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Title: The Blind Goddess
Author: Train, Arthur Cheney (1875-1945)
Date of first publication: 1926 [novel]; 1941 [introduction]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941
   [Criminal Court Series, vol. 1]
Date first posted: 20 July 2013
Date last updated: 20 July 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1095

This ebook was produced by
Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                         CRIMINAL COURT SERIES




                                  _THE
                             BLIND GODDESS_


                                  _By_
                              ARTHUR TRAIN

                                 Vol. 1


                    "--remembering above all to walk
                   gently in a world where the lights
                  are dim and the very stars wander."

                                                      SIR GILBERT MURRAY


                        CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
                                NEW YORK


                       Copyright, 1926, 1941, by
                        CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

                       Copyright, 1925, 1926, by
                     DESIGNER PUBLISHING CO., Inc.

                Printed in the United States of America

               _All rights reserved. No part of this book
                 may be reproduced in any form without
               the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_


                                   TO
                           HELEN COSTER TRAIN


"_The machinery of criminal justice, like every other production of man,
is necessarily imperfect, but you are not therefore to stop its wheels.
Because men have been scalded to death or torn to pieces by the bursting
of boilers, or mangled by wheels or a railroad, you are not to lay aside
the steam-engine. Innocent men have doubtless been convicted and executed
on circumstantial evidence; but innocent men have sometimes been
convicted and executed on what is called positive proof. What then? Such
convictions are accidents which must be encountered; and the innocent
victims of them have perished for the common good, as much as soldiers
who have perished in battle. . . . Certain cases of circumstantial proofs
to be found in the books, in which innocent persons were convicted, have
been pressed on your attention. These, however, are few in number and
they occurred in a period of some hundreds of years, in a country whose
criminal code made a great variety of offences capital. The wonder is,
that there have not been more._"

                              Gilson, C. J., in Commonwealth vs. Harman,
                                                         4 Pa. St., 269.




                         AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION


The decision of my publishers to reissue, under the title of "The
Criminal Court Series," a set of five volumes made up of three of my
novels and two collections of "Mr. Tutt" stories, is proof not only of
the perennial interest of the public in the administration of criminal
justice but of the vitality of the books themselves.

This interest arises in part from our realization that not only is the
distinction between crime and sin often highly arbitrary, but that, save
for the Grace of God and the statutes, we might easily find ourselves
being hurried away to the Tombs in the Black Maria. Moreover, the
criminal courts furnish the bulk of authentic drama in protected modern
life, and the otherwise tranquil burgher finds in what goes on there a
vicarious substitute for the sabre-toothed tiger hunts among his
stone-age ancestors and the skirmishes with hostile Indians of
covered-wagon days.

Every one enjoys watching a well-conducted criminal trial--particularly if
it be that of a prisoner fighting for his life, where the struggle
between the prosecuting attorney and the defendant's counsel is a last
vestigial reflection of Roman gladiatorial combat. We even derive
pleasure from the pallid and usually inaccurate reflection of similar
scenes upon the stage or screen. For like reasons persons of both sexes
and of all degrees of intelligence eagerly devour mystery novels,
detective stories and narratives dealing with crime and its punishment,
which, whether factual or fictitious, offer essential elements of drama
or melodrama,--crime, pursuit, capture, and retribution. Each has a
villain and ofttimes a hero, with whom the reader inevitably identifies
himself, whether the latter be a young Galahad of a district attorney
attacking the dragon of corruption or an innocent defendant unjustly
accused. It is a first-class entertainment if nothing more,--but it ought
to be very much more.

No one studying the administration of criminal justice can fail to be
impressed, first, by the care with which the law ostensibly protects the
liberties of the citizen, and second, by how valueless the law is if it
be interpreted and applied by unjust or ignorant men.

That is the vital lesson to be learned in what we term "courts of
justice." We may have the best laws in the world, positive guarantees of
freedom, but any tyrant or ignoramus upon the bench, or any corrupt or
overzealous district attorney, while rendering them lip service, can set
them at naught as ruthlessly as a Hitler or a Mussolini. When that
happens--when, under the technical guise of law or by means of subtle
guile, a judge or a prosecutor in fact circumvents or overrides the
safeguards which the statutes have enacted to preserve a defendant's
rights, what is his lawyer to do? Must he tamely allow his client to be
sent to the electric chair by a gullible jury who assume that every
salaried officer of the state must be a white-robed angel, or is he not,
under the circumstances, _ipso facto_ released from his oath to support
the laws which he took cojointly with them, and justified, to save his
client's life, in fighting fire with fire? This is the question I posed
in the first story of "Mr. Tutt and Mr. Jefferson," in the volume
entitled "Old Man Tutt."

If I have suggested some of the many ethical problems presented by the
administration of the law, when either honestly or dishonestly
administered, and particularly if I have succeeded in demonstrating the
fundamental difference between law and justice, and that some of our
present statutes, including our supposedly sacrosanct rules of evidence,
are in themselves palpably unjust, as well as often absurd, I shall be
content.

Regarding the five volumes comprising this set I may say that, of the
nine original books about "Mr. Tutt," the two included--"Old Man Tutt" and
"Mr. Tutt Takes the Stand"--are probably the most representative. By the
time they were written the old lawyer had been trying his cases nearly
twenty years and had grown in wisdom and stature and in favor with man at
least, if not with God.

"The Blind Goddess" is certainly my most comprehensive novel depicting
the inner workings of the criminal courts and district attorney's office.
In fact I know of no other book that attempts to cover the whole panorama
from arrest to conviction in the same way.

"Ambition" has always been my favorite novel. While its emphasis is upon
the civil side of the law rather than the criminal, it shows clearly
enough the temptations to which a young lawyer is exposed in either
branch and the vagueness of the line that separates what is regarded as
ethical from what is denounced as crime.

"Manhattan Murder" is a story of the gangster era in New York City, now
effectually terminated. It might well seem fantastic but for the familiar
accounts in the press of the activities of such gory criminals as "Dutch"
Schultz, Derringer, "Legs" Diamond, and "Al" Capone.

Taken together, these five books present in fictionized form a fairly
complete and accurate picture of the procedure by which those indicted
for crime are convicted or acquitted.

                                                            ARTHUR TRAIN




                           THE BLIND GODDESS




                               CHAPTER I


In that part of Cosmos men call "The Universe," and on the dust speck
known as "Earth," a ray from the sun, now travelling in Aquarius, fell
through ninety-three million miles of ether upon the gray wall of the
Tombs prison, in which were herded several hundred human monads awaiting
either trial or sentence by their fellows. The sunlight did not penetrate
the wall, for it was enormously high and thick, designed to keep
prisoners in at any cost, but its gleam was reflected to the other side
of Franklin Street through the grimy windows of the Criminal Trial Term,
dazzling the eyes of policemen, clerks, and court attendants, and
crowning with a nimbus of red flame the head of a young girl who sat high
above the spectators upon the dais beside the judge.

It was only three o'clock, yet already the electric cluster in the centre
of the ceiling had been lighted, for darkness gathers early about those
engaged in delving into human motives, and in assessing human
responsibility, even when their deliberations are not already clouded by
ignorance, cupidity, or vindictiveness. The blinding shaft of light which
shot into the court-room beneath the partially lowered shades made the
old judge blink.

"Pull down those shades if you please, Mr. Gallagher!" he said to the
ancient officer who sat bowed in the corner behind the jury box. "You
gentlemen have the advantage of not facing the light!" he added with a
smile to the twelve assorted citizens who sat there charged with the duty
of according to the unfortunates brought to the bar of justice what is
known to the law as "a trial by their peers." "Thank you!" he murmured as
the officer, having carried out his instructions, tottered back to his
seat.

The judge was a timorous, kindly man whose thin white hair was brushed in
streaks over a pink skull dotted with liver spots. When he became angry
or confused--which often happened, since he was slow of understanding--his
skull grew red and glistened with a film of perspiration. "Thank you, Mr.
Gallagher," he repeated. "What is next on the calendar, Mr. Dollar?"

The clerk, a pompous person with a horse's face, whose steel gray hair
was waved to resemble whitecaps advancing upon a sandy shore, arose and
bowed to the judge with ceremony, since in honoring the bench Mr. Dollar
honored himself.

"A sentence, Yoronner. John Flynn for two convictions, murder in the
second degree. You set three-thirty, you remember, at the request of Mr.
O'Hara, his counsel."

The judge nodded, adjusted his spectacles, and reached for his sentence
book. Then he looked over the clerk's desk to the row of chairs reserved
for counsel, just inside the rail.

"Is Mr. O'Hara here, Mr. Quirk?" The man addressed got to his feet. He
was a rickety figure, physically repellent, yet with something of
attraction in his voice and manner. He was dressed in dusty ochre with a
crimson tie; his face was yellow, cadaverous, and destitute of hair; he
had pale green eyes, and an auburn wig which slanted across his forehead
like an ill-fitting skullcap slipped awry. Yet his smile, except for his
discolored teeth, was engaging. In his hand, which shook as with palsy,
he held a book.

"Yes, Yoronner," he replied. "Mr. O'Hara is just outside. I'll go fetch
him."

"Very well. Send for the defendant, Mr. Dollar."

Mr. Dollar, elegant in a blue cutaway suit bound with braid, and with a
heavy gold chain across his abdomen, resumed his seat, carefully dipped
his pen, and inscribed something laboriously in a heavy volume. Then
looking up at the officer standing by the rail, he called cheerfully in a
resonant voice slightly reminiscent of County Cork:

"Captain Lynch! Kindly have John Flynn brought to the bar for sentence."

The captain, who wore a white goatee, turned to the rear of the room,
where another and younger officer lounged beside a closed door.

"John Flynn to the bar!" he called across the intervening space.

The officer in the rear opened the door and thrust his head into the
black abyss behind it.

"Bring up Flynn!"

Distance and indirection muffled his voice, as it did also the ultimate
order of the sheriff's officer in the pit below.

"Here you Flynn!"

Thus in inverse ratio to the square of the distance between the judge and
the turnkey did the consideration shown to the prisoner diminish, until,
indeed, had it extended across the Bridge of Sighs to the prison yard it
might have vanished altogether.

"Are you going to sentence somebody for murder?" whispered the girl on
the dais. "How terrible!" The white luminous spot of her face moved
closer to the judge. "Don't you hate to?"

The judge was a little afraid of her, for, besides the fact that she was
rather imperious, her father was a very important person. He always
strove to please everybody.

"Yes, of course it's unpleasant--but one gets used to it. One gets used to
everything, Miss Moira."

"I should never get used to sending men to prison. I think all prisons
ought to be abolished!"

The judge smiled at her tolerantly, thinking--in spite of the flaming
glory of her hair that swept so low across her white brow--how much her
intense blue eyes, her short, straight nose, her capable mouth with its
full red lips were like the "Old Man's." He did not recall ever having
seen her mother.

"That is easy to say, my dear! You must have been reading Bernard Shaw!"

"I haven't. What does he say?" she inquired.

"That so long as we have prisons it doesn't make much difference who
occupy the cells."

"Well, that's just what I think!"

The judge fidgeted and pretended to examine the book before him. He
wished that they would hurry along with Flynn. The girl was already
becoming something of a nuisance. She made him uneasy. And she might so
easily ask him a question that he couldn't answer! So very easily! Still,
he couldn't very well have refused her request to be allowed to see him
administer justice, for the all-powerful Richard Devens, her father, was
one of his stanchest backers. Another thirteen months, and the judge
would be up for re-election, going around soliciting campaign
contributions, with his hat in his hand, if he were fortunate, or, if he
were not, trying to enlist influence for a renomination--but in either
case with his hat in his hand.

Moira Devens leaned back in her chair, leaving the judge momentarily in
peace. Although she had never been in a court-room before, much less
elevated upon a dais in full view of several hundred spectators, she was
not in the least embarrassed. On the contrary, she rather enjoyed being
there. As her father's daughter she was used to receiving attention
wherever she happened to be, and that she should be given a box seat at
this particular drama seemed wholly natural.

Yet the performance was not at all like what she had expected. From what
she had read in the newspapers she had always supposed a criminal trial
to be a sort of gladiatorial combat, where wild beasts in the shape of
bull-necked prosecutors and shyster lawyers fought with one another amid
frenzied roars from the onlookers and bloodthirsty growls from the pens
below; not a quiet, decorous affair like this, where if a juror coughed
he covered his mouth with his hand, and where the only sound was the
crackle made by Mr. Dollar as he turned the stiff leaves of the court
record. So quiet and decorous, in fact, that she almost wondered if they
were alive, these motionless figures in jury-box and on the benches.

One face in particular--a woman's on the front bench--staring at her. A
dead woman--or did she move? Out there--above--beyond--in the sunlight--there
was air. But here----!

"May I?" she asked faintly, and filled a tumbler from the frosted silver
ice-water pitcher beside the judge.

What a relief! Her forehead cooled. The blur lifted and the faces on the
benches became definite. She could see the individual jurymen now--which
of them had beards and which were bald--and the group of lawyers at the
table outside the rail, with their books and brief-cases, and the rows of
benches, one behind the other, filled with witnesses, relatives of
prisoners, law students, persons waiting to see the judge,
semi-respectables of all sorts, idlers, and "bums." Some of the faces
were grotesque, others jovial and mirth-provoking, some honest and
direct, some cynical, crafty, and shifty-eyed--a haphazard collection of
human animals. And all silent--all waiting for something.

It is getting darker. From outside at irregular intervals comes the
clanging rush of an electric car, the distant roar of the elevated, the
rumble of a mail-truck--inside only the soft rustle of papers and the
murmur of the judge as he speaks to Mr. Dollar. The Quick and the Dead!

Somewhere in the subterranean caverns of the building a door bangs, and
the woman on the front row of benches stifles a cry.

The judge looks up.

"Order there! Please see that there is quiet, Mr. Officer!"

The woman looks at him fearfully, one trembling hand covering the lower
part of her mouth. She is emaciated, her lower lip sagging; but her face
holds traces of beauty and she carries herself with a certain
distinction. The judge beckons to the officer. "Who is that woman?" he
asks curiously.

"Never saw her before, Yoronner. She's a hop-head. All shot to pieces.
Shall I put her out?"

The woman gives them a look of agonized appeal.

"Poor thing! Please! Oh, please don't put her out!" Moira intercedes for
her.

The judge hesitates and at that instant the door in the rear opens, and
Flynn, the little murderer, enters, shambling along between two stalwart
officers. They are so far away that they make no sound--mere moving
figures on a film--as they skirt the edge of the room along a sort of
runway.

"Order in the court!"

A burly, red-faced man with side-chops steps to the bar beside the
defendant, who clutches the rail, cowering like a dog awaiting the lash.
A murmur weaves along the benches. The Dead are coming to life. They sway
forward in unison. The judge regards the prisoner almost affectionately.
He feels sure that the defendant can harbor no personal animosity against
him.

"Mr. Flynn," he says in a soothing tone, "have you anything to say why
judgment should not be pronounced against you?"

The prisoner appears dazed.

"Didn't you hear His Honor's question?" asks Mr. Dollar.

Still, Flynn makes no reply, and his counsel bends over and whispers in
his ear.

"He has nothing to say, Yoronner," replies Mr. O'Hara.

The judge gives a propitiatory rap with his ivory gavel. The Dead are
harkening.

"James Flynn, you have been twice convicted of murder in the second
degree, for the killing of William Fox and Arthur Brady, both police
officers, in the performance of their duty. You are to be congratulated
that the jury, in their mercy, did not find you guilty of murder in the
first degree. There is nothing for me to say. The law gives me no
discretion. The sentence of the court is that upon the first indictment,
number 949,671, for the killing of William Fox, you be confined in the
state's prison at hard labor for the term of your natural life, and upon
the second indictment, number 949,672, for the killing of Arthur Brady,
that you be confined in the state's prison at hard labor for the term of
your natural life--the second sentence to begin immediately upon the
completion of the first."

Nobody apparently sees anything peculiar about the affair. Mr. O'Hara
steps back, the officers take the prisoner by the shoulders, steer him
into the runway again, and they start away rapidly. "They are hanging
Danny Deever, you can hear the quick-step play!" As they reach the door
in the rear there is a little disturbance. Two men are shaking hands with
Flynn--now civilly dead--bidding him good-by. There is hardly a pause.
"Good luck, Jim!" The door closes without sound. Presently, from the
depths below comes the muffled clang of iron. The officer on guard leans
over and spits into a cuspidor. For an instant it seems to the girl upon
the dais as if all the lights had grown dim. She forces herself to appear
calm.

"Are there any other sentences, Mr. Dollar?" inquires the judge, smiling
at his fair _amica curi_. "If not, call the next case."


The Goddess of Justice, pictured upon the wall above the judge's dais as
a beautiful and stately woman, holding in her right hand a crystal ball
representing "Truth," and in her left the scales in which guilt is
balanced against innocence, gazes fearlessly over the heads of the
spectators in the general direction of Sing Sing prison. The artist, a
justly celebrated painter, has seen fit to depict the lady without the
customary bandage across her eyes, in order to indicate that Justice no
longer needs to be blinded to insure her impartiality. It may be that he
is quite right, and that in this respect modern differs from ancient
justice, but if his taste for originality has, perchance, outrun his
accuracy, those who have a fondness for tradition may solace themselves
with the reflection that blindness may exist without blinders, that the
most beautiful of eyes are sometimes sightless, and that by light alone
may the vitality of the optic nerve be tested. There is little light in
the Criminal Trial Term of the New York Supreme Court. Who dare say
whether the goddess upon the western wall be blind or not? Let us be
satisfied to note that her eyes are apparently fixed upon distance--and
not upon the crowding suppliants beneath her--no, nor upon any one of
them.

It was this fact that had always filled Hugh Dillon with such a
smouldering resentment and induced a cynical wondering upon his part if,
after all, she personified anything more "just" than the figures of the
Parc--the inexorable Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos--who spun, and measured
and cut the thread of life, upon the panel to her left; or, even than the
muscular male figures of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality upon her
right. It was, he thought, as he sat there waiting beside his associate,
O'Hara, rather ironical that the last vision of the poor wretch Flynn,
just sentenced to jail for life--for two lives!--should be that of a joyous
athlete bursting his chains while his two robust companions, representing
the Brotherhood of Man, and obviously bursting with the Milk of Human
Kindness, beamed upon him with such delight. Sympathy? A joke! Justice?
There was no such thing! At best it was nothing but a haphazard human
makeshift; at worst, a cant phrase, like making the world "safe for
democracy."

Who were these tax-eating judges and prosecutors that they should play
fast and loose with human life and liberty! He hated all of
them--self-seeking political sycophants like that curly-haired loafer
Redmond, the assistant district attorney, pusillanimous time-servers like
that fat-headed judge, with their rascally crew of fawning attendants and
process-servers feeding out of the public crib, police officers and
detectives looking for promotion and a "record," ready to swear your life
away for a flat bottle, doddering clerks and henchmen pensioned off at
the municipal expense "for services rendered"--the whole machine grinding
along, "knock down and drag out," hit or miss--one man sent up for life
while another, more guilty, went free--the public money poured into the
gutters to make a Roman triumph for any ambitious prosecutor who might
hope to leap to political eminence from the corpses of his electrocuted
victims--a spectacle for the idle and favored rich like that hard young
fool upon the bench beside the judge.

"Paul Renig to the bar! Hoyle and O'Hara--Mr. Dillon."

His case. Sullenly he arose and took his seat at the counsel table beside
the pallid young German he was to defend. What business had they to stick
a flossy young girl up there as if she were at the opera? God, but she
must be callous!--And of course, the judge was introducing Redmond to her!
They were shaking hands. Bah! He need expect no mercy from Redmond now!
They would turn a solemn trial involving a man's liberty into a joust--a
tournament for a lady's glove.

"Is the jury satisfactory?"

Mr. Dollar was bowing as usual. Hugh nodded without looking at them. It
made no difference. They were nothing but sheep! The jury would do
exactly what the judge intimated they should do. Old fox! It was the
emphasis, not the words that he used--the way in which he said,
"Naturally, gentlemen, if you _have_ any reasonable doubt of the
defendant's guilt you must, of course, give it to him!"--was enough to
send any man straight to the chair. It was the practical equivalent of:
"Nobody but a moron could have any question but that this defendant is
one of the guiltiest men alive, and I shall expect you promptly to
convict him." Justice!

He raised his eyes to the beautiful face of the goddess. She was looking
away from him--from all of them--far over their heads. A lot she cared!

Mr. Dollar had sworn the jury, who were settling back into their seats.
Redmond got up and half turned to the bench--a handsome devil.

"If the Court please--Gentlemen of the Jury. The defendant, Paul Renig, is
indicted for assault in the second degree, for attacking Wilhelm Ganz
with a dangerous weapon. The assault was unprovoked and the complainant
severely injured before he could do anything to defend himself. The
simplest and quickest thing is to let him tell his own story. Mr. Ganz,
take the stand."

The foreman of the jury signified his approval of the assistant district
attorney with a glance. That was the way to do things--smartly! No use
wasting the time of busy men. How was it that Redmond always succeeded,
somehow, in taking them all into his confidence, in making them feel that
the unfortunate necessity of keeping such important citizens as
themselves away from their much more important affairs really worried
him?

The girl on the dais seemed to have forgotten her resentment against the
prison system in her admiration for Mr. Redmond's technic and, like the
rest of them, clearly to understand that everything could be safely left
to him. Certainly he was very handsome! He made Hugh think of one of
those outline sketches of the Olympians in the back of an Allen and
Greenough's Latin Vocabulary--a curly-haired Hermes in a blue suit,
lounging gracefully against Mr. Dollar's desk--a complementary figure to
those upon the wall--only superior! "Order in the court!"

The judge thought he had better show a little more attention to Miss
Devens.

"I'm afraid this won't amuse you much. It's just an ordinary assault
case, sent in from another Part--the calendars are so crowded," he
apologized.

But he need not have worried. The girl had become a woman in the last ten
minutes. The sentencing of Flynn had done something to her. She had been
brought face to face for the first time with the realities of life. There
was a movement of general relief throughout the rows--a scuffling of feet
echoing those of the complainant against Renig, as he sought to find his
way to the witness-chair. Mr. Gallagher rescued him in the maze behind
the jury-box.

"This way, sir.--Name?--William Ganz?--Mr. Wilhelm Ganz. Face the jury,
please." Mr. Dollar swore the witness: and Mr. Gallagher retired once
more to his obscurity.

The girl shifted her glance. What a horrible looking man! She could not
remember ever having seen anybody with such a face--like a chimpanzee.
When he answered he bared his teeth in a gummy grin.

Suavely, ingratiatingly, Mr. Redmond began to question him:

"You are employed by the Eureka Gas Company of Richmond?"

"Yeh. Claim adjuster."

"Do you know this defendant?"

"Yeh. He used to be one of our pay clerks."

"Did you see him on Friday, October 8th?"

"Yeh."

"Tell the jury what occurred."

The chimpanzee turned to the jury and pointed to an angry red line along
his temple.

"I seen this feller on Franklin Street. I was lookin' fer him, see? He
owed the company money."

"_Object!_"

The word came like a musket shot. The target rang:

"Sustained!----"

"Of course, if you object, Mr. Dillon----"

"I object."

The girl saw now where the shot had come from.

"If that is to be brought out I will bring it out myself!"

The speaker seemed needlessly contemptuous of Mr. Redmond--quite
ill-mannered, in fact.

The assistant district attorney lifted his eyebrows to the jury as if to
indicate that one had to be patient with these young cockatoos.

"Proceed, gentlemen!"

But the girl was no longer listening. She only saw the tall, straight
youth in shabby clothes, whose black eyes were fixed in scorn upon the
human monkey in the chair. A red spot burned in both his cheeks, his chin
quivered--a bundle of nerves--Passion incarnate!

"And then?" inquired Redmond politely of the chimpanzee.

"He grabbed a pistol out of his pocket and floored me with the butt.
Eleven stitches!"

He pointed to the still bright scar.

"Your witness."

The jury with one accord turned to the youthful avenger at the bar.

"You're an adjuster?" he asked indifferently.

"Sure."

"Why were you looking for Renig?"

The chimpanzee bared his teeth and shot out his jaw.

"This here Renig was short seventy-two dollars fifty. Took it out of the
collections, see?--I was looking fer that--the company's money."

"Was that all you were looking for?" The voice was insinuating with a
hidden threat.

"Sure."

"Did you ask him to sign a paper?"

The chimpanzee hesitated.

"A paper?"

"I said a paper!"

The threat had become apparent. The jury showed signs of interest.

"Answer the question!" admonished the judge.

"Yeh. I showed him a paper."

"What was it?"

"A release."

"Let me see it!"

"It's in me coat."

"Get it!"

Redmond looked slightly bored. The heart of the girl on the dais
fluttered.

"Is this paper material?" inquired Judge Barker. "If not--in the interest
of time--why not ask him what was in it?"

"The paper is very material."

"How can it be?"

"I should prefer to bring that out in examination."

"Very well. Try your case in your own way." The judge spoke impatiently,
and the girl suddenly hated her father's old friend. Dillon took the
document and flung it open with a gesture of disgust.

"Did you ask the defendant to sign this?"

"Sure, I did!" retorted the witness aggressively.

"It is a full release and acquittance to the gas company, is it not, for
any damages he may have suffered through its negligence in occasioning
the death of his wife and child!"

The jury stiffened to a man.

"Wha-a-at!" ejaculated Redmond. "Let me see it!"

"You will have your chance!" retorted Dillon.

"Well, what if it is?" sneered the witness.

"May I see that paper, please?" requested the foreman.

"One moment!"

Dillon's arm hovered over the witness like a flaming sword.

"Is it not the fact--look at me!--is it not the fact that your company
installed a defective stove in Renig's flat, as a result of which his
wife, who was going to have a child, became ill, and that he stole from
the company in order to pay for a doctor to save her life? Is it not a
fact that she and her three-day-old baby died from gas poisoning? And is
it not the fact that you"--he choked in spite of himself--"that you tried
to compel him to sign a release under threat that if he refused you would
have him arrested for larceny?"

He paused, his lips trembling.

"Well, what if I did?"

Life stopped in the court-room.

"You cur!"

The words cracked like a whip.

"Bang!" went the judge's gavel. "Mr. Dillon! Mr. Dillon! That is grossly
improper! I must admonish you! I do admonish you!"

"Oh!" moaned the woman on the front bench. "Oh! The poor baby!"

"I beg the court's pardon!" said Dillon. "I apologize for the word--but
not for the thought behind it."

"I'll show you whether I'm a cur or not!" snarled the chimpanzee, half
rising from the chair.

Redmond stepped quickly to the bench.

"I had no idea--" he began in an undertone. "Fasset sent this case in from
Part I, without my knowing anything about it. Rather a low trick of him!
I suppose the complainant insisted on a trial. Of course the jury won't
convict, but technically there's no defense. After all, this fellow Ganz
was working for somebody else. He was only carrying out his orders. What
would you suggest?"

The judge's scalp had turned a glistening crimson. He loathed being put
in such a position.

"Why do you bring cases before me until you have looked into their
merits, Mr. Redmond?" he complained, yet with extreme politeness.

"There was absolutely no time to examine the witnesses, judge! I had to
send over to Part I for something to keep the court going. Otherwise our
calendar would have broken down. You know how the press howls when that
happens."

He smiled confidentially at the girl.

"Well, you better finish it, I suppose!" muttered the judge uneasily.
"Why doesn't your office keep its eyes open? I hate these cases! The
Grand Jury ought never to have indicted. Get through it the best way you
can!"

Dillon stood with his eyes fixed on the witness, who lowered back at him
defiantly. Mr. O'Hara had entered the enclosure and had bent his head to
that of the boy, who nodded.

"One more question," he said, resuming his examination. "When you made
this proposition to Renig and he struck you--in your opinion was his act
rational or irrational?"

"Oh!--I must object! This witness isn't an expert!" smiled Redmond. But he
caught no answering gleam from the jury.

"Allowed," murmured the judge wearily.

"I guess it was pretty irrational to crown me that way for nothing!"

"That is all!"

"That is all!"

Redmond waved the unfortunate Ganz from the stand. The jury watched him
menacingly as he made his way to the seat.

Mr. O'Hara arose and addressed the court:

"If Your Honor please," he said, in a rich voice full of deep cadences,
"we desire to withdraw our plea of not guilty heretofore entered by us,
and to substitute for it the plea of not guilty on the ground of
insanity."

"Insanity!"

The judge stared at him as if the word had more relevancy to the conduct
of the lawyer than to that of his client.

"We plead insanity."

Mr. Dollar thrust his silver coiffure over the edge of the dais.

"The Code allows them to do that, Yoronner."

"Very well," said the judge uncertainly.

Mr. Dollar sat down again, and the only sound in the court-room was the
careful scratching of his pen. Presently he got up.

"Paul Renig, you desire to withdraw the plea of not guilty heretofore
entered by you, and to substitute the plea of not guilty on the ground of
insanity?"

"We do!" assented Mr. O'Hara.

Mr. Dollar sat down.

"Proceed, gentlemen."

Mr. O'Hara had wandered out of the court-room again.

"The People rest," said Redmond indifferently.

"The defense rests," returned Dillon.

"Do you desire to sum up?" inquired the judge.

"I see no need of saying anything further," replied Dillon. "If the
district attorney desires this case to go to the jury, I am willing to
submit on Your Honor's charge."

"That is entirely satisfactory to the People," agreed his adversary.

"Order in the court!"

The judge pulled his silk robe about his shoulders, fumbled among the
papers before him for his "Charge Book," and, having looked up "Assault"
in the index, read to the jury several ungrammatical and hopelessly
confusing pages, then turned over to "Insanity" and proceeded to give
them ten or twelve pages more, which no human mind could possibly make
head or tail of, much less twelve well-meaning burghers drawn out by lot
from barber shops, abattoirs, and delicatessens, and who never read
anything but the comics in the Sunday supplement.

They paid no attention to him, and would not have understood what he was
talking about if they had. So far as they were concerned the plaintiff
was a dirty dog and that was the end of it.

". . . And so, gentlemen, your verdict will be either 'guilty' or 'not
guilty on the ground of insanity.' You may retire!"

But the jury showed no disposition to retire. Instead, the foreman
whispered to the man beside him, who in turn communicated with his
neighbor, who did likewise, until the circle had been completed. Then the
foreman looked up at the judge and said:

"Unless the law requires us to go out we don't need to leave the box."

"I will receive your verdict," said His Honor, who felt positive that
under the circumstances nobody could possibly criticise his conduct of
the case.

The foreman stood up.

"We find the defendant 'not guilty--on the ground of insanity'--and," he
added with asperity, "we would like to find the gas company guilty of
manslaughter, if that is correct."

"I will receive the first part of your verdict--and treat the rest as a
recommendation," smiled the judge. "I congratulate you, gentlemen. I
thank you for your attention. I think that is all for the day?--The
defendant is discharged."

". . . With the thanks of the court!" murmured Mr. Redmond as they all
arose. Then stepping to the dais he asked humbly: "May I take you home in
a taxi, Miss Devens?"

And so the monads who composed the jury, and who had neither heard nor
listened to the law, and who neither understood it nor could have
understood it, nor applied it if they had got it into their heads, these
twelve monads, being human monads, did what the human emotions within
their bosoms directed them to do.

The judge nodded to Mr. Dollar.

"Adjourn court," he directed.

Captain Lynch lifted his goatee ceilingward.

"Hear ye! Hear ye! This court stands adjourned until Monday morning at
ten o'clock!"

As if a stop-cock had been pulled in the bottom of an aquarium, the
contents of the Criminal Term began to run out--at first sucking away only
those nearest the entrance, then as the current strengthened, pulling
them all into the aisles and leaving only the lees upon the benches: Mr.
Wilhelm Ganz, the woman in chinchilla, a punctilious drunk, and a "nut"
with a package of papers tied in a newspaper who wanted "to speak to the
judge just for a minute."

His Honor, now at last relieved of all official responsibility, shook
hands cordially with Miss Devens.

"Sorry we couldn't give you a more thrilling afternoon. Look in on us
again. Remember me kindly to your father." The shining pink spot of his
cranium bobbed down the three steps of the dais above the flying carpet
of his gown and disappeared into the robing-room. At the other end of the
aquarium the fish were wriggling in a solid mass through the big doors.

"Quiet there!" admonished the officer. "Stop your shoving!"

A cold shaft of air pierced the sickly-sweet atmosphere. A sallow law
clerk, with an armful of books, hunched his shoulders to light a
cigarette.

Miss Devens was looking past the gallant Mr. Michael Redmond at the group
clustered around Renig and his attorney.

"Take me home?" she repeated. "Oh, my own motor is waiting, thank you."

"May I come to see you sometime?"

"Oh, do." She was barely polite. "What is the name of that young lawyer?"

"Dillon--Hugh Dillon. He is with Hoyle and O'Hara."

From the counsel table Dillon saw the girl pull her sables about her
white round neck. He also noted, with unconscious satisfaction, the
dismissal in her gesture, and how Mr. Redmond imperceptibly dissolved
into the group about Mr. Dollar. But his mind was occupied with Renig.
The fellow was a nervous wreck, and another family had already moved into
his flat. He might lend him a blanket and let him sleep on the sofa in
the office for a night or two. Then he saw the reporters step aside to
allow the redheaded girl, who had been sitting beside the judge, to
approach. Why should she come hanging around? It annoyed him even more
than her gratuitous presence. Why couldn't she have the decency--having
paraded her vulgar curiosity all the afternoon--to take herself off?
Still, he was not unconscious of the fact that she was pretty in a
bizarre, theatrical sort of way. He could see "Deacon" Terry of _The
Tribune_ extending a wicked ear, and Charley White of _The Sun_ drifting
innocently in their direction.

"Mr. Dillon?"

A wisp of auburn hair had escaped the rim of her small toque, the rich
color in vivid contrast with her pellucid skin and the strange blue of
her eyes. Somewhere, when on leave in Paris, he had seen a picture of a
woman with that sort of coloring, and it had taken his fancy--in the
Louvre, maybe, or was it the Luxembourg? He got to his feet.

"My name is Devens--Moira Devens. I would like to do something for Mr.
Renig." Her voice was low, her manner contained.

He felt somehow impelled to do as she wished. Without replying, he turned
to the ashen face of the man beside him, who was staring vacantly at the
Blind Goddess.

"This lady wants to talk to you, Paul!"

"I don't feel like talkin'!"

Miss Devens sat down on the other side of the table and leaned forward on
her arms.

"Mr. Renig, I want you to let me help you."

Renig, for the first time since his trial had begun, stopped the slow
rhythmic movement of his jaws.

"That's all right, miss. I can make out."

"But I-- Oh, please, isn't there anything I can do?" The reporters made a
semicircle behind her.

"Speak up, Paul!" urged Charley White. "Don't be bashful. We all know
you're broke."

The muscles of Renig's face twitched. Then he muttered something to
Dillon, studiously looking away from the girl meanwhile.

"Mr. Renig tells me," said Hugh, "that if you really want to help him,
there is one thing he feels very deeply about--he owns only the old yellow
suit he has on. He would like to wear black for his wife and child."

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" suddenly sobbed Renig, dropping his face in his
hands. "Oh, Jesus!" he rasped, as he searched in his pocket for a
handkerchief.

Dillon put his arm about him.

"Buck up, old man!"

The girl opened a bag of gold mesh and took from it a roll of yellow
bills.

"Please take this!" she said, pushing it under Renig's sleeve. "It will
keep you going for a while."

Renig fingered the money in bewilderment.

"Five hundred dollars!--My wife and baby are dead from a leak in the gas,
and you give me five hundred dollars? Is that straight?"

"Sure, she's a rich woman!" interjected "Deacon" Terry, with a prophetic
vision of a full column on the morrow's front page.

"But why--should you give me five hundred dollars?"

The girl closed her bag with a snap.

"Because," she answered half whimsically, "because--well!--for one thing my
father happens to be a director of the gas company."

"Holy Mike!" ejaculated Charley White, searching quickly for his hat,
which had rolled under the table. "Let me get to the 'phone!"

At that instant Mr. Wilhelm Ganz, who had been listening attentively,
shouldered his way into the group.

"Listen here!" he declared, "if there's money going 'round how about the
seventy-two fifty he owes the company?"

The "Deacon" turned on him with a snarl.

"Get out of here before we boot you out!"

Ganz lowered his head belligerently.

"Keep your hands off me! Even if the jury did acquit this feller, he
stole seventy-two dollars, didn't he? I can have him arrested for that,
and I'm goin' to. There's some justice left!"

"Justice! Bah!" roared White. "You baldheaded baboon!--Try it!"

"I will see that the money is repaid!" said Moira coldly. "Mr. Renig,
here is my address. Come and see me if you need any more help. May I
speak to you outside, Mr. Dillon?"

She nodded to the reporters and to Mr. Dollar, and turned confidently to
Hugh--a self-possessed young person with a well-developed histrionic
sense.

The court-room was already nearly empty. The "nut" who wanted to speak to
the judge for a moment had followed him up-stairs, and the decorous drunk
had been officially awakened and cast out. The only spectator left was
the woman in chinchilla, who had crept nearer and nearer as the little
scene inside the rail was being enacted. Now, as Captain Lynch held open
the gate for Moira to pass out of the enclosure, the woman swayed toward
her with an almost imperceptible forward movement of her hands.

"Go over and wait for me at the office, Paul," directed Dillon, following
the girl into the lobby. In spite of what he regarded as her ostentatious
largesse his heart was still hardened against her. Nevertheless, this did
not exclude a certain curiosity as to what she might prove to be like on
further acquaintance. She was quite different from any girl he had ever
met before. Neither of them noticed the woman who was lurking in the
shadow between the outer and inner doors.

"Won't you drive uptown with me, Mr. Dillon? I want to talk to you."

To Hugh it was an astounding suggestion. What could she want of him? Was
she worried about the case, perhaps?

"About Renig?"

"Yes--partly."

"What do you want to know about him?" he asked, without moving further.

She gave a gesture of impatience.

"I can't talk to you here. I--I've got an appointment uptown."

He looked at her, frowning. She could not be peremptory with him,
whatever prerogatives might be accorded to her by others.

"I have one myself at my office, Miss Devens. I'm sorry."

An angry gleam came into her eyes.

"Perhaps you'll take me to my motor, then?"

"Delighted."

From the shadow the woman in the chinchilla boa watched them disappear
down the stairs. The voice of O'Hara at her elbow startled her so that
she almost screamed.

"Look here, Mrs. Clayton! I want to be as friendly to you as I can, but
this isn't treating us fair. If I told Mr. Devens he'd cancel his
contract with you."

She had shrunk away from him and stood with her handkerchief to her lips,
whimpering.

"I know I shouldn't have come. But money isn't everything. Sometimes I
feel as if I'd go mad unless I could touch her hand. But I won't do it
again. I promise you, Mr. O'Hara."

"Well, see that you don't."

He lifted his square derby hat and stalked by her into the court-room.

"Hold on a minute, Jerry!" he called to the janitor, who was turning off
the lights. "Got to find my bag." His eye caught the Blind Goddess. "Why
the devil don't you clean up that picture? It's that dirty you couldn't
hardly tell it was a woman--let alone Justice."

The janitor suspended his labors, put his head sideways, and examined the
picture critically.

"Is that Justice?" he inquired. "That's one on me! I always thought it
was supposed to be the Goddess of Liberty."

Hugh and Moira, their footsteps lisping upon the marble flags, crossed
the great hall of the rotunda, whose corridors rose tier on tier into a
vast obscurity like the balconies of an empty opera-house. A chauffeur,
warming himself within the revolving doors of the Lafayette Street
entrance, hurried out ahead of them to a gleaming cabriolet, where he
stood at attention, one hand on the door-handle, with a mink robe draped
over his right arm. They paused beside him.

"I wonder if you appreciate the drama of your life!" said Moira. "I
suppose you don't. People never do. You work in the midst of a _Comdie
Humaine_--you run the gamut of the emotions every hour in the day."

To the west, up Franklin Street, beyond Broadway, the sky was a riot of
gold, scarlet, and saffron. Behind them the black bulk of the Tombs rose
like a grim stage donjon against a back-drop of pale blue sprinkled with
gold dust. A motorized hook-and-ladder, clanging an intermittent warning,
backed snorting into the engine-house on the corner, like a
fire-breathing Fafner retreating into his cavern.

Moira put one foot on the running-board, then glanced over her shoulder.
He had made no accompanying movement. The wind flipped her boa against
his cheek.

"Come along!" she urged.

"Sorry," he answered, still distrustful, "but I have to go to the office.
I've no end of work to do."

She replaced her foot on the sidewalk and faced him.

"But _I_ want you to ride uptown with me--escort me home!"

"Look here!" he said suddenly and not altogether gently, "I'd like to
know what this is all about! Suppose I do ride uptown with you--what
then!"

"Get in and I'll tell you!--Don't be a goose!" And she gave a little
chuckling laugh--tantalizing, irresistible. For some reason the acuteness
of his resentment against her softened.

"Oh, all right, then!" he protested, getting into the car and sinking
into the seat beside her. There was no harm in seeing what she was up to.

"You act as if you thought I were trying to kidnap you!" she declared as
they glided off. "Most men would feel complimented."

"Would they?"

"Aren't you pleased that I want to make friends with you?" she demanded
provocatively. "Don't you want to be friends?"

He looked ahead through the plate glass. He had no intention of letting
himself be vamped, but, on the other hand, he did not wish to misjudge
her. Anyhow, she was worth being frank with.

"Look here, Miss Devens!" he said. "I have no idea of what you really
want of me, but, to be frank with you, I can't say I think much of your
coming down the way you did this afternoon, as if the place were a zoo
and you wanted to look at the animals!"

"But I am planning to do work in the Tombs, and I wanted to learn all
about everything--so as to be of more service."

"Service!"

"Yes--why not?"

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "What possible service do you think a girl like
yourself could be to anybody in the Tombs?"

She looked at him for a moment as if doubtful whether or not to resent
his remark. Then she laughed.

"You _are_ frank!--Why couldn't I--why couldn't anybody--be of service to an
unfortunate prisoner?"

"Because the trouble isn't in the Tombs. That's the last act of the
tragedy. You've got to start earlier--with the prologue. When a fellow
gets into jail he needs a lawyer, not a social-service worker. He doesn't
want perfumery, or flowers, or eclairs, or a Bible. He wants somebody to
fight for him."

They were passing Police Headquarters. A platoon of officers was just
descending the steps.

"And fight like hell!" he growled through his teeth.

"Good!" she echoed. "I like that. I like people who do things that
way--your way."

"How do you know it's my way?"

"Because that was the way you fought for poor Renig."

"Oh, that was just luck! Redmond pulled a bone. Fasset, the assistant
assigned to Part I, happens to have a retainer from the gas company and
has to do what Ganz says. He was afraid to antagonize him, and so he
sidestepped it--dumped it on Redmond. It would have been a walkout in any
event!"

"What is going to become of Renig now?"

"Shoot himself, maybe." He spoke quietly.

"Oh!" her breath came sharp through her teeth. "Don't let him! You
mustn't!"

"He's part of that melodrama of yours!" he retorted. "I should have
thought what you saw and heard to-day would have given you a jar. How can
you girls from uptown know anything about life? Look at this car! It's
like riding in a feather bed! You live in cotton wool. What can you
possibly know about how to help people? How can you help them? All you do
is dance and dine at restaurants and go to the opera."

"I don't blame you much for thinking so," she admitted. "But I'm sick of
the kind of thing you speak of! I'm tired of the men I meet out
everywhere. They're all the same! I prefer somebody real!"

She did not vocally append the words "like you," and he was too absorbed
in his diatribe against her class to notice her look or her intonation.

"Let me tell you something else!" he swept on. "It's the rich people
uptown that need the missionaries--not the folks below Fourteenth Street.
Why should you assume that because a family lives east of the Bowery its
members are any less intelligent, or less moral, or even less cultured
than if they lived on Fifth Avenue? They aren't! I tell you the poor
people of the East Side are better than the rich who look down on them.
Don't you know that only their money keeps a lot of millionaires out of
jail?"

"Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! Woe unto thee, Chorazin!" she mocked.

He gave her a savage glance.

"I mean it! I tell you the morals, the ideals, the education are to be
found downtown, not up! There's more rough stuff on Broadway than there
is in Chatham Square!"

"Why don't you tell me I'm like the lady who said: 'I live in the tents
of the Philistines, where the conversation wears rubbers, and the people
only _do_ disreputable things. They draw the line at talking about
them!'?"

"Just so! You live among a bunch of hypocrites!"

"Thank you!"

"Well, you know you do. They're a lot worse than the poor because they
have no temptations except those they invite themselves. They're
protected by the bulwark of their money. The rich woman never has to use
her fists to defend herself. She's never in any physical danger. It's no
credit to her if she keeps straight! If she's afraid to cross the street
all she has to do is to beckon to a cop. She makes use of the law as
something she has paid for. She regards a policeman as a sort of servant,
a little higher than a chore man and a little lower than her butler."

He did not see her smile.

"How did you guess it!"

"And a criminal lawyer as a cross between a stool pigeon and a confidence
man."

"Not quite. Some of them are rather nice. What a fire-eater you are! A
sort of Savonarola!--And you make me think of Jack Barrymore in 'Hamlet,'
too!"

"Thanks!" he grunted. "I suppose you mean that as a compliment!"

"No--not exactly! On the whole I think I prefer Mr. Hugh Dillon,
barrister-at-law!"

Her tone was mollifying.

"I'm sorry to have shot off my mouth this way," he apologized. "But these
fashionable women who think they can show other people how they ought to
live get my goat! When I think how they waste their opportunities, it
makes me mad. Compare the life of a smart woman in society with that of
one of these East Side girls who is trying to make the most of herself!
Look at how she works and studies and saves to hear some good music or to
buy a few books. And look at what she does make of herself! No! No! Keep
your social welfare work uptown. Do it among your swell friends!"

"Aren't you a little hard on us?"

He shook his head.

"Not a bit!"

"Well," she assured him, "I do want to help, and I don't care whether I
work in the Tombs or outside. I can't see myself trying to convert any of
my fashionable friends into the idealists you have been describing. I
think they would get bored very quickly. But I'm sure there must be
things I could do in any part of the city--of any city. I want to do
something, and--I want somebody to show me how."

It dawned on him that she might mean it.

"Is that true?"

"Certainly!"

He looked at her doubtfully, pondering her face under the winking
electric glare of Fourteenth Street. Its expression was enigmatic,
still----

"I wonder!" he mused.

"Give a poor girl a chance."

She was laughing at him! He grew warm.

"I could give you chances enough."

"Even if you don't take them yourself!"

His impression of her frivolity was confirmed. He felt for the door-knob.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll take the subway back from here. I'm much
obliged for the ride. Do you mind asking your chauffeur to stop?"

"Aren't you going to help your poor little rich girl?"

Her curved lips were ironic but her eyes were pleading.

"Please!" she urged. She was damnably alluring!

"I'm sorry. I must go back," he repeated resolutely.

"As you choose--Mr. Galahad!"

There was an angry flash in her blue eyes as she leaned forward to rap
upon the window. There was another flash as her mesh-bag slipped to the
floor. They bent for it together, and their hands touched under the fold
of the robe. Their heads were close together. Something warm swept his
cheek.




                               CHAPTER II


The Devens mansion first gained immortality as the original of the
familiar _mot_ that: "If architecture is frozen music, that house must be
frozen ragtime!" Richard Devens, selecting his architect for no better
reason than that he had found himself sitting beside a confident young
man at a sheriff's jury banquet, had bidden him go as far as he liked,
with the result that the latter had taken him at his word.

On the theory that it pays to advertise it had been a huge success,
resembling nothing else created by the hand of man except possibly a
gigantic cake of marzipan, whence one might expect to see a flight of
Easter rabbits come leaping through the windows, and where the pantheon
of shameless gods and goddesses who shouldered the upper stories, amused
themselves by nonchalantly tossing stony fruits across the faade or
carelessly lassoing one another with rococo garlands.

Its architectural extravagances, even had Hugh been qualified to
appreciate them, were lost in darkness as the motor stopped beneath the
porte-cochre, and the shaded windows looked exactly like any other
windows, the door like any other door. Moira, having dismissed the car,
ran up the steps. A white-haired butler received Hugh's coat, hat, and
brief-case, arranging them methodically upon a polished table that stood
beneath a massive oaken staircase.

"There'll be one extra for dinner, Shane."

"Yes, Miss Moira."

"Where's father?"

"In the library, Miss Moira."

"This way, Mr.--" she gave that same little cooing chuckle. "Dillon, isn't
it?"

"Dillon it is!"

The adventure was becoming queerer and queerer. He had never before been
in a house like this, except once when billeted on the outskirts of
Compigne in a small chteau hastily stripped by the owner of everything
of value in anticipation of the immediate arrival of the Heinies. The air
was heavy with the scent of flowers. Everywhere he caught the glint of
gold frames, of marble, of carving. Cotton wool! She led him up one
flight, then along a passage lined with paintings to a closed door.

His brain was awhirl, his heart pumping. The same spots burned in his
cheeks as had been there in the court-room. He would have followed her
anywhere--as glamoured as if she had been a fairy princess leading him
through subterranean passages to the treasure-chambers of a dream palace.
What was behind that wall of oak?

"Dad's den!" she explained. "Sound-proof!"

Without knocking she pushed it open.

Two oldish men were sitting under a shaded drop-light at a huge
flat-topped desk strewn with papers. To Hugh they looked very much alike.
Both were gray-headed, thick-set, smooth-shaven, and rather red in the
face, and both had kindly and very blue eyes. Moira kissed each of them.

"Hello, Daddy! Hello, Uncle Dan!" she said.

The former, who was more heavily built as well as slightly younger in
appearance than his associate, slipped his arm about the girl's waist
without getting up, and squinted inquisitively at Hugh.

"See what I found in the Criminal Court Building, Daddy!"

She beckoned Hugh with a lift of her chin.

"I want you to know my father----"

Devens extended his hand without removing his cigar. It was large and
powerful.

"Glad to meet you, Mr.----?"

"Dillon. Mr. Hugh Dillon--barrister-at-law," explained Moira. "And this is
Mr. Daniel Shay."

Mr. Shay arose with the slightly deprecating manner of an old retainer
who is received on a footing of intimacy.

"I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Mister Dillon."

"If you know the Devens you can't help knowing Uncle Dan, can he, daddy?"
Moira smiled at him affectionately. "Mr. Dillon is going to show me how I
can help some of the poor people who are in--I mean outside--the Tombs."

Her father studied them thoughtfully through the smoke.

"Is he, now!" he remarked finally. "You'll have your hands full, I'm
thinking. How about helping Uncle Dan and me a little! We have our
troubles, haven't we, Danny? They say 'charity begins at home!' And what
are you going to show him in return?"

Moira's eyes grew innocently large.

"I'm going to make him Mayor of New York!"

Uncle Dan grinned.

"I'll say she will!" he muttered.

Her father eyed Hugh whimsically.

"If she sets out to she'll do it!" he declared. "Are you Irish, Mr.
Dillon?"

"Sure, he is!" retorted his daughter. "Can't you tell it from his black
hair and eyes? Now I'm going to give him a cup of tea and show him the
family skeleton."

"Won't you stay and dine with us?" inquired Devens. "Always glad to have
any friend of Moira's--particularly if he's going to be our next mayor."

"Thank you very much," said Hugh, who felt entirely lost. "But I----"

"Of course he will!" she interrupted. "That was all settled long ago!"


"Dinner is served, miss."

They had passed the intervening time in the great library overlooking
Fifth Avenue, and, while Moira had exhibited no skeleton, she had shown
him much that thrilled him--illuminated manuscripts, marvellous ivory
carvings, priceless jades and ceramics, wonderful paintings, rivalling,
he was fain to believe, those he had seen in the galleries of Europe.

He had speedily found himself at ease and entirely disarmed of suspicion.
As hostess she was charming. The arrogance of her manner he now perceived
to be due partly to her natural exuberance and impulsiveness, partly to
her being a little spoiled, the independent mistress of so large an
establishment while still so young, but also in large measure to a
curious self-consciousness which led her to endeavor to conceal the
warmth of heart and generosity with which Providence had endowed her. He
concluded that he had been quite unjust; that there was, in fact, nothing
insincere, patronizing, or tinsel in her expressed wish to be "of
service," although it was, nevertheless, colored by an almost childish
wilfulness and instinct for the theatrical, which at times tended to
discolor it entirely. As changeable as a slip of litmus, she alternately
annoyed and delighted him. Whenever he thought that he had found the real
Moira, pst! she had slipped away from him again--and her little cooing
chuckle was floating over the hedge from the other side of the
conversational road.

Her father was standing with Mr. Shay at the sideboard as Moira and Hugh
entered the dining-room.

"Have a drop o' the cruiskeen lawn?"

And when Hugh declined:

"Then he'll never be mayor; will he, Danny?"

"And never go to jail, either!" commented the older man approvingly.

Hugh had never eaten a meal so strangely commingled of the plainest fare
and the most exotic culinary mysteries. It was a bewildering experience.
Was it possible that less than two hours before he had been defending
Renig on a charge of assault? How did he come to be sitting here at a
Lucullan feast in this magnificent room, when only three months before he
had been a homeless and almost penniless stranger in New York! Only a
fairy's wand could have done it! But there was the fairy right across the
table watching him devour his dinner. Under the softly diffused light she
was even more alluring than before. It made him a little uncomfortable.
Had she really cast a spell upon him? And he liked Devens. Force, will
power, the ability to dominate stuck out all over him. A man without
pretense. Simple and kindly. He wondered what his business might be, but
did not think it polite to ask. Was there a Mrs. Devens? His eyes
wandered to the full-length portrait above the mantel.

"My wife," explained his host. "She died when my daughter was two years
old."

To Hugh there was something slightly unpleasant about the picture, as if
the artist had taken an unconscious dislike to his sitter. He concluded
that Moira looked more like her father than her mother. Mrs. Devens had
been a brunette of the darkest type. There was little resemblance to be
detected between the warm coloring of his young hostess and the rather
cold, classic beauty of the woman over the fireplace. No, the girl was
not like her, either outwardly or inwardly probably; and he felt glad
that she was not.

It was the pleasantest evening Hugh could remember, and for the first
time in his brief career in New York he was made to feel entirely at
home. Under the influence of the friendly atmosphere he was led to tell
them the story of his struggle against conditions which nevertheless he
discovered to his surprise to have been no more difficult than those
faced by his host when he had landed forty years before, an uncouth
immigrant boy, at Castle Garden.

Hugh Dillon had been the only son of a country lawyer in a small village
on the Hudson, who all his life had fought a losing battle against
ill-health and poverty, while striving gamely to give his boy the
opportunities which his abilities deserved. Hugh had got his schooling
from such teachers as the town, and later the county, could afford,
supplemented, as he grew older, by lessons from his father and mother.
They had managed to send him first to Williams College, and then to the
Harvard Law School, from which he had been graduated a year before the
death of his father, the junior partner in the local firm of Safford &
Dillon, to whose place he had succeeded. Here he had begun the practice
of his profession, chiefly in order to be able to live at home with his
mother. It could, indeed, hardly be called a "practice" at all, and
consisted chiefly of sporadic title-searches, the drawing of chattel
mortgages, bills of sale, and an occasional will. Once or twice a year he
might try a trespass suit arising out of the damage wrought by a
wandering cow, a divorce case, or a claim for wages.

The war offered him the necessary excuse to escape from the narrowness of
a life at which he chafed after three years in Cambridge.

The armistice had found him at St. Mihiel, and seven weeks later he was
back in his native place, wearing a wound stripe, to find that his mother
had died only a fortnight before of pneumonia. The practice of Safford &
Dillon had dwindled to nothing; and, owing to the debts which his mother
had been obliged to incur by reason of his absence abroad, her estate
yielded less than a hundred dollars. He spent the afternoon at the
cemetery, and that evening took the train for New York, with forty
dollars in his pocket and a kit bag containing all his earthly
possessions.

There he had tramped the streets for weeks in a vain endeavor to find an
opening as a law clerk in some office of standing, sleeping in Mills
hotels and Bowery lodging-houses, often more exhausted and worse fed than
at any time while at the front. It was during this period that he
acquired that sympathy for the outcasts who so often found themselves in
the clutches of the law, which had led him, in default of other work, to
undertake the defense of criminals in the police court. Here his ability,
quickness, and above all, his pugnacity had quickly secured for him a
following, and before long he was able to open a small office of his own.
Meantime, however, his qualities as a fighter and his power of persuasive
speech had attracted the attention of Ignatius O'Hara, of the well-known
criminal firm of Hoyle & O'Hara, who had suggested a "connection," with
an intimation that in due course he might expect to be admitted to the
firm.

