_The Judgment_
My Lord [began the waiter in an even tone in which there was no trace
of excitement] you will not find the case I am about to submit
anywhere referred to in your minute-book. Your members have not
discussed it. But you may rest assured that I am presenting every
fact, and on these facts I ask your learned judgment. Moreover, I
shall relate the circumstances without any embellishment and without
any intention of playing on your dramatic sense or on your emotions.
If you find me straying from the legal method of presenting the case
I trust you will immediately notify me, even although I am quite
aware that your acute and profound knowledge of jurisprudence will,
at the close, sweep aside any irregularities, redundancies, or
extraneous nonessentials of which I may be guilty.
In order, also, that there may be no prejudice and that the course of
justice may not be colored in the slightest degree, and that the case
about to be stated may be regarded equally as hypothetical or actual,
I suggest that real names and places be not mentioned. It is my
humor to treat this case as a problem for the law to solve, for when
one mentions names and places one is often led into matters of
environment and psychological details that influence us to wrong
inferences.
There is just a third and final preliminary that may be mentioned.
We have considered so many cases in which the black cap has figured
that it would do no harm, and perhaps more than a little good, if we
enumerated the various circumstances in which the danger of the black
cap faces a prisoner. Homicide is accepted in law as the general and
neutral term for the killing of one human being by another human
being [pursued the waiter]. It is true to say that one of the most
anxious points of concern in all systems of jurisprudence dealing
with homicide has been the nature and quality of the responsibility
of the killer to the relatives of the person killed and to the state.
This responsibility has been viewed from many angles--from the
standpoint, for instance, of the interests of the state wherein the
act occurred down to the standpoint of a general consideration of the
sanctity of life. There is also the question of moral guilt involved
in motive and intention.
The old Jewish law was compelled to discriminate in cases of
homicide, as anyone will find by a perusal of the Pentateuch, the
first five books of the Old Testament. In Exodus, Deuteronomy, and
elsewhere the law was laid down governing death by misadventure as
well as death by design.
In English law, criminal homicide comes under three heads--murder,
manslaughter, and _felo de se_, or suicide, by which act a man makes
a felon of himself. At one time there was a system by which every
man's life was actually assessed at a price. If a man was killed,
his chief, or his next of kin, received payment for the loss. Until
later than the Norman Conquest it was customary to levy a fine on any
district where a stranger was found murdered, provided the killer was
not discovered. As the stranger was not known, and therefore had no
relatives to claim him, the procedure was to presume that he was a
Frenchman; and the national exchequer was the financial gainer.
Simple, was it not?
There are times, however, when homicide is regarded as justifiable
and not criminal, such as when killing is done in execution by the
law--that is, the hanging of a murderer; and in war; but as
civilization became more complex the need to discriminate more
carefully than ever became apparent. Never has this need been more
apparent than now. Three great authorities prepared a draft of the
code bill of Sir J. Stephens, and on that draft the present legal
code finds a working model and apparatus.
THE BASEST CRIME OF ALL
Now for our experiment [said the waiter]. You will find the
prototype of the first character of this case in almost any chorus of
West End musical comedy. She was a blonde, a peroxide blonde.
Naturally she was a brunette. Imagine her a girl of a distinctly
temperamental type, childlike but not childish, gay and
light-hearted, with a figure and face that would attract any man in
whose veins red blood coursed.
She was musical to her finger tips. In a day when willowy types were
supposed to be desirable on the stage, she was not willowy, but
retained a contour that enhanced her type of beauty; for beautiful
she certainly was. At the period when this case opens she was in a
touring company--one of the many sent out with London successes so
that the plays, if not the players, of note, may be enjoyed by
provincial audiences.
But before she went she made the acquaintance of a young professional
man who was starting out on a career that was in the future to bring
him fame. He was tall, dark, with a personality that commanded
attention. Like many other young men, he was quite sophisticated.
He knew the West End. He attended plays, especially first nights;
but it was not at any theater that he met this beautiful chorus girl.
