XIX
It was four o’clock in the morning, and the twelve men who were to decide Archie’s fate were still huddled in the jury room. For eleven hours they had been there, balloting, arguing, disputing, quarreling, and then balloting again. Time after time young Menard had passed around his hat for the little scraps of paper, and always the result was the same, eleven for conviction, one for acquittal. For a while after the jury assembled there had been three votes for conviction of murder in the second degree, but long ago, as it seemed at that hour, these three votes had been won over for conviction of murder in the first degree, which meant death. At two o’clock Broadwell had declared that there was no use in wasting more time in voting, and for two hours no ballot had been taken. The electric lamps had glowed all night, filling the room with a fierce light, which, at this hour of the winter morning, had taken on an unnatural glare. The air was vitiated, and would have sickened one coming from outside, but these men, whose lungs had been gradually accustomed to it, were not aware how foul it was. Once or twice in the night some one had thrown up a window, but the older men had complained of the cold, and the window had to be closed down again. In that air hung the dead odor of tobacco smoke, for in the earlier hours of the night most of the men—all, indeed, save Broadwell—had smoked, some of them cigars, some pipes. But now they were so steeped in bodily weariness and in physical discomfort and misery that none of them smoked any longer. On the big oaken table in the middle of the room Menard’s hat lay tilted on its side, and all about lay the ballots. Ballots, too, strewed the floor and filled the cuspidors, little scraps of paper on which was scribbled for the most part the one word, “Guilty,” the same word on all of them, though not always spelled the same. One man wrote it “Gildy,” another “Gilty,” still another “Gility.” But among all those scattered scraps there was a series of ballots, the sight of which angered eleven of the men, and drove them to profanity; on this series of ballots was written “Not guilty.” The words were written in an invariable, beautiful script, plainly the chirography of some German.
It was evident that in this barren room, with its table and twelve chairs, its high blank walls and lofty ceiling, a mighty conflict had been waged. But now at the mystic hour when the tide of human forces is at its farthest ebb, the men had become exhausted, and they sat about in dejected attitudes of lassitude and weariness, their brains and souls benumbed. Young Menard had drawn his chair up to the table and thrown his head forward on his arms. He was wholly spent, his brow was bathed with clammy perspiration, and a nausea had seized him. His mind was too tired to work longer, and he was only irritably conscious of some unpleasant interruption when any one spoke. The old men had suffered greatly from the confinement; the long night in that miserable little room, without comforts, had accentuated their various diseases, all the latent pains and aches of age had been awakened, and now, at this low hour, they had lost the sense of time and place, the trial seemed far away in the past, there was no future, and they could but sit there and suffer dumbly. In one corner Osgood had tilted back a chair and fallen asleep. He sprawled there, his head fallen to one side, his wide-open mouth revealing his throat; his face was bathed in sweat, and he snored horribly.
In another corner sat Broadwell, his hands folded across his paunch. The flesh on his fat face had darkened, beneath his eyes were deep blue circles and he looked very old. He had been elected foreman, of course, and early in the evening had made long and solemn addresses to the jury, the same kind of addresses he delivered to his Bible-class—instructive, patronizing, every one of his arguments based on some hackneyed and obvious moral premise. Particularly was this the case, when, as had befallen early in the evening, they had discussed the death penalty. This subject roused him to a high degree of anger, and he raged about it, defended the practice of capital punishment, then, growing calm, spoke of it reverently and as if, indeed, it were a sacrament like baptism, or the Lord’s Supper, quoting from the ninth chapter of Genesis. Old Reder had opposed him, and Broadwell had demanded of him to know what he would wish to have done to a man who killed his wife, for instance. Reder, quite insensible to the tribute implied in the suggestion that his action would furnish the standard for all action in such an emergency, had for a while maintained that he would not wish to have the man put to death, but Broadwell had insisted that he would, had quoted the ninth chapter of Genesis again, shaken his head, puffed, and angrily turned away from Reder. One by one he had beaten down the wills of the other jurors. He was tenacious and stubborn, and he had conquered them all—all but old Reder, who paced the floor, his hands in the side pockets of his short jacket. His shaggy white brows were knit in a permanent scowl, and now and then he gathered portions of his gray beard into his mouth and chewed savagely. He was the one, of course, who had been voting for acquittal; his was the hand that had written in that Continental script those dissenting words, “Not guilty.”
