The Tragedy of Z (18 page)

“And I thought, Mr. Hume,” I flared, unable to contain my temper longer, “that you were a decent sort of man!”

“Patty,” said father gently.

Hume flushed. “Well, I'll look into it. Now, if you'll excuse me, please—there's a lot of work …”

We departed rather stiffly, descending into the street in silence.

“I've met stubborn jackasses in my time,” said father angrily, as we got into the car and Dromio drove us off, “but that young feller takes the cake!”

Mr. Lane sat very thoughtfully regarding the red nape of Dromio's neck. “Patience, my dear,” he said in a sad tone, “I believe we've failed, and all your work has been wasted.”

“What do you mean?” I asked anxiously.

“Young Mr. Hume's driving ambition, I'm afraid, will outweigh his sense of justice. And then, as we sat talking up there, something occurred to me. We've made a serious mistake, and he can easily checkmate us if he proves unscrupulous——”

“Mistake?” I cried, alarmed. “Surely you're not serious, Mr. Lane. How did we make a mistake?”

“Not we, my child, I.” He fell silent. Then: “Who is Dow's lawyer, or hasn't the poor devil one?”

“Local man by the name of Mark Currier,” muttered father. “Clay was tellin' me about him today. I don't know why he took the case, unless he figures Dow guilty and that Dow has that fifty grand salted away somewhere.”

“So? Where is his office?”

“In the Scoharie Building, next door to the courthouse.”

Mr. Lane tapped on the glass. “Turn about, Dromio, and take us back to town. The building next door to the courthouse.”

Mark Currier was a very fat, a very bald, and a very astute gentleman of middle age. He made no attempt to appear busy; when we came in, he was perched (like some foreshortened Mr. Tutt) in his swivel-chair with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar almost as fat as himself, and gazing with rapture at a dusty steel-engraving of Sir William Blackstone on his wall. “Ah,” he said in a lazy voice when we had introduced ourselves, “just the people I wanted to see. Excuse my not getting up—I'm a little obese. In me you see the majesty of the law in repose.… Hume tells me, Miss Thumm, that you've got something hot on the Dow case.”

“When did he tell you that?” asked Mr. Lane sharply.

“Called me up a minute ago. Friendly, eh?” Currier surveyed us with his keen little eyes. “Why not let me in on it? God knows I'll need all the help I can get on this damn' case.”

“Listen, Burrier,” said father. “We don't know you from a hole in the wall. What made you take the case?”

The lawyer smiled like a fat owl. “Queer question, Inspector. What makes you ask?”

They regarded each other blandly. “Oh, nothing,” said father at last, shrugging. “But tell me this: is it just exercise for you, or do you really believe in Dow's innocence?”

Currier drawled: “He's guilty as hell.”

We looked at one another. “Go ahead, Patty,” said father in a gloomy voice.

And so, wearily, for what seemed to me the hundredth time, I repeated by analysis of the facts. Mark Currier listened without blinking, without nodding, without smiling; almost; it seemed, without interest. But when I had finished, he shook his head—just as John Hume had.

“Pretty. But bad medicine, Miss Thumm. You'll never convince a jury of yokels with a yarn like that.”

“It will be your job to convince a jury with that yarn!” snapped father.

“Mr. Currier,” said the old gentleman gently. “Forget the jury for the moment. What do
you
think?”

“Does it make any difference, Mr. Lane?” He puffed smoke, like a naval screen. “I'll do my best, of course. But has it occurred to you people that that little hocus-pocus in Dow's cell today may cost the fool his life?”

“Strong language, Mr. Currier,” I said. “Please explain.” And I noted, as I said that, that Mr. Lane shrank a little in his chair and his eyes filled with pain.

“You've played right into the D.A.'s hands,” said Currier. “Don't you know better than to conduct an experiment with the defendant without witnesses?”

“But we're witnesses!” I cried.

Father shook his head, and Currier smiled. “Hume will easily show that you're all prejudiced. The Lord alone knows you've gone about town telling enough people how innocent you think Dow is.”

“Come to the point,” growled father; and Mr. Lane shrank lower into his seat.

“All right, I will. Do you realize what you've let yourself in for? Hume will say you
rehearsed
Dow for a show in the courtroom!”