There were no junior partners in Hoyle & O'Hara, and young Dillon gladly
accepted the offer. From that moment his days, and generally his nights,
had been crammed with every sort of experience--a practical training for
an all-round trial lawyer such as, in all probability, he could have
gained in no other way. Soon, under the astute coaching of O'Hara, he was
defending most of the criminal cases in which the firm was retained; and
gradually O'Hara withdrew in favor of the younger man, whose courage and
almost Quixotic honesty made him a formidable rival of the most
experienced prosecutors.

"The boy's a wonder!" he used to say to Hoyle, after some unexpected
acquittal. "I wish I knew how he does it!" O'Hara never perceived that
the reason for Hugh's success lay in his love of truth and his passion
for justice to the under dog. He only knew, to use his own words, that
Dillon "got there." To Hoyle & O'Hara he was an invaluable
acquisition--giving, to paraphrase Pooh-Bah, an air of respectability to
an otherwise bald and unconvincing craftiness of which he personally had
no suspicion. And, lest in some unexpected manner he might be lost to
them, O'Hara persuaded his young associate to share his humble lodgings
on Franklin Street, even though that necessitated thereafter relegating
Quirk, who also dwelt there, to the sofa by the stove. Hence Hugh's
sudden translation to Castle Devens had been all the more dazzling. Had
it not been for Moira, instead of _risotto de volaille  l'orientale_,
Hugh would probably have been eating sausages and bacon off a tin plate
in O'Hara's kitchen.

Three hours later as, reclining in the Devens limousine, Hugh was whirled
back to Franklin Street, he still told himself that it could not have
happened. The truth of what old Lawyer Safford had said to him had been
demonstrated: "You never can tell who is coming around the corner,
Hughey!" And this couldn't possibly have happened in any other city in
the world.

The chauffeur had made Union Square in eleven minutes via Park Avenue,
and now, after a moment's pause to allow the crowd from the neighboring
movie house to cross, they swept on into the comparative darkness of
Lafayette Street, where the only illumination was the entrance to Cesare
Conti's Restaurant and the big clock on the faade of a new building at
Great Jones Street. The blocks whipped by like telegraph poles past a car
window. Would he ever ride in a limousine of his own? There was Police
Headquarters again. And the office of the _Corriere della Sera_--there was
Canal Street--and just beyond it the Criminal Court Building and the
Tombs!

The chauffeur stopped the car by the fire house, opened the door and
thrust in his head.

"What number Franklin Street did you say, sir?"

"No matter," answered Hugh, starting to get out. "It's just around the
corner. I'll walk the rest of the way."

"Oh, no, sir!--I'll take you!" The chauffeur touched his astrakan cap.

Hugh sank back.

"Eighty-seven and a half, then!"

The car swept round the Tombs under the Bridge of Sighs and across Centre
Street, hovered uncertainly at the Chinese laundry, and came to a stop in
front of "Pallavachini's Italian Table d'Hte for Ladies and Gentlemen."

"This is it," Hugh informed him. "Much obliged! Have a cigarette? Good
night!"

"Good--_night_!" echoed the chauffeur, staring after his passenger as the
latter disappeared into the side doorway. Then to himself: "What ever
will she be doing next!"




                              CHAPTER III


Mrs. Clayton watched the motor containing Moira Devens and Hugh Dillon
disappear in the uptown traffic of Lafayette Street, then tightened the
chinchilla about her throat, and walked to the Worth Street subway
station. Never before had she found it so hard to adhere to the letter of
the contract which she had executed more for the girl's best good than
for her own financial benefit.

As she felt her way down the iron staircase leading to the lower level
the past arose as from an open grave. "Clayton"--the magic word--stared at
her from a hoarding on the landing, and for a moment her heart fluttered.
Could she have dreamed those last terrible ten years? If she only had!
She strained her eyes at the billboard, but they refused to focus even
upon that huge type. There was no need. The face below the name was that
of a jolly-jowled pianist with a leonine mane!

The lights swam in the tunnel, but she managed to follow the pushing
crowd into the train and clutch swaying at a strap. It was not so long
ago that with her own brougham and snappy pair of bays she would have
scorned the thought of putting foot to sidewalk. Only twenty years! Had
she not been one of the most famous divas of the age? The operatic world
had been at her feet. Only Ellie Yaw could rival her high F.

Forty-second Street! A pock-marked foreigner who had been sitting just in
front of her arose and forced his way past. She followed the smell of
garlic and rank tobacco in his wake, and climbed the stairs to the
street. She had been a fool to go down there and get herself all stirred
up! Besides, she had broken her word. Suppose O'Hara had told Richard on
her, and the monthly check had stopped? It would have been Ward's Island!
The morgue! The Potter's Field for hers!

"Careful, madam!"

A policeman had taken her by the elbow and was piloting her through the
tangle of vehicles. He had been in his cradle when she had made her dbut
as Cio Cio San at the Metropolitan in 1901. Had she given him her name,
the chances were that he would not have remembered who she was. _Sic
transit gloria----!_

Eileen Clayton continued eastward toward the river, passing in course the
gleaming windows of cafeterias, cheap movie palaces, and still cheaper
cigar stores, until she reached the region of shabby respectability
achieved through the accommodation of "paying guests." Her hotel, the
Blackwell, had once been popular with the theatrical profession, upon
whom it had lost its hold by reason of the management's insistence upon a
ridiculously prompt payment of bills, and it was now in that stage of
metamorphosis between habitability and collapse where it was useless to
spend money on repairs. Outsiders could still get dinner at the Blackwell
for eighty-five cents, which meant that they could really eat for a
dollar net; and, as an added lure, the dining-room opened directly upon
the sidewalk, the guests being concealed from the view of the wayfarer by
a dusty collection of imitation palms and fly-blown rubber plants.

Mrs. Clayton entered the hotel by a side-door and started up a steep
flight of oilcloth-covered stairs, beneath which, behind a counter
holding a case of cigars, cigarettes, chewing-gum, and "life savers,"
lolled a coffee-colored mulatto girl. The walls had once been decorated
to resemble those of an Italian villa, but most of the veneer had fallen
off, and the dirt had become so ground into the marble floor that it was
no longer possible to discriminate clearly between which squares had once
been gray and which white. A door opened from the dining-room broadside
upon the counter, and directly opposite a cash register, where the
mulatto made change for such of the waiters as had transient customers.
"Fifteen off a one-spot, Tilly!" "Gimme a quarter and a nickel, gal. I
don't want to give dat couple no chance to ingratiate me with a dime!"

As a matter of fact, cash transactions were few, most of the guests being
permanent fixtures at a weekly rate, and the only transients, descendants
of such rural visitors as, visiting the metropolis in the Gilbert and
Sullivan era at the height of the Blackwell's popularity, had not yet
learned of its decline and proximate fall. Mrs. Clayton herself had
selected it as a place of residence less because of its cheapness than
because, since nobody longer knew of its existence, she was completely
hidden there. That was her main reason, but there were others of a
sentimental and less humiliating character, the chief of these being that
she had been living there when she first sprang into fame--in the very
room she now occupied. She was, in a way, a tradition associated with the
Blackwell's history, and a colored enlargement of her as a flaxen-haired
Marguerite--salvaged from the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House, had
once hung in the dining-room over the imitation palms, whence later on it
had been shifted up-stairs to her bedroom. In addition, the Blackwell,
while as inexpensive as a boarding-house, had the social advantage of an
hotel. "I'm staying at the Blackwell," sounded much better than "I live
at Mrs. Guiness's," and almost like "I'm staying at the Ritz."

The mulatto girl behind the cigar counter nodded to her.

"Good evenin', Miss Clayton. How you feelin'? We got chicken 'sevenin'. I
tole Moses to set off a po'tion of white meat for you."

"Thank you, Tilly. Would you ask him to bring it up to me in about
fifteen minutes?"

"I sho will, Miss Clayton! I sho will!"

The staircase had never seemed so high and narrow as to-night, and her
shoes kept slipping on the brass-bound treads. Her proximity to Moira for
two whole hours had exhausted her emotionally and physically. She was
obliged to lean against the wall for support before attempting to unlock
her door, and once inside she sank down weakly on a chair without taking
off her hat or turning on the light. The street lamps shone through the
grimy windows upon her emaciated figure as she sat with her head in her
hands under the portrait of the smiling and buxom Marguerite. A slowly
travelling succession of white reflections chased one another across the
yellow wallpaper as the surface cars clanged by outside, each drowning
for an instant the snapping of the steam radiator beneath the window.
Occasionally a crackle of blue flame from the slot between the tracks
would illuminate the room and dim the streak of light beneath the door
into the hall. For Eileen Clayton the room was as crowded with memories
as it was with shadows. This had been her home for ten years. Presently
she arose, removed her hat, and threw herself upon the bed.

There was a knock on the door.

"Wait a moment, please!"

Mrs. Clayton got up, snapped on the electric cluster, and went over to
the "dressing-table," as she called the bureau when speaking to the
chambermaid. She had no need to ask who was at the door. No one--except
the colored "help" and a certain regular monthly visitor--ever asked for
admittance.

"Just a minute!" she added, as, having swiftly arranged her hair, rubbed
on a dab of rouge, and powdered her nose and chin, she took a small,
shining object from her top drawer, and pressed it to her wrist.
Instantly her whole manner changed. "Come in!" she called cheerfully.

Moses Wellington, a very tall negro in a white duck jacket, opened the
door with one hand while poising upon the other a japanned tin tray, on
which was heaped a mountain of white crockery.

"Evenin', Miss Clayton. I got a lovely supper to-night fer you!" he said
in the coaxing tone one would use to a child.

Mrs. Clayton dragged a small card-table into the centre of the room, and
Moses, having placed the tray upon it, brought a chair and adjusted her
ceremoniously at the table. Then with a flourish he handed her a napkin
and, thrusting his thumb through the round hole in the cover, removed the
inverted plate which protected five shrinking oysters from the
contamination of the surrounding atmosphere.

Mrs. Clayton examined the oysters.

"I don't think I'll take oysters to-night, Moses," she said. "I've eaten
so many!"

"You doan' want no oysters, Miss Clayton!"

"I don't believe so! Do you know, Moses, I can remember when oysters were
regarded as a luxury? People used to go to the Hoffman House and the
Broadway Central just on that account."

"You doan' say! Soup, Miss Clayton?"

Moses gallantly made another bull's-eye and removed the target with his
thumb, disclosing a thick white paste.

"What kind of soup is it?"

"I kinder guess it's just soup, Miss Clayton."

"I don't believe I want any soup, Moses. I don't seem to care much for
soup any more."

"Yes, ma'am. I doan' care so much fer soup mahself. This here soup doan'
seem to have no particular individuality."

"What else is there?"

Moses' face showed sudden animation.

"I got a surprise for you, Miss Clayton!"

"Oh, how nice!" she played up bravely to the occasion.

"Chickun! Fried chickun! I kep' out a nice piece of white meat for you!
Dey was a feller asked me for another piece of white, an' I tole him it
was all out!"

"That was thoughtful of you, Moses! I love chicken--particularly the white
meat."

"Course you do, Miss Clayton."

But after a few mouthfuls she shook her head and pushed away the plate.

"It's no use, Moses. I can't eat to-night!"

"Not eben de chickun!"

He gazed at it regretfully.

"No, not even the chicken!"

"Dat's too bad! Doan' you want me to leave it here so's you could eat it
in the night if you woke up?"

"I shan't wake up, Moses. There's no use wasting it--on me!"

Her lips quivered. Moses busied himself with the crockery.

"Good night, Miss Clayton. Good night 'n thank you!"

Eileen closed the door after him and stood with her back against it. With
one exception Moses and Tilly were the nearest approach to friends left
her! Why should she have to go on forever paying? Why had she been such a
fool! She turned to the dressing-table, where stood half a dozen framed
photographs of Moira Devens: Moira in evening-dress at her coming-out
ball; Moira in street costume taken in the "Easter Parade"; Moira in
riding habit, showing her hunter; Moira as leading lady in the Junior
League play; Moira as a bridesmaid; Moira in fancy dress as Peter Pan.
She had bought them all at a shop devoted to "pictures of celebrities."

She began to feel very tired again. She should have taken something to
eat. She never had any appetite any more. The dope had done it; that was
why she was so thin. Well, thank God for it! It was always there! Just
one more shot----!

Eileen Clayton opened the top drawer. Feeling for the silver needle that
was always in readiness for instant use, her fingers came in contact with
something else--a tiny pair of baby's shoes. She took them out and touched
them to her lips.


A knock caused her to stiffen in her chair. Nine o'clock. She had been
sitting there for two hours! The little shoes were still in her lap. She
put them back and opened the door.

"Hello, Dan! Come in."

Mr. Shay patted her hand as she led him to a chair.

"How are you, Eileen? You've put on no more weight, I'm thinkin'! First
of the month----"

He took out a red Russia leather wallet and handed her a check drawn to
her order for a thousand dollars, signed with his own name as treasurer
of the Associated Architects and Builders Corporation.

"You oughtn't to moon around like this, Eileen. It ain't good for you.
Why don't you try to amuse yourself? It's bad to think too much. Let me
take you to a play or a movie some night--Why not to-night? We can get
there in time for the 'feature.'"

"Not to-night, Dan. I'm not up to it. I've been through rough weather
to-day."

"Sometime soon, then! I don't like to see you so down."

"I'm afraid I'll never be up, Danny! How's Dick?"

"Fine and dandy."

"And--Moira?" She strove to keep her voice calm.

"She's got a sweetheart, I'm thinkin'--or will have!"

Eileen leaned forward eagerly.

"Who is he?"

"Oh, I know nothing about it. She brought a young fellow home to dinner
with her to-night--a kind of Donnybrook lad."

"What did he look like?"

Mr. Shay rubbed the white pin feathers of his chin.

"Whoever says women aren't all alike now!--Not too tall and very black--as
black as comes out of Donegal. You should see the hair and eyes of him!"

"I saw a young man like that this very--" She bit her lip. "And she's
well?" she hurried on.

"Prettier than ever--a real 'Irish rose.'"

Silence came between them as their minds flew back over the years. A blue
sputter came from the car tracks--a clang.

"Dan!" said Mrs. Clayton. "I can't stand this much longer. It's killing
me. I might better be dead. It seemed to be for the best once,
but--but--Oh, Dan!"

She let her head drop on his shoulder.

"I know, my dear! I know!" he nodded, stroking the gray hair. "One can't
talk about such things. It's hard. But it is for the best, Eileen."

"It can't be right!" she cried desperately. "Moira's old enough to look
after herself. I couldn't do her any harm. Do you think I'd do her any
harm, Danny?" she implored him.

Mr. Shay arose.

"Don't ask me that, Eileen! It's too late to discuss that question. You
know how sorry I am for you. But after all, you gave her up."

"But I didn't need her then!" she protested. "And I had no time to look
after her. How could I carry a baby about with me on tour? She'd have
died of pneumonia. I didn't mean to part with her forever! I miss her
more and more every day. I can't live without her any longer. I can't! I
can't!"

The old man laid his hand on her shoulder, the bones of which were barely
covered by the flesh.

"Do you think that she'd be better off if she knew who she was? Do you
think she'd be happier to know you were her mother?"

Mrs. Clayton put her hands to her temples.

"Is she the only one? Ain't I to be considered at all? Don't you think it
a crime against nature for a mother to be deprived of her own flesh and
blood when--when she's old and sick and hasn't anybody else? Oh, Danny----"

He held out his arms to her, and she buried her face in them, sobbing.

"Poor Eileen!" he said huskily. "Poor girl! It breaks my heart. But it's
no use. He won't let you."


It was at approximately the same hour at which Eileen Clayton bade
good-night to Daniel Shay that Hugh Dillon, having been deposited by the
Devens' motor, began climbing the precipitous staircase leading to the
dwelling-place of Mr. Ignatius Loyola O'Hara. A delicious odor of frying
onions floated from above, which grew stronger and stronger as he
ascended until he reached the top landing and threw open the door of the
rear tenement, disclosing the palsied form of Jeffrey Quirk. The
"ambulance chaser" crouched before a small stove, holding a sizzling
frying-pan in one hand while apparently endeavoring to read a book in the
other; O'Hara, stretched in his shirt sleeves on a broken-down horsehair
couch and smoking a short black pipe, watched him through half-closed
lids.

"Well," announced O'Hara, "I got forty-five hundred out of the gas
company. They were scared pink! Friend Renig is a rich man, now. And I
only charged him fifteen hundred!"

"Supper's ready!" interrupted Quirk, dumping the sizzling contents of the
frying-pan into a dish in the middle of the table. "Come and get it."

The lawyer swung his feet to the floor and pulled up a chair.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" he asked Hugh.

"I've had my dinner."

"You have, eh? Where?"

Hugh, who had taken O'Hara's place on the sofa, lit a cigarette with
ostentatious indifference.

"With some friends of mine named Devens up on Fifth Avenue."

"Devens! Fifth Avenue! You can't mean 'The Old Man'?"

"I wasn't aware that he enjoyed that title. I'm referring to Mr. Richard
Devens."

O'Hara laid down his knife and fork.

"You're kidding me!"

"Not at all. I've just left there. He sent me home in his car. I'm going
to dine there again next week."

"If you're telling the truth, will you kindly explain how you got to know
him?"

"Through his daughter."

"And how did you get to know her?"

Hugh blew a few desultory smoke rings.

"I met her--socially--in a way. She's a friend of mine."

O'Hara eyed him suspiciously from beneath his shaggy brows.

"I'll wager she picked you up!"

"Well, what if she did? She was willing to make an honest man of me by
taking me home to dinner."

O'Hara reached over and pinched Hugh's leg just above the knee.

"Do you mean to tell me you didn't know that Richard Devens is one of the
richest men in New York? That he is the organizer and president of the
Associated Architects and Builders, with a capital of fifteen million
dollars, and that he has nearly as much political influence as Murphy
himself?"

"No," answered Hugh. "I hadn't an idea of it."

"Well, that is the fact. They're the people who build all the State
capitols, and viaducts, and giant hotels, and railway terminals--they
plant 'em overnight--work while you sleep. My boy, you're in clover!
Richard Devens could make you governor if he'd a mind to."

"I don't want his money!" said Hugh. "And I don't believe he could make
anybody governor." He glanced sharply at O'Hara. "Is the Associated
Architects and Builders the corporation there was such a howl about last
year--where the syndicate that marketed some of its bonds was supposed to
have made such an unholy profit, and----"

"And where the syndicate and the board of directors looked so much alike
you couldn't tell 'em apart?--That's it!" finished his partner.

"I also met an amiable ancient called Uncle Danny Shay. Who's he?"

"Devens' side partner and alter ego. They grew up together. Dick has the
brains; Dan does what Dick tells him."

"The voice is the voice of Shay, but the hand is the hand of Devens?"

"You've said it! Dick pulled him out of a hole one time, and since then
Dan thinks he's the voice of Almighty God."

"How do you know so much about them?"

"Because we have a retainer from the A. A. and B.--we act as counsel to
them in some things. Dan is secretary and treasurer. Devens is chairman
of the board--'way out of reach. So if anybody gets into trouble it will
be Dan. He won't mind! He'd go to jail for Dick any time. I guess that's
fair enough too, considering Dick kept him out."

He reached for his pipe and refilled it.

"Ever been up to the Devens' house?" asked Hugh, endeavoring to conceal
his interest under a veil of nonchalance.

"Sure I have. Not so often as Hoyle, though. He's Devens' confidential
attorney. When anything comes up that's likely to attract public
attention, he retains fellows like Choate, or Stanchfield, or Elihu Root.
But they're only window dressings. We do the work."

Quirk had retired to the corner and was immersed in his book.

"Did you ever know Mrs. Devens?" asked Hugh. "There's a picture of her in
the dining-room. If she was anything like it she must have been a
beauty."

"She was!" agreed O'Hara, lighting his pipe upside down from the lamp. "A
famous one. Supposed to be the prettiest woman in New York--daughter of
old Tibbetts, the dry-goods man--but cold as a stone, and socially on the
make. She married Devens for his money and then turned sour because he
couldn't give her the social position that she wanted. Lucky for all of
them she died when she did!"

"Why couldn't he give her what she wanted?" inquired Hugh.

"She wanted to be in the smart set--the Newport and Long Island crowd. But
as the wife of an Irish Roman Catholic contractor she found she couldn't
make it, even with all his money. It smelt a bit too strong of--well--to
use a euphemism--of politics."

"Of graft, I suppose you mean?"

"Oh, say not so!" protested O'Hara. "But I believe Devens did build some
hospitals and courthouses for the city--not to mention a few insane
asylums, incinerating plants, almshouses, et cetera, et cetera. The
swells took her money and went to her big entertainments, ate her
suppers, drank her champagne, listened to Jean de Reszke and Melba--and
then dropped her. It was too much for her!"

"From your account of the lady's character, I shouldn't say her daughter
resembled her in the least," remarked Hugh.

O'Hara knocked the ashes from his pipe.

"She takes more after the old man!" he said. "How about bed?"




                               CHAPTER IV


The sun, which had been deflected so obliquely into the Criminal Court
room the afternoon before, lifted over Chinatown and the Five Points and
hit Hugh squarely between the eyes. Through the crack of the door leading
into the kitchen crept the smell of bacon and coffee, and the murmur of
voices. He was possessed with a fierce desire for food, tempered only by
his aversion to getting out of bed. It was going to be cold. He could
tell that by his frosty breath. Then his alarm clock went off with the
clatter of a steam riveter.

Grabbing up the coverlet, he wrapped it about his shoulders, seized the
still sputtering clock, and cleared the intervening space to the kitchen
in a single leap.

Ignatius O'Hara, his face covered with lather, was shaving himself by the
window in his undershirt. Jeffrey Quirk, his wig hanging from the gas
jet, was in his customary posture before the stove, the line of
separation between his features and his bald pate so definitely marked as
to give almost the impression of his having on a false face, made,
possibly, of green cheese.

A copper boiler simmered on one side of the stove, and on the other a
steaming coffee-pot.

Hugh bade the others good morning, filled a tin basin from the boiler,
and carried it to the sink.

"Fried, poached, or boiled, Mr. Dillon?" inquired Quirk mechanically.

"Fried for me!--Three of 'em!" grunted O'Hara between scrapes. "I haven't
made up yet for the meal I lost last night. I dreamt of a mutton chop as
big as a rubric, and a mug of musty the size of a bishop's chalice."

"I'll do my own!" spluttered Hugh from behind the roller towel. "Why
don't you put on your wig, Quirk?"

"I thought it was on!" replied Quirk, trying to adjust it with one hand.
"Do you notice any difference in its color, Mr. O'Hara?"

"No more than might be attributed to the change of season," replied his
master. "As I recall, it was a soft and gentle green last spring. But
this is autumn--when the leaves are red--or is it yellow?"

Quirk held it off for inspection.

"That was because it fell into a pail of borax water," he explained, as
Hugh lifted off the frying-pan and took his seat at the table.

"What's on the calendar this morning?" he asked.

"A bunch of stuff over in the police court--but Quirk can hold most of
it--adjourn it for a couple of days until we can look it over--a Tong
murder, and one or two little things of that sort," answered O'Hara.
"Then there are a couple of motions in Part I, and five pleadings. I'll
attend to the motions, but you'll have to handle the rest. You can plead
'em all guilty then and there if they haven't any money. I've got a
habeas corpus returnable before Judge Lawrence in Part II of the Supreme
Court at eleven o'clock. A fairly busy morning. When is your next case?"

"My next case is the first one I can force the district attorney to try,"
said Hugh. "Three of our clients have been rotting over there in the
Tombs for a month, when there's not a shred of credible evidence against
them. Look at Renig! He was in the Tombs three weeks before he was tried!
Who can say there isn't one law for the poor and another for the rich?"

"Well, don't look at me!" said O'Hara. "I didn't."

"It's true all the same!" Hugh continued, waving his coffee spoon toward
the Tombs. "That place over there is just a pest-house. Every man and
woman that goes in there comes out infected with some social distemper.
I'll bet Renig is half Bolshevik already. I'd be, in his place! Justice
is the basis of everything, isn't it? We ought to administer the law as
well as we play baseball, oughtn't we?"

"Sure! We ought to!" agreed O'Hara. "But don't forget, my bonny boy, that
meantime we're making a pretty good living out of its injustices!"


The law office of Hoyle & O'Hara was no less conveniently situated than
the residence of the junior partner, being also on Franklin Street, fifty
yards nearer Broadway. It occupied the ground floor of a brick building
opposite "Pontin's," a restaurant much frequented by both prosecutors and
lawyers, as well as by their clients and witnesses. A stout rail curbed
the cupidity or apprehension of the prospective client until his business
was made fully known to the hawk-faced youth who sat on guard. Here
perforce until the word was forthcoming which admitted him to the august
presence of one of the partners, he must kick his heels on a wooden bench
in company with a waiting throng of sly-faced youths in fear of jail,
widows seeking damages for their bereavement, young ladies who had been
"taken advantage of," elderly gentlemen who were being "annoyed" and were
seeking relief therefrom, and all the others of the miscellany making up
the firm's clientele.

The office in the rear overlooking the withered plane-trees of Mulcahy's
Beer Garden, was sacred to the head of the firm, Sylvanus Hoyle himself,
whose totally bald pink pate resembled that of an oversized baby, but
whose sharp nose, small, tightly compressed mouth, and smoothly shaven
cheeks, with their cavernous eye-sockets, also gave him when his head was
covered the appearance of a large white owl in a hat, a physical
similarity intensified by the huge horn-rimmed spectacles which he was
never without.

Hoyle's past was shrouded in a mystery from which he never drew aside the
veil. Tradition had it that he was the son of a Salem clergyman--a
graduate of Harvard, who through personal experiences incident to early
dissipation, had discovered the ease with which a shrewd member of the
bar could profit by the misfortunes of his fellow men. No one knew where
he lived, and he was rarely seen outside the four walls of his office. At
rare intervals he emerged, brief-case in hand, in a blue cape and silk
stovepipe hat, on his way to argue an appeal in the Appellate Division or
in the Court of Appeals at Albany; on rarer occasions his door opened to
admit some agitated applicant for legal succor, with whom he would be
closeted for a long period of time, after which it might happen that a
smell of burning paper, suggestive of brimstone, would follow the exit of
his visitor along the passage to the outer office. Indeed the high
brazier on its iron tripod in the corner, with the possible exception of
the engraving of Lord Eldon between the windows, was the most conspicuous
object in his office. He was a man of silence, who slipped out and in
without so much as a good morning or a good night to his employees; but,
if forced to stop and speak, his face was so boyish, his eyes so
guileless, as to create an uncanny feeling that there was something wrong
there--either that he had sold his soul to Satan in exchange for the
secret of perpetual youth, or that in fact he was a child masquerading as
a man.

So far as could be observed Hoyle never spoke to O'Hara, and neither did
O'Hara speak to Hoyle, although he always referred to him with a
veneration verging, particularly when he had been drinking, upon awe. The
two must have communicated--like cats on a fence, perhaps--yet how or when,
none knew, nor what hold the older man had upon his junior partner. For
the face of O'Hara, for all that he was burly as a prize-fighter, was
cruelly lined with passion, drink, and anxiety, and his eyes were the sad
eyes of one who once had ideals that he has lost. His was the body of an
athlete with the head of a world-weary debauchee; Hoyle's the decrepit
figure of an octogenarian with the rosy cheeks and bland gaze of a
precocious infant.

O'Hara was as rough in his exterior as his senior was smooth, and at
first, with his purple unshaven cheeks and stubble-covered chin, gave an
impression of general disreputability which persisted until he had once
begun to speak, when it was immediately dispelled by the mellow,
organ-like quality of his voice. No more was known of his private history
than was of Hoyle's, although he was reported to have once had a wife,
but, whether widowed or divorced, he had her no longer, and he never
referred to her.

The third member of this strange triumvirate, who although not a member
of the bar, formed an integral part of it, was Jeffrey Quirk, over whom
as over his partner O'Hara, the silent Hoyle seemed to exercise some
occult control. In the latter's presence Quirk cowered like a dog,
shrinking from him as if in terror of the lash, or appealing with mute
eyes to O'Hara for protection. Indeed, Quirk always seemed to Hugh more
like an animal endowed with a limited rationality than a man--a mentally
enfeebled and unmoral creature, who had shattered his nervous system by
the use of drugs, yet who nevertheless retained an instinctive perception
for beauty and a curious mysticism strangely at variance with his
occupation and surroundings--in appearance a sort of living dead man,
endowed with automatic motion, whose soul still hovered within reach and
at times returned to it, but who at others could be utilized by a
stronger mind as its tool for either good or evil. He was, in a way, the
firm's familiar spirit, flitting here and there in the gloomy purlieus of
the Tombs like a bat at their behest, mysteriously appearing after
unexpected absences, always on hand in every court-room, apparently at one
and the same time, to answer "Ready!" or to plead a prisoner guilty. His
build and air, like his master Hoyle's, were boyish, but his yellow skin
was furrowed with wrinkles and scarred by smallpox.

Unsuspicious by nature, since there had been nothing in his early life to
make him otherwise, Hugh neither saw nor felt anything sinister, or even
unusual, in this peculiar trio. It did not occur to him to question any
of the statements of his associates, or to dream that either of them
could possibly be guilty of lying to him. Exteriorly they were not
particularly different from some of the lawyers he had known at home. Old
Mr. Safford was almost as bald as Mr. Hoyle. O'Hara was just like any
other roughneck attorney. Quirk aroused his pity and instinct for
protection. He knew no "Wall Street lawyers," as civil attorneys are
ordinarily referred to among the members of the criminal bar, and he had
no opportunity to meet any, since they never condescended to appear in a
criminal court, knowing full well in all probability that they would make
asses of themselves if they did so. Hence Hugh had no standard of
comparison except those set by the members of the professional staff of
the district attorney--men such as Michael Redmond, for example, whom he
disliked and distrusted. It was enough for Hugh that he was employed by
Hoyle & O'Hara to make him fiercely a partisan both of the firm and of
those whom it represented.

Hoyle & O'Hara's offices were already crowded with waiting clients when
they arrived, but since Hugh was the "trial" member of the firm, O'Hara
made a practice of conferring with most of those who merely sought
advice, thus leaving his young associate free to prepare for his more
active duties in court.

Hugh looked over his correspondence, and studied his calendar. There were
five "pleas" on it--that is to say, the firm had five clients who would be
arraigned at the bar for the purpose of being interrogated as to their
guilt or innocence. Practically nobody ever pleaded "guilty" in the first
instance. Even those caught red-handed always claimed that they were "not
guilty" in the expectation that rather than try their cases the district
attorney would accept a plea of guilty to some lesser offense or, at any
rate, to a lower degree of the same crime.

All a lawyer did was to take his stand beside his client when the latter
was brought to the bar, and say "not guilty" when the clerk asked what
plea the prisoner "desired to enter"; after which the defendant was taken
back to his cell, to remain until somebody remembered that he was there,
or the "D. A." and his lawyer got tired of haggling over the disposition
of his body. There were well-known cases where men, who if they had gone
to trial would have been either acquitted or sentenced to but a nominal
imprisonment, had lain for months in the Tombs while their lawyers
negotiated for a plea.

It angered Hugh that the liberty of human beings should be dealt with as
a matter of business or politics. He often told himself that he could
never be a prosecutor, earning his salary by convicting men and sending
them to prison or to the electric chair. How rotten it must have made
Redmond feel, for instance, to find himself in the position of
prosecuting poor Renig! This at once brought Moira to his mind. When
would he see her again, he wondered. Had she really taken a fancy to him?
Or was she merely gratifying a momentary whim, indulging herself in the
cruel amusement of playing with him to find out what that kind of young
man would do? Was she just another Roman princess who slew her lovers?
What could a girl of her wealth and social position see in a shabby
police court lawyer like himself? Yet he could not think of her without a
thrill even then. The fiery quality of her beauty was tempered by the
tenderness of her eyes. Sun and sky! Lilt of west wind, murmur of pine
tops, chuckle of shallows and gurgle of rapids! Where was he drifting?
Hoyle & O'Hara!

"Lady to see you!"

The office boy had said it just in the same metre. The words repeated
themselves in Hugh's ears:

  "Lady to see you!
  Lilt of the West Wind!
  Sunshine and starlight!
  Where am I drifting?
  Show in the lady!"

"Show in the lady."

"Yes, sir!" answered the boy, staring at him as if he were quite mad, as
he was.

He did not need to ask her name. No "lady," so far as he was aware, had
ever called at the office of Hoyle & O'Hara before--certainly not while he
had been connected with it.

"It's getting to be a sort of joke, isn't it!" she said, holding out her
hand.

"The kind I like! The best one I know!" he assured her.

"Don't be angry with me for taking you at your word so soon!" she said.
"I'm like that. If I want anything I can't wait. I have to do it right
off!"

"You've come to the right place! You can do whatever you want here right
now this minute."

"You're not angry with me--_are_ you?"

"Angry!" he answered. "I'm a rather impatient person myself. I should
have been angry if you hadn't come."

"I want to see everything! You say we girls from uptown don't know enough
to be of any help. Well, I want to know enough. Let me be your assistant.
You attend to the law, I to the philanthropy."

"A partnership?"

"Sure. Let's begin right now. Dillon and Devens."

"'Devens and Dillon,' you mean!"

She gave her characteristic little laugh.

"So you've discovered that already! You're not afraid of me, are you?"

He took hold of her arm, just above the elbow.

"Do you think I am?" he demanded.

"I thought so last night!"

There was only a bunch of orchids between Moira and Hugh. Her eyes
challenged his again.

"I'm part Irish like yourself!" he explained. "Let's go over to court and
start work. Our clients are waiting."

The little Renault had already collected a crowd. Motors did not pause in
Franklin Street even if they passed through it.

"What shall I do with the car?" she asked.

"It depends on how long you expect to stay."

"That," she retorted, "depends on you."

"In that case I wouldn't order him back before seven o'clock," he
declared.

That she should find herself in court for the second time within
twenty-four hours was no greater a surprise to Moira herself than to the
attendants about the building, who recognized her as the "Old Man's"
daughter. In coming to the Criminal Trial Term the afternoon before she
had acted purely upon impulse, and as a result of that impulse she
already had erected an elaborate dream castle, inhabited by herself and a
passionate, black-haired young man, the physical counterpart of the
defender of Paul Renig, and so desperately in love with her that he did
everything she wished, even before she asked him to. Her whole life had
been such as to develop her self-will. Richard Devens had been almost
criminally indulgent, and her wilfulness had been fostered by loneliness.
Moira could not remember ever having a mother. One of her earliest
recollections was of standing dressed all in black, with her hand in that
of her father, and looking up at the coldly beautiful face of the
portrait over the fireplace in the dining-room--her "picture mamma," as
she called it.

Even the nuns at the convent had made overmuch of her, and later on she
had gone merely as a day scholar to a smart finishing school, where,
after one o'clock, she was her own mistress. Already at sixteen she was
acting as chatelaine of the big marzipan house opposite Central Park,
presiding, to her father's intense pride, at the dinners given to his
political and business associates, flattered and encouraged to show off
by a lot of old boys who, even if they had not all kissed the Blarney
Stone, would have spoiled her out of real affection.

The wonder was that under these conditions Moira had remained the frank,
generous girl that she was, for in spite of her wilfulness there was
nothing selfish about her, and she was constantly indulging in acts of
philanthropic Quixoticism which put a heavy strain on Richard Devens'
personal bank account. She had fancied herself in love a hundred times,
but never, save to the staccato knock of that "Object!" in court the
afternoon before, had the door of her heart really swung outward. It had
opened of its own accord, before she was aware of the fact, and already a
totally unexpected stranger had his foot firmly planted inside.

Hugh did not know what to make of her. No other girl had ever before so
piqued his interest or aroused his emotions. The Hudson Valley beauties
whom he had half-heartedly wooed had been soft, simpering damsels, who
surreptitiously chewed gum and craned away giggling when he had jestingly
tried to embrace them. But this tempestuous girl----!

All that morning she sat among the spectators in the court-room listening
so attentively to the proceedings that when the hour for adjournment came
she was tired out. Instead, therefore, of going to Pontin's crowded,
smoky lunch-room, Hugh took her for a bowl of chop suey and a reviving
cup of tea to a quiet little Chinese restaurant in Doyers Street, where
they were, fortunately, the only customers, and afterward led her afoot
through the mazes of Chatham Square and Mulberry Bend, showed her where
the "Tea Water" pump had stood, the old "Kissing Bridge" on the Boston
Turnpike, and the former boundaries of the "Collect Pond." She was quite
different that afternoon, interested but passive, for what she had seen
in the court-rooms within the past twenty-four hours had been a severe
strain upon her sensibilities. Those poor, poor people! And, naturally
enough, her interest was far keener in Hugh himself than in what he
showed her. What a boy! How eager he was! He got almost as excited over
the precise location of the "Tea Water" as he had over Renig!

It was nearly four o'clock before they found themselves in front of the
office of Hoyle & O'Hara again. Her motor had been waiting there since
three. Quirk was on the steps, looking anxiously up and down Franklin
Street, and as Hugh opened the door of the motor he hastily descended.

"Mr. Hoyle wants to see you at once!" he said. "I've been everywhere for
you."

Moira, on the point of getting in, turned.

"But I thought you were coming home to have tea with me!"

"I wish I could, but duty calls!" Hugh answered, his mind reverting to
the episode of the evening before.

"But I want you!" she cried. "Send word to Mr. Hoyle that you're
engaged!"

"Seriously, I mustn't. It's been a wonderful day for me! Promise to come
again!"

He looked very handsome, very compelling, as he stood there in the dusk,
hat in hand.

"I want you--_now_!" She drew him toward her with her eyes as she had that
morning in his office. Then her lips parted in an unasked question as she
shifted her glance over his shoulder. A woman was coming down the steps
behind--a woman in a bedraggled picture hat, with a soiled chinchilla boa
about her narrow shoulders. Hugh instinctively stepped back. Eileen
Clayton stood face to face with her daughter. Every drop of blood in her
body was crying out to the girl in an agony of yearning. For an instant
she hesitated, then with a supreme effort turned up the street. Moira
looked after her compassionately.

"That is the same woman I saw yesterday afternoon. Poor creature! Do you
know who she is?"

Hugh shook his head. The haunted expression on the woman's face had
depressed him. Moira got into the motor without referring again to tea.
The electric current which all day had flowed between her and Hugh had
been broken by the interposition of another and, for the time being, more
powerful one.

"Good night!" he said. "Don't forget to come soon!"

"Good night!" she replied, but the look on her face had nothing to do
with him.


There were two persons in Hoyle's office--the lawyer, who sat with his
back to the light between the windows, and the wolfish-looking man in a
gray suit, opposite him. The blaze of glory reflected from Mulcahy's
fence made the room seem dark. A gray cat was picking her way between the
barbs on the top of the fence. Hoyle gave him a gray cat-like smile.

"Mr. Kranich--Mr. Dillon," he said, but it was as though he had not
spoken.

The wolfish man stretched his mouth into an exaggerated grin and
immediately let it snap back again. Hugh swung his chair so that the
light should not hit him in the eyes. A discolored paper bag had caught
on the bare branches of Mulcahy's plane-tree.

"Case--look after it," murmured Mr. Hoyle, in a vocal undercurrent. In the
half light he looked like the pink baby advertising some infant food. Mr.
Kranich lifted a fat brief-bag to his knees.

"It's a clear case of forgery in the third, grand larceny, and criminal
conspiracy against one of the richest corporations in the city--a
walkover! We've got 'em cold!" He fished out a dossier in blue covers.
"We've had our accountants on it now for nearly two years--ever since the
reorganization. They ran into a raft of stuff none of us even suspected!"

"Who's 'we'?" inquired Hugh.

"The parties I represent."

"What parties?"

"That I can't disclose. Important people! We're going to retain your firm
to represent us in the police court, subpoena their books, and play hell
with 'em generally. We'll have the press solid behind us. But"--and he
looked hard at Hugh--"you can't go into a thing like this half-cock! It's
a big job!"

"I should think you might persuade District Attorney Farley to lay the
matter before the grand jury in the first instance--if it's as important
as all that!" commented Hugh.

"But that's not our game. We don't want an indictment--at least, not yet.
What we want to do is to expose their corrupt practices--show 'em up!"

"Dillon's your man! He'll rip 'em up the back proper for you!" said
Hoyle.

"Well, there's money in it, all sorts of ways, if you understand me,"
remarked Kranich significantly. "They're capitalized at fifteen millions.
Their common stock is selling around ninety."

"And if this goes through--?" murmured Hoyle.

"It won't sell above nine! We all ought to make our everlasting
fortunes!"

Hugh could hardly credit his ears. Kranich was baldly proposing
blackmail!

"Who are these miscreants?" he inquired curiously.

"A concern known as 'The Associated Architects and Builders.'" Kranich
awaited the effect of his disclosure.

"You mean Devens' company?"

"Yes--one of them. The other, the J. S. Burke Company, is involved too.
We've got 'em both."

Hugh studied his partner's face. It was as expressionless as a pan of
milk. The gray cat was feeling her way toward the window. Was it
conceivable that Hoyle was contemplating taking a case against his own
client? It was unthinkable! But, if not, what could he be up to? Was he
trying to trick Kranich into disclosing his hand? Dirty business, at any
rate! In no event could he participate in a criminal prosecution against
Moira's father. These people were his friends!

"I'd like to think this matter over," he said slowly.

"Take all the time you want. There's no great hurry. Only this looks like
a fairly propitious moment for picking the plums. Glance this over and
call me up when you're ready." Kranich offered Hugh the blue dossier.
"The whole thing's right there."

"You better hang on to it for the present. I shan't have time to look at
it--I wouldn't leave it lying around if I were you."

Hoyle stretched out a short fat arm, but before his highly polished
fingernails could reach the papers Hugh lifted them out of Mr. Kranich's
hand.

"Perhaps I'll have time to go over it, after all."

He thrust the blue-backed sheets into his inner pocket. Mr. Kranich
closed his brief-case.

"Well, the sooner the quicker," he remarked, getting to his feet. "So
long, Mr. Hoyle!--So long, Mr. Dillon!" He slipped through the door like a
shadow. Hoyle got up and closed it behind him.

"Let's have a look at those papers."

"One moment!" Hugh held him off. "I would like to get this straight. In
the first place, no matter what you do I'm out of this whole business.
Mr. Devens is a friend of mine. In the second, am I right in supposing
that you intend taking a case against one of your own clients?"

Hoyle had gone back to his chair and was watching Hugh over arched
fingers.

"Who told you they were my clients?"

"O'Hara."

Hoyle's mouth drew into a small rosette.

"Doesn't it occur to you that if I find one of my clients is crooked I
can get rid of him? If Kranich has evidence that the A. A. and B., or its
officers, have been guilty of crime, there is no reason why we should
continue to represent them, or, for matter of that, why we should not act
against them. It might be our duty to do so!"

"That's a sweet thought!" ejaculated Hugh with contempt.

It was his introduction to high-class legal rascality. Hoyle eyed him
from the shadow between the windows. The cat had tiptoed along all three
sides of the fence and was now on her return trip, daintily lifting her
white paws. Hugh took a step nearer.

"And it doesn't answer my question. Are you going to take the case?"

"That depends----"

"On which side is the most money, I suppose," hazarded Hugh scornfully.
"That's one way to practise law! On the one hand to take a case against a
corporation whose money is in your pocket, or on the other to trap a man
who wishes to retain you, into giving you confidential information to
hand over to your client!--You've got to double-cross one or the other!"

Hoyle's jowls had turned the color of raw meat.

"Give me those papers or get out of this office!" he said.

Hugh buttoned his coat.

"That is what I intend to do. If I ever need a devil's advocate I'll know
where to find him. Meantime, I shall take these papers back to Kranich."

The light had faded from Mulcahy's fence. The cat had vanished. The room
was still.

"I'm a bad man to have for an enemy!" remarked Hoyle. "You're young--and--
Well--I'm willing to overlook this incident if you'll behave yourself
properly and give me those papers!"

Hugh turned his back on him and started for the door. "This is the end of
a promising young career!" he thought. The chances and changes of this
mortal life were certainly astonishing! At the threshold he paused. There
had come into his mind the refrain of the song they had used to shout at
the Heinies across the trenches.

"'The bells of hell go ting-a-ling for you, and not for me!'" he remarked
to his erstwhile partner. "Good-by, Hoyle and O'Hara! Give my regards to
Sing Sing!"


Moira's chauffeur, swinging down White Street in order to attain the
broader thoroughfare of Lafayette again, nearly ran over Mr. Michael
Redmond, who leaped gracefully upon the running-board and smiled upon
her.

"Shall I give you a lift?" she asked.

"You nearly lifted me into eternal glory!" replied Redmond, twisting
through the door. "But I will allow you to make amends. I saw you not
long ago in Part I. You seem to have the habit. Has your pet burglar
landed in the Tombs?"

"Yes," answered Moira. "All my pet burglars and murderers and robbers
have landed there. Where are you going to land?"

"I had thought of landing in your drawing-room about tea-time."

"Do, by all means."

She seemed encouragingly cordial, and it occurred to Mr. Redmond that he
had been mistaken about her not liking him yesterday afternoon. So, being
a bold young man, he said:

"You know, I would most awfully like to kiss you."

"In that case you would land in the street," she remarked definitely,
"even if I let you first. Do you remember Gautier's 'One of Cleopatra's
Nights'?"

"I wish I could!" he mused. "You will observe that I only said I would
like to."

"It is a mistake to theorize about such things."

"But not to do them?"

"If one expects to do them. It is too late now for either theorizing or
action."

Because she was Irish she liked him better this way than when he was
humble. Really, he was rather nice!

"What sort of a young man is that Mr. Dillon?" she asked, partly from a
desire to annoy him. Redmond finished lighting his cigarette.

"A nice fellow, I think. A sort of volcano. You never know when he's
going into eruption. A mighty good trial lawyer. He's all right!"

Had he but known it he could have kissed her at that moment without
rebuke! But he did not know it. He merely knew instinctively that the
best way to cajole a woman is to praise her lover.

There were fifteen young people already having tea at the house when they
made their entrance.

"Do forgive me for being late!" she begged. "No--keep right on pouring,
Mona!--Make it strong, please! I'm sorry, but I had important business
down at the Tombs--and I'm a wreck."

"I hasten to add that I wasn't the business," added Mr. Redmond,
modestly.

"Isn't it a terrible place?" inquired a languid girl with green eyes and
earrings. "I wouldn't mind seeing it myself. Will you take me down some
day, Mr. Redmond?"

Moira swung on her.

"If you are going down there merely out of curiosity you'd better stay
away, Elsie dear."

"I'm not going merely out of curiosity. I'd like to be of some help to
those poor people!"

The others had stopped talking. Moira found herself quoting Hugh.

"Don't think me rude," she said, "but the idea that girls like us can
really be of any help to men in prison, strikes me as ridiculous. What do
we know about the conditions that brought them there? For that matter,
what do we know about life?"

From which sententious utterance most of those present immediately
concluded that she was stalking Mr. Michael Redmond, and was taking that
way of notifying others to keep off her hunting-ground. Her remark,
however, was taken as a challenge, and precipitated an animated
discussion in which Moira found herself hopelessly in the minority, and
which was still going on when the party broke up at seven o'clock.


Meanwhile, in her father's den across the hall, another discussion was
taking place which, curiously enough, also centred about the Tombs.
Richard Devens had no downtown office, and it was Daniel Shay's habit to
report to him daily at about six o'clock, after which, if his friend had
nothing else afoot, he was very apt to stay to dinner.

They sat in their customary attitude, Devens at his desk with the
right-hand slide pulled out, and Shay beside him, this position having
been demonstrated by experience to be convenient for the examination of
papers.

"I'm after seeing Eileen last night, Dick. She's in a bad way--says she
can't live like this any longer. I feared from her manner of speaking she
might try to do away with herself."

Devens' massive jaw seemed to grow squarer.

"It breaks my heart, Dan! But what can I do? She's worse than she's ever
been. How could I let her see Moira? It would ruin the girl's life."

"Eileen's livin' in hell!"

"She brought it on herself!"

Uncle Dan laid his hand on that of his associate.

"After all, she's Moira's mother!"

Devens bowed his big head.

"The mother must always be sacrificed to the child," he said. "It's the
law of nature. You know how I loved her, Danny!--how I still love her--the
real Eileen, I mean! This poor creature is somebody else! I knew trouble
was brewing before you came in. Hoyle telephoned me she'd been down there
to see him and wanted the contract modified so she could see Moira once a
week. But, Dan, if I let her see the girl once, she'll want to be with
her all the time. Moira'd have to become nurse to a drug addict. I can't
turn this house into a sanatorium! I've got troubles enough as it is!"

"Did Hoyle give you any other news?"

"Yes. Kranich's gang have started their campaign. Who do you suppose they
tried to retain first? Hoyle himself!"

"Hoyle!"

Shay gave an ironic chuckle.

"That's a good one! Luck's still with us!"

"Hoyle says he'd have had their guts if young Dillon hadn't kicked over
the bucket."

"Dillon? How?"

"By insisting that Hoyle and O'Hara refuse to take the case, on the
ground of their retainer by us. Incidentally, I gather that he used some
pretty strong language and then checked out."

"The young devil!"

Devens rubbed his chin.

"Hoyle says Kranich intends to lay the case before the district attorney
as soon as he gets counsel. If we could find out in advance what they're
going to try to prove, we could forestall 'em. No district attorney is
going to stand in with a bunch of blackmailers unless he has to."

Devens meditated a moment just as Moira, the tea-party having broken up,
paused on the threshold.

"It's a damn shame young Dillon couldn't get on with Hoyle and O'Hara. I
took a real fancy to him. He must have acted pretty rough for Hoyle to
fire him!"

Moira stepped quickly into the room.

"Do you mean that Hugh Dillon has lost his position with Hoyle and
O'Hara, daddy?"

"That is the fact."

"Oh, daddy! And I was going to make him Mayor of New York!"

"I fancy he'd still be willing, wouldn't he?"

"But how is the poor boy to live? He doesn't know anybody in New York?
Where do you suppose he is sleeping to-night? Why can't we ask him up
here! Oh, I knew some bad luck was in store when that poor woman came out
and looked at me so strangely. It was the second time I'd seen her. You
know, daddy, she acted exactly as if she knew me! For a moment I thought
she was going to speak, for she half-smiled as she went by--such a
pathetic smile it was!--and started to hold out her hand."

Devens lifted the cover of the humidor and felt inside for a cigar
without meeting her eyes.

"Maybe she did know you. A lot of people must recognize you as my
daughter."

"I'd never laid eyes on her before yesterday afternoon. I'm sure of it.
No one who'd seen her once could ever forget her, daddy!--Hugh Dillon was
with me. I hope she didn't cast the evil eye on him! Oh, what am I
saying! You'll do something right off for him, daddy--won't you? Why don't
you make him an assistant district attorney?"

At her words Uncle Dan lifted his cupped hands and clapped them silently
together behind her.

"That's a grand idea, Dickie!" he commented. "He might be after coming in
very handy some day. A friend at court, you know!"

"Oh, do! daddy!" cried Moira. "That would be simply wonderful! That is,
if he'd take the position."

"Take it? Of course he'd take it! What young man wouldn't?" asked her
father.

"Hugh Dillon mightn't!" she answered seriously. "He's a queer lad! But,
oh, daddy!" and she threw her arms about Richard Devens' neck and kissed
him, "he's a broth of a boy! And I love him!"




                               CHAPTER V


Hugh Dillon, quivering with anger, stood on the steps outside Hoyle &
O'Hara's. So they were a couple of crooks, were they? He might be
committing legal suicide, but he wanted no more of them. He must leave
the flat, find some other place to live. Another illusion gone! And less
than an hour ago the future had looked so bright!

Darkness was shrouding Franklin Street as he descended to the sidewalk.
He would go back to Pallavachini's, pack up his dunnage, and get out! Why
not chuck all this dirty police court business and make a fresh start as
a respectable lawyer! There was nothing in a miscellaneous practice among
the poverty-stricken inhabitants of the lower East Side.

He found Jeffrey Quirk on the corner in front of the Elm Castle Caf,
where evidently the runner had been awaiting the outcome of his interview
with Hoyle.

"I've fired myself!" Hugh informed him. "I've told Hoyle he was a fat
crook and kissed the firm good-by."

"I hope you didn't act too hastily, Mr. Dillon. It's been fine to work
with you!"

Hugh laid his hand on Quirk's shoulder.

"I shall miss you, Jeffrey. We've had good times together. But I shall
still see you, of course. I'm not retiring from practice, you know."

"I was almost hoping you were!" replied Quirk. "You're too good a lawyer
for this kind of work, Mr. Dillon. You ought to go down to Wall Street
and get into corporation or banking law. That's where they make the real
money. You'd find it much more congenial there, too. A gentleman can't
make a living practising criminal law."

"Then why do you practise it?"

A strange smile flickered over Quirk's jaundiced face.

"Because I'm not a gentleman," he answered.

Hugh turned quickly upon him.

"Of course you are, Jeffrey!" he retorted. "Nobody could be more of a
gentleman than you."

The grateful look that had come into Quirk's eyes at Hugh's words was
followed by a hopelessly tragic one.

"You don't know me, Mr. Dillon!" he said, looking away. "This is no life
for you, sir."

"But I love it, Jeffrey! It's terribly interesting! I get more out of a
day here than I would in a year in Wall Street!"

"It's a crooked business!"

"Then why don't you get out of it yourself?"

Quirk looked away.

"I can't!" he whispered. "God help me!--I wish I could!"

Above their heads the gray battlements of the Tombs were tipped with a
golden sheen; in the sky over the Criminal Court Building glinted a white
speck which Hugh knew to be a kite. Somewhere in Mulberry Bend Park there
was a child holding the end of the string that bound it to the earth--a
child seeking to draw happiness down from heaven as Franklin had sought
to draw lightning from the clouds. His eye followed the coping of the
great wall, with its massive bastions, to the huge iron door on the
Lafayette Street side through which those sentenced to a more awful
misery were evacuated. What a hopeless horror was theirs! Even as he
watched, the iron gates swung inward and a heavy motor van with opaque
barred windows and a policeman swinging on behind, rumbled forth--the
"Black Maria"--the hearse that bore the civilly dead to their living
graves. He knew that in the dark interior was packed a swaying, stinking,
cursing mass of human beings. Resentment against their arbitrary fate
surged through his body. Was he to abandon them?

"I'll not give in yet!" he declared. "I guess I can manage to make a
living!"

They had reached the flat and Hugh threw his few belongings into the
battered suitcase. Quirk carried it to the foot of the stairs. On the
sidewalk they shook hands.

"Who knows!" remarked the runner. "I may be doing this for you some day
when you're Mayor of New York."

"Not for a while yet!" laughed Hugh. "Give my best to O'Hara. Tell him
I'll meet him at Philippi!"

"Meanwhile what will be your address?" asked Quirk.

"The Waldorf-Astoria," replied the future mayor. "I mean Mills Hotel No.
1."


The next two months saw the hardest struggle of Hugh's life. Within three
weeks of his departure from Hoyle & O'Hara's he found himself once more
forced to resort to the penny coffee stand on the corner. Pride kept him
from going to see Moira, or seeking her father's influence, as it did
from borrowing of O'Hara, or asking Judge Barker for an "assignment" to a
murder case, where the State made the attorney a regular allowance of
five hundred dollars--that being the customary method of tiding over an
unsuccessful but politically loyal member of the criminal bar who found
himself temporarily without means of support. For the second time since
he had come to the city Hugh experienced hunger; and for a day or two he
even thought of trying to get a job on the police force.

Then the tide turned, a few clients drifted his way, and he was able to
hire a couple of rooms over the Elm Castle Caf, directly opposite the
Tombs and diagonally across from the Criminal Court Building. Cold and
noisy, they were no improvement upon Mills Hotel No. 1, by day filled
with the odor of cooking and the clatter of dishes from the kitchen
below, while by night the ceiling served as a football field for a family
of rats. Standing at his window and looking across at the lighted windows
of the "Htel de Ville"--as O'Hara had always called the Tombs--he decided
that, in spite of their being under restraint, its inmates were probably
considerably better off than himself.