As a matter of fact, it was in the street.
It was a small matter that brought them together--a rainy day, the
offer of his umbrella to cross the street in order that she could
attend the rehearsal of the company of which she was a member. He
saw her to the stage door. When, several hours later, the rehearsal
was over, he was waiting to meet her again. They went to tea
together.
He was intoxicated with her beauty and her personality. She was
attracted to him. They met often after this, each meeting bringing
out fresh attractions of the girl and binding the two of them
together in a bond that was as subtle as it was strong.
Did he love her? I do not know. But he desired her. Did she love
him? Here, at least, one is on surer ground. There is no doubt that
she was in love with him. When the time came for her to go away on
her tour of the provincial towns, he was up at the railway depot to
see her off. The city seemed very empty for him when she went; to
her the train seemed very cruel.
The tour was just more than half completed when he could stand it no
longer. He took the train to the town where the play was being
presented and, arriving in the evening, went to a hotel, had dinner,
and went down to the theater.
He saw her the moment the curtain went up. There she was, all
dressed in her stage array, in a costume of historical accuracy that
made her look lovelier than ever. She saw him, too, and the smile
she gave him as he sat in the stalls was compensation to him for the
journey he had made. His mind had been filled with doubts as to the
result of his visit. When he saw that smile he did not doubt more.
He knew that he had her when he chose.
He went round to the stage door during the play and was admitted to
see her. He came back and spent the remainder of the time in the
theater glorying in his conquest. When the show was over he took her
and a friend to supper. He spent the next day entirely in her
company, feeling his way toward the object of his visit. Then he
returned to town. He had left her a book which he asked her to read.
It may be that youth is ever daring, or that present youth is more
daring than youth of the past. But why mince matters? It took some
time, but the end was gained. She came to town at the end of the
tour and he was waiting for her. As they sat in a restaurant in the
West End he asked her a question.
"What about it?"
She hesitated, looking at him so that she might read his soul.
"I will see," she answered.
He knew that he would win, for it was his business to read minds and
analyze words and accents.
He won, too, perhaps because she loved him so deeply. They took a
small flat. It was a marriage unencumbered with legal ceremonies or
social customs.
At least she thought it was a marriage; but she discovered reasons
for doubt. For one thing, he often went out to attend dinners,
social functions, professional engagements. He did not take her
where she would have loved to go. She watched him go on these
occasions with regret. She knew that he was climbing toward the apex
of his career. His name was beginning to be talked about. She loved
that. She was proud of him. On his side he considered everything
coolly and dispassionately. His mind was alert, trained, capable.
He knew his way about the world. His professional knowledge stood
him in good stead. It held her and still allowed him the freedom he
required.
At the end of a year or so there came a revelation to her. Indeed,
two. The second was, in a way, the more terrible, for it deprived
her of the support she needed to face the first. She saw that he was
tiring of her.
She pleaded, appealed, asked for reasons, begged him to remember his
vows. It was all of no use whatever. He was cold, logical, without
alarm, without fear. He knew his ground. He was quite aware of
where he stood. He paid the rent up to a certain date, told her to
find a place by that time where she might live. On that day she
moved out to rooms which she had rented. He promised to visit her
there. He sold the furniture of the flat and went his way. He never
visited her at all.
[During this recital the judge had listened with patience, but now he
bent forward and remarked that so far he had not heard anything that
was triable matter. He did not wish to hurry the waiter, but let
them get to the legal issue as soon as possible. The waiter
continued without replying directly to the interruption:]
When she became a mother, she became an exile. An exile becomes
embittered, sometimes desperate. She became both. She wrote letters
to him, pleading letters, letters filled with touching memories
directed to stir the embers of his forgotten declarations. He did
not reply to them. But time and privation did not seem to kill her
love for him. She saw his name in the newspapers and cut out all the
extracts she came across. She fought against adversity as much as
she was able, writing to him at intervals----
["She ought to have applied to the courts under the Act providing for
illegitimate children," drawled the judge. "An order against the
father could have been obtained." The waiter answered quietly: "We
must allow for a shrinking sensitiveness that a betrayed girl may
possess. There are hundreds, nay, thousands such alive today."]
