Part 2

"The opportunity is opportune only now." Like some strange gargoyle in an old cathedral the great animal appeared. His eyes, under their threatening hoods, were black and beady like the eyes of some malevolent creature of the jungle. His mouth, a wide, thin slit, pouted like the mouth of a fish. His sedentary body was massive and grotesque like some monster of a mad artist's drawing. His voice creaked like unoiled machinery. But--God!--what power was there!

"Your Honor, men of the jury, and Mr. District Attorney, at any point I could have obstructed the course of this trial until all of you were weary in your chairs. I could have obfuscated facts and motives and testimony until you were as uncertain of truth as Pilate. The woman Wilkins--I could have shown that her word was no more to be depended on than the word of the village idiot. Mr. Howland Christy, De Vries's relative--I could have shaken him on the stand until he would have been uncertain of his testimony, for he is an honest man. And the usher of the cabaret--if I had concentrated on him, I could have made that whisky-sodden brain, that broken will, contradict everything he had said.

"But I did none of these things. I made no haze of doubt out of honest facts. For why? Because these facts are true. I grant them freely!"

There were a rustle and a murmur in the room. The public was suddenly aghast. What was this from Donegan? Treachery? Who ever heard of a counsel granting things like that? Good Lord! what was the man doing? The murmuring went on in spite of the judge's gavel, the attendants' cries.

Donegan swept the room with his black, minatory glance, and the murmuring died.

"Your Honor, Mr. District Attorney, men of the jury, a crime is not an instantaneous action. What goes before a crime is important, and not less important is what follows it. Has the affair been brooded over, or has it been the result of momentary passion, and has the deed been regarded with smug satisfaction, or with quaking horror?

"And what effect has this had on the prisoner, on the world, on its time? So many things have to be taken into consideration when we are adjudging the crime.

"Gentlemen, the law and legal procedure are as easy to comprehend as a child's primer. The office of the district attorney is to see that a malefactor is brought to justice. The office of the jury is to decide whether that action was or was not done. The object of the judge is to weigh, decide, and in the name of the people say what shall be done with a member of the community who has hurt the interests of the community by his or her action. The duty of the counsel for the prisoner is to see that his client is not traduced by false witnesses, nor his or her liberty endangered by unfacts.

"But the object of all in the court-room is to see that justice is done, though the heavens crumble.

"I have examined no witnesses. I shall examine none. But I ask this in the latitude of the Court, and in the name of that Justice whose servants we one and all are, as much myself, advocate for the prisoner, as the district attorney for the people of the State of New York, as the jury in the box, as the judge on his bench: that the next witness, Thomas McCarthy, shall be allowed to tell his own story in his own way, relating facts which may not seem germane to the case, but which I claim are as pertinent as the pistol with which the crime was committed or the _corpus delicti_ itself. I ask this of the Court and I request the Court so to direct."

"This is hardly regular, Mr. Donegan."

"I ask this in the name of Justice!"

"This is a court of Justice, Mr. Donegan." The judge's manner had a slight rebuke. "But if the district attorney is agreeable--"

The district attorney, a little nettled, but rather awed before the tremendous purpose of Donegan, shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well, Mr. Donegan," the judge nodded. "The district attorney--" Donegan addressed the jury--"is calling Thomas McCarthy to prove the identity of Anna Janssen. He is an officer of the City of New York, a witness for the State of New York. The attorney has called him to prove that the prisoner in the dock is Anna Janssen. I shall not examine him. But when he has given his testimony for the district attorney he will have given his testimony for me.

"And I shall have proven that the chorus girl who killed Alastair de Vries is not the woman who stands in the dock!"

There was an instant's sighing from the courtroom, a momentary relaxation. So Donegan had fought and won his first fight, and now they were going to hear the History of the Spicy Isles. Now all the mystery would be lifted that had been hanging about the court-room like a necromancer's mist.

"Call Thomas McCarthy!" Donegan barked from the side of his mouth.

"Officer Thomas McCarthy."

"Thomas McCarthy to the stand!"

