For the first two years Shagarach's face showed the desperation of his fortunes. His own people shunned him as a seceder from the synagogue. To the public he was still unknown. But one day a trivial case had matched him against a certain eminent pleader, a Goliath in stature and in skill. The end of the day's tourney witnessed his bulk prostrated before the undersized scion of the house of David. From that hour the dimensions of his fame had grown apace. Critics noticed an occasional simplicity in everyday matters, just as a gifted foreigner who has become eloquent in our tongue may have to ask some commonplace native for a word now and then. Rivals questioned his technical learning, who had little else to boast. Yet Shagarach's knowledge, practical or legal, was always found adequate to his cause. Whether he was pedantically profound in the law or not might be an open question. But all who knew him at all knew him for a Titan.
The man appeared to be lonely by nature. Excepting the young assistant, Aronson, he associated no colleague with him, carrying all the details of his growing volume of business in his own capacious mind. Other men made memoranda. Shagarach remembered. What he might be in himself none knew; yet "all things to all men" was a motto he spurned. Shagarach was Shagarach to judge or scullion, everywhere masterful, unruffled, mysterious. Were it not for the luminous eyes he might be taken for an abstract thinker. These orbs supplied the magnetism to rivet crowds and suggested a seer of deep soul-secrets (unknown even to their possessor), dormant, perhaps subdued, but not annihilated, under the exterior equipment of the criminal lawyer.
Shagarach often colloqued with himself as he was doing now. In his trials, though he neither badgered witnesses nor wrangled with opponents, he was noted for sotto-voce comments, sometimes ironical, that seemed scarcely conscious. These mannerisms might be relics of a solitary pre-existence, in which the habit of thinking aloud had been formed.
"Was it Arnold or Mungovan who touched the match?" He continued his pacing in silence. "Both knew the premises, Mungovan the better of the two."
The electric street lamp shone into his room and the footfalls of the last tenant, receding on the stairs, had long since died to silence.
"I will study Arnold," he said, finally, buttoning his coat, as if the problem were as good as solved.
"Get the mail, Indigo."
The letters made a goodly heap on the salver, but Harry Arnold sifted them over with an air of dissatisfaction. One cream-colored envelope, superscribed in a dainty hand, he laid apart. The rest he tore open and tossed into Indigo's lap, as if they were duns, invitations and other such formal matters.
"Drop a line apiece to these bores," he said to his valet, with a yawn. Like the whole tribe of the unoccupied, he was too busy to answer letters.
"Where's Aladdin?"
"Grazing in the paddock."
"Did you get the roses for Miss March?"
"Two dozen Marechal Neils."
"I want some paper for a note to go with them. Mother's prompt," he added, opening the letter he had reserved, while Indigo went on his errand. It was headed "Hillsborough," and ran as follows:
"Dear Harry: It is a pleasure to be in our old summer home again, especially after the trying day I spent in that courtroom. The orchards are no longer in bloom, and the pear tree in the angle (your favorite), which was just a great pyramid of snowy blossoms when we arrived last year, is now budding with fruit. These things remind me how late the season has begun this year. Do not prolong it too far, Harry, dear. I am sure, after your illness, the mere sight of the open fields would do you good. Woodlawn is suburban, but it is not real country. Besides, we are only twenty miles out and you could ride in town in an hour whenever you liked.
"Be assured you shall have the money for your club expenses as soon as I can collect it. But property has its embarrassments, you know; and we may be rich in bonds and indentures, yet lack ready pennies at times, strange as it may seem to your inexperience. Do not worry, dear. In your present delicate state of health it may injure you more than I care to think. The very next time I come to town you shall have what you desire. But I make my own terms. You must be a good boy and come to Hillsborough for it. Forgive my writing so soon. I have been thinking of you, and it surely cannot displease you to hear once more how dearly you are remembered, wherever she goes, by your loving mother,
"ALICE BREWSTER ARNOLD."
"Once more! No, nor a thousand times more!" cried Harry. "But I wish she'd come down sooner with the cash," he added. "What's this? Postscript?"
"Your friends, the Marches, have taken their cottage in Lenox. Possibly this may hasten your coming more than my entreaties."
"Jealous of Rosalie, already," laughed Harry. "Poor mother! What, another?"
"P. S. (Private)—It would be wise, Harry, if you should call upon your cousin. A visit from you would look well at this time."
"A call on Rob? Gad, I never thought of that. Give me the stationery, Indigo."
For five minutes Harry Arnold was alone, writing his prettiest note of compliment to accompany the gift of flowers to Miss Rosalie March. He had just moistened the mucilage when there came a ring at the bell.
"See if that's the fellows, Indigo. Look through the shutters."
"It's Kennedy," said Indigo, twisting his neck and eyes so as to get a slanting view of the callers.
"Who else?"
"Idler and Sunburst."
"Let them up."
"Well, Harry," cried the first of the three bloods, extending a hand, "what's the tempo of your song this morning?"
"Allegro, vivace, vivacissimo, Idler. Convalescing; doctor says I may go out; mother agreeable; medicine chest thrown to the dogs. Have a pill; only a few more left."
"Hello!" cried the fragile youth who had entered last. "Miss Rosalie March!" He picked up the envelope which Harry had laid down. "Sits the wind in that quarter still, Horatio?"
