the bailiff to a magistrate's court that they learned aught of the
charge against the accused man. What they learned there was very
little, but it furnished a basis for further inquiry on their part. As
this is not a detective story, all that they learned in court and by
subsequent inquiry may best be related directly, in another chapter.
VI
OUT OF A CLEAR SKY
On a corner of Grace Street in that part of it which Westover had twice
traversed on the evening before, stood a very spacious dwelling house,
used at that time as a "Select Educational Establishment for Young
Ladies." That was what the proprietor, Monsieur Le Voiser, called it in
his circulars and the like; everybody else called it "Le Voiser's
School."
There young women, mostly the daughters of the well to do planters,
were "finished" after the most approved fashion. The training they had
received at the hands of their governesses and tutors was supplemented
by certain refinements of education which were deemed necessary to the
perfection of their minds and manners. They had already learned to
strum on the piano; here they were taught how to do so with ease and
grace and with the air of accomplished _pianistes_. Instead of Stephen
C. Foster's melodious but idiotically sentimental songs, which they
loved, they were trained to screech "Hear me Norma," and other
"operatic pieces," which they loathed. More important than all, they
were taught French until they could dream in that language--bad dreams
probably, if they were in harmony with the French in which they were
cast.
Boyd Westover was acquainted with a dozen or more of Monsieur Le
Voiser's pupils, they being the daughters of his neighbors and friends.
He knew the place also, having delivered a brief course of lectures
there during the preceding year.
About half past twelve o'clock on the night on which he had stopped
under a street lamp to read a paper in the rain, there was an alarm in
Le Voiser's school. There were shriekings that might have been heard a
block away; there were a few faintings, and there was a general muster
of scantily robed young women headed by the matron of the
establishment, who was madly bent upon marching them into the garden in
spite of the pouring rain.
The alarm had gone forth that there was "a man in the house." One girl
had imprudently asked, "Is it a burglar?" only to bring down the
matron's wrath upon her head.
"What does that matter to you, Mademoiselle? As a properly brought up
young lady it is enough for you to know that he's a man. You should be
ashamed to need more than that to alarm you."
It was Monsieur Le Voiser's proud boast that "French is the language of
the establishment, and no young lady attending it is permitted to
employ any other tongue." It is perhaps an illustration of the
untrustworthiness of educational veneering, that in this time of
excitement nobody spoke a word of French, until the intruder, who had
been hiding behind a door, slipped from his place of concealment and
made a dash for the verandah through the French window by which he had
entered. As he did so the light of three or four bedroom candles held
high in air fell full upon him, and half a dozen of the girls shouted
in chorus:
"_Regardez_ him! It's Mr. Boyd Westover!"
The consternation which fell upon the excited group at this
announcement seemed to afford a sufficient occasion for several
interesting attacks of hysteria, in the execution of which one damsel
made the startling announcement:
"He came to kidnap me!" repeating it several times. When she grew a
little calmer so that she might be questioned as to her meaning she
declared that Boyd Westover was madly in love with her. Then, having
set the inventive machinery of her creative imagination going, she told
a romantic story interesting to hear and perfectly delicious to tell.
In it she figured as a heroine of romance, beset by the passionate
entreaties of a lover to whom she found it impossible to give her love
in return, and so forth to the end of as pretty a story of love and
coldness, persuasion and pleading, as any that Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz
or Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth ever manufactured for the delectation of
languishing Lydias.
The girl's ambition to win interest in her own behalf somewhat
overreached itself. The other girls were jealous of her romantic
distinction and, when they grew calm while she got herself carried to
bed, they flatly refused to believe her story.
But there was no room for doubt that the intruder was Boyd Westover, or
that he had forced the fastenings of a bolted window in gaining
entrance. One girl, whose father was a lawyer, explained that this
forcing of fastenings, however frail they might have been, constituted
the crime of burglary.
Then somebody remembered that the intruder had escaped and some one
else ventured the suggestion that steps ought to be taken to apprehend
him. To that end Monsieur Le Voiser was summoned from his private
residence in the next street. After all the girls who personally knew
Boyd Westover, and all those who had attended his course of lectures
had borne witness that the intruder was unmistakably he, Monsieur
proceeded to set the machinery of the law in motion, with the results
already set forth.
