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Title: Only seven were hanged

Author: Stuart Martin

Release date: May 31, 2025 [eBook #76200]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1929

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONLY SEVEN WERE HANGED ***







  _Only Seven_
  WERE HANGED


  by

  Stuart Martin

  _Author of
  "The Fifteen Cells," etc._


  HARPER & BROTHERS _Publishers_
  New York and London
  1929




  ONLY SEVEN WERE HANGED
  COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY STUART MARTIN
  PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
  G-D




  _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

  BABE JARDINE
  THE SURF QUEEN
  PIRATES OF THE MAIN
  INHERITANCE
  THE FIFTEEN CELLS
  ----------
  THE MYSTERY OF MORMONISM
  THE SECRET OF LOURDES




CONTENTS


I. THE CLUE CLUB DEBATES MURDER

II. THE JUDGE STATES HIS FIRST CASE

III. THE WAITER STATES HIS FIRST CASE

IV. THE JUDGE STATES HIS SECOND CASE

V. THE WAITER STATES HIS SECOND CASE

VI. THE JUDGE STATES HIS THIRD CASE

VII. THE WAITER STATES HIS THIRD CASE

VIII. THE JUDGE STATES HIS FOURTH CASE

IX. THE WAITER STATES HIS FOURTH CASE

X. THE JUDGMENT

XI. LEX TALIONIS




ONLY SEVEN WERE HANGED



CHAPTER I

_The Clue Club Debates Murder_

The chairman of the Clue Club called for silence.

The repeated tap of his wand of office on the polished table stilled
the tongues of the  and caused every eye to be focused on the
heavy figure who presided.

It was not a large club, barely twenty names being on the
subscription list; but it was a very exclusive one.  This, their
monthly meeting, had fallen on Christmas Eve and the proceedings were
entirely formal.  The dinner had been consumed and the dishes cleared
off; only a few details had to be carried through, and the remainder
of the evening was to be spent in seasonable cheerfulness.

Snow was falling in a thin whiffling way on the streets outside.  The
ground was hard with frost.

All was cozy indoors.  A big fire crackled in the grate.  A shaded
cluster of electric globes hanging from the center of the ceiling and
suspended above the long table thrust a wide circle of brilliant
light toward the floor.  Beyond this radius the room was in pleasant
twilight.

Apart from the  very few people were aware that such a club
existed.  It had been born of the subtle fascination crime has always
had for human beings but has only recently been frankly itted.

Wherever men live to govern, or be governed, they have formed clubs.
But in a clubland that has become bewildering the Clue Club
maintained an originality that was remarkable because of its
simplicity.  To become a member one had to affect an interest in
crime and clues.

Such singleness of qualification and purpose was something of an
ironical gesture toward the political clubs where politics were
rarely mentioned, the professional clubs where there were no
professions, the social clubs where everyone was unsociable, the
sectarian and non-sectarian clubs where sect treason and dogmatic
cliques, respectively, reigned.

The  of the Clue Club were convinced that their directness of
objective--for all original ideas are copied--was responsible for the
Club of Honest Men in Chicago, the Truth-in-Advertising slogan, the
British Premier's inspired belief--after he had read the speeches of
his Cabinet --in the many-sidedness of sincerity, the
international plan to outlaw war, and the simplicity of Einstein's
theory of relativity.

The  of the Clue Club were definitely interested in clues and
crime.  Their interest might be legal, pathological, sociological,
professional, even casual, but it existed in every case.  Yet,
strangely enough, no official or other detective was a member.  No
murderer, no convict, ever told his experiences of prison or voiced
his estimate of the law.  The object of the club was simply to talk
about crime--which, of course, involved talk about criminals--to
analyze it, to classify its manifestations, to examine clues revealed
by prosecutions, to suggest clues (within the privacy of the club
premises) in cases where no clues existed, and to explain, if
possible, the origin and phenomena of crime in the abstract and in
the particular.

The  were chiefly professional men--that is, outside the
criminal profession--from both sides of the Atlantic who could
compare crime as America and England knew it.  This comparison, let
it be itted, revealed a striking similarity in the objects of
criminals; but it also revealed an adroitness and, in many cases, a
resurprise, on the part of the American criminal which his English
brother lacked.  Yet this was proved, after analysis, to be no real
cause for congratulation of one another by American evildoers, for
the majority of their most brilliant criminals were British born, and
Britain was willing to erase their names from her census, while Ellis
Island had not woven a net fine enough to prevent their penetration
into the United States.  The  of the Clue Club, therefore,
with sound common sense, came to the conclusion that crime was
international in its nature, though it might acquire characteristics
from its environment.  This conclusion was a sort of compromise that
avoided rivalries for notoriety.

It has been said that the club hip was mainly composed of
professional men.  There were lawyers, actors, artists, doctors,
surgeons, psychologists, politicians, novelists.  There was one
clergyman.  Each looked at crime from his own viewpoint.  They went
to criminal trials of national and international interest; they
haunted the courts during the hearing of murder cases.  All were,
humanly enough, profoundly stirred by, and more interested in, murder
than any other form of crime.  Then, while the cases were "on," and
after they were finished and the verdicts announced, the 
gathered at the club, where the lawyers discussed the opposing
counsel's arguments, the actors considered the facial and bodily
agonies of the accused that they might copy them on the stage, the
artists showed sketches they had made (by stealth when permission was
refused to sketch openly), the doctors and surgeons talked of
medico-chirurgical aspects, the psychologists pretended to explain
mental reactions, the politicians insisted on the government's duty
to the public, the novelists sought for plots.  The clergyman quoted
Scripture.

Only two men in the club maintained attitudes of detachment from the
general considerations and conclusions.  These two were the chairman
who presided at the gatherings and the waiter who filled the glasses
of the .

The chairman's reluctance to participate in the discussions was
respected, being recognized as based on two good reasons.  Firstly,
he was a Criminal Court judge, one who wore the scarlet robe--emblem
of blood!--and impartially sent men (and women, too) to the scaffold
or to prison, according to the law and the findings of juries.  Being
a judge of eminence, it would have been too much to hope that he
should descend to ordinary discussions around a table.  Secondly,
being an authority on law, he made an ideal president.  His heavy,
judicial manner was just what was expected of him.  His massive face,
much longer than it was broad, was made up of features that spoke the
legal mind in every particular.  From chin to brow there were furrows
and lines caused by straining to catch counsel's pleadings in his
court; so that speakers never were sure whether he was smiling to
them or at them, or whether he was encouraging them or luring them on
in order, at a given moment, to crush them with a word.  Prisoners
had been misled, counsel had been snubbed, juries had been bewildered
by misinterpreting this expression which was an excellent mask.  The
Clue Club regarded him as their greatest asset.

As for the waiter, no one expected him to be other than a waiter.
But here there was a touch which no member could personally supply.
The waiter had had a taste of prison.  His presence was an
ever-present reminder of the object of the organization.

On this evening, however, the ex-prisoner was not present.  He had
found himself suddenly indisposed and a substitute had come who
appeared to be quite as able and as willing to carry out the duties
of servant.

"Gentlemen," said the president, gravely, "it is time we opened the
proceedings."

As he spoke he laid aside the curious, knobbed stick with which he
had called for silence.

The new waiter moved silently out of the shadow behind the
presidential chair and lifted the stick, bearing it to the sideboard
at the head of the room, where he laid it down on two tiny trestles.
This was part of the usual custom, a detail of the ceremony that took
place at every meeting.

It was a strange stick, black with age and hard as iron.  It was in
reality a bludgeon, a murderous weapon in the hands of a man who
could use it.  But few cared to handle it, for it seemed to exude an
atmosphere of crime.  It had been dug up out of the mud of the Thames
during excavations, a relic of a past race when men were fierce and
savage.  No modern man's hand could grip it as it had been gripped by
its original owner, who had burned grooves into the handle for his
fingers.  Only a primitive hand was competent to wield that weapon,
which doubtless had sent many to death.  It was said by those who had
taken the trouble to make research that it had belonged to Kartarus,
the human wolf who came with the Frank and Saxon barbarians on
plundering expeditions to England in the distant past.  His sign was
on the gnarled, heavy head of the bludgeon.

The president of the Clue Club had bought it from a dealer in ancient
things and had given it to the club as a contribution, an addition to
the relics the organization already possessed.  These relics were
various and worthy of remark.  On the walls of the room in which the
 were seated were a few old swords, a pike, and a scythe, all
of which had been used by the mob during the French Revolution.
There was a coat belonging to the late Tsar of Russia, one of the
coats he had worn before he was done to death with his family.  There
was a rosary believed to have belonged to Rasputin.  A slugshot had
been presented by a member who came from Chicago.  On a stand on the
mantelpiece was a small model of the electric chair used to terminate
prisoners' lives in Sing Sing prison.  It had come from a New York
member.  Beside it was a model of a scaffold in an English prison.
It had been given by a man who had narrowly escaped hanging, owing to
the cleverness of his counsel, a member of the club.

Having laid the black bludgeon of Kartarus on its small oak trestles,
the waiter lifted a decanter and proceeded to fill up the glasses of
the , beginning, as was the rule, with those at the bottom of
the table and ending with the glass of the president.  Into each
glass the waiter poured, with a steady hand, a thin, even stream of
whiskey.  He placed siphons here and there and put down glass jugs of
water for those who preferred it that way.  Then he stepped back into
the shadow, having carried out the duties as if he had been the
regular waiter and not a deputy.

For a moment there was not a sound in the apartment, but when the
president raised his glass every member followed his example.  The
glasses were put down again, all of them now being half empty.  The
waiter glided down the table once more, recharging the glasses.

The secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting.  These
minutes contained a unanimous resolution declaring for the retention
of the judgment of death in the legal code as a necessary warning to
evildoers and a fitting punishment for criminal killers.  This was
the Clue Club's reply to those who sought to abolish executions.

"It was decided," droned the secretary, still reading the minutes,
"that a copy of the resolution be sent to the proper authorities to
strengthen their hands."

The secretary sat down.

The chairman took a sip from his glass, an example that was followed
by every member.  The chairman spoke:

"Those in favor of the minutes as read say 'Aye'----"

"Pardon me!"

A new voice had struck into the gathering.  Every member turned in
the direction of the voice.  It came from the new waiter, who was
standing near the chairman.

"Before you  these minutes and that resolution, gentlemen, I
should like to be allowed to make a proposal."

The interruption of the club's proceedings was unprecedented, and for
a moment several  wondered if the new waiter had taken leave
of his senses.  But the new waiter was quite calm and gave no
indication of being otherwise than perfectly sane.  One or two
 smiled patronizingly and the chairman assumed his court
attitude.

"What contribution could you make?" he asked, his massive face
wrinkling up curiously.

"I have a proposal to suggest."

Again there was a short silence, during which the  stared.
The judge's half-closed eyes were resting on the waiter.  Every
member expected the man to be annihilated by a phrase from the
chairman.

"You have, of course, no _locus standi_ so far as the discussions of
this club are concerned," went on the judge, and his voice contained
that purring sound that always heralded his most severe moments.  "On
the other hand, it cannot be said of the minutes that _literia
scripta manet_.  Do you wish to make a plea _in forma pauperis_?"

The waiter bowed.

"I wish to put forward a proposal as _nomo sui juris_.  I plead no
_lex scripta_.  If you will hear my proposition, it may amuse you and
the  of the club.  Believe me, I have an authority I can quote
in  of my seeming audacity."

The judge's features wrinkled more than ever.  There was no doubt
that he was smiling now.  He recognized a legal mind when he saw one.

"Let us hear your proposition," he said, as the  somewhat
reluctantly signified their agreement.  "Proceed as if we had issued
a _writ mandamus_, but blame yourself if you find the plea is
_solvuntur risu tabul&aelig;_."

A ripple of amusement ran round the table.  It looked like a case of
a mouse sparring with a lion.  The waiter remained imive until
everybody had settled himself.

"My proposition," he began, "is quite a simple one.  It is just this:
you are all interested in crime and you have drafted a resolution
declaring for the legal murder----"

"The legal punishment!" cried a lawyer, quickly.

"Put it that way if you like.  You have declared for capital
punishment being retained in the legal code.  I have had unique
opportunities of knowing the working of the law and the working of
the minds of those you call criminals.  Does it not seem to you that
wherever a law imposes the extreme penalty it really condones murder?
What is the first thing expected of a person accused of murder?  Is
it not that he or she should plead 'not guilty'?  If he or she
declined to plead 'not guilty' the machinery of the law would be
nonplused until a plea was formulated--a plea that would be a ground
for argument by lawyers.  And what does this demand for a plea at all
mean?  It means nothing more or less than that the law believes in
the right to kill, but wants to argue about it.  The arena is one in
which law and not justice is discussed, and the victory goes to the
sharpest wits.  Assuming, then, that I am right in saying that the
law declares its right to kill--and all penal systems had their
origin in the idea of vengeance--cannot it logically be claimed that
a state claims this right because a state is stronger than any
individual?  And if a state has the right to kill, why deny that
right to an individual, who may be more concerned in the
circumstances than the state?"

The president raised his head quickly.

"You go too fast," he said.  "Society took upon itself the right to
be judge and executioner in private cases because life would become
impossible otherwise."

"Ah," said the waiter, equally quickly, "then you have itted the
instinct of retaliation to be just.  But there have been cases where
the state has held views that were wrong and unethical.  In these
cases opposition to these views is permissible and right.  I can
quote instances.  Take the case of the ive Resisters of Wales,
led by their clergy.  Was it not through the pig-headedness of
England, and her unjust claims, that she lost the whole of the United
States?  Other instances abound.  They prove that resistance to
absurd laws is justified.  I am going to propose something on these
lines now."

He paused and gazed round at the , some of whom were reclining
listlessly in their chairs rather resenting the intrusion; others
were sitting, elbows on the table, listening to every word.

"I am going to propose," said the waiter, "that you, my lord, having
during your tenure on the bench sent not a few men to the scaffold,
shall be tried for istering an unjust law----"

"I am but the mouthpiece of society.  It is the jury that brings in
the verdict!" cried the judge, sitting up quickly in his chair.

"But you have been capable of influencing a jury while you explained
the law.  It is in your power to direct a jury----"

"It is a monstrous idea!" cried a lawyer seated down the table.  "You
forget yourself, waiter!"

"I do not forget myself.  I do not propose an absurdity.  I wish to
prove to you that capital punishment is a savage relic retained by
legislatures that are either vicious or are selfishly indolent or
worse----"

"That is not true," interrupted one of the politicians.  "The penal
codes of England and America are the mildest on earth and have been
formulated by sympathetic men----"

"It is curious," said the waiter, quietly, "that you should use the
very words of Judge Fielding, who put up the same defense to the
grand jury of Middlesex at a time when people were burned for coining
and had their ears nailed to the pillory for minor offenses.  I'll
tell you why the judgment of death has never been abolished by
governments.  It is because there is no party capital in the
question.  The suggestion to wipe out judgment of death has been
before the British legislature in the years 1868, 1872, 1877, 1881,
and 1886, but each time it has been defeated.  The argument has
always been that to abolish it would mean that murders would
increase.  Yet it has been proved that death is no deterrent and the
abolition of death no incentive.  Let me give you a few facts on this
score."

He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket.

"The death penalty has been abolished in Holland since 1870; in
Switzerland since 1874; in Rumania since 1864.  It has been either
abolished or abrogated in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Austria,
Belgium, and in Italy except for certain reservations.  There are
eight states in America where it is not itted; in thirty-three
states a life sentence in prison is the alternative.  And in the
remaining states where death is the penalty of murder there are more
murders committed than in the others."

"Let us keep to England," said a lawyer.  "We have only four crimes
that are punishable with death."

"I am aware of that," replied the waiter.  "The four are: first,
murder; second, treason; third, setting fire to His Majesty's
dockyards; and fourth, piracy with violence.  In Scotland the
throwing of vitriol can still be a capital crime.  But it is not so
long ago that there were over two hundred acts for which death was
the penalty.  Among these, barely a hundred years ago, was the
uprooting of a shrub in a public park; being in the company of
gypsies; impersonating a pensioner of Greenwich; being seen in a mask
in a public highway; damaging a rabbit warren.  It was the
squirearchy that made these laws and inflicted the punishment.  Are
you aware that in 1810 the Chief Justice of England opposed the
abolition of the death penalty for stealing a few shillings' worth of
goods from a shop?  Are you aware that the then Archbishop of
Canterbury and half a dozen prelates sided with the Chief Justice?
In May, 1833, a boy of nine years of age was sentenced to death by
Justice Bosanquet and was hanged for breaking into a house and
stealing twopenny worth of goods.  In the year 1840 a boy who, either
in a fit of insanity or in a ion for notoriety, fired a tiny
pistol in the direction of Queen Victoria was sentenced to be hanged,
drawn, and quartered.

"You ask me to keep to England.  Listen while I keep to it.  Have you
ever heard of the judgment of _peine forte et dure_?  Prisoners were
taken to a dungeon, laid on their backs, stripped save for a loin
cloth, and set upon their bodies was a weight of iron just greater
than they could bear.  They were given three morsels of coarse bread
on the first day, three draughts of stagnant water from the pool
nearest the prison door on the second day, and so on alternately from
day to day until they died.  The sentence of traitors was that they
should be disemboweled.  The bishops were witch-burners, the common
clergy took bribes to get prisoners free.  It was Bonner, Bishop of
London, Chaplain to the King, who pressed a charge of heresy against
a boy of fifteen years and had him burned at Smithfield.  During the
reign of one king--Henry Eighth--no fewer than seventy thousand men,
women, and children went to the scaffold.  In every village there
were whipping-posts and stocks.  In 1801 a boy of twelve was hanged
for the theft of a spoon."

The waiter stopped talking for a moment, for the judge's hand was
raised as if the latter desired to speak.  But his lordship did not
open his lips, though his gaze was fastened on the waiter's features
in a strained way.

"It was not until the year 1837 that a prisoner could have a lawyer
to speak for him.  It was not until 1870 that the atrocity of being
hanged, drawn, and quartered was withdrawn in the case of a convicted
traitor.  It was not until 1898 that any accused person was permitted
to give evidence on his or her own behalf----"

"If you intend to charge us with all the faults and disorders of
previous istrations," sneered the judge, "we can plead the
statute of limitations with equanimity."

"You have enough to answer for, believe me, without my charging you
with all I have mentioned.  I have but adopted an old legal method of
outlining the case by presenting the growth from which the charge
emerges.  What was the reason for all those outrages by the state?
It was the assumption, still held, that the state had the sole right
of punishment.  Did the rack or the boot have the effect of making
men penitent?  Did drowning stop belief in spirits and ghosts?  Did
the Spanish Inquisition make men righteous?  If execution is a
deterrent, why does not murder cease?  If the penal code is a
reformative agency, why are not all prisoners reformed?"

The judge shrugged his shoulders and cast a glance round the table.
To his astonishment he saw that most of the club  were no
longer taking any interest in the argument.  Could they be falling
asleep?  Heads had fallen aslant shoulders, a few hands were propped
under cheeks for .  A feeling of uneasiness swept over him.
He was used to receiving the utmost respect.  In his own court he
would have dealt severely with such contempt.

The secretary, his bundle of papers and minute-book before him, was
still awake, but even he was showing signs of weariness and lassitude.

The judge turned to the waiter anxiously.

"Shall not we postpone this matter----?"

"With due respect, I think not."

"But my ruling is that it is absurd and _ultra vires_----"

"On the contrary, it is quite in order."

The judge was now becoming thoroughly alarmed.  There was something
unnatural in the positions that the men about him were taking.  There
could be no jury if the  were asleep.  He looked again at the
waiter.

"The thought of a mock trial is preposterous and much that you have
said is _ex post facto_ and inissible."

"I assure you, this is not a mock trial."

The words, as well as the tone in which they were uttered, caused the
judge to stiffen.

"Explain yourself," he exclaimed with dignity.

"It will not take me long to do so.  Practically all your club
 are now unconcerned with our talk.  In a few moments only you
and I will be left for the discussion.  Look, your secretary is about
to make his exit like the others."

It was true.  The secretary was just then in the act of laying his
head on the table, as if overcome with slumber.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded the judge sternly, rising
quickly to his feet.  "Let me look at you!" he cried.  "Have I seen
you previously?"

"You have."

"Where?"

"Sit down!  Sit down!  I shall tell you before we part.  In the
meantime let me say that it was I who put something in the glasses of
these  so that they would not disturb us----"

"You have poisoned them!" cried the judge, aghast, as he subsided in
his chair; and in his excitement he began to call some of the 
by name.

There was no response to his shouting.  All that was heard was their
heavy breathing; some, indeed, had ceased, apparently, to breathe at
all.  They lay limp and lifeless in their chairs, or sprawled on the
table beside the glasses.

"You have poisoned them!" cried the judge for the second time.

The waiter shrugged his shoulders and took a flask from his pocket
and laid it on the table.

"In this flask," he said, calmly, "is an antidote to what I have
given your  in their whiskey.  I came here this evening for
the purpose.  I persuaded your waiter to let me have his post for one
evening so that I could carry out my intention----"

"You wretch!  Was our waiter an accessory before the fact?"

"Never mind your waiter.  I am here----"

"He compounded a felony!"

"Ah, always legal!  We will discuss the meaning of the term felony
later on if you care----"

"Who are you?" cried the judge, rising again from his chair in
agitation.

"Sit down!"

It was more than an order.  It was a threat.  The judge obeyed.

"Do not fear that I have poisoned your drink," went on the waiter in
a kinder strain.  "I am anxious that you shall have a fair trial."

"Trial!"

"Your club  are not dead."

"Not dead?"

"You shall have a chance to restore them to life."

The president of the Clue Club, who had almost given himself up for
lost and was about to throw himself on the waiter, breathed heavily.

"Before you involve yourself deeper," he said with an effort to
recover his dignity, "I wish to warn you that your actions----"

"Oh, I know what you are going to say.  You are thinking of the first
of six divisions into which your Home Office has classified
crime--offenses against the person.  Let it be.  It reminds me of the
confusion in which this department is stumbling on the very matter
that brought me here."

"There will be no confusion in its estimate of your conduct," flashed
the judge, grimly.  He was now beginning to see that he was in no
immediate danger and his judicial mentality was climbing back to its
balance.

The waiter stepped toward the mantelpiece, from which he took two
large candles set in old-fashioned holders.  These he placed on the
table while the judge watched him with a puzzled, but rather anxious,
air.  It seemed as if the president of the Clue Club was trying to
recall some incident, some memory, that refused to stir from the
depths of his profound legal mind.  His concentration on this was
such as to drive all thought of resistance from him.  He stroked his
cheek meditatively.  He was no longer alarmed, merely uneasy.  But
when the waiter snapped out the electric lights he gave vent to an
exclamation.

"What is the meaning of all this?"

"I will explain," replied the waiter, and his voice was now as sharp
as a whip.  "I have lit these candles, both of which will burn for
twelve hours, because I do not wish outsiders, especially patrolling
police, to think that the Clue Club is having an all-night sitting.
The curtains will not show the light of the candles on the outside.
It is Christmas Eve.  Can you tell me of a better way of spending the
occasion than by trying to prove to me the justice of judgment of
death?  Christmas Eve!  The Mass of Christ!"

The judge leaped to his feet, and this time he would have made an
attempt to overpower the waiter; but one thing prevented him.  The
waiter had taken from the sideboard the bludgeon of Kartarus and was
holding it in readiness.  The judge was thoroughly alarmed; but he
was not frightened.  Again he obeyed the order to be seated.

"A mad waiter!" he thought.  Aloud, in an endeavor to humor the man,
he said, "Lay down that weapon and let us argue about this."

"With all my heart; but I will retain the bludgeon.  See, I will lay
it here."

As he placed the black bludgeon on the table the judge could not but
notice that it was within the waiter's reach and just beyond his own.
The waiter sat down facing the judge.  The latter summoned his most
persuasive accents to his aid.

"But how can a trial take place when there are no counsel?"

"You yourself have a reputation for successful pleading.  Are you not
recognized as an authority?  And prisoners have been known to plead
on their own behalf."

"Of course, that is true.  You are not unacquainted with procedure.
Am I to be a prisoner, then?"

"It would seem so."

"What is the charge?"

"The charge is that you, being a human being and an  of
the law, believe in and practice the sentence of judgment of death on
your fellows."

The judge stroked his chin as he considered.

"What is the penalty incurred in such a belief and practice?"

"Can you logically be blind to that?" asked the waiter, coldly and in
a penetrating voice.

"Oh!  You would kill me!"

"Why not?"

A shiver, in spite of his self-command, ed through the judge.
All his doubts as to the earnestness of the man, or the seriousness
of the situation, vanished.  He bent a keen, anxious look on the
waiter.  If the latter was mad he did not show it outwardly.  Yet the
position was outrageous; but it was inescapable.

"Supposing," said the judge, adroitly, but in a voice he hardly knew
as his own, "I asked you what logical right you have to assume the
authority of inflicting any penalty for a belief that is sanctioned
by law, what would you say?"

"I would say that I am surprised you do not observe the situation in
its true aspect.  In this room the law you mention no longer has the
supreme word.  _Pro tempore_ you must consider the position reversed."

"But surely it is illogical for you, who oppose the judgment of
death, to enunciate the very same penalty for believing in it?"

"Ah, you think you have made a point!  Are you afraid of meeting the
fate you have assigned to others?  Is it not quite logical that
similar retribution should fall on those who have upheld judgment of
death?  It is such a belief that is on trial, not the opposite one.
Besides, while an established law is being overthrown there is
justice in hoisting guilty parties with their own petard, so to
speak.  History is the best proof of this.  But it has just occurred
to me--were you about to plead that you bow to my theory because of a
desire to save your life?"

"Well, if I did?"

"It would involve a solemn declaration that you would no longer
uphold the law.  That would have certain consequences.  You would, of
course, never go back on your word.  It would mean considerable loss
financially and otherwise--and I would see that your word was kept."

Again the tone warned the judge that this man was not to be trifled
with.

"I see," said the judge.

"But do not think me unreasonable," went on the waiter.  "The
situation, as I apprehend it, is this: you uphold the theory of
judgment of death.  I oppose it.  You are being tried for it.  You
have not yet been found guilty.  It lies with you whether you will
be.  You complained just now of the absence of a jury.  I shall give
you the opportunity of having a jury."

"Go on," said the judge, stirring himself and brightening
considerably.

"I have placed here a flask in which there is an antidote to the
lethargy now overcoming your fellow .  For every case out of
your own experience where you can prove the death penalty deserved
you shall have the right to recall one member of this club back from
unconsciousness.  Is not that fair?"

"Ah," cried the judge, readily, "that is a reasonable factor."  Then,
his hopes rising rapidly, he continued: "I do not wish to retreat
from my point of view.  I have held office and have also my opinion
as a private individual.  Perhaps I may convert you.  It will not be
impossible to prove from the cases which have come before me--cases
in which I have donned the emblem of death, the black cap--that the
sentences were deserved.  We may take these cases as typical."

"Very well.  And for every case I show you that the sentence was
unjust I shall claim a member.  That is, a member shall remain
unconscious."

The judge hesitated, and the waiter saw the reluctance to agree to
the condition.

"Are you afraid of failure?" he demanded.

"Not at all, but----"

"Then accept my challenge!"

The judge's face wrinkled, as observers had so often seen it wrinkle
in his court.  The challenge was to his self-esteem as well as to his
forensic ability, both of which were of a high order.  He gazed at
the unconscious , then at the waiter.  If only he had the aid
of one of his friends he could bring this unheard-of situation to a
satisfactory end.  Had he been younger he would have tackled the man
single-handed.  If only one of the  was in full possession of
his faculties!

"If I accept your challenge," he said at last and with a show of
condescension, "I shall argue the issue as I apprehend it.  We
lawyers, you know, as the oath has it, do not it any influence in
our minds, under any conditions, of any emotional character--no
ion, no affection----"

"What!" thundered the other.  "Do you, then, eliminate emotion from
the fatherhood of your children?"

Astounded at the vehemence of the shout, the judge shrank.  His face
blanched and it was some moments before the blood flowed back to his
features.

"You misunderstand," he said.  "I am a bachelor."

"In that case," retorted the waiter, but in a calmer tone, "you have
a certain advantage over your learned brethren on the bench."

The judge was angry and ruffled at his own show of alarm.  He was
indignant, too.

"I accept your challenge," he announced, sharply.  "There is no need,
either, for me to rely entirely on my memory for the cases I shall
quote.  They are mentioned in the minute-book of this club....  A
last point, however, arises.  It is usual"--and his tone was gently
sarcastic--"in all cases about to be tried.  Under what statute do
you make your charge?"

The reply came swiftly enough:

"Under the same authority as that on which you yourself rely--the
_lex talionis_ injunction of Mosaic law which is laid down in the
Book of Exodus, chapter twenty-one."

The judge stretched out his hand and opened the minute-book.




CHAPTER II

_The Judge States His First Case_

May it please your authority [began the judge in his best legal
manner as he turned over the pages of the minute-book and placed his
finger on a page] the case I am about to put before you is one of
quite recent occurrence.  It deals with one of the most brutal, one
of the most indefensible, murders that have ever come under my
observation.

Furthermore, it was characterized by an entire absence on the part of
the public at large of that misguided, but often quite honest,
sympathy for murderers which leads people to sign futile petitions
for a reprieve or a stay of execution.  Of the petitions on behalf of
convicted murderers in America I cannot speak, nor can I say how many
persons are sentenced to death in the United States on an average
during a year; but an official return lately furnished by the Home
Office of the British Government states that the average annual
number of persons sentenced to death in England and Wales is about
twenty-five.  Of that number about fourteen are actually hanged.

The reasons for reprieving the others are various.  It may be that
the petitions so diligently, but so thoughtlessly, issued for public
signature have some slight influence.  It may be that the generosity
of the Home Secretary, or the pusillanimity of some other official,
is at work in favor of those who escape the scaffold.  It is not my
prerogative in the present circumstances to inquire into, or to
explain, this.  I merely mention these figures in order to emphasize
that not a single petition was issued, not a solitary protest was
made, not a word was uttered, so far as I am aware, to stay the hand
of the law's sentence on Ammar Baddan.

There was no question about his guilt.  It is true his counsel
formally entered a plea of "not guilty," but from the very beginning
of the case to the very end that plea never had a leg to stand on.
It was, indeed, negatived by the prisoner himself, and his words when
he was asked (as is always done) if he had anything to say before
sentence was ed on him, indicated the casual attitude he adopted
to the end.  These are his words, written in this minute-book:

"I do not care for your sentence.  I do not care for your law.  It
was my wife who got the lawyer.  I despise him and his tricks.  It is
true I killed John Hamlin.  Why do I say this?  You are fools who do
not understand.  But I know what the Book of Wisdom says and by that
Book I have ruled my life.  I say I killed Hamlin.  By saying so I am
doing what I was taught, and that is to always tell the truth, even
to you people when we witness before God, although it be against
ourselves or our parents or our relatives, whether the party be rich
or poor; for God is more worthy than both."

The jury listened to this statement.  In two minutes they brought in
a verdict of guilty and I pronounced sentence.  I called his crime,
and still call it,


THE UNREASONABLE MURDER

Ammar Baddan was a Tamil, a native of southern India, one of the
Dravidian races who are itted to possess many good qualities such
as frugality, patience, endurance, politeness.  They have astounding
memories.  They are pronouncedly commercial.  All these facts came
out at the trial of Ammar Baddan.

But Ammar Baddan had left London one evening by train, had journeyed
down to a Surrey country town, and had deliberately cut the throat of
John Hamlin, the proprietor of an inn.  And the most amazing element
of that brutal murder was that Ammar Baddan had never in all his life
seen Hamlin before that evening, had never had any dealings with him,
and until a few days previously was not aware of his existence.

On the other hand, it was proved that John Hamlin, the innocent
victim of this savage attack, knew nothing of Ammar Baddan.  It was a
case of the unexplained frenzy of an Eastern nature--the sudden
madness for killing, the lust for blood, that stirs up in some
natures without reason and without provocation.  It was the savagery
of the tiger that must be suppressed wherever it is observed and
dealt with wherever it comes to the surface.

The unfortunate victim of this outrage had done Ammar Baddan no harm
whatever.  Can society continue if it allows people of the jungle to
perpetrate a crime of inexcusable violence for which there is no
reason and which is callously itted?  We would be lacking in our
duty to our fellows were we not to ister the final judgment in
cases where the whole fabric of the social order is menaced.

The counsel for the prosecution of Ammar Baddan confessed that he had
some difficulty in finding a motive for the crime.  Let us take his
statement first.  Baddan was a native of India.  He was born in the
south of that vast country, but his father, who was a humble
merchant, traveled up to Calcutta and there established a business
that grew with the years.  He prospered so well that he was known as
one of the greatest buyers of antiques and bric-&agrave;-brac in that part
of India.  His son, at the age of sixteen, as is the custom of the
race, took upon himself the status of a man and became his father's
partner.  The father died only a few months before his son was
arrested for the appalling crime of murder.

Perhaps it would be as well to state here what the prosecuting
counsel thought fit to mention, namely, that while the Tamils as a
race are the possessors of the good qualities that have been
indicated, they are also, it seems, as a race, handicapped by the
drawbacks of lying and lasciviousness.  One merely repeats what
counsel stated.

As a youth Ammar Baddan had an excellent training.  He knew the
_Kural_ by heart and was known to propound its teaching on the
subjects of virtue, wealth and enjoyment.  By religion he was a
Brahman and knew the whole of the text-books called Brahmanas.
Shortly after he was sixteen years of age he was conducted to a
spiritual teacher and received the sacred cord which is worn over the
left shoulder and under the right arm, one of the signs of initiation
into the study of the Vedas, the management of the sacred fire, and
the knowledge of the rites of purification.  By caste he was a
_Kshatriya_.

As a young man he knew Calcutta well and traveled considerably.  He
learned the English tongue and spoke as well as an Englishman.  Thus,
it will be seen that he was not ignorant of what is right and what is
wrong.  His grounding in moral training was as comprehensive as it
was severe.  Did not this make his crime all the more heinous?

It is well known that the Tamils are the most enterprising of all the
peoples of south India.  They are born merchants.  Wherever there is
an opportunity for commerce they are to be found.  As Ammar Baddan
grew older he was respected and his commercial ability was even
greater than that of his father.  The prayers which had been said
before and at his birth were being answered.  He was a force in the
city of Bengal.

His education and politeness brought him many friends, among them
many white men who were in business in Calcutta.  One man especially
was his friend, an Englishman named Taylor.  Business had brought
them together and, as is often the case, it was often the cause of
social meetings.  On one occasion they both attended a party which
some Englishmen were giving to a theatrical company that had arrived
in Calcutta and it was at that party that Ammar Baddan met the girl
who soon afterward became his wife.

He had seen this girl in the chorus of the show at the theater and
had been attracted by her, and when his friend Taylor, who was
friendly with the company, gave him the opportunity of meeting them
off the stage, Ammar Baddan's delight was boundless.  His ardent
nature had already focused on this girl.

The supper party took place in a hotel after the theater performance
was over.  Doubtless most people are aware that there are men who
make a point of inviting actresses--and especially chorus girls--to
supper parties because of the lack of restraint that is, rightly or
wrongly, said to be connected with the theatrical temperament.  It
was Taylor who introduced the girl to Ammar Baddan.  She was very
pretty, with golden hair and all the attractions of a blonde.  One
can imagine that the wine flowed freely.  There was an incident
during the evening when one of the white men made some sort of
proposal that every man should kiss every girl present.  To Ammar
Baddan's great relief the blonde girl refused to comply with the
vulgar and insulting proposal.  This incident confirmed his estimate
of the girl and made him all the more determined to pursue his
attentions to her, for she had demonstrated that she was above the
rather low level on which his white friends had, by insinuation,
placed their guests.

From that moment Ammar Baddan saw as much of the ladies of the
theatrical company as possible.  He had a shop in the Chowringhee,
the most important thoroughfare of the city, and he invited them to
look on his treasures and presented them all with mementoes of their
visit.  He visited the race course with them, always being near the
blonde girl, showed to her and explained the monuments on the Maidan,
and took her and some of her friends, with Taylor and a few men, on
several trips up the Hugli.  He made himself extremely agreeable,
once taking the ladies to the Zo&ouml;logical Gardens, and on every
occasion his friend Taylor accompanied the party.

His politeness never forsook him, and a short time before the company
left Calcutta for Madras he came to Taylor and asked him if he would
advise making a declaration of his love for the girl with the golden
hair.  Taylor asked for some time to consider the matter, and finally
told him that there was no reason why he should not at least tell
her.  One supposes that the question of caste and the problem of
marriage between two people of different races had to be considered.
In the end Ammar Baddan boldly made the opportunity and asked the
girl to marry him.  She consented, and Ammar Baddan went in
transports of happiness to his friend Taylor and thanked him for
bringing this joy into his life.  They were married shortly afterward.

Such, then, was Ammar Baddan's life up to the time he remained in
India.  All these particulars were known during his trial, though
they did not all come out; but they are stated in some detail to show
how fair our law is, and how thorough, before it takes upon itself
the grave responsibility of ing sentence.

Ammar Baddan had been married for less than a year when he came to
England, bringing his wife with him.  His reason for coming may be
stated briefly.

