by Arthur Train
The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and Mr. Hepplewhite became aware of a very fat man in a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the cap deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was making obeisance. Behind the fat man stood three other equally fat men, who held between them with grim firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller-in fact, quite a small-man shabby, unkempt, and with a desperate look upon his unshaven face.
“We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite!” exulted the captain, obviously grateful that God had vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into his and not into other hands. “Shall I take him to the house-or do you want to examine him?”
“I?” ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. “Mercy, no! Take him away as quickly as possible!”
“As you say, sir,” wheezed the captain. “Come along, boys! Take him over to court and arraign him!”
“Yes, do!” urged Mrs. Witherspoon. “And arraign him as hard as you can; for he really frightened me nearly to death, the terrible man!”
“Leave him to me, ma'am!” adjured the captain “Will you have your butler act as complainant sir?” he asked.
“Why-yes-Bibby will do whatever is proper,” agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. “It will not be necessary for me to go to court, will it?”
“Oh, no!” answered the captain. “Mr. Bibby will do all right. I suppose we had better make the charge burglary, sir?”
“I suppose so,” replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely.
“Get on, boys,” ordered the captain. “Good evening, sir. Good evening, ma'am. Step lively, you!”
The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both Bibby and the burglar. Then the third footman brought the belated tea.
“What a frightful thing to have happen!” grieved Mrs. Witherspoon as she poured out the tea for Mr. Hepplewhite. “You don't take cream, do you?”
“No, thanks,” he answered. “I find too much cream hard to digest. I have to be rather careful, you know. By the way, you haven't told me where the burglar was or what he was doing when you went into the room.”
“He was in the bed,” said Mrs. Witherspoon.
* * * * *
“In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt,” said Tutt thoughtfully, as he dropped in for a moment's chat after lunch, “Oscar Wilde says, 'There is no essential incongruity between crime and culture.'“
The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and carefully polished the lenses with a bit of chamois, which he produced from his watch pocket, meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by elevating his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an inquiring but good-natured owl.
“That's plain enough,” he replied. “The most highly cultivated people are often the most unscrupulous. I go Oscar one better and declare that there is a distinct relationship between crime and progress!”
“You don't say, now!” ejaculated Tutt. “How do you make that out?”
Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly selected a stogy from the bundle in the dusty old cigar box.
“Crime,” he announced, “is the violation of the will of the majority as expressed in the statutes. The law is wholly arbitrary and depends upon public opinion. Acts which are crimes in one century or country become virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, there is no difference, except one of degree, between infractions of etiquette and of law, each of which expresses the feelings and ideas of society at a given moment. Violations of good taste, manners, morals, illegalities, wrongs, crimes-they are all fundamentally the same thing, the insistence on one's own will in defiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps his hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal because he prefers his own way of doing things to that adopted by his fellows.”
“That's all right,” answered Tutt. “But how about progress?”
“Why, that is simple,” replied his partner. “The man who refuses to bow to habit, tradition, law-who thinks for himself and acts for himself, who evolves new theories, who has the courage of his convictions and stakes his life and liberty upon them-that man is either a statesman, a prophet or a criminal. And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and a liberator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified.”
Tutt looked interested.
“Well, now,” he returned, helping himself from the box, “I never thought of it, but, of course, it's true. Your proposition is that progress depends on development and development depends on new ideas. If the new idea is contrary to those of society it is probably criminal. If its inventor puts it across, gets away with it, and persuades society that he is right he is a leader in the march of progress. If he fails he goes to jail. Hence the relationship between crime and progress. Why not say that crime is progress?”
“If successful it is,” answered Mr. Tutt. “But the moment it is successful it ceases to be crime.”
“I get you,” nodded Tutt. “Here to-day it is a crime to kill one's grandmother; but I recall reading that among certain savage tribes to do so is regarded as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society that to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases to be a crime. Society has progressed. I am a public benefactor.”
“And if you don't persuade society you go to the chair,” remarked Mr. Tutt laconically.
“To use another illustration,” exclaimed Tutt, warming to the subject, “the private ownership of property at the present time is recognized and protected by the law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be a crime to refuse to share one's property with others.”
“In that case if you took your share of another's property by force, instead of being a thief you would be a Progressive,” smiled his partner.
Tutt robbed his forehead.
“Looking at it that way, you know,” said he, “makes it seem as if criminals were rather to be admired.”
“Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of them certainly were,” answered Mr. Tutt. “All the early Christian martyrs were criminals in the sense that they were law-breakers.”
“And Martin Luther,” suggested Tutt.
“And Garibaldi,” added Mr. Tutt.
“And George Washington-maybe?” hazarded the junior partner.
Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders.
“You press the analogy a long way, but-in a sense every successful revolutionist was in the beginning a criminal-as every rebel is and perforce must be,” he replied.
“So,” said Tutt, “if you're a big enough criminal you cease to be a criminal at all. If you're going to be a crook, don't be a piker-it's too risky. Grab everything in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if possible. Don't be a common garden highwayman or pirate; be a Napoleon or a Willy Hohenzollern.”
“You have the idea,” replied Mr. Tutt. “Crime is unsuccessful defiance of the existing order of things. Once rebellion rises to the dignity of revolution murder becomes execution and the murderers become belligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a change in or defiance of existing law, those who advocate progress are essentially criminally minded, and if they attempt to secure progress by openly refusing to obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they prevail, and from being in the minority come into power, they are taken out of jail, banquets are given in their honor, and they are called patriots and heroes. Hence the close connection between crime and progress.”
Tutt scratched his chin doubtfully.
“That sounds pretty good,” he admitted, “but”-and he shook his head-“there's something the matter with it. It doesn't work except in the case of crimes involving personal rights and liberties. I see your point that all progressives are criminals in the sense that they are 'agin the law' as it is, but-I also see the hole in your argument, which is that the fact that all progressives are criminals doesn't make all criminals progressive. Your proposition is only a half truth.”
“You're quite wrong about my theory being a half truth,” retorted Mr. Tutt. “It is fundamentally sound. The fellow who steals a razor or a few dollars is regarded as a mean thief, but
if he loots a trust company or takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, I maintain, is administered for the purpose of protecting the strong from the weak, the successful from the unsuccessful the rich from the poor. And, sir”-Mr. Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury-“the man who wears a red necktie in violation of the taste of his community or eats peas with his knife is just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the floor when there's a law against it. Don't you agree with me?”
“I do not!” replied Tutt. “But that makes no difference. Nevertheless what you say about the criminal law being devised to protect the rich from the poor interests me very much-very much indeed But I think there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? Your proposition is true only to the extent that the criminal law is invoked to protect property rights-and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that protect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have it-the rich.”
“However that may be,” declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, “I claim that the criminal laws are administered, interpreted and construed in favor of the rich as against the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason that the administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor with the powers that be.”
“The moral of which all is,” retorted the other, “that the law ought to be very careful about locking up people.”
“At any rate those who have violated laws upon which there can be a legitimate difference of opinion,” agreed Mr. Tutt.
“That's where we come in,” said Tutt. “We make the difference-even if there never was any before.”
Mr. Tutt chuckled.
“We perform a dual service to society,” he declared. “We prevent the law from making mistakes and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we show up its weak points and thus enable it to be improved.”
“And incidentally we keep many a future statesman and prophet from going to prison,” said Tutt. “The name of the last one was Solomon Rabinovitch-and he was charged with stealing a second-hand razor from a colored person described in the papers as one Morris Cohen.”
How long this specious philosophic discussion would have continued is problematical had it not been interrupted by the entry of a young gentleman dressed with a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened face bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of a deep and subtle wisdom.
It was clear that he held an intimate relationship to Tutt &Tutt from the familiar way in which he returned their cordial, if casual, salutations.
“Well, here we are again,” remarked Mr. Doon pleasantly, seating himself upon the corner of Mr. Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the forefinger of his left hand. “The hospitals are empty. The Tombs is as dry as a bone. Everybody's good and every day'll be Sunday by and by.”
“How about that man who stole a razor?” asked Tutt.
“Discharged on the ground that the fact that he had a full beard created a reasonable doubt,” replied Doon. “Honestly there's nothing doing in my line-unless you want a tramp case.”
“A tramp case!” exclaimed Tutt &Tutt.
“I suppose you'd call it that,” he answered blandly. “I don't think he was a burglar. Anyhow he's in the Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I listened to him and made a note of the case.”
Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned back attentively.
“You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth Avenue-that great stone one with the driveway?”
The Tutts nodded.