She obtained a minor position on the stage. Once from the wings she
observed him in the stalls, but when she emerged to the footlights
and their eyes met he pretended not to recognize her. She wrote him
that night. He replied this time, cold, formal, placing every legal
obstacle in the path of her request, disclaiming paternity of her
child. When she received this letter she was as one facing death.
She fell ill and lost her work.
Then followed a period of bitterness. He had taken from her more
than he knew. He had given her more than he anticipated. She
resolved to pursue him for the necessity of life as he had pursued
her for the desires of love. She wrote again, in the name of their
child, demanding help to bear her burden. She wrote again and again,
becoming more reckless, more unguarded in her words every time. At
length his answer came. She was arrested for attempted blackmail.
He was safely entrenched behind the habit of modern courts of
withholding from publicity the name of the person alleged to be
blackmailed. His professional status was high enough and strong
enough to hide his name. He made sure of his cover before he
launched the law against her. Public men shield public men. The
trial was short. She was sent to prison without her story becoming
known. It was all quite legal. His reason for this act was to make
it impossible for her ever to approach him. He had wiped her out.
Prison did not kill her, though it might have killed her. Her
suffering had a curious effect on her. It made her silent; but it
made her cunning. She seldom spoke. She obtained a job as a
wardrobe mistress in a touring company. By a strange coincidence
this company covered the same ground as the company in which she had
been a gay chorus girl. Every town at which the show was put on was
a crucifixion for her. She remembered every incident of her past,
she gazed in bitter-sweetness on the very flagstones where she had
met him, where she had stopped to read his letters sent to the
theaters; she recalled the phrases he had written, every phrase,
every incident, raising memories that tortured and almost suffocated
her.
One day she was in a town where his professional duties took him. He
was, in one sense, a public man. She went to hear his speech on this
occasion, hiding herself behind a pillar in the hall and hoping he
would not see her. She listened to his masterly handling of his
subject, she saw how he was able to sway the opinions, the
convictions, of others. But in her heart there was a terrible irony.
He was defending the actions of a man who had been guilty of conduct
similar to his own, and he was doing it by besmirching the name of a
woman.
[Here the judge bent forward and asked a question. "What did you say
was the profession of this man?" But the waiter apparently did not
hear, for he continued his story without even looking up.]
She never went to hear any more of his speeches. She never again
watched the newspapers for his name. She became more secretive than
ever, more cunning than ever. When the tour of her theatrical
company finished, she ceased all connection with the stage. She
devoted her time to educating her child, who had been until then in
the care of an acquaintance.
And now we must hasten to the climax of the tragedy. The struggle of
this woman became more internecine than ever. Her cares multiplied.
Her heart, already broken, barely served its natural purpose of
holding her life within her. Her spirits, long at zero, fell below
that point. The life that was in her was being crushed out as by a
terrible weight. Her physique gave way under the strain. Poverty
faced her.
Her child had never had any playmates, being attached to his mother
so closely that to be separated from her was painful. One evening,
in the gloom of their single, miserable room, lit by a candle, the
mother, who had been in bed for some days, called this little boy to
her and, putting her arm round his shoulders and holding her cheek
against his, began a long story. It was a terrible tale, her own
betrayal, her love, her shattered hopes, her disillusionment, her
desire for vengeance. She talked a long time, punctuating her story
with bursts of pitiful anguish and many tears. Who can ever know the
effect of that story on the child? His tears mingled with those of
his mother, his heart was consumed with awful urgings.
This story of woe was not only a confession of the past, it was a
confession of a wrong she had done against the law in the present.
She had stolen to live and she was faced with prison again. She had
written two letters, which lay, sealed in their envelopes, but
unstamped, on a table. One of these letters was addressed to the man
who had wronged her, the other was addressed to the police. She
asked her child to go out and put the letters in a mail-box. He
picked up the letters and left the room.