His father had, in the course of his business, secured a very rare
and valuable carpet.  It was, apparently, more a praying rug than a
carpet, and it had a duplicate that Ammar Baddan and his father also
wished to possess.   that, as has been stated, the Tamils are
wonderfully keen business men.  Having secured the one carpet, Ammar
Baddan and his father set out to trace its duplicate.  They searched
India; their agents went as far as Persia and Egypt.  How these
things are known is part of the secrets of the trade, but Ammar's
father came to him one day with the information that the duplicate of
the carpet which they wanted had been in a bazaar in Madras and had
been sold to an Englishman.

Ammar's wife was in the apartment when this news was given to her
husband, and after her father-in-law had gone his wife added to the
information.  She told him that she believed that the duplicate of
his carpet was in the possession of the Englishman, Taylor.  She had
seen it in his flat, but had not understood that it was so valuable
as Ammar estimated; and had, indeed, not known that the search was
being made until that moment.

Ammar was overjoyed at the news.  He loved his wife very much and
promised her that for the information he would give her any present
she asked for.  But first he made a journey over to Howrah, on the
opposite side of the Hugli, where Taylor lived, to make inquiries.
On his return he told his wife, with mortification, that Taylor had
left India and had gone to England, having made his fortune and
having no reason for remaining in a country that was trying to the
health of even the strongest white man.

He questioned his wife thoroughly about the carpet she had seen in
Taylor's house, in order to make sure that she was not mistaken.  But
his wife held to her statement, and, with the carpet already in their
possession on the floor for comparison she proved that Taylor had the
duplicate.  It had been on the wall of Taylor's bedroom and she had
seen it in detail.  In haste Ammar went off to his father.  The
result was that as soon as they could make the necessary arrangements
Ammar and his wife came to England.

They took a flat in the West End of London and Ammar's wife spent
most of her time enjoying the life of the metropolis and renewing old
acquaintances.  She was gay, beautiful, happy.  She had plenty of
money and went about without a care, while Ammar visited some of his
Indian friends who had business quarters in the city and were likely
to help him in his quest.

It was not very difficult to trace Taylor.  The latter had taken a
house in the country, but still within touch of London, had married,
and was taking life leisurely.  But when Ammar Baddan made the short
journey to meet Taylor he experienced a sense of disappointment.  He
had expected that Taylor, having been his friend in India and having
introduced him to his wife when she was a chorus girl, would preserve
the friendship and welcome them to his house.  He found that Taylor
did nothing of the kind.  One can understand this attitude on the
part of Taylor.  In India social customs are on a somewhat different
footing from the social customs here.  It may have been that Taylor's
attitude was influenced by his wife, who did not care to meet a white
woman who had married a Tamil.  At any rate, the old barriers seemed
to arise and Ammar Baddan saw the change.

With his Tamil politeness he accepted the situation and proceeded to
work round to the object of his visit, which, after all, was the
buying of the carpet.  He managed this so adeptly that Taylor had
already itted that he did possess such a carpet and also that he
held it in small financial esteem.  The Tamil asked all sorts of
questions about it--how Taylor had come to possess it, who saw him
buy it, who carried it to his flat in Howrah, who hung it on the wall
of his bedroom.  Taylor answered that nobody but himself and his
manservant had handled it from the time it was bought in the Indian
bazaar to the time it was in his flat.  And then Ammar Baddan asked
to see the carpet and was shown it.  He offered a price that Taylor
thought was good and the bargain was made.

As they concluded the business matter and after Ammar Baddan had paid
the check over he thanked Taylor once more for proving his friend.
"Twice," he said, "you have given me my desires.  First, it was
because of you that I have my beautiful wife.  Second, it is through
you that I have the beautiful carpet.  A Tamil does not forget."

That visit was the first and the last that Ammar Baddan made to the
house of Taylor.  In spite of the polite, if not very friendly, way
he had been met, Ammar Baddan, having the outlook of a Tamil, almost
succeeded in making Taylor a little uncomfortable in front of his
wife.  They began to talk of Calcutta and the old days.  Ammar Baddan
wanted to know everything.  He was so anxious for the safety of the
carpet he had bought that he wished Taylor's manservant to carry it
to the station for him so that no new hands would touch it.  To this
Taylor replied that he no longer employed the servant, who had
started life anew in England as the proprietor of a small inn in
Surrey.  Ammar Baddan asked how a manservant could have obtained the
money to buy an inn, and Taylor laughingly answered that he supposed
John Hamlin--the name of his manservant--had fleeced him of enough
money in India to make this possible.  At any rate, Hamlin seemed to
be making a good living in the town of Whitchurch.  And then, with
Tamil simplicity, Ammar Baddan asked Taylor if he too had obtained
his wife from a theatrical company, and if the theatrical company
they had known in Calcutta had supplied her.  This was asked in front
of Mrs. Taylor, who happened to be a lady of strict views, and one
can imagine that Taylor had to use considerable diplomacy in his
answers.

He managed to hint, indeed, before Ammar left and when they were
alone, that it was not always discreet to refer to matters of that
kind in front of wives; and then they parted.  Only after he had made
inquiries a day or two later did Taylor realize that Ammar Baddan had
obtained his carpet at a mere fraction of its actual value.

All these incidents show the tortuous workings of the mind of a man
whose instincts and racial traditions differ so greatly from our own.
Taylor never saw Ammar Baddan again and was probably glad to get rid
of him.  He related the facts of Baddan's visit to him when the
police called in order to gather evidence of motive.  But it was from
one of the servants of the flat where Ammar Baddan and his wife lived
in the West End of London that some peculiar information was obtained.

Baddan was a fanatical Brahman.  We need not trouble to inquire
whether his wife had adopted his faith.  A wife may not give evidence
against her husband in any case according to our wise law.  But in
the sitting-room of the flat Baddan had placed one of the Brahman
gods, a small figure of Kala Bhairava as he is known in Hindu
religion, Bhairon as he is known among the Dravidian peoples.

This god--it was brought into court but was not exhibited--represents
a man standing with one hand holding a trident and in the other a
drum shaped like an hour-glass.  Encircling him is a serpent to show
his chthonic origin.  In the chest of this figure are two small
holes, and into these holes Ammar Baddan would put two betel nuts,
then begin the long religious exercises of his caste.  The servants
heard him every night at these devotions.  Sometimes he spoke in an
Indian dialect, sometimes in English; but his object seemed to be the
same on every occasion.  So far as the servant could make out, if the
nut on the right dropped out of the hole first, Ammar Baddan would
exclaim that his undertaking would prosper.  If the nut on the left
dropped first, he would declare to the god that he would abandon his
project for the time being.  Just before he set out to commit the
heinous crime of murdering John Hamlin he was heard at his devotions.
He had bought a hunting-knife a few days previously and this weapon
was seen in his possession by a servant.

But if the nut in the right cavity in the figure of the god Bhairon
indicated to Ammar Baddan that his crime would be hidden, the god
played him false.

The crime itself was as swift as it was staggering.  Ammar Baddan
arrived that evening in the quiet Surrey town just after the inns
closed.  He walked up the main street, looking at the names of the
inns.

Less than an hour later John Hamlin was found lying in his parlor
with his throat slit from ear to ear.  By the time the police were on
the spot Ammar Baddan was seated in a first-class compartment of a
train bearing him back to London.

To the village police it looked at first to be a case of suicide.
Hamlin's business was not going too well.  He had debts.  He had been
heard to complain about malaria, of which he was a victim.  And to
make it more like suicide there was held in his stiffening fingers,
as he lay beside his chair, a murderous hunting-knife.

But when inquiries were started a barmaid stated that just before she
retired she heard the front-door bell ring.  She heard Hamlin go to
the door.  It seemed to her that he brought some one into the inn.
She did not hear any struggle, but she heard Hamlin call out the
words, "Hindu swine!"

It was the local policeman who found Hamlin dead.  He had flashed his
lamp on the door of the inn and had observed that it was not closed.
He knocked and received no reply.  He stepped inside and saw a
trickle of blood coming from the parlor threshold.

A few days later, when the police had made their inquiries, an
officer called on Ammar Baddan when he was preparing, with his wife,
to return to India.  When Ammar Baddan saw that he was to be arrested
he evinced no surprise and did not deny his crime.  But he was
interested to know how the police had tracked him.

"The local constable," he was told, frankly, "happened to see you
walking up the street that night, looking at the inn signs.  He noted
that you were a colored man.  We found out the firm that made the
hunting-knife, and from them we traced it to you.  But we knew it
could not have been suicide after we considered the nature of the
wound.  John Hamlin's throat was slit from left to right.  But John
Hamlin was left-handed."

What, then, was the motive of the brutal murder?  The prosecuting
counsel suggested one.  It was that Ammar Baddan had gone to see John
Hamlin, not perhaps with the intention of murdering him, but possibly
with the object of getting some information about the buying of the
carpet, for in the purchase of these rare articles every detail is
recorded.  Hamlin was known to have a contempt for all Indians.  He
may have said a word--"Hindu swine," as the barmaid heard--and in a
moment the blaze of the Eastern hot blood flew to Ammar Baddan's
head.  This was the theory of the prosecution.

But when the defense was called the counsel who had entered a plea of
"not guilty" found himself in an unheard-of position.  He placed
Ammar Baddan in the box.

"Did you," he asked, "go down to see John Hamlin with the intention
of killing him?"

"I did," replied Baddan, firmly.

Fearing lest the question had been misunderstood, it was repeated.
Again the reply was the same.

The defending counsel saw his case dwindling before his eyes.  He
seemed to appeal to the bench, and I took upon myself the task of
asking Ammar Baddan a few questions.

The replies I received were deliberate, calm, without fear, without
repentance.  He had decided to kill John Hamlin.  He had schemed to
do so.  He had taken counsel with his god and had been led to think
that all would be well.

I asked him what was his motive.  His reply left much to be desired.
These were his words:

"No Brahman may recite a Vedic text where a man of a servile caste
may overhear him, nor must he teach him the laws of expiation for
sin."

I asked him if John Hamlin had committed any sin against Brahmanism
or against him.  He replied, "No."

It was impossible to get more out of him.  His defending counsel
threw in his brief in despair.  And to make matters worse, when I
asked Ammar Baddan if he understood the crime he had committed, he
answered angrily that he would repeat it, were it possible.  He
itted that he had received no words from Hamlin that had been the
cause of the murder.  But he was glad he had murdered.

In face of this there was but one thing to do.  I donned the black
cap.

He died, I understand, on the scaffold, fiercely cursing the white
law that put him to death, but entirely without penitence.

My own theory is that somewhere in his mentality, somewhere deep down
in his nature, there was a blood-lust, a streak of barbarity, a whiff
of the jungle, that he never tried to control.  How else is it
possible for a human being to take satisfaction in murder?  Is not
society to be protected from such natures?  Are innocent people to be
butchered by such savages?  By taking the life of Ammar Baddan the
penal code was acting with entire justice for the sake of everybody
concerned.  One cannot argue with a mad dog.  One just destroys it.
Criminal characteristics must be extirpated.


The judge sat back in his chair and looked at the waiter, who had not
moved during the recital.

"I think," said the judge, "that there can be no two opinions in
regard to that murder.  You must allow me credit for having presented
a case that demands the retention of the judgment of death, if
unbridled barbarism is to be held in check at all.  I claim the
return to consciousness of the secretary."

The waiter stirred himself and looked up.

"Your claim is premature," he said, quietly.  "Ammar Baddan was
justified in killing John Hamlin."

The judge could hardly believe his ears.

"I am speaking according to the code of honor that ruled Ammar
Baddan," went on the waiter.  "Let me place that code before you and
also give you the real reason that the murder took place.  It is
perhaps more than was to be expected that Ammar Baddan would give
that reason.  It would have meant his own humiliation."

"Humiliation cannot be compared to murder," cried the judge.  "We all
bear humiliation, but we do not murder the people who humiliate us!"

"That is true," smiled the waiter, "else you would be making an
attempt to kill me this very moment.  But I speak of two different
codes of honor.  Has it struck you that the Tamil god you have
mentioned has functions other than telling his followers when to
undertake a venture?  Among his attributes--according to his
believers--are those of being able to destroy the foes of his
worshipers, through the worshipers themselves.  They strike and the
god protects their souls, if not their bodies.  One of the highest
aims of any good Brahman is to raise himself in the universal
gradation, and to do this he must subject the senses and life itself
if necessary.  Ammar Baddan was but following out the sacrificial
system in the _kalpa-sutras_."

"I do not follow you," said the judge, huskily.

"I will explain more fully, and shortly.  The Tamil Book of Wisdom is
called the _Naladiyar_.  It ens rigid adherence to its teaching.
There are four hundred quatrains in it.  The rules of life are as
severe as the Christian teaching--but I beg your pardon, white
civilization does not know much about Christianity.  Among the
injunctions given the high-caste Indians are those to see that no
gossip, no humiliation, besmirches the honor of their fathers' names.
Poor Ammar Baddan was betwixt two terrible alternatives.  If he
allowed his father's, and his own, name to be sullied, he might
escape a penalty here, but he would endure countless years of
retarded development in the hereafter.  Which was he to choose?"

"He must not murder!"

"But one of his codes distinctly told him that it was better to
sacrifice than to endure humiliation from his deities!  Would the
gods not make up to him any pain he endured here, even if he died?"

"But what was his humiliation?"

"Answer me first this: are not most religious systems based on the
theory that it is better to suffer here in order to obtain
advancement in the next world?"

"Yes, I agree to that."

"Supposing such a choice were given you, which would you take?"

"I would keep the laws of my land."

"But supposing you were in a land where the laws were opposed to all
you had been taught as sacred and right?  Would you keep the laws of
that land?"

"It is a hypothetical question.  I do not see what point you are
making."

"No, you say so, but you do.  And you do not care to make a brave
answer.  But Ammar Baddan was a brave man.  He saw according to his
light, and he chose.  It is the eternal clash between one's ideas of
justice and the thing we call life.  Listen to me.  I shall tell you
why Ammar Baddan killed John Hamlin, and despised your law though
that law slew him."

"I have been waiting to hear."

"Hear, then.  There is a code in Ammar Baddan's ethics that says that
if a wife proves unfaithful it is better that the mouths of gossipers
be stopped than that her husband's name be dragged in the mire, and
his father's name, too.  Ammar Baddan visited the merchant Taylor for
two purposes.  One was to get the carpet.  But it was not the main
one.  It was to see if Taylor was likely to do any gossiping.  He
saw, according to your own words, that Taylor, being married, would
be glad to see no more of Ammar Baddan and Ammar Baddan's wife.  That
is to say, Taylor, for his own sake, would not gossip.  The secret
that was eating at Ammar Baddan's heart was safe so far as Taylor was
concerned."

"You mean to say----"

"That from the moment Ammar Baddan heard from his wife that the
carpet had hung in Taylor's bedroom there arose in Ammar Baddan's
mind a terrible fear and agony.  I do not know whether Taylor was
guilty of what Ammar Baddan suspected.  It may have been that Ammar
Baddan received a confession from his wife.  Who shall ever know?
And yet, I do not think so, or she would have told the defending
counsel.  A Tamil does not expect such a confession.  He would never
ask for one.  But his mind brooded on the fact that she knew the
carpet hung in Taylor's bedroom.  How could she know that?  Ammar
Baddan's Tamil mind formed its own conclusion.

"There were only four people who could know the dreadful truth.  Thus
Ammar Baddan would argue.  Taylor had shown that the past was better
unspoken.  Therefore Taylor would never voice it.  Of these four
people only one might gossip.  Are not servants given to gossip?
Ammar Baddan probably asked John Hamlin a question and, on the
answer, killed him for his father's good name, for his own good name,
and for his wife's future.  Thus there would be no gossip in the
market place and the house of Baddan would be unsullied.  Quaint,
perhaps.  All things in this world are quaint when looked at from
unusual angles.

"Has the judgment-of-death code a right to supersede a religious
code?  Who are you to say that your law is more just in the ultimate
end than an accepted sacred law?  How do you know that Ammar Baddan
is not now far advanced in the scheme of things in the other world?
You made a felon of a religious enthusiast."

The waiter lifted the glass that was near the elbow of the
unconscious secretary and placed it near the bludgeon on the table.

"One point to me," he said in a tone of grim finality.




CHAPTER III

_The Waiter States His First Case_

"I see," said the waiter as he glanced at the clouded features of the
judge, "that you grudge me the first point.  If you have any
objection to my claim, please state it at once, for it is now my turn
to present a case."

"I cannot it that murder, even for a religious object, ought to go
unpunished," replied the judge.

"Who said murder ought to go unscathed?  We were not discussing that
at all.  We were discussing the right of your penal code to take
life.  If you still cling to Biblical authority for taking life, why
do you not believe in the blood atonement for sins and all the rites
of altar sacrifice?  You have the precedent of Isaac and his son."

"That is carrying things to the extreme," cried the judge, irritably.
"The teachings of the New Testament are what guide us----"

"Why are you so illogical as to confound the two parts of the Bible?
You will find no authority in the New Testament for taking life.  The
reverse is the case.  I could quote many texts in this connection,
but I will not weary you.  I have already said that Western
civilization does not understand Christianity.  If it does, then it
is guilty of the most colossal hypocrisy man can imagine.  But we
stray from the issue.  Have you any other objection to make?"

The judge wrinkled his face and pondered for a short time, his eyes
roving thoughtfully over the still forms of his fellow .

"Supposing I concede you Ammar Baddan," he said, "what is your next
case?  I shall be glad to hear it.  For I am sure that Baddan's case
is exceptional in its elements and the same conditions cannot apply
to any other in my recollection.  I hope you will not inflict on me
another ethical or religious problem."

"I can assure you on that at once," smiled the waiter.  "As a matter
of fact, I intend to quote all my cases from the minute-book now
before you."

"Really!  That gives me confidence.  I flatter myself that I know
them and in no other does the law, as I interpret it, err and inflict
what the majority of people would, by any stretch of imagination,
call an injustice."

"You certainly flatter yourself," retorted the waiter, "as I shall
now do my best to prove."

The waiter toyed for a moment with the glass from which the secretary
had drunk and a queer smile played round his mouth.  The judge,
watching him narrowly, and with a slightly nervous feeling, observed
that the man's fingers were of an extraordinary length, the whole
hand, indeed, though fine, suggested tremendous strength.  Quite
unconsciously the judge's eyes dropped to his own hand.  He too had
long, carefully manicured fingers, but while they narrowed toward the
tips, just like those of the waiter, they did not give the same
expression of power.  Raising his eyes to the face of the waiter, the
judge was aware that the latter was gazing fixedly at him.  The judge
coughed, slipped a lozenge into his mouth, and gave one of his usual,
hardly perceptible nods, signifying that he was ready to listen.

"My lord," immediately began the waiter, "there are one or two
observations I desire to make which, though they may appear
irrelevant, have nevertheless a bearing on the case which I intend to
present before you.  In this instance I must accept a rather peculiar
standpoint, which, when I have finished, you will no doubt appreciate.

"May I deal with your statement that in no other case in your
knowledge does the law inflict an injustice?  Does it not seem
terrible to think that in the case of capital punishment there can
never be any recompense by the law or the state?  If a miscarriage
takes place there can be no apology, no ission of error, no
restitution.  Your law, which hangs a man by the neck until he is
dead, has the impudence and the horribly blasphemous offensiveness to
provide him with a parson whose spirit--if he is a decent
man--revolts at the thought of trying to smuggle a criminal out of
the hands of the devil and up the back stairs to heaven at express
speed; and, while it feigns, with its tongue in its cheek, an anxiety
for his soul, yet regards his body as so polluted that it buries him
in a limed coffin that he may rot rapidly.

"Fresh evidence may come before the authorities who, even if they
have secret regrets, can recall nothing of the judgment that is
irrevocable.  The stain of the scaffold is on his name and on his
friends' names forever."

"The law takes every possible care to collect its evidence and you
are making reckless statements," interrupted the judge; but the
waiter raised his hand impressively.

"All these plausible anodynes to soothe any opposition," continued
the waiter, "have been heard previously.  They are platitudes.  Let
us come to facts.  There is the frightful injustice of the sentence
of Oscar Slater for the murder of an old woman in Glasgow.  He was
found guilty, sentenced to be hanged, then reprieved and spent more
than eighteen years in prison at Peterhead before his innocence was
established.  His case would never have received a second
consideration had it not been for the unfaltering pressure brought to
bear on the authorities by Sir A. Conan Doyle and others.

"There was the classic case of the two men in the Midlands who went
through a similar ghastly trial for alleged murder and were sentenced
similarly, were reprieved similarly, and then were set free because
they were innocent.

"Allow me to put a point that has never been perceived by those who
agree with the judgment of death.  Does not this final sentence,
which can never be remitted, give an opportunity to a clever criminal
to use it to his own ends?"

The question was put so direct that the judge saw he was expected to
reply.

"I cannot conceive," he remarked, sarcastically, "any circumstances
where a criminal could benefit as you hint.  Criminals do not
ister the law."

The waiter pondered this for a moment.  At last he drew the
minute-book toward him and turned over the pages until he came to one
that interested him.  He began to relate his first case in  of
his position:


THE WORST THE LAW CAN DO

I think [he said] that it was George Bernard Shaw who made the wise
observation that the criminal feels a right to do his worst to
society to prevent society from doing its worst to him.  Every
criminal, certainly, tries to make his crimes perfect and
detection-proof.  This was the objective of John Davis when he set
out to kill Lorry Black.  You may  the trial and sentence of
death that you ed on John Davis?  He was charged with murdering
Lorry Black in a rowboat off Hastings and with throwing his body into
the sea.

Now a considerable time after the police started investigating the
crime the body of Black was washed up by the ocean, and then it was
in an advanced state of decomposition.  A ring on a finger, a piece
of clothing, and one or two minor possessions identified the body.

The police were commended at the trial for the pains they had taken,
during the time that Davis was held in prison, to complete their
evidence.  Their methods were a triumph for the prosecution and a
warning to all who might have thoughts of crime.

John Davis, it was shown by the prosecuting counsel, had hoped to
work out his murder so that he would have a perfect alibi.  He had
been on the trail of Lorry Black for some weeks, waiting, watching,
patient, but relentless.  Both he and Black had been in prison
previously.  They knew each other and hated each other genuinely.

Davis had spent practically all his money in trailing Black, but he
was aware that Black had money enough to recompense him if he could
lay his hands on it.  But even if he never touched a penny of that
money, he had determined to get Black.  That was the driving force
that dominated Davis--to get Black.  He had come down from London to
get him.

He saw Black leave the hotel on the front and go down to the slip
near the pier, hire a boat, and row out beyond the pier.  It was
evening.  The lights were beginning to twinkle on the promenade.  The
pier concert hall was being lit up.  In another half-hour the beach
would be dark.

Davis strolled down toward the slip, whistling as he went.  The
boatman inquired if he wanted a boat.  Yes, Davis wanted a boat, but
he knew better than hire one from that particular slipway.  He walked
on slowly, his gaze on the boat which Black was rowing far out beyond
the lighted pier.  Black had gone fishing.  Davis laughed to himself.
His alibi was perfect.  Black had given him the chance that would
never come again.

Half a mile farther along the beach there was another slipway.  Here
Davis hired a boat, asking for a fishing-line also.  He was given two
lines and was assured that the fish were biting well.  As he rowed
off the boatman expressed the hope that he would have a good catch.
A good catch!  That was just what Davis was going to have.  Black was
the catch.

Davis rowed out to sea with even strokes.  He was not in any hurry to
let Black see him.  It would be delicious, he thought, to observe
Black's face when he came up to him in the darkness.

It was a peaceful evening, the water was fairly calm.  A steady
current was swinging up the coast.  In the middle of the Channel a
liner was moving up to London, inward bound from a foreign land.
Davis reflected that he might be aboard her when she sailed down
again.  He saw Black's boat dimly, moving out beyond the few fishers
who kept near the pier.

The twilight faded, the liner was lost in the gathering night.  Davis
bent to his oars.  Now was the time to act.

Black's boat was moored to a buoy, and he was getting his line ready
for casting when Davis pulled alongside in the darkness.  Black
turned round at the sound of the oars.  When he saw Davis he jerked
out a cry of alarm.

"You see I've come, Lorry," said Davis with a laugh.  "Keep quiet and
put your hands on your knees so I can see 'em.  I have a gun."

Black obeyed.  He seemed to slump on the seat, all his life gone out
of him.

"I saw you ing the hotel today," he gasped.  "Is it money you
want?"

"I came last evening," replied Davis.  "They told me at your rooms in
London what hotel you were staying at.  I coaxed it out of them.  I
would have found out in any case, somehow.  Have I come for money?  I
have come for more than money.  I have come for you."

"For me?"

"Yes, for you, you rat!  You know I have been on your trail ever
since we came out of prison."

"I have been aware----"

"Of course you have been aware.  You have tried to dodge me at every
turn.  When I came to see you, you always pretended you were out.
But I kept after you.  And you have given me a perfect alibi for what
I'm going to do."

"A perfect alibi?  I don't understand."

"You will very soon.  I made my plans in prison.  I was thinking
about you when I was making the mail-bags during the daytime, and I
was thinking about you when I lay on my plank at nighttime.  And now
I've got you.  You came out to fish tonight.  So did I.  Good
fishing, Lorry!"

Black edged backward as Davis climbed into his boat; but Davis thrust
his revolver out until it almost touched Black.

"If you yell," he said, "I'll shoot."

It was a weird situation.  The lights on the promenade were
twinkling.  The hotels were brilliantly lit.  From the pier came the
harmony of the band playing one of the latest dances.  A dying fish
flapped feebly on the floor boards of the boat.

"John," said Black, suddenly, "it won't do you any good to hurt me.
I warn you."

Davis grinned.

"On the contrary," he said, "it will do me a lot of good.  You
haven't had time to squeal to the cops, and it wouldn't have mattered
if you had.  I don't mind the cops.  I can put dust in their eyes."

"If it is money you want," said Black, "I can give you some.  In my
pocketbook you will find twenty ten-pound notes."

He handed it over and Davis took it, crackling the fringes of the
notes with his thumb before he put it into his own pocket.

"Have you any more at your hotel?" he asked.

"No," answered Davis.  "I drew these from the bank near the hotel."

"You won't draw any more," said Davis.  "Never."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to kill you."

The decision was followed by a terrible silence.  Black did not cry
out, he did not exclaim, he did not plead for mercy.  Davis went on.

"You know why I am going to do it.  You turned the cops on to me
after you were pinched for our last robbery----"

"You're wrong," said Black, steadily.  "I did not turn the cops on to
you.  They told you that so you would give yourself away, and you
gave yourself away.  It was your own ission that brought you into
the dock beside me----"

But Davis would not listen.  He believed that Black was trying to get
out of the corner.  And yet it was true what Black had said.  The two
of them had been burglars in company.  They had done jobs together.
Black usually took most of the risk.  He was strong, agile, with a
pair of hands that could pick up trinkets as swiftly and cleanly as
he could wield a heavy hammer.  Davis was a different sort.  He was
possessed of a fierce temper.  He had no imagination.  In this case
he had given himself away in face of a police trick.  He had been
sent to prison with Black, and he had sworn to kill Black.

This enmity existed in prison.  Twice Davis had been disciplined for
attacking Black during exercise.  The result was that he received a
longer sentence.  And now that he was out of jail he was carrying out
his plan to revenge himself on his one-time companion.

It was useless for Black to argue.  He was quite aware of the temper
that flared behind the face of Davis--an ungovernable temper that
refused to listen to reason and declined to accept the truth.  But
Black did not shrink as Davis expected he would.  He merely laid his
hand on the gunwale of the boat, and the act made Davis strike.

He had intended to shoot Black, but the movement of the latter made
him strike instead.  He struck with the butt of the gun, and the blow
fell slantingly on the head of Black.  He crumpled up and slid over
the side of the boat, which tilted dangerously.  Davis seized the
form of Black and pushed it completely over.

He saw Black's form slide into the depths.  He heard no cry.  There
was no struggle at all.  Black went down like a stone.  Davis sat
down in the boat, watching.  But Black did not cry out, if he ever
came to the surface.  The sea rippled and lapped against the boat.
All was still.

It was a little while before Davis undid the mooring rope and
completed the scheme he had planned.  He deliberately capsized
Black's boat and let the oars drift away, after throwing the single
fish into his own craft.  Then he rowed ashore.

He congratulated himself on getting rid of Black so easily.  After
all, a blow was safer than a shot, which might be heard.  And he had
the money.  That came handy to him.

The band was still playing on the pier when he began to row ashore.
He hummed the tune to himself, keeping time to the music, and watched
the dancers as they swung around, dark silhouettes against the
glass-sided pavilion.

Just before he reached the slipway he threw over most of the bait
with which he had been supplied, and dipped the line into the sea.
Thus the boatman would know that he had been fishing.  He paid for
the boat, gave the single fish to the boatman as a present, and went
up to the promenade.

He went to the boarding-house where he was lodging.  It was then a
quarter to ten o'clock.

But he did not enter by the front door.  He went round to the back of
the tall house, turned down a side lane, scrambled over the wall, and
ran along the garden until he reached an outhouse.  Above the
outhouse was a lighted window, the blind of which was down.  He
hauled himself to the roof of the outhouse and crawled up the tiles.
The window of the lighted room was open at the bottom.  He pulled
back the blind and slipped inside.  Across the floor he walked
quickly.  The key was in the door lock.  He unlocked the door, then
returned and threw himself into a big armchair.

He unlaced his boots and pulled on a pair of slippers and lay back in
the chair, pretending that he was asleep.  He was snoring when a
knock came to the door.  He did not answer.  The door opened, and
then he appeared to awake.

"Aren't you coming down for supper, sir?" asked the maid who had put
her head round the door.  "The gong went some time ago."

Davis jumped to his feet, yawned, and stretched his arms.

"Supper, hey?  I've been asleep all evening.  Have you been up
before?"

"No, sir."

"Anybody called for me?"

"No, sir, nobody called."

"Good.  Thanks for calling me."

He went down to the shabby dining-room, stifling yawns and blinking
ostentatiously.  During the meal he told his neighbors that he had
been sleeping in his room.  They explained it by saying that
everybody slept for the first few days.  It was the strong air that
did it.

That night Davis told the boarding-house keeper that he was leaving
next day.  He handed the proprietor one of the ten-pound notes he had
taken from Black and said he would get his change in the morning, as
the proprietor had not the change on hand.

Davis slept very well that night.  He went down to breakfast and then
packed his bag.  He was busy at this when the door opened.  A man
stepped inside.

"You Mr. John Davis?" he asked.

"I am."

"The ex-convict?"

"Aw, you're a cop, I suppose.  Well, you needn't try to pin anything
on me.  I'm going back to London now----"

"I'm a detective," said the man, holding out a piece of paper toward
Davis.  "How did you come into possession of this ten-pound note?"

Davis stared at the note.  Before he knew what was happening a pair
of handcuffs were on his wrists.

"What's this for?" he demanded, angrily.

"It's this way, Davis," said the detective.  "We had a letter from
Lorry Black a few days ago.  He wrote that he expected you would be
after him and that you would probably demand money from him.  If you
tendered any ten-pound notes anywhere, or if they were found in your
possession, we had evidence enough to arrest you.  These notes were
supplied to Black by Scotland Yard with instructions to carry them in
his pocketbook.  They are faked notes and the banks knew about them
and had their numbers.  This note was handed over a bank counter half
an hour ago by the proprietor of this house.  So I'm taking you on
that charge in the meantime until we have traced Lorry Black."

Of course, they did not trace Lorry Black so easily, for he had been
sent overboard in deep water; but some weeks afterward, when Davis
was still being held on suspicion, a body was washed up some distance
down the coast and there was little difficulty, as has been
mentioned, in identifying it as being all that remained of Black.

The rest was swift work on the part of the police.  Davis was charged
with murder, his movements that evening were all tabulated and
checked up, and the prosecuting counsel told in detail all that I
have related.  Thus John Davis went to the scaffold and was hanged....


At this point the waiter stopped and stroked his chin, while the
judge bent forward.

"I congratulate you on the way you have marshalled your facts," he
said, smilingly.  "But what do you seek to prove by telling me all I
already know?  It was I who ed the death sentence on John Davis,
and since he murdered his confederate, Lorry Black----"

"That is just the point.  He did not murder Lorry Black."

"Indeed!" The word was spoken in an incredulous tone.

"No, he did not murder Lorry Black.  You see, Lorry Black was well
aware that Davis would be after him.  He knew that Davis would try to
kill him.  He set the stage for Davis that evening.  He saw Davis
waiting for him and he took the boat out to fish, knowing that Davis
would not miss such a good opportunity.  He expected Davis to follow.
He gave him the money willingly and gladly.  He set his net wider
than Davis set _his_ net.  It is true that Davis hit him on the head,
but Black was already halfway over the side of the boat.  He was a
good swimmer.  He managed to get ashore.  He wanted Davis to hang.
He provided the body that was identified as his own."

The judge sat up stiff and straight.

"It is impossible," he said, sternly.

"But it is true," went on the waiter.  "He got the body----  But why
weary you with what is another long story?  He saw to it that the
body would be identified as his, and he committed it to the sea.  He
did that rather thoroughly.  He anchored the body with certain
anchorage that would decay by the action of the water in a given
time.  The tides would do the rest.  Then he went into retirement.
He took another name and waited.  He was one of those who stood at
Wandsworth prison gates and read the notices that John Davis had been
well and truly hanged."

The waiter ceased, and the judge, who had been listening intently,
seemed to slump into his chair.  His massive face was more wrinkled
than ever, and there was a shade of baffled weariness about his eyes.

"I sentenced John Davis," he murmured.  "The evidence was clear.  The
jury were satisfied."

He seemed to Be talking to himself.

"Lorry Black was in the gallery of your court and heard your summing
up," said the waiter.  "He also was quite satisfied with your
judgment--especially when you put on the black cap--even if he
disagreed with the penal code on principle.  He proved that the law
can be used against itself.  It is the principle we are discussing.
By the way, Black got a lady friend, whom he had appointed his heir
in his will, to lift his insurance money.  It came in very good time."

Suddenly the judge straightened.

"If Black is still alive, and if what you say is true----"

"Please do not be alarmed," said the waiter, suavely.  "I have the
best of reasons for knowing that Black is alive.  _I_ am Lorry Black."

He stretched out his hand and took another glass from beside a
sleeping member of the Clue Club and placed it next the one he had
already claimed.

"Second point to me," he smiled.




CHAPTER IV

_The Judge States His Second Case_

One thing must certainly be said in favor of the judge at this stage.
He took the surprising revelation very well.

A faint, bitter smile hovered around his lips for some time.  It was
just such a smile as had appeared on his features when he had learned
for the first and only time in his career that his judgment had been
upset by a higher court.  This had occurred a long time previously,
and the barristers who pleaded before him seemed, on the following
morning, to adopt a trifle more confidence, a subtle, hardly
distinguishable self-assurance.  But the judge had had his revenge.
The higher court had itted at a later sitting that the law, in
this particular instance, was anything but clear, and they had
recommended that a new statute be drafted on the basis of the judge's
interpretation.

Probably something came to his memory of that vindication as he now
considered the waiter before him.  It was the latter who first broke
the silence.

"Courtesy compels me to put the usual question to your lordship.  Is
there anything you wish to say against my finding?"

The judge shook his head, but his eye was fixed on the two glasses
beside the bludgeon.

"Presuming that your identity is as you it, there is nothing very
useful that I can say in objection.  But the name you gave to me just
now is not that in which you came here as waiter----"

"It is merely one of my aliases."

"One of them?  Interesting enough.  A man of your intelligence need
not be reminded, in that case, that you are liable to prosecution----"

"Provided I allow the police to prosecute."

"It is altogether a remarkable situation."

"Brought about by remarkable circumstances."

"I do not follow."

"It would be cruel for me to tantalize your curiosity without limit.
I do not intend to do so.  But, on the other hand, the time has not
arrived for me to satisfy it."

The judge murmured something that was scarcely audible.  The waiter
bent forward.

"No," he said, quietly, "I do not think that you will hear it all
from the bench.  The fact is that I came here as waiter so that we
could discuss in private the subject of the penal code so far as it
applies to the judgment of death.  There is never any opportunity for
a prisoner in the dock to engage an eminent judge in controversy.  No
judge would listen----"

"The time of the court could not be wasted," smiled the judge, now
more than ever convinced that he had to deal with a lunatic and
anxious to avoid a rupture.

"Therefore, for that very reason, I designed this meeting with your
lordship.  I hope it is proving quite as agreeable as your favorite
chess game, though so far you have lost two men and gained none."

The judge made a motion of his hand to signify that the loss of the
men did not give him any regret--a gesture that did not by any means
indicate his true feelings.

"Chess is an old game," he remarked.  "I believe one of the Chinese
rulers used to play it with living men.  When these men were lost,
according to the rules of the game the ruler and his opponent made
the ending completely novel by taking off the men's heads on the
spot!  One imagines there was not any great enthusiasm to become
chessmen."

"That, of course, was murder," commented the waiter, sternly.

The judge, who had mentioned the ancient game with live men in a
jocular vein, controlled the ripple of mirth that he was about to
express at his own joke.  He saw that the waiter did not agree with
his humor, so he was silent.

"It is just on the same ground that I object, in one way, to modern
judgment of death," went on the waiter with a show of anger.  "These
chessmen's lives depended not on their own deserts, nor on justice,
but on the ability of the ruler and his opponent to play chess!  On
their vacillating decisions, in fact.  Is it just that an issue of
life or death should depend on that?  Yet that is what happens today."

