The Broken Gate Part 37

"Now if I hadn't seen you last night just where you were, if I hadn't hoped, from what I saw of you, that you were part man at least--_that's how I would try this case_! What do you think about it?"

"I think you are practising politics again, and not law," sneered Henderson. But his face was white.

"Yes? Well, I'll tell you, I don't want to see you go to the United States Senate. In the first place, though I agreed not to run at all, I never agreed to help you run. In the second place, I never did think you were a good enough man to go there, and now I think it less than ever.

And since you ask me a direct question of political bearing, I'll say that, if the public records--that is to say, the court records and all the newspapers--showed the similarity of these two pictures side by side, the effect on your political future might be very considerable!

What do you think?

"Now, if you take you and that boy side by side today," he went on, having had no reply, "the resemblance between you two might not be noticed. But get the _ages_ together--get the view of the face the same in each case--take him at his age and you at something near the same age--and don't you think there is much truth in what I said? The boy has red hair, like me! But in black and white he looks like you!"

Judge Henderson, unable to make reply, had turned away. He was staring out from the window over the courthouse yard.

"Some excitement over there," he said. Hod Brooks did not hear him.

"That face on the wall there, Judge Henderson," said he, "is the face of a murderer! The face of this boy is not that of a murderer. But _you_ murdered a woman twenty years ago--not a man, but a woman--and d.a.m.n you, you know it, absolutely well! I saw last night that at last you realized your own crime, that crime--you had _guilt_ on your face. I am going to charge you--just as you maybe were planning to charge that boy--with murder, worse than murder in the first degree, if that be possible--worse even than prosecuting your own son for murder when you know he's innocent!

"_You_ murdered that woman whom we two saw last night! _You_ made that beastly mob a possible thing--not now, but years ago. Do you think the people of this community will want to send you to the United States Senate if they ever get a look at that act? Do you think they would relish the thought that _you're_ the special prosecutor where _your son_ is on trial for his life? I say it--_your son_! You know it, and I know it. You'd jeopardize the life that you yourself gave to him and were too cowardly to acknowledge! Do you think you'd have a chance on earth here if those things were known--if they knew you'd refused to defend him--that you'd denied your own son? And do you think for a moment these things will _not_ be known if I take this case?"

"This is blackmail!" exclaimed Judge Henderson, swinging around. "I'll not stand for this."

"Of course, it's blackmail, Judge. I know that. But it's justice. And you will stand for it! I didn't take this boy's case to get him hanged, but to get him clear. I don't care a d.a.m.n how I do it, but I'm going to do it. I'd fight a man like you with anything I could get my hands on.

This is blackmail, yes; and it's politics--but it's justice."

"I didn't think this was possible," began Henderson, his voice shaking.

"I didn't think this of you."

"There's a lot of things people never thought of me," smiled Hod Brooks.

"I'm something of a trader my own self. Here's where we trade again.

"Listen. I didn't have the start that you had. I started far back beyond the flag, and I have had to run hard to get into any place. Maybe I'll lose all my place through this, I don't know. But I never got anywhere in my life by shirking or sidestepping."

"You have some hidden interest in this."

"Yes! Now you have come to it! I'm not so much thinking of myself, not so much thinking of you. I'm thinking of that woman."

He could not find Henderson's eyes now, for Henderson's face was buried in his hands.

"I was thinking of something of the sort," Brooks went on slowly, "in that other case, in Blackman's court last Sat.u.r.day. Why didn't you try that case, Judge? Didn't you know then he was your boy?"

The suddenly aged man before him did not make any reply. His full eyes seemed to protrude yet more. "I felt something--I wasn't sure. She'd told me years ago the boy was dead. How could I believe I was his father? Don't ask me."

"I wish to G.o.d _I_ could have been the father of that boy!" said Hod Brooks deliberately.

"We seem to be talking freely enough!" said Henderson. The perspiration was breaking out on his forehead. But Horace Brooks took no shame to himself for what he had said.

