Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The police, nettled by the sensational coup of the press, made a realeffort to discover the identity of the man or woman who had fired thesecond pistol. For a time they devoted their efforts to implicatingFrieda and young Kraus, but the pair emerged triumphantly from agrilling almost as severe as the third degree; furthermore, there was anabsolute lack of motive. Conrad had never evinced the least interest inpolitics; and that Old Dutch should have commissioned the son of whom hewas so proud to commit murder when gun-men could be hired fortwenty-five dollars apiece was unthinkable to any one familiar with thethoroughly decent home life of the family of Kraus.

  Old Dutch's establishment was more of a beer garden than a commonsaloon, and responsible for a very small proportion of the inebriety ofthe County Seat. He and his sons drank their beer at the family board,but nothing whatever behind the bar. As for Conrad, Jr., industrious,ambitious, persistent, but without a spark of initiative, obstinate andquick-tempered but amiable and rather dull, his tastes and domesticideals as cautious as his expenditures, it was as easy to trump up acharge of murder against him because he happened to have seen Mrs.Balfame leave her house by the kitchen door a few moments before heheard the shot that killed her husband, as it was to fasten the crimeupon the unlovely Frieda because she ran home untimely with a toothache.

  Frieda confessed imperturbably to her attempt to blackmail Mrs. Balfame,adding (in free translation) that while she had no desire to see herarrested and punished, she saw no reason why she should not turn thesituation to her own advantage. When Papa Kraus was asked if he hadcounselled the girl to demand five hundred dollars as the price of hersilence, he repudiated the charge with indignation, but admitted that hedid remark in the course of conversation that no doubt a woman who hadkilled her husband would be pleased to rid herself of a witness on sucheasy terms, and that it was Frieda's pious intention--and his own--thatthe blood-money should justify itself in the coffers of the German RedCross.

  All this was very reprehensible, of course; but an imperfect sense ofthe minor social and legal immoralities was no argument that suchblundering tactics were the natural corollary of a specific murder. Tobe sure, there were those that asserted with firm lips and pragmaticaleyes that "anybody who will blackmail will do anything," but the policewere accustomed to this line of ratiocination from the layman and knewbetter.

  Their efforts in every direction were equally futile. Behind the BalfamePlace was a lane; Elsinore Avenue was practically the eastern boundaryof the town, which had grown to the south and west. There were two orthree lowly dwellers in this lane, and in due course the memory of oneold man was refreshed, and he guessed he remembered hearing somebodycrank up a machine that night, but at what time he couldn't say. It wasafter seven-thirty, anyhow, for he turned in about then, and he hadheard the noise just before dropping off. That might have been any timeup to eight or nine, he couldn't say, as he slept with his windows shutand couldn't hear the town clock. His cottage was directly across from apoint where the second assailant, running out of the grove and grounds,would have climbed the fence to the lane if he had kept in a reasonablystraight line. But there had been heavy rains between the night of theshooting and the awakening of the old man's memory, and not a track nora footstep was visible.

  The police also searched the Balfame house from top to bottom for thepistol the prisoner indubitably had carried from the house to the grove;nor did they neglect the garden, yard and orchard, or any of the oldwells in the neighbourhood. They even dragged a pond. Their zeal was buta further waste of time. It was then they concluded that Mrs. Balfamehad gone out deliberately to meet a confederate and that he had carriedoff both pistols. But who was the confederate and how did he know atwhat hour Balfame would reach his front gate? It was as easilyascertained that Mrs. Balfame had telephoned no message--from her ownhouse--that night as that she had received one from her husband whichwould give her just the opportunity she wanted. But how had she advisedthe other guilty one? The poor police felt as if they were lashed to ahoop driven up and down hill by a mischievous little girl. All the menwho had been at Cummack's when Balfame called up his wife had left thehouse before he did, and proved their alibis. Even Cummack, who had"sweat blood" during the elimination process, had finally discoveredthat the janitor of his office-building had seen him go in and come outon that fatal night. Did Mrs. Balfame go forth some time after Dr. Annabrought her home from the Country Club, find her partner in crime andsecrete him in the grove? If so, why did she not remain in the grovewith him instead of returning to the house to leave it again by thedevious route that delivered her almost into the arms of young Kraus?Above all, who was the man?

