The lawyer glanced at him contemptuously. "Shut up, you fool!" he
growled in Italian.
"You have not been paid? That makes no difference. This is no time to
throw over your client."
"I do not represent the prisoner," replied the other stubbornly. "If
your honor cares to assign me as counsel, I shall be pleased to do so."
Candido, hearing the severity of the judge's tones, shook in every limb.
"So that is your game!" exclaimed his honor wrathfully. "You have
induced this man to retain you as his lawyer, in order that now, on the
plea that you have not been paid, you may induce me to assign you as
counsel, and thus secure the five-hundred-dollar fee allowed by the
State. A fine performance! I order you to proceed to trial!"
"Then I respectfully decline," retorted the other, turning toward the
door.
The judge bit his lips in well-controlled anger. "Mr. District Attorney,
prepare an order at once and serve it upon this attorney to appear
before me to-morrow morning and show cause why he should not be punished
for contempt of court. I will assign ex-Judge Flynn to the defense.
Adjourn court until to-morrow morning." The judge rose and strode
indignantly from the bench, while the jurors surged toward the entrance.
"Come on there," ordered the attendant. "You're goin' to get new lawyer.
Lucky feller!"
But Candido with a shriek threw himself on the floor, clutching at the
feet of the officers. "Madonna! Madonna! Is it indeed all over? Have
they ordered me to execution? _Salvatemi!_ Madonna!"
The grizzled interpreter stooped down and muttered in his ear: "Courage,
my countryman! Nothing has occurred. They are to give you a better and
more learned advocate."
Clinging to the arm of the attendant, Candido staggered toward the door
leading to the prison pen. His face, ashen before, was now a dusky
white. He understood nothing of this talk of advocates and adjournments.
Let them but terminate his suspense. He was ready to expiate his
offense. He had explained that to the lawyer. It was the will of God.
Close to the wire gate stood a young Italian woman with a shawl thrown
about her slender shoulders, her hand holding that of a little child.
"_Ludovico! Ludovico mio!_" she cried passionately. "Is it over? What
has happened?"
Candido answered with a great gasping sob. "_Maria! Figlio mio!_ I do
not know!"
* * * * *
Candido sat at the bar by the side of the lawyer assigned to defend him.
Over night in the Tombs he had been informed exactly what had been the
meaning of the mysterious proceedings of the day before. The great
advocate had intimated that there might still be a chance for him. After
all, he had only killed another Italian, and American juries were
merciful.
The case, the assistant told the jury in opening, was simple
enough--plainly murder in the first degree. Giuseppe, or "Beppe"
Montaro, the deceased, and Ludovico Candido, the prisoner, had both
come from the same town in Calabria and had been very old friends,
although Beppe was the younger by some ten years. When Ludovico had
sought his fortune in America, his wife Maria had remained behind; so
had Beppe. Candido had been gone for five years, and had then sent for
his wife. Beppe had come, too. In New York they all had lived together,
Maria keeping house and taking a number of boarders. Then there had been
a quarrel. The neighbors had said that Beppe did not always go out to
work, or that sometimes he returned while Ludovico was away. One night
Candido had closed the door in the face of his friend, who had sought
lodgings elsewhere.
It appeared that, the day before the homicide, Candido had purchased a
revolver which he had exhibited to his wife. A neighbor later had
overheard her crying, and had asked what was the matter, to which she
had replied: "Ludovico has bought a pistol. I fear it is for Beppe!" The
next Sunday evening the defendant and Montaro had met in a wine shop,
walked to Candido's house together, and in front of the door had had
violent words. Then the husband had shot the lover.
It was as plain as daylight. There was the motive, the premeditation,
the deliberation, and the intent. At the conclusion of the evidence the
prosecution would ask for a verdict of murder in the first degree.
Candido's eyes strayed away from the young prosecutor, furtively seeking
the corner where Maria and the child were sitting. He could not see
them, owing to the throngs of neighbors huddled upon the benches. There
were Petulano the baker, Felutelli the janitor, little Frederico the
proprietor of the wine shop, Condesso, Pettalino, and Mantelli, with
their wives, their sisters, and friends.
