Of course, I didn't have to wait until Whitredge came over to the
county seat to learn that I had hopelessly cooked my goose by the
clumsy attempt at an escape. What I did not suspect then, nor, indeed,
for a long time afterward, was the possibility that Withers or Geddis,
or both of them, had forestalled me in the matter of bribing the two
deputies; that my foolish attempt had been anticipated, and that
Whitredge, himself, was not wholly above suspicion as an accessory
before the fact. For it was his thinly veiled suggestion that put the
thing into my head.
However, that is neither here nor there. With the charge before it,
the grand jury quickly brought in a true bill against me; and on the
plea of the county prosecuting attorney my case was advanced on the
docket and set for trial within the week, the argument for haste being
the critical state of affairs in the business of the Farmers' Bank of
Glendale; a state of affairs which demanded that the responsibility for
certain shortages in the bank's assets be fixed immediately as between
the accused bookkeeper and cashier and his superiors. Whitredge
brought me word of this hurry-up proposal, and either was, or pretended
to be, properly indignant over the unseemly haste.
"You just say the word, Bert, and I'll have the case postponed until
the next term of court, or else I'll know the reason why!" he blustered
stoutly.
"Why should I wish to have it postponed, when the delay would merely
mean six months more of jail for me?" I objected.
"It might give us some chance to frame up some sort of a defense; and,
besides, it would give public opinion a little time to die down," he
suggested. "I say it isn't fair to try you while everybody's hot and
excited and wrathy about the money loss. Still, if you think you're
all ready, and want to take the chance----"
He knew I did, and was only egging me on. What he and all the rest of
them were working for was to get me out of the way as swiftly as
possible. I knew this afterward, after I had time to think it out and
piece it together; and God knows, they gave me all the time I needed to
do the thinking.
So, with the prisoner's counsel making no motion to the contrary, the
trial date stood, and shortly I found myself in the dock, with good old
Judge Haskins peering down at me over the top of his spectacles. Like
many of the older people in the county, the judge had known my father
well, and I am willing to believe that it was not easy for him to sit
in judgment upon that father's son.
The trial was fair enough, as such things go. In the selection of the
jury, Whitredge made free use of his challenging privilege; but it
seemed to me that he always objected to the intelligent man and chose
the other kind. When our Anglo-Saxon ancestors fought for the right of
trial by jury, and got it, they passed down to us a sword with two
edges. Their idea, which was embodied in the common law, was that a
man should be tried by a jury of his peers. But the way things have
worked out, the man of average intelligence is apt to have to face a
dozen jurors who are chosen partly for their lack of intelligence, and
partly because their earning ability is so low that they are willing to
serve for the paltry wage of a juror, whatever it may be.
So far as the presentation of the case went, the county attorney had it
all his own way. Certain of the bank's moneys were missing, and they
had been replaced by worthless mining stock. Specifically, the charge
was that I had been borrowing the bank's money and investing it in the
mining stock--all without authority from anybody higher up--and that at
the last I had grown panic-stricken, or something, and had turned the
stock in as part of the bank's assets.
Chandler, the prosecuting attorney, called only two witnesses, Withers
and Fitch. They both testified that they had heard me admit that I was
guilty. There were no details given which could involve Agatha Geddis.
It was merely stated that my admission of guilt was made at Abel
Geddis's house, and both witnesses asserted that Geddis himself was not
present.
Whitredge leaned over and whispered to me while this evidence was being
taken.
"Chandler knows, and we all know, that this acknowledgment of yours was
made in a talk with Miss Geddis. We are all willing to spare her the
humiliation of being brought into court. But it is your perfect right
to have her called if you wish it."
Knowing well enough by this time what I was in for, I was still foolish
enough, or besotted enough, to shake my head. "I don't wish it," I
said; and since this was practically telling Whitredge not to do so, he
did not cross-examine the two witnesses.
When the prosecution rested, Whitredge took up his line of defense. He
tried to show, rather lamely, I thought, that I had always lived within
my means, hadn't been dissipated, and had never been known to bet,
either on horse races or on the stock market; that whatever I had done
had been done without criminal intent. In this part of the trial I had
a heart-warming surprise. The afternoon train from Glendale brought a
big bunch of young people, and a good sprinkling of older ones, all
eager to testify to my former good character. I saw then how unfair I
had been in the bitterness of that first day. The shock of my arrest
had simply dammed up the sympathy stream like a sudden frost; but now
the reaction had come and I was not without friends. That little
demonstration went with me though many a long and weary day afterward.
Naturally, the greater part of this "character evidence" was thrown out
as irrelevant. The trial wasn't held for the purpose of ascertaining
what sort of a young man I had been in the past. It was supposed to be
an attempt to get at the facts in a particular case; and according to
the testimony of two uncontradicted witnesses, I had admitted these
facts.
Chandler said nothing about my attempt to escape until he came to
address the jury. But then he drove the nail in good and hard. The
deputy sheriff, Simmons, bruised and beaten, was shown to the jurors,
and the prosecuting attorney made much of the fact that I had not
stopped at a possible murder in shutting Simmons up in the bank vault.
There was nothing said about the bribe to the other deputy who had
figured as the hack driver; from which I inferred that the Irishman had
pocketed my money and held his peace.
Whitredge's summing-up was as lame in effect as it was rantingly
emotional. He liked to hear himself talk, and his stock in trade as a
criminal lawyer consisted mainly of perfervid appeals to the sympathies
of his juries. Here, he pleaded, with the tremolo stop pulled all the
way out, was a young man whose entire future would be blasted--and all
that sort of thing. It hadn't the slightest effect upon the group of
stolid hill farmers and laborers in the box who sat and yawned through
it, and I fancy it wasn't intended to have any.
Good old Judge Haskins's charge to the jury was all that a fair and
upright judge could make it. He was no party to the agreement between
the attorneys to keep Agatha Geddis out of it, or even to any knowledge
of it, as he proved by pointing out to the jury the lack of detail in
Fitch's and Withers's testimony. Also, he cautioned the twelve not to
make too much of the attempted escape. He said--what most judges
wouldn't have said--that the attempt was entirely extraneous to the
charge upon which I had been arraigned; that it was not to be taken as
a presumption of guilt; that it proved nothing either way. He added
that an innocent man badly involved might be as easily terrified into
taking flight as a guilty one. If the jury, upon due deliberation,
should be convinced that I had misappropriated the bank's funds, the
verdict should be "Guilty"; but not otherwise.
It was merely in conformity with time-honored custom that the jurymen
rose and left the box and filed out of the court-room, I am sure, for
they were back again in almost no time. Though I had every reason to
expect it, the low-voiced verdict of "Guilty as charged" struck me like
the blow of a fist.
"Brace up and be a man!" Whitredge leaned over to whisper in my ear;
and then the good old judge, with his voice shaking a little,
pronounced my sentence. Five years was the minimum for the offense
with which I stood charged. But a law recently passed gave the judges
a new power. Within the nominal period of five years my sentence was
made indeterminate. The law was vindicated and I became a convict.