"I still hold," said the judge firmly, "that your estimate of capital
punishment is both unpopular and unworkable----"

"You cannot deny that the final decision, notwithstanding the verdict
of juries and judicial pronouncements, lies in the hands of whoever
happens to be Home Secretary.  The personal moods, resolution,
firmness, or weakness of that official are the frail balance----"

"There is always a tribunal of the Court of Criminal Appeal----"

"Who judge, like you, on the legal code and ister it in the same
way--death for the uncontrollable frenzy of a moment as for the
considered poisoning of a long period.  A gunman from Chicago and a
betrayed girl in London have both been found guilty of murder and
sentenced to execution though their respective measures of
criminality were entirely different."

"Ah, the old idea of making the punishment fit the crime is just what
capital punishment does," cried the judge.  "I will give you an
instance that will convince you.  Will you please let me have the
minute-book for a moment as I refresh my memory."

He assumed something of his heavy authority as he stretched out his
hand and took the book which the waiter ed over to him.

The fact was that the judge was still smarting under the reprimand he
had just received when he told the story of the living chessmen.  He
was so used to counsel and witnesses bursting into guffaws at his wit
that he experienced a sense of irritation when his playfulness was
without this gratifying result.  Had the waiter only been in the
witness box how the judge would have roasted him!  Had he been in the
dock----!


A KILLER BY NATURE

There was a look of cold disdain in his eyes as he raised his head
and pushed the book a little to one side.  Then, in his court voice,
without emotion, yet with emphasis on the right words, he related the
following case, adopting the waiter's method, perhaps unconsciously.


I had great satisfaction [came the lofty authoritative
pronouncement], in donning the black cap and sending Abe Lammie to
the scaffold.  He was a natural criminal.

Never in all my years on the bench was I so revolted at a crime as at
his.  Hanging was his deserts.  Death was his due.  Extinction was
his fate.  I had no pity for him, nothing but loathing, anger,
contempt.  These emotions were shared by the jury, who did their duty
as honest and just men.  So thoroughly was I in agreement with their
verdict--which I had plainly hinted to them was the only one they
could possibly bring in--that I exempted them from service for five
years.  They did not leave the box, but found Lammie guilty without a
second's hesitation.

My experience in legal matters--in the humble position I occupy and
during my early days--leads me to believe that the best way to reduce
crime to the irreducible minimum is to make the risks greater than
the recompense.  But this man was a living contradiction to the
theory as he was a contrast to ordinary criminal methods and
theories.  Therefore he was a greater danger to society, which must
be protected; society, whose mouthpiece I am, deserved to be rid of
him.  I, like the jury, did not falter in my duty or responsibilities.

Had there been no risk Abe Lammie would probably have ed by the
temptation to rifle the safe of a certain West End store.  Had he
ed by that temptation the watchman would not have lost his life.
It was Lammie's nature to burrow and to attack from unexpected
quarters.  He had entered the store and had struck down the watchman
before the latter could protect himself.  A mean, brutal blow, it was.

He had approached this job by the tortuous way that many times had
baffled the police.  Most criminals would have hidden in the store at
closing time and would have attacked the safe when the watchman was
in a distant part of the building.  But this man, Abe Lammie, was
called by his confederates by the name of The Mole.  He was indeed
such an animal.  He attacked the watchman before he attacked the safe.

His record showed that in one thing only did he resemble his fellow
criminals.  He watched a job, as they call a burglary, before he set
to work on it; but even in this he differed from his mates.  What he
watched for in any job was not the easiest way of escape, but the
difficulties which he might turn to his advantage.

Lammie did not choose any of the hiding-places this store offered to
burglars.  He could have crept under a counter before closing-time.
He might have hidden himself among hanging garments.  He might have
stepped into a cupboard.  All these are places usually sought by
burglars just on closing-time.  But Lammie worked according to his
own theories.  He entered the premises through a manhole in the
pavement at the back of the building.

He wore rubber-soled shoes.  To make sure that the watchman would
come his way he deliberately upset a glass stand of displayed goods.
When the watchman did appear Lammie knew him.  The man had been a
jailbird.  Lammie recognized him at once.  He had seen him in prison,
and Lammie recollected that this man had tried to speak to him once,
but a warder had intervened.  All this ed through The Mole's
brain rapidly.  As the watchman stooped to examine the smash The Mole
struck him down.

He left the watchman lying there while he made his way to the safe.
There were several hours at his command since the watchman was out of
the way, and he worked carefully.  The police gave him credit for
being a good burglar.  His burner went through the door of the safe
quickly and the lock fell into his hands.

The safe contained many things for which he did not have any use.
There were ledgers, cash books,  books, letter files.  These
Lammie did not touch until he had pulled on a pair of gloves.  He
took two books down to where the watchman lay huddled on the floor.

Lifting the dead man's right hand, he smeared the tips of the fingers
with dust and pressed them on the binding.  He had the destroyed lock
of the safe in his pocket and he pressed the tips of the watchman's
fingers against it also.  Then he returned to the safe.

He placed the books so that it might be thought they had fallen when
the safe door opened.  He put the lock on the floor.  Then he delved
into the drawers containing the cash.  It was made up in bundles of
notes held together by elastic bands.  As the store had a _bureau de
change_, there were a number of foreign notes; but Lammie took only
the British ones.  Altogether he had loot in hard cash to the value
of nearly a thousand pounds.

He emptied the silver into a canvas bag which he took from his
pocket.  Leaving the safe door open, he rose to his feet and
carefully brushed the floor so that the dust would not tell tales.
His footprints did not trouble him.  Flat rubber leaves practically
no mark, and as dozens of people had already ed that way during
the day his footprints could not be distinguished.

With his booty stowed in his pockets and his tools in the leather
pouch inside his waistcoat he went to the jewelry section.  Here he
closely inspected the cases with the aid of an electric torch.  A
case of gold watches attracted him.  He smashed the glass and helped
himself.

In all he took over two dozen watches.  They were the best in the
case--goods he could sell quickly and without trouble.  He inserted
them into small pouches in his belt specially adapted for articles of
jewelry.  He next selected several watches and other goods of lesser
value and carried them to where the watchman's body lay.  He put the
articles into the dead man's pockets and--it may have cost him a
heartbeat--he also put a five-pound note in beside them.

He searched the dead body for the keys necessary for what he had
still to do.  Having secured the keys, he went to the door at the
back of the premises by which the staff entered.  On the back of the
door was a burglar alarm which Lammie disconnected.  He opened the
door, peering out as cautiously as the animal after which he was
named.  The street was deserted.  He shut the door and ran back to
the watchman.

Hoisting the body on his shoulders, he returned to the door.  Before
he opened it this time he put the keys back into the watchman's
pocket.  He peered out again.  All was quiet.  He placed the body on
the sidewalk near the gutter.  Then he walked away.  His burglary and
murder were complete.

He went straight home after having a cup of coffee at a dingy stall
in a mean street.  He and his wife occupied a small flat on the
ground floor of a tall, shabby house in a shabby suburb.  The flat
consisted of two rooms, one facing the front, the other facing the
back.  Lammie occupied the back room, his wife the front.  There was
a reason for this, as there was a reason for everything The Mole
dictated.  He had thus two means of entrance and exit.  The windows
of both rooms were auxiliaries to the doors.

He was awakened in the morning by his wife, who was standing by his
bedside, her hand on his shoulder.  In her hand was a newspaper, and
her forefinger pointed to a heavily-typed column.

"Was this you, Abe?"

"Is it about a watchman?"

"Yes."

"It was me."

His wife threw down the newspaper with a shudder.  She was a big,
angular woman, who seemed at ordinary times to be incapable of
emotion; but in the presence of her husband she was always nervous.
She obeyed him in everything to the letter, afraid of him, yet with a
hesitating iration for him.  She was afraid on her own behalf,
also, perhaps.

"One day, Abe, you'll make a mistake," she breathed.

"I can't see that day."

"The paper has a piece that says there's nearly a thousand quid in
cash--lifted!"

"That's about right."

"And that the watchman must have let the--the--burglar inside.  Some
stuff has been found on the watchman.  They say the police think he
may have been in on the job and then there was a quarrel about the
square-up.  Is that right?"

"If that's what they say, let 'em say it."

She picked up the jimmy that lay among his tools as he had thrown
them on the floor.  A red smear stained one end.

"You wash that off," he commanded, "and gimme breakfast.  I'm due
somewhere by midday."

She took the satchel into the kitchenette obediently while he arose
and pulled on his clothes.  He ate his breakfast rapidly, not once
glancing at his wife, who stood beside the table attending to him as
a slave serves a master.  When he finished eating he got up and took
the tools from the kitchenette and put them into his coat pocket.
His wife watched him all the time, following him about with a dumb
interest that was doglike.

"Abe, I need money."

He whipped out a bundle of notes and handed over one.

"That's a fiver.  Get it changed this morning.  And look here, if
anybody asks where you got it, say Braid, the 'fence,' gave it you.
Get that?"

"Braid?"

"That's it, Braid.  That's what you've gotter say.  If nobody asks,
say nothin'.  Listen here.  I'm goin' to Braid now.  I've got
something to sell.  I'll be back maybe a bit late.  Wait up for
me--and look out!"

"Abe, can't we go away somewhere--abroad, Canada, anywhere?  I'm
wearin' out fast with all this waitin', waitin', waitin'.  Them
cops----"

"Aw, we'll talk about that later."

"When?"

"After you've spent the fiver."

He went out by the back window and walked swiftly down the lane,
diving into an underground station.  The stolen watches were strung
in his belt around his waist; the banknotes were in his pockets.  He
was going to get rid of his loot until the time when he could use it
fearlessly.  He knew--as had happened in the past--detectives would
visit his apartment home.  They often visited his apartments, and as
often he gave  of his movements that satisfied them.  He was
quite sure of his ground on this occasion, as usual.

It is a fact, known to the police after much inquiry and
investigation, that few receivers of stolen property make their
arrangements with thieves within the circles of large cities.  It is
the same in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia as it is in London,
Glasgow, Liverpool.  When a burglar has considerable booty to sell he
goes out of the radius of the city.  It may be in the outer suburbs,
or deep in the country; but it is not, as a rule, within the
metropolitan area that he makes his rendezvous with the receiver.

The reason for these rendezvous some distance from the busy centers
is quite simple.  Most goods of value have to be disposed of
immediately they are stolen; and, again, if the hue and cry is very
hot, the criminal has always a good jumping-off spot.  If all goes
well he can deliver his loot, get his money, and be back in the
center of the city, or among his social haunts, before the police
have time to fix on a clue.  These men always have alibis.  Their
companions commit perjury habitually.  The disposing of jewelry has
become an art.

Abe Lammie's destination was northwest of the city.  All his
instincts revolted at the idea of traveling by bus or ordinary
overhead train.  Mole-like he went underground.  It was not that he
feared being arrested if he showed himself in daylight; the police
never moved so quickly as that.  It was not that he regretted murder
and wished to hide from his fellow men; he had used violence
previously.  The real objection he had to moving on the surface of
the earth was the key to his whole existence.  The trade--or
profession--of burglar fitted him as closely as his skin.  He was by
nature a subterranean mammal, a shunner of the sun.

He had no parents of whom he could say, "Here is my mother, there my
father."  Of the former he had never heard or known a thing.  Of the
latter all he knew was that he was a prisoner somewhere, held by his
own natural enemies, the police.  His recollections did not go
farther back than the time when, as a boy, he stood alone in the dock
and was sentenced to a period of detention in a reformatory.  He had
not seen his father since that day.  Not that it mattered much, for
neither father nor son had any attachment for the other.

But even in these far-off days Abe Lammie escaped from the
institution.  How?  By digging under the walls.  He had remained
underground ever since--a mole.  In appearance he had a distinct
resemblance to the animal.  His arms were short, his fingers were
stubby, like claws.  His neck vertebr&aelig; were solidified.  His chest
was wide and powerful, his legs long and muscular.  He walked as if
he were swimming through earth.  He made night his day and day his
night.  He hated summer and liked winter.  He was a bundle of
adaptations.

Starting with this resemblance between him and the creature after
which he was nicknamed, the likeness ascended in rapid stages.
Physically the similarity was positive.  Socially it was comparative.
Mentally it was superlative.

He chose his place of residence as carefully as any mole ever built
his home.  The path from the front gate to his door was the first
"run," over which he, or his wife, could see the advance of
strangers.  The back lane, a dozen yards from his window, was his
"bolt-run."  The two rooms were his "fortress."  His wife was his
sentinel, his lookout, ready to give the alarm from the front room.
Under the floor boards, behind the lathing of the walls, among the
bricks at the back of the fireplace, in holes behind the skirting
boards, in every unlikely place he had often stored his loot; but
only temporarily, for the police had searched his fortress more than
once.  Their failure to find evidence on which to arrest him was due
to the cunning Lammie exercised in storing the goods.  He changed the
places with the ingenuity of a molewarp.  When he was engaged on a
"job" he was the animal indeed--vigorous in moving, feeding,
fighting, everything.

His mind was the mind of this creature of the hedgerow to a
surprising degree.  His brain was contraplex--two messages were
constantly ing in opposite directions athwart it at the same
time.  The one current represented the action about to be performed,
the other concerned the hiding of that already performed.  To him an
obvious thing was dangerous and a sign of foes.  A straight line was
abhorrent, because he had found out that the law was represented as
the most direct route to retribution.  All penal codes to him were
entirely unfair; his mind was so crooked that he believed he had a
right to steal what he could and get away with it.  He did not it
the wrong of burglary.  If jewelry was not well enough protected to
keep him from taking it, the owners deserved to lose it.  The law had
no right to punish him; he classified punishment as another wrong
against him.  Thus the combative strain of the mole in him had
developed until it had become contumacious.  And this development
only served to emphasize another trait relating to his nickname.
Having observed how the police, his natural enemies, collected
reliable witnesses, he adopted the idea, but used it as a defense
instead of an attack.  He involved those who feared him and screened
himself behind them because they dared not give him away.  Out of
their helplessness he erected a bulwark for himself.

The subway on which he traveled roared its way across the foundations
of the city and bore him upward toward the high ground of the
northern section.  Within a few miles of its terminus it burst out of
the tunnel into the sunlight.  Abe Lammie crouched in his corner,
blinking his small eyes at the brightness he hated.  On each side of
the railway track new excavations were being made; brown clay was
heaped in high embankments and lay across the green valleys extending
toward the final station of the track.  On the side of the hills some
distance off he noticed two black holes that had been excavated.  A
steam navvy was heaving great loads of rock and rubble down a chute.
The sight stirred a memory and a slumbering sympathy in him.  He kept
his eyes fixed on the excavating work until the train pulled up.  He
awakened with a jerk to the knowledge that he was at his destination.

He traversed the streets of the new suburb by stages, taking every
back lane.  In time he arrived at the house he sought.  It was an old
manor house, a relic of a past generation, with half an acre of
thickly wooded ground surrounding it.  He was ushered into a large
room barely furnished, and found himself facing a small man who
nervously twirled his hands as he greeted him.

"Well, Abe, I see by the papers----"

"I got the stuff," interrupted Abe.  "There wasn't much of what you
said.  Two dozen tickers.  But gold."

"Show them to me."

The Mole loosened his belt and swung it clear of his body.  The
receiver examined every watch.

"I'll take them.  Twenty pounds the lot."

"They're worth ten times that."

"I said twenty pounds."

"All right.  Hand the money over."

It was always the same.  He did the work and the receivers beat him
down in price.  All he ever possessed in this world he took by
cunning and by force.

"Now that you've skinned me," he said when he stowed the money away,
"I've something I want you to look after for me.  It's my own
loot--not yours.  I got the tickers for you.  I took this for myself.
I know the exact amount----"

"I couldn't store it for you, Mole."

"You know what it is?"

"It's the banknotes, isn't it?"

"You bet.  You can hold them until it blows over."

"Sorry, Abe.  That's your funeral.  I can melt down gold or silver, I
can't melt notes.  I expect the cops know the numbers of some of
them, if not all, by this time."

The receiver twirled his hands more than ever as he saw The Mole's
brows drawn down.  There was silence for a few moments.  The receiver
spoke again.

"Seen the papers, Abe?"

"What do they say?"

"The watchman was found on the pavement.  You laid him there, I
suppose?"

"Well?"

"One idea is that he let some one into the store.  A pal, likely.
They say the watchman was an ex-convict, a lifer, who did his term
and was expected to make good.  You did it smart, Abe, but I didn't
want you to kill.  That was where you slipped up, Abe.  It's bad to
kill.  You've given others the knock-out, but not the good-by.  Why
did you do it?"

"He was in the way.  What's it matter?  I'd do it again.  What about
them notes?  Are you scared to hold 'em?"

"There's the numbers, Abe, and numbers tell tales.  You've been a
good boy to me, I it, and so I'd like to do what I can for you.
You'll want to get away now that the watchman is on your
conscience----"

"I haven't got a conscience," said The Mole.  "What about the notes?"

"I'll buy them, Abe, if you'll let them go cheap.  I'm only doing
this to help you get away.  What about a hundred pounds, cash down?"

"Huh!  You get the tickers dirt cheap and then you offer me a hundred
for nearly a thousand in notes!"

"Look at the risk, Abe!  This is a killing case.  You'll have to get
away."

The Mole lit a cigarette and puffed slowly at it, his brows drawn
down over his dull eyes.  He knew quite well that the receiver was
not concerned about his safety.

"It was you put me up to the job," he said, after a little.
"_You're_ all right.  _You_ don't get pinched.  _You_ don't risk
swinging.  It's me that runs for it every time.  I'm always on the
hop.  I'm always between you and the cops--keepin' my eye on both.
And you have the nerve to offer me a mean hundred for all that pile!"

"It's all I can afford to risk, Abe.  If you ain't satisfied, go and
get them changed somewhere else and see what happens!"

He snarled the words and turned away as if to wash his hands of the
proposition.  The Mole laughed and the receiver turned quickly.
There was something in The Mole's laugh he did not like.

"I gave one to my wife," said The Mole.

"That's your affair, Abe.  You shouldn't trust women, even wives.
They'll grab your wife, sure as a gun, and then it's all up with you.
Isn't a hundred better than--the other thing?"

"It won't be the other thing, you mean Yid!  I told my wife what to
say, and she'll say it and stick to it.  She was to say that you gave
her the note."

"Abe!"

"Oh, she'll say it.  She does what she's told."

"Abe, you dog!"

"She knows better'n give me away.  She's all right."

"Abe, you devil!"

"I've tied you both up, old yellow Yid!  You and her.  See?"

The receiver was livid.  He trembled with rage and, but for the
knowledge that The Mole could have killed him in a struggle, he would
have thrown himself at Lammie.  His anger mastered him and he threw
out a finger, shaking and accusing in the excess of his fury.

"I won't touch the notes now!  I'll blow up everything!  I'll deny
you gave me the watches!  They'll never know that bit!  I'll tell
them you have the notes!  They will get you and you'll swing, Mole!"

Lammie shrugged his shoulders and threw the stub of his cigarette
into the fireplace.

"Not so fast, Yid!  If the cops come for me I won't run.  I'll hand
'em a speel.  But they won't get a scrap of evidence to pin on me.
You've had your chance to help me out and you've refused.  All right.
I know where to hide the notes.  And when you are in the dock--you
and the wife--I'll lift the swag and hit the trail somewhere."

"I'll tell them you came here with it," yelled the receiver,
triumphantly.

"Huh!  They'll believe me first when I say I came to ask you where
you got the note you gave my wife and why you gave it her!  You and
she can argue it out before the judge!"

The receiver was staggered at the audacity of the defense this human
mole had prepared.  It was feasible, cunning, as plausible as
anything the receiver could say.  And The Mole's wife would back The
Mole up with her blind loyalty.  It was two against one.  The
receiver was caught, hemmed about by the scheme of The Mole.

The burglar laughed sardonically, lifted his empty belt, and buckled
it around his waist with deliberation.  The receiver stood like a man
bewildered, not knowing which way to turn, yet watching The Mole's
movements with a strange, paralyzed stare.

He saw The Mole choose another cigarette from his case, light it, and
throw the match down.  He saw him button up his coat, pull his cap
down over his forehead, and stride across the room.  The bang of the
front door aroused him.

"I'll find out where he hides the notes!" he cried, swiftly.  "I'll
follow him!"

A voice from the dark hall answered him as the door of the room was
flung open.

"If you follow me, Yid, I'll croak you!"

The Mole was standing in the dim age.  He had not gone out at
all.  He had banged the door to make the receiver believe that he had.

The two men gazed at each other for a tense moment.  Lammie was
grinning at the success of his trick.

"I wanted to see what you'd do, Yid.  I expected you'd rush out to
follow me.  Listen here.  If you follow me a step, I'll murder you!"

The receiver collapsed into a chair, his head dropped on his chest.
He had been beaten.  After a time he raised his head.  The Mole was
still regarding him from the age.

"It's all right, Abe, I won't follow you.  Honest to goodness."

"I know you won't," replied The Mole, grimly.

"But, Abe, you'll make a mistake.  You work too much alone, Abe.  All
them that work alone make a mistake one day."

In spite of himself The Mole started.  The words were those his wife
had used.  But he tossed his head defiantly.

"It's you that has made a mistake, Yid.  And my wife, too.  She made
a mistake.  I haven't any use for either of you."

The words revealed the depths of his scheme.  Abe Lammie had no
compunction about involving his wife in the toils he had cast around
the receiver.  He was sacrificing her as he was prepared to sacrifice
anyone, in order to cover his own trail.  The sexes of moles build
separate fortresses.

The door banged once more.  This time The Mole had really gone.

It was gray evening when he arrived in the main street of the suburb.
He had a meal in a mean restaurant.  He heard the newsboys call the
evening's news, the news of the murder and burglary.  He did not buy
a newspaper because he could not read much.  But, having finished his
meal, he set out on the next stage of his plan.

He bought a ball of cord, and at a green grocery stall he persuaded
the proprietor to sell an empty potato sack.  Then he strolled toward
the outskirts of the suburb.  It was dark now.  He ed out toward
the meadows.  He sat down by a hedge and parceled up his booty.

He tied the bundles of notes together, adding the notes he had
received from the "fence" for the watches.  He put the loose silver,
which was in a canvas bag, on top of the notes, but retained
sufficient for his immediate wants.  With his tools he dug a hole and
put the tools, wrapped in the case, into the hole and covered it up,
marking the spot by a tree and putting a large stone on the top.
With the notes and silver tied up in his sack he rose to his feet and
struck across the country, his bundle under his arm.

He went straight to the excavations he had noted from the train when
he arrived at the suburb.  He descended the embankment of loose
rubble and rock and took a pickax, which he carried toward a large
tree well away from the diggings.  He dug another hole at the tree
roots and buried his money, marking the tree so that he would know it
again.  Then he returned the pickax and in time reached the high-road.

He went back to see if the receiver was still at home.  There was a
light in the room where he had interviewed the receiver, but The Mole
wanted to make sure.  He threw a pebble against the window.  The
receiver's head appeared as the blind was drawn aside.  The Mole
dropped down among the shrubbery, and when the receiver's head was
withdrawn The Mole moved away, grinning to himself.  The receiver was
where Lammie wanted him to be.

The Mole then went home.  He was perfectly content.  His plans had
worked without a hitch.

There was an arrangement with his wife that she manipulated the blind
of their front room as a signal to him when he was returning home.
If the blind was halfway down, cutting equally across the upper and
lower sashes of the window, it meant that the police were waiting
inside to interview him.  The police often called on The Mole after a
burglary.  He had been in prison several times.  Now, however, he had
his defenses so well set that he was without any anxiety.  He acted
characteristically, banging the gate as he entered the front garden,
and walking into the front room boldly enough.

He whistled softly to himself as he entered the room.  Two men were
sitting behind the door; his wife was by the fire.  Her eyes
fluttered toward her husband.

"From the Yard," she said, with a movement of her hand toward the
visitors.  "They want a word with you, Abe.  I've told 'em you've
been on the straight.  Lookin' for a job of work, I told them, which
you can prove."

"You bet," said The Mole.

He turned toward the men, who had risen to their feet.

"I'm glad you come.  I want a word with you about a fiver that a Yid
give my wife.  I've warned her about that fiver and I was up seein'
the Yid now.  If he's been using her to  stuff----"

"We did come about money," said one of the men.

"Expected it.  Huh."

The Mole took a cigarette and lit it in a matter-of-fact way.  It was
just as he had thought.  His wife would be taken, not himself.

"But there is something else, Lammie," went on the man.  "I have a
warrant for your arrest.  There is another charge against you."

"Come off it," laughed The Mole.  "I hadn't anything to do with that
fiver.  My wife will tell you who gave it to her.  What's the other
charge, anyway?"

"The watchman of a store has been murdered, Lammie.  Fingerprints
were found on a showcase that was upset.  You forgot to wear gloves
before you pushed it over.  But the main charge is not burglary.
That watchman was an ex-convict who had been in his job only a few
weeks.  We have identified him all right.  The charge against you is
parricide."

"What's that?" asked The Mole, hoarsely.

"A parricide," explained the officer as he put the handcuffs on the
unresisting Mole, "is a man who murders his own father."

The judge paused for an impressive moment, then stretched out his
hand toward one of the two glasses on the table before the waiter.

To his astonishment and chagrin, the waiter raised a remonstrating
finger.




CHAPTER V

_The Waiter States His Second Case_

"Surely!" cried the judge; and his tone rang high, charged with
indignant protest.

In the one word was a whole speech of dissent, a compressed synopsis
of his surprise and sense of injustice.

He drew back his hand inch by inch, while the waiter's finger
remained poised.  There was something Solomonic in that uplifted
finger, something, too, of satanophany in its rigidity that had a
chilling effect on the judge's outcry.

"Who are you?" he demanded, forcing a certain authority into his
voice that he was far from feeling.

"All things in their places," responded the waiter.  Then he dropped
his finger.  His expression, which had been commandingly pregnant,
changed to one of engaging frankness.

"Your lordship's eagerness to justify the black cap," he said,
"reminds me of an incident that occurred during a race meeting at
Aintree some time ago.  You must be aware that at one time the royal
racing colors included a black cap, and on this occasion the valet of
a royal amateur steeplechaser had, in the hurry of packing the kit,
omitted to include the cap.  Just when the race was about to begin
the loss was discovered.  Where was a black cap to be found?  In the
midst of the anxiety a humble spectator observed that very famous
Judge Hawkins, who was as eager to see a horse race as he was willing
to sentence men to death.  'Ask old 'Awkins,' shouted the spectator.
'He's bound to have a black cap in his pocket!'"

In spite of himself a gray smile twisted the judge's features at the
waiter's story; but he pulled himself together and frowned.

"Am I to understand that you deny the justice of the death sentence
of Abe Lammie?  Stop fooling and let us keep to a clear issue.
Lammie accepted his fate."

"By all means.  I merely told the story as a balance to the one you
recited a short time ago.  Do you seriously put forward the fact of a
man accepting his fate as an argument in favor of capital punishment?
That is no argument at all.  You have mentioned an ancient custom of
a Chinese ruler.  Let me mention a custom that still prevails in that
country.  Commanders of British warships raiding the lairs of Chinese
pirates have often found that if they demand prisoners to be handed
over, the hean of a village is willing to hand over a number of
innocent people for execution in place of the guilty parties, who may
have fled to the interior.  The guiltless persons themselves do not
object to being beheaded.  They act as substitutes for the guilty
because of the old Chinese custom whereby a condemned man may give a
substitute's family compensation for his act.  Doubtless your penal
code would condemn this custom, but a Chinaman who believed in it
would see no cause for complaint."

"I am not concerned with Chinese beliefs," said the judge.  "Do you
decline to it that Abe Lammie's death on the scaffold was justice?"

"Before I answer that I must ask your indulgence to relate my second
case," replied the waiter.  "It may have a bearing on the case of Abe
Lammie.  We shall come to a definite conclusion regarding both cases
when I have finished.  The bases of both are rooted in the same soil.
But by a peculiar chance the reference to pirates has some relation
to the case I am about to present.  This murder occurred at Wapping."

"What on earth has that to do with pirates in China?"

"Nothing whatever, but it is reminiscent of pirates in England.  You
cannot have forgotten that Execution Dock was situated at Wapping."

The waiter waited for the judge to make some sort of ission, but
beyond a slight nod of his head the judge did not answer.  He seemed,
in fact, to be somewhat befogged at the reference to Wapping, and
settled himself to listen as the waiter cleared his throat and turned
over the leaves of the minute-book.

"I have no other reason for referring to Execution Dock," continued
the waiter as he leaned back in his chair and regarded the judge
closely to make sure that he was paying attention, "than to point out
how many men ended their lives quite unprotestingly there.  I make a
point of this to offset the idea in your mind that the judgment of
death is always opposed by the victims.  Such is not the case.  The
pirates who were condemned at the Old Bailey, as a matter of fact, as
often as not declined to put up a very strong defense.  Having been
condemned, they were placed in chains in a cart and transported
through the streets of Wapping at a very slow pace.  The populace
usually pelted them with mud and refuse.  Before the cart containing
these unfortunate men the Marshal of the iralty drove, equally
slowly, in his gorgeous carriage.  His officials carried the badge of
his office, a silver oar.  That silver oar can still be seen in the
Law Courts of London.

"In this way the dismal cavalcade proceeded to Execution Dock.  A
gallows was erected in the river at low-water mark, and there the
wretched prisoners were hanged and gibbeted.  Three tides washed over
their bodies before they were cut down and taken away for further
disgrace.  The bodies were tarred, placed in an iron cage, and hung
in chains so that all could see.  The famous Captain Kidd was treated
in this fashion.

"It was within a stone's throw of the site of Execution Dock that
Jeff S.  Connolly killed a woman and began his flight from the law.
A great many of you anti-abolitionists hold that if a criminal had
the fear of death in front of him he would not kill.  That is a
foolish supposition, and because I know it is a foolish supposition,
and because you, my lord, sentenced Jeff S. Connolly to death, I
desire to present him to you in an original light, as it is the true
light.  In a word, he was


THE MAN WHO WISHED TO BE HANGED

The murder he had committed had no relieving features.  It was
sordid, ionate, terrible.  He killed a woman because she had
ceased to love him and had proved unfaithful.  One is not sure
whether he intended to kill her.  Certainly the first thought that
crossed his mind, when he saw her lying dead at his feet, was that it
was one of the easiest things in the world to kill a human being.

Connolly was an American who had lived most of his life in England.
He was usually a quiet, inoffensive man; but something of the
primitive was in his nature.  He killed this woman in a wild, Berserk
rage of fury.  Perhaps the necessity to stifle her cries when he
first attacked her had something to do with the frightful end.  And
when she lay there, battered to death, he stood up and breathed
deeply, conscious that he must now get away.

The few trinkets she wore were not of great value, but he took them.
He stepped over to the window and looked out.

No one was about.  The narrow street was dark; her cries had not
aroused the neighbors.  He slipped out of the doorway, closing it
behind him, and walked smartly away.

His brain was in a whirl, the struggle had thrown him into a strange
state of unreality.  The world had somersaulted in these few minutes.
He boarded an omnibus and went to his lodgings, with the object of
going to bed and resuming his ordinary routine; but when he let
himself into his room he found it impossible to do so.  He was driven
by a demon of unrest.  He sat down and tried to think out the best
way of escape.

One fact was patent.  There was no doubt the woman would be found.
There was equally no doubt the police would trail the city for her
murderer.  They might find a clue, a fingerprint, something that
would lead them to him.  He looked at his coat; a button had been
torn off.  And there was another thing--he had come away without his
hat.  He could not now recollect where he had laid his hat when he
had called on her.  He must have come all the way from that house
without the hat.  The omnibus conductor must have noted him.
Pedestrians would have seen him.  He had hundreds of witnesses
against him.  The police would have no lack of witnesses, and every
finger would point toward him.  The thought sent a shiver through
him.  He must get away.

His first act was to change his clothes.  He put on an old suit, took
an old cap, and went out.  More than two hours had now ed since
he had left the house where the woman lay dead.  The omnibuses were
making their final runs for the night.  He stepped on to one and took
a ticket to the terminus.  Somewhere beyond the city he would find a
place to hide.

He climbed to the top of the bus, though there was a flurry of rain
in the air.  He took care to muffle up his face in his coat as much
as possible, and huddled in the back seat, wondering, vaguely, what
plan he might adopt.  He had a little money.  Ought he to take a
train to a port and try to stow away on board an outgoing vessel?
No, that was impossible.  The police would track him that way easier
than any other.  The skipper of the ship would communicate with land;
in any case, even if he managed to work his age, he only narrowed
his chances of hiding by going to sea.  One cannot run away from a
ship.

On the other hand, since he must stay on land, he knew it was but a
matter of hours before every policeman in the country would have his
description and would be looking out for him.  These things were done
by telegraph.  There was also the telephone.  On land and on sea he
did not seem to have a chance.  But on the other hand he could hide
so long as he was free.  That thought comforted him a little.

When the bus reached the terminus he dismounted and walked along the
country road beyond the bus sheds as if he knew his way; but this
seeming knowledge of his whereabouts was merely as a blind in case
the busmen had seen and noted him.  He hadn't the least idea where he
was going.  All that was in his mind was that the police would soon
be on his trail and that he was safest away from his usual haunts.
In the wide country he would work out a way of escape.

He put his hand into his overcoat pocket and found that he still had
the blood-stained handkerchief with which he had wiped his hands
after the deed.  He wanted to get rid of it, but could not think of
how to do it.  The rain had filled the ditches along the road.  He
filled the handkerchief with stones and dropped it to the bottom of
the ditch.  He did not want to be found with that handkerchief on
him.  Then he sat down on the sloping bank.  The rain had ceased.  He
leaned against the hedge, trying to sleep.

But the darkness terrified him.  He had never known what it was to
spend a night in the open alone, with only the silence of the
countryside around him.  He could not sleep.  He was chilled and his
bones ached.  But he did not move.  No one came near him.  A
stillness as of death filled the air.  The atmosphere was singing
with that peculiar hum that makes quietness intense and lonely.  The
night dragged.

Perhaps he dozed a little.  He never knew, but he closed his eyes
often enough and opened them at intervals.  Once, when he opened
them, he saw that it was dawn.  He was shivering.  Birds were
twittering in the trees, insects were flitting about the grass and
the roots of the hedge, the cattle in the meadows were lowing.
Nature was expanding, like one of her flowers, to another day's life.
Only the man who crouched at the base of the hedge feared the coming
of the light.

In the distance he saw the red tower of a church, and, besides the
church, the blue-gray smoke of the cottage fires issuing from the
chimneys.  He heard the crunch of a country cart coming along the
road.  He arose and began to walk in the direction of the village.

At the fringe of the village there was a signboard which gave its
name.  One arm of the board pointed down a forked road, indicating
that he was over a dozen miles from the city.  The other arm gave
direction to a town he had never visited.  He dared not go back to
the city.  If he went to the town, he would run into danger that way,
too.  He decided to wait in the vicinity of the village.  Hunger was
beginning to gnaw at him.

He loitered among the meadows for an hour or two and saw the village
awakening to its work.  Men and women came out to the fields.  The
church clock struck hours at what seemed terribly long intervals.
The crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs came to his ears.
Necessity forced him to make a bold move.  He walked into the village
and entered the first inn he reached.

The moment he caught sight of himself in the large mirror above the
bar he realized that he presented a wild appearance; disheveled,
dirty, a contrast to the trim proprietor who was polishing glasses.

The fugitive strode over to a corner table and sat down.  A newspaper
lay on the table, and at another in the opposite corner several
countrymen sat talking and drinking beer.

"What can I get you, sir?"

The landlord was standing before him, pleasant and clean in his white
apron.

"Some bread and cheese and beer."

In a few moments these were placed on his table, and as he paid for
them he heard the conversation of the men in the other corner.

"What I say," said one, dogmatically, "is this: There isn't a chance
for him.  I'd rather be the one that was murdered than the murderer."

The fugitive drew back into the shadow, his bread halfway to his
mouth.  He gripped tightly at the edge of the table.

"Why do you say that, George?" asked another.  "If you was murdered
you'd be dead.  You ain't much use to yourself or anybody if you're
dead."

A third man laughed.  "While there's life there's always a hope," he
said, and sipped at his tankard.

"That may be true," replied the man called George, "but I'd rather be
dead, killed and done with, than running like a hare before the law.
I've bin thinkin' about it since I seen the newspaper.  I seen a bit
in my time.  I'd rather be the one than t'other.  Fancy runnin' wild
with a reward out for you!"

The man in the corner lowered his head so that they might not see his
face.  He was trembling, though whether from weakness or from fear he
did not know.

"The best reward for a man like that," said the second voice, "is a
rope round his neck and a six-foot drop.  We don't want murderers in
this country.  Kill 'em off, I say.  This one went to see the woman
and killed her because she'd got another man.  It was a brutal crime.
The paper says so."

"It was a crime of jealousy," said the man called George.

"Huh!"

"He had been in love with the woman.  Some say they were as good as
married.  He come back to find another in his place.  He'd been away
for some years.  There was a story I read once, called 'Enoch Arden.'
Well, I was thinkin' about it.  What would you do if you came back
and found your wife had thrown you over for somebody else--any of
you?"

There was a silence.  The man called George continued.

"Jealousy!  Ain't that a kind of madness?  Ain't love a kind of
madness?"

"No reason for murder, George!"

"Oh, I don't know.  Just think--if it came to you.  I'm not sayin' he
was justified.  I'm not savin' anything except this--if you ain't
jealous you ain't in love.  Anyway, it's done.  I'll bet he's sorry
by this time."

"Come, George, you can't tell us that a brute like that has any
conscience.  Murderers haven't any feelings of that kind.  Hang 'em,
say I.  If we don't hang 'em we'll have people committin' murder
wholesale."