When this became known, the others had gathered round him, trying to beat him down, and finally, giving way to anger, had shaken their fists in his face, reviled him, and called him ugly names. But all the while he had shaken his head and shouted:
“No! no! no! no!”
For a while he had argued against Archie’s guilt, then against the methods of the police, at last, had begged for mercy on the boy. But this last appeal only made them angry.
“Mercy!” they said. “Did he show that old woman any mercy?”
“He isn’t being triedt for der old woman,” said Reder. “Dot’s what the chudge saidt.”
“Well, then. Did he show Kouka any mercy?”
“Bah!” shouted Reder. “Did Kouka show him any?”
“But Kouka”—they insisted.
“Ach! To hell mit all o’ you!” cried Reder, and began to stalk the floor.
“The Dutch dog!” said one.
“The stubborn brute!” grumbled another. “Keeping us all up here, and making us lose our sleep!”
“I tell you,” said another, “the jury system ought to be changed, so’s a majority would rule!”
“It’s no use, it’s no use,” Reder said in a high petulant voice; “you only make me vorse; you only make me vorse!” He held his hands up and shook them loosely, his fingers vibrating with great rapidity.
Then it was still for a long while—but in the dark and empty court-room, where the bailiff slept on one of the seats, sharp, unnatural, cracking noises were heard now and then; and from it emanated the strange weird influence of the night and darkness. Through the window they looked on the court-house yard lying cold and white under the blaze of the electric lamps. The wind swept down the bleak deserted street. Once they heard a policeman’s whistle. Osgood was snoring loudly.
“Great God!” shouted Duncan irritably. “Can’t some of you make him stop that?”
Church got up and gave Osgood’s chair a rude kick.
“Huh?” Osgood started up, staring about wildly. Then he came to his senses, looked around, understood, fell back and went to sleep again.
And Reder tramped up and down, and Broadwell sat and glared at him, and the others waited. Reder was thinking of that time of his boyhood in Germany when the old peasant had been tried for setting the wood afire. The whole scene had come back to him, and he found a fascination in recalling one by one every detail, until each stood out vividly and distinctly in his mind. He paced on, until, after a while, Broadwell spoke again.
“Mr. Reder,” he said, “I don’t see how you can assume the position you do.”
“It’s no use, I tol’ you; no use!”
“But look here,” Broadwell insisted, getting up and trying to stop Reder. He took him by the lapel of his coat, forced him to stand an instant, and when Reder yielded, and stood still, the other jurors looked up with some hope.
“Tell me why—”
“I don’t vant to have him killedt, I tol’ you.”
“But it isn’t killing; it isn’t the same.”
“Bah! Nonsense!” roared Reder.
“It’s the law.”
“I don’t gare for der law. We say he don’t die—he don’t die den, ain’t it?”
“But it’s the law!” protested Broadwell, thinking to add new stress to his argument by placing new stress on the word. “How can we do otherwise?”
“How? Chust by saying not guildy, dot’s how.”
“But how can we do that?”
“Chust do it, dot’s how!”
“But it’s the law,—the law!”
“Damn der law!” roared Reder, resuming his walk. And Broadwell stood looking at him, in horror, as if he had blasphemed.
There was silence again, save for Osgood’s snoring. Then suddenly, no one knew how, the argument broke out anew.
“How do we know?” some one was saying. It was Grey; his conviction was shaken again.
“Know?” said Church. “Don’t we know?”
“How do we?”
“Well—I don’t know, only—”
“Yes, only.”
