GLORY ALLELUIA.
"Saul Aronson," called the district attorney.
Shagarach's assistant had been amazed to find a subpoena thrust into his
hands just as he returned to his desk after the noon recess. Of what
service could he be to the prosecution? As little as possible, he
inwardly determined, while he made his way to the stand.
"Do you know a young lady named Miss Serena Lamb?" asked Badger, in his
iciest voice. The cruelty of it was exquisite. If he had discharged a
revolver at Aronson point blank the witness could not have looked more
terror-stricken. To have the secrets of the affections thus held up to
public scorn! To be compelled to wear on his sleeve the heart whose
bleeding in his bosom he had with difficulty stanched! His face grew
pale--or, rather, a mottled white. But Shagarach rose on purpose and his
master's presence acted like a cordial on the fainting witness.
"Yes, sir," he stammered out, marveling what was to come; how long the
torture would be prolonged.
"That is all for the present," said Badger.
"Prof. Borrowscales," called the district attorney, and a shadow of
disappointment fell on the court-room. There is no testimony less
amusing than that of the writing expert and none more inconclusive. At
least eleven jurors out of twelve disregard it and form their own
opinions by the rule of thumb.
"You are a professor of penmanship?" asked the district attorney.
"An expert in handwriting, yes, sir."
"Of many years' experience?"
"Twenty-nine."
"Have you examined the papers submitted to you by Inspector McCausland?"
"I have microscopically."
"Describe them, please, for the benefit of the jury."
"This one is a page of manuscript purporting to be the work of Robert
Floyd and bearing his signature. The other contains a chemical formula."
"The bomb formula, taken from the desk of the accused," explained the
district attorney. "Anything else?"
"A number, apparently jotted down on the same sheet."
"Please read out that number."
"No. 1863."
"What do you say as to the identity of the handwritings, professor?"
"I give it as my conviction that they are the same. The capital Q----"
"Never mind the capital Q," interrupted Shagarach. "We admit that the
formula was written by the accused."
"Retain the autograph for one moment," said the district attorney.
"There was another article submitted to you for comparison. What was
that?"
"A blotting-pad," said the professor, holding it up in his fingers and
showing a clean side, bearing the reversed impressions of two or three
lines of writing.
"Will you kindly hold that up to the mirror you have brought and read
what may be read of the writing taken up by the pad?"
"Looks to me as if it came from the back of a postal card. Just fits
that size and says:
"'Dear Aronson: The lock that I told you about still sticks. Please
come and open it. I will not trust it to an ordinary locksmith.
"ROBERT FLOYD.'"
"As to the signature and writing? Are they genuine?"
"Beyond peradventure and on the strength of my twenty-nine years of
experience."
"During your twenty-nine years of experience," asked Shagarach, "have
you ever failed to arrive at the conclusion your employers expected?"
"I object," said the district attorney, and Shagarach withdrew his
question. It was one of those ramrod questions, the office of which is
simply to drive the charge home and then be withdrawn.
"Will you kindly write your own name on that?"
He handed up a common paper block and a pen. The expert flushed a little
and put the pen in his mouth. This blackened his lips and raised a
titter. His tongue rolled in his cheek like a schoolboy's while he
wrote. The effort was unconsciously prolonged. Shagarach took the
autograph and passed it to the jury. A broad smile spread from face to
face like a row of lamps lighted successively by an electric current.
Then the half-legible scrawl was passed to the district attorney and
Shagarach sat down.
"I do not understand," said the district attorney, "that you profess to
be an ornamental writer?"
"It is not necessary, Brother Bigelow," interrupted Shagarach again. "We
acknowledge the note on the postal card."
"He has a spark of humor, after all," said Ecks, who was still in his
seat.
"What do you suppose Aronson has to do with it?" asked Wye, while the
jury studied the blotter, one after another, mirror in hand.
"Pineapple Jupiter!" called Badger. The old negro hobbled to the stand
and immediately opened his mouth in a good-natured smile, which set the
spectators' lips working responsively.
"This is a murder case, involving life and death," said Chief Justice
Playfair, with dignity, and the court officers rapped their staffs and
bustled about, commanding silence.
"You know Mr. Aronson, the last witness but one?" asked Badger.
"See him most every day, sah."
"Do you also know a young lady named Miss Serena Lamb?"