They had company, anyhow--could rattle their bars and howl. And get an
answering howl in return! He wanted such a howl badly. Save for O'Hara
and Quirk, he knew nobody who lived in the locality. His professional
outlook was as discouraging as that from his window. The fact that he had
been dropped by Hoyle & O'Hara had seriously prejudiced his chances of
success, and he made the depressing discovery that those charged with
crime were apt to select their legal representatives less for their
ability than for their supposed influence with the authorities. For the
first time Hugh learned the full scope of the chicanery practised by the
shysters to hook their clients--the iniquitous fee-sharing system by which
keepers and turnkeys became "runners" or agents for such attorneys as
returned the largest quid pro quo. Since Hugh refused to participate in
this customary proceeding, few clients sought his aid, and those who did
had little or no money. Day after day he sat on the front bench of Part
I, hoping vainly for an assignment, forced to listen to others mangling
cases he could have tried much better and allowing golden opportunities
to slip by unavailed of. He was ashamed to go to see Moira, although she
was constantly in his thoughts. It was one thing to call upon her as a
junior member of a successful law firm which numbered her father among
its clients; quite another for a shabby, down-at-the-heels fellow, a
penniless hanger-on of police courts, who hardly knew where his next meal
was coming from, to do so.

His greatest disillusion was to find that what Quirk had said about most
criminal practice being crooked business was only too true. Theretofore
he had taken the cases O'Hara had turned over to him and put in whatever
defense the latter had indicated, acting purely as a barrister, without
concerning himself over the origin or preparation of the case. Quirk had
"lined up" the witnesses and Hugh had put them on the stand and examined
them. But to his disgust he now discovered that his clients generally
expected him not only to invent a defense but to supply the witnesses as
well. "What shall we testify to?" was the question inevitably put to him;
and when he told his clients in reply that all he wanted from them was
the truth, they looked at him as if he were crazy, and generally sought
another lawyer.

Before very long he became convinced that success in the criminal law was
hardly to be achieved without loss of honor, and he was forced to concede
that it was probably not for nothing that his associates of the criminal
bar were commonly spoken of as "shysters." Nevertheless, he refused to
give up the struggle. Sooner or later, he told himself, decency and
ability would win through. And there were so many poor devils who needed
the help that he was able to give!

It was at this juncture, while loitering in the corridor one afternoon
outside Part I, that he received a message that the district attorney
would like to see him. He entered the latter's office just as Mr. Farley
was in the act of hanging up the telephone receiver after a talk with
"Old Man" Devens. This fact he, naturally, did not disclose to his
visitor, but it had much to do with the cordiality of his greeting.

"It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dillon! Pray be seated. Terence,
close that door! Won't you have a cigar?"

Hugh accepted the official cigar. He had not the slightest inkling of why
the district attorney should have sent for him, and he feared the Greeks
bearing gifts, particularly one who looked like so wily a Ulysses.

A lifetime spent in politics had developed in Mr. Farley a shrewdness not
incompatible with real warmth of heart, and an air of authority and a
brusqueness of manner that were out of character with his rather timid
nature; but he had a superficial hardness which, until understood, was
rather terrifying. His instantaneous facial transitions from the severity
he did not feel to the amiability which he did feel, produced an effect
of insincerity, but his chief insincerity consisted in his pretending to
be severe. Like most politicians, he was a coward, but he had on one or
two occasions, in his earlier days, exhibited what had passed for courage
by bolting his ticket and voting for Reform, because he had a hunch that
the boys had gone too far, and that Tammany might get it in the neck. He
had learned his lesson, however--the knowledge necessary to every holder
of public office--that no courage pays so well as that shown by sticking
to one's friends, and that nothing remains so long unforgiven as
political disloyalty.

Mr. Farley was a stocky, elderly gentleman with a mass of curly gray
hair, a reputation for oratory, and a tendency to fatty degeneration of
the heart. The oratory was of that "God's-green-footstool" variety now
obsolete, except at political conventions, Tammany ratification meetings,
and Lotos Club banquets, but having been drafted by his party for over a
quarter century of eloquence, he had at length been rewarded by being
made high priest in the Temple of the Blind Goddess. As such he gave
general satisfaction, being considered a safe, fair-minded, practical
man, who believed in a common sense enforcement of the laws, and could be
counted on not to go off the hooks. Under his administration, through the
simple expedient of never entertaining a case unless a conviction was
certain to follow, his record for putting criminals behind the bars had
reached nearly one hundred per cent, while by the same token all with
grievances were given to believe that fullest vengeance should be theirs.
If in the end they were sent away empty, it was only after the most
polite and assiduous examination of their complaints--for of such is the
electoral majority composed.

What Mr. Farley thought was: "I have got to run this joint so that
everybody will be satisfied--including the papers. There is no use getting
people sore. I must never kick out a case so there'll be any comeback. If
I work it right I might even get a joint renomination!"

What he said was: "I want every citizen who comes here for assistance to
know that I am his servant and that the entire resources of my office are
at his disposal."

What he whispered to Terence, his door attendant, was: "Show this gink
into my office and let me give him the once over. Then you come in and
say Judge Barker has sent for me."

What issued from his office in a mellifluous vox humana was: "Officer,
kindly send Mr. Assmanshausen in to me, and see to it that we are
undisturbed."

Yet Mr. Farley was not any more hypocritical than most people. If it
seems so, that is only because attention is being called to his
hypocrisy, which was entirely official. On his personal side, he was
sympathetic and affectionate, and not a night in his life but he read
aloud for at least an hour to his younger sister Bridget, who had had a
stroke and was confined to her wheel-chair. Neither had ever married, and
their mutual devotion was quite beautiful. It was also entirely genuine.
Had this not been so, Mr. Farley would not have taken her for six weeks
every summer to an Adirondack camp, where it was almost impossible to get
anything to drink.

He was a friendly son of St. Patrick, fond of gathering a few old cronies
about a bottle of County Antrim and singing, in a mellow, quavering tenor
such good old songs as "A Fine Old Irish Gentleman." On these occasions
he experienced an ineffable tenderness toward his fellow men, at times
affecting him to tears.

He was an officer of many societies, several of which made a practice of
marching up Fifth Avenue at stated intervals to demonstrate their love of
country, and it was a foregone conclusion that the hearse which bore him
to his grave would be followed by a notable procession of hacks carrying
a select number of his fellow members, sorrowing at the joint expense of
all, and making Roman holiday.

Few who asked him for money did he refuse. He saved nothing, being
supported in perpetuity at the public expense by the political
organization which he adorned. He would have given his last dime to any
beggar who touched his elbow, but no abstraction could have touched his
heart. His sister Bridget he could see and feel and love; but the Blind
Goddess was only a mural decoration in the panel above the judge's dais,
at the unveiling of which he had delivered an oration. In fact, he had
forgotten that she was there, as had most of his assistants.

"Mr. Dillon," he said, without further preliminary and in a crisp,
businesslike tone, "I am wondering whether you would care to take a
position in this office?"

The offer was so unexpected that it did not at first occur to Hugh that
he was being tendered a place upon the professional staff.

"What sort of a position?"

Mr. Farley hesitated. He had to oblige "Old Man" Devens, but he wanted to
do so at the least political cost. He could give Hugh a choice of
positions with salaries ranging from one thousand dollars a year up to
ten thousand, and he must, to save his own face, offer this shabby young
man something fairly good.

"On my professional staff, of course. I have a vacancy"--he
temporized--yes, the chap looked actually hungry!--"among the deputies. The
salary is only forty-five hundred, but----"

"Why do you offer me a forty-five hundred-dollar position?" demanded
Hugh.

Mr. Farley grew faintly red. Had he taken the question literally, as Hugh
intended he should, and had answered it truthfully, he might have said:
"Because, Goddammit! the Old Man has told me to look out for you!"

Since, as far as Mr. Farley was concerned, the situation savored of a
business transaction, he assumed that Hugh was dissatisfied with the
amount of the salary offered, and concluded that he had made a mistake in
judgment.

"Because," he explained rather nervously, "that happens to be the only
position open--at the moment. However, in a short time, I expect to have
other vacancies, and then, of course, I----"

"What I want to know is why should you offer me anything!"

"Offer you--anything?" It was Mr. Farley's turn to be astonished.
"Why--I--you're just the kind of man I'm looking for."

Hugh regarded him doubtfully.

"The hell I am!" he thought. Aloud he said: "I wasn't aware that you'd
ever heard of me."

"Quite the contrary!"

The district attorney's interest was aroused. What sort of a chap was
this, anyway? Devens had warned him not to disclose his request, but
Farley had not expected that his offer would be treated as something to
be scrutinized before acceptance. Perhaps this meagre youth was a
personage.

"My dear fellow!" As a flatterer no one could be more adept. "Of course
everybody knows you. I have watched your career with the keenest
interest! And I must say to you that I have never known a young man who
in my opinion had a more brilliant future. Oh, yes! I know! You are
probably not aware of your own gifts or reputation! It speaks well for
your modesty!"

He raised a benignant hand to negative Hugh's instinctive denial of this
soft impeachment.

"Now this is what I am leading up to," went on the district attorney. "I
have an important office to run--a very important office. You know how
hard it is to find anybody who has both character and brains! I haven't
got anybody that I can really trust and lean on. Of course there's
Redmond, but he can't compare with you in ability. And he's by all odds
the best man I've got!"

Mr. Farley waited for the effect of his words to sink in.

"If you want to come in here and don't mind taking rather a low salary, I
will see that you get work worthy of your abilities. It will excite some
jealousy at first, no doubt, but you are man enough to handle that, and
as soon as opportunity offers I'll shove you up on the pay-roll. Unless
something I can't foresee intervenes--it is even possible that you might
in time succeed me as district attorney."

He spoke earnestly, and Hugh was convinced of his sincerity. The
magnitude of the opportunity dawned upon him. Its acceptance might, as
the district attorney held out, lead to a political career, or at any
rate to a profitable legal one. A man who had once held the office of
district attorney invariably fell into a good practice. Yet he still held
strongly to the idea that the sending of men to prison for hire was, in
general, less ennobling than trying to keep them out of it.

"It is more than kind of you!" he answered. "I am very much flattered."

"Well, dammit! You ought to be!" thought Mr. Farley.

"My dear fellow," he said aloud, "it is I who will be flattered if you
accept. Is there any reason why you should not do so at once? You seem to
have something on your mind. Please be frank with me. If it's the
salary----"

"Oh, the salary doesn't matter!"

Mr. Farley was pained. Had he thrown away forty-five hundred?

"Well, what is it, then?"

Hugh gave an embarrassed laugh. He did not wish Farley to think of him
either as a fool or as animadverting upon the district attorney's own
means of earning a livelihood.

"The fact is I'm not quite sure whether I'd like sending men to jail."

"Why shouldn't you?"

"For one thing, I'm not sure I could do it as well! Besides"--he smiled--"I
might forget I was prosecuting and object to my own questions!"

"I wouldn't worry about that!"

"When would the position be open?"

"Now. I'm holding it open for the right man--for you!"

"What sort of work would I have, may I ask?"

"Oh, we'd run you through the mill at first--give you a few days in the
police courts, a few more in the Special Sessions, the Indictment,
Complaint and Homicide Bureaus, and then set you trying cases. Why not
say 'yes' right now--before you go out?"

"I'd like to," said Hugh, "but it wouldn't be fair to either of us if I
took your offer without considering all sides of it. It's a radical
step."

"A step in the right direction--that of the public service. The People
would be your clients. You would be engaged in furthering the great cause
of Justice."

Hugh got up. He had begun to like Mr. Farley. Already he had formed a
high opinion of his ideals and perspicacity.

"I will let you know to-morrow morning," he said. "It's a very tempting
offer. Thanks a lot, anyhow."

Mr. Farley watched Hugh go out with an expression of amusement and
incredulity.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he remarked to the imitation rubber plant beside
him. "I shouldn't wonder if that young shrimp comes in here he'll be
telling me how to run the place inside of a week!" The telephone caught
his eye. He looked at the clock. He had still ten minutes before he was
due in court.

"Get Mr. Devens for me," he ordered the operator. "Look here, Dick! What
sort of a fellow is this, anyway?" he asked him.

Hugh took the elevator to the street. His suspicions were in no way
aroused, since the general incompetence of the district attorney's staff
was only too manifest, and he could not but be aware of his own ability.
He was at the parting of the ways. He was at the end of his resources. As
a criminal practitioner he was a failure. Why should he hesitate to
accept so glittering an offer?

As he emerged from the side door of the building he encountered two
officers dragging an Italian prisoner between them toward the
Magistrate's Court. He was bleeding from the nose and mouth. A young
woman with a baby at her breast trudged close behind. She was hardly more
than a girl. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Whenever the prisoner
attempted to speak to her one of the officers would jab him in the ribs
with his billy. A little crowd trailed along cursing the police. Could he
leave these wretched and unfortunate folk to their fate? One of the Bible
verses which his mother had so often read to him came into his mind.

  So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under
  the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had
  no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but
  they had no comforter.

He could not!

He realized suddenly just how much he had come to love these dirty,
unkempt, ignorant people whom he had succored, many of them sinners, most
of them erring, but all of them victims of circumstance and of natural
laws so harsh and implacable as to seem unjust.

Would not the gratitude of those for whom he had thrown open the gates of
liberty more than compensate him for a life of poverty and hardship?
Could he abandon them now--those wretched ones to whom he could truthfully
say:

  "The deaths that ye died I have watched beside
  And the lives that ye lived were mine"!

How could kindness, loyalty, and gayety be put to better service?
Impulsively he turned and followed the prisoner into the police court.
Forcing his way through the crowd, he said to the clerk:

"I will appear for the defendant."

An hour later, sitting alone in his carpetless office over the Elm Castle
Caf, he was still deliberating what he should do when he heard a knock
on the door behind him.

"Come in!" he called out, without getting up.

Moira's head appeared in the crack.

"Is the mayor in?" she inquired in an awestruck whisper.

He sprang up and threw the door wide.

"Miss Devens!"

"You call me 'Moira,' don't you? But it's so long since you came to see
me I suppose you've forgotten!"

"Moira!"

Her heart went out to him--he looked so miserable--hungry almost.

"Aren't you going to ask me in? Why have you stayed away?"

He wondered how he could have done so.

"Do come in!" he said. "I've--I've been so awfully busy. I've started out
for myself, you see----"

"How about Dillon and Devens?"

"Devens and Dillon!" They both laughed at that old joke, and immediately
felt at ease. She did not urge her question. A single glance about the
wretched rooms and at Hugh's suit, which had not been pressed for a
month, was enough to tell her that pride had been the reason for his
absence.

"Your office is certainly convenient!" she remarked, looking out of the
window at the Tombs. "But it's not a very cheerful outlook! What a
terrible place that is over there! And the Criminal Court Building isn't
much better! It looks quite as much like a prison! May I smoke in a
lawyer's office?"

He struck a match for her.

"In this lawyer's office!" he said.

She tossed her boa of silver fox upon the desk and took the kitchen chair
he offered her.

"Haven't you missed me?"

"Oh, Moira! How can you ask such a thing!"

She could not misinterpret the emotion in his voice.

"I know how busy you must have been, but you should try to see your
friends!"

She smiled and her smile seemed to fill the shabby room with light. The
air about them seemed to be fragrant with fresh violets. Here, as in the
court-room where he had first seen her, the reflected sunlight from the
wall of the Tombs gave her a strange beauty--a sort of aura, through which
her eyes regarded him like stars seen through a mist. And she had come to
_him_! The realization of that fact filled him with happiness.

"Tell me all about--everything!" she urged.

"The only important thing is that I have been offered a position on the
district attorney's professional staff."

"How splendid! Of course you'll accept it?"

His face became worried.

"I don't know. Do you think I ought to? I hate a quitter!"

"But this is the chance of your life, Hugh!"

"It is in one way," he replied. "But I'm not so sure I want it. Now I'm
helping people to fight injustice. Less than an hour ago I got a poor
devil off who had been falsely accused and beaten up by the cops. That's
something worth while! I don't want to send people to jail. I don't want
to live on blood money!"

His cheeks had taken on a hectic flush and his voice had risen to an
excited pitch.

"But, Hugh!" she said soothingly. "Aren't you assuming something that
isn't so? Some people really ought to be convicted, oughtn't they? All
your clients are not unjustly accused of crime. You're not fighting for
the right in defending them--any more than if you were prosecuting
them--not so much! It's a question of fact, not of which side you are on."

"Yes, but--" he began.

"The trouble with you, Hugh," she interrupted him, "is that you're a born
radical. You mustn't let that blind you to the fact that it's easier to
demolish a windmill from the inside than to knock it over from the
outside. By instinct you're a reformer. Then why not reform? If you think
people are unjustly accused, why don't you see to it that they aren't?
Why don't you stop injustice at the source instead of trying to rectify
it afterward?"

Hugh listened attentively.

"I never looked at it that way before. You may be right."

She leaned forward and laid her hand on his.

"And don't you want to be a great man, Hugh? Don't you want to have
everybody say how grand you are, and cheer you, and vote for you? Don't
you want to be Mayor of New York? Don't you think you'd have more
influence and right more wrongs than if you were just a criminal lawyer?"

"You're the one who should be mayor, Moira!"

"Well, perhaps I shall be--who knows? Give me another cigarette."

He looked for a match and found that they were used up. Twilight was
thrusting its bejewelled fingers down Lafayette Street. The sunlight that
had tipped the battlements of the Tombs had leaped into the arc of fading
blue above, the room had darkened, and they sat in the reflected glow of
the lamps outside. He should not have stayed away from her! He was
conscious of a great need, the need he had felt ever since he had lost
his mother. And much more besides. His eyes strained toward her as an
emotion stronger than anything he had ever known before possessed him.
There was nothing merely gay or gallant about it. He was profoundly
moved. He felt like crying.

He no longer thought about the district attorney's offer; he was thinking
that the only really important thing was that he should be near her.

"Hugh!" Her voice brought him back to the Elm Castle.

"Yes, Moira!"

"This is your great opportunity. Don't let it slip. The city needs men
like you, Hugh! Men who put their ideals above everything else. You
didn't seek the office, it sought you. If you really want to help the
cause of justice this is your chance."

"If you want me to, Moira--I will."

"I think it's your duty, Hugh."

"Then I'll tell Farley so to-morrow morning."

"That's a good boy!" She got up and looked out at where the little
Renault was standing. "And now," she said, "I'm going to kidnap you for
the second time and take you home to dinner!"

It was so dark on the stairs that she had to take his arm. . . .




                               CHAPTER VI


"Glad you've decided to come in with us, Dillon! Redmond will steer you
around and show you the ropes. It isn't as if you hadn't had any
experience. In a week or so, no doubt, you'll be teaching all of us."

The Honorable Peter Farley slapped Hugh affectionately upon the back on
the threshold of his office, and then turned to his desk.

"For God's sake tell him to get some decent clothes!" he whispered to
Michael Redmond, who was trailing behind them.

"And have him black my eye? Not much! He'll be all right, chief!" Mr.
Redmond slipped a gold cigarette-case back into his pocket, and struck a
match. "That is the kind of bird I stay on the right side of!"--then
raising his voice--"Come along, Dillon! Let's see what sort of an office
they've given you."

It was Hugh's first appearance in his official capacity as a deputy
assistant district attorney of the County of New York, and accompanied by
the Honorable Peter Farley, he had just taken the official oath before
Judge Barker down in Criminal Term, Part I, to support the Constitution
of the United States and of the State of New York. He had kept his eyes
reverently fixed upon the Blind Goddess as he repeated the words of the
oath. It distressed him that her lineaments had become so dim, and he
commented upon that latter fact to Judge Barker when the latter expressed
his congratulations.

"I am delighted, Mr. Dillon! Delighted! Mr. Farley has certainly made an
admirable selection--one that will give universal satisfaction!"

To whom, Hugh wondered.

"What you say about that old picture is undoubtedly true. I suppose it
would be rather dangerous for anybody except an expert to attempt to
clean it. Do you not think it would be advisable, Mr. Farley, for you to
make an application to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for an
appropriation to have the panel renovated?"

Mr. Farley, whose interest was purely academic, took a sideways slant at
the Blind Goddess.

"Why yes, I suppose so!" he concurred unenthusiastically. "I'll speak to
Buckley about it."

The news of Hugh's elevation to officialdom had been carried swiftly
through the catacombs of Franklin Street. It amused him to find how much
the fact that he was now an office-holder seemed to raise him in the
estimation of those with whom he had been constantly associating on
intimate terms for months. Lawyers who previously had been rather
condescending touched their hats to him while ostentatiously calling him
by his first name. The court officers, hitherto somewhat brusque, now
treated him with punctilious courtesy, holding open the doors of the
court-room for him and dragging common people out of the way in order to
facilitate his progress. Michael Redmond had been especially gracious.

"So they've given you O'Rourke's old office! It's not so bad, after all!"
he now exclaimed, as one of the process-servers, who had hurried on
ahead, threw open the door of a good-sized room, situated immediately
behind the elevator shaft on the top floor of the building. "The Homicide
Bureau is over in that corner--they handle all the murders, you know. Just
around the corridor is the chief clerk's office, and that flight of iron
stairs leads up to the property-room, where we keep our family skeletons.
On the whole rather convenient----"

"If I happen to want a skeleton!" commented the new deputy. "What's
outside?"

They strolled to the window. Below them lay the courtyard of the Tombs,
where several hundred prisoners were engaged in taking their morning
exercise.

"There are your babies!" remarked Redmond. "It won't take you long to get
used to being on our side of the bar. Have a cigarette? Why don't we sit
down?"

The room was about fifteen feet square, the floor covered with drab
oilcloth, the walls and ceiling badly cracked. In one corner stood a tall
metal cupboard, called a "safe," but offering no protection other than
that afforded by a mere lock, for its tin sides could have been
perforated by any self-respecting can-opener. A walnut roll-top desk
stood against one wall, while a dusty oak table on which lay a blue
blotter and a glass inkwell held the centre of the stage. A grating
opened into the room from a sort of chimney.

"Ventilator--leads down into the prison pen," explained Redmond. "If we
weren't smoking, you could smell their lunch." He leaned back in his
chair and crossed his feet on the table. "You don't mind my giving you a
tip or two, old man? You and I must stand together.

"Farley's a good old slob, but he's scared of his own shadow--always
trying to please everybody--playing both ends against the middle. He
hasn't the nerve to do anything that would get his name in the papers. He
wouldn't be hired to go into court himself. If we work together and go
about it right, you and I can divide all the star cases between us.
That's better than killing each other's chances. Our game is to talk each
other up big to Farley until he's convinced that we are the two finest
trial lawyers in New York County."

In spite of Hugh's innate distrust of Redmond he was amazed at the
cold-blooded attitude which he disclosed.

"Of course you'll find that the other men will try to pocket you and get
you assigned to some dirty work like Special Sessions or calendar call in
Part I. Don't touch any chicken feed like that. And don't let them dump
any lemons on you in the way of rotten cases where nobody can get a
conviction. Never pull anybody else's chestnuts out of the fire."

"I'll be on the lookout!" Hugh assured him.

"You've got to be hard as nails in this business. 'Survival of the
fittest,' you know! Be agreeable to everybody but don't let 'em put
anything over on you. Don't waste time on doubtful cases. Nothing counts
here but convictions, and those don't unless they get into the papers.
What you want to try for is a big murder case."

Hugh nodded.

"By the way, if I can help you in any other way--you're more or less of a
stranger in New York, I believe--just call on me. I can tip you off to the
best restaurants and all that sort of thing. If you should think of
trying a new tailor I have a very good little firm--Erdman and Erdman--whom
you might find satisfactory. Ta-ta!" Redmond with a graceful gesture of
farewell sauntered out.

So the Honorable Michael thought his clothes were not good enough, did
he? Hugh scowled after the elegantly clad retreating form. Well, Mr.
Michael Redmond could go straight to the devil! He decided that the first
thing to do was to see what condition the desk was in. Before he had
rolled back the top, however, he gave his coat a surreptitious glance. It
was pretty shabby at that. So were the trousers. After all, he was a
public official. Perhaps he should have some new clothes. He had worn the
same suit ever since he had been in New York! He must make himself
presentable to Moira--get some new clothes that very afternoon. He loathed
Redmond--that smiling, debonair villain! He'd knife you in a minute--most
gracefully. Yet he could see that Moira liked him. The gallant Michael
was certainly ornamental. Erdman & Erdman! Yes, he would get some new
clothes--he could afford them now. And he would move uptown--nearer Moira.

Phew! He pinched his breath at the cloud of dust that arose when he threw
back the top of Mr. O'Rourke's desk. The honorable assistant preceding
him evidently had not regarded his relationship to the public service as
sufficiently important even to remove his papers! The pigeon-holes and
drawers were crammed with letters, stenographic reports of trials, blank
subpoenas, and expense accounts. A bundle of indictments, seventeen in
number, and involving as many different offenses against the law, was
stuffed under the row of pigeon-holes. It was labelled "Calendar--Part V,"
and dated three weeks before.


Hugh's new office was situated upon the fourth story of the Criminal
Court Building, a hideous structure of red brick with stone trimmings
which, erected in 1885, was already in a state of advanced decrepitude,
its buckling walls having more than once been made the object of official
condemnation as a menace to human life.

The Tombs is the bin, the Criminal Court Building the hopper, of the
great mill of so-called "criminal justice." Through the "Bridge of
Sighs," which joins the two, the human grain pours slowly into the
receiving cells until their contents overflow into the courts, some to be
ground--"dust to dust,"--others to be flung out, marred and broken, into
the whirlpool of life.

Covering an entire block and facing toward every point of the compass,
the building might have been so constructed as to be full of light, yet
it is one of the gloomiest structures in the world. Tier on tier it rises
about a huge central rotunda, rimmed by grimy mezzanines and corridors
upon which the court-rooms open, and crowned by a theoretically
transparent, but hermetically sealed, glass roof, through which filters a
soiled and viscous light. The air here is never changed, and the
atmosphere is rancid with the stench of bad cigars, of garlic, and the
sweat of southern Italy.

When the courts are in session the corridors swarm with newly landed
"greenhorns" victimized by sharpers, negro dandies in gray derbies and
drab surtouts, blue-bloused Chinamen, black-bearded rabbis, thieves,
detectives, pawnbrokers, shyster lawyers in tall silk hats with their
"runners" or "ambulance chasers," bootleggers, politicians, policemen,
widows of murdered men.

Flimsy elevators bulging with human riffraff clang and rattle to the
court-room floor. "Part One. All out!" A tall officer hurries by. "Stand
back there! Make way for his honor the judge!" The crowd parts before the
majesty of the Law, as a figure in black, followed by his attendants,
strides grandly down the hall, his silken robe bellying behind him.

From the corridor rail one looks down upon the marble pavement of the
great hall of entrance, reached by long and imposing flights of steps
from both Lafayette and Centre Streets. It is really the second story of
the building, beneath which is another at the ground level, as dark as
the Tomb of Rhadames, where the coroner used to hold his inquests. There
is darkness and dirt everywhere! The cohort of scrubwomen who appear with
their pails and mops at six o'clock make no impression upon the
tobacco-stained corridors. The dust hangs in clouds about the offices of
the district attorney and his assistants, and lies thick on every safe,
chair, and table; cracks make maps on every ceiling; there are fissures
like canyons on every wall.

The official atmosphere is one of lassitude. Process-servers lounge at
little desks in a long room like rows of schoolboys awaiting the hour for
dismissal. An attendant sitting at the door of the district attorney's
office directs inquirers to the Complaint Bureau, the Grand Jury Clerk,
the Bail Bond Department, the Chief Clerk's Office, the Magistrate's
Court. On a bench near by a Yiddish woman holding a baby is forever
waiting for somebody to come back from lunch.

Around the corridor on the other side of the building are the precincts
sacred to the judges of the General Sessions--the holders of the juiciest
political plums in the gift of their respective "organizations"--each
receiving a salary of seventeen thousand five hundred dollars for holding
court from ten o'clock until four, and entrusted with the power of life
and death. They are good-natured men, these judges, except when afflicted
with bodily ills; complacent, for they have reached the summit of
ambition, and have naught to fear until their ten-year terms are ended.
Hence they err on the side of kindness rather than of severity. But of
course all do not see things in the same way, and one of them may
sentence a defendant to prison when his associate for a similar offense
will send him home to his family on parole. Some of them have racial and
religious prejudices of which they are unaware; some have indigestion.
Occasionally one of them may become a little queer in the head without
anybody suspecting it. A few are densely stupid. Like other men.

On the floor above are the rooms of the stenographers, the chief clerk,
and the assistants of the district attorney, of whom there are nearly
fifty--all, except those rendered invaluable from long experience,
political appointees losing their jobs with every change of complexion in
the city government, fearful of "pull" and those who are "next," or
nearer than themselves, to the man higher up.

And now, at last having climbed the dusty iron stairs leading upward from
outside Hugh's door, we have reached the eaves of the rotten old building
and find ourselves in a hot and hideous hinterland of macabre shadows,
penthouses, filthy skylights, and the grinding sheaves of the elevators.

Here under the very roof-tree our further progress is barred by a grating
of heavy wire. Beyond is a spectral junk-shop lined with shelves filled
with grotesque and misshapen bundles--the "property room" of the district
attorney--where the exhibits that have proven men guilty are carefully
preserved. Here are all the instruments of homicide and of felony. At the
further end stands a huge rusty safe, along the wall are ranged trunks,
barrels, and packing-boxes that once held decapitated corpses, while here
and there skeletons dangle palely, and blackened skulls leer from behind
carboys of noxious fluid, foetuses held in pickle, or bottles containing
poison--a horrible curiosity-shop, a witch's caldron of awful condiments,
including literally the eye of newt, the toe of frog, the finger of
birth-strangled babe. There is naught you cannot find here of fiendish
ingenuity or hideous mischance--and with each horrible reminder the dead
live again and the grinning assassin enacts his crime before us.

A shadow darkens the skylight. A bat? No, it is one of the pigeons that
haunt the roof, the ghosts perhaps of those poor humans whose ghastly
relics line the shelves.

Skeleton iron ladders lead to the roof's tin acreage, where hundreds of
birds coo and flutter careless of the tragedies enacted below, or strut
pridefully along window ledges behind which men are being sentenced to
death or to imprisonment for life. Up there against the blue, beyond the
reach of law, they wheel in flashing esquadrilles, turning abruptly at
the inaudible signal of their leader.

No pigeon is forced to beat his wings against the bars of an iron cage.
He lives and dies according to the law of nature, less harsh in its
implacability than that of man. The menace of pigeon-pie may lurk behind
the penthouse in the person of the stout janitor, or even in that of the
lean black cat attached to the fire-house across White Street, but,
whate'er his fate, his bodily sufferings will have ended. His soul will
soar instanter--as he soared in life.

So the pigeons wheel happily in the sunlight. Below, tier on tier--like
galley slaves chained in their places--the men who make their living
through the punishment of lawbreakers sit in their cubicles, working or
dreaming, as the case may be, of crime or the stock market, of the rules
of evidence or the next election, of the love of women or the electric
chair, while--separated only by the narrow chasm, bridged by that fearful
viaduct across which so many thousands of human beings have been led in
gyves--the Tombs, like a giant fly-trap, swarms with those who, caught in
the meshes of the law, await their trial, condemnation, and possible
extinction.

A blue pigeon on the roof-tree of the mill of justice cocks its red eye
and edges toward his neighbor. A second later the sunlight is white with
the wings of angels. They swoop over the grimy skylight of the property
room, where some one is tagging the shoes of a murdered man, and,
wheeling above the canyon, drop swiftly downward--past the windows of the
prosecuting attorneys, their clerks and process-servers, the judges
smoking in their spacious chambers, the crowded court-rooms with their
rows of jurymen and spectators, the "pens," where pallid prisoners sit
hopelessly awaiting trial, silent with their heads in their hands or
cursing an indifferent God; past the detention room for truants and
incorrigibles; past the packed sty of the Special Sessions, with its herd
of cynical offenders; past the Criminal Trial Term, where sit the Parc
passing the thread of life from hand to hand--the Weaver, the Measurer,
the Cutter--and Justice stands gazing proudly toward the vanishing point
of an unattainable ideal; past the catacombs below the rotunda and the
antique office of the defunct coroner; until they reach the street,
where, unmindful of the wheels of Juggernaut or the feet of the careless,
they peck the grain which Providence has provided for them. "Are not two
sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the
ground without your Father!"


Six weeks had passed since Hugh's translation to office--weeks as happy as
those preceding it had been wretched. Outwardly he had undergone an
astonishing metamorphosis. In place of the frayed blue suit in which he
had sought his fortune in the metropolis, he now wore a smart gray
homespun, in which he looked fifty pounds heavier and at least ten years
older. Neither did the fact that his hair had been trimmed, without being
noticeably shortened, detract from his appearance. A clean-cut, capable,
and determined young man, one would have said--either the younger partner
in a prosperous banking-house or one of its junior legal advisers. Nor
did he any longer dwell in the shadow of the Tombs, for his salary had
enabled him to take a small bachelor apartment uptown. He was now a
constant and welcome visitor at the marzipan house, and Devens appeared
to have taken quite a fancy to him. His career at the office had been
little short of meteoric. Instead of an apprenticeship in the police
courts and the grind of Special Sessions, he had at once been given
charge of one of the "trial" parts of the General Sessions, and had
already prosecuted several important cases. As commonly expressed, Dillon
was "a comer."

Jeffrey Quirk had severed his connection with the firm of Hoyle & O'Hara
and secured a position as process-server in the district attorney's
office.

"Remember how I said some day I'd carry your bag when you was Mayor of
New York, Mr. Dillon?--I can carry it right now."

And he did so forthwith, securing a special assignment from the chief
process-server to assist Hugh in the preparation of cases and filling a
curiously anomalous position as friend, private secretary, bodyguard, and
legal valet. Wherever he went, there Quirk went also, the first person
Hugh saw in the morning, the last to leave the office at night, and in
the interim constantly at his master's side.

Nothing further had been heard of the charges against the A. A. & B.,
which had led to his rupture with Hoyle and had had such an important
bearing upon his career, until one afternoon, having been summoned by the
district attorney, he discovered him in conference with none other than
Mr. Otto Kranich himself.

"How are you, dear fellow!" The lawyer's smile was more vulpine than
ever. "God moves in a mysterious way, doesn't he!"

Farley was pensively perusing a familiar bundle of blue papers. He waved
Hugh to a seat beside him.

"I wish you'd take this matter and look into it," he said grumpily. "I
have no time for these complicated financial cases. I've told Mr. Kranich
that we'll give him whatever assistance he's entitled to--provided, of
course, his charges are substantiated."

"I don't ask anything more!" declared the attorney. "And I don't want
anybody better than Mr. Dillon. Whatever he does will suit _me_!"

"Well, go to it then!" Farley held out the dossier to Hugh.

"Don't you think you'd better select another assistant for that case, Mr.
Farley?" replied Hugh without taking the papers from his chief's
outstretched hand. "I'm up to my neck----"

"This is more important than the regular routine work. You're the very
man for it."

"I'd like a word with you first, if you don't mind."

"By all means!" offered Mr. Kranich. "Let me step out!" And he drifted
like cigar smoke across the threshold of the outer office.

"I can't take that case, Mr. Farley!" protested Hugh. "I'm a friend of
both Mr. Devens and Mr. Shay. It wouldn't be fair to them or to Mr.
Kranich either."

"That's the very reason for you to take it," returned the district
attorney. "I can be sure of your being absolutely impartial. Between you
and me this fellow is a notorious blackmailer of corporations. Unless he
makes a clear case, kick him out!"

"But suppose he does? You wouldn't put me in the position of prosecuting
a friend!"

Mr. Farley hesitated.

"We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Only I guess we'll never
get there! It would be largely a matter of taste."

"Then," said Hugh, "out of respect for my taste I ask you to assign this
matter to some one else."

Mr. Farley clucked like a hen.

"Tut-tut! Don't be silly!"

Hugh's lips drew to a line.

"You are putting me in a very embarrassing position!" he protested. "I
don't see the necessity for this."

"Look here, Dillon!" snapped the district attorney with unexpected
animation. "It isn't necessary that you should! You'll either take that
case and say no more about it, or"--he hesitated--"or--" he repeated,
vaguely.

Hugh bowed.

"Very well! If you absolutely order me to do so. But only because you
order me. If I find that there is a case against Mr. Devens or Mr. Shay,
I shall come to you again!"

Mr. Farley's severe expression melted into one of complacent relief.

"That's the boy!" he exclaimed jovially. "Terry, send for Mr. Kranich!"


"And so here we are again--after all!" Mr. Kranich exhibited his yellow
tusks in a revolting attempt at good fellowship. "What a lot of pigeons!"

They were seated in Hugh's office at the convict-made oak table, upon
which was spread a mass of papers relating to the A. A. & B.

"It's a cinch! Devens and Shay have been milking the A. A. and B. for
years by means of a dummy corporation called the J. S. Burke Co., of
which they own all the stock, and which is given the opportunity to
underwrite the bonds of the parent company at a huge discount. They've
made millions that way."

Hugh listened distrustfully.

"But what interest have you got in the matter?"

Mr. Kranich fumbled in his brief-case and extracted a light-green stock
certificate for ten shares in the Associated Architects and Builders
Corporation.

"That of every stockholder," he answered brightly. "As such I have the
right to inspect their books. Of course I can't really get it. But they
won't try any of their monkey shines with you. They'll come running to
eat out of your hand."

Daniel Shay, according to Lawyer Kranich, was the nigger in the
wood-pile, but the nigger's owner was "Old Man" Devens--if they could only
reach him! And the way to reach him--here Mr. Kranich again exposed his
canines--was to convict Shay first and make him give up. With a ten-year
term staring him in the face he would be glad enough to turn state's
evidence! Hugh wanted to take the blackmailing attorney by the scruff of
the neck and hurl him bodily out of the window, across the chasm of
Franklin Street, into the courtyard of the Tombs where he belonged. And
yet, suppose Shay had, in fact, violated the law? Was it not the duty of
the district attorney to prosecute every crime brought to his attention?
But he need not lend his assistance to any blackmailing scheme! He did
not have to act as Kranich's attorney in forcing open the books of the A.
A. & B. He could properly wait until Kranich had taken the case before a
magistrate and laid the full evidence before him.

He was about to so inform his visitor when the latter pulled from his
case a printed circular bearing upon its cover the lithograph of an
eighteen-story apartment-house of the latest architectural design and
apparently constructed entirely of white marble. Fleecy clouds swam in
the blue empyrean above its classic cornice. Flower-boxes bloomed in the
lower windows. Little children rolled hoops and sported on the snowy
pavement before the door. A chauffeur loitered smartly by a plane-tree at
the curb. Beneath appeared in neat gold type the simple inscription:

                         "943-5 FIFTH AVENUE."

On the pages within, J. S. Burke Co. offered the few remaining first
mortgage 6 per cent gold bonds, alleged to be secured by the land and
"modern fireproof steel apartment-house" at No. 943-5 Fifth Avenue, still
remaining in their hands, at 103 and accrued interest.

"Only there isn't any apartment-house at nine forty-three Fifth Avenue,"
declared Kranich. "There's not even a hole in the ground up there. All
the J. S. Burke Co. has got on the present property are two old-fashioned
four-story brick dwelling-houses."

Hugh read over the text of the circular several times. A careful study of
its phraseology would, it is true, yield the information that the
apartment-house in question had not yet been built, but was only, so to
speak, _in futuro roseo_. Yet the casual reader would be led to assume
that it was not only erected, but in full operation. The security was not
only worthless; there was no security!


The Honorable Michael Redmond, by chance present at the succeeding
colloquy regarding the A. A. & B. between the district attorney and his
new deputy, never ceased publicly and privately to marvel at the latter's
simple-mindedness. Recounting it to one greater than he, by virtue of
whose grace the said Michael lived, moved, and had his official being, he
emphasized the darn fool's utter lack of practicality. He was, as Mr.
Redmond pointed out, like a fellow alone on a desert island worrying
about whether or not he was telling himself the truth.

The Honorable Michael, who generously admired all the homelier virtues
which he lacked himself, declared that really this Dillon person captured
the holy biscuit. To be specific, he had, while Redmond was there, bolted
unexpectedly into the D. A.'s office, frothing at the mouth, with his
blue-black hair standing on end, and denounced Kranich as a dirty dog, a
blackmailer, and the servant of blackmailers, and stated that he had
kicked him out. Now anybody with the intelligence of a child of six would
of course have known that that was precisely what Farley had given him
the case for. Naturally, a man of Farley's class wasn't going to tell
Dillon literally to smother any proceeding against the "Old Man's"
interests, but a yokel would have understood that without being told.
Devens had made Farley what he was, Devens had had Farley appoint
Dillon--and--naturally--when there was any complaint involving the "Old
Man," Dillon was the fellow to attend to it. So when Dillon had told
Farley that he had kicked Kranich out of the office, the D. A. had
lightly nodded to indicate that such had been on the cards, and that he
had expected nothing less. Then had come the bomb.

"But, all the same, he's got a case against the A. A. and B.!" Hugh
leaned on his fists over Farley's desk. "Half their securities are
practically worthless at the time they are issued. It looks as if they've
been selling mortgage bonds against non-existent property, relying in
case of trouble on taking them up with the proceeds of other bonds of the
same sort--the old Ponzi trick--only they've been kiting bonds instead of
checks."

"_Caveat emptor!_" remarked the district attorney. "Most of the people
who buy that kind of stuff do so in order to sell it over again."

"That may be! But I'd have taken the case in a minute if I hadn't been
satisfied that all Kranich wants is to depress the market value of A. A.
and B. stock. I fancy his crowd are afraid to go very heavily short of
it, because they don't really know the value of its assets."

"A company can be crooked as hell," commented Redmond, "and yet--and
perhaps because of it--be piling up a big surplus."

"What's he going to do now?" asked Farley.

"Start a police court proceeding on his own hook at once. He'll get all
the publicity he wants that way, only he'll have to pay a lawyer instead
of getting us to do it for nothing."

"If he gets Levi L. Levy to represent them they'll smash A. A. and B.
into the middle of next week!" asserted Redmond. "They'll make a pile of
money!"

Hugh still leaned on his fists, his flushed face peering into Farley's.
It was right here, according to the Honorable Michael, that the bally
young ass insisted on throwing a Brazilian into the machinery.

"Well, _what are you going to do about it_?"

The district attorney stared at him.

"Me? What should I do about it?"

"_Prosecute!_"

"Why?"

"Because a crime has been committed within your jurisdiction and the fact
has been brought to your attention."

"That's all right. Kranich is going to prosecute it on his own account,
isn't he?"

"But we know that he really doesn't want to convict anybody. All he wants
is money. His prosecution isn't an honest prosecution. It's merely a
pretense. There should be an honest prosecution of the A. A. and B."

Redmond exchanged a glance with his chief.

"We've done all our duty requires," said the district attorney in a
placating tone. "You've thrown the case out of the office. For God's sake
let it stay there!"

"Do you mean you _won't_ prosecute?"

Mr. Farley fidgeted in his chair.

"I can't prosecute everything!" he protested irritably. "I have to
exercise _some_ discretion. I could spend my whole appropriation and
utilize the services of my entire staff merely going after spitters. You
wouldn't have me do that, would you?"

"No," retorted Hugh. "Not after spitters, but I would after grafters!"

"All right!" exploded Farley in a burst of inspiration. "If you're so
damned hot to prosecute--go ahead and prosecute. I'll assign you for that
purpose!"

Hugh stood up. His cheeks were an angry red.

"Won't you assign somebody else? You know my reasons for not wishing to
act in this matter!"

"No!" growled Farley. "If anybody prosecutes the A. A. and B. as my
representative, you will be the one to do it!"

And so for the time being the matter ended, save for the single remark
made by Mr. Redmond to his superior officer later in the day at Pontin's:

"Looks to me, chief," he hazarded, "as if you had a small wildcat by the
tail!"




                              CHAPTER VII


It may have been true, as was asserted by those who paid it, that Levi L.
Levy was worth the one thousand dollars per diem which he received for
appearing in court. If so, it was less on account of his actual legal
ability--which was not inconsiderable--than the mysterious fear which he
inspired in presiding judges and opposing lawyers. His reputation as a
verdict-getter was exceeded only by that of his "influence," high-class
attorneys habitually retaining him in desperate cases in the hope, if not
expectation, that in some circuitous way he might be able to put a flea
in the judge's ear. Mr. Levy encouraged this belief by vague references
to the Garden City Golf Course and such remarks as "Only the other day
the P. J. said to me 'Levy,--'" leaving it in doubt whether he had been
called by his first or last name. His reputation, like that of most great
barristers, was based upon the cases he had won, omitting those which he
had lost. But when Levi L. Levy walked into court and bowed in his
sinister, intimidating way to the presiding judge, the latter's pulse was
apt to flutter, and his hand to steal unostentatiously toward the copy of
the Code of Civil Procedure, concealed beneath _The Law Journal_.

Thus it was not surprising that when Mr. Levi L. Levy, accompanied by his
aggrieved client, Mr. Otto Kranich, appeared before Magistrate Hocktor
and announced that he was there to lay a criminal information against the
officers and directors of the Associated Architects and Builders
Corporation, its stock, which had been previously quoted on the market at
eighty-seven, closed at eighty-one. Mr. Levy had said very little to the
reporters, but he had made it evident by his manner that he intended to
sift the iniquities of the A. A. & B., and its agents, to the very
bottom, sparing nobody. And Magistrate Hocktor, gratified by the presence
of the great Mr. Levy in his humble court, and even more by the publicity
given to his own name in the newspaper accounts of the proceedings,
announced that he would hold biweekly hearings and afford all parties the
widest latitude to get at the truth. If a crime had been committed, he
declared, glaring at the representatives of the press, he for his part
would do his utmost to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"And bite 'em!" murmured Charlie White. "Say, Dillon, what is this? Isn't
Kranich the fellow who got out an injunction against that last New York
Central bond issue?--Sure he is! Had a mysterious client named Juda P.
Sheep. Nobody could ever find him? Don't you remember F. P. A. got off a
wise crack: 'We, like Sheep, have gone astray'?"

"Don't know. I wasn't in this country," Hugh replied. "Please note that
the district attorney's office is not represented at this hearing. I'm
just an interested observer. What's that Hocktor is saying?"

"As this seems to be a matter of considerable public importance,"
continued His Honor, "I shall hold the hearings in one of the General
Sessions court-rooms in order that we may have plenty of space and
proceed in an orderly fashion. Is that satisfactory? How will Thursday
afternoon at four suit you, gentlemen?"

He beamed down upon the group of distinguished attorneys, all of whom
professed to be very well suited with the arrangement indeed.

"If there is nothing more to-day, then we will adjourn. Good afternoon,
gentlemen!"

As Hugh struggled with the crowd in the elevator he could not help
marvelling at the difference in Judge Hocktor's demeanor toward the
well-dressed officials of the A. A. & B. and the defendants ordinarily
brought before him under arrest. So polite was he that he almost seemed
to feel as if the former had done him a personal favor by committing
their offense within his jurisdiction.

If some shabby, hollow-chested "dip" had been arrested and haled before
him, would Hocktor have bowed and smirked at him? Would he have consulted
his lawyer's convenience? The chances are that the prisoner would not
even have a lawyer and that Hocktor would have sent him up for thirty
days for disorderly conduct, if nothing else. "The strong arm of the
law." It was strong-arm work right enough!

The morning papers carried full-page stories of the preliminary police
court proceedings and what Mr. Levi L. Levy had said he intended to prove
about the A. A. & B., from which it was quite clear that everybody
connected with it ought to be in jail. There was also a column or so of
biographical matter relating to Messrs. Devens and Levy with a
photographic reproduction by Underwood & Underwood of Mr. Levy getting
out of his taxi. The general impression left after reading it was that
Mr. Devens and Mr. Levy were both very great men, especially Mr. Levy,
and that they were about to engage in a Titanic struggle for the souls of
the inhabitants of New York City. At the end a short paragraph called
attention to the fact that A. A. & B. stock had fallen six points on
sales of one thousand one hundred and fifty shares.

"I see Kranich cleaned up twenty-two thousand already!" remarked Mr.
Redmond in the elevator. "I'm half inclined to go short of the damn stuff
myself. What's your impression of what is going to happen?"

"I haven't any!--and if I had I wouldn't tell you!" answered Hugh with
emphasis.

"No use being so snorty about it!" retorted the Honorable Michael. "I
don't sacrifice any of my privileges as an individual citizen simply
because I'm a public officer. And one of 'em is to gamble my salary on
the stock market. If I want to sell A. A. and B. short I shall."

Hugh did not reply. A district attorney, obviously, had no business to
speculate in a security the value of which might be affected by what went
on inside his office. But Redmond probably didn't intend to do any such
thing. He liked to show his independence by putting his worst foot
foremost.

"Well, old Galahad, I suppose you saw what happened to A. A. and B.?" he
remarked again at lunch time. "They've knocked it down to
fifty-two--thrown it on the market in one thousand share lots. At this
price Kranich's crowd can cover at a profit of over three hundred
thousand dollars. Not a bad little adventure! Sometimes I feel as if my
abilities were being wasted in the prosecution of crime."

His impression in this regard might have been confirmed had he known that
the heaviest seller of A. A. & B. was none other than "Old Man" Devens
himself. For an ill wind blows alike for the just and the unjust, with
equal opportunities for all.

During the following week the fluctuations in the stock more or less kept
pace with the evidence adduced by Mr. Levi L. Levy before Magistrate
Hocktor. Somebody was clearly attempting to drive A. A. & B. down to
nothing, and in this laudable effort the public assisted with an
avalanche of short sales. But having touched nineteen for a single
transaction on the morning after Mr. Levy had intimated that many of its
so-called "securities" were nothing more than purchase-money mortgages
for the full value of the property, followed by second and third
mortgages for no value at all, the stock unaccountably shot up to
thirty-one, and from there to forty on heavy covering within the brief
period of twenty minutes, and by three o'clock it was back to
seventy-nine, or only eighteen points off its high figure before the
attack. Indeed, it almost began to look as if Mr. Levy's disclosures
would have the effect of sending the stock of A. A. & B. above par. At
the conclusion of the session upon that same afternoon Mr. Levi L. Levy
arose and stated to Magistrate Hocktor that a very important engagement
in Washington compelled him to ask for a week's adjournment, to which the
attorneys for the A. A. & B. offered no objection.

Coincidentally it began to be rumored that Mr. Kranich's enthusiasm for
bringing the malefactors controlling the A. A. & B. to justice had
subsided in inverse ratio to the latest rise in the value of its stock.
It was said that, in spite of the iniquities of management disclosed, Mr.
Levy had discovered it to be worth nearly par, and since his client's
interest was limited to but ten shares, there was no real point in his
going on with the prosecution. No one, however, took occasion to explain
who had found it worth while to pay Mr. Levy his per diem. It was at this
juncture that an event totally unexpected by all the parties in interest
occurred.

"Can you show me to the court, sir?"

Hugh, in the elevator, found himself looking down into the rheumy eyes of
an old woman, whose thin, white locks were covered by a small
old-fashioned bonnet, and whose feet in several places had burst through
her shoes.

"What court do you wish to find, ma'am?" he asked.

"The court where they are trying Mr. Shay, sir."

"You mean the case against the Associated Architects and Builders?"

"I guess so, sir." She fumbled in a black reticule. "If that is the
company I bought my bond from."

They were obstructing the door of the elevator and Hugh led her around to
his office, where, from a piece of brown paper, she unfolded one of the
bonds referred to in the circular which Kranich had shown him, bearing
the lithograph of the white marble apartment-house and the little
children rolling their hoops. Her name, she said, was Mrs. Martha
Saunders, and she was a widow, living in Flatbush. Her entire savings
were in that bond. It was all that stood between her and the almshouse.
She had bought it of an agent who had come to her flat. But she had not
done so without first assuring herself that it was a sound investment by
going to the offices of the J. S. Burke Co. and interviewing Mr. Shay,
the great Mr. Daniel Shay, for whom her husband, who had been a
hodcarrier, had once worked. She had had considerable difficulty in
getting to him, but at last she had done so, and had asked him if he
could recommend the investment, to which Mr. Shay had responded heartily
that there was none better, that steel beams couldn't run away, while
stocks and bonds could. So she had taken her money out of the savings
bank and bought the bond--and had been getting a check for fifteen dollars
every quarter. Then she had fallen ill, and when she had recovered enough
to do so, she had tried to sell the bond to pay her doctor and other
debts, but although she had gone directly to the offices of the A. A. &
B. as well as to the J. S. Burke Co., they would not repurchase the bond.
They sold bonds, they explained, they did not buy them. She should go to
a broker. But she could get no bid for the bond that did not seem too
great a loss for her to take.

In trepidation she had taken the subway to Fifth Avenue, and walked to
No. 943. Alas, where she had expected to find a towering edifice, with
stately doormen, and windows full of flowers, there was nothing except
two old-fashioned brick houses with "for sale" signs in the windows.
Then, to add to her apprehension, she had read in the papers about Mr.
Levy's investigations of the A. A. & B., and what he had said about its
securities being valueless. It had been a terrible shock. She would have
to go to the poorhouse if she could not sell the bond. She wondered if
the fact that the A. A. & B. was being investigated might not make a
difference, and whether, if she took the bond to Mr. Shay, he might not
be willing now to take it back?

She did not want to make trouble for Mr. Shay, but she did not wish to be
sent to Ward's Island as a pauper, and--could she have a drink of water?

Hugh sent her off with Quirk for her glass of water. All his misgivings
had reasserted themselves. This poor old soul had been robbed as much as
if she had been knocked down or sandbagged. Worse! She had not been given
even a fighting chance. What better example could be found of the
incalculable effect of financial dishonesty? Neither Devens nor Shay knew
who was going to buy their worthless bonds! Buy the bond back? Of course
Shay would buy the bond back! No doubt he'd give five--ten--twenty-five
thousand dollars for it to get the case out of the way! For he had made
the one fatal mistake in high finance, he had made personal
representations regarding an investment.

On the other hand Kranich would pay as much for that bond as Daniel Shay.
It was probably the most valuable bond in New York at that moment.

There could be no doubt of his duty as a servant of the public. He had
sworn to uphold the equal administration of the laws--to enforce them
against rich and poor alike. Could he go down into court and ask a jury
to convict some hunger-driven thief while allowing this pair of fancy
swindlers to prey upon the community? Which was the greater criminal, the
man who took the bottle of milk from Mrs. Saunders' threshold or he who
stole her savings of a lifetime? Moira had said that this was his chance.
Kranich's attack upon the A. A. & B. had been merely camouflage for
blackmail. It was already over, having served its purpose. Farley had
authorized him to prosecute the A. A. & B. No one else would do it, that
was certain!

"Mrs. Saunders," he said, as she and Quirk reappeared in the doorway, "I
am going to take you before the Grand Jury. Jeffrey, please go down and
ask the foreman when it will be convenient for them to give me a few
moments of their time upon a matter of considerable importance."


The usual conference at the marzipan house that afternoon was signalized
by the presence of Mr. Ebenezer Hoyle, who arrived unexpectedly about a
quarter to six, and was immediately conducted by Shane to the den where
Devens and Shay were already in conference.

"I thought everything was signed, sealed, and delivered!" declared
Devens. "Has there been any slip-up?"

"Not in our arrangements with Kranich," answered Hoyle. "He is more than
satisfied if we pay Levy's bill. That proceeding is all over, adjourned
sine die."

"I trust you seized the opportunity, as the rest of us did, to profit by
the temporary slump in the market?" remarked his client.

"I sold a few shares," answered the lawyer, "and bought 'em in again," he
added.

"What do you figure those scoundrels made?" asked Uncle Dan.

"About the same as my client here," blandly replied Hoyle. "Fifty-fifty,
I should say. And I wish you the same. But that's not what I came here
about."

There was something ominous in the glutinous flow of his utterance.

"No--not at all," he continued. "Your chicken has come home to roost, Mr.
Devens."

"What chicken?"

"Dillon has started a Grand Jury proceeding against the A. A. and B.,"
answered Hoyle. "I told you he was dangerous."

Devens' scowl expressed as much bewilderment as anger.

"I don't understand. I thought we had succeeded in calling Kranich and
Levy off entirely. What's Dillon to do with it? Anyhow, I got him his
job. He's a friend of mine."

