Mrs. Balfame Part 24

The police, nettled by the sensational coup of the press, made a real effort to discover the ident.i.ty of the man or woman who had fired the second pistol. For a time they devoted their efforts to implicating Frieda and young Kraus, but the pair emerged triumphantly from a grilling almost as severe as the third degree; furthermore, there was an absolute lack of motive. Conrad had never evinced the least interest in politics; and that Old Dutch should have commissioned the son of whom he was so proud to commit murder when gun-men could be hired for twenty-five dollars apiece was unthinkable to any one familiar with the thoroughly decent home life of the family of Kraus.

Old Dutch's establishment was more of a beer garden than a common saloon, and responsible for a very small proportion of the inebriety of the County Seat. He and his sons drank their beer at the family board, but nothing whatever behind the bar. As for Conrad, Jr., industrious, ambitious, persistent, but without a spark of initiative, obstinate and quick-tempered but amiable and rather dull, his tastes and domestic ideals as cautious as his expenditures, it was as easy to trump up a charge of murder against him because he happened to have seen Mrs.

Balfame leave her house by the kitchen door a few moments before he heard the shot that killed her husband, as it was to fasten the crime upon the unlovely Frieda because she ran home untimely with a toothache.

Frieda confessed imperturbably to her attempt to blackmail Mrs. Balfame, adding (in free translation) that while she had no desire to see her arrested and punished, she saw no reason why she should not turn the situation to her own advantage. When Papa Kraus was asked if he had counselled the girl to demand five hundred dollars as the price of her silence, he repudiated the charge with indignation, but admitted that he did remark in the course of conversation that no doubt a woman who had killed her husband would be pleased to rid herself of a witness on such easy terms, and that it was Frieda's pious intention--and his own--that the blood-money should justify itself in the coffers of the German Red Cross.

All this was very reprehensible, of course; but an imperfect sense of the minor social and legal immoralities was no argument that such blundering tactics were the natural corollary of a specific murder. To be sure, there were those that a.s.serted with firm lips and pragmatical eyes that "anybody who will blackmail will do anything," but the police were accustomed to this line of ratiocination from the layman and knew better.

Their efforts in every direction were equally futile. Behind the Balfame Place was a lane; Elsinore Avenue was practically the eastern boundary of the town, which had grown to the south and west. There were two or three lowly dwellers in this lane, and in due course the memory of one old man was refreshed, and he guessed he remembered hearing somebody crank up a machine that night, but at what time he couldn't say. It was after seven-thirty, anyhow, for he turned in about then, and he had heard the noise just before dropping off. That might have been any time up to eight or nine, he couldn't say, as he slept with his windows shut and couldn't hear the town clock. His cottage was directly across from a point where the second a.s.sailant, running out of the grove and grounds, would have climbed the fence to the lane if he had kept in a reasonably straight line. But there had been heavy rains between the night of the shooting and the awakening of the old man's memory, and not a track nor a footstep was visible.

The police also searched the Balfame house from top to bottom for the pistol the prisoner indubitably had carried from the house to the grove; nor did they neglect the garden, yard and orchard, or any of the old wells in the neighbourhood. They even dragged a pond. Their zeal was but a further waste of time. It was then they concluded that Mrs. Balfame had gone out deliberately to meet a confederate and that he had carried off both pistols. But who was the confederate and how did he know at what hour Balfame would reach his front gate? It was as easily ascertained that Mrs. Balfame had telephoned no message--from her own house--that night as that she had received one from her husband which would give her just the opportunity she wanted. But how had she advised the other guilty one? The poor police felt as if they were lashed to a hoop driven up and down hill by a mischievous little girl. All the men who had been at c.u.mmack's when Balfame called up his wife had left the house before he did, and proved their alibis. Even c.u.mmack, who had "sweat blood" during the elimination process, had finally discovered that the janitor of his office-building had seen him go in and come out on that fatal night. Did Mrs. Balfame go forth some time after Dr. Anna brought her home from the Country Club, find her partner in crime and secrete him in the grove? If so, why did she not remain in the grove with him instead of returning to the house to leave it again by the devious route that delivered her almost into the arms of young Kraus?

