The Cheat (Holman)/Chapter 23
The same impulse which leads little boys and girls to tear the wings from butterflies and tie cans to cats' tails impels them later in life to fill the audience chairs at criminal trials at which human life and freedom are at stake.
Long lines of motors hugged the curbs on both sides of Hedgewood's main street on the morning Dudley Drake's trial opened at the tidy new courthouse. The case was a seven days' wonder. The New York papers, suffering a late August paucity of sensations, had kept it upon the front page and lavished upon it their best trial reporters, photographers, sob sisters, and rapid-fire sketch artists. Reporters had penetrated by bribery and fraud to Dudley's cell, only to meet with a stony silence when they sweatingly attained their goal. Sob sisters had invaded the grounds of Carmelita's house but Carmelita's stalwart and sympathetic butler had proven an effective menace. Minions of the press had even sought to storm the private ward of the Soundview Hospital but Rao-Singh had sent down curt word that he was seeing nobody.
But they could not be kept out of the court-room. Neither could the nattily dressed women of the Hedgewood summer colony and the other resorts for miles around who regarded it as much more thrilling than dashing into town for the matinee and who flocked into the hot, stuffy courtroom to stare particularly at Carmelita's obvious distress and to whisper in rapid undertones until warned by the bailiff. Neither could the scattering of native Hedgewoodian women nor the contingent of males of no particular occupation and description which one inevitably finds attending trials everywhere.
Carmelita had insisted upon attending the trial though she could do nothing more than sit beside Dudley behind the long, flat table just under the judge's bench and squeeze his hand encouragingly at intervals. Gordon Kendall, sitting on the other side of Dudley, thought grimly that he could not even do that much. It looked like a prearranged affair. Sanford Drake, his hands resting upon the head of his cane and his slate eyes looking fixedly straight ahead, sat in the front row just the other side of the railing that divided off the principals in the case. Also in the front row but nearer the jury box were two very fat, turbaned Hindus. No one knew who they were but Gordon Kendall had observed them talking to Banning before the trial and he judged that they were there in an unofficial capacity in Rao-Singh's interest. Lawyers with no good purpose probably.
David Banning was right in his element. He had observed with satisfaction the large and well-groomed audience and the extensive array of reporters. He always cultivated reporters. He tried to arrange his conduct of cases so as to provide a "big punch" for both the morning and afternoon editions. He always talked freely and confidently to the newspapers. They had already printed his statement that this case was an open and shut affair and that Dudley Drake would be on his way to the penitentiary for a long sentence by the following evening at the latest.
There had been little trouble in getting a jury. The talesmen called had been about equally divided between transplanted New York commuters and native Long Islanders, ordinary people with ordinary intelligence. Many admitted they had read about the case already in the papers and formed opinions in advance, and Kendall found that this was practically the only ground upon which he could exercise his challenging right. He had determined upon a defense that admitted Dudley had done the shooting but maintained that it had occurred through a combination of accident and self-defense.
Dudley had gone to the home of Rao-Singh, according to this version, and the Hindu had attacked him. During the scuffle the revolver which the Hindu carried had exploded and shot him. This story, Kendall admitted, could be rather easily poked full of holes, and the only plausible things about it were the favorable impression Dudley's personality was bound to make upon the jury and the fact that the shooting had been done with Rao-Singh's own revolver. Moreover, though he did not tell his client this, Kendall had encouraged Carmelita in her determination to be present at the trial and sit beside her husband. A lovely lady in distress can wring sympathy from the most hard-hearted of male jurors. For this reason Banning was laboring to have as many women as possible in the jury box, and the jury when completed and impaneled consisted of nine men and three women.
The foreman was the owner of the Hedgewood stationery and paper store, a sleepy little man who seemed utterly without emotions. As Kendall lounged there, tapping his pencil upon the pile of papers spread before him and whispering instructions to the young Harvard Law graduate, his assistant, who sat on the other side of him, he wondered how much influence the reputed great wealth and power and mystery which surrounded Prince Rao-Singh would have upon these nine good men—and three good women—and true. The newspapers had played up the glamorous Oriental angle of the case with great colorful effect. These people in the jury box were not over-intelligent and probably superstitious. Would they believe some Oriental curse would fall upon them if they did not assist this absent Indian potentate in his revenge? Stranger things had happened during Kendall's long experience in the courts.
The trial opened and proceeded with clocklike regularity and precision after the noon recess. The morning had been consumed in assembling the jury. Special Attorney Banning called Rao-Singh's major-domo, Dhinn, as the first witness. Dhinn told of coming upon Dudley Drake standing, a gun in his hand, over the wounded body of his master. He identified Dudley and the gun. Kendall waived cross-examination.
Rao-Singh's other three servants testified, through an interpreter, as to their rôles in the affair, and Kendall asked them a few inconsequential questions tending to show that they had not been present as soon after the shooting or seen as much as they had declared. He succeeded in impugning the veracity of the witnesses somewhat but accomplished little.
Officer Delaney was called.
"Yes, he said, 'I shot him,'" he testified with evident reluctance under Banning's sharp questioning and a little tense rustle ran through the audience.
Then Banning called two witnesses whom Dudley and Carmelita had not noted before and whom Dudley, for one, recognized after some difficulty, though their names meant nothing to him. They were the two gossiping women who had discussed the scandal about Carmelita and Rao-Singh in his presence the night of the fête while Carmelita was auctioning her kiss, the two women who had aroused in him the mad desire to throttle their slanderous tongues. Banning put these two women, obviously dressed elaborately for the occasion and most conscious of their importance, upon the stand one after the other, and both testified that they had heard Dudley cry as he leaped up and interrupted Carmelita and Rao-Singh about to dance, "If you don't let my wife alone—I'll kill you!"