"The Lord deliver us from our friends!" Hoyle touched his finger-tips
together as if in prayer. "This fellow's crazy as a coot. He doesn't
function like other people. Do you realize that he fired himself from our
office merely because I proposed to string Kranich along a few days to
find out what he had against you, and that when Farley sent him the case
he kicked it out? Now, right on top of that, he starts an investigation
on his own hook!"

"I don't understand it," exclaimed Devens, screwing his cigar into a
bronze ash-tray.

"It's totally unexpected--and, I may add, damn dangerous. This fellow's
not only a wild ass, but he's clever! It's easy enough for us to handle a
private prosecution before a magistrate where we can insist upon the
regular rules of evidence and exercise some control of the proceedings.
But it's entirely different when the witnesses and our books are examined
behind closed doors. Some of those fellows on the Grand Jury are pretty
smart. There's no telling where we'll get off. He'll come pretty close to
sending some one to jail."

"I should have let Dillon know I was responsible for his appointment,"
remarked Devens.

"A lot of good that would do!"

"Do you mean he isn't on the level?"

"I mean he's a reformer."

Devens struck the table with his fist. What was the use of being decent
to anybody!

"One more thing," said Hoyle reaching for his hat. "I'm afraid we can't
hold Mrs. Clayton much longer. She was down again yesterday, threatening
to kill herself if we didn't let her see her daughter."

"She's threatened the same thing often enough."

"Never when she looked as she does now. The woman's in an abnormal
condition. Even if she doesn't carry out her threat, she may have to be
committed to an asylum."

A furrow came between Devens' eyebrows.

"Have you had her under medical observation?"

"Right along, in the dining-room of the Blackwell, on the street, at our
office. The doctors all say that she's in a bad way. However, she
probably won't do anything until we have time to straighten out this
other matter. We've got to decide how to handle this young bobcat."

"I wish to God Moira had never brought him up here."

Hoyle stood up.

"I must be going along," he said. "I thought it best to warn you. We've
got to be prepared for anything. With so much publicity all sorts of
unexpected witnesses might turn up. I understand they had a woman named
Saunders before the Grand Jury to-day, who told some sort of a story
implicating Shay. Claimed he sold her a bond direct, or something of the
sort."

"I never heard of such a woman," ejaculated Uncle Dan. "I never see
anybody."

"That may be. But you've got to be ready to meet her testimony. You
gentlemen must consider what you are going to say if Dillon calls either
of you before the Grand Jury. You can't go it blind--I suggest we get
together to-morrow morning and decide what to do. Shall I give you a
lift, Shay? I've a taxi outside."

Richard Devens closed the door behind them, perturbed and puzzled.
Dillon's conduct seemed to him incredible. He had been brought up in the
school of politics where friendship takes precedence over all other
loyalties. He believed that he should not have yielded to Moira's request
to conceal from Hugh the source of his preferment. It had been against
his instinct. If you did a favor for a man, you should let him know it.
Too late now. Should anybody intimate the truth to Dillon, the boy would
probably regard it as an attempt to influence him, to "pull him off," and
might even be goaded into new eccentricities.

But his friendship for Moira ought to have been enough to lead him to
pass on to her father a friendly warning of what might happen. Dillon was
not playing the game. Devens decided that he had made a mistake in regard
to that young man. The fellow was obviously, in spite of his ingratiating
appearance, one of those highbrow holier-than-thous bent on getting
everybody into trouble.

_Every_body? Richard Devens, multimillionaire and political power, felt a
dampness ooze out upon his forehead. The possibility of such a
contingency as the present had never entered his unimaginative mind. He
was sincere in his belief that he had never consciously wronged any human
being unless that being had first wronged him. Certainly he had not
harmed anybody through the A. A. & B. or the J. S. Burke Co. Of course,
he was not in business for his health. Nobody was!

It was just that bunch of blackmailers down in Wall Street. And this
crazy ass Dillon. Luckily, he had been careful not to incriminate
himself.

Treachery on the part of Shay was unthinkable! Even if they got the goods
on Dan, it would take years to land him in Sing Sing or Great Meadow. A
smart guy like Hoyle, or Bourke Cockran, or Clarence Darrow, could tie a
case up indefinitely. No jury would convict an honest old fellow like
Uncle Dan. If they did, by God, he'd appeal the case all the way up to
the United States Supreme Court. Dan would be out on bail, and if
eventually the conviction should stand, by that time the matter would
have been forgotten, and the defendant would be so old that any governor
who had the least spark of human sympathy would pardon him. That Dan
should go to jail was a possibility so remote as to be fantastic. As he
dressed for dinner he wondered if anything would really come of it. This
wasn't the first scare he had had by any means. He and Dan had been in
worse pickles before, and had always managed to worm their way out
somehow.

But he would hate to have Moira get the false idea that there was
anything crooked about his business. As long as he was there to explain
things away it would be all right. But suppose that he were not? And
there was Eileen. If he should die what would there be to prevent her
coming forward and telling Moira her whole story? There was that
defeasance clause in the contract, of course. But even Eileen would have
sense enough to realize that if Moira knew the truth, she would look
after her. The secret must be kept from Moira at any cost.

He watched her with pride across the table as they lingered for coffee in
the dining-room. How beautiful and animated she was. So like Eileen: so
unlike the austere, cold woman whose portrait hung above his head. How he
had loved Eileen! Only her fatal habit had prevented his making her his
wife. With a girl like that for his daughter, he could tell them all to
go to hell. What did he care what the world said about him so long as it
said nothing about her? Moira! His love child! He looked at her so fondly
that she gave him an affectionate smile in return.

"We have good times together, don't we, daddy!"

"Yes, my darling."

To think that he, Dick Devens, son of a Clonmel "corner boy" who had
filled a drunkard's grave at thirty, could have had such a daughter! His
mind flew back to the day when he had landed, a freckled-faced,
red-headed little Irish lad at Castle Garden, and through the years
during which he had successively carried bundles and sold papers, laid
bricks, driven a junk-wagon, and finally started on his career as a
contractor. How well he remembered the first stable he had built,
practically with his own two hands, down on Christopher Street. But that
was only the beginning. Soon he had begun erecting houses and public
buildings, and before long had worked his way into city politics! He had
done it all himself!

He looked around the handsome dining-room with its silver-laden
sideboard, its carved chairs; at the white damask and flashing crystal of
the table, the shining chandeliers. All by himself! He--Dicky Devens,
little Irish lad--owed nothing to any man! Let the dogs yap at his heels.
He had cracked the whip over them and would do it again!

Yet out of all his triumphs and honors, his friendships, his successes
political and financial, his power, the only thing that he really cared
for was Moira! Leave him Moira and they could take everything else. Like
Eileen, and yet unlike her! Moira had something of his own rude strength
and power of will. Yet in one respect the world had been too much for
him. He had not been able to break through the invisible barrier with
which society surrounds itself. He had hoped for a great alliance for his
girl--an Astor, a Vanderbilt, a Morgan, perhaps. But he had never
penetrated further than the politico-ecclesiastical circle to which his
prominence and his benevolence gave him access. For Moira he was
ambitious for something more--much more!

With his arm through hers they went up-stairs into the drawing-room,
filled daily, even in winter, with fresh flowers. An evening with Moira
was the greatest happiness life could offer him.

"Sing to me, Moira."

"What shall I sing?" she asked, drawing a stool to the harp that stood
beside the piano and running her fingers over the strings.

"Sing me some of the old songs, sweetheart: 'Has Sorrow Thy Young Days
Shaded?' or 'The Last Rose of Summer.'"

"They're too sad! Why not something a little less depressing, like 'The
Little Red Lark,' or 'Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow'?"

He expressed himself as quite satisfied if only he could hear her voice,
and she sang to him for an hour, first to the harp, and then to the
piano, while old Shane loitered on the stairs, until it should be time to
bring in the rye and the cracked ice, at half-past ten. An elderly silent
man was Shane, who knew Richard drunk and Richard sober, and would have
died for him with equal readiness in either condition. Now, as Moira
paused after the last verse of "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young
Charms" he came in, carrying the tray of glasses.

"Take them into the den, Shane--I've got to get to work! Thank you--my
dear."

He put his arms about her as she sat at the piano, and pressed his lips
to her hair. For a moment she let her head rest against his cheek.

"Good night, daddy dear!"

"Good night, sweetheart."

Moira arranged her music and went up to her room. Playing those songs had
induced a sentimental mood. She began to think of Hugh. It was a week
since she had heard from him. To-morrow she would call him up. She stood
looking out at the window for a moment before going to bed. It was
raining heavily, and the lights at the Plaza and Columbus Circle showed
only as a greenish-yellow blur. The up-town rush of motors after the
theatre had not begun.

As she turned off the light and raised the window a taxi swung round the
corner and stopped in front of the house. A minute later the door banged.
She wondered who could be calling upon her father at that late hour.
Something about the A. A. & B., probably. She glanced at the
clock--ten-thirty! Then she got into bed.


While Richard and Moira had been spending the evening together, Eileen
had sat alone in her bedroom at the Blackwell staring fixedly at her
daughter's photograph. For two weeks now she had been at the point of
desperation. Deprived of the only human tie that bound her to life, she
felt that she might better be dead. The world for her was a cell of
torture between whose bars she strained eyes of suffering toward the
child of her love. The terrible craving that drove her to frenzy, unless
satisfied by the drug, had racked her body until she was little more than
a bundle of shattered nerves. She could no longer sleep or eat, but
passed the time sitting in her rocker or pacing up and down the floor,
praying for some means of escape from the chains that she herself had
forged. If she could only take Moira in her arms, hear her but once utter
the single word, "mother." Then, why then she would be ready to go away
for ever. Her baby! What right had they to take her away from her? Who
had as much right to her as she?

"I'm afraid to walk down the side streets alone at night, Moses. I wish
you would buy me a pistol to carry in my bag. Here's ten dollars. You can
keep the difference."

Moses, regarding the purchase as a useless extravagance, had fulfilled
his obligation by giving her a rusty old revolver which he had won in a
crap game. He had never fired it, but he carried it fully loaded for
exhibition purposes. He pretended that he had bought it at a pawn shop.
Eileen had no knowledge of the regulations governing the carrying of
firearms. The mere possession of the revolver gave her a strange feeling
of confidence--like the morphine in her bureau drawer. By means of it she
could now control her destiny. Its presence was, for a day or two, enough
to steady her. Then the craving obsessed her again, and she passed into
the state of hysterical abnormality. Why was not Moira with her? She
would kill herself if they did not let her see her baby! She would kill
herself and Moira too. She would take her out of the world into which she
had brought her.

Moses, philandering with the Tilly girl, saw Eileen Clayton about
half-past ten that evening feeling her way down the stairs, and along the
wall toward the side door.

"Where you goin', Miss Clayton?" he called out.

"Get me a taxi, please, Moses."

"All Night Kelly," the little bleary-eyed ex-convict who operated a
decrepit "checker," was standing in the hotel entrance. Moses placed Mrs.
Clayton in the cab.

"Keep an eye on her, Mr. Kelly," warned the negro. "I'm sure concerned
about that lady."


Devens poured himself out a half glass of rye neat, lit a fresh cigar,
and sat down in his customary place at the big desk in the middle of the
den, where it was his habit to work long after everybody else had gone to
bed. The room was without sound save for his own heavy breathing and the
rustle of papers as he transferred them from one pile to another. His
mind continued to dwell upon his daughter. Should he not for her sake
have married again--some woman of position? It must be lonely for her
living there just with him. He ought to ask some young people to the
house. He wondered if Dillon cared for her? How could he help it? But, if
he did, the fellow was showing it in a damned queer way. One usually
didn't try to send one's prospective father-in-law to jail, not in his
crowd you didn't! He saw clearly all the disadvantages from which Moira
had suffered. Every child needed a mother. Just as, he supposed, every
woman needed a child. How different the cold Clare would probably have
been if she had only had a baby! The fact of motherhood did something to
a woman, stirred great depths in her nature, without which she remained
chill and motionless. Once stirred----

A rap.

"Come in," he called, without looking up, for he knew it must be Shane. A
breath of cold air followed his words, and with it a curious premonition.

"Mrs. Clayton, sir," said Shane, holding back the door.

"For God's sake, what are you doing here, Eileen?" exclaimed Devens,
staring at the apparition in the doorway. "Leave us, Shane."

Could this be the woman of his love, this withered, whimpering, white
ghost?

"Dick!"

The cry pulled him from his chair and with a swelling throat he took the
wasted figure in his arms. She was like paper.

"Eileen! Poor girl! Poor child!"

He placed her on the sofa, removed her furs, poured out some of the rye
and held it to her lips.

She pushed his hand gently away.

"Forgive me for coming, Dick! But I just couldn't stand it any longer--I
know everything you are going to say to me! I know I'm not fit to
associate with her, Dick. I realize what it would mean for her to know
she had a--a--that I was her mother!"

Devens took the emaciated hand.

"You've been fine, Eileen!"

She sat silent for a moment, as if assembling her thoughts.

"Dick! You don't know what my life is! I'm all alone. Absolutely alone!
Do you understand what that means? Without any one to talk to except a
couple of negroes. I sit all day long in my horrible room at the
Blackwell, hoping for I don't know what. I suppose I've a crazy idea
Moira might come in the door! You ought to remember that room, Dick!"

The memory of those past years ravaged him, and he put his arms around
her.

"My poor Eileen!"

She let her head lie on his shoulder.

"How happy we were, Dick!"

"We were that!"

"I was the one then, Dick!"

It was true. He had not wanted the child--had been aghast at the mere
thought of it. She sat up and faced him in white appeal.

"I have no complaint of you, Dick. You were always fair! But I bore her.
Mine was the pain. She's not a part of you, Dick, as she is of me. I know
I've ruined my life--disgraced myself and her. But she's my child--bone of
my bone--flesh of my flesh. She's grown up now--out in society. I can't
hurt her. She'll be getting married and having a child of her own very
soon. If she did, would you tear her away from it? I've nothing left,
Dick! I've paid and paid--but not like most women! I wouldn't have minded
that! I've paid in loneliness--just as if I had been in prison! Sitting
year after year in that old bedroom. Dick, I know every spot on the
wallpaper. Nobody ever comes there but Danny. Would it hurt Moira for me
to see her once a month somewhere? Or if you didn't want to let her know
who I am, couldn't I come here and wait on her as a maid? Dick, you can't
imagine how I suffer! It can't be right! It can't be right."

Devens looked away. His lips moved noiselessly. He had not realized how
full had been Eileen's cup of sorrow. But he must not yield. He must
protect Moira. He got up, poured himself another half glass of whiskey,
and drank it off with his back to her.

"You're not the only one, Eileen!" he said gruffly, without turning
around. "Everybody has to pay--the man as well as the woman--each has to
take the consequences! Do you think I haven't suffered? Haven't I
sacrificed myself! Do you think I haven't been lonely?" He put down the
glass. "You were the only woman I ever really loved, Eileen. Clare never
counted. One touch of you set me on fire! The only happiness I ever knew
was with you, Eileen. You were everything to me. I had money, political
influence, and all that, but I didn't value it beside your love, Eileen.
I'd have gone back to the docks any day for a kiss from your lips!"

He locked his hands and looked through them at the floor.

"And then--God knows why--you began taking some drug, and the old Eileen
went away and a new one came in her place. You've seen her in the
looking-glass often enough--with that smirk--that fixed stare! I did my
best to break you of it. You swore again and again by all that was holy
to give it up. But each time you broke your promise. I could have gone on
seeing you! But I didn't. I cut it all out purely for Moira's sake! You
gave up Moira, but I gave up you, Eileen, and I guess there isn't much to
choose. You've sat alone at the Blackwell, but I've sat alone here.
There's never been any other woman in my life, Eileen. I loved you too
much to put any one in your place! I love you still. We've had to pay;
but don't let's try to make Moira help foot the bill. Let's keep her out
of it."

Devens kept his eyes fixed upon the floor. He was afraid to look at this
woman who had meant more to him than any thing in the world except the
child whom she had borne him. He could feel her eyes beseeching mercy. He
would be firm, hard if necessary.

"Can we keep her out of it?" she asked. "Isn't it a mistake to think we
can? Aren't we, under the pretense of protecting her, just trying to hide
our sin and to avoid some of the consequences? But nobody has to be
punished any longer. All you are doing now is to deprive Moira of a
mother's love, and me of my child. It's unnatural. At first I thought I
could stand it, but it's worse and worse for me all the time. With you it
is different. You've got Moira and your work. I've got nothing. You say
you've sacrificed yourself for her sake. It's me you've sacrificed. I
can't go on! I can't live any longer without seeing her, Dick. That's why
I've broken my promise not to come here. Nothing else matters. You can
take away my allowance--I shan't need it."

A cold finger seemed to be drawn along his spine. Was this a threat?

"But, Eileen! Sure you're not wanting to ruin the girl's life?"

"She's old enough to know the truth without having it kill her. This is
killing me! It's one or the other of us."

She felt for her handkerchief in the bag which lay in her lap. It slipped
from her thin knees and fell to the floor with a heavy thud. Devens
intercepted her hand.

"Eileen! Good God!"

He turned pale at the sight of the rusty deadly thing. Then he picked it
up gingerly and placed it upon the desk. Was it a bluff? One glance at
her quivering mouth was enough to satisfy him that it was not. He hadn't
realized before that she was as desperate as all that.

"Your taking it away won't make any difference," she said monotonously,
and her words ticked in his brain like a metronome. "I can get another."

He was thoroughly frightened. Turning, he seized her by the wrists.

"You mustn't think of such things, Eileen! You would be damned forever."

"Unless you let me see Moira, I shall kill myself," she repeated in the
same even voice.

"Listen, Eileen!" he begged, still holding her hands. "Put such wicked
thoughts out of your mind. What you have said convinces me that we have
made a mistake, that in the attempt to atone for one sin we have
committed another by violating the law of nature. Give me a day or two to
think it over."

A look of ecstasy lit up the haggard face.

"You're telling me the truth, Dick?"

"Sure! Of course I am! Promise me you'll never think of suicide again!"

"I promise! Oh, Dick! Dick, I'm so happy!" The helpless gratitude in her
eyes gave him a pang. What right had he to come between this mother and
her child? He drew her to him and kissed her very tenderly on both her
cheeks.

"Forgive me, Eileen! Forgive me, acushla!"


"All Night Kelly" was sound asleep inside the waiting taxi when Devens
shut the front door behind Mrs. Clayton at a quarter to twelve. The
servants had gone to bed. Turning off the hall lights, he stood for a
moment watching through the curtains as she roused the driver, got in and
they drove off. Yes, he must think over very carefully how best to do it!
He felt his way up the stairs by means of the banisters until he caught
the gleam from the open door of his den. He had still a full hour's work
to do. But he would not be disturbed again. What a rusty old pistol. He
turned it over in his hand. And fully loaded! He wondered where she had
got it. She never would have had the nerve----

"Brr-brr-brr-brrr! Brrr-brrr!"

Down below in the pantry the telephone was ringing insistently. He laid
down the revolver and took up the receiver of the desk extension beside
him.

"Hello! Who is it?"

"It's me, Dan. I've got to see you to-night!"

He could hear the quick breathing, as if Shay were standing right there
at his elbow.

"It's pretty late," he temporized. "What's the trouble?"

"I can't tell you over the 'phone. I've got to talk to you. To-morrow
will be too late. Nobody must know I've been to your house."

"That's all right. Everybody has gone to bed but me. I'll be on the
lookout to let you in. Where are you?"

"I'm at the Metropolitan Club--be with you in five minutes."

"All right."

Devens hung up and poured out some more rye. What the devil now? Taking a
trouble-light from the drawer of his desk he went downstairs and, pulling
aside one of the curtains, looked down Fifth Avenue, over which a mist
hung as over a river of black lava. The few motors whizzed by at top
speed. There were no pedestrians in sight--except one, who was stumbling
steadily northward, closely hugging the area railings. Danny.

"Get in--quick!" He held the door open wide enough to admit the dripping
figure of his friend, and then closed it silently.

"Whew! It's a wet night," stuttered Shay. "No use spoilin' the furniture.
I'll dump my things here in the vestibule."

Devens led the way upstairs and down the corridor to the den, where, with
the door shut, the two old men were as isolated as if enclosed in the
centre of a nest of sound-proof boxes.

"Have a drop to warm yourself, Danny."

He was struck by the way Shay's hand shook as he took the tumbler of
whiskey--like that of a palsied old gaffer. They glanced at one another,
nodded, and tossed off the whiskey as one man.

Devens resumed his seat behind the desk. Uncle Dan wiped his mouth with
the back of his hand uncertainly, and slumped down on the sofa. A spray
of hair was plastered over one eye. He looked almost disreputable, with
his trembling jaw and red-rimmed eyes.

"They've got us!" he announced in a harsh voice that parted the stillness
in the room like the rush of the wings of death.

Devens kept his own eyes sternly fixed upon the face of his visitor. It
was clear to him that Danny had had too much.

"Bunk!" he replied, pulling steadily on his cigar. "You're a bit tight,
Danny!"

"Tight is it?"

Shay reached into his pocket, and a brown subpoena floated to the floor.

Devens picked it up and examined it. It commanded Daniel Shay's
appearance, all other matters laid aside, before the Grand Jury of the
County of New York, at ten o'clock, the following morning, and warned him
to fail not at his peril. It also ordered him to produce and bring with
him--"duces tecum"--the books of the "Associated Architects and Builders
Corporation." It was not the first time that Devens had been
investigated.

"Well! What of it! Produce 'em! These John Doe proceedings don't amount
to anything! That subpoena gives you immunity! Nothing you can say can be
used against you."

"Against me--no! But it can against you. Dick."

"You mean----?"

"I mean that Dillon is after _you_. He'll try to put the screws on me to
make me give up."

Devens drank off the contents of his tumbler. He was in that detached
judicial attitude into which he always fell when slightly drunk. He could
see himself and Danny Shay--those two old sons of guns!--talking in his den
as plainly as if they were upon the stage of a theatre and he was sitting
in the front row of the audience--a pitiful pair of old bums they were,
too! Victims of the young adder he had warmed at his bosom!

"The pup!" he heard himself say. "But you can refuse to testify on the
ground that it will tend to degrade or incriminate you!"

"Not if I get immunity. That's the trouble, Dick!" Uncle Dan leaned
forward and laid his hand on one of his patron's. "The boy knows the law!
He's chosen to give me immunity in order to be able to compel me to
testify against you. If I refuse he can send me to jail. But I won't go,
Dick! I swear I won't go!"

Devens withdrew his hand.

"I don't want you to go. Say any damn thing you like," he answered
coldly.

Uncle Dan stared at him, his mouth twitching like a child's about to cry.

"Can you think I'd testify against you, after all these years of
friendship!" he said in a husky voice. "How could you think I meant that,
Dickie!"

Devens cleared his throat.

"No! Of course I didn't think that!" he replied after a moment. "All I
meant was you needn't consider me in the matter one way or the other. Go
ahead and testify to anything you know--so long as you tell the truth. I'm
not afraid of anything I've done. There's no one in this bunch can scare
me. I never signed any papers. You did whatever was done. The worst you
can do is to pass me the buck! All right. Pass it. They can't convict me
on your testimony alone, because you've been an accomplice, and an
accomplice's testimony has to be corroborated. How are they going to
corroborate it? They can't--and you get immunity!"

Uncle Dan let his hands fall on his knees.

"Arrah, Dick! That you should speak like that! Do you mean I should go on
the stand and tarnish your name--and Moira's, who bears it? Ye can't, man
dear! Oh, 'tis crazy I am! Do you think I'd seek my own safety by even
pretending to turn against my benefactor? That hurts me sore, Dick!
There's other worse things in life besides having to go to prison--and one
is turnin' traitor!"

His heavy face softened into an expression of tenderness.

"Do you mind, Dickie, that day fifty years agone, you pulled me from the
reeds of the River Suir? How we stole your feyther's fishin'-rod and
slipped by the keepers and I won the toss, and at me first cast I hooked
a great salmon, so strong a fish he tore the pole from me hands and, wid
me legs tangled helpless in the line, dragged me down-stream? Do ye mind,
man dear, how ye ran on ahead and caught me at the bend after I'd twice
gone under? Oh, Dickie! The batin' our feythers were givin' us that
night! Do ye moind how you were afther runnin' away to America, Dickie?
And sendin' me the money to come after you? The years we carted the
bricks and the mortar until you won your way to fame, Dick? Could I
forget that? And how you saved me from prison? Dick, man! Shure I'd have
been there yet but for your takin' the stand and swearin' me free. And
shall I testify against you after that? Am I a black devil, think you?
Never one word will they get out of me, Dick! Let them send me to jail
until I rot--as well go for that as for anything else!"

"You'll not go for anything else!"

"I wish I thought that, Dick!" groaned Uncle Dan. "Hoyle's just got a
full report on that Saunders woman! She testified she came to me and
asked me about 'nine forty-three,' and that I told her the apartment was
all built."

"Did you?" Devens stared at him.

"Of course not, but I may have told her it was a good investment. I don't
remember ever having seen the woman. I was probably rushed to death and
that was the easiest way to get rid of her. I don't know. But, you see,
it makes a case against me direct! And with all this other evidence the
jury will believe her. It's a separate case entirely. And my subpoena
won't help me in that! So Dillon's got me. He can jail me for selling the
bond to the Saunders woman, or he can jail me for refusing to testify. I
get it both ways--coming and going. Dick, I'm too old a man to go to
prison. I'd never come out alive. I'm at the end of my rope."

"Don't lose your nerve, Dan!" said Devens. "You're a long way from jail
yet. They won't send you up for contempt if you make it appear that
you're trying to help the investigation. If they get close to anything,
just have a lapse of memory. As to the Saunders woman, if she swears that
she spoke to you personally, you can deny it, or admit having the
conversation and deny the material parts of it. You can agree that you
told her the bonds were all right, if you want to. There's nothing
incriminating in that. It's hardly likely you told her there was a
building on that lot when anybody with eyes could see there wasn't! No
jury is going to convict you on any story like that! They're bound to
give you the benefit of every reasonable doubt."

Shay shook his head dubiously.

"If Dillon asked them to, they'd convict their own mothers! The cards are
all stacked against us, Dick! With the papers crying for our blood, the
jury would find us guilty without leaving their seats."

"Then we'd appeal the case. You'd be out on bail."

"The judge might refuse a certificate of reasonable doubt, in which case
I'd stay in jail. You can't count on justice when public prejudice is
aroused. I wouldn't get a fair trial. I'd be convicted before I took my
seat in the dock. Besides, even if I can appeal, I don't want to be
convicted! I don't want to be branded as a criminal."

His voice died away in a whisper.

"Buck up, Dan!" urged Devens. "Here, let me pour you out some more
whiskey." He must not let Shay go to pieces.

"No, nothing more to drink!" Uncle Dan waved the tumbler away. "Justice?
What chance would I have for justice! I'd be ruined in any event. Could I
ever look Moira in the face again? You know I love her, Dick, more than
anything in the world, except you! I can't stand trial. I can't go before
the Grand Jury! I'm done, I tell you!"

He caught sight of the pistol on the table.

"There is something you can do, Dan!" declared Devens. "You can take the
midnight train for Canada and stay there until all this blows over."

"Dillon would extradite me in thirty-six hours."

"Not if you tucked yourself away somewhere. Canada's a big place."

Shay shuddered.

"They'd find me in no time. I'm too old to run away. I couldn't go and
live in the wilderness as if I were younger. These extradition
treaties--they get you anywhere."

His glance hovered about the pistol as if fascinated by its appearance.

"Dick!" he said. "If ever I do go away, it will be to a place where no
subpoena runs and where, if I'm ever tried, it will be by an impartial
judge and a jury of my peers."

He leaned forward and reached for the revolver. Devens put out his hand.
Their fingers met and interwove.

"Let go, Dan!" ordered he, sharply.

Shay's hand recoiled violently backward. Had Dick struck him? The air of
the den reeked with powder-smoke which hung in a cloud over the desk.
"Well, I'm damned!" he said to himself. "Didn't know it was loaded! Kind
of thing you read about!" Dick was half smiling through the smoke. It was
a narrow escape.

"I'm shot!" said Dick. "I'm--I'm--" His face lost its color. A peculiar
glucking noise came from his throat. "I'm--I'm--" Then his head sagged and
he pitched forward, and lay with his mouth upon the blotter, over which a
deep red stain began to spread rapidly.

"Dickie!" cried Uncle Dan. "Dickie boy! My poor lad!" But Dick did not
move. "Dickie boy! Man dear! Speak to me!" Horrified, the old Irishman
bent over the body of his lifelong friend, the human being he loved most
in all the world. Then he turned cold with fear! Could Dick be _dead_!
Impossible! He had been speaking--smiling--only a moment before. The blood
stain was spreading like a scarlet tide. "Dickie boy! Dickie boy!" What
should he do? Was there not something! Poor lad! Poor Moira! Poor Dan!
"Oh, Dickie! Dickie! Dickie darlint! Speak to me! Speak to me just wanst!
Oh, Dickie! Poor lad! Poor lad!"

Could that motionless thing be all that there was left of Dick? Life
would never be the same now! He would be a lone old man all the rest of
his days! He felt very ill with the smoke and blood and all. "Christ!" he
heard himself repeating. "Christ! Christ! Christ!" There was a whine
inside his head, a high singing note. Perhaps he had been shot, too! But
he could not feel anything and there was no blood! He must ring for
somebody! Where was the bell? That funny old revolver was dangling from
his finger--which was devoid of sensation. It must have caught on the
trigger. "Didn't know it was loaded!" He had never believed such things.
Well, they happened! He had shot Dick! He, Dan, had killed his best
friend! His heart stopped with a great thump. His stomach turned to lead.
Would they charge him with murder? He could feel the hair lift on his
scalp. They were both under suspicion of crime. The police might accuse
him of going there with a pistol to threaten Dick into taking his share
of the blame. He _had_ shot him. What reason could he give for being
there at that hour of the night? None that would not play directly into
the theory of a quarrel between the two persons jointly accused. Christ!
Christ!

The sweat that drenched his underclothes and hair was checked violently.
Involuntarily he glanced about the room. Grief merged in a frantic desire
for escape. No one had seen him come in. No one need see him go out. No
one as yet had any knowledge of his presence there. No one need ever have
any. What more probable than that Devens, rather than face exposure, had
taken his own life? Shaking, he tiptoed round the desk and laid the
pistol on the floor beneath the arm that hung over the right side of the
chair. There! Stepping outside into the corridor, he closed the door
softly behind him and stood for a moment intently listening. The house
was still save for the unsynchronized ticking of many clocks, which
seemed to be all about him. A faint blue light came through the curtains
on the Fifth Avenue side and by it Uncle Dan felt his way down the stairs
to the vestibule, where he put on his coat, hat, and rubbers. Peering
through the lace of the door curtain, he turned sick again--a policeman!
Right on the corner. Could he have heard anything? He seemed quite
unsuspicious. It was still raining heavily. The policeman walked slowly
to the other end of the block. Now was the chance. Uncle Dan slipped
quickly out of the front door and began walking at a moderate gait toward
Madison Avenue. Something hard had wedged itself in his throat. He
wondered if you could feel the current in the electric chair. Poor old
Dick! "Christ!" he muttered. "Christ! Why--that's the kind of thing you
read about!"




                              CHAPTER VIII


Gray dawn steals through the shrouded windows of the Devens drawing-room.
The air is sweet with the scent of flowers and of tobacco. Dim objects
outline themselves--with a glint of gold on Moira's harp. On the piano
beside her embroidery lies a volume of music open at "The Widow Machree."
An ash-tray on the table holds the stub of the cigar which her father had
been smoking as he listened to her. The house is silent as the corpse
sitting at the desk in that inner chamber of death hard by.

A thin discharge of sunlight over the eastern chimneys rakes the brown
turf of the winter park. Spring is in the sky, in the air. Down on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland the apple-trees are white with blossoms and
filling the west wind with perfume that spreads across New Jersey to the
Hudson. On the other side of Fifth Avenue a multitude of sparrows flutter
and fight among the bare branches beyond the wall, rising now and again
in a cloud, only to drop quickly back as if thinking better of it. Is it
possible that sudden death has come to that quiet corner?

The day brightens and a few shades are lifted on upper stories. A milkman
crashes from area to area, followed sleepily by his automatic steeds.
Kitchen-maids pound down back stairs. Ranges rattle. There is an elusive
aroma of coffee. Life begins.

The sun gives flesh tint to the lusty gods and goddesses upon the faade
of the marzipan house, and fills their baskets with golden and reddish
fruit. A boy in a bicycle cap and wearing goggles comes along whistling
with a bundle of papers under his arm. He knows the names of all the
people on that street, for they are scrawled on his papers. "Devens"
lives on the corner.

A limousine stops at the porte-cochre, and a man with a beard hurries up
the steps. He is carrying a bag. Perhaps somebody is sick in the Devens
house! The boy loiters by the limousine. He can tell a Packard from a
Buick. The doctor reappears suddenly at the top of the steps.

"Hey, boy! Call that officer, please!"

The boy drops his papers and runs to the end of the block, where Mr.
Brady, the cop, is standing. Slowly and with pompous deliberation, as if
conscious of doing a favor, the policeman strolls to the marzipan house.

Shane, in a black alpaca jacket, stands with a white face beside the
doctor. Well, what do they want, Brady inquires. He goes upstairs, takes
one look at the body, and hurries to the pantry.

"Man dead at nine fifty-seven Fifth Avenue of bullet-shot wound," he
'phones the captain. "It's 'Old Man' Devens," he adds. Then he calls an
ambulance from the Reception Hospital. There is no need of one, but he is
taking no chances and follows the regular routine--"to protect himself."

"Nobody goes _in_ or _out_--see?" he says to Shane, laboriously scrawling
the time in his notebook with a pencil stub.

"Summoned to 957 Fifth Ave. by Dr. Walton. Man, said to be Richard
Devens, dead of bullet-shot wound." He hesitates over the word wound. Do
you spell it with an "o"?

The boy has forgotten all about his papers. He can hear the ambulance as
it comes clanging across from the river. Three officers drop off a
Madison Avenue car and run toward the marzipan house. Brady comes out and
takes up a position on the steps.

"Man dead in there!" he tells the boy, whose jaw drops. Is it Mr. Devens?
The ambulance comes to a stop before the house with an ultimate stroke.
The surgeon leaps out and up the steps. The boy runs to the next area.
"Old Man" Devens is dead! A cook and kitchen-maid, followed by a
laundress, come gaping to the grill.

The ambulance gong has acted as a tocsin. There is a knot of people now
around the porte-cochre, and another, composed of those who wish to
appear less inquisitive, on the corner. The news spreads along the
Avenue. Brady walks up and down shoving back the crowd.

"Get a move on there, now! What do you think you can see, Maggie? Yes,
there's been a murder in there--what of it? Get along! Don't block the
traffic!"


The telephone beside Hugh's bed had been continuing its clamor for
several minutes before he adjusted himself to the idea that there was
anything personal about it. Still only half awake, he reached for the
thing and laid its cold periphery to his warm ear. Shane was at the other
end of it.

"Is that you, Mr. Dillon? I've--I've bad news for you, sir! Mr. Devens has
killed himself!"

Hugh was on the floor in an instant. Devens dead! Poor Moira! It would
break her heart! He felt as though he himself had suffered some terrible
loss. It would leave her all alone. He must go to her at once! And only
yesterday she had been so happy, so full of spirits. He had never known
any other girl who had so loved her father. They had been inseparable.
This terrible thing would crush her! And the disgrace of it! Suicide! He
stopped abruptly in the act of putting on his coat. Would Moira be
justified in holding him responsible? Why had he not thrown the Kranich
case out of the office? Why had he let his academic theory regarding duty
come between him and his personal loyalties? Was he not partly to blame?
No! Suicide was confession. Things must have been even rottener than he
supposed. What a position to land himself in! His feet could hardly find
his slippers.

It was not yet eight o'clock when his taxi stopped under the
porte-cochre of the marzipan house. The ambulance from the Reception
Hospital was waiting, a white uniformed surgeon accompanied by a police
officer coming down the steps. He showed the entry in his notebook to
Hugh:

"7.23 A. M. Notified man shot at 957 Fifth Avenue. Arrived 7.41.
Pronounced dead on arrival."

Shane opened the door. Another police officer was sitting in the hall.
The butler broke down at the sight of Hugh, who put his arm about the old
man's shoulders.

"I found Mr. Devens' bed empty when I went to call him at seven, sir! So
I went to the den. Oh, sir! He was there at his desk--with the pistol on
the floor! Miss Moira told me to send for you. She is in the
drawing-room, sir."

Hugh took the stairs two steps at a time. On the threshold of the room
where he and Moira had spent their first evening together he paused
abruptly. She was standing like a white statue by the piano, and she
neither moved nor seemed to see him until he stepped to her side and
kissed her gently on the cheek. Then with a sob she buried her face on
his shoulder.

"Poor Moira!" he said, stroking her hair. "Poor Moira!"

With an effort she pulled herself together.

"Will you--take charge of things for me, Hugh? There is so much to be
done!"

He held her tight.

"I will attend to everything, Moira. Why not go to your room, dear, and
lie down? You will need all your strength."

Figures were passing in the hall outside. She glanced at them furtively.

"Listen, Hugh!" she said. "My father did not commit suicide. He was
murdered--by a woman."

"Murdered!"

"Yes. I am sure of it!--by a woman who came here last night in a taxicab
at about half past ten o'clock. Shane says her name is Eileen Clayton, a
former opera singer whom my father knew a long time ago. No one saw her
go away. Doctor Walton says it was suicide. I know that it was not, Hugh.
My father was not that kind!"

Shane appeared on the threshold, guiding himself by the portire.

"Mr. Dillon--Doctor Norris, the county medical examiner, is here."

Hugh led Moira to a sofa.

"Please go to your room, dear. I'll see you again before I leave."

"Don't go!" She clung to his arm. "Stay with me!"

"I'll be right here! I'll stay as long as you need me. I'll come back in
a few minutes." He lifted her reluctant hand from his sleeve.

Doctor Norris was just coming up the stairs. He was a big,
broad-shouldered man whose many years of experience as county medical
examiner would have made him an invaluable official had not his bluff
honesty, his sympathy, gentleness, and detestation of politicians
rendered him unique. For years the machine had sought to drive him out of
an office where he performed extraordinary services for the community,
and for years the community, sensing in some occult way that here was a
man whose like it would not find again, had refused to have him driven
out.

Norris grabbed Hugh's hand over the banisters.

"I'm sorry for that poor kid!" he said. "Devens was a fine old Irishman!
They were after him, weren't they? I guess your office was too, wasn't
it?"

"His companies were more or less under fire," admitted Hugh cautiously.

"I'll wait for the Headquarters men," continued Norris. "They'll be here
any moment now. You attend to that girl in there. Get her out of the
way!"

The examiner strolled down the hall, giving Hugh an opportunity to escort
Moira upstairs to her room, where he made her lie down, promising to keep
her informed of everything that went on. Then he telephoned the district
attorney's office and directed that Jeffrey Quirk and a stenographer be
sent to his assistance as soon as possible.

He had hardly rejoined Doctor Norris when Captain Carey, of the Homicide
Bureau, arrived from Headquarters in a police car with several officers
and a photographer, and together the officials walked down the corridor
and threw open the door of the den. The electric lights were on, the
shades drawn. The air was tainted with burned powder, with a subtle
suggestion of tobacco. Devens' body was leaning against his desk in an
attitude of prayer, his forehead upon the writing-pad, his left arm
extended forward, the hand half open. Although Hugh had seen many dead
men in the trenches and upon the battlefield, the sight of this peaceable
elderly gentleman slain in his own house was indescribably shocking. For
an instant the lights wavered. Then he got a grip on himself and strove
to exhibit a proper official composure. Norris carefully examined the
fingers, the sleeve, and lastly the shirt front. Carey had gone to the
other side of the desk.

"Gun's over here," remarked the latter shortly. "Better get busy and
photograph that body. There's no suicide about this."

Meantime, one of the officers had been measuring the room, noting the
precise location of the body and the revolver, and jotting down his
notes.

"See if you agree with me, captain," said Norris. "This man was killed
sitting, at close range, so that he tried to grab or ward off the pistol.
The cuff of the sleeve, you observe, is badly singed. There's no burn on
the shirt--only a few powder grains. The gun was at least three feet away.
A suicide holds the muzzle to his head. The bullet entered below the
collar-bone, to the left of the breast-bone, and evidently penetrated the
heart. He couldn't have held the gun in that position and fired it, to
save his life. Even if he could, he never could have planted the gun
afterward on the other side of the desk next his right hand. The person
who killed him did that. This man died--almost instantly--of asphyxiation.
As you see, _rigor mortis_ has set in. He was killed over five hours ago,
and probably around midnight. His watch is in his pocket. The desk seems
undisturbed. Only one shot was needed. Then the gun was placed where it
might suggest suicide. That tells the story!"

They bent over and studied the pistol. The hand that dangled above it was
immaculate, the fingers half-closed. Directly below it lay a cigar butt.
Carey pointed to it.

"That's what he had in his right hand! Not the gun!"

"You don't need me any more, captain," remarked Norris. "I will have the
body removed to the morgue for autopsy as soon as you and the district
attorney are through with your investigation. Take your time. I'm in no
hurry."

Carey drew Hugh aside.

"Here is where we begin," he said. "Whoever killed Devens was the last
person who was with him."

"The last person to be with Richard Devens before he died," replied Hugh,
"was a woman named Eileen Clayton, an opera singer."

"Eileen Clayton!" exclaimed Carey. "This will be the biggest case of the
century! Have you examined the people in the house? If not, let's get
busy--the butler first. Come along, Barlow! We want you to take an
examination."

To Hugh, as they returned to the front hall, the house seemed blue with
policemen. Through the drawing-room windows he could see that the crowd
which had blocked the side street now extended across Fifth Avenue. The
servants had been sent to their respective rooms. Carey and Hugh examined
Shane sitting upon his bed at the top of the house. He told them of
having admitted Mrs. Clayton the night before, and how afterward, having
locked the windows and rear entrance, he had gone to bed. The other
servants were already upstairs. Mrs. Clayton had visited the house on two
or three previous occasions, during his experience, but not in recent
years. She had seemed very much agitated. She had had a bag in her hand
large enough to conceal a revolver. Neither he nor any one else had heard
any unusual sound during the night. The contents of the house were
intact. He had never seen Mr. Devens with a pistol, and did not believe
he owned one. His master had been in perfectly good spirits the night
before. So far as the butler knew, he had no enemies. None of the other
servants could add anything to Shane's story.

"This is no inside job," said Carey, as they descended the stairs. "And
burglary is out of it. Whoever killed Devens came here with the
deliberate intention of doing so, and that person was Eileen Clayton. If
we can trace the pistol to her she hasn't a chance. Do you know where she
lives?"

Jeffrey Quirk appeared at that moment. District Attorney Farley had gone
to French Lick, he reported, leaving Redmond "acting district attorney"
in his absence. The office had been telephoning all over town, but could
find no trace of him anywhere. Every newspaper in New York was
represented by at least two reporters on the sidewalk outside, all of
whom seemed fully aware that Devens had been murdered.

"I don't care what they print, so long as they don't spoil the arrest,"
growled Carey. "Our strong point is that the Clayton woman is banking on
the case being taken for suicide. She'll probably stay around, unless the
newspapers tip her off that she's wanted for the murder, in which case we
can't tell what she'll do. I wish I knew where I could lay my hands on
her. Of course, it's only a matter of time, but----"

"Clayton!" interrupted Quirk.

"Yes, Clayton. Eileen Clayton. Have you heard of her?" asked the captain
condescendingly.

"Sure, I've heard of her. You don't think she murdered Devens, do you?"

"I don't think. I know it!" replied Carey tartly. "Perhaps if you know so
much, my friend, you can tell me where to find her?"

Jeffrey Quirk smiled strangely.

"You'll find her at the Blackwell Hotel," he said.

  "Ain't goin' to rain no mo'!
  Ain't goin' to rain no mo'!
  How in hell can the old folks tell----"

Moses Wellington, broom in hand, snapped the refrain in two and stiffened
into the bronze statue of a Nubian spearman as Officers Wasserman and
Burke pushed open the side door of the Blackwell. Cops! The absence of
uniform did not obscure his instinctive recognition of their official
character. "Fly-cops!" All his iniquities--_mala in se_ and _mala
prohibita_--swarmed about his ears shrieking: "Cheese it! Cops! Trouble
for somebody!"

"Show us Mrs. Clayton's room!"

Wasserman, the blue-eyed, fat-jowled "beer hound," had suddenly developed
a taste for blood. He fairly bayed.

Moses' feet had become leaden carpet-sweepers. That gun!

"Get on, nigger! Get on!"

"Yassah! Yassah!"

Wasserman shoved the shaking Moses up the stairs ahead of them.

"Dat's her room."

"Wait downstairs, nigger. We want to talk to you."

The two officers approached the door. There was no sound from within.
Wasserman softly turned the handle. The door was locked. He rapped
sharply.

The sound shattered the first deep sleep Eileen Clayton had known for
months. Wasserman's rap brought her to a sitting posture. What was it?
Again! Could it be that Moira had come already?

"Just a minute! Just a minute!"

She threw on a thin blue wrapper, put on her slippers, and opened the
door. A heavy shoe thrust itself through the crack.

"Are you Mrs. Clayton? I am Officer Wasserman, of Headquarters." He
turned back his lapel. "Sorry to disturb you, but I want a few minutes'
conversation."

That lost locket probably! What a relief!

"I'm not dressed yet," she apologized. "Will you wait?"

Wasserman followed his foot with his knee.

"No. Get back into bed. You can talk all right that way."

Already he was in the room.

"Won't you please go out until I can put something on!"

"Get back to bed!"

In a flutter of embarrassment and indignation she pulled the bedclothes
about her neck.

Wasserman swung up a chair and sat down.

"Where were you last night?" he asked.

Eileen hesitated. She must protect Dick.

"I spent the evening here in my room."

"What time did you go to bed?"

"I went to bed--let me see!--about half past twelve."

"Did you stay in this room all the time?"

"I went out for a little while."

"Where did you go?"

"To see a friend of mine."

"How long were you gone?"

"A little over an hour."

Wasserman's blue eyes were like a ferret's.

"What was the name of your friend--the one you went to see?"

"I'd rather not mention the name."

"Sorry! But you'll have to tell me."

"Why do you wish to know?" she played for time.

"I'm here to ask questions--not to answer them. Come! What was his name?"

So the officer knew it was a man. He probably knew all about everything!
It would be wiser not to attempt any concealment.

"I went up to see Mr. Richard Devens on a matter of business. I left here
in a taxi about ten-thirty. I got back a few minutes before twelve."

"Where did you get your taxi?"

"I took the one that always stands in front of the hotel. They call the
driver 'All Night Kelly.'"

Wasserman stepped to the door and Eileen heard him whisper to some one in
the hall. Whoever it was went downstairs. Wasserman came back.

"How long have you known Mr. Devens?"

What was this officer trying to do? It was none of his business how long
she had known Dick!

"How long had you known Mr. Devens?" he repeated.

The change of tense startled her. Why did he say "_had_" known?

"I--I do not wish to talk about Mr. Devens."

"You don't, eh!"

Wasserman's ferret eyes played over the room.

"Do you keep a revolver?" he asked suddenly.

Her throat contracted. Why did he ask that! Could anything have happened?
Oh, _could_ anything have happened?

"I--I--have--no revolver!" she gasped. Her voice sounded unnatural to her
own ears.

"Ever had one?"

Eileen half-raised herself on her elbow. The room was silent save for the
harsh clang of the surface car at the corner. A deadly faintness seized
her.

"What--has anything--" she whispered.

"You might as well come across, Mrs. Clayton! Where did you get that
revolver?"

She stared at him with eyes of glass. Wasserman leaned forward.

"Better tell the truth. Where did you get it?"

"I--I--don't know what you are talking about!" she stammered, on the verge
of collapse. "Has anything--anything----"

"Just stay where you are!" ordered Wasserman. He got up and pulling open
the bureau drawers one after the other, messed through them.

"How long have you been using that?" he inquired, showing her the needle.

"I don't use it--I never take drugs," she answered.

"What _do_ you keep it for?"

"I had a treatment once. A doctor gave me a few _piqres_."

Wasserman returned to the foot of the bed.

"I'll have to ask you to come over to the house with me," he said. "The
captain wants to have a little talk with you. You'll have to get up and
dress."

Eileen was conscious of a change in the officer's manner. Her instinct
told her to be on her guard.

"Will you please go out while I dress?" she requested. "I cannot get up
while you are in the room."

"You don't need to mind me. I'll look out the window," he said.

"But I can't dress with you here!" she protested, half-crying. "You can
stand just outside the door and leave it a little open if you want to."

"Quit wasting time!" returned Wasserman. "You either get up and dress or
you go as you are. It's nothing to me."

"Then keep your back turned!"

Wasserman pulled his chair to the window and Eileen dressed herself as
well as she could, crouching behind the footboard. Then she went to the
bureau and began doing her hair. The alert Wasserman heard the brush drop
and caught her as she fell. The case was a cinch!


Hugh was waiting with Captain Carey in the matron's room of the
Thirty-first when Wasserman and Burke brought Mrs. Clayton in, and he
recognized her instantly as the woman he had seen first in the court-room
on the afternoon he had met Moira, and afterward coming out of Hoyle &
O'Hara's office next day. Her look was an acknowledgment that she too was
conscious of their previous encounter. So this was the woman who had
murdered Richard Devens! It was unbelievable that one so fragile could
have put such a deed into execution. What could have been her motive?

"Do you want to examine the witness?" asked Carey, and Barlow, the police
stenographer, laid his pencils upon the table and prepared to take down
the examination.

"You had better do the questioning," answered Hugh, relieved that some
one else should undertake the task of securing from the prisoner the
information which might later send her to her death. Carey dragged his
chair a few inches nearer.

"What is your full name?" he asked.

Mrs. Clayton hesitated.

"Won't you tell me why I am being asked these questions? I do not know
who you are, even."

"This is Mr. Dillon, the assistant district attorney. I am Captain Arthur
Carey, of the Homicide Bureau."

Hugh saw Mrs. Clayton recoil at the word. Had he not been sure of her
guilt he would have felt the keenest pity for this helpless creature.

"Mrs. Clayton, where did you get the revolver you took to Mr. Devens'
house last night?" asked Carey. His tone was politely businesslike. She
looked at him without replying.

"Did you have a revolver with you?"

Still no answer.

"Is this it?"

Carey took from his pocket a rusty Smith & Wesson and held it out to her.
Hugh noticed that her eyes avoided it.

"Has--has--anything happened to Mr. Devens?" she quavered.

"Mr. Devens is dead," answered Carey.

She winced and closed her eyes. Her hand crept to her throat.

"You are the last person who saw him alive. For your own sake you had
better tell us all you know."

"I--I do not know anything about his death," she gasped. "I am frightfully
shocked to hear of it." She tried to collect herself. "It is true that I
went to his house last night. I was with him for three-quarters of an
hour."

"What did you talk to him about?"

Mrs. Clayton compressed her lips.

"I have reasons for not wanting to tell what we talked about. Our
conversation was--was--entirely friendly. He came downstairs with me and
let me out himself. That is the last I saw of him."

"Did the taxi-driver see him come down and open the door?"

"The taxi-driver was asleep inside the cab. I had to wake him up."

"Suppose he says he saw you come out of the house alone, and that it was
dark?"

"He can't say that--it isn't true. When I left the house the hall lights
were lit."

"But suppose he does?"

"Then he would be lying!"

"Bring in the taxi-driver," ordered Carey of the stenographer, who went
out, returning immediately with Kelly.

"Is this the driver?"

Mrs. Clayton bowed to Kelly.

"That is Mr. Kelly," she said. "How do you do?"

He did not return her salutation. Already he was aligned with the forces
of law and order--all the more because he was an ex-convict and anxious to
demonstrate that he could be relied on by those who had formerly been his
enemies. All that his befuddled memory actually retained was an
impression of Mrs. Clayton entering the taxi, and of his driving her away
from a darkened house. He did not recall having been asleep. Even had he
remembered it, he would have felt any admission to that effect to be
ignominious. Hence he was very positive that for an hour he had
impatiently awaited Mrs. Clayton's return and had seen her come out of a
house in which all the lights had been extinguished. And as opinions as
well as suspicions are contagious, Kelly's obvious impression of her
guilt communicated itself to Carey, and corroborated and strengthened the
latter's predetermination regarding it. When one who has participated in
a crime, even unwittingly, shows that he is satisfied of the guilt of an
associate, it is almost like receiving a confession from an accomplice.
Thus Kelly's laudable desire to hold himself out to the world as an
honest, alert, and sober taxi-driver (instead of a soundly snoozing
booze-fighter, recently discharged from Sing Sing prison after having
served a five years' term for burglary), actually had an astigmatic
effect upon the vision of the Blind Goddess. To Hugh, as to Carey, Kelly
seemed a disinterested and well-intentioned witness.

Kelly's eye caught the revolver which still remained in Carey's hand, and
he instantly recognized it. Moses had exhibited it once in a playful
threat to shoot him full of holes during a crap game. Of course she had
got it off him! Should he tip Carey off to this it would be a
knockout--make him solid with the cops forever. On the other hand, it
would involve accusing Moses of felony, for the nigger had no license to
carry a pistol--he was sure of that! And if he gave that away, the latter
might get on his ear and in revenge turn him up to the police for highway
robbery. Moses knew a great deal more about Kelly than was healthy.
Together they had indulged in a number of little escapades which would
not bear exposure. So Kelly resolved to say nothing about the antecedents
of that revolver.

"That's all, Kelly!" said Carey. "Did you have a bag in your hand when
you got into the taxi?" he continued of Eileen.

At last she saw what they were trying to do! These men believed that she
had gone to the house to kill Richard, taking a revolver with her for
that purpose. The sickening realization that such a suspicion was
possible overwhelmed her even more than the terror of her predicament. Of
course, should she explain the true nature of her feelings for Richard
Devens, the absurdity of charging her with his murder would be manifest.
But that would involve the disclosure of Moira's parentage. She must keep
their secret at any cost, for the sake of Richard's memory, and that of
the girl herself.

"Witness refuses to answer!" remarked Carey to the stenographer. "Once
more, madam, did you ever see that revolver before?"

Eileen did not reply.

"Witness refuses to answer. Any questions, Mr. Dillon? No? Then I guess
we'd better roll her fingers and hold her here for a while before taking
her over to Fifty-seventh Street before Magistrate Blynn. We might want
to examine her some more. Where's Mrs. Murphy?"

Eileen steadied herself with her hand on the table. Were they going to
lock her up? In a cell! Was there no one to whom she could turn for help?
That young man--the assistant district attorney--he had a kind face--she had
seen him with Moira--he would understand! She felt that she would go mad
if they locked her in a cell!

A stout, masculine-looking woman had come in and taken her stand by
Eileen's chair.

"Search the prisoner, Mrs. Murphy," directed Carey. "Brennon will take
her finger-prints. Is there much of a crowd outside?"

"They're swarmin' all over the place!" replied the matron. "I never seen
so many reporters in my life."

"Well, lock her up, and don't let anybody speak to her until we come
back. I'm going to run up to the Devens house again. Will you come along,
Mr. Dillon?"

Carey got up. So did Wasserman and Burke. Eileen addressed Hugh.

"May I speak to you alone?"

Hugh had never seen such desperation in the eyes of any human being. He
looked at Carey, who nodded.

"Keep the stenographer!" he warned.

"I want to speak to Mr. Dillon absolutely alone."

"You ought to have a record," insisted Carey. "A stenographer isn't
anybody."

"Alone! For God's sake!" she begged.

"I will do as she asks," said Hugh. The officers tramped out, closing the
door, and leaving them alone together.

"Mr. Dillon!" said Eileen, "I know you are a friend of Moira Devens. I
wish to tell you something in confidence. Will you treat it so?"

The request was put so simply that it did not seem to Hugh either unusual
or improper.

"Certainly--if you wish," he replied. "I will not repeat anything you say
to me. I have no way of compelling you to talk, and if you do you may
impose your own terms."

"Then listen. It is clear that you all suspect me of killing Richard
Devens. You think I went to the house with a revolver for that purpose. I
did not. I see you do not believe me! But you will when I tell you
everything! I bought that revolver to commit suicide with. I swear it to
you. I do not know who killed Richard. He was the last person on earth to
whom I wished any harm to come--Mr. Dillon! Believe me! Do I look like a
woman who would lie to you?"