When Boyd, with Jack Towns as his counsel, presented himself before the
magistrate, there was a group of Monsieur Le Voiser's pupils there,
whom Jack Towns, borrowing his text from the circus posters, called "A
bevy of beauty and galaxy of grace." They were there under command of
their matron to testify to the facts of the burglary and the identity
of the burglar, which they one and all did with so much confidence that
Jack Towns found it impossible to shake their beliefs in the smallest
degree.
Sam Anderson was there too, very reluctantly indeed and under
compulsion of a subpœna. The Commonwealth's Attorney had somehow
learned of his encounter with Westover near the scene of the burglary
under what appeared to be suspicious circumstances. The hotel clerk was
present to testify concerning the hour and circumstances of Westover's
return to the hotel on the night before.
To meet all this array of testimony, Boyd Westover had no single
witness of any kind. And if there had been any such Jack Towns would
not have put him on the stand. It was clear that the accused young man
must be committed in any case to await the action of the Grand Jury,
and Jack Towns was much too shrewd a lawyer to waste strength--if he
had had any strength--in this preliminary hearing. He devoted himself
instead to the task of getting the bail fixed at as low a sum as
possible. When he pleaded that his client was well known to be a
gentleman of the best family connections and the most scrupulous honor,
a man to whom the commission of such a crime was utterly impossible,
the magistrate reminded him that the witnesses were young gentlewomen
of equally good families, in whom perjury was not even conceivable;
that their number was too great and their testimony too positive to
leave room for the theory of possible mistake; and finally that the
very fact of Boyd Westover's high place in life rendered any crime on
his part especially heinous. He felt bound, he said, to fix bail at
five thousand dollars--a very great sum in those days.
Within the hour, however, Boyd's friends and those who had been friends
of his father, rallied about him, ready and eager to furnish bonds for
any amount. Not one of them knew aught of the merits of the case, and
not one of them asked a question concerning it. They simply did not
believe that Boyd Westover had broken by night into a girls' school for
any purpose whatever, and they were determined that he should not go to
jail while awaiting indictment and trial on so absurd a charge.
"Now come with me," said Jack Towns as soon as the matter of the bail
bonds was settled. "We'll go to my house, not to my office, to avoid
interruptions. I must get at the very marrow of this matter before a
word is said about it. Come."
When the two were seated in an untidy room of Jack Towns's untidy
bachelor establishment, and Jack had locked the front door for the
first time within his recollection, he turned to his friend, saying:
"I want you to tell me every thing you did last night--the unimportant
things even more than the important. Don't be afraid of boring me with
details, and relate everything in the order in which it occurred. Then
I'll cross-examine you as rigidly as if you were a witness concealing
something. Perhaps we may discover something to shed light upon what
seems the most perplexing mystery I ever knew. Go on."
Boyd told the story in minute detail, ending it by saying:
"I can make oath to all that and swear that nothing else of any kind
occurred."
"No, you can't," said Jack Towns. "The court won't let you swear to any
of it."
"Can I not make a statement of facts in a case that involves my
liberty, my reputation, and everything else that I care for?"
"No. The law of Virginia does not permit an accused person to testify
in his own behalf. That is the Common Law rule, and Virginia is under
the Common Law. Don't tell me the thing is absurd, unjust, cruel,
barbaric, and all that; for I know it already. It is the law, and you
and I cannot change it. Let us go on with our inquiry instead. Do you
know approximately at what hour you passed Le Voiser's school on your
return from your visit to Milhauser?"
"I know exactly. It was precisely half-past twelve. I saw lights
carried about in the school and, wondering at the fact, looked at my
watch to see the hour."
"And you left Milhauser's house at what time?"
"Half-past ten."
"Why did it take you so long to get back to the hotel?"
