by Thorne Smith
“Well, this wasn’t any matter to trifle with,” said Tim promptly. “It was a good old-fashioned, free-for-all assault. Never have I been so shocked and surprised.”
“Dear me,” murmured the sergeant, looking severely upon Mr. Bentley. “At this late day and age do you still find it necessary to go about assaulting women? You must be an out-of-luck guy indeed. It’s really too bad the little lady missed her mark. Then we might have been able to hush the matter up. Instead of being buried beneath a nice, clean, protective layer of quiet earth you will now be crushed beneath the weight of public scorn and indignation.”
Sergeant Devlin was now thoroughly enjoying himself. His life as a whole was a dull one. There had not been much crime of late. He had come to look on a law-breaker as a generous gift from God. This case promised to become unusually sweet and pungent. Although it pleased him to feign ignorance he was quite well aware of the identities of his three visitors. He knew the names, residences, and social standing of each actor involved in this diverting little drama. It gave him infinite satisfaction to get his hooks into some members of the upper strata for a change. Both from report and personal observation he had formed an especially low opinion of Mr. Carl Bentley. He would make that so-called gentleman suffer for the good fortune of birth and position.
“Do I understand, then, madam,” he asked politely, “that you wish to lodge a charge of assault against this prisoner?”
“I surely do, Sergeant,” declared Tim earnestly. “Exaggerated assault. The worst sort of assault.”
Devlin scratched his head in some perplexity.
“Just what is the worst sort of assault, lady?” he asked. “Opinions might differ, you know. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
“Well, this man is all poison to me,” retorted Tim. “I’ve always been true to my husband, haven’t I, dear?”
This question, coming so unexpectedly upon Sally, completely shattered the pose of calm reserve she had been striving to maintain since her first break. A flutelike voice popped out surprisingly from between her lips, the upper one of which stood sadly in need of a razor. At the sound of a woman’s voice proceeding from a man’s body Sergeant Devlin looked up and scanned the speaker’s face with a mystified expression in which there was a shade of mistrust. This case, to his way of thinking, bade fair to develop some rather sensational sidelights.
“Always, darling,” Sally was saying in answer to Tim’s question. “We all of us have our faults, but misplacing or forgetting your honor is not one of yours. That I will say for you.”
“You’d have been fit to be tied to-day,” Tim continued volubly. “The way that man went on was nobody’s business. It was nip and tuck for a while. Didn’t look as if I was going to have any honor left at all.”
“May I ask how far this fiend succeeded?” inquired the sergeant. “Merely as a matter of record, you understand, my dear lady.”
“Well, I wouldn’t like to go into details, Sergeant,” Tim modestly replied. “No lady would, but the assault proper was a complete flop. I still have all my honor left right down to the last shred, such as it is. Still, it’s the only honor I have.”
Tim seemed to regard his honor as he would a powder puff or lipstick or any other small article women usually carry about with them in their handbags. Sergeant Devlin would not have been a bit surprised if the little lady had produced her honor and proudly displayed it for his inspection.
“Well,” he remarked after a moment of reflection, “I’m sure we’re mighty glad about that.”
“You’re not nearly so glad as I am,” said Tim. “You know, Sergeant, a girl’s honor is just about the best thing she has, and sometimes it’s not so good, at that. I always try to keep my honor spick and span, right up to the minute.”
“Up to what minute?” Devlin inquired, with justifiable curiosity.
By this time Mr. Bentley was writhing in mental as well as bodily anguish. If this terrible woman continued to make ground at her present rate of progress he would have no more chance than the proverbially proverbial snowball in a proverbially proverbial hell. It was high time that his voice was heard.
“It’s all a lie, officer,” he broke in furiously. “That woman has no honor. She’s trying deliberately to frame me. Why—”
“What’s that?” interrupted Tim. “Do you hear what he’s saying, Sergeant? He’s actually got the nerve to stand up there and tell me to my face that I haven’t any honor—no honor at all. Why, you big, hulking stiff, I’ll have you know that I’ve got the least tarnished honor of any woman in town, which isn’t saying a great deal, now that I come to think of it.”