  It was at this point that the police gave up, although they stillmaintained a pretence of activity. Not so the press. Almost daily therewere interviews with public men, authors, dramatists, detectives,headed: "Did Mrs. Balfame Do It?" "What Did She Do With the Pistol?""Was She Perchance Ambidexterous? Could She Have Fired Both Pistols atOnce?" "Will She Be Acquitted?" "Was It a German Plot?" "If Guilty,Would She Be Wise to Confess And Plead Brain Storm?" The interviews andsymposiums that illuminated the Sunday issues were conducted by men, butthe evening papers had at least one interview or symposium a week on thesubject between a sister reporter and some woman of local or nationalfame. Nothing could have been more intellectual than the questions askedsave, possibly, the answers given.

  Upon the subject of the defendant's guilt public opinion fluctuated, andwas not infrequently influenced by news from the seat of war: when itlooked as if the Germans were primed for a smashing victory, thedoubting centred firmly upon the family of Kraus and Miss Frieda Appel;but when once more convinced that the Germans were fighting the long andlosing game, the hyphenated were banished in favour of that far moreinteresting suspect, Mrs. Balfame. Certainly there was nothing moreamusing than trying and condemning a prisoner long before she had timeto reach judge and jury, and tearing her to shreds psychologically. InSpain the people high and low still have the bull-fight; other countrieshave the prize-ring, these being the sole objective outlets in times ofpeace for that lust of blood and prey which held the spectators in aRoman arena spellbound when youths and maidens were flung to the lions.But in the vast majority of Earth's peoples this ancestral craving isforced by Civilisation to gratify itself imaginatively, and it is thiscormorant in the human mind that the press feeds conscientiously andoften.

  In Elsinore the subject raged day and night, and the opinion of the manin the street may be summed up in the words of one of them to Mr. JamesBroderick of the _New York News_:

  "Brain storm, nothin'. She ain't that sort. She done it and done it asdeliberately as hell. I ain't sayin' that she didn't have some excuse,for I despised Dave Balfame, and I guess most of us would let her off ifwe served on the jury, if only because we don't want this countydisgraced, especially Elsinore. But that ain't got nothin' to do withit. And there's an awful lot of men who think more of their consciencesthan they do even of Brabant, let alone of Elsinore, where like as notall of 'em won't have been born--the jurors, I mean. I'm justwonderin'!"

  Mr. Broderick met Mrs. Phipps one afternoon at Alys Crumley's. She wasnot a member of the inner twelve, but a staunch admirer of Mrs. Balfame,although by no means sure of her innocence.

  "Maybe she did," she admitted, "since you are not interviewing me forprint. But it's yet to be proved, and if she does get off, I don't fancyshe'll lose many of her friends--she wouldn't anyhow, but then if shewent up, they'd have so much further to call! As for wars," shecontinued with apparent irrelevance, "there's this much to be said: alot of good men may get killed, but when you think of the thousands ofdetestable, tyrannical, stingy, boresome husbands--well, it is to beimagined that a few widows will manage to bear up. If women all over theworld refuse to come forward in one grand concerted peace movement,perhaps we can guess the reason why."

  None of these seditious arguments reached Mrs. Balfame's ears, but asher friends' protestations waxed, she inferred t
hat their doubts keptpace with those of the public. But she was more deeply touched at thisunshaken loyalty than she once would have believed possible. She hadassumed they would drop off, as soon as the novelty of the affair hadworn thin; but not a day passed without a visit from one of them, orofferings of flowers, fruit, books and bonbons. She knew that whatevertheir private beliefs, the best return she could make for theirpassionate loyalty was to maintain the calm and lofty attitude of a MaryStuart or Marie Antoinette awaiting decapitation. She shed not a tear intheir presence. Nor did she utter a protest. If she looked tired andworn, what more natural in an active woman suddenly deprived of physicalexercise (save in the jail yard at night), of sunlight, of freedom--tosay nothing of mortification: she, Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore, shut up ina common jail on the vulgar charge of murder?

