The Tragedy of Z (17 page)

“I can fix it so you'll see him. Patty, you better come along, too. You'll excuse us, Clay?”

We made our apologies as innocuous as possible, and two minutes later were seated by Mr. Lane in the limousine, bound for town.

“Why didn't you want 'em to know what you're up here for?” demanded father.

“No particular reason,” replied Mr. Lane vaguely. “I think it's better that as few people as possible know, that's all. We don't want to frighten off our man.… So that's Elihu Clay, eh? Honest enough in appearance, I must say. The type of self-righteous business man who will shy off from the slightest appearance of shadiness but will drive a cruel bargain in legitimate trading nevertheless.”

“I think,” I said severely, “that you're just talking. Mr. Lane, you have something up your sleeve.”

He laughed. “My dear, you're overestimating my cunning. It's precisely as I say. Remember, this is all new to me, and I must feel my way about before I come out into the open.”

We found John Hume in his office.

“So you're Drury Lane,” he said, when we had introduced the two men. “I'm flattered, sir. You were one of my boyhood idols. What brings you up here?”

“An old man's curiosity,” smiled Mr. Lane. “I'm a professional meddler, Mr. Hume. I go about prying into other people's affairs, now that I'm laid away on the dusty theatrical shelf, and no doubt I make a round nuisance of myself.… I'd like very much to see Aaron Dow.”

“Oho!” said Hume, casting a quick glance at father and me. “I see the Inspector and Miss Thumm have summoned reinforcements. Well, why not? As I've explained many times before, Mr. Lane, I'm a public prosecutor, not a public executioner. I happen to believe Dow guilty of murder. But if you can prove he is not, I shall be very happy, I assure you, to help the defense dismiss the indictment.”

“That's to your credit, of course,” said Mr. Lane dryly. “When can we see Dow?”

“At once. I'll have him brought here.”

“No, no!” said the old gentleman quickly. “We shan't meddle to the extent of disrupting your organization, Mr. Hume. If we may, we should like to go to the county jail to see him.”

“As you wish,” said the district attorney, shrugging; and made out a written order. Armed with this document, we left his office and proceeded to the county jail, which was only a stone's throw away, and were soon following a keeper along a dim corridor lined with barred cubbyholes to Aaron Dow's cell.

Once in Vienna I had been invited by a famous young surgeon to inspect a new hospital. I remember that, as we emerged from an operating theatre not then in use, a faded sort of man sitting on a bench a few yards away rose and looked at the surgeon. Apparently he thought my host had come from one of the rooms in which someone in whom he was interested was being operated upon. I shall never forget the look on that poor man's face. A simple face fundamentally, it was now overlaid with the most intricate expression—haggard fear struggling pitifully with a feeble, pushing hope.…

Aaron Dow's face as he heard the key grate in the lock of his cell and looked up to see our little party standing there writhed into just such an expression. I wondered what had become of the “cockiness” District Attorney Hume had described a few days before which he claimed Dow betrayed after being confronted with Dr. Fawcett. This was no accused man sure of exculpation. The hope that flickered on that mask of agony and fear was of the most forlorn nature. It was the flaring hope of a hunted animal who barely senses an avenue of escape. His sharp little features had smudged, quite as if he were a charcoal drawing and someone had carelessly brushed a hand over him. His eye stared like a Jack-o'-lantern, red-rimmed, a sleepless arc of liquid fire. He was unshaven, and his clothes were grimy. The most pitiful object I had ever looked upon, his appearance constricted my heart. I glanced at Drury Lane; his face was very grave.

The keeper indolently opened the door, swung it wide for us, signalled us to enter, and then clanged it shut behind us, turning the key in the lock again.

“H'lo, h'lo,” croaked Aaron Dow, sitting tensely on the edge of his miserable cot.

“Hello, Dow,” said father with a forced heartiness. “We've brought someone to see you. This is Mr. Drury Lane. He wants to talk to you.”

“Oh.” He said nothing more than that, but stared at Mr. Lane like an expectant dog.

“Hello, Dow,” said the old gentleman softly. And then he turned his head with sharpness and glanced out into the corridor. The keeper with his arms folded was standing against the blank wall opposite the cell, apparently dozing. “You don't mind answering a few questions?”

