The Bondboy Part 53

To the great surprise and greater disappointment of the public in attendance upon the trial, Sam Lucas announced, when court opened, that the state would not proceed with the cross-examination of the defendant.

Hammer rose with that and stated that the defense rested. He had no more witnesses to call.

Hammer wore a hopeful look over his features that morning, a reflection, perhaps, of his client's unworried att.i.tude. He had not been successful in his attempt to interview Alice Price, although he had visited her home the night before. Colonel Price had received him with the air of one who stoops to contact with an inferior, and a.s.sured him that he was delegated by Miss Price--which was true--to tell Mr. Hammer that she knew nothing favorable to his client's cause; that her caution in his moment of stress had nothing behind it but the unaccountable impulse of a young and sympathetic girl.

Hammer accepted that explanation with a large corner of reservation in his mind. He knew that she had visited the jail, and it was his opinion that his client had taken her behind the door of his confidence, which he had closed to his attorney. Alice Price knew something, she must know something, Hammer said. On that belief he based his intention of a motion for a new trial in case of conviction. He would advance the contention that new evidence had been discovered; he would then get Alice Price into a corner by herself somewhere and make her tell all she knew.

That was why Hammer smiled and felt quite easy, and turned over in his mind the moving speech that he had prepared for the jury. He was glad of the opportunity which that great gathering presented. It was a plowed field waiting the grain of Hammer's future prosperity.

Hammer kept turning his eyes toward Alice Price, where she sat in the middle of the court-room beside the colonel. He had marked an air of uneasiness, a paleness as of suppressed anxiety in the girl's face. Now and then he saw her look toward the door where Captain Taylor stood guard, in his G. A. R. uniform today, as if it were a gala occasion and demanded decorations.

For whom could she be straining and watching? Hammer wondered. Ah, no doubt about it, that girl knew a great deal more of the inner-working of his client's mind than he did. But she couldn't keep her secret. He'd get it out of her after filing his motion for a new trial--already he was looking ahead to conviction, feeling the weakness of his case--and very likely turn the sensation of a generation loose in Shelbyville when he called her to the witness-stand. That was the manner of Hammer's speculations as he watched her turning her eyes toward the door.

Ollie sat beside her mother, strangely downcast for all the brightening of her affairs. Joe had pa.s.sed through the fire and come out true, although he might have faltered and betrayed her if it had not been for the sharp warning of Alice Price, cast to him like a rope to a drowning man. Like Hammer, like a thousand others, she wondered why Alice had uttered that warning. What did she know? What did she suspect? It was certain, above everything else, that she knew Joe was guiltless. She knew that he was not maintaining silence on his own account.

How did she know? Had Joe told her? Ollie struggled with the doubt and perplexity of it, and the fear which lay deep in her being made her long to cringe there, and s.h.i.+eld her face as from fire. She could not do that, any more than she had succeeded in her desire to remain away from court that morning. There was no need for her there, her testimony was in, they were through with her. Yet she could not stay away. She must be there for the final word, for the last sight of Joe's prison-white face.

She must whip herself to sit there as boldly as innocence and cheat the public into accepting the blanched cheek of fear for the wearing strain of sorrow; she must sit there until the end. Then she could rise up and go her way, no matter how it turned out for Joe. She could leave there with her guilty secret in her heart and the shame of her cowardice burning like a smothered coal in her breast.

It would hurt to know that Joe had gone to prison for her sake, even though he once had stepped into the doorway of her freedom and cut off her light. The knowledge that Alice Price loved him, and that Joe loved her, for she had read the secret in their burning eyes, would make it doubly hard. She would be cheating him of liberty and robbing him of love. Still, they would be no more than even, at that, said she, with a recurring sweep of bitterness. Had Joe not denied them both to her? All of this she turned in her mind as she sat waiting for court to open that somber morning.

