The Incendiary Part 40

"Six times? You have had your hair cut lately?"

"This morning, sah. Wife said I wasn't looking 'spectable enough to come into court before genteel gemlen."

"And you introduced Miss Lamb and Mr. Aronson about the second hair-cut before that?"

"Yes, sah, third-last time. 'Scuse me."

"It must have been four months ago, then. That will do. Mr. Hardwood."

A business-looking old gentleman took the stand.

"You are a member of the firm of Hardwood & Lockwell?" asked Badger.

"Senior member."

"What is your business?"

"Safemakers."

"How long have you been established?"

"Thirty-seven years."

"Do you recollect filling an order for a safe from Prof. Arnold?"

"I do, sir. It is the first order on our books."

"Are those books in existence to-day?"

"They are, sir," said the old business man, with pride.

"Do you happen to know whether that safe ordered by Prof. Arnold was still used by him at the time of the fire which destroyed his home?"

"I have reason to believe so. I remember seeing it and reminding him of the circ.u.mstance in his house within a year."

"You regarded it as in a way the foundation stone of your business prosperity?"

"It was our first sale."

"What, if you recollect, was the number of the safe--an old-fashioned article, I presume?"

"Somewhat antiquated in style, sir. I have consulted our books, at the request of the officer--Mr. McCausland, I think. The number of the safe sold to Benjamin Arnold was 1863."

"Were you here," asked s.h.a.garach, "when Prof. Borrowscales read out the number which was jotted down upon a sheet of paper in Floyd's desk?"

"I was. I was struck at the ident.i.ty."

"You have no means of knowing, however, whether or not that number was a memorandum of the date in the life of Bakunin, the anarchistic writer?"

"I have not."

"Mr. McCausland, again," said the district attorney.

For the third time the inspector came to the box from the ante-room through the door at which he watched and listened.

"You occupied a cell adjoining that of the prisoner in the state prison at one time?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will you state any conversation relevant to this trial which you may have overheard?"

"It was a soliloquy rather than a conversation."

"Describe this soliloquy, then."

"Floyd used to talk at night a good deal. He wasn't sleeping well." The court was hushed at this strange introduction. "There was a communication between our cells and by listening carefully one night I managed to make out what he was saying."

"And what was he saying?" asked the district attorney, while Floyd studied the witness' face with more curiosity than he had yet at any time shown.

"'Don't tell anybody, Aronson.'"

To the surprise of everybody the accused burst out into a hearty laugh, which rung through the court-room and evidently nettled the whole prosecuting force. Then he bent over to s.h.a.garach and whispered in his ear. s.h.a.garach jumped to his feet, promptly as usual, for the district attorney had finished. His opportunity had come.

"What crime had you committed, Mr. McCausland, that the state should isolate you in one of its prison cells?"

"I was a voluntary prisoner," answered the detective. He had put his neck in the noose and must bear the strangling as cheerfully as possible.

"For what purpose?"

"A professional one."

"You were there to win the confidence of the accused and extort a confession of guilt from him if possible?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you succeed?"

"Owing to the cleverness of the prisoner and his having been forewarned, I failed."

"Not owing to the fact that he is innocent, you think?"

"I think not."

s.h.a.garach seemed satisfied not to press this further and asked for the blotter, which was in the foreman's hand.

"You were requested to state any conversation relevant to this cause which you had with the accused while in prison. You answered with a few meaningless words p.r.o.nounced in sleep. I confess the relevance of all this later testimony escapes me," said s.h.a.garach.

"The next witness, Miss Lamb," answered the district attorney, "will make the connection of all these threads of testimony plain."

"Do you know Mr. Aronson, the piano dealer?" asked s.h.a.garach of the witness.

"By sight."

McCausland, though he kept his own ident.i.ty as hidden as possible, knew the whole city by sight.

"Is it not possible to construe this note on the postal card as referring to the refractory lock of Miss Barlow's piano, which the accused had recently purchased for her as a birthday present?"

"Out of the $309 he earned?" asked McCausland.

"That and the lifelong income he has enjoyed from his mother's property," said s.h.a.garach. Whereupon McCausland, Bigelow and the whole court-room stared, and even Chief Justice Playfair's trained eyebrow was perceptibly lifted.

"Miss Serena Lamb," called the district attorney. How Aronson blushed and fidgeted when his idol, with eyes downcast in virgin shyness, tripped in from the corridor at a constable's beck and mounted the stand!