As he stood in the witness-box, McCarthy seemed to bulk tremendously in the room. As Anna Janssen seemed to fill the court spiritually, so he seemed to fill it physically. Emanations of strength, emanations of power came from him like current from a battery. He was not six feet tall, but so erect did he stand, so free was his carriage that he seemed to tower above all in the court-room. He was not a big man, but he suggested tremendous strength, so easily with the smallest movement did the sinews ripple beneath his coat. Brown as copper, his face had not the strange mystery of Anna Janssen's, because his eyes and hair were black, where hers were fair. Yet he was strange.

It was principally that he was out of place in his city clothes. One could have imagined him easily as some young athlete in the Olympic games, hurling the discus possibly, or flinging himself over the high jump. Or one might have suffered him in the clothes of summer in the country, soft rolling collar and roomy sport coat. But in the "business suit" of some department-store, he seemed like an actor some inept stage manager had dressed. Grotesquely, a police badge was pinned to the lapel of his coat.

As he entered the box, Anna Janssen turned toward him with a swift outpouring of her eyes. It might have been interest, but it was warmer than interest. It might have been appeal, but it was more confident than appeal.

"You are plain-clothes officer Thomas McCarthy?" the district attorney examined.

"Yes, sir. Number eight thousand nine hundred and seventeen."

"Attached to police headquarters?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell us the circumstances under which you arrested the prisoner."

"The Commissioner--the Commissioner--" McCarthy began, faltered, suddenly stopped.

"Yes, the Commissioner."

But McCarthy seemed struck by sudden panic.

"Yes, yes!" the district attorney became irritable. "The Commissioner--" He rapped the table.

Donegan rose.

"McCarthy," he explained gently, "has had no one to talk to for seven years but my client. He finds it hard to get his words right. Take your time, McCarthy," he told the witness. "Close your eyes. Say it as if you were saying it to yourself."

The prisoner threw him a look of gratitude.

"I was on the vice squad under Inspector O'Gara." The witness found words at last. "One morning the Commissioner sends for me. It was when the trouble was on about the graft in the Raines-law hotels. The Commissioner looks at me kind of hard.

"'Are you on the square, McCarthy?' he says.

"'Yes, Commissioner, I 'm on the square,' I tells him.

"'It's news to me they 's any one on the square,' the Commissioner laughs kind o' mean.

"'Tell me, McCarthy, were you ever mixed up with a woman?' I gets chilled all over, because I thinks some one's trying to frame me.

"'No, sir. Never,' I answers.

"'Then why were n't you?'

"'I don't know,' I says, 'except it was my people were from Ireland and brought me up their own way. When I was a kid, Commissioner, I could go to confession without holding out, and I guess I can do it to-day.'

"'Oh, you 're one of them good Irish cops,' he sneers. 'I heard tell on them, but I never met one before.'

"'Well, you meet him now.' I looks him cold in the eye. And then I 'm sorry, because I sees he means nothing. He 's just sore.

"'Well, square cop,' he says, 'I got a job for you. Anna Janssen,' he says, 'is found. A rich guy hides her and brings her to Tahiti on his yacht. She's there now. The French authorities,' he says, 'have made a pinch. Go get her.'

"'All right,' I says, and turns to go.

"'Just a moment, McCarthy,' he says. 'I said: "Get her." You understand? Get her. And keep her. Was a man to try and escape on you, what would you do?'

"'I 'd shoot,' I says. 'I 'd bring him in, alive or dead.'

"'Well, shoot her.'

"'Oh, gee, Chief!' I says. 'I can't shoot a woman.'

"'Well, then, shoot yourself,' he says. 'At any rate, if you come home alone, come home cold storage. I 'll pay the freight. And that 'll be all,' he says.

"I goes to Paris, and from Paris to Marseilles--"

"That's all right, McCarthy," the district attorney waived. "It does n't matter how you went. Tell us what happened at Tahiti."

"In Tahiti something tells me all is not right. The steamer I come on docks in the morning and leaves that afternoon, and I hopes to make it with Janssen. Maybe it's because I can't get their French and our consul is not a well man, but they delay me until the steamer goes and then I 'm left flat. The extradition papers must be in order, they say. But there is too much of this belle-prisoner stuff.

"Well, all's finished and they takes me to her. 'Well, Janssen,' I says, 'we got you.' 'Now that you got me, what are you going to do with me?' she laughs; and every one laughs. Right away I see they 're all rooting for her, and they like me like a souse likes water.

