The Efficiency Expert Part 29

The prosecuting attorney, whose repeated objections to the testimony of the witness had been overruled, waived cross-examination.

Turning to the clerk, "Please call Stephen Murray," said Jimmy's attorney.

Murray, burly and swaggering, took the witness chair. The attorney handed him a letter. It was the letter that Murray had written Bince enclosing the supposed I.W.W. threat.

"Did you ever see that before?" he asked.

Murray took the letter and read it over several times. He was trying to see in it anything which could possibly prove damaging to him.

"Sure," he said at last in a bl.u.s.tering tone of voice. "I wrote it.

But what of it?"

"And this enclosure?" asked the attorney. He handed Murray the slip of soiled wrapping paper with the threat lettered upon it. "This was received with your letter."

Murray hesitated before replying. "Oh," he said, "that ain't nothing.

That was just a little joke."

"You were seen in Feinheimer's with Mr. Bince on March--Do you recall the object of this meeting?"

"Mr. Bince thought there was going to be a strike at his plant and he wanted me to fix it up for him," replied Murray.

"You know the defendant, James Torrance?"

"Yes."

"Didn't he knock you down once for insulting a girl?" Murray flushed, but was compelled to admit the truth of the allegation.

"You haven't got much use for him, have you?" continued the attorney.

"No, I haven't," replied Murray.

"You called the defendant on the telephone a half or three-quarters of an hour before the police discovered Mr. Compton's body, did you not?"

Murray started to deny that he had done so. Jimmy's attorney stopped him. "Just a moment, Mr. Murray," he said, "if you will stop a moment and give the matter careful thought I am sure you will recall that you telephoned Mr. Torrance at that time, and that you did it in the presence of a witness," and the attorney pointed toward the back of the court-room. Murray looked in the direction that the other indicated and again he paled and his hand trembled where it rested on the arm of his chair, for seated in the back of the courtroom was the head-waiter from Feinheimer's. "Now do you recall?" asked the attorney.

Murray was silent for a moment. Suddenly he half rose from his chair.

"Yes I remember it," he said. "They are all trying to double-cross me. I had nothing to do with killing Compton. That wasn't in the deal at all.

Ask that man there; he will tell you that I had nothing to do with killing Compton. He hired me and he knows," and with shaking finger Murray pointed at Mr. Harold Bince where he sat with his wife beside the prosecuting attorney.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE VERDICT.

For a moment there was tense silence in the court-room which was broken by the defense's perfunctory "Take the witness" to the prosecuting attorney, but again cross-examination was waived.

"Call the next witness, please," and a moment later the Lizard emerged from the witness-room.

"I wish you would tell the jury," said the counsel for defense after the witness had been sworn, "just what you told me in my office yesterday afternoon."

"Yes, sir," said the Lizard. "You see, it was like this: Murray there sent for me and tells me that he's got a job for me. He wants me to go and crack a safe at the International Machine Company's plant. He said there was a fellow on the inside helping him, that there wouldn't be any watchman there that night and that in the safe I was to crack was some books and papers that was to be destroyed, and on top of it was three or four thousand dollars in pay-roll money that I was to have as my pay for the job. Murray told me that the guy on the inside who wanted the job done had been working some kind of a pay-roll graft and he wanted the records destroyed, and he also wanted to get rid of the guy that was hep to what he had been doin'. All that I had to do with it was go and crack the safe and get the records, which I was to throw in the river, and keep the money for myself, but the frame-up on the other guy was to send him a phony message that would get him at the plant after I got through, and then notify the police so they could catch him there in the room with the cracked safe.

"I didn't know who they were framin' this job on. If I had I wouldn't have had nothin' to do with it.

"Well, I goes to the plant and finds a window in the bas.e.m.e.nt open just as they tells me it will be, but when I gets on the first floor just before I go up-stairs to the office, which is on the second floor, I heard some one walking around up-stairs. I hid in the hallway while he came down. He stopped at the front door and lighted a cigarette and then he went on out, and I went up-stairs to finish the job.

"When I gets in Compton's office where the safe is I flashes my light and the first thing I sees is Compton's body on the floor beside his desk. That kind of stuff ain't in my line, so I beats it out without crackin' the safe. That's all I know about it until I sees the papers, and then for a while I was afraid to say anything because this guy O'Donnell has it in for me, and I know enough about police methods to know that they could frame up a good case of murder against me. But after a while Miss Hudson finds me and puts it up to me straight that this guy Torrance hasn't got no friends except me and her.

"Of course she didn't know how much I knew, but I did, and it's been worryin' me ever since. I was waiting, though, hopin' that something would turn up so that he would be acquitted, but I been watchin' the papers close, and I seen yesterday that there wasn't much chance, so here I am."

"You say that a man came down from Mr. Compton's office just before you went up? What time was that?"

"It was about ten o'clock, about half an hour before the cops finds Torrance there."

"And then you went upstairs and found Mr. Compton dead?"

"Yes, sir."

"You say this man that came downstairs stopped and lighted a cigarette before he left the building. Did you see his face?"

"Yes, I did."

"Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"

"Sure."

"Look around the court-room and see if you can find him here."

"Sure I can find him. I seen him when I first came in, but I can't see his face because he's hiding behind the prosecuting attorney."

All eyes were turned in the direction of the prosecuting attorney to see Bince leap suddenly to his feet and lean forward upon the desk before him, supported by a trembling arm as he shook his finger at the Lizard, and in high-pitched tones screamed, "It's a lie! It's a lie!"

For a moment longer he stood looking wildly about the room, and then with rapid strides he crossed it to an open window, and before any one could interfere he vaulted out, to fall four stories to the cement sidewalk below.

For several minutes pandemonium reigned in the court-room. Elizabeth Compton Bince swooned, and when she regained consciousness she found herself in the arms of Harriet Holden.

"Take me home, Harriet," she asked; "take me away from this place. Take me to your home. I do not want to go back to mine yet."

Half an hour later, in accordance with the judge's charge to the jury, a verdict of "Not guilty" was rendered in the case of the People of Illinois versus James Torrance, Jr.

Mr. Holden and Jimmy's attorney were the first to congratulate him, and the former insisted that he come home with him to dinner.

"I am sorry," said Jimmy; "I should like to immensely, but there is some one I must see first. If I may I should like to come out later in the evening to thank you and Miss Holden."

Jimmy searched about the court-room until he found the Lizard. "I don't know how to thank you," he said.