by Mike Ashley
“Well,” replied Abner, “he has gone before a greater Judge.” Abner leaned back in his chair and his fingers rapped on the table.
“The law is not always justice,” he said. “Is it not the law that a man may buy a tract of land and pay down the price in gold and enter into the possession of it, and yet, if by inadvertence, the justice of the peace omits to write certain words into the acknowledgment of the deed, the purchaser takes no title and may be dispossessed of his lands?”
“That is the law,” said Dillworth emphatically; “it is the very point in my suit against these grazers. Squire Randolph could not find his copy of Mayo’s Guide on the day that the deeds were drawn and so he wrote from memory.”
Abner was silent for a moment.
“It is the law,” he said, “but is it justice, Dillworth?”
“Abner,” replied Dillworth, “how shall we know what justice is unless the law defines it?”
“I think every man knows what it is,” said Abner.
“And shall every man set up a standard of his own,” said Dillworth, “and disregard the standard that the law sets up? That would be the end of justice.”
“It would be the beginning of justice,” said Abner, “if every man followed the standard that God gives him.”
“But, Abner,” replied Dillworth, “is there a court that could administer justice if there were no arbitrary standard and every man followed his own?”
“I think there is such a court,” said Abner.
Dillworth laughed.
“If there is such a court it does not sit in Virginia.”
Then he settled his huge body in his chair and spoke like a lawyer who sums up his case.
“I know what you have in mind, Abner, but it is a fantastic notion. You would saddle every man with the thing you call a conscience, and let that ride him. Well, I would unsaddle him from that. What is right? What is wrong? These are vexed questions. I would leave them to the law. Look what a burden is on every man if he must decide the justice of every act as it comes up. Now the law would lift that burden from his shoulders, and I would let the law bear it.”
“But under the law,” replied Abner, “the weak and the ignorant suffer for their weakness and for this ignorance, and the shrewd and the cunning profit by their shrewdness and by their cunning. How would you help that?”
“Now, Abner,” said Dillworth, “to help that you would have to make the world over.”
Again Abner was silent for a while.
“Well,” he said, “perhaps it could be done if every man put his shoulder to the wheel.”
“But why should it be done?” replied Dillworth. “Does Nature do it? Look with what indifference she kills off the weakling. Is there any pity in her or any of your little soft concerns? I tell you these things are not to be found anywhere in Nature – they are man-made.”
“Or God-made,” said Abner.
“Call it what you like,” replied Dillworth, “it will be equally fantastic, and the law would be fantastic to follow after it. As for myself, Abner, I would avoid these trouble-some refinements. Since the law will undertake to say what is right and what is wrong I shall leave her to say it and let myself go free. What she requires me to give I shall give, and what she permits me to take I shall take, and there shall be an end of it.”
“It is an easy standard,” replied Abner, “and it simplifies a thing that I have come to see you about.”
“And what have you come to see me about?” said Dillworth. “I knew that it was for something you came.”
And he laughed a little, dry, nervous laugh.
I had observed this laugh breaking now and then into his talk and I had observed his uneasy manner ever since we came. There was something below the surface in this man that made him nervous and it was from that under thing that this laugh broke out.
“It is about your lawsuit,” said Abner.
“And what about it?”
“This,” said Abner. “That your suit has reached the point where you are not the man to have charge of it.”
“Abner,” cried Dillworth, “what do you mean?”
“I will tell you,” said Abner. “I have followed the progress of this suit, and you have won it. On any day that you call it up the judge will enter a decree, and yet for a year it has stood there on the docket and you have not called it up. Why?”
Dillworth did not reply, but again that dry, nervous laugh broke out.
“I will answer for you, Dillworth,” said Abner. “You are afraid!”
Abner extended his arm and pointed out over the pasture lands, growing dimmer in the gathering twilight, across the river, across the wood to where lights moved and twinkled.
