Counsel for the Defense

by Leroy Scott

  CHAPTER II

  THE BUBBLE REPUTATION

  Despite its thirty thousand population--"Forty thousand, and growing,sir!" loyally declared those disinterested citizens engaged in thesale of remote fields of ragweed as building lots--Westville was stillbut half-evolved from its earlier state of an overgrown country town.It was as yet semi-pastoral, semi-urban. Automobiles and farm wagonslocked hubs in brotherly embrace upon its highways; cowhide boots andpatent leather shared its sidewalks. There was a stockbroker's officethat was thoroughly metropolitan in the facilities it afforded theelite for relieving themselves of the tribulation of riches; andadjoining it was Simpson Brothers & Company, wherein hick'ry-shirtedgentlemen bartered for threshing machines, hayrakes, axle grease, andsuch like baubles of Arcadian pastime.

  There were three topics on which one could always start an argument inWestville--politics, religion, and the editor of the _Express_. Ayear before Arnold Bruce, who had left Westville at eighteen and whomthe town had vaguely heard of as a newspaper man in Chicago and NewYork but whom it had not seen since, had returned home and takencharge of the _Express_, which had been willed him by the late editor,his uncle. The _Express_, which had been a slippered, dozing, senilesheet under old Jimmie Bruce, burst suddenly into a volcanic youth.The new editor used huge, vociferous headlines instead of the merewhispering, timorous types of his uncle; he wrote a rousing,rough-and-ready English; occasionally he placed an importanteditorial, set up in heavy-faced type and enclosed in a black border,in the very centre of his first page; and from the very start he hadhad the hardihood to attack the "established order" at several pointsand to preach unorthodox political doctrines. The wealthiest citizenswere outraged, and hotly denounced Bruce as a "yellow journalist" anda "red-mouthed demagogue." It was commonly held by the better elementthat his ultra-democracy was merely a mask, a pose, an advertisingscheme, to gather in the gullible subscriber and to force himselfsensationally into the public eye.

  But despite all hostile criticism of the paper, people read the_Express_--many staid ones surreptitiously--for it had a snap, a go, atang, that at times almost took the breath. And despite the estimateof its editor as a charlatan, the people had yielded to thataggressive personage a rank of high importance in their midst.

  Bruce stepped forth from his stairway, crossed Main Street, and strodeup the shady Court House walk. On the left side of the walk, a-tiptoein an arid fountain, was poised a gracious nymph of cast-iron, sochastely garbed as to bring to the cheek of elderly innocence nofaintest flush. On the walk's right side stood a rigid statue,suggesting tetanus in the model, of the city's founder, Col. DavyWest, wearing a coonskin cap and leaning with conscious dignity upon along deer rifle.

  Bruce entered the dingy Court House, mounted a foot-worn woodenstairway, browned with the ambrosial extract of two generations oftobacco-chewing litigants, and passed into a damp and gloomy chamber.This room was the office of the prosecuting attorney of CallowayCounty. That the incumbent might not become too depressed by hisenvironment, the walls were cheered up by a steel engraving of DanielWebster, frowning with multitudinous thought, and by a crackled map ofIndiana--the latter dotted by industrious flies with myriad namelesscities.

  Three men arose from about the flat-topped desk in the centre of theroom, the prosecutor, the Reverend Doctor Sherman, and a rathersmartly dressed man whom Bruce remembered to have seen once or twicebut whom he did not know. With the first two the editor shook hands,and the third was introduced to him as Mr. Marcy, the agent of theAcme Filter Company, which had installed the filtering plant of thenew water-works.

  Bruce turned in his brusque manner to the prosecuting attorney.

  "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "Suppose we all sit down first," suggested the prosecutor.

  They did so, and Kennedy regarded Bruce with a solemn, weighty stare.He was a lank, lantern-jawed, frock-coated gentleman of thirty-five,with an upward rolling forelock and an Adam's-apple that throbbed inhis throat like a petrified pulse. He was climbing the politicalladder, and he was carefully schooling himself into that dignity andpoise and appearance of importance which should distinguish thedeportment of the public man.