Above all, who was the man?

It was at this point that the police gave up, although they still maintained a pretence of activity. Not so the press. Almost daily there were interviews with public men, authors, dramatists, detectives, headed: "Did Mrs. Balfame Do It?" "What Did She Do With the Pistol?"

"Was She Perchance Ambidexterous? Could She Have Fired Both Pistols at Once?" "Will She Be Acquitted?" "Was It a German Plot?" "If Guilty, Would She Be Wise to Confess And Plead Brain Storm?" The interviews and symposiums that illuminated the Sunday issues were conducted by men, but the evening papers had at least one interview or symposium a week on the subject between a sister reporter and some woman of local or national fame. Nothing could have been more intellectual than the questions asked save, possibly, the answers given.

Upon the subject of the defendant's guilt public opinion fluctuated, and was not infrequently influenced by news from the seat of war: when it looked as if the Germans were primed for a smashing victory, the doubting centred firmly upon the family of Kraus and Miss Frieda Appel; but when once more convinced that the Germans were fighting the long and losing game, the hyphenated were banished in favour of that far more interesting suspect, Mrs. Balfame. Certainly there was nothing more amusing than trying and condemning a prisoner long before she had time to reach judge and jury, and tearing her to shreds psychologically. In Spain the people high and low still have the bull-fight; other countries have the prize-ring, these being the sole objective outlets in times of peace for that l.u.s.t of blood and prey which held the spectators in a Roman arena spellbound when youths and maidens were flung to the lions.

But in the vast majority of Earth's peoples this ancestral craving is forced by Civilisation to gratify itself imaginatively, and it is this cormorant in the human mind that the press feeds conscientiously and often.

In Elsinore the subject raged day and night, and the opinion of the man in the street may be summed up in the words of one of them to Mr. James Broderick of the _New York News_:

"Brain storm, nothin'. She ain't that sort. She done it and done it as deliberately as h.e.l.l. I ain't sayin' that she didn't have some excuse, for I despised Dave Balfame, and I guess most of us would let her off if we served on the jury, if only because we don't want this county disgraced, especially Elsinore. But that ain't got nothin' to do with it. And there's an awful lot of men who think more of their consciences than they do even of Brabant, let alone of Elsinore, where like as not all of 'em won't have been born--the jurors, I mean. I'm just wonderin'!"

Mr. Broderick met Mrs. Phipps one afternoon at Alys Crumley's. She was not a member of the inner twelve, but a staunch admirer of Mrs. Balfame, although by no means sure of her innocence.

"Maybe she did," she admitted, "since you are not interviewing me for print. But it's yet to be proved, and if she does get off, I don't fancy she'll lose many of her friends--she wouldn't anyhow, but then if she went up, they'd have so much further to call! As for wars," she continued with apparent irrelevance, "there's this much to be said: a lot of good men may get killed, but when you think of the thousands of detestable, tyrannical, stingy, boresome husbands--well, it is to be imagined that a few widows will manage to bear up. If women all over the world refuse to come forward in one grand concerted peace movement, perhaps we can guess the reason why."

None of these seditious arguments reached Mrs. Balfame's ears, but as her friends' protestations waxed, she inferred that their doubts kept pace with those of the public. But she was more deeply touched at this unshaken loyalty than she once would have believed possible. She had a.s.sumed they would drop off, as soon as the novelty of the affair had worn thin; but not a day pa.s.sed without a visit from one of them, or offerings of flowers, fruit, books and bonbons. She knew that whatever their private beliefs, the best return she could make for their pa.s.sionate loyalty was to maintain the calm and lofty att.i.tude of a Mary Stuart or Marie Antoinette awaiting decapitation. She shed not a tear in their presence. Nor did she utter a protest. If she looked tired and worn, what more natural in an active woman suddenly deprived of physical exercise (save in the jail yard at night), of sunlight, of freedom--to say nothing of mortification: she, Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, shut up in a common jail on the vulgar charge of murder?

