family," continued the judge.
"Ain't she hateful?" cried Joe, shaking his great head.
"When she married you, she had a right to expect you would not turn out
the scoundrel you are proving yourself."
"Boss, that's so," agreed Montgomery.
"This won't do!" said the judge briskly. "Nellie says she doesn't see
you from one week's end to another; that you have money and yet
contribute nothing toward her support nor the support of your family."
"I am willin' to go home, Judge!" said Montgomery, fingering his cap
with clumsy hands. He took a step nearer the slight figure on the
hearth-rug and dropped his voice to a husky half maudlin whisper. "He
won't let me--see--I'm a nigger slave to him! I know I got a wife--I
know I got a family, but he says--no! He says--'Joe, you damned old sot,
you'll go home with a few drinks inside your freckled hide and begin to
shoot off your mouth, and there'll be hell to pay for all of us!'"
"He? What are you saying--who won't let you go home?" demanded the
judge.
"Andy Gilmore; he's afraid my old woman will get it out of me. I tell
him I'm a married man but he says, 'No, you old soak, you stay here!'"
"What has Andy Gilmore to do with whether you go home or not?" inquired
the judge.
"It's him and Marsh," said the handy-man. "They bully me till I'm that
rattled--"
"Marsh--do you mean my son, Marshall?" interrupted the judge.
"Yes, boss--"
"I don't understand this!" said the judge after a moment of silence.
"Why should Mr. Gilmore or my son wish to keep you away from your wife?"
"It's just a notion of theirs," replied Montgomery with sudden drunken
loyalty. "And I'll say this--money never come so easy--and stuff to
drink! Andy's got it scattered all about the place; there ain't many
bars in this here town stocked up like his rooms!"
The judge devoted a moment to a close scrutiny of his caller.
"You are some sort of a relative of Mr. Gilmore's, are you not?" he
asked at length.
"We're cousins, boss."
"Why does he wish to keep you away from your family?" the judge spoke
after another brief pause.
"It's my old woman," and Montgomery favored the judge with a drunken
leer. "Suppose I was to go home full, what's to hinder her from gettin'
things out of me? I'm a talker, drunk or sober, and Andy Gilmore knows
it--that's what he's afraid of!"
"What have you to tell that could affect Mr. Gilmore? Do you refer to
the gambling that is supposed to go on in his rooms? If so, he is at
needless pains in the matter; Mr. Moxlow will take up his case as soon
as the North trial is out of the way."
Montgomery started, took a forward step, and dropping his voice to an
impressive whisper, said:
"Judge, what are you goin' to do with young John North?"
"I shall do nothing with John North; it is the law--society, to which he
is accountable," rejoined the judge.
"Will he be sent up, do you reckon?" asked Montgomery, and his small
blue eyes searched the judge's face eagerly.
"If he is convicted, he will either be sentenced to the penitentiary for
a term of years or else hanged." The judge spoke without visible
feeling.
The effect of his words on the handy-man was singular. A hoarse
exclamation burst from his lips, and his bloated face became pale and
drawn.
"You mustn't do that, boss!" he cried, spreading out his great hands in
protest. "A term of years--how many's that?"
"In this particular instance it may mean the rest of his life," said the
judge.
Montgomery threw up his arms in a gesture of despair.
"Don't you be too rough on him, boss!" he cried. "For life!" he repeated
in a tone of horror. "But that ain't what Andy and Marsh tell me; they
say his friends will see him through, that he's got the general back of
him, and money--how's that, Judge?"
"They are making sport of your ignorance," said the judge, almost
pityingly.
"I'm done with them!" cried Joe Montgomery with a great oath. He raised
one clenched hand and brought it down in the opened palm of the other.
"Andy's everlastingly lied to me; I won't help send no man up for life!"
"What do you mean?" demanded the judge, astonished at this sudden
outburst, and impressed, in spite of himself, by the man's earnestness.
"Just what I say, boss! They can count me out--I'm agin 'em, I'm agin
'em every time!" And again, as if to give force to his words, he swung
his heavy first around and struck the open palm of his other hand a
stinging blow. "Eatin' and sleepin', I'm agin 'em! I ain't liked the
look of this from the first, and now I'm down and out, and they can go
to hell for all of me!"
The judge rested an elbow on the chimneypiece and regarded Montgomery
curiously. He knew the man was drunk; he knew that sober he would
probably have said much less than he was now saying, but he also knew
that there was some powerful feeling back of his words.
