Flash and Filigree (11 page)

At the wheel, Ralph Edwards, as though responding to the surge of power beneath his feet and hands, put away his show of humility almost at once. “I had to come get a book,” he said, explaining. “I left it at the Dispensary yesterday,” and, proving it, he nodded, with a rather heavy nonchalance toward the great mouse-gray text-book that lay on the seat between them, then picked it up and put it on the floor under the seat. “An exam this afternoon,” he went on, “in Bio-chem.”

As they turned out into the Boulevard, picking up speed, the wind settled in wide sweeping drafts over the front glass of the convertible and broke fiercely across their faces through the lowered side-windows. It was apparent that Babs’ hair was going to suffer terribly, and she held it with both hands.

“Oh, this is awful,” she cried.

Ralph slowed the car a little. “Move more this way,” he said, nearly sounding casual.

Babs gave him a significant dark glance, one to suggest exasperation, and began to roll up her window. “This makes more sense,” she said firmly, then settled down to look fixedly out that side of the car.

For a moment Ralph concentrated on his driving; then after glancing once or twice at Babs, he began to hum, being blasé, drumming his finger-tips over the top of the steering-wheel. He switched on the radio, found a popular dance-tune program, “The Make-Believe Ballroom,” and raised his humming in confidence. “Like dancing?” he asked the girl, careful not to take his eyes off the road.

“Me?” answered Babs with a laugh that was at once careless and surprised. “Love it!” she said authoritatively, and she began to hum along with the music herself, looking straight ahead.

Ralph Edwards turned his eyes full on her, taking it all in entirely. He started to speak, but when his voice caught he laughed embarrassedly and reached at his shirt-pocket for a cigarette.

“Smoke?” he asked, proffering the pack, but in having kept his eyes on the girl for too long, and now in proffering the cigarettes, he allowed the car to drift onto the shoulder of the road, and had to swerve it awkwardly to avoid the mound of a stone-marker.

Meanwhile, Babs, pretending not to notice, replied over all the noise and bumping. “I don’t smoke, thank you.”

“You don’t smoke?” asked Ralph, trying to salvage that advantage, as though nothing had happened. “Really?” He forced a tired smile, to suggest that she was perhaps too virtuous for him; Babs, however, was still so absorbed in not noticing, that she failed to catch even his words.

“
And,
you don’t talk much either, do you?” the boy hurried on, pursuing it. “Now why is that?” He gave her his tooth-paste smile, but Babs continued to hum, not looking his way at all.

They stopped for a light then, at a quiet intersection where the signal seemed interminably red.

“Say, do you know this guy Eichner?” Ralph asked suddenly in his schoolboy voice. With the motor idling, he sounded much louder than before.

Babs gave a start and looked anxiously about outside. “Who,
Fred
? Why, how do you mean?”

On the corner nearest the car, where a boy was knelt to one knee in untying a bundle of afternoon papers, the cloth bag, color of orange sherbet with worn black markings lay furled in the sun at his feet.

Ralph laughed, a bit jerkily. “
Fred?
Sure, old Doc Fred Eichner! Sure, they’ve got him down before the Grand Jury. My uncle was telling me about it. He was in a big car-wreck the other day.”

Babs was sitting up straight, toward the edge of her seat. “
Today?
Oh, why didn’t they tell me?” she demanded, and continued practically unheard. “Fred. Oh, I’ve got to be . . . Where is it?” she implored then of the boy.

“Well, at the Court House, I suppose,” Ralph answered, holding his watch up in front of him and frowning at it. “But it’s probably over now. It was this morning,” he added, looking at Babs, who sat pensive, one rose-bright nail to her mouth.

“We could go by there,” the boy suggested vaguely, when it was clear nothing else he might say would do.

“Oh, could we?” cried Babs, and for the first time really embraced him in an ecstatic smile.

“Sure,” said Ralph Edwards, warming toward the idea, and as the light went green, he started the car with a forward surge that gently lifted the girl’s feet and knees, but only for an instant.