"The actress, Harry?" cried a second of the trio.
"What actress, you booby? Miss March isn't an actress."
"Nevertheless, she occasionally acts," retorted Sunburst. His yellow beard entitled him to this alias.
"Just the opposite, then, of her brother, Tristram," said the tall, sallow youth addressed as Idler. "He is a sculptor, but he never sculps. Did you see his alto-relievo of a Druid's head in the Art club? Capital study. Why in the deuce doesn't he work?"
"If he did he might get his goods on the market," said Kennedy.
"Out on you for a Philistine, a dunderhead!" cried Harry. "Do you confound genius with salability? Idler could correct you on that point. You remember his satire on 'The Religious Significance of Umbrellas in China?' Was anything ever more daringly conceived, more wittily executed, more—but I spare the shades of Addison and Lamb. And how much did it fetch him? A paltry $15."
Idler was the only one of these well-born good-for-naughts who ever turned his gifts to use. Sketches over the sobriquet by which he was known to his friends occasionally appeared in the lighter magazines.
"But my 'New Broom' made a clean sweep, Harry," he protested.
"Murder," groaned Harry. "He had that in for us. A prepared joke is detestable. It's like bottled spring water."
"Hang spring water!" said Idler. "Hang water anyway!"
"Indigo," cried Harry, jumping at the hint, "fetch us some very weak whey from the spa. Let's have a real old high jinks of a slambang bust to celebrate my convalescence. Hello! What's that?"
The wild wail of a bagpipe smote the air and the four boon companions rushed to the window.
"Have him in!"
"Yoho!"
"Here, Sawnie!"
"He's coming."
Indigo and the piper entered from opposite doors at about the same time, the former fetching the "whey," which had a suspiciously reddish hue and was served in narrow bottles, the latter arrayed in all the bravery of his plaids, with a little boy by his side in similar costume.
"Hit her up, Sawnie," cried Kennedy.
"Let him wet his whistle first," said the Sunburst.
"And here's a handsel to cross his palm," added Harry, passing the piper something invisible. The minstrel pocketed it with an awkward bow and drank down the proffered "whey" at one gulp.
"I'll be reminding you, gentlemen," he said in "braid Scots," "lest ye labor under a misapprehension of my cognomen, that my name is not Sawnie, but Duncan McKenzie Logan, and this is my wee bairn, Archibald Campbell of that ilk. We're half-lowland, as ye doubtless know, the Logans being a border clan."
"Why don't you make the youngster blow the bellows?" cried Idler. "The organ-player never does the pumping."
"I'm no organ-player, if you please. 'Tis the hieland pipes I play, and there's no blowing the bellows except with my ain mouth. But the laddie dances prettily. Show your steps, Archie. Show the gentlemen a fling. Ainblins they've never seen the like of it before."
Archie was as highland as his father in rig, from his jaunty feathered bonnet to the kilt just reaching below his bare, brown knees. His firm boyish face had a Scotch prettiness in it, nothing effeminate, yet sweet to look at, and he went through the steps of the highland fling gracefully, one hand on hip, the other over his head, reversing them now and then, and occasionally spinning around, while the piper struck up "Roy's Wife." The conclusion was greeted with a burst of applause.
"Can't we dance to that tune, boys?" shouted Harry, seizing Kennedy around the waist. "Choose your partners. Give us a Tarantella."
"There's nae such tune in the hielands," said the piper, gravely.
"Well, the skirt dance will do. Hit her up and I'll make you a present big enough to buy all your aunts and cousins porridge for a fortnight."
"There's nae skeert dance known to my pipes," said the highlander, shaking his head. "Dinna ye mean the sword dance?"
"Try 'Highland Laddie'," suggested Idler, hitting up a lively jig on the piano. The piper fell in and soon was pacing up and down the room, red in the face from his exertions, while the four merrymakers capered, kicked and skipped, with all sorts of offhand juvenilities. Harry, though the tallest present, was graceful as a girl.
"Hold up, fellows," cried the Sunburst, at last, puffing audibly. But the piper continued pacing up and down, forgetting everything in the furore of his enthusiasm except the moaning and shrieking of his instrument.
"Hold up, I say. Shut off your infernal drone. We can't hear ourselves think."
"'Tis the wind wailing on Craig-Ellachie I hear," said he of the Caledonian names.
"I think it's delirium tremens. Take a nip of the whey. That'll cure you. Here, Indigo, tap the geyser again for Sawnie."
Logan was not the man to set up frivolous punctilios against such an order as Idler's.
"There's medicine for the inner mon," he said, smacking his lips with gusto.
"Medicinal, eh? If you happen to take an overdose it's a medicinal spree, I suppose."
"I say, isn't tomorrow the Fourth?" cried Sunburst. "Play something patriotic, Sawnie, 'Hull's Victory,' or 'Lady Washington's Reel.'"
"There's nane o' them known to me or my instrument," said the minstrel. "It's a Scotch pipe and will play nane but the auld tunes of Scotland."
"Scotland! What's Scotland?" asked Idler.
"Wha—can it be ye never heard tell o' bonnie Scotland?" gasped the highlander, who was nearing the condition which Idler had described as a "medicinal spree."
"What is it, a man or a place? Did you ever meet the name before, fellows?"
