"THE PENALTY IS DEATH!"
When court convened the following morning for the last act in the
prolonged drama of Joe Newbolt's trial, the room was crowded even beyond
the congestion of the previous day.
People felt that Sam Lucas was not through with the accused lad yet;
they wanted to be present for the final and complete crucifixion. It was
generally believed that, under the strain of Lucas's bombardment, Joe
would break down that day.
The interference of Alice Price, unwarranted and beyond reason, the
public said, had given the accused a respite, but nothing more. Whatever
mistaken notion she had in doing it was beyond them, for it was
inconceivable that she could be wiser than another, and discover virtues
in the accused that older and wiser heads had overlooked. Well, after
the rebuke that Judge Maxwell had given her, _she_ wouldn't meddle again
soon. It was more than anybody expected to see her in court again. No,
indeed, they said; that would just about settle _her_.
Such a fine girl, too, and such a blow to her father. It was a piece of
forwardness that went beyond the imagination of anybody in the town.
Could it be that Alice Price had become tainted with socialism or
woman's rights, or any of those wild theories which roared around the
wide world outside Shelbyville and created such commotion and unrest?
Maybe some of those German doctrines had got into her head, such as that
young Professor Gobel, whom the regents discharged from the college
faculty last winter, used to teach.
It was too bad; nearly everybody regretted it, for it took a girl a long
time to live down a thing like that in Shelbyville. But the greatest
shock and disappointment of all was, although nobody would admit it,
that she had shut Joe's mouth on the very thing that the public ear was
itching to hear. She had cheated the public of its due, and taken the
food out of its mouth when it was ravenous. That was past forgiveness.
Dark conjectures were hatched, therefore, and scandalous hints were set
traveling. Mothers said, well, they thanked their stars that she hadn't
married _their_ sons; and fathers philosophized that you never could
tell how a filly would turn out till you put the saddle on her and tried
her on the road. And the public sighed and gasped and shook its head,
and was comfortably shocked and satisfyingly scandalized.
The sheriff brought the prisoner into court that morning with free
hands. Joe's face seemed almost beatific in its exalted serenity as he
saluted his waiting mother with a smile. To those who had seen the gray
pallor of his strained face yesterday, it appeared as if he had cast his
skin during the night, and with it his harassments and haunting fears,
and had come out this morning as fresh and unscarred as a child.
Joe stood for a moment running his eyes swiftly over the room. When they
found the face they sought a warm light shot into them as if he had
turned up the wick of his soul. She was not so near the front as on the
day before, yet she was close enough for eye to speak to eye.
People marked the exchange of unspoken salutations between them, and
nudged each other, and whispered: "There she is!" They wondered how she
was going to cut up today, and whether it would not end for her by
getting herself sent to jail, along with that scatter-feathered young
crow whom she seemed to have taken into her heart.
Ollie was present, although Joe had not expected to see her, he knew not
why. She was sitting in the first row of benches, so near him he could
have reached over and taken her hand. He bowed to her; she gave him a
sickly smile, which looked on her pale face like a dim breaking of sun
through wintry clouds.
To the great surprise and greater disappointment of the public in
attendance upon the trial, Sam Lucas announced, when court opened, that
the state would not proceed with the cross-examination of the defendant.
Hammer rose with that and stated that the defense rested. He had no more
witnesses to call.
Hammer wore a hopeful look over his features that morning, a reflection,
perhaps, of his client's unworried attitude. He had not been successful
in his attempt to interview Alice Price, although he had visited her
home the night before. Colonel Price had received him with the air of
one who stoops to contact with an inferior, and assured him that he was
delegated by Miss Price--which was true--to tell Mr. Hammer that she
knew nothing favorable to his client's cause; that her caution in his
moment of stress had nothing behind it but the unaccountable impulse of
a young and sympathetic girl.
Hammer accepted that explanation with a large corner of reservation in
his mind. He knew that she had visited the jail, and it was his opinion
that his client had taken her behind the door of his confidence, which
he had closed to his attorney. Alice Price knew something, she must know
something, Hammer said. On that belief he based his intention of a
motion for a new trial in case of conviction. He would advance the
contention that new evidence had been discovered; he would then get
Alice Price into a corner by herself somewhere and make her tell all she
knew.
