The Just And The Unjust Page 26

  3

  Entering the courthouse by the door under the passage to the jail, Abner found the gloomy, damp-smelling back hall already stirring with people. Nick Dowdy, who had been leaning against the radiator with his cigar, shuffled up to him and murmured, 'Ab, two fellows there; reporters. Asked to see you or Marty. You want —'

  'Not now. I have to see the Judge.'

  Around the bend of the hall, the door to the courtroom was open. Malcolm. Levering with little pulls and pushes was aligning the jury's chairs neatly. Abner opened the door of the Attorneys' Room. It was hazed with "tobacco smoke. Old John Clark and George Stacey and Mark Irwin sat with sections of the morning paper; but they were not reading, for Harry Wurts, standing against the fireplace, bright and clean-shaven, was saying, '... at the age of fifteen she was ruined by a travelling salesman. "What do you mean, ruined?" says Mike. "Put the boots to her last night, and she worked swell."'

  John Clark's dignified 'Heh, heh' rang out. George and Mark laughed; and Mark said, 'Reminds me of the one about —!'

  Harry said, 'Well, well, greetings, Mr. Commonwealth! How are all the little Commonwealths this morning? None the worse for their harrowing experience yesterday, I trust?'

  'Nuts to you,' Abner said, hanging up his coat and hat. 'I have to see the Judge —'

  'Now, wait, wait!' said Harry. 'What's all this about that Field, Sam Field, over at school? Hey, Mark, don't let him out! We have to get to the bottom of it.'

  'Sounds like you could tell me,' Abner said. 'What?'

  'Mark, here, says that Marty was over to see his father last night.'

  'I wasn't there.'

  'Rumour hath it that a couple of high school girls were suddenly taken enceinte — means, ungirdled, George — and that —'

  'Well, that's definitely not true,' Abner said, 'so you'd better get a new Rumourer. Who told you about it?'

  'Don't you wish you knew?' said Harry.

  'Not much,' Abner said. 'So long.' He went out into the hall and made his way past the loitering groups to the door of Judge Irwin's chambers.

  The inner room, where Judge Irwin sat, corresponded in shape and position to the Attorneys' Room on the other side. It had the same Gothic fireplace and ogee-arched door-frames to the courtroom, to the hall, to the lavatory in the corner, and to the law library. Here the two windows were on the sunny side of the building and they had been equipped with awnings, now dank and taut with rain. The darkness of the day and the lowered awnings made it necessary for the lights, in a bowl of white china hanging on bronze chains, to be on. In this wan mingling of daylight and electric light, Judge Irwin, slight and neat, wearing a suit of blue serge, a stiff linen collar, and black knitted tie with a pearl pin in it, sat restlessly looking at the latest paper-bound supplement to the Atlantic Reporter.

  Seeing Abner in the door beyond, Judge Irwin took off his glasses. 'Well,' he said, 'it's a wet morning. Come in, Ab.' Joining his long-boned hands, he wrung them together gently. His acute, anxious gaze fixed itself on Abner. With a little preparatory grimace showing discomfort or distaste, he said, nodding at the folder in Abner's hand, 'This is a repellent thing; and it's for that reason that I think we ought to be careful to see that it's kept impersonal. It is natural to feel an indignation; but we should not be biased into forgetting that the offence was not worse than it was, if I may put it that way.'

  Taking up his glasses, Judge Irwin produced a fresh handkerchief and began to polish the lenses. He said with active distress, 'I do not mean to minimize the element of betrayal of trust. We have a right to expect that a man will be alive to his duty and responsibility; and when he goes clean contrary to them, when, instead of helping those in his charge to self-control and the formation of wise and wholesome habits, he sets them an example of licence, and introduces them to, or at least, assists them in, debasing practices, the offence is heinous.' He cleared his throat and put the glasses carefully in their case.

