Part 8

Murgatroyd still persisted.

"How much would you take, Pemmican," he went on, "to swear that Challoner did not commit this crime?"

Pemmican started back in alarm, and once more shook his head.

"Counsellor, I'm an honest man," he answered doggedly.

Murgatroyd gave it up as a bad job.

"You're honest, all right, Pemmican," he said. "You can go back now; but I'll have you down again before the trial, and together we'll go over the testimony carefully." He placed his hand upon the other's arm. "You see, I'm most particular about this case." The next moment Mixley and McGrath entered and took Pemmican away.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later Mrs. Challoner arrived. She was accompanied by Stevens, the butler, carrying a large parcel, which he deposited on the prosecutor's table as directed. He was then dismissed; and when the door had closed on him, the man and the woman stood for a few minutes listening in silence to his retreating footsteps. Then in low, rapid tones Mrs. Challoner assured the prosecutor that she had accomplished her purpose without arousing the suspicions of any one--not even the servant. Murgatroyd noiselessly locked the door, and putting his hand upon the parcel on the table, looked at her interrogatively.

"Yes--the securities--they're all there," she hastened to assure him.

"Shall I----"

Mrs. Challoner's hand waved her permission. The big, heavy parcel had been clumsily tied up with brown paper. This, Murgatroyd tore off, and there stood revealed two long, sheet-iron boxes, old and somewhat battered. They were heavily sealed, and across each on a pasted piece of paper appeared in big letters the name "Miriam Challoner."

"I brought them just as they were," she went on to explain. "You may break the seals, scratch off my name, and then they will be yours to do with as you please."

"For the present," Murgatroyd told himself, as his eyes fell on the vault door, "that will be their resting place." And turning to her, he said aloud:--

"The deal is closed. You understand the terms? Everything is left to me--I am to free your husband--I am to keep your money?"

"Yes," she breathed, as if some heavy burden had rolled from her young shoulders.

And now for the first time Murgatroyd looked Miriam Challoner full in the face, and said solemnly:--

"One thing more: absolutely no one must know of this. Not Challoner, nor Thorne, and above all, not Miss Bloodgood. Everything depends on your silence--your silence is the essence of this contract. You agree?"

Mrs. Challoner bowed.

"I do." And she might have been taking an oath from the way she said it.

"Remember you will say nothing to Miss Bloodgood...."

"Shirley will never know of it."

"Most decidedly not Shirley." But the prosecutor remarked this to himself when once more he was alone.

X

The trial of James Lawrence Challoner had progressed with uncommon haste, the fourth day finding all the witnesses heard and the case ready to sum up to the jury. The court-room was crowded: the newspapers were there; the people were there; public opinion was there. Brief and to the point had been the State's case--made up out of Pemmican's evidence and the confession of the prisoner. But in the prosecutor's presentment of his evidence there had been an undercurrent as unusual as it was unexpected: every question that he hurled at Pemmican had a hidden meaning; every interrogation point had a sting hidden in its tail. Not that he made any attempt to switch the issue or to side-track the facts, but it was clearly apparent that from start to finish he was making a supreme effort to include within his facts, to embrace within the issue and to place on trial, together with the prisoner, one other culprit in this celebrated case--Cradlebaugh's.

However, if such were the prosecutor's chief purpose, it failed. Thorne, the counsel for the defence--who represented more than one client in this case--met him at every turn, parried his every thrust.

"Objection sustained," the Court had ruled wearily many times during the trial, "the prosecutor will proceed."

And upon such occasions Graham Thorne, from the counsel's table in the front, had flashed a triumphant glance at Peter Broderick; and Peter Broderick, in turn, from his seat in the rear of the court-room, would return the gaze with a smile, the brilliancy of which was outshone only by the big diamond that blazed from where it rested comfortably on his highly coloured shirt-front. To these two--not in the least interested in the outcome of the trial, so far as Challoner was concerned--the case was highly satisfactory. There was no crevice in the mystery of Cradlebaugh's in which Murgatroyd could insert the thin edge of a wedge; its foundation still remained unshaken after the impact of his battering ram; the Challoner case was to be the Challoner case, and nothing more.