But he deceived his mother in this matter. Like all children, he
harbored a loyalty to his mother that nothing could shake. But he
also had endured enough to make him secretive. Perhaps this was
because he was sensitive. He went to the doorway leading to the
street, stayed there a few moments, and returned on tiptoe, hoping
that his mother was asleep. He peered through the hinge of the door.
He saw his mother pouring a liquid from a bottle into a tumbler which
she put on a table near her bed. Then she returned to her bed and
lay waiting for him. He stayed a little while before entering. When
he slipped into the room she was lying still, exhausted by her
efforts. He sat down by her bed, conscious that she was seriously
ill, bowed down by grief and despair.
His love for his mother bound him to the room. He sat there by the
wretched bed all night.
Before dawn she awoke from her slumber and drew him to her. She was
very pale, but she was still beautiful. She gazed on him for a long
time, then stretched out her hand to the tumbler, asking him to drink
some of the liquid first and saying that she would drink some after
him, for she was sure he was thirsty and she herself felt in need of
drink. But there was something strange in her manner, something that
frightened the boy. He assured her that he did not wish a drink.
She tried to coax him, but he still protested. She put down the
tumbler without taking any of the drink herself, but saying that they
would drink together in the morning. Then she lay back on her pillow
and appeared to sleep again.
The child was filled with uneasiness and a strange, unaccountable
apprehension. The story she had told him, the weariness of his
vigil, the dread of the future and privation of the past all stirred
within him. He began to think, so far as he was able. Gently he
loosened her arm which encircled him and stole over to the window,
looking out at the breaking day. He felt in his pocket for the
letters he had been asked to mail. He wondered if he had done wrong
to keep them. An idea came to him. He went softly out of the room
and down to the street.
He could read fairly well. He spelled out the address on the
envelope of one of the letters. He set out resolutely to walk to his
destination, which was a street in the rich quarter of the city.
The walk occupied about two hours. He asked his way many times.
Policemen and pedestrians directed him, the former looking at him
inquiringly; but the boy had learned the value of keeping knowledge
to himself and he never allowed anyone to see the letter nor gave a
clue as to his intention. At last he reached the house and presented
the letter. He was given a chair in the hall by a pompous servant.
The grandeur of the furnishings seemed to his child mind to speak of
a king's palace. It awed him, this magnificence.
He had to wait for some time, but at last a tall man came down and,
without a word, laid a hand on his shoulder and piloted him down the
front steps. A cab was hailed and they were driven through the
splendor of the West End toward the misery of the East End. When
they were in the cab the man asked a few questions of the boy; asked
them sharply and in a tone that was peremptory.
"What is your name?"
The child gave his Christian name.
"Has anyone seen this letter?"
"No."
"It was sealed when the woman gave it you?"
"Yes."
The boy pondered this word "woman" as applied to his mother. No more
questions were asked.
At a street corner they dismounted and walked the remainder of the
way, which was not very far. They entered the room, the man going
first, the boy at his heels. The boy saw that his mother was awake.
When she saw them she uttered a terrible cry. The man stood rigid,
regarding her without a word. The child looked from one to the
other, seeing expressions on both faces he could not comprehend. He
retreated, feeling that here were forces beyond his understanding,
cataclysmic revelations he could not fathom. He went out of the
room. But he peered through the opening of the door-hinge and he
listened.
"What brought you here?" asked the woman.
It was a few moments before the answer was given: "I got your letter
sooner than you expected, perhaps. Did you send it to me by hand?"
"It was to be posted. How did you get it?"
"That boy brought it."
The woman groaned.
"That is where he has been!" she cried. "But the police will then
have the other one I wrote. You cannot now prevent the truth coming
out. Even if they imprison me I will shriek your conduct from the
dock and the cell. I had intended to drink what is in this tumbler
and so defeat your law----"
She burst into a passionate declaration. The boy at the door heard
everything. He heard his mother say that she desired her own and his
death. He heard her confess that she had broken the law; that she
had recently stolen things; that she was in fear of arrest; that the
police were coming for her; that poverty and love of her child had
driven her too hard. He heard her upbraiding the man bitterly.
