Counsel for the Defense

by Leroy Scott

  CHAPTER XI

  THE TRIAL

  Katherine's first thought, on leaving Bruce's office, was to lay herdiscovery before Doctor Sherman. She was certain that with hernew-found knowledge, and with her entirely new point of view, theycould quickly discover wherein he had been duped--for she still heldhim to be an unwitting tool--and thus quickly clear up the whole case.But for reasons already known she failed to find him; and learningthat he had gone away with Blake, she well knew Blake would keep himout of her reach until the trial was over.

  In sharpest disappointment, Katherine went home. With the trial so fewhours away, with all her new discoveries buzzing chaotically in herhead, she felt the need of advising with some one about the situation.Bruce's offer of assistance recurred to her, and she found herselfanalyzing the editor again, just as she had done when she had walkedaway from his office. She rebelled against him in her every fibre, yetat the same time she felt a reluctant liking for him. He was a manwith big dreams, a rough-and-ready idealist, an idealist with sharplymarked limitations, some areas of his mind very broad, somedogmatically narrow. Opinionated, obstinate, impulsive, of not verysound judgment, yet dictatorial because supremely certain of hisrightness--courageous, unselfish, sincere--that was the way she nowsaw the editor of the _Express_.

  But he had sneered at her, sharply criticized her, and she hotlyspurned the thought of asking his aid. Instead of him, she thatevening summoned Old Hosie Hollingsworth to her house, and to the oldlawyer she told everything. Old Hosie was convinced that she wasright, and was astounded.

  "And to think that the good folks of this town used to denounce me asa worshipper of strange gods!" he ejaculated. "Gee, what'll they saywhen they learn that the idol they've been wearing out their knee-capson has got clay feet that run clear up to his Adam's-apple!"

  They decided that it would be a mistake for Katherine to try to useher new theories and discoveries openly in defence of her father. Shehad too little evidence, and any unsupported charges hurled againstBlake would leave that gentleman unharmed and would come whirlingback upon Katherine as a boomerang of popular indignation. She darednot breathe a word against the city's favourite until she hadincontrovertible proof. Under the circumstances, the best courseseemed for her to ask for a postponement on the morrow to enable herto work up further evidence.

  "Only," warned Hosie, "you must remember that the chances are thatBlake has already slipped the proper word to Judge Kellog, andthere'll be no postponement."

  "Then I'll have to depend upon tangling up that Mr. Marcy on thestand."

  "And Doctor Sherman?"

  "There'll be no chance of entangling him. He'll tell a straightforwardstory. How could he tell any other? Don't you see how he's beenused?--been made spectator to a skilfully laid scheme which hehonestly believes to be a genuine case of bribery?"

  At parting Old Hosie held her hand a moment.

  "D'you remember the prophecy I made the day you took your office--thatyou would raise the dickens in this old town?"

  "Yes," said Katherine.

  "Well, that's coming true--as sure as plug hats don't grow on figtrees! Only not in the way I meant then. Not as a freak. But as alawyer."

  "Thank you." She smiled and slowly shook her head. "But I'm afraid itwon't come true to-morrow."

  "Of course a prophecy is no good, unless you do your best."

  "Oh, I'm going to do my best," she assured him.

  The next morning, on the long awaited day, Katherine set out for theCourt House, throbbing alternately with hope and fear of the outcome.Mixed with these was a perturbation of a very different sort--anever-growing stage-fright. For this last there was good reason. Trialswere a form of recreation as popular in Calloway County asgladiatorial contests in ancient Rome, and this trial--in the lack ofa sensational murder in the county during the year--was the greatestof the twelvemonth. Moreover, it was given added interest by the factthat, for the first time in recorded history, Calloway County wasgoing to see in action that weirdest product of whirling change, awoman lawyer.

  Hub to hub about the hitch-racks of the Square were jammed buggies,surries, spring wagons and other country equipages. The court-room waspacked an hour before the trial, and in the corridor were craning,straining, elbowing folk who had come too late. In the openwindows--the court-room was on the ground floor--were the busts ofeager citizens whose feet were pedestaled on boxes, the sale of whichhad been a harvest of small coin to neighbouring grocers; and in thetrees without youths of simian habit clung to advantageous limbs andstrained to get a view of the proceedings. Old Judge Kellog whousually dozed on his twenty-first vertebra through testimony andargument--once a young fledgling of a lawyer, sailing aloft in theempyrean of his eloquence, had been brought tumbling confusedly toearth by the snoring of the bench--attested to the unusualness of theoccasion by being upright and awake. And Bud White, the clerk, calledthe court to order, not with his usual masterpiece of mumbledunintelligibility, brought to perfection by long years of practice,but with real words that could have been understood had only theaudience been listening.

