MRS1 The Under Dogs

by Hulbert Footner

  Every trial is interesting. The very structure of a trial corresponds to that of a play on the stage, with the bringing in of the verdict for the grand climax. And a trial—even such an unimportant trial as this one—brings together such a curious dramatis personæ. There was that fascinating problem of a girl; there was Shryock, the sublimated shyster; there was McDaniels, the honest, dogged bully; there was Mrs. Cranstoun, whose pearl necklace had been stolen, an exquisite, artificial, inane little person; there was Recorder Teague with his ascetic, beautiful face, probably calculating how he could meet the monthly household accounts, while he made believe to be listening to the evidence; and finally, there was me, taking it all in, and trying to strike through to the mystery that I was assured lay behind this very ordinary case.

  Mrs. Cranstoun was the first witness. Mrs. Cranstoun was one of those egregiously expensive little matrons who pose as "leaders." Leaders of what, God knows! There are so many of these leaders scattered up and down Park Avenue, one wonders where they can collect enough followers to go around. Mrs. Cranstoun stated that she was the owner of a necklace of seventy-eight matched pearls that was valued, roughly, at thirty thousand dollars. She was very careful of her things, she informed the court; never left them lying about; never trusted servants foolishly; and had never before had a loss.

  She had had a replica of the necklace made, she said, and kept the real pearls in a safe deposit box. Since all her friends knew that she possessed a necklace of that value, she naively explained, it did just as much good to wear the artificial pearls around. But occasionally she had to get the real pearls out, because if they were not worn sometimes she had been told they would lose their lustre. On such occasions, she said, she visited the safe deposit vault without telling anybody of her intention, changed the artificial pearls for the real, wore the latter for a couple of days, then returned them to safe-keeping. She did not even tell her husband when she was wearing the real pearls. Nobody could have told except an expert in gems.

  She went on to tell how she had engaged Melanie Soupert—but under the name of Rose Dawson, as a parlour-maid. She had advertised in the newspapers for a parlour-maid. No, that was not her usual custom. She obtained her servants through a high-class agency. But there was a shortage at this time; they sent her nobody, and she was forced to advertise. She liked the looks of the girl, who was very neat and polite. She could see from her hands, of course, that she was not accustomed to domestic service, but all kinds of people drift in and out of service, and she was thankful to get anybody. The girl offered her references, which she did not investigate as closely as she ought.

  The prisoner had been working for her a few days, a week, perhaps, when she, Mrs. Cranstoun, had occasion to get her pearls out of the vault. No, she was perfectly sure she had told nobody of her intention. The chauffeur drove her to the bank, of course, but she went there often, and for many other reasons besides getting out the pearls. During the rest of that day she wore the real pearls. That night she and Mr. Cranstoun attended the Follies. Upon retiring for the night, she dropped the necklace in a jewel-box, on her dressing-table, which had no lock. It was part of her system to treat the real pearls, when she was wearing them, exactly the same as the artificial ones.

  In the morning, when she went for them, she found them gone. Mrs. Cranstoun gave the jury a moving account of her emotions upon discovering her loss, while Recorder Teague's Adam's apple moved up and down with swallowed yawns. Mrs. Cranstoun telephoned to the police, and within half an hour a detective officer was sitting in her living-room. All the servants were rigorously quizzed—Melanie amongst the others—and their rooms searched, but nothing came of it. The parlour-maid answered up as cool as you please, and the officer did not suspect her. He said it was an outside job, and affected to discover finger-prints on the window-sill.

  The prisoner remained on for five days after the theft. Then she dropped a valuable sang de boeuf vase, and smashed it. When Mrs. Cranstoun reprimanded her, she answered back pertly, and Mrs. Cranstoun discharged her on the spot. Looking back, she could see, of course, that the girl had smashed the vase on purpose to pave the way for her escape from the house.

