CHAPTER XXXIV
JEAN CRAIGMILE’S RETURN
When at last Jean Craigmile returned, a glance at her face was quite enough to convince Ellen that things had not gone well. She held her peace, however, until her sister had had time to remove her bonnet and her shawl and dress herself for the house, before she broke in upon Jean’s grim silence. Then she said:–
“Weel, Jean. I’m thinkin’ ye’d better oot wi’ it.”
“Is Tillie no goin’ to bring in the tea? It’s past the hour. I see she grows slack, wantin’ me to look after her.”
“Ring for it then, Jean. I’m no for leavin’ my chair to ring for it.” So Jean pulled the cord and the tea was brought in due time, with hot scones and the unwonted addition of a bowl of roses to grace the tray.
“The posies are a greetin’ to ye, Jean; I ordered them mysel’. Weel? An’ so ye ha’na’ found him?”
“Oh, sister, my hairt’s heavy an’ sair. I canna’ thole to tell ye.”
“But ye maun do’t, an’ the sooner ye tell’t the sooner ye’ll ha’e it over.”
“He was na’ there. Oh, Ellen, Ellen! He’d gone to America! I’m afraid the Elder is right an’ Hester has gone home to get her death blow. Why were we so precipitate in lettin’ her go?”
“Jean, tell me all aboot it, an’ I’ll pit my mind to it and help ye think it oot. Don’t ye leave oot a thing fra’ the time ye left me till the noo.”
Slowly Jean poured her sister’s tea and handed it to her. “Tak’ yer scones while they’re hot, Ellen. I went to the place whaur he’d been leevin’. I had the direction all right, but whan I called, I found anither man in possession. The man was an Englishman, so I got on vera weel for the speakin’. It’s little I could do with they Frenchmen. He was a dirty like man, an’ he was daubin’ away at a picture whan I opened the door an’ walked in. I said to him, ‘Whaur’s Richard’–no, no, no. I said to him, calling Richard by the name he’s been goin’ by, I said, ‘Whaur’s Robert Kater?’ He jumped up an’ began figitin’ aboot the room, settin’ me a chair an’ the like, an’ I asked again, ‘Is this the pentin’ room o’ Robert Kater?’ an’ he said, ‘It was his room, yes.’ Then he asked me was I any kin to him, an’ I told him, did he think I would come walkin’ into his place the like o’ that if I was no kin to him? An’ then he began tellin’ me a string o’ talk an’ I could na’ mak’ head nor tail o’t, so I asked again, ‘If ye’re a friend o’ his, wull ye tell me whaur he’s gone?’ an’ then he said it straight oot, ‘To Ameriky,’ an’ it fair broke my hairt.”
For a minute Jean sat and sipped her tea, and wiped the tears from her eyes; then she took up the thread of her story again.
“Then he seemed all at once to bethink himsel’ o’ something, an’ he ran to his coat that was hangin’ behind the door on a nail, an’ he drew oot a letter fra the pocket, an’ here it is.
“‘Are ye Robert’s Aunt Jean?’ he asked, and I tell’t him, an’, ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘an’ I did na’ think ye old enough to be his Aunt Jean.’ Then he began to excuse himsel’ for forgettin’ to mail that letter. ‘I promised him I would,’ he said, ‘but ye see, I have na’ been wearin’ my best coat since he left, an’ that’s why. We gave him a banket,’ he says, ‘an’ I wore my best coat to the banket, an’ he gave me this an’ told me to mail it after he was well away,’ an’ he says, ‘I knew I ought not to put it in this coat pocket, for I’d forget it,’–an’ so he ran on; but it was no so good a coat, for the lining was a’ torn an’ it was gray wi’ dust, for I took it an’ brushed it an’ mended it mysel’ before I left Paris.”
Again Jean paused, and taking out her neatly folded handkerchief wiped away the falling tears, and sipped a moment at her tea in silence.
“Tak’ ye a bit o’ the scones, Jean. Ye’ll no help matters by goin’ wi’oot eatin’. If the lad’s done a shamefu’ like thing, ye’ll no help him by greetin’. He maun fall. Ye’ve done yer best I doot, although mistakenly to try to keep it fra me.”
“He was sae bonny, Ellen, and that like his mither ’twould melt the hairt oot o’ ye to look on him.”
“Ha’e ye no mair to tell me? Surely it never took ye these ten days to find oot what ye ha’e tell’t.”