"Then why did you go to his house?" inquired Hugh.

"I went there to beg him to permit me to see my daughter--our
daughter--Moira."

"Moira!" Hugh became rigid.

"She is my daughter by Richard Devens. He was my lover."

The blood throbbed in his temples as he stared at her incredulously.

"Does--does she know this?" he asked at length.

"She knows nothing. He would have married me after his wife died, but my
habits made it impossible. I had begun to take drugs, and although I did
my best I could not stop, so for Moira's sake, and in return for a
certain income, Richard induced me to promise never to see her. But I was
her mother, Mr. Dillon! Of course you can't know what that means, but as
the years passed I found I couldn't go on living without her. So I bought
the revolver from Moses, the negro waiter at my hotel--and I went to
Richard's house to tell him that, unless he would let me see Moira
occasionally, I was going to kill myself. He was very kind, and persuaded
me to give him the pistol. I know that if he had lived he would have
arranged something. He might not have told her who I was, but he would
have let me see her in some way. Then he told me I had better go home. He
let me out. Kelly was asleep in his cab. The lights were burning in the
front hall when we drove off. That is all I know. You see, Mr. Dillon, I
am the one bereaved. I have lost my best friend. It would be absurd to
imagine that I was responsible for his death. Now, will you let me go
home?"

Apparently she had no doubt but that he would accept her statement
without reservation. Could this astounding claim be true? Could Moira be
the daughter of this bedraggled outcast charged with the murder of her
father? It defied belief. There was not the slightest physical
resemblance between them. The woman was a drug addict. The story was
probably only the fantastic offspring of a disordered brain. A "pipe
dream"! It might even be a fixed delusion under the influence of which
she had murdered Devens for a fancied wrong. And now she advanced it in
her own defense. It was in effect material evidence tending to establish
her guilt. And yet--! His mind reverted to the scene in the court-room and
to that outside the offices of Hoyle & O'Hara. If it were not true, the
woman at least harbored that definite belief herself. Surely some
mysterious connection existed between this unhappy creature and Moira!
The prisoner gave no other indication of irrationality. Her manner and
utterance were convincing. He remembered his first impression of the
portrait over the fireplace--how unlike it was to Moira. He had known far
stranger stories. This woman was at least a lady. Slowly the conviction
asserted itself that so far as her relationship to Moira was concerned
she was telling him the truth.

"Where was your daughter born?" he asked.

"Philadelphia. I was singing in grand opera in New York. I was very well
known then."

So it was true that the woman was an actress! He must be on his guard.

"What was the name of the waiter who sold you the pistol?"

"Moses Wellington."

"You say you left the revolver at the house?"

"Yes."

"Have you any idea who could have killed Mr. Devens?"

"None. Perhaps he killed himself."

Again the thought! Whoever had killed Devens had placed the revolver in
such a way as to suggest suicide.

"You will let me go, now? I shall not leave New York. I will come
whenever you send for me."

She was clearly quite confident that her request would be granted.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Clayton," said Hugh. "I have no authority to let you go
home. The case must follow the regular routine."

He perceived that he had inadvertently allowed himself to be placed in a
highly ambiguous position. He arose and she did the same.

"You had better not do any more talking," he said. "I will respect your
confidence, but I do not want to go any further on that basis. It may
become my business to prosecute you for murder--and I wish to be
unembarrassed."

"Murder! Prosecute me for murder!"

For a moment he thought she was going to fall. He stepped to the door.
The matron was just outside.

"I think Mrs. Clayton needs some assistance," he said.


"Well, did you get anything out of her?" inquired Carey as they returned
to the room.

"Nothing that I can tell you," said Hugh.

"How do you mean--'nothing you can tell me'?" demanded Carey, squinting at
him.

"What she told me was confidential."

"That don't hold. She can't get away with anything like that. I'm an old
hand, Mr. Dillon. I know this business down to the ground. We're glad to
let 'em shoot their mouths off. It's the way we get most of our
convictions. But you mustn't give her a chance to talk without taking the
consequences."

"I appreciate what you say, Captain Carey," replied Hugh. "I may have
made a mistake. But I must keep my promise."

He found it difficult to talk to Carey with any degree of naturalness, so
staggered was he by what he had just heard. He no longer doubted the
truth of what she had told him regarding her relationship to Moira, since
he now perceived that, far from serving as an exculpation, her story
immeasurably strengthened the case against her. It was a genuine
"admission against interest." That she had contemplated suicide could
easily have been an afterthought. What more probable than that Devens'
discarded mistress should go to his house for the purpose of blackmailing
him? Moreover, she had acknowledged that she had procured the pistol and
brought it with her.

Yet honor forbade his making use of her statement in any way whatever. He
had become the involuntary guardian of her secret. He was now the one
person on earth precluded from establishing the real motive for her
crime, or the preparation for its commission! Chance had placed the
conduct of the prosecution temporarily upon his shoulders, and he must
continue his functions until Farley's return or he should be officially
relieved, but ultimately he would have no choice but to go to the
district attorney and say: "I have heard something which makes it
impossible for me to be connected any longer with the preparation of this
case. I must forget it as absolutely as if I had never heard it. You must
put some one else in my place."

Of course he might go ahead and trust to luck that some detective would
make an independent discovery of the facts confided to him, in which
event they could honorably be used. Carey might "turn up" the negro
waiter, for example; or conceivably some evidence might be adduced which
would establish the relationship between Mrs. Clayton and Devens. But in
that case the woman would always believe that he had betrayed her
confidence. He would be bothered and impeded at every turn by the
knowledge which he had allowed her to impart to him. Had it been a ruse?
He wondered! Was he leaning over backward? Was there any sense in being
so scrupulous as all that? Did honor preclude his use of the facts
disclosed, independent of her admission of them. Might he not be
jeopardizing the public interest by running the thing too fine? Yet his
instinct told him that having given his word he must live up to it in its
full spirit.

He was the prosecuting officer and he had no alternative for the present
but to continue as such. The case was complete, the circumstantial
evidence established Mrs. Clayton's guilt to a mathematical
demonstration. No further motive was needed than could be inferred from
the act itself, provided her procurement or possession of the revolver
could be shown. And that would probably be supplied by the police before
many hours had passed, without assistance or suggestion from him. No
doubt Carey's men were already examining all the employees of the
Blackwell Hotel--the negro Moses among them.

But what if some other assistant were put in charge of the case and
should unearth the fact that the woman who had killed Devens had been his
former mistress and the mother of his child? The respectability of the
Devens name would be destroyed forever. Moira would be put in the
incredibly shocking position of a daughter forced to appear as
complainant against her own mother for the murder of her father. By
continuing in the case might it not be possible for him to prevent this
terrible disclosure, without prejudice to the prosecution? Was not his
first duty toward Moira? He must make no mistakes. The different elements
in this complicated ethico-legal problem presented themselves to his
excited imagination like the jumbled parts of a disordered
picture-puzzle.

"What a crowd there is out there in the street!" he exclaimed, aghast at
the swarms of people about the station-house.

Captain Carey chuckled.

"It's nothing to the crowds there'll be around the Criminal Court
Building when you try this case! It's going to be the most sensational
trial the country has ever known. It will make the reputation of
everybody connected with it. And it's a 'pipe.' She hasn't got a chance!
Goes there with a gun, plugs him, puts out the lights and sneaks out in
the dark, believing they'll think he killed himself. You're a lucky
fellow, Mr. Dillon, with Farley out at French Lick Springs! You got
everything your own way--handed to you on a gold plate!"

They walked down the steps of the station-house into a circle of
camera-men--"Hold that just a minute, Cap!" Click-clock! "All right!
Thanks!"--and as he climbed into the police-car several reporters stepped
upon the running-board and began questioning him. He had nothing to say,
he declared. Well, they had to have a story, and he had better say a few
words or they would have to make something up. Had he any doubt about the
Clayton woman's guilt? He admitted that it was a strong case. Had he
located the shop where the gun came from? He had nothing to add on that
subject. Had he any knowledge of any past connection between "Old Man"
Devens and Eileen Clayton, the beautiful diva? Nothing to say. Had he
heard from District Attorney Farley? No. Had he communicated with him?
Not yet. Would he have charge of the prosecution? That remained to be
seen.

"Look here, Mr. Dillon!" whispered Captain Carey, "for God's sake, give
'em _something_! We don't want a frost. Tell 'em about the revolver being
put under his right hand while the cigar-butt was in his fingers. You'll
never have another chance like this as long as you hold office!"

But Hugh's only thought now was for Moira. He must get back to her as
soon as he could. A boy hopped on the running-board just vacated by the
disgruntled reporters and thrust a copy of an evening edition beneath his
nose.

                       "RICHARD DEVENS MURDERED!

                 MILLIONAIRE FOUND DEAD OF BULLET WOUND

                            EILEEN CLAYTON,

                 FORMER OPERATIC STAR, HELD AS SUSPECT"

Carey seized it avidly.

"You can have the whole front page to yourself for the next three months,
if you want it!" he assured Hugh.

A dense throng filled Seventy-sixth Street to within half a block of the
marzipan house, where it was held back by a cordon of men. Hugh and Carey
forced their way through the mob to the front steps just as the door of
the morgue wagon was being closed. Richard Devens was leaving his house
for the last time. Had his death been the wages of sin? A police officer
stood on guard at the foot of the steps, another at the top. A third
tended the door on the inside. Carey's men from the Homicide Bureau were
comparing notes with the precinct detectives in the drawing-room. Two
process-servers, a stenographer, a draftsman, a photographer, and young
Thorn, the deputy assistant in charge of the district attorney's Homicide
Bureau, were awaiting Hugh in the front hall, shepherded by Jeffrey
Quirk.

"We've got our own photographs," said Thorn. "And Tinker has the
measurements for a diagram. The Headquarters men say they have found a
few clear prints on the top of the desk, but everything else is just a
blurred mess. I've taken statements from the cook, kitchen-maid,
parlor-maid, laundress, chambermaid, and chore-man, but not one of 'em
knows a damn thing, or has even so much as heard of Eileen Clayton. We've
got to work the other end--her end, I mean--run down her past--find out how
she's been supporting herself, and that sort of thing. Maybe Devens was
keeping her. I say, it's a whale of a case, isn't it!" His eyes were
popping.

"If you've finished up everything you can go back to the office," said
Hugh. "I shall stay here for the present."

"We can't leave here yet," explained Thorn. "We have to wait for Mr.
Redmond. He's 'acting,' you understand. We have to report to him."

"Where is he?"

"They located him at the Racquet Club about ten minutes ago," answered
the deputy. "He was playing court tennis with a marker. Gee! but he was
sore when he found out what he'd missed. He said he'd be up inside of
fifteen minutes, and that we should wait until he got here."

That Redmond should have anything to do with a matter that touched Moira
so nearly was exceedingly distasteful to Hugh. Even if for certain
ethical reasons he might incline to feel that he should not continue in
charge of the case himself, he certainly did not wish his rival to assume
control of it. Redmond would play it for every ounce of publicity it was
worth. He would sacrifice every shred of privacy and decency. What was
worse, he would spend every cent in the county treasury in a relentless
ferreting down of Eileen Clayton's history, in order to reveal a motive,
and, if possible, to blacken her character. In that moment Hugh realized
that in addition to his moral loathing for Redmond, he entertained for
him a bitter and burning hatred.

He was about to go upstairs to see Moira again when Wasserman and Burke
entered and asked for Captain Carey.

"Well, captain, we're on the trail of the gun!" said the blue-eyed
sleuth. "I'm afraid that the taxi-driver has double-crossed us after all.
He's very thick with all those coons down at the Blackwell, but he
finally admitted to us that he thinks the old Smith & Wesson belonged to
a nigger named Moses Wellington, who waited on the Clayton woman. He
won't identify it positively, but I guess he will when the time comes."

"Where is this nigger?" snapped Carey.

"Blown!" exploded Wasserman. "He was around this morning all right. He's
soft on a wench named Tilly, who runs the cigar counter. But he hasn't
been seen since Kelly went back there about half-past ten. My idea is
that the coon has got something on him, and that Kelly was afraid to tell
us the whole story until he'd given the nigger a chance to beat it."

Carey's face darkened.

"You should never have let that 'harp' go until you'd squeezed him dry!"
he cried. "Get busy now and turn that nigger up, or I'll have you
demoted. Call up Headquarters and tell 'em to send out a general
alarm--watch all the terminals and ferries. What does this nigger look
like?"

"Just like a nigger, I guess!" growled Wasserman.

"Well, cover that Tilly girl!" ordered Carey. "That's your one best bet!
We can't convict the Clayton woman without proving that she brought the
gun here, and we can't pin that on her without the nigger. We've got to
have him, see? But if we wait long enough he's bound to connect up with
his woman." He turned to Hugh. "What is it the French say: 'Cherchez la
femme'? Well, I'm off for another swing at the Blackwell; and another go
at Kelly!"


Moira let Hugh take her in his arms without a word.

"Moira," he said at last, "this is a strange time to tell you so, but I
love you."

"The best time to tell me," she answered, "is when I need you most."

"Then you love me, too?"

"I have always loved you, Hugh. Ever since that day in court when I saw
you from the bench."

"And I you!"

He held her close, in silence. The agony of her situation rendered words
an offense. His mere presence and unspoken sympathy were all that he
could give her. In the street below horns tooted and taxi doors slammed
as the police and their auxiliaries came and went. Footsteps pounded
ceaselessly on the stairs. There was no longer that hush that marks the
presence of the dead. Suddenly Moira spoke.

"Promise me something, Hugh! Take charge of the case so I can feel that
it is not being handled by strangers who might have less consideration
for my feelings than some one who cares for me. It is going to be hard
enough without the additional suffering I might have to bear if they went
into my father's past. I want your protection, Hugh!"

She lifted her head and kissed him.

"If it can be done--I promise!" he said.

"'If it can be done'? Of course it can be done! Mr. Farley will surely
honor any request I may make under the circumstances."

"I will do anything you ask, Moira--at any time. I must go now. I will
come back later."

"Thank you, Hugh. It is the greatest comfort to have you with me."

They kissed again and he went downstairs. What was he to do? As a
reasonable human being and as an officer of the law he was convinced that
Eileen Clayton had killed Richard Devens. Yet the exposure of their
relationship involving, as it did, Moira's illegitimacy, would cloud her
entire life. If he retained control of the case it might be possible for
him to protect her secret. On the other hand, how could he bring himself
to prosecute this woman even if guilty of murder, knowing her to be
Moira's mother?

An almost unrecognizable Michael Redmond was standing upon the landing,
talking to the group of men from the district attorney's office. The
sight of Hugh seemed to infuriate him. Without responding to the latter's
greeting, he called out:

"I am in charge here! This is my case!"




                               CHAPTER IX


"You are no longer needed!" said Redmond insolently. "I shall take charge
of this case from now on."

Why should Redmond so obviously gloat over his power to take the case
away from him? Why should his attitude suddenly become inimical? Could he
have been drinking at that hour of the morning?

"If you had been in your office instead of playing racquets at the club,
you would have had charge of it from the beginning."

Redmond's eyes dwindled dangerously.

"You had no business butting in! You are not attached to the Homicide
Bureau! At any rate, you should have waited for me."

"Nonsense!" retorted Hugh. "I was sent for and I came. Nobody had any
idea where you were. Somebody had to represent our office."

"Where is the prisoner?"

"In the Sixty-seventh Street Station House."

"Did you get anything out of her?"

"No."

"Did she tell you anything?"

Redmond asked the question insinuatingly. He had evidently been talking
to Carey.

"Nothing that I am at liberty to repeat."

The acting district attorney clenched his fist.

"You can't put over anything like that!" he cried. "If I am going to try
this case--and I propose to try it!--I intend to know everything this
Clayton woman has told you!"

"You will never get it from me!" answered Hugh. "What she told me, she
told me in confidence, and I so informed Captain Carey."

"Yes, that's what he said. You think you're God Almighty, but you've a
lot to learn yet, as you will find out."

Hugh took a step toward Redmond.

"If you had not been drinking and a death had not just occurred in this
house, I should ask you to step over into the park and let me teach you
manners," he said.

"Fire-eating as usual!" sneered the Honorable Michael.

Hugh pushed by him and put on his hat and coat.

"God help anybody who relies on your honor!" he remarked.


It is said that the mauling of a lion produces an anesthesia in its
victim which renders the latter insensitive to pain, and we likewise know
that severely wounded men do not immediately suffer from their injuries.
It was owing to some such provision of Nature that Eileen Clayton had
been able to sustain her arrest, transportation to the station-house, and
examination without collapse. In spite of her public career she had never
been able to overcome a natural shyness so intense that all close
contacts were distressing to her. The shock of being dragged from her
bed, taken to the station-house and accused of Richard's murder had made
her, for the moment, insensible not only to the acute horror of her
position, but to those lesser indignities which ordinarily would have
been agonizing. It was as if her astral body were the hovering spectator
of what was happening to the earthly case of Eileen Clayton.

She saw the poor thing sitting in the matron's room in her tawdry hat and
soiled chinchilla, and heard her questioned, badgered, and hectored by
one officer after another--by precinct detectives, men from the Homicide
Bureau at Headquarters, captains, inspectors, and by representatives of
the district attorney. She watched herself shrink and congeal under their
bullying, blundering interrogations, experiencing a curious intellectual
satisfaction at her ability to remain silent with respect to her
relations with Devens and the ownership of the revolver. In a way it
all--even the fact of Richard's death--seemed academic--an unreal pantomime,
at the end of which she would probably find herself back in her bed at
the Blackwell. For the time being she was sleep-walking and, fortunately
for her, she was still in that condition when one of the headquarters
men, having taken her finger-prints, led her across an area in the rear
of the station-house and thrust her into a cell. It was about four feet
by seven, one of a row opening upon a passage, and contained nothing but
an iron shelf for a seat. She sat there staring dry-eyed through the
bars, while the astral body of Eileen Clayton fluttered nearer and nearer
to its effigy.

She was conscious first of the smell of paint--in which was fused that of
steam-pipes, cabbage, and suds. The cell was suffocatingly hot. Why was
it painted dark red? Blood color! How long would they keep her there?
Surely that nice young man who knew Moira would arrange for her release!
Was it possible that Richard was really dead? She passed her hand across
her forehead and found it covered with sweat. Her mouth was parched and
sticky. Could she not ring for a glass of water? She looked about the
cell. There was no means of communication whatever! Suppose she should be
taken ill! The thought frightened her. "I want to get out!" she
whispered. "I want to get out!" The walls seemed to be closing in upon
her. She grabbed the bars of the cell door and tried to shake them, but
they were immovable. "Let me out!" she cried, this time out loud. The
sound of her own voice filled her with terror. If somebody she knew would
only come--even Moses! She had nobody--nobody at all! Nobody but Uncle Dan!
"Mother!" whispered the gray-haired woman. "Mother!"

Footsteps on the asphalt of the area! A key rattled in the iron lock of
the outer door. A shaft of cold air. "She's in there--third cell to the
right," she heard a voice say. A stranger was standing in front of the
cell.

"Mrs. Clayton--I am Assistant District Attorney Redmond."

At first glance she thought the nice young man had come back. Then she
saw that this was another. He was smiling.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

There was something about his smile that she distrusted.

"What do you wish to ask me?"

"Won't you sit down?" he inquired. "Do you mind if I smoke? Perhaps you
would like a cigarette yourself?"

She shook her head, holding one of the bars in either hand.

"How long must I stay here?" she asked. "May I have a glass of water?"

"You may have anything you want--after I have talked with you."

"Couldn't I have it now?"

"When you have answered my questions." He leaned gracefully against the
opposite wall.

"There is nothing personal about this, Mrs. Clayton. You know, of course,
that I have nothing against you. On the contrary I am extremely sorry for
you. If you answer my questions satisfactorily, I shall do everything in
my power to secure your immediate release."

"But I thought that other young man was the district attorney."

"He is out of it!" answered Redmond. "I am the one in authority. Perhaps
there is something you would like to tell me. Why you went up to the
Devens' house, for example. How long have you known the family, may I
ask?"

"A long time. Mr. Devens was an old friend of mine."

"Why don't you make a clean breast of the whole business, Mrs. Clayton?
You were the last person known to have seen Mr. Devens alive. No doubt
you can explain everything, but until you do you will naturally be under
suspicion. You do not want to stay here any longer than necessary."

"I have told everything already. Mr. Devens was alive when I left him
about twelve o'clock. He showed me downstairs."

Redmond took in a lungful of smoke.

"Where did you get the pistol that you took to the house? The one you
told Mr. Dillon about," he added, letting the smoke exhale slowly from
his mouth.

"I said nothing to Mr. Dillon about any pistol!"

"Oh! Well, what did you tell him?"

"What I told him was confidential."

"Why not be confidential with me, too? I stand in Dillon's place. I am
the only person who can do anything for you, Mrs. Clayton. I have entire
authority. If you make a statement to me that satisfies me of your
innocence I will see that you are set free at once."

Eileen hesitated. He seemed straightforward and honest.

"I swear to you that I know nothing about the murder of Mr. Devens."

"How do you know it was murder?"

"I don't know. But you all seem to think it was. Could I have a glass of
water?"

"Not unless you are willing to be frank with me, as I am with you."

The weakness that drove her to the drug forced her to sit down. Never had
she needed a stimulant as she did now. Redmond saw her hands tremble. He
had known many victims of the habit.

"You look sick," he remarked in a tone of pity. "Wouldn't you like some
medicine? I can get it for you--anything you like."

A wave of temptation swept over her. Oh, for just one shot!

"I don't feel very well," she conceded. "My medicine is in my room at the
Blackwell. Could you send for it?"

Redmond nodded.

"I think we can arrange about that--if you will answer my questions."

An irresistible craving was dragging her toward the bars.

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to know what you told Dillon. If you could tell him, you can tell
me, too. Then I'll send over to the Blackwell and get you anything you
like."

"What I told him hadn't anything to do with how Mr. Devens came to be
killed."

"Never mind! What did you tell him?"

Every atom in her being was crying out for respite from torture.

"Get what is in the top drawer of my bureau--and I'll tell you," she
whispered, closing her eyes.

"Now you're talking!" he exclaimed heartily, striving to suppress his
triumph. "And, because you're getting sensible, I'll tell you a secret.
I've been over there already."

He felt in his pocket and took out a package which he opened
deliberately.

"See?" he coaxed, holding the silver needle just out of her reach. "Tell
me the truth--what you told Dillon--and I'll give this to you."

"Give it to me first!"

"No. You've got to deliver the goods. Then----"

"Give it to me--!" she panted, reaching through the bars. "For God's sake,
give it to me! I won't speak unless you do!"

"All right!" agreed Redmond. "If you promise to tell me two things--what
you told Dillon, and where you got the revolver--I'll give you a shot.
Hold out your wrist." He pressed the needle into it.

"Oh!" she exclaimed in an ecstasy of relief as life rushed through her
veins. "Oh!"

"But that's all until you talk!" he said, putting the instrument back in
his pocket.

Instantly Eileen's wilted spirit revived, her physical strength returned,
once more her fatigued brain became alert. Trick her into some sort of a
confession, would he?

"Come, now!" urged Redmond. "Out with it!"

Eileen looked at him slyly. On her face was the fixed meaningless grin
that inevitably followed her use of the drug. Her color had returned.

"Why, Mr. Redmond," she said in a thin, high voice. "I didn't tell Mr.
Dillon anything--and I didn't have any revolver!"


The procession of taxis following the one which carried Eileen to the
Fourth District Magistrate's Court numbered nineteen. She was accompanied
by Wasserman and Burke. In the second car rode Redmond and Carey. The
others were entirely occupied by gentlemen of the press and their
associates of the camera and the crayon. Her exodus from the precinct
house as well as her arrival at the Fifty-seventh Street Court, filmed by
both Path and Kinograms, was shown on the news-reels of the
moving-picture houses along Broadway at the performances that same
evening. A squad of reserves rushed the crowd away from the doors, and
held them back while the headquarters men led Eileen upstairs to the
court-room, followed by the mob of reporters. Magistrate Blynn was
hearing a charge of rape in the second degree, but he gladly suspended
the proceedings in order to give full and immediate attention to an event
of such superior importance as the arraignment of the murderess of "Old
Man" Devens.

The blue-eyed Wasserman swore to a short affidavit in which he alleged
that the defendant, Eileen Clayton, "did shoot and kill one Richard
Devens," and, Redmond having asked that her examination be set at
forty-eight hours, she was thereupon committed to a cell in the prison
below.

"If nobody gets to this woman, Judge," remarked the Honorable Michael,
leaning confidentially across the top of Blynn's desk, "she'll cave
inside of twelve hours. She's a dope fiend, and she can't live without
it. Of course her attorney might bring it in to her, but so far she
hasn't any lawyer, and I hope to God she won't get one before we have
another chance at her."

"I'll try and facilitate you in every way, Mr. Redmond. I will give
instructions that the rules are to be strictly enforced," replied
Magistrate Blynn. "She should not be able to get any dope in there.
Excuse me, I think that that artist from _The Herald Tribune_ wants to
sketch us. How is that, Mr. Shrady? Can you see my face?"

All that morning Daniel Shay had sat on a bench in the crowded anteroom
of the Grand Jury on the top floor of the Criminal Court Building,
waiting to be called as a witness. Let them send him to jail! What did he
care now? He would take whatever blame there was upon his own shoulders.
The name of Richard Devens should remain untarnished--upon that he was
fully resolved. He paid little or no heed to what was going on about him.
His heart was too full. Dick was dead! By that time they would have found
his body. Poor Moira would be distraught. He wished that he could go to
her, but he felt a certain relief at being forced to remain away from the
marzipan house by an order, as it were, of the court. So he sat there in
a daze while Greeks, Armenians, Sicilians, and Chinamen pushed by him,
and witness after witness responded to his name, arose, and passed
through the door into the chamber of mystery beyond. Noon came and the
Grand Jury filed out, a herd of tailored goats led by an old Billy in
side-whiskers. Uncle Dan, not knowing what else to do, followed them down
into court, where they huddled at the rail while the foreman handed up
the regulation bunch of indictments to the judge, who bowed unctuously,
and said:

"You may proceed with your labors, gentlemen!"

Then they straggled out to the elevators, Uncle Danny with them. He must
go to the office, he supposed! It was the moment of all others for him to
be on hand.

A boy thrust an "extra" in front of his nose. Double Titanic!

                        RICHARD DEVENS MURDERED
                EILEEN CLAYTON, EX-PRIMA DONNA, ARRESTED
                 ADMITS VISITING FINANCIER LAST EVENING

Eileen! The blood rushing to his eyes blurred his sight, and the pavement
rose up to smite him. Eileen accused of killing Dickie! What a fantastic
idea! He thrust a nickel into the boy's hand, and crushing the paper into
his pocket, staggered across Franklin Street to the Elm Castle. Good God!
What made them think Eileen could have done anything like that?

It was another ten minutes before he had sufficiently mastered himself to
read the report.

So that was where the pistol had come from!

Eileen was to blame for Richard's death, for she had brought the revolver
there!

Yet she was innocent.

But so was he innocent!

He felt a tremendous pity for both Eileen and himself--for Eileen because
she was unjustly accused, for himself because he might be unjustly
accused. He must go at once to the authorities and explain. He would go
to young Dillon. The boy would help him. It was terrible to think of poor
Eileen locked up in a cell. She must not be kept in confinement a minute
longer than was necessary. She would go mad without her drug. He would go
right back to the Criminal Court Building. He would explain everything
fully. Somebody touched his arm!

"Mr. Shay, the acting district attorney wants to see you." Wasserman was
standing beside him. In his agitation Uncle Dan dropped his fork upon the
floor. He looked at the detective helplessly.

"Me? What about?" he stammered.

"He'll tell you himself."

"Maybe it's the same thing I was subpoenaed before the Grand Jury for?"

"Was you before the Grand Jury?"

"No, only subpoenaed."

He showed the subpoena to Wasserman.

"You was a friend of Mr. Devens's, wasn't you?"

"A very old friend."

"Saw him 'most every day, didn't you?"

"'Most every day."

Wasserman handed the old man his derby hat.

"Well, come along over!" he said, taking the arm of Uncle Dan, who
quailed at his touch. Could it be that they suspected him of having
something to do with Dickie's death after all? Perhaps the arrest of
Eileen was only a blind. Suppose he admitted that the shot that killed
Dick had been fired in the course of a struggle for the revolver? They
would naturally conclude that he and Dick had quarrelled over the
investigation of the A. A. & B. They might even say that he had killed
Dick in order to stop his mouth--to prevent his becoming a witness for the
State. It was bad! Bad! There would be nothing to meet the accusation but
his own word. And they would never take that!

"You was in business with Mr. Devens, wasn't you?" inquired Wasserman, as
they recrossed the street. There seemed to Uncle Dan something ominous in
the way he said it. He nodded. His throat was too contracted to permit of
speech.

"Had he been subpoenaed too?"

It was clear that Wasserman suspected his connection with the homicide!

"Not that I know of."

They went up in the elevator to the floor occupied by the district
attorney. The corridors were alive with policemen, the pressroom full of
reporters scribbling on yellow sheets which they handed through the
windows to messenger-boys waiting outside in the corridor. Wasserman had
difficulty in making a path for Uncle Dan through the milling throng. An
air of excitement and of mystery pervaded everything. One of the
reporters at the window spotted the detective.

"Who you got with you?" he asked.

"This is Mr. Shay--Devens' side partner," answered Wasserman over the sea
of heads. The rush in their direction almost swept the old man off his
feet. They acted as if they wanted to lynch him. Christ! His heart was
thumping painfully. Wasserman shoved him ahead into the district
attorney's outer office, through the open door of which Uncle Dan could
see a blond young man in a blue suit, pounding his palm with his fist,
and haranguing a group about him.

"Got him?" he called out at sight of Wasserman.

Uncle Dan's legs nearly gave way.

"This is Mr. Shay, Mr. District Attorney," announced the detective,
pushing Uncle Dan into the centre of the room, which seemed to him to be
ringed by glaring beasts.

The young man in blue approached him unsteadily. Even in his fright Uncle
Dan noticed the odor of whiskey.

"I am," he announced as one who might declare himself to be the heir of a
princely house--"I am--The Law!--'Render unto Csar the things that are
Csar's'! Give me a cigarette, Tommy Todd!"

He thrust his face close to Shay's.

"Therefore, O Shay, harken unto the Voice of the Law! And trifle not! Mr.
Todd here is the best stenographer in the United States--and he will take
down your words e'en before they leave your lips. When did you last see
Richard Devens in the living flesh?"

Uncle Dan's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Why should he
deliberately thrust his head in a noose which would be instantly yanked
tight? Eileen was as yet only under arrest. She had not been indicted.
The charge against her might be dismissed. There would be plenty of time
in which to tell his story. When he made his explanation it had better be
to the district attorney in person, not to a drunken sot like this.

"I saw Mr. Devens at his home about six o'clock last evening," he
answered.

"You did, eh! Who was present?"

"Mr. Devens, Mr. Hoyle, and myself."

"How late did you stay?"

"Mr. Hoyle and I went away at about half-past six."

"Um!"

Redmond lowered at him.

"How long have you known Mr. Devens?"

"About fifty-five years."

"Pretty intimately, eh?"

"As intimately as one man can know another, I guess."

"Did you know this Clayton woman?"

"I have met her."

"How well did Devens know her?"

Uncle Dan, frightened as he was, perceived clearly that he must be
careful not to furnish the district attorney with a motive for the
killing.

"That I cannot tell you."

"Did you ever see her at his house?"

"No."

"Did you ever see them together at any time?"

"Many years ago."

"How many?"

"Twenty."

"Um! Where have you met her?"

"I have called upon her at her hotel."

The group about him took a new interest in Uncle Dan. Could he be an
elderly rou in disguise?

"Um! You don't say! Called on her at her hotel! How frequently?"

"About once a month."

"How long has this been going on?"

Uncle Danny grew red.

"I have been calling on Mrs. Clayton for some twenty years. She is an old
friend of mine."

"Old friend of both you and Devens?"

"Of both of us."

Uncle Dan saw that the beach upon which he stood was shelving off rapidly
into deep water. The district attorney would surely learn of the contract
by which Eileen was to receive a thousand dollars a month for life.
Better get it over with!

"Mrs. Clayton was a pensioner of Mr. Devens's. I understand he allowed
her a thousand dollars a month. I have occasionally taken her a check
from him."

Redmond looked round triumphantly.

"Now we're getting somewhere!"

Uncle Dan saw his mistake too late. He had become an essential part of
the prosecution.

"If you will kindly remove your outer garments," continued the acting
district attorney, "I think we can keep you busy most of the afternoon.
Just step into that little room back there with Mr. Tommy Todd, and tell
him the story of your young life. After you get through with that, I'll
come in and together we will try to decide why Eileen Clayton killed
Richard Devens."

It was after nine o'clock that evening before Uncle Dan was suffered to
leave the Criminal Court Building. During the course of his six hours'
examination nearly every fact in his conscious and subconscious mind had
been dragged forth by Redmond's artful cross-examination, save that
Eileen had ever had a child, and that the child was Moira Devens.

"I shall want you promptly at ten o'clock to-morrow morning," had
declared a miraculously sobered Redmond. "I shall shoot the case straight
into the Grand Jury without bothering with an examination in the
Magistrate's Court. You're going to be our star witness--the chief link in
our chain. Good-night!"

Uncle Dan had never intended to be any such thing. At worst he had
expected to wait and see what was going to happen, without in any way
assisting in the happening. He had fully expected that after her
examination before the magistrate, Eileen would be set free. There would
be nothing to worry about, because she was entirely innocent. And then
his pulse stopped! He, too, was entirely innocent, yet if he told his
story he would undoubtedly be held criminally responsible for Richard's
death! Must it be one or the other of them?

He was getting more and more involved every moment. He had sworn to the
deposition taken by Redmond. If he recanted now it would involve
admission of perjury! Christ!

Well, if worst came to worst, he could come forward and tell the whole
truth. If the Grand Jury did not indict, it would be much better to have
kept still. He would make it plain to them that Eileen's guilt was quite
out of the question.

He sat up all night trying to invent some way to extricate himself.
Clearly, there was nothing to do but to go on for the present. Should he
now admit that he had lied to Redmond, it would vitiate any explanation
he might attempt to make. They would accept his statement as true so far
as it was incriminating, while treating it as false in so far as it was
exculpatory.

He was down again waiting outside the Grand Jury room early next morning.
The corridors swarmed with newspaper men. He was photographed twice by
means of a magnesium flash, and so many reporters tried to interview him
that he was finally tucked away out of sight in a side chamber.

"Mr. Shay! This way, please!"

The sound of his name roused him from the stupor into which he had fallen
through fatigue and worry. He followed the officer across the hall,
through the little door, and into a huge room where a lot of men were
sitting in a semicircle. When he entered they all stopped talking and
looked at him. The old Billy-goat in the centre--the one with
side-whiskers--bowed with what seemed to Uncle Dan an ironic courtesy.
"Excuse me for hanging you!" so to speak. Redmond was standing behind
him. There was a little goatish stenographer by the door.

"Good morning!" bleated the foreman. "You are Daniel Shay? You were
connected with Richard Devens in business? Very good! In the matter of
the People against Eileen Clayton--You swear to tell-the-truth-the-
whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth-so-help-you-God-sit-down!"

Uncle Dan sat down. Strange pricklings were running up and down his
spine. Torquemada was a piker compared to Redmond! He must be wary, or
the cat would be out of the bag in no time. He must tell just enough and
not too much. And he must speak that word in behalf of Eileen. The grand
jurymen, having satisfied their curiosity, had begun talking again. The
foreman rapped. "Order, gentlemen!"

Uncle Dan steeled himself. They should not drag anything out of him that
he did not wish.

"You knew Eileen Clayton?" Redmond was doing the questioning.

"Yes, sir."

"How long?"

"Twenty years."

"Did Richard Devens know her?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long?"

"At least twenty years."

"Did you ever carry money to Eileen Clayton from Richard Devens? If so,
in what form."

"I often took checks from Mr. Devens to Mrs. Clayton at her hotel--the
Blackwell--usually for a thousand dollars."

"When was the last time?"

"About three weeks ago."

Redmond's glance enfiladed the profiles of the semicircle.

"Any questions? That is all, Mr. Shay."

All? Uncle Dan was stunned. Was that all they were going to ask of him?

"Send in the next witness!"

Uncle Dan swallowed.

"May I say a word?" he said faintly.

"If you say it quickly!"

"I wish to say, gentlemen of the jury--I mean the Grand Jury--that the idea
of Mrs. Clayton murdering Mr. Devens is ridiculous. They were the best of
friends. In fact, from what they used to say I know they were very fond
of one another."

"Is that all?" asked Redmond sardonically.

"That is all, except----"

"Next witness!"

Uncle Dan found himself unexpectedly outside the door again. Did they
call that an examination? Now that he was out of their presence he
realized that he had been treated very cavalierly. They hadn't given him
half a chance. He could have exculpated Eileen entirely in another two
minutes! He now actually believed that, if interrogated, he would have
done so. Anyhow, he had not had to perjure himself again. That was a
relief! To avoid the reporters, he slipped back and took a vacant seat in
the anteroom. Would the Grand Jury indict? A moment later a bell rang
inside. A rustle of feet. The members of the Grand Jury were filing out,
joking among themselves. This time the foreman held but a single
indictment.

"Stand back there!"

The crowd was so great that Uncle Dan could hardly squeeze into the
elevator. It was worse outside the Criminal Term of the Supreme Court,
which was packed to the doors, but Uncle Dan looked so like a grand
juryman that they let him in with the others, and he stood with them at
the rail while the clerk stamped the indictment and wrote out a bench
warrant. On either side was a solid bank of artists, camera-men, and
reporters of both sexes.

Mr. Dollar blotted what he had written and bowed to Judge Barker, who
bowed back at Mr. Dollar and to the world at large. His Honor knew that
the grand jurymen would want to see the defendant arraigned, and so he
did not immediately discharge them but held them, so to speak, "at ease."

"Is the defendant there?" asked Mr. Dollar of Captain Lynch. "Eileen
Clayton to the bar."

Eileen did not see Uncle Dan, although she could have touched him as she
took her place at the rail.

"Is the defendant represented by counsel?" continued Mr. Dollar
pompously.

Ebenezer Hoyle and Ignatius O'Hara stepped forward.

"Enter the appearance of Messrs. Hoyle and O'Hara for the defendant,"
said Judge Barker, with gratification. It was proper that a celebrated
murderess should be represented by celebrated counsel. Mr. Dollar wrote
something.

"Shall I proceed, Your Honor?" All sound ceased.

"Eileen Clayton, you have been indicted by the Grand Jury of the County
of New York for the crime of murder in the first degree. How do you
plead: Guilty or not guilty?" He looked at Hoyle.

"We plead not guilty--with leave to withdraw within ten days and to demur
or make such other motions as may be desirable, and we ask that we be
furnished with a copy of the indictment."

Twenty crayons were sketching the haggard features of the woman at the
bar, while twenty pencils reduced every word to shorthand. The historic
moment would be perpetuated for all future generations.

"The defendant is committed without bail."

Judge Barker spoke the words with such an air of apology that no
reasonable human being could possibly have taken offense. Even the
spectators realized that in committing Mrs. Clayton to the City Prison,
His Honor, so far from having any personal animus toward her, experienced
genuine regret. But the words fell like paving-stones upon Uncle Dan's
heart. Should he speak out? There was still time! What should he do? He
looked about terrified. Too late! She was already being led away. Remorse
merged in relief! He would go over and see her in the Tombs that very
afternoon. After all, there was plenty of time. If she were tried and
acquitted there would be no necessity for his speaking.

The door had closed behind Eileen. The crowd held its breath--awaiting the
next indication of the prisoner's unseen progress. A few moments later a
dull clang signified that she was being led across the Bridge of Sighs.

Judge Barker smiled significantly at the grand jurors. In after years
their children would rise up and call him blessed for having allowed
their fathers to be present at a scene quite as memorable, from their
point of view, as the surrender of Cornwallis.

"You may continue your labors, gentlemen."

He swept down from the dais, and the crowd struggled toward the door,
while over their heads the eyes of the beautiful Blind Goddess followed
the direction of the unfortunate victim being led to sacrifice.


"Hold on! All right, Jim!"

The deputy sheriff who was guiding Eileen by the arm arrested her
progress at the other end of the Bridge of Sighs. A bolt was shot and an
iron door swung inward, admitting her into a world of steel-barred
shadows.

Tradition has it that the floor of the old Tombs used to rise and fall
with the tide--an illusion heightened by the fact that its walls oozed
dampness, and that the floor often was overflowed with water, which came
from no one knew where. It was not surprising that a poor wretch whose
nervous system had been racked by alcohol, drugs, or fear of physical
violence, should imagine that he could feel, and perhaps even see, the
slimy pavement lifting by infinitesimal degrees under his feet. And it
may not have been altogether imagination, for both the Tombs and the
Criminal Court Building, its neighbor, stand in the centre of the site of
what was once the old "Fresh Water" or "Collect Pond."

Where to-day the policeman leads his quarry along Centre Street, amid the
thunder of trucks and the hooting of taxis, once lay a lake of peculiar
beauty, fed by crystal springs, bordered by marshes, the nesting place of
countless birds, where the only sound at night was the croak of the
bittern, the only light the glow of some Indian fire.

From it the "Old Kill" or "Wreck Brook" straggled away to the East River
across Wolfert's Marsh; while another brook, broadened in later times
into a "canal" to connect it with the Hudson, flowed westward where now
the traffic rumbles along the street that bears its name.

Gradually the Indians moved away from the "Collect," preferring the
remoter fastnesses of the upper end of the island. Nieuw Amsterdam became
New York, and the town stretched northward, reaching its fingers through
marsh and woodland, until the pond became contaminated by factories and
breweries, its surface discolored, its reedy beaches strewn with refuse.
No longer was the water fit to drink. Soon the lake, polluted by the
excrement of civilization, had been transformed into a noisome and
miasmic bog, a menace to the health of the city. Then it was ordered
filled, and in the very centre of what had been the loveliest piece of
nature's handiwork within twenty leagues, was built the prison called
"The Tombs"!

Thus it was that the beautiful "Fresh Water," the fairest lake of Nieuw
Amsterdam, became first a swamp, and then a human cesspool--a terrible
attestation to the ransom which nature pays to progress.

Eileen, bewildered by what had happened to her, and as yet unconscious of
her full danger, followed the deputy sheriff down a flight of iron steps,
through a corridor and across the prison yard to the woman's prison, the
only portion of the Tombs which had been left in its original condition
when the structure was rebuilt.

"Come on! Don't stand gaping there!"

A matron in a blue-striped uniform seized her roughly by the shoulder and
pushed her along a narrow passage to a door which she unlocked with one
of the keys dangling from her belt. Eileen recoiled in spite of herself.
She was standing on the threshold of a dark and smelly chamber, perhaps a
hundred feet in length and twenty feet wide, lighted only by a few small
windows high up near the ceiling, beneath which, on a wooden bench, sat a
group of frowsy women of all ages, white and colored, in every variety of
costume. At sight of her they set up a shrill cackling, interspersed with
"boos" and cat-calls.

"Shut up, there! Come along, you!"

On the right a row of narrow cells, minus any communication with the
outer air, opened directly upon the ward. Each contained a double-decker
cot without mattresses, a chair, a small set bowl and tap. The air was
insufferably hot and foul with the fumes of human bodies and of prison
food. The matron opened one of the cell doors. Inside a hard-featured
girl was lying on the lower cot. She had taken off her waist and shoes
and thrown them upon the floor.

"Here's a buddy for you, Pinkie! Get in there!" The door clanged to. The
girl eyed the newcomer malevolently.

"What they got you for?" she snarled.

"I--I am indicted for murder," stammered Eileen.

"Murder!"

The girl swung her bare feet off the cot and sat up. Her manner became
almost respectful.

"Say, you ain't that Clayton woman! My Lawdy!" She bounded to the cell
door. "Say, girls! Who you s'pose I got week-ending with me? Eileen
Clayton!"

Half-nauseated and in momentary fear of personal violence, Eileen climbed
to the upper cot and threw herself face downward upon it.

"Moira!" she moaned, her face pressed to the stained covering. "Moira! My
little Moira!"


Thus it was that by twelve o'clock noon of the day Richard Devens had met
his death through the accidental discharge of a revolver in the hands of
his friend Daniel Shay, most of the so-called civilized world, and much
of the concededly uncivilized, knew positively that he had been
deliberately shot down and killed in his Fifth Avenue residence by Eileen
Clayton, a former star of the Metropolitan Opera; that by two o'clock the
"extras," which had been run through the presses within a few minutes
after the arrest, had been supplanted by early evening editions in which
the murder not only dwarfed all other items of intelligence, but crowded
them entirely off the front pages; and that by the following morning the
X-ray of publicity had been turned fully upon the case and disclosed
everything but the truth.

Overnight, newspaper "morgues," magazine files, and biographical
dictionaries had supplied the forgotten data necessary for the
reconstruction--_ex pede Herculem_--of the past of both the supposed chief
actors in the tragedy. The life-size features of Eileen Clayton as Cio
Cio San balanced those of Richard Devens, the friend of Richard Croker
and newly elected treasurer of Tammany Hall, in square derby hat and
burnsides. Her night of triumph on which, after a performance of "Aida,"
she had been dragged up Broadway in an unharnessed Victoria drawn by
gentlemen in evening dress, among whom it was said Devens had been
conspicuous, was recalled, as well as the fact that the blue known as
"Eileen" owed its name to her, and that an "Eileen Clayton" had once run
second on Epsom Downs. Historic romance and present melodrama made their
bow together hand in hand before the footlights of the press. Never had
there been a case offering such newspaper possibilities.

There was no fact known to the police that was not also known to the
public, and these facts, taken together, constituted a clear-cut and
overwhelming case of circumstantial evidence, proving Eileen Clayton's
guilt not only beyond a reasonable doubt but to a mathematical certainty.
In two respects only could the evidence be regarded as in any way
weak--that of motive, and the identification of the revolver--but it was
pointed out that motive could be legally inferred when all the other
necessary elements were present, and that, although it might add to the
strength of the case could he do so, it was not technically necessary for
the prosecutor to prove the genesis of the weapon.

It was generally held that Eileen Clayton's only hope of escape lay in
the possibility of arousing a public sympathy so intense that it would
exercise an unconscious control over the jury. And such a sentiment the
press at once set out to manufacture. As usual, its logic was sublime.
Why, it asked, should a woman of Eileen Clayton's reputation and standing
seek to take the life of an elderly millionaire like Richard
Devens--unless there were some hidden justification? And what could that
justification be? At any rate, it must obviously be sufficient to
motivate the act! Devens, the satyr, had wronged this angelic creature,
and she had avenged his crime--perhaps unintentionally.

But the plea of justification, so subtly advanced, did not prevent the
newspapers from seeking to build up as strong a case as possible against
the defendant. The more positive the proof, the clearer cut the issue
would be. The Clayton case, by unanimous consent, became a "_crime
passionnel_." How far would an American jury carry the "unwritten law"?
Would it not, in the case of a woman of Eileen Clayton's beauty, charm,
and professional reputation, infer, even in the absence of evidence,
whatever was necessary to establish justification? Public opinion
inclined to the belief that it might--that it certainly would if the
district attorney left the slightest doubt in the jury's minds as to the
ownership of the revolver.

The case became, quite naturally, the chief topic of conversation
throughout the country, and the most distinguished minds in America gave
it their attention. No famous sportsman, actor, prosecutor,
psycho-therapist, parson, prize-fighter or publicist but expressed
himself as being vehemently opposed in principle to any such doctrine as
the "higher law," while nevertheless convinced that it was firmly
imbedded in practical American jurisprudence. Every _cause clbre_ in
which the defendant had been a woman was resurrected and revived. Lizzie
Borden and Nan Patterson became once more familiar names; the significant
feature, and one which might have aroused the interest of any student of
sociology, being that in every instance it was conclusively assumed that
Eileen Clayton was guilty, and that the problem at issue was merely
whether the jury would let her off. That this attitude might, in fact,
result in a jury ultimately letting her off did not seem to occur to
anybody.

The betting odds began and stayed about even. "Of course she killed
him--but you know what juries are!" "Constitutional right of every woman
to murder her lover!" "Well, I don't know as I blame her! There's
probably two sides to it! If we knew everything--" Such was the general
drift.

The fact that Devens' financial career had not been above reproach was
also freely commented upon. He was generally referred to as having been
of the "pirate" type. Just a common immigrant who had made millions
quickly. A rough, uncompromising sort of fellow. Devil with women,
probably! You know how heartless that kind of men are! Carefully
nurtured, the impression grew that at last the one conspicuous doctrine
of American juridical ethics was to have its supreme test. Had Eileen
Clayton the moral right to take the life of the man who had wronged her?
That was the question. There was no other.


Hugh's removal from the case gave him the greater opportunity to devote
himself to Moira's affairs, and he spent much of his time at the marzipan
house, relieving her of many of the more painful responsibilities
inevitably devolving upon the bereaved and successfully guarding her from
unwarranted intrusion. He had explained to her the first afternoon that
so far as the prosecution was concerned his authority was ended, and she
had confidently expressed the belief that as soon as the district
attorney should return he would be reinstated. The Honorable Michael
Redmond showed no intention, however, of anticipating any such
possibility, and, while protesting the utmost reluctance at being obliged
to do so, requested an immediate interview with Miss Devens. Moira begged
to be excused. Hugh made the mistake of expostulating and Redmond, on the
strength of "official duty," and "in the interest of justice," crashed
through, preceded by a double bouquet of white violets.

It was a daring play, but he was a good actor, a diplomat, and Irish, and
he was wise enough, now that he was sober again, to extol with unstinted
praise the ability of his rival, declaring that District Attorney Farley,
when he came back, would surely wish to have Dillon handle the case.
Meantime, in view of his position as acting district attorney, he had no
choice but to take charge of it himself. When it came to deciding who
should conduct an important and delicate criminal trial, many things had
to be considered. Facts apparently unimportant sometimes assumed
unexpected significance and proved highly embarrassing. If he personally
were district attorney he would not hesitate to have Dillon try the case,
but District Attorney Farley might possibly feel that his deputy's
attitude toward the A. A. & B. and its officers, particularly since he
had actually started a grand jury proceeding against them looking toward
their indictment, would place him in an ambiguous position--that was to
say, he could see how Farley might think it better to select a man who
had been consistently friendly toward her father. She understood? Such
things had a sentimental effect.

Moira concealed her surprise. She had not known of Hugh's investigation
of her father's business enterprises. That it should have coincided, in
point of time, with his death gave it a sinister significance wholly
unwarranted. Redmond, having planted one seed, proceeded to sow another.
The springs of action, he meditated, lay deep below the surface. Human
motives were subtle and complex. Cause and effect were often hard to
relate to one another. For example, everybody knew the force of
suggestion. A line or two in the newspapers might cause a dozen suicides.
The fact that an investigation had been started into the A. A. & B. might
have suggested the possibility of blackmailing her father to some one--to
the Clayton woman. Did the latter know anything about the affairs of the
A. A. & B. or the J. S. Burke Co., he wondered? He hazarded the query, he
said, merely because he understood that Dillon had had a secret
conference with the prisoner after her arrest, the nature of which he
refused to divulge. With "errors and omissions excepted" such was the
substance of his insinuation, delivered under the guise of examining Miss
Devens as a witness, while proffering his deepest sympathy for her
affliction.

He did his work artistically. Hugh's conversation with Eileen could
hardly be construed as having any bearing on the fact that he had brought
criminal proceedings against Devens' company, yet Redmond managed somehow
to make it seem relevant, and even ominous. Moira had been subjected to a
severe emotional strain, her father's funeral had only just taken place,
and anything reflecting upon his reputation for integrity naturally
aroused at that moment a double resentment within her. How could Hugh
have suspected her dear father of dishonesty!

She suffered his kiss when he came in that evening impassively.

"Is anything the matter, dear?" he asked, unconscious that her distress
was in any way connected with himself. "Why are you worried? Has anything
happened?"

"Michael Redmond was here this afternoon," she said.

"I suppose he made it quite clear why he had thrown me out of the case?"
He could not prevent a touch of bitterness from creeping into his voice.

Moira did not respond as he had expected.

"Aren't you rather hard on Mr. Redmond?" she inquired. "After all, as
acting district attorney, he is responsible for whatever is done in the
absence of his superior."

"That is no reason why he should refuse to let me handle this matter, so
long as he thinks me qualified!" He shrugged his pride into quiescence.
"But on the whole," he added unthinkingly, "I am very much relieved. I
should have found it difficult to prosecute--this--this woman."

"So Mr. Redmond seemed to think!"

Hugh was instantly alert again.

"What has he been saying to you?"

Moira laid down her work.

"Hugh," she asked, "is it true that you had a private conversation with
this woman in the station-house?"

"Why, yes!" he answered frankly.

"And that you are not willing to tell what it was?"

"I cannot tell what it was!"

"Why not?"

"Because I promised her not to do so. What she said was confidential!"

Moira's face clouded.

"I don't understand. It was your duty to get all the evidence you could
against her. I don't see why you should have put yourself in the position
of being in her confidence!"

Hugh's wrath against Redmond boiled over.

"It's like Michael Redmond to give you a distorted idea of what
happened!" he answered indignantly. "When I went to the police station I
found that she absolutely refused to talk to Captain Carey or any of the
officers. She begged me to listen to something she had to say. She
needn't have told me. Perhaps I was foolish, but it seemed perfectly
natural to let her speak. What she said had"--his infinitesimal hesitation
did not pass unnoticed by Moira--"had nothing to do with her guilt or
innocence. But I gave her my word to respect her confidence and I must
keep it."

"A very dangerous proceeding, I should say!"

"I did it, anyway! You wouldn't have me break my promise!"

"Not if it really was a promise. Are you sure she told you nothing that
would have embarrassed you in the prosecution of the case?"

Hugh lowered his eyes before Moira's searching glance. What should he
say? Of course what Mrs. Clayton had disclosed would embarrass him. It
would extinguish any genuine desire on his part to see her convicted of
the murder of Richard Devens. Yet he believed that her revelation would
not stand between him and the full performance of his duty.

"It would embarrass me in a general sense, yes," he answered honestly.
"But I could put it aside and prosecute her just as I would any other
woman."

"It gets more mysterious every moment! Can't you explain the nature of
her statement?"

"You must not ask me," he said. "You haven't lost faith in me, have you,
Moira?"

He leaned forward and took her hands in his.

"Say you trust me, Moira!"

"Yes, I trust you, Hugh!" she said. Yet deep in her heart from that time
on she kept wondering--as what woman would have not!--what secret
understanding might possibly exist between Hugh and the woman who had
killed her father.


That the Honorable Peter Farley should have been absent at French Lick
Springs at that precise moment was unfortunate; for not only was he
thereby deprived of a large amount of legitimate publicity, but attention
was thus unnecessarily called to his habit of absenting himself at
crucial moments in the company of other distinguished politicians from
the field of his official duties. Of course there was no way of telling
in advance when one person was going to murder another, but the public
wouldn't understand that. They would think you ought to have known. He
had received the glad tidings that a first-class homicide had been pulled
off in his bailiwick while sitting naked in a mud bath. If he went back
now, it would take him a couple of days to get there. Redmond was
"acting." He'd handle the preliminaries well enough, but he would want to
hang on to the case, and "Mike" was not the fellow for a big prosecution
like that! You didn't want one of those "easy" boys. You needed a fanatic
who could goad the jury into doing their duty! Sweep 'em off their feet!
And he had to convict that woman! If she got away with it, she'd take his
renomination along with her.

But if she did not, whoever prosecuted the case would be a possible
candidate for governor. Had he been on his job--or rather had not "ill
health required his absence from the city"--he and not Redmond would be
issuing statements.

"Acting District Attorney Michael J. Redmond, when interviewed last
evening, said positively that the apprehension of the negro Moses
Wellington would be a matter of only a few hours. His evidence, Mr.
Redmond added, was by no means essential, since steps had already been
taken to trace the ownership of the pistol through its serial number. Mr.
Redmond stated further that he intended to put the case immediately
before the Grand Jury, in order to demonstrate, for once, that while
criminal justice has 'an iron hand' it does not necessarily possess 'a
leaden heel.'"