  'Doctor Janvier came in earlier,' he said, 'and I had a talk with him. He doesn't find any outright abnormalities in the defendant; but he thinks that psychologically he is not quite normal — whatever that may be. I mean, I have, as you must have, often wondered what is normal; and who is. I think we all recognize in ourselves occasional impulses or ideas which, if put in practice or disclosed to the world, would cast the gravest doubts on our own normality. In short, what is abnormal is not perhaps the impulse, whatever it may be; but the giving way to it, when it is one that most men's reason, or conscience, or even mere fear of the police, restrains. No man can be excused from conforming to the requirements of the social order; and it is right to penalize him when he fails to conform; but I think we should bear in mind that what is none to us, may be to him a great temptation. I don't know whether I make myself clear?'

  'Yes, you do, Judge,' Abner said. When Irwin went into one of his monologues, sign always that he was greatly upset, he talked less to the person he addressed than to himself. With his great resources of knowledge and experience he assayed new explanations of the inexplicable; patiently, unwilling to despair, he argued the world around him back to some degree of reason. 'Then, I think we can go up,' Judge Irwin said. The lavatory door opened and Judge Vredenburgh came out. 'Morning, Abner,' he said. He took his robe from the hook in the corner and thrust his arms through the wide silk sleeves. His full face was drawn down a little around the firm mouth, the second chin just showing solidly above his collar. His blue eyes were shrewd and thoughtful. 'Horace,' he said, 'I was racking my brain about that Field boy. Ask Mat Rhea, when he has time, to go through the docket around 1880. I think you'll find that Field's grandfather had some trouble in connection with molesting girls. His mother's father, that was. I think the name was Ireland, or Irish.'

  Judge Irwin bit his lip. That would be a curious coincidence,' he said. 'I don't know that we should consider it germane to — visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.' He grimaced.

  Judge Vredenburgh said, 'I understand there's a respectable precedent for doing that; but I'm not urging it. I just thought it might interest you. Afraid it's going to be a bad thing for Oliver Rawle.'

  'Yes. Jesse Gearhart called me about it, though; and I think Oliver will have some support on the board.'

  'Well, I must go in and get on with this,' Judge Vredenburgh said. 'I hope we can finish to-day. I don't think there's much doubt about what the jury will find. Those men ought to be electrocuted; and I'm only sorry we'll have to stall around with an appeal. What with motions in arrest of judgment, and for a new trial, it may be a month before we can even sentence them.'

  'If it were my life,' Judge Irwin said, 'I don't know that I would regard the delay as inordinate.' He arose and got his robe from the other hook. 'One must put one's self in the other person's place.' He smiled, took up two green-bound volumes of statutes and a yellow pad.

  'Yes,' said Judge Vredenburgh, 'and let them put themselves in this Zolly, this Frederick Zollicoffer's place. They didn't wait around while someone like Harry Wurts filed motions and printed records and took appeals.'

  Judge Irwin smiled again. 'I'll say this, Tom. I have heard nothing about them to make me think that they are persons on whose conduct we should model our own. I may come down for a little while later.'

  'Wish you would,' Judge Vredenburgh said. He opened the courtroom door, and Abner could see, sidelong, the cavernous gloom, the partly filled benches rising to the grey windows. Nick Dowdy's mallet hit the block; and with a ripple and stir everyone stood up as the door softly closed. High in the haze of rain above the roof, the tower clock began to bang out ten.

  4

  The number two courtroom upstairs measured about twenty by thirty feet. Half this space was taken by the jury box — three rows of empty chairs ascending on shallow steps. The bench, witness stand, and railed clerk's desk formed a small unit at the end. To get to it, one had to move, with little room to spare, past counsels' tables; like the jury box, too big for the room; At the back, nex
t to the door, were two long benches, each accommodating a dozen people. Bunting had managed to keep the affair this morning so quiet that the benches were not filled when Abner came in with Judge Irwin. Sam Field and Warren Lyall, the deputy sheriff, sat at the end of the first table. Behind them sat Abner Field's uncle, the minister; and Beatrice Wright (Abner knew her to speak to, but no more) and her husband, a beefy, solemn-looking young man.

  Judge Irwin went briskly past to the bench, and Abner, following him, laid his folder on the first table. Judge Irwin said good morning to Maynard Longstreet, who had made himself at home at one side of the clerk's desk; but there was no clerk. The Judge said, 'Where is Mr. Bosenbury? Wasn't he told?'