“You ain’t going back on us now, I hope?”,
“No, but—” Grey shook his head.
“Well, you heard what the judge said.”
They could always appeal to what the judge had said, as if he spoke with some authority that was above all others.
“What’d he say?” asked Grey.
“Why—he said—what was that there word now?”
“What word?”
“That word he used—refer—no that wasn’t it, let’s see.”
“Infer?” suggested Broadwell.
“Sure! That’s it! Infer! He said infer.”
“By God! I guess that’s right! He did say that.”
“Course,” Church went on triumphantly. “Infer! He said infer, and that means we can infer it, don’t it?”
Just at that minute a pain, sharp and piercing, shot through Reder’s back. He winced, made a wry face, stopped, stooped to a senile posture and clapped his hand to his back. His heart suddenly sank—there it was again, his old trouble. That meant bad things for him; now, as likely as not, he’d be laid up all winter; probably he couldn’t sit on the jury any more; surely not if that old trouble came back on him. And how would he and his old wife get through the winter? Instantly he forgot everything else. What time was it, he wondered? This being up all night; he could not stand that.
As from a distance he heard the argument going on. At first he felt no relation to it, but this question must be settled some way. The pain had ceased, but it would come back again. He straightened up slowly, gradually, with extreme care, his hand poised in readiness to clap to his back again; He turned about by minute degrees and said:
“What’s dot you saidt?”
“Why,” began Church, but just then Reder winced again; clapped his hand to his back, doubled up, his face was contorted. He was evidently suffering tortures, but he made no outcry. Church sprang toward him.
“Get him some water,—here!”
Chisholm punched young Menard; he got up, and pushed the big white porcelain water pitcher across the table. But Reder waved it aside.
“Nefer mind,” he said. “What was dot you vas sayin’ a minute back?”
“Why, Mr. Reder, we said the judge said we could infer. Don’t you remember?”
Church looked into his face hopefully, and waited.
Broadwell got slowly to his feet, and moved toward the little group deliberately, importantly, as if he alone could explain.
“Here, have my chair, Mr. Reder,” said Broadwell with intense politeness.
“No, nefer mind,” said Reder, afraid to move.
“What the judge said,” Broadwell began, “was simply this. He said that if it was to be inferred from all the facts and circumstances adduced in evidence—”
“Besides,” Church broke in, “that old woman said he was the fellow, down at the police station—it was in the paper, don’t you remember?”
“Oh, but the judge said we wasn’t to pay attention to anything like that,” said Grey.
“Well, but he said we could infer, didn’t he?”
“Just let me speak, please,” insisted Broadwell, “His Honor went on to say—” he had just recalled that that was the proper way to speak of a judge, and then, the next instant, he remembered that it was also proper to call the judge “the Court,” and he was anxious to use both of these phrases. “That is, the Court said—” And he explained the meaning of the word “infer.”
Reder was listening attentively, his head bent, his hand resting on his hip. Broadwell talked on, in his low insinuating tone. Reder made no reply. After a while, Broadwell, his eyes narrowing, said softly, gently:
“Gentlemen, shall we not try another ballot?”
Menard got up wearily, his hat in readiness again. The jurors began rummaging among the scraps for ballots.
A street-car was just scraping around the curve at the corner, its wheels sending out a shrill, grinding noise.
“Great heavens!” exclaimed McCann, taking out his watch, “it’s five thirty! Morning! We’ve been here all night!”
Outside the city was still wrapped in a soft thick darkness. Eades was sleeping soundly; his mother, when she kissed him good night, had patted his head, saying, “My dear, brave boy.” Marriott had just sunk into a troubled doze. Glassford was snoring loudly in his warm chamber; Koerner and his wife were kneeling on their bed, their hands clasped, saying a prayer in German, and over in the jail, Archie was standing with his face pressed against the cold bars of his cell, looking out across the corridor, watching for the first streak of dawn.