Then Freddy called Uncle Wesley. But before the duck could take the stand Mr. Bismuth jumped up. “I object, your Honor,” he said. “I object to the entire conduct of this trial. I submit that not only the entire jury, but the judge himself—all are friends of Mrs. Wiggins, and all are hostile to me. I submit that they have prejudged this case and even before the evidence is heard, have convicted me. I demand a fair trial.”
Judge Willey looked down at him over his glasses. “There is a certain amount of truth in what you say,” he said. “But unless we go outside of this state, I do not know where we can pick a jury which will not be hostile to you. It is well known that you pocketed money gained from the sale of tickets to Mars in a—”
“I object,” shouted Mr. Bismuth. “I am being tried for the theft of these jewels. You have no right to bring that up.”
“You are correct,” said the judge. “Objection sustained. I withdraw that remark and direct that it be stricken from the record. However, you have impugned the honor of this court. You have stated that I have prejudged the case, have implied that you will not get a fair trial here. If that isn’t contempt of court I’ll eat my gavel. And it will cost you fifty dollars, Mr. Bismuth.”
“Your Honor has misunderstood me,” Mr. Bismuth said. “I beg that you will reconsider. Such a charge as you suggest that I have made against you is so far beyond the bounds of credibility that it is laughable. Your probity and uprightness are unquestioned—are as well known as—ha, ha, I was going to say: as that of a Bismuth. But in Centerboro—”
He was interrupted by a deep laugh from Old Whibley.
Judge Willey banged with his gavel. “I will not have hooting in this courtroom, counsellor. Is that clear?”
“Quite, your Honor,” said the owl. “But I wasn’t hooting; I was just laughing at this Bismuth’s telling us how honest he is. Try it for laughs yourself, judge; I think you’ll get a giggle out of it.”
“That will do,” said the judge. “You are trying to prejudice the judge and jury against the defendant, and goodness knows we’re prejudiced enough already, without any help from you.”
At this, Uncle Solomon laughed. It was the loud rippling mirthless laugh of the screech owl, and Judge Willey glared down at him. “This court seems to be plagued by owls this morning,” he said. “You of all people, Uncle Solomon, should respect the solemnity of the court, even if you do not respect the dignity of the magistrate who happens to be presiding.”
“A correction, your Honor,” said Uncle Solomon in his precise voice. “May I say that I respect the dignity of the magistrate, this particular magistrate, very profoundly.” Judge Willey bowed, and could not prevent a slight smirk from passing across his face. “But,” the screech owl went on, “I do not see why solemnity is so desirable in this court. I do not see why good healthy laughter is incompatible with justice. Personally, sir, I feel that one good laugh is worth seventeen scholarly Supreme Court decisions.”
“Why there, sir, you find me in complete accord,” the judge began.
But Freddy interrupted. “If it please the court, time is getting short and I would like to continue the examination of the witnesses.”
“Of course, of course,” said Judge Willey hastily. “Call the next witness.”
So Uncle Wesley waddled up to the witness stand.
“Now, Uncle Wesley,” Freddy said, “you first met the prisoner, I believe, when he came to see you about the mud in the duck pond. Is that correct?”
“Quite correct,” said the duck. “My letter in the Bean Home News called attention to the loss of mud in the pond, mud on which our livelihood depends. Mr. Bismuth was good enough to comment favorably on the style of the writing, and the skill with which I had presented my case. He said—”
“The witness will confine himself to answering the questions. It is not necessary for him to repeat any compliments which the prisoner may have paid him. We are not here to listen to his praises.”
“Yet I would like to put these compliments in evidence,” said Freddy, “for beside them I would like to put this letter.” And he handed the judge the brown paper bag on which Uncle Wesley had written his complaint with a hard pencil. “I submit, your Honor, that nobody could honestly compliment the writer on such a scrawl.”
The judge squinted at the bag, turned it upside down and then sideways, and then sniffed and handed it over to the foreman of the jury. “Quite true,” he said. “But what do you intend to show by putting it in evidence?”
“Why, to show that the prisoner is dishonest.”
“Well, we knew that anyway,” said the judge. “Get on with your case.”