"Honest, Judge, I don't blame them. They's few white women in that place and, such as they are, they 're not lookers. And the Kanaka girls, for all they are pretty as a picture, they ain't human and they _ain't_ healthy, you know, as we white people think. Anna certainly had the looks, and was white, and had the pep, and they were all crazy about her. The Frenchmen are daffy about women, and they don't think nothing about a woman shooting a man--nothing at all.

"So they smiles at me and they says, 'You must see our beautiful island before you sail away with the belle prisoner!'

"'Your island is fine,' I tells them, 'and, no offense meant, but it's got nothing on Manhattan Island. And as for the belle prisoner,' I says, 'ain't you folks forgetting something? This dame is as nifty a little murderess as ever I sees.'

"'It was a crime passional,' they says, and they shrugs their shoulders.

"'Tell that to the judge,' I says. 'I 'm only the copper.'

"'Well,' they say, 'unfortunately Monsieur will have to enjoy our island for three weeks. The next liner will not be here until then.'

"'Oh, is that so?' I laughs. 'Well, let me tell you something. While you guys was examining the papers for your belle prisoner, I was doing a little scouting around the harbor. And they's a schooner leaving to-night for San Francisco. I guess that 'll do us all right.'

"'Impossible!' They go wild. 'A lady cannot travel--'

"'Cut the lady stuff,' I says. 'She's my prisoner.'

"She was a trading schooner, dealing in copra, oranges, cotton, mother-of-pearl, and such like, but once she must have been a fine yacht. There were state-rooms still aboard her, though now they were filled with junk for trading, but I made a deal with the captain and he cleans one out and fixes it up for Janssen. And then I takes Janssen down to the docks.

"Judge, you'd 'a' thought she'd saved the country instead of killing De Vries, the way they acted about that woman. They lined up on the docks of Papeete, all the men and a good many women, too. And they sang and they danced and they said good-by. 'When you get off, come back,' they says to her. They got on my nerves so much, I had all I could do not to laugh dirty, when they says that about getting off.

"Janssen looks at the boat, and looks at the people. And she goes crazy-mad. 'Damn you, damn you!' She turns on me. 'Only for you, I 'd not be going back!'

"'Yeh, only for me,' I says, 'you would n't have killed De Vries. It's all my fault, hey? Now, listen to me, Janssen. You 're my prisoner, and my prisoner you 'll remain. You had the game; now pay up, and stop hollering. You and I are from the same town, and I know you. You ought to know me a little better. I would n't have been sent for you if I had n't been able to take care of myself. All your French friends won't save you from a New York cop, once he 's out to get you. You 're beat, Janssen,' I tells her; 'you might as well give in.'

"She looks at me a long time.

"'I 'm not beat yet,' she says.

"The captain tells us he's going to stop at Nukahivo and a few other islands to take cargo aboard. He 's an old guy and sensible, and Janssen plays up to him to beat the band, so I takes no risks and keeps close. Even if he is an old guy and has n't any ambition, still and all, nobody likes a copper, and every one hates to see a prisoner taken home, especially if it's a woman. So I give Janssen and him no chance for private conversation. Once clear of the islands, I think, and all will be well. Janssen sees my game.

"'You don't give me much chance with the old fellow.'

"'No, ma'am,' I laughs. 'That's your business. I give you no chance. You 're beat, Janssen. What's the use of fooling yourself?'

"'Oh, I 've still got an ace in the hole. I 'm not beat yet!'

"She turns in early. 'I suppose you 're going to lock the door?' she asks me.

"'What's the use? They's other keys. The islands are near at hand, and they could put you off in a boat. I 'm not going to lock the door,' I tells her, 'but I 'm going to sleep outside it, up against it. It opens out, and the smallest movement will wake me up. You 're beat.'

"'All right! I 'm beat,' she says, and she turns in.

"I puts myself against the door, and falls asleep on the deck. It might have been ten minutes after it, but it was really hours, the door opens. It's the middle of the night, for the stars are high, and there 's nothing to be seen, and the waves keep lapping the bow of the schooner and she dips pretty like a cantering horse. And suddenly I 'm awake and lonely and wet with dew. I looks up and there 's Janssen above me, big and handsome and her eyes like the stars.