“The man was a kind sort o’ a body, an’ he took me oot to eat wi’ him at a cafy, an’ he paid it himsel’, but I’m thinkin’ his purse was sair empty whan he got through wi’ it. I could na’ help it. Men are vera masterfu’ bodies. I made it up to him though, for I bided a day or twa at the hotel, an’ went to the room,–the pentin’ room whaur I found him–there was whaur he stayed, for he was keepin’ things as they were, he said, for the one who was to come into they things–Robert Kater had left there–ye’ll find oot aboot them whan ye read the letter–an’ I made it as clean as ye’r han’ before I left him. He made a dour face whan he came in an’ found me at it, but I’m thinkin’ he came to like it after a’, for I heard him whustlin’ to himsel’ as I went down the stair after tellin’ him good-by.
“Gin ye had seen the dirt I took oot o’ that room, Ellen, ye would a’ held up ye’r two han’s in horror. There were crusts an’ bones behind the pictures standin’ against the wa’ that the rats an’ mice had been gnawin’ there, an’ there were bottles on a shelf, old an’ empty an’ covered wi’ cobwebs an’ dust, an’ the floor was so thick wi’ dirt it had to be scrapit, an’ what wi’ old papers an’ rags I had a great basket full taken awa–let be a bundle o’ shirts that needed mendin’. I took the shirts to the hotel, an’ there I mended them until they were guid enough to wear, an’ sent them back. So there was as guid as the price o’ the denner he gave me, an’ naethin said. Noo read the letter an’ ye’ll see why I’m greetin’. Richard’s gone to Ameriky to perjure his soul. He says it was to gie himsel’ up to the law, but from the letter to Hester it’s likely his courage failed him. There’s naethin’ to mak’ o’t but that–an’ he sae bonny an’ sweet, like his mither.”
Jean Craigmile threw her apron over her head and rocked herself back and forth, while Ellen set down her cup and reluctantly opened the letter–many pages, in a long business envelope. She sighed as she took them out.
“It’s a waefu’ thing how much trouble an’ sorrow a man body brings intil the world wi’ him. Noo there’s Richard, trailin’ sorrow after him whaurever he goes.”
“But ye mind it came from Katherine first, marryin’ wi’ Larry Kildene an’ rinnin’ awa’ wi’ him,” replied Jean.
“It was Larry huntit her oot whaur she had been brought for safety.”
They both sat in silence while Ellen read the letter to the very end. At last, with a long, indrawn sigh, she spoke.
“It’s no like a lad that could write sic a letter, to perjure his soul. No won’er ye greet, Jean. He’s gi’en ye everything he possesses, wi’ one o’ the twa pictures in the Salon! Think o’t! An’ a’ he got fra’ the ones he sold, except enough to take him to America. Ye canna’ tak’ it.”
“No. I ha’e gi’en them to the Englishman wha’ has his room. I could na’ tak them.” Jean continued to sway back and forth with her apron over her head.
“Ye ha’e gi’en them awa’! All they pictures pented by yer ain niece’s son! An’ twa’ acceptit by the Salon! Child, child! I’d no think it o’ ye.” Ellen leaned forward in her chair reprovingly, with the letter crushed in her lap.
“I told him to keep them safe, as he was doin’, an’ if he got no word fra’ me after sax months,–he was to bide in the room wi’ them–they were his.”
“Weel, ye’re wiser than I thought ye.”
For a long time they sat in silence, until at last Ellen took up the letter to read it again, and began with the date at the head.
“Jean,” she cried, holding it out to her sister and pointing to the date with shaking finger. “Wull ye look at that noo! Are we both daft? It’s no possible for him to ha’ gotten there before that letter was written to Hester. Look ye, Jean! Look ye! Here ’tis the third day o’ June it was written by his own hand.”
“Count it oot, Ellen, count it oot! Here’s the calendar almanac. Noo we’ll ha’e it. It’s twa weeks since Hester an’ I left an’ she got the letter the day before that, an’ that’s fifteen days–”
“An’ it takes twa weeks mair for a boat to cross the ocean, an’ that gives fourteen days mair before that letter to Hester was written, an’ three days fra’ Liverpool here, pits it back to seventeen days,–an’ fifteen days–mak’s thirty-two days,–an’ here’ it’s nearin’ the last o’ June–”
“Jean! Whan Hester’s frien’ was writin’ that letter to Hester, Richard was just sailin’ fra France! Thank the Lord!”