That was why Hammer smiled and felt quite easy, and turned over in his
mind the moving speech that he had prepared for the jury. He was glad of
the opportunity which that great gathering presented. It was a plowed
field waiting the grain of Hammer's future prosperity.
Hammer kept turning his eyes toward Alice Price, where she sat in the
middle of the court-room beside the colonel. He had marked an air of
uneasiness, a paleness as of suppressed anxiety in the girl's face. Now
and then he saw her look toward the door where Captain Taylor stood
guard, in his G. A. R. uniform today, as if it were a gala occasion and
demanded decorations.
For whom could she be straining and watching? Hammer wondered. Ah, no
doubt about it, that girl knew a great deal more of the inner-working of
his client's mind than he did. But she couldn't keep her secret. He'd
get it out of her after filing his motion for a new trial--already he
was looking ahead to conviction, feeling the weakness of his case--and
very likely turn the sensation of a generation loose in Shelbyville when
he called her to the witness-stand. That was the manner of Hammer's
speculations as he watched her turning her eyes toward the door.
Ollie sat beside her mother, strangely downcast for all the brightening
of her affairs. Joe had passed through the fire and come out true,
although he might have faltered and betrayed her if it had not been for
the sharp warning of Alice Price, cast to him like a rope to a drowning
man. Like Hammer, like a thousand others, she wondered why Alice had
uttered that warning. What did she know? What did she suspect? It was
certain, above everything else, that she knew Joe was guiltless. She
knew that he was not maintaining silence on his own account.
How did she know? Had Joe told her? Ollie struggled with the doubt and
perplexity of it, and the fear which lay deep in her being made her long
to cringe there, and shield her face as from fire. She could not do
that, any more than she had succeeded in her desire to remain away from
court that morning. There was no need for her there, her testimony was
in, they were through with her. Yet she could not stay away. She must be
there for the final word, for the last sight of Joe's prison-white
face.
She must whip herself to sit there as boldly as innocence and cheat the
public into accepting the blanched cheek of fear for the wearing strain
of sorrow; she must sit there until the end. Then she could rise up and
go her way, no matter how it turned out for Joe. She could leave there
with her guilty secret in her heart and the shame of her cowardice
burning like a smothered coal in her breast.
It would hurt to know that Joe had gone to prison for her sake, even
though he once had stepped into the doorway of her freedom and cut off
her light. The knowledge that Alice Price loved him, and that Joe loved
her, for she had read the secret in their burning eyes, would make it
doubly hard. She would be cheating him of liberty and robbing him of
love. Still, they would be no more than even, at that, said she, with a
recurring sweep of bitterness. Had Joe not denied them both to her? All
of this she turned in her mind as she sat waiting for court to open that
somber morning.
The rain in yesterday's threat had come; it was streaking the windows
gray, and the sound of the wind was in the trees, waving their bare
limbs as in fantastic grief against the dull clouds. There was no
comfort in youth and health and prettiness of face and form; no pride in
possession of lands and money, when a hot and tortuous thing like
conscience was lying so ill-concealed behind the thin wall of her
breast.
She thought bitterly of Curtis Morgan, who had failed her so completely.
Never again in the march of her years would she need the support of his
hand and comforting affection as she needed it then. But he had gone
away and forgotten, like a careless hunter who leaves his uncovered fire
after him to spring in the wind and go raging with destructive curse
through the forest. He had struck the spark to warm himself a night in
its pleasurable glow; the hands of ten thousand men could not quench its
flame today.
Judge Maxwell had been conferring with the lawyers in the case these few
minutes, setting a limit to their periods of oration before the jury, to
which both sides agreed after the usual protestations. The court-room
was very quiet; expectancy sat upon the faces of all who waited when Sam
Lucas, prosecuting attorney, rose and began his address to the jury.
He began by calling attention to what he termed the "peculiar atrocity
of this crime," and the circumstances surrounding it. He pointed out
that there could have been no motive of revenge behind the act, for the
evidence had shown, even the testimony of the defendant himself had
shown, that the relations between Chase and his bondman were friendly.
