"Saul Aronson," called the district attorney.

Shagarach's assistant had been amazed to find a subpoena thrust into his hands just as he returned to his desk after the noon recess. Of what service could he be to the prosecution? As little as possible, he inwardly determined, while he made his way to the stand.

"Do you know a young lady named Miss Serena Lamb?" asked Badger, in his iciest voice. The cruelty of it was exquisite. If he had discharged a revolver at Aronson point blank the witness could not have looked more terror-stricken. To have the secrets of the affections thus held up to public scorn! To be compelled to wear on his sleeve the heart whose bleeding in his bosom he had with difficulty stanched! His face grew pale—or, rather, a mottled white. But Shagarach rose on purpose and his master's presence acted like a cordial on the fainting witness.

"Yes, sir," he stammered out, marveling what was to come; how long the torture would be prolonged.

"That is all for the present," said Badger.

"Prof. Borrowscales," called the district attorney, and a shadow of disappointment fell on the court-room. There is no testimony less amusing than that of the writing expert and none more inconclusive. At least eleven jurors out of twelve disregard it and form their own opinions by the rule of thumb.

"You are a professor of penmanship?" asked the district attorney.

"An expert in handwriting, yes, sir."

"Of many years' experience?"

"Twenty-nine."

"Have you examined the papers submitted to you by Inspector McCausland?"

"I have microscopically."

"Describe them, please, for the benefit of the jury."

"This one is a page of manuscript purporting to be the work of Robert Floyd and bearing his signature. The other contains a chemical formula."

"The bomb formula, taken from the desk of the accused," explained the district attorney. "Anything else?"

"A number, apparently jotted down on the same sheet."

"Please read out that number."

"No. 1863."

"What do you say as to the identity of the handwritings, professor?"

"I give it as my conviction that they are the same. The capital Q——"

"Never mind the capital Q," interrupted Shagarach. "We admit that the formula was written by the accused."

"Retain the autograph for one moment," said the district attorney. "There was another article submitted to you for comparison. What was that?"

"A blotting-pad," said the professor, holding it up in his fingers and showing a clean side, bearing the reversed impressions of two or three lines of writing.

"Will you kindly hold that up to the mirror you have brought and read what may be read of the writing taken up by the pad?"

"Looks to me as if it came from the back of a postal card. Just fits that size and says:

"'Dear Aronson: The lock that I told you about still sticks. Please come and open it. I will not trust it to an ordinary locksmith.

"ROBERT FLOYD.'"

"As to the signature and writing? Are they genuine?"

"Beyond peradventure and on the strength of my twenty-nine years of experience."

"During your twenty-nine years of experience," asked Shagarach, "have you ever failed to arrive at the conclusion your employers expected?"

"I object," said the district attorney, and Shagarach withdrew his question. It was one of those ramrod questions, the office of which is simply to drive the charge home and then be withdrawn.

"Will you kindly write your own name on that?"

He handed up a common paper block and a pen. The expert flushed a little and put the pen in his mouth. This blackened his lips and raised a titter. His tongue rolled in his cheek like a schoolboy's while he wrote. The effort was unconsciously prolonged. Shagarach took the autograph and passed it to the jury. A broad smile spread from face to face like a row of lamps lighted successively by an electric current. Then the half-legible scrawl was passed to the district attorney and Shagarach sat down.

"I do not understand," said the district attorney, "that you profess to be an ornamental writer?"

"It is not necessary, Brother Bigelow," interrupted Shagarach again. "We acknowledge the note on the postal card."

"He has a spark of humor, after all," said Ecks, who was still in his seat.

"What do you suppose Aronson has to do with it?" asked Wye, while the jury studied the blotter, one after another, mirror in hand.

"Pineapple Jupiter!" called Badger. The old negro hobbled to the stand and immediately opened his mouth in a good-natured smile, which set the spectators' lips working responsively.

"This is a murder case, involving life and death," said Chief Justice Playfair, with dignity, and the court officers rapped their staffs and bustled about, commanding silence.

"You know Mr. Aronson, the last witness but one?" asked Badger.

"See him most every day, sah."

"Do you also know a young lady named Miss Serena Lamb?"

"See her most every day, sah."