"See her most every day, sah."
"Did you ever introduce Mr. Aronson to Miss Lamb?"
"Yes, sah."
"When and where?"
"Well, you see, I fotched him up to her and says I, 'Here's a convert,
sister,' says I. 'Hallelujah!' says she, and that's how I done it, sah."
"Where was this?"
"Down on the square, sah--Salem street."
"And when?"
"When?"
"Yes, when did you introduce Mr. Aronson and Miss Lamb?"
The negro scratched his woolly poll.
"Clean forgot de time, sah."
"Was it a year ago?"
"'Bout a year, sah."
"Couldn't you fix the time exactly? It is important."
"Well, you see, sah, it was about de second-last time I got a hair-cut."
This answer provoked a roar, but the district attorney took the witness
in hand.
"Can you count?"
"Oh, yes, sah; I can count, sah."
"Up to how far?"
"Up to ten mostly, sah."
"You can't read?"
"Born before Massah Linkun, sah. Chillun can read. Old folks picking
cotton; no time for school, sah."
"And you reckon time by the occasions when your hair needs cutting?"
"Yes, sah; wife and I reckons pretty close on that, sah."
"An excellent way for want of a better hour-glass," said the district
attorney. "About how often do you get your hair cut from winter to
winter?"
"Oh, about six times, sah. My ole wool grows putty stiddy-reg'lar, sah."
"Six times? You have had your hair cut lately?"
"This morning, sah. Wife said I wasn't looking 'spectable enough to
come into court before genteel gemlen."
"And you introduced Miss Lamb and Mr. Aronson about the second hair-cut
before that?"
"Yes, sah, third-last time. 'Scuse me."
"It must have been four months ago, then. That will do. Mr. Hardwood."
A business-looking old gentleman took the stand.
"You are a member of the firm of Hardwood & Lockwell?" asked Badger.
"Senior member."
"What is your business?"
"Safemakers."
"How long have you been established?"
"Thirty-seven years."
"Do you recollect filling an order for a safe from Prof. Arnold?"
"I do, sir. It is the first order on our books."
"Are those books in existence to-day?"
"They are, sir," said the old business man, with pride.
"Do you happen to know whether that safe ordered by Prof. Arnold was
still used by him at the time of the fire which destroyed his home?"
"I have reason to believe so. I remember seeing it and reminding him of
the circumstance in his house within a year."
"You regarded it as in a way the foundation stone of your business
prosperity?"
"It was our first sale."
"What, if you recollect, was the number of the safe--an old-fashioned
article, I presume?"
"Somewhat antiquated in style, sir. I have consulted our books, at the
request of the officer--Mr. McCausland, I think. The number of the safe
sold to Benjamin Arnold was 1863."
"Were you here," asked Shagarach, "when Prof. Borrowscales read out the
number which was jotted down upon a sheet of paper in Floyd's desk?"
"I was. I was struck at the identity."
"You have no means of knowing, however, whether or not that number was a
memorandum of the date in the life of Bakunin, the anarchistic writer?"
"I have not."
"Mr. McCausland, again," said the district attorney.
For the third time the inspector came to the box from the ante-room
through the door at which he watched and listened.
"You occupied a cell adjoining that of the prisoner in the state prison
at one time?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you state any conversation relevant to this trial which you may
have overheard?"
"It was a soliloquy rather than a conversation."
"Describe this soliloquy, then."
"Floyd used to talk at night a good deal. He wasn't sleeping well." The
court was hushed at this strange introduction. "There was a
communication between our cells and by listening carefully one night I
managed to make out what he was saying."
"And what was he saying?" asked the district attorney, while Floyd
studied the witness' face with more curiosity than he had yet at any
time shown.
"'Don't tell anybody, Aronson.'"
To the surprise of everybody the accused burst out into a hearty laugh,
which rung through the court-room and evidently nettled the whole
prosecuting force. Then he bent over to Shagarach and whispered in his
ear. Shagarach jumped to his feet, promptly as usual, for the district
attorney had finished. His opportunity had come.
"What crime had you committed, Mr. McCausland, that the state should
isolate you in one of its prison cells?"
"I was a voluntary prisoner," answered the detective. He had put his
neck in the noose and must bear the strangling as cheerfully as
possible.
"For what purpose?"
"A professional one."
