The Calico Cat Part 12

"But why, my boy, why should I want to shoot him?"

"Lamoury had been telling," said Jim, highly embarra.s.sed.

"Telling?" said his father, in perplexity.

"Yes, sir," said Jim, "you know--about your being a--a smuggler."

Much astonished, Mr. Edwards pushed his questions, and soon came to know the depth and breadth of his boy's misconception.

"Then," he said finally, "when I accused you of having fired the shot, you thought I had to do so to avoid an arrest which would be serious for me. Is that it?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Edwards could not speak for a moment for emotion. Then he drew the boy to him.

"My son, my son," he said, "you and I must know each other better."

And by the same token, Jim realized that his father was proud of him and loved him. It was new and sweet. He felt a little foolish, but very happy.

"Jim," his father said huskily, "would you like a new breech-loader?"

And then Jim was happier still.

Those were reluctant feet which dragged Mr. Peaslee the next morning to the jury-room. The counsel of the night had brought no comfort, and when he came among his fellows their constraint and silence were far from rea.s.suring. Nor, when the sitting had begun, did he like the enigmatic smile with which the well-dressed Paige stood and swung his watch-chain. How he distrusted and feared this smug, self-complacent young man! Yet the state's attorney's first words brought him unexpected comfort.

"Mr. Lamoury," he said, still with that puzzling smile, "has consented, in spite of his serious physical condition, to appear before you."

Lamoury could not be so badly hurt if he could come to the court house! But what was this? While the state's attorney held wide the door, Jake Hibbard solemnly pushed into the room a great wheeled chair, in which sat the small, wiry, furtive-eyed Lamoury.

Mr. Peaslee's heart sank as he saw the wheeled chair, and noted the great bandages about the Frenchman's head and arm. He listened apprehensively to the loud complaint of cruelty to his client which Hibbard continued to make, until Paige, pulling the chair into the room, blandly shut the door in his face. Mr. Peaslee heaved a great sigh of mingled contrition and fear. This wreck was his work; he would be punished for it.

"Mr. Lamoury," Paige began courteously, "we so wished to get your version of this painful affair that, though we are sorry to cause you any discomfort, we have felt obliged to bring you here. Will you kindly tell the gentlemen of the grand jury what happened?"

"Yes, seh, me, Ah'll tol' heem!" said Lamoury, eagerly.

Confident that no one knew anything about what had happened except Jim Edwards and himself, he intended to make his narrative striking.

"Yes, seh, Ah'll tol' de trut'. Well, seh, Ah'll be goin' t'rough M'sieu' Edwards's horchard--walkin' t'rough same as any mans. Den I look, han' I see dat leetly boy in de windy, a-shoutin' and a-cussin' lak he gone crazee in hees head. Ah tol' you Ah feel bad for hear dat leetly boy cussin'. Dat was too shame."

And Lamoury paused to let this beautiful sentiment impress itself upon the jurors. Mr. Peaslee listened with profound astonishment.

"Den he holler somet'ing Ah ain't hear, honly 'Canuck,' han' Ah begins for get my mads up. Ah hain't do heem no harm, _hein_? Den he fire hees gun,--poom!--an' more as twenty--prob'ly ten shot-buck heet me on the head of it!"

Buckshot! "Them's the marble," thought Mr. Peaslee, "but there wasn't but one!"

"Ah tol' you dey steeng lak b.u.mbletybees. Ah t'ink me, dat weeked leetly boy goin' for shoot more as once prob'ly--mebbe two, t'ree tam. Ah drop queek in de gra.s.s, an' Ah run--run queek! An' when Ah get home, Ah find two, t'ree, five, mebbe four hole in mah arm more beeg as mah t'umb."

Pete stopped dramatically; his little sparkling black eyes traveled quickly from one face to another to note the effect he had made. Mr.

Peaslee's spirits were rising; the grand jury could not believe such a "pa.s.sel of lies"--only, only was one of those holes "beeg as mah t'umb" made, perchance, by a marble?

"That's a mighty moving narrative," commented Sampson, dryly. "Did I understand you to say that you were hit in the head or the arm?"

"Bose of it," averred Pete, without winking.

"I didn't shoot any bag of marbles," whispered Mr. Peaslee to his neighbor, who nodded. That he had the courage to address a remark to any one shows how his spirits were rising.

"You said you were going along the short cut through Mr. Edwards's orchard, didn't you?" the state's attorney now asked.

"Yes, seh," said Pete.

Paige stepped to a big blackboard, which he had had set up at the end of the room, and rapidly sketched a plan of the Edwards' lot, with the aid of a memorandum of measurements which he had secured.

A line across the upper left-hand corner represented the path commonly used by the neighbors in going through the Edwards's orchard.

"Now, Mr. Lamoury," resumed Paige, "I don't quite understand how, if you were on the path there, you could have seen young Edwards, or he you. The barn seems to be in the way until just at the right-hand end, and when you get to that, you'd have to look through about ten rows of apple-trees. Now weren't you a little off the line?"

"Dame!" exclaimed Pete, ingenuously. "Ah'll was got for be, since Ah was shoot, ain't it? Ah'll can't remembler."

"Mr. Edwards told us," continued Paige, while Solomon's heart warmed to him, "that he saw you fall out of some bushes. Now these are the only bushes there are," and he rapidly indicated on the board the rows of currant bushes, the asparagus, the sunflowers, and the lilacs which lined the garden on its right-hand corner. "That's a good way from the path."

"Ah'll be there, me!" cried Pete, in indignant alarm. "No, seh!

M'sieu' Edwards say dat? Respect_a_ble mans lak M'sieu' Edwards! It was shame for lie so. No, seh! Ah go home t'rough de horchard. Mebbe Ah'll go leetly ways off de path of it,--mebbe for peek up apple off'n de groun' what no one ain't want for rot of it,--Ah'll don't remembler. But I ain't go for hide in de bush! Ah'll be honest mans, me. Ah'll go for walk where all mans can see, ain't it? What Ah'll go hide for, me?"

Paige drew a square on Mr. Peaslee's side of the fence, directly opposite the bushes.

"That," said he, "is Mr. Peaslee's hen-house," and he brushed the chalk from his fingers with an air of indifference.

"So-o?" cried Pete, with an air of pleased surprise. "M'sieu'

Peaslee he'll got hen-rouse? First tam Ah'll was heard of it, me.

Fine t'ing for have hen-rouse, fine t'ing for M'sieu' Peaslee. Ah'll t'ink heem for be lucky, M'sieu' Peaslee. But Ah'll ain't know it.

Ah'll ain't see nossin' of it, no, seh!" and Pete smiled innocently round at the enigmatic faces of the jurymen.

"Mr. Lamoury," said Paige, with a very casual air, "behind those bushes is a broken board."

"So-o?" said Pete.

"Any one who was there had an excellent chance to study the fastenings of Mr. Peaslee's hen-house door."

"_Mais_, Ah'll was tol' you Ah'll not be dere, me!" cried Pete, alarmed and excited.

"That," said Mr. Paige, calmly, "is the only place where you could be and get shot from the boy's window. Either you were there or you weren't shot. Besides, Mr. Edwards found your foot-prints."

Pete shrunk his head into his shoulders and glared questioningly at the state's attorney. The examination was not going to his liking.

"What Ah'll care for dat?" he said at last.

"Oh, nothing," said Paige, "nothing at all. Let us talk of something else. Let me ask why Mr. Edwards discharged you from his employ last spring?"