W
HEN THE OLD MAN
in the Information booth told Babs and Ralph that Dr. Eichner’s hearing “wasn’t over with yet,” Babs evinced a theatrically mixed reaction of sharp relief and dramatic, almost maternal resolve.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” she demanded of Ralph, as though his faltering now were despicable, and she led their way in a march down the corridor beyond the glass door.

They reached 8th Sessions antechamber at that propitious moment of recess between the departure of the sweepers and the arrival of the minor officials, and so were able to enter the empty courtroom almost unnoticed.

In the center of the room, standing by the box that had held Dr. Eichner, Babs looked anxiously about, apparently expecting the drama to unfold abruptly now at any moment.

“Guess the Jury’s still out deliberating,” said Ralph gravely, but the great emptiness of the room seemed to gradually and so completely absorb the girl’s authority and initiative that now she stood before him as if she hadn’t heard. Then Ralph indicated the nearest seats for them and even half turned the girl in that direction she seemed so utterly helpless.

“Oh, if we could only
do
something,” she pleaded.

Ralph looked at her curiously. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice soft; and then, with a real tenderness, he put a hand on her shoulder, saying: “It will be all right,” whereupon she raised her eyes to his in comfort, as if he were then the one person in the world who understood. And he took her hand in his own.

No sooner was Babs graciously seated than all the court personages, with a seeming sort of regal demien not attendant upon the earlier session—perhaps because they had all now just comfortably eaten—began their serious entrance: the striding minor officials, holding their girth in strict correctness; the court reporters, looking less sleepy than before, and less cynical, perhaps even hoping now to construe something of the day worth while; the great newly-confident Jury, and the few privileged spectators, both parties having struck up fresh acquaintances during lunch and bringing to the case at hand a novel enthusiasm, as if to mirror their own lonely importance; and, finally, the constant Judge Lester, magnificent in his black, and Doctor Frederick Eichner, both remarkable men to look upon.

At the approach of Dr. Eichner, who was to pass directly by Babs and Ralph, the girl, without taking her eyes off the Doctor, reached out a hand as if to detain Ralph, though certainly, there had been no indication that he would attempt even to get the Doctor’s attention. Dr. Eichner may have looked at them as he passed, but he obviously took no notice. He resumed his place by the side of the stand and waited for Judge Lester, mounting the high presidium, to be seated.

The Jury was still in a mood of recess, with whisperings and coughings among them, while Judge Lester shifted the papers about before him.

On the far side of the Jury box, a spectator was standing in conversation with one of the Jurors. They were both young men, talking lightly, with many smiles and gestures between them. The Doctor had mounted the stand and was looking interestedly around, in his expression no hint of anxiety, when suddenly he started forward clutching the rail, and in an instant, his face seemed suddenly to go ashen with bitter incredulity.

“If you
please
!” he said in a harsh voice to Judge Lester and, facing the Jury box, he pointed a severely accusing hand at the young man who was speaking to the Juror. And it was none other than Felix Treevly.

For the moment, the Doctor seemed beside himself with speechless contempt, and, as though his accusing hand were itself enough to confiscate the man, kept it stiffly extended, quaking in mute condemnation of Mr. Treevly. “What, in God’s name, is that man doing here?” he demanded then, managing to assert some control over himself. “This is a closed session, is it not? Your Honor, I am forced to challenge the
integrity
of this Jury!”

This outbreak caused great consternation in the courtroom. Almost everyone in the Jury sat agog, and the young Juror to whom Mr. Treevly had been talking, glared with open hostility at the Doctor, whereas Treevly himself, in acknowledging Dr. Eichner’s remarks, merely smiled with strained politeness and nodded. “The Doctor isn’t telling all he
knows,
” he said then in a very quiet voice, his lips formed by the pained smile that did not leave them throughout the incident. And, so saying, he turned his face slightly to profile, striking an odd pose, but also showing a glimpse of the small white patch on the back of his head.

“Yes, I know!” countered the Doctor at once. “I know that abrasion! What have you packed it with? Spider-eggs? Good Lord!” He leaned heavily pale against the railing, as if he were going to be sick.

“You
would
like to think so, wouldn’t you, Doctor?” replied Treevly, only his mouth carrying the fantastic smile, for his dull eyes were a flat dead gray. “Or
would
it upset you? Would it upset you—and your
very-special-knowledge
?”

