Tilley grunted. “Drinking, more likely,” he observed. “Kilgore’s a boozer, and a chaser, and a reproach to the Territorial Bar. He’s—”
“—a fighter!” said Clem quietly.
Tilley halted. “Yeah, I’ll give him that,” he conceded. “But only a disreputable fee-grabber would agree to defend Harry McCandless on this charge of murder.”
Clem arose. “I don’t want to hear this—” he began, when Laurie Morgan seized his wrist. “Erskine, you’re new to the Territory,” she said bitterly. “You don’t know what kind of a man Harry McCandless is. Are you sure you want to start out on the wrong foot?”
“Wrong foot?” Clem was puzzled.
Tilley was toying with a knife. “I happen to know about your record back in Colorado, young feller,” he advised. “I’m not too sure we’d admit a convicted thief to the Territorial Bar. Not unless he gave proof of good morals and improved character satisfactory to our courts.” He smiled like a wolf. “It’s just a thought.”
Clem felt the blood drain from his cheeks. “I’m sorry you said that, Mr. Tilley. I’ll have to report this conversation to Mr. Kilgore and he’ll know what action to take. If you’ll excuse me—”
“Oh, sit down!” said Tilley in a complaining voice. “I’m only giving you a bit of advice. Dan McCandless is hated in the Territory. If you don’t watch your step, you’ll be marked and that can wreck you before you start out. I’ve got no personal ax.”
Laurie Morgan had been sitting through this exchange between the men with a tight mouth of disapproval. “You haven’t watched Harry McCandless grow up. We have,” she said bitterly. “He should have been strangled in his crib. Eh, Joel?”
Tilley sat quietly in the hum and clatter of the dining room. A conversation in voluble Spanish arose and died in a corner of the room, and the banging of trays could be heard in the kitchen. His inward glance seemed to be on a distant scene.
“I knew him when he was a baby,” he observed, almost to himself. “Knew the whole McCandless family then, especially Dan. Let me tell you something, young feller. A man can fool his friends, a man can fool his wife, but he can’t fool his law partner—and we were partners. In those days, it was just after the big war, and there was a different spirit. We were all starting out and here was the Territory, with all this rich land and opportunities—and not too much law. A man had to depend on hisself and his friends. A partner—”
Tilley broke off a train of reminiscences and wiped his forehead with the napkin. He exchanged an enigmatic glance with Laurie Morgan and resumed the thread of conversation turning on the infancy of Harry McCandless. “There was always a devil in that boy,” he observed. “He was a terrible baby. Smashed all his toys, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t become house-broken. He wasn’t weaned till he was close on five. Had Spanish wet nurses to give him the breast, until the day he took a grudge on his nurse. Bit her till blood flowed, and then nobody would nurse him any longer, so he was weaned. At five!”
Laurie said, “We could tell you plenty about him. How Dan gave him a puppy and Harry flayed it. He was ten, I think. We could tell you about the women Harry had—he’d take a ranchero’s wife practically in front of the man’s eyes, and nobody dared say otherwise.” Laurie shook her head. “I warned Honey not to take up with him, but she said he had calmed down some since going to college.”
“Since getting expelled from college,” Tilley said. “Dan’s bribed schoolmasters all his life to keep Harry enrolled.”
“Kilgore is defending a monster,” Laurie burst out vindictively. “Don’t think I’m taking it personal because my own girl was brutally murdered. Harry ought to be exterminated for the good of all mankind, that’s what.”
Clem moistened his lips, not certain how to take the extravagant description of Harry McCandless. In his own mind was the recollection of a graceful youth whose eyes were alert with intelligence and whose manner was cultivated to a degree unusual to the Territory.
“I don’t believe any of this,” he said decidedly. “It’s easy enough for stories to get around. It’s all part of the smokescreen that’s affecting this trial. In any case, Mrs. Morgan, much as I sympathize with your position, it’s a matter for the courts. We don’t hang a man just because he’s got a mean reputation.”
“We hang murderers,” said Laurie grimly.