"Pietro Petrosino!" called the prosecutor. A lithe youngster slipped off
the front bench smiling and made his way behind the jury box. The jury
brightened instinctively as they caught sight of his picturesque figure,
the round curly head, and the flush of the deep-olive complexion.
Candido knew him for a gambler, cock-fighter, and worse. What plot could
be brewing now? How did it come that this man was going to be a witness
against him? How had the prosecution got hold of him?--this scum from
Sicily, this man who knew less than nothing of the affair.
Pietro's black eyes sparkled innocently as he took the oath and threw
himself gracefully across the armchair on the platform, the center of
collective observation.
_O Dio!_ He knew the defendant, yes, to his cost, he knew him! And
Beppe, also. Alas! Poor Beppe! A fine statue of a man, a good man, a
peaceable man! He also had been with them in the wine shop when the two
had talked together apart from the others. No doubt Candido had had the
pistol in his pocket at the very moment. They had whispered between
themselves, their heads close together, "_like one who is being
shriven_," and Beppe had kissed the hand of Ludovico in friendship.
Ludovico had returned the caress. Then the three had walked homeward,
and from the darkness of the hallway Candido had shot out at Beppe--shot
him _come un sacco_ (like a bag). Pietro illustrated, taking the part of
Beppe. He whispered, he kissed an imaginary hand, he walked, he
fell--"like a bag!"
The jury listened entranced. It was like going to the theater, only
better--much better, and cost nothing. Besides, afterward, they could
turn down their thumbs or turn them up, as they might see fit. For a
moment the jury saw or thought they saw the whole thing--the perfidious
hand-kissing assassin--then--
"_Bugiardo! Bugiardo!_" shrieked Candido, rising hysterically and
tearing the air in impotent rage. "Liar! Liar! He was not there! He
knows nothing! He is an enemy!"
"_Silenzio!_" cried the fantastically bearded interpreter.
"Keep still!" ordered a court officer, shaking the prisoner roughly by
the shoulder. The jury were delighted. Pietro was entirely unconcerned.
A rapid fire of Italian ran quickly along the benches.
Ludovico subsided into a little heap, his head sunk beneath his
shoulders, the tears coursing down his cheeks. Madonna! Would they take
the word of an enemy? Did they not know he was a Sicilian? What other
hidden motive might not Pietro have? Candido stiffened and again turned
to where he knew his wife must be sitting. Ah, that wretch! He had
noticed his looks and glances. Candido ground his teeth, then dropped
his head upon his arms.
"Maria Delsarto!" shouted the attendant.
Candido shivered and groaned aloud. They were calling his own wife to
testify against him! He grew cold with terror. There was a conspiracy to
get rid of him. The two had a secret understanding! What if she admitted
having seen the pistol in his hands? And his threats! Now in truth it
was all over! He settled himself stolidly, his eyes fixed upon the
varnished table before him.
Maria came forward, carrying her babe in her arms--Ludovico's "_piccolo
bambino!_" She was still young and slight; but cheeks a little sunken
and lips a little set told the story of her dire struggle with poverty.
In her eyes glowed the beauty of her race, and their long lashes drooped
on her pale cheeks as her lips moved automatically, repeating after the
interpreter the words of the oath.
Candido did not raise his own eyes. For him all desire for life had
vanished. His wife was about to sacrifice him for a new lover, a
Sicilian! He sat motionless. The sooner it was done the better.
Maria let one hand lie gently on the arm of the witness chair, while
with the other she caressed the sleeping child in her lap. Her gray
shawl fell away from behind her head and showed a white neck around
which hung a slender gold chain bearing a little cross. She looked
neither at Candido nor at the jury. Then she took the little cross in
her hand and glanced down at it.
"Your name?" asked the prosecutor.
"Maria Delsarto." Her voice was soft, musical, distinct.
"You are the wife of the defendant?"
"Yes, signore, and this is his child."