“Don’t you believe her, Sergeant.” Carl Bentley pleaded as a man pleads for his life. “That woman, that she-dragon masquerading behind a thin veil of virtue, actually dragged my trousers off with her two bare hands. Then, still unsatisfied by that display of female ferocity, she held me up at the point of a gun and forced me to walk through the streets in this terrible condition.”
“Oh, what a whale of a lie he told,” Tim exclaimed in righteous indignation. “I was merely protecting this confounded honor of mine I’ve been telling you about. The first thing I knew that the man was feeling that way was when he came dashing into my house and began to tear off his clothes—even his pants, Sergeant—think of it—what a sight—and then he began to make noises just like an animal. That’s no way to act. After that he started lunging—that’s what he did—he made lunges at me, and I can’t stand being lunged at. So I very quietly said to myself, ‘Sally Willows, my good woman,’ I said, ‘if you don’t do something constructive mighty quick it’s good-night for your honor.’ Then I took up my husband’s revolver that he won the war with in Fort Leavenworth, and I made this man stop his lunging. And that’s the low-down on the whole beastly affair, so help me God.”
Tim stopped for lack of breath and looked triumphantly at Carl Bentley. That gentleman’s pendulous jaw was hanging low. Above the cavity thus revealed peered the stricken eyes of a beaten man. He seemed to be seeing himself as he actually might have been—lunging. Sergeant Devlin himself appeared to be deeply moved. For some moments he did not speak, but sat as if in contemplation of the vivid picture Tim had painted of Carl Bentley in action. At last he stirred and spoke.
“Mrs. Willows,” he said, “you have been through a most trying ordeal, from which you luckily emerged—thanks to your courage—with your honor quite okay.” He paused and allowed his eyes to burn up Carl Bentley, then he spoke coldly to the man. “Do you wish me to believe,” he asked, “that this frail woman, this lady of culture and refinement, was able, in spite of all your efforts, to drag the trousers off your large, fat, repulsive-looking legs?”
“Well,” hedged Mr. Bentley, realizing too late the mistake he had made, “almost she did. She lured them off, so to speak. It was a trap—a snare. I tell you she was out to frame me and she stopped at nothing. She enticed my trousers off after she had first tried to drown me.”
“This situation becomes more involved as time goes on,” sighed the sergeant. “You now would have me believe that this lady also made an attempt to drown you. How can I believe a statement like that, I ask you? It’s impossible on the face of it. Why, this little woman couldn’t drown even a kitten, let alone a gorilla of a guy like you.”
“That’s because you don’t know her,” replied Carl Bentley, endeavoring to summon to his aid the last remnants of his depleted dignity. “If she attempts to lodge a charge of assault against me I, on my part, will prefer charges of attempted murder, defamation of character, and mental anguish against her.”
“All of those,” observed Sergeant Devlin, slightly elevating his thick eyebrows as he jotted down some notes on his record. “Well, this situation is altogether too delicate and at the same time too serious for a mere policeman to handle. I’ll have to let you both tell your troubles to Judge Clark. He should be here in about five minutes if he doesn’t get so furious at something on his way dow
n to court that he forgets where he’s going. He’s like that, Judge Clark is. A man of sound and fury.” At this point he paused, and, after adding a few cogent sentences to his report, passed the paper to a policeman, who vanished with it through a side door. “Joe,” resumed Devlin, addressing a state trooper, “present this little party to Judge Clark with my compliments. He’ll be tickled scarlet to see them. And just slip a coat over our friend here. His Honor would have a stroke if he saw him the way he is.”
Mr. Bentley was hustled into an old police overcoat which made him look worse, if possible, than he was before, and then pushed through a door. Tim and Sally made ready to follow.
“Don’t worry about your honor any more, Mrs. Willows,” said the sergeant to Tim with a friendly smile. “But if I were in your place I would worry a little about His Honor. Judge Clark is an exceptionally irascible gentleman. Good luck to you.”