But in spite of the amiable devotion of her friends and their a.s.surances that no jury alive would convict her, and in spite of her complete faith in Dwight Rush, the prospect of several months in jail was almost insupportable to Mrs. Balfame, and haunted by horrid fears.

She made up her mind again and again not to read the newspapers, and she read them morning and night. She knew what this terrible interest in her meant. Not a talesman in the length and breadth of Brabant County who could swear truthfully that he had formed no opinion on the case. Other murder cases had been tossed aside after a few days' tepid sensation, unnoticed thereafter save perfunctorily. It was her unhappy fate to prove an irresistible magnet to that monster the Public and its keeper the Press. Her hatred of both took form at times in a manner that surprised herself. She sprang out of bed at night muttering curses and pulling at her long braids of hair to relieve the congestion in her brain. She tore up the newspapers and stamped on them. She beat the bars before her windows and shook them, the while aware that if the doors of the jail were left open and the guards slept, she would do nothing so foolish as to attempt an escape.

Sometimes she wondered, dull with reaction or quick with fear, if she were losing her reason; or if she was, after all, a mere female whose starved nerves were springing up in every part of her like poisonous weeds after a long drought. Well, if that were the case, her admiring friends should never be the wiser.

But there were other moods. As time wore on, she grew to be humbly grateful to these friends, a phenomenon more puzzling than her attacks of furious rebellion. Even Sam c.u.mmack, possibly the only person who had sincerely loved the dead man and still stricken and indignant, but carefully manipulated by his wife, maintained a loud faith in her, and announced his intention to spend his last penny in bringing the real culprit to justice. Left to himself, he would in time no doubt have shared the opinion of the community, but his wife was a member of the grand army of diplomatists of the home. She was by no means sure of her sister-in-law's innocence, but she was determined that the family scandal should go no further than a trial, if Mr. c.u.mmack's considerable influence on his fellow citizens could prevent it; and long practice upon the non-complex instrument in Mr. c.u.mmack's head enabled her to strike whatever notes her will dictated. Mr. c.u.mmack believed; and he not only convinced many of his wavering friends, but talked "both ways"

to notable politicians in the late Mr. Balfame's party. Most of these gentlemen were convinced that "Mrs. B. done it," and were inclined to throw the weight of their influence against her if only to divert suspicion from themselves, several having experienced acute discomfort; but they agreed to "fix the jury" if Mr. c.u.mmack and several other eminent citizens whom they inferred were "with him" would "come through in good shape." There the matter rested for the present.

Above all was Mrs. Balfame deeply, almost--but not quite--humbly grateful to Dwight Rush. Her interviews with him so far had been brief; later he would have to coach her, but at present his time was taken up with a thousand other aspects of the case, which promised to be a cause celebre. He made love to her no more, but not for an instant did she doubt his intense personal devotion. He had, after consultation with two eminent criminal lawyers whom he could trust, decided that she should deny in toto the Kraus-Appel testimony, and stick to her original story. After all, it was her word, the word of a lady of established position in her community and of stainless character, against that of a surly German servant and her friends, all of them seething with hatred for those that were openly opposed to the cause of the Fatherland. He knew that he could make them ridiculous on the witness stand and was determined to secure a wholly American jury.

It was some three weeks after Mrs. Balfame's arrest that another blow fell. Dr. Anna's Ca.s.sie suddenly remembered that a fortnight or so before the murder Mrs. Balfame had called at the cottage one morning and asked permission to go into the living-room and write a note to the doctor. A moment or two after she had shut herself in, Ca.s.sie had gone out to the porch with her broom, and as she wore felt slippers and the front door stood open, she had made no noise. It was quite by accident that she had glanced through the window, and there she had seen Mrs.