  "Well, what is it?" demanded Bruce shortly. "About the water-works?"

  "Yes," responded Kennedy. "The water-works, Mr. Bruce, is, I hardlyneed say, a source of pride to us all. To you especially it has had alarge significance. You have made it a theme for a continuousagitation in your paper. You have argued and urged that, since thecity's new water-works promised to be such a great success, Westvilleshould not halt with this one municipal enterprise, but should refusethe new franchise the street railway company is going to apply for,take over the railway, run it as a municipal----"

  "Yes, yes," interrupted Bruce impatiently. "But who's dead? Who wantsthe line of march changed to go by his grocery store?"

  "What I was saying was merely to recall how very important thewater-works has been to us," the prosecutor returned, with increasedsolemnity. He paused, and having gained that heightened stage effectof a well-managed silence, he continued: "Mr. Bruce, something veryserious has occurred."

  For all its ostentation the prosecutor's manner was genuinelyimpressive. Bruce looked quickly at the other two men. The agent wasill at ease, the minister pale and agitated.

  "Come," cried Bruce, "out with what you've got to tell me!"

  "It is a matter of the very first importance," returned theprosecutor, who was posing for a prominent place in the _Express's_account of this affair--for however much the public men of Westvilleaffected to look down upon the _Express_, they secretly preferred itssuperior presentment of their doings. "Doctor Sherman, in hiscapacity of president of the Voters' Union, has just brought before mesome most distressing, most astounding evidence. It is evidence uponwhich I must act both as a public official and as a member of theArrangements Committee, and evidence which concerns you both as acommitteeman and as an editor. It is painful to me to break----"

  "Let's have it from first hands," interrupted Bruce, irritated by theverbal excelsior which the prosecutor so deliberately unwrapped fromabout his fact.

  He turned to the minister, a slender man of hardly more than thirty,with a high brow, the wide, sensitive mouth of the born orator,fervently bright eyes, and the pallor of the devoted student--a facethat instantly explained why, though so young, he was Westville's mostpopular divine.

  "What's it about, Doctor Sherman?" the editor asked. "Who's the man?"

  There was no posing here for Bruce's typewriter. The minister'sconcern was deep and sincere.

  "About the water-works, as Mr. Kennedy has said," he answered in avoice that trembled with agitation. "There has been some--some crookedwork."

  "Crooked work?" ejaculated the editor, staring at the minister."Crooked work?"

  "Yes."

  "You are certain of what you say?"

  "Yes."

  "Then you have evidence?"

  "I am sorry--but--but I have."

  The editor was leaning forward, his nostrils dilated, his eyesgleaming sharply behind their thick glasses.

  "Who's mixed up in it? Who's the man?"

  The minister's hands were tightly interlocked. For an instant heseemed unable to speak.

  "Who's the man?" repeated Bruce.

  The minister swallowed.

  "Doctor West," he said.

  Bruce sprang up.

  "Doctor West?" he cried. "The superintendent of the water-works?"

  "Yes."

  If the editor's concern for the city's welfare was merely a politicaland business pose, if he was merely an actor, at least he acted hispart well. "My God!" he breathed, and stood with eyes fixed upon theyoung minister. Then suddenly he sat down again, his thick brows drewtogether, and his heavy jaws set.

  "Let's have the whole story," he snapped out. "From the verybeginning."

  "I cannot tell you how distressed I am by what I have just been forcedto do," began the young clergyman. "I have always esteem
ed DoctorWest most highly, and my wife and his daughter have been the closestfriends since girlhood. To make my part in this affair clear, I mustrecall to you that of late the chief attention of the Voters' Unionhas naturally been devoted to the water-works. I never imagined thatanything was wrong. But, speaking frankly, after the event, I must saythat Doctor West's position was such as made it a simple matter forhim to defraud the city should he so desire."

  "You mean because the council invested him with so much authority?"demanded Bruce.