"You were there to win the confidence of the accused and extort a
confession of guilt from him if possible?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you succeed?"
"Owing to the cleverness of the prisoner and his having been forewarned,
I failed."
"Not owing to the fact that he is innocent, you think?"
"I think not."
Shagarach seemed satisfied not to press this further and asked for the
blotter, which was in the foreman's hand.
"You were requested to state any conversation relevant to this cause
which you had with the accused while in prison. You answered with a few
meaningless words pronounced in sleep. I confess the relevance of all
this later testimony escapes me," said Shagarach.
"The next witness, Miss Lamb," answered the district attorney, "will
make the connection of all these threads of testimony plain."
"Do you know Mr. Aronson, the piano dealer?" asked Shagarach of the
witness.
"By sight."
McCausland, though he kept his own identity as hidden as possible, knew
the whole city by sight.
"Is it not possible to construe this note on the postal card as
referring to the refractory lock of Miss Barlow's piano, which the
accused had recently purchased for her as a birthday present?"
"Out of the $309 he earned?" asked McCausland.
"That and the lifelong income he has enjoyed from his mother's
property," said Shagarach. Whereupon McCausland, Bigelow and the whole
court-room stared, and even Chief Justice Playfair's trained eyebrow was
perceptibly lifted.
"Miss Serena Lamb," called the district attorney. How Aronson blushed
and fidgeted when his idol, with eyes downcast in virgin shyness,
tripped in from the corridor at a constable's beck and mounted the
stand!
"Glory alleluia!" she said, with her right hand raised, when the clerk
had repeated the formula of the oath.
"You are a member of the salvation army, Miss Lamb?" asked the district
attorney. Her bonnet and garb sufficiently answered the question.
"You are acquainted with a young man named Saul Aronson?" was the first
question put to Serena.
"I was made known unto such an one," said the girl, in quasi-scriptural
parlance.
"By whom?"
"Pineapple Jupiter."
"How did Aronson first present himself to your attention?"
"As one who had seen the error of unbelief and wished to repent.
Alleluia!"
"As a convert, then? Did you ever have any private conference with this
convert?"
"I did."
"Will you kindly tell the jury when and where?"
"It was the month of May at my home in the city."
"In the parlor of your house?"
"Even so."
"On what date, if you remember?"
"Early in May, but the day escapes me."
"State the substance of your conversation."
"The youth had been a sinner, but his heart was touched and he
unburdened his misdeeds to me, of which this was the gravest:
"While he was still unregenerate a certain youth of his own age"--she
looked full at Robert--"had tempted him with a bribe to enter a certain
house wrongfully and open a certain safe. For the youth had cunning in
that craft. The room he entered was filled with books and a canary bird
slept in his cage, for it was evening, and a desk stood before a window
in one corner."
"I desire to call the attention of the jury to this description," said
the district attorney. "It corresponds strikingly with the description
of Prof. Arnold's study in the printed copy of Bertha Lund's testimony
at the hearing, which is in their possession. Proceed, Miss Lamb."
"And the name of the tempter was Robert Floyd." The hush deepened
perceptibly as Serena paused.
"Upon his knees with many tools," she resumed, "he toiled at the door,
but it was firm and resisted his skill. Nevertheless the youth stated
that he would have succeeded had not an interruption come and startled
the guilty pair."
"Are there any further details you desire to add to this recital?"
"Only that it was done on the Sabbath and surely unblessed labor."
"You have not seen the convert since?"
"Never, but I have heard that the courage of his faith deserted him."
"Is the man here?" asked the district attorney, turning toward
Aronson--poor Aronson, who sat open-mouthed, goggle-eyed, with gaze
riveted on the pale sweet face in the bonnet. Now a thousand eyes were
turned upon him, but still he saw only the rosebud mouth and awaited
breathlessly its answer.
"That is the man," answered the witness, pointing. The greater "Ecce
homo" of history scarcely drew forth such a murmur from the bystanders.
But the gavel of the crier was heard rapping for attention, for the
court had risen promptly at the strokes of the clock.
"One moment, your honor," said Shagarach, rising, after a whispered
consultation with his assistant, now voluble and stuttering with
excitement. "I desire to ask that the court issue a warrant for the
arrest of the last witness, Miss Serena Lamb, on the charge of malicious
perjury."