Tutt and Mr. Tutt Part 10

"Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to show you what kind of a man this is whom these highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!"

Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, a.s.sumed an expression of infantile helplessness and trust.

"Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind of gentle."

So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while two professors from Columbia University, three of his landlords in his more reputable business enterprises, the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator for the Society for the Suppression of Sin swore upon Holy Writ and with all sincerity that Mock Hen was not only a person of the most excellent character and reputation but a Christian and a gentleman.

And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card.

"I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson House," he announced. "Miss Duryea, will you kindly take the witness chair?"

Miss f.a.n.n.y modestly rose from her seat in the rear of the room and came forward. No one could for an instant doubt the honesty and impartiality of this devoted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the comforts and luxuries of her home uptown, to which she was well ent.i.tled by reason of her age, was devoting herself to a life of service. If a woman like that, thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good character, why waste any more time on the case? But Miss f.a.n.n.y was to do much more.

"Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the defendant?"

"Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly.

"How long have you known him?"

"Six years."

"Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?"

Miss f.a.n.n.y half turned to the judge and then faced the jury.

"He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever known," she replied, "and I have known many--"

"Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady can't be permitted to testify to anything like that. She must be limited by the rules of evidence!"

With one movement the jury wheeled and glared at him.

"I guess this lady can say anything she wants!" declared the foreman chivalrously.

O'Brien sank down in his seat. What was the use!

"Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt.

"As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remarkable character,"

responded Miss f.a.n.n.y. "He is devoted to the mission and to us at the settlement. I would trust him absolutely in regard to anything."

"Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. "Now, Miss Duryea, did you see Mock Hen at any time on May sixth?"

Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. May sixth? That was the day of the murder.

"I did," answered Miss f.a.n.n.y with conviction. "He came to see me at Hudson House in the afternoon and while we were talking the clock struck four."

The jury looked at one another and nodded.

"Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced the foreman.

"Right!" echoed a talesman behind him.

"I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely improper!"

"Quite so!" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jurymen will not make any remarks!"

"But, Your Honor--we all agreed at recess there was nothing in this case," announced the foreman. "And now this testimony simply clinches it. Why go on with it!"

"That's so!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed another. "Let us go, judge."

Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in smiles.

"Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned.

The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning.

"This is very irregular!" he said.

Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whispered together for several minutes, while all over the court room on the part of those who had sat there so patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged and ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively they all knew that the farce was over.

The a.s.sistant district attorney returned to his table but did not sit down.

"If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the last witness, Miss Duryea, by her testimony, which I personally am quite ready to accept as truthful, has interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for the jury. If Mock Hen was at Hudson House, nearly two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, at four o'clock on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could not have been one of the a.s.sailants of Quong Lee at one minute past four. I am satisfied that no jury would convict--"

"Not on your life!" snorted the foreman airily.

"--and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the court to direct an acquittal."

In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant, Ephraim Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a ta.s.seled pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside Wong Get and Buddha at the head of a long table surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in their richest robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored gla.s.s swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon a silken cloth marvelously embroidered and laden with the choicest of Oriental dishes, and upon the pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong--the Mocks, the Wongs, the Fongs and the rest--both those who had testified and also those who had merely been ready if duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered together to pay honor where they felt honor to be due; namely, at the shrine of Mr. Tutt.

Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to guest with bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo guy pan, shark's fin and lung har made of shreds of lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent shoots of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a corner sang through their nose a syncopated dirge. "w.a.n.g-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and fell as Mr. Tutt, his neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to manipulate a pair of long black chop-sticks. "w.a.n.g-ang-ang-ang!" About him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, litchi nuts, pickled leeches.

Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned to see Fong Hen, the slipper, standing beside him. It was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with each guest--more than that, to drink as much as each guest drank! He gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. It was not the fiery lava he had antic.i.p.ated, but a soft, caressing nectar, fragrant as if distilled from celestial flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper swallowed the same quant.i.ty at a gulp, bowed and pa.s.sed along.

Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was in his own native city of New York. Long sleeves covered with red and purple dragons hid his arms and hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of silk across his breast made access to his pockets quite impossible. In one of them reposed twenty one-thousand-dollar bills--his fee for securing the acquittal of Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York!

The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr.

Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty suns.h.i.+ne, rose the yellow temples of Peking. He could hear the faint tintinnabulation of bells. He was wandering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt statues. The air was sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired....

"Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying to his wrinkled lips a delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. "Let him sleep! He has earned his sleep. He has saved our face!"

It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden with princely gifts of ivory and jade and boxes of priceless teas, emerged from the side door of the Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant. The sky was brilliant with stars and the sidewalks of Doyers and Pell Streets were crowded with pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers after the curious and unwholesome. On either side of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They had hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in quick succession above the noise of the traffic and the crowd turned with one accord and rushed in the direction from which he had just come.

Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Courteously also stopped Wong Get and Buddha. A throng was fast gathering in front of the Shanghai and Hongkong Restaurant.

Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly through the mob.

Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he paused long enough to whisper hoa.r.s.ely in the lawyer's ear: "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! But if they were going to, why in h.e.l.l couldn't they have done it three months ago?"