"Glory alleluia!" she said, with her right hand raised, when the clerk had repeated the formula of the oath.

"You are a member of the salvation army, Miss Lamb?" asked the district attorney. Her bonnet and garb sufficiently answered the question.

"You are acquainted with a young man named Saul Aronson?" was the first question put to Serena.

"I was made known unto such an one," said the girl, in quasi-scriptural parlance.

"By whom?"

"Pineapple Jupiter."

"How did Aronson first present himself to your attention?"

"As one who had seen the error of unbelief and wished to repent. Alleluia!"

"As a convert, then? Did you ever have any private conference with this convert?"

"I did."

"Will you kindly tell the jury when and where?"

"It was the month of May at my home in the city."

"In the parlor of your house?"

"Even so."

"On what date, if you remember?"

"Early in May, but the day escapes me."

"State the substance of your conversation."

"The youth had been a sinner, but his heart was touched and he unburdened his misdeeds to me, of which this was the gravest: "While he was still unregenerate a certain youth of his own age"--she looked full at Robert--"had tempted him with a bribe to enter a certain house wrongfully and open a certain safe. For the youth had cunning in that craft. The room he entered was filled with books and a canary bird slept in his cage, for it was evening, and a desk stood before a window in one corner."

"I desire to call the attention of the jury to this description," said the district attorney. "It corresponds strikingly with the description of Prof. Arnold's study in the printed copy of Bertha Lund's testimony at the hearing, which is in their possession. Proceed, Miss Lamb."

"And the name of the tempter was Robert Floyd." The hush deepened perceptibly as Serena paused.

"Upon his knees with many tools," she resumed, "he toiled at the door, but it was firm and resisted his skill. Nevertheless the youth stated that he would have succeeded had not an interruption come and startled the guilty pair."

"Are there any further details you desire to add to this recital?"

"Only that it was done on the Sabbath and surely unblessed labor."

"You have not seen the convert since?"

"Never, but I have heard that the courage of his faith deserted him."

"Is the man here?" asked the district attorney, turning toward Aronson--poor Aronson, who sat open-mouthed, goggle-eyed, with gaze riveted on the pale sweet face in the bonnet. Now a thousand eyes were turned upon him, but still he saw only the rosebud mouth and awaited breathlessly its answer.

"That is the man," answered the witness, pointing. The greater "Ecce h.o.m.o" of history scarcely drew forth such a murmur from the bystanders. But the gavel of the crier was heard rapping for attention, for the court had risen promptly at the strokes of the clock.

"One moment, your honor," said s.h.a.garach, rising, after a whispered consultation with his a.s.sistant, now voluble and stuttering with excitement. "I desire to ask that the court issue a warrant for the arrest of the last witness, Miss Serena Lamb, on the charge of malicious perjury."

CHAPTER LII.

THE ROSEBUD MOUTH.

"What in the world is he smiling for?" asked Emily. Inspector McCausland's smile was a barometer of her own uneasiness, and she could not help remarking his unusual geniality at the opening of the court on Wednesday.

The previous day's work had closed with a st.u.r.dy wrangle between s.h.a.garach and the district attorney. Whether it was that s.h.a.garach's charge of perjury was not sufficiently supported (it was merely Aronson's word against Serena's) or that Bigelow's inelastic mind characteristically clung in the face of cogent proof to the convictions it had already formed, he had objected might and main to the proposed issue of a warrant and even gone so far as to protest against his learned brother's effort to intimidate a witness of the weaker s.e.x. McCausland had amicably agreed to secure the attendance of Miss Lamb for cross-examination, and so the confusion subsided. Miss Lamb was there and so was the inspector. But what made him smile?

"Good morning, Miss Barlow," said a familiar voice, close to Emily's ear.

"Bertha Lund!" she exclaimed. There it was, the large, fair Swedish face, with sparkling blue eyes that danced with the pleasure of the surprise. After a moment of silent study Emily gave her a bear-like squeeze and only released her that she might shake hands with Robert.

"It's none of my doing, Mr. Robert," said Bertha. "If I could, I'd have staid home in Upsala, but I gave my word to Mr. McCausland that I'd come back, and here I am to keep it."

"But we thought you were lost. We saw the body and buried it," cried Emily.

"Oh, that was another Bertha Lund. Mr. McCausland thought it was me, too."

"Another one from Upsala?"

"Why, if you took all the Bertha Lunds and Nils Nilssons in Upsala you could fill a big town with them," said the housemaid, laughing.