The Broken Gate Part 18

"You yourself were not at the gate then?"

"No," said Don, "I had left just at the corner of the square."

"Why did you leave them?"

"Well, I wanted to have a little run before I went to bed. I'm used to taking exercise every night--I always did at college, to keep up my training."

"Where did you go when you were running?"

"I may be mistaken in the directions, but it was across the square, opposite from Mulberry Street. I turned to the right. I must have run perhaps four or five blocks, I don't know just how far it was. It was quite warm."

"Did you come into this street?"

"I don't really know."

"You didn't see anybody?"

"Not a soul. I didn't hear a sound."

"What time was that?"

"I heard the clock strike one before I turned back."

"Gentlemen of the jury," said the coroner, "it was just about that time that Joel Tarbush was killed, right here."

"That's true," said Don Lane. "It's terrible to think of--but why----"

"You heard Judge Henderson's testimony, gentlemen," went on the coroner.

"He told of seeing these three people pa.s.s by on the square in front of his office stair. Just before that he had said good night to Tarbush himself. He saw Tarbush start right over this way for his home. Now, just in time to catch him before he got into his home--if a man was running fast--a man _did_ run from the square over in this direction!"

The members of the jury remained silent. Their faces were extremely grave.

"And, gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of other witnesses here before now, stating that this witness was heard to make threats to Tarbush yesterday afternoon, right after he was dismissed from my own court upstairs. Mr. Jorgens, I believe you were there. What did this young man say after he had for the second time a.s.saulted Ephraim Adamson--twice in one day, and entirely regardless of the rebuke of the law?"

"He said, Mr. Coroner," replied Nels Jorgens gravely, even with sadness in his face, "just when he came out of the crowd where he had left Adamson laying on the ground already--he said to Tarbush, 'You'll come next'--or I'll get you next'--something of that kind."

"Was he angry at that time?"

"Yes, Mr. Coroner, he was," said Nels Jorgens, against his will.

Ben McQuaid leaned over to whisper to Jerome Westbrook. "It seems like this young fellow comes in here with his college education and undertakes to run this whole town. Pretty coa.r.s.e work, it looks like to me."

Jerome Westbrook nodded slowly. He recalled Sally Lester's look.

Of all the six faces turned toward him from the scattered little group of the coroner's jury, not more than two showed the least compa.s.sion or sympathy. Don Lane's hot temper smarted under the renewed sense of the injustice which had a.s.sailed him yet again.

"What's the game?" he demanded. "Why am I brought here? What's the matter with you people? Do you mean to charge me with killing this man?

What have I done to any of you? d.a.m.n your town, anyhow--the rotten, lying, hypocritical lot of you all!"

"The less you say the better," said the coroner; and the sheriff's steady gaze cautioned Don Lane yet more.

"Now, gentlemen," went on Blackman, "we have heard a number of witnesses here, and we have not found any man here that could bring forward any sight or sound of any suspicious character in this town. There hasn't been a tramp or outsider seen here, unless we except this young man now testifying here. The man on whose body we now are a-setting hadn't a enemy in this town, so far as has been shown here--no, nor so far as anyone of us knows. There has been no motive proved up here which would lead us to suspect anyone else of this crime."

Ben McQuaid once more leaned over to whisper to his seat-mate: "It's a likely thing a man would be running for his health, a night like last night, when he didn't have to! Ain't that the truth?"

The coroner rapped with his pencil on the table top. He was well filled with the sense of his own importance. In his mind he was procureur-general for Spring Valley. And in his mind still rankled the thought of the fiasco in his courtroom but the day before, in which he had made so small a figure.

"I want to ask you, Mr. Cowles," he said, turning to the sheriff, "if you ever have seen this young man before."

"Only once," said the sheriff, standing up. "Last night or this morning, just after the clock had struck one--say, two or three minutes or so after one o'clock--I was going out of my office and going over to the east side of the square. I met this young man then. As he says, he was running--that is, he was coming back from this direction, and running toward the southeast corner of the square, the direction of his own home."

"Was he in a hurry--did he seem excited?"

"He was panting a little bit. He was running. He didn't seem to see me."

"Oh, yes, I did," said Don. "I remember you perfectly--that is, I remember perfectly pa.s.sing some man in the half darkness under the trees as I came along that side of the square. As I said, it was warm."

"Now, gentlemen, we have thought it over for a long time," said the coroner, after a solemn pause. "We must bring in our verdict before long. It must either be 'party or parties unknown,' or we must hold someone we do suspect.

"We have had no one here that we could suspect until now. Take this young man--he is practically a stranger. He proves himself to be of violent and ungovernable temper. Allowed to go once from the justice of the law, he forgets that and goes violent again. He a.s.saults a second time one of our citizens, Mr. Adamson. He resists arrest once by a officer of the law, and in the same afternoon he threatens that officer.

He says, 'I'll get you.'

"This young man is seen just before one o'clock running over in this direction. Just a little ahead of him the victim of this crime was seen walking. He was killed, as his daughter testifies, somewhere just about one o'clock--it was at that time that he staggered into the house here.

"Just after one o'clock this young man is seen running--one of the hottest nights we have had this summer--running away from the scene of the crime, and toward his own home.

"I don't want to lead your own convictions in any way. I am willing to say, however, that if we have not found a man to hold for this crime, then we ain't apt to find him!"

"But, gentlemen, you don't mean"--poor Don began, his face pale for the first time, a sudden terror in his soul--"you _can't_ mean that _I_ did this!"

But he gazed into the faces of six men, upon whom rested the duty of vengeance for the wrong done to the society which they represented. Of these six all but two were openly hostile to him, and those two were sad. Rawlins, minister of the Church of Christ; Nels Jorgens, the blacksmith--they two were sad. But they two also were citizens.

"This witness," went on Coroner Blackman, "has in a way both abused us and defied us. He said he was not on trial. That is true. We can't try him. All we can do is to hold any man on whom a reas'nable suspicion of this crime may be fixed. We could hold several suspects here, if there was that many. All we do is to pa.s.s the whole question on to the grand jury when it meets here. That's tomorrow morning. Before the grand jury any man accused can have his own counsel and the case can be taken up more conclusive. So the question for us now is, Shall we call it 'party or parties unknown,' or shall we----"

Don Lane dropped into a seat, his face in his hands, in his heart the bitter cry that all the world and all the powers of justice governing the world had now utterly forsaken him. The sheriff rose, and taking him by the arm, led him into another room.

In ten minutes a half-dozen reporters, trooping up from the train and waiting impatiently at the outer door, knew the nature of the verdict: "We the jury sitting upon the body of Joel Tarbush, deceased by violence, find that deceased came to his death by a blow from a blunt instrument held in the hands of Dieudonne Lane."

CHAPTER XII

ANNE OGLESBY

Judge William Henderson was sitting alone in the front room of his cool and s.p.a.cious office, before him his long table with its clean gla.s.s top, so different from the work-bench of the average country lawyer.

Everything about him was modern and perfect in his office equipment, for the judge had reached the period in his development in which he brought in most of his own personal ideas from an outer and a wider world--that same world which now occupied him as a field proper for one of his ambitions.