“Anyt'ing, Mr. Lane, anyt'ing,” croaked Dow eagerly.

I leaned against the rough stone wall, faintly nauseated. Father jammed his hands into his pockets and growled something to himself. And Mr. Lane, in the most innocent way, began asking meaningless questions of the prisoner, the answers to which we already knew or had reason to believe Dow would never reveal. I stood up straight. What was this for? What did the old man have in mind? What purpose did this horrible visit serve?

They talked on in low voices, getting acquainted—and getting nowhere. I saw father shuffle restlessly away from the wall, and then return to his place, utterly at sea.

And then it happened. In the middle of a bitter peroration from the convict, the old gentleman whipped a pencil out of his pocket and, to our amazement, hurled it violently at Dow as if he had no other thought in mind than to impale him to the cot.

I know I cried out, and father cursed in an astonished way and looked at Mr. Lane as if the old man had suddenly gone crazy. But Mr. Lane was gazing at the convict with a fixity of purpose that enlightened me.… For the man, his mouth open, had blindly thrown up his left arm to avoid being struck by the missile. I noticed then how uselessly his withered right arm dangled from his sleeve.

“What's de big idea?” squealed Dow, shrinking back on his cot. “Tryin' to—to——”

“Pay no attention to me at all,” murmured Mr. Lane. “I get that way sometimes, but I'm really quite harmless. Would you do me a favor, Dow?”

Father had relaxed, grinning, against the wall.

“A favor?” quavered the convict.

“Yes,” said the old gentleman, and he stooped and picked up the pencil from the stone floor. He held it out to Dow eraser-end first. “Stab me, will you, please?”

The word “stab” brought a glimmer of intelligence to the man's rheumy eyes, and he gripped the pencil in his left hand and self-consciously made a clumsy pass at Mr. Lane.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Lane with satisfaction, stepping back. “A noble blow. Now, Inspector, do you happen to have a scrap of paper about you?”

Dow handed back the pencil with an air of bewilderment, and father growled: “Paper? What the deuce for?”

“Put it down to another aberration of mine,” said Mr. Lane with a chuckle. “Come, come, Inspector—you're getting dull!”

Father grumbled and passed over a pocket notebook, from which the old gentleman tore a blank leaf.

“Now then, Dow,” he said as he dug his hand into his pocket and searched mysteriously for something, “you're convinced that we mean you no harm?”

“Yeah Yes, sir. I'll do anyt'ing ya say.”

“An admirable ally,” He brought out a little packet of matches, struck one, and then with consummate coolness applied the flame to the piece of paper. It flared up and, absently, he dropped it to the floor, stepping back as if deep in thought.

“What ya doin'?” cried the convict. “Wanta put th' damn' brig on fire?” And, leaping from his cot, he began to stamp frantically on the burning paper with his left foot, and did not desist until it was invisible cinders.

“And that, I think,' murmured Mr. Lane with a little smile, “should convince even a jury of
his
peers, Patience. As for you, Inspector, are you convinced now?”

Father scowled. “I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. Well, we live and learn.”

I was so relieved I giggled. “Why, father, you're actually becoming a convert! Aaron Dow, you're a very lucky man.”

“But I ain't hep—” began the convict, confused.

Mr. Lane tapped his ragged shoulder. “Stiff upper lip, Dow,” he said kindly. “I think we'll get you off.”

And so father called to the keeper, who marched across the corridor, unlocked the cell-door, and let us out. Dow flew to the bars and clutched them, craning after us with eagerness.

But from the moment we stepped out into the chilly corridor a premonition of trouble assailed me. For the keeper who jangled his keys behind us had a very queer expression on his coarse face. It struck me as evil, although I told myself that that was my imagination. I wondered now if he really had been dozing as he stood facing the cell from across the corridor. Pshaw! After all, even if he had watched, what harm could he do? I glanced at Mr. Lane, but he was striding along with a preoccupied air, and I took it that he had not noticed the keeper's face.