"I never heard of anybody, except maybe a raving lunatic like Jack
the Ripper, who wanted to commit more'n one murder," replied George.
"I've seen things, I tell you.  And them like Jack the Ripper ain't
responsible.  Besides, I'm not talking about conscience.  I'm
thinkin' about him bein' hunted up hill and down dale.  There ain't
much chance for him."

"That's true," said one with satisfaction.

"He can't get away," went on George; "at least, not far.  They've got
his description, and it was only last night the murder was done.
How'd you like, Tom, to be on the run, knowin' you were wanted
everywhere?  It would be a terrible feeling."

"I wouldn't commit murder," retorted Tom, doggedly.  "He brought it
on himself."

"I know.  I know.  I'm not taking his side.  I think he should be
caught.  But it seems to me that he is at a horrible disadvantage.
Think of what must be going on inside his brain just now.  He's bound
to know he'll be caught."

"That's true!"

The voice had come, forced as it were, from the fugitive.  He was
bending over his table, his fingers crumbling his bread nervously.
George turned in the man's direction and nodded sagely.

"Glad you agree with me, sir," he said.  "It isn't much of a chance
he has....  See you've been having a tramp around the district?  Lots
of folk come down this way on a walking tour.  There's the pilgrim's
path over the downs.  A nice walk that."

A silence fell on the room.  The man in the corner was staring
vacantly at the man called George.

"Speaking to me?" he asked, slowly.

"Yes, sir.  You agreed with me about this here murderer----"

"Did I?"

He did not know he had spoken.  His brain was not under his control,
and the reminder that he had addressed this man called George sent
his fears sky-high.

A footstep sounded in the age and a man stood on the threshold of
the taproom, beckoning to the landlord.  The murderer sank deeper
into the shadow.  The man who had beckoned to the landlord was a
policeman.

The landlord went out and there was a hum of conversation carried on
in low tones.  In a few minutes the landlord returned, his face grave
and solemn.

"That's Ben Turner, the constable," he announced.  "He says that
they've reason to think the murderer is in the district.  He left the
city on a bus last night----"

"The murderer?"

"Uh-huh.  He left his lodgings not half an hour before the cops went
there to get him.  He was easily traced.  He left his hat and plenty
of finger-prints, and a coat button."

The fugitive lowered his head still further and hid his face in his
arms, pretending to be asleep.  But his ears were open to catch every
word.

"And me, I was just saying," said the man called George, "that I
wouldn't like to have the feelings of that man.  Hunted for his life."

"What about the life he took, George?  It was a bad business.  He
battered that woman up terrible."

"There ain't much in a man that attacks a lone woman," cried one of
the countrymen.  "The sooner he's caught the better."

"Oh, he'll be caught all right," said George.  "They're always
caught.  They make mistakes."

"I'd like to think it," said the landlord, skeptically.  "Things
ain't safe with them kind about."

"Yes, they make mistakes," continued George, quietly.  "Even them
that plan murder and carry it out in cold blood.  Even them.  They
can't help it."

The murderer raised his head cautiously and saw George laying down
his tankard of beer to resume his speech.

"You see," said George, "they're bound to make mistakes.  A murderer
fleeing from the law is handicapped by the strain and anxiety of the
chase.  Just think of it!  He can't lie down and sleep in peace.  He
can't be seen in the daytime.  He daren't go near his friends.  The
police are watching his usual haunts.  They are at the railway
depots.  They are making inquiries everywhere.  There isn't a step a
murderer dare take that he must not test before he takes it.  The
telephone is working against him.  So is the telegraph.  So is the
wireless.  At the morning parade in every police headquarters this
morning this man's description has already been read out.  I tell you
a murderer's position is hopeless from the start.  Think of the
wearing effect on him.  England isn't so big.  No country is so big
that he can expect a getaway.  It isn't that his danger is ever over.
So long as he is uncaught he is in danger.  A murder charge hangs
fire for all his life.  And then, when his nerves are in rags, he
makes a false move, says an incriminating word--and he's done for!"

"Maybe that's true," said the landlord.  "How'd you come to know all
that, George?"

"I knows it by watching the foxes that rob the henroosts.  When you
corner a fox you can see the hopelessness in his eyes.  You may have
him treed, or just cornered.  It don't matter.  You can see him
making his bad moves.  You know he knows the fight is hopeless.  In
the end he gets desperate, reckless.  Then you've got him.  The same
with dogs.  And men, too.  Some men do one thing and some do another.
It all depends on their brains.  But sooner or later their brains
fail 'em.  The torture of being hunted tells.  The police know it
well enough.  I've talked it over with an inspector."

He turned toward the man in the corner, eager to find some one who
would agree with him.  But the man in the corner seemed to be asleep,
his cap drawn down over his forehead.  The landlord rubbed his chin.

"Wonder who he is?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.  "He's been
tramping the road.  Maybe looking for a job.  I thought he looked
like needing a wash----"

He crossed the room and laid a hand on the fugitive's shoulder.

"Gone asleep, sir?  Better wake up or your beer will go stale!"

The man lifted his head.  The landlord looked into the dirty, haggard
face.

"Hey, what's your name?" he cried, quickly.  "Where do you come from?"

For answer the man sprang to his feet and struck the landlord full on
the mouth, sending him staggering back across the room.  Then,
upsetting the table and his food and drink, he leaped forward and was
gone before a hand could be laid upon him.

As he raced past the window he heard the shouts of the men in the
taproom:

"The murderer!  It's the murderer!"

But Connolly ran on down the village street.  He had a glimpse of a
constable and a plain-clothes man emerging from the local police
headquarters as he fled past; then he dived down a side entrance to a
house, climbed over the wall at the bottom of the garden, and ran
across the meadows toward the river.

He had a good start.  A thick wood clothed the banks of the stream,
and beyond the wood was hilly country.  If he could gain the hills he
might hide until night and then make his way back to the city.  The
country, where he had expected to find security, was his enemy.  His
thoughts went back to London and its opportunities.  He saw his
mistake in coming to the country.  The old theory that a city is the
best place in which to hide pierced its way into his mind with
painful acuteness.  And as quick as it came this theory vanished.
What chance had he in London?  There were teeming millions, it was
true, moving about its streets; but there were thousands of
policemen.  No, the country was the place, after all!  The woods, and
the hills, where he could see his enemies from a distance!  He could
not see them, at least he could not distinguish them, among his
neighbors in London.

These thoughts flashed through his brain as he raced toward the river
and the woods.  They were not so much thoughts as impressions, swift
and fleeting.  He cast a glance behind him.  He was being pursued,
the policeman and the plain-clothes man in advance of others.  A
dozen people, mostly men, were strung out in the chase.  The hounds
and their quarry.

Connolly dashed into the river, which was not deep, and waded across.
Into the woods he ran, but when he saw a grassy slope beyond the
trees he knew that he would be caught before he reached the ravines
and wooded gullies farther ahead.  He rushed back to the river.

His pursuers were now on the opposite bank.  He heard them shouting
and saw them gesticulating.  He dodged behind the trees and
shrubbery, racing, bent almost double, into the thick undergrowth and
pushing along the bank.  Suddenly he burst through the shrubs and
found himself facing a small inlet, a backwater of green, slimy water
out of which reeds and rushes grew in profusion.  He plunged into the
almost stagnant place and found that the bottom was soft with ooze;
but it was not more than a foot or so deep.  He lay down among a
large clump of reeds, drawing them over his face as best he could.

It was terribly cold, but he did not feel the chill.  He hugged the
tall grasses and weeds, covering himself with them so that only his
face was above the surface, and that practically hidden.  He could
thus breathe.

Hardly had his arrangements been made when he heard his pursuers.
They were searching the wood.  The water around him was now smooth
and untroubled.  Peering through the grasses he saw, on the edge of
the inlet, the figure of the man called George.

"Seen him, George?" called a voice.  It was the policeman's voice.

George did not answer at once.  His eyes were sweeping the creek,
resting on every bunch of reeds slowly and critically.  Connolly felt
these eyes come to his clump.  He felt that George was gazing
straight at him, that their eyes had met.  A tremble ran through
Connolly's limbs.  He was about to leap up and make a dash for it,
when the voice of George answered the policeman's query:

"Expect he's through the wood and down in a hollow, Ben.  But he
can't escape.  He'll be caught all right."

The searchers moved off, going toward the ravines.

Connolly could have sworn that the man called George had seen
him--but that was evidently his own fears at work, his own nerves
making hay of his better judgment.  He raised his head and peered
about.  There was no sign of his pursuers.  But they might come back.
He crawled to the bank, a ghastly wretch covered with green slime and
dripping with water.  He was like a dirty water-snake.  Now that he
was free of the water of the inlet, he shivered.

He wrung the water from his garments as best he could and crawled
toward a thick oak, on his hands and knees, resting his back against
the trunk of the tree.  He was exhausted and worn.  His teeth
chattered, but that was not altogether the result of cold.

But he dared not lie there.  Already he seemed to hear voices in the
distance.  Some of those who had pursued him were returning, others
from the village were crossing the stream.  He was between two
forces.  Where could he find safety?  Upward!  He began to climb the
tree.

It was terrible labor, but desperation lent aid to his slipping feet
and clutching hands.  At last he reached a heavy branch.  He drew
himself up and toiled upward into the thick foliage.  Thus he found a
screen between him and those who sought him.  He looked down from a
fork where he was lying like a lizard.  He saw men and youths ing
below.  There were a few women, too.  Oh, how the whole world was
searching for him!  All wanted to hang him.  Strange how everybody
sought revenge for a crime with which they had nothing to do and
which they did not altogether understand.  All they knew was that he
had killed--and for that he must be killed.

He remained in the tree all day, undiscovered and unsuspected.  Men
moved about, but the wood had been searched so thoroughly that a
rabbit could not have remained on the ground unseen; nor a mouse, for
that matter.  It was not until evening that the searchers left the
wood and returned to the village.

What Connolly endured in that tree during that day only he and God
knew.  His clothes dried on him, becoming hard and uncomfortable.  He
could keep his perch only with the greatest difficulty; sometimes he
lay clasping the branch in a sort of wakeful dream.  Things assumed
unreal shapes and appearances.  But everything had been unreal from
the moment he had lifted his hand against the woman.  All was now a
distorted nightmare, a frightful, spectral phantasma that moved
ghost-like before him.  His very existence was a matter of doubt to
him.  And gnawing at him was his excruciating anguish of mind and
body that almost drove him frantic.

Time after time he drew aside the screen of foliage and looked about.
The village did not seem disturbed.  The houses were there, straight
walls and horizontal roofs.  The church steeple towered straight to
heaven.  Among the trees in the distance he saw a moving plume of
white smoke.  That was a train going to London.  London!

Twilight came, then night.  The lights in the village twinkled.  The
murderer lowered himself to the ground.  He was so stiff that he fell
when his feet touched the earth.  He staggered to his feet and rubbed
the blood of his body into circulation.  Wave upon wave of despair
swept over him.  Food had not ed his lips, except for a mouthful
at the inn, for twenty-four hours.  He lay down and drank greedily
from the muddy water of the creek.  That revived him a little.

At midnight the village was dark and quiet.  He came out of the wood.

Hunger was driving him--hunger and the necessity for action.  He
crouched low, like a hunted animal, with one idea in his mind.  He
must get to London.  In the country people did not stay up late.  He
could get food at all hours in London.  He had a little, a very
little, money, and he could sell the trinkets he had taken from her.
He crossed meadow after meadow, breaking his way through the hedges.
He had almost reached the highroad when the headlights of an
automobile swung round a corner and the roar of its engine filled his
ears.

Connolly stood still in his tracks.  His fears bawled at him that in
the car were other pursuers, more police from London to hem him in.
They were coming to the village.  The village would be raised against
him once more.  London would be up in arms, too, watching and waiting
to pounce on him.  What chance had he in London?  The same as he had
in the country, and that was nil.  Not a single chance anywhere!  He
dropped to the ground as the car rushed past him, so that the
headlights might not pick him out.  The act of dropping stirred his
resistance.  Was it true he had no chance?  Not a single chance?  He
threw himself down on the grass under cover of a hedge to think it
out.  Was he capable of thought?

"I can't go to London," he cried.  "They will be waiting at the
railway and on the buses.  And I can't walk.  But there is bound to
be a chance.  One chance!"

The stifling truth burst on him that he was not really fighting men
at all now.  He was fighting the emotionless, relentless machine
called the Law.  That machine was searching for him, outlawing him,
driving him to desperation and to thoughts of unspeakable reprisals.
His weariness was so heavy that it bore him into a state of
semi-consciousness.  He lay motionless under the hedge.

The hours ed.

He came back to himself as the gray dawn tinged the east.  For other
men it was a new day, born in hope and promising the glory of
achievement.  For him...!

After a while he raised himself to his knees, and so to his feet.  He
stepped into the highway.  A fierce resolution stirred within him.
He had an idea.

Not more than a hundred yards down the road a red brick villa stood
isolated.  The blinds were drawn.  But in the villa there must be
food, drink, clothing.

Connolly walked toward the house, slunk round to the back, and prised
open a window with his pocket knife.  In climbing over the sill his
foot caught a flower pedestal and sent it down with a crash.

If Connolly had any idea of retreating, he had no time to do so, for
the door of the room was flung open and the light was switched on.
An elderly man, clad in clerical garb, stood on the threshold.

He saw Connolly and the broken pedestal in one glance.

"Who are you?" he asked, not angrily, but puzzled and annoyed.  He
ed his thin fingers through his white hair as he advanced.

"You disturbed me at early study," he said.  "What do you want?"

Still Connolly did not answer.  The white-haired man was close to him
now.  His face was pale, and Connolly saw that his hands were
trembling.  The clergyman gazed hard at him.

"You are the murderer!"

Still Connolly did not answer.

"What do you want here?"

This time the fugitive replied, fiercely:

"Food.  Drink.  Clothes."

"Your name is Connolly?"

"It is."

"I recognized you from the pictures in the newspapers.  It was you
the village people chased."

"I want food," cried Connolly.

"I can give you food."

"I want drink."

"I can give you drink."

"I want a place to hide."

"I cannot give you that."

They stared at each other, this desperate, worn-out man who was a
murderer, and the old priest.

"There is no sanctuary here," said the priest in a low tone.  "The
days of sanctuary are long past."

Connolly groaned.

"The church can offer you only one thing."

"What?" cried Connolly.

"Repentance!"

Again Connolly groaned.

Suddenly the spark of resentment that flickered in him blazed up.

"I could kill you, too!" he shouted.

"I know.  Would that help you in any way?"

Connolly had expected opposition.  The ission startled him
strangely.  It was as if the words had disarmed him.  They left him
more confused than ever.

"Give me," he pleaded, "give me a chance to get away."

"I dare not."

"What?"

"The law forbids it."

Connolly's last hope crashed.  He recollected, in a fumbling way,
that he had asked this priest to do something that would bring him
under the lash of the Law--that rigid, unrelaxing force that was on
his own trail, that machine that was mightier than any individual.

The longer he stayed in that house the nearer the Law would creep
until it laid its hand on him.  He turned and was halfway out of the
window when he heard the voice of the priest:

"Stay here and you shall have food and drink.  It is all I dare give
you.  All except my prayers----"

Connolly heard no more.  He was racing out toward the highroad.

He crossed the meadows again and reached the river bank.  Some
distance ahead he saw a figure seated on the slope.  He crept forward
and saw that this man was fishing.  By his side was an open basket
and a pile of sandwiches lay on an open handkerchief.  Connolly
recognized the figure.  The fisher was the man called George.

Connolly was being driven by hunger.  He picked up a heavy stick,
part of a fallen branch of a tree, that lay on the open ground.  He
crept toward the man.

He was within a few feet of George when he stood up, raising the
stick above his head.  But he did not strike.  The man turned his
head and looked at him.  Connolly dropped the stick and dashed into
the river, wading rapidly to the other side.

He climbed the muddy bank and walked toward the village.

The man called George followed him, but the murderer took no notice.

He reached the village street and strode into the inn.  The landlord
behind the bar saw him and shouted:

"It is the murderer!  Seize him!"

The murderer made no attempt to escape.  The man called George was
behind him and a policeman was coming in at the door.  As he came
forward Connolly held out his hands for the handcuffs.  When they
were fastened on his wrists he sat down with a strange, savage
satisfaction and looked up at the man called George.

"I could have killed you also," he cried.  "But that would never have
given me what I want most."

The man called George nodded sagely.

"I know," he said in a soft tone.  "I saw you in the creek yesterday.
I knew you stayed in the wood all day.  I know how you felt.  I have
been a warder in my day.  You murderers are all the same.  You are
your own prosecutors.  Only yourselves can give you what you want
most."

"What did he want most, George?" asked the landlord.  "Why did he
give himself up so easy?"

The answer came from the murderer as he rose to go with the constable.

"The fox is treed!" he cried, wearily.  "Can a man fight a nation?
Take me to be hanged!  At last I can rest!"




CHAPTER VI

_The Judge States His Third Case_

The waiter rose to his feet and pointed to the fire, which had died
down during his recital.

"Perhaps you would be good enough to put some coal on," he said.
"You will find plenty in the coal box."

The judge, whose chin was resting on the back of his hand, seemed
deep in reflection; but he stirred at the suggestion.

"Are you forgetting yourself?  You are the servant here, are you not?"

"Please do not let me insist.  If I turned my back to you it is
possible that you would have a temptation to do what Connolly was
tempted to do to the man called George.  It would have regrettable
results.  But if you do not feel cold----"

The judge put plenty of coal on the fire and returned to his chair.
His manner was austere and distant.  The waiter had pushed the
minute-book in front of the judge's chair and was still standing.
Not until the judge resumed his seat did the waiter sit down.

A silence fell on the room, broken only by the crackle of the coal on
the fire.  The other  of the Clue Club gave no sign of life.
They sat or reclined in strange attitudes, heaped in their chairs as
dead men.

From the street outside came the sound of singing and music.
Christmas waits were heralding the approach of the new day.

"I promised you," said the waiter, "that I should answer your query
about Abe Lammie's case when I had related the climax of Jeff S.
Connolly's career.  I propose to do so right away.  First of all, I
take it from what you have said that you belong to that school of
crime students who believe there is such a thing as a 'born
criminal': that, because of certain characteristics, some men and
women are natural lawbreakers."

"I certainly believe that there is a criminal class," declared the
judge, somberly.

"Precisely.  You follow the teachings of Lombroso, who compiled
charts to show that these characteristics presented physical traits
such as receding foreheads, heavy jaws, and so on.  But you may not
be aware that at a meeting of students of criminal anthropology at
Geneva it was successfully proved that most of the students
themselves were not free from such traits.  In a word, one has only
to observe some of our most respected and most blameless leaders in
the Church, in the legal or other professions, to see similar traits.
This proves that charts and tables are unreliable guides.  You cannot
hang a man for his facial expression.  Come, do not you see in me
some of the facial traits that you yourself possess?"

The judge cast a melancholy look on the waiter but did not answer.
He regarded the comparison as excessively impudent.

"If you will not it what I suggest, then I must be content with my
own belief.  And you are a judge of the Criminal Court, while I am
one who has stood in the dock.  Luckily for you, our positions are
not reversed!"

The waiter was becoming positively insulting.  The judge remained
silent.  But he was thinking of how he would deal with this man when
he came up for judgment!

"Opposed to the theory of Lombroso," went on the waiter, "is the
classical school of thought founded, I think, by Beccaria, who held
that, though every man had free will, the same punishment would not
be just if applied to every case.  This meant that while the crimes
might be the same, the responsibility was not.  These conflicting
theories, I fancy, were the cause of the founding of the American
Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology.  The city of Chicago,
perhaps appropriately, was the cradle of this organization.

"One result of this classification of crime and its causes has been
the inevitable classification of offenses.  This has led to confusion
indeed.  A man may be executed for being accessory to killing another
person, but he cannot be hanged for attempting to commit suicide.
Cornering the food supplies of a nation so that people die is not
illegal; but if a clergyman defies the rubric and substitutes his own
form of service, he may be haled before a judge and jury, and
severely punished.  At one time it was a grave offense to refuse to
listen to a sermon on Sunday.  At the present time emigration is
encouraged by governments where formerly it was illegal.  Even now
there is no clear distinction between a felony and a misdemeanor,
except the vague understanding that the one is a more serious offense
than the other."

"Are you reading _me_ a lesson on law?" interposed the judge,
sarcastically.

"I am merely pointing to the confusion that exists in the penal code.
This confusion exists to a fearful extent in the matter of judgment
of death.  You know as well as anybody that cases of depravity from
the East End of cities are dealt with much more harshly than
depravity that comes from the West End.  Please do not deny it.
There is plenty of proof.  But to return to the cases of Lammie and
Connolly.  The root fact of these two murders, committed by these two
men, is that they had their origin in conditions that punishment can
never cure."

"You mean that the law can never cure such criminals?" demanded the
judge.

"Judgment of death can only obliterate the offenders."

"That is all the law desires to do, for the plain reason that society
must be protected.  These executions act as deterrents."

"Have you stopped murder since the days of Cain?  And yet----"

"You have the wrong end of the argument, my friend.  The judgment of
death is not only a deterrent; it is necessary for the reason that
the law considers the lives of its citizens to be sacred----"

The judge could not continue, owing to the guffaw of derisive
laughter with which the waiter interrupted his speech.

"What a legal mind you have, to be sure!" cried the waiter,
scornfully.  "Why, your law of judgment of death, while it pretends
to regard life as sacred, violates its pretense by destroying life!"

The judge made a gesture of dissent, but the Waiter pursued his
attack.

"In the case of Abe Lammie, The Mole," he shouted in his earnestness,
"society was as much to blame as he.  It started him off with every
encouragement to develop the very traits in his mental make-up that
you declare are criminal traits.  _Yet you have the audacity to take
his life for being what you expected him to be!_  Is that logical, I
ask you?"

"Every man has free will----"

"For a judge you do not show any marked clarity of thought, my lord.
You apparently want to stand with a foot in the camp of Lombroso and
a foot in the camp of Beccaria.  It will not do.  I cannot allow such
loose thinking.  And I am the judge in this room.  What is your
defense?  Do you found it on Lombroso's teachings or on the school of
Beccaria?  I am waiting."

The judge shifted his position and bit his lip.  It was all
intolerable; but what could he do?  He became irritable.

"I am not here to be cross-examined, or even examined, sir.  I am
here----"

The waiter's long fingers gripped the handle of the bludgeon used by
the barbarian Kartarus.

The judge faltered, coughed, and resumed.

"I am here to conduct my own case as I think fit.  We are engaged on
a discussion, each giving proof and  to his words by
quotations from this minute-book.  I say that every man has free will
and must abide the result and consequence of his actions."

"Then I take it that you agree with Beccaria.  But he argued for
grades in responsibility?"

"Never mind what he argued.  There is one law and one consequence for
those who take life.  I do not it that I subscribe to the
conclusions of any theorist.  I insist that man has free will."

"Alas! one may insist too much.  You must know that there are two
forces that govern conduct.  A low mentality, urged forward by low
hereditary instincts and inclinations, will break into crime sooner
than a high mentality influenced by higher considerations.  At the
same time it is true that temptation plays a powerful hand in all of
us.  There is a point in everyone that marks the limit of our
resistance to external and internal urgings.  Society, the social
system, made The Mole what he was externally.  His heredity largely
made him what he was internally.  He knew the effect of the
contributory causes of his criminal inclinations without being able
to diagnose them--gambling, ill-health, drink, unemployment, poverty,
and so on.  He laid the blame for these conditions on society.  The
mistake of which the penal code is so often guilty is that it is
retaliatory when it ought to be reformatory.  Force proves nothing.
So long as you continue to believe in the existence of a criminal
class you will make criminals; and so long as you make them you will
be compelled to kill them.  Therefore the penal code had no moral or
logical right to make Abe Lammie and to take his life for being what
he was.  In not a few cases society ought to stand in the dock
instead of the prisoner.  Therefore I claim and take another point."

The waiter put out his hand and added a third glass to his collection.

"With regard to Jeff S. Connolly," he continued with a kind of bland
impertinence, "there was the unreasoning, terrible motive of jealousy
at work.  When this is allied, or applied, to the sex impulse it
becomes irresistible.  Is love a species of madness?  The divine
ion!  Even Jehovah, the Jewish tribal God, declared that he had
pangs of jealousy.  Is not all deep emotion a sort of madness?  It is
an excess; and excess means lack of balance.  In several European
countries there never would have been any judgment of death on
Connolly.  Has not the unwritten law been successfully advocated?
That is not to say that Connolly would have been allowed to go free.
But tell me, has your lordship's life been so blameless that unruly
ion has never overthrown all else?"

The judge started; his hand fell on the table and remained there.  He
was about to cry out in protest, but the other's voice restrained him.

"What profound truth," cried the waiter, "was in the exclamation of
Richard Baxter, the preacher, when he saw a criminal led to his
doom--'There, but for the grace of God, go I!'"

The waiter paused impressively.

"Really, it was not much of a triumph for the law to hang Jeff S.
Connolly.  Hunted and harried, there was no place for him in this
world.  In a moment of frenzy he had reverted to the primitive and
had visited unfaithfulness with death.  The penal code retaliated by
setting all its machinery in motion that it might inflict a second
death.  Did the execution of Jeff S. Connolly protect society in the
very slightest?  Protect?  Did his decease alleviate in any degree
the anguish of the first death?"

The waiter seemed to be carried away by his own vehemence.  His long
forefinger pointed accusingly at the judge.

"Fool!  Don't you see that here is an answer to those who say, like
you, that imprisonment would be no punishment to a murderer?
Tortured to extremity, Jeff S. Connolly asked for execution.  He
desired death as a release.  You gave it him as a punishment!
Futility of finality!"

Again the waiter's mood changed.  He assumed an air of judicial
gravity, an air that reminded the judge of his own manner on the
Bench.

"I give a verdict against the plea for judgment of death in this case
also," he said as he lifted a fourth glass.  "Will your lordship
please open the next case for the defense?"

The waiter leaned back in his chair.

The judge stroked his chin, a trifle nervously, but thoughtfully.

He was not afraid of this man who seemed to have lost his senses; but
he did not wish to arouse any hostility.  The truth was that the
judge did not know whether to take the waiter seriously or as a
preposterous lunatic.  A little of the self-assurance of the judge
was departing from him, however, and he was smarting under the
reproofs he had received.  His legal mind, trained to argument, was
strongly opposed to surrender.  His life was one of domination, in
his court he was supreme.  Even if this was a crazy man who was
baiting him, he was a crazy man with whom the judge was beginning to
get really angry.

The judge had been insulted.  He had been called a fool.  Moreover,
the judge felt the advantage of the discussion--the mere logical
advantage--slipping from him.  He regretted having accepted the
challenge of this waiter, but, having accepted it, his self-respect
cried aloud to him to smash his opponent by argument.

"May I remind your lordship that time is ing?  Have you any other
case to offer?  You made a remark a moment ago about the judgment of
death being a deterrent----"

"As a matter of fact," interrupted the judge, harshly, "I was
thinking of that very statement.  If I recollect clearly, it was that
very declaration that brought forth your contemptuous laughter.  You
must know the old proverb about he who laughs last.  The murder which
Nathaniel Gore committed will prove my point that execution is a
deterrent.  I sentenced Nathaniel Gore to death in spite of a plea of
insanity that was ill-advisedly put forward.  It was the last time I
put on the black cap before going for my long vacation the following
morning.  Gore was hanged in due course, a man whose vanity brought
him to the scaffold."

The judge turned over the leaves of the minute-book, read a few
words, and threw back his head as if to sum up to a jury.


THE VAIN MURDERER

One point that I have repeatedly observed about criminals brought
before me for sentence [said the judge, ponderously] is not their
cleverness in covering up their tracks, but the amazing carelessness
they exhibit in providing clues for the police to work on.  This
subject has on more than one occasion been discussed by the 
of this club.  To put the matter quite frankly, a great many
criminals--indeed, practically all--might just as well leave their
names and addresses so that the authorities could call and arrest
them at home.  This lack of precaution is well known to the police
both here and in America.

What is the reason for this seeming indifference to consequences?  We
have talked it over many times in this very room and we have come to
a definite decision.  It is that in all these lawbreakers there is an
inordinate amount of vanity.

In every class of crime this vanity may be observed, and not least in
the crime of murder.  Some people are so ill-balanced that they
actually invest the murderer with a kind of romanticism that is as
false as it is misplaced.  As for the murderers themselves, they
often exhibit a conceit, even in the dock, that is truly amazing and
truly ostentatious folly.  The most vain man who ever received
sentence at my hand was Nathaniel Gore.

To begin with, Gore was brought into court on a stretcher.  He had
sustained certain injuries at the time of his capture, and he had the
questionable distinction of being the only criminal who was saved
from death by drowning and brought to police headquarters by
airplane.  The whole circumstances of his crime and arrest had a
certain amount of pictorial sensationalism that caused the court
during his trial to be crowded to overflowing.  All this added to his
vanity.  But the law was not to be moved from its pursuit of justice,
and Nathaniel Gore was hanged.

Lord Brougham said once, with his usual acuteness, that the whole
machinery of the state ended simply in bringing twelve good men into
a box.  In no case that I  was this majestic simplicity of
the Law revealed more tersely and directly than in the trial of Gore.
The cheap notoriety in which he bathed was a tawdry ment for
him and was, in the end, completely submerged in the stark
unaffectation of the scaffold.

As might be expected, Gore was not a common, petty criminal.  He went
after glittering prizes, and when the news of the find of a great
diamond in the South African fields came to be known it attracted him.

The diamond was not so big as the famous Pitt gem, which was over
four hundred carats weight when taken from the ground.  It was not so
big as the cut and polished Koh-i-noor, which is now in the British
Crown and turns the scale at one hundred and six carats.  But it was
the biggest that had come out of a South African mine for generations.

The illustrated journals printed photographs of the diamond on view
in Johannesburg behind barred windows, guarded by a squad of armed
police.  Then came the information that the diamond was being sent to
England.  It was this news that made Nathaniel Gore form his resolve.

By diligent and diplomatic inquiry he discovered the name of the ship
on which the diamond was being transported, and also the amount of
the  the insurance people demanded during transit from the
Cape to Hatton Garden, London's diamond market.  When he had found
out from the shipping list that the liner had sailed, he realized
that he had less than three weeks in which to plan and execute the
theft.  Once the diamond was landed, it would be so well guarded that
no attempt could be made with much hope of success; the place to
snatch the diamond was on the high seas.

Nathaniel Gore had not the appearance of a burglar.  He was small,
and he looked and dressed like a successful man about town.  He was
known in the West End of London as well as he was known on Fifth
Avenue, New York.  He had at one time actually been a guest in a
house on Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, when he lifted precious stones
from a shop in that city and got away with them.  He boasted about
this.  There is no doubt that, in spite of his vanity, he certainly
knew gems and their values with uncanny thoroughness.  Peculiarly
enough, he never bragged about this expert knowledge, the one thing
that was his real accomplishment.  He seemed to "lift" gems without
any more swagger--except in the Chicago case--than an ordinary
business man exhibits about his business capacity.  He could tell
offhand the weight of the Orloff, the Regent, the Florentine, the
Hope, and other famous diamonds and could name their owners and their
histories.

He had been a convict, which means that he had been cared for by the
state.  He had been housed, fed, clothed, steam-heated, nourished,
and made entirely healthy.  But his vanity went everywhere with him.
In prison he regarded himself as superior to his fellow prisoners.
Out of it he posed as if he were superior to the law and general
rules of conduct.  He had worked very little in his life, and when
asked to make mail-bags during his period of incarceration he
protested that the labor would injure his hands.  He was therefore
sent to the quarry, where his hands suffered considerably more.

But when he returned to freedom he became the same dandy he had been
before he was convicted.  He had the appearance of an overgrown
jockey.  In his vanity he employed perfume to add to his conceit.  He
was a great favorite with women.  If they did not love him they
certainly had affection for him; as for him, he loved himself too
well to spare any for anybody else.

One thing his imprisonment had done for him: it had taught him more
than he had ever known about the methods of the police.  In court the
prosecuting counsel itted that this was certainly the cleverest
crime Gore had ever planned.  But then, there was a woman in it, and
the probability is that she had a hand in the scheme.

His object, then, after deciding to steal, was to look out for a
means of escape.  Attack, then take cover.  Strike, then run.
Assuredly it was a woman's plan.  Gore never doubted his ability to
take the diamond.

In one way circumstances favored him greatly.  The ship was actually
bringing the gem nearer to him every day.  The diamond was in charge
of the purser, locked in a safe in his room.  There was no need to
search for it.  This floating hotel was merely a strong-room, and
Gore was able to break open any strong-room.  But this moving
strong-room, unless he could leave it swiftly, might become a prison
wagon.

There was only one port at which the ship called before she arrived
at Southampton.  This port was Madeira.  Gore decided that the coup
must be brought off between Madeira and Southampton and as near the
latter port as possible.  It was at this stage that the necessity for
an accomplice became evident.

Gore did not usually work with anyone else, but the circumstances
were stronger than his conceit.  He might meet the liner at Madeira
and take the diamond there; but Madeira was an island from which
escape would be difficult.  On the other hand, Southampton was well
situated for his design.  The Solent was not such a broad arm of the
sea that it could not be negotiated; and from the Isle of Wight to
 was less than a day's, or a night's, journey.

The woman whom we believed aided him was one named Chicago Anne.  She
was from that city, a blonde of great attraction, one of a fast set
not above crime of this kind.  But she was wary.  She made the plan
to a large extent, and then introduced him to an international crook
named Archer.  Archer was promised a certain portion of the proceeds.
The three of them traveled down to Southampton, surveyed the coast,
and decided details.  Then Archer left with his part of the scheme to
carry out.  Chicago Anne returned to London with him.

Gore remained in Southampton, where, through a local agent, he booked
a age to Madeira on a sister ship of the incoming liner.  She was
due to sail the next day and would reach Madeira several days before
the other ship arrived there on her homeward run.  Under an assumed
name a age was booked homeward by Gore on the ship bearing the
diamond.

His luggage consisted of one handbag, and from the moment he stepped
on the outgoing liner he concentrated on his job.  He kept to the
deck during the age down the Solent.  He noted the lights on the
shore and the position of the sea beacons.  When the Needles were
ed and the open sea made the vessel roll he turned to a study of
the ship.

There was a large plan of the vessel in the saloon and he examined
this carefully.  He noted that his cabin--that is, the cabin on his
return journey--was situated within easy distance of the purser's
room.  He became friendly with the stewards, from whom he gained
valuable information.  He asked for, and obtained, a seat at the
purser's table in the dining-room.  To this official he made himself
affable, and often he visited the purser's room on pretense of
getting information about general matters.  But he watched and noted.

He took care to acquire a knowledge of the movements of the staff,
the routine of the daily work, a detailed outline of the life on
board.  By the time he reached Madeira he could have told fairly
accurately what was being done by the various officers at any hour.

He spent the waiting days on the island; and when the incoming liner
arrived he went on board as soon as possible.  In twelve hours the
voyage to England was resumed and the second stage in the plan to
steal the diamond had opened.

The liner had a full complement of engers.  In the smoke-room no
secret was made of the fact that the celebrated gem was on board.
Some of the engers had seen it when it was on view in
Johannesburg.  They described how it had been discovered by a colored
worker in the mine and how it had been guarded from that moment.  It
was being brought to London to be shown to experts before being sent
to the cutters in Amsterdam.  Its value was put at varying figures,
none of which was less than fifty thousand pounds.

"What is its ultimate destination?" asked one of the engers.

"Nobody knows," was the reply.

Nathaniel Gore smiled.  He was the only man who knew!

Off St. Vincent the weather thickened and a stormy crossing of the
Bay of Biscay was predicted.  The prediction was accurate.  By the
time they were over the forty-fifth latitude most of the engers
were in their cabins, many in their bunks.  There were empty saddles
at every table in the dining-saloon.

Gore kept his feet by strength of will, and vanity.  He had not been
able to get into close touch with the purser of this vessel, owing to
the number of people on board; but the bad weather gave him his
opportunity.  He waited until the ship's bar was closed and then he
went to the purser to ask for a dose of brandy.  But the purser was
not a talkative man.  He was civil, but uncommunicative.  He did not
invite Gore to sit down; but Gore did not retreat.  He stood in the
cabin, sipping the brandy and watching.  He saw the small safe built
into the ing of the wall.  That was enough for him.

The Bay was crossed and gradually the engers returned to the
deck.  The English Channel was smooth.  The liner picked up speed.
She ed the Wolf Rock.  Land's End loomed up mistily through the
haze.  The Lizard came into view.  The Eddystone Light stood in the
sea like a white pillar.  Gore rubbed his hands in anticipation.  The
crisis was approaching.

He was not nervous about it.  He never was nervous.  He stayed mostly
in his cabin until the ship drew well up the Channel.  Then her speed
slackened.  Night came.  Gore went down to dinner that evening as
usual, and immediately it was over he strolled on deck.  He looked
ahead, muttering the names of the lights that glittered in the soft,
mellow darkness.

"Over there is Bournemouth, then Hengistbury Head, the Needles, St.
Catherine's Point----  Ah, there is Anne--and Archer!"

Some distance ahead a light on a masthead swayed against the sky.
Chicago Anne and Archer were waiting, as had been planned.  Nathaniel
Gore calculated the distance quickly.  He had received a wireless
from Anne and Archer.  The moment had arrived.  He went down the
stairs from the deck.

