CHAPTER XIII (4)

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Jim Dyckman's heart was so wrung with pity for Charity when she stepped down and sought her place in a haze of despair that he resolved to make a fight for her himself. He insisted on McNiven's calling him to the stand, though McNiven begged him to let ill enough alone.

He took the oath with a fierce enthusiasm that woke the jury a little, and he answered his own lawyer's questions with a fervor that stirred a hope in the jury's heart, a sorely wrung heart it was, for its pity for Charity was at war with its pity for Kedzie, and its admiration for Jim Dyckman, who was plainly a gentleman and a good sport even if he had gone wrong, could only express itself by punishing Kedzie, whose large eyes and sweet mouth the jury could not ignore or resist.

When his own lawyer had elicited from Jim the story as he wanted it told, which chanced to be the truth, McNiven abandoned him to Beattie with the words:

“Your witness.”

Beattie was in fine fettle. He had become a name talked about transcontinentally, and now he was crossing swords with the famous Dyckman. And Dyckman was at a hideous disadvantage. He could only parry, he could not counter-thrust. There was hardly a trick forbidden to the cross-examiner and hardly a defense permitted to the witness.

And yet that very helplessness gave the witness a certain shadowy aide at his side.

Jim's heart was beating high with his fervor to defend Charity, but it stumbled when Beattie rose and faced him. And Beattie faced him a long while before he spoke.

A slow smile crept over the lawyer's mien as he made an excuse for silence out of the important task of scrubbing his eye-glasses.

Before that alkaline grin Jim felt his faith in himself wavering. He remembered unworthy thoughts he had entertained, graceless things he had done; he felt that his presence here as a knight of unassailable purity was hypocritical. He winced at all points from the uncertainty as to the point to be attacked. His life was like a long frontier and his enemy was mobilized for a sudden offensive. He would know the point selected for the assault when he felt the assault. The first gun was that popular device, a supposititious question.

“Mr. Dyckman, you are accused of—well, we'll say co-respondence with the co-respondent. You have denied your guilt in sundry affidavits and on the witness-stand here. Remembering the classic and royal ideal of the man who 'perjured himself like a gentleman,' and assuming—I say 'assuming' what you deny—that you had been guilty, would you have admitted it?”

“I could not have been guilty.”

“Could not? Really! you astonish me! And why not, please?”

“Because Mrs. Cheever would never have consented. She is a good woman.”

This unexpected answer to the old trick question jolted Beattie perceptibly and brought the jury forward a little. The tears gushed to Charity's eyes and she felt herself unworthy a champion so pious.

Beattie acknowledged the jolt with a wry smile and returned:

“Very gallant, Mr. Dyckman; you want to be a gentleman and avoid the perjury, too. But I must ask you to answer the question. Suppose you had been guilty.”

Silence.

“Answer the question!”

Silence.

“Will his Honor kindly instruct the witness to answer the question?”

Jim broke in, “His Honor cannot compel me to suppose something that is impossible.”

The jury rejoiced unwillingly, like the crowd in the bleachers when a man on the opposing team knocks a home run. The jury liked Jim better. But what they liked, after all, was what they falsely imagined. They assumed that Jim had been out on a lark and got caught and was putting up a good scrap for his lady friend. He was a hum-dinger, and no wonder the lady fell for him. Into such slang their souls translated the holiness of his emotions, and they voted him guilty even in awarding him their admiration for his defense.

Beattie paused again, then suddenly asked, “Mr. Dyckman, how long have you loved Mrs. Cheever?”

“What do you mean by 'loved'?”

“It is a familiar word. Answer the question.”

“I have admired Mrs. Cheever since she was a child. We have always been friends.”

“Your 'friendship' was considerably excited when she married Mr. Cheever, wasn't it?”

“I—I thought he was unworthy of her.”

“Was that why you beat him up in a fist fight at your club?”

This startled the entire court. Even reporters who had missed the news were excited. McNiven sprang to his feet, crying:

“I 'bject! There is no evidence before the court that there ever was such a fight. The question is incompirrelvimmaterial.”

“S'tained!” said the judge.

Beattie was satisfied. The arrow had been pulled out, but its poison remained. He made use of another of his tantalizing pauses, then:

“It was shortly afterward that Mrs. Cheever divorced her husband, was it not?”

“I 'bject,” McNiven barked.

“S'tained!” the judge growled.

“Let us get back to the night when you and Mrs. Cheever went a-motoring.” Beattie smiled. “There was a beautiful moon on that occasion, I believe.”

The jury grinned. The word “moon” meant foolishness. Beattie took Jim through the story of that ride and that sojourn at the tavern, and every question he asked condemned Jim to a choice of answers, either alternative making him out ridiculously virtuous or criminal.

Beattie rehearsed the undenied facts, but substituted for the glamour of innocence in bad luck the sickly glare of cynicism. He asked Jim if he had ever heard of the expression, “The time, the place, and the girl.” He had the jury snickering at the thought of a big rich youth like Jim being such a ninny, such a milksop and mollycoddle, as to defy an opportunity so perfect.

The public mind has its dirt as well as its grandeurs; the pool that mirrors the sky is easily roiled and muddied. It was possible for the same people to abhor Jim and Charity for being guilty and to feel that if they were not guilty with such an occasion they were still more contemptible.

Thus ridicule, which shakes down the ancient wrongs and the tyrants' pretenses, shakes down also the ancient virtues and the struggling ideals.

Finally Beattie said, “You say you left the fair corespondent alone in the hotel parlor?”

“I did.”

“All alone?”

“Yes.”

“And you went out into the night, as the saying is?”

“Yes.”

“But you testified that it was raining.”

“It was.”

“You went out into the rain?”

“Yes.”

“To cool your fevered brow?”

Silence from Jim; shrieks of laughter from the silly spectators. The jury was shattered with amusement; the judge wiped a grin from his lips. Beattie resumed:

“Where did you sleep?”

“In the office chair.”

“You paid for the parlor! You registered! And you slept in the chair!” [Gales of laughter. His Honor threatens to clear the court.] “Who saw you asleep in the chair?”

“I don't know—I was asleep.”

“Are you sure that you did not just dream about the chair?”

“I am sure.”

“That's all.”

Jim stepped down, feeling idiotic.

There is a dignity that survives and is illumined by flames of martyrdom, but there is no dignity that is improved by a bladder-buffeting. Jim slunk back to his place and cowered, while the attorneys made their harangues.

McNiven spoke with passion and he had the truth on his side, but it lacked the convincing look. Beattie rocked the jury-box with laughter and showed a gift for parodying seriousness that would carry him far on his career. Then he switched to an ardent defense of the purity of the American home, and ennobled the jury to a knighthood of chivalry and of democracy. As he pointed out, the well-known vices of the rich make every household unsafe unless they are sternly checked by the dread hand of the law.

He called upon the jury to inflict on the Lothario a verdict that would not only insure comfort to the poor little woman whose home had been destroyed, but would also be severe enough to make even a multimillionaire realize and remember that the despoiler of the American home cannot continue on his nefarious path with impunity.

The judge gave a long and solemn charge to the jury. It was fair according to the law and the evidence, but the evidence had been juggled by the fates.

The jury retired and remained a hideous while.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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