"... That's all, Mr. Pemmican," were the words with which the prosecutor had concluded the examination of his principal witness.

On Pemmican of the low brow leaving the witness stand, he had glanced expectantly toward the counsel for the defence. Throughout the trial there was in his manner a peculiar deference toward Thorne which had been there from the first day. Under Murgatroyd's sharp interrogation he had seemed quite at ease; but his attitude toward Thorne had always appeared to be that of a man whose hand was constantly kept raised to ward off blows. However, notwithstanding that he had been recalled at least five times, Pemmican, on the whole, apparently was well satisfied with his performance. Unquestionably he had been loyal and wary, and had confined his testimony as to motive to the woman in the case--a row over a lady--keeping that portentous game of cards well into the background--out of sight.

"Surely you're not going to detain me any longer?" whispered Pemmican to the officers who had placed themselves on either side of him. "What! You're not going to let me go?"

"Not on your life!" remarked one of them genially; and showing to the prisoner a slip of paper which he drew from his pocket: "There's a warrant for your arrest."

Pemmican for a moment looked bewildered and murmured incredulously:--

"... my arrest?"

"Sure," replied the officer. "The chiefs begun his raid on Cradlebaugh's, and you're one of the main guys...."

Pemmican wiped his forehead and stammered sulkily:--

"And--and the prosecutor's goin' to lock me up after all I've done for him?"

"That's what!" replied the officer, and a moment later added complacently: "Unless you can get bail."

"Confound 'em!" exclaimed Pemmican. "They won't go my bail!"

The detective placed his ear quite close to Pemmican.

"_Who_ won't go your bail?" he queried interestedly.

Pemmican smiled.

"They," he returned, not for an instant off his guard.

"If Prosecutor Murgatroyd only knew who _they_ are," went on the detective, "if he knew who backed you up, there'd be some interesting goings on 'round here."

"He won't find out from me," replied Pemmican, doggedly. "I play a straight game with the men who hand out my bread and butter. You can lay your bets on that!"

"Sh-h-h-! The prosecutor's talkin' over there," whispered the detective, raising his hand, and he hustled the prisoner out of the room, as Murgatroyd, rising once more, bowed toward the bench and announced:--

"The State rests, if the Court please."

And then Thorne at his end of the table also rose to his feet and declared:--

"The defence rests."

Presently he began to address the Jury. During the trial his line of defence had been insanity--the defence of the defenceless, the forlorn hope of the hopeless. The Bench had frowned at it; the Jury had shaken its head as one man: insanity to juries in the metropolis had become as a red rag to a bull. But the crowd in the court-room had leaned forward with huge expectation,--waiting for the hidden places to be revealed with much the same anticipation and interest one experiences in waiting for the denouement of a stage drama.

Before turning to the jury, however, for his last effort, Thorne stooped down for an instant and whispered to Mrs. Challoner:--

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Challoner, that we couldn't do better with our facts. It seems to me to be the weakest defence I have ever seen put up in any case. Indeed, it seems to me we have no defence at all."

But somewhat to his astonishment this remark was received by Miriam Challoner with that same degree of confidence that had characterised her attitude all through the trial. On her face was a certain unexplainable something which not only he had noted but which the people had noted, the men at the press-table had noted, and commented upon freely in their copy--a glow that had never faded from the eyes of the woman, a flush upon her cheek that had never paled, and which said more plainly than words that she was certain of the acquittal of her husband.

"Devilish fine actress!" Thorne thought to himself, for such optimism in a case like this was wholly beyond his comprehension; and it was with a certain feeling of admiration that he heard her whisper with a reassuring smile:--

"You're making a glorious fight, Mr. Thorne; you're bound to succeed."