All three solemnly shook their heads, whereat the Caledonian's jaw dropped in amazement.
"Wull, wull, I knew 'twas a most barbarous country I entered, but I'd thought the least enlightened peoples of the airth had heard of the glory and the celebrity of bonnie Scotland."
"Bonnie Scotland? Is Bonnie his first name?"
"Why, 'tis the country o' Scotland, I mean."
"Oh, I know," interposed Harry; "that little, barren, outlying province somewhere to the north of England."
"Oh, that!" cried the others, in contemptuous chorus.
"Where the coast line gets ragged, like an old beggar's coat," said Idler.
"And the people live on haggis and finnan haddie," added Kennedy.
"They are mostly exiles of Erin that have drifted back into barbarism," cried the Sunburst.
"Yes, that's the place," said Harry. "I've heard travelers tell of it. I believe it's put down in the latest gazetteer."
Poor Logan looked like a stifling man, but before he could launch his reply the long-drawn tones of a rival troubadour invaded the apartment. Once more the four roysterers rushed to the window.
"It's a dago!"
"Ahoy!" they signaled, waving their hands.
"Open the door for him, Indigo," cried Harry.
"Did you ever hear tell o' such savages, Archie?" whispered the piper to his son; "that had no enlightenment on the name o' bonnie Scotland, which is famous wherever valor and minstrelsy are honored."
"They maun be jestin', daddy."
"Jestin'? Tut, tut! Whaur's the jest?"
"Presto bellisimo, Paganini," cried the four youths, each rushing to the door and welcoming the organ-grinder, with a warm shake-hands. The Italian smiled profusely and doffed his cap, his monkey climbing to the organ top and imitating him in every gesture.
"Tune up your bagpipes, Sawnie," cried Harry. "We are going to have a tournament. Take a smell, Paganini?"
"Noa," answered the Italian, shaking his head, "noa drink—a."
"Then you're a bigger fool than you look," cried Idler, stumbling tipsily. "(Hic) I'm losing control of my curves."
"What tunes have you got in that box?" asked Harry of the organ-grinder, while Logan eyed him grimly with a look of scorn.
"What-a sing-a? 'Anni Runi.'"
"That will do. Grind away. Hold on. Get a full breath, Sawnie. Now for a medley."
The organ-grinder began turning his crank, but the Scotchman sulked in the corner.
"Stop there, Paganini. False start. Try again."
"I'll accompany nae uncivilized barrel-box, that's only fit to dandle idiot bairns wi'."
"What are you talking about?" cried Idler. "Uncivilized! You wildman of the hills! A red outlaw in his war paint couldn't look and act more outlandish than you do."
"Smooth him down, Harry," cried Sunburst. "Here, Sawnie, how much will you take for your pipes?"
"Enough to buy me them back again," answered the Scotchman, cannily, "and a bonus for the time o' their privation."
"You'll do," said Idler.
"Have another nip of the whey and let's hear you drown the dago," whispered Harry, confidentially, patting Logan on the back.
"Drown him? 'Twad na tak' a big puddle to do that."
"Of course not. But he's vain enough to think just the opposite. A good swig! Start her up now."
Idler drummed on the piano a few bars of "Scots Wha Ha'e," which set the piper marching and stamping again. At a nod from Harry the bowing Italian resumed his tune, and when the four carousers took hands in a circle and began chanting "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot," the air was infernal with discord.
"Faster! Faster!" cried Harry. The Scotchman pranced in his industrious ecstasy, while the Italian put both hands to the organ-crank and turned for all that was in him.
"Oh, a smile for my Rosalie!" shouted Kennedy, maliciously, changing the air.
"None of that!" cried Harry, barely making his voice heard above the din. The little boy sitting in one corner had clapped both palms over his ears, and the monkey, watching his gesture, gravely climbed up and perched beside him, doing likewise.
"A kiss for my Rosalie," roared Kennedy, tantalizing his host. Half-angry, Harry caught up a wine bottle from the tray and pointed it at his tormentor.
"Pop!" the cork flew out and Kennedy put his hand to his eye with an exclamation of pain.
"Hello! What have I done?" cried Harry.
"Didn't know it was loaded," jeered Idler. But the concert had stopped, and when Kennedy uncovered his eye there was a blue swelling already under the lid.
"A surgeon!" cried Sunburst. "Amputate his head. It is the only hope of saving the eye."
"What's good for a black eye?" asked Harry, less unfeelingly than the others.
"Black the other for symmetry," cried Sunburst.
"Get some beefsteak, Indigo," said Harry.
"Kill the Jersey cow, Indigo, and cut off a sirloin," mocked Idler, who was half-seas over now. Meanwhile the Scotchman and the Italian, counting their emoluments, had folded their instruments and silently stolen away; while Sunburst, apparently as porous as a sponge, calmly and steadily put the bottle Harry had popped to his lips and drained it to the dregs.
"Now for Sir Galahad in jail!" said Harry, touching the bay with the point of his whip.
"He was an awfully virtuous cad!" laughed Kennedy. Sunburst had offered to convey Idler safely home, while Kennedy, the black-eyed, accompanied Harry, himself none the better for his morning bottle-bout, to the clubhouse in town. On the way they would make the visit to Robert.