We returned to the district attorney's office, this time having to cool our heels in his anteroom for a half-hour. In that period Mr. Lane sat with his eyes closed, apparently asleep; and indeed father had to touch him on the shoulder when Hume's secretary last told us we might go in. He started to his feet at once and murmured an apology, but I was sure that he had been thinking deeply about something beyond my ken.

“Well, Mr. Lane,” said Hume curiously, as we took seats in his office, “you've seen him. What do you think now?”

“Before I went across the street to your magnificent county jail, Mr. Hume,” said the old gentleman mildly, “I only
believed
Aaron Dow innocent of Senator Fawcett's murder. Now I
know
it.”

Hume raised his eyebrows. “You people amaze me. First it was Miss Thumm, then it was the Inspector, and now you, Mr. Lane. A formidable array of opinion against me. Would you mind telling me what makes you think Dow isn't guilty?”

“Patience, my dear,” said Mr. Lane, “have you given Mr. Hume a lesson in logic as yet?”

“He wouldn't listen,” I said plaintively.

“Mr. Hume, if you have an open mind, please keep it so for the next few minutes. Forget everything you know about the case. And Miss Thumm will show you why we three think Aaron Dow is an innocent man.”

So for the third time is as many days I went over my theory, this time for John Hume's benefit; although I knew in my heart before I began that a man with such a stubborn mouth and such ambitious blood would not take stock in mere logic. As I went through all the deductions from the facts (I included Carmichael's testimony without mentioning his name) Hume listened with perfect politeness, and several times he nodded and his eyes kindled with, I suppose, admiration. But when I had finished he shook his head.

“My dear Miss Thumm,” he said, “that is brilliant for a woman—or a man, for that matter—but to me it's wholly unconvincing. In the first place, no jury would believe such an analysis, even if they were capable of understanding it. In the second place, it has serious flaws——”

“Flaws?” Mr. Lane looked curious. “Roses have thorns, silver fountains mud, and all men faults, as Shakespeare says in one of his
Sonnets.
Nevertheless, Mr. Hume, I should like to have them pointed out, excusable or not. What are they?”

“Well, take that incredible business of the right-footedness and left-footedness. You simply can't make such a statement—that a man who's lost his right eye and right arm will become left-footed in time. It sounds insane. I question its authenticity medically. And if that point collapses, Mr. Lane, Miss Thumm's whole theory collapses.”

“See?” growled father, throwing up his hands.

“Collapses? My dear sir,” said the old gentleman, “that is one of the few points about this case that I am willing to characterize as unshakable!”

Hume grinned. “Oh, come now, Mr. Lane, you can't mean that. Even granting that it's true generally …”

“You forget,” murmured Mr. Lane, “that we just visited Dow.”

The district attorney snapped his jaws together. “So that's it! You've been——”

“We had laid down a generalization, Mr. Hume: we said that a man with Aaron Dow's specific case-history as regards the use of his hands and feet would have changed from a right-footed individual to a left-footed individual. But, as you say, laying down the principle isn't proving the specific case.”

Mr. Lane, smiling faintly, paused. “And so we proved the specific case. That was my primary purpose in coming to Leeds. To demonstrate that Aaron Dow would use his left foot rather than his right foot as a matter of involuntary action.”

“And he did?”

“And he did. I threw a pencil at him, and he put his left arm before his face to avoid being struck. I told him to attempt to stab me, and he made the attempt with his left arm.—This was to satisfy myself that the man really is left-handed now, and that his right arm actually is paralyzed. Then I set fire to a piece of paper, and in panic he stamped on it—with his
left
foot. That, Mr. Hume, I submit is proof.”

The district attorney was silent. I could see that inwardly he was struggling with the problem, and was having a hard time of it. A deep pucker gashed the skin between his eyes. “You'll have to give me time,” he muttered. “I can't—on my word, I can't bring myself to believe in such—such …” He slapped the desk impatiently. “It just isn't evidence to me! It's too pat, too fine-spun, too circumstantial. The proof of the man's innocence isn't—well,
tangible
enough.”

The old gentleman's eyes grew frosty. “I thought, Mr. Hume, that in our legal system a man is presumed innocent until proved guilty, rather than the other way round!”