  Meanwhile, there was no word of the missing pearls, and despairing of getting any results from the police, Mrs. Cranstoun consulted Mr. McDaniels, who had been recommended to her by a friend whose jewels he had recovered. Several of her friends had consulted Mr. McDaniels upon one occasion or another, with entire satisfaction. And, indeed, when she described the discharged parlour-maid to him, he had immediately said: "Melanie Soupert." Within ten days Mr. McDaniels had recovered all her pearls from the various pawnshops where they had been pledged, and had secured the arrest of the girl.

  While Mrs. Cranstoun was testifying, it was curious to see how she and Melanie sought to insult each other with exactly the same sort of glances of animal indifference. You know how women look at each other. In other words, the moral natures of accused and accuser were about the same; the difference between them was merely a matter of money. I never can understand this indifference of humans to humans. If a woman stole a pearl necklace from me I should be extraordinarily interested in her.

  When Mrs. Cranstoun concluded her testimony, Jim Shryock arose and said: "No cross-examination." From the oily smile he bent upon the witness, one would have supposed that he was her lawyer.

  This attitude of Shryock's was my first proof that this was not just an ordinary case. As the trial proceeded, he made it clear that he had no intention of exerting himself to get the girl off. From his cynical expression the jury might gather that the girl's guilt could be taken for granted. This made me very indignant. She was guilty, no doubt, but just the same she was not getting a fair trial. And the nerve of the super-shyster! He intended that everybody should see that he had abandoned the girl. It was absolutely unethical, of course, but such was the evil prestige of the man that nobody had the courage to call him.

  The only other important witness was John McDaniels. An experienced witness, the big man was entirely matter-of-fact upon the stand. This was all in the day's work for him. He described the various steps he had taken to recover the pearls, and apprehend the girl, which I need not go into here. As soon as he heard Mrs. Cranstoun's tale, he suspected Melanie Soupert was the thief, because it was her speciality to engage herself as a parlour-maid and steal her mistress's jewels when the opportunity offered. One of the cleverest jewel thiefs in the business. Always worked single-handed. She possessed several genuine letters of recommendation from well-known women, which she had stolen or purchased from the real Rose Dawson.

  McDaniels recited Melanie's criminal record with deadly particularity. She had first been arrested for stealing her mistress's jewels, when only seventeen years old. Had been sentenced to a reformatory, but being a first offender, and on account of her youth, had soon been parolled. Shortly afterwards she was back in the dock, charged with a similar crime; and this time she had received a prison sentence, which she had served, with the customary allowance off. Two years before, she had once more been arrested, and convicted of robbery, and had been sentenced to Woburn Prison for five years. After serving but a month or two, she had broken out of prison, and the unexpired sentence was still awaiting her at Woburn.

  McDaniels had finally come up with her, he said, in a flat on Avenue A, where she was living with a young man called George Mullen, whom she had recently married. The proceeds of the robbery had partly gone to furnish the flat. This Mullen was a hard-working young fellow, unknown to the police. Apparently he was unaware of his wife's criminal activities. When he had learned of it, he had repudiated her. Upon being arrested, Melanie had admitted her guilt, but subsequently denied it.

  These dry statements of McDaniels caused me to look at the girl with a new and extraordinary interest. I am a spinster, and no less sentimental, I suppose, than others. A bride! Ah, the poor young thing! The fact that she was a thief was not to say she was not capable of feeling all the tremulous hap
piness of a bride. And her honeymoon had been broken up by the brutal intrusion of McDaniels! And her young husband had turned from her! What a poor stick he must have been. Yet you couldn't blame him, either, if he had supposed her virtuous. It was a pitiful situation all round. Melanie sat listening with half a sneer on her comely face. God knows what pain that sneer conceals, I thought.

  Shryock's cross-examination of McDaniels was merely perfunctory. No facts favourable to the girl were brought out.

  To make a long story short, the jury returned a verdict of guilty without leaving their seats. Only one of the twelve betrayed any concern for the girl; an insignificant little man in the upper corner of the jury box, who looked at Melanie with compassionate eyes. But he had not force of character enough to make a stand against the other eleven. Mrs. Cranstoun, in her expensive clothes, with the pearls (real or phony) around her neck, openly exulted. Melanie herself gave no sign, except that the painful curl in her lip became emphasised.

