The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

  CHAPTER LI.

  GLORY ALLELUIA.

  "Saul Aronson," called the district attorney.

  Shagarach's assistant had been amazed to find a subpoena thrust into hishands just as he returned to his desk after the noon recess. Of whatservice could he be to the prosecution? As little as possible, heinwardly determined, while he made his way to the stand.

  "Do you know a young lady named Miss Serena Lamb?" asked Badger, in hisiciest voice. The cruelty of it was exquisite. If he had discharged arevolver at Aronson point blank the witness could not have looked moreterror-stricken. To have the secrets of the affections thus held up topublic scorn! To be compelled to wear on his sleeve the heart whosebleeding in his bosom he had with difficulty stanched! His face grewpale--or, rather, a mottled white. But Shagarach rose on purpose and hismaster's presence acted like a cordial on the fainting witness.

  "Yes, sir," he stammered out, marveling what was to come; how long thetorture would be prolonged.

  "That is all for the present," said Badger.

  "Prof. Borrowscales," called the district attorney, and a shadow ofdisappointment fell on the court-room. There is no testimony lessamusing than that of the writing expert and none more inconclusive. Atleast eleven jurors out of twelve disregard it and form their ownopinions by the rule of thumb.

  "You are a professor of penmanship?" asked the district attorney.

  "An expert in handwriting, yes, sir."

  "Of many years' experience?"

  "Twenty-nine."

  "Have you examined the papers submitted to you by Inspector McCausland?"

  "I have microscopically."

  "Describe them, please, for the benefit of the jury."

  "This one is a page of manuscript purporting to be the work of RobertFloyd and bearing his signature. The other contains a chemical formula."

  "The bomb formula, taken from the desk of the accused," explained thedistrict attorney. "Anything else?"

  "A number, apparently jotted down on the same sheet."

  "Please read out that number."

  "No. 1863."

  "What do you say as to the identity of the handwritings, professor?"

  "I give it as my conviction that they are the same. The capital Q----"

  "Never mind the capital Q," interrupted Shagarach. "We admit that theformula was written by the accused."

  "Retain the autograph for one moment," said the district attorney."There was another article submitted to you for comparison. What wasthat?"

  "A blotting-pad," said the professor, holding it up in his fingers andshowing a clean side, bearing the reversed impressions of two or threelines of writing.

  "Will you kindly hold that up to the mirror you have brought and readwhat may be read of the writing taken up by the pad?"

  "Looks to me as if it came from the back of a postal card. Just fitsthat size and says:

  "'Dear Aronson: The lock that I told you about still sticks. Please come and open it. I will not trust it to an ordinary locksmith.

  "ROBERT FLOYD.'"

  "As to the signature and writing? Are they genuine?"

  "Beyond peradventure and on the strength of my twenty-nine years ofexperience."

  "During your twenty-nine years of experience," asked Shagarach, "haveyou ever failed to arrive at the conclusion your employers expected?"

  "I object," said the district attorney, and Shagarach withdrew hisquestion. It was one of those ramrod questions, the office of which issimply to drive the charge home and then be withdrawn.

  "Will you kindly write your own name on that?"

  He handed up a common paper block and a pen. The expert flushed a littleand put the pen in his mouth. This blackened his lips and raised atitter. His tongue rolled in his cheek like a schoolboy's while hewrote. The effort was unconsciously prolonged. Shagarach took theautograph and passed it to the jury. A broad smile spread from face toface like a row of lamps lighted successively by an electric current.Then the half-legible scrawl was passed to the district attorney andShagarach sat down.

  "I do not understand," said the district attorney, "that you profess tobe an ornamental writer?"

  "It is not necessary, Brother Bigelow," interrupted Shagarach again. "Weacknowledge the note on the postal card."

  "He has a spark of humor, after all," said Ecks, who was still in hisseat.

  "What do you suppose Aronson has to do with it?" asked Wye, while thejury studied the blotter, one after another, mirror in hand.

  "Pineapple Jupiter!" called Badger. The old negro hobbled to the standand immediately opened his mouth in a good-natured smile, which set thespectators' lips working responsively.

  "This is a murder case, involving life and death," said Chief JusticePlayfair, with dignity, and the court officers rapped their staffs andbustled about, commanding silence.

  "You know Mr. Aronson, the last witness but one?" asked Badger.

  "See him most every day, sah."

  "Do you also know a young lady named Miss Serena Lamb?"

