by Arthur Train
“I don't want this man punished!” he suddenly broke out in fervent expostulation. “I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!”
“Oho!” whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite in stupefaction. Was this a man?
“So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?” insisted Mr. Tutt.
Hepplewhite nodded weakly.
“I don't know rightly what the charge is-but I don't think he meant any harm,” he faltered.
“Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him away?” challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously.
“I supposed they had to-if he came into my house,” said Mr. Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: “I know it sounds silly-but frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse him as handsomely as you wish.”
O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward the bench: “Take it away, for heaven's sake!”
“That is all!” remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. “Thank you for your excellent intentions!”
A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his seat among the spectators.
He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court.
“And I move, Your Honor,” the lawyer was paying, “that you take the counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever intended to.”
“Motion granted,” agreed the judge. “I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt. There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are all the other way.”
“I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence,” continued Mr. Tutt.
“But what was your client doing in the house?” inquired the judge. “He had no particular business in it, had he?”
“That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor,” retorted the lawyer. “A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?”
The judge smiled.
“We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr. Tutt,” he remarked good-naturedly. “No, I shall be obliged to let the jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass upon. Proceed with your case.”
Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the shouting.
“There is no need for me to call the defendant,” Mr. Tutt told the court, “in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready to proceed with the summing up.”
“As you deem wise,” answered the judge. “Proceed then.”
Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word.
Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: “May I ask why you made those fool statements on the witness stand?”
“Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted,” returned Mr. Hepplewhite tartly.
“Well, you'll get your wish!” sniffed his lawyer. “And you'll get soaked for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!”
“I don't care,” retorted the client. “And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows his business!”
The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House-declared Mr. Tutt's summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the vox humana of pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to hide his face behind the Law Journal; ridiculed the idea of a criminal who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity of a rich man's home.
The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr. Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their courses seemed warring for Tutt &Tutt. In the words of Phelan: “There was nothing to it!”
“Thank God,” concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, “that in this land of liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a crime except by a jury of his peers-a right sacred under our Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that 'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed… save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.'
“Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of our laws and the inequality with which they are administered.
“But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has cried 'Peccavi!' I leave my client in your hands.”
He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows.
“I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge,” remarked the latter carelessly.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” began the judge, “the defendant is accused of entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime therein-”
Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him several hours. He had but one thought-to escape. His ordeal had been far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by leaving one's affairs to others-not even to the police. He perceived that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the jury ever going to set the poor man free?
They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr. Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room.
“What's that!” cried the clerk in astonished tones. “What did you say, Mister Foreman?”
“I said that we find the defendant guilty,” replied the foreman calmly.
Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed him.
“Never mind, Mr. Tutt,” whispered Number Six confidentially. “You
did the best you could. Your argument was fine-grand-but nobody could ever make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has got to be protected against himself.”
He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner arraigned at the bar.
“Have you ever been convicted before?” asked His Honor sharply.
“Sure,” replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. “I've done three or four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for illegal entry.”
“That is quite true,” admitted His Honor stiffly. “And it isn't half enough!” He hesitated. “Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?”
“Oh, I don't mind,” returned the defendant with the superior air of one who has put something over. “When I heard the guy in the knee breeches coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep.”
Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon.
“Young man,” he remarked severely, “you assured me that fellow was only a harmless tramp!”
“Well,” answered Bonnie, “that's what he said.”
“He says now he's a burglar,” retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. “I don't believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?”
Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully.
“Oh, I don't know,” he muttered. “The jury seems to have sized him up rather better than we did.”
“Jury!” growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. “'Sweet land of liberty!'“
Lallapaloosa Limited
“Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to
himself and the rights of others.”
– CENTURY DICTIONARY.
“I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared;
but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently
degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted
with a very considerable bribe.”
– POOH-BAH.
“I've been all over those securities,” Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as he entered the office one morning, “and not a single one of them is listed on the Stock Exchange.”
“What securities are those?” asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that ambushed the washing apparatus. “I don't remember any securities,” he remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green and vicious-looking stogy.
“Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!” insisted Miss Wiggin. “Don't you remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left here with you to keep for him?”
“Oh, those!” Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. “Mr. Barrows is not a physician,” he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions calendar. “He's only a 'doc'-that is to say, one who doctors. You know you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else.”
“Well, here's a schedule I made of them-Miss Sondheim typed it-and their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall Street had ever heard of any of them-excepting of one that was traded in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railway Company,” she went on, “Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company-dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, so far as I can find out, any tangible existence-but the one I spoke of.”
“Which is this great exception?” queried Mr. Tutt absently as he searched through the Law Journal for the case he was going to try that afternoon. “You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You astonish me!”
“It's got a funny name,” she answered. “It almost sounds as if they meant it for a joke-Horse's Neck Extension.”
“I guess they meant it for a joke all right-on the public,” chuckled her employer. “How many shares are there?”
“A hundred thousand,” she answered.
“Jumping Jehoshaphat!” ejaculated Mr. Tutt. “How on earth did old Doc manage to get hold of them?”
“It sold for only ten cents a share!” replied Miss Wiggin. “That would mean ten thousand dollars-”
“If Doc paid for it,” supplemented Mr. Tutt. “Which he probably didn't. What's it selling for now?”
“It isn't selling at all.”
Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie.
“When you haven't anything better to do,” he said to her, “why don't you go round and see what has become of-of-Horse's Neck Extension?”
“I will,” assented Miss Wiggin. “It makes me feel rich just to talk about such things. I just love it.”
“Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling,” mused Mr. Tutt. “There are two things that women-particularly trained nurses-seem to like better than anything else in the world-babies and stock certificates.”
Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his papers and took down his hat from the tree.
“I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt,” remarked Miss Wiggin. “It would cost you only fifty cents.”
“That's all you know about it, my dear,” he answered. “More likely it would cost me a hundred thousand dollars.”
* * * * *
Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum &Beck, carefully placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers.
Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had detected his associates in a crime.
“Isaacs says,” he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone, though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, “that the new vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago.”
“If it does it will make it a bonanza property,” emphatically declared his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair and thin bluish cheeks. “It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten cents a share.”
“We did!” retorted Greenbaum. “All that could be shaken out. We've got all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries.”
“Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near enough to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition,” commented Mr. Hunn dryly. “Who controls Amphalula?”
“We do,” snapped Greenbaum.
“Then it's a cinch,” returned Hunn mildly. “Shake out the sleepers, reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on.”
Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively.
“If you gentlemen will pardon me-I have been considering this matter for some little time,” he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum &Beck in their various mining enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah in “The Mikado.” Though he could not have claimed to serve as “First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop
of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one,” he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of Blimp Consolidated.
All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum &Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house, from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons, inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum &Beck had permitted to deceive itself.
Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry for advice, it savored strongly of Koko's consulting Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as confusing, for just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was won't to reply, “Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chamberlain, Attorney-General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy Purse or Private Secretary?” so the financial and corporate Elderberry might equally well ask: “Exactly. But are you seeking my advice as secretary of Horse's Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, treasurer of Amphalula or president of Blimp Consolidated?”