The Alley (15 page)

Billy blushed. Trembling with excitement, he said, "First of all, Your Honor, I want to point out that it is highly irregular (he had a television set, too, and knew as much as Jonathan Stuart about how to act in a courtroom) it's irregular for a lawyer on the other side to grab and hold up for the court things which the prosecution was going to present as evidence to prove his man, or his five men, guilty. I take time out from my prosecution of the five men to charge Mister Stuart, the state's lawyer, with contempt of court. Seizing pieces of evidence, right and left, before I can even present them," he added in disgust.

"You are
correct
," said the judge. "Consider yourself reprimanded," she said to Jonathan.

Jonathan said, "'Let the punishment fit the crime,'" and he did a short Gilbert and Sullivan jig. No one particularly liked it; in fact, June and Laura, two G.G.C. girls, exchanged glances of derision.

"Be more careful," said Katy. "No more snatching evidence that doesn't belong to you, Mr. Stuart."

Then the trial went on.

"Now," said Billy Maloon in a cool voice. "Do you or do you not recognize this weapon?"

"That's right," thought Connie. "A screwdriver can be a weapon, you know. If the burglars had found someone in the house, they might have hit him with it. Supposing Nanny had been home? Dear darling Nanny! She almost always was here, and the burglar with the screwdriver might have hit her. Thank goodness, she had been in the South then, and still was, writing letters every day—or a card—about her silver, to count it and be sure it really was all still intact—not a pickle fork or anything missing. Wasn't it lucky that the burglars had not taken any of Nanny's silver? That would have killed her, just plain killed her. 'Oh!' she would have screamed (Connie could hear her now), 'Percy's silver! Dear Percy's silver!' Well, they hadn't. 'Too hard to get rid of flat silver,' the detectives had said when Nanny wrote to ask why no one—burglars, real or otherwise—had taken her flat silver. 'The silver is most unusual and very valuable—priceless!' she wrote. It almost sounded as though her feelings had been hurt because none of the burglars had taken such a valuable collection, as though they did not think it valuable at all, passing it over like that for suits and coats. 'Oh, but then,' she must have told herself, 'they had been interrupted, they had not finished; they might have been
going
to take the silver last, stuff it in some great bag. And the two first policemen, if they were also robbers, they could not very well take all that much silver, her father's loving cup—all. Still, they might have taken one spoon or one fork, a ladle even. 'Count it please.' Her complaints kept on coming. 'Thank merciful heavens they didn't, though,' she hastened to add in a P. S. 'As for the two second policemen—the cellar policemen,' she wrote, 'be sure they did not get into my trunk down there in the cellar—my big black trunk.' She had things there ... put away there ... dear Polly's things."

"Nay," said the five, answering Billy Maloon. "We told the other guy 'Nay,' and it's 'Nay' to you, too. We do not recognize the tool." Ray Arp did the talking for all of them—a miracle, for Hugsy Goode loved to talk.

"Well, remember," said Billy Maloon, "that honesty is the best policy." This remark did not sound like Billy Maloon; it sounded like Jonathan. But that was what Billy said, anyway—a comment made while collecting his wits probably. "Are you sure that you do not recognize this screwdriver?" he went on. He was needling them, trying to unnerve them. "Is it yours? Or yours, or yours, or yours? Yours? You are under oath, you know, to tell the whole truth."

"Is it marked 'Stanley'?" asked Ray Arp. (Perhaps he wanted the trial to get over with now, asking such a silly question, so that he could go to the athletic field and play soccer.)

"It's marked 'anley,'" said Billy. "But there is part of an 'S' and part of a 't,' and the bits of this screwdriver that Connie, my client, found on the floor by the door do show that the screwdriver's name was 'Stanley.'"

"If the parts fit and they are marked 'Stanley,' then it is ours," said Ray Arp.

Lawyer Stuart shouted, "Objection!"

"Objection sustained," said Judge Starr. "We don't have time for jigsaw puzzles in the courtroom."

Bellows of laughter greeted this witticism. "All right," said Billy, reddening. "But, Your Honor, this burglar..."

