On the morrow the first witness called by the prosecution in rebuttal
was old Kraus, and now it was Mr. Rush's turn to shout "Immaterial,
Irrelevant and Incompetent," so that it was well-nigh impossible for the
jury to do more than guess what the choleric person with a strong German
accent was talking about. The district attorney fought valiantly to draw
forth the story of Frieda's nocturnal visit to the Kraus home in search
of advice after hearing Mrs. Balfame enter the kitchen from the yard,
but his efforts ended in a shouting contest between the prosecution and
the defence, both deserting their positions before the jury-box and
wrangling before the Judge like two angry school-boys. Alys Crumley
longed to laugh aloud, but not so the Judge. He asked them curtly how he
was to know what was their point of dispute if they both talked at once.
He then commanded Mr. Rush to state in as few words as possible what he
was objecting to; and when the counsel for the defence had stated his
purely legal reasons for blocking this purely hearsay testimony, the
Judge abruptly threw Mr. Kraus out of court. Rush, flushed and
triumphant, returned to his chair below the jury-box, and Mr. Gore
sulkily called the name of Miss Frieda Appel.
There was no question of poor Frieda's making a good personal impression
upon spectators or jury, no matter how worthy her motives. She had saved
almost every penny of her wages since coming to America; it had been
her lover's intention to emigrate to Brabant County as soon as his term
of service was over, and her housewifely intention to greet him with a
furnished cottage. Since the war began, she had sent all her savings to
East Prussia lest her people starve.
Dress in any circumstances would never tempt her. Economy was her
religion, and she cherished no illusions about her face and form. To-day
she wore a skirt of an old voluminous cut and a jacket with high
puckered sleeves. The colour had once been brown. Her coarse blonde hair
met her eyebrows in a thick bang, and its high knob was surmounted by a
sailor hat a size too small. Her thick-set body was uncorseted, and her
indeterminate features were lost in the width and flatness of her face.
Only the little eyes beneath the heavy thatch of hair alternately glowed
dully and spat fire.
The Judge sternly suppressed the titter that ran over the court-room as
this caricature mounted the witness-stand, and the district attorney, in
spite of frequent interruptions, elicited a remarkably clear and
coherent statement. The Judge sustained him, for here was a real
witness, and Miss Appel not only had been as thoroughly rehearsed as
Mrs. Figg, but she had a neat precise little mind set with rows of
pigeonholes that ejected their contents in routine when her coach
pressed the cognate button.
She had come home abruptly from the dance-hall as she had an
insupportable toothache--had run all the way, as she had some
toothache-drops in her room. She was in such agony she hardly had
noticed that her friend Conrad Kraus was behind her. When she reached
her room she had applied the drops, and to her horror they made the pain
worse. After walking the floor for perhaps ten minutes--she didn't know
or care whether it was ten or fifteen minutes--she was just starting to
go down-stairs and heat some water for her bag when she heard the
kitchen door open and shut. She held her breath and did not answer when
Mrs. Balfame called, as she feared she was wanted and was determined to
do nothing for anybody while her tooth ached like that.
Mrs. Balfame's voice had sounded quite breathless, as if she had been
running. In a moment Frieda heard her go into the dining-room then back
to the kitchen, and turn on the tap,--not the filter, which made no
noise,--and then she heard one glass clink against another on the pantry
shelf. After that, Mrs. Balfame went upstairs from the front hall and
the witness returned to her room and threw herself on the bed, where she
remained until Mr. Cummack came and asked her to go downstairs and make
coffee. By this time her tooth ached so she didn't care what she did.
Cross-questioned, she admitted that Mrs. Balfame was in the habit of
drinking a glass of filtered water the last thing at night. No, she had
not heard her go out, but only come in. But why, if Mrs. Balfame saw
nothing outside to frighten her, or if she hadn't been out, was she so
short of breath? As may be imagined, mere speculation on Miss Appel's
part was cut short by Mr. Rush, who interrupted her constantly. Yes, she
had heard what she now knew had been a shot but she had paid no
attention. Who would, with a red-hot iron forcing one's tooth down
through one's jaw?
