The Tocsin, however, was not having everything its own way; the volume of outcry against Happy Fear and his lawyer had diminished, it was noticed, in “very respectable quarters.” The information imparted by Mike Sheehan to the politicians at Mr. Farbach’s had been slowly seeping through the various social strata of the town, and though at first incredulously rejected, it began to find acceptance; Upper Main Street cooling appreciably in its acceptance of the Tocsin as the law and the prophets. There were even a few who dared to wonder in their hearts if there had not been a mistake about Joe Louden; and although Mrs. Flitcroft weakened not, the relatives of Squire Buckalew and of Peter Bradbury began to hold up their heads a little, after having made home horrible for those gentlemen and reproached them with their conversion as the last word of senile shame. In addition, the Colonel’s grandson and Mr. Bradbury’s grandson had both mystifyingly lent countenance to Joe, consorting with him openly; the former for his own purposes — the latter because he had cunningly discovered that it was a way to Miss Tabor’s regard, which, since her gentle rejection of him, he had grown to believe (good youth!) might be the pleasantest thing that could ever come to him. In short, the question had begun to thrive: Was it possible that Eskew Arp had not been insane, after all?
The best of those who gathered ominously about the Court-house and its purlieus were the young farmers and field-hands, artisans and clerks; one of the latter being a pimply faced young man (lately from the doctor’s hands), who limped, and would limp for the rest of his life, he who, of all men, held the memory of Eskew Arp in least respect, and was burningly desirous to revenge himself upon the living.
The worst were of that mystifying, embryonic, semi-rowdy type, the American voyou, in the production of which Canaan and her sister towns everywhere over the country are prolific; the young man, youth, boy perhaps, creature of nameless age, whose clothes are like those of a brakeman out of work, but who is not a brakeman in or out of work; wearing the black, soft hat tilted forward to shelter — as a counter does the contempt of a clerk — that expression which the face does not dare wear quite in the open, asserting the possession of supreme capacity in wit, strength, dexterity, and amours; the dirty handkerchief under the collar; the short black coat always double-breasted; the eyelids sooty; one cheek always bulged; the forehead speckled; the lips cracked; horrible teeth; and the affectation of possessing secret information upon all matters of the universe; above all, the instinct of finding the shortest way to any scene of official interest to the policeman, fireman, or ambulance surgeon, — a singular being, not professionally criminal; tough histrionically rather than really; full of its own argot of brag; hysterical when crossed, timid through great ignorance, and therefore dangerous. It furnishes not the leaders but the mass of mobs; and it springs up at times of crisis from Heaven knows where. You might have driven through all the streets of Canaan, a week before the trial, and have seen four or five such fellows; but from the day of its beginning the Square was full of them, dingy shuttlecocks batted up into view by the Tocsin.
They kept the air whirring with their noise. The news of that sitting which had caused the Squire, Flitcroft, and Peter Bradbury to risk the Court’s displeasure, was greeted outside with loud and vehement disfavor; and when, at noon, the jurymen were marshalled out to cross the yard to the “National House” for dinner, a large crowd followed and surrounded them, until they reached the doors of the hotel. “Don’t let Lawyer Louden bamboozle you!” “Hang him!” “Tar and feathers fer ye ef ye don’t hang him!” These were the mildest threats, and Joe Louden, watching from an upper window of the Court-house, observed with a troubled eye how certain of the jury shrank from the pressure of the throng, how the cheeks of others showed sudden pallor. Sometimes “public sentiment” has done evil things to those who have not shared it; and Joe knew how rare a thing is a jury which dares to stand square against a town like Canaan aroused.