"Milhauser's house, as you know, is away out of town--beyond Richmond
College. There's a horse car which runs at irregular intervals between
the college and the Broad Street end of the Fredericksburg Railroad,
using the track of that railroad when no train is due. When I got to
the college gate it was raining heavily and I took shelter under a sort
of shed opposite the gates to wait for the car. It didn't come, and at
last I decided to walk on."
"Why did you turn south and into Grace Street, instead of coming on
down Broad?"
"Because it was raining and muddy, and the sidewalks are better in
Grace Street. Besides, as my hotel is in Main Street I had to turn
south at some point on the journey."
"Yes, of course."
After a period of silent thinking to no purpose, Jack Towns said:
"It's a queer case. All those girls swear you were in the school a
little after twelve. Milhauser, if questioned, would have to swear that
you left his house at half-past ten. You saw nobody else after that,
who could even suggest an alibi. You got to the hotel drenched and
dripping, at precisely the time you would have got there if you had
been chased out of the school at the time the intruder was. You admit
that you passed the school at the time of the disturbance. The case is
so clearly made out against you, both by the positive testimony of
eyewitnesses, and by all the circumstances, that any jury ever
empanelled would have to convict you. Why, I'd feel bound to convict
you myself--"
"Do you mean that you have the remotest shadow of doubt as to my
innocence of this charge?" sternly demanded Westover, rising.
"Certainly not. Don't be an idiot. Sit down. But as the case stands we
haven't a straw to cling to. We can't impeach the testimony of a dozen
high-bred young women, every one of whom swears positively that she
knows you well and that she saw you make your escape from the invaded
precincts. There is no way in which we can so much as cast a doubt upon
your guilt. With the case presented as it stands, any juror who should
hesitate to pronounce you guilty would be a perjurer. The only hope is
that we may find some way out before the case comes to trial."
"When will that be?" asked Boyd Westover, in a tone so stoically calm
that Jack Towns looked at him to see what had happened to him.
"Are you ill?" he asked.
"No, not at all. It is only that I see the utter hopelessness of the
case. I am a man condemned to worse than death. But I am a _man_ and
must face even such calamity without flinching. When the trial is over,
I shall be a convicted felon. It will do no good to assert my
innocence. Nobody will believe it--nobody can, in face of the
testimony. My life is ruined, my reputation blasted, my doom sealed.
But I shall neither whine nor whimper. Now tell me when the blow is to
fall? When will the trial occur?"
"The court is in session now. The indictment will be found to-morrow,
but I shall secure a postponement of the trial until the next term."
"Do nothing of the kind. Let the trial come on at once--the sooner the
better. Delay will do no sort of good. I believe every accused person
is entitled to 'a speedy trial.' Demand that for me, and secure it."
Towns argued and pleaded, but to no purpose. He could offer no
suggestion of advantage in delay, except by saying:
"I have always found it worth while to trust to the unexpected. If we
have time, something may happen that we don't anticipate."
"And I, in the meantime?" answered Boyd. "No. Bring the thing to a head
at once. How soon can you make it?"
"Within forty-eight hours," answered the lawyer. "I advise against it,
but--"
"I quite understand. The responsibility rests upon me. Go on and make
an end of the horrible thing."
VII
IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
It was the chivalric custom of the Virginians to protect their
woman-kind in all circumstances, at all costs and at all hazards, not
only against wrong and danger, but equally against annoyance and
especially the annoyance of publicity. Women in Virginia were proudly
feminine; men intensely and bravely masculine.
Accordingly the news of Boyd Westover's case had only begun to spread
abroad when all the male relatives of all the girls in Le Voiser's
school set themselves to hurry their daughters, sisters and nieces into
secure hiding, so that they might be spared the annoyance of appearing
in court as witnesses in a criminal case.
Short as the time was, the officers sent to serve summonses upon such
as were wanted found the school well nigh deserted. Some even of those
on whom they succeeded in serving their subpœnas were protectingly
abducted before the day of the trial by relatives who braved the
penalties of contempt of court in rescue of delicately nurtured maidens
dear to them.
Nevertheless there were one or two of the girls present in court when
Boyd Westover was called to the bar. These had been in hiding, but
their places of concealment had been discovered and the girls
themselves brought by force to the court. Then too the matron was there
prepared to bear unhesitating witness to Boyd's identity with the
offender.