"The mother of that boy," he went on, "is the one woman I ever cared for, Judge. I'll admit that to you. If there were any way in the world so that I could take that woman's troubles on my own shoulders, I'd do it.... So, you see, this wasn't blackmail after all, Judge. It wasn't really politics after all. I was doing this for _her_."

"For her?"

"Yes. Now listen. You met her as a girl, when she didn't know much. I never met her really to know much about her until she was a grown woman, with a character--a splendid character whose like you'll not find anywhere in this town, nor in many another town. You never had the courage to come out and say that she was your wife--you never had the courage to make her your wife. You thought you could last her out in this town, because she was a person of no consequence--because she was a woman. And all the time she was the grandest woman in this town. But she didn't have any friends. Now, it seemed to me, she ought to have a friend.

"Do you call it blackmail now, Judge?" he asked presently. "Is this politics?"

But he ceased in his a.s.sault as he saw the pallor of the face of his antagonist.

"You've got me, Hod!" said Judge William Henderson, gasping. "I confess!

It's over. You've got me!"

"Yes, I've got you, but I don't want you," said Hod Brooks. "I'm not after you socially, legally, politically, or any other way. I tell you, I'm thinking of those two women who put your son through college--who had all they could do to keep their souls in their bodies, while you lived the way you have lived here. They paid your debts for you--they advanced cash and character _both_ for you--just two poor women. The question now is, How are you going to pay any of your debts? There'll be considerable accrued interest."

"I didn't know it all, I tell you," broke out Judge Henderson. "She hasn't spoken to me for years, you might say--we never met. I didn't know the boy was alive--she told me twenty years ago that he'd died, a baby. This has all come up in a day--I've not had time to learn, to think, to plan, to adjust----G.o.d! don't you think it's terrible enough, with him there in jail?"

"She never asked you for help?"

"No, not till yesterday."

"She was game. I was sure. That was one reason why I went to that woman night before last and asked her if she'd marry me."

"What--you did that?"

"I did that! I told her _I_ would take the boy and give him a father. I said I'd even call him my own--I'd come that close to losing my own self-respect in just this one case in the world. But, I told her, of course I couldn't do that unless she was a widow. And, Judge, I learned--from her--that she wasn't a widow. Oh, no, she didn't tell me about you--and I never figured it out all clean till just now--that the late District Judge of this county, and the Senatorial candidate for this State--was the father of the boy, Don Lane. Huh? Oh, stand up to it--you've got to take it.

"Now, this boy of yours had no father and two mothers--it's an odd case.

But how did I learn who was the father of that boy? Not from Aurora Lane. No, I learned that from the other mother--this morning--Miss Julia. And as soon as I did--as soon as I was convinced I had proofs--I started over to find you."

"My G.o.d! man, what could you have meant?--You told her you would marry her?" Judge Henderson's sheer astonishment overcame all other emotions.

"I meant every word I said. If it could have been humanly possible for me to marry her, I'd have done that. Yes--I wanted to give her her chance. I couldn't give her her chance. It looks as though she didn't have one, never has had, never can have.

"Now, if I hadn't seen you last night right where I did--if I didn't believe that somewhere inside of you there was just a trace of manhood--it's not very much--it's d.a.m.ned little--I wouldn't have asked you to come in here to talk. I'd have waited until I got you in the courtroom. I'd have waited until I got you on the platform, and then I'd have taken your heart out in public. I'd have broken you before the people of this town. I'd have flayed you alive and prayed your hide to grow so I could take it off again, and I'd have hung it on the public fence. But, you see--last night----My G.o.d!

"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw last night, as you were responsible--I'd never raise my head again.

"As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this boy--your son--her son? There may be men worse than you in the United States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case."

"You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man.

"Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question."

"What do you mean?"

"You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath--all your oaths. Are you going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?"

Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge.

He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat--the only top hat in Spring Valley.

"I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself.

I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered a good woman. That's a light sentence."

A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had pa.s.sed here in as many minutes, so swift a revolution had taken place. The making over of a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down and building over a vain and wholly selfish man.