  Everitt Weitzel, who had been whispering to Norman Creveling, broke off and said, 'I'll see, sir. He knows,' and limped out the door. 'Well, we won't stand on formality,' Judge Irwin said. 'The court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace is now open. You may proceed, Mr. Coates.'

  Abner slipped out the three bills of indictment, 'Samuel Pierce Field?' he said.

  The girls and their parents were in the second bench; and beyond them, in the corner, sat Adelaide Maurer looking at her pencils. The door opened, and Theodore Bosenbury, the deputy clerk of Quarter Sessions, a stout ageing man with a white moustache, entered in a hurry. John Costigan, who followed him, strolled up and sat down at Abner's table. The door opened again and admitted Jesse Gearhart, carrying a wet umbrella. He glanced around, tiptoed past the minister and the Wrights, and seated himself at the far end of the front bench.

  When his name was called, Field had arisen, and Abner walked over to him. Field looked haggard and ill. Beside him, Warren Lyall cast his eyes down, examining his own muscular hands with a decorous professional indifference. He was the instrument of the law, with his duty to do, which was to have ready the body of his (or Hugh Erskine's) prisoner. Warren did not let the rest of it concern him; partly because everything that could be said or done was now an old story to him; and partly because an impersonal, disinterested manner saved trouble. A prisoner could not help seeing that to argue with disinterestedness would be absurd, and to appeal to impersonality, useless.

  'Sam,' said Abner as gently as he could, 'I have here indictments charging you with assault and battery on Mary Beach, Nina Friedman, and — er — Helen Hartshorn. How do you plead to them, guilty or not guilty?'

  'Guilty,' said Field, in a very low voice.

  'All right; if you'll just sit down, please.'

  Turning, Abner said, 'I'll call John Costigan, your Honour.' Bending over his own table, Abner took a pen and began to endorse the pleas on the back of the three bills. Theodore Bosenbury said, 'John Costigan sworn,' closed his Bible and sat down under the bench. 'Mr. Costigan,' Abner said, still writing, 'what is your occupation?'

  'County detective.'

  'And do you know the defendant, Samuel Field?'

  'Yes, sir, I do.'

  'Well, will you just tell us what part you played in this case?'

  'Yes, sir. Last evening at' —he looked at his notebook — 'six-forty-five o'clock I received a call —'

  Jesse Gearhart, down in the corner of the front row, and half hidden from Abner by the empty chairs of the jury box, held his chin in his hand, leaning forward slightly. His pallid immobile face seemed even tireder than last night, as though sleep did not rest him. Abner looked on to the girls and their parents. Mary Beach he recognized at once from the photographs. The girl seated between Leon Friedman and the dark woman was obviously Nina. The other, the Hartshorn girl, it seemed to Abner he had seen somewhere, though without knowing her name. Her father, next to her, was, by his appearance, a farmer. He had a strong, blunt, determined face. His little worn anxious wife in a shabby hat sat on the other side. Abner's gaze encountered Adelaide Maurer's, and she lifted one eyebrow and smiled faintly.

  To Costigan, Abner said, 'And after that you were present at the hearing at the justice of the peace's office?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'All right. I think that's all. Unless your Honour has some questions?'

  'I don't think that Mr. Costigan explained what the purpose of the search in Mr. Field's office at the school was.'

  'Why, we —' Costigan began.

  'I think, sir,' Abner interposed, 'it was thought that some evidence of Mr. Field's activities might be found.'

  'Oh,' said Judge Irwin. 'Yes. Yes. That will be all, Mr. Costigan.'

  'Mary Beach,' said Abner. 'Will you take the stand, please?' She came down with composure, perhaps to be expected in a girl who had made no objection, or none that wasn't eventually overcome, to posing as Sam directed. She was a hefty girl, bold-faced but pretty in a thick blonde way, and well-made — Abner could see Maynard Longstreet looking her up and down as she pressed her hand on Mr. Bosenbury's Bible. She went up on the witness stand with a little self-possessed flick of her skirt, and sat down, swinging one leg over the other.

  'How old are you, Mary?' Abner said.

  'I'm sixteen.'

