glanced at him with a smile of recognition; a smile which, as Marriott saw, the man at once repressed, as the convict is compelled to repress all signs of human feeling. Marriott stared, then suddenly remembered; it was a man named Brill, whom he had known years before. And he, like the rest of the world, had forgotten Brill! He had not even cast him a glance of sympathy! He felt like running after the company–but it was too late; Brill must go without the one little kindness that might have made one day, at least, happier, or if not that, shorter for him.
The last gray-garbed company marched by, the guard with his club at his shoulder. The rear of this company was brought up by a convict, plainly of the fourth grade, for he was in stripes and his head was shaved. He walked painfully, with the aid of a crooked cane, lifting one foot after the other, flinging it before him and then slapping it down uncertainly with a disagreeable sound to the pavement.
"What's the matter with that man?" asked Marriott.
"They say he has locomotor ataxia," said Beck, the death-watch, "but he's only shamming. He's no good."