"Stole that off me, damn him!" muttered Farley, wiping the mud from his
right ear. The fellow had a nerve! No, he ought not to have gone away! He
had handed it to Redmond on a gold plate. The mud took on a darker color.
Redmond was a clever fellow--an astute politician. He'd make the most of
this opportunity to get into the public eye and perhaps capture the
nomination himself on the strength of it. It disgusted him that things
had broken in such a way! You'd think to read the papers that Redmond was
district attorney, and not he! The name of Farley was hardly mentioned,
while that of Redmond was all over the front pages. If there was a
conviction his assistant would be a national figure, as Folk or Heinze or
Jerome had been.

How stupid of him not to have seen already that in Redmond he had a
dangerous rival. He must go back at once, assume control himself, and put
somebody else in to try the case--somebody who did not have Redmond's
availability as a political candidate--like Dillon, for instance. This
Redmond business was a bit thick! He'd show him who was district
attorney! Climbing out of his mud pool the Honorable Peter dressed as
quickly as he could, and betook himself to the telegraph office.

  Hon. Michael Redmond,
      District Attorney's Office,
        Criminal Court Building,
          Cor. White & Centre Streets,
            New York City.

  Leaving for New York to-night. Please turn over preparation of Clayton
  case to Dillon pending my return. Do not wish to overburden or
  embarrass you with additional work in performance of your regular
  duties. Congratulations on your masterly handling of case thus far.

                                                        Peter J. Farley.

"That'll take some of the starch out of him, I guess!" he muttered.




                               CHAPTER X


The equipoise of the Honorable Peter J. Farley upon his return trip from
French Lick to New York was not improved by the comments of the press
regarding "Absentee Office-holding" and "Long Distance Prosecutors." He
had been led to believe by his political pastors and masters that his
present tenure was but "a stepping-stone to higher things," such as the
gubernatorial chair at Albany, the Senate chamber at Washington (still
harboring a fair number of God's-green-footstool orators), or at least to
a Supreme Court judgeship. A renomination was essential; he needed his
salary, and he was inclined to make his present unfortunate predicament a
personal grievance against the Blind Goddess. Justice!

He had not been back in his office five minutes before he had Redmond on
the hooks.

"I am certainly glad to see you back, chief!" The suave Michael extended
the eager hand of greeting. "I don't relish this sort of responsibility!"

"Even when you make the most of it!" growled the Honorable Peter to
himself. "Have you turned over this Clayton matter to Dillon?"

"I only got your wire yesterday noon, chief. I knew you'd be back this
morning. I simply held the matter in abeyance. I wanted to talk to you."

There was an assurance in the voice of the carefully tailored young man
that aroused Farley's ire.

"Wanted to talk to me, did you! You have got a nerve! I want to talk to
_you_!"

"Why, chief--!" began Redmond, in startled propitiation.

"I want you to know that I'm still district attorney of this county!"

"And I trust you want to stay so!" retorted his assistant tartly. Farley
quivered with rage.

"What do you mean by that?" he snapped.

"You've got to convict Eileen Clayton or it's all over with you. And you
need me to do it!"

"I do, do I? I'll decide what I need! You're not the only trial lawyer in
this office."

"If you mean Dillon, he'll queer the case for you. He's a crank."

"He's the best man on the staff--yourself included."

Redmond was astonished at the fat little man's pugnacity.

"Don't let's make this personal, chief!" he said in a more conciliatory
tone. "I'm only looking out for your interests. I don't care who tries
it; but I have an idea this case is loaded."

"Loaded! If what the papers say is true, it's a walkover."

"That's always the kind that blow up!"

"What do you mean?"

Farley could not erase the worry that stole into his face.

"Dillon has been talking to the defendant, for one thing."

"Well, what of it? What did she tell him?"

"He won't say."

"Why not?"

"Claims it's confidential!"

The Honorable Peter pressed a discolored ivory button on the desk before
him.

"Send Mr. Dillon in here!" he ordered his attendant. "I'll have a little
talk with him myself, I guess."

He was under no delusion in regard to Michael Redmond. He could rely upon
him no farther than the point where their interests lay in common. For
Hugh he had by this time a high regard. He could depend on his giving him
the straight goods. Half an hour later he issued a "flimsy" to the press,
stating that he had assumed direction of the Clayton case and would
conduct the trial in person, assisted by Deputy Assistant District
Attorney Hugh Dillon.

"You're making no mistake, either, chief!" Charley White assured him.
"That boy can whistle the birds off the trees! I've watched him work. His
juries do what he tells 'em, simply because he tells 'em to. Shall we
play him up, chief? In moderation, of course, I mean!"

"Go as far as you like," replied Farley, who feared no rival but the
Honorable Michael, and wisely concluded that the more Dillon was "played
up," the more Redmond would be "played down." "He's a good boy--the best
on my staff!"

"He is that!" agreed White, his mind reverting to the Renig case. "He's
honest, and the jury knows it. He's got the right idea. Coming down to
cases, chief, do you see anything peculiar in the Clayton woman being
defended by Hoyle and O'Hara--Devens' own counsel?"

"Is she? I never thought of that! I suppose they have a perfect right to
defend her, though. Why not?"

White tossed away an obdurate match.

"Clever move on her part if they know anything about her relations with
the 'Old Man'!"

Farley nodded.

"Seals their lips, of course."

"Another thing. Wasn't it a curious coincidence, to say the least, that
Devens was shot on the eve of a Grand Jury investigation into his own
business?"

"What's that?"

"Didn't you know that the Grand Jury had issued a duces tecum subpoena to
Daniel Shay to produce all the books of the A. A. and B. and the J. S.
Burke Co. before them the next morning?"

"No, I didn't! Who was responsible for that?"

"Dillon."

"That's all right. I told him he could if he wanted to."

White bent forward and traced upon the circumambient atmosphere a
delicate mark of interrogation with the smoke of his cigarette.

"What does that mean?" asked Farley.

"Ever get a hunch, chief? I have one right now! Don't shoot me when I say
I think that there's something phony about this case!"

"It's the most conclusive case of circumstantial evidence I ever heard
of!" protested Farley.

"Admit all that. Doesn't it strike you as--unusual, let us say, that in
addition to Devens' personal attorney defending his murderer, the man who
was trying to put Devens in jail is prosecuting her!"

"Perfectly natural under the circumstances."

White leaned back.

"It's all criss-cross--upside down! Besides, there hasn't been any real
motive shown. If Devens was keeping the Clayton woman, why should she
want to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs? You haven't any
evidence that she brought a gun to the house. No jury is going to accept
the identification of that revolver by a rummy old ex-convict. No, sir!
The case looks good until you analyze it, but, when you do, it's weak--not
because there isn't enough evidence, but because the evidence leaves you
cold."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, to put it bluntly, I don't think Eileen Clayton killed Richard
Devens!"

District Attorney Farley came to an upright position.

"Why, _Charlie_!"

"I don't care how perfect the case is. I 'don't believe it,' as they
say."

"Then you must be crazy!"

"Our instincts are worth something."

"Don't you know that circumstantial evidence is the best evidence? Facts
can't lie."

"So I've heard. I'm not quarrelling with your facts. I'm leary of your
conclusions!"

"Well, for God's sake, shut up about it!" anxiously besought the High
Priest of Justice. "I only hope the jury that tries her won't have the
same opinion!"


Less than two hundred feet distant across Franklin Street, confined
behind stone walls and a lattice of steel bars, sat the innocent woman
thus caught in the web of circumstance. The desperate character of her
situation had slowly dawned upon her in spite of Hoyle's assurances. She
did not like Hoyle. She had not sent for him, and did not know by what
process he had become her legal adviser; but in her helplessness it did
not occur to her to question its propriety. Even had she known the real
reason--that he had seized upon his vicarious relationship to work his way
into a sensational murder case--it would have made no difference. He was
as good as any other lawyer! Her situation was hopeless. The papers all
said so. Even if she could have told her story without besmirching
Richard's character and disclosing the secret of Moira's birth, it would
have been of no avail. The revelation would only have tended to supply
evidence of motive now lacking. She must maintain silence, both for her
own sake as well as for theirs. The jury would never convict her, Hoyle
said. They "never convicted women of murder!"

As she watched the degraded beings who shuffled past the bars of her
cell, she told herself that death was preferable to a lifetime of
imprisonment. She had never imagined such people to exist as those with
whom she was now thrown in hourly contact; had never conceived of such
foulness and obscenity of language as continuously polluted her ears. She
shrank from the rough approach even of those who had only kind intentions
toward her. Had it not been for her ability to get the drug she must have
gone insane. Twice a week Hoyle slipped her capsules of cocaine concealed
in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger. Her eyes had now a
continual glassy stare, her mouth was wreathed in a perpetual smirk. She
offered no opposition to anything Hoyle suggested. He was her master
because only from him could she get that which would assuage torture. The
only person she wanted to see--with the exception of Moira, of course--did
not come near her--Uncle Dan. But she was too drugged now to care. Nothing
mattered. Her cot became Cleopatra's flower-bedecked barge, the corridor
outside her cell the Nile, the Tombs the temples of Karnak and of Thebes.
So while she quaffed Nepenthe's cup of oblivion, the sands of the
hour-glass of legal delay ran out.

The efforts of those engaged in the preparation of the case were now
concentrated almost exclusively upon the attempt to trace the history of
the revolver found in Devens' library, by means of which he had
presumably met his death.

The testimony of the servants, including that of old Shane, established
beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant, unless the killing had
been done by some one from within the house, had had what is known in law
as "exclusive opportunity," for all the doors and windows had been found
locked in the morning just as they had been left the night before, the
front door being on the safety catch alone, as would naturally be the
case if closed by one leaving the house unattended. Doctor Norris'
autopsy had disclosed, as he had expected, that the bullet had smashed
through the ribs and penetrated the aorta. It was now in Hugh's
possession, a distorted and shapeless piece of lead concerning which it
would be impossible to say whether it had come from that particular
revolver or from any one of a hundred thousand others.

The possibility of suicide, however, was eliminated by the distance at
which the pistol must have been held from the body as shown by the
absence of powder marks about the wound, their corresponding presence
upon the palm of the left hand, and the burn upon the cuff of the sleeve.
Devens had been right-handed, a fact probably known to the murderer, who
had accordingly placed the revolver upon that side of his victim.

The sole question was the identity of the slayer, and upon this the
evidence was more than sufficient to go to the jury. The defendant, a
woman whom he had supported for years, had gone to the house at a late
hour, carrying a bag large enough to conceal the weapon found beside the
body. She had left the house after having been closeted with the deceased
for over an hour. The pistol had been identified as belonging to a negro
servant in daily attendance upon her. It was not necessary to prove any
motive, although motive, if established, would naturally strengthen the
case. Here it was not difficult to infer either revenge, jealousy, or
blackmail. The legal test was whether the circumstances, as established,
led to the irresistible conclusion of the defendant's guilt, and this
they certainly did. As District Attorney Farley publicly declared, in one
of several "interviews," carefully prepared, mimeographed, and
distributed to the press, he had never had in his entire experience, nor,
in fact, had he ever heard of, a stronger or more convincing case.

But, as in all murder cases, the weapon was the most important piece of
evidence in the possession of the prosecution. Had it not been for
Kelly's positive identification of it as one to which the defendant had
had immediate access, there would have been nothing but her presence, at
or about the time of the shooting, to connect her with the crime. It was
the fact that the revolver had come from the Hotel Blackwell which, to
use Wasserman's metaphor, was going to "put the skids under Eileen
Clayton." If she had only been astute enough to take the gun away with
her and hide it there would have been a question as to whether the
evidence against her were legally sufficient to warrant a jury in finding
her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, since there would have been no
evidence whatever tending to connect her with the possession of the
weapon causing death. This, in itself, or at any rate if taken with the
absurdity of trying to create the idea of suicide, was enough, according
to Captain Carey, to show that the criminal was a novice, if not a fool.
Had the murderer been a professional crook, they would have found no gun
there at all.

Thus, the hitherto inconspicuous Kelly became an essential witness for
the prosecution. In the absence of the vanished Moses, he must be able to
go upon the stand at the Clayton woman's trial and testify that she and
the gun came from the same place. The fact that the negro who had owned
the gun had disappeared, while it would no doubt furnish material for
argument on the part of the defense, was not enough, in view of the rest
of the evidence, to warrant the inference that he was the guilty party,
and could be explained on the theory that he had been carrying a pistol
without a permit, and did not wish to place himself within reach of the
authorities. The case was an overwhelmingly strong one as it stood. But
could Moses be found, and should he testify that he had loaned, sold, or
given the revolver to the defendant, it would be equivalent to a
mathematical demonstration of her guilt. As things stood it left a
loophole for some sentimental or obtuse juror to pull a doubt through.

"I'd give a year's salary to turn up that nigger!" said Carey. "Of course
she got the gun off him. Nobody doubts that. The case is all right--but I
wish we could pin the pistol on her tighter. Some 'nut' on the jury may
get an idea the coon did it!"

Thus the rusty old revolver became the centre of interest for the little
group composed of Captain Carey, Doctor Norris, Wasserman, Burke, Jeffrey
Quirk, and the two or three younger deputies and "county detectives"
assigned to assist Hugh. Nominally, everything was being done under the
direction of the district attorney himself, who, it was announced, would
personally conduct the prosecution with the assistance of Mr. Dillon. In
point of fact, Farley did nothing except issue statements.

"But what is there for the old guy to do?" asked Wasserman. "He doesn't
know enough to try the case, and we're doin' all the work. All he's good
for is to come in and give the count after you've delivered the knockout.
It's lucky for you he got sore on Redmond!"

This sentiment was frequently heard in the Criminal Court Building,
dwarfing all other comment upon the case itself. Hugh was regarded as a
child of Fortune--the Favorite of all the Gods. Never in the history of
New York County, so far as could be remembered by the oldest court
officer, had an unknown dark horse like Dillon suddenly emerged from the
crowd and walked off with the money. He had come from no one knew where,
had been appointed no one knew why, had been in the office less than a
month, and was now about to prosecute the greatest murder case of this,
or possibly any other, decade. Strangest of all, nobody grudged it to
him!

On the other hand, the discomfiture of the Honorable Michael gave, for
some reason, the extremest satisfaction. It developed for the first time
that his domineering and patronizing ways had made him highly unpopular,
and now that, owing to his being out of favor, all fear of his
displeasure was removed, the general dislike made itself manifest. From
the oldest assistant to the lowliest clerk all gloried in his
discomfiture. There were, perhaps, half a dozen older men qualified to
prosecute the Clayton case, but they were all political warhorses, and
the selection of any one of them for so great a distinction would have
aroused much jealousy among them and their political foster fathers. The
choice of Hugh was an easy way out of what might have become an
embarrassing situation, and envy at the newcomer's securing so choice a
plum was submerged in gratification that one's rival had not plucked it.

Redmond, however, took his defeat like a sportsman, hiding his chagrin
and offering, magnanimously, to be of any assistance to his rival that he
could. He had learned the lesson, often overlooked, that arrogance, while
it wins easily, pays double losses.

Farley's determination to make the prosecution a model of celerity, kept
them all hard at work every moment of the day, and the strain began so to
tell on Hugh that, on the advice of the chief clerk, he placed himself in
the hands of one Pat Tuohy, an ex-prizefighter, who regularly exercised
him, and superintended his diet and manner of life. It had never occurred
to Hugh that one might have to go into regular training for the trial of
a spectacular murder case.

Tuohy made him go to bed by ten o'clock, abjure all stimulants, exercise
for two hours every afternoon, and subsist largely upon a strange and not
altogether unpleasant drink known as "koumyss," or mare's milk. Under
this regimen he developed an even greater vitality than usual, and Tuohy
frequently mourned the fact that in his pupil, who had sacrificed himself
to the law, the sporting world had lost a promising welterweight. From
four to six each afternoon Hugh would put on the gloves for a few rounds,
toss the medicine-ball, and finish up with several games of handball,
after which he usually went uptown for dinner, often calling upon Moira
in the evening.

The district attorney's publicly announced intention of giving the case a
speedy trial received the hearty approval of the defendant's counsel, who
took the position that their innocent client was entitled to be relieved
from confinement at the earliest moment. As Carey pointed out, however,
this ostensible reason was but a cloak for a more vital one.

"Hoyle will try and force us to the bat before we have found the nigger."

The identification of the revolver had become the axis upon which the
case revolved. Carey's attempt to trace its history by the serial number
stamped upon it had proved abortive, the manufacturers having announced
that the weapon was over twelve years old, and had originally formed part
of a shipment to a wholesale house in Memphis, after which its movements
had become lost in obscurity. It was probable that in the course of its
perigrinations before reaching New York it had changed ownership a
hundred or more times. A search of the records showed that Moses
Wellington had no permit to carry a pistol. That fact was quite enough to
account for his absence. How demonstrate that it had ever been in the
hands of Eileen Clayton? Had it been newer or differently constructed her
fingers might have left their traces upon it. But a revolver offers
little free space and the corrugated rubber of the butt, and the rust
upon the ancient nickel of the barrel, disclosed no telltale print. There
was only a confused medley of incomplete whorls and loops, by means of
which any identification of the possessor was impossible.

Hugh had given his receipt to the property clerk at Police Headquarters
for the revolver, which now lay in his office safe, and he and Quirk
studied it constantly for some hitherto overlooked mark or peculiarity
which might lead to a further clue of ownership. The "runner" indeed
proved himself an aid of exceptional value, his services being crippled
only by an extreme nervousness, for which Hugh could offer no explanation
except, possibly, the lack of drugs. To the spasmodic twitching of his
mouth and hands was added a tremor which at times even interfered with
the clearness of his utterance. Hugh, who had had no experience with
drug-takers, assumed that he must be going through some frightful mental
struggle--as perhaps he was.

To Wasserman had been entrusted the task of running down the past history
and present standing of the special panel of jurors which had been drawn
for the trial of the case. There must be no crooks, "dead ones,"
anarchists, or sentimentalists upon it. A card catalogue had been
prepared showing the business, religious affiliations, political bias,
and social associations of each. At Norris' suggestion an articulated
dummy of Devens' size had been constructed, in order to show the jury the
exact position in which the body had been found, and the desk and chair
of the murdered man had been brought to the Criminal Court Building to be
placed in evidence at the proper time.

The case was now practically ready for trial; the defense ready and eager
for a "vindication." Only one obstacle intervened--the fact that Judge
Barker was sitting in Part I of the Criminal Trial Term. Whereas Barker
left nothing to be desired from the viewpoint of tractability, he left
much from that of courage. In the words of Farley:

"Barker means to do what's right; the trouble with him is that he's weak.
Like as not Hoyle might spring some crazy legal proposition on him, and
he'd follow it just to show he understood it--even if Hoyle didn't
himself. He's got a spine like a jelly-fish! You've got to have a
convicting judge you can rely on in a big case like this. I'm goin' to
ask the governor to appoint somebody from upstate, who is accustomed to
work with the district attorney--some fellow like Keen, of Buffalo, or
Parr, of Owego. It'll break Barker's heart, I suppose! But one can't
yield to personal considerations where the public interest is involved.
I've got to convict that woman!"

Judge Barker protested vigorously, both by word and deed, against being
thus ignominiously shoved to one side, even going so far as to put down
the case for trial before himself--"temporarily." This overt act did not
help him, however, and since it aroused Farley's indignation as
"interference," the relations between the two became somewhat strained,
particularly as Judge Barker had sent word to the district attorney that
he would "like to see" him, and the latter had neglected to come. Fate
would have it, however, that they should meet accidentally at the Otesaga
Club banquet to State Senator McManus, where the following conversation
occurred in the cloak-room:

"I'm sorry you didn't find time to run in and see me, Pete," wheezed
Barker, whose crumpled shirt bosom exhibited several brown stains. "I
understand you are thinking of letting the Clayton case go over to next
term. I wanted to ask you as a favor--we've been pals for a long time, old
man!--to try the case before me."

"But we can't get ready, judge! God knows I'd like to!" answered Farley,
searching intently for his tall hat in the pile upon the window ledge.
"How about that one, Sam, with the bash in it?"

"Listen!" persisted Barker, for his political future hung upon the result
of the conversation. He looked quickly about the room. Sam, the negro
checker, was the only one there besides themselves. "Listen to me, old
man! I know what you think of me. Maybe you're right. I don't pretend to
be a great judge. But everybody knows I'm good enough to try the Clayton
case, and if you move it before any one else, it will be a direct slap in
the face for me."

"But, Eddie--!" began Farley, who had salvaged his hat, and having removed
the "bash" was ironing it with his elbow.

"If you take the Clayton case out of my part, or away from me," Barker
hurried on, "it will simply ruin my chances for a renomination. My term's
up next December, and I'm an old man, Peter. We're both old men! How
would _you_ like to have to get out and start practising law all over
again?"

"I'm not taking the case away from you! You put it on the calendar
yourself! You should not have done that!"

Barker flushed.

"I know I oughtn't to have, Peter! But--for God's sake, don't you suppose
a judge ever wants a little publicity? It's only human to grab a little
when we get the chance. And this is the biggest case since Nan Patterson,
If there's a conviction, it means you'll be governor, Pete. And if I try
the case there'll _be_ a conviction--don't make any mistake about that! I
won't stand any nonsense from Hoyle. I can be damned severe when I want
to!"

Farley removed a minute defect in the nap of his silk hat, without
replying.

"If you drag one of those hick judges from upstate down here you may get
some rulings that will surprise you. Those fellows don't know anything
about big criminal prosecutions. They have to stop and look up the law
every time they rule." Barker was pleading now. "I've been looking into
the case a little, Pete. Suppose, for instance, that the governor
assigned some fellow from the 'Lower Tier' who'd never got nearer a
murder case than the crossroad grocery store, and some question arose
about the admissibility of the pistol as evidence against the defendant?"

"How d'you mean 'admissibility of the pistol'? Of course it's
admissible!" exploded Farley.

"I know it is! I know it is!"

"Then what are you talking about?" demanded the district attorney, all
the more assured that his colleague was a "nut." Who but Barker would
ever have imagined that the pistol could be held inadmissible?

"I'm saying suppose some fool you might get from upstate took the
position that the mere fact the pistol came from the defendant's
boarding-house was _too remote_--get me?--that you couldn't infer any
connection with the defendant from that? Where would you be then? The
case would blow up!--And you with it!"

Farley paused in the act of putting on his hat. Such a possibility had
never occurred to him. After all, there might be something in what Barker
said.

"Do you realize that without the revolver you wouldn't have any case?"
continued Barker, perceiving that he had made an impression. "If you
don't get the gun in evidence you won't even get to the jury! It will be
a 'flop.' You've got to have a judge who is going to let in that gun, no
matter what! One who is willing to hold that proof that the revolver was
_accessible_ to the defendant is enough. _And that is my opinion!_"

"Do you mean to tell me any judge could be a big enough ass to exclude
that revolver?" asked the worried Farley.

"I certainly do. If it wasn't for that taxi-driver being able positively
to identify it as belonging to the waiter down at the Blackwell, you'd
have no case--from my point of view. You better keep your eye on that gun!
It's precious!"

Farley resolved to do so! With that in mind he came into Hugh's room the
next morning where Carey and Quirk were working with his assistant, and
called attention to Judge Barker's warning.

"Where are you keeping that revolver?" he inquired.

Hugh pointed to the "safe" in the corner. Farley grunted.

"That thing! I could cut a hole in that with my pocket knife! You'd
better turn the exhibits over to Oscar Zinn when you're not using them,
and let him put them in the big safe in the property-room. Tell him I
said so."

"I guess that's right, too!" commented Quirk as they climbed the iron
stairs to the attic an hour later, carrying the exhibits with them.
"Anybody could have swiped them out of your room."

"But who would want to swipe them?" asked Hugh. "Hey, Oscar! Come and
open the door!"

The red-cheeked property clerk thrust a bundle into the recesses of a
shelf and came forward jangling his keys.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Dillon?"

"We want to put these things in your safe."

"Sure!"

Oscar unlocked the door and let them in. They were directly under the
skylight, upon which, over their heads, the tiny feet of the cooing
pigeons made little moving asterisks as they strutted about. The scene
was like a picture by Velasquez shot with shafts of light, full of dark
corners and half-seen objects. Rows of dusty trunks filled with the
exhibits lined the walls. Beside a tattered uniform hung the yellowing
skeleton of a murdered dough-boy. There was a veritable armory of knives,
cutlasses, and firearms, each of which had taken toll of human life!

Zinn kicked a trunk that discharged a cloud of dust.

"That? That's the trunk that held the body of Elsie Siegel--you remember?"

He led them, while the pigeons fluttered peacefully overhead, past the
iron shelves that, like mortuary bookcases, held the memoirs of crime, to
the other end of the attic storehouse, where stood a huge safe.

"They'll be all right there, Mr. Dillon!" Zinn assured him. "I'll leave
the door key with you when I go off duty, in case you want anything.
Here's the combination."




                               CHAPTER XI


The district attorney's office is as dead at one minute after five
o'clock on week days, and at one minute after one o'clock on Saturdays,
as a dinosaur's egg. It was at precisely the latter hour that the
good-natured Oscar entered Hugh's office and handed him, as he had
promised, the key to the property-room.

"Have a glass of koumyss?" asked Hugh, opening the window and displaying
a row of half-pint bottles upon the ledge. Zinn grinned and shook his
head.

"No, thanks! Never formed the habit. I'll call in for that key about
nine-thirty Monday morning--or, if you prefer, you can leave it with Tom
Googins, the elevator-man."

Hugh poured himself a seething glass of koumyss and drank it off. The day
had turned cloudy. He had planned to go uptown for lunch and, after a
brisk walk, drop in on Moira for tea, but a spatter of rain on the window
led him to change his mind. He would stay right there and put in the
afternoon on his trial brief. He lit a cigarette and polished off another
glass of the mare's milk.

What an extraordinary three months it had been! His equally short service
in the Argonne had really been nothing to it. His responsibility was
enormous. It was almost as if he had been made a brigadier-general.
Farley was practically leaving everything to him with the sublimest
confidence! A funny lot they all were! He didn't suppose one of them
would take the trouble to draw up a trial brief in any case, no matter
how important. Yet from his point of view a trial brief was an absolute
essential. Somewhere you ought to have a statement in concise and
accurate form of every fact you expected to prove. Now was the best time,
when everybody else in the building had gone home and he would be
entirely undisturbed, to whip the document into shape. Drawing a pad of
foolscap toward him Hugh took his fountain-pen and wrote:

  "People _vs._ Clayton.
  Statement of Facts----"

"I'll begin with the finding of the body," he said to himself.

He was still writing at six o'clock. Although he had had a couple more
bottles of mare's milk in the course of the afternoon he felt very
hungry. He got up and looked out of the window. It had stopped raining.
The lights were beginning to come out. The Elm Castle was ablaze with
them. It was only three months since he had inhabited those two small
rooms above it. What a change since the day Moira had come down and urged
his acceptance of Farley's offer! How much had happened!

He looked across at the windows of the Tombs--at the rows and rows of
them. For every window there must be at least half a dozen prisoners, and
perhaps many more. Somewhere down there--in the women's prison--would be
Moira's mother! What had been her motive in killing Devens? To prevent
her secret from ever becoming known, perhaps? Or an attempt at blackmail?
Devens had probably refused and she had shot him? A mixed-up affair. Yet
clear enough on the main facts. Deliberate and premeditated murder!

Going back to his desk he turned on the light and picked up his pen
again.

                                 Point 6.
                     Deliberation and Premeditation.

  That the defendant went to the house of her victim with the deliberate
  and premeditated intent to take his life is shown by the fact that she
  carried with her a deadly weapon. The pistol is the crux of the case.
  If it did not belong to Eileen Clayton, it was at least accessible to
  her. It is shown to have been in the possession of a negro who waited
  upon her three times a day. She procured it from him for a purpose,
  inferable from her act, which speaks for itself. Motive is not an
  element necessary for the prosecution to establish. The law will infer
  a motive once the act is proved. But here there is an abundance of
  evidence from which a motive may be deduced--jealousy, blackmail,
  revenge. The identification of the pistol by Kelly, the taxi-man, is
  the corner-stone of the charge of murder. He says Moses Wellington
  showed him the pistol during a crap game, and that he had good reason
  to observe it. Why should he be mistaken? What motive could Kelly
  possibly have to deliberately perjure himself? Why should he come here
  and volunteer anything that is not true? On the contrary, are not his
  interests rather with the defense? Would he not naturally seek to
  protect the negro, who had no pistol permit?

Hugh laid down his pen. How strong a case was it, after all! Could Kelly
really identify the revolver? Could _anybody_ identify a pistol unless he
noticed its number, or unless it had some marked individual peculiarity?
How did this commonplace weapon differ from any other? Suppose the jury
concluded that Kelly's testimony in that regard was too good to be true?
They would never convict! He realized what relief would be his as an
individual if, after he had done his full duty as a public officer, they
should acquit. But meantime he must build up his case as strongly as
possible. Incidentally he must get something to eat.


The elevator bell sounded like a fire-gong in the vast reverberating
silence of the empty rotunda, and it seemed hours, not seconds, before he
heard the clang of the door below and the rattle of the sheaves over his
head.

"Everybody gone?" he asked of Googins.

"You're the last, Mr. Dillon. Sure--there's no one in the building as late
as this!" answered Tom, as they flickered down past the various corridors
and mezzanines to the gloomy catacomb on the street level.

"Don't you ever get nervous staying here all night by yourself? Suppose
some strong-arm man came along?"

"And for what would he be harmin' me?" returned the elevator man. "I
ain't got no money. I guess no burglar would be after tacklin' the Tombs
or this place if there was any others to choose from."

"Doesn't anybody ever come in here?"

"Once in a while a bum turns up to get warm, or a drunk that's lost. I
find 'em here sometimes when I come down from making my rounds."

"I should think you'd be afraid some one would jump out from behind a
pillar!"

Googins laughed.

"Go on with you, Mr. Dillon! Puttin' such thoughts into me head and
tryin' to scare me! There's no one comes in here means any harm!"

Hugh passed out into the soft, sooty night, where the darkness seemed to
coagulate knee deep upon the oily pavements. Here and there a yellow blur
showed the location of street lamps, toward which occasional white faces
seemed to steer, only to tack away again. The thought of eating at the
Elm Castle repelled him. Why not go uptown and get a good dinner? He
could take the subway, dine at the Biltmore, and be back at work by nine
o'clock. He followed his inclination, had an excellent meal in the grill,
watched the dancing for a few moments and returned to the Criminal Court
Building with the intention of completing his trial brief before going
home.

The neighborhood was deserted. Even Pallavachini's harbored no
merry-makers. Would Ignatius O'Hara be upstairs, he wondered, lying as of
yore in his shirtsleeves on the broken-down old sofa? Resisting the
temptation to visit his former quarters, he turned into the black shadows
about the side entrance of the building. That was no idle jest about some
one jumping out at one! An ideal spot for a robbery. The narrow unlighted
passage between the swinging door and the cavern below the rotunda could
easily secrete a dozen strong-arm men. He inspected it carefully before
entering. Even when safely through it and in the pool of light in the
centre of the dim vaulting, he watched the black patches behind the
arches and pillars nervously. A faint halloo from the highest mezzanine
answered the bell. Googins was on his rounds. Presently the bird-cage
elevator came clanging down.

"Thought you'd gone home!" commented the old man, accepting a cigar.

"I'll probably work most of the night," answered Hugh.

They shot upward, passing in succession the darkened hall of entrance
with its winding staircases leading to nowhere, the mezzanine containing
the now empty detention rooms, the corridor upon which the main
court-rooms opened, the clerks' offices, the district attorney's office--to
the top floor, where Hugh's office was located, under the iron stairs
leading up to the garret.

Hugh turned on all the lights in his room and moved his chair so that it
faced the door. The unusual stillness made him creepy.

"I'll come an' give ye the once over now and agin!" said Googins. "If ye
need anything--holler!"

Hugh listened as the car rattled down into the bowels of the building and
stopped. One could get used to anything, he supposed; but he was glad he
didn't have Googins's job. It was bad enough to be sitting up there in
the full blaze of the electric bulbs. What a difference light made! Well,
now to his brief. He glanced over what he had last written:

                                "Point 6.
                     "Deliberation and Premeditation.

  ". . . The pistol is the crux of the case. The identification of the
  pistol by Kelly, the taxi-man, is the corner-stone of the charge of
  murder. . . . Why should he be mistaken?"

Once again there hovered in the back of his mind an enervating doubt.
What was there about this particular pistol that enabled Kelly to
identify it so positively? So far as he could observe it looked like any
other revolver. What had Kelly said in his affidavit on that subject? He
searched for it, but Kelly's deposition was not in the safe where he
thought he had put it. Neither were any of the other papers relating to
the case. He remembered now that he had taken everything upstairs to the
property-room along with the exhibits that morning. He could not work
without them.

He wondered if he could open the big safe up there and get the stuff out.
The combination was on a piece of paper in his pocket, the key to the
property-room lay on the desk beside him. He could at least make a try at
it.


Taking a flashlight from the drawer of his desk, Hugh went out into the
corridor and gazed up the winding iron staircase leading to the roof. He
tried to recall the topography of the top of the building. All he could
remember was the elevator penthouse. Mean sort of place that! Turning on
the flash he started briskly up into the blackness.

A wheezy groan above his head started the perspiration from his temples.
The sheave wheel, of course! Googins was coming up on his rounds. The
thought gave him great encouragement, although it would have been
difficult to say just what assistance Googins could have been in an
encounter with a ghost. Ghosts? If the shades of the departed hovered
anywhere, it would be here about their relics! It became warmer and
warmer as he ascended. He sensed that he was approaching some
obstruction--the door to the property-room, of course. He was there at
last. He could feel his heart--the stairs were steep! Where was the
keyhole? Phew! How dusty everything was!

The door opened and the shaft of the flash bored into the darkness
beyond. He swung it and a skeleton leaped at him out of the obscurity. He
kept the spotlight on the cavernous eye-sockets until he should become
acquainted with the pleasant fellow. Just an old exhibit hanging by a
wire! That row of skulls and bottles--they hadn't been touched for years!
Where was that damn safe anyway?

He closed the door behind him and shot the light along the alleys of
shelves, gilding the edges of the trunks and barrels that had acted as
makeshift coffins for the murdered dead, and glinting upon the piles of
homicidal implements, the heaped-up daggers, cutlasses, knives, and
firearms. Over his head the artificially illuminated night shone palely
through the thick, wide skylight. No stars there! Only the reflection of
distant electric signs. A soft murmur made him stop breathing. Pigeons!
He laughed out loud. Imagine being startled at such a thing as that! It
was a friendly sound. So he wasn't alone up there under the roof!

Afraid? What on earth was there to be afraid of? He would as soon be
there in the dark as not! But why was he trying to reassure himself that
way with baby-talk? Was he reliving, perhaps, some former experience in
which amid the dark groves of the primeval forest he had been startled by
strange beasts? What was that? He held his breath, his heart thumping
like a daraboukeh. A padded, noiseless noise, felt rather than heard!
Motionless he stood there under the skylight, surrounded by misshapen
bizarre and fantastic evidences of crime, conscious that he was not
alone.

There was something--somebody in the garret besides himself! A cat
perhaps. No other animal could be there. A cat--attracted by some grewsome
odor undetected by human nostrils! In the darkness at the further end a
board creaked. That was no cat! An icy comber of benumbing fear swept
over him. Only a fell purpose could bring another being there at such an
hour. And that other was aware of his presence--mayhap was about to spring
upon him! Standing as he was, with the torch in his hand, under the glow
from the skylight, he was a fair victim. But should he extinguish the
flash it would be a notification to his adversary that he was on his
guard, and doubtless precipitate an attack. He must preserve an
appearance of nonchalance. He began to hum a popular air.

Prickling waves raced after one another over his body. Such tension was
not to be endured. Another creak! At least let him know what this
invisible terror was! Hugh threw the shaft of light toward the end of the
attic. Outlined in the circle was the figure of a man upon his knees
before an open safe. Instantly he leaped to his feet. Something gleamed
in his hand. Hugh ducked to one side. There was a jet of flame, a
deafening detonation. The doughboy's skeleton fell to the floor with a
rattle, followed by a jingle of glass as the bullet sped upward through
the skylight. Crash! The burst of flame shot toward him again.

He dodged behind the shelves, extinguishing the flash. He was at the
dog's mercy! The attic was thick with smoke. Would Googins hear? Should
he crouch there and allow himself to be shot down in cold blood? The
place was still as death, save for the dripping of fluid from a shattered
bottle behind him. The fellow was evidently waiting for him to make a
move indicating his position. The next shot would be a better one. If
only he had a weapon! His hand, feeling along the shelf, came in contact
with something round and smooth--a skull. "Alas, poor Yorick!" To what
base uses! Gripping the thing by the eye-sockets, Hugh flung it in the
direction of the safe. It struck with a crunching noise. Crash! Crash!
The attic was lit twice as from lightning flashes. Now was the instant
for following up the attack.

Hugh sprang toward his invisible foe with the clubbed flashlight. A
bullet sang by his ear. He struck furiously and closed with his
assailant, struggling for the revolver thrust against his abdomen! What a
rotten way to die!

Locked together they staggered around the attic, straining and cursing,
falling against objects that gave and swayed or toppled to the floor, now
entangled in wire, now smashing whole rows of bottles, clutching vainly
for weapons as they reeled past the shelves.

Then Hugh wrenched his right hand free and from behind struck his
adversary a stunning blow on the head with the flashlight. The grip on
his body loosened. Again he struck, and again. With a cry only half human
the man sank to his knees, then fell over upon his back with Hugh's knees
upon his chest, his fingers around his throat. Was the dog shamming? He
seemed utterly relaxed. Something warm was running into Hugh's mouth, and
there was a loud buzzing in his head. To his surprise the flashlight
still worked. He held the light to his assailant's face. The mask it
revealed was that of an old man with a totally bald pate--a weazened,
pock-marked, livid, yellowish face capped by a smooth white skull--the
face of Jeffrey Quirk!

There was no room for doubt as to his identity. Quirk! Miserable traitor!
Hugh lifted the right hand and removed the revolver. It had a familiar
look. All the shells had been discharged. He had interrupted Quirk in an
attempt to abstract it from the safe, and the "runner" had emptied the
remaining five loaded chambers at him. Lucky the scamp was a dope fiend,
or one of them might have found its mark. But Quirk!

A heavy pounding upon the iron stairs and the door behind him was thrown
open, revealing an officer in uniform, pistol in hand.

"What's all this?" he demanded.

Then everything went wobbly for Hugh, and the garret turned into a
crossword puzzle that flickered like an electric-sign. He was going down
a rabbit-hole feet first with his head on the policeman's shoulder--down,
down, into the dark----.

"How you feelin'?"

There was a strong smell of brandy. His throat burned. Googins's face
looked anxiously into his.

"All right, I guess," responded Hugh, dimly aware that they were in his
office, and that Jeffrey Quirk was sitting collapsed in a chair, his arms
dangling, his head wrapped in a bandage and sunk on his breast.

The policeman was writing in his notebook.

"How about it?" he asked. "Googins says this guy works for you. What was
the trouble?"

Hugh did not answer. The complexities of the situation appeared to him at
that moment to be enormous.

"Yes, he works for me," he said finally. "He's one of our process
servers. To be frank with you, I think he's 'cuckoo.' If you don't mind
I'll handle the affair myself. You don't know anything about it--_do_
you?"

"Not if you say I don't, Mr. Dillon." The officer folded his notebook and
replaced it in his pocket. Hugh motioned toward his desk.

"You'll find some cigars in that right-hand upper drawer--good ones!--help
yourself."

The officer did so. As he started for the door he said:

"I see how you're going to try that Clayton woman next week. She croaked
'Old Man' Devens, all right. I hope you get her! Good night, sir!" He
went out. Googins lingered behind a moment.

"I put back the gun and locked the safe," he said. "If you want me I'll
be right outside."

Hugh turned to Quirk.

"Why did you do this?" he asked sternly. "I supposed you were my friend!"

The runner struggled to his feet, took a few steps and sank on his knees
by Hugh's chair.

"I swear to God I didn't know it was you, Mr. Dillon! I thought it was
Googins. That would have been bad enough, I know. But I didn't know it
was you! Before God, I didn't!"

"Why did you open the safe?"

Quirk looked furtively at the closed door.

"I had to, Mr. Dillon. Hoyle made me! He said we had to have the revolver
or Mrs. Clayton would go to the chair."

"Hoyle!"

"Yes, sir!"




                              CHAPTER XII


The stars in their courses were warring for the renomination of the
Honorable Peter J. Farley. The unfortunate circumstance that the Devens
murder had occurred while he was playing truant was far outweighed by the
overwhelming fact that it had occurred at all. The feeling was general
that only a first-class district attorney could have supplied a homicide
of such a gilt-edged character for the edification of the public, and
that gratitude was in order. People began to remember about Farley. His
oratorical gifts were duly referred to in the press. He "loomed."

He would probably have loomed in vain, however, had it not been for the
sudden reappearance of Moses Wellington within two hours after the
offering of the $1,000 reward by the New York _World_. There being no
strings to it whatever, and the money being payable to whatever person
should produce him at the Park Row editorial offices, or furnish
information resulting in his apprehension by the police, he was promptly
turned up by the Tilly girl herself, who personally delivered the negro
and carried off the money.

"Sure, I give her the gun, cause she said as how she was afraid to go
walkin' 'round at night. Sure, boss! Miss Clayton she give me a coupla
dollars for it. I didn't know you had to have a license. Honest to God, I
didn't!"

The missing link in the evidential chain had at last been supplied.
Eileen Clayton was now proved to have been the owner of the pistol found
beside the body of "Old Man" Devens. She could, in the parlance of the
Criminal Court Building, have been "convicted by a three-years-old
child."

The importance of the revolver in the eyes of the defense had been shown
by Hoyle's attempt to procure its abstraction through Quirk, but under
the rules of evidence the prosecutor would not be allowed to prove that
Quirk's act had been instigated by the defendant's counsel, since a
defendant might well be ignorant of any such nefarious effort made by his
attorney to get him off, and such effort might be made even if he were
wholly innocent.

Quirk now cringed to Hugh as he formerly had to Hoyle. Frantic for lack
of cocaine, suffering tortures of remorse, in terror of being sent to
prison, he was in a pitiful condition. But his discharge of the five
remaining shells now made him a necessary witness as to the original
condition of the revolver when it should be offered in evidence upon the
trial, and he was naturally ready and willing to make amends for his
dereliction by making a clean breast of everything--if the court would let
him.

"Of course the judge won't permit you to explain that Hoyle put you up to
stealing the gun! That would be too damaging to the defendant! All Mr.
Dillon will be allowed to ask you is whether the revolver is in the same
condition as when you took it out of the safe and, if not, to account for
the difference. _But_," and here the Honorable Peter looked significantly
at the prospective witness, "if O'Hara, or whoever should be trying the
case for the defense, should ask you in cross-examination _why_ you did
it, then they will have 'opened the door,' and you can go ahead and spill
the whole story. And in that case," he added pensively, "hand it to 'em
strong!"

"They won't!" interpolated Hugh. "O'Hara is much too good a trial
lawyer."

"Well, don't forget to run it in if you can! Hoyle's telling you they had
to have that revolver at any cost is the next best thing to the defendant
asking you to do it herself!"

Farley was feeling highly optimistic. He now even regarded himself as
rather fortunate in having Barker to try the case. It was a good thing to
be able to go straight to a judge and talk things over. Some of those
upstate Republicans, if you spoke to them in advance, acted as if you
were trying to corrupt them! The kind of judge he liked was the sort who
the first day of the term would lunch with you at Pontin's, pinch you
under the table, and say with a wink: "Well, Mr. District Attorney, I
guess between us no guilty man will escape!" And carried something on his
hip, too, maybe.

He hated a judge that put on dog. If you got in a tight place why
shouldn't you discuss with the judge the best way to get out of it? After
all, no sane man looking for re-election would want an acquittal in an
important case like this.

He was lucky, too, in having made it up with Redmond. He had tried to
convey the impression to him that his reason for selecting Dillon to act
as understudy was that, had he chosen the Honorable Michael, he would
have wanted to give the latter an entirely free hand instead of really
trying the case himself, as he now proposed to do. Another reason was
Dillon's intimacy with "Old Man" Devens and familiarity with his affairs,
as well as Miss Devens' personal request that Hugh be allowed to conduct
the prosecution. Under the circumstances he couldn't very well refuse,
_could_ he? Redmond graciously admitted the force of the argument. Of
course, Farley went on, Dillon was young and rather a hot head, and for
that reason, as a favor to him, he hoped Redmond would go into court and
follow every step of the trial. You never could tell what might happen.
For example, he, Farley, might be taken suddenly ill. In that case you
couldn't let the boy go it alone without some older man to advise him.
Would Redmond mind doing that? There would be other big cases coming
along. Redmond expressed his gratification at his chief's display of
confidence.

"The old fathead!" he commented. "I wonder if he really thinks he can
pull the wool over my eyes like that! All the same I'll be in court--with
bells on!"


The case was now fully ready for trial; the stage completely set. All day
long crowds hung about the doors of the court house, gazing vaguely at
the Bridge of Sighs and at the Tombs. A corps of "star" reporters and
"special writers" augmented the regulars in the press-room, and borrowed
desk space in the offices of amiable deputies who thus hoped to attain at
least casual mention. The corner of Franklin and Centre Streets took on
the general aspect of a country fair. A "hot dog" man usurped a point of
vantage near the side entrance. An improvised telegraph office sprang up
in the centre of the rotunda, connected by a cable with the roof.
Supplementary telephone booths appeared along the side walls. A
lunch-counter arose among the pillars of the crypt. Photographers swarmed
in the corridors and on the sidewalks. Pontin's opened an extra
dining-room. The judges' chambers fluttered with fashionably dressed
ladies from the hinterland of "uptown" under the escort of smart young
men. An unwonted atmosphere of elegance invaded the locality. The
Criminal Court Building began to come into its own.

The Commissioner of Jurors upon Farley's application had drawn a "special
jury" of four hundred talesmen, with a tentative or reserve jury of four
hundred more, since it was recalled that eight hundred had been required
in the Molineaux case. From this number it was hoped that a dozen might
possibly be found sufficiently impartial to decide upon Eileen Clayton's
innocence or guilt--honest, fair-minded citizens who had no fanciful
prejudice against either circumstantial evidence or capital punishment,
and who would "accept the law from the court" without confusing it with
their own personal ideas of what should or should not be.

The Clayton case was the only subject of conversation within the Criminal
Court Building. Interest in daily routine lagged, the members of the
professional staff finding it more entertaining, if not more profitable,
to gather in one another's offices for the purpose of discussing the
probable tactics to be employed, and the various exigencies that might
arise. Would the defendant take the stand? If she did not she was,
according to every known precedent, surely doomed. If she did, what would
be her defense? "Eileen Clayton's Secret" was what the newspapers called
it. Would she be forced to disclose it? Would the evidence compel her to
tear aside the veil that now concealed her intimacy with the dead?

Judge Barker was much distressed at the limited seating capacity of his
court-room. He was terrified lest he offend some one who wished to be
present at the trial. If he could have thereby made greater room he would
gladly have erased Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Lachesis, Clotho,
and Atropos--even the Blind Goddess herself--from the walls.

His gratitude to Farley was boundless. He would show them what a real
judge should be like. His rulings should go echoing down the corridors of
time. "As Judge Barker said in the famous Clayton case--" would be an
impressive phrase upon the lips of future advocates.

Hugh, in his office on the top floor, and oblivious to this flummery, was
in a state of nervous tension that deprived him of both sleep and
appetite, overwhelmed both by the responsibility of his position and the
irony of being forced to prosecute for a capital offense the mother of
the girl he loved and who loved him. For it was on the basis of an
accepted suitor that he now saw Moira daily, and tried to help her bear
up under her terrible ordeal. He and Uncle Danny dined every evening at
the marzipan house. The old Irishman needed his encouragement almost as
much as did the girl, for those few weeks had turned him into a senile
wreck of his former self. A week before the trial he took to his bed. The
shock of his friend's death had been too much for him, the doctors said.


"Order in the court! His Honor the Justice of the Supreme Court!"

Judge Barker, his face wearing a self-conscious smile, emerged from the
anteroom and ascended the dais, pausing for an instant before taking his
seat, to contemplate with satisfaction the brilliant spectacle of which
he was the central figure. They were all, every one of them, regarding
him with eyes of awe--waiting for him to sit down. Let them wait! Justice
should move with dignity! Ah, the Mayor's wife was trying to bow to him!
He must not show her too much deference--publicly! She too must wait! He
breathed hard. A distinguished gathering, almost as fashionable as a
first night! Was that artist sketching him--or was he doing old Dollar? He
had never seen so many reporters! The whole room was packed. Below,
within the rail, favored writers, sporting men, actors, and distinguished
members of the bar, were crowded in with the district attorney's
professional staff. And all looking at him! He stood there savoring the
supreme moment. "The eyes of all wait upon thee, O Lord!" It was unction
to his dried bladder of a soul. He bowed and arranged his robes. He sat.

The level of heads sank bobbing before him. He smiled cordially at the
Mayor's wife. There was the jury. He must not forget the jury! "Good
morning, gentlemen!"

Yes, and there was the defendant herself. He had temporarily forgotten
all about her. He must see to it that there should be no false atmosphere
of sympathy! After all, she was nothing but a dope fiend who had run
amuck. Everybody knew, these people had no moral sense. He had lost a
good friend, a strong backer, in Dick Devens. She deserved to be made an
example of!

"Bang!"

"Order in the court. People against Clayton--continued!" intoned Mr.
Dollar.

"Are you ready to open your case, Mr. District Attorney?" asked Judge
Barker politely.

Hugh arose with a slight inclination toward the bench, recalling his
vision of Moira that first afternoon, not so long ago, when he had been
on the other side of the bar defending poor Paul Renig.

The throng about him was so great as almost to impede his movements.
Behind him the reporters were already furiously scribbling upon yellow
sheets, which they handed to impatient little boys in uniform. Not a word
he uttered but would be flashed all over the country in less than three
minutes! Not a gesture made by either side but would be chronicled; not a
ruling but would become a precedent.

Once more he looked toward the bench, and this time raised his eyes above
it to the Blind Goddess--almost in supplication. The hand holding the
crystal ball of Truth was extended toward him. What was Truth? Was this
cumbrous machine of which he was a cog capable of ascertaining it?

"If the court please," began Hugh, "Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen of the
Jury. It now becomes my duty to outline for your assistance the proof
which the State proposes to adduce before you, in support of its
contention that the defendant--Eileen Clayton--is guilty of murder in the
first degree."

He spoke quietly. It was no part of his function to attempt to inflame
the passions of the jury by dwelling upon the obviously more sensational
aspects of the case. Eileen appeared to be in a state of coma. O'Hara
listened intently, making an occasional note. Hoyle, for some strategic
reason of his own, was not sitting at the counsel table beside his
partner, but occupied the end of a bench behind him near the reporters.
There was nothing to be heard in the room but the scratching of pencils
and the sound of Hugh's voice as he outlined the history of the alleged
crime. He had concluded his speech in fifteen minutes.

"Great!" whispered Farley, as he sat down. "You've got the jury to a man.
A clear, concise statement of fact! Couldn't have been better. We must
make it short and snappy like that all through. Who's your first
witness?"

The initial hour was taken up with technical proof regarding the plan of
the Devens house, the location of the furniture in the "den," the
identification of the body at the morgue, the introduction of photographs
and diagrams, and Doctor Norris's testimony as to the cause of death.
O'Hara asked few questions, and those that he did ask were obviously
directed to the possibility of suicide. Yet, while the evidence was in
itself uninteresting enough, it was listened to by the jury and those in
the court-room with the closest attention. It was clear that all of them
felt that it was impossible to forecast what unexpected bit of testimony
might not prove vital.

The proof of the actual _corpus delicti_ was followed by that of Captain
Carey, who identified the revolver as found by him on the right side of
Devens' body, of officers Wasserman and Burke, and of Boyle the
stenographer, who had taken down the short examination of the defendant
at the police station. This occupied the court until the recess time, and
left remaining for the afternoon session only those witnesses whose
testimony would directly connect the defendant with the crime: Shane, the
butler; Daniel Shay, and the negro Wellington, who had been brought from
the House of Detention. The first round was over. No blood had as yet
been drawn. When the gong rang again the adversaries would clinch and it
would be a fight to a finish.

Judge Barker looked at the clock and then nodded to Mr. Dollar, who arose
in all the grandeur of his office.

"The court will take a recess until two o'clock. Let all remain seated
while the jury pass out. Follow the officer, gentlemen!"

Old Gallagher unfastened the little door at the end of the jury-box, and
the twelve men who, in order to attain celebrity and three dollars per
diem as members of the Clayton jury, had sworn that they had no objection
to either circumstantial evidence or the infliction of the death penalty,
collected their garments, and studiously avoiding the eyes of the
defendant, filed out.


It is a fact established by many generations of professional observation
that those who are about to send a human being to his or her death will
not look at their victim, and in this case it did not pass unobserved by
the reporters. The cards, they saw, were clearly stacked against Eileen
Clayton. The issue was too simple to permit of being befogged. There was
no chance for a fight on technicalities. The jury was obviously "hard
boiled." These twelve stock-brokers, life insurance agents, realtors,
shipping-clerks, and "retired" business men, had already reached the
conclusion that the trial was a mere formality. In spite of their
asseverations to the contrary, they had formed a fixed opinion as to the
defendant's guilt from reading the newspapers long before they had been
summoned as talesmen. They did not "presume the defendant innocent."
They, quite logically, presumed her guilty, and would duly find her so,
unless some unexpected legal excuse presented itself, under cover of
which, on the slightest tip from the judge, they could exercise an even
more arbitrary mercy. They belonged to what O'Hara called "the standing
army of the gibbet," old and tried legal executioners, their record for
convictions duly registered in the secret card-catalogue concealed
beneath the district attorney's table, thus:

"Michael Murphy, 517 W. 137 St.--59, widower, retired, ex-contractor.
Tammany R. C. Brother-in-law of Police Inspector Cronin and Deputy Chief
Clerk Macklin, Dept. Gas, Water & Electricity. Served on Hood (murder
1st), McManus (murder 1st) and Balinski (acq.) juries."

Juror Murphy, ostensibly a rather thick-witted but honest old Irishman,
would be summoned to the witness chair upon the "voir dire," as it is
called, to be examined as to his fitness to serve as an impartial juror.
The defendant's counsel, knowing nothing of the widowed Murphy's history
in the possession of the prosecution, would arise and the following
farce, or something like it, would be enacted:

  _By the defendant's counsel:_ Mr. Murphy, would you give the benefit of
  every reasonable doubt to the prisoner?

  _Mr. Murphy (benignly):_ Sure, that would be my duty, wouldn't it?

  _By counsel:_ And, naturally, you would presume her innocent until you
  were satisfied to the contrary by competent evidence?

  _Mr. Murphy:_ I should require the district attorney to prove the
  defendant's guilt to my mind beyond any doubt.

  _By counsel:_ Do you know of any reason whatever why you could not make
  a fair and impartial juror in this case?

  _Mr. Murphy (simply, innocently, reverently):_ I do not.

  _By counsel (smiling):_ Thank you, Mr. Murphy. You are entirely
  satisfactory to the defense. You may take your seat in the box.

Justice?

"All right, officer! Clear the court-room."

Instantly half the mob began struggling to gain the exit while the other
half swarmed to the rail for a closer glimpse at the woman on trial. The
deputy sheriff tapped Eileen upon the shoulder and, like an animal in an
abbatoir, she arose and followed him around the runway to the door
leading to the prison pen, where she would be kept during the lunch hour.

Hugh gathered up his papers and escaped with Farley through the judge's
robing-room, where Gallagher was helping Barker out of his silk robe. In
his shirtsleeves he resembled a fat restaurant waiter more than a justice
of the Supreme Court. "A demi-tasse, please!"

"Going all right, isn't it?" he asked Farley.

"Fine!" answered the D. A. buoyantly.