It was late by this time and practically all the engers had
turned in for the night.  But Gore did not go to his berth.  He
walked along the age to the purser's room.

The door was closed.  He tried the handle.  It turned.  He pushed the
door open and stepped inside, closing it behind him.  The purser was
sitting at his table, writing.  He looked up.

"Good evening, purser."

"What do you want?"

"Oh, I knew you were writing up your s.  I dropped in----"

"What do you want?"

The official's hand dropped toward a drawer under his desk.

"I have come to take the diamond," said Nathaniel Gore.  "Lift your
hand out of that drawer!"

In his own right hand he held a small revolver, the barrel of which
was pointed straight at the purser.

The purser did as he was bid.

"I have come to take the diamond," repeated Gore, smiling.

That was all.  There was no melodramatic flourish to his speech.  He
might have been asking for a match to light his cigar.

The purser was an old seaman, cool, quiet, not given to excitability.
Most people would have leaped up and been shot.  The purser did not
show any sign of fear or surprise.  He put his hands openly on the
desk in front of him and shook his head.

"I did not expect you to come for it with a gun," he said.

"Come, you did not expect me at all!"

"You bet I did.  There are two men on this ship after the diamond.
One came aboard at Capetown.  We know his plans as well as he knows
them himself.  But you came aboard at Madeira and your real name is
Nathaniel Gore.  You are a gem-lifter, and until now you have never
carried a gun."

It was Gore's turn to be surprised, but he kept his eyes on the
purser.  "How did you know my name?"

"We have wireless, you know.  The liner on which you went out to
Madeira had it from Scotland Yard that you probably were aboard.
They knew, I expect, that this diamond would tempt you.  I don't know
any more than that.  But we got it from our sister ship as she ed
us that you had disembarked at Madeira."

"And the other man?"

"He is on this ship still.  He hasn't tried to steal the diamond, for
his plans are to get it--if he can--at the docks--and we have taken
precautions.  He won't take it."

"No," agreed Gore, "he won't.  The diamond is in that safe."

"It is."

"So _I'll_ take it."

"I may object."

"You can count yourself out."

"I don't know about that.  But in any case there is another factor."

"What is it?"

"The fact that we are at sea."

"Meaning?"

"Even if you took it you could not keep it.  You could not land with
it."

"You think not?"

"There is also another matter."

"What is it?"

"Listen!"

The sound of hurrying feet on the age outside burst on their
ears.  Gore stepped back and slid the heavy bolt home just as
somebody shook the handle and demanded entrance.

"That is the skipper and one or two others," explained the purser,
shrugging his shoulders.

"You signaled to them?"

"I did with a push-button under the table here.  We had the alarm
fixed up for daytime.  At night a regular burglar alarm is fastened
to the door."

"That was very clever."

"I thought you would it it.  You are caught."

"Are you sure?"

"Don't you agree?"

The voices outside grew louder in their demands for entrance.  Gore
was still smiling.

"No," he said, "I don't agree.  Look out of the port."

The purser turned his head and saw lights twinkling straight ahead.
About a thousand yards up the Channel a masthead lantern bobbed.

"You see, I have no time to waste," said Gore.  "I want the key of
the safe."

"The key?  Why, man, you are caught like a rat in a trap!"

"Very well, I shall shoot if you don't hand it over."

The purser was about to leap to his feet and resist the threat when
Gore shot him squarely between the eyes.

It was deliberate murder, prompted and dictated by vanity.

Nathaniel Gore had never previously carried a gun on a job.  He had
been, up to this crime, free from violence in his methods.  But one
of the points in the defense which his counsel put forward at his
trial was that the woman, Chicago Anne, had so worked on his natural
conceit that he had promised her he would kill rather than fail.

It is possible that she had her own reasons for prevailing on him to
take a weapon he had never previously carried.  To please a woman a
man may do abnormal acts.  To make himself a hero in her eyes he may
risk his own life--and lose it.

From the moment he fired that fatal shot Nathaniel Gore concentrated
with all his skill on the object of his visit.  The purser had been
marking time, holding him in conversation so that aid would come,
believing that Gore would surrender when he heard the officers at the
door.  But Gore could not now surrender, even if he was willing.  He
never intended to let himself be taken.

Paying no attention to the noise in the age, he rummaged in
drawers and in the dead man's pockets for the key he wanted.  He
found it, and opened the safe.  There, in a drawer of the safe, was a
packet, square in shape and sealed on all sides.  He tore off the
covering and took a hurried glance inside the morocco case to make
sure.  The famous African diamond was before his eyes.

It looked like a piece of rough crystal, but Gore had seen uncut
stones many times and knew the value of his loot.  He pushed the case
into his pocket as the first stroke of an ax fell on the  of the
door--an ax wielded by an officer in the age.

Gore's next movements were rapid.  He snapped off the electric light
and put his gun into the hand of the dead purser, closing the
stiffening fingers over it.  He grabbed a life-jacket from under a
locker.  Without waiting to put it on, he jumped to the porthole just
as the bobbing masthead light was ing astern.  Then he climbed
out.

Being a small man, it was not a very difficult matter.  He dropped
into the sea, holding the life-jacket; and as he dropped he heard the
cabin door give way before the assaults of the officers.  But he had
beaten them by less than a minute.  They had not seen him.

Next instant the sea roared in his ears and he was whirled through a
cataract of boiling water.

He was a fair swimmer.  As he slid out of the porthole he leaped far
out so that he might keep clear of the propellers.  He made a few
powerful strokes outward as he was swung astern, but he was dragged
down into a vortex.  When he came to the surface, lungs bursting, he
was considerably shaken by the turmoil; but the life-jacket gave him
buoyancy and as he gasped for air he saw the liner forging ahead.
Beyond the shaking, he was uninjured.

He clung to the life-jacket as he bobbed about on the troubled sea;
then, after recovering his breath, he tied the cork jacket in a rough
fashion around his body and floated easily.  He expected the boat
containing Archer and Chicago Anne to bear down in his direction, and
he kept his gaze on the masthead light, watching for a flash message
from the vessel.  To his surprise, the light did not move.  No flash
came.

He did not doubt that Archer had recognized the ship, for that was
part of Archer's job.  He and Anne were to hire a large fishing-boat
at Cowes, a boat with an auxiliary engine, and come down the Solent
and wait for the liner coming up.  The spot of  had been
agreed upon.  Only that morning he had received a code message to say
all was well.  The rendezvous was well defined.

Gore swam easily toward the light.  The sea was fairly calm.  He was
not in any danger of sinking, but the water was cold and numbing.
The liner from which he had dropped was now far ahead.  It had not
slackened its speed.  All this was very satisfactory to Gore.  He
chuckled as he pictured the expression of the captain when he entered
the purser's room.

Indeed, the actual facts were even more in favor of Gore than he
dreamed.  The captain and his officers had seen the dead purser, in
whose hand was the discharged gun.  They had come to the conclusion
that the purser had come to his room, had seen the safe rifled, had
pressed the alarm, and had shot himself in despair.  Not knowing that
Gore had gone out of the porthole, they presumed the thief was still
aboard and that they would get him at the landing-stage.  They were
already wirelessing to the shore authorities.

As for Gore, he anticipated that he and his confederates would be on
French soil before the police had moved sufficiently to prevent them.
The rest was easy.

It was not until he was near the swaying light that Gore realized
that this was not the boat he expected to reach.  This was a big
vessel.  She lay high in the water.  Not a light showed on her save
the one at her masthead and another he could now see at what was
either her stern or her stem.  Was it possible Archer was on this
ship?  The single light--that was the signal.

Gore had to get out of the water.  He was beginning to feel the drag
of his clothes.  He was tiring rapidly.  He swam desperately for the
ship, his mind busy with a false story he could present to her people
if Archer were not there.  He could leave the getting away to such
opportunity as presented itself.  For the time being his tale would
be that he had fallen overboard from a private yacht.

"Ahoy!  Ahoy!"

He hailed repeatedly.

No answering hail came to him.  He called again and again.  No sound
replied to his calls.  He toiled laboriously toward her heavy anchor
chains and rested until he felt strong enough to climb.  He climbed
like a cat out of the sea.

By the time he reached the deck he was faint with exhaustion.  He
stumbled over the bulwarks and shouted once more.  Not a soul was to
be seen, not a light on the deck.  He picked his painful way among
the planks.  There were holes here and there and what seemed broken
gear.  The door of the deckhouse was open, swinging on its hinges.
He entered, calling for some one to come to him.  There was no
answer.  The truth struck him like a blow.  He had swum to a deserted
ship, a hulk anchored well out from the shore.

At first he was wild with rage at the mistake, but his anger died
down quickly.  What was a better hiding-place until the morning, or
until Archer came?  He sat down and wrung the water from his clothes
as best he could, at the same time keeping his eyes on the ocean now
and then to pick out Archer's craft.  But Archer did not come, though
a few ships ed at a distance.  Once he thought he saw Archer's
boat.  It sailed slowly down and turned again.  Yes, that was Archer
all right, plying up and down for him.  But the boat was too far off
for Archer to hear his voice.  Well, Archer would keep plying up and
down until dawn.  He had got the message all right.  Archer knew him
better than conclude that he would drown.  No, Nathaniel Gore was not
the man to drown with a fortune in his pocket!  This was his vanity
speaking again.

The small boat ed out of sight and Gore prepared to snatch an
hour's sleep.  He was very tired and must have rest.  He curled
himself up in a corner of the deck; but he did not sleep well.  In
spite of every effort to be warm he remained cold.  He went down a
companionway and reached a lower deck.  He felt his way along,
hearing rats running from before his advance.  He reached what he
thought was the galley.  There seemed to be a stove, but he had no
matches.  But he found a pile of shavings, and he carried several
armfuls up to the deck and made a sort of rough bed for himself.  He
lay down and closed his eyes.

Dawn awoke him with a brightness that cheered him wonderfully.  He
sat up and gazed about the ship.  It puzzled and amused him.  It was
the strangest vessel he had ever seen.  Bags of shavings were piled
around the stern.  A heap of them lay in the bows.  The deck was
cracked and broken.  The ironwork was red with rust.

The sun came out from behind a cloud and flooded the sea with warm
rays.  Gore sat on the crazy deck and examined the diamond he had
stolen.  He was now a rich man, so rich that it intoxicated him to
think of it.  If only Archer would come now!

A faint droning sound caused him to look toward the land.  A headland
jutted out in the distance from the main line.  He jumped to his
feet.  That headland!  He knew it.  There could be no question about
that headland.  He knew every line of the coast that stretched into
the morning mist.  He was not facing the rendezvous.  He was facing
Portland Bill!

How had he come to make such an error in his calculations?  He had
the ship's speed down to a mathematical fraction.  She was due to
dock at a certain hour.  He had worked it out carefully.  He had
traced it on a chart; every day so much; every day so much.  And then
it occurred to him.  He had worked out the speed and the distance,
but had forgotten to look at the log for corroboration.  The storm in
the Bay of Biscay had delayed the liner!

His thoughts were interrupted by the droning sound he had heard.  It
was louder now, like the hum of an automobile.  He looked upward.
Coming up over the headland he saw several airplanes, rising rapidly
against the heavens like wasps.  The sun flashed on their wings.  He
watched them as they came out to sea swiftly--one, two, three, four,
five, six--forming an arrow-head shape of remarkable evenness.

Now they flew higher still.  They were over him now, droning louder
than ever.  Battle formation!  They hovered for a moment, circled,
shut off their engines and swooped.  A sudden spark burst from the
first plane, and Nathaniel Gore's brain cleared.  He leaped to the
side of the ship and threw himself over just as a falling bomb hit
the deck and exploded in a thunderous roar that shook the world.

Nathaniel Gore just saved his life by that small fraction of time;
but he was terribly injured.  One of the observers of the planes
spotted him as he went overboard.  He was picked up and carried
ashore.  In the hospital they found the diamond in his pocket.

The ship on board which he had climbed, you see, was an old hulk
which had been towed out and anchored so that the Air Force might
sink her in bombing practice.




CHAPTER VII

_The Walter States His Third Case_

"Congratulations!" exclaimed the waiter, clapping his hands
noiselessly together.  "My lord, your dramatic sense is springing to
life!  I doubt if I could have told that case more effectively."

"You seem to have a high estimate of your abilities," retorted the
judge, frigidly.

"On the contrary, I have--or had--a low one of yours."

"You are damnably impertinent, sir!"

The waiter bent forward and his face assumed a severe expression.  He
shook his forefinger at the judge.

"Another word of such language and I shall commit you for contempt of
court!" he cried.  "It is intolerable that the dignity of this
assembly should be lowered by the vulgar parlance of the taproom.  I
give you an opportunity to apologize to ourselves before I send you
to a place where you shall have leisure to reflect on your
indiscretion!"

No wonder the judge gasped.  The words thus addressed to him were his
own--the very warning he had uttered to a prisoner but recently in
his own court!

He experienced a sensation that made a chill run down his spine.  The
very manner of uttering the warning was his.  That poised forefinger!
That out-thrust chin!  Those slitted eyelids!

He trembled, though he tried to control his limbs.

"I am sorry if I have, in the heat of the moment, given way to my
feelings," he stammered.  "I withdraw the offending words."

"Excellent!" cried the waiter.  "Excellent!  My lord, you are
becoming almost human!"

Once more the judge experienced that chilling sensation.  He had
unconsciously made exactly the same apology that the prisoner had
made to him!

The perspiration rolled down his face.  He drew out his handkerchief
and mopped his brow.

"Pray, sir," he forced himself to say, "how is it that you seem to
have such an intimate knowledge of legal procedure?"

"Ah, it may be heredity, my lord.  Or it may be that I am a criminal.
Or it may be both."

The judge fixed his eyes on the waiter.

"You seem to know my court very well.  Yet I cannot recollect ever
seeing you in the dock."

"You see so many that your memory cannot retain every face.  I will
it, however, that you have never sentenced me.  I have,
nevertheless, attended your court often enough and have listened to
your learned summing up of the law.  I have generally been in the
public gallery."

There was a silence.

The waiter had regained his buoyancy of spirit.  His resentment at
the judge's outburst had entirely disappeared.  He was almost
smiling.  The judge felt a little more comfortable.

"As it is now my turn to state a case for the prosecution of the
prisoner and the views he holds," said the waiter--and at the words
the judge's heart fluttered a bit--"I wish, in the very first place
at this stage, to make a protest and a suggestion.  I have never
understood the justice of putting a _suspected_ person in the dock,
for the fundamental principle of penology and law is that an accused
person is innocent until he is proved guilty.  It follows, then, that
until the verdict is given the accused is technically innocent.  Do
you agree?"

"Technically, yes, but----"

"Never mind the 'but.'  You lawyers are constantly itting
arguments and then inserting a 'but.'  The plain truth is that a
suspected person has no legal or logical right in the dock.  He is
presumably innocent.  I hold--and I am not alone in this--that just
as the state has its public prosecutor so the accused person ought to
have the services of a public defender.  Do you agree?"

"I am afraid----" began the judge, cautiously, and the waiter waved
his hand contemptuously.

"Of course you are afraid."

"I am not afraid!" snarled the judge, angrily, his temper fanned to
flaming condition.

"But you said you were!"

"I am not!"

"Be careful.  You say now that you are not afraid.  Yet it is not a
moment since you said you were afraid.  Which is it to be?"

"I have told you.  I am not afraid--not in the sense you mean."

"How do you know what sense I mean?  Tell me how you are not afraid."

"I am afraid"--and the judge stopped and smashed his fist
tempestuously on the table, baited to active resentment and his
temper now well alight, furious at having contradicted himself,
raging at the misconstruction put on his words and anxious to recover
from the vindictive pressure of the waiter--"I am afraid, sir, that I
do not feel called upon to explain why I am not afraid."

"Pray be calm," said the waiter, patiently, assuming an affectation
of aggrieved innocence of all baiting intentions.  "If you do not
feel able to answer a plain question, or if you are afraid, as you
have itted, that you cannot tell me why you are not afraid, will
you then confess at once why you are afraid you cannot tell me why
you are not afraid?"

"I decline to reply to foolish questions," cried the exasperated
judge, his face crimson.

"Very well.  But I warn you that the responsibility may be grave if
you persist in that attitude."

The judge turned his head away and pretended to become engrossed in
the ceiling.

A silence ensued that might have been interminable had not the judge,
after a while, happened to drop his eyes.  To his astonishment, he
saw the waiter doing his best to stifle laughter by holding his
handkerchief over his mouth.  But his eyes were brimming with
suppressed mirth and his hand was holding his side.

"Ah, judge," he cried, taking his handkerchief from his face, "you do
not make a very good witness for the defense!"

"What do you mean?" growled the judge.

"Merely that you now know what a poor devil of a prisoner, or
witness, feels like when a counsel roasts him in cross-examination.
I have seen you yourself take a delight in the game.  How do you like
it now you see it from another viewpoint?"  And the waiter put his
handkerchief to his face again and went into a paroxysm of laughter.

The judge did not deign to answer this unseemly taunt.  He was more
than ever convinced that the waiter was mad; but at the same time he
wished that he had come out of the cunningly planned ordeal in a
different fashion.

"I observe," he said, coldly, "that you make no defense of the crime
of Nathaniel Gore.  Perhaps you have no defense and so try to hide
the fact under a camouflage of boisterous, if rather forced, mirth."

The waiter controlled his features and pocketed his handkerchief.

"Pardon me," he retorted, with gravity, "it is you who are adopting
an old legal trick.  Having no case to present, it is the custom to
slang the opposite side.  How long will it take you to get it into
your head that I am not acting for the defense?  I am prosecuting."

"Then I shall be glad to hear your prosecution of the law that hanged
Nathaniel Gore," remarked the judge drily.  "I recited the case to
prove that execution did in fact act as a deterrent.  I would merely
add that since Gore was hanged, as he deserved to be, there has never
been an attempt to steal diamonds brought from abroad by ships.  If
that is not deterrent, then I do not know the meaning of the word."

"And so you expect to make use of the antidote in this flask and
recall one of your  back to consciousness?  I would be the
first to it your right to the claim if I thought it was reasonable
and beyond controversy.  But it does not happen to be so.  As for
your failure to see the reason of my mirth, that is quite
understandable.  Few prisoners, or witnesses, do relish the laughter
in court that judges indulge in, with counsel as good s, but
which they suppress in anybody else.  Their sense of humor is not the
same.  How can a prisoner be expected to enjoy a joke when the
discussion giving rise to it involves his chance of life?"

All trace of levity had now disappeared from the waiter's manner.  He
was once more the serious person the judge desired him to be.

"And while I have mentioned executions," continued the waiter, "let
me bring to your notice the remarkable methods that penal codes adopt
in order to carry out the judgment of death.  Each country has its
own particular form of procedure.  In England the method is hanging,
in  it is the guillotine, in some states in America it is the
electric chair.  There has been some discussion of late as to which
is the most humane way of killing criminals guilty of murder.  The
guillotine is said to be at least the swiftest, if it is the most
bloody.  England claims that hanging is the surest.  In those states
in America where hanging is adopted there is a difference in the
mechanism of the scaffold.  The American way is to have a heavy
weight to jerk the condemned man into the air instead of the usual
drop used in England.  But this weight method raised a considerable
protest in Connecticut when a bandit was jerked into the other world.
It was held to be barbaric.

"England's claim is not altogether well founded, either.  There was a
case some time ago where a man had to endure three successive
attempts to hang him by the drop method, none of which was
successful.  Can you wonder that the officials present were filled
with disgust?

"As for the electric-chair method, it is held to be barbaric in the
extreme.  It is not an electric chair at all, except in name.  The
prisoner has to be strapped into it.  He walks to it in an old suit
of black generously provided by the state.  His funeral clothes.  How
edifying and gentle is civilization!  Behold, too, the paradox of one
of the wardens of a famous prison where executions are carried out
actually making it known that personally he is against the death
penalty!  Poor man, he has his job to consider.

"We have had a parallel to this expression of opinion in England.
The late Major Blake, at one time governor of Pentonville prison, who
saw a number of executions, confessed that the whole thing sickened
him.  '_I cannot help asking myself,_' to quote his exact words,
written after he had ceased to be a governor, '_why, when one was
called upon to superintend an execution one should have been affected
with such a keen sense of personal shame....  There must be something
fundamentally wrong with a law which has the effect of lessening the
self-respect of those whose duty it is to carry it out._'

"And, by the way, how many advocates of the judgment of death would
be willing to carry out the sentence?  Is not it true that, according
to law, the sheriffs ought to do the deed?  Why, then, pay a hangman
to do the thing they shrink from?  Not so long ago a chief warder at
Wandsworth prison, in London, committed suicide because of the
haunting memories of the executions at which he had assisted.  Ah,
that emblem of death, the black cap, which you don with
self-confessed satisfaction, your lordship, is no mere emblem of
retribution focused on the victim alone!"

The judge frowned, but did not interrupt, though he was sorely
tempted to.  He wanted to claim his point and restore one of his
 to life.

The waiter seemed to read his thoughts, for without more ado he began
to state his third case.


THE IONATE CRIME

Though you did not sentence Walter Seale to death [said the waiter],
you will find his crime mentioned in your minute-book.  You may not
have been present at the meeting at which your fellow  [and he
made an eloquent gesture toward the unconscious men] discussed his
case and came to the conclusion that he also justly deserved to be
executed.  As in every case that has come up before the erudite Clue
Club, all  have been entirely unanimous in their conclusions.

Walter Seale has been chosen for presentation because his criminal
act fits in very appropriately at this juncture.  Have you not
related the case of The Mole, that representative of a base stratum
of the social cosmos?  Is not it quite fitting, then, that a
representative of another stratum should be paraded whose sentence
and crime were in the same category so far as the penal code judged?
After all, The Mole was a criminal who warred on society so that he
might live.  Walter Seale----  But you shall hear his story.

When Seale had thought out his plan to the last detail he went to the
Criminals' Rescue Guild, saying that his sympathies were entirely
with them in their difficult work, and asked if they could provide
him with a valet.

He was given a choice of several men who had served considerable
 of imprisonment for various offenses.  One was an ex-forger;
one was an ex-"confidence" man; one was a habitual convict; one had
spent many years making himself a proficient burglar.  There were
others, all men who had reformed after having paid the penalties of
their evil-doing.  Walter Seale chose Adam Jelks, the ex-burglar.

"We do not wish to hide from you the fact that occasionally we are
bitterly disappointed in those we try to help," was the candid
ission of the secretary of the guild, "but we believe that all the
men you have seen are honestly making an endeavor to go straight.  At
the same time, in taking them as employes, employers are accepting
them at their own risk; but the men have asked for jobs, and if
treated fairly they generally prove worthy of the trust.  I am quite
sure that Adam Jelks will turn out a good servant.  If you have any
complaint, please let us know."

Walter Seale thereupon took Adam Jelks into his employ as valet in
the small bachelor flat he rented in the West End.

What Walter Seale, however, did not tell the Criminals' Rescue Guild
was that he had not come to give a man a chance to build up a new and
honest career, but he had come to choose a man whose past would aid
him to commit a crime if the crime he contemplated was necessary; and
he wanted a man who, without knowing it, would be his best defense, a
sure shield against suspicion falling on Mr. Seale when and if
suspicion fell at all.

For several weeks Adam Jelks did his duty as valet with a willingness
that no employer could question or find fault with.  He took pains to
show that he was worthy of his hire, that he was desirous of being
able to face the world again.  He was a young man, considerably
younger than Walter Seale; and Seale was not much over thirty years.
Jelks had a small bedroom at the flat.  He had one whole day and one
half-day off every week.  He was treated well.  He responded to the
good treatment by giving good service.

One afternoon, when Jelks was engaged in polishing the silver in his
kitchenette, Walter Seale called to him to come at once.  Jelks
hastened into the sitting-room.  Seale was busy with a few
photographs, a pot of paste, and some cardboard mounts.  He nodded
toward a wineglass on the table.

"Jelks, please fetch a little water in that glass.  I want to damp
the backs of these pictures to make them stick fast."

Jelks took the glass and brought it back filled with water.

"Can I help you in any way, sir?" he asked, seeing his employer using
both hands to hold down a mount.

"No, thanks.  I can manage all right.  Get ahead with your polishing.
Clean hands are wanted for this job."

Jelks returned to his work, closing the sitting-room door behind him.

In the sitting-room, as soon as he was alone, Walter Seale ceased to
be interested in photographs.  He had not been mounting them at all,
just pretending; and he was now looking, with every sign of intense
interest and satisfaction, at the glass Jelks had brought him.  A
strange smile was on his face.  He took a cigarette from his case and
began to smoke leisurely, still gazing at the glass.

When he had finished his cigarette he lifted the wineglass carefully,
one finger and thumb on the rim and base, respectively; emptied the
water into a flower-bowl; and, when dry, placed the glass in a small
cardboard box that seemed to be made for it.  He next put the box
into a drawer of his writing-desk and locked the drawer.  The first
step in his elaborate plan had been achieved.

That evening, while dressing for dinner, which he was taking at the
club, he called Jelks once more.  This time he informed Jelks that he
had lost a valuable set of studs.  He was very perturbed at the loss,
as also was Jelks.  A search failed to reveal the missing studs.

"I left them on my dressing-table," said Seale, indignantly.  "They
couldn't walk off.  They were there this afternoon."

"I never saw them," protested Jelks.

"There was nobody here except you and me," retorted his employer,
meaningly.  "It's a scandalous thing to lose valuable articles right
under one's nose.  I shall have to use a set for my shirt that I
don't care for.  Are you sure you did not lift them?"

"I did not lift them; and I did not steal them, if that's what you
mean, sir," replied Jelks.  "You may search my room if you like.  I
swear I know nothing about them."

Walter Seale considered the matter.  He had the shirt-studs in his
pocket at that very moment; but he was playing his game.

"Very well, Jelks, I'll say nothing more about the matter for the
time being.  I am going over to the Continent tomorrow for a week,
and I shall want these studs when I come back."

"I'll try to find them, sir.  I'll hunt through the flat----"

"Well, no.  I was thinking of locking up the flat, Jelks.  You had
better take a week's holiday, as there is no need for you to stay
here alone.  I shall send for you if I want you when I return.  I
want you to leave here tomorrow morning.  I am going off in the
afternoon.  Your address will always be at the offices of the Rescue
Guild, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir," replied Jelks, humbly, stunned by the possibility of
losing his job.  "If you don't want me again, will you give me a
reference?"

"I'll see to that when I come back, Jelks."  And Walter Seale went
off to his dinner at his club.

The next morning Jelks informed him that he had searched over the
whole flat but could not find the missing shirt-studs.  Walter Seale
made no comment.  He paid Jelks his wages, and after saying that he
would let him know if he desired his services when he returned from
, he retired to his room.

Before lunch time the valet's belongings had been removed and Seale
was alone in the flat.  The second step in his plan had been carried
out.

For the time being he dismissed the personality of Jelks from his
mind and concentrated on his next move.  He went out for lunch and
returned to his flat before tea time.  After waiting for a short time
he prepared for the great crisis.

He went up the carpeted stairs of the block of flats and rang the
bell next a door on the top floor.

His summons brought a woman clad in a bewitching afternoon gown.  She
was young, beautiful, attractive; but her brows wrinkled as she
recognized her caller.

"May I see you for a minute, Dora?  I thought you'd be at home."

"I hardly expected you to come here again," she answered, coldly.
"You know I told you not to call."

"It may be the last time you'll see me.  Surely you won't refuse a
final interview?"

She allowed him to enter, and he walked straight into the tiny parlor
where she had been sitting at crochet work.  The fire was lit in the
grate, the room was as cozy as a nest.  On a side table, on a tea
tray, were a cup and saucer, a plate of cakes, and a silver teapot.

"What have you to say?" she asked, a little uneasily.  "Have you done
what you promised?"

He sat down, but he was gazing at her, trying to read her thoughts.

"You know I love you, Dora."

"You must not begin that over again.  I have answered you once and
for all time.  Have you straightened out the swindle in which I
detected you----"

"Dora----"

"Please answer my question.  I told you that unless you put that
matter right I would tell my husband tonight."

"You really meant that threat?"

"Certainly I meant it.  Now answer my question.  That is the only
matter you are to talk about to me."

"Then you will never love me?  You will never accept my love?"

"Mr. Seale, how dare you begin all that again!"

They looked at each other for a moment, she with indignation, he with
a desperate desire to move her.

She seemed to read something in his face, for she suddenly made an
exclamation.

"You have not carried out your promise--the one chance I gave you!  I
shall tell my husband the whole affair of your swindle when he comes
home."

"I have not carried out my promise," cried Seale, harshly.  "I cannot
carry it out.  If you would only be reasonable----"

"If you do not go away I shall have you ejected."

"Is that your last word?" he cried, ionately.  "Reflect that I
love you more than your husband does----"

She clutched her crochet work tightly and threw her arm out toward
the door.  She was more beautiful than ever in that attitude, a
perfect woman.  Even though she was angry, Seale desired to possess
her.

"Go!" she cried.  "I gave you a chance.  Now go!"

It was then that Walter Seale, seeing her so determined, committed
his terrible, ionate crime.

He shot her where she stood.

It was the work of a moment.  He whipped out his revolver and fired
like lightning.  Thwarted ion was behind that shot, the desire to
possess was the urge.

She fell, bleeding from a wound in the center of the forehead.  She
was dead before she touched the floor.

Looking on her lifeless form, Walter Seale realized that the crisis,
the apex of all his plans, had arrived--and ed.  He could never
undo that act, he could never bring back that life.

He experienced neither fear nor remorse.  In a way he had killed this
woman to save himself.

He had always declared that he loved her, even before she had married
her husband; but he was of no interest to her, though he pressed his
friendship on her and on her husband after the marriage.  He pestered
her with his attentions after as he had pestered her before.  Since
he could not possess her as his wife, he wanted to possess her
anyhow.  This continued appeal had compelled the woman to tell him
that if he wished to retain friendship he must cease to talk of love.
From that moment Seale opened a new campaign.

It mattered nothing to him that she was the wife of another man.
Indeed, this only added to his mental unrest.  Unrequited love may be
a torture as exquisite as any ever devised; and he considered that
she belonged to him by right of his own infatuation.

The truth was, nevertheless, that he had become enamoured of her
because he was a voluptuary by nature.  Men of his kind share with
painters and sculptors the discerning knowledge of a perfect form
when they have but glanced at it; but where an artist may view such a
form with all the enthusiasm of a creative workman bent on copying,
Walter Seale saw a masterpiece for love.

His new campaign became subtle, and he took pains that it should be
unnoticed.  His conduct became strictly correct.  He appeared to
accept the situation and continued his friendship with the woman and
her husband, biding his time.  He was aware that the husband did not
know of the siege he had made, or was making, of his wife's heart.
She had told Seale that she had not mentioned the circumstance to her
husband, not because she had anything to hide, but because she did
not wish to give her husband any anxiety.  All this helped Seale
toward his objective, which was nothing less than the ruin of the
husband so that the wife might surrender.

Seale was in the City, dabbling in financial transactions.  He
advised the husband on deals, keeping back the fact that he himself
was barely solvent.  By one move after another he had obtained the
husband's confidence until he had involved him to such an extent that
there was little hope of recovery.  To save himself he had descended
to forging the husband's signature.  It was merely a matter of time,
he knew, before he could recover sufficiently to save his own face,
but by adjusting affairs he would leave the husband worse than
bankrupt.  But the woman had found him out.

With that instinct which is the finest weapon of a good wife, she had
suspected Seale.  She had made inquiries, as a woman makes them,
which is the most secretive way of all.  She had faced Seale with an
accusation, and she had given him a short period of time in which to
restore the situation or face her husband.  It was because he had
pleaded for this chance that she had given it him.

But Walter Seale knew that it was beyond his power to make
restoration.  His crooked deal would go through without any suspicion
attaching to himself.  The woman's discovery meant disaster.  Her
ultimatum meant disgrace in any case.

Warring with the humiliation of being found out was the frantic
desire he had to possess her.  This desire amounted almost to an
insanity that he could not, or did not, control.  From the moment
that she intimated she had discovered his deception he saw that she
was forever beyond his reach.  He saw his danger.  He resolved to
make one last appeal, and if the appeal failed she must pay the
penalty of finding out these things.  Thus his selfishness came to
the top.

Once she was dead, he would be avenged on both wife and husband.  If
she lived she would denounce him and he would lose not only her, but
his liberty.  The forked stick on which he found himself did not
cause him much anxiety as to choice of ways.  He was, like many men
who are not criminals, prepared to sacrifice anything or anybody to
his own ends.  This quality had caused him to be regarded as a good
business man.  He would have made an excellent lawyer.  His excuses
and distortions of plain truths were innumerable; and mostly they
were plausible.

Everything went by the board so that he might survive.  His valet was
but a pawn in the game, a decoy, a figurehead behind which he
sheltered.  The desire to have the woman was in his mind right up to
the last moment, but the necessity to save himself outweighed this
when he saw that she was incorruptible.

He had planned the climax and the steps leading to it with superb
cunning.  He knew the movements of the woman's husband and was aware
that he would not return from the City until late in the evening.  He
knew that the maid would be out for her half-day when he called.

While he stood looking at the body of his victim the clock on the
mantelpiece chimed the hour.  He glanced up and noted that he had
sixty minutes before the husband arrived.  There was plenty of time
to complete his scheme.

First he put the revolver into his pocket and pulled on his gloves.
They were yellow chamois gloves which could be washed.  He stepped to
the bathroom and raised the lower half of the window as high as
possible.  A fire-escape iron staircase ed just under the window,
near enough for an active man to enter or leave.

Seale went back to the parlor and tossed cushions about to make it
appear that a struggle had taken place.  He cut the telephone cord.
He laid a valuable flower-vase on the hearth and smashed it with his
heel, letting the water run over the tiles and carpet.  He upset a
chair or two.  He did all this noiselessly.

He went into a bedroom and rummaged among the contents of a wardrobe.
He did the same with the dressing-table.  He found several articles
of jewelry--a watch, a brooch, a string of pearls, a few rings.
These he put into his pocket, with the exception of the brooch, which
he laid carelessly on the step of the iron fire-escape nearest the
bathroom window.

He went into the dining-room and took a decanter of wine from the
sideboard.  This he carried to the parlor.  He took from his pocket
the small box containing the wineglass which he had brought with him,
extracting it as carefully as he had laid it there, by finger and
thumb on rim and base.  He poured a little wine into the glass.  As
he did so he smiled to himself.

Plainly marked on the glass were the fingerprints of Adam Jelks, the
ex-burglar, his valet.

The glass was of the same pattern as the others on the sideboard.
Seale had seen to that, by getting one some time previously so that
he might match it, on the pretense that he liked the design.  But he
had not matched it.  He had merely obtained Jelks's fingerprints.

When he had completed his arrangements he took a last look at the
dead woman.  She was lovely even in death.  If only she had been
unfaithful!

She lay with her crochet work still clasped in her hands, and her
workbag had dropped from her chair to the floor.  Did Seale feel
regret?  He regretted, at any rate, that she had refused to listen to
him.  He walked to the door; but just as he was in the act of opening
it he ed that he had left his walking-stick in a corner of
the parlor.  That would have been fatal.  He returned, lifted the
stick, and, stepping over the dead woman, took a last look around.
There was nothing he had forgotten, nothing he had omitted, nothing
he had left undone.  He had accomplished what every criminal hopes
one day to accomplish--the perfect crime!

There was not a trace of his presence, not an item that would lead to
him.  Everything would lead to Adam Jelks.  He opened the door and
stepped out to the corridor.  The age was deserted.  He began to
descend the carpeted stairs.

Was he not perfectly secure?  Had he not carried out the murder with
absolute excellence, with consummate ingenuity?  Not a blemish could
be found in his mode of action.  The police would find the wineglass
and would observe the fingerprints.  Adam Jelks would be arrested.
Would not the past career of Adam Jelks rise up and convict him--or
at least aid toward a conviction?  Seale himself would give evidence,
since he had been the last to employ the ex-convict.  He would, with
seeming reluctance, relate the incident of the valuable shirt-studs;
he would tell how he had therefore dismissed Jelks before going to
Paris.  In this connection he had but one more item to fill in and
the picture would be complete.  It would be the high spot that
artists always add last, but it would throw the whole scene into
proper perspective.  He would write to the Prisoners' Rescue Guild
and inform them, with regret, of the studs and his action.  He would
do this before he took his suitcase and drove off to catch the night
express to Dover.  As for his swindle, the husband of the dead woman
would be too busy to worry about financial matters for the time
being; when he did get the true position he would be hit.  Seale
would be all right.

Walter Seale entered his own flat, leaving his front wooden door open
as usual.  The vestibule door closed softly on its catch.  He sat
down at his desk and laid a sheet of notepaper on the blotter in
front of him.  There was no real hurry for the letter, which he had
not already written because of his hope that the woman would
surrender.  The boat train did not leave yet awhile.  He smoked a
cigarette with satisfaction and enjoyment, lingering over every
whiff.  His only emotion was regret that the woman had refused him to
the last.

Finally he lifted his pen to write the letter; and as he stretched
his arm toward the inkwell the vestibule door was thrown open.  Two
men appeared on the threshold.  One was the husband of the woman,
disheveled and agitated.  The other was a policeman.

"What do you want?"

Seale was quite calm as he turned toward them, pen in hand.

Both men stepped toward him.  It was the policeman who spoke.

"There's been trouble.  This gentleman's wife has been murdered.  He
brought me here.  I want a word with you."

"Why come to me about this?" asked Seale.  "Murdered, you say?  That
is terrible news----"

"Have you been up at her flat?"