There was evidently a strong dash of the Arnold blood in Harry. He showed more resemblance to his cousin than to the proud, thin-lipped woman who had sat through Floyd's preliminary trial. A stranger might even confuse them at the first glance, though Harry was five years the older of the two. It could not be gainsaid that he bore his age well. His movements were leopard-like in their swiftness and ease and his eyes shone with mesmeric power. The little darkness under their lids might be a peculiarity of complexion, but occasionally, in moments of repose, a shadow, no more, seemed to cross the cheek and make it look worn. His companions had noticed that the cue-point wavered a trifle in his hands of late and that his masse shots sometimes failed to draw the balls. But he was still facile princeps among gentlemen boxers of the city; and his long, brown arms were a delight to watch on the river, crossing and recrossing in the graceful rhythm of the practiced oarsman.
Arnold's true nature was hard to judge, for circumstances had conspired to spoil him from the cradle. A comely child, he had been allowed to carry the knickerbocker period of tossing curls and gratified whims far into his teens, and the discovery that her darling was a man, and no longer a painted picture to be gazed at and displayed, had come upon his mother suddenly, like an unforeseen catastrophe. It had cost her many a pang to realize that she, who aspired to be sole mistress of his heart, shared now only a divided affection with a score of alien interests. Still she continued to indulge and anticipate his desires. They were rich and social station was her birthright. But it was with a jealous gnawing in her heart that she would sign the check for his new pleasure yacht or watch him pat the neck of his steeplechaser Aladdin.
The dislike she bore to Robert Floyd was a natural consequence of his uncle's partiality. The families were outwardly upon good terms. If early influence counts, there could not well be much similarity of taste between the youth whose steps had been guided by the virile head of Benjamin Arnold and the idol of that indulgent, worldly mother who never forgot that she belonged to the Brewsters of Lynn.
"Hold her ten minutes," said Harry, giving the reins to Kennedy at the outer gate of the jail. His name was a sufficient passport to the officer who guarded the outer turnstile, and he was directed across a bricked yard to the jail building proper. Here a more detailed explanation was exacted. Harry answered the questions suavely but not without some suppressed impatience. A few moments of delay, which he beguiled with an incessant finger-tattoo, and he was conducted to murderers' row.
"This isn't much like home, Rob," was his greeting, fortified by a hand extended through the cell bars. Floyd pressed it somewhat coldly.
"I'm grateful for the visit, Harry," he said.
"I was deucedly down with malaria when uncle died, you know."
"I was sorry to hear that from your mother."
"Yes, might have come around to the trial, I suppose; but mother wouldn't have it. You understand how she feels. Besides, what good could I do?"
"You are better now?"
"Awoke this morning as fresh as a new-born babe. Going down to play with the foils awhile. Can't stop long."
Was it the glow of convalescence or of wine that shone in Harry's face? He made one or two imaginary passes with his cane, regardless of the feelings of the prisoner, to whom such a picture of prospective enjoyment could hardly be soothing.
"But I say, Rob," he cried, apparently remembering himself, "this is hard on you. What do you think of it all?"
Floyd eyed his cousin, as if the appropriate answer were not easy to find.
"It is hard," he replied.
"What would Uncle Ben say if he were alive?"
"Uncle Benjamin would be the first to proclaim my innocence," said Robert, his voice vibrant with emotion.
"To tell the truth, Rob, I don't know whether to be sorry his old scrawl's canceled or not. I had my doubts how I fared at Uncle Ben's hands. Mother said my half was hunky, but you know uncle hadn't that respect for my precious person she has." Harry's laugh showed that he was well aware of his mother's weakness in that regard. "How was it? Do you know? Did the old gentleman forget me?"
"I believe we were treated nearly alike," answered Robert.
"Gad, then I owe you $5,000,000——"
"Did you come here to insult me?"
At this outburst of indignation the sheriff's deputy drew near.
"That was nothing, Rob," said Harry, sobering up. "Only my cursed thoughtlessness. I'm sorry, on my word, you've got into the fix."
"Carry your condolences somewhere else."
"Oh, well——"
"I was always literal and I mean now what I say. Your apology only makes the matter worse."
There is nothing more subversive of dignity than an unpremeditated sneeze. Not that Saul Aronson had much dignity to spare. On the contrary, he was an extremely modest young man, with apparently one great passion in his life, the service of Shagarach. On this occasion his resounding ker-choo proclaimed from afar the arrival of that personage and threw a ridiculous damper on the rising temper of the cousins. Seeing the two strangers approach, Harry fumbled out a farewell and withdrew with an air of languid bravado. Shagarach watched him as he passed.
"Follow that young man for a few hours," he said to Aronson. "I should like to know his afternoon programme."
Aronson hung on his master's lips and trotted off to obey his command.
"I am Shagarach, come to defend you," he said to the prisoner, still flushed with the remembrance of the quarrel.
"Who sent you to defend me?" was the curt reply.
"Your friend, Miss Barlow."
"Emily?"
Robert's voice grew softer.
"I have some questions to ask you."
"What have I done to be questioned as if I were a cut-throat? What have I done to be jailed here like some wild beast, before whom life would not be safe if he were let at large?"
"I know you are innocent, Floyd."
