The Walking Delegate Part 33

"Well?"

"Would you be willing to testify against them--not upon the explosion, which you didn't see, but upon their character?"

Tom looked at Jake, Arkansas, and Bill, standing at the head of the queue in charge of the two Pinkertons and a couple of policemen, and struggled a moment with his thoughts. Ordinarily it was a point of honor with a union man not to aid the law against a fellow member; but this was not an ordinary case. The papers had thrown the whole blame for the outrage upon the union. The union's innocence could be proved only by fastening the blame upon Foley and the three prisoners.

"I will," he consented.

There was a tiresome wait for the judge. About ten o'clock he emerged from his chambers and took his place upon his platform. He was a cold-looking man, with an aristocratic face, deeply marked with lines of hard justice, and with a time-tonsured pate. His enemies, and they were many, declared his judgments ignored the law; his answer was that he administered the law according to common sense, and not according to its sometimes stupid letter.

The bailiff opened the court, and the case of Jake, Arkansas, and Bill was called. The two Pinkertons recited the details of the explosion and the two policemen added details of the arrest. Then Mr. Baxter, looking pale, but as much the self-controlled gentleman as ever, testified to the damage done by the dynamite. The Avon still stood, but its steel frame was so wrenched at the base that it was liable to fall at any moment. The building would have to be reconstructed entirely. Though much of the material could be used again, the loss, at a conservative estimate, would be seventy-five thousand dollars.

Tom came next before the judge's desk. Exclamations of surprise ran among the union men in the room when it was seen Tom was to be a witness, and the bailiff had to pound with his gavel and shout for order. Tom testified that the three were known in the union as men ready for any villainy; and he managed to introduce in his answers to the questions enough to make it plain that the union was in no degree responsible for the outrage, that it abhorred such acts, that responsibility rested upon the three--"And someone else," he added meaningly.

"Who's that?" quickly demanded the court attorney.

"Buck Foley."

"I object!" shouted the prisoners' attorney. Foley, who sat back in the crowd with crossed legs, did not alter his half-interested expression by a wrinkle.

"Objection over-ruled," said the judge.

"Will you please tell what you know about Mr. Foley's connection with the case," continued the court attorney.

"I object, your Honor! Mr. Foley is not on trial."

"It's the duty of this court to get at all the facts," returned the judge. "Does the witness speak from his own knowledge, or what he surmises?"

"I'm absolutely certain he's at the bottom of this."

"But is your evidence first-hand information?"

"It is not," Tom had to confess. "But I couldn't be more certain if I had seen him----"

"Guess-work isn't evidence," cut in the judge.

Tom, however, had attached Foley to the case--he had seen the reporters start at his words as at a fresh sensation--and he gave a look of satisfaction at Foley as he stepped away from the judge's desk. Foley gave back a half-covered sneer, as if to say, "Just youse wait!"

Arkansas was the first of the prisoners to be called--the reason for which priority, as Tom afterwards guessed, being his anomalous face that would not have ill-suited a vest that b.u.t.toned to the chin and a collar that b.u.t.toned at the back. Arkansas, replying to the questions of his long-haired attorney, corroborated the testimony of the policemen and the Pinkertons in every detail. When Arkansas had answered the last query the lawyer allowed several seconds to pa.s.s, his figure drawn up impressively, his right hand in the breast of his frock coat.

The judge bent over his docket and began to write. "This seems a perfectly plain case. I hold the three prisoners for the grand jury, each in ten thousand----"

The attorney's right hand raised itself theatrically. "Hold!" he cried.

The judge looked up with a start. Tom's eyes, wandering to Foley's face, met there a malign grin.

"The case is not ended, your Honor. The case is just begun." The attorney brushed back his mane with a stagy movement of his hand, and turned upon Arkansas. "You and the other prisoners did this. You do not deny it. But now tell his Honor why you did it."

Arkansas, with honesty fairly obtruding from his every feature, looked nervously at Tom, and then said hesitantly: "Because we had to."

"And why did you have to?"

Again Arkansas showed hesitation.

"Speak out," encouraged the attorney. "You're in no danger. The court will protect you."

"We was ordered to. If we hadn't done it we'd been thrown out o' the union, an' been done up."

"Explain to the court what you mean by 'done up'."

"Slugged an' kicked--half killed."

"In other words, what you did was done in fear of your life. Now who ordered you to blow up the Avon, and threatened to have you 'done up' if you didn't?"

"Mr. Keating, the president o' the union."

The judge, who had been leaning forward with kindling eyes, breathed a prolonged "A-a-ah!"

For a moment Tom was astounded. Then he sprang to Arkansas's side. "You infernal liar!" he shouted, his eyes blazing.

The judge's hammer thundered down. "Silence!" he roared.

"But, your Honor, he's lying!"

"Five dollars for contempt of court! Another word and I'll give you the full penalty."

Two officers jerked Tom back, and surging with indignant wrath he had to listen in silence to the romance that had been spun for Arkansas's lips and which he was now respinning for the court's ears; and he quickly became aware that newspaper artists had set their pencils busy over his face. Once, glancing at Jake, he was treated with a leer of triumph.

Arkansas plausibly related what had pa.s.sed between Tom and himself and his two companions; and then Bill took the stand, and then Jake. Each repeated the story Arkansas, with the help of his face, had made so convincing.

"And now, your Honor," the prisoners' attorney began when his evidence was all in, "I think I have made plain my clients' part in this most nefarious outrage. They are guilty--yes. But they were but the all too weak instruments of another's will, who galvanized them by mortal fear to do his dastardly bidding. He, he alone----"

"Save your eloquence, councilor," the judge broke in. "The case speaks best for itself. You here." He crooked his forefinger at Tom.

Tom was pushed by policemen up before the judge.

"Now what have you to say for yourself?" the judge demanded.

"It's one string of infernal lies!" Tom exploded. And he launched into a hot denial, strong in phrasing but weak in comparison with the inter-corroborative stones of the three, which had the further verisimilitude gained by tallying in every detail with the officers'

account of the explosion.

"What you say is merely denial, the denial we hear from every criminal,"

his Honor began when Tom had finished. "I do not say I believe every word of the testimony of the three prisoners. But it is more credible than your statements.

"What has been brought out here to-day--the supreme officer of a union compelling members to commit an act of violence by threat of economic disablement and of physical injury, perhaps death--is in perfect accord with the many diabolical practices that have recently been revealed as existing among trade unions. It is such things as this that force all right-minded men to regard trade unionism as the most menacing danger which our nation now confronts." And for five minutes he continued in his arraignment of trade unions.

"In the present circ.u.mstances," he ended, "it is my duty to order the arrest of this man who appears to be the chief conspirator--this president of a union who has had the supreme hardihood to appear as a witness against his own tools, doubtless hoping thereby to gain the end of the thief who cried 'stop thief.' I hold him in fifteen thousand dollars bond to await the action of the grand jury. The three prisoners are held in five thousand dollars bail each."

Jake, Bill, and Arkansas were led away by their captors, and Tom, utterly dazed by this new disaster that had overtaken him when he had thought there was nothing more that could befall, was shoved over to the warrant clerk. And again he caught Foley's eyes; they were full of malicious satisfaction.