Balfame standing on a chair before a little cupboard in the chimney placing a bottle carefully between two other bottles. She had fully intended to tell her mistress of this strange performance, but as the doctor those days came home for but a few hours' sleep and too tired to be spoken to, not even taking her meals there, Ca.s.sie had postponed her little sensation and finally forgotten it.

When she did recall the incident under the pressure of the general obsession, she told it to a friend, who told it to another, who again imparted it, so that in due course it reached the ears of the alert Mr.

Broderick. It was then he informed the public of the lost gla.s.s of lemonade and all the incidents pertaining thereto that had come to his knowledge. Mrs. Balfame's slightly "absurd explanation" was emphasised.

Once more the police were "on the job." The restored bottle was a.n.a.lysed and, ominously, found to contain plain water. Every bottle in the house of Mrs. Balfame was carried to the chemist. Mrs. Balfame laughed grimly at these st.u.r.dy efforts, but she knew that the story diminished her chance of acquittal. The public now condemned her almost to a man. The evidence would not be allowed in court,--Rush would see to that,--but every juror would have read it and formed his own opinion. Somewhat to her surprise Rush asked her for no explanation of this episode, and she thought it best not to volunteer one. To her other friends she dismissed the whole thing casually as a lie, no doubt inspired.

As the skies grew blacker, however, her courage mounted higher. Knitting calmed her nerves, and she had many long and lonely hours for meditation. Her friends kept her supplied with all the new novels, but her mind was more inclined to the war books, which she read seriously for the first time. On the whole, however, she preferred to knit for the wretched victims, and to think.

No one can suffer such a sudden and extreme change in his daily habits as a long sojourn in jail on the charge of murder without forming a new and possibly an astonished acquaintance with his inner self, and without undergoing what, superficially, appear to be strange changes, but are merely developments along new-laid tracks in sections of the brain hitherto regarded as waste lands.

Mrs. Balfame of Brabant County Jail was surprised to discover that she looked back upon Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore as a person of small aims, and rather too smugly bourgeoise. The world of Elsinore!

And all those artificial interests and occupations! How bored she really must have been, playing with subjects that either should have interested her profoundly or not at all. And for what purpose? Merely to keep a step ahead of other women of greater wealth or possible ambitions. Her astonishment at not finding herself all-sufficient, as well as her new sense of grat.i.tude, bred humility which in turn shed a warm rain upon a frozen and discouraged sense of humour. While giving her friends all credit for their n.o.ble loyalty, she was quite aware that they were enjoying themselves solemnly and that no small proportion of their loyalty was inspired by grat.i.tude. She recalled their composite expression in the hour of her arrest. They had fancied themselves deeply agitated, but as a matter of fact they were dilated with pride.

Why had she cared so much to lead these women in all things, to be Mrs.

Balfame of Elsinore? To return to such an existence was unthinkable.

In spite of the fact that her own tragedy dwarfed somewhat her interest in the great war, she saw life in something like its true proportions; she knew that if acquitted she would be capable for the first time of a broad impersonal outlook and of really developing her intellect. With more than a remnant of the cold-blooded and inexorable will which had condemned David Balfame to death by the medium of Dr. Anna's secret poison, she seriously considered taking advantage of young Rush's infatuation, changing her notorious name for his and receiving the protection that her awakened femininity craved. At other times she was equally convinced that she would marry no man again. She could live in Europe on her small income, travel, improve her mind. Europe would be vastly interesting after the war, if one avoided beggars and impromptu graveyards.

But although she was deeply interested in herself, and gratified that she possessed real courage, and that it had come through the fire tempered and hardened, there were moments, particularly in the night, and if the profound stillness were rent with the shrieks of drunken maniacs, when she was terribly frightened; and in spite of the American tradition which has set at liberty so many guilty women, she would stare at the awful vision of the electric chair and herself strapped in it.