“Thank the Lord!” ejaculated her sister, fervently. “Ellen, it’s you for havin’ the head to think it oot, thank the Lord!” And now the dear soul wept again for very gladness.
Ellen folded her hands in her lap complaisantly and nodded her head. “Ye’ve a good head, yersel’, Jean, but ye aye let yersel’ get excitet. Noo, it’s only for us to bide in peace an’ quiet an’ know that the earth is the Lord’s an’ the fullness thereof until we hear fra’ Hester.”
“An’ may the Lord pit it in her hairt to write soon!”
While the good Craigmiles of Aberdeen were composing themselves to the hopeful view that Ellen’s discovery of the date had given them, Larry Kildene and Amalia were seated in a car, luxurious for that day, speeding eastward over the desert across which Amalia and her father and mother had fled in fear and privation so short a time before. She gazed through the plate-glass windows and watched the quivering heat waves rising from the burning sands. Well she knew those terrible plains! She saw the bleaching bones of animals that had fallen by the way, even as their own had fallen, and her eyes filled. She remembered how Harry King had come to them one day, riding on his yellow horse–riding out of the setting sun toward them, and how his companionship had comforted them and his courage and help had saved them more than once,–and how, had it not been for him, their bones, too, might be lying there now, whitening in the heat. Oh, Harry, Harry King! She who had once crossed those very plains behind a jaded team now felt that the rushing train was crawling like a snail.
Larry Kildene, seated facing her and watching her, leaned forward and touched her hand. “We’re going at an awful pace,” he said. “To think of ever crossing these plains with the speed of the wind!”
She smiled a wan smile. “Yes, that is so. But it still is very slowly we go when I measure with my thoughts the swiftness. In my thoughts we should fly–fly!”
“It will be only three days to Chicago from here, and then one night at a hotel to rest and clean up, and the next day we are there–in Leauvite–think of it! We’re an hour late by the schedule, so better think of something else. We’ll reach an eating station soon. Get ready, for there will be a rush, and we’ll not have a chance for a good meal again for no one knows how long. Maybe you’re not hungry, but I could eat a mule. I like this, do you know, traveling in comfort! To think of me–going home to save Peter’s bank!” He chuckled to himself a moment; then resumed: “And that’s equivalent to saving the man’s life. Well, it’s a poor way for a man to go through life, able to see no way but his own way. It narrows his vision and shortens his reach–for, see, let him find his way closed to him, and whoop! he’s at an end.”
Again Larry sat and watched her, as he silently chuckled over his present situation. Again he reached out and patted her hand, and again she smiled at him, but he knew where her thoughts were. Harry King had been gone but a short time when Madam Manovska, in spite of Amalia’s watchfulness, wandered away for the last time. On this occasion she did not go toward the fall, but went along the trail toward the plains below. It was nearly evening when she eluded Amalia and left the cabin. Frantically they searched for her all night, riding through the darkness, carrying torches and calling in all directions, as far as they supposed her feet could have carried her, but did not find her until early morning, lying peacefully under a little scrub pine, far down the trail. By her side lay her husband’s worn coat, with the lining torn away, and a small heap of ashes and charred papers. She had been destroying the documents he had guarded so long. She would not leave them to witness against him. Tenderly they took her up and carried her back to the cabin and laid her in her bunk, but she only babbled of “Paul,” telling happily that she had seen him, and that he was coming up the trail after her, and that now they would live on the mountain in peace and go no more to Poland–and quickly after that she dropped to sleep again and never woke. She was with “Paul” at last. Then Amalia dressed her in the black silk Larry had brought her, and they carried her down the trail and laid her in a grave beside that of her husband, and there Larry read the prayers of the English church over the two lonely graves, while Amalia knelt at his side. When they went down the trail to take the train, after receiving Betty’s letter, they marked the place with a cross which Larry had made.
Truth to tell, as they sat in the car, facing each other, Larry himself was sad, although he tried to keep Amalia’s thoughts cheerful. At last she woke to the thought that it was only for her he maintained that forced light-heartedness, and the realization came to her that he also had cause for sorrow on leaving the spot where he had so long lived in peace, to go to a friend in trouble. The thought helped her, and she began to converse with Larry instead of sitting silently, wrapped in her own griefs. Because her heart was with Harry King,–filled with anxiety for him,–she talked mostly of him, and that pleased Larry well; for he, too, had need to speak of Harry.
