The Midnight Band of Mercy

by Michael Blaine

  The district attorney quickly established the facts.

  “Officer, is it your understanding that it is unlawful and unjustifiable to kill dumb animals without provocation?” It is, sir.

  “And when did you first see the accused on the night in question?”

  “I seen her at the corner of Eighth and 136th Street pickin’ up a cat.”

  “And what did you observe?”

  “She grabbed this cat by the scruff of the neck, and she went and smothered it with a rag. Then she—”

  Hummel shot to his feet. “Speculation by the witness, Your Honor.”

  “How so, counselor?” the judge inquired.

  In a penetrating nasal voice, Hummel argued: “From that distance, the witness could not have known the animal was being smothered. Cats get colds. My client might have been wiping its nose.”

  A juror burst out laughing, then covered his mouth.

  “Sustained. Rephrase your question, Mr. Williams.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Williams said, with a curt bow. “After the accused picked the cat up, she covered its face with a rag, did she not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And she held the rag over the animal’s face for some time?”

  “A minute, maybe.”

  “And would you show the jury what she did with her hands then?”

  “Yes. What she did, see, is she snapped the head back like that.” Connolly mimed the neck-wringing to great effect. Several jurors turned their faces away.

  “Did you question her?”

  “Yes, sir. I followed her around the corner, and I saw her go into this alley here, so I stood there, and when she comes out I asks her what she thinks she’s doing, don’t she know it’s against the law.”

  “Did she reply?”

  “Yes, sir. She said she was the member of some kind of society, but I never heard of it, so she says I’m slow.”

  “Slow?”

  “Yeah, thick. She can have her opinion. She says she knows her business and to leave her alone. So I asks her what’s in her basket, and she shows me three more dead animals, and it stinks to high heaven in there. Some kinda gas. Chloro … chloroform, I think.”

  A clumsy actor, Connolly couldn’t hide the DA’s coaching.

  Hummel raised himself to his full five feet, one inch again. “Objection! Calls for a conclusion by the witness, Your Honor.”

  “I’ll lay the foundation, Your Honor,” Williams replied.

  “Proceed.”

  “Officer Connolly, would you please tell the jury when you previously smelled chloroform?”

  “The other day, my wife was going through her medicine chest. She broke a bottle in the sink.”

  “And she showed you the label?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did Mrs. Edwards’s rag smell the same way?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  This convenient coincidence lowered Max’s opinion of Williams a bit, but he doubted the jurors would question it.

  Opening his cross-examination, Hummel stood before the witness and gazed up and down, appraising him. Then he pounced. “Officer Connolly, are you a doctor?”

  “No, sir.”

  “A pharmacist?”

  “No, sir.”

  “A medical student?”

  “No, sir.”

  “An undertaker?”

  The jury tittered.

  “No, sir.”

  “Can you smell my cologne?” The gnomish Hummel stepped within sniffing distance.

  “Objection, Your Honor! Counsel’s question has no relevance.”

  “His direction is quite apparent, Mr. Williams,” the judge replied. “Proceed.”

  “I repeat, can you smell my cologne? I am only three paces from you, Officer Connolly.”

  “A little,” the policeman admitted grudgingly.

  “A little? What sort of bloodhound are you? For the record, Your Honor, for medical reasons I am unable to use any of the French water. I break out in blisters.”

  From the back of the chamber came muffled laughter.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Hummel,” the jurist remarked sympathetically.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Now, Officer Connolly, was the cat Mrs. Edwards handled emaciated?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you understand what I mean?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, was it thin, like a vagrant?”

  “It was a good-sized cat.” A belligerent note crept into Officer Connolly’s voice.

  “You have seen a good many vagrant cats?”

  Eyes narrowing, Connolly shifted to the edge of his seat. “Yes, but this one was not like that. They’re thin and starved.”

  “What color was it?”

  “White, with black spots.”

  “Was it a wet night?”