CHAPTER XXV

Rush wheeled and looked sharply behind him. For several weeks he had experienced the recurrent sensation of being followed, but until to-night he had been too absorbed to give a vague suspicion definite form. He stood still, and was immediately aware that somebody else had halted, after withdrawing into the shade of one of the trees that lined Atlantic Avenue. He approached this figure swiftly, but almost at his first step it detached itself and strolled forward. Rush saw that it was a woman, and then recognised Miss Sarah Austin of the _New York Evening News_. He recalled that she had approached him several times with the request for an interview with Mrs. Balfame; and that she had taxed his politeness by trying to draw him into a discussion of the case.

"Oh, good evening," he said grimly. "I turned back because it occurred to me that I was being followed."

"I was following you," Miss Austin retorted coolly. "I saw you turn into the Avenue two blocks up, and tried to overtake you--I don't like to be out so late alone, especially in this haunted village. The knowledge that everybody in it is thinking of that murder nearly all the time has a curious psychological effect. Won't you walk as far as Alys Crumley's with me?"

"Certainly!" Rush, wondering if all women were liars, fell into step.

"I've been given a roving commission in the Balfame case," continued Miss Austin in her impersonal businesslike manner, which, combined with her youth and good looks, had surprised guarded facts from men as wary as Rush. "Not to hunt for additional evidence, of course, but stuff for good stories. I've had a number of dandy interviews with prominent Elsinore women, as you may have seen if you condescend to glance at the Woman's Page. Isn't it wonderful how they stand by her?"

"Why not? They believe her to be innocent, as of course she is."

"How automatically you said that! I wonder if you really believe it--unless, of course, you know who did do it. But in that case you would produce the real culprit. What a tangle it is! A lawyer has to believe in his client's innocence, I suppose, unless he's quite an uncommon jury actor. I don't know what to believe, myself. But of one thing I am convinced: Alys Crumley knows something--something positive."

Rush, who had paid little attention to her chatter, which he rightly a.s.sumed to be a mere verbal process of "leading up," turned to her sharply.

"What do you mean by that?"

"That she knows something. She's over on the _News_ now, understudying the fashion editor before taking charge, and we lunch together nearly every day. She's so changed from what she was a year ago, when she was the life of the crowd--so nave in her eagerness to become a real metropolitan, and yet so quick and keen she had us all on our mettle.

Great girl, Alys! At first, when I met her here again, I attributed the change to the same old reason--a man. I still believe she has had some heart-racking experience, but there's something else--I didn't notice it so much that first day--but since--well, she's carrying a mental burden of some sort. Alys has a damask cheek, as you may have noticed, but nowadays there's a worm in the bud. And those olive eyes of hers have a way of leaving you suddenly and travelling a thousand miles with an expression that isn't just blank. They will look as grimly determined as if she were about to turn her conscience loose, and in a moment this will relax into an expression of curious irresolution--for her: Alys always knows pretty well what she wants. So, as this mystery must be in her consciousness pretty well all the time, when she is at home, at least, I feel sure she knows something but is of two minds about telling it to the police."

"Have you any object in telling me this? I thought you modern women who have deserted the mere home for the working world of men prided yourselves upon a new code of loyalty to one another."

"That's a nasty one! I'm not disloyal to Alys. Others have noticed that there's something big and grim on her mind, as well as I. Jim Broderick is always after her to open up. I have a very distinct reason for telling you. In fact, I have tried to get a word with you for some time."

"Have you been following me? Were--were--you in Brooklyn yesterday?"

"Yes, to both questions." Her voice shook, but her eyes challenged him imperiously; they were under the bright lights of Main Street. "I'll tell you what I believe Alys knows: that you killed David Balfame; and she can't make up her mind to betray you even to liberate an innocent woman."