XXIX
When Eades read the announcement of Hunter’s departure for Italy he was first surprised, then indignant, then relieved. Hunter had reported Dick’s crime in anger, the state of mind in which most criminal prosecutions are begun. The old man had trembled until Eades feared for him; as he sat there with pallid lips relating the circumstances, he was not at all the contained, mild and shrewd old financier Eades so long had known.
“We must be protected, Mr. Eades,”—he could hear the shrill cry for days—“we must be protected from these thieves! They are the worst of all, sir; the worst of all! I want this young scoundrel arrested and sent to the penitentiary right away, sir, right away!”
Eades had seen that the old man was in fear, and that in his fear he had turned to him as toward that ancient corner-stone of society, the criminal statute. And now he had fled!
Eades knew, of course, that some one had tampered with him; and, of course, the defalcation had been made good, and now Hunter would be an impossible witness. Even Eades could imagine Hunter on the stand, not as he had been in his office that day, angry, frightened, keenly conscious of his wrong and recalling minutely all the details; but senile, a little deaf, leaning forward with a hand behind his ear, a grin on his withered face, remembering nothing, not cognizant of the details of his bookkeeping—sitting there, with his money safe in his pocket, while the case collapsed, Dick was acquitted in triumph—and he, John Eades, made ridiculous.
But what was he to do? After all, in the eye of the law, Hunter was not a witness; and, besides, it was possible that, technically, the felony might not have been compounded. At any rate, if it had been he could not prove it, and as for proceeding now against Ward, that was too much to expect, too much even for him to exact of himself. When a definite case was laid before him with the evidence to support it, his duty was plain, but he was not required to go tilting after wind-mills, to investigate mere suspicions. It was a relief to resign himself to this conclusion. Now he could only wait for Hunter’s return, and have him brought in when he came, but probably, in the end, it would come to nothing. Yes, it was a relief, and he could think hopefully once more of Elizabeth.
The fourteenth of May—the date for the execution of the sentence of death against Archie—was almost on him before Marriott filed his petition in error in the Appellate Court and a motion for suspension of sentence. He had calculated nicely. As the court could not hear and determine the case before the day of execution, the motion was granted, and the execution postponed. Marriott’s relief was exquisite; he hastened to send a telegram to Archie, and was happy, so happy that he could laugh at the editorial which Edwards printed the next morning, calling for reforms in the criminal code which would prevent “such travesties as were evidently to be expected in the Koerner case.”
Marriott could laugh, because he knew how hypocritical Edwards was, but Edwards’s editorials had influence in other quarters, and Marriott more and more regretted his simple little act of kindness—or of weakness—in loaning Edwards the ten dollars. If the newspapers would desist, he felt sure that in time, when public sentiment had undergone its inevitable reaction, he might secure a commutation of Archie’s sentence; but if Edwards, in order to vent his spleen, continued to keep alive the spirit of the mob, then there was little hope.
“If he could only be sent to prison for life!” said Elizabeth, as they discussed this aspect of the case. “No,”—she hastened to correct herself—“for twenty years; that would do.”
“It would be the same thing,” said Marriott.
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth leaned forward with a puzzled expression in her gray eyes.
“All sentences to the penitentiary are sentences for life. We pretend they’re not, but if a man lives to get out—do we treat him as if he had paid the debt? No, he’s a convict still. Look at Archie, for instance.”
“Look at Harry Graves! Oh, Gordon,”—Elizabeth suddenly sat up and made an impatient gesture—“I can’t forget him! And Gusta! And those men I saw as they were taken from the jail!”
“You mustn’t worry about it; you can’t help it.”
“Oh, that’s what they all tell me! ‘Don’t worry about it—you can’t help it!’ No! But you worried about Archie—and about”—she closed her eyes, and he watched their white lids droop in pain—“and about Dick.”
“I knew them.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head, “you knew them—that explains it all. We don’t know the others, and so we don’t care. Some one knows them, of course, or did, once, in the beginning. It makes me so unhappy! Don’t, please, ever any more tell me not to worry, or that I can’t help it. Try to think out some way in which I can help it, won’t you?”