“Well now, Uncle Wesley,” Freddy said, “I believe that Mr. Bismuth changed the course of the stream that fed the duck pond, so that it ran in another bed and left the pond dry. Is that so?”
“Well, now, Uncle Wesley,” Freddy said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw him do this?”
“I was with him, sir. But I did not realize that the water would flood out Mr. Bean’s garden, or I would have refused to permit it.”
“What you did realize, however, when the water was gone, was that your nieces’ jewels would be plainly visible. Is that not so?”
Uncle Wesley now showed his first signs of hesitation. He said: “Why, I—er, yes I suppose so.”
“And you then realized too, did you not, that there was danger that Mr. Bismuth, to whom you had talked about the jewels, might try to steal them?”
“There was danger that anyone might try to steal them,” said the duck. He glanced at Mr. Bismuth doubtfully. Mr. Bismuth was not looking at him; but although the man’s eyes were staring with ferocity off into space, his nose was pointed straight at the duck. It gave him an extraordinarily sinister and menacing expression. Uncle Wesley shivered slightly. “I naturally did not fear Mr. Bismuth nearly as much as some other characters I could mention—yes, some who are right in this courtroom!” he said, glaring at Freddy. “For I had taken Mr. Bismuth into my confidence about the jewelry; he had agreed to dig it up and conceal it in a safe place, so that it could later be turned over to its rightful owners, my nieces.” Again he glanced fearfully at Mr. Bismuth, who nodded his head slightly as if satisfied with this speech. But he didn’t turn his eyes towards the duck.
Freddy was completely taken aback by Wesley’s statement, which was directly the opposite of what the duck had told him. He had expected to prove that Wesley knew nothing of the hiding of the jewels in the rock pile, and thus prove Mr. Bismuth guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt. But he said quickly:
“Wesley, you are lying. I will remind you that perjury is a very serious crime, and I will ask you straight: was it with your consent that Mr. Bismuth took those jewels?”
Uncle Wesley was agitated. He shifted from side to side on his big yellow feet and glanced sideways at the judge, and then at Mr. Bismuth. The judge didn’t say anything, but Mr. Bismuth cleared his throat in what was almost a growl. And after a few preliminary quacks to get his voice under control, Wesley said: “Yes sir, it was.”
“I see,” Freddy said. “Then the story you told me, and told Old Whibley, about shadowing Bismuth, and watching him dig up the jewels, and then trying to find where he had hidden them, was all a lie? I put it to you that it was the truth, but that Mr. Bismuth has threatened you, and you are now afraid to offend him. You would rather let your nieces lose all the treasures, all the property they have in the world, than stand up and tell the truth. You would rather cringe before a cheap crook than stand up and do your duty like a true duck.”
Uncle Wesley flew into a rage. “What I tell a brutal, treacherous owl, who kidnaped me and confined me in a dark and stuffy prison, is one thing. What I tell an old gossip of a pig who is always poking his nose into other people’s business, is one thing. But what I now tell this jury is another thing, and it is the truth. Mr. Bismuth has my complete confidence. I asked him to take and keep the jewels. And has he not been true to
his trust? Here are the jewels to prove it.”
“Which the police took from him when he was running away with them,” said Judge Willey. “You—Wesley—you are either a liar and a traitor, or a singularly stupid duck—I can’t make out which. And I’m not going to try. However, the jury will now go and consider their verdict. Though I do not see, in view of the testimony which has been given—I do not see how the jury can bring in anything but a verdict of Not Guilty.”
“I’d like to wring that duck’s neck,” Freddy said angrily, and Whibley said: “I’ll save you the trouble, if I can catch him when Alice and Emma aren’t around. Look at ’em, down there in the front row; look at ’em staring at him all starry-eyed, as if he’d just defended ’em from seventeen dragons, instead of having sold ’em out.”
CHAPTER
20
The jury wasn’t out long. When it had filed back in, Jinx got up. “Your Honor,” he said, “we realize that you expect us to give a verdict of Not Guilty.”
“That is so,” said the judge. “All the evidence we have heard in this case seems to show that the prisoner is innocent.”
“Well, we’re very sorry,” the cat said, “but we think the prisoner ought to go to jail. If he isn’t guilty of this crime, he probably is of a lot of others we don’t know about. So our verdict is Guilty, and so say we all, and we hope you’ll soak him with everything in the book.”