  But in spite of the amiable devotion of her friends and theirassurances that no jury alive would convict her, and in spite of hercomplete faith in Dwight Rush, the prospect of several months in jailwas almost insupportable to Mrs. Balfame, and haunted by horrid fears.She made up her mind again and again not to read the newspapers, and sheread them morning and night. She knew what this terrible interest in hermeant. Not a talesman in the length and breadth of Brabant County whocould swear truthfully that he had formed no opinion on the case. Othermurder cases had been tossed aside after a few days' tepid sensation,unnoticed thereafter save perfunctorily. It was her unhappy fate toprove an irresistible magnet to that monster the Public and its keeperthe Press. Her hatred of both took form at times in a manner thatsurprised herself. She sprang out of bed at night muttering curses andpulling at her long braids of hair to relieve the congestion in herbrain. She tore up the newspapers and stamped on them. She beat the barsbefore her windows and shook them, the while aware that if the doors ofthe jail were left open and the guards slept, she would do nothing sofoolish as to attempt an escape.

  Sometimes she wondered, dull with reaction or quick with fear, if shewere losing her reason; or if she was, after all, a mere female whosestarved nerves were springing up in every part of her like poisonousweeds after a long drought. Well, if that were the case, her admiringfriends should never be the wiser.

  But there were other moods. As time wore on, she grew to be humblygrateful to these friends, a phenomenon more puzzling than her attacksof furious rebellion. Even Sam Cummack, possibly the only person whohad sincerely loved the dead man and still stricken and indignant, butcarefully manipulated by his wife, maintained a loud faith in her, andannounced his intention to spend his last penny in bringing the realculprit to justice. Left to himself, he would in time no doubt haveshared the opinion of the community, but his wife was a member of thegrand army of diplomatists of the home. She was by no means sure of hersister-in-law's innocence, but she was determined that the familyscandal should go no further than a trial, if Mr. Cummack's considerableinfluence on his fellow citizens could prevent it; and long practiceupon the non-complex instrument in Mr. Cummack's head enabled her tostrike whatever notes her will dictated. Mr. Cummack believed; and henot only convinced many of his wavering friends, but talked "both ways"to notable politicians in the late Mr. Balfame's party. Most of thesegentlemen were convinced that "Mrs. B. done it," and were inclined tothrow the weight of their influence against her if only to divertsuspicion from themselves, several having experienced acute discomfort;but they agreed to "fix the jury" if Mr. Cummack and several othereminent citizens whom they inferred were "with him" would "come throughin good shape." There the matter rested for the present.

  Above all was Mrs. Balfame deeply, almost--but not quite--humblygrateful to Dwight Rush. Her interviews with him so far had been brief;later he would have to coach her, but at present his time was taken upwith a thousand other aspects of the case, which promised to be a causecelebre. He made love to her no more, but not for an instant did shedoubt his intense personal devotion. He had, after consultation withtwo eminent criminal lawyers whom he could trust, decided that sheshould deny in toto the Kraus-Appel testimony, and stick to her originalstory. After all, it was her word, the word of a lady of establishedposition in her community and of stainless character, against that of asurly German servant and her friends, all of them seething with hatredfor those that were openly opposed to the cause of the Fatherland. Heknew that he could make them ridiculous on the witness stand and wasdetermined to secure a wholly American jury.

  It was some three weeks after Mrs. Balfame's arrest that another blowfell. Dr. Anna's Cassie suddenly remembered that a fortnight or sobefore the murder Mrs. Balfame had called at the cottage one morning andasked permission to go into the living-room and write a note to thedoctor. A moment or two after she had shut herself in, Cassie had goneout to the porch with her broom, and as she wore felt slippers and thefront door stood open, she had made no noise. It was quite by accidentthat she had glanced through the window, and there she had seen Mrs.Balfame standing on a chair before a little cupboard in the chimneyplacing a bottle carefully between two other bottles. She had fullyintended to tell her mistress of this strange performance, but as thedoctor those days came home for but a few hours' sleep and too tired tobe spoken to, not even taking her meals there, Cassie had postponed herlittle sensation and finally forgotten it.

