The Broken Gate Part 36

There was no need to send poor Johnnie Adamson to the asylum. He had gone now to a farther country. He sank, a vast bulk, at his full length along the narrow strip of dusty gra.s.s between the curb and the walk. His shoulders heaved once or twice, his arms fell lax.

Dan Cowles, solemn-faced, his weapon still in his hand, turned to gaze at the haggard man who rose slowly, turning away from that which he now saw.

"It was the act of committing a felony," said Dan Cowles slowly. "It was to save human life. He resisted arrest, and he was armed. It was a felony."

But when old Ephraim Adamson turned his gray face to that of the officer of the law, in his sad eyes there was no resentment. He held out his hand.

"Dan," said he, "thank G.o.d you done it! Thank G.o.d it's over!"

CHAPTER XXI

A TRUE BILL

Now it was nine o'clock of the Monday morning. The grand jury was in session thus early, and it had thus early brought in a true bill against one Dieudonne Lane for murder in the first degree. The session of the jury had just begun. None of the jury knew of these late events at the house of Aurora Lane.

In his office Judge Henderson was pacing up and down all that morning.

He had failed in every attempt to stop the progress of the law. He could not on Sunday afternoon reach by telephone or otherwise the men he wished to see; on Sunday night had seen this horror; and now, early on Monday, there was no way by which even he could arrest the procedure of the grand jury, made up of men who lived here, and who before this had made up their minds on the bill which Slattery, state's attorney, zealous as they, had rushed through at a late session with his own clerks on Sunday night after he had ended his Sabbath motor ride to an adjoining town.

Fate conspired against Judge Henderson and his shrewd plan for delay which was to have left him secure in his ambition and saved in his own conceit. These things now seemed shrunk, faded, unimportant.

He had not slept at all that night. Before him now swept such a panorama as it seemed to him would never let him sleep again. He was indeed facing now the crisis of his life--a crisis not in his material affairs alone, but a crisis of his moral nature. He had learned in one swift lesson what others sometimes learn more deliberately--that the world is not for the use of any one man alone, but for the use of all men who dwell in it. It is the world of human beings who are partners in its use. They stand alike on its soil, they fight there for the same end.

They are brothers, even though savage brothers, after all.

And among these are fathers, too. It was his own son who lay in yonder jail. Now at last some thought, a new, stirring and compelling emotion came into his soul. It was not her boy, but his--it was his son! And now he knew he had been indeed a Judas and a coward.

Judge Henderson's dulled senses heard a sound, a distinct and unusual sound. He stepped out into the hall and spoke to a neighbor who also was looking out of his office door.

"What was that shot?" he asked.

"I don't know," said the other. "Where was it at--around that corner?

Oh, I reckon it was probably a tire blew out at Nels Jorgen's wagon shop--he has automobiles there sometimes."

Henderson turned back to his own office, his nerves twitching. He was obliged to face the duties of this day.

What was to happen now to William Henderson, the leading citizen of Spring Valley? Actually, he now did not so much care. It was his son--his own son--in yonder jail! The heart of a father began to be born in him, thus late, thus very, very late.... He had seen her face, last night.

He walked slowly down his stair and across the street to the courthouse.

His course was such that he could not see into Mulberry Street. Some persons were hurrying in that direction, but he did not join them. He was too preoccupied to pay much attention to the sounds which came to his ears. As for himself, he could have gone anywhere rather than near to the house of Aurora Lane that morning. A great terror filled his soul, a terror largely of these people among whom he had lived thus long. They had wrecked her home. They might have done worse in their savagery. But it was he himself who was the real cause of that. Would she still keep her oath now, after this? Could she be silent now?

He walked on now into the courthouse and down the long hall. He was about to step into the county clerk's office, when he came face to face with a tall man just stepping out. It was Horace Brooks.

"Well, Judge," said the latter, "how is it with you today?"

He spoke not unkindly, although his own face was haggard and gray.

