By Advice of Counsel Part 22

Mr. Tutt nodded.

"I'll whisper it to her. Now then, here's Higgleby--"

"Higgle who?" inquired Peckham dreamily.

"Bee--by--Higgleby," explained Mr. Tutt. "For bigamy. I want you to dismiss the indictment for me."

"What for?"

"You'll never convict him."

"Why not?"

"Just because you never will!" Mr. Tutt a.s.sured him with earnestness.

"And you might as well wipe him off the list."

"Anything the matter with the indictment?" asked the D.A. "Caput Magnus drew it. He's a good man, you know."

Mr. Tutt drew sententiously on his stogy.

"I would like to tell you all my secrets," he replied after a pause, "but I can't afford to. The indictment is in the usual form. But just between you and me, you'll never convict Higgleby as long as you live."

"Didn't he marry two joint and several ladies?"

"He did."

"And one of 'em right here in New York County?"

"He did."

"Well, how in h.e.l.l can I dismiss the indictment?"

"Oh, easily enough. Lack of proof as to the first marriage in Chicago, for instance. How are you going to prove he wasn't divorced?"

"That's matter of defense," retorted Peckham.

"What's a little bigamy between friends, anyway?" ruminated the old lawyer. "It's a kind of sumptuary offense. People will marry. And it's good policy to have 'em. If they happen to overdo it a little--"

"Well, if I do chuck the darn thing out what will you give me in return?" asked Peckham. "Of course, bigamy isn't my favorite crime or anything like that. I'm no bloodhound on matrimonial offenses. How'll you trade?"

"If you'll throw out Higgleby I'll plead Angelo Ferrero to manslaughter," announced Mr. Tutt with a grand air of bestowing largess upon an unworthy recipient.

"c.o.c.k-a-doodle-do!" chortled Peckham. "A lot you will! Angelo's halfway to the chair already yet!"

"That's the best I'll do," replied Mr. Tutt, feeling for his hat.

Peckham hesitated. Mr. Tutt was a fair dealer. And he wanted to get rid of Angelo.

"Give you murder in the second," he urged.

"Manslaughter."

"Nothing doing," answered the D.A. definitely. "Your Mr. Higglebigamy'll have to stand trial."

"Oh, very well!" replied Mr. Tutt, unjointing himself. "We're ready--whenever you are."

The old lawyer's lank figure had hardly disappeared out of the front office when Peckham rang for Caput Magnus.

"Look here, Caput," he remarked suspiciously to the indictment clerk, "is there anything wrong with that Higgledy indictment?"

"Higgleby, you mean, I guess," replied Mr. Magnus, regarding the D.A. in a superior manner over the tops of his horn-rimmed spectacles. "Nothing is the matter with the indictment. I have followed my customary form. It has stood every test over and over again. Why do you ask?"

The Honorable Peckham turned away impatiently.

"Oh--nothing. Look here," he added unexpectedly, "I think I'll have you try that indictment yourself."

"Me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Caput in horror. "Why, I never tried a case in my life!"

"Well, 's time you began!" growled the D.A.

"I--I--shouldn't know what to do!" protested Mr. Magnus in agony at the mere suggestion.

"Where the devil would we be if everybody felt like that?" demanded his master. "You're supposed to be a lawyer, aren't you?"

"But I--I--can't! I--don't know how!"

"Hang it all," cried Peckham furiously, "you go ahead and do as I say.

You indicted Higgledy; now you can try Higgledy!"

He was utterly unreasonable, but his anger was genuine if baseless.

"Oh, very well, sir," stammered Mr. Magnus. "Of course I'll--I must--do whatever you say."

"You better!" shouted Peckham after his retreating figure. "You little blathering shrimp!"

Then he threw himself down in his swivel chair with a bang.

"Judas H. Priest!" he roared at the rubber plant. "I'd give a good deal for a decent excuse to fire that blooming nincomp.o.o.p!"

Meantime, as the object of his ire slunk down the corridor darkness descended upon the soul of Caput Magnus. For Caput was what is known as an office lawyer and had never gone into court save as an onlooker or--as he would have phrased it--an _amicus curiae_. He was a perfect pundit--"a h.e.l.lion on law," according to the Honorable Peckham--a strutting little c.o.c.k on his own particular dunghill, but, stripped of his goggles, books, forms and foolscap, as far as his equanimity was concerned he might as well have been in face, figure and general objectionability. No longer could he be heard roaring for his stenographer. Instead, those of his colleagues who paused stealthily outside his door on their way over to Pont's for "five-o'clock tea"

heard dulcet tones floating forth from the transom in varying fluctuations:

"Ahem! H'm! Gentlemen of the jury--h'm! The defendant is indicted for the outrageous crime of bigamy! No, that won't do! Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! H'm! The crime of bigamy is one of those atrocious offenses against the moral law--"

"Oh! Oh!" choked the legal a.s.sistants as they embraced themselves wildly. "Oh! Oh! Caput's practisin'! Just listen to 'im! Ain't he the little cuckoo! Bet he's takin' lessons in elocution! But won't old Tutt just eat him alive!"

And in the stilly hours of the early dawn those sleeping in tenements and extensions adjacent to the hall bedroom occupied by Caput were roused by a trembling voice that sought vainly to imitate the nonchalance of experience, declaiming: "Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted for the crime of bigamy! This offense is one repugnant to the instincts of civilization and odious to the tenets of religion!" And thereafter they tossed until breakfast time, bigamy becoming more and more odious to them every minute.

No form of diet, no physical exercise, no "reducicle" could have achieved the extraordinary alteration in Mr. Magnus' appearance that was in fact induced by his anxiety over his prospective prosecution of Higgleby. Whereas erstwhile he had been smug and condescending, complacent, lethargic and ponderous, he now became drawn, nervous, apprehensive and obsequious. Moreover, he was markedly thinner. He was obviously on a decline, caused by sheer funk. Speak sharply to him and he would shy like a frightened pony. The Honorable Peckham was enraptured, claiming now to have a system of getting even with people that beat the invention of Torquemada. When it was represented to him that Caput might die, fade away entirely, in which case the office would be left without any indictment clerk, the Honorable Peckham profanely declared that he didn't care a d.a.m.n. Caput Magnus was going to try Higgleby, that was all there was to it! And at last the day came.