“Now there is a character for you, as fine and sweet as a woman and strong, too! I’ve seen enough of men to know the best of them when I find them. I saw it in him the moment I got him up to my cabin and laid him in my bunk. He–he–minded me of one that’s gone.” His voice dropped to the undertone of reminiscence. “Of one that’s long gone–long gone.”
“Could you tell me about it, a little–just a very little?” Amalia leaned toward him pleadingly. It was the first time she had ever asked of Larry Kildene or Harry King a question that might seem like seeking to know a thing purposely kept from her. But her intuitive nature told her the time had now come when Larry longed to speak of himself, and the loneliness of his soul pleaded for him.
“It’s little indeed I can tell you, for it’s little he ever told me,–but it came to me–more than once–more than once–that he might be my own son.”
Amalia recoiled with a shock of surprise. She drew in her breath and looked in his eyes eloquently. “Oh! Oh! And you never asked him? No?”
“Not in so many words, no. But I–I–came near enough to give him the chance to tell the truth, if he would, but he had reasons of his own, and he would not.”
“Then–where we go now–to him–you have been to that place before? Not?”
“I have.”
“And he–he knows it? Not?”
“He knows it well. I told him it was there I left my son–my little son–but he would say nothing. I was not even sure he knew the place until these letters came to me. He has as yet written me no word, only the message he sent me in his letter to you–that he will some time write me.” Then Larry took Betty’s letter from his pocket and turned it over and over, sadly. “This letter tells me more than all else, but it sets me strangely adrift in my thoughts. It’s not at all like what I had thought it might be.”
Amalia leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, tell me more–a little, what you thought might be.”
“This letter has added more to the heartache than all else that could be. Either Harry King is my son–Richard Kildene–or he is the son of the man who hated me and brought me sorrow. There you see the reason he would tell me nothing. He could not.”
“But how is it that you do not know your own son? It is so strange.”
Larry’s eyes filled as he looked off over the arid plains. “It’s a long story–that. I told it to him once to try to stir his heart toward me, but it was of no use, and I’ll not tell it now–but this. I’d never looked on my boy since I held him in my arms–a heartbroken man–until he came to me there–that is, if he were he. But if Harry King is my son, then he is all the more a liar and a coward–if the claim against him is true. I can’t have it so.”
“It is not so. He is no liar and no coward.” Amalia spoke with finality.
“I tell you if he is not my son, then he is the son of the man who hated me–but even that man will not own him as his son. The little girl who wrote this letter to me–she pleads with me to come on and set them all right: but even she who loved him–who has loved him, can urge no proof beyond her own consciousness, as to his identity; it is beyond my understanding.”
“The little girl–she–she has loved your son–she has loved Harry–Harry King? Whom has she loved?” Amalia only breathed the question.
“She has not said. I only read between the lines.”
“How is it so–you read between lines? What is it you read?”
Larry saw he was making a mistake and resumed hurriedly: “I’ll tell you what little I know later, and we will go there and find out the rest, but it may be more to my sorrow than my joy. Perhaps that’s why I’m taking you there–to be a help to me–I don’t know. I have a friend there who will take us both in, and who will understand as no one else.”
“I go to neither my joy nor my sorrow. They are of the world. I will be no more of the world–but I will live only in love–to the Christ. So may I find in my heart peace–as the sweet sisters who guarded me in my childhood away from danger when that my father and mother were in fear and sorrow living–they told me there only may one find peace from sorrow. I will go to them–perhaps–perhaps–they will take me–again–I do not know. But I will go first with you, Sir Kildene, wherever you wish me to go. For you are my friend–now, as no one else. But for you, I am on earth forever alone.”
CHAPTER XXXV
THE TRIAL
After Mr. Ballard’s visit to the jail, he took upon himself to do what he could for the young man, out of sympathy and friendship toward both parties, and in the cause of simple justice. He consulted the only available counsel left him in Leauvite, a young lawyer named Nathan Goodbody, whom he knew but slightly.
He told him as much of the case as he thought proper, and then gave him a note to the prisoner, addressing him as Harry King. Armed with this letter the young lawyer was soon in close consultation with his new client. Despite Nathan Goodbody’s youth Harry was favorably impressed. The young man was so interested, so alert, so confident that all would be well. He seemed to believe so completely the story Harry told him, and took careful notes of it, saying he would prepare a brief of the facts and the law, and that Harry might safely leave everything to him.