"'You 're not comfortable there, McCarthy,' she whispers.

"'I can't say as I 'm on a bed of roses,' I tells her.

"'Why don't you come inside?'

"'I don't know what you mean,' I says.

"'Never mind what I mean,' she laughs. 'Come on in.'

"'I think I 'll stay where I am,' I says kind of short.

"'I 'm not accustomed to having invitations like this refused.' There was a kind of jar in her voice.

"'They 's lots of things you 're not accustomed to, you better get accustomed to right away,' I says. 'You 're accustomed to fine hotels. Now you got to get used to the Tombs. You 're accustomed to lying down on couches. Now you got to get accustomed to sitting up, very straight, in a chair at Sing Sing.' I did n't want to be brutal toward her, Judge, but I did n't want her to be making passes like that at me.

"What she says to me then I could n't tell, Judge. But she closes the door with a slam and leaves me be.

"I notices the wind is getting kind o' high, and that when the schooner pitches she sort of jars, and that under the green light on the starboard sight of the boat the water is rushing past very quick. The boat is lying over and the sailors pass me quick as lightning and in the cordage the air is whining like a broken fiddle-string, but over it all I can hear Janssen cursing in her cabin, cursing just like the girls cursed in the old days when a pinch was made in the Tenderloin, cursing me because I would n't fall for her."

II

As Officer McCarthy paused for an instant in his story the eyes of the court-room seemed by common consent to turn to Anna Janssen in the dock. The jury looked at her with knitted brows; the spectators with puzzled glances. It seemed impossible that this calm, majestic figure could once have acted the siren of the streets to the officer bringing her from her Tahitian sanctuary. Immobile, somehow immaculate, with strange superhuman dignity, she did not blush, she did not smile. Only a genre shadow of pain was about her eyes, such as creeps about the eyes of some one who remembers old, all-but-forgotten painful things of phases of life long by.

Out of those firm lips like a rose in bloom could blasphemy have flowed in a sluggish lecherous stream? Out of that glorious bronze throat, fit for Magnificats? It seemed impossible, was impossible.

The judge looked at her with moved, understanding eyes. The district attorney cast at her puzzled glances. Donegan looked neither at her, nor at anything. He just drowsed like a dog....

"All next day," McCarthy went on, "the blow grew worse. They reefed down sail until we were flying along under top and foresails. The funny thing was that here and there the sky was blue. You 'd have thought all was going to get fair in an hour or two, but it did n't. And the captain stood by the man at the wheel and looked worried.

"You had to shout to make yourself heard. 'Ain't it going to calm down, Captain?' I says.

"'I don't know,' he says. 'I wish to God I was out of these islands,' he says. 'If I was all alone in the middle of the Pacific, I would n't give a damn, but these here coral insects,' he says, 'they 're always building, and they sure do bother me. And these charts of the Marquesas,' he says, 'they ain't worth a damn. I wish I was out of these islands,' he says; 'I sure do.'

"'Oh, you 'll be all right, Cap,' I says.

"'You get for'a'd out o' here,' he barks at me.

"'I 'll talk to you later about that,' I says, but I goes off, because I see he 's worried.

"All we get to eat that day is a cup of coffee and a sandwich. And night comes and we 're still plunging on.

"And then we hear thunder.

"Janssen won't turn in. She 's scared, she says, and she sticks by me. And the thunder keeps up, and comes closer, and it gets very dark.

"'What's that?' Janssen says.

"'It strikes me it is n't thunder at all. It's some boat in distress firing a gun,' I tells her. 'It's too bad we can't do anything for them. But I don't think we can.'

"'I 'm afraid, McCarthy,' Janssen says. 'That's no gun.'

"'Maybe it's a lot of guns,' I says. 'Maybe it's the French navy practising. They take a funny night for it,' I says.

"'I 'm scared, McCarthy,' she whimpers, and comes close.

"'We 'll be all right,' I tells her.

"'I 'm scared,' she cries. 'Put your arms around me, McCarthy, please.'

"'Oh, come off!' I tells her. That game don't go, Janssen. What's the use?'

"'I 'm scared, honest. They's something going to happen.' The boat does a little jazz step, and the guns is right in our ears. And overhead, Judge, the stars were out. 'Please take me in your arms, McCarthy--just like I was your sister.'