Isom Chase had been kind to him; he had reposed his entire trust in him,
and had gone away to serve his country as a juryman, leaving everything
in his hands.
"And he returned from that duty, gentlemen," said he, "to meet death at
the treacherous hands of the man whom he had trusted, there upon his own
threshold.
"When Isom Chase was found there by his neighbor, Sol Greening,
gentlemen, this bag of money was clasped to his lifeless breast. Where
did it come from? What was Isom Chase doing with it there at that hour
of the night? This defendant has testified that he does not know. Did
Isom Chase carry it with him when he entered the house? Not likely.
"You have heard the testimony of the bankers of this city to the effect
that he carried no deposit with any of them. Isom Chase had returned to
his home that fatal night from serving on a jury in this court-house.
That duty held him there until past ten o'clock, as the records show.
Where did that bag of gold come from? What was it doing there? This
defendant has sworn that he never saw it before, that he knows nothing
at all about it. Yet he admits that 'words' passed between him and Isom
Chase that night.
"What those words were he has locked up in the secret darkness of his
guilty breast. He has refused to tell you what they were, refused
against the kindly counsel of the court, the prayers of his aged mother,
the advice of his own attorney, and of his best friends. Joe Newbolt has
refused to repeat those words to you, gentlemen of the jury, but I will
tell you what the substance of them was."
The prosecutor made a dramatic pause; he flung his long, fair locks back
from his forehead; he leveled his finger at Joe as if he held a weapon
aimed to shoot him through the heart.
Mrs. Newbolt looked at the prosecutor searchingly. She could not
understand why the judge allowed him to say a thing like that. Joe
displayed no indication of the turmoil of his heart. But the light was
fading out of his face, the gray mist of pain was sweeping over it
again.
"Those words, gentlemen of the jury," resumed the prosecutor, "were
words of accusation from the lips of Isom Chase when he entered that
door and saw this man, his trusted servant, making away with that bag of
money, the hoarded savings of Isom Chase through many an industrious
year.
"I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that this defendant, afraid of the
consequences of his act when he found himself discovered in the theft,
and was compelled to surrender the money to its lawful owner--I tell you
then, in that evil moment of passion and disappointment, this defendant
snatched that rifle from the wall and shot honest, hardworking old Isom
Chase down like a dog!"
"No, no!" cried Mrs. Newbolt, casting out her hands in passionate
denial. "Joe didn't do it!"
"Your honor," began the prosecutor, turning to the court with an
expression of injury in his voice which was almost tearful, "am I to be
interrupted----"
"Madam, you must not speak again," admonished the judge. "Mr. Sheriff,
see that the order is obeyed."
The sheriff leaned over.
"Ma'am, I'll have to put you out of here if you do that agin," said he.
Joe placed his hand on his mother's shoulder and whispered to her. She
nodded, as if in obedience to his wish, but she sat straight and alert,
her dark eyes glowing with anger as she looked at the prosecutor.
The prosecutor was composing himself to proceed.
"This defendant had robbed old Isom Chase of his hoarded gold, gentlemen
of the jury, and that was not all. I tell you, gentlemen, Joe Newbolt
had robbed that trusting old man of more than his gold. He had robbed
him of his sacred honor!"
Hammer entered vociferous objections. Nothing to maintain this charge
had been proved by the state, said he. He insisted that the jury be
instructed to disregard what had been said, and the prosecutor
admonished by the court to confine himself to the evidence.
The court ruled accordingly.
"There has been ample evidence on this point," contended the prosecutor.
"The conspiracy of silence entered into between this defendant and the
widow of Isom Chase--entered into and maintained throughout this
trial--is sufficient to brand them guilty of this charge before the
world. More; when Sol Greening's wife arrived a few minutes after the
shooting, Mrs. Chase was fully dressed, in a dress, gentlemen of the
jury, that it would have taken her longer to put on----"
Merely surmises, said Hammer. If surmises were to be admitted before
that court and that jury, said he, he could surmise his client out of
there in two minutes. But the court was of the opinion that the evidence
warranted the prosecutor there. He was allowed to proceed.