At this point the trial was adjourned until ten o'clock the next morning.
Kendall and Dudley would have agreed with the slowly departing audience that the prosecution had scored at every turn and that David Banning was quite justified in the grin which he flung toward them as he started scooping up his papers into his briefcase. Dudley aroused himself out of his blue funk sufficiently to respond to the fervent kiss of Carmelita before the bailiff led him back to his cell.
Sanford Drake, having waited until the stream of the departing curious had filtered by, let himself through the gate into the railed enclosure and greeted Carmelita and the lawyer. His usually immobile face showed the strain he was under.
"Not going so well, eh, Kendall?" he demanded brusquely.
Kendall looked around cautiously, saw that Banning and his cohorts had departed, and admitted, "No, I'll put my man on the stand to-morrow. He's our only hope. No use trying to shake these people's stories to-day. They had the goods."
They appeared to be ignoring Carmelita. She stood beside the lawyer listening, one hand clutching the rail. Neither Kendall nor Sanford Drake wished to look her in the eye. They were still talking together as she walked out a little in front of them. When the lawyer and Sanford Drake reached the street through a side door to avoid the curious, they stepped into the banker's limousine, still paying no attention to her.
The limousine had gone a block in the direetion of New York when Sanford Drake put a question and the lawyer answered, "If she would only talk to me of her own free will and tell me what her part, if any, was in the actual shooting. But I'm bound to respect Drake's demands not to question her, however foolish and quixotic they are. Besides, maybe we're both wrong and she doesn't know a thing more about it than he says she does."
"Well, I'm for her," the elder Drake responded, trying to appear as gruff as possible. "She's been foolish, but I think she's got the stuff in her. And she's stood by my nephew in great style so far. I think now that she's doing all she can."
Which shows how far wrong astute business men can be at times.
Carmelita saw Lucy Hodge getting into her sport car up the street, half a block. Lucy had not been near her since the day before the shooting. Probably she was on the side of Rao-Singh. For a moment Carmelita stood uncertainly in the doorway of the courthouse. She was utterly wretched. Dudley was somewhere inside there in a terrible cell and she was helpless to assist him. His lawyer and his uncle had not consulted her, and her promise to Dudley forbade her to go to them with the truth or stand up and confess it in court. Wasn't there anything—
It had not required the ominous words exchanged between Sanford Drake and Dudley's lawyer to convince her that things were going very badly. They would convict him, there was no doubt of that, convict him and send him to Sing Sing—for something she had done! Couldn't she—
It flashed into her head: Perhaps Rao-Singh would be willing to call the case off—for a price!
Since opposing the Hindu was leading nowhere, perhaps yielding to him would yet save Dudley!
Carmelita would do a brave, foolish thing. She would plead with Rao-Singh, however much she loathed and feared the very sight of him; and, whatever his price, she would now pay.
She had hired a car for the day and it was waiting a few steps away. A few people, recognizing her, watched her with mixed feelings and excited whispers as she entered and sank wearily into the seat. Not until the driver had proceeded a block in the direction of her home did she tell him another destination. She wished to go to the Long Island Railroad station at Tuckerville, she said. Tuckerville was half-way between Hedgewood and Soundview. Even in the impetuosity with which she had entered upon this adventure she realized the need for caution.
Fifteen minutes later the taxi had delivered her at the Tuckerville station and she paid the driver and dismissed him. It was a smaller town than Hedgewood and she had some difficulty locating what she wanted in an imitation of a department store. Even in her haste Carmelita was characteristically careful in selecting just the style of black veiling to match her black toque hat and the becoming black, silk gown she was wearing. Her purchase made, she returned to the station and hailed a local Tuckerville taxi and instructed the driver to take her to the Soundview Hospital.
Prince Rao-Singh had said that "Mrs. Dudley" might come up at once, the one-legged man in-charge of the telephone switchboard sent word in by a trim, antiseptic nurse to the black-veiled lady waiting in the tiny reception room. The elevator had just stopped at the main floor. The elevator's speed was regulated for stretcher-cases and Carmelita wondered if she would ever reach the private ward on the third floor and get her mission over with. The floor nurse in the little cubbyhole office at the head of the stairs escorted her down the corridor to the last room on the right. The nurse opened the lid that fit over the glass peep-hole in the door and then said disapprovingly, "You may go in, madame." And Carmelita was alone in the room with Rao-Singh.
He lay propped up with pillows, his gaunt cheek-bones very prominent and almost gray in the failing afternoon light. The truth was that he was much more nearly well than he looked. He had been walking around the ward for three days with no ill effects. But to Carmelita, who was used to seeing him in his full vigor, he seemed fearfully pale, and a pang of remorse shot through her. This was dispelled somewhat by the malicious smile upon his lips. He no longer seemed to desire her. His face expressed only a gloating revenge, a deep hostility toward her. He had permitted her to come up to him so that he might laugh at her.
"I have come to appeal to you to save my husband," she began tensely. "You know he is innocent. I will pay you anything in the world if you will drop this case."
"I have heard you say that before, my dear lady," he replied, and his voice was unpleasant and surprisingly steady. "Even if it were not too late now to drop the case and save your husband, I would not do so for all the money in the world."
Her tones became very low and trembling. "And if, to save him, I do not pay you in money—if I come to you—if—"
To Rao-Singh the moment was more
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delicious than he could ever have hoped for. This woman, did she think she still tempted him, she who had tried to take his life, the life of a noble of India? He laughed full into her lowered, flushed face, "You pay with yourself? Have you come here to mock me? You—cheat me again? When you disrobe to-night, dear lady, turn your back to your mirror and look over your shoulder at what is written there!"
She stood stunned and broken for a moment. Then she turned toward the door with his guttural mocking laugh following her.