  "See her most every day, sah."

  "Did you ever introduce Mr. Aronson to Miss Lamb?"

  "Yes, sah."

  "When and where?"

  "Well, you see, I fotched him up to her and says I, 'Here's a convert,sister,' says I. 'Hallelujah!' says she, and that's how I done it, sah."

  "Where was this?"

  "Down on the square, sah--Salem street."

  "And when?"

  "When?"

  "Yes, when did you introduce Mr. Aronson and Miss Lamb?"

  The negro scratched his woolly poll.

  "Clean forgot de time, sah."

  "Was it a year ago?"

  "'Bout a year, sah."

  "Couldn't you fix the time exactly? It is important."

  "Well, you see, sah, it was about de second-last time I got a hair-cut."

  This answer provoked a roar, but the district attorney took the witnessin hand.

  "Can you count?"

  "Oh, yes, sah; I can count, sah."

  "Up to how far?"

  "Up to ten mostly, sah."

  "You can't read?"

  "Born before Massah Linkun, sah. Chillun can read. Old folks pickingcotton; no time for school, sah."

  "And you reckon time by the occasions when your hair needs cutting?"

  "Yes, sah; wife and I reckons pretty close on that, sah."

  "An excellent way for want of a better hour-glass," said the districtattorney. "About how often do you get your hair cut from winter towinter?"

  "Oh, about six times, sah. My ole wool grows putty stiddy-reg'lar, sah."

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

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

  "And you introduced Miss Lamb and Mr. Aronson about the second hair-cutbefore 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 wasstill 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 ofthe circumstance in his house within a year."

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

  "It was our first sale."

  "What, if you rec
ollect, was the number of the safe--an old-fashionedarticle, I presume?"

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

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

  "I was. I was struck at the identity."

  "You have no means of knowing, however, whether or not that number was amemorandum 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-roomthrough the door at which he watched and listened.

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

  "Yes, sir."

  "Will you state any conversation relevant to this trial which you mayhave 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." Thecourt was hushed at this strange introduction. "There was acommunication between our cells and by listening carefully one night Imanaged to make out what he was saying."

  "And what was he saying?" asked the district attorney, while Floydstudied the witness' face with more curiosity than he had yet at anytime 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 wholeprosecuting force. Then he bent over to Shagarach and whispered in hisear. Shagarach jumped to his feet, promptly as usual, for the districtattorney had finished. His opportunity had come.

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

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

  "For what purpose?"

  "A professional one."

  "You were there to win the confidence of the accused and extort aconfession 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."

  Shagarach seemed satisfied not to press this further and asked for theblotter, which was in the foreman's hand.

  "You were requested to state any conversation relevant to this causewhich you had with the accused while in prison. You answered with a fewmeaningless words pronounced in sleep. I confess the relevance of allthis later testimony escapes me," said Shagarach.

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

  "Do you know Mr. Aronson, the piano dealer?" asked Shagarach of thewitness.

  "By sight."

  McCausland, though he kept his own identity as hidden as possible, knewthe whole city by sight.

  "Is it not possible to construe this note on the postal card asreferring to the refractory lock of Miss Barlow's piano, which theaccused 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'sproperty," said Shagarach. Whereupon McCausland, Bigelow and the wholecourt-room stared, and even Chief Justice Playfair's trained eyebrow wasperceptibly lifted.

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

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

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

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

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

  "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 thisconvert?"

  "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 heunburdened his misdeeds to me, of which this was the gravest:

  "While he was still unregenerate a certain youth of his own age"--shelooked full at Robert--"had tempted him with a bribe to enter a certainhouse wrongfully and open a certain safe. For the youth had cunning inthat craft. The room he entered was filled with books and a canary birdslept in his cage, for it was evening, and a desk stood before a windowin one corner."

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

  "And the name of the tempter was Robert Floyd." The hush deepenedperceptibly 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 statedthat he would have succeeded had not an interruption come and startledthe 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 towardAronson--poor Aronson, who sat open-mouthed, goggle-eyed, with gazeriveted on the pale sweet face in the bonnet. Now a thousand eyes wereturned upon him, but still he saw only the rosebud mouth and awaitedbreathlessly its answer.

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

  "One moment, your honor," said Shagarach, rising, after a whisperedconsultation with his assistant, now voluble and stuttering withexcitement. "I desire to ask that the court issue a warrant for thearrest of the last witness, Miss Serena Lamb, on the charge of maliciousperjury."