"Objection," said Jonathan, flushed with victory. "Character besmirched. Can't call Arp a burglar until it's proven Arp is a burglar."

"Sustained," said the judge.

"All right then," said Billy Maloon. "This 'guy' confesses that he had a screwdriver named 'Stanley' and that since the parts fit, he admits it belonged to him. Your Honor, I charge this man with breaking into Connie Ives's house on the fifteenth of May, a Saturday with the intention of stealing whatever he could steal."

"Objection," said Arnold Trickman, the second of the five burglars on the witness stand.

"You are not supposed to say 'objection,'" snapped the judge. "Your lawyer is."

Jonathan jumped to his feet. "Objection," he said. "Now, Trickman, what's on your mind?"

"There are many screwdrivers named 'Stanley,'" said Arnold with a few grunts thrown in, such as he imagined burglars (forgetting these were educated ones) might punctuate their talk with.

Everyone was astonished. No wonder Arnold was in R. A., knowing a fact that no one else had known.

"Objection sustained," said the judge. "Inconclusive evidence," she snapped. "Many screwdrivers named 'Stanley.'"

"All right, then," said Billy Maloon in a smooth and confident voice that could be heard distinctly by everybody. He reached down for clue number two—the Mura butt. Holding it up carefully (he kept it in a plastic wrapping, not to ruin it), he said, "What sort of cigarettes do you smoke, any of you?"

A howl of laughter greeted this question. "Once I smoked a grapeleaf one," said Hugsy Goode. "It nearly killed me," and he rolled on the ground, clasping his stomach.

"I happen to smoke 'Muras,'" said Ray Arp. "That's what my father smokes, and so that's what I smoke."

"Could this be one of your butts?" asked Billy.

"Nay," said Ray. "I only smoked one once, and that was New Year's Eve, not Alumni Day."

"All right, then," said Billy Maloon, undaunted. "Now, may I see your hands, your right hand and your left hand, please?" he said. It was clear Billy had something up his sleeve that would clinch everything. "Arp, hold up your hands."

At first Arp hid his hands behind him. A hush settled over the courtroom. Then slowly, first-burglar Arp held up his two bare hands. There were cuts on both. How convenient that he had been chosen to be robber number one! Just yesterday he had cut himself on the top of his fence on the way up to his tree.

"Your Honor," said Billy Maloon triumphantly. "View this piece of curtain. View the bloodstains on it. The bloodstains were put there by the defendant, who had cut himself with his tool named 'Stanley' when he broke down the door. He then dropped his cigarette (he lies, I think, when he says he has smoked only one in his life), and then he placed his bleeding hand on the curtain upstairs in Mr. Ives's dressing room. I charge this man with being the main man of the crime and these four others with being his accomplices, asking Mr. Fabadessa questions about who lives where and being the lookout guys, some across the street and some—one, anyway—in the getaway car ... probably had his foot over the accelerator all the time, ready to whisk them all away..."

"That was me," said Brother Stuart, who was crazy about cars and knew the make of all of them, this year's, last year's, any year's ... and whether it was a foreign one or what, even an ancient Stutz.

At this moment, much to everybody's disgust, for of course he
would
stop and listen, who should come walking along No-Name Street but Bully Vardeer. He had his
boulevardier
sort of hat on, tipped in his certain way on the back of his head, and he was walking his tan dog named Prince. Instead of walking right on past, as most people had, he stopped to listen and laugh and make soft, sarcastic comments, good-natured but bothersome. Evidently he thought the trial was "cute." Everyone tried to ignore him. Even Billy Maloon, somewhat shy at having an extra in the audience, went staunchly on.

"And, Your Honor," said Billy, "I say the blood on the curtain was from Arp's cut hand..."

