"FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM"
The trial of Rose Légère was precisely the farce that Violet had
expected and that Angel had planned. In ninety of such cases out of
every hundred, the chief witnesses for the state are suppressed by
fear or force, and the prosecution collapses. Thus, in the present
instance, had not the newspapers made first-page announcements of the
Légère woman's arrest and so attracted to the case the momentary
attention of an effervescing moral public, the District Attorney's
office would, in fact, have contented itself with submitting the
indictment and asking for a verdict of not guilty.
With Violet in the hospital during the session of the Grand Jury,
Wesley, now a man of power, had been able to refresh Larry Riley's
memory to such a point that, in the hands of the prosecutor, the
policeman's evidence was sufficient to insure the finding of a true
bill; but when the case was called for trial the situation was vastly
changed. The girl that had followed Violet into the net had been
cast back into the sea of the city and utterly swallowed up. Violet
herself had recanted. The elder inmates of the Légère establishment
regarded the law as their natural enemy and, had they been disposed
to assist it, could in no wise have been regarded as credible
witnesses. The action had, therefore, to rest entirely upon Riley's
testimony, and for Riley's testimony there was virtually no
corroboration procurable.
"You're a good thing--I don't think," remarked the weary-faced young
Assistant District Attorney as, on the morning of the trial, he met
Dyker in the corridor of the court. "We shoved this case about five
years ahead on the calendar to please you, and the night before it's
called your witness comes to my office and eats her deposition."
Wesley had already heard that piece of news. When, in order to keep
an eye upon Violet, he had, some time previously, sought her at
Katie's tenement, and had received a series of uncredited vows to the
effect that the Irish girl had no idea of the whereabouts of her late
charge, he had begun to look for a recantation. It was the sort of
game that he had himself frequently played, and he blamed his own
lack of foresight in not better providing against it. Then other
interests had arisen. The campaign came on apace; there were newer
enemies than Rose to be dealt with, and, when the wires leading from
the District Attorney's office had informed him that the expected had
occurred, he received the word with calm philosophy.
"Well," he carelessly laughed in reply to the young assistant's
sally, "that's always the way: we elect you people into your jobs and
then you think that we ought to get up your cases for you and hold
your witnesses."
He went on his way, unconcerned. Scarcely less concerned, the young
assistant, knowing that his cause was lost, proceeded into court with
a solemn air calculated to convince an outraged public morality of
his high intent; challenged juror after juror with a frowning brow;
outlined his case with biting logic; examined Riley, as the officer
on the beat, together with the other policemen that had made the
arrest, in an heroic style eminently pleasing to the reporters;
finally worked himself into a profuse perspiration of Ciceronian
invective against the prisoner and, mopping his weary face, sat down.
Equally without concern, and knowing his cause was won, counsel for
the defense, a suave little personage, played his rôle as the cues
came to him: retained his suavity through an opening statement flatly
denying that of his learned young friend; pretended to drop a little
of the suavity through a series of cutting cross-examinations that
left nothing of the policeman's vague testimony; and gave an
excellent imitation of throwing away all the rest of the suavity
when, in an impassioned speech, quite up to that of his learned young
friend, he declared that he would call no witness (which he did not
dare to do), because the Commonwealth had wholly failed to make out
its case (which was quite true), and because a respectable lady, the
daughter of a mother, had been outraged by ruffianly officers, her
humble home ruthlessly wrecked, and her livelihood endangered (which
was absolutely false).
So, at last, without any pretense at concern whatever, the
bottle-nosed personage on the bench ceased drawing pigs on his
blotter, and, sharing the common knowledge of the fate of the case,
gravely instructed the unwashed jury that if they thought two and two
were four they should so find, whereas if, on the other hand, they
believed four to be the sum of one and one plus one and one they were
to perform their sworn duty and so report. And the unwashed jury,
without leaving the court-room, declared Rose Légère an innocent
woman.
The innocent woman, still the pleasantly stout lady of the brewery
advertisement, shook gratefully the soft paw of her forensic defender.
"Thank God that's over," said she, with quite as much feeling and
quite as much reason as many others of us return praise to Heaven for
benefits that originate a good deal nearer earth.
The suave defender smiled.
"Yes," he said, "thank God--and pay _me_."
"You'll get a check in the morning," Rose replied, "an' I haven't a
grudge against nobody, though I do think that other lawyer might 'a'
got less gay with his tongue."
"He was only doing his duty, Mrs. Légère. It's the law, you know."
"What if it is? I didn't make it. What I don't like to see is the
way you people'll go back on your friends because somethin' or
other's the law."
She gathered her silk skirts free of contamination by the low crowd
in the court-room, and made her way to a waiting taxicab outside.
"I think," she said, as that vehicle began to pump through the
streets, "I'll pay a little call on Mr. Wesley Dyker."
She found him, somewhat surprised beneath his drooping lids, at his
office, and he immediately agreed to see her alone.
"Now then," she said pleasantly, seating herself unasked before his
desk and leaning easily back in her chair, "what I want to know is:
Am I goin' to be let alone?"
Dyker stroked his crisp mustache. He wanted to gain time.
"You were acquitted, then?" he asked.
"Looks like it, don't it? See here, Wes, I know where all my trouble
come from, an' I can pretty well guess how it come; but I'm willin'
to ferget it if you are. Are you?"
Dyker's slow eyes were raised to hers, then lowered.
"Yes," he said.
"All right. Now you'll need me an' I'll lend a hand, but I've got to
know first off if I'm not goin' to be interfered with."
"You had better see O'Malley about that."
"No, I hadn't. You went to see him first; go to him again."
"I----" Dyker twirled a pencil between his white fingers. "I shan't
be sorry if I do?"
"You will not."
"I may count on that, may I?"
Rose squared herself in her chair.
"Got a talkin'-machine around here?" she inquired.
"Why, no."
"Because I'd like to have some soft music while I tell you the story
of my life--see?"
"I don't believe you have to tell that."
"Yes, I do. I want you to know just what I am; then you'll see
whether you can depend on me. I was brought up decent--that's the
truth. I had my church an' Sunday-school like you had, an' perhaps
more. The other sort of school I had to quit early, because my old
man wasn't paid enough to keep me on, an' I had to go to work myself.
I was under the age; but I swore I wasn't, so that was all right, an'
after I'd tramped over the whole town, I got a job filin' letters an'
addressin' circulars in a young broker's office. I was mighty
little, but I was mighty good lookin'. I thought he took me for what
I could do, but I found out he took me for my looks."
She spoke quite without emotion, and Dyker, in spite of himself, was
interested.
"It cost that broker a lot to live," she continued; "so much that he
couldn't afford to get married. When he'd got through with me, after
a few years, an' the baby was dead in the hospital, my people were so
damned respectable that I didn't dare go home to them. Wall Street
had been plungin'; nobody'd buy stocks; I couldn't get a job there.
Times was hard and I couldn't find a place anywhere else. It was up
to me to starve to death, go into a home an' be marked for life, or
get real money the best way I could."