“Well, it appears that the prisoner-our prospective client-was snooping round looking for something to eat and found that the butler had left the front door slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity to observe how the other half lived, he thrust his way cautiously in and found himself in the main hall-hung with tapestry and lined with stands of armor. No one was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there in his rags-the Weary Willy of the comic supplements-gazing about him at the objets d'art, the old masters, the onyx tables, the statuary-wondering where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?”
“Weren't any of the domestics about?” inquired Tutt.
“Not one. They were all taking an afternoon off, except the third assistant second man who was reading 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the servants' hall. To resume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and he needed everything from a Turkish bath to a manicuring. He had not been shaved for weeks. His feet sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the carpets. It was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A sense of relaxation stole over him. He hated to go away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he wanted to see what it was like upstairs.
“So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The Sleeping Beauty.' Everywhere his eyes were soothed by the sight of hothouse plants, marble floors, priceless rugs, luxurious divans-”
“Stop!” cried Tutt. “You are making me sleepy!”
“Well, that's what it did to him. He wandered along the upper hall, peeking into the different rooms, until finally he came to a beautiful chamber finished entirely in pink silk. It had a pink rug-of silk; the furniture was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with pink silk and in the middle of the room was a great big bed with a pink silk coverlid and a canopy of the same. It seemed to him that that bed must have been predestined for him. Without a thought for the morrow he jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his head and went fast asleep.
“Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancy Witherspoon arrived for the week-end. Bibby, the butler, followed by Stocking, the second man, bearing the hand luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, as the pink-silk chamber is called.”
Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers of description, waved his hand dramatically at the old leather couch against the side wall, in which Weary Willy was supposed to be reclining.
“Can't you see 'em?” he declaimed. “The haughty Bibby with nose in air, preceding the great dame of fashion, enters the pink room and comes to attention, 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Witherspoon sweeps across the threshold.” Bonnie Doon, picking up an imaginary skirt, waddled round Mr. Tutt and approached the couch. Suddenly he started back.
“Oh, la, la!” he half shrieked, dancing about. “There is a man in the bed!”
Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully expecting to see the form of Weary Willy thereon. Bonnie Doon had a way of making things appear very vivid.
“And sure enough,” he concluded, “there underneath the coverlid in the middle of the bed was a huddled heap with a stubby beard projecting like Excalibur from a pink silk lake!”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Tutt. “But may I ask what this is all about?”
“Why, your new case, to be sure,” grinned Bonnie, who, had he been employed by any other firm, might have run the risk of being regarded as an ambulance chaser. “To make a long and tragic story short, they sent for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, telephoned for the hurry-up wagon, and haled the sleeper away to prison-where he is now, waiting to be tried.”
“Tried!” ejaculated Mr. Tutt. “What for?”
“For crime, to be sure,” answered Mr. Doon.
“What crime?”
“I don't know. They'll find one, of course.”
Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk and brought his fist down upon it with a bang.
“Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!” he cried, a flush coming into his wrinkled face. “This poor man is a victim of the overzealousness which the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the privileges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite fell asleep in somebody's vestibule the policeman on post would send him home in a cab; but if a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. If John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for some crime they would let him out on bail; while the tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting trial, though under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is
he presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is presumed to be guilty, otherwise he would not be there. But what is he presumed to be guilty of? That's what I want to know! Just because this poor man-hungry, thirsty and weary-happened to select a bed belonging to John De Puyster Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown into prison, indicted by a grand jury, and tried for felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty!'“
“Well, he hasn't been tried yet,” replied Bonnie Doon. “If you feel that way about it why don't you defend him?”
“I will!” shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. “I'll defend him and acquit him!”
He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and strode rapidly through the door.
“He will too!” remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt.
“He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a prophet!” mused Tutt, his mind reverting to his partner's earlier remarks.
“He won't think so after he's seen him,” replied Mr. Doon.
It sometimes happens that those who seek to establish great principles and redress social evils involve others in an involuntary martyrdom far from their desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric chair rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he was popularly called by the newspapers convicted of a crime, but the very fact that he had become his legal champion interjected a new element into the situation, particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the district attorney's office, had been placed in charge of the case.
It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt-that was the tramp's name-go, if after remaining in the Tombs until he had been forgotten by the press he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the Bridge of Sighs to freedom. Then there would have been no comeback. But with Ephraim Tutt breathing fire and slaughter, accusing the police and district attorney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and oppressors of the poor-law breakers, in fact-O'Brien found himself in the position of one having an elephant by the tail and unable to let go.
In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp might become a political issue. That there was something of a comic side to it made it all the worse.