Well there was a great uproar at this. There was a lot of cheering and hand-clapping, and there was the wailing and sobbing of the Bismuth family, who were waiting outside the door, and there was the shouting of Mr. Bismuth, protesting that he had been framed, and there was the banging of the judge’s gavel which had no effect whatever. But after a while things quieted down. And Judge Willey said:
“The verdict is not in accordance with the evidence, and I must therefore censure you, gentlemen of the jury, very severely.” So he gave them a good bawling out. And then he said: “All this that I have said to you has been said in my public capacity, as a judge. Later, in my private capacity, as a private citizen, I shall offer you my warmest congratulations. At that time I shall point out to you that while you were wrong to pronounce him guilty of stealing the jewels, all the evidence in the Wiggins case showed that he was guilty of stealing Miss McMinnickle’s purse. So that by sending him to jail, even for the wrong reason, you have done the right thing.” He looked at the prisoner with distaste. “I doubt if he could ever go straight, with that nose.”
Then the judge got up and had Mr. Bismuth brought before the bench, and sentenced him to two years in jail. And Mr. Bismuth was led away by two large policemen, still shouting his protests.
Freddy, however, was not well satisfied with the result. He said as much to his friend the sheriff, as he was leaving the courtroom. “All that has happened,” he said, “is that there’s one less Bismuth eating the Beans out of house and home. And you bet Mrs. Bean will be nicer than ever to Mrs. Bismuth and the children, with Mr. Bismuth in jail.”
“Well, you ain’t done me any favor, Freddy, and that’s a fact,” the sheriff said gloomily. “We got an awful nice lot of prisoners in my jail this summer. What those boys are going to say when Bismuth turns up! I just hate to face ’em.”
“Hold on!” Freddy said suddenly. “I’ve got an idea.” They were starting down the courthouse steps, then Freddy stopped. “Hold it,” he said. “Look.”
Ahead of them, Uncle Wesley, followed by his nieces, was starting across the courthouse square to take the road back to the farm. But as he went on, the crowd in the square drew away from them, so that the ducks waddled along in an empty space which opened in front of them and filled in behind them. At first the people just looked, but then someone hissed, and in a minute there were hisses and boos and catcalls, and fists were shaken and a few old vegetables thrown. But through it all Alice and Emma walked on, holding their heads high, while Uncle Wesley slunk along behind, evidently half fainting with shame and fright. But nobody made a move to hit him.
“Oh, well,” said Freddy. And he and the sheriff went down to the jail and had a long talk. Whibley was there too, and Jinx. And presently they hammered out a plan.
When Mr. Bismuth was brought down to the jail, the prisoners took one look at him and then gathered to hold an indignation meeting. “Fellow like that,” said Looey, “fellow that robs ducks and steals old ladies’ pocketbooks when they’re passin’ him the fruit cake—he ain’t any fit companion for self-respecting criminals.”
“Ain’t it the truth!” said Red Mike. “He’s going to give our jail a bad name.”
So they sent a committee in to protest to the sheriff.
“Now you boys hold your hosses,” the sheriff said. “Freddy here, and ’mongst us, we’ve got a plan. We’ve put him in Houdini, and unless somethin’ goes awful terrible wrong, he’ll be gone for good by morning.”
All the cells were named after notorious criminals—Borgia, Jesse James, and so on—and there was great competition among the prisoners to be put in those with the most famous names. Houdini was different, it was named after the famous escape artist. Uncongenial prisoners whom everybody wanted to get rid of were put in Houdini, where the window bars were not cemented in tight, but could just be lifted out Such prisoners were encouraged to escape, and only very stupid ones managed to spend more than a night or two in Houdini.
So Freddy went home and had a talk with Mrs. Bismuth, and she packed up her stuff in a suitcase and she and the children sneaked quietly down the stairs after Mr. and Mrs. Bean had gone to bed. Uncle Ben was waiting with his old station wagon, and the Bismuths and Jinx and Whibley and Freddy got in, and then Hank and the cows pushed the wagon out of the gate and down the road for a ways before Uncle Ben started the engine. They did this because Uncle Ben had installed a small atomic engine in the wagon, which gave it so much power that when it started it gave several tremendous explosions, and then fairly kicked up its heels before roaring off at terrific speed.