One of the court officers forced a passage for them through the crowd
that milled about the telephone booths and the elevators. There was a
strong odor of sandwiches, coffee, and bad cigars throughout the rotunda.
Some of the spectators had brought their lunch. Others procured it at the
cafeteria. None left the building. Newsboys were hurrying about offering
extras:

                        DILLON OPENS PEOPLE'S CASE

                                BULLETINS:

  10.31. Mr. Justice Barker takes seat on bench.

  10.35. The defendant is brought in.

  10.38. Asst. Dist. Atty. Dillon begins address to jury.

  Criminal Court Building, Criminal Trial Term, Supreme Court, New York,
  N. Y. (by special wire): In the most densely packed court-room within
  human memory the State has just begun to lay before the jury the
  evidence by virtue of which it hopes to send Eileen Clayton to the
  electric chair.

Her picture stared at him from the centre of the page, flanked by a
smaller one of himself. A crowd of admirers followed them to the elevator
reserved for the use of the judges and the district attorney.

"Great work, Mr. Dillon!" Googins's voice had a proud ring. "Sure, you'll
be the next district attorney, I'm thinkin'!"

Once upstairs, Hugh closed the door and locked himself in his office. Now
that the excitement of the trial was behind him, he found that his knees
were shaking. The room was ablaze with sunlight. How cheerful, how
peaceful it was with its red carpet, its leather chair. He threw open the
window to get a bottle of koumyss. The air was sparkling and glamorous;
the sky full of drifting white. What a day for the woods and fields! A
pigeon fluttered from the cornice to the window-ledge beside his hand,
and stood there nervously. Down below behind the wall of the Tombs the
prisoners were walking monotonously to and fro--to and fro. Again he saw
the frightened face of the woman he was prosecuting. Why had she looked
at him that way? Was it possible that she had not done what she was
accused of? To allow such a thought to intrude itself into his mind might
be fatal to his case. He was the People's advocate. This was no time for
idle speculation.

He closed the window, drank off the koumyss, and sat down in the
armchair. But the thought kept coming back. Did he really believe in the
infallibility of circumstantial evidence? Was he himself absolutely
convinced of her guilt? He told himself that he was! His mind could not
reach any other conclusion. She had procured the pistol and carried it to
the house! To imagine that she had taken it there for any purpose other
than to shoot Devens--when Devens had been shot--was simply fantastic. That
was not a reasonable doubt! And he would convince the jury that it was
not, if they needed to be convinced, which his instinct told him they did
not. He knew that he had already won their confidence--that unless it came
to an open split with Judge Barker they would do what he asked them to
do, even to dooming the woman at the bar to death. Curious what an
influence he seemed to have over other men!

Yes, there would be a conviction! He would be the hero of the hour! He
would be shown in the news-reels coming out of the Criminal Court
Building, smiling and taking off his hat. He might, on the strength of
it, be selected as the Fusion candidate for district attorney! He might
even beat Farley! He would have a career. There was no end to the
possibilities in the event of his success. For the first time he really
felt the thrill of being the centre of public interest. He might even
become Mayor of New York, as Moira had encouraged him to believe.

How? Upon the dead body of her mother!

A shadow darkened the opaque glass of the door. A knock. He opened it. A
slight figure dressed in black stood upon the threshold--Moira herself. In
his excitement he had forgotten that she was a necessary witness--that she
alone could absolutely fix the time of the defendant's visit to the
house. Besides, Farley had insisted upon her presence for its sentimental
effect upon the jury. He closed the door again and took her in his arms.

"I'm sorry to have to subject you to this, dear!" he said. "But I shall
let you go as soon as possible. I shall ask you only a few questions."

"But I want to testify, Hugh! I want to do my part. I only wish I could
testify to more!"

He took her hand, thankful for her sake that he was in charge of the
prosecution. Suppose Redmond had been the one to try the case! The fellow
might have managed, somehow to worm Eileen Clayton's secret out of Uncle
Dan. If he had, what capital he would have made of it! In his own hands,
if he took proper care, the past would be quite safe. Her mother should
be made to pay the penalty for her crime; but should not be pilloried for
her shame. Moira must never know! Should never know!

"It will be over in a few minutes!" he said. "To-night I will come to see
you and tell you everything that has happened. We must go down now to the
court-room. It is already five minutes to two."

She shuddered.

"I hate the thought of all that crowd!"

"You can sit in the judge's anteroom until it is time for you to
testify!"

She put on her veil and together they went to Judge Barker's chambers. He
had already gone upon the bench and Mr. Dollar was polling the jury. The
throng was greater than ever. The defendant was in her place. Several of
the jurors smiled at the pale young assistant district attorney.
Unconsciously they all felt his honesty and sincerity of purpose. They
knew that they could trust him.

But as Hugh, on the point of calling his first witness, faced the bench,
he realized that a change of atmosphere had taken place. The court-room
was tense with a peculiar electric quality. It was as if, by common
consent, all that had gone before was to be taken as the merest
preliminary. The real issue--that of the defendant's personal connection
with the homicide--was only now to be fought out.

The demeanor of O'Hara had markedly altered. Heretofore he had been
lethargic, almost indifferent. Now he watched Hugh like a lynx. The whole
poise of his big body seemed to say: "Now, young fellow, let us see how
you are going to prove that my client had anything to do with this!"

"Please ask Miss Devens to take the stand," said Hugh!

A swish of papers came from the reporters' table. This was what they had
been waiting for! The rows of onlookers on the benches craned their heads
toward the door behind the jury-box leading into the judge's robing-room.
A moment later Moira entered, took her seat in the witness chair, and at
Judge Barker's request removed her veil. Mother and daughter faced one
another.

"Stage play!" muttered O'Hara loud enough for the sixth juror to hear.
But that gentleman gave him an unsympathetic shoulder. He had a girl of
almost the same age. Suppose some one should make an orphan of _her_?

"Miss Devens," said Hugh, after the oath had been administered. "You are
the only daughter of Richard Devens?"

"I am," answered Moira.

"Do you know this defendant?"

"I have seen her twice, at a distance only. Once in this court-room about
three months ago, once in the street the following day. Never to speak
to. I suppose my answer is 'No.'"

As she spoke the color came slowly back into her cheeks.

"On the night of your father's death as you were about to go to bed, did
you observe anything from your window?"

"I saw a taxi turn in from Fifth Avenue and stop before the house. A few
seconds later the front door banged. I looked at the clock. It pointed to
ten minutes to eleven!"

"One more question," said Hugh. "Do you know whether or not your father
owned or kept a revolver in the house?"

"I never saw my father with a revolver. I never saw one in the house. So
far as I am aware he did not own or use one."

"That is all I have to ask."

Moira had kept her eyes fastened upon Hugh's face.

"We should have been quite ready to concede Miss Devens' testimony
without dragging her down here into court," said O'Hara. "I have no
questions, Miss Devens."

Two of the newspaper artists had stolen back of the jury-box and were
making hurried sketches of both the witness and the defendant. Moira
allowed her eyes to turn toward the lawyer. They met those of her mother,
who, with a stifled cry, half rose from her seat and extended her arms as
if entreating mercy. O'Hara shook her roughly by the shoulder.

"Sit down!" he growled. "Do you want to convict yourself!"

Eileen sank back. But the harm had been done, and the great American
public were duly apprised of the sensational appeal made by the prisoner
to the daughter of the man she was alleged to have murdered.

Moira was followed upon the witness stand by Shane, the butler; by Daniel
Shay, who testified cautiously to the payment of regular sums of money by
his employer to Mrs. Clayton; and finally by the negro Wellington, who
positively identified the revolver as having been sold by him to the
defendant on the day of the homicide.

The case had gone heavily against the defense throughout the entire
afternoon, the negro's testimony making the chain of circumstances
apparently complete and her guilt conclusive. O'Hara's cross-examination
had been becoming gradually more and more caustic. Hoyle still occupied
the same seat as before on the front bench of spectators. He now stepped
forward and whispered to his partner. Hugh knew well enough what he was
saying, and that they were preparing to make their stand on the
admissibility of the revolver, claiming that, although repeatedly
identified, it was not admissible in evidence, owing to the fact that it
was not in the same condition as when discovered beside the body. The
final play of the prosecution in this drama of life and death was about
to be made. All in the court-room sensed the approaching climax. Even the
pencils of the reporters were stilled.

"I offer the revolver in evidence," said Hugh.

Instantly O'Hara was on his feet.

"Let me see it!"

Hugh handed the weapon to him. O'Hara showed it to Hoyle and both
examined it with obvious curiosity.

"I object to its admission, upon the ground that it is admittedly not in
the same state as when found beside the body of the deceased," declared
O'Hara with assurance. "The testimony is unanimous to the effect that
when it came into the hands of the authorities but one chamber had been
discharged. All six chambers of this revolver are empty."

Judge Barker, unprepared for this little surprise, raised his eyebrows.
Dillon should have "put him wise." He hesitated.

"Objection sustained!" he ruled finally, "unless the prosecution can
account by proper evidence for the change in the revolver's condition. I
suppose you can do that, can't you, Mr. Dillon?"

"I can. Will Jeffrey Quirk please take the witness-chair?"

From the group of attachs behind District Attorney Farley the former
"runner" arose and made his way behind the jury-box to the witness-stand,
where he was sworn.

"You are a process-server attached to the office of the district attorney
of this county?" asked Hugh.

"I am."

Quirk clutched the arms of the chair to conceal his nervousness.

"Was this revolver now offered in evidence in your care and custody?"

"It was."

"Is it in the same condition now as when you first received it? If not,
in what respect?" continued Hugh.

"When I got it, only one chamber was empty. Now there are six."

"Can you explain how that comes to be the case?"

Quirk moistened his lips around which played an apologetic grin.

"Sure. I fired them off."

"That is all," said Hugh. "Unless you wish to examine further, Mr.
O'Hara. Do you?"

A murmur of amusement ran over the court-room, as a cat's paw of wind
ruffles the smooth surface of a pond. O'Hara took his cue from it.

"I certainly do!" he replied, pretending to conceal a smile. He could at
least relieve the tension by introducing a note of jocularity into the
case, and he had more than once saved a client from the chair by invoking
that method.

"So you were indulging in a little pistol practice, were you?" he
inquired jocularly.

"You might call it that," admitted Quirk.

"Where were you when you relieved your feelings in this way?"

"Upstairs--in the property-room."

"You were just feeling a bit happy? I don't suppose you aimed at anything
in particular, did you?"

Several members of the jury seemed to find the examination amusing. They
liked hearing O'Hara make a goat of this grotesque-looking fellow.

"Yes, I did."

"Oh, you did, did you? What was it, a cat?"

"No. It wasn't a cat."

"Could it have been a rat?" persisted O'Hara, winking at the jury.

"No. It wasn't a rat."

"Neither cat nor rat! Well, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell us what
you were firing at up there?"

No sound was audible throughout the court-room. Quirk's forehead below
the line of his wig was beaded with drops of sweat.

"If you want to know, I fired those five shots at Mr. Dillon," he
answered in a raucous voice.

The jury sat up.

"At Mr. Dillon!" ejaculated O'Hara, incredulously.

"Yes--at Mr. Dillon, only I thought it was somebody else," reiterated
Quirk.

"What did you say?" inquired Judge Barker. "Who did you say you
discharged this exhibit at?"

"Mr. Dillon."

"You do not mean you aimed it at him!"

"Yes."

Judge Barker stared at the witness.

"Proceed, Mr. O'Hara!" he remarked after a pause.

The officers were having difficulty in keeping order. Those in the rear
of the room were standing up in order to see better what was going on.
What was it the witness had said?

"Sit down there! Keep your seats!"

"H'm! So you were firing at the assistant district attorney!" went on
O'Hara, determined to make the most of this extraordinary situation.
"Dear me, couldn't you find any rabbits to practise on? Perhaps you'll
tell us why you selected him for a target."

"I was trying to steal the revolver out of the safe. He caught me at it.
I fired at him to make a get-away."

The statement shattered the silence that had hung upon his answer. The
crowd's gasp of astonishment was followed by the tumult of an angry sea.
The jury leaned forward in their seats. The reporters sprawled across the
tables toward the rail. "Order there!" "Order!" Farley and Hugh alone sat
unperturbed amid the storm. O'Hara's eyes sparkled with a new hope. Had
he stumbled upon something? Was he, in some unforeseen fashion, about to
snatch victory out of defeat? He failed to see Hoyle's desperate gesture
of warning. Hoyle had told him nothing. His deeds were done in secret.
The firm's right hand knew not what its left hand did.

"Why did you try to steal this exhibit?" The question leaped at Quirk
with O'Hara's accusing finger. Farley hugged himself. The trap was about
to be sprung--the unexpected, but hoped-for, moment had arrived. It was
too late for O'Hara to stop his examination now. The jury would insist on
a solution of the mystery as their right. So would the press! So would
the public! So would Barker!

Jeffrey Quirk, caught between the devil Hoyle on the one hand and the
deep sea of criminal responsibility upon the other, writhed in his chair,
twisting his hands. It was Judge Barker's chance to take the spotlight.

"Answer the question!" he ordered sternly.

The tumult ceased, but the wave was merely gathering to break again.
Quirk summoned all his courage. Yes, cost what it might he would give
them the truth! Now, at last, he would throw off the old man of the sea
who for so many years had clung upon his shoulders! He would rid himself
of Hoyle forever--show him up for what he was--a blackmailer and an
instigator of crime.

"Because--" he began. Then he shrank back in his seat, his eyes fixed in
terror upon the face of Hoyle, who had crept forward to the bar. Habit
reasserted itself. No, he dared not! But he must give some excuse! He
caught Farley's exultant expression, and the latter's words flashed into
his mind. "Give it to 'em strong!" He must not let this opportunity slip
to help Mr. Dillon. He cleared his throat.

"Because the defendant asked me to. She said unless I could get the
revolver she'd go to the chair!"

The tempest broke. The reporters' table became the centre of a whirlwind.
O'Hara stood there dazed. The lie was as shocking as it was gigantic.
Utterly preposterous! Yet unless contradicted the jury would believe it!
Quirk's testimony would absolutely force his client upon the stand!
Should he go on with his cross-examination in the hope of demonstrating
the absurdity of the testimony? He had no idea what further perjuries
Quirk might have in contemplation. He was trapped.

"Drop him! Drop him!"

Hoyle hissed the words desperately in his ear. O'Hara made a vain effort
to appear nonchalantly incredulous.

"Oh, indeed!"

"Have you any more questions?" inquired Judge Barker, unable to conceal
his satisfaction, and with the air of one gracious to another in
misfortune. Relays of little boys were rushing out of the court-room with
their fists full of yellow copy. The benches were in an uproar. The jury
looked at one another significantly. Hoyle had taken a seat beside his
partner. The defendant was staring straight in front of her. It was
doubtful if she had even heard the testimony. Hugh gripped Farley by the
knee.

"It's a lie!" he whispered. "It was Hoyle--not the defendant--told him to
do it."

"Shh! Keep still!" replied his chief. "It makes no difference who told
him to!"

"It makes a difference whether the testimony is false or not!" retorted
Hugh.

"Don't get so excited! If the testimony isn't true, the defense can deny
it."

Hugh was already on his feet. Farley yanked him down again.

"Sit still!" he ordered roughly. "I am running this case. I won't have
you ditching a perfectly good conviction. How do you know but what she
did tell him to--just as he says?" For the first time during the trial the
district attorney arose in person.

"The People have no re-direct examination," he announced with a smile at
the jury.

No one better than Judge Barker knew the dramatic value of a good
court-room "curtain." In all his experience there had never been a better
one. It was seven minutes to adjournment. He signalled to Mr. Dollar.

"Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons having business with this court may now
depart. This court stands adjourned until to-morrow morning at ten
o'clock. Let the jury pass out, gentlemen."

Hugh followed Farley to the latter's office. He could not believe that
the district attorney actually meant to let the record stand. His chief
closed the door and lit a cigar.

"Listen!" said he, thrusting his hands behind the tails of his cutaway
and canting the cigar toward the upper branches of the rubber plant.
"This woman is guilty as hell--and everybody knows it. But, if we go
stirring up a mess over Quirk's testimony, the jury may get the idea that
the whole case is a frame-up. If they think he's lying it will raise a
doubt in their minds, and the best we'll get is a disagreement."

"But if you do nothing, his testimony is bound to convict her."

"Well! Don't you want to convict her?"

"Not on perjured testimony!" answered Hugh fiercely. "It is a great deal
more important to preserve the integrity of the administration of
criminal justice than to convict Eileen Clayton!"

"But we aren't affecting the integrity of our procedure. We don't know
that Quirk's testimony is not true. He's our witness. We vouch for him.
We ought to stick by him. At any rate, we can wait until the defendant
denies it."

"But she has a right to stay off the stand, and if this story is allowed
to remain, she will be forced to testify, and so be deprived of her
constitutional privilege!"

"Constitutional fiddlesticks! You can't be on both sides of a case. The
woman is guilty. We've got some duty toward the public!"

"That's what I think! Why don't you send for Quirk and find out whether
or not he's lying?"

Farley chewed savagely on his cigar, waving his fat little arms.

"By God!" he shouted. "I always thought you were crazy, and now I know
it! I'm sick of your holier-than-thou attitude and all the high-falutin'
stuff you pull about duty and morals. Our duty is to send up the guilty,
without being too damn particular how we do it. If we were we'd never
convict anybody. What do you want to do? Get up in court and tell
everybody your best witness has perjured himself?"

"What I propose doing, if I stay in the case, is to find out from Quirk
how far his testimony is untrue, and then make a public statement to that
effect. There's nothing else an honest prosecutor could do!"

"There isn't, eh?" Farley's face had taken on an ugly look. "You'll find
out whether there is or not!"

"I said 'an honest prosecutor!'"

Farley rang for his attendant.

"See if Mr. Redmond is in the building, and if so, send him here to me,"
he ordered. Then turning again to Hugh: "Unless you are prepared to carry
out my instructions, I shall have to ask for your resignation. I can have
no one in my office who questions the integrity of my motives. Either you
go ahead and try the case as I want it tried, or I put Redmond in your
place! Luckily he has been in court all the time." His anger had cooled a
little. After all, the boy was just a fool. "Look here, Dillon! Let's cut
all this out and forget it! You're throwing away the chance of a
lifetime. If you go ahead and convict this woman you'll be famous. If I
take you out of the case it will be your finish. I like you, Dillon. We
can travel along together. How about it?"

It was just at that moment that Redmond entered briskly.

"You sent for me, chief?"

Farley held him off with a gesture.

"One moment! How about it, Dillon?"

But Hugh had already started for the door.

"You have my resignation," he said shortly.

As he climbed the stairs leading from the district attorney's office to
his own he realized that it was not the loss of his position or even the
opportunity to gain a national reputation that dismayed him, but the fact
that Moira's mother would now certainly be convicted. He had undertaken
the prosecution only because he believed that by so doing he could
protect Moira from the revelation of the scandal connected with her
birth, while at the same time doing, as he conceived, his full duty by
the public.

He saw now that he had been mistaken. It was humanly impossible to detach
himself from his personal relationship so as to approach his task in a
proper official attitude. He could never have demanded Eileen Clayton's
life at the hands of the jury. He knew that all along at the bottom of
his heart he had hoped something would happen to render a conviction
impossible. Not that he did not believe her guilty! He was absolutely
certain of it. In defying Farley the only consideration that had moved
him was one of personal honor. He was there to fight for Justice; not to
dethrone her. This Farley frankly proposed to do, on the ground that the
end justified the means!

But what could he do? Was he to stand mute and allow Eileen Clayton to be
convicted of murder upon evidence which he knew to be perjured? Was it
not his duty to arise at the opening of court next morning, and expose
this travesty upon justice? Had he not sworn to support the Constitution
of the State and of the United States? And did not these guarantee to
every defendant a fair and impartial trial? They did indeed! But had he
no other loyalties? Did not his position impose silence upon him? He was
not the district attorney. He was but the latter's salaried aide. What he
knew of the Clayton case he had learned in a confidential capacity. Was
not his obligation of loyalty to his chief absolute, even if his chief
was himself disloyal? What a mess! His honor stood rooted in dishonor! He
must keep his mouth shut, hoping that justice would somehow triumph in
the end.

Mechanically he began to empty the desk of his private papers. To-morrow
he must start his career for the third time. What would the future bring
to him? He made a bundle of his belongings and tied it up with a piece of
string, which he found in one of the drawers. He could send for his
pictures and the red leather armchair later on. Good-bye glory! Good-bye
fame! He would never be district attorney now. Not without a pang he
turned his back upon the little room where he had experienced his first
thrill as a public prosecutor. With his bundle beneath his arm he was
about to close the door behind him when a process-server thrust a paper
into his hand,--a subpoena commanding his appearance the following day in
the Supreme Court as a witness in the case of "The People against Eileen
Clayton."




                              CHAPTER XIII


The newspaper headlines next morning dramatized the dnouement of the
afternoon session. The sensational testimony of the witness Quirk,
brought out inadvertently by the defense itself, had clearly sealed the
defendant's doom. Throughout the entire United States there was hardly a
human being who did not know that Eileen Clayton had been shown to have
instigated a criminal attempt to make way with the most important piece
of evidence in the case against her, resulting in a homicidal attack upon
the assistant prosecutor by one of his own men with the same revolver.
Never before had so much legal melodrama been compressed into so small a
space of time. Had the slightest doubt existed in the public mind as to
her guilt hitherto, it was now entirely removed. Eileen Clayton, it was
confidently asserted, had no longer a chance of escape--unless she took
the witness-stand in her own behalf and by some unexpected revelation
succeeded in arousing the sympathy of the jury.

Hugh had not slept. With smarting eyes he had seen the dawn from the
Queensboro Bridge. Only there, with the fresh breeze from the sea blowing
back the hair from his forehead, could he make a pretense of thinking.
All night he had sat on a bench under one of the towers, watching the
lights of the tugboats on the river below, and the sudden flares of the
distant blast furnaces on the Williamsburg side, while high over all the
Metropolitan Life lifted its white torch among the stars. If only there
was a torch to light the path of duty!

There were so many duties! So many loyalties, often seemingly
inconsistent and as often positively conflicting and nullifying one
another--to one's friends--to one's job--to one's employer--to the public--to
one's private sense of honor--to one's love. Had he been a fool to resign?
What was his obligation to Farley? Should the fact that he had worked
under and for him seal his lips when he knew that the old rascal was
about to do something crooked?

Must a public officer protect another public officer who proposed to do a
public wrong? Surely he could not assent to that! Yet could he, to
prevent that public wrong, reveal something known to him only by virtue
of his confidential relationship? And, if not, did the mere fact that he
was no longer holding office change the situation? Yet, could he in any
event stand silent and see the mother of the girl he loved convicted of
murder on perjured testimony? So his thoughts ran back and forth like the
electric trains across the bridge, weaving a skein that grew ever more
tangled, until the east paled and the giant red arrow, that shoots slowly
through the night until it hits its golden mark and then begins all over
again, had faded from the sky.

The sun had crept up over Long Island City and turned the drab buildings
on Blackwell's Island to bronze before he started to walk back to
Manhattan. He leaned over the side of the bridge and looked down at the
line of convicts filing from one building to another on Blackwell's
Island. Ants! Microcosms! Life was all so unjust, what difference did it
make what happened to any particular individual? For the conviction of
how many of those down there was he personally responsible, he wondered?
He wouldn't remember them, even if he saw them. Prison fodder! One man
"turned out" simply because the assistant in charge thought his case too
troublesome to prosecute, another "sent up" because the next assistant
didn't like his looks. All chance! A rotten world! He could smell cabbage
all that way up! It must be fierce to be locked in a cell and fed through
the bars like a beast!

He found a rumpled cigarette in his pocket, lit it and tramped across the
bridge to Fifty-ninth Street, where he bought a cup of coffee and a "hot
dog." His mind, in spite of its inability to solve his problems, had a
strange clarity. He felt curiously free and untrammelled, as if his vigil
upon the bridge had had an ennobling and spiritualizing effect.

The crowd was fighting its way into the Criminal Term when he reached the
building, and he allowed himself to be dragged along with it, taking a
seat far back in the court-room. He had been subpoenaed by the
prosecution, but he had no desire to sit with his former chief.

He perceived that his sympathies were all on the side of the defendant.

"Bang!" They were all getting up. What a greasy little fellow Barker was!

"Bang!" They were all down again, and that old horse Dollar was bowing
and smirking to the jury as he called their names. From where he sat he
could not see Justice at all, so bedimmed was she. Mr. Dollar had resumed
his seat with his usual complacency.

"Bring in the defendant!"

The crowd swung around in its seats the better to see. Eileen, haggard
almost beyond recognition, walked wearily to her place, and sat down
beside her counsel.

Michael Redmond arose. The jury were puzzled. Where was their young
friend Dillon? What was this smartly elegant, slightly supercilious youth
with the Apollo locks doing in his place?

"If the court please," said the new prosecutor, "with the exception of a
single witness the People are prepared to rest their case. I make this
announcement so that the defense may not be taken unawares."

At that instant Hugh caught sight of Moira sitting inside the rail within
a few feet of where Redmond stood, her eyes fastened upon the face of the
prosecutor, who returned her an encouraging smile. Then stepping to the
bar Redmond called out in a stern voice:

"Hugh Dillon--take the stand."

Even then Hugh did not realize the depth of Redmond's perfidy, although
he was fully aware of hostility in both tone and glance. What did they
want him for? Something about the pistol, he supposed. It gave him a
queer sensation to be sitting up there in the witness-chair, all by
himself. The fact that the jury bowed to Hugh as he sat down appeared to
annoy Redmond, who deliberately interposed his body in a way effectually
to prevent him from seeing Moira.

"Your name is Hugh Dillon? A former member of the district attorney's
professional staff, I believe," he asked with a subtle sneer.

Hugh nodded.

"Answer the question so the stenographer can hear you!" directed Judge
Barker brusquely.

"I was," replied Hugh.

"Did you have a conversation with the defendant in this case at the
Thirty-First Precinct Station House on the day of the arrest?"

"I did," answered Hugh.

He saw the whole thing now! What an unbelievable cad Redmond was!

"Will you kindly tell the judge and jury what she said to you," suggested
Redmond airily.

"One moment!" O'Hara leaped to his feet. "I object! I should like the
opportunity to put a preliminary question. Was this conversation
confidential?"

"It was," answered Hugh. "I promised the defendant to regard it as such."

"I move to strike out the latter part of the answer as immaterial and
irrelevant!" cried Redmond.

Judge Barker shook his head.

"Let it stand," he said. "We do not want any error in this case," he
added, to the jury, as it were.

"I renew my objection to the question on the ground that it calls for the
disclosure of a privileged communication," urged O'Hara.

"The law recognizes no communications as privileged on the ground of
confidence, unless made to a priest, a physician, or an attorney. In
receiving the defendant's confidence, this witness certainly was not
acting in any one of those capacities," said Redmond.

"Let me ask another question," went on O'Hara. "When you promised the
defendant to keep her disclosures to you inviolate, did you do so in your
official capacity as an assistant district attorney?"

"I object to that on the ground that a district attorney who is
presumably"--Redmond dwelt on the last word--"acting in the People's
interests, has no authority to give any such assurances to a defendant.
He cannot play fast and loose, on both sides of a case at once. He must
be loyal to his clients." The malicious implication sent the blood to
Hugh's forehead. What did Redmond know of loyalty!

"I will overrule your objection. Let us hear what the witness has to say
for himself," remarked Barker with the smile of an expectant cat. "Answer
the question, Mr. Witness. When you made this private agreement with the
defendant to keep secret what she told you, were you, from your own point
of view, acting as the district attorney's representative?"

The sarcasm in his tone was a plain intimation to the jury that he
regarded such conduct as highly reprehensible and in the light of a
betrayal of the public interest. Hugh faced him.

"I did not stop to analyze the situation," he answered. "The defendant
made me a voluntary statement, relying on my promise to respect her
confidence. Otherwise she would not have made it. Whether I gave her my
word as an official or as a private individual is, to my mind,
immaterial. I shall respect it in either event."

Judge Barker's scalp grew faintly pink. This was close to contumacy!

"It is clear that the witness made the defendant a solemn promise in his
official capacity as the representative of the district attorney of this
county," declared O'Hara.

"Which he had no authority or right to make," thundered Farley, arising
to his feet.

"The district attorney represents all the people, including every
defendant. The witness received her statement as an attorney. The law
must respect her confidence," retorted the lawyer.

"Do you claim that a murderer is at liberty to make a confession to a
public prosecutor, and then assert that it was in confidence?" demanded
Redmond, moving to one side.

For the first time that morning Hugh looked into Moira's eyes.
Indignation and resentment were blended there with scorn. And yet he was
doing it all for her! She _must_ understand. But she deliberately looked
away from him.

They were all standing now--O'Hara, Hoyle, Farley, Redmond--even some of
the lesser lights. Judge Barker's skull glistened as it always did in
moments of high mental tension. Silence held the court-room. His words
fairly clattered against the walls.

"I have no means of knowing what form this alleged promise of confidence
took. I have no means of knowing whether, in fact, any such assurance was
given. To permit a witness to decide when, or when not, a communication
was made in confidence would open the door to great abuses. I shall hold
that any promise or agreement made by this witness to keep secret the
disclosures made to him by the defendant was outside the scope of his
authority. He was not her attorney. He was the public prosecutor. He
could not act in a dual capacity. His promise of confidence was, if made,
the mere assurance of an individual--and hence not privileged. I direct
the witness to answer the question. Read it, Mr. Stenographer."

The stenographer ran his finger through his pothooks.

"'By Mr. Redmond,'" he translated. "'Will you kindly tell the judge and
jury what she said to you?'"

"Answer the question!" repeated Judge Barker threateningly. The crowd
held its breath. Had Eileen Clayton confessed her guilt to the witness?
Was the testimony of Quirk to be capped by something even more
sensational?

"I will not!"

The answer was instantaneous. The judge had become purple. His hand
clenched his gavel.

"I direct you to answer, and I warn you that a refusal to do so will
subject you to the penalty for contempt." He breathed heavily.

"I refuse."

"Let the witness state his grounds," suggested Farley. "If he claims that
his answer would tend to degrade or incriminate him----"

"I make no such contention," flared Hugh. "I refuse to answer on the
ground that to do so would be a dishonorable betrayal of a private
confidence. If that is contempt, then I am in contempt."

He hurled the gauntlet straight in Barker's face. For an instant that
craven wavered.

"I should like to ask the witness in view of his refusal to answer,"
insinuated Redmond, "if it is not the fact that until very recently he
was a member of the firm of Hoyle and O'Hara, now representing the
defendant?"

Hugh did not deign a reply. Had he been near enough Redmond he might have
been guilty of homicide himself. Judge Barker beckoned to Mr. Dollar, and
conferred with him briefly. The clerk seemed reluctant. He had no
original ideas and anything out of the ordinary upset him. Reaching down
to a lower drawer, he found a paper and handed it to the judge.

"I will give you one more opportunity to answer the question," said
Barker threateningly, and when Hugh did not reply, "Mr. Stenographer,
note that the witness remains silent."

Moira had withdrawn herself from Hugh's view. He did not care what they
did to him. The judge was fumbling with the pages of the Code.

"I adjudge that the witness Dillon is in present contempt of this court
for refusing to testify, and"--his voice faltered--"I direct that--he be
committed to the City Prison until he purges himself of his contempt."

"I except to Your Honor's ruling," answered O'Hara. "I ask that Your
Honor withhold the committal until I can sue out a writ of habeas
corpus."

"That is not necessary," interrupted Hugh. "I do not wish any writ. I am
quite ready to go to jail. I thank Mr. O'Hara for his offer of
assistance, but I wish it to appear clearly upon the record that he does
not represent me in this matter. I have no attorney--except myself--and I
may have a fool for a client," he added grimly to the jury.

They did not respond. His temerity had shaken their confidence and
aroused their doubts. Half the reporters had started for the door. It was
the story of a lifetime. Judge Barker had never committed anybody to jail
peremptorily like that before. It wasn't done. The customary course was
politely to inform the victim that unless he behaved himself he must
"show cause" before some other judge why he should not be fined fifty
dollars. This was "rough stuff." Barker's gavel brought the confusion to
a standstill.

"For the last time, do you desire to purge yourself of contempt?"

"I shall not violate my personal honor."

Judge Barker took up his pen and wrote.

"The witness is committed!" he said huskily. "Captain Lynch----!"

O'Hara was on his feet again.

"I except to this entire procedure, and move to have this committal set
aside, on the ground that it is unwarranted by law and highly prejudicial
to the defendant."

"Motion denied! The witness stands committed. You may proceed with the
trial, Mr. District Attorney."


Captain Lynch conducted Hugh up the iron stairs to the prison pen without
speaking. He had conceived a great fondness for the boy. During all the
years he had presided over the peace of the Criminal Trial Term he had
never seen any one who so impressed him with his sincerity, courage, and
disinterestedness. But Captain Lynch had a high regard for the law, and
the fact that the judge had ruled was enough. He had difficulty in making
Grady, the keeper of the prison-pen, understand that Hugh was actually in
custody. Sure, there must be some mistake! Hugh assured him that there
was none. He was a prisoner. Grady, shocked at the idea of a "district
attorney" locked in a felon's cell, offered to let him sit outside, but
to his embarrassment Hugh refused. He wanted to be locked up. He would go
through with it. He had done the only thing possible to a man of honor.
The words of John O'Connor in the Parnell proceeding came to his mind: "I
know what my code of honor is, my lord, and I intend to adhere to it." So
did he, Hugh Dillon, know what his code of honor was. And so, clearly,
did Redmond, who had deliberately taken advantage of it to stage a scene
that would inevitably satisfy the jury that Eileen Clayton had confessed
her crime to one who for private reasons, in spite of his official
position, was really seeking her acquittal.

The "prison pen" of the Supreme Court, Criminal Trial Term, consists of
two cells, each about fifteen feet in length by seven feet in width,
facing one another on either side of a steam-heated chamber at the head
of an iron staircase, leading upward from the rear door of the
court-room. These are for men only; female prisoners, after they have
climbed the stairs, being taken across the corridor to the "women's pen,"
near the sheriff's room.

In his first excitement Hugh paid little attention to his surroundings,
but suddenly he found himself feeling faint. The temperature could not
have been less than ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Both windows were tightly
closed, and the stench from the open closet in each cell filled the room.
Stain overlapped stain upon the cement floor. The bars were sticky from
the palms of murderers and thieves. Even the bench upon which he was
sitting had a patine of prison grime. Disease lurked in the corners. A
filthy place! He tried to imagine it filled with men and boys pacing up
and down, waiting to be taken out and tried.

From time to time the door banged at the foot of the flight of steps and
the atmosphere was momentarily diluted with a current of air slightly
less foetid than that of the cells. The only other near-by sound was the
intermittent rustle of the keeper's newspaper. Occasionally there were
others more distant--the clash of iron--the dull reverberation of the
subway--smothered cries--the trample of feet overhead--the rumble of trucks.
Luckily he was equipped with cigarettes. He wondered what they were doing
down there in the court-room. The papers must be full of his commitment
already. "Deputy Assistant District Attorney Dillon Dismissed and
Committed for Refusing to Testify." They'd make the most of it! That cur
Redmond! He and Farley and Barker had framed the whole thing up between
them overnight. They should never extort his secret from him! But how
could he convince Moira of the sincerity of his motives? Could he blame
her for thinking him a traitor? He tried to put himself in her position.
All she knew was that he had thrown up the case at a crucial moment, and
defied the judge by refusing to disclose what the defendant had told him.
It certainly must have had a queer look. She might justly suspect almost
anything. A stab below the belt--that question of Redmond's about his
former connection with Hoyle & O'Hara!

A draught jerked the smoke of his cigarette sideways. Footsteps echoed on
the stairs. He recognized Farley's voice. Grady came to the cell door and
unlocked it.

"Come on out. The district attorney wants to talk to you."

"Then he can talk to me here where he put me!" retorted Hugh.

Grady regarded him doubtfully for an instant, and then retired. A moment
afterward Farley appeared outside the bars.

"It is not necessary that you should be locked up, Dillon!" he said,
striving to hide his embarrassment by a tone of mingled reproach and
impatience. "In fact, this entire performance would be quite unnecessary
if you would only be reasonable. I understand your feeling that you
should respect a promise, even if made to a defendant, but you should
realize that the matter is no longer in your hands. The order of the
judge releases you from any further responsibility. Private agreements
have to give way to the public interest. I hope you will reconsider your
position. There is still time. The defense is now making the customary
motion to take the case from the jury for failure of evidence. The court
will then adjourn until two o'clock. After that it will be too late. The
summing up will begin."

"What is it you wish me to do?" Hugh had remained seated during Farley's
harangue.

"Obey the order of the court as your oath as an attorney and as an
officer of the county requires you to do," returned Farley,
sententiously. "You are placing yourself above the law."

"Do you think Barker is following the law in plotting with you how to
convict this woman? Do you think Redmond is following the law in trying
to force me to disclose what I learned under a promise of secrecy, given
in my official capacity, and upon which the defendant implicitly relied?
Do you think that you are following the law when you are willing to let
this case go to the jury on perjured evidence? If you are, then the law
had better be changed! No, Mr. District Attorney, you and the law can go
straight--downstairs again!"

Hugh selected another cigarette and lit it with irritating deliberation.
Farley's jowls shook with suppressed wrath.

"All I can say is, Dillon--you're a damn fool!"

"Thanks!" replied his former assistant cheerfully. "I'm satisfied to
remain whatever kind of a fool I am! I prefer it to your variety."

For some reason which Farley could not clearly determine, their relative
positions appeared to have been reversed. He, and not Hugh, was on the
defensive. At any rate, he retreated, leaving the field to his adversary.

Once more Hugh contemplated his position. Any one could see that Farley
was nervous. He was not ordinarily the kind of man to take that sort of a
risk. Redmond undoubtedly had put him up to it. The fellow would leave no
stone unturned to get a conviction! But what a chance they were taking!
How could any of them be sure but that, if goaded to desperation, he
might not give the story of Quirk's perjury to the papers? The answer was
simple, and it was twofold. First, they were shrewd enough to know that
his sense of honor would prevent his making public what he had learned in
a confidential capacity as Farley's assistant; and second that there was
really nothing that he could say, except that Quirk had never revealed to
him the fact of the defendant's complicity in the plot to steal the
revolver. Already, probably, they had a detailed affidavit from the
witness bolstering up his statement, and setting forth time, place, and
surrounding circumstances, sufficient to meet any such attack on Hugh's
part, which would now be attributed to his desire for revenge.

And Moira! By this time, no doubt, Redmond had supplanted him in her
confidence, if not in her friendship! Her look of scorn had been like a
javelin thrust.

Muffled thunder rolled below. Court had adjourned. Grady shoved back his
chair and got up. The draught that came from the bottom of the stairs was
cold this time. What a relief! They must have emptied the court-room and
opened the windows. He arose, stretched himself and stepped to the barred
door of the cell. Mrs. Clayton was being brought upstairs to the women's
pen. At sight of Hugh she stopped.

"I want to speak to Mr. Dillon a moment," she said to Grady.

"Sure! Talk to him all you like!" returned the keeper sympathetically.
"He can speak to you outside, if he wants to. I'll leave ye alone."

For the second time Hugh came face to face with Moira's mother. She
thrust her emaciated hand through the bars.

"Mr. Dillon,--I--Oh, how can I thank you! I know now how much you must love
Moira! I felt it from the beginning. I am going to be convicted of a
crime I know nothing about. All the circumstances are against me. But,
whether I am convicted or not--whether I am--am--executed or eventually set
free--I beg of you to promise me one thing: that you will never tell Moira
who I am. Her happiness is the only thing that matters. I must stay out
of her life. Promise me! It is the last request I may make of anybody
upon this earth!"

Hugh lifted the delicate hand to his lips.

"I promise you that!" he answered. "And I reverence you for asking me.
Whatever happens, I will never tell Moira the secret you confided to me."
He paused. "I have not believed in your innocence, Mrs. Clayton, but now
I do."


The summing up for the defense in People _vs._ Clayton occupied the
entire afternoon, during which period Hugh remained in confinement. No
further attempt was made by Farley, or any one in his behalf, to
communicate with him, and at the adjournment he was led across the Bridge
of Sighs to the Tombs, and locked in a cell for the night. He,
nevertheless, ate his supper and slept soundly. His career had gone to
smash, but he had a clear conscience and had kept his self-respect.
Looking back calmly over the last three days, he did not see how he could
have acted differently at any juncture.

Morning came and once more he was taken back and placed in the Criminal
Term pen. Repeated attempts had been made by the reporters to get in
touch with him, both in the City Prison and in the detention cell, but he
had declined to be interviewed. All he wanted was to be left to
himself--with a sufficient supply of cigarettes, which luckily were easily
procurable.

Reports of Michael Redmond's masterly summation for the people came up
the iron stairs from time to time. It was said that a more eloquent
address had never before been delivered in the Criminal Court Building,
and when he concluded, there was no one in the court-room who was not
satisfied that the guilt of Eileen Clayton had been established, not only
beyond any reasonable doubt, but beyond any possible doubt whatsoever. As
the assistant district attorney had so convincingly pointed out--"facts
could not lie."

He concluded his peroration at a little before four o'clock, and Judge
Barker immediately charged the jury. There must be no time for them to
get cool! His charge, prepared with the aid of the district attorney's
"Appeal Bureau," with a touch here and there from Redmond himself, was
concededly a model of legal exposition, and the subtlety with which he
drove the judicial knife into the vitals of the defendant rivalled the
dexterity of a Spanish bull-fighter delivering the _coup de grce_.

The jury retired at five o'clock, taking the revolver with them, and
Eileen was remanded to the women's pen, on the floor above, to await the
result of their deliberations. News that a verdict might be expected had
caused a vast crowd to assemble around the building. A special squad of
police had been detailed to preserve order and found plenty to keep them
busy. No one left the court-room. And in the centre of the spotlight, at
the feet of the Blind Goddess, admired by all, sat Fame's Great
Triumvirate--Barker, Farley, and Redmond, each dreaming of higher
things--of place, popularity, and power--to which he might climb, not upon
the stepping-stones of his own dead self, but upon that of Eileen
Clayton.

Hugh had now "stood committed" thirty-four hours, awaiting the pleasure
of the same judge who had once assured him that his appointment would
give "universal satisfaction." In the excitement induced by his defiance
of Judge Barker he had not particularly minded what had happened to him.
His fight with Quirk in the property-room, the overstrain of the trial
which he had conducted for eleven days, the stormy scene with Farley when
he had handed in his resignation, his sleepless night of quandary upon
the Queensboro Bridge, the moral dilemma which had resulted in his being
adjudged guilty of contempt, had induced a condition in which his body
had become an almost insentient thing, like a ball and chain attached to
his real personality and anchoring it to earth. He had been beyond
physical discomfort or pain. Merely to go to jail in the service of his
Goddess--the Blind Goddess--had been something to glory in!

But now the prolonged confinement began to have its effect, and the
foulness of the air to nauseate him. By evening he had so far lost pride
as to accept Grady's invitation to sit outside. He could imagine the
physical and mental torture that Eileen must be experiencing, as she sat
alone waiting to be dragged forth as a sacrifice to the Blind Goddess
under the ancient Talionic law of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." Was it
possible that he was living in the twentieth century of the Christian
era? Why did not some of these wise men who had isolated the bacteria of
diphtheria and yellow fever turn the searchlight of science upon the
origins of moral disease and devote themselves for a space to the study
of criminal reformation?

Would the world be any safer if this fragile sinner, who cowered over
there in dry-eyed terror, were tied to a chair with electrodes at her
wrists and temples, and burned to death by electricity? An absurd
supposition! What sort of a Deity was this blind goddess of justice? Did
her gentle beauty hide an insatiate wrath like that of the terrible gods
of Babylon and Chaldea? Did she demand a life for a life? Was that part
of her blindness? In this wonderful moment, when the phrase of the
"Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man" had taken on a new
significance through the scientific conception of a universe in which the
physical and the spiritual melted into one, were we still invoking the
barbaric doctrine that "whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood
be shed"?

A door banged, followed by a shuffle of feet at the foot of the stairs.
The jury were coming in. If no sparrow fell without divine solicitude
would not the Heavenly Father watch over Eileen Clayton, who surely was
of more value than many sparrows? Was there a Heavenly Father?

"It's a conviction!" whispered Grady. "Shh! Don't let her know!"

Hugh gripped the back of the keeper's wooden chair.

"All right, Jim!" Grady shouted to the officer at the foot of the stairs.

A moment later Eileen was brought across from the women's pen. Hugh put
his arm about her.

"The jury is in!" he said. "I will go with you!"

Grady offered no opposition. He was glad to have somebody "take her off
him." Women of that sort were apt to make a scene, faint, or have
hysterics.

Preceded by the officer, Hugh supported Eileen down the stairs. The crowd
in the court-room was so great that he could not see the judge--a forest
of people. Automatically he followed the prisoner as she was led around
the room. Nobody noticed him. The eyes of all were fixed upon the
murderess of Richard Devens as she took her place at the bar. The jury
was already in. Farley and Redmond sprawled side by side at the counsel
table. Moira, her face covered with her veil, was half hidden in the
corner behind the jury-box. Several persons sat upon the dais beside
Judge Barker, and the ringside seats inside the rail were filled with
persons eager to be in at the death. The nebulous light from the
chandelier high overhead, the intent gaze of the spectators focussed upon
a single central point, the shadowy periphery of the picture, gave the
scene a Rembrandtesque quality.

Mr. Dollar bent over and, pretending to be looking for a book,
surreptitiously ran a small comb through the silver wavelets of his
forehead. He made a cult of perfection, and had a commonplace book on the
first page of which was written in a beautiful running hand: "Who sweeps
a room as in thy cause makes it and the action fine." But Mr. Dollar
insisted on his audience. And now, having straightened his braided
lapels, adjusted his cuffs and otherwise concentrated attention upon
himself, he arose, made an impressive obeisance toward the bench, and
then, facing the twelve men in the box, enquired in a sort of Gregorian
chant:

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?"

"We have," answered the foreman, slightly doubtful of the etiquette
demanded by the occasion.

"The jury will arise!" continued Mr. Dollar in exaltation induced by the
consciousness of authority. Even Judge Barker had to give way to him!
They arose.

"Gentlemen of the jury, look upon the defendant. Defendant, look upon the
jury. How say you, gentlemen, do you find the defendant guilty or not
guilty?"

The twelve, in recognition of Mr. Dollar's dictatorial supremacy, made a
pretense of turning toward the woman at the bar. But they did not look at
her.

"We find--the defendant--guilty--as charged--in the indictment," replied the
foreman, experiencing a slight difficulty of utterance, since he was only
a novice. Hereafter he would be a regular. The announcement created no
excitement, since the nature of the verdict was already known. The
crowd's expectancy was not as to its nature, but merely as to whether or
not the defendant would scream or throw a fit on hearing it. She did
neither.

"Of murder in the first degree?" enquired Mr. Dollar lightly, as if the
degree were of no particular importance but merely to get it quite
straight.

"Of murder in the first degree," echoed the foreman, feeling suddenly
faint.

Mr. Dollar bowed.

"You may be seated, gentlemen."

Judge Barker looked highly gratified.

"Thank you, gentlemen!" he seemed to say. "Thank you extremely! I felt
sure that you would act like men!"

The jury sat down uncertainly, and Mr. Dollar, having resumed his seat,
turned over the indictment and stamped something on it with a rubber
stamp. Captain Lynch had taken his stand by the prisoner, holding in his
hand a slip of paper to which he now and again referred.

"All ready, captain," sang Mr. Dollar, holding his pen in mid-air.

"How old are you?" enquired Captain Lynch of Eileen.

She murmured something in reply.

"Forty-nine," he called back to Mr. Dollar. Then in rapid succession:
"No--Hotel Blackwell--housewife--No--No--Yes--No--Protestant."

Mr. Dollar blotted the back of the indictment.

"What date would you like for sentence?" inquired Judge Barker
pleasantly.

"We have no preference," answered O'Hara.

The judge conferred with Mr. Dollar.

"I will set it for the twenty-first. The defendant is remanded. Adjourn
court, Mr. Dollar."

O'Hara stepped back, surrendering Eileen to the captain, who started with
her along the runway. Even Mr. Dollar could not refrain from following
her retreating figure with his eyes. He would forever wear this
conviction as one of his choicest plumes.

Judge Barker swung his chair toward the twelve voters in the box.

"Gentlemen of the jury," he said in honeyed accents, smiling down upon
them like an Olympian in a moment of nectarial relaxation, "I
congratulate you upon the manner in which you have so fearlessly
performed an unpleasant duty. I wish to compliment you upon the attention
with which you have listened to the evidence and the patience and
intelligence which you have exhibited under a heavy responsibility.
Permit me to say that in my opinion you could have reached no other
verdict, and that it is entirely consonant with the conscience and
opinion of the court. In view of the arduous and difficult character of
your services, and exercising the discretion vested in me by the statute,
I shall make an order allowing you each an additional five dollars per
day for the time you have spent here. In bidding you good-bye I feel that
I voice the sentiment of the community when I say: 'Well done, good and
faithful servants.' That is all. You may now return to your wives and
families. You are discharged--with the thanks of the court."

He beamed. The foreman cleared his throat. The barest courtesy demanded
some reply. He arose awkwardly:

"I hope--I may be--er--permitted to say that the admiration is--is mutual,"
he stammered.

"Thank you! Thank you!" smiled His Honor. "Good day, gentlemen!"

The jury streamed out toward the door. Judge Barker swept the crowded
court-room with his eye. Was it all over so soon? Who was that standing
there in the corner by the window? Dillon! He had forgotten all about
him.

"Bring that man to the bar!" he ordered.

"This way, Mr. Dillon!" directed the officer.

Barker hardly looked at him.

"Discharged," he remarked laconically, then turned and offered his hand
to the state senator's lady upon his right.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!" intoned old Gallagher. "All persons having business
with this honorable court may now depart. This court stands adjourned
until next Monday morning at ten o'clock."

Hugh's knees were trembling. People were crowding all about him, and
there was a curious seething in his head. Yet everything seemed far away.
He saw Moira shaking hands with Redmond. She was saying something to him
very earnestly, and he was smiling at her. Smiling, smiling villain! She
must not be contaminated by staying near the beast! Ah, she had left
Redmond. She was coming toward him. At last he would be able to explain
everything to her.

"Moira!" he cried. "Please--Moira----"

But at sight of him she turned quickly away.

"Moira!" he cried in anguish. "Please--Moira----!"

Where had she gone? Where was the light? What were all those flickering
shadows? That sound like a cataract? Moira would be just to him! Of
course she would be! He had been loyal and kind and fair with her! Surely
he had been! Always! And she had been fair to him--beautiful Moira! Up
there! Always holding up the crystal ball of truth--and the scales--He
raised his eyes to where he remembered seeing her last--up there on the
wall--Moira! But there was nothing there. The panel was
empty--black--blackness--darkness everywhere----




                              CHAPTER XIV


When Hugh again made use of his eyes the black wall had become white, and
a young man, who very much needed shaving, was looking down at him with a
critical air. At first he thought he must be still in the prison-pen, and
that the young man was Grady the keeper, but the place was too small and
too bright, and the young man had on a white linen jacket. There was a
pervading odor of antiseptics, and he was in bed, undressed.

"You're all right!" said the young man cheerfully. "Just lie still for
awhile."

"What day is this?" asked Hugh, quite satisfied to obey.

The young doctor laughed.

"This is Thursday. You had a slight syncope. But you're doing fine.
You'll be out in a couple of days."

"Has anybody asked after me?"

"About three of the four million inhabitants of Greater New York--through
their representatives the press."

"I mean anybody--special?"

"No--nobody 'special' so far as I am aware." His expression was quizzical
but kindly. "After all, you only came in last night, you know. I wouldn't
talk too much if I were you. I'll drop in on you in an hour or so."

He went out. So Moira had not even enquired as to his condition. He drank
the last drop of the cup of misery, glad to be where he could curl u? and
stick his face into the pillow as if he were a little child, his weakness
generating an intense self-pity, in the midst of which he dozed off
again.

It was afternoon when he awoke, and this time, beside the doctor, there
was an orderly with a cup of soup and some bread and butter. He became
conscious of the unpleasant quality of his rough cotton nightshirt. The
soup had a tremendous "kick."

"Coming back with a rush!" approved the doctor. "But nothing doing until
to-morrow!"

Hugh's spirits sank again. So there was to be a to-morrow, and a
to-morrow after that--an indefinite succession of empty to-morrows!
Another beginning--this time with all the handicap of his sensational
collapse, if not disgrace, as a public prosecutor! A jolly mess he had
made of everything! Eileen Clayton to be sentenced in less than a week;
Moira convinced that he had betrayed his trust. He must get up and try to
put things straight. But they had taken away his clothes! Wasn't there a
bell that he could ring? He began fidgeting about. Why didn't somebody
come and let him get up? He tossed himself into a temperature.

"Bundle of nerves!" thought the doctor. "Too bad! I wonder who this Moira
person is he raves about. He couldn't be in love with a blind woman,
could he?" Hugh was not discharged from the hospital until Monday
afternoon, and he was astonished to find how unstable the sidewalks
around Bellevue were. The steps of the marzipan house seemed mountainous,
and after pressing the bell, he had to lean against one of the marble
goddesses for support. Shane answered. He looked very old.

"Miss Moira is not at home, Mr. Dillon," he said.

"When do you expect her back?"

"I--really--don't know, sir."

"Please tell her I called."

"Yes, sir." His eyes refused to meet Hugh's.

Could Moira have given Shane orders that he was not to be admitted? How
was he to explain if he could not see her? With Redmond's poison already
distilled in her ears would she trust him? She believed Eileen Clayton
guilty, and the verdict against her to be a just verdict. Even if he
should tell her just what Quirk had done, she would probably take
Farley's attitude that there was no reason to assume that he had not told
the truth. Perhaps it was the correct attitude at that! You could not be
always looking for flaws and loopholes in your own case. There was even a
legal presumption that a witness was telling the truth.

But her own mother! Surely there must be something he could do! Now that
the defendant had been actually convicted in part upon false evidence,
did so-called "professional honor" any longer seal his lips? Yet could
he, even under such circumstances as these, run from one camp to the
other bearing tales? Could he, for the purpose of assisting O'Hara to
obtain a new trial, betray Farley to him? If the victim were not Moira's
mother, would such a course occur to him? Was he not allowing his ideas
of honor to be colored by personal considerations? He must take a
detached view, if he could. But how could he!

No answer was returned to the letter sent from his apartment begging
Moira to see him, and each time he called her upon the telephone he was
told that she was not at home. Evidently she was fully decided to have no
more to do with him. It was as if the marzipan house had sunk beneath the
waves, leaving the ocean of his existence empty. He stared toward the
horizon for some sail, but could see nothing. Amazing, what he had been
through! Had any other young lawyer, he wondered, ever had a like
experience?

He doubted it, although every case in the criminal courts was a
melodrama. Every prosecution for crime, no matter how simple, was of
necessity a struggle for life, since the conviction of the defendant
meant his social extinction. The Clayton case was sensational, but no
more so than many others. The daily panorama of the criminal courts
rivalled the most lurid of screen pictures. Yet the real melodrama lay
beneath the surface.

The legalized battle for the body of the prisoner was of small moment
compared to the struggle that went on for the souls of the contestants
between the angels of darkness and those of light. He, Hugh Dillon, had
been the real centre of a moral conflict far more vital than that which
had been waged over Eileen Clayton. He had fought for honor. He had gone
down for honor. He would gladly die for honor--if only he knew where honor
lay! In such a tangle of loyalties how could you tell which was the right
thread to lead you through the moral maze? Did his duty to the public, to
administer the law under his oath of office, involve a larger loyalty
than that of obeying a superior officer, jointly engaged with him in the
public service? Was not the personal loyalty of subordinate to leader the
most necessary of all loyalties? In the long run, might not the "nearer"
loyalty be the most important for the reason that ultimately the success
of all other loyalties depended upon it? Why, if it was all so confused
and contradictory, should one bother one's poor head about it, or break
one's heart, or let one's self be torn by shrapnel, or--be crucified?
Could it be that in this human life, irrespective of all else, the thing
that mattered was to be loyal to Loyalty itself?


The Clayton case continued to hold its place as the chief topic of public
interest and during the next week editorial writers throughout the
country congratulated their readers upon the fact that the integrity of
the American jury system had at last been triumphantly vindicated. The
"unwritten law" had received a knockout if not a death blow. The judge,
the prosecutor, the police, the jury--who had so courageously risen above
considerations of sentiment and rendered a verdict of murder in the first
degree--all were given laurel wreaths of public approval. Woman's license
to kill had been revoked!