Even the scornful questions of counsel which forced her to admit that
she had lied to the coroner neither perturbed her nor made any
impression on jury, press, or spectators. Every one present had suffered
from toothache, and two farmers in the box showed their tusks in an
appreciative grin when she replied tartly that she didn't know or care
anything that day but tooth, tooth, tooth. It was manifest that she was
far too conservative to have had it out at once, to say nothing of the
cost.
The only question she was not prepared for was the abrupt challenge of
Mr. Rush as to how she could prove that young Kraus had followed her if
she had neither seen nor spoken to him during that short run from Main
Street. But although she was visibly perturbed at being confronted with
a set of words to which no neat little pigeon-hole responded, it was so
evident she was firmly convinced her friend had accompanied her, that
for Rush to make too much of his solitary point would prejudice his
case, and he let her go.
Conrad Jr. followed, and his story was equally straightforward. He also
made a good impression. True, he had a very small closely cropped head,
with eyes too small and ears too large, but he held himself with
arrogance, and he was well dressed in a new grey suit and pink shirt.
Born in the United States, it was manifest that he was proud not only of
being an American citizen but of the country's choicest vintage. He had
been sent to the public school until he was sixteen, had studied
conscientiously, and his grammar was quite as good as that of the
District Attorney, who in emotional moments confused his negatives. But,
even Rush, whose advantages had been as superior as his natural
equipment, became a good nasal American when excited, opened into
vowels, and freely translated _you_ into _yer_. It is these persistent
characteristics, so racy of the soil, which cheer us when apprehending
that our original Americanism may in time be obliterated by the foreign
influx.
No, said young Kraus, he had no sentimental interest in Frieda. (He
smiled.) And he was engaged to a young lady to whom he had been
attentive for three years. But he felt like a brother to Frieda; she had
come to his father's house direct from Germany, their families having
been friends for generations. It was not only his duty but his pleasure
to dance with her, she being "the best of the bunch down at the hall."
As he was dancing with her when her toothache became unendurable, it was
natural that he should see her home; in fact, he always saw her home
when it was convenient. Of course if he had to catch the last trolley
for Dobton in a hurry, that was another matter.
When she had entered the house, he had waited, thinking she might want
some other drops or possibly a dentist. Once when he had had a
toothache, he had been obliged to go to a dentist's house at night. His
papa had sent him, and naturally he thought of it as a possibility in
Frieda's case.
Then the kitchen door opened and a woman came out.
At this point the interest in the court-room became intense. Even the
blase young reporters sat forward, their pencils poised. The Judge
wheeled his chair to the right and stared down fixedly at the back of
young Kraus' head. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels,
his thumbs hooked in the sleeves of his vest, and Rush stood with his
back curved as if to spring down the witness' throat with a wild yell
of "Immaterial, irrelevant and incompetent." Only Mrs. Balfame sat like
a statue that had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear.
Yes, Mr. Kraus recognised Mrs. Balfame's figure and walk. She was one in
a thousand for looks, and taller than many men. She had on a long dark
ulster and a black scarf round her head. The kitchen light was behind
her--
Here there was another furious contest between the chief counsel and the
district attorney, but the Judge ordered the young man (who had consumed
a toothpick imperturbably) to proceed with his story. Mrs. Balfame had
slipped round the corner of the house, listened intently, walked for a
minute toward the back of the grounds,--he could just see the moving
shadow in the darkness,--turned abruptly and entered the grove.
Naturally interested, he waited to see what she was up to; and
then--possibly three or four minutes later--he heard Balfame singing
"Tipperary," and a moment or two after that the shot,--one shot, not
two; he took no stock in the theory that there had been two
shots,--followed by loud voices from the other side of the avenue.
Then he "beat it," that being his natural instinct at the moment. His
papa had taught him to be cautious and to keep clear of other people's
fights. He had never been close up against a crime, and he hoped he
never should be. He walked through the adjoining grounds at the back and
then into Balfame Street and took the next trolley home. He didn't feel
like dancing after what he guessed had happened.