"Ollie Chase could not have dressed herself that way in those few
intervening minutes. She had made her preparations long before that
tragic hour; she was ready and waiting--waiting for what?
"Gentlemen, I will tell you. Joe Newbolt had discovered the hiding-place
of his employer's money. He had stolen it, and was preparing to depart
in secrecy in the dead of night; and I tell you, gentlemen of the jury,
he was not going alone!"
"Oh, what a scandalous lie!" said Mrs. Newbolt in a horrified voice
which, low-pitched and groaning that it was carried to the farthest
corner of that big, solemn room.
The outburst caused a little movement in the room, attended by
considerable noise and some shifting of feet. Some laughed, for there
are some to laugh everywhere at the most sincere emotions of the human
breast. The judge rapped for order. A flush of anger mounted to his
usually passive face; he turned to the sheriff with a gesture of
command.
"Remove that woman from the room, Mr. Sheriff, and retain her in
custody!" said he.
The sheriff came forward hastily and took Mrs. Newbolt by the arm. She
stood at his touch and stretched out her hands to the judge.
"I didn't mean to say it out loud, Judge Maxwell, but I thought it so
hard, I reckon, sir, that it got away. Anybody that knows my Joe----"
"Come on, ma'am," the sheriff ordered.
Joe was on his feet. The sheriff's special deputy put his hands on the
prisoner's shoulders and tried to force him down into his seat. The
deputy was a little man, sandy, freckled, and frail, and his efforts,
ludicrously eager, threw the court-room into a fit of unseemly laughter.
The little man might as well have attempted to bend one of the oak
columns which supported the court-house portico.
Judge Maxwell was properly angry now. He rapped loudly, and threatened
penalties for contempt. When the mirth quieted, which it did with a
suddenness almost tragic, Joe spoke. "I wish to apologize to you for
mother's words, sir," said he, addressing the judge, inclining his head
slightly to the prosecuting attorney afterward, as if to include him,
upon second thought. "She was moved out of her calm and dignity by the
statement of Mr. Lucas, sir, and I give you my word of honor that she'll
say no more. I'd like to have her here by me, sir, if you'd grant me
that favor. You can understand, sir, that a man needs a friend at his
side in an hour like this."
Judge Maxwell's face was losing its redness of wrath; the hard lines
were melting out of it. He pondered a moment, looking with gathered
brows at Joe. The little deputy had given over his struggle, and now
stood with one hand twisted in the back of Joe's coat. The sheriff kept
his hold on Mrs. Newbolt's arm. She lifted her contrite face to the
judge, tears in her eyes.
"Very well," said the judge, "the court will accept your apology, and
hold you responsible for her future behavior. Madam, resume your seat,
and do not interrupt the prosecuting attorney again."
Mrs. Newbolt justified Joe's plea by sitting quietly while the
prosecutor continued. But her interruption had acted like an explosion
in the train of his ideas; he was so much disconcerted by it that he
finished rather tamely, reserving his force, as people understood, for
his closing speech.
Hammer rose in consequence, and plunged into the effort of his life. He
painted the character of Isom Chase in horrible guise; he pointed out
his narrowness, his wickedness, his cruelty, his quickness to lift his
hand. He wept and he sobbed, and splashed tears all around him.
It was one of the most satisfying pieces of public oratory ever heard in
Shelbyville, from the standpoint of sentiment, and the view of the
unschooled. But as a legal and logical argument it was as foolish and
futile as Hammer's own fat tears. He kept it up for an hour, and he
might have gone on for another if his tears had not given out. Without
tears, Hammer's eloquence dwindled and his oratory dried.
Mrs. Newbolt blessed him in her heart, and the irresponsible and
vacillating public wiped its cheeks clean of its tears and settled down
to have its emotions warped the other way. Everybody said that Hammer
had done well. He had made a fine effort, it showed what they had
contended for all along, that Hammer had it naturally in him, and was
bound to land in congress yet.
When the prosecutor resumed for the last word he seemed to be in a
vicious temper. He seemed to be prompted by motives of revenge, rather
than justice. If he had been a near relative of the deceased, under the
obligation of exacting life for life with his own hands, he could not
have shown more vindictive personal resentment against the accused. He
reverted to Joe's reservation in his testimony.