In the midst of the torrent of accusation the boy entered the room,
holding the other letter in his hand. The man saw the letter and
took it, from him, whipping it from his fingers before the child
could explain. The woman shrieked and fell back on her pillow in a
faint.
The man turned to the boy and said, harshly:
"Go! Fetch a doctor!"
The boy ran out of the room; but once again the cunning that life had
taught him halted him on the stairs. He crept back and looked
through the opening of the door-hinge.
He saw the man standing by the bed, his gloved hands clasped tightly
together, fingers interlocked, and his expression fixed in a rigidity
that was stern and terrible.
For some moments the man remained thus. The child watched, holding
his breath. He saw the man lift the tumbler from the table and sniff
at the contents, then lay it down again; but he took it up once more
and approached the bed. With his one hand he raised the head of the
boy's mother. Her eyelids flickered. She sighed. The man's hand
seemed to tremble, but he forced himself to put the tumbler to the
woman's lips. She drank eagerly, thirstily, her eyes still closed.
Not until she had gulped down most of the contents did she open her
eyes. She never spoke, but in her eyes was a look that seemed to
pierce the boy to the marrow. She was staring at the man.
The man let her head fall back on the pillow. He laid the tumbler on
the table, glanced at his finger tips, and then turned toward the
woman again. A spasm passed through her. That was all. After that
she lay very still.
The double murder had been committed--first, murder of her soul, then
murder of her body.
But the child who had seen this did not understand, though he was
aware that a crisis had come and had passed. He burst into tears and
ran down the stairs to fetch a doctor who lived in the next street....
[The waiter raised his head, for a sound had come from the judge.
"Did you speak, my lord?" There was no reply. The judge's eyes were
closed and his right hand covered the lower part of his countenance,
an attitude he often assumed on the bench when engaged in deep
thought. The dawn was streaming through the curtains. The fire had
died down and the room was chilly. A slight shiver passed through
the massive frame of the judge. The waiter, too, shivered; but he
rose to his feet with an effort.
"I shall not keep you much longer listening, my lord," he said,
distinctly, but without looking at the judge. "There is not much to
add in this hypothetical, or actual, case, which I have called the
basest crime of all."]
The child fetched the doctor. The woman was dead. Listen to the
story the man who had killed her told the doctor. He told it
pompously, legally, with his usual air of superiority. He said the
woman had written to him urging him to come and take up her case,
which was of importance. He had destroyed the note she wrote, but
out of his generosity--for he was known to be generous at times--he
came. But fear of arrest had caused her to take the poison just
before he arrived. It was a very virulent poison that was in the
tumbler. Recognizing the situation, he had at once sent the child
for medical aid.
And the doctor accepted the statement. There was no need for this
inhuman betrayer of women to appear at the subsequent inquest. His
position made it sufficient for an affidavit to be accepted. The
woman's fingermarks were on the tumbler. Who was she, anyway? She
was known under her maiden name. She had a child. She had been an
actress. Did not all unfortunate creatures call themselves
actresses? She had no relatives. She was in poverty. Verdict of
the coroner's jury: Death caused by the self-administration of poison
while of unsound mind!
And the child? Why did he not state what he had seen? Did I not
tell you he was a loyal child? In his young brain there burned the
truth that his mother was in danger of arrest, of imprisonment.
Shame and fear, misery and despair, grief and confusion, reigned
within his mind. His life had taught him suffering. His mother had
taught him secrecy. He was afraid of the law, he shrank from the
cold authority that was surrounding him. He was stunned by the blow
that had fallen. It was the doctor who took him away. It was the
doctor who placed him in a home--a home for orphans where he was
under the rules and régime of a discipline that shattered his
orientation. Can a child think clearly? Can a child arrange his
ideas and sort out his troubles? By the time he saw and classified
things he was too late to voice his injustices. He was already
adrift--stampeded into retaliatory crime!