“Yonder,” said Abner, “lives Lemuel Arnold; he is the only man who is a defendant in your suit, the others are women and children. I know Lemuel Arnold. I intended to stop this night with him until I thought of you. I know the stock he comes from. When Hamilton was buying scalps on the Ohio, and haggling with the Indians over the price to be paid for those of the women and the children, old Hiram Arnold walked into the conference. ‘Scalp-buyer,’ he said, ‘buy my scalps; there are no little ones among them,’ and he emptied out on to the table a bagful of scalps of the king’s soldiers. That man was Lemuel Arnold’s grandfather and that is the blood he has. You would call him violent and dangerous, Dillworth, and you would be right. He is violent and he is dangerous. I know what he told you before the courthouse door. And, Dillworth, you are afraid of that. And so you sit here looking out over these rich lands and coveting them in your heart – and are afraid to take them.”
The night was descending, and I sat on a step of the great porch, in the shadow, forgotten by these two men. Dillworth did not move, and Abner went on.
“That is bad for you, Dillworth, to sit here and brood over a thing like this. Plans will come to you that include ‘hell’s work’; this is no thing for you to handle. Put it into my hands.”
The man cleared his throat with that bit of nervous laugh.
“How do you mean – into your hands?” he said.
“Sell me the lawsuit,” replied Abner.
Dillworth sat back in his chair at that and covered his jaw with his hand, and for a good while he was silent.
“But it is these lands I want, Abner, not the money for them.”
“I know what you want,” said Abner, “and I will agree to give you a proportion of all the lands that I recover in the suit.”
“It ought to be a large proportion, then, for the suit is won.”
“As large as you like,” said Abner.
Dillworth got up at that and walked about the porch. One could tell the two things that were moving in his mind: that Abner was, in truth, the man to carry the thing through – he stood well before the courts and he was not afraid; and the other thing – How great a proportion of the lands could he demand? Finally he came back and stood before the table.
“Seven-eighths then. Is it a bargain?”
“It is,” said Abner. “Write out the contract.”
A Negro brought foolscap paper, ink, pens, and a candle and set them on the table. Dillworth wrote, and when he had finished he signed the paper and made his seal with a flourish of the pen after his signature. Then he handed the contract to Abner across the table.
Abner read it aloud, weighing each legal term and every lawyer’s phrase in it. Dillworth had knowledge of such things and he wrote with skill. Abner folded the contract carefully and put it into his pocket, then he got a silver dollar out of his leather wallet and flung it on to the table, for the paper read: “In consideration of one dollar cash in hand paid, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged.” The coin struck hard and spun on the oak board. “There,” he said, “is your silver. It is the money that Judas was paid in and, like that first payment to Judas, it is all you’ll get.”
Dillworth got on his feet. “Abner,” he said, “what do you drive at now?”
“This,” replied Abner
. “I have bought your lawsuit; I have paid you for it, and it belongs to me. The terms of that sale are written down and signed. You are to receive a portion of what I recover; but if I recover nothing you can receive nothing.”
“Nothing?” Dillworth echoed.
“Nothing!” replied Abner.
Dillworth put his big hands on the table and rested his body on them; his head drooped below his shoulders, and he looked at Abner across the table.
“You mean – you mean –”
“Yes,” said Abner, “that is what I mean. I shall dismiss this suit.”
“Abner,” the other wailed, “this is ruin – these lands – these rich lands!” And he put out his arms, as toward something that one loves. “I have been a fool. Give me back my paper.” Abner arose.
“Dillworth,” he said, “you have a short memory. You said that a man ought to suffer for his lack of care, and you shall suffer for yours. You said that pity was fantastic, and I find it fantastic now. You said that you would take what the law gives you; well, so shall I.”
The snivelling creature rocked his big body grotesquely in his chair.
“Abner,” he whined, “why did you come here to ruin me?”
“I did not come to ruin you,” said Abner. “I came to save you. But for me you would have done a murder.”