The end of that afternoon’s session saw another point marked for the defence; Joe had put the defendant on the stand, and the little man had proved an excellent witness. During his life he had been many things — many things disreputable; high standards were not brightly illumined for him in the beginning of the night-march which his life had been. He had been a tramp, afterward a petty gambler; but his great motive had finally come to be the intention to do what Joe told him to do: that, and to keep Claudine as straight as he could. In a measure, these were the two things that had brought him to the pass in which he now stood, his loyalty to Joe and his resentment of whatever tampered with Claudine’s straightness. He was submissive to the consequences: he was still loyal. And now Joe asked him to tell “just what happened,” and Happy obeyed with crystal clearness. Throughout the long, tricky cross-examination he continued to tell “just what happened” with a plaintive truthfulness not to be imitated, and throughout it Joe guarded him from pitfalls (for lawyers in their search after truth are compelled by the exigencies of their profession to make pitfalls even for the honest), and gave him, by various devices, time to remember, though not to think, and made the words “come right” in his mouth. So that before the sitting was over, a disquieting rumor ran through the waiting crowd in the corridors, across the Square, and over the town, that the case was surely going “Louden’s way.” This was also the opinion of a looker-on in Canaan — a ferret-faced counsellor of corporations who, called to consultation with the eminent Buckalew (nephew of the Squire), had afterward spent an hour in his company at the trial. “It’s going that young fellow Louden’s way,” said the stranger. “You say he’s a shyster, but—”
“Well,” admitted Buckalew, with some reluctance, “I don’t mean that exactly. I’ve got an old uncle who seems lately to think he’s a great man.”
“I’ll take your uncle’s word for it,” returned the other, smiling. “I think he’ll go pretty far.”
They had come to the flight of steps which descended to the yard, — and the visitor, looking down upon the angry crowd, added, “If they don’t kill him!”
Joe himself was anxious concerning no such matter. He shook hands with Happy at the end of the sitting, bidding him be of good cheer, and, when the little man had marched away, under a strong guard, began to gather and sort his papers at a desk inside the bar. This took him perhaps five minutes, and when he had finished there were only three people left in the room: a clerk, a negro janitor with a broom, and the darky friend who always hopefully accompanies a colored man holding high public office. These two approvingly greeted the young lawyer, the janitor handing him a note from Norbert Flitcroft, and the friend mechanically “borrowing” a quarter from him as he opened the envelope.
“I’ll be roun’ yo’ way to git a box o’ SE-gahs,” laughed the friend, “soon ez de campaign open up good. Dey all goin’ vote yo’ way, down on the levee bank, but dey sho’ expecks to git to smoke a little ‘fo’ leckshun-day! We knows who’s OW frien’!”
Norbert’s missive was lengthy and absorbing; Joe went on his way, perusing it with profound attention; but as he descended the stairway to the floor below, a loud burst of angry shouting, outside the building, caused him to hasten toward the big front doors which faced Main Street. The doors opened upon an imposing vestibule, from which a handsome flight of stone steps, protected by a marble balustrade, led to the ground.
Standing at the top of these steps and leaning over the balustrade, he had a clear view of half the yard. No one was near him; everybody was running in the opposite direction, toward that corner of the yard occupied by the jail, the crowd centring upon an agitated whirlpool of men which moved slowly toward a door in the high wall that enclosed the building; and Joe saw that Happy Fear’s guards, conducting the prisoner back to his cell, were being jostled and rushed. The distance they had made was short, but as they reached the door the pressure upon them increased dangerously. Clubs rose in the air, hats flew, the whirlpool heaved tumultuously, and the steel door clanged.
Happy Fear was safe inside, but the
jostlers were outside — baffled, ugly, and stirred with the passion that changes a crowd into a mob.
Then some of them caught sight of Joe as he stood alone at the top of the steps, and a great shout of rage and exultation arose.
For a moment or two he did not see his danger. At the clang of the door, his eyes, caught by the gleam of a wide white hat, had turned toward the street, and he was somewhat fixedly watching Mr. Ladew extricate Ariel (and her aged and indignant escorts) from an overflow of the crowd in which they had been caught. But a voice warned him: the wild piping of a newsboy who had climbed into a tree near by.
“JOE LOUDEN!” he screamed. “LOOK OUT!”