"Do you remember that the day before the homicide of Montaro your
husband brought home a revolver?"
Candido's head disappeared beneath his arms and his body shook
convulsively.
"No, he had no pistol."
The prisoner raised his eyes and shot a quick, puzzled look at his wife.
"What?" cried the assistant. "You say he had no revolver? Did you not
swear that you saw one and sign a paper to that effect?"
Maria looked steadily before her. "I did not understand the paper. I saw
no pistol." The words came quietly, positively.
The prosecutor looked helplessly toward the judge and nervously fingered
an affidavit.
"You cannot impeach your own witness, Mr. District Attorney," admonished
his honor.
The prosecutor turned again to Maria. "Did you not tell Sophia Mantelli
that you were weeping because your husband had purchased a revolver with
which to kill Beppe?"
"Objected to!" shouted Flynn.
"I will allow it," said his honor, "on the ground of refreshing memory.
The witness may answer."
"No," answered Maria in the same quiet voice.
The prosecutor threw down the affidavit in disgust. That was what you
got for taking the word of one of these Italians! Well, it would be a
lesson! No, he had no more questions. Candido began to chatter at his
lawyer and fell to nodding and smiling at Maria, who seemed to see him
no more than before.
Flynn rose deliberately, cleared his throat, and elevated and stretched
his arms as if to secure freer action, exhibiting during the operation a
large pair of soiled cuffs.
"Do you know Pietro What's-his-name?" he inquired sharply.
Maria flushed and her head sank toward the child. "Yes," she murmured.
"You have heard him testify that he saw the killing of Montaro?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where he was at that time?"
Maria's head fell so low that her face could not be seen, and her hand
sought the cross upon her bosom.
"Answer the question!" cried Flynn roughly.
"He was with me when we heard the shots below." Her voice dropped to a
whisper. "He had been there for an hour. He was not with Ludovico at
all. He saw nothing."
An excited chatter flew around the benches. The handsome Pietro sat
dumfounded.
Candido started from his chair, his face livid with passion, his eyes
glaring. "_Traditrice!_ It is thus you deceive me! It is well that I
should die. Faithless betrayer!"
In the hysteria of the moment he entirely overlooked the value of the
testimony in his behalf. The attendant and the distinguished Flynn
thrust him down, and the interpreter hurled at him a torrent of
remonstrances. Once more the prisoner buried his face in his hands.
Maria, still hanging her head, left the chair, and with her babe in her
arms sought a distant corner of the court room.
With the testimony of an officer that a button photograph of Maria had
been found pinned inside the coat of Montaro, the prosecution closed its
case. The assistant district attorney sat down. The jury shifted their
positions. The distinguished Flynn rose to make motions that the case be
taken from the jury. It was plain, he argued in sonorous and
reverberating tones, that the prosecution had impeached its principal
witness by the testimony of the defendant's wife, Maria Delsarto. It had
raised a reasonable doubt on its own evidence. There was nothing upon
which the jury could predicate a verdict. He asked that they be directed
to acquit. Was his motion denied? With an expression of well-simulated
surprise, he made the other stereotyped motions. The court denied them
all.
Candido saw and trembled. That shaking of the head could mean only one
thing! Well, they would let him see the priest first--before they did
it.
"Take the chair!" came Flynn's harsh voice from above.
"The chair!" _La sedia!_ Madonna! He knew that word. So soon then? He
stiffened with horror. A chilly perspiration broke out all over his
body. The room swam and darkness surged across his bewildered vision.
"Take the chair!" repeated the voice.
"_La sedia!_" bellowed the interpreter. "_La sedia!_"
Candido shivered as with ague. His teeth chattered. _Dio!_ Now?
The attendant placed a hand upon his shoulder. Candido uttered a
terrible cry, and fell senseless to the floor.