The jail-keeper! I thought, and knew now that my premonition had been based on fact. I kept my eyes averted from Mr. Lane; he was crushed and quite still in his chair.

“Just as I feared,” he murmured at last. “It struck me in Hume's office. My error, and I've no earthly justification for having committed it.” His remarkable eyes clouded; and then he said simply: “Very well, Mr. Currier. Since it was my stupidity which precipitated this debacle, I'll make amends in the only way I can—with cash. What's your retainer?”

Currier blinked. He said slowly: “I'm doing this because I feel sorry for the poor fellow.…”

“Indeed. Name your own fee, Mr. Currier. Perhaps it will encourage you to an even more heroic sympathy.” The old gentleman took a check-book out if his pocket and poised his fountain-pen. For a moment only father's heavy wheeze was audible. Then Currier coolly placed the tips of his fingers together and named a sum which staggered me; and father's big jaw dropped.

But Mr. Lane silently made out a check and placed it before the lawyer. “Don't spare expense. I'll pay the bills.”

Currier smiled, and his fat nostrils quivered ever so slightly as he glanced sidewise at the check on his desk. “For a retainer like that, Mr. Lane, I'd defend the Düsseldorf Maniac.” He tucked the check carefully away in fat wallet, as fat as himself. “The first thing we'll have to do is secure experts.”

“Yes! I was thinking——”

The conversation went on, and I heard it in a hum. I heard only one thing clearly. And that was the knell that, unless a miracle occurred to still it, was ringing over the doomed head of Aaron Dow.

11. THE TRIAL

In the weeks that passed I found myself sinking more deeply into the slough of despond. I could not see clearly ahead except through one rift above the morass, and the light which came through that was dull and morbid. Aaron Dow was doomed, and the phrase became a refrain to all my thoughts. I slunk about the Clay house like a ghost, wishing heartily that I were dead; and I fear that Jeremy found me a depressing companion. I took little interest in the activity about me; father was constantly with Mr. Lane, and the two of them held conference after conference with Mark Currier.

With the date set for the trial of Aaron Dow, I gathered that the old gentleman was girding his loins for an epic battle. On the few occasions when I did see him he was grim-lipped and taciturn. He had, it appeared, placed his inexhaustible resources at the command of Currier. He dashed about Leeds conferring with a corps of local physicians who were to assist in conducting courtroom tests of the defendant; strove with little success to pierce the veil of silence which shrouded the district attorney's office; and finally wired to New York for his own physician, Dr. Martini, to come upstate for the trial.

All this activity gave him and father something to do; but for me, who had to sit idly by waiting, it was a severe ordeal. On several occasions I tried to see Aaron Dow in his cell, but the bar had been clamped down, and I found myself unable to get beyond the waiting room of the county jail. I might have visited Dow in the company of Currier, who of course had open seasame with his client; but here again something held me back. I had formed an unreasoned dislike of the Leeds lawyer and the thought of confronting the convict in his cell with Currier as a companion was faintly repellent to me.

And so the days dragged by until
der Tag
itself came, and the trial began in a carnival fanfare of special newspaper correspondents, thronged streets, hawkers, crowded hotels, and an aroused public sentiment. From the outset it was dramatic in tone, developing as it proceeded an unexpected bitterness between counsel and prosecutor that hindered rather than helped the man at the bar. Animated, I suppose, by some feeble stirring of conscience or indecision, young Hume took the easy path and permitted one of his assistant district attorneys, Sweet, to prosecute the case. Sweet and Currier had no sooner taken their places before the judge's dais when they were at each other's throats like wolves. I gathered that they were mortal enemies, at least insofar as their manner toward each other in the courtroom indicated. They heckled each other in the most vicious tones, and on numerous occasions were sharply censured by the Court for their unseemly conduct.

And, too, from the outset I saw how hopeless it all was. Through the dreary business of selecting jurors from the panel, with Currier challenging with almost mechanical regularity—the selection of a jury took three whole days—I avoided looking at the miserable little old man who crouched in his chair at the defense table, bugging at the judge, staring venomously at Sweet and his aides, muttering to himself, and every few minutes turning his head as if in search of some kindly face. I knew, and the silent old man by my side knew, for whom Aaron Dow was searching; and that mute repetitious appeal for hope sickened me and lengthened the lines of Mr. Lane's drawn face.