Mr. Bismuth was just dropping off to sleep in his cell that night when a familiar sound roused him. It was his wife crying somewhere, and he thought he could also distinguish the suppressed sniffling and hiccuping of his children as they accompanied her. He sat up. “Ambrosia?” he said in a low voice.
“Oh, children!” Mrs. Bismuth exclaimed. “It is the voice of your honored pa! Oh, Ed, can you hear me?”
“Of course I can, you idiot!” he replied. “So can everybody else within ten miles. What is it now?”
So Mrs. Bismuth told him that she had got in touch with Uncle Ben, who needed money badly for another trip to Mars, and that he had agreed to rescue Mr. Bismuth and drive him and his family to the bus station, so that they could all go back to Cleveland. All he asked was eighty-three dollars.
“Eighty-three dollars, hey?” said Mr. Bismuth. “Why that’s just the amount that I—well, never mind that. You must have beat him down, Ambrosia. ’Tain’t very much for rescuin’ a Bismuth. Well, you gave him the money, I suppose. You get the rest out from under the floor?—But hold on,” he said suddenly. “How’m I to get out? I suppose you didn’t think about there being bars on this window!”
So she explained that for an extra fifty dollars, Uncle Ben had arranged to have the sheriff put him in the room with the removable window bars. Mr. Bismuth seemed rather pleased that his escape was costing more than he at first supposed; evidently he had plenty of money. So he took the brace off his nose—he had put it on as usual before going to sleep—and got dressed and climbed out, and Uncle Ben drove them to the bus stop.
So Mrs. Bismuth bought bus tickets to Cleveland. But before the bus came, Mr. Bismuth said suddenly: “Hey, what good is it, our going back to Cleveland? My description will be sent all over the country, and with this nose I’ll be recognized within a few days, and the police will grab me and send me back to jail.”
“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Bismuth. “Oh, children, your honored pa is really sunk this time!”
But Old
Whibley, who had been hiding in a doorway with Freddy and Jinx, flew out. “I can fix that nose for you,” he said. “Police’ll never catch you if you have a straight nose,” he said, “and I can straighten it. It’ll cost you fifty dollars, and it’ll hurt. What do you say?”
“Give him the money, Ambrosia,” Mr. Bismuth said. “But hold on! You say it’ll hurt?”
“Hurt for a minute, or be brought back and stay in jail two years,” said the owl. “Well, make up your mind. I hear the bus.” And indeed the bus had just turned into the end of the street.
“Well,” said Mr. Bismuth. “Well—oh, all right!”
Whibley flew over and perched on his head. He grabbed one ear with one claw and the other ear with the other claw, and then he reached down and took Mr. Bismuth’s nose in his powerful beak and gave it a quick hard wrench. Mr. Bismuth let out a yell that brought heads out of windows all down the block, and the bus driver was so startled that he jammed on the brakes and brought the bus to such a sudden stop that all the passengers were thrown violently forward and banged their noses on the seats in front of them. And Mrs. Bismuth and the little Bismuths burst into loud yells of “Oh, poor pa!” But Mr. Bismuth’s nose was straight. He felt of it, and then he wiped the tears from his eyes and stopped groaning. “Pay him,” he said to Mrs. Bismuth. He reached in his pocket and took out his nose brace and threw it into the street, and then he climbed into the bus. And after Whibley had got his fifty dollars, the rest of the Bismuths piled in after him. And the bus drove off in the general direction of Cleveland.
Freddy was pretty pleased. He had got the eighty-three dollars back for Miss McMinnickle, and he and Whibley between them had collected an extra hundred which would be presented to Mr. Bean, to make up for some of the damage and expense they had suffered. In addition, Mrs. Bismuth had packed a large sack with canned goods which she had taken from Mrs. Bean’s shelves, but she had forgotten it, and it was still in the station wagon. Freddy and Jinx sang all the way home, and Uncle Ben grunted along tunelessly with them, and even Old Whibley provided a deep Oompah, oompah accompaniment.
Freddy and the Space Ship Page 13