“Abner,” the man cried, “you are mad. Why should I do a murder?”
“Dillworth,” replied Abner, “there is a certain commandment prohibited, not because of the evil in it, but because of the thing it leads to – because there follows it – I use your own name, Dillworth, ‘hell’s work’. This afternoon you tried to kill Lemuel Arnold from an ambush.”
Terror was on the man. He ceased to rock his body. He leaned forward, staring at Abner, the muscles of his face flabby.
“Did you see me?”
“No,” replied Abner, “I did not.”
The man’s body seemed, at that, to escape from some hideous pressure. He cried out in relief, and his voice was like air wheezing from the bellows.
“It’s a lie! a lie! a lie!”
I saw Abner look hard at the man, but he could not strike a thing like that.
“It’s the truth,” he said, “you are the man; but when I stood in the thicket with your weapon in my hand I did not know it, and when I came here I did not know it. But I knew that this ambush was the work of a coward, and you were the only coward that I could think of. No,” he said, “do not delude yourself – that was no proof. But it was enough to bring me here. And the proof? I found it in this house. I will show it to you. But before I do that, Dillworth, I will return to you something that is yours.”
He put his hand into his pocket, took out a score of buckshot and dropped them on the table. They clattered off and rolled away on the floor.
“And that is how I saved you from murder, Dillworth. Before I put your gun back into the hollow log I drew all the charge in it except the powder.”
He advanced a step nearer to the table.
“Dillworth,” he said, “a little while ago I asked you a question that you could not answer. I asked you what lands were included in the notice of sale for delinquent taxes printed in that county newspaper. Half of the newspaper had been torn off, and with it the other half of that notice. And you could not answer. Do you remember that question, Dillworth? Well, when I asked it of you I had the answer in my pocket. The missing part of that notice was the wadding over the buckshot!”
He took a crumpled piece of newspaper out of his pocket and joined it to the other half lying before Dillworth on the table.
“Look,” he said, “how the edges fit!”
Murder in Old Manhattan
Frank Bonham
Frank Bonham (1914–88) may all too simply be remembered as a writer of cowboy stories but, as he himself remarked, he tried to avoid the conventional cowboy story and preferred to write about the Old West, recreating the hardship and perils of the pioneers. A good sample will be found in Best Western Stories of Frank Bonham (1989), compiled by Bill Pronzini. Bonham’s career stretched for over fifty years and when the pulp magazines died in the mid 1950s Bonham turned to writing for children and for television, including scripting several episodes of Wells Fargo. But Bonham wrote a lot more than western stories. His feel for the period and for the people made him an ideal candidate for writing period detective stories. Here is a long-forgotten historical whodunnit written in 1945 and set in the New York of 1857.
In Ludlow Street a fine rain was falling. Tom Church kept his shawl wrapped about the lower part of his face as the shrewish wind drove the fine drops against his skin like birdshot. There was no sidewalk; he and his companion kept their eyes out for the deeper puddles among the cobbles. They stopped across the street from a two-storey frame building.
“It’s Number Twenty-five,” Church said. “That’s it.”
There was no crowd. Death was no novelty in the Sixth Ward, even violent death. The landlady, a Mrs Garrity, took them to a room down a musty dark hall. With the key in the lock, she turned a resentful eye on them.
“I suppose you’ll be telling this to the Sun, won’t you, to help them sell a few papers and drive my renters away?”
“That’s as it may be,” said Detective-Sergeant Church. “Have you taken anything out of the room since you found her?”
Mrs Garrity sniffed. She was a slatternly creature, like her apartment-house, antiquated and ugly. “I aint been past the door,” she declared. “That is, only when I went in to see why she hadn’t been out today. Nor will I, while she’s in there!”
Dr Lucas, the district surgeon, went in as emotionlessly as though it were a patient he was going to see. But Church entered with sombre eyes. Say what you would, Death left a bit of himself in a room when he passed through. He greyed the light; he made the atmosphere musty.