“You’ve been so sweet to me, Sergeant,” replied Tim. “And for your sake I’ll forget all about my honor. I’ve a feeling the judge and myself will get along as thick as thieves.”
“There’s no honor among thieves, Mrs. Willows,” the sergeant reminded Tim.
“What a blessed relief that must be for lady crooks,” replied Tim, pausing at the door. “I’m getting pretty well fed up with mine. It’s a greatly overrated encumbrance, Sergeant, believe me. Always needs protection.”
At that moment Sally dug her husband in the ribs, an act which elicited a deep-throated oath, but which nevertheless made him move on. Sergeant Devlin remained seated at his desk, thoughtfully worrying his hair. “From the way that baby talks,” he said to himself, “and from the way she uses those eyes of hers I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that poor sap didn’t have a little something on his side after all. Just the same he deserves to be hung on general principles. I must get a look at the judge’s face when he first lays eyes on him.”
Sergeant Devlin leaned back in his chair and smiled broadly.
Chapter 15
Judge Clark Almost Loses His Temper
When the little party was reassembled in the courtroom an exchange of unpleasantries immediately broke out between its contending factions.
“You’re a nasty little liar,” Carl Bentley flung hoarsely at Tim. “What are you trying to do, get them to hang me?”
“Yes,” replied Tim promptly. “I’m hoping to get you hung by your dirty neck. Officer, this assaulter is calling me bad names and threatening me with things.”
“If you call her a nasty little liar again, I’ll scratch your eyes out,” cried Sally in a ringing falsetto.
“Calm yourself, Mr. Willows,” urged one of the state troopers. “You’re actually losing control of your voice. And as for you, you big gazebo, if—”
“Quiet!” commanded the other trooper. “Here comes His Honor now.”
“What’s his honor to me?” expostulated Tim. “I’ve got my own honor to take care of. Men haven’t any honor anyway. They can lose it year in and year out and still be honorable men, but just let a woman lose her honor one teeny little bit and her goose is cooked for good. She’s a gone coon, she is.”
“No doubt you’re right,” said the trooper soothingly. “I don’t know. Never went into the matter. Take it up with the judge. He’s a very highly strung gentleman and he likes everything nice and orderly.”
Tim subsided and turned his attention to the judge. He was a thin, little old judge and he gave the impression of having been hurriedly strung together on badly twisted wires. His sharp face was livid and shrunken, and a volcano of wrathful impatience flickered on the verge of eruption behind his small, beady eyes. As he slowly approached his desk he looked like a man who had already been tried too hard for one day. A long tuft of grey hair still clung to his otherwise bald head, the rest having been torn out during fits of judicial frenzy. Whenever the word went out that Judge Clark was enjoying one of his good moods the information was never accepted at its face value. His satellites had come to know through bitter experience that the rumor merely meant that the judge had not entered his chambers in a state of inarticulate rage.
As he now seated himself carefully behind his desk, it was only too apparent that he was not enjoying one of his softer moments. He favored the two troopers and their charges with a spiteful look from his smoldering eyes.
“What are all these people doing here?” he snapped. “They disgust me.”
Briefly one of the troopers endeavored to enlighten the judge. When he had finished his sordid story, His Honor’s eyes were blazing dangerously.
“Make ‘em sit down,” he grated. “I’ll put the lot of ‘em away as soon as I’ve cleared up these other cases.”
Tim and Sally and Carl Bentley sat down, and with a feeling of increasing uneasiness watched Judge Clark’s method of clearing up cases. Whatever his prisoners may have thought of it, Judge Clark’s method had at least the virtue of strict simplicity and rigid impartiality. Everybody received a sentence. The first prisoner up was hardly there before he was gone again, literally whisked from the eyes of man.
“Six months,” rapped out the judge. “No. Better make it seven. Next prisoner.”
Business moved so briskly that finally the spectators got the impression that they were witnessing a procession of the damned rather than the administration of justice. One prisoner, a large, lachrymose Negro with hypocritically humble eyes, on being sentenced to a year less a day, endeavored to suggest to the judge that, even accepting the word in its most casual application, what had happened to him had not even remotely resembled a trial.