  "Yes. As I have said, I regarded Doctor West above all suspicion. Buta short time ago some matters--I need not detail them--aroused in methe fear that Doctor West was using his office for--for----"

  "For graft?" supplied Bruce.

  The minister inclined his head.

  "Later, only a few weeks ago, a more definite fear came to me," hecontinued in his low, pained voice. "It happens that I have known Mr.Marcy here for years; we were friends in college, though we had losttrack of one another till his business brought him here. A few smallcircumstances--my suspicion was already on the alert--made me guessthat Mr. Marcy was about to give Doctor West a bribe for havingawarded the filter contract to his company. I got Mr. Marcyalone--taxed him with his intention--worked upon his conscience----"

  "Mr. Marcy has stated," the prosecutor interrupted to explain, "thatDoctor Sherman always had great influence over him."

  Mr. Marcy corroborated this with a nod.

  "At length Mr. Marcy confessed," Doctor Sherman went on. "He hadarranged to give Doctor West a certain sum of money immediately afterthe filtering plant had been approved and payment had been made to thecompany. After this confession I hesitated long upon what I should do.On the one hand, I shrank from disgracing Doctor West. On the other, Ihad a duty to the city. After a long struggle I decided that myresponsibility to the people of Westville should overbalance anyfeeling I might have for any single individual."

  "That was the only decision," said Bruce. "Go on!"

  "But at the same time, to protect Doctor West's reputation, I decidedto take no one into my plan; should his integrity reassert itself atthe last moment and cause him to refuse the bribe, the whole matterwould then remain locked up in my heart. I arranged with Mr. Marcythat he should carry out his agreement with Doctor West. Day beforeyesterday, as you know, the council, on Doctor West's recommendation,formally approved the filtering plant, and yesterday a draft was sentto the company. Mr. Marcy was to call at Doctor West's home thismorning to conclude their secret bargain. Just before the appointedhour I dropped in on Doctor West, and was there when Mr. Marcy called.I said I would wait to finish my talk with Doctor West till they werethrough their business, took a book, and went into an adjoining room.I could see the two men through the partly opened door. After sometalk, Mr. Marcy drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it toDoctor West, saying in a low voice, 'Here is that money we spokeabout.'"

  "And he took it?" Bruce interrupted.

  "Doctor West slipped the envelope unopened into his pocket, andreplied, 'Thank you very much; it will come in very handy just now.'"

  "My God!" breathed the editor.

  "Though I had suspected Doctor West, I sat there stunned," theminister continued. "But after a minute or two I slipped out byanother door. I returned with a policeman, and found Doctor West stillwith Mr. Marcy. The policeman arrested Doctor West, and found theenvelope upon his person. In it was two thousand dollars."

  "Now, what do you think of that?" Kennedy demanded of the editor."Won't the town be thunderstruck!"

  Bruce turned to the agent, who had sat through the recital, a merecorroborative presence.

  "And this is all true?"

  "That is exactly the way it happened," replied Mr. Marcy.

  Bruce looked back at the minister.

  "But didn't he have anything to say for himself?"

  "I can answer that," put in Kennedy. "I had him in here before I senthim over to the jail. He admits practically every point that DoctorSherman has made. The only thing he says for himself is that he neverthought the money Mr. Marcy gave him was intended for a bribe."

  Bruce stood up, his face hard and glowering, and his fist crashedexplosively down upon the table.

  "Of all the damned flimsy defenses that ever a man made, that's thelimit!"

  "It certainly won't go down with the people of Westville," commentedthe prosecutor. "And I can see the smile of the jury when he producesthat defense in court."

  "I should say they would smile!" cried Bruce. "But what was hismotive?"

  "That's plain enough," answered the prosecutor. "We both know, Mr.Bruce, that he has earned hardly anything from the practice ofmedicine since we were boys. His salary as superintendent of thewater-works was much less than he has been spending. His property ismortgaged practically to its full value. Everything has gone on thoseexperiments of his. It's simply a case of a man being in a tight fixfor money."