"Did you ever introduce Mr. Aronson to Miss Lamb?"

"Yes, sah."

"When and where?"

"Well, you see, I fotched him up to her and says I, 'Here's a convert, sister,' says I. 'Hallelujah!' says she, and that's how I done it, sah."

"Where was this?"

"Down on the square, sah—Salem street."

"And when?"

"When?"

"Yes, when did you introduce Mr. Aronson and Miss Lamb?"

The negro scratched his woolly poll.

"Clean forgot de time, sah."

"Was it a year ago?"

"'Bout a year, sah."

"Couldn't you fix the time exactly? It is important."

"Well, you see, sah, it was about de second-last time I got a hair-cut."

This answer provoked a roar, but the district attorney took the witness in hand.

"Can you count?"

"Oh, yes, sah; I can count, sah."

"Up to how far?"

"Up to ten mostly, sah."

"You can't read?"

"Born before Massah Linkun, sah. Chillun can read. Old folks picking cotton; no time for school, sah."

"And you reckon time by the occasions when your hair needs cutting?"

"Yes, sah; wife and I reckons pretty close on that, sah."

"An excellent way for want of a better hour-glass," said the district attorney. "About how often do you get your hair cut from winter to winter?"

"Oh, about six times, sah. My ole wool grows putty stiddy-reg'lar, sah."

"Six times? You have had your hair cut lately?"

"This morning, sah. Wife said I wasn't looking 'spectable enough to come into court before genteel gemlen."

"And you introduced Miss Lamb and Mr. Aronson about the second hair-cut before that?"

"Yes, sah, third-last time. 'Scuse me."

"It must have been four months ago, then. That will do. Mr. Hardwood."

A business-looking old gentleman took the stand.

"You are a member of the firm of Hardwood & Lockwell?" asked Badger.

"Senior member."

"What is your business?"

"Safemakers."

"How long have you been established?"

"Thirty-seven years."

"Do you recollect filling an order for a safe from Prof. Arnold?"

"I do, sir. It is the first order on our books."

"Are those books in existence to-day?"

"They are, sir," said the old business man, with pride.

"Do you happen to know whether that safe ordered by Prof. Arnold was still used by him at the time of the fire which destroyed his home?"

"I have reason to believe so. I remember seeing it and reminding him of the circumstance in his house within a year."

"You regarded it as in a way the foundation stone of your business prosperity?"

"It was our first sale."

"What, if you recollect, was the number of the safe—an old-fashioned article, I presume?"

"Somewhat antiquated in style, sir. I have consulted our books, at the request of the officer—Mr. McCausland, I think. The number of the safe sold to Benjamin Arnold was 1863."

"Were you here," asked Shagarach, "when Prof. Borrowscales read out the number which was jotted down upon a sheet of paper in Floyd's desk?"

"I was. I was struck at the identity."

"You have no means of knowing, however, whether or not that number was a memorandum of the date in the life of Bakunin, the anarchistic writer?"

"I have not."

"Mr. McCausland, again," said the district attorney.

For the third time the inspector came to the box from the ante-room through the door at which he watched and listened.

"You occupied a cell adjoining that of the prisoner in the state prison at one time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will you state any conversation relevant to this trial which you may have overheard?"

"It was a soliloquy rather than a conversation."

"Describe this soliloquy, then."

"Floyd used to talk at night a good deal. He wasn't sleeping well." The court was hushed at this strange introduction. "There was a communication between our cells and by listening carefully one night I managed to make out what he was saying."

"And what was he saying?" asked the district attorney, while Floyd studied the witness' face with more curiosity than he had yet at any time shown.

"'Don't tell anybody, Aronson.'"

To the surprise of everybody the accused burst out into a hearty laugh, which rung through the court-room and evidently nettled the whole prosecuting force. Then he bent over to Shagarach and whispered in his ear. Shagarach jumped to his feet, promptly as usual, for the district attorney had finished. His opportunity had come.

"What crime had you committed, Mr. McCausland, that the state should isolate you in one of its prison cells?"

"I was a voluntary prisoner," answered the detective. He had put his neck in the noose and must bear the strangling as cheerfully as possible.

"For what purpose?"

"A professional one."