Neither had he slept that night.

"It goes badly enough," said Henderson. "Nothing could be much worse.

Well?"

"You want to know if the grand jury has voted that bill? They have--I have just heard. Of course you know I am counsel of record for the defense."

"I didn't know it."

"Yes, Judge, there's going to be a fight on this case," said Hod Brooks grimly. "That is, if you really want to fight. I've got nothing left to trade--but, Judge, do you think you and I really ought to fight--over this particular case?"

"I can't forswear my own professional duties," began Judge Henderson, his mouth dry in his dull dread, his heart wrenched. He wondered what Hod Brooks knew, what he was going to do. He knew what must come, but he was not ready for the hour.

"Come into this room," said Horace Brooks suddenly. "I won't go to your office, and I won't ask you to come to mine. But come in here, and let's have a little talk."

They stepped over to the door of the county treasurer's office, across the hall. It was a room of the sort usual in a country courthouse, with its high stools and desks, its map-hung walls, its scattered chairs, its great red record books lying here and there upon the desk top.

A young woman sat making some entry in a book. "Miss Carrie," said Horace Brooks to her, "Judge Henderson and I want to talk a little together privately. Please keep us from being disturbed. You run away--we won't steal the county funds."

Smilingly the clerk obeyed. Brooks turned to Judge Henderson abruptly.

"Look here, Judge," said he.

He pointed to a large framed lithograph which hung on the wall--the same which had hung on the wall in the library at the exercises of Sat.u.r.day night. It was a portrait of the candidate for the United States Senate--Judge Henderson himself. The latter looked at it for a moment without comment, and turned back with an inquiring eye.

Brooks was fumbling in the side pocket of his alpaca coat, and now he drew out from it a good-sized photograph, which he placed face upward on the desk beside them. It was done in half-profile, as was the portrait upon the wall.

"Look at this picture too, Judge, if you please," said he, "and then look back again at the lithograph. That was taken some years ago, when you were young, wasn't it?"

Judge Henderson flushed lividly. "I leave all those things to the committee," croaked he.

"--But this one here," said Horace Brooks slowly, "was taken when you were still younger, _say, when you were twenty-two_, wasn't it?" He moved back so that Judge Henderson might look at the photograph. He saw the face of the great man grow yellow pale.

"Where did you get this?" he whispered. "How?"

"I got it of Miss Julia Delafield, at the library, early this morning,"

said Horace Brooks. "I told Miss Julia, whatever she did, to stay in the library and not to go over to Aurora Lane's house. I--I didn't want her to see what had happened there. She was busy, but she found this picture for me. And we both know that really it is a photograph of the young man against whom the grand jury have just brought a true bill--within the last ten minutes."

There was silence in the dusty little room. The large white hand on the desk top was visibly trembling. Hod Brooks' voice was low as he went on:

"Now, as to trying this case, Judge, I brought you in here to ask you what you really want to do? I don't my own self very often try cases out of court--although I have sometimes--sometimes. Yes, sometimes that's the way to serve the ends of substantial justice."

Henderson made no reply--he scarcely could have spoken. He could feel the net tightening; he knew what he was to expect now.

"Now, here are these two pictures," resumed Brooks. "Suppose I _were_ trying this case _in_ court. I'm not sure, but I think I could get them both introduced in evidence, these two pictures. I think they are both germane to this case--don't you? You've been on the bench--we've both read law. Do you think as a judge you could keep a good lawyer from getting these two pictures introduced in evidence in that case?"

"I don't see how you could," said the hoa.r.s.e voice of Judge Henderson.

"It would be altogether immaterial and incompetent."

"Perhaps, perhaps," said Hod Brooks. "That's another good reason why I'd rather try the case here, if it suits you! But just suppose I enlarged this photograph to the exact size of the lithograph on the wall, and suppose I did get them both into evidence, and suppose I unveiled the two at just the psychological moment--I presume you would trust me to do that?