"If you are involved in any questionable manner with Mr. Gilmore, I
should advise you to think twice before you go further with it. Mr.
Gilmore is shrewd, he has money; you are a poor man and you are an
ignorant man. Your reputation is none of the best."
"Thank you, boss!" said Montgomery gratefully.
"Mr. Gilmore probably expects to use you for his own ends regardless of
the consequences to you," finished the judge.
"Supposin'--" began the handy-man huskily, "supposin', boss, I was to go
into court and swear to something that wasn't so; what's that?" and he
bent a searching glance on the judge's face.
"Perjury," said the judge laconically.
"What's it worth to a man? I reckon it's like drinkin' and stealin',
it's got so many days and costs chalked up agin it?"
"I think," said the judge quietly, "that you would better tell me what
you mean. Ordinarily I should not care to mix in your concerns, but on
Nellie's account--"
"God take a likin' to you, boss!" cried Montgomery. "I know I ought to
have kept out of this. I told Andy Gilmore how it would be, that I
hadn't the brains for it; but he was to stand back of me. And so he
will--to give me a kick and a shove when he's done with me!"
He saw himself caught in that treacherous fabric Gilmore had erected for
John North, whose powerful friends would get him clear. Andy and Marsh
would go unscathed, too. Only Joe Montgomery would suffer--Joe
Montgomery, penniless and friendless, a cur in the gutter for any decent
man to kick! He passed the back of his hand across his face.
"It's a hell of a world and be damned to it!" he muttered hoarsely under
his breath.
"You must make it clearer to me than this!" said the judge impatiently.
Montgomery seemed to undergo a brief but intense mental struggle, then
he blurted out:
"Boss, I lied when I said it was North I seen come over old man
McBride's shed that night!"
"Do you mean to tell me that you perjured yourself in the North case?"
asked the judge sternly.
"Sure, I lied!" said the handy-man. "But Andy Gilmore was back of that
lie; it was him told me what I was to say, and it's him that kept
houndin' me, puttin' me up to say more than I ever agreed to!" He
slouched nearer the judge. "Boss, I chuck up the whole business; do you
understand? I want to take back all I said; I'm willin' to tell the God
A'mighty's truth!"
He paused abruptly. In his excitement he had forgotten what the truth
meant, what it would mean to the man before him. He was vaguely aware
that in abler hands than his own, this knowledge which he possessed
would have been molded into a terrible weapon, but he was impotent to
use it; with every advantage his, he felt only the desperate pass in
which he had placed himself. If Gilmore and Marshall Langham could
juggle with John North's life, what of his own life when the judge
should have become their ally!
"Me and you'll have to fix up what I got to say, boss!" he added with a
cunning grin.
"Do you mean you wish to make a statement to me?" asked the judge.
The handy-man nodded. The judge hesitated.
"Perhaps we would better send for Mr. Moxlow?" he suggested.
But Montgomery shook his head vehemently.
"I got nothin' to say to that man Moxlow!" he growled with sullen
determination.
"Very well, then, if you prefer to make your statement to me," and the
judge turned to his desk.
"Hold on, boss, we ain't ready for that just yet!" Joe objected. He was
sober enough, by this time.
"What is it you wish to tell me?"
And the judge resumed his former position on the hearth-rug.
"First you got to agree to get me out of this."
"I can agree to nothing," answered the judge quietly.
"I ain't smart, boss, but Joe Montgomery's old hide means a whole lot to
Joe Montgomery! You give me your word that I'll be safe, no matter what
happens!"
"I can promise you nothing," repeated the judge.
"Then what's the use of my tellin' you the truth?" demanded Montgomery.
"It has become the part of wisdom, since you have already admitted that
you have perjured yourself."
"Boss, if it wasn't John North I seen in the alley that day, who was
it?" and he strode close to the judge's side, dropping his voice to a
whisper.
"Perhaps the whole story was a lie."
The handy-man laughed and drew himself up aggressively.
"I'm a man as can do damage--I got to be treated right, or by the Lord
I'll _do_ damage! I been badgered and hounded by Marsh and Andy Gilmore
till I'm fair crazy. They got to take their hands off me and leave me
loose, for I won't hang no man on their say-so! John North never done me
no harm, I got nothing agin him!"
"You have admitted that your whole story of seeing John North on the
night of the McBride murder is a lie," said the judge.
"Boss, there is truth enough in it to hang a man!"
"You saw a man cross McBride's sheds?"
And the judge kept his eyes fastened on the handy-man's face.
"I seen a man cross McBride's shed, boss."