With a muffled roar the crowd surged back from the jail and turned toward the steps. “Tar and feather him!” “Take him over to the river and throw him in!” “Drown him!” “Hang him!”
Then a thing happened which was dramatic enough in its inception, but almost ludicrous in its effect. Joe walked quietly down the steps and toward the advancing mob with his head cocked to one side, one eyebrow lifted, and one corner of his mouth drawn down in a faintly distorted smile.
He went straight toward the yelling forerunners, with only a small bundle of papers in his hands, and then — while the non-partisan spectators held their breath, expecting the shock of contact — straight on through them.
A number of the bulge-cheeked formed the scattering van of these forerunners, charging with hoarse and cruel shrieks of triumph. The first, apparently about to tear Joseph Louden to pieces, changed countenance at arm’s-length, swerved violently, and with the loud cry, “HEAD HIM OFF!” dashed on up the stone steps. The man next behind him followed his lead, with the same shout, strategy, and haste; then the others of this advance attack, finding themselves confronting the quiet man, who kept his even pace and showed no intention of turning aside for them, turned suddenly aside for HIM, and, taking the cue from the first, pursued their way, bellowing: “HEAD HIM OFF! HEAD HIM OFF!” until there were a dozen and more rowdyish men and youths upon the steps, their eyes blazing with fury, menacing Louden’s back with frightful gestures across the marble balustrade, as they hysterically bleated the chorus, “HEAD HIM OFF!”
Whether or not Joe could have walked through the entire mob as he had walked through these is a matter for speculation; it was believed in Canaan that he could. Already a gust of mirth began to sweep over the sterner spirits as they paused to marvel no less at the disconcerting advance of the lawyer than at the spectacle presented by the intrepid dare-devils upon the steps; a kind of lane actually opening before the young man as he walked steadily on. And when Mr. Sheehan, leading half a dozen huge men from the Farbach brewery, unceremoniously shouldered a way through the mob to Joe’s side, reaching him where the press was thickest, it is a question if the services of his detachment were needed.
The laughter increased. It became voluminous. Homeric salvos shook the air. And never one of the fire-eaters upon the steps lived long enough to live down the hateful cry of that day, “HEAD HIM OFF!” which was to become a catch-word on the streets, a taunt more stinging than any devised by deliberate invention, an insult bitterer than the ancestral doubt, a fighting-word, and the great historical joke of Canaan, never omitted in after-days when the tale was told how Joe Louden took that short walk across the Court-house yard which made him Mayor of Canaan.
XXIV. MARTIN PIKE KEEPS AN ENGAGEMENT
AN HOUR LATER, Martin Pike, looking forth from the Mansion, saw a man open the gate, and, passing between the unemotional deer, rapidly approach the house. He was a thin young fellow, very well dressed in dark gray, his hair prematurely somewhat silvered, his face prematurely somewhat lined, and his hat covered a scar such as might have been caused by a blow from a blunt instrument in the nature of a poker.
He did not reach the door, nor was there necessity for him to ring, for, before he had set foot on the lowest step, the Judge had hastened to meet him. Not, however, with any fulsomely hospitable intent; his hand and arm were raised to execute one of his Olympian gestures, of the kind which had obliterated the young man upon a certain by-gone morning.
Louden looked up calmly at the big figure towering above him.
“It won’t do, Judge,” he said; that was all, but there was a significance in his manner and a certainty in his voice which caused the uplifted hand to drop limply; while the look of apprehension which of late had grown more and more to be Martin Pike’s habitual expression deepened into something close upon mortal anxiety.
“Have you any business to set foot upon my property?” he demanded.
“Yes,” answered Joe. “That’s why I came.”
“What business have you got with me?”
“Enough to satisfy you, I think. But there’s one thing I don’t want to do” — Joe glanced at the open door— “and that is to talk about it here — for your own sake and because I think Miss Tabor should be present. I called to ask you to come to her house at eight o’clock to-night.”