  But their attention was all fixed upon the counsel for the defence.Katherine, in a plain white shirt waist and a black sailor, sat at atable alone with her father. Doctor West was painfully nervous; hislong fingers were constantly twisting among themselves. Katherine wasunder an even greater strain. She realized with an intenser keennessnow that the moment for action was at hand, that this was her firstcase, that her father's reputation, his happiness, perhaps even hislife, were at stake; and she was well aware that all this theatre ofpeople, whose eyes she felt burning into her back, regarded her asthe final curiosity of nature. Behind her, with young Harper at hisside, she had caught a glimpse of Arnold Bruce, eying her criticallyand sceptically she thought; and in the audience she had glimpsed thefixed, inscrutable face of Harrison Blake.

  But she clung blindly to her determination, and as Bud White sat down,she forced herself to rise. A deep hush spread through the court-room.She stood trembling, swallowing, voiceless, a statue of stage-fright,wildly hating herself for her impotence. For a dizzy, agonizing momentshe saw herself a miserable failure--saw the crowd laughing at her asthey filed out.

  A youthful voice, from a balcony seat in an elm tree, floated inthrough the open window:

  "Speak your piece, little girl, or set down."

  There was a titter. She stiffened.

  "Your--your Honour," she stammered, "I move a postponement in order toallow the defence more time to prepare its case."

  Judge Kellog fingered his patriarchal beard. Katherine stood hardlybreathing while she waited his momentous words. But his answer was asOld Hosie had predicted.

  "In view of the fact that the defence has already had four months inwhich to prepare its case," said he, "I shall have to deny the motionand order the trial to proceed."

  Katherine sat down. The hope of deferment was gone. There remainedonly to fight.

  A jury was quickly chosen; Katherine felt that her case would stand asgood a chance with any one selection of twelve men as with any other.Kennedy then stepped forward. With an air that was a blend of hispretentious--if rather raw-boned--dignity as a coming statesman, ofextreme deference toward Katherine's sex, and of the sense of hispersonal belittlement in being pitted against such a legal weakling,he outlined to the jury what he expected to prove. After which, hecalled Mr. Marcy to the stand.

  The agent of the filter company gave his evidence with that degree ofshame-facedness proper to the man, turned state's witness, who hasbeen an accomplice in the dishonourable proceedings he is relating. Itall sounded and looked so true--so very, very true!

  When Katherine came to cross-examine him, she gazed at him steadily amoment. She knew that he was lying, and she knew that he knew that sheknew he was lying. But he met her gaze with precisely the abashed,guilty air appropriate to his role.

  What she considered her greatest chance was now before her. Calling upall her wits, she put to Mr. Marcy questions tha
t held distant, hiddentraps. But when she led him along the devious, unsuspicious path thatconducted to the trap and then suddenly shot at him the question thatshould have plunged him into it, he very quietly and nimbly walkedaround the pitfall. Again and again she tried to involve him, but everwith the same result. He was abashed, ready to answer--and alwayselusive. At the end she had gained nothing from him, and for a minutestood looking silently at him in baffled exasperation.

  "Have you any further questions to ask the witness?" old Judge Kellogprompted her, with a gentle impatience.

  For a moment, stung by this witness's defeat of her, she had animpulse to turn about, point her finger at Blake in the audience, andcry out the truth to the court-room and announce what was her realline of defence. But she realized the uproar that would follow if shedared attack Blake without evidence, and she controlled herself.

  "That is all, Your Honour," she said.

  Mr. Marcy was dismissed. The lean, frock-coated figure of Mr. Kennedyarose.

  "Doctor Sherman," he called.

  Doctor Sherman seemed to experience some difficulty in making his wayup to the witness stand. When he faced about and sat down thedifficulty was explained to the crowd. He was plainly a sick man.Whispers of sympathy ran about the court-room. Every one knew how hehad sacrificed a friend to his sense of civic duty, and everyone knewwhat pain that act must have caused a man with such a high-strungconscience.

  With his hands tightly gripping the arms of his chair, his bright andhollow eyes fastened upon the prosecutor, Doctor Sherman began in alow voice to deliver his direct testimony. Katherine listened to himrather mechanically at first, even with a twinge of sympathy for hisobvious distress.

  But though her attention was centred here in the court-room, her brainwas subconsciously ranging swiftly over all the details of the case.Far down in the depths of her mind the question was faintly suggestingitself, if one witness is a guilty participant in the plot, then whynot possibly the other?--when she saw Doctor Sherman give a quickglance in the direction where she knew sat Harrison Blake. That glancebrought the question surging up to the surface of her conscious mind,and she sat bewildered, mentally gasping. She did not see how it couldbe, she could not understand his motive--but in the sickly face ofDoctor Sherman, in his strained manner, she now read guilt.

  Thrilling with an unexpected hope, Katherine rose and tried to keepherself before the eyes of Doctor Sherman like an accusing conscience.But he avoided her gaze, and told his story in every detail just aswhen Doctor West had been first accused. When Kennedy turned him overfor cross-examination, Katherine walked up before him and looked himstraight in the eyes a full moment without speaking. He could nolonger avoid her gaze. In his eyes she read something that seemed toher like mortal terror.