The rain in yesterday's threat had come; it was streaking the windows gray, and the sound of the wind was in the trees, waving their bare limbs as in fantastic grief against the dull clouds. There was no comfort in youth and health and prettiness of face and form; no pride in possession of lands and money, when a hot and tortuous thing like conscience was lying so ill-concealed behind the thin wall of her breast.

She thought bitterly of Curtis Morgan, who had failed her so completely.

Never again in the march of her years would she need the support of his hand and comforting affection as she needed it then. But he had gone away and forgotten, like a careless hunter who leaves his uncovered fire after him to spring in the wind and go raging with destructive curse through the forest. He had struck the spark to warm himself a night in its pleasurable glow; the hands of ten thousand men could not quench its flame today.

Judge Maxwell had been conferring with the lawyers in the case these few minutes, setting a limit to their periods of oration before the jury, to which both sides agreed after the usual protestations. The court-room was very quiet; expectancy sat upon the faces of all who waited when Sam Lucas, prosecuting attorney, rose and began his address to the jury.

He began by calling attention to what he termed the "peculiar atrocity of this crime," and the circ.u.mstances surrounding it. He pointed out that there could have been no motive of revenge behind the act, for the evidence had shown, even the testimony of the defendant himself had shown, that the relations between Chase and his bondman were friendly.

Isom Chase had been kind to him; he had reposed his entire trust in him, and had gone away to serve his country as a juryman, leaving everything in his hands.

"And he returned from that duty, gentlemen," said he, "to meet death at the treacherous hands of the man whom he had trusted, there upon his own threshold.

"When Isom Chase was found there by his neighbor, Sol Greening, gentlemen, this bag of money was clasped to his lifeless breast. Where did it come from? What was Isom Chase doing with it there at that hour of the night? This defendant has testified that he does not know. Did Isom Chase carry it with him when he entered the house? Not likely.

"You have heard the testimony of the bankers of this city to the effect that he carried no deposit with any of them. Isom Chase had returned to his home that fatal night from serving on a jury in this court-house.

That duty held him there until past ten o'clock, as the records show.

Where did that bag of gold come from? What was it doing there? This defendant has sworn that he never saw it before, that he knows nothing at all about it. Yet he admits that 'words' pa.s.sed between him and Isom Chase that night.

"What those words were he has locked up in the secret darkness of his guilty breast. He has refused to tell you what they were, refused against the kindly counsel of the court, the prayers of his aged mother, the advice of his own attorney, and of his best friends. Joe Newbolt has refused to repeat those words to you, gentlemen of the jury, but I will tell you what the substance of them was."

The prosecutor made a dramatic pause; he flung his long, fair locks back from his forehead; he leveled his finger at Joe as if he held a weapon aimed to shoot him through the heart.

Mrs. Newbolt looked at the prosecutor searchingly. She could not understand why the judge allowed him to say a thing like that. Joe displayed no indication of the turmoil of his heart. But the light was fading out of his face, the gray mist of pain was sweeping over it again.

"Those words, gentlemen of the jury," resumed the prosecutor, "were words of accusation from the lips of Isom Chase when he entered that door and saw this man, his trusted servant, making away with that bag of money, the h.o.a.rded savings of Isom Chase through many an industrious year.

"I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that this defendant, afraid of the consequences of his act when he found himself discovered in the theft, and was compelled to surrender the money to its lawful owner--I tell you then, in that evil moment of pa.s.sion and disappointment, this defendant s.n.a.t.c.hed that rifle from the wall and shot honest, hardworking old Isom Chase down like a dog!"

"No, no!" cried Mrs. Newbolt, casting out her hands in pa.s.sionate denial. "Joe didn't do it!"

"Your honor," began the prosecutor, turning to the court with an expression of injury in his voice which was almost tearful, "am I to be interrupted----"

"Madam, you must not speak again," admonished the judge. "Mr. Sheriff, see that the order is obeyed."

The sheriff leaned over.

"Ma'am, I'll have to put you out of here if you do that agin," said he.