A good deal of time was consumed in securing a jury. The first man
called declared:
"I would not believe this charge against Boyd Westover even if I had
been present, seeing him with my own eyes." Others expressed their
incredulity in different forms of words but with equal positiveness,
and of course all such were rejected. It thus happened that the jury
was not completed till a late hour in the day. But on the other hand it
took very little time for the Commonwealth's witnesses to give their
testimony, and after one or two fruitless attempts to secure from them
an admission of doubt or possible mistake, Jack Towns forbore to cross
examine them.
He had no witnesses to offer in his client's behalf. He had nothing to
depend upon indeed except a certain persuasive eloquence which had
often served him well, and this he brought to bear with all his
passionate nature to stimulate it. He spoke for an hour. He argued,
pleaded, persuaded. He set forth the character of his client and of the
distinguished family from which he was sprung. He dwelt upon the utter
improbability of the commission of such a crime by such a man. He
pointed out and emphasized the fact that a girls' school was not the
place that any housebreaker in his senses would think of entering in
search of booty. He ended with an impassioned setting forth of the ruin
and disgrace that must fall upon this high-charactered young man as the
result of an adverse verdict. So eloquently and so pathetically did he
present the pitiful aspect of the matter that tears ran down scores of
cheeks, and the Judge himself bowed his head upon the desk in front of
the bench, as if to conceal an emotion he could not control.
The Commonwealth's Attorney--the prosecuting officer--rose, but instead
of making the usual speech, simply said, in a voice choked with sobs:
"The testimony is before you, gentlemen of the jury. I have nothing to
add to it."
There was but one result possible. Ten minutes after the jury retired,
it filed into court again bearing a verdict of "Guilty."
Boyd Westover was a convicted felon. The sun of his fair young life had
gone down amid clouds of black disgrace, and it could know no rising.
Worse than death a thousand fold, worse than the cruelest torture was
this to a proudly sensitive nature, nurtured in traditions of honor
that held every slightest character stain to be an indelible blot.
Yet it was with head erect, with dry eyes, with unshaken nerves and
unflinching spirit that he met this decree of doom. It was the
tradition of his race to meet Fate without faltering, to fight while
the possibility of fighting lasted, and when it failed, to shroud an
undaunted soul in the chain mail of unconquerable courage.
When the verdict was rendered, the young man turned to his friend and
counsellor, and in an entirely unemotional voice, said:
"I thank you sincerely for all you have done and tried to do. I have
need of a little time in which to arrange my affairs. Can you do me a
final favor by securing it for me?"
The matter was easily arranged. The Judge, full of compassion for the
ruined youth, and in spite of reason, testimony, and everything else,
still not believing in Boyd Westover's guilt, asked if ten days would
suffice. Then without renewing the bail bonds that had expired with the
beginning of the trial, he appointed the tenth day thereafter for
sentence. It was the Commonwealth's Attorney's business to move for the
renewal of the bonds, without which the condemned man was in fact under
no restraint whatever, but he made no motion of the kind. When asked by
Jack Towns some time afterwards why he had not done his duty in that
respect, he replied:
"I simply couldn't. Boyd Westover and I were schoolmates, you know, and
I lived for many months in his father's house. I _knew_ he wouldn't run
away. Who ever heard of a Westover flinching? Why should I subject him
to an indignity?"
Thus, in Virginia, did character--personal and inherited--count. There
were some things that a gentleman could not do. He might commit a crime
of violence, but he could not do a cowardly or treacherous act. The
bailiff who had trusted Boyd Westover's word of honor, knew that and
risked the loss of his place upon his confidence in it. The
Commonwealth's Attorney knew it and took the chance of impeachment upon
it.
The net result was that on the day of his conviction Boyd Westover
walked out of court an absolutely free man except in so far as he was
bound by his own sense of honor and by the traditions of the race from
which he was sprung. These bound him to appear in court for sentence at
the end of the ten days allowed to him, and as everybody knew, the bond
was amply sufficient.