Only the falsely accused can tell how the first assurance of trust from another revives hope and faith in their kind. Robert Floyd was no man to lean on strangers, yet Shagarach's words were as soothing to him as a gentle hand laid on a feverish forehead.
"Your cousin Harry came here to verify his knowledge of the will, which disinherited him, did he not?"
"Harry was disinherited, that is true."
"How came you to give up the profession of botanist, in which your uncle trained you?"
"Men interest me more than vegetables."
"But you refused your uncle's wealth, that would have given you power among men."
"It was not mine. I had not earned it. I feared the temptation."
"You are a journalist, I believe?"
"Six months ago I happened to report a conference of charities for the Beacon. Today I am eking out my income by occasional work for that paper."
Shagarach thought of his own first brief. A youth, imperfectly acquainted with English, was charged with the larceny of an overcoat from his fellow-lodger. Something about him enlisted the sympathy of a kind-hearted lady who drew Shagarach into the case because of his knowledge of the Hebrew jargon which the prisoner spoke. The youth was acquitted and was now a student of law, being no other than Shagarach's assistant and idolater, Aronson. That was years ago. Today hundreds flocked to hear his pleading of a cause, judges leaned over alertly, as if learning their duty from him, and the very hangers-on of the courtroom acquired a larger view of the moral law when Shagarach expounded it.
"My own beginnings were as humble," he said.
"You are a criminal lawyer by choice, people say."
"The moral alternative of innocence or guilt, of liberty or imprisonment—sometimes, as now, of life or death—exalts a cause in my eyes far above any elevation to which mere financial litigation can attain."
Robert looked his visitor over thoughtfully. The criminal lawyer was not reputed the highest grade of the guild. But there was a sneer, too, in many quarters for the journalist. He, too, must mingle in the reek of cities, share Lazarus' crust and drink from the same cup with the children of the slums.
"And you have risen to the defense of murderers," he said.
"Men accused of murder," answered Shagarach.
"You are reputed to be uniformly successful."
"That is no miracle. My clients are uniformly innocent. My first step is to satisfy myself of that."
"When were you first satisfied of my innocence?"
"When I saw you here."
"I am to be removed to the state prison while the jail is repaired," said Robert, who had indulged dreams of some powerful intervention which should procure his release. "How long before a final hearing will be given me?"
"Two months at most. The evidence against your cousin is growing rapidly under my hands."
"It was 'evidence' that brought me here. Is your 'evidence' against Harry no more valuable?"
"I am not prosecuting Harry Arnold, but every item that points to his guilt guides the finger of suspicion away from you."
Shagarach was satisfied with his interview. He had elicited proof to his own mind of Robert's innocence and legal evidence of Harry's disinheritance under the will. To fasten knowledge of the fact upon the cousin would now be an easier task.
"Miss Barlow will be permitted to see you," was his parting assurance to the prisoner before he hurriedly returned to his office, to find an unexpected client awaiting him.
John Davidson, the marshal, had a friendly habit, the legacy of a country bringing-up, which his acquaintances found both useful and agreeable. Our tired Emily, trudging to Shagarach's with the heavy message of a day's failure, must have agreed with them heartily. At least, she did not decline his invitation when the kindly old gentleman drove up behind her and urged her to share his seat in the carriage.
"I am bringing him some evidence now," said Emily in answer to the marshal's first question, after he had settled her according to his liberal ideas of comfort and clucked his horse to a gentle trot.
"Evidence—no need of evidence, miss. If Shagarach has your case, that will be prima-facie evidence in itself of your sweetheart's innocence."
"He is a wonderful man. But do people like him?"
"Like him? Well, 'like' is a medium word, you see, used for medium people. He's a good deal of a sphinx to us all, my dear. But aren't you a brave girl to be tramping the streets for your sweetheart? Don't mind being called sweethearts, I hope? That was the old-country word when I courted Elizabeth. But I believe young folks now call it fiancee, inamorata—French words and Italian, as though they were ashamed to speak it out in good old English."
"Oh, we prefer sweethearts a hundred times. But I see Mr. Shagarach's sign."
The marshal handed her out with old-fashioned gallantry, threw his horse's head-weight on the curbstone and accompanied her upstairs. Neither Aronson, nor Jacob, the office boy, answered his knock, but a throaty falsetto, somewhat the worse for wear, was intoning an evangelical hymn within. Strange quavers ad libitum and a constant beating of the foot, occasionally heightened to a break-down stamp, intermingled with the air. It was only by giving a rap with his whole clenched hand that the marshal was able to arouse the attention of this musical inmate.
"Evenin', Mr. Davidson. Keepin' house, you see."
"Good evening, Jupiter." Then to Emily: "This is Pineapple Jupiter."
"Cullud gospel-preacher, missus. Belong to the mission upstairs. Buy a mission paper, missus?"
His complexion was as black as a coal shovel, but everything artificial about him made the antithesis of the swan to the raven. His suit was of bleached linen, his shirt bosom, choker and spotless cravat, all the color of snow. Even his wool was wintry and the rolling eyes and brilliant teeth gave his ensemble the effect of a pen-and-ink sketch, or one of those black-and-white grotesques that recently captured a passing vogue.
"When will Shagarach return?" asked Davidson, but a light step on the stairs, which Emily knew to be his, rendered an answer needless. The lawyer bowed with his usual stateliness and ushered them in.