"There is no question in my mind, gentlemen of the jury," said he, "that
the silence behind which this defendant hides is the silence of guilt,
and that silence brands him blacker than any confession that his tongue
could make.
"'Words passed between us,' and 'it was between him and me.' That,
gentlemen of the jury, is the explanation this defendant gives, the
only, the weak, the obviously dishonest explanation, that he ever has
offered, or that the kindly admonishment of this court could draw from
his lips. Guilt sits on his face; every line of his base countenance is
a confession; every brutal snarl from his reluctant tongue is testimony
of his evil heart. He was a thief, and, when he was caught, he murdered.
'Out of his own mouth he has uttered his condemnation,' and there is but
one penalty fitting this hideous crime--the penalty of death!
"Never before has the fair name of our county been stained by such an
atrocious crime; never before has there been such a conspiracy between
the guilty to defeat the ends of justice in this moral and respected
community. I call upon you, gentlemen of the jury, for the safety of our
households and the sanctity of our hearths, to bring in your verdict of
guilty under the indictment.
"It is a solemn and awful thing to stand here in the presence of the
Almighty and ask the life of one of his creatures, made by Him in His
own image and endowed by Him with reason and superiority above all else
that moves on the earth or in the waters under it. But this man, Joe
Newbolt, has debased that image and abused that reason and superiority
which raises him above the beasts of the field. He has murdered a
defenseless old man; he has, by that act and deed, forfeited his right
to life and liberty under the law."
The prosecutor made one of his effective pauses. There was the stillness
of midnight in the crowded court-room. The sound of dashing rain was
loud on the window-panes, the hoarse voice of the gray old elm which
combed the wind with its high-flung branches, was like the distant groan
of the sea.
In that aching silence Ollie Chase turned suddenly, as if she had heard
someone call her name. She started, her white face grew whiter. But
nobody seemed conscious of her presence, except the prosecutor, who
wheeled upon her and leveled his accusing finger at her where she sat.
There was the bearing of sudden and reckless impulse in his act. He
surely had not meditated that bold challenge of one who had passed under
his merciless hand, and was now, according to all accepted procedure,
beyond his reach and his concern. But Sam Lucas did that unusual thing.
He stood pointing at her, his jaw trembling as if the intensity of his
passion had palsied his tongue.
"Gentlemen of the jury, what part this woman played in that dark night's
work the world may never know," said he. "But the world is not blind,
and its judgments are usually justified by time. This woman, Ollie
Chase, and this defendant have conspired to hold silence between them,
in what hope, to what unholy end, God alone knows. But who will believe
the weak and improbable story this woman has told on the witness-stand?
Who is so blind that he cannot see the stain of her infidelity and the
ghastly blight of that midnight shadow upon her quaking soul?"
He turned from her abruptly. Hammer partly rose, as if to enter an
objection. He seemed to reconsider it, and sat down. Ollie shrank
against her mother's shoulders, trembling. The older woman, fierce as a
dragon in the sudden focus of the crowd's attention and eyes, fixed in
one shifting sweep from the prosecuting attorney to her daughter, put
her arm about Ollie and comforted her with whispered words.
The prosecutor proceeded, solemnly:
"I tell you, gentlemen, that these two people, Ollie Chase and Joseph
Newbolt, alone in that house that night, alone in that house for two
days before this tragedy darkened it, before the blood of gray old Isom
Chase ran down upon its threshold, these two conspired in their guilt to
hide the truth.
"If this woman would open her lips, if this woman would break the seal
of this guilty compact and speak, the mystery of this case would
dissolve, and the heroic romance which this defendant is trying to put
over the squalid facts of his guilt would turn out only a sordid story
of midnight lust and robbery. If conscience would trouble this woman to
speak, gentlemen of the jury--but she has no conscience, and she has no
heart!"
He turned again to Ollie, savagely; her mother covered her with her arm,
as if to protect her from a blow.
"There she cowers in her guilty silence, in what hope God alone knows,
but if she would speak----"
"_I will speak!_" Ollie cried.