Upon the political futures of the individual principals the result was
immediate. Judge Barker, who up to that time had been regarded as an
amiable nonentity, shoved upon the criminal bench to pay a minor
political debt, now became a figure of distinction, mentioned as
deserving and almost certain of receiving a Supreme Court nomination. It
was pointed out that the arbitrariness of his selection as a judge had
been the fault of the system and not his, and that whatever his original
lack of qualifications they had long since been remedied by experience.
Fourteen years at $17,500 a year represented a public investment of
$245,000. Were taxpayers to throw away a quarter of a million dollars?
Barker had served the county long and faithfully. Was it to discard an
old and tried servant who had demonstrated his character and ability by
his masterly handling of one of the most important murder trials in the
history of the city?

As for Farley, it put him as far beyond the other aspirants to the office
of district attorney as the tall-hatted equestrian who rides the
snow-white charger in solitary grandeur at the head of the procession
precedes its van. "The best district attorney New York ever had!" was the
modest claim put forth in his behalf. Who should deny it? The impression
gained ground that in prosecuting and convicting Eileen Clayton he had,
somehow, shown extraordinary courage.

Redmond was now undisputed king cockerel of the district attorney's
office, and his crow could be heard at all hours echoing loudly along the
corridors, while policemen, detectives, and process-servers ran to do his
bidding. His word, for the time, was law, and whom he bound was bound,
and whom he loosed was loosed. Indeed, as he strode across the rotunda
accompanied by his bodyguard he not remotely resembled a Roman senator
surrounded by his lictors. He and Farley had a copper-riveted gentlemen's
agreement that if he boosted his boss for all he was worth for another
term, afterward, when Farley ran for governor, the latter would appoint
Redmond as his successor district attorney. This being generally known,
he was hailed as heir-apparent, and given royal honors.

The district attorney's office which, owing to Farley's well-known
pusillanimity, had deteriorated into a hum-drum mediocrity, was
re-established in public interest.

One final scene in the melodrama remained to be enacted--comparatively
unimportant to anybody save the defendant herself--the imposition of the
death penalty.

The newspapers had striven to keep public interest at white heat in order
that the story of the sentence might carry the maximum news value, but as
the day drew near it became apparent that no artificial stimulus was
needed. The Clayton woman had not taken the stand in her own behalf;
hence the evidence against her stood uncontradicted. She had, save for
her short conversation with Hugh in the station-house, remained mute from
the moment of her arrest--nothing had been unearthed as to her more recent
past.

The reason for her crime continued to be a matter of conjecture, and the
fact that she had not seen fit to deny Quirk's testimony was taken as
conclusive evidence that she was afraid to subject herself to
cross-examination. Her silence proclaimed that she had a secret, and made
her a woman of mystery. Would she, now that she had come to the end of
her tether, reveal it in some last appeal to the judge? Would she tell
the story of her love-life with Richard Devens? Would she draw aside the
curtain that hid their last meeting? Surely she would not be so
inconsiderate as to go to her death without opening her lips, and thus
leave forty million newspaper readers disappointed!

Among the most curious in this regard were Farley and Redmond, who, after
a brief absence at Atlantic City, had returned together to take up the
responsibilities of office. To give them due credit, it should be said
that the conscience of neither troubled him in the slightest. They both
honestly believed Eileen Clayton to be guilty, and that she had been
found so by due process of law. The surprising testimony of Jeffrey
Quirk, to the effect that the defendant had personally instigated the
theft of the revolver, they regarded purely as a windfall. They were not
accustomed to look gift witnesses in the mouth. Evidence was evidence--and
the stronger the better. If testimony was susceptible of attack it was up
to the defense to demolish it, and if it were false Eileen Clayton could
have denied it. She had not seen fit to do so, and hence obviously it
must be true.

As to the putting of Hugh upon the witness-stand, Farley regarded it as
nothing less than a stroke of genius upon Redmond's part. There had been
a Napoleonic quality about it in his opinion. And the law was flat. Only
a priest, or attorney, or physician could refuse to disclose a
communication made by a defendant. Dillon had put himself above the law
and had been taught a salutary lesson, which presumably would have its
effect upon all other young "holier-than-thous" in a like position.

That Quirk had absolutely disappeared had no significance one way or the
other. He had not returned to his duties in the process-servers' office,
and had not been seen since he left the witness-stand after giving his
testimony upon the last day of the trial. Redmond had intended to get an
affidavit from him, merely as a protection, in case he might attempt
later to alter his evidence. But it was not important. No wonder Quirk
had fled after admitting under oath, in open court, that he had been
guilty of a homicidal attack upon a public officer! He could be sent up
for twenty years--attempted homicide while in the commission of a felony!
Farley felt, on the whole, that Quirk's departure relieved him of
official embarrassment.

The Criminal Term, upon the day set for the sentence of Eileen, was
almost as crowded as upon the day of her conviction, the only difference
being that now the jury-box was pre-empted by the reporters, which
somewhat relieved the congestion outside the rail. The faces of the
audience, however, seemed to Hugh--who had taken an inconspicuous seat at
the end of one of the benches--to exhibit an even more callous curiosity
than those present at the trial itself. Those at least had had the excuse
of attending a well-fought and exciting legal battle, in which a human
life was at stake. These sought only the morbid thrill of hearing that
life sentenced to extinction.

The great melodrama was practically over; the asbestos about to rattle
down, the actors gathering mid-stage for the final tableau. How like a
play it really was! An all-star cast!

  The Time-Serving Judge                     Mr. Edward Barker
  The Ambitious District Attorney            Mr. Peter J. Farley
  His Unscrupulous Assistant                 Mr. Michael Redmond
  The Pompous Clerk                          Mr. Patrick Dollar
  A Pair of Shyster Lawyers                  Messrs. Hoyle & O'Hara
  The Chief Detective                        Capt. Arthur Carey
  A Rich Irish Contractor                    Mr. Richard Devens
  His Beautiful Daughter                     Miss Moira Devens
  His Loyal Associate and Lifelong Friend    Mr. Daniel Shay
  A Process Server                           Mr. Jeffrey Quirk
  The County Medical Examiner                Dr. Charles Norris

                                        and
  The Accused                                Eileen Clayton
  Witnesses, detectives, policemen, court
    attendants, reporters, messengers,
    spectators, etc.                         All "in person"!

Hadn't he forgotten somebody? Who was missing? Yes!

  An Idealist                                Mr. Hugh Dillon

Through the high windows the spring sun burned down in white fury upon
the group of men chatting inside the rail, upon the reporters sitting in
the jury-box, upon Judge Barker who was rereading the carefully composed
speech he intended to deliver when imposing sentence:

"Eileen Clayton, after a full and fair trial in which you were given the
advantage of every legal protection afforded by our Constitution, a jury
of twelve citizens, chosen by your own lawyers, have unanimously found
you guilty of murder in its first degree. It is now my painful duty to
sentence you, and I have no desire to add to the misery of this moment by
prolonging it any longer than is necessary.

"There are, however, a few things which I should say for the benefit of
the community at large. One concerns what is called circumstantial
evidence, against which, unfortunately, there has always been a lingering
and totally unreasonable prejudice. Your conviction will do much to
relieve this and clarify the lay mind upon a subject of vital importance
to the administration of justice. For what is called circumstantial
evidence is the best possible evidence. 'Circumstances,' says Burnett in
his learned work upon the Common Law of Scotland, 'are inflexible proofs;
witnesses may be mistaken or corrupted, but things can be neither.'
Edmund Burke, the distinguished orator and statesman, gave it as his
opinion that 'when circumstantial proof is in its greatest perfection,
that is, when it is most abundant in circumstances, it is much superior
to positive proof.' Most authoritatively of all, the great philosopher
Paley asserts: 'Circumstances cannot lie.'

"So when a case like the present is brought to public attention, it
becomes meet and proper for the judge responsible for the conduct of the
trial, to take occasion to point out the unreasonableness of the bugbear
of prejudice which still persists in spite of these solemn declarations
by the wisest lawyers of our time.

"Eileen Clayton! No human eye saw you discharge the revolver at the body
of Richard Devens, no human brain could perceive the mysterious mental
processes by which you formed the intent to kill him, but that you did
form such an intent, and acting upon that intent, went to his house at
night and shot him with deliberation and premeditation, has been
established to the satisfaction of the jury beyond the possibility of any
doubt--and by what?--by circumstantial evidence! That it is at least equal
in value to that of direct evidence has at last been demonstrated."

It was "good stuff," Barker assured himself, and he only hoped he would
accent the words upon the right syllables. But after all, the press would
be given carefully mimeographed copies.

Mr. Rawson, the deputy sheriff of Sing Sing, was on hand to receive the
prisoner and convey her to the place of execution, where she would be
lodged in the death-house pending her appeal. He was a ruddy little man
with a large white moustache, and he needed only a scarlet Canton flannel
gown and cap to look exactly like a Salvation Army Santa Claus. Seeing
that the judge was unoccupied, Mr. Rawson arose and timidly approached
the dais.

"Good morning, Mr. Warden!" exclaimed Barker heartily. "How are you? You
are looking very well. You always look well! Prison life must agree with
you!"

Mr. Rawson twinkled and shook as if it was the night before Christmas,
and he had just come down the chimney.

"Thank you, judge, I can't complain! I trust you're the same. Fine
weather we're having. Up where I live the plum blossoms are out. And the
forsythia."

"You don't say! How is Mrs. Rawson? I trust she's doing nicely!" Barker
spoke with solicitude.

"She's doing pretty well, thank you, judge. You know she's never very
well."

Mr. Rawson's blue eyes became slightly watery.

"I know!" responded Judge Barker. "It is very hard!"

It was already ten minutes past the hour, and the press boys were getting
a bit restive. Everything was set. Hoyle and O'Hara were already seated
at the counsel table. Judge Barker smiled at them, grateful that he had
succeeded in preserving such amicable relations throughout the trial.
Sometimes when a lawyer lost a murder case it made him sore with the
judge--especially a "murder in the first," and there had been cases where
the strain of a prolonged trial, followed by his client's conviction, had
driven an attorney entirely off his head. Curious how differently people
were affected by the same sort of thing! Barker had once seen a convicted
murderer electrocuted at Sing Sing, and had not minded it--that is, not
really. How dry his throat was!

He lifted the piece of blotting-paper which preserved the drinking water
in the goblet beside him from the contamination of the surrounding
atmosphere, and took a sip. He had only sentenced one other person to
death, and that had been a negro, who had grovelled on his knees at the
bar, howling for mercy. But there would be nothing as sensational as that
this time. Why didn't they wear black caps when they imposed the death
penalty, as they did in England? It added a lot to the impressiveness of
the ceremony. In England a judge was somebody. They knew how to do things
over there! He cleared his throat, less because it was necessary than to
attract attention.

"You may send for the defendant, Mr. Dollar!"

It galled him that Mr. Dollar and not he was the one privileged to
announce the entrance of the defendant:

"Eileen Clayton to the bar!"

The words boomed over the heads of the spectators to the door leading to
the pen.

"Eileen Clayton to the bar!" came in a muffled reverberating echo from
the inner cavern. The officer in the rear of the room opened the door,
bent over and fastened it back with a stop. He did not do this on
ordinary occasions.

The crowd drew to attention. They were a fresh lot for the most part--who
had not been present at the trial, and had had no previous opportunity to
see the woman who had murdered "Old Man" Devens. In the silence of
expectancy they could hear the clash of the barred door above, followed
by a vocal murmur and the lisp of shoe leather on iron. She was coming
down. Coming down for the last time!

"Eileen Clayton to the bar--for sentence!" repeated Mr. Dollar with the
crispness of a new bill as the prisoner, under the escort of two
officers, reached the rail, and O'Hara arose and took his stand beside
her. The hush of death fell upon the room. Would she keel over upon
hearing her doom pronounced? Or was she so nervously exhausted that the
agony of this final cup would pass from her? There was no one there so
light-minded as not to feel the menace of that moment, in which a mere
man presumed, as a result of an antiquated judicial mechanism, to say
that another's life should be taken, and to order it done.

Judge Barker felt it, and his fat face became unaffectedly solemn. While
he looked a model of judicial composure up there on the bench, his ears
were buzzing and his vision was little more than a dappled blur. They all
felt it. Even Farley, Redmond, their hired cohorts, and those of the
"standing army of the gibbet" who had returned to view the scene of their
great experience, felt it--that arrogant challenge to the Almighty purpose
when we snuff out the candle and transmute that which was palpitating
with life into dead clay. Did Hoyle feel it? Who shall say? His round,
pink face had all its habitual placidity. His cold, blue eyes betrayed
nothing of what might be going on within the smooth, white, diving-helmet
of his skull. But O'Hara felt it. His rough features wore a look of
brooding melancholy.

Barker took another sip of water and glanced down at Farley, who got up
and made a slight inclination toward the bench. Out of deference to the
occasion he was wearing a cutaway, spats, and patent leathers.

"I move," said he, in the same mellifluous voice in which he read the
novels of Samuel Lover to his crippled sister Bridget, "I move that the
sentence of death be pronounced upon this defendant."

He sat down. There was no movement at the bar. Judge Barker looked toward
where the defendant was standing.

"Eileen Clayton, have you anything to say why judgment of death should
not be pronounced against you?"

Silence. A shoe squeaked. O'Hara was bending toward his client.

"No, Your Honor. She has nothing to say."

The judge nodded at Mr. Rawson, the deputy sheriff, who promptly stood
up.

"Eileen Clayton," began Judge Barker, "after a full and fair trial, in
which you were given the advantage of every legal protection afforded by
our Constitution----"

"Sit down there!"

The interruption came from a court officer trying to repress a spectator,
who insisted on struggling to his feet. "Sit down, you!"

Judge Barker paused, his heart in his throat.

"What is this unseemly disturbance, Mr. Officer," he enquired. "Remove
that man!"

The man drew himself up to his full height. It was Jeffrey Quirk.

"I insist on being heard!" he shouted. "She says she has nothing to say
why sentence should not be pronounced against her--but I have! She was
convicted on perjured testimony. She is entitled to a new trial."

He struggled along between the benches until he reached the aisle. For an
instant the judge's heart quailed. Had they got anything on him? Of
course they hadn't! Properly handled----!

Farley and Redmond, realizing simultaneously the dangers of the
situation, were instantly on their feet.

"This is entirely improper!" cried the district attorney hotly. "If the
defense has any evidence of irregularity it should bring it to the
attention of the court on a motion for a new trial--not by means of
stage-play. We object."

Quirk had by this time forced his way to the bar beside Eileen. Captain
Lynch gazed enquiringly toward the bench. Barker was hopelessly
bewildered.

"I--what--is all this, Mr. O'Hara?" he asked lamely.

All the blood had left Hoyle's cheeks. Leaning forward he laid a
restraining hand on his partner's arm.

"For God's sake," he whispered, "keep him off the stand--at any cost!"

But O'Hara was unwilling to relinquish his apparent advantage.

"This is totally unexpected, Your Honor, so far as I am concerned," he
said. "This is not my witness. But if what he says is true it is ground
for a new trial. I ask that he be sworn and examined."

"It should be done in the proper way!" protested Farley. "On affidavit
and notice."

"I want to be heard!" insisted Quirk. "I testified falsely. I--I want to
square myself!"

They were all on their feet now, and the reporters had left their seats
and come crowding forward. The murmur of angry waves filled the
court-room.

Judge Barker once more conferred with Mr. Dollar.

"This is a matter for the conscience of the court," he said finally. "Let
the witness be sworn."

Captain Lynch took Quirk by the arm and led him to the chair.

"Once more--we protest against the examination of this witness--at this
point in the proceedings," said Farley. He was disgusted with Barker, who
should at least have given them time to prepare. Quirk's face was an
unearthly color. What was he? Man or beast? Quick or dead?

"Now go on!" ordered Judge Barker, once more assuming an air of
authority. "What have you to say?"

The runner grabbed the arms of the witness-chair tightly.

"I lied, judge."

"You lied? How?"

"When I said the defendant told me to take the revolver. I did not see
her after her arrest. She never said anything of the sort to me."

He stared limply at Barker, who, conscious of his judicial inadequacy,
looked from Farley to O'Hara, and back again.

"If this is true, it is of vital importance!" he remarked.

"But how can we know that it is true?" demanded Farley. "He is trying to
recant his testimony. It happens every day in the week. We are always
getting letters from people who say they perjured themselves on the
witness-stand. What happens is that the defendant's family get after
them, and appeal to their sympathies----"

"Well, that has certainly not happened in this case!" exclaimed O'Hara.
"This man was in the pay of the district attorney. If there has been any
subornation of perjury it has not been in my office!"

"Do you mean to suggest that anybody in my office induced this witness to
commit perjury?" shouted Farley.

O'Hara shrugged his big shoulders.

Judge Barker turned to the witness.

"You admit you committed perjury?"

"I do."

"Did anybody intimate to you that it was desirable to make it appear that
the defendant had asked you to steal the revolver?"

"No."

"Well, how did you come to do such a thing?"

"I thought it would help Mr. Dillon to get a conviction."

Judge Barker stared at him incredulously.

"Do you know what the consequences to yourself of such an admission are
likely to be? Of perjury in a trial for murder?"

"I do!" answered Quirk.

"Are you quite sure Mr. Dillon did not suggest to you that if the
defendant's connection with the pistol could be shown it would be of
material assistance to the prosecution?"

"No."

"Did anybody else make such an intimation?"

Farley tried to signal to him with a scowl.

"If the court please!" firmly protested Redmond, trying to save the
situation, "the witness has already stated that he acted on his own
initiative. The important fact is that he admits perjury. Is there
anything to be gained by delving into his motives?"

The corner behind the witness-chair was now a solid mass of scribbling
reporters. They lifted a bank of expectant faces to the bench. To
disappoint them would have been inhuman.

"I repeat," said Barker: "Was such an intimation conveyed to you by
anybody--and if so, by whom?"

"Yes!" answered Quirk. "By Mr. Farley--the district attorney."

A hush followed the thunderclap. Then the storm burst. The court-room was
in a turmoil.

"Your Honor, this is an outrageous and unmitigated lie!" thundered the
prosecutor. "Will Your Honor permit this self-confessed perjuror to sit
there and traduce the reputation of a public officer? You see now what
this sort of loose procedure leads to!"

But O'Hara had no intention of losing his advantage. He swept Hoyle
aside, deaf to his jabbering.

"Tell us what the district attorney said to you!" he directed
theatrically. Barker had lost all control.

"Mr. Farley said if I got a chance, to give it to you 'strong'--so I did!"

"I'll say so!" roared O'Hara with a hollow laugh. "I'll say you did!"

The district attorney lifted a pudgy hand as if to still the tumult about
him.

"Now tell us, who _did_ persuade you to steal the revolver?" he asked
significantly.

Attention once more swerved from the prosecutor to the witness.

Quirk's interlaced fingers were white. His parched lips seemed to refuse
to emit a word too sinister to be uttered.

"Mr. Hoyle" he whispered, crouching in the chair as if awaiting instant
annihilation.

A mocking laugh rippled over the court-room. This was too good! A bit
thick! The man was crazy! He would be accusing the judge next! And Barker
did in truth, feel rather uneasy. This drug-fiend, writhing on the St.
Lawrence's gridiron of the witness-chair, was palpably shooting
wild--obviously bent like an escaped murderer run to earth on selling his
life as dearly as he could. The accused attorney gave a quizzical smile.

"Thank you!" he remarked with smooth irony. "I suppose it is my turn
now."

It was a fatal error. Only the lash and the pitchfork can hold the caged
tiger in subjection. The beast in Quirk leaped at his former master with
a snarl.

"Yes," he retorted in the hysterical tone of a child left alone in
darkness. "You're right! It is your turn! This time you get what is
coming to you!"

"If the court please!" protested O'Hara, "haven't we had enough of this
indiscriminate slander? This man is a drug-fiend. As Your Honor knows, he
worked for Mr. Hoyle and myself before being employed by the district
attorney. Are you going to permit him to sit there and spread upon the
record whatever lies he may choose to invent--smear everybody!"

"'The galled jade will wince!'" sneered Redmond.

"Bah!" shouted Hoyle, "let him say anything he wants."

"I will allow him to state any fact explanatory of how he came to commit
his alleged perjury," said Barker. "If he gave false testimony against
the defendant upon her trial, I may have to set aside the verdict. I
shall have to decide whether he is telling the truth now, or whether he
told it then. His story as to how he came to commit his perjury--if he did
commit it--is of the highest importance. Let the defendant be seated! Go
on now, and tell us anything bearing on your attempted theft of the
revolver."

Quirk settled himself in his chair.

"Yes, Your Honor," he replied. "I worked for Hoyle and O'Hara seventeen
years. The last part of the time I lived with Mr. O'Hara over
Pallavacini's Restaurant. Mr. Dillon lived there, too, until Mr. Hoyle
fired him for not taking the Kranich case against the A. A. and B. Mr.
Dillon refused because Hoyle and O'Hara were Mr. Devens' attorneys."

"I object! This is totally irrelevant!" interposed O'Hara.

"I will receive it," replied Judge Barker. "Do not interrupt the
witness."

"When Mr. Dillon was appointed an assistant district attorney, Kranich
brought the case to Mr. Farley, and Mr. Farley assigned it to Mr. Dillon
with the idea that he would throw it out----"

"Will Your Honor permit this!" gasped Farley.

But Judge Barker had seen a Great Light! This would turn the town
upside-down, and if he was going to stay right-side-up he must cut loose
from the whole damn bunch and jump on the band-wagon of Reform. No matter
how you looked at it this business about the revolver was obviously
rotten. He must lead the way through the murky shadows of corruption
bearing in his hand the uplifted Torch of Truth. He would purify the
bar--clean out his court--throw out the money-changers. "Barker for Mayor"!

"One moment!" he admonished his erstwhile ally. "Mr. Witness, did you
tell the district attorney that Mr. Hoyle induced you to steal the
revolver?"

"Sure! After Mr. Dillon caught me at it, I told both him and Mr. Farley."

The prosecutor shot a malignant look of hatred at this wise and suddenly
upright judge. The dog was going to double-cross them! Arise like the
Phoenix from the ashes of their reputations.

But Barker affected not to notice it. He seemed to be pondering
something.

"Did you ever tell either Mr. Farley or Mr. Dillon that the defendant was
responsible for what you attempted to do?"

"No. I told them the truth--about Mr. Hoyle."

Judge Barker sternly returned Farley's glance.

"Then, Mr. District Attorney, when the witness Quirk testified that the
defendant herself asked him to steal the revolver, you knew that he was
testifying falsely, did you not?"

"I knew nothing of the kind!" replied Farley angrily. "I do not know it
now."

"Um!" Judge Barker caressed his chin meditatively. "Proceed, Mr.
Witness!"

"I was telling you how Mr. Farley expected Mr. Dillon to throw the case
against the A. A. and B. out of the office because he had appointed him
at Mr. Devens' request. Well, Dillon did throw Kranich out because he
decided Kranich was a blackmailer, but then he started proceedings
himself before the Grand Jury. Nobody had expected that. He did it on his
own hook, because he concluded the A. A. and B. was crookeder than
Kranich. That is where I came in. Somebody had to know what he was going
to do next. So Mr. Hoyle got me a job in Mr. Farley's office, and I got
myself assigned to Mr. Dillon. Whenever he said anything about the case
against the A. A. and B. I told Mr. Hoyle."

District Attorney Farley had been whispering to Michael Redmond. If they
didn't stop it somehow, he said, they would all be ruined. He now arose.

"If the court please," he announced, "what this witness has already said
makes it plain that he is totally unworthy of credence. As it was in part
upon his testimony that the defendant, now awaiting sentence, was
convicted of murder in the first degree, and as he now admits that his
testimony was false, I consent to an order setting aside the verdict and
granting a new trial."

"I will reserve my decision," replied Judge Barker drily. "You may go on,
Mr. Witness."

Farley clenched his fists. So Barker was going to roll them all in the
mire, was he!

Quirk, perceiving that a previously hostile judge had unexpectedly become
a sympathetic one, gained courage.

"Then Mr. Devens was killed, and everybody forgot all about the A. A. and
B. Hoyle grabbed the case for what publicity there was in it----"

"I object to any such statement!" interjected O'Hara indignantly.

"That is what Mr. Hoyle told me himself!" returned Quirk.

"Allowed! Go on!" from Barker.

"The only chance to beat the case was by getting rid of the pistol. Hoyle
sent for me and told me to get it any way I could. I never saw the
defendant."

"But why," persisted Judge Barker, "did you do this thing? It is no
explanation that Mr. Hoyle told you to do so--even assuming that to be
true."

Quirk's eyes had fixed themselves upon Hoyle's face with the look of a
bird hypnotized by a snake. The attorney returned it with a cold,
imperturbable and steady stare. Was he baby or boa-constrictor?

"Because," Quirk's voice faltered, "I have to do what he says."

He tore away his glance.

"When I came to testify, I saw Mr. Hoyle looking at me, and--I
couldn't--bring him into it. And then I remembered what Mr. Farley had
said, and it occurred to me that it was a good way to help Mr. Dillon to
get a conviction, and anyhow I thought that it didn't make much
difference--so I just said Mrs. Clayton told me to. I know it was wrong. I
wasn't myself. I'm different now. When Mrs. Clayton was convicted I was
frightened and ran away. I thought they might find out in some way what I
had done, and put me in jail for perjury. So I hid myself. I read in the
papers how Mr. Dillon was put out of the case and locked up for contempt,
and it made me think. This may sound queer, judge. But Mr. Dillon is the
finest man I know. He went to jail because he didn't want to do what he
thought was wrong. I got thinking about that. For five years I'd been
doing everything Mr. Hoyle told me to do, because he could send me up any
time he wanted to. I was afraid to go to jail. Yet here was Mr. Dillon
ready to go--ready to lose everything he had. It made me feel pretty
mean."

Quirk's voice had strengthened. He had become almost eloquent.

"He's a fine fellow, judge! He never did a crooked thing in his life. I
came back to New York, but I was ashamed to go to see him. Then day
before yesterday I ran smack into him. He made me go home with him and
talked to me. We talked all night. He said he couldn't do anything
himself--yet, because he had been in Mr. Farley's service, and he couldn't
honorably turn on him and tell what he knew so long as there was any
other way out of it. He said I was that other way. He told me a lot of
things, judge. Things I'd never thought of. He said it was a grand thing
to go to prison if you went for the sake of the truth. And you ought to
go with a smile on your face. By the time he got through I was ready to
go. I almost wanted to go. He made me promise that I'd come here to-day
and tell everything I knew. He came here with me. You can send me to
prison for as long as you want, judge--I'm a free man from now on,
wherever I am!"

Farley had got up again.

"I move that this witness' statement be expunged from the record!" he
said.

"I will let it stand for the present," remarked Barker contemptuously. "I
am not concerned at the moment with the ethics of this unusual situation,
nor for that matter with the accuracy of the facts. The question is
whether I shall grant a trial on newly discovered evidence."

"As to that," replied Farley, "if the motion is granted, I ask that the
case be set down for trial on the first Monday of next term."

"The defendant is remanded!" snapped Barker.

So it was to start all over again, this hopeless contest with the
inevitable! Must she once more go through the prolonged torture of a
public trial? Better the end at once! For the first time in the history
of the proceedings Eileen spoke.

"I do not want another trial," she said wearily.

Mr. Dollar reared his silver crest. No such announcement had ever been
made in that court-room within his knowledge.

"What does the defendant say?" he asked.

"I do not want to be tried again."

Mr. Dollar picked up his pen, then laid it down again. For once this
Compendium of Procedure was at a loss. The reporters had abandoned any
attempt to take note of this extraordinary procession of dnouements. It
was too big a story. They would get it all from the stenographer
afterward. Here was a woman defendant who wanted to be electrocuted! Mr.
Dollar pulled himself together. He must not lose the prestige he had
gained during the trial as the apotheosis of ringmasters by appearing
uncertain in the present exigency! He, if no one else in that gaping
crowd, must appear thoroughly at ease, with the whole thing at his
finger-tips. He looked over his shoulder at Barker, but no help came to
him from that quarter. The judge had not the slightest idea what one did
when a prisoner insisted on being executed. There was a lack of
sportsmanship about it that savored of indelicacy! Mr. Dollar lowered his
pen.

"The defendant--withdraws--the motion--heretofore made--for a new trial--on
the ground of newly discovered evidence," he announced, slowly inscribing
the words in his record book.

"We do not withdraw the motion," retorted O'Hara. "If the defendant
wishes to act as her own attorney we desire to be relieved from further
responsibility in the case."

"This is tantamount to a plea of guilty!" declared Redmond, hurrying back
into the limelight.

"And a defendant cannot plead guilty to murder!" replied O'Hara.

"I do not want to go through all this again!" repeated Eileen. "I want
the proceedings to end. I should like to be sentenced. It seems
strange--that, having convicted me, you will not--finish me--in the regular
way."

Farley had moved toward the dais, driven to a momentary armistice with
his enemy through the common necessity of preserving an appearance of
official omniscience. Mr. Dollar thrust his silver cockscomb over the
horizon of the bench.

"An unusual situation, yorroner. It has not arisen before in my
experience. I suppose she has a right to act as her own attorney and
withdraw her motion if she wants to, has she not?"

"It is her constitutional right," interposed Farley. "This woman knows
that whether she gets a new trial or not, the jig is up. I don't blame
her for wanting to have it over with."

He leaned over the side of the bench and whispered in Barker's ear.

"For God's sake, Eddie, let's get rid of this damned case. I let you have
it against my better judgment at your personal request, and you are
making monkeys of all of us."

Hoyle beckoned to O'Hara.

"If the court please," he said, "as it is apparent that the defendant
will not follow our advice, we wish to withdraw from the case."

Mr. Dollar handed an open copy of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure
to Judge Barker.

"Sections Four sixty-three to Four sixty-five cover it," he remarked.

Hoyle and O'Hara left the enclosure and seated themselves outside the
rail. No one in the court-room knew just what was going on. Even the
reporters were at sea.

Barker was vainly trying to size up the situation behind the pages of the
Code. They were all in bad, that was clear! It was a fierce mess anyway,
and if he granted a new trial it would look as if he thought there had
really been some funny business. The woman was guilty. He ought to stand
by Farley. Hoyle and O'Hara were out of it. The defendant wanted to be
sentenced. There could be no kick coming from anybody if he acceded to
her request. He scanned the sections Dollar had indicated. With customary
legal directness, Section 463 informed the reader that the court could
grant a new trial _only_ on the grounds provided in Section 465, which in
turn began with the words "upon the defendant's application." H'm! So the
court had no authority to grant a new trial unless the defendant herself
wanted one! That simplified the matter. His eye ran on. Again it gleamed.
Reaching for his ivory gavel he gave a gentle tap for order.

"See that everybody is seated, captain!"

Captain Lynch banged on the rail.

"Order! Be seated! Order!"

The reporters squeezed into the jury-box in a compact body. Those on the
benches settled themselves expectantly. When at length there was silence
the judge addressed himself to the woman who now sat alone at the
prisoners' table.

"Eileen Clayton, you have withdrawn your motion to set aside the verdict
and for another trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. In this
you are entirely within your rights. The court has no power to grant a
new trial except upon your application and, of course, if you can make
such an application you may withdraw it. You have done so, and the
verdict stands as rendered.

"In addition, a perusal of Section Four sixty-five, defining what is
newly discovered evidence, convinces me that the motion for a new trial
made by your learned counsel, Messrs. Hoyle and O'Hara, must have been
denied in any event. Such a motion may be granted only 'when it is made
to appear that upon another trial the defendant can produce evidence such
as if before received would probably have changed the verdict, if such
evidence has been discovered since the verdict, is not cumulative, and
the failure to produce it on the trial was not owing to want of
diligence.'

"Now the evidence of your guilt was so overwhelmingly established that
the jury could not possibly have reached any other verdict. The fact that
the witness Quirk testified falsely--if he did testify falsely--and I may
say that of that I am by no means satisfied--would not have changed the
verdict. You are evidently convinced of this yourself, since you say you
do not want another trial. I could not grant you one save upon your
motion, and under the code I should be obliged to deny it if made. I
shall therefore proceed to have you arraigned for sentence."

"I am ready," said Eileen, looking at him calmly. "What shall I do?"

"This way, madam!" Mr. Dollar bent ceremoniously. "Kindly step outside
the rail. Where's Mr. Watson? If you please, sheriff!"

Eileen Clayton stood up alone. For an instant her eyes lifted to the
Blind Goddess. Then she turned toward the gate of the enclosure. As she
did so Hugh arose from the bench upon which he was sitting, and took his
place at the bar beside her. Nobody seemed to think there was anything
surprising about his doing so.

The equanimity of all the other participants had been miraculously
restored. The Quirk affair had given them all a bad quarter of an hour.
But the fact that the Clayton woman was going to be sentenced after all
would straighten everything out. A woman was not sentenced to death
unless she were guilty. The imposition of the death penalty was "news."
The press boys would smear over the Quirk episode in some way. Anyhow,
with Clayton convicted and sentenced, who should worry?

Hugh and Eileen stood in a great shaft of sunlight that leaned like a
fallen pillar against the high window. It turned to fine gold the hair of
the prisoner, intensifying the delicacy of her features, transmuting her
transparent skin to alabaster so that to the spectators she seemed still
beautiful.

Barker, although half-blinded by the light, was still able to read. With
his prepared address before him he began:

"Eileen Clayton, you have asked that the court impose sentence upon you,
and I shall do so. You have been convicted of the most heinous crime
known to the law by a carefully selected jury of your peers--" He read it
all, including the part relating to the impeccability of circumstantial
evidence, meticulously, sonorously, impressively. He finished it, and,
pausing, took another sip of water from the discolored goblet, and wiped
his mouth with his handkerchief.

Captain Lynch gave a tap with his paper-weight. The judge signed the
warrant and handed it to Mr. Dollar.

"Eileen Clayton," said Barker solemnly, as if invoking Almighty God's
blessing upon what he was about to do, "the judgment of the Court is that
you, Eileen Clayton, for the murder in the first degree of one, Richard
Devens, whereof you are convicted, be, and you hereby are, sentenced to
the punishment of death; and it is ordered that, within ten days after
this day's session of court, the sheriff of the county of New York
deliver you, together with the warrant of this court, to the agent and
warden of the State's Prison of the State of New York at Sing Sing, where
you shall be kept in solitary confinement until the week beginning
Monday, the eighth of June, and, upon some day within the week so
appointed, the said agent and warden of the State's Prison of the State
of New York at Sing Sing is commanded to do execution upon you, Eileen
Clayton, in the mode and manner prescribed by the laws of the State of
New York--and may God have mercy on your soul!"

Eileen bent her head. She knew that God would have mercy. The Creator and
Director of the destinies of mankind could achieve His mysterious purpose
even through blind human agencies. From the distant corner where sat the
Tilly gal came a hiccough. "Oh, Lawdy! Lawdy! Hab' mercy!"

Bang! went Barker's gavel.

"Order there! Stop that noise!"

"This way, madam." Mr. Watson stepped back to allow Eileen to pass in
front of him. Farley and Redmond exchanged glances of relief. Thank God,
it was all over!

Barker assembled his papers. There was nothing that could happen now.
There would be no appeal. Some slight newspaper comment--then--_silence_!

"I should like to speak to the gentlemen of the press," said he. "If you
will kindly step into my room for a moment----"

Bang! Bang!--"Sit down there!"

Captain Lynch had left his place by the rail and was sternly attempting
to enforce his injunctions regarding perfect peace upon an old man--a very
old man--who was dragging himself unsteadily toward the bar.

"Eileen! Wait a moment, please!" besought Uncle Dan. "Judge! Just a
minute."

Mr. Watson laid a restraining hand on Eileen's arm. She turned. What was
Uncle Dan doing there? Had God sent him in answer to her prayer?

"Judge! Yorronner! Excuse me! I--I--" He swayed, and Hugh seized him by the
arm.

"Well, Mr. Shay!" said Barker wearily. "What is it?" He was getting
callous to these interruptions, even when each one seemed to change the
entire complexion of the legal universe. Uncle Dan sawed the air with his
arm like a leader without an orchestra.

"I"--he whispered--"I--" the words were unintelligible. Hugh bent to him
fiercely.

"What does he say?" enquired Mr. Dollar. "Let him come inside the rail."

Hugh straightened up, looking first at Eileen and then at the judge.

"Mr. Shay says that a mistake has been made; that he"--his voice broke for
the fraction of an instant--"and not the defendant--was responsible for the
death of Richard Devens."

For an eternity the only sound to be heard was the queer half-sobbing of
Uncle Dan's breath. The same thought entered the minds of both Farley and
Barker simultaneously. As Charlie White had said, the case was "loaded."
Was it going to explode?

"But the--jury have--settled that!" said Barker, fatuously trying to smile.
"We know who killed Richard Devens. That is _res adjudicata_."

It was only a song to keep his courage up, and he knew it! A swan song!
Uncle Dan was jabbering hysterically, wringing his hands, wiping his
rheumy old eyes.

"I ask that Mr. Shay be sworn!" demanded Hugh.

"I object!" cried Redmond. "We have had enough sensationalism. If this
witness has anything to add to his testimony, let it be put in affidavit
form and made part of a motion in the regular way."

"I ask--that--this--witness--be sworn!" repeated Hugh imperiously.

Barker reached hastily for his goblet of water, spilling some of it on
his gown.

"What shall I do, Mr. Dollar?" he asked shamelessly, in a tone audible to
all inside the rail.

"It seems to me I would clean the whole thing up at once," advised Mr.
Dollar. "The sooner it's over the better."

"More melodrama?" sneered Redmond.

Barker would have liked to wring his neck. After all, Redmond and Farley
were responsible! Why had they ever brought the fool case to him in the
first place? Why didn't they exhaust their witnesses before putting them
on the stand? Again the judicial weather-cock shifted. Mustering all his
histrionic ability, Barker shot a withering glance at the elderly
prosecutor.

"I have been thinking that there was something rather remarkable about
this case," he announced. "The time has come to get to the bottom of it.
If Mr. Shay can shed any light on this mystery, I, for one, shall be glad
to have him do so. Mr. Dillon, will you look out for Mr. Shay's
interests?"

"What is all this, anyway?" enquired Redmond of Farley. "Do you suppose
Dillon has put something over on us?"

The prosecutor's neck was swollen with anger.

"You're a hell of a one to talk!" he growled. "Look at the position you
have put me in! You examined Shay for two whole days--and you didn't find
out that he knew a thing! My God, it's incredible!"

"It's all bunk! He's just going to try to lie her out of it!"
expostulated the dethroned favorite. "He had no more to do with the
murder than I did!"

"Well, how do I know you _didn't_!" roared Farley. "For God's sake keep
your mouth shut. I'll handle my own cases after this!"

Uncle Dan was already in the witness-chair. Walking around the court-room
had restored his confidence. Mr. Dollar started to administer the oath.
He stopped in the middle of it.

"What is the nature of the proceeding?" he enquired of Hugh.

"This will be a motion to set aside the verdict and for a new trial on
the ground of newly discovered evidence," Hugh replied. "With the court's
consent I am about to take the witness's deposition. Mr. Shay, tell us
what you know about the way in which Mr. Devens came to his death."

Uncle Dan clasped his hands and raised them toward Eileen.

"Forgive me, acushla!" he whispered. "Never had I a thought it would come
to this! But now I will tell the truth, and the whole truth, so help me
Christ and the Virgin!"

Haltingly the old man told the story of the death of Richard Devens. When
he had finished his statement Hugh asked him why he had not come forward
in the first place.

"Because I was afraid of being accused of Richard's murder," answered
Uncle Dan. "I meant to tell it when I went before the Grand Jury, but I
didn't get a chance. Then I thought I might as well wait and see whether
Eileen wouldn't be acquitted. And even after the conviction I still hoped
something would happen to make it unnecessary. When Mr. Quirk testified
this morning I began to think things would turn out all right. But of
course I never could stand for lettin' Eileen go away for Dick's murder.
I've merely been bidin' my time. I'm ready to pay the penalty. You can
send me to jail right now. I might as well go for one thing as another."

"How do you say the pistol happened to go off, Mr. Shay?" enquired
Barker.

"It was this way, judge," explained Uncle Dan. "I had been subpoenaed
before the Grand Jury, and I didn't want to go. Dick and I were sitting
talking things over, and I happened to say something which led him to
believe, I suppose, that I might try to do away with myself. This pistol
of Eileen's was lying on the desk, and when I reached to look at it Dick
reached for it too. It was more of a gesture on my part than anything
else. Neither of us was trying to get it away from the other, but somehow
it went off--the kind of thing you read about! And my best friend was
killed."

He reached in his pocket and blotted his eyes with a large red silk
handkerchief.

"A man who was lying would never come into court with a handkerchief like
that, judge," commented Mr. Dollar, who was standing in a protective
attitude by the bench. And for some reason this appeared logically
conclusive to Barker.

"Do you want to cross-examine this witness?" he enquired of Farley.

The district attorney brushed Redmond aside. He had had enough.

"If Your Honor please," he said, "I no longer feel any confidence in the
evidence in this case. It is clear that the original examination of this
witness, which occurred in my absence from the city, was badly bungled. I
do not question the truth of Mr. Shay's story, and I can understand his
reasons for remaining silent, even if I do not approve of them. I shall
not oppose the motion to set aside the verdict. In fact, as I said
before, I should have been glad to consent to it on the basis of the
testimony of the witness Quirk."

Barker listened perfunctorily. He had no intention of letting Farley take
any of the wind of publicity out of his political sails.

"Mrs. Clayton," he said, addressing himself with solicitude if not
tenderness to the defendant, "I assume that in view of Mr. Shay's
disclosures Mr. Dillon's motion is made with your approval. I shall
accordingly vacate the sentence of death just imposed, and set aside the
verdict."

He was the personification of benignity, his fat face wreathed in a
saccharine smile, conscious that the gesture he was about to make would
place him among the immortals. The silence was profound, yet he could not
refrain from a slight preliminary tap with his gavel. Then he adjusted
his gown, cleared his throat, and, in a burst of histrionic inspiration,
stood up. What he was about to do would put him permanently upon the
judicial map. He would have had the good luck to figure both as a
convicting and a merciful judge in the same case! There were only two
details that he regretted, one that he did not wear a red gown, and the
other that the shaft of sunlight from the window did not descend upon him
instead of upon the defendant and her counsel.

"Eileen Clayton," he began in sympathetic and caressing tones, "you have
passed through a harrowing ordeal--yes, Mr. Stenographer, if you wish you
may take down my remarks!--I shall not dwell upon the extraordinary nature
of the circumstances leading up to your conviction of a murder you did
not commit--and which, as we now know, was not committed by anybody. You
were unjustly accused and have been unjustly confined in prison--please
note that I am not for a moment criticising any of the officials
connected with your arrest and prosecution. You have been housed with
thieves and murderers, and the law provides no method whereby I could
render you financial compensation, much as I should be pleased to do so.
I cannot even allow you five dollars a day for the period of your
incarceration, as I did the jurors who found you guilty. I can only voice
what I know will be the universal public feeling and say that we all
regret the inconvenience and misery you have suffered."

He paused and plumed himself.

"I shall not add one moment longer to your sufferings. Exercising the
discretion vested in me by the law, I shall, and I hereby do, discharge
you on your own recognizance. If after proper investigation the district
attorney sees fit to move for the dismissal of the indictment against
you, I shall act affirmatively upon his application."

"Well, you needn't wait. I make the motion right now," drawled Farley
from his chair.

Barker eyed him furiously:

"The district attorney," he continued after a moment, "announces that he
is prepared to consent to the dismissal of the indictment at the present
time. He knows his own business better than I do. At any rate I am thus
relieved from all responsibility in the matter. The indictment against
you is dismissed. You are free."

Those in the court-room were too astounded to make any demonstration.
Could they have heard aright? Was it possible that this woman, who had
just been sentenced to death, could in the next breath have been declared
innocent by the same judge? At this rate anything might happen! Who could
tell? Perhaps if they waited Justice would detach herself from her
companions upon the wall, and, bearing her scales and crystal ball, float
gently out of the window.

Eileen did not move. She had heard nothing of what the judge had said.
Mr. Rawson, the little sheriff, was the first to recover himself. He
detested executions--particularly those of women. Greatly relieved, he
extended his hand to his erstwhile prisoner.

"Well!" he ejaculated. "I certainly congratulate you! It saves me quite
a----!"

The judge's anger dissolved into complacency. He had scored off all of
them.

"You are quite free, madam!" he repeated. "Mr. Dollar, would it not be
well to give the defendant an opportunity to leave the court-room without
interference?"

The clerk, who was scratching away in his big book trying to keep up with
events, signalled to Captain Lynch with his left hand.

"Let all remain seated while the defendant passes out!" he ordered.

Captain Lynch unlatched the gate.

Hugh raised his eyes to the panel above the dais. When last he had looked
at it from the same place--the night the jury had found Eileen guilty--he
could see nothing there. Now, with the sunlight pouring through the high
windows the figure of the Goddess, although dim, was clearly visible, and
it seemed to Hugh as if for the first time she was gazing down at them,
and that there was a smile on her face. Beautiful Blind Goddess!
Idealistic creation of man's imagination and helpless without his aid. Of
what use the scales so long as human prejudice or venality placed false
weights upon them? Of what value the crystal ball if clouded by jealousy
or ambition? To what end her beauty when she was the slave of ugliness,
her free spirit shackled to sordid human nature! With all the artist's
imagination she remained but a figurehead upon the prow of the ship of
state, riding proudly above the waves, but steered by human hands and
dominated by human motives. Better blind, perhaps, and hence ignorant of
her destination!

But was human nature, after all, so sordid and so ugly? Was there not
something worth-while even in such men as Barker and Farley and Redmond?
They all had their good points. It was only that they too were blind, and
so could not serve the Goddess as she should be served. The blind leading
the blind! Avarice and selfishness had led her wrong; yet love and
loyalty had brought her back again. Justice had triumphed in the end,
owing to the innate fineness of human nature. Here was poor old Uncle Dan
ready to go to prison; and even Jeffrey Quirk, criminal and drug-fiend,
could not remain obdurate to the appeal of his better self. These two had
risked all for justice; while the protagonists of the drama, the dead man
and the woman at the bar, had for twenty years sacrificed themselves to
their child. Each had surrendered the dearest thing in life out of
loyalty to her. How ironic that what they had sought to protect her from
had been the consequence of their own sin! Ironic, yet inspiring as well.
While they had sinned they had nevertheless remained loyal to a higher
ideal than that which they had violated.

So Hugh bent to the Blind Goddess--and Judge Barker, taking the obeisance
unto himself, gave him a smile from the altar of justice that savored of
a judicial blessing.

"Shall we go?" whispered Hugh, and Eileen, still without any clear
realization of what had happened, allowed him to lead her from the
court-room. Outside the judge's chambers they met Doctor Norris, who
offered them his car, and together they rode to an uptown hotel. The
examiner was emphatic that Eileen must not be permitted to go back to her
old life. She must make a complete break with her old associations. Cures
were unusual, but not unknown, he said, and he had a friend, a specialist
in drug cases, who sometimes worked wonders. If Eileen would place
herself unreservedly in the latter's hands, the miracle might be wrought.
Eileen promised to do so. She had intended to go away, anyhow, and start
somewhere else. Where she did not know. One place was about as good as
another "unless I am cured!" she said. "In that event--but only in that
event--I shall come back."

There was a determination in her voice that made Hugh feel that, no
matter how bad her case, there was still hope for her. With God all
things were possible.

"I have more at stake even than most women," she said. "Unless I conquer
the habit I shall never return to New York, and I shall never see my
child again. You have already promised not to tell Moira who I am. I know
you will keep that promise, just as you kept the first one you made me.
At any rate," she smiled, "you won't have to go to jail in order to keep
it. If the time ever comes when I am fit to associate with her, I may
tell her myself. But no one else must do so. Now, go to her, Hugh! I know
she must be longing to see you!"

He did not tell her that Moira had turned her back upon him, and that he
had no reason to suppose she would be willing ever to see him again. As
he entered the subway to go downtown he realized that he had no where to
go. While the trial was still on, his place, of course, had been in the
court-room, but now that it was over and he was no longer a member of the
district attorney's professional staff, he was as much at sea as when he
had first come to the city. And he had very little money! His three
months' salary had not amounted to much. Another week or so and he would
be scratching gravel. Would he ever be able to earn his living again at
the law after losing first one position and then another--after being in
jail? He might have to look for a job on the police force after all!

The front page of his newspaper, as usual, was entirely given over to the
Clayton case. He wondered what progress Redmond was making with Moira?
The conviction, of course, had put him in a most advantageous position.
Uncle Dan's bombshell would not affect it one way or the other. After
all, it had been a unique case. What would it do to Farley? And Barker?
That long harangue of his about circumstantial evidence immediately
followed by the demonstration that circumstantial evidence was worthless!
As a judge no one would ever take him seriously again!

He read the report of the proceedings of the morning with growing
surprise. He had expected to see the iniquities of Farley and of Hoyle
blazoned there in huge letters, the prosecutor accusing the attorney of
inciting Quirk to steal the revolver, Hoyle countering on Farley by
charging him with deliberately attempting to convict the defendant of
murder by perjured testimony, not to mention Quirk's other disclosures
regarding both of them. But to his amazement there was nothing in the
newspaper accounts of the trial to reflect upon the conduct of either.
The "story" was focussed entirely upon the sentence and the unexpected
dbut of Uncle Dan at the last moment, in time to save Eileen Clayton
from the electric-chair. The Quirk incident was hardly touched upon.

"Prior to the imposition of the death sentence," ran the account,
"something of a sensation was caused by the recanting of a portion of his
former testimony by the witness Jeffrey Quirk, who took the stand and
admitted that he had perjured himself in accusing the defendant of having
persuaded him to attempt to steal the revolver. Judge Barker overruled a
motion to set aside the verdict, and for a new trial, on the ground that
the change in the witness's testimony, even if true, would not have
altered the verdict of the jury, the evidence being more than sufficient,
without it, to warrant a conviction."

Judge Barker came off with colors flying and his picture front centre.
The fact that he had dismissed the indictment against the defendant, and
ordered her immediate release on the strength of the confession of Daniel
Shay was made the "news" feature of the day, and his courage and
independence in reversing himself were so extolled as to make him the
hero of the hour. Here was a judge so honest that he did not hesitate to
stultify himself in the cause of Justice! Nobody was omniscient!

"When asked whether the later developments of the trial had altered his
opinion as to the value of circumstantial evidence, Judge Barker merely
smiled." So did Hugh. On which side of His Honor's mouth was that smile?

As for Hugh himself, there was no reference to him at all. But why should
there be? The episode of his committal for contempt had been the merest
legal trifle, and already completely forgotten. Nobody cared now what
Eileen Clayton might have told him, not even enough to realize that the
supposition that she had confessed her guilt must be all a mistake.
Another week and it would all be ancient history.

Everybody had to keep moving. He would have to open a law office again.
Had his old rooms over the Elm Castle been rented, he wondered. From
force of habit he got out at Worth Street, and turning south toward the
Criminal Court Building encountered Charlie White.

"Hello, Dillon!" he called out. "I'm glad to see there's still an honest
man in these parts. Yes, I'll have a cigarette. You're the only one in
the bunch who came out of that mix-up with clean hands--and you had to go
to jail to keep 'em so!"

Hugh took the arm of _The Sun's_ star reporter and strolled with him
along Lafayette Street in front of the Tombs.

"Tell me something, Charlie," he said. "How do fellows like Farley and
Barker and Hoyle get away with it? Why didn't the papers give more space
to Quirk's story and show 'em up?"

White grinned sardonically.

"There's no news in a politician being a crook, is there?" he asked,
without removing his cigarette. "And then, nobody really gives a damn
what they do as long as they don't steal the city hall."

"Don't the taxpayers want honest public officials?"

"Yes!" agreed White. "So long as they're not too honest."

"But take Farley's tipping off Quirk to swear falsely, and then
concealing the fact that he had done so--isn't there anything in that from
a newspaper point of view?" demanded Hugh.

White exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"No," he said. "The public isn't interested in morals or ethics. And
besides, it is too complicated for the average reader to understand. It
would take too much space to explain the point--more than it was worth.
I'm not so sure I understand it myself. Besides, you have to be fair.
Farley's more of a fool than a crook, although he's a bit of both. How do
we know he really meant Quirk to lie, and how can we be sure he knew
Quirk was lying? We can't. And there's such a thing as libel, you know.
The mere fact that a man is on the witness-stand doesn't give him a right
to smear everybody in sight. It has to be done with an 'honest motive and
for justifiable ends.' Then again, Farley is an important and powerful
public officer. There's no use antagonizing him. We might need him in our
business. Also--there's politics!"

"So I suspect!" They had reached the door of the Elm Castle. "What is
going to happen to Shay and Quirk?"

"Nothing--if I know Farley. The way he has handled the case has been
scandalous, and he knows it. 'Least said, soonest mended.' Nobody wants
to send an old man to prison for perjury. Especially when it has been the
means of furnishing the public with such a three-ringed circus as we've
been having in the Clayton case. And I doubt if any jury would convict
him. After all, justice has been done--to everybody but yourself!"

"But how about Quirk?" asked Hugh. "I can't help being fond of him, but
can Farley avoid indicting him for perjury--to say nothing of burglary and
assault?"

"He may indict him," answered White, "although I doubt if he even does
that. But he'll never try him, you can bet your life on that, when
Quirk's defense would be 'you told me to do it.' Farley's in a damn
ticklish position. Between you and me he's sweating blood for fear some
highbrow reformer will ship the record of the case up to Albany and ask
for his removal. The president of the Citizens' Union, for instance. I'm
not sure the governor wouldn't find plenty of excuse for throwing him
out. Still, a man hates to do that sort of thing!"

"I wonder who he'd appoint in Farley's place if he removed him?"

"Give it up. I know who I'd appoint!"

"Who?" inquired Hugh.

"A young fellow named Dillon. He's a crazy coot, but he's got the right
idea."

"Glad you think so! Have another cigarette? What job do you want when
I've succeeded Farley?"

Hugh delivered a feint kick at his friend's under-pinning.

"Are you serious?" inquired White.

"As a judge!"

"Good! I'll hold you to that! You can make me your press-agent--I mean,
your 'private secretary'--at about seventy-five hundred a year."

"Done!"

They shook hands on it.

"Only don't spend any of that salary in advance," Hugh warned him. "I may
want to borrow a quarter from you in the next few days."

Hugh found, upon enquiry, that his old rooms over the Elm Castle were
still untenanted. The proprietor had also preserved, and forthwith
produced, the sign:

                              HUGH DILLON
                            ATTORNEY-AT-LAW

"Thought you'd turn up again," he explained. "I kind of felt you wouldn't
like sending the boys to jail."

"I didn't," answered Hugh. "You can hang up the sign, Mike!"

So here he was back in the same old place! Was it possible that he had
ever been a member of the district attorney's staff--with an office over
there in that dirty old building--up among the pigeons? It seemed quite
incredible. Was Richard Devens really dead? Had he actually fought for
life with Jeffrey Quirk in the stifling darkness of the property-room?
Had he really spent a night in that grim prison fortress across the way?
Had he found Moira only to lose her?

Was life as impermanent as that? Was there nothing that did not change?
Nothing to cling to? In this dim world "where the lights are dim and the
very stars wander," could human beings ever be sure of what was right?

Far up in the blue above the Tombs his eye caught again the white glint
of a kite. It held there steadily, ducking occasionally and then climbing
upward again. Was it the same kite he had noticed before, with possibly
the same child at the other end of the string? Was not the desire to rise
above earthly things the only thing that did not change? Somewhere amid
the squalor of the tenements a boy was gazing up at that white speck, his
imagination lost in the blue empyrean, his soul set free: and, because of
his kite up there, hundreds of other children, of whose existence he was
not even aware, were looking up with delight, their eyes fixed upon
infinity, their spirits soaring in exultant accord in common aspiration
with its white sail.


A motor was pulling up to the curb. Surely it was Moira's little Renault!
Had she read the papers? Could she have come there to see him--already?
That was exactly what she would do--if she still loved him. He ran down
and met her at the foot of the stairs.

"Oh, Hugh!" she cried. "How could I have ever doubted you! It was beastly
of me!"

He put his arms around her.

"These stairs were the first place you ever kissed me!" he reminded her.

"No, dearest--the second!" she answered.





[End of The Blind Goddess, by Arthur Train]