And indeed, such was her marvellous hopefulness, that it succeeded in enheartening him, and was reflected in his illustrations to the jury when dwelling at some length on the many fine points in the character of the accused. He was particularly happy in impressing upon his hearers that Challoner was a man with a most peculiar temperament and mental bias; that if Challoner had taken the life of Colonel Hargraves, it was only after the man's soul and mind had eaten poison from the hands of his enemy--Colonel Hargraves.

Of the life and character of that gentleman, he had little to add to what was already known, and was seemingly content to dismiss him with:--

"The least said of him the better, now that he is gone."

Thorne paused.

Suddenly he assumed a dramatic pose, and now turning toward a beautiful and fashionably gowned young woman with a bar of sunlight streaming down her face, who occupied a seat underneath the third high window in the court-room, he riveted his gaze on her, all eyes following in that direction.

"There," he said, his voice sinking to a whisper, but a whisper that could be heard all over the court-room, "is the woman in the case--the real culprit! A temptress! A vampire! A Circe! A woman who has made a mess of the lives of two men, and only God knows how many others! A woman who played the game to her own selfish ends!... And here you have the result!"

For a full minute Letty Love unblushingly returned the lawyer's probing glances; plainly she rejoiced in the stares which she felt were focused upon her,--for no one knew better than she that her beauty was infecting all present,--and it was not until she had drunk her fill of the cup of publicity that she turned her head away and looked out upon the sunlit street.

From where he sat Challoner, too, was able for a brief moment to see the face of the woman who was responsible for his misfortunes. That same second, however, brought his wife also into his line of vision, making it possible for him to contrast the two countenances; and he was surprised to find himself not only admiring the wealth of colouring and glow upon Miriam's face, but actually loathing himself for ever having admired the ugly lines which he now saw on the sunlit face of Letty Love; and his whole nature revolted against her.

"If only I had left her to Colonel Hargraves," he muttered to himself; and immersed in similar bitter reflections, he lost all but his counsel's concluding words:--

"... and all that I want, all that I ask of you, gentlemen of the jury, is that you give us what we have not had so far--a fair, square deal!"

Thorne sat down, satisfied that he had made an impression. At all events, he had done the best he could--under the circumstances. Out of his material he had hewn the inevitable result--debauchery; out of this debauchery he fashioned the conclusion--insanity; out of a victim he had made a murderer; out of a murderer he had made a hero whose irresponsible emotions cried out to a jury of his peers for justice, even for retribution against the murdered man. Base metal though it were, it seemed pure gold to his listeners. Even the jurors drew long breaths and looked each other questioningly in the eye; the crowd murmured its sympathy; and Thorne, glancing at the little coterie behind the prisoner, was pleased to see that even in the eyes of Shirley Bloodgood he had raised a new hope for Challoner.

In the interim that followed Shirley and Miriam leaned over and shook hands with Thorne.

"We can't lose," whispered Miriam; and again there returned to her face that mysterious expression of confidence which was decidedly inexplicable to her lawyer. And so it was that a little while later he turned to Shirley and said:--

"Does she understand that we must lose?"

Miss Bloodgood shook her head.

"Oh, no! No one can tell her that." And bestowing on him a rare smile, she added: "And now, Mr. Thorne, after what you have said no one can tell _me_ that either."

Well pleased with her flattery, Thorne returned the smile, but he warned her that when those twelve men got into the jury room they would get down to facts.

And it so happened that the twelve men got down to the facts before they even started for the jury room, for already the prosecutor had begun his speech and was stripping the case of everything save the truth.

"This, gentlemen," he now told the jury, quietly, "is not an unusual case; it's an every-day story growing out of jealousy and hatred; one bad man shot another bad man--that's all."

At this the temperature of the crowd dropped from the fever-heat of frenzied sympathy down to the freezing-point of common-sense. Challoner stirred uneasily; Shirley Bloodgood shivered; only Miriam Challoner sat with the same placid look on her face.

Murgatroyd now left his jury, walked to the table where the prisoner sat, and without taking his eyes from the face of the accused, he continued:--

"... This man Challoner is a wilful, deliberate murderer! This is not his first offence--he began to murder years ago...."