"Me?  No, I haven't been near the place.  I've been here all day----"

The policeman took a step nearer.

"Then how do you explain this?" he demanded, pointing to the floor.

Walter Seale could not suppress a cry of dismay when he looked down.

Caught in the spat on his right foot was a silk thread that trailed
along the floor behind him.  The policeman was speaking again.

"We followed it down.  The other end of that silk is in a ball wedged
between the dead woman and the leg of a table.  It isn't easily
broken, that stuff.  I'm going to search you now for the weapon that
killed her."

And thus, instead of going to Paris, Walter Seale spent that night,
after the search, in a police cell.

A silken cord had trapped him.  It was the hangman's coarser rope
that hanged him.




CHAPTER VIII

_The Judge States His Fourth Case_

"And do you seriously mean to put forward a plea to the effect that
the penal code should not hang such a foul murderer as Walter Seale?"
asked the judge, when the waiter had finished his story.

"Pardon me, but it is very exhausting to be constantly bringing your
lordship back to the point at issue," returned the waiter, coughing
to clear his throat.  "It would not be impossible to argue against
the judgment of death even in Seale's case.  But the issue before us
in this instance is not what you suggest."

"What is the issue, my friend?" asked the judge, condescendingly and
with a rare and sardonic smile.

"If you recollect, it is perfectly simple.  You gave the case of
Nathaniel Gore to prove that the death penalty acted as a deterrent."

"Well?"

"Really, you make me tired.  The real reason there has not been any
further attempt to steal diamonds brought from abroad by ships is
that the people who send the diamonds, and the people who receive
them, have adopted new methods of transit; or, if they still send
them by that line of ships, they have so many guards and take so many
precautions that a thief stands no chance at all.  I include all
precious stones--from Burma, India, South Africa.  Recently a
consignment of gems came to England by airplane.  Well, well, what
does it matter?  Gem thieves are only human.  That is why there are
no more big thefts on board ship.  And yet that is not the issue
between us in these two stories of Gore and Seale."

"Well?" asked the judge again, this time a little heavily.

"The plain issue is whether the penal code stops murder by being a
deterrent.  My answer is this: You sentenced Nathaniel Gore to be
hanged.  The news was told by newspaper, by wireless broadcast; in
fact, everybody knew it.  You yourself remarked on the public, and
feminine, interest in his case.  Very well.  Do you realize that the
murder that Walter Seale committed _was committed the very next day_?
Seale knew of the verdict in Gore's case.  Did that deter him?  And
that is my answer to your plea.  So I claim another two points."

He added two more glasses to his list before the astonished eyes of
the judge.

"I am sorry your lordship hasn't put up a better defense," he smiled.
"Really, you know, for a judge of your lordship's eminence your lack
of observation is deplorable.  You went on your holiday after
sentencing Gore.  Do you never read the newspapers?  Do you never
read the minutes of your own intellectual club?  Really!  Really!"

The judge flushed under the sneering taunt.  He could have sentenced
the waiter there and then to life imprisonment!

"It is useless for me to combat your decision," he grumbled, resolved
not to show any anger or disappointment at the ending of the cases,
though he was terribly grieved that he had not been allowed one
point.  "What is the use of discussing legal matters with you when
you have the result already decided?  But let us waive that"--for an
ugly look came into the waiter's eyes--"and allow me to say that I am
not so deficient in observation as you suppose."

"No?"

"You stated that Walter Seale knew of the verdict in the case of
Nathaniel Gore.  It would be interesting to have proof of that
assertion."

"I can give you proof."

"Indeed?  Incontrovertible proof?"

"Absolutely."

"Let me hear it."

"I myself handed the morning newspaper to Walter Seale and pointed
the verdict out to him."

"You?" The judge half rose from his chair.

"Then you are----"

"Adam Jelks!" bowed the waiter.

"Good God!" exclaimed the judge, sinking back into his chair.

"Merely one of my aliases."

The phrase sounded reminiscent in the judge's ears.

"You said the words when you claimed to be Lorry Black," he murmured
in a dazed way.  "Lorry Black!  Adam Jelks!  Which is your real name,
may I ask?"

"Neither is my real name."

"But the police records----"

"Bear a third alias, the first name by which they knew me.  You see,
I am frank."

"Disastrously so.  What, then, is your real name?"

"Gently!  Gently!  Why press for it?"

"I am curious."

"All in good time."

Once more the sound of music and singing broke on their ears.
Another band of Christmas waits were in the street.  They were
obviously trained singers and players, and the words of their carol
came melodiously out of the night:

"_Peace on earth, good will to men._"

In spite of themselves both the judge and the waiter listened to the
soft, sweet strain.  Gradually the music died down, the waits moved
on to another street, but they could be heard singing faintly in the
distance.  In time the waits moved out of hearing.  There was not a
sound in the large room.  The candles had burned more than half their
length to their bases, and the light from them, added to the ruddy
flare of the fire in the grate, cast a queer illumination on the
figures of the sleeping .

The waiter shrugged his shoulders and tapped the table with the
bludgeon to call the judge's attention.

"Do you feel inclined to make another attempt to score a point, your
lordship?"

The judge awoke out of a revery into which he had been plunged.

"Is it worth my while, sir?"

"That is for you to decide."

"The dice are loaded against me.  You have decided the end, it seems,
so that whatever I may say----"

"Come, come, do not be so melancholy.  I assure you I was prepared to
act impartially if you had been able to convince me of the justice of
your views."

The judge glanced at the array of glasses in front of his antagonist,
then his gaze strayed to the windows.  His hand fumbled at his
waistcoat and drew out his watch.

"There is just time," urged the waiter.

The judge was silent.  He was really pondering how he could overcome
this man whom he believed to be mad.  He was silent.

"Let me make a sporting offer," remarked the waiter, encouragingly.
"Do you feel depressed because I have won six of your men?"

Still the judge did not speak, though his countenance showed that he
was far from being happy.

"I will stake my six glasses against one for a final throw.  Does
that appeal to you?"

The judge's head raised and his eyes showed a glint of hope.

"Explain yourself," he said.

"You heard me well enough.  I will repeat the conditions of the
challenge we agreed to at the beginning of our evening's
entertainment.  For every case you proved that the judgment of death
was deserved you were to gain a member's return to consciousness.  I
have won six times.  You, none.  I propose now to stake my six points
against your ability to cite a case proving your claim.  Thus you
will be entitled to a verdict.  Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

"And you accept the offer?"

The judge considered.

"If I should obtain the verdict," he said, "it would mean that you
had lost, for we cannot carry this discussion on a great deal longer."

"It would mean that I had lost," agreed the waiter.

"And that you were my prisoner?"

"Ah, that is a new element!"

"But it is a reasonable one."

"It was not on the cards, to begin with."

"You think the risk is too much!" pressed the judge, challengingly,
just as the waiter had challenged him at the start.

"I think it was not in the original issue.  You were on trial."

"And now, supposing the positions are changed----"

"I cannot suppose anything of the sort.  I was not guilty of
upholding the judgment of death code.  It was you who were placed on
trial.  The best you can expect is to be acquitted."

The judge bit his lip.

"Well, that is always something," he said, with a faint smile.

"It is perhaps more than you can expect--unless you have a remarkable
trump card up your sleeve which you have not shown.  Am not I giving
you every opportunity to show that trump?  Is it not a great risk I
am taking in making you this offer of the six points against one?"

"I appreciate its generosity.  On the other hand----"

"It may mean that I have great faith in my own ability."

"Or none whatever in mine!"

"Precisely."

"I wonder which!"

"Ah!"

They were actually smiling to each other like two counsel engaged in
a lawsuit!

The judge turned over the pages of the minute-book, genial and
beaming.  He looked at the recorded meetings rather critically,
apparently not quite sure which case to select.  The waiter watched
him, and it was curious that the waiter no longer smiled.  His face
became clouded and heavy, and his eye glinted cunningly.

"Are you in a difficulty as to the case you will choose?" he asked,
without looking directly at the judge.

"I must confess that I have a few here, the claims of which all seem
equally decisive."

"What about the case of the man who was hanged for shooting Goff, the
money-lender?  There was what you, and the public, too, called an
unforgivable crime!"

The judge smiled.

"Thank you for reminding me.  It certainly was a crime committed by a
man whose act showed the basest ingratitude for favors received."

He considered a moment, scrutinizing the face of the waiter, but that
person's countenance was without expression.  The judge came to the
conclusion that, since they had been on almost good  a few
moments previously, the waiter was generously suggesting a case where
the judge could, with ease, capture the six glasses.  Thus the
evening would end in a truce, or rather in a deadlock; and the
adventure of Christmas Eve would end in both sides calling quits.

But the judge, while disposed to accept this conclusion in order to
recover his fellow  from their oblivion, did not intend to let
the matter rest there.  Secretly he felt that he could not allow the
insults to which he had been subjected to go without correction.  The
waiter had been grossly impudent.  He had taken liberties that no
waiter, that no man, had any right to take.  Besides he was an
itted criminal.  So the judge reflected that, for the time being,
he would pretend to let the affair blow over, he would have his
friends brought back to life, he would even allow the waiter to leave
the premises free.  But the police must hear of this outrage without
delay so that such a state of things might never be repeated.  They
would easily trace this waiter who had the aliases of Adam Jelks and
Lorry Black.  Under these names his fingerprints would be on file.
And when he was caught and brought before the bench the judge would
read him a lecture and would give him a sentence--but not a very
severe one.  Perhaps one in the second division.  Just enough to
remind him that the law was not to be derided and trifled with.  It
might be for the man's good to send him to preventive detention for a
space.  Now, the shortest term of preventive detention was five
years.  Well, was a judge to be insulted and the law to be held up to
ridicule?  The thought of preventive detention brought the judge's
mind back to the murder case that had been suggested to him.  He
breathed freely, yawned, and once more his deep tones sounded
throughout the apartment.


THE BLINDNESS OF JUSTICE

I am really indebted to you [said the judge] for recalling the murder
of Mr. Goff, the money-lender, although it is more than possible that
I would have selected this crime in any case.  The murder and the
discovery of the murderer provide excellent examples of, first, the
patience and penetrative ability of the police, and, second, the
blindness of our justice.  Especially does the second aspect appeal
to me, and I am sure you must it that it is the most salient
feature of the case.  No effort to thwart her decisions, no dodge to
influence her judgment, has any effect on the Ideal whose figure,
gilded and noble in proportions, stands on the highest pinnacle of
the Criminal Court, the scales of justice in her left hand, the sword
in her right, and her eyes bandaged to prove that impartiality and
intellectual discernment guide her always.

The man who was hanged for the murder of Mr. Goff, nevertheless, in
spite of proof that he was guilty of miserable ingratitude and a most
detestable crime, had the audacity to make a fight for his miserable
life that is memorable in the annals of our penal statutes.  Several
defenses were brought forward.  The first was that he was not
guilty--which, of course, is the formal plea of every criminal.  One
takes little notice of this stereotyped defense, for it is merely the
basis of legal proof or disproof.  But one defense--or part of the
whole defense--had to be argued very closely.  This was the more or
less reliable data put in by the defending counsel that his client
was insane.

One mentions this because it was on that basis that the appeal
against the verdict of death went before the higher court.  My
summing-up was also attacked on the ground that it was biased.  Such
absurdity!  What could possibly induce a judge to be biased one way
or the other?  Nothing at all.  The Court of Appeal made short work
of that suggestion and upheld my ruling.  As for the plea of
insanity, that, too, was ridiculed, as it deserved to be.  It has
become so common.

Perhaps it would be as well to state here the legal definition of
insanity, for I had to remind counsel of it more than once during the
trial.  Up to 1843 the tests were rather crude, but when insanity was
pleaded with success on behalf of Daniel McNaghten--the man who shot
and killed Sir Robert Peel's private secretary in the belief that he
was shooting Sir Robert--it was realized that a close and clear
interpretation ought to be laid down.  After due consideration a
number of judges, all learned and competent in law, pronounced that
an accused person was insane within the meaning of the term when he
"was laboring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind
as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if
he did know, that he did not know he was doing wrong."

The waiter at this point raised his hand in interruption, and
remarked, bitterly:

"The definition is as clear as mud.  In this it resembles many other
definitions laid down by learned lawyers.  I could cite a number of
public men who, under that ruling, ought to be in criminal lunatic
asylums."

The judge did not take any notice of the criticism, but continued as
if he were explaining the law to an attentive jury:

Another step was taken as late as 1922 to define the term "insanity"
with even more exactitude.  A special committee was appointed,
largely because the plea had become so usual, especially in murder
charges.  This committee came to the decision that there was no
ground to sentence a mentally defective person for a criminal act
provided this defect "prevented him knowing that the act was
wrongful, or prevented him from controlling his own conduct."

Once more the waiter raised his expostulating hand and interrupted
with the biting words:

"A long way of itting the existence of uncontrollable impulse.  It
is the Lombroso theory denying individual responsibility, for who is
capable of always controlling his conduct?  Yet you judges accept
this as law while disregarding it in practice."

Again the judge appeared not to hear the words of the waiter, in
which he seemed to observe, nevertheless, a hint of future
opposition.  He went on with his story calmly and with dignity:

Let us now consider the crime itself and the remarkable circumstances
in which it was committed.  We can best do so by putting ourselves in
the position of the police, who earned great credit by the method
used to find the guilty person.

Mr. Goff, the money-lender, occupied a house in a country district.
On this particular night he had several guests down from town, and
after they had all retired he went into his library at about ten
minutes to midnight.  His purpose was to fill up some loan forms.  He
sat down at his desk, facing a large French window that opened out to
the garden.  The window was wide open, for the evening was warm.

Mr. Goff had just been seated in his chair when there was a knock on
his door and his manservant, a man named John Williams, thrust his
head into the room.

"Shall you want me any more tonight, sir?" he asked.

"No," replied Goff; then he added, "Are all the visitors in their
rooms?"

"I think so, sir."

"Very well.  Lock up as usual and leave me."

Williams withdrew.  Mr. Goff flourished his pen, took a sip from a
glass of refreshment at his elbow, and was about to begin writing
when a sound near the open French window caused him to look up.

A masked man was standing by the window with a revolver in his hand.
Before Goff could give a shout of alarm the revolver was fired.  Goff
fell back into his chair with a bullet in his brain.

The intruder stepped to the safe, the open door of which attracted
him.  He was wearing gloves.  Opening the door wide, he rummaged in
the drawers, found several small bundles of banknotes, and pocketed
them.  He pushed the door close again and walked to the French window.

According to the police reconstruction of the crime it was at this
stage, when he had already pulled off his gloves and had thrown his
gun away, that his eye caught something that startled him.  The glass
at Mr. Goff's elbow had been upset when his arms sprawled outward,
and was rolling slowly toward the edge of the desk.  The murderer
caught it before it fell and left it lying in the spilled liquor.
Then he disappeared.

A few minutes later Williams, the manservant, opened the door of the
library, after knocking once, and saw his employer dead in the chair.
He did not lose his head.  He went out to the hall and telephoned for
the police.  After this he aroused the guests and servants, but did
not allow them to enter the room.

The police headquarters for the village were situated about a mile
from the house.  The arrival of an inspector and a constable was
heralded by the growling of the watch-dog.  Williams and the
inspector knew each other quite well.

The inspector was a large man, slow of movement and heavy of frame.
He first of all cleared the servants from the hall and stationed his
constable there.  He then invited Williams into the library and
closed the door.  Mr. Goff was finished with money-lending forever,
and it was now the business of the police to find his murderer.

There was, of course, no sign of a struggle in the room.  On a side
table were four empty glasses besides a pack of cards.  The guests
had been playing before they retired.  Mr. Goff's empty glass lay on
his desk in a pool of slipped liquor.  The door of the safe, which
was built into the wall next the bookcase, was open.

The inspector took in these details rapidly.  He noted that the
French window was ajar, allowing anyone to  out or in.  The
rustle of the wind among the trees in the garden whispered through
the room.

The inspector bent over the dead man for a moment, then sat down and
took out a notebook and pencil.

"Sit down, Williams, and tell me about it.  Where were you when you
heard the shot?"

"I didn't hear a shot, Inspector; that is the funny thing.  I had
been clearing up after supper.  The guests were upstairs.  I came in
to see if Mr. Goff wanted me any more, and he said he didn't.  Then I
went upstairs.  But I had forgotten to mention a detail to him--a
trivial matter about my usual holiday.  I get off usually for
Saturday and I wanted to have a little extra this week-end.  When I
opened the door I found him--like this.  That was just before
midnight, just on the stroke."

"How many guests are there?"

"Four gentlemen from London."

"Has anybody been in this room since you made the discovery?"

"No.  I awakened the guests, of course, but I did not allow anybody
to come into the room.  I knew you wouldn't want that.  But they
looked in.  I could not prevent them.  It is a terrible business."

"Go on.  You did not hear a shot?"

"Not a sound.  The French window was open as it has been all evening.
They were smoking a lot."

The inspector glanced at the dead man and then toward the window.

"Had Mr. Goff any enemies that you know of, Williams?"

"Well, I couldn't name any, but what moneylender hasn't?"

"That is true.  The murderer, it seems, shot him from the open
window.  Let us look."

The inspector took an electric torch from his pocket and went round
the room, flashing the light into dim corners and under the
furniture.  He bent down to the carpet several times.  He went out to
the garden and spent some time searching along the path and among the
flower-beds.  Presently he uttered an exclamation and dragged
something from under a rhododendron bush.  It was a revolver.  He
brought it into the room and examined it before putting it into his
pocket.  Then he turned to Williams, who had remained seated all this
time.

"There is a silencer on this gun, John.  That is why you did not hear
the shot."

"Ah, that's the reason, is it?" exclaimed Williams.  "I wondered
about that."

The inspector walked back to the window and faced the dead man.
After a few moments he spoke again.

"The man who killed Mr. Goff fired from about where I stand.  He came
in from the garden through this open window.  He must have fired at
once or Goff would have made some resistance and raised an alarm.
The reason Goff's head is thrown back as you see is because he looked
up from his desk just in time to receive the bullet in his forehead.
The smack drove his head backward.  That is why his face is turned
toward the ceiling and his neck on the back of his chair."

"I see," answered the manservant.

"Then the criminal threw away this gun----"

"In his flight?"

"Perhaps."

The inspector went round the room again, looking at the walls and the
floor.  He came to the card-table and sat down beside it, leaning his
elbow on the table, and fingering his chin thoughtfully.

"Was there much money in the safe, John?"

"I don't know how much, but I should say a tidy bit.  You see, the
four visitors came here to arrange the details of loans, so I
understood.  It was an idea of Mr. Goff to ask regular borrowers down
to talk over --I mean big borrowers, of course; his customers,
one might call them."

"Robbery and murder!" murmured the inspector.  "It is a big case,
John.  Bigger than we've had hereabouts since I can .  I'll
have to question everybody in the house.  Somebody may have heard a
suspicious sound."

"They've all told me that they didn't hear anything.  We talked it
out before you came, but the guests are in the morning-room.  They'll
be glad to tell you all they know."

"I'll have a word with them later.  Pure formality, but rules are
rules, you know.  This will mean a long report."

He glanced round the room once more, rubbing his chin and shaking his
head dismally.

"You see, Williams, to find the criminal we ought to reconstruct the
crime.  We know that Mr. Goff was a wealthy money-lender.  He kept a
safe in this room.  It is there, with the door open.  There has not
been any struggle.  Mr. Goff was at his desk, writing.  The pen he
was using is on the blotter.  The sheets of paper in front of him are
forms to be filled up for loans----"

"Which the guests were to sign in the morning," said Williams.

"Of course, that's it; and the  had been arranged, or Mr. Goff
would not have been in the act of filling up the forms.  Along comes
the murderer, looks in at the window, sees Mr. Goff and the open
safe--and shoots him!  It's hard on the four visitors who had come
for loans.  What are they saying about it?"

"They're a bit upset, naturally.  Will you have a word with them now?"

"Before I go in to see them, John, tell me who they are."

"Oh, I know very little about them--as little as a man in my position
knows about guests."

"Tell me what that amounts to."

"Well, there is Mr. Ralph Brunner.  He is a bookmaker and tipster.
He has a house at Epsom, but he goes all over the country.  You know
what some racing men are--loud-voiced, bragging.  He lives and talks
without reserve.  He has been here often."

"Yes.  And the next?"

"Mr. Jacob Finn.  He is one of the nicest gentlemen I have ever
served.  He was a doctor at one time, but got into trouble over a
wrong diagnosis and it broke him.  He has acted as medical friend to
the boss."

"The next?"

"Mr. Roger Cass, who has had many business deals with Mr. Goff.  The
two were great friends.  He was the only one who talked openly at
supper about the loan he was needing."

"The next?"

"Mr. Philip Oakland, a friend of Mr. Brunner's.  I don't know what
his business is, but he is always complaining of being hard up and
how difficult it is to make ends meet these days.  That's all I know
about the guests."

"Any new servants?"

"Oh, no.  We have only the cook, and the gardener who is her husband,
as you know well enough.  There is the maid to help the cook.  They
are in the kitchen now.  I told them you would want to see everybody."

"That was right."

"You see, Inspector, I lost no time before calling you.  You could
not be expected to get the murderer if you didn't get a quick start
on his trail.  And then, I have the guests to consider.  They are
going back to town."

"When are they intending to go?"

"I had my orders to see to them.  I was told at supper that they were
going back by the midday train tomorrow--I mean today, since it is
now morning."

"Have you seen anybody hanging about here lately--any
suspicious-looking person?"

"Well, the visitors took up all my time since they came the other
day.  It was one call, call, call, from morning until night.  Four
gentlemen take a lot of looking after."

The inspector remained silent for some time; so long, indeed, that
Williams became irritated at the slowness of the man's mind.

"Hadn't we better be getting on with it?" he ventured.  "You'll
report this to Scotland Yard, I suppose, Inspector?"

"Not yet, Williams.  If I report and ask their help they'll send an
investigator down.  He can't arrive before the afternoon or evening.
Maybe I'll send a call to the county headquarters, however.  You'll
help me all you can, won't you?"

"Certainly, Inspector.  Well, what about seeing the guests?  They're
anxious to tell you anything and then get off to their business."

"Williams, have you ever snared rabbits?"

"No."

"Or trapped hares?"

"No."

"Or hunted otter?"

"No."

"Or dug for badgers, or went after moles?

"No.  What has all this to do with----"

"If you had done any of these things you'd appreciate the value of
patience.  You're a townsman.  I'm not going into your past, for we
know each other.  We in the country need patience and we acquire it.
After all, the man who committed this crime was patient, so why
shouldn't we be?  He came here meaning to do it."

"You think so?"

The inspector took from his pocket the revolver he had found in the
garden and laid it flat on his broad palm.

"The number plate has been filed off to keep us from tracing where it
was bought.  That was cunning."

"I see."

"The murderer wore gloves so that there would not be
fingerprints--proof that the crime was not spasmodic and
uncontrollable impulse.  He has not left a trail.  He is more cunning
than any otter or badger I ever hunted.  I think I'll send a call to
county headquarters."

"You mean for them to keep a lookout for strangers?"

"Well, they look after the details of the prosecution at trials----"

"But you haven't got a clue yet and the man you want may be well on
his road anywhere.  If he goes to the city you'll never find him.
This looks like a case of town _versus_ country!"

"It is crime _versus_ justice," corrected the inspector, gravely.

"Well, what are you going to do?"

The inspector took a sheet of paper from the desk and began to write
rapidly.  Williams watched him contemptuously.  When the inspector
finished writing he took an envelope from the stationery rack and
addressed it carefully.

"I'm going to ask you to do something for me, Williams.  The police
doctor must see the body and give his certificate.  Will you please
go to my office in the village and deliver this note to the sergeant
in charge?  He will be expecting to hear from me."

"Why not send the policeman who is in the hall?"

"I'll need him to corroborate my report.  Two of us are necessary
here."

"Or telephone?"

"The doctor must have written instructions."

Williams took the envelope and went out of the room, the inspector at
his heels.  In the hall he turned.

"What if I meet the murderer?"

"Take the dog with you if you're afraid, but I hardly think you'll
meet anyone.  Come, I'll see you off."

He went into the yard, where the manservant released the dog and put
him on a leash.  The inspector accompanied him to the front gate and
watched him go toward the village.  Then the inspector returned to
the room where the dead man was still in his chair.

He examined the floor again, but could not find any footprints of
special interest, for there had been quite a lot of walking about the
room and there were marks of people having come in from the garden in
plenty.

The inspector next went upstairs, where he remained some time.  At
last he returned to the hall floor and went into the morning-room.
The four guests were sitting, clad in dressing-gowns, before a bright
fire.

"This is a bad affair, gentlemen," said the inspector.  "I'm sorry if
I have caused you any inconvenience, but I'll need to keep you up a
little longer.  Perhaps, instead of questioning you all separately,
you can tell me right away, so I can get my report made out."

They signified their consent at once.

"It is a shocking nuisance," cried the tallest man of the four.  "I
came down, like my friends, to get some money, and here we are mixed
up in a murder without a chance to put the loans through.  If I'd
anything to do with the police I'd have every man out scouring the
roads by this time----"

"You are Mr. Ralph Brunner?" interrupted the inspector, quietly.

"That is my name.  How did you know?"

"I thought you were Mr. Brunner.  Now to the work of finding a clue.
Did any of you gentlemen hear a noise?"

Not one of them had heard anything, or knew anything, until they were
awakened by Williams, who told them of the tragedy.  Brunner said it
took him some minutes to grasp what the manservant informed him of,
and he wondered if he was even now in a dream.

Oakland glowered into the fire, nodding his head profoundly and
muttering about "hard luck."

Finn smoked a cigarette and asked the inspector just where the shot
had struck Goff and if he had died instantaneously.  He then turned
and explained to Cass, who was seated next him, just what happens
when a bullet plugs its way through one's forehead.

Cass did not seem to be listening very intently.

At the end of five minutes the inspector wrote out a short statement
and the four guests signed it in turn.

"Is there no clue?" asked Brunner.  "Can't you get ahead and search
the countryside?"

"There is no clue yet, sir, but we'll find one.  There always is a
clue."

"It looks as if the perfect murder has been committed," said Finn.
"What do you think, Inspector?"

"There isn't such a thing as the perfect murder," replied the
inspector.  "No crimes are clueless.  There is always at least one
clue."

"For God's sake, then, find one here!" cried Brunner; and Oakland
echoed the words, but rather lifelessly.

"We'll find one, gentlemen, never fear.  Criminals take pains to hide
their tracks, but I never knew one who did it successfully.  They all
leave their marks somewhere, somehow.  It may be a button, a
handkerchief, a weapon, or a fingerprint.  It may be a footmark on
the floor.  But they always leave a trail.  No man can walk into a
room and do what this criminal did without leaving traces of his
presence."

"That sounds easy in theory," smiled Finn.  "But when it comes to
practical things--well, you don't mind my saying that your abilities
will have to be high to work it out in this case.  You have itted
an absence of clues."

"It isn't my abilities, sir.  It's the criminals who forget some
little thing.  By the way, whose cigarette case is this?  I found it
under the card table."

"That's mine!" cried Cass, swiftly; and his face went white as he
stretched out his hand.  "You don't--mean--you can't mean to
suggest----"

A sudden silence filled the room.  The three other guests looked at
one another, then at Cass.  Cass was gazing in a scared way at the
inspector.  Fate seemed to hang in the balance.  The inspector
laughed as he handed over the case.

"I don't mean to suggest anything, sir, except that the case must
have fallen when you were playing.  You don't think I was charging
you with the crime!"

"For a moment I thought you were," said Finn, glancing at the
inspector keenly.  "I don't mind confessing I thought so.  And so did
my friends.  As a doctor--a discredited one, but still a doctor--I
should say that Cass's heart gave him a nasty turn just now----"

"Your heart is tough enough, anyway, Finn," burst out Brunner, with a
forced laugh.  "You are the only one who hasn't changed color.  But
then, you are a doctor and you're tough.  I never saw you upset."

"Doctors don't show emotion," replied Finn, flicking the ash of his
cigarette into the fire.  "Strike the bell, Brunner, and have
Williams fetch us something to drink.  It will do Cass good."

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," put in the inspector, "but Williams isn't in
the house.  He has gone on an errand for me, but there is no need to
stay up any longer.  I was merely proving to you that there is always
something a criminal forgets----"

"What about all the undiscovered criminals?" demanded Finn.  "There
have been murders--all countries have them--where the murderer is
never found.  I believe that in England the proportion of acquittals
for murder is higher than for many other crimes.  Answer that if you
can."

"I think I can, sir.  You see, in murder the strongest proofs of
guilt are required, stronger than in any other crime.  And not so
long ago the Home Office issued a statement on this very subject.  It
is called _Criminal Statistics_ and there it is stated that an
acquittal does not necessarily imply failure to detect the
perpetrator of the crime.  Some juries shrink from giving a verdict
of guilty where others would not hesitate.  When I handed over that
cigarette case I was just trying to show how little things are often
forgotten by anybody."

"Bah!  You found the case and knew it must belong to one of us.  Cass
has claimed it.  What about the other three of us?  You said no man
could walk into a room and fail to leave traces.  I'll bet you could
not prove--actually prove--that we three were in that room."

"You forget, sir, the glasses on the table.  Your fingerprints must
be on those glasses."

The inspector arose.  The door of the room had opened while he was
answering Finn.

Williams, the manservant, had returned, and handed a note to the
inspector.  The latter opened it and read its contents.

"Good," he said.  "My sergeant has gone to fetch the doctor.  He'll
be here shortly."

"Maybe the doctor will find a clue for you!" said Finn, ironically.
"Do you mind if we wait up to see?"

"Not at all.  I don't suppose the examination will be long.  Doctors
never are.  Oh, there will be a clue, sir, though we may not get it
right away.  I believe there is always a clue.  Well, thank you for
your statement, gentlemen.  After the doctor is finished you can go
to your rooms to rest after the upsetting business.  But nobody is to
go into the library--not during the night or until I give
permission----"

"Are you staying here all night?" asked Brunner.

"No, my constable and I will go back with the doctor.  We have work
to do, you know."

"The flying squad!" said Oakland, sneeringly.  "By heck!  And anybody
would have had men out to search the roads long ago--anybody with
sand, I mean.  It's up aloft some officials need it.  By God!"

"That's true, Oakland," cried Brunner.  "The wanted man will be far
enough off by this time.  Counting his banknotes, I have no doubt."

"Oh, we'll get him, sir, don't you fear," asserted the inspector,
confidently.  "By the way, Williams, you will lock up as usual after
we've gone and get to bed----"

"Meantime he can get us a drink," said Finn, rising and stretching
his arms.  Then taking out his cigarette case and finding it empty,
he added: "I'm going up to my room for smokes.  Williams, you know my
taste.  Whisky and soda.  I suppose you three will wait up for the
doctor?"

They nodded agreement.

"It's a terrible end for old Goff," said Brunner, "but, though I wish
I could stay and see it through, I've got to get back to town,
especially now the loan has dropped through.  Will you wait here with
us, Inspector, for the doctor?"

The inspector accepted the invitation and Williams brought in the
drinks.  Finn came back with a supply of cigarettes for all; but they
were not long seated when the doctor arrived by automobile.

The examination was not of long duration, and when it was over the
inspector informed the guests that they could now go to bed.  After a
last drink they went off, but not before asking if a clue had been
found.

"Sorry there's nothing new," the inspector itted; and the guests
looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders as they went
upstairs to their rooms.

Williams let the doctor and the inspector out by the front door.  The
constable went with them, for there was now no reason to remain in
the house.  The servants had all been sent to their quarters, and
with a last instruction not to allow anyone into the library the
officials went out to the waiting car.

As the inspector and his constable took their seats in the car they
heard the manservant locking the front door.  The car started for the
village; but it had not gone more than a hundred yards when the
inspector requested the doctor to stop.

"I have forgotten something," he explained.  "My man and I will have
to go back and we may be some time.  You'd better go on, Doctor."

The doctor made an offer to run them back, but this was declined and
the inspector and his man returned together, while the doctor made
for home.

Not a word ed between the inspector and the constable until they
had almost reached the house.  It was the inspector who spoke.

"This way," he said, gruffly, pointing to the hedge.  They broke
their way through.  They were now in a meadow that bordered the
garden of Goff's house.

"Into the library!" ordered the inspector.

They found a gap in the garden hedge big enough to allow them to
press through.  They crossed the lawn noiselessly and entered the
apartment by the open French window.

The inspector stationed his man behind the door while he took up
another position.

"Have your flashlamp ready!" he whispered.

"What's to be done, sir?"

"Wait!"

They sat like black statues in the death chamber.  All was still in
the house.

An hour ed.

Through the quietness came a shuffling sound, a furtive footstep.  It
came from the hall.

It reached the door of the library.  The key was turned in the lock.
The door opened softly.  A man glided into the room.

He moved cautiously, with hardly a sound.

He reached the side of the murdered man and bent down toward the
desk, his hands stretched out, searching for something.  And then----

_Flash!_

The flood of the inspector's torchlight was but a fraction in front
of that of the constable.  The man beside the desk leaped back with a
cry.  The wineglass which he had touched was thrown to the floor and
smashed.

"Hold him!" cried the inspector.  "We have the murderer."

"I am innocent!  I am innocent!" cried the wretch who had thus been
caught red-handed as it were.

The inspector lit the lights of the room.

He looked triumphantly at the man who was his prisoner.

"You know enough of the law," he said, warningly, "to know that
anything you may say will be taken down in writing.  There were five
men in this house, five possible murderers.  I was certain it was one
of you.  I know what you came for just now.  I mentioned the
possibility of fingerprints on the glasses purposely.  It was a bait;
and it fetched you."

The inspector turned to the dead body of the money-lender.

"Maybe you would like to know why I suspected one of you five?  It
was easy.  When we came here the dog started a row.  Had the murderer
been a stranger the dog would have awakened the household.  The dog
must have known the man who came in at the French window.  Moreover,
there are no fingerprints on the safe door, and none on the revolver.
That meant the murderer used gloves.  An ordinary country burglar
doesn't use gloves.  It was a city crook's crime.  But the glasses
had fingerprints--and that glass by Goff's chair was upright on its
base in the center of the spilled wine.  It had been placed that way
after it fell, knocked over by Goff's flailing arms when he was shot!
That was easy to deduce."

The inspector turned to his subordinate.

"Guard him while I make another search of his room.  I hadn't time to
go through it properly first time."

Five minutes later the inspector returned to the library with the
bundles of banknotes that were missing from the safe.

"They were under a corner of your carpet," he said, quietly.  "We
need no more proof."

The prisoner was dumb, struck silent by this incriminating evidence
before his eyes.

"Goff befriended you," went on the inspector, sternly, "when you
needed friends.  He treated you well.  He did not know that you had a
bad record and had just been released from a period of preventive
detention for being a habitual criminal.  I am charging you with
murder, John Williams.  I've been keeping my eye on you for some
time.  I suppose you will go quietly."

And Williams went without a word.  He did not say anything from that
moment until, in his cell, he asked for a solicitor to undertake his
defense.

He was hanged in spite of his fight for his worthless life.

That was certainly an occasion on which I donned the black cap with
every justification....


The waiter flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his coat.

"You will pardon me," he said, crushingly, "if I disagree with your
final observation.  The execution of John Williams was indeed the
sentence of a very blind justice, my lord!  The real murderer of
Goff, the money-lender, is alive and well today and your penal code
cannot lay a hand on him because (although he makes no secret of his
guilt) your law cannot charge a second man with a murder for which
another has already paid!"




CHAPTER IX

_The Waiter States His Fourth Case_

At the calm words of the waiter the judge showed symptoms of extreme
consternation.

The waiter did not make any attempt, nor give any indication that he
was at all anxious, to allay the other's perturbation.  He seemed,
indeed, to be singularly detached, and it was not until the judge's
countenance showed that his disturbance was giving place to
resentment that the waiter made a gesture that caused the judge to
grit his teeth.  The waiter yawned.

"You have made a declaration," began the judge, irritably; but the
waiter brought his fist down with a resounding whack on the table.

"I have," he said firmly.  "I have made a few declarations since I
entered these premises; and this one is no less true than the others.
I have said that the real murderer of Goff, the money-lender, is
still alive.  To go into a minor detail, he is at this moment in
prison."

"I thought at first," remarked the judge, as his lip curled, "that
you would claim the distinction of having yourself murdered Goff.
You have two aliases----"

"Oh, I have more, but they do not affect our present considerations.
I am not the man who murdered Goff.  I have not murdered anybody yet.
So far my attention has been directed to smaller matters in the crime
calendar.  And I have been studying the law."

"But you have not been observing it in obedience," thrust the judge
at him angrily.  "I am waiting, however, for you to prove what you
have just said.  I shall require absolute proof--and even then----
But I am prepared to listen to your explanation."

As a matter of fact, this was just what the judge, at that moment,
was least inclined to do.  He did not want to believe that the law
for which he stood had been guilty of such a frightful mistake as to
hang the wrong man.  On the other hand, he was aware that such
mistakes _were_ made in the past, few in number, of course, but still
mistakes that were very regrettable.  He had never come up against
any mistake of that kind in his career and he could not it that
the law, which he so revered, had overlooked any item, or
over-emphasized any point.  Did not the foremost counsel argue in his
court?  Did not he himself explain every point of law to every jury
before allowing them to retire to consider the verdict?  These
thoughts were running through his brain when he became aware that the
waiter was speaking.