Clem shook his head. “Mrs. Morgan, I’m terribly moved by your grief, but there has got to be proof of guilt. With all respect, Mr. Tilley,” he added, “the case so far is just inference piled on inference. Finding a fraternity pin on the body don’t establish that the owner of the pin put it there. It only shows that he gave her a pin sometime during her life. It looks suspicious, but there’s no motive—”
“No motive?” Laurie echoed.
“Quiet, Laurie,” said Tilley.
“No motive?” Laurie repeated, rising and knocking over a glass, spilling wine on the fine cloth. “There’s all the motive in the world, young man! I’ll tell you—”
“Shush!” said Tilley peremptorily. Laurie rounded on her companion. “Don’t you shush me, Joel Tilley!” She said strongly. There was a stir in the restaurant, and faces began to turn toward the rising disturbance. “I’m not giving away anything. This is one fact Jake Kilgore won’t be able to laugh off.” She turned to Clem again. “Harry McCandless was going to marry my daughter.”
Clem frowned. “Marry? I don’t see—”
“He proposed to her on a hayride last month,” Laurie added. “He gave her a diamond ring worth two thousand dollars.”
Clem’s eyes widened. “He—he did?”
Laurie nodded triumphantly. “Oh, he promised her the sun and the moon. I saw that ring myself last time I saw Honey in San Carlos. Diamond as big as a five-dollar goldpiece, maybe. Prettiest stone I ever saw. But then the next week Harry McCandless snatched the ring back from her.”
“Laurie, stop it!” Tilley warned.
“I’ll stop when I want to!” she shot back at him. She continued, “Harry could be expected to do that—give the ring, then change his mind. I just about was ready to get her to institute civil action to get that ring away from him again. And sue for breach of promise. Well, Harry must have got wind from Honey that I was going to get her to take him into court.”
“Suppose he did?”
Laurie paused. “I think Harry would do anything before he’d admit any of this to his father.”
Tilley said shrewdly, “Didn’t Harry tell any of this to Kilgore? No, I can see he didn’t! Scared stiff!”
Laurie said, “I’m still going to bring that action against McCandless. That ring belonged to Honey, and now it belongs to me!”
“And how much do you expect for that piece of blackmail?” asked a new voice suddenly.
Clem turned in surprise, as did the others. It was Carlotta!
There was a moment of silence.
“How long have you been standing behind our backs?” Laurie demanded finally.
Carlotta’s hands were shaking. “A minute, perhaps. Long enough to hear your dirty scheme to extort money from my father.”
The two women exchanged glances, and it was the older woman whose eyes finally were lowered.
“It’s not blackmail,” said Laurie grimly. “I only want justice. Justice for my little girl, my poor dead little girl. It’s something I’ll get if I have to die for it.”
“Justice—and two thousand dollars,” said Carlotta with contempt. “You’ll get the one, but not the other. Not at our expense!”
“You fancy bitch—!” Laurie began with rising fury.
Joel Tilley said in his ominous voice, “Calm yourself, Laurie. This is a public restaurant, and you’re making the management uncomfortable. We shouldn’t have invited this young man over.”
“That’s all right,” Clem said. “I’m going back to my own table now.”
Tilley leaned back and ran his fingers through the stiff wires of his beard. “A word of free advice, son. You’re a well-t
urned-out boy, and I’d hate to see you get yourself into any trouble.”
“Sir?”
“What I mean is simple. You’re putting your life in danger by siding with Dan McCandless. If you ever want to practice law, get away from San Carlos and from Kilgore. What you’re doing now isn’t healthy. Go East, maybe. Out here you may not find it safe, understand?”
“Are you threatening me, Mr. Tilley?”
“I’m advising you in a friendly way. There are a lot of lawyers in this Territory who may not live to see that new century dawn in a few years.”
Clem nodded frostily. “I’ll take my chances. Good day, Mr. Tilley, Mrs. Morgan. Miss Carlotta, care to join me for dinner?”
They withdrew to the small table Clem had originally occupied. A few moments later, Laurie and Tilley rose and left the dining room. Clem and Carlotta consulted the menu and ordered—garlic soup and arroz con pollo for Clem, the same soup and cordero asado, roast lamb, for Carlotta. A few moments passed as they collected their thoughts. When the attentive and overly curious waiter had left, Carlotta looked up with a lurking smile.