At this point the prosecutor went back to the time when Challoner married a beautiful young girl, emphasising the fact that he had married this mere slip of a girl for her money.

"Her money! And he has never earned a dollar since!" he told his listeners with great scorn. "And his life! What has he made of it? Ah! You men know the things that are done in this city between midnight and morning, and the up-hill fight that is being made to clean it of corruption and vice! Well, this degenerate, this profligate, did these things of the under-world. They appealed to him; he was no mere youth to be led astray!"

Challoner winced; not that he quailed before the menacing posture that the prosecutor had assumed, but because of a guilty consciousness that the accusing lips meant every word that they uttered. The audience shifted uneasily in their seats; Shirley Bloodgood held her breath as she placed a protecting arm about Miriam, which Miriam gently shook off; for what need had she for sympathy?

Murgatroyd returned to his place in front of the jury rail, and briefly reviewed the evidence.

Then with great emotion in his voice he went on:--

"And what part, gentlemen, did the wife have in all this? His wife, who sat through the weary hours of the night waiting for the thing she loved, while her husband not only lavished his affections but her money on others--his friends. His friends! Had he friends? If so, where are they? No, long ago he turned his back on his real friends; they were in the light; he sought the darkness."

As the prosecutor went on with his merciless flaying, Challoner grew hot and cold by turns.

"... Gentlemen, behold the result of riotous living!" he declared, pointing his finger at the prisoner. "The pace that kills!...

"And so, in view of these facts, in view of the prisoner's private history, I tell you that the defence here is absurd, ridiculous. Gentlemen, on behalf of the people, in the name of justice, I ask you to convict this man."

For an instant he stood eyeing the twelve jurors. Then, raising his right hand solemnly he brought it down with full sudden force upon the railing between himself and them.

"And let me warn you, gentlemen of the jury," he continued ominously, "that the honour, the integrity of this metropolis hangs in the balance. If you acquit this defendant and set him free, the people of this State, the people of the country, will say henceforth that all that a murderer need have to secure an acquittal--his freedom, is money, money, money."

As the prosecutor seated himself, there was a gasp of relief from the people in the court-room. Broderick ventured inside of the railed space set aside for counsel and shook hands with Thorne.

"Counsellor," he said, "you certainly handled that trial like a veteran. You saw your duty and you did it."

Thorne nodded his thanks, and answered:--

"I held Murgatroyd down to the woman in the case, all right. He had to stick to that one motive. This verdict will let everybody out----"

"But Challoner," added Broderick.

"Everybody but Challoner," agreed Thorne; "and the incident will be closed."

Broderick, with a certain self-satisfied air, went on:--

"When you were talking, I put up ten dollars with a chap back there in the court-room that Challoner'd go free."

"Not in a thousand years!" declared Thorne, flatly.

"I'm afraid you're right," said Broderick, and added with a twinkle in his eye: "I hate to lose that ten. Still if I do lose it, it'll be tougher for Challoner and her--" he jerked his head toward Mrs. Challoner at the other end of the table--"than it will be for me. Oh, well, such is life! The world is full of the wives of criminals, and they all marry again and have children and live happily ever after."

Once more, he glanced in the direction of Miriam Challoner, and presently commented in a low voice:--

"There's a plucky little woman, Thorne; nothin' can feaze her. I've been watchin' her; and she's just as sure of that jury as I am of my own assembly district after it has gone through my trousers pockets the night before election." And clapping Thorne on the shoulder familiarly, he took his departure, saying:--

"I'll be back to hear the verdict."

* * * * *

It was nearly two o'clock. The Court had charged the jury; the jury had filed out; they were still locked up in the jury-room. The crowd had left the court-room, Challoner had been taken down-stairs, Pemmican had been housed in jail under the gambling warrants; only Thorne, Miriam and Shirley remained.

"Wasn't that a terrible arraignment of Prosecutor Murgatroyd!" exclaimed Shirley. "When he faced Laurie and told him what he thought of him--it was simply awful!" and the girl covered her face with her hands as if to shut out the sight of it all.