“You were wounded in the hip, you say,” Nathan Goodbody questioned him. “We must not neglect the smallest item that may help you, for your case needs strengthening. You say you were lamed by it–but you seem to have recovered from that. Is there no scar?”
“That will not help me. My cousin was wounded also, but his was only a flesh wound from which he quickly recovered and of which he thought nothing. I doubt if any one here in Leauvite ever heard of it, but it’s the irony of fate that he was more badly scarred by it than I. He was struck by a spent bullet that tore the flesh only, while the one that hit me went cleanly to the bone, and splintered it. Mine laid me up for a year before I could even walk with crutches, while he was back at his post in a week.”
“And both wounds were in the same place–on the same side, for instance?”
“On the same side, yes; but his was lower down. Mine entered the hip here, while he was struck about here.” Harry indicated the places with a touch of his finger. “I think it would be best to say nothing about the scars, unless forced to do so, for I walk as well now as I ever did, and that will be against me.”
“That’s a pity, now, isn’t it? Suppose you try to get back a little of the old limp.”
Harry laughed. “No, I’ll walk straight. Besides they’ve seen me on the street, and even in my father’s bank.”
“Too bad, too bad. Why did you do it?”
“How could I guess there would be such an impossible development? Until I saw Miss Ballard here in this cell I thought my cousin dead. Why, my reason for coming here was to confess my crime, but they won’t give me the chance. They arrest me first of all for killing myself. Now that I know my cousin lives I don’t seem to care what happens to me, except for–others.”
“But man! You must put up a fight. Suppose your cousin is no longer living; you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in the penitentiary because he can’t be found.”
“I see. If he is living, this whole trial is a farce, and if he is not, it’s a tragedy.”
“We’ll never let it become a tragedy, I’ll promise you that.” The young man spoke with smiling confidence, but when he reached his office again and had closed the door behind him, his manner changed quickly to seriousness and doubt.
“I don’t know,” he said to himself, “I don’t know if this story can be made to satisfy a jury or not. A little shady. Too much coincidence to suit me.” He sat drumming with his fingers on his desk for a while, and then rose and turned to his books. “I’ll have a little law on this case,–some point upon which we can go to the Supreme Court,” and for the rest of that day and long into the night Nathan Goodbody consulted with his library.
In anticipation of the unusual public interest the District Attorney directed the summoning of twenty-five jurors in addition to the twenty-five of the regular panel. On the day set for the trial the court room was packed to the doors. Inside the bar were the lawyers and the officers of the court. Elder Craigmile sat by Milton Hibbard. In the front seats just outside the bar were the fifty jurors and back of them were the ladies who had come early, or who had been given the seats of their gentlemen friends who had come early, and whose gallantry had momentarily gotten the better of their judgment.
The stillness of the court room, like that of a church, was suddenly broken by the entrance of the judge, a tall, spare man, with gray hair and a serious outlook upon life. As he walked toward his seat, the lawyers and officers of the court rose and stood until he was seated. The clerk of the court read from a large book the journal of the court of the previous day and then handed the book to the judge to be signed. When this ceremony was completed, the judge took up the court calender and said,–
“The State v. Richard Kildene,” and turning to the lawyers engaged in the case added, “Gentlemen, are you ready?”
“We are ready,” answered the District Attorney.
“Bring in the prisoner.”
When Harry entered the court room in charge of the sheriff, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, and saw no one before him but his own counsel, who arose and extended a friendly hand, and led him to a seat beside himself within the bar.
Nathan Goodbody then rose, and, addressing the court with an air of confident modesty, as if he were bringing forward a point so strong as to require nothing more than the simple statement to give it weight, said:–
“If the court please, the defense is ready, but I have noticed, as no doubt the court has noticed, a distinguished member of this bar sitting with the District Attorney as though it were intended that he should take part in the trial of this case, and I am advised that he intends to do so. I am also advised that he is in the employ of the complaining witness who sits beside him, and that he has received, or expects to receive, compensation from him for his services. I desire at the outset of this case to raise a question as to whether counsel employed and paid by a private person has a right to assist in the prosecution of a criminal cause. I therefore object to the appearance of Mr. Hibbard as counsel in this case, and to his taking any part in this trial. If the facts I have stated are questioned, I will ask Elder Craigmile to be sworn.”
The court replied: “I shall assume the facts to be as stated by you unless the counsel on the other side dissent from such a statement. Considering the facts to be as stated, your objection raises a novel question. Have you any authorities?”
