The Just And The Unjust (14 page)

About to make a comment on Jesse, he checked it; for that problem was his own. On most subjects it was possible to be open with the Judge; but Abner found himself disinclined always to discuss plans or hopes — very likely, Abner admitted, because they sometimes changed; and his father, who never forgot what you told him, would remark on the change. Judge Coates thought that courses of action ought to be planned slowly and carefully, and then not swerved from. Abner said, 'Cousin Mary was there. By the way, Father, did you say something to Bonnie this morning about us getting married?'

'Why, I don't think so,' the Judge said. He stirred against the pillows. 'Well, I may have said something. Sometimes I think you don't show much sense about women. That foolishness with that girl in Boston! If you could have seen yourself all that time —'

Altogether without malice, indeed with the kindliest anxiety, older people often seemed to feel that, just so long as they implied that you were to-day improved, you would not mind hearing, and might profit by the reminder, that once when you were younger you were everyone's laughing-stock. Abner said, 'Bonnie was feeling a little snappy about it. I think she thinks you and I take too much on ourselves.'

'I think all she wants is for you to ask her a little harder. This business has been going on long enough. A girl likes to see some ardour, sometimes. You can overdo this common-sense attitude. Did I offend you, speaking about Boston?'

'I don't know about you, sir,' Abner said, 'but when somebody tells me I am, or was, an ass, I may grant the truth of the matter alleged; but nobody can stop me wanting to interpose a demurrer to the evidence.'

The Judge grunted and gave his difficult laugh. 'I think in this case the evidence may be prima facie insufficient,' he said. 'I'll sustain you. Don't mind what I say, Ab. Your Boston girl wasn't any of my business. I just never liked her. I don't know why. How did you get on in court this afternoon?'

'All right.' But Abner remembered what Doctor Mosher had said, and continued, 'Actually, it isn't much of a case. Harry and George are out for technicalities, so we have to be careful; but I always remember your saying once that there was never any trouble about the law if you just kept the facts straight. Ex facto oritur jus! How's that. You ought to hear Vredenburgh on maxims, sometime.'

'I have heard him. Tom's not very patient with abstractions. He's got a literal mind; and it's a good thing to have; but he hasn't Horace Irwin's feeling for the law. When you come to the bench, I hope you'll have a feeling for it.'

'When I come to the bench, they'll start a revolution, probably,' Abner said. 'About this case, I know one thing Harry's going to appeal on is the severance — whether this Leming may testify for the Commonwealth while he still stands as a defendant. Do you think Harry has anything?'

In the dusk of the moonlight, Judge Coates rested silent a moment.

'No,' he said finally, 'that's a matter of competency. The act takes care of it, I think. All persons are competent, except the stated exceptions. A convicted perjuror. Husband and wife, except in certain cases —they are not competent on confidential communications. There is a point there, by the way. It has been held in a bastardy case that a married woman is not competent to rebut the presumption of access by testifying that she did not have intercourse with her husband. Well; and counsel is incompetent on confidential matters.'

He took a tissue from the pile on the bedside table and wiped his mouth. 'Now,' he said, more energetically, 'your man either is, or he is not, one of those exceptions. If he is not, he's competent, and that's the end of it — as far as you're concerned. The other sections of the act aren't relevant. One case I remember in this state of a co-defendant being disqualified was under section five, clause E —Burke versus Burke, if you want to look it up.' He closed his eyes a moment. 'Two forty; three seventy-nine. It was the case of an interested party to a contract. Well, I guess you don't want me to write your brief.'

'Don't we, though!' Abner said.

'Well, when Harry gets his together, I'll look at it, if you and Marty Bunting want.' He moved his mouth, biting at the lip. 'I wrote an opinion several years ago that involved the competency point. But the basic theory is put about as well as it can be in Benson versus U. S., one forty-six; three twenty-five.'

Abner shook his head; there was no doubt about it, the old boy knew his stuff. 'I don't know how you do it, sir,' he said sincerely. 'When a case is over, I can never remember any citations.'

'Well, I don't remember much any more,' Judge Coates said. 'I don't know whether you want to hear this or not. Wouldn't blame you if you didn't. I think slowly. Hard to get it out.'