"Remain outside till Jacob comes, Jupiter," he said. The negro salaamed deferentially.
"As a result of today's inquiries," Shagarach folded his arms, "two desirable witnesses are missing. The peddler, as I surmised, is not a peddler; and the incendiary, who could assist us materially in our researches, still remains in the Arnold mansion."
Emily's face was puzzled at this enigmatic opening.
"That is to say, he was not seen by any one coming out. I believe, however, that he succeeded in getting away unobserved, as I think I had the pleasure of meeting him this afternoon."
"The incendiary?" cried Emily, and the marshal echoed her.
"At the county jail."
Emily's heart fluttered. Had Shagarach become a convert to the belief in Robert's guilt? And if so?
"You know Harry Arnold?" he asked.
"I have never met him." She colored a little, for she was not descended from the Brewsters of Lynn. "But it seems to me your argument against him is inferential, Mr. Shagarach." Twenty times she had gone over it on her pillow the night before.
"Were the a priori case against Mr. Floyd as strong, you would have more reason than you have to be apprehensive, Miss Barlow," said Shagarach, in that ringing tone of his, from which all the sap of emotion seemed purposely wrung out, leaving only a residuum of dry logic.
Immediately he began writing a letter, as if to terminate the interview, and John Davidson reached for his hat, casting a glance down at his carriage in the street. Then with an effort Emily unburdened herself of the portentous message which she had come to deliver.
"I have done my best," she said. "But Bertha Lund is not to be found."
Bertha Lund's aunt, Mrs. Christenson, kept a boarding house for Swedes, on a street near the water front. By virtue of an intelligence-office license she was also empowered to obtain places in domestic service for newly imported Frederikas and Katherinkas. But the Swedish housemaid is one of those rare commodities in which the demand exceeds the supply. So there had been no crowded gallery of sodden faces around the waiting-room when Emily called Thursday morning before going to work, but only two or three laughing maidens who chatted with the boarders. All had the bloom of a winter apple in their cheeks and their blue eyes sparkled with reflections of the sea. Mrs. Christenson was making terms with a lady in an inner room.
"You wish for a servant?" she said, coming forward pleasantly.
"My business is with Miss Bertha Lund, your niece. I believe she is lodging here."
"My niece is gone," answered the landlady, unceremoniously turning her back and shutting the door with that emphasis which is feminine for profanity. Then her voice was heard, pitched a little higher, as she interpreted the silvery Swedish of the girl within, for the benefit of her future mistress.
"Something must be wrong," thought Emily. But there was nothing for her to do but retreat, somewhat hurt and a great deal troubled. She had reached the head of the stairs when one of the domestics in the waiting-room came forward sympathetically and in her pretty, broken English explained Mrs. Christenson's conduct. Bertha, it seems, had not returned home since the night of the trial. Search had been made for her, but without result. From what the girl said, though this was put guardedly and in an almost inaudible whisper, Emily inferred that Bertha, who was naturally quick-tempered, had chafed under her aunt's imperious discipline and had probably gone to board with some friend, registering herself for employment meanwhile in one of the other intelligence offices. Once before she had manifested the same impatience of restraint and had disappeared into the country for an entire summer.
It was still possible, even probable, that she could be found if search were instituted at once. Bertha had only a day's start of her pursuer, and it was not likely that she had secured a situation to her taste so soon. Emily formed the heroic resolve to scour the intelligence offices herself. Finding the list in the directory incomplete, she boldly visited police headquarters, from which licenses are issued, and copied the name and address of every keeper in the city.
With a letter from one of the police commissioners and a minute description of Bertha at her tongue's end, Emily had passed from office to office, braving discourtesy and even insult. As this was the busy season her truancy from the studio would have to be made up by lamplight work, which meant ache to her weary eyes, and the unwonted climbing of stairs and trudging about for hours soon exhausted her small stock of strength. But Emily was less concerned over her personal sacrifice than over the failure of her inquiries. By 4 o'clock her task was still uncompleted. The rounds of the offices had not been half-made. Still no Bertha could be found, no girl answering her description or dressed as Bertha had been dressed at the trial having applied for work on the previous day. With a cloud of despondency forming over her heart, only lightened by a dim hope of consolation from Shagarach, she had turned her steps in the direction of his office when John Davidson overtook her.
"Not to be found!" echoed the marshal.
"When was she seen last?" inquired Shagarach, calmly.
"The evening of the trial," answered Emily. "She hasn't returned to her aunt's, where she was lodging, since then."
"Why, I saw the girl talking with McCausland," said Davidson.
"When?" asked the lawyer.
"Tuesday evening. Everybody else had gone and Miss Barlow and I were alone in the ante-chamber. McCausland put his head in, as if he wanted the room, and I noticed two women behind him. One was the housemaid and the other was——"
"Mrs. Arnold?"
"True enough. 'Twa'nt no need to tell you, was it?"
The marshal's eyes grew big with admiration.
"Merely a guess. Bertha Lund is a government witness, and McCausland has a habit of keeping his witnesses under cover, especially when they are poor and he is fighting wealth or influence. However, we have a right to know all Bertha knows. Could you find out if she is living with the Arnolds?" he said, turning to Emily.
