“John Carrington,” said the man in the chair, in a firm clear voice. “Manufacturer of paper-making machinery. Residence, 4068 Parkside Avenue.”
“How long have you known the defendant in this trial?” was Ballmeier’s second query.
“I have known him since he was a baby and was taken back and forth between London and Chicago by a nurse. I knew his father, Daniel Chalmers, since he came to America after separating from his wife in England. I was associated in business with the elder Chalmers during the time Archibald was a little boy.”
“With what frequency have you seen him during his life?” was the next question.
“At intervals of a few months or a few weeks when he was in America, punctuated by six-month gaps when he was in England.”
Ballmeier bobbed his head several times. “Will you tell the jury what happened on the night of January 21, when Rupert van Slyke was murdered?”
The manufacturer turned in his chair. “On that night,” he stated clearly, “I went over to my sister, who lives on Belleplaine Avenue, 2390 if you wish me to be exact. I remained there until about twenty minutes to ten. I then left, and went from there along Western Avenue to reach Irving Park Boulevard in order to get a street-car that would take me back home. But before reaching Irving Park I — ”
“You were now in the middle of the block,” prompted Ballmeier, “where the line of bill-boards runs along the sidewalk?”
John Carrington nodded. “Yes. In the middle of that block I came face to face with Archibald Chalmers. He seemed to be a little confused at meeting me.”
“You spoke to him?”
“I said: ‘Hello, Archie, pretty late for boys to be out, isn’t it?’ I glanced at my watch. Its hands showed that the time lacked seven minutes of being ten o’clock. And I added: ‘I ought to be home myself at this hour.’ “
The prosecutor handed up a little book upon the stand.
“This booklet which I now offer as exhibit number three,” he stated, “I now present to the witness with a request that he tell what it is and what incident it figured in.”
John Carrington took the book from Ballmeier’s hands. He turned over the pages cursorily. “This,” he declared quietly, “is a booklet of printed forms with which I have been taking subscriptions from those of my friends who are plentifully supplied with the world’s goods. These subscriptions are to go to the Russian Red Cross, now taking care of the children homeless in that land on account of the former disastrous Bolshevist regime. Each page I fill in myself for the amount the party is willing to subscribe, and I ask him to sign at the bottom. As to what happened, involving this booklet. Well, I took it from my coat pocket and opening it out said: ‘Archie, I guess I’ve met you just in time. How much can I put you down for to help the Russian orphans?’ “
“And the defendant answered?”
“Object!” said Crosby promptly. “You have not yet proven that it was the defendant.”
A long argument between lawyers followed and it wound up by the judge sustaining Crosby’s objection.
“What did the party whom you addressed, then, as Chalmers, answer?”
“ ‘Make it 25 dollars,’ he said, rather gruffly,” was Carrington’s recountal.
“And then?”
“I filled in the figures and his name under the arc-light, and gave him the book and my fountain pen. I said: ‘Sign on the bottom line, Archie.’ “
“He signed that line in front of you?” said Ballmeier.
John Carrington nodded. “Yes.”
“What time would this have been?”
“We consumed about three minutes in these preliminaries. It must have been, therefore, approximately four minutes to ten.”
“What did the man whom you addressed as Chalmers then say?”
“He said: ‘Well, good-bye, I must be getting along. I’ll drop in to see you one of these days.’ “
“Was that the last you saw of him?”
“Yes,” said Carrington. “On account of my canes I’m not able to look back.”
Ballmeier patted his close-cropped hair. “That,” he announced, with a sardonic grin towards Crosby, “is all the prosecution has to ask the witness. He is turned over to the tender mercies of the defence.” He bowed to his opponent.
Crosby, rising from his chair, knew that at last the hour had struck when he was facing the State’s star witness. Assuredly, about this man Carrington there was no suggestion of the perjurer; every line of the stern, righteous face tended to contra-indicate that belief. Crosby’s opening questions were along a tack quite other than what could be termed by Ballmeier “badgering and hectoring the witness.”
“Mr. Carrington, did the man you met along that row of bill-boards address you at any time as ‘Mr. Carrington’?”
Carrington paused a long while. “No, sir, he did not. He talked with me but he did not mention my name.”
Crosby smiled a faint smile. A point and a big point, he knew, had been scored by the defence in that reply, but Ballmeier showed no evidence of being disconcerted.
“How do you know that you were not talking to a double, Mr. Carrington? You’ll recall that you said ‘Hello, Archie,’ but that he at no time used your name?”
“No,” said Carrington stubbornly. “It was no double. The meeting took place under that arc-light and I have known Archie Chalmers for too many years to make any such a mistake. It was Dan Chalmers’ son whom I met with and talked with that night.”
Crosby thrust his hands deep in his pockets. He knew now that he was facing the keystone of Ballmeier’s arch, and now, if ever, the keystone must go down.
The examination that he hurled at Carrington, question after question, lightning-like in rapidity, was one of the swiftest that he had ever made in his life. In many instances Carrington was unable to finish his reply before a new question was propounded to him. Through it all every ear in the audience was turned so as not to lose a single word. Yet through it all the replies never failed to tally, through it all the man Carrington sat like a stone statue, unshaken in his belief, unperturbed at the volley of questions, a human rock of Gibraltar, secure in his own confidence.