  Before sentencing her Recorder Teague hesitated. I had seen that Shryock's cynical attitude towards his client had made the worthy man uneasy during the trial. He was a political judge, and had to consider his re-election; he dared not openly rebuke the powerful lawyer, but I am sure he would have liked to do something for the girl. He began to question her with a view to bringing out something favourable to her.

  "Have you anything to say?"

  "What's the use?" said Melanie, sneering.

  "Is your husband in the court-room?"

  "No."

  "If you went straight, would not your husband return to you?"

  Melanie's dark eyes flashed at him. "I wouldn't go back to him," she said. "He's yellow."

  The judge bit his lip, and tried again. "Are your parents living?"

  "That's neither here nor there," said Melanie. "They have nothing to do with this."

  "Have you no desire to lead a respectable life?"

  "A-ah! sentence me! sentence me!" cried Melanie with harsh effrontery. "It's bad enough to be tried without having to listen to a moral lecture!"

  What could anybody do for a girl like that?

  The Recorder flushed, and took her at her word. Not less than five years, and not more than ten at Woburn Prison. This sentence to begin when she had finished serving her unexpired term there.

  She was guilty and unrepentant; nevertheless, it caused my breast the sharpest twinge of pain. It was the thought of youth and beauty locked up useless in a narrow cell. All too clearly I could picture her as she would come out in ten years, or whenever it might be, faded, hard and desperate; quite spoiled.

  Melanie stood up with a hard smile. Evidently she intended to carry the thing through with the same reckless bravado. "Thanks, Judge," she drawled, hand on hip. And to the jury: "Much obliged for your consideration, gentlemen. Come and see me some time. You know my address."

  One could hear the spectators catch their breaths in horrified delight at the girl's impudence.

  But her feelings were getting the best of her. Her sneering assurance broke up. I saw her press her teeth into her lower lip, while her breast heaved irregularly. I felt it in my own breast. Hysteria. Suddenly she cried out in a high unnatural voice.

  "You all think pretty well of yourselves, don't you? You, who come here to try me; and you who come to see me tried...." This, with a violent sweeping gesture. "Well, here I am! Look! Look! And to hell with you! Now you can go home and gorge yourselves, and snore in your beds. It's a grand thing not to be found out, isn't it? I'm thankful I'm not respectable. I'm a crook, and I'm proud of it. In my cell there'll be no strings on me. I don't have to lie to butter my bread. But you ... but you! You're rotten, all of you. You respectable people work together to make the world a mean and dirty place. I despise you...!"

  The rest was incoherent. It was curious to see how the hearers in the court-room revealed their natures. Either like Jim Shryock or Mrs. Cranstoun, they grinned with a hideous pleasure; or, like John McDaniels, they were stolidly indifferent. Recorder Teague flushed deeply with anger, and rapped smartly with his gavel.

  "Remove that woman!" he commanded.

  Melanie was hustled out, shrieking insensately.

  I made my way out of the court-room along with the other spectators. Most of them seemed to be curiously elated by the sensational conclusion of the trial, and even strangers discussed it with each other animatedly. But I felt a little sick at heart.

  CHAPTER III

  MME. STOREY

  I would like to draw a complete, full-length portrait of my mistress, Mme. Storey, but it is beyond my powers. The best I can do is to portray her in action, and leave it to my readers to form their own conclusions. At this time I had been with her as her secretary for over two years; and it was true, as she said, that there were few people who knew her as well as I did. But that is not to say that I knew her completely; there was a high quality in her nature that escaped my comprehension. She was the only disinterested woman I ever knew. Imagine a woman whose judgment was never swayed by her feelings! In this respect I am no more than an average woman myself, consequently the manifestation of her disinterestedness always astonished me.