"Now permit me to come to the motive for the basest crime you have
heard. Why do I call it the basest crime? Let us recapitulate those
we have considered. Are you paying attention, my lord?"
The judge had not moved. He seemed to be without life, but the
tremble of the hand that covered his features told the waiter that he
was listening.
"In the first case, that of Ammar Baddan," said the waiter, "the
murder was committed because of a clash of ethics. I find no point
of similarity there to this case.
"In the first case I related, that of Lorry Black, the motive was
revenge. There is no point of similarity there.
"In the second case you related, that of Abe Lammie, the motive was
burglary, the desire for possession. There is no similarity there.
"In the second case I related, that of Jeff S. Connolly, the motive
was jealousy. There is no similarity there.
"In the third case you related, that of Nathaniel Gore, you yourself
emphasized that vanity brought him to the scaffold. There is no
similarity there.
"In the third case I related, that of Walter Seale, the crime was one
of passion. There is no similarity there.
"Your fourth case--which proved so disastrous to you--demonstrated
the blindness of justice and a crime of hate. There is no similarity
there.
"I do not doubt that in all your experience you have never come
across a baser, meaner, more foul crime of murder than the one--my
fourth--which I have just told. You have had the unique opportunity,
also, of viewing this assassination from the standpoint of a judge.
The motive was the preservation of this man's professional career and
social position. Had the woman he had betrayed and then abandoned
been arrested, the truth about his past would have been disclosed.
He preserved himself at the cost of this girl who had given him all a
woman can give. He stamped her into a felon's grave to keep his own
feet out of the mud. He made his child _filius nullius_, a son of
nobody, inflicting on that child, as he had inflicted on the child's
mother, suffering and shame and agony that cannot be expressed in
words. Give me your judgment!"
The judge did not answer.
"Your judgment!" cried the waiter, impatiently.
The judge dropped his hand from his face and gazed at the waiter with
glassy eyes.
"Your judgment!"
No answer came.
The waiter's voice rang out like that of an advocate addressing a
court of law.
"Remember your code! _If the offender means to cause the death of
the person killed_--and this man meant to cause the death of the girl
he betrayed!"
A pause, during which the judge gave no sign.
"Remember your code! _If a person administers any stupefying thing
for the purpose of defeating justice_ it is murder!"
Still not a word from the judge.
"Remember your oath! _Without fear or favor, without affection or
ill-mil ... in the faithful discharge of your duty ... so help you,
God!_ You cannot refuse sentence! Judgment of death!"
The judge's lips moved, but no word came. He appeared to be in a
trance. He made another effort to speak.
"Judgment of death?" he echoed in a hollow voice; and his hand was
raised slightly in horrified, feeble protestation.
"Pass the verdict upon yourself!" the waiter hurled at him in a
savage frenzy of victory. "Speak, judge of criminals! Ah, you know!
You comprehend! For you were the man who, eighteen years ago, handed
the fatal draught to the woman whom you betrayed and then destroyed!
Slayer of women! Defrauder of children! Dispenser of the law! See,
here is your badge of office!"
He drew an object from his pocket and threw it down on the table in
front of the judge.
A shiver passed through the latter's massive frame. Like a
somnambulist he put out his fingers and touched the object; but drew
back his hand quickly with a startled cry. He recognized the dark
object.
It was the black cap worn by judges who pass the judgment of death
sentence!
The waiter leered at him; the judge, down whose face perspiration was
streaming, jerked himself back in his chair. From being livid his
features changed to gray, then to pasty white. His heavy jaws
sagged, shaking as with convulsions.
A moment or two passed in silence. There was a terrible look on the
waiter's face as he watched the judge's struggles. The latter was
making frightful efforts to control himself. At last his countenance
became more normal, but his teeth showed, gritting. And his eyes
glowed like the eyes of a beast in a trap. They were like two
wolves, these men; and if the old wolf was cornered, the young wolf
lingered over his victory. He began to taunt him.
