The Other Side of the Door Part 10

I did not answer; I knew it would be of no use, Mr. Dingley's explanations were so reasonable. But since I had talked with father that morning a piece of news had come to me which had only succeeded in strengthening my belief in the meaning of the Spanish Woman's actions.

This was brought me by Hallie, my envoy extraordinary, who had wormed it out of her mother who had got it from Mr. Ferguson.

It seemed that on Sat.u.r.day, just after Hallie had left the court, the Spanish Woman had taken the witness-stand and testified that she had been Rood's wife. Mr. Ferguson said this was ridiculous to suppose, yet no one, not even Mr. Dingley, had challenged her statement. She denied there had ever been any trouble between the two men. She said she had been interested in Mr. Montgomery as a woman might be who was old enough to be his mother, but that Rood had been her husband and that she had loved and been faithful to him. She was wonderfully calm and convincing, Mr. Ferguson had said, and it looked at first as if her testimony would help the defense very much, but when Mr. Dingley's a.s.sociate began cross-examining her, he seemed to turn her testimony inside out, and then it appeared that her evidence had been the worst thing possible for the prisoner. For if Rood had stood so firmly in Montgomery's way, the lawyer argued, that would give the very strongest motive for the shooting.

"Wasn't it dreadful!" Hallie exclaimed. "When she wanted so much to help him, to find she had only made things worse. Father said that when she realized how the evidence had been turned against him she grew as white as death."

From this I was able to understand better why the Spanish Woman had been willing to take the terrible chance involved in sending for me to come to her house. She must have been desperate. But, what I could not understand was, why had not Mr. Dingley challenged any of her testimony in the court? Why was it always his a.s.sociate?

I had a sense of things going on under the surface which even my father did not suspect. There was plenty of news flying about in plain hearing and sight--news of mob law preached from the custom-house steps; news of the double guard at the jail so there would be no second chance of escape--all these things I heard without their being able to rouse in me any special interest. My mind was fixed on the under-currents. I couldn't explain them to father because I didn't understand them myself, only felt them. I felt as if I and all the rest had been handled, were being handled now, by a baffling and subtle power which one could not lay hands upon, because it seemed, as if by magic, to be able to erase the evidence of its action.

There was no telling, I thought, what the Spanish Woman might not manage to do. Yes, even though I seemed to be safe; for hadn't she, in a fas.h.i.+on, conjured me out of Mr. Dingley's protection? Her power of persuasion--it was that which was her magic! Thus far father was the only one who seemed untouched by it. Even I had felt the pressure of it. Those appeals she had made when she had begged me to remember how Johnny Montgomery had implored me, as she said, with his look, to be silent--they had nearly undone me, and still they haunted me.

"But I don't believe he wanted it, I don't believe he would want anything so cowardly! and I know I do not want him at that price."

This last reflection of mine astonished myself. What could I have meant by that? Oh, of course, that I did not want him released at that price! But was it probable that whether he were released or convicted it would be in any way for my happiness? Suppose, with her dark power, she was going to be the enchantress to-morrow. Was she again going to scatter, in some unforeseen and uncombatible way, all my testimony, and triumphantly see the prisoner acquitted? Oughtn't I to be glad that he would be free? Ah, that was the strange part of it! For it appeared to me that in such an acquittal there would be something doubly guilty; something that would send him out of the court under a deeper shadow than ever he had found in prison; something that would pledge him to her for ever. It was that last thought of all I could least endure.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LAST DAY OF THE TRIAL

After the restless crowd--craning necks; s.h.i.+fting feet, half-caught sentences--excited, alert, like a nervous horse dancing at a shadow, ready at the vaguest rumor to rush into a sensation, how quiet, prosaic, and even peaceful the court room seemed! That morning when we entered it was only partly filled, and in the s.p.a.ce behind the railing the clerk of the court was scribbling, the lawyers were lolling, certain individuals looking like janitors were wandering idly about, and at his high desk the judge was writing steadily, his fine, white hand moving across the paper, his eyes now and then glancing aside as if he were thinking and paying no attention at all to what was going on in the room around him. It was rea.s.suring in a way, as if after all nothing remarkable were going to happen.

Some women came in all in a group, among them Hallie Ferguson, her mother hanging back in her wake, as if she were being towed along in spite of herself. Hallie came over to where we sat, and began to whisper in my ear some long story of something which she was deeply absorbed in at the moment. This, too, had a habitual and pleasant feeling about it. Even when, with a black veil over her face, sweeping in folds down the length of her dress, the Spanish Woman came in, it was hard to believe that she was that same terrible creature who had stood before me only the day before yesterday telling me I should never leave her house.

She took one of the chairs which had been placed along the wall, so that instead of facing the judge's desk, she fronted the crowd, and threw her veil back. She looked white, whiter than I had ever seen her, as if she were deeply powdered, and this had the effect of a mask.

I have never seen a human face so calm or so indifferently sweet as hers, and she sat as motionless as if she had been carved there. One heard the whisperings around the room, saw the nudges and the twisting of heads, but it was as if she did not see or know them. Then the interest of the room turned toward the door. With that queer instinct of a crowd, which knows before it sees, the whole room know that the prisoner was coming before there was a glimpse of him visible.

