Lightnin Part 25

Thomas arose at once. "I object to that question," he said, his lips twitching and his face livid from disappointment and fear of what was coming next.

"I should think you would!" Marvin said, laughing.

The objection sustained, he went at his witness again. "You testified that Mr. Jones was a drunkard and that you had never seen him sober?"

"I never have," emphasized Hammond, insolently.

Going to the table, Marvin took Bill by the arm, a.s.sisted him to his feet and guided him into the middle of the court-room until he stood before the witness-stand. Then he asked of Hammond, motioning with his head toward Bill, "Is he drunk now?"

Bill stood quietly, a quizzical smile half closing his eyes, half opening his mouth.

Hammond, infuriated, swallowed in order to control himself, and then blurted with a disgusted shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know."

Having fulfilled Marvin's intention, Bill took his seat again and the cross-examination was resumed.

"If you don't know whether he is drunk or not now, how did you know the other time when you saw him?"

Hammond gazed fiercely into s.p.a.ce, replying, finally, "Oh, it was plain enough then!"

Seeing that Hammond was ruffled and that he was also confused, Marvin felt that the time was now right to bring forth by a few swift, well-put questions the full purpose of Hammond and Thomas in bringing about the divorce between Bill and Mrs. Jones.

"It was not possible for you to get a good t.i.tle to the property unless Mr. Jones signed the deed?" he asked.

At once Thomas was on his feet, objecting.

On Marvin's explanation that the complaint charged intoxication and that his question had a direct bearing on that point, the judge overruled the objection and Thomas took his seat again.

Not discerning the trap that Marvin had set for him, Hammond turned to the judge and said, in more even tones: "I don't mind answering in the least. The property belonged entirely to Mrs. Jones, but the husband's signature was wanted on the deed."

"And he refused to sign it?" Marvin's question came back.

"Yes," Hammond sneered, "after you told him not to."

Marvin once more challenged Hammond's soul with the searchlight of his own straightforward eye. "Was he drunk then?" he asked.

Hammond paused, then shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I think he was."

"I am not asking you what you think," Marvin remarked. "You said under oath that you never saw him sober. Was he drunk when he refused to sign that deed?"

"Yes, he was!" Hammond reiterated, quickly.

"And you tried to induce him to sign such an important doc.u.ment as that when he was drunk?" Marvin asked the question in a slow, concise tone and looked up at the judge to gather the impression made by Hammond's evident duplicity.

The deep water into which Hammond had walked was making itself felt and he tried to wade toward sh.o.r.e.

"I never tried to get him to sign! He didn't sign it!" he snapped.

"No, he wasn't drunk enough for that! He wasn't drunk at all. He was as sober as he is at this moment!"

"You mean to call me a liar?" Hammond, his red neck swelling over the top of his collar, and his small, close-together black eyes flas.h.i.+ng angrily, got up and made a threatening move toward his questioner.

Marvin, although much smaller, did not flinch. "No, I mean to _prove_ it," he answered.

Judge Townsend made a quieting gesture to Hammond, who sat down in the witness-chair again as Marvin went on with his rapid-fire.

"Now you called Mr. Jones a liar, didn't you?"

"Yes," was Hammond's gruff reply. "And everybody who knows him says the same thing!"

"Oh," said Marvin, with a shake of his head. "So you testified that he was a liar because you heard others say so?"

"No," jerked Hammond, "he lied to me."

"What did he tell you that was untrue?"

"Everything," said Hammond.

"Can you repeat one lie that Mr. Jones told you?"

"Oh, he told me so many," was the impatient reply, "I can't recall them.

Oh yes," after a pause, "he said he drove a swarm of bees across the plains in the dead of winter."

Bill, who was facing him, and who had not taken his eyes from him, burst into a loud laugh, the whole court-room, even to the judge, following suit, while Marvin raised his voice above the uproar to ask, "Now, how do you know that is a lie?"

"Why, I know the thing is impossible!" Hammond said, contemptuously.

"Why?"

"It's all nonsense," sneered Hammond, with an angry gesture.

"That is precisely what it is, Mr. Hammond, and that is just what Mr.

Jones meant it to be! What else did he say?"

"What's the difference?" asked Hammond. "You admit it's all nonsense."

"Not all, Mr. Hammond." Marvin raised his voice and he looked searchingly at the judge. "He said at least one thing that was not nonsense. He said to his wife, 'Mother, these two men are trying to rob you.' Do you remember that, Mr. Hammond? You were all there. Do you remember that he said you and Mr. Thomas were trying to rob Mrs. Jones?"

In order to make his question more impressive, Marvin nodded at Hammond and pointed to Mr. Thomas, and then directed a glance toward Mrs. Jones.

Her hands were still folded in her lap and her head bent toward them.

Everett Hammond, his face purple with rage, shouted at Marvin, "I don't propose to sit here and be insulted by a criminal like you!"

Thomas, too, had risen and come forward. Standing on the other side of Marvin and looking down upon him, he exclaimed, with quivering, blue lips: "This is insufferable, your Honor! This gentleman has come here to give disinterested testimony, as a favor, and he is subjected to the insults--"

Judge Townsend interrupted him calmly: "I think the defense has brought out quite clearly that this witness's testimony is not disinterested.

This divorce has got to be obtained to give him a deed to the Jones property, hasn't it?"

Thomas grew conciliatory, endeavoring to impress upon the judge that the property sale had nothing to do, at all, with the testimony of Hammond.