"I am asking you," the waiter was repeating, "to consider the inmates
of Goff's house.  There were the usual servants, all of whom we can
rule out.  There were the guests and there was the manservant,
Williams.  I should like you to use your powers of deduction in this
matter.  There were four guests----"

"Hadn't you better prove the innocence of Williams before you attach
guilt to anybody else?"

"Very well.  Nothing could be simpler.  Williams did not shoot Goff.
Williams went into the library, not to take the wineglass on the desk
and so eliminate evidence that would go against him.  He wasn't
thinking of the glass.  He was trying to find a document that Goff
had on his desk.  That was a letter which had been sent to Goff
informing him of the past convictions which had sent Williams to
prison.  When he discovered that his employer was dead, Williams
returned to the library to get that letter and destroy it.  Do not
you  that such a letter was found on the desk?"

"I am not sure."

"Then look up your minutes and see if the letter is mentioned."

The judge obediently turned over the pages of the minute-book, but
his mind was not really on the search.  He was fuming inwardly.  He
felt that somehow he had been tricked, that this waiter had led him
to commit a blunder.

"Have you found it?" asked the waiter, a little impatiently.

"No."

" the book to me.  Perhaps I shall be more successful."

The judge shoved the book along the polished table, frowning and
glowering.  He positively hated the waiter at that moment.

"Here it is," said the waiter, after a few moments.  "Your finger was
on the very page, my lord.  Fancy not seeing the paragraph!  It
mentions that this letter was under the loan forms.  It was read at
the trial of Williams, who itted its truth.  You observe how this
letter, which the wretched Williams was trying to hide, actually
became part of the police network to send him to destruction.  That
letter was written by one of the guests, I fancy, but it was signed
'A friend.'  Those anonymous friends are the very devils, aren't
they?"

The judge did not answer.  He was gazing at the table absently, chin
in hand, his massive face wrinkled and creased with thought.

"Come, my lord, cannot you deduce which of the four guests killed
Goff?"

"No."

"Do try!"

"I do not believe that a guest did."

"Tut, tut!  Why be so obdurate when I am offering you proof?  Now, do
come.  It is a good mental exercise.  What do you say?  Consider the
characteristics of them all.  You told the story and you knew these
men quite well enough to describe them."

The judge raised his head and a look came into his eyes that showed
he was taking an interest in the question put to him.

"Was it Brunner?" he asked.  "That loud-voice----"

"No, it was not Brunner."

The judge considered for a moment.

"I have it," he said, confidently.  "It was Oakland, the man who
sneered----"

"It was not Oakland."

"No?  Strange.  There are only two left.  It could not have been the
doctor, Finn----"

"Why could it not have been the doctor, Finn?"

"Why, he was a professional man--one who, to use his own words, was
discredited--but he was the only man of those four who had command of
himself----"

"That is just why it was Finn who killed Goff."

"What!"

"It is disappointing, perhaps, to you, but it is true.  Finn, the man
who had been a prosperous doctor and surgeon at one time, killed
Goff, the money-lender."

"Why did he do so?"

"The reason goes back some years.  Finn was a clever enough man, but
he was a very reckless man.  He drank and gambled more than was good
for him.  He took life much too irreverently, as some practical
scientists are apt to do.  He found that practicability rebounded and
struck him.  He was in a hole for cash.  He came to Goff, who loaned
him a sum.  To pay that back at high interest Finn did things which
were very unprofessional.  Step by step.  Goff sent him women
patients.  You understand?  But the law, when a woman died, laid its
hand on Finn.  He was sent to prison.  That ended his career as a
doctor."

The waiter paused, and tapped the table with his forefinger, just as
was the judge's habit when emphasizing a point in law.

"The authorities were so keen to prove the guilt that they did not
lift their eyes to anyone else, and so they missed seeing Finn.  Goff
had Finn tied up with loans.  He made a slave of him.  It became a
matter of Finn doing what Goff said.  Finn had come down to ask for
money.  Goff refused.  It is easy to follow the mental process of
Finn.  If Goff was out of the way he might be free to re-establish
himself somehow.  , Finn cared little for human life.  His
profession had lowered its value.  So he shot Goff.  And he took the
notes in the safe."

Again the waiter paused, again his forefinger tapped the table.

"Now you are thinking that the notes were found under the carpet in
the manservant's room.  Finn had them.  But Finn was a man with a
clear brain.  He was impressed with the inspector's insistence that
the murderer was sure to leave a clue.  If the notes were found on
him, supposing the police searched the house, he was lost.  He went
upstairs ostensibly for cigarettes.  It was then he laid the
banknotes under the carpet in the manservant's room.  Is there any
other item you would like to have explained?"

"How do you know all this?" demanded the judge in a suppressed tone.

"Finn told me.  He is in prison now.  It was in prison I met him.  He
spent the money recklessly.  He became a hanger-on.  Then he took
again to the business that Goff had taught him.  His patients were
women.  But his professional ability was impaired and he committed
another disastrous mistake.  He was sent to a convict prison, having
been charged with manslaughter and sentenced for that crime."

The waiter leaned forward and whispered the name of a prison.

"You will find Finn there now.  He is a desperate man, but he is not
a bad prisoner.  The other prisoners know that he claims the murder
of Goff.  He was questioned by the governor, who sent a report to the
State Department; and the State Department pigeonholed it, being
unable to lift a hand against Finn.  Have not you here a case where
the law defeated itself?  You believers in the judgment of death!  Is
it not enough to make you grind your teeth in humiliation?"

The judge stroked his chin with deliberation.  He felt like grinding
his teeth, but not in humiliation; in a temper that was swiftly
rising against this man who had teased and taunted him all night!
But at the same time the judge was too old a hand to allow his temper
to master him.  If he was to overcome this tantalizing, jibing
individual he could do it only by assuming a pose he was far from
feeling.  But for the moment he seemed unable to assume any pose.
Through his brain there was surging a frantic idea, a bitterness that
flared out in his tone as he fired a question at the waiter.  His
anger overcame his discretion.

"You, of course, knew all this when you suggested the case of Goff to
me?"

"Ah, didn't you say that it was more than possible that you would
have selected the case apart from my suggestion?"

"But you forced the card on me!  You made me take the case, knowing
that you had information I had no knowledge of!  It was cheating!"

"Steady!  Steady!  You use a harsh word, my lord.  There is nothing
to complain of.  You, a lawyer, know it is an old trick.  Did you
ever, in your pleadings before you became a judge, let the other side
know what card you had up your sleeve until the moment arrived to
present it?  Come, come!"

The judge flushed and glowered.

"Besides," went on the waiter, "the information I possessed was
available to everybody who cared to find it out.  Doubtless the State
Department I have mentioned feels a little reticent about the Goff
case.  To it a great miscarriage of the law would militate against
the security of the public mind.  Ah, and to think that convicts in a
prison know what the public never guesses!  My lord, is not the
object of my coming here tonight to let you see the point of view
that you and the public seldom perceive?  I assure you it is.  Alas,
for the defense of John Williams, the manservant!  It never had a
chance against the trained legal minds of state-paid officials who
desired a conviction and an execution.  Why did Williams not keep on
yelling his innocence from the moment he was arrested?  I shall tell
you.  It was because he was already a victim of the law."

"What do you mean?" asked the judge.

"You have told me what I already knew--namely, that Williams had been
sent to preventive detention.  It was you who sent him.  Listen to
me."

The waiter rose to his feet and wagged a finger in the judge's face.

"I tell you there is a prison full of men in this country--and there
are prisons full of men in other countries--where the fiercest hatred
of your law is fostered by the conditions under which these men live.
They are, or they hold they are, serving two sentences for one crime.
Is that fair?  Is it just?"

"I know of no prison of the kind, sir!"

"Yes, you do.  And you have sent men there.  Two sentences for one
crime!  When they have served their first sentence they are sent to
preventive detention for a period of not less than five, and not more
than ten, years.  Two sentences for one crime!  So many years in a
convict prison is a punishment enough for most crimes.  To be
transferred to another prison for another term is a frightful
injustice.  Two sentences for one crime, my lord!  How would you like
to serve them?"

"My dear sir, be calm!" expostulated the judge.  "You must be aware
that you are referring to habitual criminals----"

"Habitual sentences!"

"These men must have had at least three convictions against them
after the age of sixteen years; and they must be shown to be living
dishonestly----"

"Stop it!  Living dishonestly!  What about your business crooks, and
fakes, and bluffers, and four-flushers, and company promoters, and
gamblers in stocks and lives, and slum owners, and rack-renters, and
all the petty and great dishonesties that go on every day, winked at
by the law and encouraged by the society you smugly defend?"

"Exaggerations, my dear sir!  If the law is broken the legal process
may easily be set in motion.  The habitual criminals who are sent to
preventive detention are recidivists whose cases are considered
by--shall I say it humbly?--wise judges, who send them to detention
under discretionary powers----"

"Discretionary tommyrot!  Two sentences for one crime!  Two sentences
for one crime!  And not always for even one crime!  A police
interrogation may lead to a charge.  Harsh opponents of the police
call this a frame-up.  How many ordinary people know that if a
policeman asks questions they have the right to say, 'I will not
answer'?  And answers may be misrepresented unwillingly.  The judge
and jury are prejudiced against a wretch the moment he appears in the
dock.  The betting is a gold mine to a hayseed against the prisoner!
That was why John Williams, who had endured preventive detention, did
not open his lips.  His prison life had taught him that if he showed
resentment, if he protested, if he cried aloud in his agony that he
was a victim of a police mistake, he would be put through an
examination--which, with exquisite humor, is called 'making a
statement'--that would reduce him to pulp mentally and a wreck
physically.  Oh no, the third degree is not practiced in this
country!  Not at all!  But there is damned little difference between
the British legal enticement to 'make a statement' and the French or
American third-degree torture!  Two sentences for one crime!  And so
John Williams was silent--the silence of the beaten, hurt, scared
animal caught in a net.  His solicitor did not believe in John
Williams for a moment!  He accepted the defense because he wanted to
figure in a big murder trial!  The swine that lawyers are!  And he
suggested the defense to Williams, the defense of insanity and
innocence all mixed up and so distorted that Williams, led onward by
his lawyer, never really had a chance.  It was you, my lord, who
tried the case.  Is it not a fact that the defending counsel frankly
itted that he had advised his client to throw himself on the mercy
of the jury when he saw the arguments going against him?  Answer me,
is not that so?"

"It is.  I recollect the speech."

"You recollect the speech!  Do you recollect the prisoner?  Fighting
for his life in the midst of a whirl of legal arguments he did not
understand, and procedure he did not follow.  So he was hanged.  Thus
the law murdered him, after it had bullied him and smashed him and
cowed him and frightened him.  The majesty of the law!  The blindness
of justice!  Supposing I made an additional charge against you, my
lord!  Supposing I said that I would now try you for the murder of
John Williams, what would you say?"

The waiter stopped and his face returned to its normal calm.  He had
worked himself up into a fever of excitement during his harangue and
his voice had been raised almost to a shouting tone.  It was evident
that he was deeply stirred and in a dangerous state.  But his
wildness had only the effect of raising the indignation of the judge.
The latter perceived that this man was a criminal who was suffering
from a distorted sense of values.

"Preventive detention," he said, hotly, "is not what you describe it
at all.  It is meant for the benefit of the prisoners themselves, to
reform them and make them useful  of society.  The
establishment to which you refer is conducted----"

"Aw, cut it out!" cried the waiter, staring at the judge
unflinchingly.  "You can't tell anything about preventive detention.
I've had some."

"But not enough!" cried the judge, swiftly.

"On the contrary, too much!  I came from preventive detention to see
you!"

The accent of the retort was so incisive that it penetrated the
judge's heart and caused him to draw in his breath.

"My lord," said the waiter after a pause, "I think you are aware that
you have lost your case and that I may, with perfect fairness, add
another glass to my collection.  You do not seem to be very
successful tonight in your advocacy of the law."

"I protest that you forced a card in the case of Goff, the
money-lender.  You had facts--if what you have said is true--which
never came before me when I tried the case."

"That is a poor excuse, my lord.  All these facts were mentioned
during the hearing of the case--all but the facts relating to Finn.
The case was built up by the police, and on their evidence you summed
up and the jury convicted.  You dismissed the evidence of Williams
that he came down for a letter as a thin excuse.  All of you--police,
prosecuting counsel, jury and judge--concentrated on Williams when
you might have considered Finn.  And besides, can you honestly say
that you knew nothing about the confession Finn made after he was
sent to prison--it was overheard by a warder and communicated to the
governor, and I have told you that a report went to the State
Department concerned.  You must have known there was such a
statement----"

"Men often make statements that are untrue."

"There you go again--always trying to sink items that oppose your
judgment!  You see how you are prejudiced, perhaps unconsciously.
Well, well!  I will take the glass without further argument."

And the waiter lifted a glass from beside a sleeping member and
placed it beside the others.

"Have you anything to say before judgment is ed on you?" asked
the waiter in a hollow voice.

Coming swiftly on the top of what had already been said, the question
acted as a sting to the judge's highly strung nerves.  He jerked
forward and began to speak rapidly in a high falsetto key.

"I have a great deal to say.  I oppose your judgment altogether.  I
have not been given a chance.  I have been placed in a false
position.  I have been forced to plead when my function for years has
been to judge, to sum up----"

"But you used to defend or prosecute with brilliance!"

"Years ago.  And then one had time to consider one's case before
presenting it----"

"You complain of being pressed into a defense without having an
opportunity to study your brief?"

"I certainly do."

The waiter considered for a moment, deep in thought.  Seeing his
apparent reflection on this point, and believing that he had made an
impression, the judge went on.

"There is a vast difference between hearing a case and presenting
one.  In the latter instance one has had time to consider the line of
attack or defense, according to law.  In the former the duty of a
judge is to keep counsel strictly to the law.  A judge does not know
anything about a case before he hears it.  A counsel knows
everything.  The positions here are all wrong.  You have known more
about cases than I, and have brought forward evidence of the
existence of which I was not aware.  How, then, could a defense meet
a prosecution on fair and equal grounds?  Now, had I been in the
position of judge--my usual position--the results would have been
very different."

"But you accepted the challenge!"

"Perhaps a little unwisely," murmured the judge.

The waiter glanced at the glasses in front of him.

"I agree," he remarked, drily.

"At the same time," cried the judge, "I repeat that I have not had
any opportunity of studying my brief----"

"And you think that if you had been in the position of judge you
would have reversed the result?"

"It would have been my natural office to sum up with fairness and
clarity so far as the law is concerned----"

"But it is the law that is on trial!"

"ittedly.  But there is a spirit as well as a letter of the law.
You must know that the proportion of persons who are actually hanged
for murder is small compared with the number charged, and, I may say,
proved guilty.  Leniency is often exercised----"

"We are not discussing leniency.  The issue is simply whether the
state has a right to take life.  You hold that it has.  I hold that
it has not.  You grumble that you have not had time to study your
brief.  Why, you have had all your professional life to study it!"

The judge was silent.  The waiter looked at the glasses in front of
him once more.

He seemed to have forgotten the judge's presence, so deeply was he
engrossed in his secret thoughts.  A few minutes ed.  Suddenly
the waiter jumped up and gave an exclamation expressive of futility.

"You lawyers!  The audacity of you!  And the unreasonableness of you!
Your minds are encased in a crust of unhuman, stubborn inflexibility!
Stromatic brains!  Drive you from one stronghold, you find another
round the corner!  Destroy your web and, spider-like, you begin to
weave again!"

He started to pace up and down the room, muttering to himself.

The judge smiled behind his hand.  The man was certainly mad.  He had
given away to the judge in this outburst the key to his peculiar
insanity, the weakness that was also his strength.

He stopped and cast a look of purpose on the judge.

"But I shall break through that crust!" he roared.  "I shall drive
you out of your fortresses!  I shall destroy your webs!  I shall
compel you to it defeat!"

He resumed his stride, head bent more than ever, shoulders hunched up.

The judge remained silent.  He was sure now that he understood the
mania of the waiter.  The man was suffering from some real or
imaginary grievance that had become an obsession and had developed
his argumentation until it was mental disease.  To such an unbalanced
mind there was no satisfaction unless his opponent itted defeat.
It was victory in debate that he desired more than anything.  Only
the surrender of an antagonist to his deluded logic would calm him.

The judge watched him with a new interest.  Was the man really
insane?  Would the law accept a plea of insanity when he was in the
dock?  For in the dock the judge intended him to be.  Anyhow, there
strode the waiter, a tall man, strongly built, his face wrinkled in
perplexity.  And around the table sprawled the  of the Clue
Club entirely unconscious of the situation.  The flask of liquid that
was the antidote to their sleep was just beyond the judge's reach.
If only he could obtain command of the circumstances!  He coughed and
raised his voice.

"Why be so troubled?" he said in a tone he strove to make persuasive.
"Supposing we adjourn the discussion until after Christmas----"

He was thinking that he would have the man under arrest within
twenty-four hours.  But that thought was swept from his mind when the
waiter turned on him fiercely.

"There will not be any adjournment!"

"But we are both tired!"

"You may be.  I am not.  I came here to convince you, and I shall
convince you!  I came here to defeat you, and I shall defeat you!  I
came here to convict you, and I shall convict you!  I came to force
your ission of defeat and the justice of your conviction.  I shall
get this ission!"

There was so much energy in the declaration that the judge saw he was
up against a will equal to his own.

"As a counsel," continued the waiter, with emphasis, "you are a
failure.  You have not won a case tonight.  But that is not all I
wish.  I desire most of all your ission of failure."

The judge bowed understandingly.  His diagnosis of this queer
temperament was correct!

"Your obstinacy alone remains to be overcome," pursued the other, his
brows lowering.  "You ought to throw up the sponge, but your
mentality is unpliable and is petrified.  You raise the excuse that
you have not had time to study your brief.  More than anything I
desire to leave you no excuse, no consolation in your defeat.  I am
thinking how to proceed."

The judge could not hide a smile that crept round his mouth.

"When I said I had not had time to study my brief," he remarked, "I
hinted that as a judge----"

The waiter interrupted him with a shout as if he divined a way.

"As the prosecutor," he cried, "I have the right to make the final
speech.  That is needless since you have no chance to win in the
capacity of counsel.  Do I take it you prefer to be regarded as a
judge?"

"I have always been perfectly sanguine of my abilities in my judicial
capacity."

"You are willing to be judge in a case that has not yet been tried?"

"A hypothetical case would be welcomed."

"Or an actual case?"

"All the better."

"You will judge it according to law, in the spirit as well as in the
letter thereof?"

"Without fear or favor, without affection or ill-will, according to
the evidence placed before me, as the law does direct, in the
faithful discharge of my duty to my sovereign lord, the king, and a
true and honest direction to the jury will I give, so help me God!"

"The oath!" cried the waiter.

"Test me!" cried the judge.

The waiter sat down and laid the bludgeon by his right hand.

"I propose," he said, gravely, "to submit to your lordship the basest
crime of all."




CHAPTER X

_The Judgment_

My Lord [began the waiter in an even tone in which there was no trace
of excitement] you will not find the case I am about to submit
anywhere referred to in your minute-book.  Your  have not
discussed it.  But you may rest assured that I am presenting every
fact, and on these facts I ask your learned judgment.  Moreover, I
shall relate the circumstances without any embellishment and without
any intention of playing on your dramatic sense or on your emotions.
If you find me straying from the legal method of presenting the case
I trust you will immediately notify me, even although I am quite
aware that your acute and profound knowledge of jurisprudence will,
at the close, sweep aside any irregularities, redundancies, or
extraneous nonessentials of which I may be guilty.

In order, also, that there may be no prejudice and that the course of
justice may not be colored in the slightest degree, and that the case
about to be stated may be regarded equally as hypothetical or actual,
I suggest that real names and places be not mentioned.  It is my
humor to treat this case as a problem for the law to solve, for when
one mentions names and places one is often led into matters of
environment and psychological details that influence us to wrong
inferences.

There is just a third and final preliminary that may be mentioned.
We have considered so many cases in which the black cap has figured
that it would do no harm, and perhaps more than a little good, if we
enumerated the various circumstances in which the danger of the black
cap faces a prisoner.  Homicide is accepted in law as the general and
neutral term for the killing of one human being by another human
being [pursued the waiter].  It is true to say that one of the most
anxious points of concern in all systems of jurisprudence dealing
with homicide has been the nature and quality of the responsibility
of the killer to the relatives of the person killed and to the state.
This responsibility has been viewed from many angles--from the
standpoint, for instance, of the interests of the state wherein the
act occurred down to the standpoint of a general consideration of the
sanctity of life.  There is also the question of moral guilt involved
in motive and intention.

The old Jewish law was compelled to discriminate in cases of
homicide, as anyone will find by a perusal of the Pentateuch, the
first five books of the Old Testament.  In Exodus, Deuteronomy, and
elsewhere the law was laid down governing death by misadventure as
well as death by design.

In English law, criminal homicide comes under three heads--murder,
manslaughter, and _felo de se_, or suicide, by which act a man makes
a felon of himself.  At one time there was a system by which every
man's life was actually assessed at a price.  If a man was killed,
his chief, or his next of kin, received payment for the loss.  Until
later than the Norman Conquest it was customary to levy a fine on any
district where a stranger was found murdered, provided the killer was
not discovered.  As the stranger was not known, and therefore had no
relatives to claim him, the procedure was to presume that he was a
Frenchman; and the national exchequer was the financial gainer.
Simple, was it not?

There are times, however, when homicide is regarded as justifiable
and not criminal, such as when killing is done in execution by the
law--that is, the hanging of a murderer; and in war; but as
civilization became more complex the need to discriminate more
carefully than ever became apparent.  Never has this need been more
apparent than now.  Three great authorities prepared a draft of the
code bill of Sir J. Stephens, and on that draft the present legal
code finds a working model and apparatus.


THE BASEST CRIME OF ALL

Now for our experiment [said the waiter].  You will find the
prototype of the first character of this case in almost any chorus of
West End musical comedy.  She was a blonde, a peroxide blonde.
Naturally she was a brunette.  Imagine her a girl of a distinctly
temperamental type, childlike but not childish, gay and
light-hearted, with a figure and face that would attract any man in
whose veins red blood coursed.

She was musical to her finger tips.  In a day when willowy types were
supposed to be desirable on the stage, she was not willowy, but
retained a contour that enhanced her type of beauty; for beautiful
she certainly was.  At the period when this case opens she was in a
touring company--one of the many sent out with London successes so
that the plays, if not the players, of note, may be enjoyed by
provincial audiences.

But before she went she made the acquaintance of a young professional
man who was starting out on a career that was in the future to bring
him fame.  He was tall, dark, with a personality that commanded
attention.  Like many other young men, he was quite sophisticated.
He knew the West End.  He attended plays, especially first nights;
but it was not at any theater that he met this beautiful chorus girl.
As a matter of fact, it was in the street.

It was a small matter that brought them together--a rainy day, the
offer of his umbrella to cross the street in order that she could
attend the rehearsal of the company of which she was a member.  He
saw her to the stage door.  When, several hours later, the rehearsal
was over, he was waiting to meet her again.  They went to tea
together.

He was intoxicated with her beauty and her personality.  She was
attracted to him.  They met often after this, each meeting bringing
out fresh attractions of the girl and binding the two of them
together in a bond that was as subtle as it was strong.

Did he love her?  I do not know.  But he desired her.  Did she love
him?  Here, at least, one is on surer ground.  There is no doubt that
she was in love with him.  When the time came for her to go away on
her tour of the provincial towns, he was up at the railway depot to
see her off.  The city seemed very empty for him when she went; to
her the train seemed very cruel.

The tour was just more than half completed when he could stand it no
longer.  He took the train to the town where the play was being
presented and, arriving in the evening, went to a hotel, had dinner,
and went down to the theater.

He saw her the moment the curtain went up.  There she was, all
dressed in her stage array, in a costume of historical accuracy that
made her look lovelier than ever.  She saw him, too, and the smile
she gave him as he sat in the stalls was compensation to him for the
journey he had made.  His mind had been filled with doubts as to the
result of his visit.  When he saw that smile he did not doubt more.
He knew that he had her when he chose.

He went round to the stage door during the play and was itted to
see her.  He came back and spent the remainder of the time in the
theater glorying in his conquest.  When the show was over he took her
and a friend to supper.  He spent the next day entirely in her
company, feeling his way toward the object of his visit.  Then he
returned to town.  He had left her a book which he asked her to read.

It may be that youth is ever daring, or that present youth is more
daring than youth of the past.  But why mince matters?  It took some
time, but the end was gained.  She came to town at the end of the
tour and he was waiting for her.  As they sat in a restaurant in the
West End he asked her a question.

"What about it?"

She hesitated, looking at him so that she might read his soul.

"I will see," she answered.

He knew that he would win, for it was his business to read minds and
analyze words and accents.

He won, too, perhaps because she loved him so deeply.  They took a
small flat.  It was a marriage unencumbered with legal ceremonies or
social customs.

At least she thought it was a marriage; but she discovered reasons
for doubt.  For one thing, he often went out to attend dinners,
social functions, professional engagements.  He did not take her
where she would have loved to go.  She watched him go on these
occasions with regret.  She knew that he was climbing toward the apex
of his career.  His name was beginning to be talked about.  She loved
that.  She was proud of him.  On his side he considered everything
coolly and disionately.  His mind was alert, trained, capable.
He knew his way about the world.  His professional knowledge stood
him in good stead.  It held her and still allowed him the freedom he
required.

At the end of a year or so there came a revelation to her.  Indeed,
two.  The second was, in a way, the more terrible, for it deprived
her of the  she needed to face the first.  She saw that he was
tiring of her.

She pleaded, appealed, asked for reasons, begged him to  his
vows.  It was all of no use whatever.  He was cold, logical, without
alarm, without fear.  He knew his ground.  He was quite aware of
where he stood.  He paid the rent up to a certain date, told her to
find a place by that time where she might live.  On that day she
moved out to rooms which she had rented.  He promised to visit her
there.  He sold the furniture of the flat and went his way.  He never
visited her at all.

[During this recital the judge had listened with patience, but now he
bent forward and remarked that so far he had not heard anything that
was triable matter.  He did not wish to hurry the waiter, but let
them get to the legal issue as soon as possible.  The waiter
continued without replying directly to the interruption:]

When she became a mother, she became an exile.  An exile becomes
embittered, sometimes desperate.  She became both.  She wrote letters
to him, pleading letters, letters filled with touching memories
directed to stir the embers of his forgotten declarations.  He did
not reply to them.  But time and privation did not seem to kill her
love for him.  She saw his name in the newspapers and cut out all the
extracts she came across.  She fought against adversity as much as
she was able, writing to him at intervals----

["She ought to have applied to the courts under the Act providing for
illegitimate children," drawled the judge.  "An order against the
father could have been obtained."  The waiter answered quietly: "We
must allow for a shrinking sensitiveness that a betrayed girl may
possess.  There are hundreds, nay, thousands such alive today."]

She obtained a minor position on the stage.  Once from the wings she
observed him in the stalls, but when she emerged to the footlights
and their eyes met he pretended not to recognize her.  She wrote him
that night.  He replied this time, cold, formal, placing every legal
obstacle in the path of her request, disclaiming paternity of her
child.  When she received this letter she was as one facing death.
She fell ill and lost her work.

Then followed a period of bitterness.  He had taken from her more
than he knew.  He had given her more than he anticipated.  She
resolved to pursue him for the necessity of life as he had pursued
her for the desires of love.  She wrote again, in the name of their
child, demanding help to bear her burden.  She wrote again and again,
becoming more reckless, more unguarded in her words every time.  At
length his answer came.  She was arrested for attempted blackmail.

He was safely entrenched behind the habit of modern courts of
withholding from publicity the name of the person alleged to be
blackmailed.  His professional status was high enough and strong
enough to hide his name.  He made sure of his cover before he
launched the law against her.  Public men shield public men.  The
trial was short.  She was sent to prison without her story becoming
known.  It was all quite legal.  His reason for this act was to make
it impossible for her ever to approach him.  He had wiped her out.

Prison did not kill her, though it might have killed her.  Her
suffering had a curious effect on her.  It made her silent; but it
made her cunning.  She seldom spoke.  She obtained a job as a
wardrobe mistress in a touring company.  By a strange coincidence
this company covered the same ground as the company in which she had
been a gay chorus girl.  Every town at which the show was put on was
a crucifixion for her.  She ed every incident of her past,
she gazed in bitter-sweetness on the very flagstones where she had
met him, where she had stopped to read his letters sent to the
theaters; she recalled the phrases he had written, every phrase,
every incident, raising memories that tortured and almost suffocated
her.

One day she was in a town where his professional duties took him.  He
was, in one sense, a public man.  She went to hear his speech on this
occasion, hiding herself behind a pillar in the hall and hoping he
would not see her.  She listened to his masterly handling of his
subject, she saw how he was able to sway the opinions, the
convictions, of others.  But in her heart there was a terrible irony.
He was defending the actions of a man who had been guilty of conduct
similar to his own, and he was doing it by besmirching the name of a
woman.

[Here the judge bent forward and asked a question.  "What did you say
was the profession of this man?"  But the waiter apparently did not
hear, for he continued his story without even looking up.]

She never went to hear any more of his speeches.  She never again
watched the newspapers for his name.  She became more secretive than
ever, more cunning than ever.  When the tour of her theatrical
company finished, she ceased all connection with the stage.  She
devoted her time to educating her child, who had been until then in
the care of an acquaintance.

And now we must hasten to the climax of the tragedy.  The struggle of
this woman became more internecine than ever.  Her cares multiplied.
Her heart, already broken, barely served its natural purpose of
holding her life within her.  Her spirits, long at zero, fell below
that point.  The life that was in her was being crushed out as by a
terrible weight.  Her physique gave way under the strain.  Poverty
faced her.

Her child had never had any playmates, being attached to his mother
so closely that to be separated from her was painful.  One evening,
in the gloom of their single, miserable room, lit by a candle, the
mother, who had been in bed for some days, called this little boy to
her and, putting her arm round his shoulders and holding her cheek
against his, began a long story.  It was a terrible tale, her own
betrayal, her love, her shattered hopes, her disillusionment, her
desire for vengeance.  She talked a long time, punctuating her story
with bursts of pitiful anguish and many tears.  Who can ever know the
effect of that story on the child?  His tears mingled with those of
his mother, his heart was consumed with awful urgings.

This story of woe was not only a confession of the past, it was a
confession of a wrong she had done against the law in the present.
She had stolen to live and she was faced with prison again.  She had
written two letters, which lay, sealed in their envelopes, but
unstamped, on a table.  One of these letters was addressed to the man
who had wronged her, the other was addressed to the police.  She
asked her child to go out and put the letters in a mail-box.  He
picked up the letters and left the room.

But he deceived his mother in this matter.  Like all children, he
harbored a loyalty to his mother that nothing could shake.  But he
also had endured enough to make him secretive.  Perhaps this was
because he was sensitive.  He went to the doorway leading to the
street, stayed there a few moments, and returned on tiptoe, hoping
that his mother was asleep.  He peered through the hinge of the door.
He saw his mother pouring a liquid from a bottle into a tumbler which
she put on a table near her bed.  Then she returned to her bed and
lay waiting for him.  He stayed a little while before entering.  When
he slipped into the room she was lying still, exhausted by her
efforts.  He sat down by her bed, conscious that she was seriously
ill, bowed down by grief and despair.

His love for his mother bound him to the room.  He sat there by the
wretched bed all night.

Before dawn she awoke from her slumber and drew him to her.  She was
very pale, but she was still beautiful.  She gazed on him for a long
time, then stretched out her hand to the tumbler, asking him to drink
some of the liquid first and saying that she would drink some after
him, for she was sure he was thirsty and she herself felt in need of
drink.  But there was something strange in her manner, something that
frightened the boy.  He assured her that he did not wish a drink.
She tried to coax him, but he still protested.  She put down the
tumbler without taking any of the drink herself, but saying that they
would drink together in the morning.  Then she lay back on her pillow
and appeared to sleep again.

The child was filled with uneasiness and a strange, unable
apprehension.  The story she had told him, the weariness of his
vigil, the dread of the future and privation of the past all stirred
within him.  He began to think, so far as he was able.  Gently he
loosened her arm which encircled him and stole over to the window,
looking out at the breaking day.  He felt in his pocket for the
letters he had been asked to mail.  He wondered if he had done wrong
to keep them.  An idea came to him.  He went softly out of the room
and down to the street.

He could read fairly well.  He spelled out the address on the
envelope of one of the letters.  He set out resolutely to walk to his
destination, which was a street in the rich quarter of the city.

The walk occupied about two hours.  He asked his way many times.
Policemen and pedestrians directed him, the former looking at him
inquiringly; but the boy had learned the value of keeping knowledge
to himself and he never allowed anyone to see the letter nor gave a
clue as to his intention.  At last he reached the house and presented
the letter.  He was given a chair in the hall by a pompous servant.
The grandeur of the furnishings seemed to his child mind to speak of
a king's palace.  It awed him, this magnificence.

He had to wait for some time, but at last a tall man came down and,
without a word, laid a hand on his shoulder and piloted him down the
front steps.  A cab was hailed and they were driven through the
splendor of the West End toward the misery of the East End.  When
they were in the cab the man asked a few questions of the boy; asked
them sharply and in a tone that was peremptory.

"What is your name?"

The child gave his Christian name.

"Has anyone seen this letter?"

"No."

"It was sealed when the woman gave it you?"

"Yes."

The boy pondered this word "woman" as applied to his mother.  No more
questions were asked.

At a street corner they dismounted and walked the remainder of the
way, which was not very far.  They entered the room, the man going
first, the boy at his heels.  The boy saw that his mother was awake.
When she saw them she uttered a terrible cry.  The man stood rigid,
regarding her without a word.  The child looked from one to the
other, seeing expressions on both faces he could not comprehend.  He
retreated, feeling that here were forces beyond his understanding,
cataclysmic revelations he could not fathom.  He went out of the
room.  But he peered through the opening of the door-hinge and he
listened.

"What brought you here?" asked the woman.

It was a few moments before the answer was given: "I got your letter
sooner than you expected, perhaps.  Did you send it to me by hand?"

"It was to be posted.  How did you get it?"

"That boy brought it."

The woman groaned.

"That is where he has been!" she cried.  "But the police will then
have the other one I wrote.  You cannot now prevent the truth coming
out.  Even if they imprison me I will shriek your conduct from the
dock and the cell.  I had intended to drink what is in this tumbler
and so defeat your law----"

She burst into a ionate declaration.  The boy at the door heard
everything.  He heard his mother say that she desired her own and his
death.  He heard her confess that she had broken the law; that she
had recently stolen things; that she was in fear of arrest; that the
police were coming for her; that poverty and love of her child had
driven her too hard.  He heard her upbraiding the man bitterly.

In the midst of the torrent of accusation the boy entered the room,
holding the other letter in his hand.  The man saw the letter and
took it, from him, whipping it from his fingers before the child
could explain.  The woman shrieked and fell back on her pillow in a
faint.

The man turned to the boy and said, harshly:

"Go!  Fetch a doctor!"

The boy ran out of the room; but once again the cunning that life had
taught him halted him on the stairs.  He crept back and looked
through the opening of the door-hinge.

He saw the man standing by the bed, his gloved hands clasped tightly
together, fingers interlocked, and his expression fixed in a rigidity
that was stern and terrible.

For some moments the man remained thus.  The child watched, holding
his breath.  He saw the man lift the tumbler from the table and sniff
at the contents, then lay it down again; but he took it up once more
and approached the bed.  With his one hand he raised the head of the
boy's mother.  Her eyelids flickered.  She sighed.  The man's hand
seemed to tremble, but he forced himself to put the tumbler to the
woman's lips.  She drank eagerly, thirstily, her eyes still closed.
Not until she had gulped down most of the contents did she open her
eyes.  She never spoke, but in her eyes was a look that seemed to
pierce the boy to the marrow.  She was staring at the man.

The man let her head fall back on the pillow.  He laid the tumbler on
the table, glanced at his finger tips, and then turned toward the
woman again.  A spasm ed through her.  That was all.  After that
she lay very still.

The double murder had been committed--first, murder of her soul, then
murder of her body.

But the child who had seen this did not understand, though he was
aware that a crisis had come and had ed.  He burst into tears and
ran down the stairs to fetch a doctor who lived in the next street....

[The waiter raised his head, for a sound had come from the judge.
"Did you speak, my lord?"  There was no reply.  The judge's eyes were
closed and his right hand covered the lower part of his countenance,
an attitude he often assumed on the bench when engaged in deep
thought.  The dawn was streaming through the curtains.  The fire had
died down and the room was chilly.  A slight shiver ed through
the massive frame of the judge.  The waiter, too, shivered; but he
rose to his feet with an effort.

"I shall not keep you much longer listening, my lord," he said,
distinctly, but without looking at the judge.  "There is not much to
add in this hypothetical, or actual, case, which I have called the
basest crime of all."]

The child fetched the doctor.  The woman was dead.  Listen to the
story the man who had killed her told the doctor.  He told it
pompously, legally, with his usual air of superiority.  He said the
woman had written to him urging him to come and take up her case,
which was of importance.  He had destroyed the note she wrote, but
out of his generosity--for he was known to be generous at times--he
came.  But fear of arrest had caused her to take the poison just
before he arrived.  It was a very virulent poison that was in the
tumbler.  Recognizing the situation, he had at once sent the child
for medical aid.