We sat in a tight group in favored positions just behind the rail-row of newspaper correspondents. Elihu Clay and Jeremy were with us; and several seats away, across the aisle, sat Dr. Ira Fawcett, playing with his short beard and sighing loudly in a bid for public sympathy. I noticed too the mannish figure of Fanny Kaiser at the back of the courtroom, quite still, as if she was anxious not to call attention to herself. Father Muir was with Warden Magnus somewhere in the rear, and I caught a glimpse of Carmichael sitting equably not far to the left.

With the final juror selected to the satisfaction of both counsel and prosecutor, and sworn in, we settled back for developments. We had not long to wait. We saw at once which way the wind was blowing when Assistant District Attorney Sweet began to weave the web of circumstantial evidence about his victim. After witnesses were called to establish the superficial facts of the crime—Kenyon, Dr. Bull, and others gave routine testimony—Carmichael was asked to take the stand, and he did so with a grave respectful air that momentarily deceived Sweet into thinking he was dealing with a ninny. But Carmichael soon undeceived him, and proved a wily witness. I turned and saw a black scowl on Dr. Fawcett's face.

The “secretary” played his part to perfection, telling his story in a straightforward way. He kept forcing Sweet to repeat questions in clearer phraseology, so that before the trial was fairly begun the edge of Sweet's temper began to fray.… It was during Carmichael's testimony on the stand that the section of wooden chest and the pencil scrawled letter signed “Aaron Dow” were placed in evidence.

Warden Magnus was then put on the stand and made to repeat his testimony concerning Senator Fawcett's visit to Algonquin Prison; and although much of this testimony was stricken from the record through the sledge-hammer objections of Mark Currier, the full significance of what was deleted as well as what was retained impressed the jury visibly—for the most part grizzled and prosperous old farmers and local business men.

The deadly business went on for several days. It was apparent, when Sweet rested the State's case, that the prosecutor's task of proving the accused man guilty of the crime had been only too well done. I could feel it in the air, in the wise nods of the newspapermen, in the nervous and intent faces of the jury.

Mark Currier did not appear visibly disturbed by this effluvium of doom in the courtroom. He went to work quietly. I saw at once what he had in mind. He, father, and Mr. Lane had decided that the only way to handle the defense was to work out with utter simplicity the testimonial details upon which the theory rested, and to draw the essential conclusion for the jury. I saw too that Currier had selected his people cleverly; whenever a juryman had displayed moronic tendencies, he had challenged on one pretext or another, and had managed to collect a jury of a high average of intelligence.

Point by point the Leeds attorney laid the groundwork. He called Carmichael to the witness-stand, and Carmichael for the first time told his story of having spied on the house during the evening of the murder, of the visit of the mysterious bundled-up figure, of the fact that only one person had entered and left the house during the murder-period. Sweet maliciously tried to impeach Carmichael's testimony on cross-examination by asking questions which I was afraid would lead to damaging answers; but Carmichael calmly explained that he had not revealed this testimony before because he had been afraid it would cost him his position—and so cleverly managed to keep his true mission in spying on the late Senator a secret. I glanced around at Dr. Fawcett; his face was like a thundercloud, and I knew that Carmichael's private inquiry for the government was fated to immediate cessation.

The hideous farce went on. Dr. Bull, Kenyon, father, an expert from the local police department … Little by little the host of points on which my theory was built came out. And, when Currier had in devious ways got the facts on the record, he called Aaron Dow to the witness-stand.

The man was a pitiful spectacle: frightened half to death, licking his lips, mumbling the oath, hunched and weaving in his chair, his one eye never still. Currier quickly began to ask questions. I could see that Dow had been coached; questions and answers restricted themselves to the matter of Dow's accident some ten years before, giving the assistant district attorney no opening by which later he might bring out damaging testimony from the defendant about the crime itself. Sweet objected loudly to each question, but was overruled by the Court when Currier pointed out, in a soft voice, that this attack was necessary in the building of a case for the defense.