“You did!” Martin Pike spoke angrily, but not in the bull-bass of yore; and he kept his voice down, glancing about him nervously as though he feared that his wife or Mamie might hear. “My accounts with her estate are closed,” he said, harshly. “If she wants anything, let her come here.”
Joe shook his head. “No. You must be there at eight o’clock.”
The Judge’s choler got the better of his uneasiness. “You’re a pretty one to come ordering me around!” he broke out. “You slanderer, do you suppose I haven’t heard how you’re going about traducing me, undermining my character in this community, spreading scandals that I am the real owner of Beaver Beach—”
“It can easily be proved, Judge,” Joe interrupted, quietly, “though you’re wrong: I haven’t been telling people. I haven’t needed to — even if I’d wished. Once a thing like that gets out you can’t stop it — ever! That isn’t all: to my knowledge you own other property worse than the Beach; I know that you own half of the worst dens in the town: profitable investments, too. You bought them very gradually and craftily, only showing the deeds to those in charge — as you did to Mike Sheehan, and not recording them. Sheehan’s betrayal of you gave me the key; I know most of the poor creatures who are your tenants, too, you see, and that gave me an advantage because they have some confidence in me. My investigations have been almost as quiet and careful as your purchases.”
“You damned blackmailer!” The Judge bent upon him a fierce, inquiring scrutiny in which, oddly enough, there was a kind of haggard hopefulness. “And out of such stories,” he sneered, “you are going to try to make political capital against the Tocsin, are you?”
“No,” said Joe. “It was necessary in the interests of my client for me to know pretty thoroughly just what property you own, and I think I do. These pieces I’ve mentioned are about all you have not mortgaged. You couldn’t do that without exposure, and you’ve kept a controlling interest in the Tocsin clear, too — for the sake of its influence, I suppose. Now, do you want to hear any more, or will you agree to meet me at Miss Tabor’s this evening?”
Whatever the look of hopefulness had signified, it fled from Pike’s face during this speech, but he asked with some show of contempt, “Do you think it likely?”
“Very well,” said Joe, “if you want me to speak here.” And he came a little closer to him. “You bought a big block of Granger Gas for Roger Tabor,” he began, in a low voice. “Before his death you sold everything he had, except the old house, put it all into cash for him, and bought that stock; you signed the check as his attorney-in-fact, and it came back to you through the Washington National, where Norbert Flitcroft handled it. He has a good memory, and when he told me what he knew, I had him to do some tracing; did a little myself, also. Judge Pike, I must tell you that you stand in danger of the law. You were the custodian of that stock for Roger Tabor; it was transferred in blank; though I think you meant to be ‘legal’ at that time, and that was merely for convenience in case Roger had wished you
to sell it for him. But just after his death you found yourself saddled with distillery stock, which was going bad on your hands. Other speculations of yours were failing at the same time; you had to have money — you filed your report as administrator, crediting Miss Tabor with your own stock which you knew was going to the wall, and transferred hers to yourself. Then you sold it because you needed ready money. You used her fortune to save yourself — but you were horribly afraid! No matter how rotten your transactions had been, you had always kept inside the law; and now that you had gone outside of it, you were frightened. You didn’t dare come flat out to Miss Tabor with the statement that her fortune had gone; it had been in your charge all the time and things might look ugly. So you put it off, perhaps from day to day. You didn’t dare tell her until you were forced to, and to avoid the confession you sent her the income which was rightfully hers. That was your great weakness.”
Joe had spoken with great rapidity, though keeping his voice low, and he lowered it again, as he continued: “Judge Pike, what chance have you to be believed in court when you swear that you sent her twenty thousand dollars out of the goodness of your heart? Do you think SHE believed you? It was the very proof to her that you had robbed her. For she knew you! Do you want to hear more now? Do you think this is a good place for it? Do you wish me to go over the details of each step I have taken against you, to land you at the bar where this poor fellow your paper is hounding stands to-day?”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 90