"Why, Shirley," said Miriam quietly, "it's a prosecutor's business to say these things about a prisoner. It's all in a day's work, isn't it, Mr. Thorne?" And she smiled faintly.

Thorne was about to speak when a uniformed attendant suddenly entered at one door and swung across the court-room to another. In passing, he called to Thorne:--

"The jury has agreed!" He disappeared in the direction of the prosecutor's private office.

A moment later another court-officer strode toward the judge's private chambers, and likewise announced in passing:--

"The jury's coming in!"

Thorne looked cheerful, by way of encouragement to the women. Shirley blanched, her lips whitened, she trembled from head to foot; but Thorne noted that Miriam's eyes only grew brighter; she concealed her agitation well.

"It will all be over in a minute now," Miriam exclaimed joyfully, "and he'll be free, free!"

Without, within, everywhere was bustle, expectation. The crowd filed back into the court-room; Murgatroyd came in from his private office; the Court took its seat upon the bench; and then just as Broderick waddled in, the barred door in the far corner opened, and Challoner, as though in a daze, walked down the aisle, an officer in front and one behind him. The clerk glanced about him to see that all was in readiness, and then nodding to an officer, he said:--

"Bring 'em in!"

A minute that seemed minutes elapsed, and then the jury filed in--a jury whose faces, whose demeanour told nothing, gave no sign. Then there was an interval of silence, and in that interval a cutting pang seized upon the soul of every human present--the agony of suspense, the travail that precedes the birth of a verdict.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said the clerk rapidly, "have you agreed upon your verdict?"

"We have," came in chorus.

"Who do you say shall answer for you?"

The eleven men pointed toward their foreman.

"Gentlemen of the jury," said the clerk, "look upon the prisoner; prisoner, look upon the jury. Gentlemen of the jury, how do you say you find--guilty or not guilty?"

The foreman glanced upon the piece of paper which he held in his left hand and gripped the rail before him with his right.

"Guilty," he replied.

"What's that?" exclaimed Graham Thorne in affected astonishment.

"What?" came from Miriam Challoner shrilly; and the next moment all the colour had left her face; she was pale as death.

"Guilty, your Honour," repeated the foreman in a louder tone.

"Guilty of what?" queried the Court impatiently.

"Of murder in the first degree," answered the jury as one man.

"Gentlemen of the jury, your verdict is guilty of murder in the first degree, and so say all of you?" reeled off the clerk, looking at his minutes.

They nodded.

"You are discharged, gentlemen, with the thanks of the Court," announced the Court with approval. "Be here to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."

Meanwhile Challoner sat sullen, desperate, his chin resting on his hand, glaring into space. Around him was confusion, expostulation. The spectators were pressing forward toward the rail to get another look at the accused, while the jury was passing out. All of a sudden the sound of buzzing whispers died down and was followed in a moment by an intenser silence. There was a stir among those in the front seats, and the judge, looking up, was surprised to see that it was caused by the defendant's wife, who had moved from her place and was making her way to the prosecutor's desk, determination standing out on her countenance. Immediately all eyes were fixed on her, as she placed her hand upon Murgatroyd's arm, and looking him full in the face, exclaimed hysterically:--

"They found him guilty--guilty, do you understand? What have you got to say?"

Murgatroyd looked at her, but he did not answer. Her grasp became a clutch as she repeated:--

"What have you got to say to me? Speak!"

Murgatroyd was imperturbable.

Miriam, aghast at his coolness, stared at him; then she began again:--

"You--you--" Her voice failed her, and relaxing her grasp, she clung to the table for support. Shirley ran to her, held her, saying gently:--

"Miriam, dear, you are beside yourself--come, come away!"

But Miriam braced herself and resolutely shook herself free from her friend.

"No," she replied evenly, "I am not going!" and her voice rose as she went on: "Don't let anybody go! What I have to say I want all of you to hear!" And tottering over toward the bench as the spectators pressed tumultuously forward, Peter Broderick among the rest, she exclaimed:--

"Your Honour! Your Honour!"