And the doctor accepted the statement.  There was no need for this
inhuman betrayer of women to appear at the subsequent inquest.  His
position made it sufficient for an affidavit to be accepted.  The
woman's fingermarks were on the tumbler.  Who was she, anyway?  She
was known under her maiden name.  She had a child.  She had been an
actress.  Did not all unfortunate creatures call themselves
actresses?  She had no relatives.  She was in poverty.  Verdict of
the coroner's jury: Death caused by the self-istration of poison
while of unsound mind!

And the child?  Why did he not state what he had seen?  Did I not
tell you he was a loyal child?  In his young brain there burned the
truth that his mother was in danger of arrest, of imprisonment.
Shame and fear, misery and despair, grief and confusion, reigned
within his mind.  His life had taught him suffering.  His mother had
taught him secrecy.  He was afraid of the law, he shrank from the
cold authority that was surrounding him.  He was stunned by the blow
that had fallen.  It was the doctor who took him away.  It was the
doctor who placed him in a home--a home for orphans where he was
under the rules and r&eacute;gime of a discipline that shattered his
orientation.  Can a child think clearly?  Can a child arrange his
ideas and sort out his troubles?  By the time he saw and classified
things he was too late to voice his injustices.  He was already
adrift--stampeded into retaliatory crime!


"Now permit me to come to the motive for the basest crime you have
heard.  Why do I call it the basest crime?  Let us recapitulate those
we have considered.  Are you paying attention, my lord?"

The judge had not moved.  He seemed to be without life, but the
tremble of the hand that covered his features told the waiter that he
was listening.

"In the first case, that of Ammar Baddan," said the waiter, "the
murder was committed because of a clash of ethics.  I find no point
of similarity there to this case.

"In the first case I related, that of Lorry Black, the motive was
revenge.  There is no point of similarity there.

"In the second case you related, that of Abe Lammie, the motive was
burglary, the desire for possession.  There is no similarity there.

"In the second case I related, that of Jeff S. Connolly, the motive
was jealousy.  There is no similarity there.

"In the third case you related, that of Nathaniel Gore, you yourself
emphasized that vanity brought him to the scaffold.  There is no
similarity there.

"In the third case I related, that of Walter Seale, the crime was one
of ion.  There is no similarity there.

"Your fourth case--which proved so disastrous to you--demonstrated
the blindness of justice and a crime of hate.  There is no similarity
there.

"I do not doubt that in all your experience you have never come
across a baser, meaner, more foul crime of murder than the one--my
fourth--which I have just told.  You have had the unique opportunity,
also, of viewing this assassination from the standpoint of a judge.
The motive was the preservation of this man's professional career and
social position.  Had the woman he had betrayed and then abandoned
been arrested, the truth about his past would have been disclosed.
He preserved himself at the cost of this girl who had given him all a
woman can give.  He stamped her into a felon's grave to keep his own
feet out of the mud.  He made his child _filius nullius_, a son of
nobody, inflicting on that child, as he had inflicted on the child's
mother, suffering and shame and agony that cannot be expressed in
words.  Give me your judgment!"

The judge did not answer.

"Your judgment!" cried the waiter, impatiently.

The judge dropped his hand from his face and gazed at the waiter with
glassy eyes.

"Your judgment!"

No answer came.

The waiter's voice rang out like that of an advocate addressing a
court of law.

" your code!  _If the offender means to cause the death of
the person killed_--and this man meant to cause the death of the girl
he betrayed!"

A pause, during which the judge gave no sign.

" your code!  _If a person isters any stupefying thing
for the purpose of defeating justice_ it is murder!"

Still not a word from the judge.

" your oath!  _Without fear or favor, without affection or
ill-mil ... in the faithful discharge of your duty ... so help you,
God!_  You cannot refuse sentence!  Judgment of death!"

The judge's lips moved, but no word came.  He appeared to be in a
trance.  He made another effort to speak.

"Judgment of death?" he echoed in a hollow voice; and his hand was
raised slightly in horrified, feeble protestation.

" the verdict upon yourself!" the waiter hurled at him in a
savage frenzy of victory.  "Speak, judge of criminals!  Ah, you know!
You comprehend!  For you were the man who, eighteen years ago, handed
the fatal draught to the woman whom you betrayed and then destroyed!
Slayer of women!  Defrauder of children!  Dispenser of the law!  See,
here is your badge of office!"

He drew an object from his pocket and threw it down on the table in
front of the judge.

A shiver ed through the latter's massive frame.  Like a
somnambulist he put out his fingers and touched the object; but drew
back his hand quickly with a startled cry.  He recognized the dark
object.

It was the black cap worn by judges who  the judgment of death
sentence!

The waiter leered at him; the judge, down whose face perspiration was
streaming, jerked himself back in his chair.  From being livid his
features changed to gray, then to pasty white.  His heavy jaws
sagged, shaking as with convulsions.

A moment or two ed in silence.  There was a terrible look on the
waiter's face as he watched the judge's struggles.  The latter was
making frightful efforts to control himself.  At last his countenance
became more normal, but his teeth showed, gritting.  And his eyes
glowed like the eyes of a beast in a trap.  They were like two
wolves, these men; and if the old wolf was cornered, the young wolf
lingered over his victory.  He began to taunt him.

"Come on, my lord!  The judgment!  The judgment!  How does it appeal
to you now?  The black cap is there!  It is your own!  Taken from
your chambers!  I took it!  I brought it here!  Does it not feel
homely?  Put it on your head!  Judgment of death!  You cannot refuse!
Beaten!  That is what you are!  Give in!  Give in!  Confess defeat!"

With a sudden movement he tore open his shirt front.  The judge cried
out.

Under the waiter's shirt was the dress of a convict, prison garb!

"Come on, my lord!  Defeated by me!  Convicted by a convict!  You
have no defense!  Look at me!  Your obstinacy battered to pieces!
Logically bankrupt!  Socially, too!  Your own law holds you!  Confess
I have smashed you!  Confess I have convinced you!  Throw yourself on
the mercy of the court!  Confess!  Confess!  Judgment of death!"

"It is blackmail!" came from between the judge's teeth, in a hissing
fury.

The waiter either did not hear or did not care to hear.  He continued
to rail at the judge, taunting with scalding words, hurling the legal
code at him, pelting him with sneers and humiliations.  And in the
end he threw down on the table a small book, and with a twist of his
thumb turned the cover over, revealing a photograph lying within.

The judge stared aghast at the book and the old photograph.  The book
was Abbe Prevost's Manon Lescaut.  The picture was that of a
beautiful girl in theatrical costume.

"Now will you confess, my lord?  See, there is the signature of the
giver of the book on the title page!"

The bitterness had gone from the waiter's voice.  He was gazing at
the judge with tragic intensity.

The judge was ashen; he gasped as if struggling out of a swoon.  Red
rims circled his eyes.

"Give me time!" he muttered.  "Give me air!"

"Bravo!  Bravo!  You shall have time!  You shall have air!  Then you
will confess failure!  The victory I have striven for!  A fateful
Christmas morn, my lord!  I shall open a window.  This atmosphere is
vitiated.  Then for your ission!  Your confession!  Your judgment!"

The waiter rose and walked to the nearest window, the cudgel under
his arm; and as he walked and while his hands were on the heavy
curtains he still talked.

"He that liveth by the sword shall perish by the sword, my lord!  The
_lex talionis_ code!   the Book of Exodus, chapter
twenty-one--_then thou shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound
for wound, stripe for stripe----"_

A shuffle behind him!  He wheeled just in time.

There, within a yard of him almost, towered the judge, a chair swung
high above his head, poised to strike.

The judge's shout mingled with the shout of the waiter.  Down came
the chair!  The waiter leaped and swung his bludgeon.

Crash!

The crack of wood against wood!  The chair broke, but the judge still
held a carved leg with which he struck with all his strength.  The
blow caught the waiter on the shoulder; but the bludgeon went up and
fell on the judge's head at the same moment.

Both men fell; the judge like a log, straight to the floor as a tree
falls before the ax of the lumberman; the waiter sideways, grabbing
for a hold as he went down.

The chair leg flew across the room and rattled against the wall.  But
the bludgeon remained in the waiter's hand, glued to his fingers by a
grip that had never held it so well since Kartarus swung it when he
plundered England.

The waiter was on his feet in a moment.  He looked down at the judge,
bludgeon still in his right hand.  For all his modern clothes he
might have been Kartarus then!  The poise was that of the barbarian,
the same grim elasticity of body, the bludgeon gripped as only that
savage hand could grip it, the out-thrust aggressive chin, even the
wisp of dark hair that trailed across forehead to the left temple and
hung close to the left ear.  Kartarus!

A feeble moan came from the prostrate judge.

The waiter bent down and looked into the wrinkled face; then stooped,
still holding his cudgel, and lifted the heavy form and propped it in
the presidential chair.  A terrible wound was on the judge's head, a
wound that would have killed most men outright.  And yet the waiter
had not struck with all his force.

He poured out some wine and held it to the judge's lips, and dabbed
the blood that streamed down from the gaping wound.  The judge opened
his eyes dazedly.

"Who are you?" he murmured.

"My lord, my lord!"

He gave the judge a little more wine.  The judge's hand was raised
feebly and his finger pointed to the flask which the waiter had laid
on the table at the beginning of that eventful night.

"My lord, there is nothing in that flask but water.  It was my trick
on you.  Just my trick.  Only water, my lord.  Are you feeling
better?"

The judge was far from better.  He was not only losing blood rapidly;
he was also losing consciousness.  His eyes were glazing and his head
drooped.

His lips moved.

"You will not escape," he murmured.  "You will be caught,
blackmailer!"

"My lord, you brought this upon yourself.  I did not come here to
assault you.  I came to conquer you logically, not by force.  I came
to smash your proud, domineering pose, that crust of legal
self-deception and self-esteem that has blinded you----"

"You poisoned these gentlemen!"

The waiter glanced at the sleeping  of the Clue Club.  One or
two had slightly changed their positions like men who slumbered
uneasily.

"All they had was knock-out drops, my lord.  How do you feel?"

But the judge did not reply, for his strength was fading.  His great
head fell on the high back of his chair, the ability to 
himself went out of his limbs.  He would have slid to the floor had
not the waiter caught him.  But he could not hold the judge in the
chair.  The wounded man's eyes were closed by this time, his clothes
were drenched in blood all down one side.  The waiter put his arms
around him and gently lowered him to the floor and laid a cushion
under his head.

He brought a basin of water, a sponge and a towel and began to bathe
the judge's wound.

Daylight was now flooding the apartment.  The candles had burned to
their ends and smoked in the sockets.  Outside was a white world.
Snow lay thick on the houses and street, on the window sills, on the
electric standards, on the telephone cables.  Snow was falling
steadily, coming down from the gray sky in large flakes that gave the
impression of an endless sheet of spotted muslin being unrolled in
front of the windows.

The judge's lips trembled.  The waiter bent his ear close.

"Judgment of death!"

Was it a verdict or merely the semiconscious repetitions of a fading
brain?

"Your secret is safe with me, my lord," whispered the waiter.  "I
have kept it for many years.  I have kept it because I have schemed
to come to you.  It was when I was in prison that I first had the
idea----"

A change came over the judge's countenance.  His breathing was now
fast and feeble.  A strange pallor spread from his throat to his
forehead, his eyes seemed to sink into cavities, and the closed lids
gave a suggestion of ghastly transparency.  It was as though the
glazed balls were gazing at the waiter through skin veils.

"Who are you?" he breathed with difficulty.

The waiter sat up, rigid; but before he could answer the judge's
weary tone came again, this time with a touch of clarity that
thrilled.

"I !  You were--the boy!"

His head fell back.

"I am your son!" cried the waiter.

Did a sigh escape the judge's blue lips?  Perhaps.  But now there was
stillness--utter stillness.

The waiter put his hand over the judge's heart.  There was no
beating.  He touched the eyes.  There was no flicker, no reaction.

The waiter rose to his feet.  He took the sponge and slopped it
quickly over that part of the table where he had sat.  He wiped every
glass he had touched.  He went over every place where he might have
left a telltale mark and obliterated any possibility of detection.
He rolled the blood-stained towel into a ball and placed it on the
fire so that it would burn quickly.  He picked up the black cap, the
book, and the photograph, and pocketed them.  He slipped a pair of
rubber gloves on his hands and lifted the flask of water which he had
pretended was an antidote to the dope and drained it into a
flowerpot.  He slipped to and fro, doing a few other things so that
his trail would be lost.  He washed out the bottle from which he had
dealt the doped drink.

Finally he stepped to a cupboard and took out an overcoat and cap.
He donned the coat and pulled the cap well down over his brows.  He
lifted the bludgeon and hefted it.  He noted that his fingers fitted
into the burnt grooves, that he could wield this weapon as if it had
been made for him.  He put it into his coat pocket.

He was at the door when a sound caused him to turn.

One of the  of the Clue Club was stirring, stretching his
limbs, yawning, with closed eyes, as one who comes slowly back to
life.

The waiter slid outside before he was observed and closed the door
softly behind him.

No hypothetical conditions now prevailed.




CHAPTER XI

_Lex Talionis_

In his attempt to prove that the taking of human life for murder was
unjustifiable the waiter had taken a human life.

He marched along the street with his cap pulled down, his overcoat
collar buttoned up over his chin, his hands thrust deep into his
pockets.  The bludgeon was hidden because he had thrust it up his
sleeve.  There were very few people about--a stray milkman, a postman
with his parcels and letters shielded from the falling snow by his
wide waterproof cape, a solitary policeman at a corner.

The waiter marched on, head bent so that his face was invisible.
Only his eyes looked out on the white world.

From a side street came the sound of singing.  A group of waits,
ushering in the day of days in all the year, were beginning a hymn:

"_Peace on earth, Good will to men!_"

The waiter hurried past the side street and pursued his way.  He had
no time to lose.  But he knew his objective: it was some distance
outside the city, a house near the river.  There he would find what
he wanted, what he most required for the moment--safety, a place to
hide from his fellows.  Good will to men!

It had not been an easy affair to make his call at the Clue Club.
Before he had taken upon himself the job of waiter for one night he
had been on the run with the law at his heels.  The law had been on
his heels, it seemed to him, ever since he could .  The law
was his greatest enemy.  Between it and him there was an endless
feud, a ceaseless war, waged with varying, minor victories for both
sides.  He still wore the brand of the most recent victory of the
law--his prison clothes!

But although the law had won several rounds, he believed himself
superior to it, and his boldness had given him victory as often as
defeat.  He had learned the law by opposing it.  His life had been
one long conflict with it.  A man discovers a great deal about an
antagonist if he fights long enough.

This man had been on the run for more than a week.  He had broken
prison after careful and deliberate consideration, for he had had
plenty of time to work out his plan.  He had served a term in a
convict jail long enough to know every routine, every minute detail,
and one day he had escaped.

As he ploughed his way through the snow he ed every item of
that escape, he went over every point.  The first twenty-four hours
had been the worst, the most exacting, in many ways.  They had been
the hours during which he had separated himself from the prison with
all the speed and all the cunning of his very alert brain.
Everywhere warders were searching for him.  The local police were on
the watch.  The civil population were looking out.  He had been a
hunted thing that traveled over the landscape as a fox travels,
furtively.

Everything was against him from the moment he took the chance of
freedom into his hands.  The very weather was an enemy.  His only
food for forty-eight hours had been what he stole from the kitchen of
a cottage on the moors.  He had stolen that food with a wild,
terrible joy--the joy of finding something to stay the hunger that
made him savage.  He had slept one night under the seat of a railway
coach in a siding where there was a line of disused coaches.  He came
out before dawn to stagger on his way toward the city.

If only he had been able to get rid of his prison clothes he would
have faced the daylight, but it was not until he reached the suburbs,
the outer suburbs, that he was able to get a coat and a pair of
tros from a shabby clothing store, and these garments he pulled
over his prison clothes for warmth.  The nights were bitter and the
frost chilled him through and through.

He had two agonies grinding him.  The more pressing for the time
being was the deadening sensation caused in his limbs by the absence
of heat.  This made him feel as if his body was brittle.  Only a man
of very strong frame could have stood the cold and hunger of the next
few days; and this man's suffering went deeper than his bone.  It
went to his soul.  During that week, while he was making his way
across country, and while he was hiding about the outer suburbs, he
was as a beast of the field.  He ate anything on which he could lay
his hands.  He gnawed at refuse which he took from dustbins at night.
He prowled like a vulture among the byways of the city's fringe,
burrowing anywhere, in tool-sheds, in garden shelters, in any place
he could find.

And it was here that the second agony ed forces with the first.
Had he not been a man of iron will he would have succumbed or
surrendered.  But his pain had the opposite effect.  It made him all
the more determined to gain his objective.  It acted as a spur,
driving him ahead to the crisis he had pictured and fixed in his
mind.  He suffered that he might triumph.

Prison had failed in his case.  It had punished him, perhaps, but it
had never deterred him, and it had never educated him out of crime.
This was because he had already been a victim of injustice before he
was born and had come into the world with a grievance that was a
weight to be borne only with difficulty.  He was a living problem and
a terrible answer to the clergy who prate of children being "lent by
God" to parents.  God had not lent him to anybody.  God had thrust
him into a world where he did not fit.  He had begun, as soon as he
realized his position, to revenge himself on society.

Like many others, he was thus a living proof that, though the law
could punish him, it could not deter.  Force could be, and was, met
by cunning.  The fierce methods of early punitive systems never cured
the equally fierce methods of criminals, for the obvious reason that
to "make the punishment fit the crime" results, as a rule, in the
criminal being lost sight of.  The law, perhaps because of its own
nature, standardizes wrong-doers as it standardizes wrongs, and the
result is that every kind of lawbreaker meets every other kind in
prison to undergo the same treatment for all sorts of varieties of
crime.

Prison, however, had kept on this man, as it so often keeps on
others, the thin veneer by which it sought to preserve social habits
as opposed to anti-social habits--an endeavor to maintain the skin of
civilized man on a rebel.  But during his days of anxiety when he was
seeking a refuge from his pursuers he became, owing to the necessity
of living, a kinsman of savages.  One states this without blaming or
excusing.  It was merely a fact.  He had entered prison a polished
thief, a glib malefactor.  He became, in that week of torment,
something quite different.  But the idea of revenge, which had
floated at the back of his mind for some time, crystallized.  His
fine brain, part of his heredity, devised a more exquisite method of
vengeance than swift accusation and angry blows.  His mother had
failed to obtain justice because she had adopted a line that the law
did not recognize.  His plan was to avoid failure, yet to strike
fear.  But the mouse had been killed before fear of the cat paralyzed
its resistance.

Did he regret the climax that now caused him to speed through the
snow-covered streets?  It is impossible to say.  He had sought for
triumph of a delicate and particular kind, and he had obtained a
finality.  All this had a remarkable effect on him.  His brain was as
keen as ever, as logical as ever, as fine in its conception as ever;
but something primitive in him had developed suddenly.  It may have
been the grip of the ancient barbarous cudgel that communicated a
stark something to him.  No man had ever gripped that bludgeon so
naturally, so instinctively, since it had been dug from the ooze of
the Thames.  His fingers clung to the burnt grooves with an inborn
intimacy.  It was his constitutional weapon.  And this new
primitiveness made him cautious yet aggressive, furtive yet bold,
suspicious yet defiant.

He strode on, his hand on the handle of the bludgeon which was in his
pocket, his arm cuddling the knobbed head which was far up his
sleeve.  In the still, quiet, white morning the houses seemed to him
to be tall, gaunt prisons, the few pedestrians were his enemies.  But
he pushed on until he reached a locality that spoke of middle-class
residents, rows and rows of detached houses.  He strode to the door
of one and rang the bell forcefully.

It was still somewhat early.  A window above the doorway opened and a
man's head was thrust out.

"Who's there?"

"Come down and let me in," called the visitor.  "I have come to wish
you a happy Christmas, Bern, you old sinner!"

The window slammed and in a few minutes the front door was opened
slightly.  The visitor burst his way into the hall and shook the snow
from his shoulders and cap.  Facing him was a small man clad in a
dressing-gown.

"You!" he gasped, shivering as the snow flew about the hall.  "You,
Lorry Black!  You, Adam Jelks!"

"Didn't expect to see me, Bern!"

"No."

They regarded each other for a moment.  The man in the gown shivered
and his hand shook visibly as he saw his visitor was expecting him to
shake.  Bern's hand was the colder of the two when they clasped.

"You've got to help me, Bern.  Lead the way.  Have you a fire?  I've
come to talk business."

Bern shuffled toward a back parlor and ushered his visitor in.  A
fire was laid.  Bern put a light to it and turned to gaze at the
other.

"I saw by the newspapers you had escaped, Lorry--or is it Adam?"

"It doesn't matter much, Bern."

"You've been out for some days.  I didn't want you to come here.  I
didn't expect you."

"But I've come, Bern.  I'll tell you why I came.  You  the
insurance money that came to me when I was supposed to be drowned in
the name of Lorry Black?  You got it to hold for me.  I need it now."

"But, Lorry----"

"I need it.  But first I want another suit of clothes.  Fetch a
complete outfit.  I'm cold."

He opened his overcoat and threw it off, revealing his waiter's garb,
and the open shirt front showed his prison jacket.  Bern gave a cry
and held up his hands in alarm.

"Lorry, where have you been in that dress?  Evening dress over _them
things_!"

"Get me a suit and I'll tell you.  And get me a breakfast too.  Go
on, you Yid.  Do as I say."

He held up the bludgeon, and Bern saw a red smear on the knobbed head.

"Lorry!" he cried.

"Listen, Bern.  I came here so that I might get away.  You'll do as I
tell you.  See?  If not..."

He hefted the bludgeon meaningly.  Bern shuddered.

"Now, Bern, get busy.  Breakfast.  A suit of clothes.  When I'm
eating I'll talk."

Bern shuffled off to obey the order.  He came back with clothes and
in a short time a breakfast was placed on the parlor table.  He
watched his visitor change his clothes and roll the prison garments
into a bundle.

"You'll burn them, Bern.  You have a furnace in the basement.  Wait,
I'll do it myself."

He knew the house, apparently, for he went out and Bern heard him
clumping downstairs.  When he returned he was smiling grimly.

"That's done, Bern.  Now, let's eat.  I'm staying here today--until
night.  I'm spending Christmas with you.  No other friends coming, I
suppose?"

"No, no other friends, Jelks."

"And don't let any servant see me, Bern."

"No."

"Have a cup of tea.  We're going to talk."

Bern had brought two cups.  He poured out some tea, but his hand was
still shaking badly.

"Where have you been since you broke out, Jelks?"

"In hell, most of the time."

He ate rapidly, hungrily, and at length sat back in his chair with an
exclamation of satisfaction.

"You must have expected me, Bern.  You gave evidence against me last
time----"

"I couldn't help it.  They dragged me to the police----"

"I can guess.  They made you talk, eh?  They suspected you received
stolen goods; but they did not know I placed all my stuff with you.
Well, well!  I've had some trouble keeping my names apart on the
jobs, Bern.  But you seem to  me as Lorry Black, eh?"

"Of course I do, Lorry."

"Now, what about the insurance money on Lorry Black's life?  It was
lifted and handed to you to keep.  A friend of mine gave it to you."

The Jew hesitated.

"That's right," he said at last, "but I didn't get it all."

"I know what you got.  Four hundred pounds.  I was insured for five.
I want that four hundred."

"Aw, Lorry, I don't keep that much in the house.  I put it all in my
bank.  I thought that if they found out later that Lorry Black wasn't
dead----"

"But they never found out, Bern.  I want that four hundred.  By God!
Bern, don't try to double-cross me!  You see this bludgeon?"

Bern's eyes grew big with terror.

"I can't give you all that today, Lorry.  But I'll send the rest on
to you.  I'll give you all I have, Lorry."

"How much have you?"

"About a hundred pounds, roughly."

"Notes?"

"Mostly."

"Not marked ones?"

"No, no.  They are all right----"

"They've got to be all right.  I'm leaving this country.  I've got
to."

He glanced at the bludgeon that lay beside him on the table.  Bern
followed his glance.

"You haven't been doing things with that, have you, Lorry?  There's
blood on it!"

Bern's voice ended in a note of alarm.

"Shut up, Bern!"

"But, Lorry--you ain't been--you ain't been murdering?"  The gleam
that leaped into the other's eyes was the answer, and Bern gave a
cry.  "Good God!  Lorry Black!"

"You shut up!  Don't yell.  It isn't your blood.  You'll do as I tell
you, Bern.  See?"

Bern nodded dumbly.

They stared at each other in silence.

"Where have you been since you broke prison, Lorry?"

"Huh!  I had a pal who used to be in quod with me.  He was a waiter
by trade.  Or is it a profession?"  A sour smile creased his
features.  "Well, he got a job as night waiter at a club.  I put him
up to getting it.  I wanted to use him.  So I made straight for his
place when I escaped.  He lives in rooms.  I have lived with him for
the last two days."

Bern was rubbing his chin and gazing at the speaker, trying with
difficulty to get the hang of the story.

"I wanted to take his job for one night," went on the other, "so I
got him to buy some knockout drops.  He didn't know what I wanted
them for.  What was the use telling him?  I used one on him.  I hired
a second-hand dress suit and went up to take his place with a letter
I had written saying he wasn't well.  I was his substitute.  I made a
damned good waiter, I'll say that.  And I got into an argument with
the president of the club and--there you are!"

"My God!  Lorry--or is it Adam?"

"Well?"

"You have so many names----"

"I had no name, only a number, in prison, Bern.  I'll never have a
name I might have had.  Here, none of that.  I've done it.  You've
got to be bold these days if you want to carry off a plan."

"It isn't like you," cried Bern.  "To use a cudgel.  It isn't like
you.  You were always bold, but this--this is different.  Where did
you get that cudgel?"

"Mind your own business!"

Bern closed his mouth suddenly, but he spoke a moment later, his
voice charged with anxiety.

"They'll be on your trail, won't they?  Did anybody follow you here?"

The other shook his head, smiling grimly.

"You're scared, aren't you, Bern?  You think that you may be let in
badly, don't you?  But you needn't worry.  Nobody saw me coming
here--nobody that matters.  The argument I had with the president
ended where it began."

"But the other folks in the place?  Didn't they see you?"

"They were fast asleep.  Didn't I tell you I had some knockout drops?
I used the drops before the argument began.  So after it was finished
I came along to you.  I need you, Bern."

Bern groaned.

"I can't help you much, Lorry----"

"Now then!"

The voice was sharp and cutting; warning too.  The waiter's hand went
to the bludgeon and his fingers closed over the handle.

"This is the best killing instrument I ever handled, Bern.  It fits
my grip like a glove."

"You wouldn't use it on me, Lorry?"

"Don't tempt me, Bern!"

There was a silence; tense and thrilling.

"I have a bargain to make with you, Bern.  Are you ready to hear it?"

"A bargain?"

"Yes, you old Yid, a bargain.  Listen.  If you get me away safely and
promise to send me the remainder of the money quickly--say within two
days--I'll see that the police don't get to know all I might tell
them about you."

Bern shrugged his shoulders.

"I gave up being a receiver after the last deal, Lorry.  It was too
risky.  I gave it up."

"That doesn't matter much.  There is a lot the cops would like to
know--a lot that happened before the last deal.  You are thinking
that you can drive a better bargain because you have given up being a
receiver?"

"No, no.  I'm just telling you."

"It doesn't matter, Bern.  Listen here.  You are a tailor, or
something like one.  These clothes you have given me are not a good
fit.  They'd give me away anywhere.  Maybe you know that.  You'll do
the necessary alterations, Bern.  That's how you'll spend your
Christmas.  How many people are in this house?"

"My wife.  Just my wife and a maid."

"Send the maid away for the day."

"But, Lorry, she wasn't to get this holiday.  She doesn't keep
Christmas----"

"Send her away.  She can keep this Christmas for once even if she
isn't a Christian."

And, seeing the look of resentment on Bern's face, he jumped to his
feet and lifted the bludgeon, his face convulsed with ion.

"You'll do as I say, Bern, or I'll kill you too!"

Bern shrank from him.

"I'll do anything, Lorry Black!  I'll do anything you like!  Anything
at all!"

It was done.  Bern left the room and came back in a short time with
the information that the maid was being sent off and that his wife
would be down soon.  Then the two sat gazing at the fire, each
thinking his own thoughts.

The maid had gone when the man who had thus forced himself on the
household spoke finally.

"I want a sleep while you do the alterations to this suit, Bern.
Better take my measure right away.  You can give me a spare bedroom,
can't you?  I'm tired."

He was taken upstairs and shown into a bedroom, and when he was half
undressed he turned to Bern.

"You'll do the alterations in this room, Bern.  I sleep lightly and
I'll have my cudgel under my pillow."

He turned into bed and lay stretching himself with an expression of
satisfaction.

Bern did as he was bid.  He lit the gas fire and brought his
materials into the room, and while the other looked on he started to
the work of altering the suit.  The morning was well spent when he
had it finished.

"What more do you want, Lorry?" he asked, grudgingly.

"Nothing just now.  You can go and let me sleep.  Wake me at supper.
I'll want a good meal before I go."

Bern went out of the room and the caller locked the door after him.
Five minutes later he was sleeping peacefully.

But he did not wait for Bern to awake him.  The dullness of night was
descending when he arose and dressed.  The suit now fitted him well
enough to appear his own clothing.  He had a bath and dressed
carefully; then he went downstairs and walked into the parlor.

Bern was sitting near the fire, alone.  He had a pair of earphones on
and was listening to the broadcast program of the day; but he laid
down the earphones as soon as he saw his unwelcome visitor.

"The wife is making a meal for you, Lorry.  We heard you in the
bathroom.  Will you be going as soon as it is dark?"

"Just as soon as it is dark, Bern, and as soon as you hand over that
money."

"Here it is--all I have in the house."

He handed over a package which the other examined, counting the notes
leisurely and with keen interest.  He put the package into his
pocket.  Bern watched him and gave a nod as the other smiled.

"Fetch the grub, Bern."

The Jew brought a loaded tray from the kitchen; he was afraid of this
man and he was trembling as he placed the tray on the table.

"The wife made a good meal for you, Lorry.  There's a bit of turkey,
and sauce, and roast potatoes, and sausages, and plenty of stuffing,
and Christmas pudding.  All the best, Lorry.  It will be a while
before you get your next meal, eh?"

"That depends on you, Bern."

"On me?"

"Yes, I've been thinking.  You've got to help.  You have friends all
over the country, I know.  I want to go somewhere I might get a ship.
Come on, think quickly.  You've got to provide the address where
you'll send the rest of the money to me.  See?  I'm on the run.  One
of your friends must give me shelter."

"One of my friends?"

"You bet!  A receiver of stolen goods like you has friends
everywhere, especially at shipping ports."

Bern remained silent, finger on chin.

"What about Plymouth?" he asked at last.  "I have a friend there.
Maybe he'd help.  Think you can get there?"

"I'll get anywhere.  A safe address is what I need, Bern."

Bern handed over a sheet of paper and a pencil and dictated an
address in Plymouth.  The other wrote it down, put the paper into his
pocket, grinned knowingly, and then sat down to the food.  He looked
now and then at Bern, who was huddled over the fire, his palms
together, his hooked nose and clipped beard sharply defined against
the red glow.

"What are you thinking, Bern?"

The Jew sat up, straightening his shoulders.

"It'll be a hard job for you, Lorry, to get away.  They've discovered
the judge."

"What's that?"

"They've discovered the judge lying dead on the floor of the Clue
Club.  The  discovered him when they recovered from their
doped drink."

"Who told you all this?" demanded the other, putting down his knife
and fork quickly.

"I heard it over the wireless.  Not half an hour ago."

"Well?"

"There isn't any clue--so far.  They have interviewed the real
waiter."

"And what does he say?"

"He says that he, too, was drugged.  He says that somebody sent him a
bottle of beer and he drank it, and that's all he knows."

"Does he say who sent him this bottle of beer?"

"No.  He says it came to his room with a note from a friend.  But he
can't  what he did with the note.  He won't give you away,
Lorry."

There was a short, quick laugh.

"No, he won't give me away, Bern.  They won't find a clue.  I'm all
right."

"You must have covered your prints well, Lorry.  You always were good
at covering a trail."

"Not so bad, Bern."

"All the same, Lorry, you'll have to be careful.  You can't go out
and walk along the street openly.  The cops will be on the lookout.
If you were seen under a lamp, say, it would be all up, wouldn't it?"

"It might--but on the other hand, it might not."

"It is too big a risk, Lorry."

"Can you suggest a way to lessen the risk?"

"I've been thinking.  Yes, I've been thinking.  Maybe I can.  You'll
need another overcoat.  Supposing the cops have an idea it was
you--they'll be watching for every chance to get you.  You've got a
new suit.  You'll need a new overcoat.  I have an old one that might
fit you."

"Yes?"

"And I was thinking that there is a train es the suburban station
in about an hour or so.  It is the first newspaper train bound for
Devon way.  First editions, I think.  They take on some return milk
churns at the station.  It's a slow train, but it gets to Devon early
in the morning.  Now if you could get aboard it?"

"I'll get aboard it.  Will the ticket office be open?  Are engers
taken by that train?"

"Oh yes.  There will be engers.  It calls at a lot of small
stations.  A slow train.  There are always engers with it.  If
you cared you could take that train a bit down the line and then
change and catch the later night express----"

"I think not.  I'll take the slow train.  That's a good idea, Bern.
But how can I get to the station from here?  The river runs beyond
your garden----"

"The river is frozen over, Lorry.  You can make a short cut that way.
It's hard frost outside.  Been freezing all day.  You can't go along
the main road, anyway."

"Why?"

For answer Bern motioned his visitor to the window and drew aside the
blind.

"Look!"

An occasional pedestrian was to be seen walking swiftly along the
white street.  But the main object was a figure who stood under a
street lamp a little way down on the opposite side.  The figure was
that of a policeman wrapped in his greatcoat.

"He may be watching this house, Lorry.  I don't know.  But you can't
risk it.  Think of me, Lorry.  You can't go that way."

"Thinking of yourself, Bern, eh?  All right.  What about it?"

"I'll take you down the garden, Lorry, and let you out by the gate at
the bottom.  It's a straight walk across the spare bit of land to the
river bank.  Cross the river and you're safe.  The railway is less
than half a mile from the other side.  There's a path up to the
platform.  What do you say?"

"Sounds all right.  Get me your overcoat."

He put it on when Bern brought it and pulled his cap over his eyes.

"It's a good thing for you the river is frozen, Lorry," said Bern,
slily.  "It's a short cut, isn't it?  And they said over the
broadcast that the killing of the judge must have been the work of a
desperate criminal."

"Never mind what they said, Bern.  You and I sink or swim together,
old Yid."

"But, Lorry, I'm out of the receiving business now.  I told you----"

"Aw, that doesn't cut any ice with me, Bern.  There's your past.  I'm
going to live on your past, Bern.  I need your past, believe me.  If
I'm caught so are you."

He twirled the cudgel in his hand.

"Come on, Bern.  Show me the way."

They went out by the back door and down the long garden.  A gate led
on to a narrow piece of spare land.  Beyond this strip was the frozen
river.  Bern pointed to the railway on the other side.

"That's your way, Lorry.  So long.  Safe journey, Lorry."

"Just before I go, Bern, let me say this.  I killed that judge
unknowingly.  I was arguing with him about that old Jewish law that
says a killer should be killed.  I said it wasn't correct, or just.
And he tried to kill me.  So I happened to hit him and he died.
Maybe you know the bit of the old Mosaic law.  Anyway, it was only
retaliation--his death."

"I know the law, Lorry.  I know what you mean.  _He that smiteth a
man so that he die shall surely be put to death_.  And the next verse
says--what is it that it says?  I  something about it----"

"So long, Bern!"

Bern was fingering his chin in an effort to  the text of the
old law.

The man who had killed the judge was on the river bank when Bern
recollected the words he sought.  He began to repeat them half aloud.

"_And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand;
then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee----_"

"That's me, Bern," came the voice from the bank.  "I'm fleeing, and
you appointed me a place!"

The Jew continued to quote from his memory.  But he saw the fugitive
put his foot on the ice of the frozen river to test it.  The surface
creaked, but held.  The fugitive stepped forward and strode boldly
toward the opposite bank.  He was out of earshot now, but Bern was
still muttering.

"I used to know all that chapter, Lorry.  Ach, yes.  _And he that
smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.  And
he that stealeth a man, and selleth him----_"

He raised his eyes and looked at the figure that was moving dimly
across the ice.

"You tried to sell _me_, Lorry Black!  You tried to sell _me_!"

And Bern watched intently through lowered eyelids.

The fugitive had reached the center of the river when he gave a
shout.  The ice cracked under him.  His feet went through.  He tried
to recover, his arms above his head, the bludgeon waving in the air.

Crack!  Crack!  Splinter!

The ice broke beneath his weight.  He fell.  It smashed all around
him.

Bern watched and listened.

He heard the smothered cry and saw the ice heave as it broke into
fragments.  The figure of the fugitive disappeared with a splash.
Bern stood still, looking; not moving a muscle.

A large black patch of water lay like a blot on the white river.
Bern shrugged his shoulders.

"The fool didn't know that the river runs too swiftly in the middle
to freeze hard," he muttered.  "That was the part of the bargain he
overlooked.  It was him or me.  Maybe I'll never get my bank notes
back, but I'll make a complaint of burglary."

He walked back to his house, and as he laid his hand on the door to
enter he cast a glance at the river.

"And he wanted to dictate  to me--to us that have lived by
bargaining for thousands of years!"

The bludgeon of Kartarus, the barbarian, was lying once more in the
black sludge of the river bed.



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