“So you’ve met Joel Tilley?” she remarked. “I imagine he had a few things to say about my father?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Not complimentary?”
“No. He seemed to be giving me a warning,” Clem said slowly. “Telling me to clear out of this case if I wanted to live out a natural lifetime.”
“You’re not frightened?”
“For a wonder, no!” Clem replied. “I’m not sure why I’m not. He seemed to be in earnest.”
“Oh, he is!” Carlotta replied. “Joel Tilley is always in earnest. There’s no chivalry in the West, you know. It’s a land of violent feelings. Sometimes embittered litigants have been known to take out their feelings in an ambush. Read the back files of our newspapers. A Territorial lawyer doesn’t always have a good life expectancy.”
“Kilgore—”
“Kilgore’s been lucky. He’s been in practice twenty years and only got shot at a couple of times. But others haven’t been as lucky. I don’t mean Tilley goes around murdering lawyers who oppose him, though they say that’s happened. But a disgruntled client who loses a civil suit might just let some shotgun pellets off in the direction of the opposing lawyer.”
“That stuff happened years ago. The West isn’t like that any more!”
“You’re still an optimist, Clem!”
“Well, never mind my life expectancy,” he said, looking steadily at her. She had changed dresses, and now looked lovelier than ever in a clinging gown that molded the full curves of her bosom excitingly. “What’s this story about a diamond ring your brother’s supposed to have given Honey Morgan?”
Carlotta lowered her eyes. “It’s true.”
“Why wasn’t Kilgore told?”
She said unhappily, “I would have told him before the trial started, if Harry didn’t. But I hoped it wouldn’t come up. It’ll upset my parents terribly.”
“You knew about it, then?”
“Harry wrote me while I was in New York with my parents. He said he’d had too much to drink one night, and made a sort of mock proposal to Honey, and gave her the ring. All as a joke. It was my great-great-grandmother’s betrothal ring. It’s been in our family since—oh, since 1790 or so. My mother used to wear it all the time, but in the last few years hardly ever. Naturally, Harry had no business giving it to anyone. Least of all to a—a prostitute,” she said, naming the word boldly.
“A funny sort of joke,” Clem said.
“Harry’s like that. Well, I was horrified when he wrote me that he’d given the Lucero ring away. I wrote back immediately ordering him to get the ring back. Why, if my father and mother found out—”
“Did he get the ring back?”
“I don’t know. He promised faithfully he would. If Laurie says he demanded the ring back, he probably did. I wish I knew.” Her voice was toneless. “I haven’t been alone with him to ask him about the ring. I don’t know where it is now. This is serious, isn’t it?”
Clem hesitated. “It might be,” he said slowly. “If Harry knew that Laurie was contemplating an action against him, the prosecution could claim a valid motive for the murder.”
“Nonsense!” she protested. “Just to avoid a lawsuit? It sounds far-fetched!”
They sat in silence while the first course was brought and placed before them. Clem made a pretense of interest in the steaming and hearty garlic soup for which suddenly he had little appetite.
“Carlotta—” he began, and considered his approach. She was holding herself in good control, he saw, but her distress was marked. “Of course it’s far-fetched,” he agreed without conviction. “But that’s not the point. I haven’t got any experience in the criminal law, not yet, but certain things stand to reason. The prosecution seems mighty confident they can make out a case. I guess they’ve got no eyewitness, or we’d know about it by now. So it’s got to rest on the circumstances of the case—”
“Circumstantial evidence?”
Clem nodded. “Exactly. Sometimes circumstantial evidence is far more persuasive than direct evidence. An eyewitness can lie—but circumstances speak for themselves. If Mr. Beaudoin can show motive as well as all the rest, it can carry him a long way to a guilty verdict. But I wish,” he added with distress, “that I had more experience under my belt. I’d be more sure of what I’m saying.” An unhappy moment passed before he went on. “Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Tilley were telling me some of your brother’s childhood escapades. A puppy your father gave him—”
Carlotta shuddered. “Don’t remind me. Harry is—well, unusual. He’s a brilliant boy, you know. But somewhat off balance. As though the burden of his intelligence had deranged him somehow.”