  'Now, Mary, you testified before Squire Delp last night that on the afternoon of March fifteenth or sixteenth last, Mr. Field requested you to report to his office for a conference. I want you to tell his Honour, Judge Irwin, in your own words, what took place there after you had reported."

  'Well,' she said, lifting her shoulders a little, 'he began by asking things about my work; and then he said he would have to ask me some personal questions, and I must not mind answering them, because it was just like talking to a doctor —' She paused and said to Judge Irwin, 'Do I have to say everything he asked me?'

  'No,' said Judge Irwin. 'That will probably not be necessary, if you will just indicate the general nature.'

  'About, well, whether I was, well, mature or not —'

  In spite of her mannerisms, she was a good witness; better, probably, than if she had been hampered by maidenly innocence. Abner recognized the type. A girl who had her reputation was almost always either an outright moron, or, like Mary Beach, entirely adult in her point of view — much more than a match for boys her own age; and often no less than a match for men as much older as Sam Field. Her testimony seemed to Abner straight and plausible; but of course she didn't, and had no reason to want to, and perhaps anyway couldn't, report along with what she said and he said, her by-play of look and tone. She did not say, as probably the case was, that at previous conferences her precocious senses had apprised her of the teacher's involuntary interest in her; and for the fun of it, and because she enjoyed her power, and because she was experienced enough not to be afraid, she kept signalling little invitations, making them, if Sam pretended to ignore them (as he very likely did at first) bolder each time and more alluring.

  Abner could see that actually Mary Beach might be to blame for the whole business — the dates of the other charges were all later. She had excited his imagination, and shown him how easy it was, and he had profited by her instructions. Abner looked at Sam a moment, wondering if by any chance Sam realized this — the fact, so well known to the district attorney's office, that, unless the man were insane, or very drunk, the woman was always to blame for what happened to her. She could end it any time by an honestly meant fiat refusal.

  Abner said, 'On these, or other occasions, Mr. Field never went further than that, 'did he? I mean, just putting his hands on you —' But his indirection, he saw, was ridiculous. 'In short, he never at any time had, or attempted to have, sexual intercourse with you, did he?'

  'No, he never did.'

  'Your Honour? That's all, then, Mary. You may step down. Nina Friedman, please.'

  The Reverend Mr. Field, looking sadly at his nephew's back, shifted and swallowed, like a man who has borne up in a period of prolonged strain, and at last reaches the end; only to find that he is not through, for another one, a fresh one just like it, awaits him.

  Nina Friedman came down and faced Mr. Bosenbury. She was much slighter and looked much younger than Mary Beach; but she, too, answered that she was sixteen. On the
witness stand Nina was tense and jerky, her smooth head and small warm coloured face in ceaseless movement while she looked at her finger nails, sidelong at the ceiling, out the window into the dripping green summits of the trees. At each question of Abner's, she went through a high-strung pantomime—obedient attention, quick comprehension, careful reflection, ready response. Invited to tell what had happened to her in her own words, she began with vivacity, then stumbled and went scarlet at her own words. Her eyes filled with tears, and she gave a light laugh. She said, 'He never did any more than that. He really didn't —'

  To accept Mary Beach's standing invitation was one thing; but to fool with a kid like this — Sam ought to have better sense! Abner exchanged a glance with Judge Irwin and checked her. He said, 'Thank you. That will be all, Nina. Helen Hartshorn.'

  Mr. Hartshorn turned to his daughter and said audibly, 'Go on up there!'

  By the note of brusque authority, Abner could guess that Mr. Hartshorn was an old-fashioned disciplinarian. He expected justice to be done and Field to be punished; but that was not his only concern. One of his duties, and he was the man to do it, was to see that his daughter behaved herself. Common sense must have taught him that truth about where the blame lay that the district attorney's office knew so well. Once Mr. Hartshorn was certain that Helen had not been forced to allow the familiarities by superior strength or fear of injuries, he probably came to the rough and ready conclusion that the teacher wasn't the only one who needed correction. Abner suspected that Helen, when she got home last night, had been given a good licking. She was cowed and mournful, and when she sat down in the witness chair, she did it with such care that Abner was obliged to bite his lip.