* * * * *
A long adjournment, a talk with the priest, an explanation from the
interpreter, and Candido "took the chair," telling his own story in a
fluent but listless monotone. He spoke of his father and mother, of his
home in Calabria, of Maria whom he had known from childhood. His speech
was soft and dejected. Then he told of Beppe--Beppe, the great, coarse,
bullying brute who had tormented and abused him! Yet he had never
retaliated until the other had sought to ruin his home. Then he had
refused him access. Montaro had publicly sworn to be revenged, declaring
that he would kill him and marry his widow.
Candido gritted his teeth and shook his curved fingers, uttering various
_staccato_ adjectives. Then he recovered himself, and in a different
tone began to speak slowly and with great care, pausing after each
sentence. From time to time he looked to observe the effect of his
testimony upon the distinguished Flynn. That night in the wine shop
Montaro had called him aside and in the most insulting manner warned him
of his approaching fate. He would be dead within a week, and Maria would
belong to another. Then in mockery Montaro had bent over his hand as if
to administer a caress and had _bitten_ it--the deadliest of affronts.
Candido had hurried out of the shop toward his home, closely followed by
Montaro. At the door of the tenement his enemy had rushed upon him with
a drawn knife from behind, and to save his own life Candido had fired at
him.
"He was a bad man--_un perfido_. He would have killed me and taken my
wife from me had I not killed him," continued the defendant. As for this
Pietro, he had not been there at all. He was an enemy, a Sicilian.
In response to a question of the assistant, he explained that the pistol
was an old one. He had not bought it to kill Montaro. He had had it for
four or five years. Had procured it for safety when working on the
railroad.
By degrees Candido recovered from his listlessness. He no longer seemed
careless as to the result of the case. A new strong thirst for life had
taken possession of him. There was an air of frankness about the
weather-beaten little countenance, and a trustful look in the brown eyes
that served far better than "character witnesses" to convince the jury
of his ingenuousness. There was no doubt as to his having made an
impression.
The distinguished Flynn patted him on the back as he took his seat and
felt greatly encouraged. These Italians were great actors--and no
mistake!
[Illustration: "The distinguished Flynn burst into a deluge of
oratory."]
But the prosecution had reserved a bombshell for the last, intended
to annihilate the testimony of the defendant and neutralize the effect
of his personality upon the jury. The assistant called in rebuttal a
salesman from a large retail fire-arm store, who testified positively
that the pistol in evidence had been purchased the day before the
homicide. Flynn turned to the attendant, whom he knew well and cursed.
These Guineas! Bought the day before! He had all the air of one who has
been grossly and inexcusably deceived. He scowled at Candido, who
quailed before him.
"How long do you want to sum up, gentlemen?" inquired the court. "Will
twenty minutes each be sufficient?"
The distinguished Flynn burst into a deluge of oratory in which
Self-Defense and The Unwritten Law played opposite one another, neither
yielding precedence. His client was a hero! The instinct of every true
American, of every husband, of every father, must stamp his deed as one
blameless in the eyes of the Almighty, and worthy not of censure but of
the approval of all honest men and lovers of virtue. At the risk of his
own life he had preserved the integrity of his home and the honor of his
wife. At the same time he had rid the community of a villain. Never,
while the Stars and Stripes floated above their heads would an American
jury on this sacred soil, consecrated by the blood of those who
sacrificed their lives to liberty, etc.-- He subsided, panting and
mopping his forehead.
The assistant rose to reply. This explanation of the defendant that he
had killed in self-defense was the last despairing effort of a guilty
man to escape the consequences of his horrible crime. Of course the
prisoner's own evidence was valueless. Jealousy! Calm, calculating
jealousy! That was the key to this awful act. The tell-tale picture on
Montaro's coat, the crimson admissions of the defendant's wife, the
purchase of the pistol--all spoke for themselves. The prosecutor paused.
"Sympathy is not for the assassin," he concluded. "Think rather of his
innocent victim! On the sunny shores of Calabria sits a woman, old and
gray, to whom this Beppe is her joy, her pride, who thinks of him by day
working in the great America across the seas, and whose heart, as the
time for the harvest draws near and the exiles are coming back to work
in the fields, will beat with expectation. The others will come. Father
will meet daughter, and mother will meet son, and they will tell of
their life in the great country of Freedom; but for her there will be no
gladness--her Beppe will return no more."