Joe placed his hand on his mother's shoulder and whispered to her. She nodded, as if in obedience to his wish, but she sat straight and alert, her dark eyes glowing with anger as she looked at the prosecutor.

The prosecutor was composing himself to proceed.

"This defendant had robbed old Isom Chase of his h.o.a.rded gold, gentlemen of the jury, and that was not all. I tell you, gentlemen, Joe Newbolt had robbed that trusting old man of more than his gold. He had robbed him of his sacred honor!"

Hammer entered vociferous objections. Nothing to maintain this charge had been proved by the state, said he. He insisted that the jury be instructed to disregard what had been said, and the prosecutor admonished by the court to confine himself to the evidence.

The court ruled accordingly.

"There has been ample evidence on this point," contended the prosecutor.

"The conspiracy of silence entered into between this defendant and the widow of Isom Chase--entered into and maintained throughout this trial--is sufficient to brand them guilty of this charge before the world. More; when Sol Greening's wife arrived a few minutes after the shooting, Mrs. Chase was fully dressed, in a dress, gentlemen of the jury, that it would have taken her longer to put on----"

Merely surmises, said Hammer. If surmises were to be admitted before that court and that jury, said he, he could surmise his client out of there in two minutes. But the court was of the opinion that the evidence warranted the prosecutor there. He was allowed to proceed.

"Ollie Chase could not have dressed herself that way in those few intervening minutes. She had made her preparations long before that tragic hour; she was ready and waiting--waiting for what?

"Gentlemen, I will tell you. Joe Newbolt had discovered the hiding-place of his employer's money. He had stolen it, and was preparing to depart in secrecy in the dead of night; and I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, he was not going alone!"

"Oh, what a scandalous lie!" said Mrs. Newbolt in a horrified voice which, low-pitched and groaning that it was carried to the farthest corner of that big, solemn room.

The outburst caused a little movement in the room, attended by considerable noise and some s.h.i.+fting of feet. Some laughed, for there are some to laugh everywhere at the most sincere emotions of the human breast. The judge rapped for order. A flush of anger mounted to his usually pa.s.sive face; he turned to the sheriff with a gesture of command.

"Remove that woman from the room, Mr. Sheriff, and retain her in custody!" said he.

The sheriff came forward hastily and took Mrs. Newbolt by the arm. She stood at his touch and stretched out her hands to the judge.

"I didn't mean to say it out loud, Judge Maxwell, but I thought it so hard, I reckon, sir, that it got away. Anybody that knows my Joe----"

"Come on, ma'am," the sheriff ordered.

Joe was on his feet. The sheriff's special deputy put his hands on the prisoner's shoulders and tried to force him down into his seat. The deputy was a little man, sandy, freckled, and frail, and his efforts, ludicrously eager, threw the court-room into a fit of unseemly laughter.

The little man might as well have attempted to bend one of the oak columns which supported the court-house portico.

Judge Maxwell was properly angry now. He rapped loudly, and threatened penalties for contempt. When the mirth quieted, which it did with a suddenness almost tragic, Joe spoke. "I wish to apologize to you for mother's words, sir," said he, addressing the judge, inclining his head slightly to the prosecuting attorney afterward, as if to include him, upon second thought. "She was moved out of her calm and dignity by the statement of Mr. Lucas, sir, and I give you my word of honor that she'll say no more. I'd like to have her here by me, sir, if you'd grant me that favor. You can understand, sir, that a man needs a friend at his side in an hour like this."

Judge Maxwell's face was losing its redness of wrath; the hard lines were melting out of it. He pondered a moment, looking with gathered brows at Joe. The little deputy had given over his struggle, and now stood with one hand twisted in the back of Joe's coat. The sheriff kept his hold on Mrs. Newbolt's arm. She lifted her contrite face to the judge, tears in her eyes.

"Very well," said the judge, "the court will accept your apology, and hold you responsible for her future behavior. Madam, resume your seat, and do not interrupt the prosecuting attorney again."