"They are out of town, but I'll make inquiries," answered the resolute girl.
"This may be of use." Shagarach handed her the note he had rapidly written. It was unsealed and addressed to the warden of the state prison. When the young girl was settled again to John Davidson's satisfaction in the seat of his buggy, she opened the envelope and read its contents aloud:
"My Dear Sir: The bearer, Miss Emily Barlow, is assigned to important duties for the defense in the cause of Commonwealth vs. Floyd. I shall esteem it a favor if you will grant her admission to the defendant as my personal representative at all times when she may apply to you. Respectfully yours,
"MEYER SHAGARACH,
"Counsel for the Accused."
"Well, that was clever, wasn't it?" said old John Davidson, and for the rest of the ride he entertained her with anecdotes of Shagarach's most memorable victories, as well as other fascinating relations. For the marshal, among his many virtues, was a famous traveler, being one of the handful who can boast of having set foot in every state of our union. He may not have been a marvel of detective cunning, as McCausland had intimated, but Emily had forgotten all about her fatigue and was in an agreeably hopeful frame of mind when he set her down before her house door in the plain side street.
That night Robert Floyd slept in a state prison cell. The atmosphere of the place oppressed him. Everything, down to the very keys and padlocks, was more massive than at the county jail. Led along a narrow corridor by tenanted cells, whose inmates came to the bars and greeted him, or crouched in the inmost recesses, he was reminded of a menagerie of dangerous beasts. At the door of his own cell the revulsion had seized him like an epileptic fit and he had wrenched himself loose from the jailer. In an instant four vise-like hands were tightened on him and he was flung bodily into the apartment. The iron door swung to with a clang and he heard the jailer's footsteps receding.
"Coo-ee! Ducky, don't ee like ee c'adle?"
"He's a lifer, sure!"
"Don't cry, Johnnie. You'll never get out any more."
"I move a resolution of sympathy for our newly elected associate. All in favor, curse Longlegs!"
There is a passage in Bach's "Passion" music where the infuriated Jews, being offered the choice of pardon for Barabbas or the Savior, shriek out the name of the robber. Robert remembered thinking that up to then he had never heard anything more devilish than the roar of rage with which the multitude express their preference for "Barabbas!" But the chorus of curses from the convict pack that greeted the sobriquet of "Longlegs" was like an uproar from still lower deeps, where spirits more hideous than the deicides may be confined.
This is not the normal temper of prisons, by any means. But the Georgetown prison had been for months in a state of incipient mutiny and the brewing storm was now threatening to break. Among the grounds of complaint alleged against the present warden was his retention of the obnoxious turnkey, "Longlegs," who was loathed as a "squealer," because he could not be bought. It was further alleged that the men's tobacco rations had been unjustly diminished one-half, such a thing as gratitude for the allowance of this luxury at all not entering their minds. The teams that carted goods from the workshops had recently been put in charge of prison employes, and a useful means of communication with outer friends thus cruelly cut off. In the eyes of the "solitaries" and "hard-labor" men their bill of rights had been monstrously trampled upon, and there was ample cause for the deposing of Warden Tapp and the establishment of anarchy in the institution. Only the "lifers" were for peace.
"Half a plug is better than no smoke, boys," said John Bryant, who had killed his wife, humorously. But he had served fourteen years already and lived in hopes of a pardon some Thanksgiving day for his good behavior.
After exhibiting so clearly their position "against the government," Robert's fellow-lodgers began to put inquiries to himself.
"Say, freshy, what's your name?"
Robert was too exasperated, too disgusted, to answer.
"He's tongue-tied."
"Wants his supper."
"Look out for a spy, fellers. That ain't true blue."
"Mum's the word."
It was evident that Floyd's refusal to make free had branded him at once with the stamp of unpopularity. But the young man had other thoughts to occupy his mind. He was pondering upon his own terrible plight and upon Shagarach's visit. Fully an hour must have passed in these reflections, for it was very dark, when they were disturbed by a low remark from his left-hand neighbor.
"Say, chummy, I hain't one of these 'ere bloomin' mutineers."
It was a wheezy voice and Floyd remembered to have heard at intervals from that quarter one of those racking coughs which distress the listener almost as much as the sufferer. The man seemed to be in the rear of his cell and to have his mouth to the wall. Robert said nothing, but his interest was languidly aroused.
"Say, get into the hospital, Dobbs," remarked a voice that was beginning to be familiar to Robert.
"I 'ave been in the 'ospital, you unfeelin', bloomin' coves," replied the asthmatic prisoner.
"Ho, ee's Henglish, ee his," said some one, whereupon there was a faint storm of laughter. Robert's sympathy was enlisted on the side of the man called Dobbs. His uncle had been an Englishman and the national feeling was strong in the nephew. Speaking as low as possible, so that the others might not hear, he said to Dobbs:
"You are an Englishman? This is bad company you've got into."
"Lord, me boy, Hi know that—a scurvy job lot o' bloomin' ordinary coves as I'd cut dead if Hi was a gentleman of fortune. But you see Hi hain't. Being only Bill Dobbs, Hi can't afford to preach hinnocence, and choose me hown 'ouse-mates, like a juke."
The cough choked his utterance for awhile and evoked further remonstrance from the yawning crew around him.
"What is your sentence?" asked Robert.