  Pausing, the policeman looked at Hummel with an irritated expression. “Well, there was some rain.”

  “Dry rain, I suppose. Dismissed.”

  Glaring at the tiny lawyer, Connolly stepped down.

  “Destroyed him, eh?” Biddle commented when the witness withdrew.

  “I don’t know about that.” Hummel’s sarcastic questions had made Max more sympathetic to the cop, but Biddle had more experience critiquing lawyers. Still, Max thought the lawyer’s approach had been trivial and argumentative.

  The next witness, a timid man who manufactured felt flowers, testified that he had seen Mrs. Edwards pick up a fat black cat with white spots and put it in her basket. Hummel, on cross, made him repeat which part was black and which white.

  “Did you hear the previous witness testify that the animal was white with black spots?”

  “No, sir.”

  Though the point remained obscure to Max, Hummel looked at the jury, nodded his head emphatically, and adopted a satisfied expression.

  The city’s Veterinary Surgeon, Samuel J. Johnson, bore the brunt of Hummel’s attack. The slight, bespectacled Johnson testified that he could not tell if the cat was homeless, but that an autopsy produced a stomach stuffed with potatoes. After consulting a large tome at the defense table, Hummel approached the doctor.

  “Is it not a fact that cats only eat potatoes when on the verge of starvation?”

  “No, I have fed cats many potatoes.”

  “I mean cats born in this country.”

  The doctor paused, eyeing Hummel with open distaste. “I refer to good American cats.”

  “Ahh, bloodlines are involved. How can you tell the American from the continental cat? What are the differences?”

  Johnson glanced briefly at the judge for help. Finally, he admitted, “As far as I know there are none.”

  “Yet a minute ago you were testifying to the widely known qualities of the American animal. Have you been confused lately?”

  “Objection!”

  “I am only demonstrating, Your Honor, the limitations of this witness’s experience. But if the district attorney is unhappy, I’ll withdraw the question.”

  Max thought Hummel’s obsequiousness utterly transparent. Was this the best the sharper could do? So far, he wasn’t impressed.

  Howe handled the direct examination for the defense. He had much to repair, but he made a start with Mrs. Edwards herself. Unlike Hummel, who picked and carped like any clever shyster, Howe glowed with humanity. Even as he took his client lightly by the arm and led her to the witness box, he seemed to radiate sympathy for all sides.

  “Before I begin my direct examination, Your Honor, I’d like to clear up a misstatement, no doubt inadvertent, of the district attorney’s. Defense counsel is appearing pro bono, that is, without payment in this case. We don’t like to advertise the compassionate work we do, but the district attorney has put a misleading construction on our motives.”

  “Is that correct, Mrs. Edwards?” the judge asked. The high flush on his cheeks suggested an extra glass at Pontin’s.

  “Yes.”

  “The jury will be ins
tructed to set aside the district attorney’s remarks about defense counsel’s compensation. Proceed, Mr. Howe.”

  If Howe and Hummel were working for nothing, Max wondered, what were they getting in return? Why would Mrs. Edwards choose these attorneys, given her connections to polite society?

  He consulted Biddle.

  The reporter offered a common-sense explanation. “That night in jail probably scared the living hell out of her. Rough girls.”

  “She wants a guarantee?”

  “These are the boys to give it.”

  “I think it’s something more complicated,” Max replied. Biddle’s analysis seemed too glib. Who knew? The protean Howe might be nursing a sincere impulse.

  “You’re turning into a philosopher, Greengrass.” Biddle patted him on the back. “Beware. Ideas are bad for business.”

  In buttery tones, Howe launched into his questions. “Mrs. Edwards, would you tell the court who started you on your mission?”

  “Henry Bergh. I worked at his side for several months.” Mrs. Edwards spoke in a soft and cultured voice.

  “In fact, it was Henry Bergh who taught you to euthanize stray dogs with chloroform, did he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “To your knowledge, was Mr. Bergh considered a friend to the city’s beasts?”

