The Cheat (Holman)/Chapter 22
Wealth and personality is the modern magic formula for opening gates and softening the heart of officialdom. Watch the traffic policeman's forbidding hand drop to a respectable salute when the millionaire rides by in his limousine. Or—
The assistant warden came to Dudley's cell at three in the afternoon to tell him that his uncle and another gentleman were outside and that he might use the witness room to speak to them in. Officer Delaney had gone on patrol duty. Moreover the assistant warden felt that somebody of more importance than a mere policeman should be announcing the arrival of a personage of such evident wealth and distinguished appearance as Sanford Drake. There would be no trouble about arranging a quiet place for them to talk with the prisoner, no trouble at all, sir.
The assistant warden closed the door behind him and Dudley advanced gravely to meet his uncle. He was anxious about how the banker was going to take his call upon him for assistance. His greeting was cordial but business like. He introduced the stocky, well-groomed man of forty-five who stood beside him. "This is Gordon Kendall, my lawyer—Dudley Drake, my nephew. And now let's hear what's up." Kendall was attorney for Drake and Porter and one of the best and most expensive lawyers in New York.
The three took chairs and Dudley gave a carefully expurgated version of the shooting. At the end he saw that the lawyer, who had been regarding him with cold, shrewd eyes all through his recital, was far from satisfied.
Gordon Kendall cleared his throat. "The first thing to be done between lawyer and client in a case of this kind is to establish an absolutely frank understanding. There never was a man shot in the world without a motive, unless it was pure accident, and you admit it wasn't accident in this case. You simply say you went to Prince Rao-Singh's study and shot him because you hated him. Why? Your uncle tells me that you were unusually fortunate in business yesterday and you left early to tell your wife the good news. Did you find something amiss at home? Why did you leave what must have been an extremely happy meeting with Mrs. Drake to invade this Hindu's property and shoot him?"
But Dudley insisted stubbornly that he had told the whole story. He had resolved not to
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discuss Carmelita's part in the affair even with his own lawyer or his uncle.
"Very well," Kendall said finally, concealing a slight exasperation. "Here's what the newspapers are saying about it."
He pulled the yellowest of the New York yellows out of his coat pocket and Dudley saw the screaming headlines:
The scavengers of the press were on the job early. They had evidently been doing some detective work around the countryside.
"Did you make the threat that you would kill him?" Dudley admitted that much. "There's no use denying that things look mighty black for you, Drake," the lawyer went on. "You threaten to kilt this man and the next thing his servants find him on the floor, shot, and you are alone in the room with him with a gun in your hand. You admit in the presence of the doctor and a policeman that you shot him. Rao-Singh is in a serious condition in the Soundview Hospital. If he lives and you're convicted, it means a sentence of anywhere up to thirty years in the penitentiary. If he dies, you stand a good chance of the chair. In view of your precarious situation, aren't there any circumstances at all connected with the shooting that you can tell me that will give us a chance to build up a case?"
"There are no secrets between a lawyer and his client, you know, Dudley," his undle put in.
Dudley sensed that these two shrewd men suspected that he was holding something back. Well, let them. He would give them no satisfaction.
"You don't look to me like a person who would deliberately shoot a man in cold blood and what I can get about you from your uncle confirms that impression," the lawyer said not unkindly as he picked up his hat preliminary to leaving. "I don't like to doubt your word and I think you're foolish to keep me in the dark about anything in this case if I'm going to defend you. But I think you are trying to protect somebody—Mrs. Drake possibly, since her name has already come into the case. However—see you to-morrow at the preliminary hearing."
Sanford Drake lingered for a moment for a word alone with his nephew. "I'm going to stand by you in this thing and if there's any other way you think I can help you, let me know. But I really believe the best help could come from yourself if you'd let it." His voice was gruff but his intentions were good and he patted Dudley awkwardly upon the back as he gathered his hat and cane.
"There's only one thing I'll ask," said Dudley as he was leaving. "I want you and Mr. Kendall to promise positively not to question Carmelita about this whole wretched business. She's innocent in the whole affair and she knows nothing about the shooting. I don't want her put on the stand or mixed up in the case in any way as far as my angle of it is concerned." For the first time during their visit Dudley was showing some emotion. Sanford. Drake looked at him sharply and then he gave in with a shrug of the shoulder. "Very well. We had planned to see her before we went back to town but I dare say we'll have to respect your wishes. I really think though that you are making a mistake."
At the preliminary hearing the next day Dudlay Drake was indicted for felonious assault with intent to kill and the trial was set for two weeks hence. Dhinn, the three other Hindu servants, Officer Delaney, and the physician who attended Rao-Singh were the chief witnesses. Dudley had little, if anything, to say. The only bright news to him was the report from the hospital that Rao-Singh's condition was improving and that the doctors now believed that he would recover.
Gordon Kendall was an excellent lawyer of long practice. He didn't mind difficult cases that taxed his highly developed wits, but he could not help but regard the case of Dudley Drake as rather hopeless from the start. The chain of guilt seemed irrefutable. There was nothing to indicate that his client had not done the shooting as he declared except the reluctance of Gordon Kendall, a shrewd judge of men, to believe such a cleancut altogether splendid fellow as Drake could have invaded a man's house and shot him down and the reluctance of Dudley to discuss the case when he got down to specific details and especially when the name of Carmelita Drake was involved.
Kendall had met Carmelita at the preliminary hearing. Even in her present low physical and mental state, she was a strikingly beautiful woman. Did she know more about her husband's actions on that fatal night than she cared to, or he would permit her to, tell? Drake had insisted that she should not be questioned. When the indictment was brought in against her husband, she had nearly fainted. But then any wife might.
Kendall suffered another misgiving when he learned that the prosecution of Dudley's case was to be in charge of David Banning. The regular district attorney of the county was away upon a vacation, and Banning was the special attorney put in charge in his absence. Kendall had opposed Banning before. He was a slight, dark, snarling man with vaulting ambitions and no scruples. His system was to win cases no matter how justice suffered in the process. Kendall believed privately that the special attorney's professional honor was not above reproach. Rao-Singh, now recovered enough to take an interest in the case, would have in Banning an ideal tool through which to work his revenge upon Dudley.