  When she did recall the incident under the pressure of the generalobsession, she told it to a friend, who told it to another, who againimparted it, so that in due course it reached the ears of the alert Mr.Broderick. It was then he informed the public of the lost glass oflemonade and all the incidents pertaining thereto that had come to hisknowledge. Mrs. Balfame's slightly "absurd explanation" was emphasised.

  Once more the police were "on the job." The restored bottle was analysedand, ominously, found to contain plain water. Every bottle in the houseof Mrs. Balfame was carried to the chemist. Mrs. Balfame laughed grimlyat these sturdy efforts, but she knew that the story diminished herchance of acquittal. The public now condemned her almost to a man. Theevidence would not be allowed in court,--Rush would see to that,--butevery juror would have read it and formed his own opinion. Somewhat toher surprise Rush asked her for no explanation of this episode, and shethought it best not to volunteer one. To her other friends she dismissedthe whole thing casually as a lie, no doubt inspired.

  As the skies grew blacker, however, her courage mounted higher. Knittingcalmed her nerves, and she had many long and lonely hours formeditation. Her friends kept her supplied with all the new novels, buther mind was more inclined to the war books, which she read seriouslyfor the first time. On the whole, however, she preferred to knit for thewretched victims, and to think.

  No one can suffer such a sudden and extreme change in his daily habitsas a long sojourn in jail on the charge of murder without forming a newand possibly an astonished acquaintance with his inner self, and withoutundergoing what, superficially, appear to be strange changes, but aremerely developments along new-laid tracks in sections of the brainhitherto regarded as waste lands.

  Mrs. Balfame of Brabant County Jail was surprised to discover that shelooked back upon Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore as a person of small aims, andrather too smugly bourgeoise. The world of Elsinore!

  And all those artificial interests and occupations! How bored she reallymust have been, playing with subjects that either should have interestedher profoundly or not at all. And for what purpose? Merely to keep astep ahead of other women of greater wealth or possible ambitions. Herastonishment at not finding herself all-sufficient, as well as her newsense of gratitude, bred humility which in turn shed a warm rain upon afrozen and discouraged sense of humour. While giving her friends allcredit for their noble loyalty, she was quite aware that they wereenjoying themselves solemnly and that no small proportion of theirloyalty was inspired by gratitude. She recalled their compositeexpression in the hour of her arrest. They had fancied themselves deeplyagitated, but as a matter of fact they were dilated with pride.

  Why had she cared so much to lead these women in all things, to be Mrs.Balfame of Elsinore? To retur
n to such an existence was unthinkable.

  In spite of the fact that her own tragedy dwarfed somewhat her interestin the great war, she saw life in something like its true proportions;she knew that if acquitted she would be capable for the first time of abroad impersonal outlook and of really developing her intellect. Withmore than a remnant of the cold-blooded and inexorable will which hadcondemned David Balfame to death by the medium of Dr. Anna's secretpoison, she seriously considered taking advantage of young Rush'sinfatuation, changing her notorious name for his and receiving theprotection that her awakened femininity craved. At other times she wasequally convinced that she would marry no man again. She could live inEurope on her small income, travel, improve her mind. Europe would bevastly interesting after the war, if one avoided beggars and impromptugraveyards.

  But although she was deeply interested in herself, and gratified thatshe possessed real courage, and that it had come through the firetempered and hardened, there were moments, particularly in the night,and if the profound stillness were rent with the shrieks of drunkenmaniacs, when she was terribly frightened; and in spite of the Americantradition which has set at liberty so many guilty women, she would stareat the awful vision of the electric chair and herself strapped in it.