  Mrs. Edwards squared her small shoulders. “I believe if they could speak, they would sing his praises.”

  “You consider your activities a form of ministry, as I understand it. Is that correct?”

  “I believe we are doing good Christian work in the streets.”

  Biddle leaned over and whispered, “Kill a cat for Christ, eh?”

  Howe led his client on. “And when you handle an unfortunate animal, does it ever suffer?”

  “Never. We place them in airtight baskets filled with chloroform. They are stunned instantly and go off quite peacefully.”

  “And citizens write to you and ask you to help them?”

  “Yes. Just yesterday, Mrs. Semenski in Harlem had to move and couldn’t take her five cats. She asked me to stop by and do the merciful thing.”

  Howe was drawing a benevolent portrait of his client, and she was playing the part beautifully. If Max hadn’t seen Mrs. Warner snap a healthy cat’s neck, he might have viewed the Midnight Band as a group of high-minded Christian ladies too.

  The jury might see it otherwise, though.

  If Edwards boasted that she had committed thousands of catricides, didn’t it follow that she loved her work? What sort of pleasure did the Band’s faithful derive when they held a desperate animal in their practiced hands? And wasn’t Christian piety at best a rationalization and at worst a convenient cloak for their activities? Yet he couldn’t quite grasp their true motives, he couldn’t penetrate Mrs. Edwards’ real thinking, and it was beginning to drive him mad.

  Under Howe’s gentle questioning, Mrs. Edwards spoke of her late hours at work, her dangerous missions, her unstinting courage, her selfless sacrifice to her fellow citizens. Slowly, the lawyer transformed her from a marginal crank into an alleyway St. Francis.

  “So in the early years of your vocation you were stricdy interested in cats?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there came a time when you began to notice particular infestations?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “And where were these nasty nests?”

  Mrs. Edwards blushed, cleared her throat and answered in the lowest possible whisper. “Where the men were lining up.”

  “I am sorry if this part of your testimony is so difficult, Mrs. Edwards, but I’m sure the jury would like to understand your contribution to public decency. I won’t linger over it except to ask: Were these men who were out late at night?”

  Biddle suddenly gripped Max’s forearm. “Listen to this!”

  “Yes,” came the answer from Mrs. Edwards.

  “I thought it was the cats out late,” Max said softly.

  “What’re you talking about?” Nick whispered.

  “Nothing….”

  “And did you recognize some of these men?” Howe went on.

  “Yes.”

  A low rumble swept the courtroom, nervous laughter and whispered curses rising in a wave.

  “Order! Or I’ll clear the room!” Judge Thompson shouted above the din.

  Howe, the avenging angel, scowled at the buzzing assembly. Max marveled at the way the lawyer conveyed moral outrage. The lines in his forehead grew deeper, especially the furrows between his eyebrows. Cheeks, dewlaps, nostrils and mouth performed a dance of disgust. His glare was black fire.

  Beaten, the sullen audience fell quiet.

  “And these establishments where men were lining up, they were offering illicit liaisons?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I overheard many references, many conversations. And I saw women … displaying themselves in the windows.”

  “You dried-up twat!” an anonymous male voice called out from the back of the courtroom. A fresh wave of tittering coursed through the assembly.

  “Silence!” the judge thundered.

  Howe drew out the ensuing hush. “You overheard what the men on line in front of these establishments were saying to each other?”

  “Yes.”

  “Peeping bitch!” another voice bellowed.

  Thompson pounded his gavel. Howe wrapped himself in quiet dignity. At the center of the storm, Mrs. Edwards presented her tormentors with a composed mask. Only her lower lip trembled.

  All honeyed regret, Howe pushed forward. “I am sorry to press you on this matter, Mrs. Edwards, but unfortunately I must. Were these men talking about the prices they would pay for their illicit pleasures?”

  They were.