"And you have sworn that that man was John North."
"I swore to a lie. Boss, we got to fix it this way: I seen a man come
over the roof and drop into the alley; I swore it was John North, but I
never meant to swear to that; the most I promised Andy was that I'd say
I thought it _looked_ like John North, but them infernal lawyers got
after me, and the first thing I knowed I'd said it _was_ John North!"
"Your story is absurd!" exclaimed the judge, with a show of anger.
The handy-man raised his right hand dramatically.
"It's God A'mighty's everlastin' truth!" he swore.
"Understand, I have made you no promises," said the judge, disregarding
him.
"You're goin' back on me!" cried Montgomery. "Then you look out. I'm a
man as can do harm if I have a mind to; don't you give me the mind,
boss!"
"I shall lay this matter before Mr. Moxlow in the morning," replied the
judge quietly and with apparent indifference, but covertly he was
watching the effect of his words on Montgomery.
"And then they'll be after me!" cried the handy-man.
"Very likely," said the judge placidly.
Montgomery glanced about as though he half expected to see Gilmore rise
up out of some shadowy corner.
"Boss, do you want to know who it was I seen come over old man McBride's
shed? Do you want to know why Andy and Marsh are so set agin my goin'
home to my old woman? Why they give me money? It's a pity I ain't a
smarter man! I'd own 'em, both body and soul!"
"Man, you are mad!" cried the judge.
But this man who was usually austere and always unafraid, was feeling a
strange terror of the debased and slouching figure before him.
"Do you reckon you're man enough to hear what I got in me to tell?"
asked Montgomery, again raising his right hand high above his head as if
he called on Heaven to witness the truth of what he said. "Why won't
they let me go home to my old woman, boss? Why do they keep me at Andy
Gilmore's--why do they give me money? Because what I'm tellin' you is
all a lie, I suppose! Just because they like old Joe Montgomery and want
him 'round! I don't think!" He threw back his head and laughed with
rough sarcasm. "You're a smarter man than me, boss; figure it out; give
a reason for it!"
But the judge, white-faced and shaken to his very soul, was silent; yet
he guessed no part of the terrible truth Montgomery supposed he had made
plain to him. At the most he believed Marshall was shielding Gilmore
from the consequences of a crime the gambler had committed.
Montgomery, sinister and menacing, shuffled across the room and then
back to the judge's side.
"You ask Marsh, boss, what it all means. I got nothin' more to say! Ask
him who killed old man McBride! If he don't know, no man on this green
earth does!"
The judge's face twitched convulsively, but he made no answer to this.
"Ask him!" repeated the handy-man, and swinging awkwardly on his heel
went from the room without a single backward glance.
An instant later the street-door closed with a noisy bang.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AN UNWILLING GUEST
Montgomery told himself he would go home; he had seen the last of the
gambler and Marsh Langham, he would look out for his own skin now and
they could look out for theirs. He laughed boisterously as he strode
along. He had fooled them both; he, Joe Montgomery, had done this, and
by a very master stroke of cunning had tied the judge's hands. But as he
shuffled down the street he saw the welcoming lights of Lonigan's saloon
and suddenly remembered there was good hard money in his ragged pockets.
He would have just one drink and then go home to his old woman.
It was well on toward midnight when he came out on the street again, and
the one drink had become many drinks; still mindful of his original
purpose, however, he reeled across the Square on his way home. He had
just turned into Mulberry Street when he became conscious of a brisk
step on the pavement at his side, and at the same instant a heavy hand
descended on his shoulder and he found himself looking into Andy
Gilmore's dark face.
"Where have you been?" demanded Gilmore. "I thought I told you to stay
about to-night!"
"I have been down to Lonigan's saloon," faltered Joe, his courage going
from him at sight of the gambler.
"What took you there?" asked Gilmore angrily. "Don't you get enough to
drink at my place?"
"Lots to drink, boss, but it's mostly too rich for my blood. I ain't
used to bein' so pampered."
"Come along with me!" said Gilmore briefly.
"Where to, boss?" asked Montgomery, in feeble protest.
"You'll know presently."
"I thought I'd like to go home, maybe--" said Joe irresolutely.
"Never mind what you thought you'd like, you come with me!" insisted
Gilmore.
Although the handy-man's first impulse had been that of revolt, he now
followed the gambler meekly back across the Square. They entered the
building at the corner of Main Street and mounted to Mr. Gilmore's
rooms. The latter silently unlocked the door and motioned Montgomery to
precede him into the apartment, then he followed, pausing midway of the
room to turn up the gas which was burning low. Next he divested himself
of his hat and coat, and going to a buffet which stood between the two
heavily curtained windows that overlooked the Square, found a decanter
and glasses. These he brought to the center-table, where he leisurely
poured his unwilling guest a drink.