It was then that Crosby decided to change his tactics entirely, and to propound three last questions before excusing the witness.
“Mr. Carrington, were you the man Archibald Chalmers’ father had some trouble with back in 1892 when they were in business together?”
“Yes,” said Carrington, in spite of Ballmeier’s vociferous but over-ruled objections. “Dan Chalmers did me out of a cool 100,000 dollars due to the way a contract was worded, and I filed a counter-suit against him. We never spoke from that time until he died.”
“So, in spite of the fact,” persisted Crosby with brutal directness, “that whatever he did was done legally and contractually, and in spite of the fact that his interpretation of the contract had just as much standing as yours, you personally had it in for old man Chalmers?”
“Had no use whatever for him after that,” said Carrington with startlingly naïve frankness, but with a stubborn, unyielding note in his voice. “But for Archie I had always the friendliest of feelings. I don’t carry my personal animosities from father to son.”
Crosby smiled ruefully. He knew that this old difference of interpretation that had flared into a bitter business battle was the first faint point in this human pillar of damning facts that he had yet scored. But it was faint indeed.
“Mr. Carrington, how do you know it was January 21 that all this happened?”
“Because I read in the papers next morning that Archibald Chalmers had been arrested.”
“What was your motive in trotting to the State’s attorney with your booklet?” Crosby shouted fiercely at the witness.
“Because certain statements were made in the morning papers about Archibald claiming to have been in his rooms that night. I knew this to be a lie, and while another man might have seen fit to sit back and let the boy wriggle out of his own
affair, I wouldn’t. Perjury and lies, even though they emanate from my own brother, I cannot and will not stand by and permit. That is why I went to the State’s attorney, told my story, and gave over the book with the signature in it.”
Crosby was frankly puzzled whether to excuse the witness and stand on his own case, or to make another furious effort to break down Carrington’s story. It was an hour before the midday adjournment of court. He decided to try once more. So back he returned to the fray. To and fro he argued, cajoled, threatened, and enticed, and each and every time John Carrington’s story remained unchanged, unbroken, unaltered in its very simplicity. And when at last Crosby excused the witness and court was adjourned for lunch, he knew that the jury felt that it had met with one witness who even though biased perhaps on an old business difference, told the truth — and who knew the truth. And he knew also from the smile on Ballmeier’s face, as the latter gathered up his papers, that that afternoon was to see the end of the prosecution by the production of handwriting experts.
His conjectures were right. With the assembling of court at two-thirty, the first witness to ascend the stand was one Howard Norwalk, a keen-looking man of about thirty-five with blue eyes which stared curiously out over the court-room. His complete reply to Ballmeier’s opening question established his professional status to the jurymen. He was the A-to-J paying teller of the State Bank of Chicago.
“Will you tell the jury,” asked Ballmeier, “what was the occasion of your viewing this booklet which Mr. Carrington states was signed in his presence at a few minutes before ten the night of the murder, and your findings in this case?”
“You brought it to me,” said Norwalk promptly, “with a request that I compare the signature with the one used by Archibald Chalmers in his checking account at the State Bank of Chicago.”
“Did you do so?”
“I did.”
“What were your findings?”
“The signature is identical with that on the bank’s books.”
“If you were presented with a cheque bearing the signature as found on the subscription book, and you knew that the cheque was handed in by a man who was known to be a crook, would you pay out money on the signature?”
“I would,” returned Norwalk.
“Excused,” said Ballmeier. And it was hardly likely that the surprised look on his face escaped the jury when Crosby excused the bank cashier without a single question.
“Why — oh why,” he murmured to himself, “must the prosecution hire the very same handwriting expert that the defence hired? Talk about the unexpected! And I might have asked Norwalk whether he ever paid out money on a forgery in his life, and nine chances out of ten have gotten him on that one question. But my own witness — was ever a lawyer so neatly tied hand and foot?”
Ballmeier was following up to get to the last degree his chain of evidence which touched upon the signature. He did so by calling to the stand a second man, this one little and old, clad in a rusty black cloth suit with old-fashioned cloth buttons, white shirt, old-fashioned batwing collar and black string tie.
“What is your name?”
“Alonzo G. Queed,” said the man quietly.
“What is your occupation?”
“I am a specialist in handwriting and occupy a chair in that study in the College of Law, North-Western University.”
“How long have you been an expert witness in Chicago on handwriting?”
“For some twenty years.”
“Will you examine this booklet purporting to be a subscription booklet for Russian orphans and state to the jury where you saw it before and what your findings were in respect to it?”
“You brought it to me,” said Alonzo G. Queed. “You asked me to give an expert opinion with respect to it, to a threatening letter allegedly written by Archibald Chalmers and to Archibald Chalmers’ signature in the Fort Dearborn Bank. The bank allowed me to compare their signature with the one on the threatening letter and the one on the subscription book. I spent one full afternoon upon the work.”
“And your findings?” asked Ballmeier.