  “And the ages of the girls being held in this wretched trade?” Howe’s voice caressed his client. Speaking in ever-softer tones, he forced his audience to strain to catch every word.

  Max couldn’t help recalling Mrs. Jabonne’s Italian girl with the sad blue bow in her hair. Well, he hadn’t used the poor thing. Still, Howe’s line of questioning made him distinctly uncomfortable. Then there was the girl who might have been Nora, who ended up looking nothing like her…. At any rate, he rarely sought Mrs. Jabonne’s services. He wasn’t at all like the men who lined up in the smutty darkness. Gazing at the jury, men in celluloid collars and four-in-hand ties, men with small potbellies that strained their vests, he could almost hear his own thoughts repeated in their minds. How could they fail to exonerate the crusading Mrs. Edwards without implicating themselves?

  William H. Howe had turned his client into a scourge for decency itself.

  “Yes.”

  “Did they say they hoped the girls were … young?”

  “Yes.”

  Max could barely hear Howe now. “How young?”

  Mrs. Edwards’s reply was almost inaudible. “Twelve or thirteen.”

  “And you recognized many of the men? You saw them quite clearly?”

  “Many, yes.”

  “And you returned sometimes to the same establishments with euthanized cats, at great risk to yourself, I might add, and you placed them at the doors of these brothels?”

  “Yes. So they’d think about what they were doing. The consequences. We have a saying: a house full of cats is a house full of sores.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched in a secret smile, but she kept her chin up, her gaze level. Max marveled at how calm she appeared. But what did this Midnight Band aphorism mean? On some elemental level, did Mrs. Edwards confuse cats and straying sportsmen?

  “You were trying to discourage the trade?”

  Max suddenly recalled that first feline killing field in front of Mrs. Jabonne’s, and the disgust on her customer’s face. Perhaps Mrs. Edwards’s campaign did have some practical effect.

  “And the procurers too?”

  “They might worry that they were being observed. They’re a superstitious lot,” she added
.

  “He’s going for a corner,” Biddle said urgently.

  “What corner?”

  “Objection,” Williams boomed out, suddenly agitated. “What is the relevance—”

  “Yes, Mr. Howe, where are you going with this?”

  “Your Honor, it is not our intention to embarrass any particular gentleman, but simply to show another benevolent aspect of our client’s activities.”

  “He’s overreaching, if you ask me,” Nick went on, not without a note of admiration. “What a strategy! He’s trying to corner the market.”

  “What market?”

  “She’s been giving Willie their names, don’t you see? The sportsmen going in and out. He doesn’t have to announce them in court. He’s cornering vice, don’t you see? What nerve!”

  Quickly, Max grasped the shape of the thing. Masters of the breach-of-promise subpoena, Howe and Hummel now knew, thanks to Mrs. Edwards, the identities of dozens of sporting gentlemen in her upper-class sphere. Who else would she recognize but men in her circle? And who else would have the rumored five to ten thousand it took to convince Abe Hummel to toss his subpoenas in the fire? No wonder the lawyers were appearing pro bono in her case.

  Howe and Hummel in a defacto alliance with the Reverends Parkhurst and Weems? The perversity of it gave him chills. Nick Biddle grasped the mechanics of blackmail fast enough, but Max was starting to discern a shadow world beyond the exchange of dollars and cents, a place where contradictions made sense, where opposites melted into each other and vertigo was king.

  The courtroom broke out in a round of fierce whispering. Delighted, Biddle tapped his cane on the floor. Evidently, other onlookers had reached the old reporter’s dark conclusion as well. Flings with professional women fresh in their minds, many of the court’s observers were already hoping they could negotiate Hummel’s price down.

  “One thing about Abie. He always makes a clean split with the girls, too. You can ask them. A real shyster would leave them with peanuts,” Nick pointed out.

  “I suppose the firm won’t have to troll for cases now.”

  “You’ve got it, young man. It’s brilliant! This Edwards creature’s dumped a year’s worth right in their laps.”