"Here, you old sot, soak this up!" he said genially.
"Boss, I want to go home to my old woman!" began the handy-man, after he
had emptied his glass.
"Your old woman will keep!" retorted Gilmore shortly.
"But, boss, I got to go to her; the judge says I must! She's been there
to see him; damn it, she cried and hollered and took on awful because
she ain't seein' me; it was pitiful!"
"What's that?" demanded Gilmore sharply.
"It was pitiful!" repeated Montgomery, shaking his great head
dolorously.
"Oh, cut that! Who have you seen?"
"Judge Langham."
"When did you see him?"
Mr. Gilmore spoke with a forced calm.
"To-night. My old woman--"
"Oh, to hell with your old woman!" shouted the gambler furiously. "Do
you mean that you were at Judge Langham's to-night?"
"Yes, boss; he sent for me, see? I had to go!" explained Montgomery.
"Why did you go there without letting me know, you drunken loafer?"
stormed Gilmore.
He took the handy-man by the arm and pushed him into a chair, then he
stood above him, black-browed and menacing.
"Boss, don't you blame me, it was my old woman; she wants me home with
the kids and her, and the judge, he says I got to go!"
"If he wants to know why I'm keeping you here, send him round to me!"
said Gilmore.
"All right, I will." And Montgomery staggered to his feet.
But Gilmore pushed him back into his chair.
"What else did you talk about besides your old woman?" asked the
gambler, after an oppressive silence in which Montgomery heard only the
thump of his heart against his ribs.
"I told him you'd always been like a father to me--" said the handy-man,
ready to weep.
"I'm obliged to you for that!" replied Gilmore with a smile of grim
humor.
"He said he always knowed it," added Montgomery, misled by the smile.
"Well, what else?" questioned Gilmore.
"Why, I reckon that was about all!" said Joe, who had ventured as far
afield into the realms of fancy as his drunken faculties would allow.
"You're sure about that?"
"I hope I may die--"
"And the judge says you're to go home?"
"Say, Shrimp took my old woman there, and she cried and bellered and
carried on awful! She loves me, boss--the judge says I'm to go home to
her to-night or he'll have me pinched. He says that you and Marsh ain't
to keep me here no longer!"
His voice rose into a wail, for blind terror was laying hold of him.
There was something, a look on Gilmore's handsome cruel face, he did not
understand but which filled him with miserable foreboding.
"What's that, about Marsh and me keeping you here?" inquired Gilmore.
"You got to leave me loose--"
"So you told him that?"
"I had to tell him somethin'. My old woman made an awful fuss! They had
to throw water on her; Shrimp took her home in an express-wagon. Hell,
boss, I'm a married man--I got a family! I know what I ought to do, and
I'm goin' home, the judge says I got to! Him and me talked it all over,
and he's goin' to speak to Marsh about keepin' me here!"
"So you've told him we keep you here?" And the gambler glowered at him.
He poured himself a drink of whisky and swallowed it at a gulp. "Well,
what else did you tell him?" he asked over the rim of his glass.
"That's about all; only me and the judge understand each other," said
the handy-man vaguely.
"Well, it was enough!" rejoined Gilmore. "You are sure you didn't say
anything about North?"
Montgomery shook his head in vigorous denial.
"Sure?" repeated Gilmore, his glance intent and piercing. "Sure?"
A sickly pallor was overspreading the handy-man's flame-colored visage.
It began at his heavy puffy jaws, and diffused itself about his cheeks.
He could feel it spread.
"Sure?" said the gambler. "Sure?"
There was an awful pause. Gilmore carefully replaced his glass on the
table, then he roared in a voice of thunder:
"Stand up, you hound!"
Montgomery realized that the consequences of his treachery were to be
swift and terrible. He came slowly to his feet, but no sooner had he
gained them than Gilmore drove his fist into his face, and he collapsed
on his chair.
"Stand up!" roared Gilmore again.
And again Montgomery came erect only to be knocked back into a sitting
posture, with a long gash across his jaw where the gambler's diamond
ring had left its mark.
"I tell you, stand up!" cried Gilmore.
Reaching forward he seized Montgomery by the throat with his left hand
and jerked him to his feet, then holding him so, he coolly battered his
face with his free hand.