  Like other great-souled people, she found but few souls to commune with on this dusty sphere. On the other hand, living in the full glare of publicity, she was much at the mercy of fools. In order to protect herself, she had gradually built up the Mme. Storey of the popular imagination; the tall, exotic, unmoved beauty, to whom, without any necessity of exerting herself, everything was revealed. She seemed to exist in an atmosphere miles above that of ordinary people. Mme. Storey was she who could not be deceived. A thousand stories were told of her extraordinary insight as well as her personal foibles; her amazing clothes; her cigarettes; the objects of art with which she surrounded herself; her array of rare perfumes; the fantastically dressed black ape who sat upon her arm. She had become almost a legendary figure.

  She had deliberately cultivated this faculty of inspiring people with awe of her. It was good for business, and it kept fools at arm's length. Well do I remember how terrified I was when she first swam into my ken. But it was not the real Mme. Storey. From very old people, or from children, or from any soul in trouble, she made no pretence of hiding her kind heart. After two years daily association I knew her better than anybody. When we were alone together, she threw off her public manner with relief; and emerged keen, human, lovable and full of laughter. But there was always a suggestion of that awe-inspiring quality behind; something about her one could not quite reach.

  She was one of the most beautiful women in New York, but the fame of her beauty was far overshadowed by that of her mind. Men marvelled at the sang-froid with which she pointed to the solution of the most baffling problems. At a single phrase of Mme. Storey's, whole vast structures of evasions and circumlocutions and false reasoning would collapse like a house of cards, revealing the simple truth. Somebody said, after the famous smoke-bandit case: "The cleverest man in town is a woman;" but that conveys a false idea. Mme. Storey's wonderful mind was wholly feminine; her success was due to the fact that she refused to force it into masculine channels of thought. She worked by intuition, that swifter and surer process of reasoning. Unfortunately, in a man-ruled world, intuition is at a discount, and Mme. Storey was obliged to spend a good three-fourths of her time proving to judges, juries, and other men, that her unerring intuitions were true according to their cumbrous rules of logic and reason.

  Our offices are on the parlour floor of a splendid old dwelling on Gramercy Park, which has been sub-divided. We do not hang out a shingle, for the whole town knows its way there. Mme. Storey describes herself as a "practical psychologist," to which she sometimes adds, with a twinkle in her eye, "specialising in the feminine." The style and the location of the rooms makes them equally well adapted for either business or social activities. Sometimes Mme. Storey gives parties in the beautiful long room, where the famous treasures of the Italian renaissance are displayed. Only her ultim
ate friends know the inside of the delightful little house on East Sixty-third street, that she shares with Mrs. Lysaght. Those rooms are decorated in a very different style; less glorious, but more inviting.

  On the day that I spent in attendance at the Soupert trial, we left a boy in charge of the office, and Mme. Storey remained working at home. She was busy with the well-remembered case of Admiral Van der Venter, who was subject to such curious lapses of personality. I went to her there, and was shown into that enchanting living-room, so quaintly furnished in the style of 1850. The windows faced south, and overlooked a tiny formal garden in the rear of the house. The invaluable Grace served us tea and little chocolate cakes, and any one who had seen my mistress en négligée, munching chocolate cakes, could not have thought her otherwise than purely feminine.

  She listened with close attention to my account of the trial.

  "What do you make of it?" she asked, when I had done.

  "I was sorry for the girl," I said. "But I think we ought to keep in mind the possibility that there may be nothing in it, beyond what appears on the surface. She's a thorough egoist, and it may be she thinks there is something deep, dark, and mysterious about her case, just because it is her case. When she lost control of herself, and became hysterical, surely if there was anything behind it all, it must have come out then."

  Mme. Storey shook her head. "Not badly argued," she said, "but I feel you are wrong. There is one false assumption in your reasoning. I have not found that women tell the truth in their hysterical outbursts, or that they give away anything they don't want to have known. Hysteria is largely a self-induced state, and a woman who can bring it on can make it work for her."