“They’ll throw out an insanity plea, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure, too. But he’s not completely normal. Whatever that woman was telling you should have proved that. But so brilliant! His marks in school were always terrible—but he got interested in languages and started teaching himself, and almost overnight learned Dutch and Portuguese and I don’t know what else. Chinese, maybe. Or Turkish.”
Clem was silent, torn by confusion and doubt as to the significance of the revelations brought by the hour. Had Kilgore sent him out on his own in the hope of evoking such information? He could not be sure. “I wish I knew what Mr. Kilgore will think about this ring business,” he said finally. “A trial can turn on the smallest thing. But at least we have a better idea of what we’ll have to fight. When are you going to see Governor Tellegen?”
“Tomorrow, I hope.”
“And I’ll try to see Hazledine then.”
“Good luck.”
Clem nodded seriously. “Oh, I’m not worried about Hazledine. The law says he has to approve the petition for the writ. But the important thing is getting the governor to supersede Beaudoin. I hope you manage it.”
“I hope so, too.”
After dinner they strolled around the gracious city, while Carlotta explained its ancient sites. Clem struggled with the temptation to offer his arm, and decided against it. He was still conscious of the gulf between himself and this beautiful, intelligent, and wealthy young woman who had been to school in the East and in Europe. Although she showed no condescension, and was perfectly eager to treat him as her intellectual and social equal, he shrank back from capitalizing on the opportunities she provided.
They returned early to the hotel. Clem saw her to her room—it was in the other wing, as he had feared—and then went to his own. He took off his coat and sat on the brass bed and considered the position. Kilgore had suggested a round of cantinas and houses where the sporting element could be expected to gather. “Shoe leather, Erskine!” Kilgore had said heavily. “You won’t learn a thing raising calluses in your office. When a big trial is on, keep in motion and get the feel of the community. It’s the atmosphere that influences the court and jury, and you never know where the tidbits lie!” It had see
med good advice but at the moment, with Carlotta McCandless lying sleepless in another wing of the hotel, Clem was not sure that he cared to encounter the cheap and furtive. Now why, he wondered, was the image of Carlotta so large in his thoughts?
It was many hours before he fell asleep.
He was up at dawn. By seven, he was dressed and downstairs to breakfast. An hour later, he was on his way to the offices of Judge Hazledine, portfolio in hand.
A pale, thin-lipped clerk greeted him at the judge’s offices. “I’m Ariel Donovan,” he announced. “Have you business with Judge Hazledine?”
“That I do,” Clem said. “I’m up from San Carlos to apply for a writ in the matter of Territory vs. McCandless.”
“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!” Donovan said with a show of interest. “Kilgore’s case, ain’t it? Why ain’t he here himself?”
“I just want the judge to sign the writ,” said Clem. “Mr. Kilgore will make the argument on the return day.”
Donovan stared with interest at the younger, man’s pale face of determination and turned aside to squirt a stream of tobacco juice into a sandbox.
“Judge is out of town,” he said curtly.
“When will he be back?”
“Tonight. Tomorrow. Wednesday, maybe.”
“Can’t you be sure?”
Donovan said, “Or maybe not for another week.” The tone was insolent. “I’m not responsible for Judge Hazledine’s comings and goings.”
“I’ll be back this afternoon,” Clem said, wondering if the clerk were lying to him.
“No use that. The judge wouldn’t possibly deal with any legal matters the moment he returned. And I’m not saying he’ll be back today, anyway.”
“All right, then. I’ll come again tomorrow.”
“Why not just telephone? Call here around this time tomorrow, and I’ll let you know if the judge is available. What’s the name?”
Clem stared into a hard face and slowly shook his head. “Never mind about my name,” he said slowly. “You just tell Judge Hazledine that Mr. Kilgore’s law clerk was here to present this application. If he won’t sign it, I’ll find who will. What’s more, I’m sure Mr. Kilgore will have something to say on the record when the time comes!” He turned on his heel and left.
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