"For God's sake, quit, boss--you're killin' me!" cried Joe, as he vainly
sought to protect his face with his arms.
But Mr. Gilmore had a primitive prejudice in favor of brute force, and
the cruel blows continued until Montgomery seemed to lose power even to
attempt to shield himself; his great hands hung helpless at his side and
his head fell over on his shoulder. Seeing which the gambler released
his victim, who, limp and quivering, dropped to the floor.
Still crazed with rage, Gilmore kicked the handy-man into a corner, and
turning poured himself still another drink of whisky. If he had spoken
then of what was uppermost in his mind, it would have been to complain
of the rotten luck which in so ticklish a business had furnished him
with fools and sots for associates. He should have known better than to
have trusted drunken Joe Montgomery; he should have kept out of the
whole business--
With the suddenness of revelation he realized his own predicament, but
with the realization came the knowledge that he was now hopelessly
involved; that he could not go back; that he must go on, or--here he
threw back his shoulders as though to cast off his evil forebodings--or
between the dusk of one day and the dawn of another, he might disappear
from Mount Hope.
With this cheering possibility in mind, he picked up the glass of whisky
beside him and emptied it at a single draught, then he put on his
overcoat and hat and went from the room, locking the door behind him.
Presently the wretched heap on the floor stirred and moaned feebly, and
then lay still. A little later it moaned again. Lifting his head he
stared vacantly about him.
"Boss--" he began in a tone of entreaty, but realizing that he was
alone he fell weakly to cursing Gilmore.
It was a good five minutes from the time he recovered consciousness
until he was able to assume a sitting posture, when he rested his
battered face in his hands and nursed his bruises.
"And me his cousin!" he muttered, and groaned again.
He feebly wiped his bloody hands on the legs of his trousers and by an
effort staggered to his feet. His only idea was escape; and steadying
himself he managed to reach the door; but the door was locked, and he
flung himself down in a convenient chair and once more fell to nursing
his wounds.
Fifteen or twenty minutes had passed when he heard steps in the hallway.
He knew it was Gilmore returning, but the gambler was not alone;
Montgomery heard him speak to his companion as a key was fitted to the
lock. The door swung open and Gilmore, followed by Marshall Langham,
entered the room.
"Here's the drunken hound, Marsh!" said the gambler.
"For God's sake, boss, let me out of this!" cried Montgomery, addressing
himself to Langham.
"Yes, we will--like hell!" said Gilmore. "By rights we ought to take you
down to the creek, knock you in the head and heave you in--eh, Marsh?
That's about the size of what we _ought_ to do!"
Langham's face was white and drawn with apprehension, yet he surveyed
the ruin the gambler had wrought with something like pity.
"Why, what's happened to him, Andy?" he asked.
His companion laughed brutally.
"Oh, I punched him up some, I couldn't keep my hands off him, I only
wonder I didn't kill him--"
"Let me out of this, boss--" whined the handy-man.
"Shut up, you!" said the gambler roughly.
He drew back his hand, but Langham caught his arm.
"Don't do that, Andy!" he said. "He isn't in any shape to stand much
more of that; and what's the use, the harm's done!"
The gambler scowled on his cousin Joe with moody resentment.
"All the same I've got a good notion to finish the job!" he said.
"Let me go home, boss!" entreated Montgomery, still addressing himself
to Langham. "God's sake, he pretty near killed me!"
He stood up on shaking legs.
Wretched, abject, his uneasy glance shifted first from one to the other
of his patrons, who were now his judges, and for aught he knew would be
his executioners as well. The gambler glared back at him with an
expression of set ferocity which told him he need expect no mercy from
that source; but with Langham it was different; he at least was not
wantonly brutal. The sight of physical suffering always distressed him
and Joe's bruised and bloody face was more than he could bear to look
at.
"For two cents I'd knock him on the head!" jerked out Gilmore.
"Oh, quit, Andy; let him alone! I want to ask him a question or two,"
said Langham.
"You'll never know from him what he said or didn't say--you'll learn
that from the judge himself," and Gilmore laughed harshly.
A minute or two passed before Langham could trust himself to speak. When
he did, he turned to Montgomery to ask:
"I wish you'd tell me as nearly as you can what you said to my father?"
"I didn't go there to tell him anything, boss; he just got it out of me.
What chance has a slob like me with him?"
"Got what out of you?" questioned Langham in a low voice.
"Well, he didn't get much, boss," replied Montgomery, shaking his head.
"But what did you tell him?" insisted Langham.