The assistant sank into his seat. Candido was staring at him with wide
eyes. He knew the _avvocato_ had been talking about Calabria. Madonna!
Would he ever see it again?
"Gentlemen of the jury," began his honor. "I shall first define the
various degrees of murder and manslaughter."
The sun fell lower and lower over the Tombs as the judge continued his
charge. The jury twisted uneasily in their chairs. Candido grew tired.
This interminable flow of talk! Why did not the judge say what should be
done to him at once? Millions of motes swam in the sun, and with his
head resting on his forearms he watched them idly. He had always loved
the sun. A warm lassitude stole over him. On Sundays he had spent whole
mornings curled up on a bench in Seward Park with Maria and the
_bambino_ beside him. How funnily the motes danced about! He smiled
drowsily at them. Some were so tiny as to be almost invisible, and some
were really large--if you half closed your eyes and one got near it
seemed almost as big as a cat--fluffy like a cat. Those little, tiny
motes would float out of nowhere into the band of sunshine and sink and
dart across it, vanishing into nothingness. Candido amused himself by
blowing millions of them into eternity. He himself was just like that.
Out of the black, into the warm sun for a little while, and then--pouf!
There was a tremendous scuffling of feet beside him, and the jury rose
and filed out. The noise brought him back out of his dream to the
realities again. They were going away! Judgment had been pronounced! The
judge bowed solemnly to the retreating foreman. Again the fierce chill
of overwhelming animal fear seized him. An officer approached. Madonna!
He could not pass into the black like the motes, he could not! And he
was as yet unshriven! With his frail little body vibrating like a
framework of slender steel, he turned and faced the officer, panting
with fear, his eyes darting fire.
"Aw, come along!" growled the attendant, raising his hand to seize him
by the arm.
"I cannot die unshriven!" shrieked Candido, and flung himself furiously
upon the officer, biting, kicking, scratching, until, nearly fainting
from his paroxysm of terror and in a coma of exhaustion, he allowed
himself to be carried away by three burly Irishmen.
* * * * *
"Bring up the defendant!" directed the court. The jury were already in
and waiting for the prisoner. The Italians had all been hustled out into
the corridor. His honor had no mind for any sort of demonstration. The
light still poured through the great windows, and the sky was a deep
sunny blue over the Tombs. Resisting, clutching at sills and railing,
hanging by his arms, Candido was carried in and held bodily at the bar.
"Jurors, look upon the defendant. Defendant, look upon the jurors. How
say you, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?" asked the
clerk grandiloquently.
"Not guilty," answered the foreman distinctly, and with a shade of
defiance in his voice.
"Listen to your verdict as it stands recorded," continued the clerk,
unaffected. "You find the defendant not guilty, and so say you all."
"Any other charges against the prisoner?" inquired his honor.
"Not yet," replied the assistant with sarcasm.
Suddenly Candido began again. "Madonna! Save me! I confess that I killed
Beppe, my countryman----"
The bifurcated interpreter jabbered furiously at him. An expression of
dumb amazement overspread the dusty little face.
"You are free, acquitted, discharged; you may return to your home!"
announced the beard dramatically, waving a hand in the direction of the
door. The officers lowered Candido slowly to his feet. He picked up his
hat. Abject wonder was painted upon his countenance. He gazed from the
judge to the jury, and back again to the prosecutor.
"Madonna! I am pardoned for killing Beppe? _O giudici_, I kiss your
hands." He seized that of the interpreter and devoured it with kisses.
Then with a smile he added: "Ah, you see I could not but kill him! He
had ruined my home! He had deprived me of honor!"
[Illustration: "He caught sight of the waiting Maria."]
The attendants faced him toward the door, and he started slowly away;
but before he had taken half a dozen steps he caught sight of the
waiting Maria. His face changed. Once more he turned to the interpreter
and muttered something hoarsely beneath his breath.
"He says," translated the interpreter, turning to the court, "that he
would like to have his pistol."