"'Well, you ain't just like you was my sister. And they 's been too many arms around you for me to put mine. But you can hold on to me,' I says.

"And then my teeth come together with a jar and my spine is near driven through my skull, and something hits me on the head. And all the water in the world comes over me. And I know nothing."

The witness, it seemed, here underwent a strange dramatic transformation. Until now in his recital, his story had been a story all could understand, a policeman's story, told in a policeman's voice, in a policeman's words. To the court-room he was a figure within their ken, a person to warm the hearts of burgesses. Honest, homely, speaking in dialect, he stood in their eyes for the typical and honored defender of city families and city homes. Great figures, those men! They make heroism casual. We may call the New York police grafters; we may call them brutes and tyrants; we may call them the scum of Ireland. We can never call them cowards.

There is on record the case of--shall I say O'Kelly? A homicidal maniac, armed to the teeth, took refuge in a cellar. "And then what?" "I goes down into the cellar and I gets him out." "Good God! You went down alone into that dark hole after--" "Oh, that was not'in'; he was easy!"

You can have your great regiments--your Old Guard at Waterloo; your Rough Riders of San Juan Hill, your Black Watch, your Bashi-Bazouks; your Bersaglieri. Give me the New York police!

Up to now McCarthy had been only a New York policeman, telling in a dry way the facts of a case. But a new dignity arose in him of a sudden. He was no longer dealing with the processes of his profession but with big human phenomena. Until now he had been deferential to court and officers, a cog in the legal machine. Suddenly he assumed individuality, poise, dignity. He became bigger than the personnel of the case, as big as the woman in the dock. And curiously his language changed to fit the newer individuality, turning from the idioms of the sidewalks of New York to what we term, in that archaic phrase which has so much of dignity, the King's English.

"I came to," he resumed. "At first it was blackness and a terrible headache, and the thought in my brain: 'Where is Janssen? I've lost Janssen.' And then my head cleared, and my eyes opened. And I was lying on the sand in the dawn, and Janssen was bathing my head.

"'So there you are!' I said.

"And then it struck me. Where 's the ship?

"I got up on my elbow and looked around. We were on a strand, with trees behind us and a bay in front and the sun just coming up, bright as a golden eagle. In front of us was a sort of bay where the water was still and sparkling, like wine sparkles. And then I look out further. And there 's a sort of wall of crags between the bay and the sea, and on the other side of it the sea is pounding, pounding, pounding, like a man crazy with anger. _Swish! Crash! Boom!_ And then I notice pieces of timber, a bale, a piece of cloth in the lagoon.

"The schooner 's gone, I understand. There 's been a wreck.

"'Where are the rest?' I ask Janssen.

"'There are no rest.' She throws her arms out. 'Just you and I!'

"Then after a while I said: 'We 're in a pretty bad way here--shipwrecked; without anything to eat; with a very small chance of rescue. We 're up against it. There is n't even water.'

"But she only laughed.

"'We 're not so bad as you 'd think,' she says. 'There 's water. I found it when I looked for something to bathe that cut on your head. And as for food, I 'd been in these islands a while before they put me in the--place--at Papeete. There 's bananas, and there 's cocoanuts, and there 's breadfruit. And that cove is full of fish.'

"'You can't eat fish raw,' I tell her.

"I 'm turning out my pockets then, leaving things in the sun to dry--my gun, with the shells out in a row; my watch; my knife; my pocketbook. She points at the watch.

"'You can make a fire with the crystal of that,' she says. 'Your bananas 'll do for the present. I 'll go off and get some. You need n't worry,' she says as she notices me looking at her. 'I can't get off the island.'

"After a while she comes back and sits down.

"'Do you know how you got ashore, McCarthy?'

"'I don't,' I answer. 'I know nothing.'

"'When the boat struck,' she tells me, 'you and I were washed over the reef. Something hit you on the head. But I pulled you in, McCarthy. You went down. You were out cold. I had a job, too,' she laughs nervously. 'Your hair is awfully short.'

"'Well, I got to thank you,' I said.

"'Don't mind thanking me,' she said. 'Tell me this!' She 's awfully serious. 'Don't you think a life is worth a life?'

"I say nothing to that.

"'Don't you, McCarthy?' she pleads.