"Come on, my lord! The judgment! The judgment! How does it appeal
to you now? The black cap is there! It is your own! Taken from
your chambers! I took it! I brought it here! Does it not feel
homely? Put it on your head! Judgment of death! You cannot refuse!
Beaten! That is what you are! Give in! Give in! Confess defeat!"
With a sudden movement he tore open his shirt front. The judge cried
out.
Under the waiter's shirt was the dress of a convict, prison garb!
"Come on, my lord! Defeated by me! Convicted by a convict! You
have no defense! Look at me! Your obstinacy battered to pieces!
Logically bankrupt! Socially, too! Your own law holds you! Confess
I have smashed you! Confess I have convinced you! Throw yourself on
the mercy of the court! Confess! Confess! Judgment of death!"
"It is blackmail!" came from between the judge's teeth, in a hissing
fury.
The waiter either did not hear or did not care to hear. He continued
to rail at the judge, taunting with scalding words, hurling the legal
code at him, pelting him with sneers and humiliations. And in the
end he threw down on the table a small book, and with a twist of his
thumb turned the cover over, revealing a photograph lying within.
The judge stared aghast at the book and the old photograph. The book
was Abbe Prevost's Manon Lescaut. The picture was that of a
beautiful girl in theatrical costume.
"Now will you confess, my lord? See, there is the signature of the
giver of the book on the title page!"
The bitterness had gone from the waiter's voice. He was gazing at
the judge with tragic intensity.
The judge was ashen; he gasped as if struggling out of a swoon. Red
rims circled his eyes.
"Give me time!" he muttered. "Give me air!"
"Bravo! Bravo! You shall have time! You shall have air! Then you
will confess failure! The victory I have striven for! A fateful
Christmas morn, my lord! I shall open a window. This atmosphere is
vitiated. Then for your admission! Your confession! Your judgment!"
The waiter rose and walked to the nearest window, the cudgel under
his arm; and as he walked and while his hands were on the heavy
curtains he still talked.
"He that liveth by the sword shall perish by the sword, my lord! The
_lex talionis_ code! Remember the Book of Exodus, chapter
twenty-one--_then thou shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound
for wound, stripe for stripe----"_
A shuffle behind him! He wheeled just in time.
There, within a yard of him almost, towered the judge, a chair swung
high above his head, poised to strike.
The judge's shout mingled with the shout of the waiter. Down came
the chair! The waiter leaped and swung his bludgeon.
Crash!
The crack of wood against wood! The chair broke, but the judge still
held a carved leg with which he struck with all his strength. The
blow caught the waiter on the shoulder; but the bludgeon went up and
fell on the judge's head at the same moment.
Both men fell; the judge like a log, straight to the floor as a tree
falls before the ax of the lumberman; the waiter sideways, grabbing
for a hold as he went down.
The chair leg flew across the room and rattled against the wall. But
the bludgeon remained in the waiter's hand, glued to his fingers by a
grip that had never held it so well since Kartarus swung it when he
plundered England.
The waiter was on his feet in a moment. He looked down at the judge,
bludgeon still in his right hand. For all his modern clothes he
might have been Kartarus then! The poise was that of the barbarian,
the same grim elasticity of body, the bludgeon gripped as only that
savage hand could grip it, the out-thrust aggressive chin, even the
wisp of dark hair that trailed across forehead to the left temple and
hung close to the left ear. Kartarus!
A feeble moan came from the prostrate judge.
The waiter bent down and looked into the wrinkled face; then stooped,
still holding his cudgel, and lifted the heavy form and propped it in
the presidential chair. A terrible wound was on the judge's head, a
wound that would have killed most men outright. And yet the waiter
had not struck with all his force.
He poured out some wine and held it to the judge's lips, and dabbed
the blood that streamed down from the gaping wound. The judge opened
his eyes dazedly.
"Who are you?" he murmured.
"My lord, my lord!"