'I want to hear it,' Abner said, 'but I don't know whether I ought to keep you up.'

'Better worry about yourself. You don't sleep much when you lie around all day.'

Abner found and lit a cigarette. 'Want one, sir?' he said.

'All right.'

The light of the match Abner held for him fell golden on the hanging side of the paralysed face, and the Judge moved his head a little to shadow it. 'Well, the general idea,' he said, holding the cigarette up to the corner of his mouth, 'is that the defendant actually on trial is certainly not excluded by his interest, and his being party to the record. How, then, can you reason that a co-defendant is? He's only technically a party to the record. He —'

Smoking, Abner listened, locking his jaw against the little impulses to yawn. 'Seems reasonable,' he said.

Judge Coates jabbed out the cigarette end. 'You can rely on the common law,' he said. 'They say the Catholic Church is like that — I mean, aside from the supernatural side of it. If you do what they tell you, you won't make many mistakes. I never could. There's something about their organization that seems to me to debase a man.' He raised his good hand and yawned behind it.

'My life's about over,' he said. 'I don't know whether I really grasp that when I say it, or not; whether it's a thing you ever can really grasp. Grasp it near enough, I guess. So I can say that I'm glad I spent my life in the law. I don't know how you feel about it — there are disappointments; there are things that seem stupid, or not right. But they don't matter much. It's the stronghold of what reason men ever get around to using. You ought to be proud to hold it. A man can defend himself there. It gives you a groundwork of good sense; you'll never be far wrong —' His voice, getting slower between the spoken sentences, made Abner look sharply at him.

'I don't know anything,' Judge Coates said. 'You can't think everything out for yourself. Lay hold on something —'

With a faint peaceful snoring, it was apparent that Judge Coates had drifted off to sleep. Abner stood up softly. The cigarette smoke had dissipated, the moonlight had moved on the floor. Passing the screen before the open windows Abner could smell the perfume of flowering shrubs scenting the warm silent night, drifting through the silent house.

FOUR

1

IN the morning a cool wind blew over the hill of Childerstown, but the cloudless sky and the splendour of the sunlight meant that it was going to be hot soon. When Abner walked up with Bunting from Bunting's office to the courthouse the wind was dying. He could feel the blaze of sun on his cheek and bare head as they crossed by the county administration building from the shade on the east side of Broad Street to the shade of the trees around the courthouse steps. When court opened, the cavernous chamber seemed a little warmer than what had been the fresh morning outside. Now, an hour later, the air inside began to be cooler than the air outside. On the south-east windows the folding walnut shutters were drawn together, shadowing the round of benches, to-day only partly filled. The windows on the other side had been open, the coloured glass top-sashes drawn down, the lower sashes drawn up. Judge Vredenburgh sent the tipstaffs to close them. He said that those jurors who wished to do so might remove their coats. From the way the black silk of his robe clung to his shoulders it was plain that the Judge himself wore nothing under it but a shirt.

Mrs. Zollicoffer, recalled, was on the stand; and this was a wearisome business. Last night Mrs. Zollicoffer must have taken something to make her sleep, and taken so much of it that she was still numb. After half a dozen questions Bunting abandoned his examination abruptly and handed her over to Harry Wurts. He said to Abner, 'She doesn't know whether she's coming or going.' Abner supposed that Marty had made one of his quick and usually correct decisions, and was ready to write her off, figuring that she could do his case no good answering that way, and though she might answer Harry unguardedly, her stupid stubbornness about what she pretended she didn't know would be increased if anything by the feeling she probably had that everything around her was remote and unreal.

Harry, cross-examining, was not quite himself, either. He was alert enough, and aggressive enough; but his manner was jerky and it could be seen that Mrs. Zollicoffer's sluggishness worked, as perhaps Bunting hoped it would, on his nerves, while the efforts he made to work on hers, because of the sluggishness, got nowhere. He kept moving around. He fired his questions at her from all directions. He asked her whether she wore glasses to read with; and when she said she did, he asked her whether she had received any communication from her husband during the day preceding the alleged kidnapping. When she said no, he walked away toward the Commonwealth's table, turned and snapped suddenly, 'Did you ever see a can of opium?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer said dazedly, 'I beg your pardon?'