  Bruce was striding up and down the room, scowling and staring fiercelyat the worn linoleum that carpeted the prosecutor's office.

  "I thought you'd take it rather hard," said Kennedy, a little slyly."It sort of puts a spoke in that general municipal ownership scheme ofyours--eh?"

  Bruce paused belligerently before the prosecutor.

  "See here, Kennedy," he snapped out. "Because a man you've banked onis a crook, does that prove a principle is wrong?"

  "Oh, I guess not," Kennedy had to admit.

  "Well, suppose you cut out that kind of talk then. But what are yougoing to do about the doctor?"

  "The grand jury is in session. I'm going straight before it with theevidence. An hour from now and Doctor West will be indicted."

  "And what about to-morrow's show?"

  "What do you think we ought to do?"

  "What ought we to do!" Again the editor's fist crashed upon the desk."The celebration was half in Doctor West's honour. Do we want to meetand hurrah for the man that sold us out? As for the water-works, itlooks as if, for all we know, he might have bought us a lot of oldjunk. Do we want to hold a jubilee over a junk pile? You ask what weought to do. God, man, there's only one thing to do, and that's tocall the whole damned performance off!"

  "That's my opinion," said the prosecutor. "What do you think, DoctorSherman?"

  The young minister wiped his pale face.

  "It's a most miserable affair. I'm sick because of the part I've beenforced to play--I'm sorry for Doctor West--and I'm particularly sorryfor his daughter--but I do not see that any other course would bepossible."

  "I suppose we ought to consult Mr. Blake," said Kennedy.

  "He's not in town," returned Bruce. "And we don't need to consult him.We three are a majority of the committee. The matter has to be settledat once. And it's settled all right!"

  The editor jerked out his watch, glanced at it, then reached for hishat.

  "I'll have this on the street in an hour--and if this town doesn't gowild, then I don't know Westville!"

  He was making for the door, when the newspaper man in him recalled anew detail of his story. He turned back.

  "How about this daughter of Doctor West?" he asked.

  The prosecutor looked at the minister.

  "Was she coming home for the celebration, do you know?"

  "Yes. She wrote Mrs. Sherman she was leaving New York this morning andwould get in here to-morrow on the Limited."

  "What's she like?" asked Bruce.

  "Haven't you seen her?" asked Kennedy.

  "She hasn't been home since I came back to Westville. When I left hereshe was a tomboy--mostly legs and freckles."

  The prosecutor's lean face crinkled with a smile.

  "I guess you'll find she's grown right smart since then. She went toone of those colleges back East; Vassar, I think it was. She got holdof some of those new-fangled ideas the women in the East are crazyover now--about going out in the world for themselves, and----"

  "Idiots--all of them!" snapped Bruce.

  "After she graduated
, she studied law. When she was back home twoyears ago she asked me what chance a woman would have to practise lawin Westville. A woman lawyer in Westville--oh, Lord!"

  The prosecutor leaned back and laughed at the excruciating humour ofthe idea.

  "Oh, I know the kind!" Bruce's lips curled with contempt."Loud-voiced--aggressive--bony--perfect frights."

  "Let me suggest," put in Doctor Sherman, "that Miss West does notbelong in that classification."

  "Yes, I guess you're a little wrong about Katherine West," smiledKennedy.

  Bruce waved his hand peremptorily. "They're all the same! But what'sshe doing in New York? Practising law?"

  "No. She's working for an organization something like DoctorSherman's--The Municipal League, I think she called it."

  "Huh!" grunted Bruce. "Well, whatever she's like, it's a pretty messshe's coming back into!"

  With that the editor pulled his hat tightly down upon his forehead andstrode out of the Court House and past the speakers' stand, acrosswhose front twin flags were being leisurely festooned. Back in his ownoffice he picked up the story he had finished an hour before. With asneer he tore it across and trampled it under foot. Then, jerking achair forward to his typewriter, his brow dark, his jaw set, he beganto thump fiercely upon the keys.