He gave the judge a little more wine. The judge's hand was raised
feebly and his finger pointed to the flask which the waiter had laid
on the table at the beginning of that eventful night.
"My lord, there is nothing in that flask but water. It was my trick
on you. Just my trick. Only water, my lord. Are you feeling
better?"
The judge was far from better. He was not only losing blood rapidly;
he was also losing consciousness. His eyes were glazing and his head
drooped.
His lips moved.
"You will not escape," he murmured. "You will be caught,
blackmailer!"
"My lord, you brought this upon yourself. I did not come here to
assault you. I came to conquer you logically, not by force. I came
to smash your proud, domineering pose, that crust of legal
self-deception and self-esteem that has blinded you----"
"You poisoned these gentlemen!"
The waiter glanced at the sleeping members of the Clue Club. One or
two had slightly changed their positions like men who slumbered
uneasily.
"All they had was knock-out drops, my lord. How do you feel?"
But the judge did not reply, for his strength was fading. His great
head fell on the high back of his chair, the ability to support
himself went out of his limbs. He would have slid to the floor had
not the waiter caught him. But he could not hold the judge in the
chair. The wounded man's eyes were closed by this time, his clothes
were drenched in blood all down one side. The waiter put his arms
around him and gently lowered him to the floor and laid a cushion
under his head.
He brought a basin of water, a sponge and a towel and began to bathe
the judge's wound.
Daylight was now flooding the apartment. The candles had burned to
their ends and smoked in the sockets. Outside was a white world.
Snow lay thick on the houses and street, on the window sills, on the
electric standards, on the telephone cables. Snow was falling
steadily, coming down from the gray sky in large flakes that gave the
impression of an endless sheet of spotted muslin being unrolled in
front of the windows.
The judge's lips trembled. The waiter bent his ear close.
"Judgment of death!"
Was it a verdict or merely the semiconscious repetitions of a fading
brain?
"Your secret is safe with me, my lord," whispered the waiter. "I
have kept it for many years. I have kept it because I have schemed
to come to you. It was when I was in prison that I first had the
idea----"
A change came over the judge's countenance. His breathing was now
fast and feeble. A strange pallor spread from his throat to his
forehead, his eyes seemed to sink into cavities, and the closed lids
gave a suggestion of ghastly transparency. It was as though the
glazed balls were gazing at the waiter through skin veils.
"Who are you?" he breathed with difficulty.
The waiter sat up, rigid; but before he could answer the judge's
weary tone came again, this time with a touch of clarity that
thrilled.
"I remember! You were--the boy!"
His head fell back.
"I am your son!" cried the waiter.
Did a sigh escape the judge's blue lips? Perhaps. But now there was
stillness--utter stillness.
The waiter put his hand over the judge's heart. There was no
beating. He touched the eyes. There was no flicker, no reaction.
The waiter rose to his feet. He took the sponge and slopped it
quickly over that part of the table where he had sat. He wiped every
glass he had touched. He went over every place where he might have
left a telltale mark and obliterated any possibility of detection.
He rolled the blood-stained towel into a ball and placed it on the
fire so that it would burn quickly. He picked up the black cap, the
book, and the photograph, and pocketed them. He slipped a pair of
rubber gloves on his hands and lifted the flask of water which he had
pretended was an antidote to the dope and drained it into a
flowerpot. He slipped to and fro, doing a few other things so that
his trail would be lost. He washed out the bottle from which he had
dealt the doped drink.
Finally he stepped to a cupboard and took out an overcoat and cap.
He donned the coat and pulled the cap well down over his brows. He
lifted the bludgeon and hefted it. He noted that his fingers fitted
into the burnt grooves, that he could wield this weapon as if it had
been made for him. He put it into his coat pocket.
He was at the door when a sound caused him to turn.
One of the members of the Clue Club was stirring, stretching his
limbs, yawning, with closed eyes, as one who comes slowly back to
life.
The waiter slid outside before he was observed and closed the door
softly behind him.
No hypothetical conditions now prevailed.