“The signature to the threatening letter is indisputably a signature made in an angry mood, and these are known to be very tricky. I am not disposed to give definite opinion with regard to it. But signatures dashed off in haste are highly reliable. The signature signed on Mr. Carrington’s subscription booklet on the night of the murder on Western Avenue, and the signature on which the Fort Dearborn Bank has been paying cheques drawn to Mr. Chalmers’ account, are identical.”
“Then, in your estimation, Archibald Chalmers signed that subscription booklet at a few minutes before ten the night of the murder, in spite of any statements his counsel may make to the effect that Chalmers was at home at the time of the shooting?”
“Object,” said Crosby promptly. “Witness is testifying only to signatures.”
The objection was sustained. Whereupon old man Queed, surveying the jury through his owlish spectacles, uttered a peculiar statement.
“On account of having been employed by both sides in this case, I confess that I am highly puzzled. But if the defence excuses me for the present as the prosecutor’s witness, I will give further opinions regarding the signatures when I am called back to the stand as witness for the defence.”
“Excused so far as this side is concerned,” was Crosby’s curt answer.
Ballmeier gathered together his papers and faced the judge.
“The prosecution closes its case,” he announced simply. Then he turned and surveyed his opponent curiously, disdainfully.
Judge Lockhart cast his eyes in the direction of the big clock in the court-room, whose hands pointed to a quarter to four. Then, in his black gown, he stood up.
“On account of the annual meeting to-morrow of the Association of Sitting Judges of Cook County, there will be no court on the Saturday half-holiday. Court will reconvene Monday morning, to hear the defence in the trial of the State vs. Chalmers.” And he swept into his chambers, while the clerk droned off the usual magic formula that dismissed court.
Crosby, his portfolio in his hand, made his way slowly back to his office in the Otis Building.
There he sat for a full hour, thinking, his feet propped up on his desk, his portfolio lying unopened before him. Suddenly his telephone bell rang. He swung forward in his swivel chair, and raised the receiver.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Crosby’s offices?”
“The same. Crosby speaking.”
“This is Assistant Warden Rock of the county jail talking. Mr. Chalmers asks that you come to the jail at once, bringing with you a handbag packed for travelling. He says it is very important that he see you immediately. Will I be able to tell him you’ll come?”
Crosby glanced out of the corner of his eye at the tiny leather grip which he always kept in his office, packed, in case of emergency, with a few travelling essentials.
“I’ll come at once,” he said.
CHAPTER IX
A VISIT TO MARCHBANK AND MARCHBANK
IT was five-thirty when Crosby, his little valise in his hand, reached the county jail across the river from the big roaring loop. Darkness had fallen on the city, and every barred window of the big six-storey structure twinkled in the gloom like a yellow star.
Inside he nodded pleasantly to the turnkey, was whisked to the fourth floor and there, again followed by a uniformed jail guard who knew him well, he proceeded along the corridor until he came to Cell 468. Chalmers, his coat removed, was pacing up and down the cell in his silk shirt.
“I’m glad you came, Crosby,” was Chalmers’ greeting. “Something’s come up in the last hour, and I was forced to phone you finally. But first I want to ask you about our case. How do you consider it’s going?”
“I can’t say as definitely as I’d like to,” was Crosby’s cautious assurance. “I think we’re holding our own, and then some. I think we undermined a number of Ballmeier’s witnesses and much depends now upon how
much or how little he can do to our side. This man Carrington and that handwriting testimony combined are a most stubborn nut for me to crack.”
Chalmers took from his hip pocket a yellow telegram which he opened out. “Crosby, some blooming bonehead substitute in that telegraph office near my Drexel Boulevard flat got a telegram addressed to me three days ago, and not locating anyone there filed it away until the regular man came back. Of course the other man had his instructions, just as the post office has, to shoot all communications to me over at my county hotel here, the Jail! At any rate, it was brought down here to-night by a boy, and it’s just exactly three days late. First thing I did was to have the assistant warden call Melford, and lo and behold, on account of the courts being closed to-morrow, Melford has gone out of town for the week-end.” He tossed over the telegram to Crosby. “Well, read it yourself.”
Crosby held up the telegram so that the light coming from the overhanging bulb fell upon it. It was from Omaha, and its contents read:
Archibald Chalmers, 4240 Drexel Blvd., Chgo. — Your uncle Peter Chalmers died at eight o’clock last night at Dr. Gulden’s sanatorium at Plattsmouth, Nebraska. His will and its codicil regarding yourself is to be read in presence of the legatees Saturday morning at nine o’clock, our offices, City National Bank Building. Shall you send representative?
MARCHBANK AND MARCHBANK.
Crosby looked up from the telegram. “So your uncle’s dead, Chalmers? You weren’t far from right after all, were you?”
Chalmers shook his head gloomily. “No — I knew the old gentleman wasn’t long for this earth when I stated conditions to you last January. I have been given to understand that I have been named in the will as the main heir. Now that being so, what’s the idea of this codicil? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Crosby shook his head. “I haven’t the least idea. You know your uncle better than I do.”
“Well, here’s the situation. What had you on for to-morrow, Crosby?”
“Nothing. The courts are closed. As for your case, I’ve done all that can be done.”
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