No, he had heard no sound of running footsteps, but he stood for a
moment near the back fence of the Lequer place; there were people in the
library until some man ran in calling for the doctor to come at
once--and he did see a car leave the lane behind the Balfame place. He
had thought nothing of it, however, as automobiles were everywhere all
the time. No, he hadn't tried to see whether the car was driven by a man
or woman or how many occupants it had. Not only was the night very dark
(as far as he remembered, the car had no lamps), but his one idea was to
get out of the neighbourhood.
Rush put him through a grilling cross-examination, and although he could
not shake his testimony, he made use of all his practised arts to
exhibit the youth as a sorry coward who ran away when he heard a
revolver-shot instead of rushing with the common instinct of American
manhood to ascertain if it were the woman herself who had been the
victim. How much had he been paid to give this testimony withheld at the
coroner's inquest? Young Kraus' ruddy hues had deepened to purple some
time since, and he shouted back that he had come forward only when that
woman's lying friends were trying to fasten the crime upon his innocent
papa. Here he was sternly admonished by the Judge to confine his answers
to "Yes" and "No" unless he could control his temper. Rush forced him to
reiterate that he had not had a glimpse of Mrs. Balfame's face that
night, that he never had spoken to her at any time; and the lawyer
remarked crushingly that the young man's brain must have been in a
hopelessly confused state if he saw a car leave the lane so soon after
the shooting--a car, moreover, without lights--and failed to connect
this phenomenon with the immediately previous sound of a pistol-shot.
It was evident that his brain moved so slowly that it had taken him
almost a week to put a good story together.
Young Kraus left the stand with his inborn sense of superiority over
mere Americans severely shaken, but although his small angry eyes
encountered more than one sneer, and many of those hostile spectators
looked as if they would laugh outright were it not for their awe of the
Judge, he had injured Mrs. Balfame far more than himself. Few believed
him to be lying or that he had seen a vision, not a real woman, leave
the Balfame house by the kitchen door. He was known to have been as
sober as usual on the night of the dance, and as the evidence against
his father had been regarded as fantastic from the first, there was no
conceivable cause for him to lie.
Mr. Gifning, Mr. Battle and Mr. Carden, who were the first to reach
Balfame, after he fell, were forced by the district attorney to give
damning evidence against Mrs. Balfame. Her room was in the front of the
house; if in it, she could have heard the shot as plainly as they on Mr.
Gifning's veranda. But she did not come downstairs or manifest herself
in any way until they had had time to summon the coroner (who to be sure
lived round the corner) and Dr. Lequeur. It must have been quite six
minutes before she opened her window and demanded the reason for the
disturbance at her gate. At least, it had seemed that long. No, they
never confused a revolver-shot with a bursting tire. They had when cars
first came into use, but they had learned to differentiate long since.
When Mr. Rush asked them sarcastically why one at least of the party had
not searched the grove and attempted to capture the murderer, they
replied they had by no means been sure that the shot had come from the
grove. It might have come from anywhere. It was only after the doctor's
examination that the direction of the bullet had been agreed upon. Later
they did search the grove with a dark-lantern brought from Mrs.
Gifning's house; in fact, they searched every inch of the grounds, and
their only reward was abuse from the police.
These three witnesses, examined after the noon recess, occupied very
little time. It was at ten minutes to four that the district attorney
electrified every one in the courtroom by calling to the stand a man
whose name up to that moment had not been mentioned in the case. The
reporters looked deeply annoyed; even Mrs. Balfame raised her head a
trifle higher as if listening; Rush's pale face was paler, the lines in
it seemed deeper, as he sprang to his feet, alert at once, his nostrils
expanding. The district attorney balanced himself on his heels, his
thumbs in his waistcoat armholes, a grin of triumph on his sharp little
face.
The name called was James Mott, and it was borne by a highly reputable
drummer who had made sales for many years to houses carrying general
merchandise, including that of Balfame & Cummack. Mr. Mott was as well
known in Brabant County as any of its inhabitants; in fact, he was
engaged to an estimable young lady of Elsinore, and hence, so it soon
transpired, had happened to be in town on the fatal night. For once the
acumen of the district attorney had proved more penetrating than that of
the brilliant counsel for the defence.