“I do not know that the Supreme Court of this State has passed upon this question. I do not think it has, but my objection finds support in the well-established rule in this country, that a public prosecutor acts in a quasi-judicial capacity. His object, like that of the court, should be simple justice. The District Attorney represents the public interest which can never be promoted by the conviction of the innocent. As the District Attorney himself could not accept a fee or reward from private parties, so, I urge, counsel employed to assist him must be equally disinterested.”
“The court considers the question an interesting one, but the practice in the past has been against your contention. I will overrule your objection, and give you an exception. Mr. Clerk, call a jury!”1
Then came the wearisome technicalities of the empaneling of a jury, with challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, until nearly the entire panel of fifty jurors was exhausted.
In this way two days were spent, with a result that when counsel on both sides expressed themselves as satisfied with the jury, every one in the court room doubted it. As the sheriff confided to the clerk, it was an even bet that the first twelve men drawn were safer for both sides than the twelve men who finally stood with uplifted hands and were again sworn by the clerk. Harry King, who had never witnessed a trial in his life, began to grow interested in these details quite aside from his own part therein. He watched the clerk shaking the box, wondering why he did so, until he saw the slips of paper being drawn forth one by one from the small aperture on the top, and listened while the name written on each was called aloud. Some of the names were familiar to him, and it seemed as if he must turn about and speak to the men who responded to their roll call, saying “here” as each rose in his place behind him. But he resisted the impulse, never turning his head, and only glancing curiously at each man as he took his seat in the jury box at the order of the judge.
During all these proceedings the Elder sat looking straight before him, glancing at the prisoner only when obliged to do so, and coldly as an outsider might do. The trial was taking more time than he had thought possible, and he saw no reason for such lengthy technicalities and the delay in calling the witnesses. His air was worn and weary.
The prisoner, sitting beside his counsel, had taken less and less interest in the proceedings, and the crowds, who had at first filled the court room, had also lost interest and had drifted off about their own affairs until the real business of the taking of testimony should come on, till, at the close of the second day, the court room was almost empty of visitors. The prisoner was glad to see them go. So many familiar faces, faces from whom he might reasonably expect a smile, or a handshake, were it possible, or at the very least a nod of recognition, all with their eyes fixed on him, in a blank gaze of aloofness or speculation. He felt as if his soul must have been in some way separated from his body, and then returned to it to find all the world gazing at the place where his soul should be without seeing that it had returned and was craving their intelligent support. The whole situation seemed to him cruelly impossible,–a sort of insane delusion. Only one face never failed him, that of Bertrand Ballard, who sat where he might now and then meet his eye, and who never left the court room while the case was on.
When the time arrived for the introduction of the witnesses, the court room again filled up; but he no longer looked for faces he knew. He held himself sternly aloof, as if he feared his reason might leave him if he continued to strive against those baffling eyes, who knew him and did not know that they knew him, but who looked at him as if trying to penetrate a mask when he wore no mask. Occasionally his counsel turned to him for brief consultation, in which his part consisted generally of a nod or a shake of the head as the case might be.
While the District Attorney was addressing the jury, Milton Hibbard moved forward and took the District Attorney’s seat.
Then followed the testimony of the boys–now shy lads in their teens, who had found the evidences of a struggle and possible murder so long before on the river bluff. Under the adroit lead of counsel, they told each the same story, and were excused cross-examination. Both boys had identified the hat found on the bluff, and testified that the brown stain, which now appeared somewhat faintly, had been a bright red, and had looked like blood.
Then Bertrand Ballard was called, and the questions put to him were more searching. Though the manner of the examiner was respectful and courteous, he still contrived to leave the impression on those in the court room that he hoped to draw out some fact that would lead to the discovery of matters more vital to the case than the mere details to which the witness testified. But Bertrand Ballard’s prompt and straightforward answers, and his simple and courteous manner, were a full match for the able lawyer, and after two hours of effort he subsided.
Then the testimony of the other witnesses was taken, even to that of the little housemaid who had been in the family at the time, and who had seen Peter Junior wear the hat. Did she know it for his? Yes. Why did she know it? Because of the little break in the straw, on the edge of the brim. But any man’s hat might have such a break. What was there about this particular break to make it the hat of Peter Junior? Because she had made it herself. She had knocked it down one day when she was brushing up in the front hall, and when she hung it up again, she had seen the break, and knew she had done it.