“Why yo’ hain’t even tried me, Yo’ Honor,” the Negro protested. “Hain’t never axed me a question.”
The judge looked at the Negro a long, long time—much too long for the Negro’s comfort.
“Do you want me to try you?” asked the little man, in a reedy, gentle voice. “Do you want me to ask you questions?”
“Ah reckon not,” mumbled the Negro. “Ah reckon ah’s just as well satisfied to hurry right along now like you says.”
No smile could have been grimmer than the one that twisted the judge’s lips as his snappy eyes followed the back of the retreating Negro.
Although it required no little temerity to stand beneath the baleful gaze of this terrible little man perched high above her like a bird of evil omen, Sally nevertheless accompanied Tim and Bentley when they were summoned to approach the seat of justice. The judge seemed to have forgotten he had ever seen them before. When the senior state trooper respectfully started to say his little piece the judge promptly shot up a restraining hand that was shaking with indignation as he considered the weird figure of Carl Bentley.
“Don’t say one word,” he commanded. “I have eyes in my head, haven’t I? Am I a fool? A driveling idiot?”
“Yes,” replied Tim, unable to resist the insistence in the judge’s voice.
“What!” shrilled the judge, “You call me a fool and an idiot—a driveling one?”
“No,” said Tim hastily. “I was saying ‘yes’ to something else.”
“What were you saying ‘yes’ to?”
“I was merely saying ‘Yes, you have.’”
“Yes, I have? Speak up, you ninny. Yes, I have what?”
“Yes, you have eyes in your head.”
The judge’s face blanched with passion.
“Of course I have eyes in my head,” he snapped. “Who said I haven’t?”
“Nobody,” answered Tim. “You asked if you had.”
“Asked if I had? What did I ask if I had?”
“If you had eyes in your head.”
Tim was growing steadily more confused.
“But I know I have eyes in my head,” said the judge.
“It seemed for a moment you didn’t,” was Tim’s halting answer. “You see, you asked about them.”
“Asked about who?”
“Whom,” corrected Sally.
“What’s that?” cried the judge.
�
�The word is ‘whom’,” replied Sally. “You asked about who and you shouldn’t have. It’s whom, that’s what it is.”
“Hold your tongue, sir. I’ll ask about who I damn please.”
Sally shrugged indifferently.
“You were asking about your eyes, Your Honor,” Tim meekly put in.
“Damn my eyes!” howled the judge. “I’ll clear up this case right now.”
The little man leaned far over his desk and peered down at Carl Bentley, who shrank beneath the gaze.
“Don’t say a word,” he gritted. “I see it all quite clearly. One of my own policemen caught in a raid on a disorderly house—a bawdy place. What a sentence I’ll give him!” So much had Judge Clark deduced from the undressed appearance and battered condition of Mr. Carl Bentley. “I didn’t even know we had any such places conveniently at hand hereabouts,” went on the judge in an injured voice. “What’s this man doing with his buttons on? Strip ‘em all off. Don’t leave him a single button. These other two ran this brothel, I suppose.”
“But Your Honor,” protested one of the troopers, “if we strip off all his buttons the man will be mother-naked.”
“Then arrest him for indecent exposure,” said the judge blandly. “And why do you say ‘mother-naked’? Why does everybody say ‘mother-naked’? Do fathers never get naked? Do I understand that they sit about the house all day long muffled up to their ears? Expressions like that exasperate me. Don’t answer. The implication is quite improper and it has nothing to do with this lecherous policeman. Hasn’t he any clothes on under his coat? And what is he doing to my floor? Officer, remove that man at once! Hasn’t he any better sense? Imagine!”
“Your Honor, he’s dripping wet,” explained the trooper.
“I can see that for myself,” cried the judge. “The man’s a regular human fountain—a gusher. Make him stop it.”
“He can’t, Your Honor,” said the trooper.