Mr. Mott took the stand. He was a clean-shaven upstanding American with
the keen eye and grim mouth of the travelling salesman who knows that he
must do or die. He looked as honest as urbane, and for the first time
Mrs. Balfame's heart sank; and her hands, so the women reporters noted
for the benefit of the public, clenched for a full minute.
Although Rush stood with his head stretched forward, he thought it wise
to let the man tell his story in his own way. Interruptions would have
been of little avail; the Judge would sustain the district attorney if
it were patent the witness were telling the truth; and as he was
completely in the dark himself it were better to wait until he got a
promising lead. He knew that no man's brain could work more quickly than
his.
Mr. Mott being solemnly sworn, deposed that on the night of the shooting
he had been taking supper with his friend Miss Lacke, who lived at
Number 3 Dawbarn Street, just round the corner from Elsinore Avenue. He
left her house at a little before eight, as he was obliged to catch the
eight-ten for New York. As he closed the gate behind him, he saw David
Balfame walk unsteadily past, shouting "Tipperary"; and being a friend
of many years' standing, had concluded to follow and see Balfame safely
inside the house. He would lose but a minute or two, and it seemed to
him a decent act, for it was possible the man might fall and hurt
himself before he reached his home. Mott was so close behind him that he
must have just escaped the shot or shots himself, and although he jumped
backward he saw distinctly somebody run out of the grove and toward the
back of the house. Whether it was a man or a woman he had no idea, but
the figure was tall--yes far taller than either young Kraus or Frieda.
Then, he said, he doubled on his tracks and got back into Dawbarn Street
as quickly as he could. He blushed as he admitted this, but added that
he knew from the shouts on Gifning's veranda that men were hastening to
Balfame's aid, and he had to catch the eight-ten or lose his night train
to the West and a big piece of business. Moreover, he didn't like the
idea of giving testimony against anybody; he abhorred the institution of
capital punishment. For the same reason he did not come forward until
the District Attorney ferreted him out, as he was afraid the running
figure might have been Mrs. Balfame and she was the last person he
wished to harm, innocent or guilty.
No one could doubt that he told the truth and hated to tell it. Nor
could any one jump to the conclusion that he was the assassin; he had as
little motive for killing Balfame as any of the other men of Brabant
County with whom he had been for years on the same cordial terms.
All that Rush could do was to make him admit that perhaps he was
naturally confused by the flash, the report almost in his ear, the man
sinking at his feet, and only fancied he saw a running form; the
delusion would be natural in the circumstances, particularly as his
thoughts seemed to have been concentrated upon getting out of the way.
Mr. Mott admitted almost too eagerly that this might be true, but added
that when the district attorney, who was a cousin of Miss Lacke, as well
as an old friend of his own, had squeezed the story out of him bit by
bit (the form of extraction was supplied by Mr. Rush), that had been his
impression; he seemed to have that tall running figure imprinted upon
his retina, as it were. Of course it might be just imagination. He
wished to God he could swear it was. When asked sharply if even one of
his parents was German, he recovered his poise and replied haughtily
that he was straight American and as pro-Allies as the best man in the
country. He had never entered Old Dutch's beer garden; his choice was a
hotel bar, anyhow; he avoided saloons.
Rush had a diabolical power of making a witness look ridiculous, but the
American mind is essentially a just mind, normally unemotional, and a
very magnet for facts. As the Judge adjourned the court until Monday the
sob-sisters trailed out dejectedly, after a vain endeavour to get close
to Mrs. Balfame; the young men sauntered forth with their heads in the
air, and Rush's lips were so closely pressed together that his face
looked pure granite. As a matter of fact, his heart felt like water.
Mrs. Balfame, who had not permitted herself to show a flicker of
interest while Mott was on the stand, rose as the Judge left the room.
She smiled upon each of her friends separately and kissed the prominent
ladies of Elsinore who had sat beside her throughout that trying day.
"Please don't come over to the jail," she said. "I know you are worn
out, and I have a bad headache. I must lie down. But do please come
to-morrow. You are all too good. Thank you so much."
Then with a faint smile and a light step she followed the sheriff
through the long tunnel, a horrible vision dancing before her eyes.