The Vertical City Part 48

It is doubtful if he spoke a hundred words during the lean, celled weeks of his waiting, and then with a vacuous sort of apathy and solely upon advice of counsel. Even when he took the stand, undramatically, his voice, without even a plating of zest for life, was like some old drum with the parchment too tired to vibrate.

Women, however, cried over him and the storm in his eyes and the curiously downy back of his neck where the last of his youth still marked him.

To Sara, from her place in the first row, on those not infrequent occasions when his eyes fumbled for hers, he seemed to drown in her gaze--back--somewhere--

On a Friday at high noon the jury adjourned, the judge charging it with a solemnity that rang up to wise old rafters and down into one woman's thirsty soul like life-giving waters.

In part he told the twelve men about to file out, "If there has been anything in my att.i.tude during the recital of the defendant's story, which has appeared to you to be in the slightest manner prejudiced one way or another, I charge you to strike such mistaken impressions from your minds.

"I have tried honestly to wash the slate of my mind clean to take down faithfully the aspects of this case which for two weeks has occupied this jury.

"If you believe the defendant guilty of the heinous crime in question, do not falter in your use of the power with which the law has vested you.

"If, on the other hand and to the best of your judgment, there has been in the defendant's life extenuating circ.u.mstances, er--a limitation of environment, home influence, close not the avenues of your fair judgment.

"Did this man in the kind of er--a--frenzy he describes and to which witnesses agree he was subject, deliberately strain back the Ross woman's head until the nail penetrated?

"If so, remember the law takes knowledge only of self-defense.

"On the other hand, ask of yourselves well, did the defendant, in the frenzy which he claims had hold of him when he committed this unusual crime, know that the nail was there?

"_Would Winnie Ross have met her death if the nail had not been there?_

"Gentlemen, in the name of the law, solemnly and with a fear of G.o.d in your hearts, I charge you."

It was a quick verdict. Three hours and forty minutes.

"Not guilty."

In the front row there, with the t.i.tillating folderols on her bonnet and her hand at her throat as if she would tear it open for the mystery of the pain of the heartbeat in it, Sara Turkletaub heard, and, hearing, swooned into the pit of her pain and her joy.

Her son, with brackets of fatigue out about his mouth, was standing over her when she opened her eyes, the look of crucifixion close to the front of them.

"Mother," he said, pressing her head close to his robes of state and holding a throat-straining quiver under his voice, "I--I shouldn't have let you stay. It was too--much for you."

It took her a moment for the mist to clear.

"I--Son--did somebody strike? Hit? Strange. I--I must have been hurt.

Son, am I bleeding?" And looked down, clasping her hand to the bosom of her decent black-silk basque.

"Son, I--It was a good verdict, not? I--couldn't have stood it--if--if it wasn't. I--Something--It was good, not?"

"Yes, mother, yes."

"Don't--don't let that boy get away, son. I think--those tempers--I can help--him. You see, I know--how to handle--Somehow I--"

"Yes, mother, only now you must sit quietly--"

"Promise me, son, you won't let him get away without I see him?"

"Yes, dear, only please now--a moment--quiet--"

You see, the judge was very tired, and, looking down at the spot where her hand still lay at her bosom as if to press down a hurt, the red of her same obsession shook and shook him.

Somehow it seemed to him, too, that her dear heart was bleeding.

THE END