Meanwhile, Edwards’s editorials were doing their work. They had an effect on Eades, of course, because the Courier was the organ of his party, to which he had to look for renomination. And they produced their effect on the judges of the Appellate Court, who also belonged to that party, but, not knowing Edwards, thought his anonymous utterances the voice of the people, which, at times, in the ears of politicians sounds like the voice of God. The court heard the case early in June; in two weeks it was decided. When Marriott entered the court-room on the morning the decision was to be rendered, his heart sank. On the left of the bench were piled some law-books, and behind them, peeping surreptitiously, he recognized the transcript in the Koerner case. It was much like other transcripts, to be sure, but to Marriott it was as familiar as the features of a friend with whom one has gone through trouble. The transcript lay on the desk before Judge Gardner’s empty chair and therefore he knew that the decision was to be delivered by Gardner, and he feared that it was adverse, for Gardner had been severe with him and had asked him questions during the argument.
The bailiff had stood up, rapped on his desk, and Marriott, Eades and the other lawyers in the courtroom rose to simulate a respect for the court entertained only by those who felt that they were likely to win their cases. The three judges paced solemnly in, and when they were seated and the presiding judge had made a few announcements, Gardner leaned forward, pulled the transcript toward him, balanced his gold glasses on his nose, cleared his throat, and in a deep bass voice and in a manner somewhat strained, began to announce the decision. Before he had uttered half a dozen sentences, Marriott knew that he had lost again. The decision of the lower court was affirmed in what was inevitably called by the newspapers an able opinion, and the day of Archie’s death was once more fixed—this time for the twenty-first of October.
A few weeks later, Marriott saw Archie at the penitentiary. He had gone to the state capital to argue to the Supreme Court old man Koerner’s case against the railroad company. Several weeks before he had tried the case in the Appellate Court, and had won, the court affirming the judgment. This case seemed now to be the only hope of the family, and Marriott was anxious to have it heard by the Supreme Court before the learned justices knew of Archie’s case, lest the relation of the old man and the boy prejudice them. He felt somehow that if he failed in Archie’s case, a victory in the father’s case would go far to dress the balance of the scales of justice and preserve the equilibrium of things. It was noon when Marriott was at the penitentiary, and he was glad that the men who were waiting to be killed were then taking their exercise, for he was spared the depression of the death-chamber. He met Archie under the blackened locust tree in the quadrangle. Archie was hopeful that day.
“I feel lucky,” said Archie. “I’ll not have to punish,—think so, Mr. Marriott?”
“We’ve got lots of time,” Marriott replied, not knowing what else to say, “the Supreme Court doesn’t sit till fall.”
Pritchard, the poisoner, laid his slender white hand on Archie’s shoulder.
“Good boy you’ve got here, Mr. Marriott,” he said jokingly, “but a trifle wild.”
Marriott laughed, and wondered how he could laugh.
Just then a whistle blew, and the convicts in close-formed ranks filed by on their way to dinner. As they went by, one of them glanced at him with a smile of recognition; a smile which, as Marriott saw, the man at once repressed, as the convict is compelled to repress all signs of human feeling. Marriott stared, then suddenly remembered; it was a man named Brill, whom he had known years before. And he, like the rest of the world, had forgotten Brill! He had not even cast him a glance of sympathy! He felt like running after the company—but it was too late; Brill must go without the one little kindness that might have made one day, at least, happier, or if not that, shorter for him.
The last gray-garbed company marched by, the guard with his club at his shoulder. The rear of this company was brought up by a convict, plainly of the fourth grade, for he was in stripes and his head was shaved. He walked painfully, with the aid of a crooked cane, lifting one foot after the other, flinging it before him and then slapping it down uncertainly with a disagreeable sound to the pavement.
“What’s the matter with that man?” asked Marriott.
“They say he has locomotor ataxia,” said Beck, the death-watch, “but he’s only shamming. He’s no good.”