"Height years for burglary—if they can 'old me," and Bill Dobbs chuckled knowingly, like one who had tested the fragility of prison walls before. "W'ich, bein' a slippery fish, is a question Hi 'ave been considerin' seriously."
"Why did you leave England?" asked Robert.
"The climate is gettin' so warm," answered the cockney. "W'y, the gulf stream is comin' so near us there it would almost boil a turkey. Hawfully bloomin' 'ot, you know, chummy. I'm a-winkin' at you."
"Especially about Scotland Yard, I suppose. You're a professional burglar?"
"Not always, young man. Hi 'ad a Henglish mother once, w'ich I shall never forget 'ow she 'eard my prayers. And hevery day Hi dressed myself up in my blue blouse and breeches, and my dinner pail (w'ich wasn't hempty) under my harm, and hevery bloomin' bobby I met says Hi to him, says Hi: 'Hi'm Martin Thimblethorpe, from the west country, and can you tell me w'ere's Regent row?' Blarst me if they wouldn't point their fingers this way and that way and follow my departing footsteps with a look of pride, as much as to say: 'There goes a honest Hinglish workingman; see 'is hindependent hair."
"But you never worked very hard, I fancy, with your blouse and your dinner-pail?"
"'Ard? Hi fancy Hi did."
"What did you do?"
"Jeweler's 'elp."
"That is, you sold your plunder to a fence?"
"Fence? Wot fence? Hi 'ad an accommodatin' friend in the business, who asked no impertinent questions and paid me 'alf price for my contributions—w'ich was bloomin' low figures, considering Hi never accepted hanything cheap. If there's one class Hi 'ate, positively 'ate, young man, it's them bloomin' shoddy gaffers wot sport a genteel reputation on plated spoons and paste."
"You always discriminated against such people?"
"Halways! Ho, it used to do my 'eart good," continued Dobbs, chuckling at the reminiscence, "w'en they wrote up one of my nocturnal visits (Hi halways make my collections in the quiet hours of the hevenin') as 'ow the leavin' of the plated ware and the abandonin' of a temptin' case of hartificial diamonds shows the 'and of the solitary cracksman. There's appreciation, Hi used to say! There's fame! You 'it it 'appily, young man. Hi always discriminated."
"Martin Thimblethorpe, then, was the solitary cracksman, and your real name is Dobbs?"
"Bill Dobbs. Wot's your line, chummy? Fashionable embezzlement? Hi admire that line. It's genteel and the perquisites is liberal accordingly."
Floyd was getting interested in spite of himself. These first-hand experiences of a professional burglar were life, and in spite of the fellow's utter villainy and vulgarity (he could almost see his cunning leer through the walls) they had a spice of romance that held him. But their colloquy was interrupted just here by a sound of footsteps and the approach of a light, which set the whole ward raving again.
"Shut up your screeching," came a voice of command, at which the mutinous crew subsided, and Robert heard apologetic remarks.
"It's Gradger."
"It isn't Longlegs."
"We thought it was Longlegs."
Gradger, for some reason, was a favorite with the men. He went straight to Floyd's cell and pointed him out to Emily Barlow.
"Emily!"
"Robert!"
That was all they could say for awhile.
"My darling," cried Robert, who was the first to recover command of himself. He was indignant to think that she, too, should be forced into these surroundings. "Why have you come here?"
"Only to be with you for a few moments, Robert. I thought of you all friendless and lonesome."
"God bless you, dear. But you must not remain. Go away quickly and do not come here again."
It was the old, natural instinct to screen the purer half of our race from degrading contact with things we ourselves must meet.
"But why should I not visit you, Robert?"
"Because this is hell and you are an angel."
He drew her to him and kissed her through the bars. Instantly the sound was re-echoed a hundred times, distorted and vulgarized, throughout the ward. In the silence which followed Emily's first words, the sweethearts had forgotten their audience of thieves and cutthroats, to whom every syllable was audible. Hierarchs of sin, virtuosos in infamy, all the demon in their souls seemed roused by this innocent pledge of mutual faith between youth and maiden, and even the stern threats of Gradger could not silence their outbreak of hideous derision.
Emily started back as red as fire.
"Go, darling," cried Robert, between his set teeth, while shouts of "Ta, ta, Robert," "Kiss me, Emily," intermingled with the foul ribaldry generated in minds shut away from all purifying touch of womanhood, taunted the fleeing girl and roused her imprisoned lover's passion to frenzy. He could have strangled three of them single-handed.
"Better call daytimes, miss, when the men are working in the shops," said Gradger. He had not taken Emily for a girl who herself had to work daytimes in a shop.
Meanwhile the storm raged louder and louder, and several turnkeys were called to quell the disturbance and carry the ringleaders away to the "block." But the more it volleyed around him the cooler grew young Floyd. His resentment gradually hardened to a kind of pitying scorn, and when the last oath died away it was with sweeter thoughts that he had indulged for three bitter nights that he laid his head on the pallet and drowsed into oblivion. His pillow lay close to the point of the wall where Dobbs liked to do his talking, and while the midnight bell was ringing he thought he heard the cracksman whisper:
"The young lady stretched it, chummy. You 'ave one friend 'ere. Let 'em screech their bloomin' lungs off."
But this may have been a dream.