  "Doctor Sherman," she said slowly, clearly, "is there nothing youwould like to add to your testimony?"

  His words were a long time coming. Katherine's life hung suspendedwhile she waited his answer.

  "Nothing," he said.

  "There is no fact, no detail, that you may have omitted in your directtestimony, that you now desire to supply?"

  "Nothing."

  She took a step nearer, bent on him a yet more searching gaze, and putinto her voice its all of conscience-stirring power.

  "You wish to go on record then, before this court, before thisaudience, before the God whom you have appealed to in your oath, ashaving told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

  He averted his eyes and was silent a moment. For that moment Blake,back in the audience, did not breathe. To the crowd it seemed thatDoctor Sherman was searching his mind for some possible trivialomission. To Katherine it seemed that he was in the throes of a finalstruggle.

  "You wish thus to go on record?" she solemnly insisted.

  He looked back at her.

  "I do," he breathed.

  She realized now how desperate was this man's determination, howtightly his lips were locked. But she had picked up another thread ofthis tangled skein, and that made her exult with a new hope. She wentspiritedly at the cross-examination of Doctor Sherman, striving tobreak him down. So sharp, so rigid, so searching were her questions,that there were murmurs in the audience against such treatment of asincere, high-minded man of God. But the swiftness and cleverness ofher attack availed her nothing. Doctor Sherman, nerved by lastevening's talk beside the river, made never a slip.

  From the moment she reluctantly discharged him she felt that herchance--her chance for that day, at least--was gone. But she was thereto fight to the end, and she put her only witness, her father, uponthe stand. His defence, that he was the victim of a misunderstanding,was smiled at by the court-room--and smiled at with apparently goodreason, since Kennedy, in anticipation of the line of defense, hadintroduced the check from the Acme Filter Company which Dr. West hadturned over to the hospital board, to prove that the donation from thefilter company had been in Dr. West's hands at the time he hadreceived the bribe from Mr. Marcy. Dr. West testified that the lettercontaining this check had not been opened until many days after hisarrest, and Katharine took the stand and swore that it was she herselfwho had opened the envelope. But even while she testified she saw thatshe was not believed; and she had to admit within herself that herfather's story appeared absurdly implausible, compared to thetruth-visaged falsehoods of the prosecution.

  But when the evidence was all in and the time for argument was come,Katherine called up her every resource, she remembered that truth wason her side, and she presented the case clearly and logically, andended with a strong and eloquent plea for her father. As she sat down,there was a profound hush in the court-room.

  Her father squeezed her hand. Tears stood in his eyes.

  "Whatever happens," he whispered, "I'm proud of my daughter."

  Kennedy's address was brief and perfunctory, for the case seemed tooeasy to warrant his exertion. Still stimulated by the emotion arousedby her own speech and the sense of the righteousness of her cause,Katherine watched the jury go out with a fluttering hope. She stillclung to hope when, after a short absence, the jury filed back in. Sherose and held her breath while they took their seats.

  "You have reached a verdict, gentlemen?" asked Judge Kellog.

  "We have," answered the foreman.

  "What is it?"

  "We find the defendant guilty."

  Doctor West let out a little moan, and his head fell forward into hisarms. Katherine bent over him and whispered a word of comfort into hisear; then rose and made a motion for a new trial. Judge Kellog deniedthe motion, and haltingly asked Doctor West to step forward to thebar. Doctor West did so, and the two old men, who had been friendssince childhood, looked at each other for a space. Then in a huskyvoice Judge Kellog pronounced sentence: One thousand dollars fine andsix months in the county jail.

  It was a light sentence--but enough to blacken an honest name forlife, enough to break a sensitive heart like Doctor West's.

  A little later Katherine, holding an arm of her father tightly withinher own, walked with him and fat, good-natured Sheriff Nichols over tothe old brick county jail. And yet a little later, erect, eyesstraight before her, she came down the jail steps and startedhomeward.

  As she was passing along the Square, immediately before her HarrisonBlake came out of his stairway and started across the sidewalk to hiswaiting car. Discretion urged her to silence; but passion was thestronger. She stepped squarely up before him and flashed him a blazinglook.

  "Well--and so you think you've won!" she cried in a low voice.

  His colour changed, but instantly he was master of himself.

  "What, Katherine, you still persist in that absurd idea of yesterday."

  "Oh, drop that pretence! We know each other too well for that!" Shemoved nearer and, trembling from head to foot, her passionate defianceburst all bounds. "You think you have won, don't you!" she hotlycried. "Well, let me tell you that this affair is not merely a battlethat was to-day won and ended! It's a war--and I h
ave just begun tofight!"

  And sweeping quickly past him, she walked on into Main Street and downit through the staring crowds--very erect, a red spot in either cheek,her eyes defiantly meeting every eye.