Judge Lester raised his gavel, but before he could strike, Mr. Treevly softly repeated the phrase: “The Doctor isn’t telling all he
knows,
” whereupon Dr. Eichner, recovering, spoke out so plainly that Judge Lester held the gavel, suspended as it were, above the Doctor’s words.

“I
will
tell this much,” he shouted, “this man is a serious mental case: a vicious
pederast,
in a state of advanced paranoia!”

“That’s slanderous!” cried Treevly’s friend in the Jury box, half standing now, looking wildly to Judge Lester for corroboration.

“It
is
slanderous,” said Judge Lester, striking with his gavel, “and I advise you, Doctor—”

“Let the charge be Slander!” cried Fred Eichner. “The defense will be:
Truth
!”

“I advise
you,
Doctor,” said Judge Lester in a very loud voice, “that you may be liable to contempt of this Court!” And he struck deafeningly with his gavel. “I’m going to insist upon order here!” And as the courtroom grew quiet again, only Dr. Eichner’s voice was heard speaking to one of the officials sitting near. “Detain that man. I want to question him.” He spoke in such confident undertones, however, that it is doubtful if the official, one of the record clerks, even heard him. In any event, he confronted the Doctor with an ice-cold silence. Judge Lester had heard, however, and was quick to react. “I said,
order,
Doctor; I’ll not warn you again!” He fixed Dr. Eichner in a hard, formulative gaze, which remained unbroken for fully half a minute. The Doctor however, no longer seemed to be with them. His aggressive presence had given over to an obviously deep preoccupation; his eyes stared into the Jury without focus, brow furrowed, wholly reflective, as if in his mind’s-eye now he would thread the loosened strands of an intricate pattern.

“It is conceivable,” Judge Lester began, after clearing his throat, “that, had developments here taken another course, your
challenge
of the Jury might be well taken . . . these are closed-sessions, and I
will
have something to say to the Guards responsible for the admission of unauthorized persons . . . However, it has been decided that the issues and the evidence in this case are, at the present time, too vague and too incomplete to indicate a definite finding. Therefore, a second hearing will be in order. I am going to set this hearing for ten days from today, that is Monday, May 2nd, by which time, it is probable, the District Attorney’s Office will have carried their investigations to a more conclusive point—so that the issues and evidence will be a great deal more clear.

“The present Jury will not be called again. The principal party will receive summons on the day previous to the Hearing.” Judge Lester paused and looked at the Jury before speaking seriously to them. “Jury service is the duty and privilege of every good citizen. Our democratic tenets greatly depend upon honoring this duty, safeguarding this privilege. On behalf of the government and people of the County of Los Angeles, I would like to express gratitude then to those of you here today for your sacrifice and co-operation.

“The Court is dismissed.”

“What does it mean?” Babs whispered to Ralph squeezing his hand as though accidently, and looking helpless again, when they rose with the others. He squeezed her hand in return, to show understanding, and they both looked around for Dr. Eichner. But the Doctor had already swept past them and, as they saw now, was disappearing out the door, trying to overtake someone ahead. Apparently it was Felix Treevly he was after.

B
ABS AND
R
ALPH LEFT
the Courtroom, in silence, a part of the milling crowd. On the steps of the Records Building, no longer holding hands, Ralph took the girl’s arm, pressing it gently, whereupon she edged away, raising her eyes with the quick look of a small friend betrayed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ralph, letting his annoyance show. He should have been in the library, of course, studying for his examination.

When Babs didn’t answer, but instead allowed her preoccupation with bigger things be suggested, the boy at once became sulky and morose; so, at the bottom of the steps, Babs suddenly touched his sleeve, to detain him, while she looked anxiously around, as though she expected someone to be waiting.

“Listen. What is this Eichner to you, anyway?” asked Ralph, putting his hands on his hips. “A particular friend or something?”

Babs gave a start. “Who,
Fred
?” And she turned her blue eyes up on him like saucers of hope and confusion. “Why, no! Why?” She said it in such a way that he could not possibly have believed her—though, actually, it was true—and she gave him a long, inquiring look, shifting it from one part of his face to another, as if searching for a meaning beneath the words.