He had done nothing for Jenny Thomas, the girl on the bed, either. He had blackened her features and drawn her eyes half out of her head. He had twisted her body under the blanket. She might have been pretty; it was hard to tell. The hair on the pillow was a rich brown. The arm slanting toward the floor was plump. She had been about twenty-five.
Dr Lucas had to cut the cord about her throat to loosen it. He had a way of muttering aloud everything he discovered: “Cyanosis, marked. Dead several hours. Scratches on face –”
Church stood by the bed, studying the carpetless flooring. He was a large man, growing slightly grey on the temples and more than a bit stout. His eyes, for all the grief they had witnessed, were still cheerful. He had developed leg-muscles and self-confidence in the Fourth Ward, in the days when a patrolman hadn’t even a uniform, only a badge and a club and a prayer; and now he was back again in civilian clothes as a detective. For this work he received a small raise in salary and his share of snickers.
Under a table at the head of the bed he found a pair of scissors. There was blood on one blade, though the only marks on Jenny’s body were the shallow scratches on her face. Near the bed he discovered a little rubble of cigar ash. It was scattered, as if the smoker had let the cigar drop here.
“Somebody,” he grunted, “knows where the good cigars are. That ash is as white as bone.” He hadn’t seen an ash like that in six months. Crop failures in the South, and a shortage of Havanas, had brought cigar-smokers to dark days.
He asked the landlady when she had seen the girl last.
“Two or three days ago,” Mrs Garrity told him. “But I heard her going in and out every day. And I’d hear her and her friends in here at night, laughing and carrying on like fools.”
“Gentlemen?”
Mrs Garrity crossed her skinny arms. “Well, detective, she worked in a millinery shop. Girls that work in millinery shops don’t live in up-to-date rooms like this one. I dare say some gentleman knows who paid the rent.”
She probably was telling the truth, Church knew. Even a dingy, airless room in Ludlow Street was above most shop-girls, with their fifty-cents-a-day earnings.
He asked: “Do you know any of her friends by name?”
“No sir. She had only one or two lately. Except there was a new one that came this morning. A ship’s captain. I let him know this was no Sailor’s Snug Harbour! Asking for Missus Thomas! He went in, but I dare say he didn’t stay two minutes. Even Jenny drew the line.”
“Did she have any visitors last night?”
“Well, yes – I heard a doctor leave her room just after the eleven-o’clock watch. ‘That will fix you up, young woman,’ he said. ‘But don’t be drinking swan gin on an empty stomach any more!’ ”
Church began to inventory the dead girl’s possessions. When he glanced over the list, one thing surprised him. Poor, Jenny Thomas may have been; but she had possessed luxuries far above the Sixth Ward. There were a small mother-of-pearl box, a picture worked in peacock’s feathers, five bottles of French perfume, a packet of China tea. On several of the articles he found an embossed gilt seal which read: “South Seas House. New York.”
There was, in addition to these, a small sheaf of letters addressed to Mrs Evan Thomas, in Bloomingdale. They were all from a Captain Evan Thomas, aboard the brig Philadelphia, at sea. In a bottom drawer, under some clothing, he found a fold of currency. He counted it; he counted it again.
“Look here!” he said to Dr Lucas. “Two hundred and thirty-seven dollars!”
Dr Lucas had looked long on the sordid side of life. He smiled cynically at Mrs Garrity. “You say she had gentlemen friends?”
“Enough, apparently! I dare say she couldn’t have made that much in a year.”
Tom Church put the letters, the money, and the trinkets in a pillowslip. He made a last tour of the room. “Whenever you’re ready, Doctor,” he said finally.
Dr Lucas was wrapping the girl’s body in a blanket. “Call a hack,” he said.
They laid the bundle across the floor of the hackney-cab and started uptown.
“Funny about the tea,” Church said, after a moment.