"You were there to win the confidence of the accused and extort a confession of guilt from him if possible?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you succeed?"

"Owing to the cleverness of the prisoner and his having been forewarned, I failed."

"Not owing to the fact that he is innocent, you think?"

"I think not."

Shagarach seemed satisfied not to press this further and asked for the blotter, which was in the foreman's hand.

"You were requested to state any conversation relevant to this cause which you had with the accused while in prison. You answered with a few meaningless words pronounced in sleep. I confess the relevance of all this later testimony escapes me," said Shagarach.

"The next witness, Miss Lamb," answered the district attorney, "will make the connection of all these threads of testimony plain."

"Do you know Mr. Aronson, the piano dealer?" asked Shagarach of the witness.

"By sight."

McCausland, though he kept his own identity as hidden as possible, knew the whole city by sight.

"Is it not possible to construe this note on the postal card as referring to the refractory lock of Miss Barlow's piano, which the accused had recently purchased for her as a birthday present?"

"Out of the $309 he earned?" asked McCausland.

"That and the lifelong income he has enjoyed from his mother's property," said Shagarach. Whereupon McCausland, Bigelow and the whole court-room stared, and even Chief Justice Playfair's trained eyebrow was perceptibly lifted.

"Miss Serena Lamb," called the district attorney. How Aronson blushed and fidgeted when his idol, with eyes downcast in virgin shyness, tripped in from the corridor at a constable's beck and mounted the stand!

"Glory alleluia!" she said, with her right hand raised, when the clerk had repeated the formula of the oath.

"You are a member of the salvation army, Miss Lamb?" asked the district attorney. Her bonnet and garb sufficiently answered the question.

"You are acquainted with a young man named Saul Aronson?" was the first question put to Serena.

"I was made known unto such an one," said the girl, in quasi-scriptural parlance.

"By whom?"

"Pineapple Jupiter."

"How did Aronson first present himself to your attention?"

"As one who had seen the error of unbelief and wished to repent. Alleluia!"

"As a convert, then? Did you ever have any private conference with this convert?"

"I did."

"Will you kindly tell the jury when and where?"

"It was the month of May at my home in the city."

"In the parlor of your house?"

"Even so."

"On what date, if you remember?"

"Early in May, but the day escapes me."

"State the substance of your conversation."

"The youth had been a sinner, but his heart was touched and he unburdened his misdeeds to me, of which this was the gravest:

"While he was still unregenerate a certain youth of his own age"—she looked full at Robert—"had tempted him with a bribe to enter a certain house wrongfully and open a certain safe. For the youth had cunning in that craft. The room he entered was filled with books and a canary bird slept in his cage, for it was evening, and a desk stood before a window in one corner."

"I desire to call the attention of the jury to this description," said the district attorney. "It corresponds strikingly with the description of Prof. Arnold's study in the printed copy of Bertha Lund's testimony at the hearing, which is in their possession. Proceed, Miss Lamb."

"And the name of the tempter was Robert Floyd." The hush deepened perceptibly as Serena paused.

"Upon his knees with many tools," she resumed, "he toiled at the door, but it was firm and resisted his skill. Nevertheless the youth stated that he would have succeeded had not an interruption come and startled the guilty pair."

"Are there any further details you desire to add to this recital?"

"Only that it was done on the Sabbath and surely unblessed labor."

"You have not seen the convert since?"

"Never, but I have heard that the courage of his faith deserted him."

"Is the man here?" asked the district attorney, turning toward Aronson—poor Aronson, who sat open-mouthed, goggle-eyed, with gaze riveted on the pale sweet face in the bonnet. Now a thousand eyes were turned upon him, but still he saw only the rosebud mouth and awaited breathlessly its answer.

"That is the man," answered the witness, pointing. The greater "Ecce homo" of history scarcely drew forth such a murmur from the bystanders. But the gavel of the crier was heard rapping for attention, for the court had risen promptly at the strokes of the clock.

"One moment, your honor," said Shagarach, rising, after a whispered consultation with his assistant, now voluble and stuttering with excitement. "I desire to ask that the court issue a warrant for the arrest of the last witness, Miss Serena Lamb, on the charge of malicious perjury."