Jack Towns took him in the meanwhile to his own house.
"You'll be my guest," he said, "and I'll see that we aren't
interrupted."
"You still don't mind that?" Boyd asked.
For response he got an earnest look in the eyes, and the verbal answer:
"Don't be a fool, Boyd."
After a minute, Boyd asked, reflectively:
"How is it, Jack, that you and some others seem still to believe in me?
In view of the evidence--"
"Hang the evidence," interrupted the lawyer. "Don't you know that
character is the most important and the most trustworthy fact in life?
You don't suppose for a moment that I have a doubt in your case, do
you? If you do, you grievously wrong my friendship."
"How then do you account for the facts as set forth in the testimony
against me?"
"What do you mean, Boyd? Are you trying to convince me that you are
guilty of a crime that I know to be utterly impossible to you?"
"No. I am only trying to find out the grounds of your confidence in me,
so that I may know how far to impose on them in making my arrangements
for the future. That's the purport of my question, which, by the way,
you haven't answered yet."
"Oh well, as to that, you're the victim of some hideous mistake. If you
had let me stave off your trial for six months the chances are we
should have found out what the mistake is. As it is--"
"As it is, I couldn't have lived for six months in such suspense as
that. Neither could you, in like case. We're the sort of men who say to
the lightning, 'Strike if you will, but don't prolong your threats.'
Besides, I cannot see how this thing could have been bettered by delay.
Those girls honestly believe they recognized me as an intruder in the
school. They would believe that quite as firmly six months hence as
now."
"Perhaps so. But six months hence not one of them would have been in
Virginia to testify against you. Their friends would have taken care of
that."
"Yes, I know. And I should have been suspected of securing my acquittal
by spiriting away the witnesses against me. I couldn't live under so
black a shadow as that."
"I understand. But all this is profitless. We have much to do to get
your affairs in order. Let us address ourselves to that. First of all
I've had all your mail sent up here from the hotel. Suppose you read it
now, and after supper we'll set to work."
VIII
THE SHADOWS FALL
When the shadows begin to fall upon a human life, they fall quickly and
darkly.
In Boyd Westover's mail was a letter from the agent who had arranged
the mortgage loan upon Wanalah plantation, threatening to abandon the
arrangement on the ground that young Westover's conviction impaired the
security. This sorely troubled Boyd Westover--for if he was to go to
prison his mother's financial ease was a matter of primary concern to
him. It didn't trouble Jack Towns in the least.
"Leave that to me for answer," the lawyer said, taking possession of
the letter. "The man ought to seek employment as an oyster-opener at
Rockett's. That's about his size. That mortgage is completely executed.
I've seen to it, pending--other things. That will stand, and, as the
property is amply good for it, the fellow's an idiot to want to fly his
bargain."
There was news in the next mail that could not be so lightly dismissed.
The family physician wrote that Boyd's mother, already in feeble and
precarious health, had been shocked by the tidings of her son's
calamity into a condition that threatened the worst. This calamity was
one which even Boyd Westover's stoicism could not face without
flinching. From childhood his affection for his mother had been a
dominant passion, and since his father's death it had become fatherly
as well as filial. He had jealously guarded that "little mother," as he
called her, against every shock, every care, every breath of an adverse
wind as it were. He had made a veritable pet of her, and while never
for a moment laying aside his chivalric respect and reverence, he had
added to them a certain big brotherly manner in which she had found joy
untellable. If she wearied while walking with him in the house grounds,
he would pick her up, as he might have done with any child, and in
spite of her laughing protests, carry her into the porch and deposit
her in a hammock. If a light shone disagreeably in her eyes he
discovered it and shut it off before she became conscious of its glare.
If she went to her room to rest he quietly stationed a maid at the foot
of the stairs with orders to permit no noise and no passing up or down.
Now that news came of this dearly loved little mother's serious
illness, the young man was made to suffer agonies by the consciousness
that her affliction was on his account, so that it required all of Jack
Towns's eloquence to convince him that he was himself in nowise to
blame for it. By way of emphasizing that, the young lawyer had to put
the matter into brutally plain phrase.