'You heard my question!' Harry said.

Mrs. Zollicoffer looked distractedly at Bunting who said, 'Did you hear Mr. Wurts' question?'

Mrs. Zollicoffer said, 'I don't know what the gentleman means. I didn't hear it.'

Harry said, 'Simply tell the jury what a can of opium looks like. Describe it. How big is it? Has it a label?'

'I don't know the meaning of it. I'm sorry.'

Harry looked at her with every sign of amazement. 'You don't know the meaning? You can't describe the way opium is packed?'

'No,' said Mrs. Zollicoffer. 'I wouldn't know what that was.'

Nearly shouting, Harry said, 'You never heard of opium? You don't know what it is?'

'No, sir.'

'Ah —!' said Harry. 'Madam, you are under oath?'

'Yes, sir.'

Harry pressed a hand across his no doubt painful forehead and closed his eyes a moment. 'Where were you living when you first married Frederick Zollicoffer?'

'Several places,' Mrs. Zollicoffer said woodenly.

'Where?'

Bunting half lifted his hand and said, 'Objected to as immaterial.'

Judge Vredenburgh nodded. 'It is immaterial.'

Looking to the bench, Harry said, 'It goes to the credibility of the witness, your Honour.'

'What does?' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'Where she lived?'

'Or when she was married?' Bunting asked, standing up. Judge Vredenburgh moved his head from side to side. No,' he said.

'That is my ground, sir,' said Harry Wurts, 'for asking my question, subject, to be sure, to your Honour's infallible ruling.'

Judge Vredenburgh, his hand over his mouth, thumb against one cheek, forefinger against the other, gave him a short dangerous stare. Harry must be feeling terrible if he were going to try being funny with Vredenburgh. 'I will sustain the Commonwealth's objection,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'You may except if you want to.'

To Mrs. Zollicoffer Harry said, 'Well, what was your late husband's business?'

'Salesman, I guess,' said Mrs. Zollicoffer.

'You guess!' said Harry contemptuously. 'You would! Where did he have his office?'

'Somewheres in town.'

'Where in town?'

'I don't exactly know that.'

Harry lifted his shoulders and threw up his hands. 'What was he selling?'

'Some kind of a brand of whisky, or something like that.' Harry was at last succeeding to the point of annoying her. The woman scorned was reacting.

'Something like that!' said Harry with increased contempt. 'Was he working for a distillery?'

'Perhaps.'

'Perhaps! You mean he was bootlegging?'

'No, I don't!' said Mrs. Zollicoffer.

Bunting drew a breath and came to his feet. 'Just a minute, now!' he said. 'I object to that as not being cross-examination. We have been very patient with Mr. Wurts. This witness was recalled on matters which we went into in chief.'

'I think this may be material,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'Overruled.'

Harry said, 'Well, did he ever bring any samples of this some kind of brand of whisky home?'

'No, he didn't.'

'Just a simple "no'' will do, Madam. Wasn't your husband also engaged in selling opium and narcotics?'

Bunting said, 'I don't know how far your Honour wants to permit this to go. I object to it as not being cross-examination, or if it is, as an immaterial line.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'We will continue to overrule you.'

'Again,' said Harry, 'I must direct your attention, Madam, to the fact that you are under oath.'

'You don't need to do that all the time,' said Bunting. 'She knows it.'

'I don't know whether she does or not,' Harry said. 'Will you answer the question?'

'No. He wasn't.'

'He wasn't engaged in the sale of narcotics, if you know what the term means?'

'Not that I know of.'

'You mean, not that you want to know of! Your husband was in a low and criminal business, which you had to pretend to yourself you didn't know about. Wasn't he? Wasn't he?'

'Your Honour,' said Bunting, 'that I do object to. He—'

'Mr. Wurts is within his rights in asking if that were the case. There can be no objection to describing dope peddling as low and criminal. I think you'd better let your witness stand on her own feet, Mr. District Attorney.'

Whatever Mrs. Zollicoffer might, a moment ago, have been stung or goaded into saying, she was able to say now, 'Not that I know of.'