Just then, on the other side of the fence, on No-Name Street, another person's footsteps came briskly along. Everyone hoped that this person, whoever he was, would not stand and gawk, too, as Bully Vardeer had. And at first, the person went past. But then he stopped short and came back. The smell of his cigarette was wafted into the Alley, into the courtroom scene going on in the Circle. "Mura," whispered Billy Maloon. "Yes," said Ray, the smoker of one cigarette—a Mura. Bully Vardeer was standing exactly where the tall brick wall ended. The new person came and stood beside him, where he could see into the Circle and also be seen by those inside. Connie was sitting on the curb near the end of the brick wall. She couldn't see the new man very well—her back was to him—but she could hear him. She—everybody—heard his rather crisp, well-spoken voice, say, "Hm, Nice dog. What kind is he? Unusual..."

Connie's heart felt as though it had turned over. The voice of the man was that of the person who had spoken to her and Mama and Wagsie on the day of de Gaulle; and the words spoken were almost identical. Connie slowly turned into a position so that she could see the man. He was a rather small man with a bullet-shaped head. He was holding his hand out to Prince. "Nice doggie, good doggie," he said to Prince. And to Bully Vardeer he said, "Does this dog bite?"

"Bite?" Bully Vardeer's low, drawling voice could plainly be heard in the Circle, where silence had fallen. "Does this dog bite? Princey? Eh, Princey? How about it? Do you bite? She's pretty friendly," he said to the man. "But..."

Though frozen with terror, Connie caught Billy's attention. She beckoned to him to sit down beside her—even though he was in the middle of proving the pretend bullet-head man, Ray Arp, guilty. "Billy," she said. "See that man talking to Bully Vardeer? Hear him? It is the bullet-head man, the real one, not the Ray Arp one."

Billy Maloon sank to the curbing and sat beside Connie. He was so tense, he was stiff. The rest of the children probably did not suspect that the real-life burglar, one of them, anyway, might be standing this very minute on the other side of the red brick Alley wall. It did not occur to them, probably, that if this new man were one of the burglars, he was talking to Bully Vardeer just to get the low-down on
his
dog, as he had on Wags on the day of de Gaulle. However, the children suspended their game—the trial—until the big people would go away, because they did not like an audience. They wrote things on the sidewalk, assumed blank expressions, and hoped for the speedy departure of both men.

Out of the corner of her eye, Connie saw the man's foot. Sitting so close to the shoe of the bullet-head man made her quite uneasy. But if she moved, he might notice her—recognize her. "Hm," he might say to himself. "There's that girl who lived in that house I broke into. I didn't realize this was such a tight little Alley, everyone knowing everyone else. Hm. I better keep my eye on her!" And then! If Katy went on with the trial and he heard himself—Ray—being tried, what might he not do? Mow them all down, something!

Billy gave Connie a nudge. "Smell this," he whispered. He had the old Mura butt in the palm of his hand. Connie smelled it; but it just smelled like any kind of old burnt-out cigarette to her. "Now smell the cigarette smoke from that man," Billy said. Connie sniffed. "Are they the same?" Billy demanded. Connie shrugged. She didn't know.

"Watch the guy," said Billy Maloon, "and see where his cigarette butt lands if he throws it away when he leaves."

Connie nodded. Bully and the bullet-head burglar-man had strolled a few steps down No-Name Street. By just turning her head slightly, Connie could now see both of them plainly and also Princey, who was interested in the man and kept smelling his pocket and wagging his tail. The men were chatting jovially about dogs—what dogs bite and what dogs don't. At any moment, Connie thought she might hear the bullet-head man tell about his little girl—how he had had to get rid of his cocker spaniel because she had bitten his little girl.

Gradually, the other children became aware of the tension in the air. One look at Connie and Billy gave them the impression that they should be smelling a rat. Almost every person in the trial in the Circle cast a glance at Bully Vardeer and the bullet-head man. No one said a word; their faces remained blank. Connie couldn't tell whether or not any of them realized that the man talking to Bully Vardeer might be burglar number one. Who knows? They might all have forgotten the part of the burglar story that dealt with events leading up to the day itself—the loose-stocking lady ... the beautiful-mansions man, all of it. Anyway, thank goodness, no one—not even Hugsy Goode, who was apt to blurt out whatever comes into his mind—said one common word and spilled the beans to bullet-head that they had his number.