He walked up the aisle, looking remarkably fresh and calm, as if he were here on the merest matter of business. As soon as he was seated he turned his head and glanced behind him, and I thought his eyes rested first on that place where I had sat the week before; but they did not linger there a moment, sweeping on in a half circle around the room, glancing over me so quickly that I could not tell at all whether he had noticed me. I thought he had been looking for some one, though it couldn't have been the Spanish Woman, since she sat in plain sight on the other side of the room.

The court filled rapidly. Young men whom I knew came in, and evidently one or two of these knew Johnny Montgomery; for they walked up and into the railed inclosure where he sat, shook hands with him and stood talking with him. I could not but believe that at any time he pleased.

he could rise and leave the court as freely as those others could have done. The thing going on here which they called a trial had the appearance of being just a pretense--a play.

At last one of the men who had been wandering aimlessly among the tables came forward and intoned those words which I could never understand, but which, nevertheless, always brought quick order. Then there was some exchange of words between the lawyers on the other side of the rail, now with the judge, now with one another; and now it was the clerk of the court who was speaking; and I couldn't repress the absurd feeling of surprise that they should turn their backs and mumble so, since it appeared irresistibly to me that we were an audience, and the thing was being done for our benefit.

I was trying to make out what it was that Mr. Jackson had been saying to the judge since it seemed to make for much smiling, when above the rustle and whisper I heard again the voice of the clerk calling out.

There was a moment's wait. Then he raised his tone; I heard, and the words went pealing through me:

"Eleanor Fenwick, Eleanor Fenwick!"

I sat gazing pitifully at him while he chanted it out in that monotonous, singing voice.

"Ellie!" father whispered.

I rose, then realized with a sense of desertion that father was not coming with me. I would have to be alone. Feeling strange, oh very strange, with the echo of my own name still ringing in my ears, I pattered up the aisle toward that railing. As I advanced I felt as if I were walking away from all the world. I heard the movement and the stir of it behind me. In front I saw only the faces of the lawyers, of the clerk, of the judge, and these all seemed without any feeling, as if they were not people at all.

I found myself standing in front of the railing, and two men were facing me, one the clerk of the court, who was holding an open book. I had an impression that they were speaking to me, still in those monotonous, artificial voices, as if they were not saying anything with human meaning in it, and while they spoke they held their hands up, palm out, and I held mine. The next thing I knew I was mounting into the little raised and railed-in seat on the left hand of the judge's desk.

"What is it that is going to happen here?" I thought. I turned and took the chair, and found myself facing a ma.s.s,--a monster,--numberless heads and eyes, all gazing at me. A cold sensation of fear went over me, like a great wave, closing my throat, and making my head feel as if it were fitted with a cap of ice. "Oh, I can not, I can not!" I kept repeating to myself.

But, while it still seemed to me as if I should never make another sound, I heard a voice asking me my name. I recognized it as Mr.

Dingley's. To see him standing up there and gravely, as if he had never seen me before, putting that question was indeed absurd. It was impossible to be frightened with such laughable procedure. He asked me my age, my place of residence, when he knew both very well, then, where had I been walking when I heard the shot; and with these questions I was familiar, having answered them all the day in the library, so it made the speaking now a little easier. And finally when he said: "Now tell the court and the gentlemen of the jury as well as you can remember exactly what you saw," my only thought was, "Oh, how often I have repeated this before! Will there never be an end of it?"

But as I began, I was aware that the judge's pen, which had been steadily scratching ever since the court had opened, had ceased; and, as I went on, all the rustling and whispering in the room fell silent.

The stillness made the place seem immense, and for a little while my voice went on through the silence like a tiny thread. And now it had stopped. I had come to the end of what I knew. It had been so small a thing to say! But the silence was so deep I dared not look around. I kept my eyes on Mr. Dingley's face, and thought it looked very strange and worn.

"Can you," he began, in his ponderous official voice, each word coming down heavily upon my ears, "Can you positively identify this person you describe with the revolver?"

I believe that my "Yes" was a movement of the lips and a bend of the head.

"Do you see him here in this court?"

The very idea of looking again at that terrible ma.s.s of heads and eyes, all watching me, like some fabulous dragon, brought back the sickening panic. But, queerly enough, when my eyes did move across them, I saw only a dark, impersonal blur, and then the one face. It appeared, in the indefiniteness around it, singularly near and distinct. He was looking at me with that gentle, sweet expression which my sick fancy hinted he never showed except when he looked at me. And he was smiling, rea.s.suringly, as if he were encouraging me to go on; as if he would have me to understand that no great issues hung upon what I was going to say, that really what was happening was not so very momentous after all.

"He is sitting there," I said. "The third from the end of the bench, next to Mr. Jackson."

Instantly voices of officers rang all about the court, crying, "Order, order!" though there had been no sound, only a great stir, which seemed to pa.s.s across the crowd, and which the next moment might have become articulate. I sat trembling, wondering what it all meant, clasping my hands tightly in my lap. All the back of the hall was crowded with men, and most of these looked like street-loungers, unshaven and rough.

They stood so close together they hid the door, and seemed to sway and press forward upon the room; and I thought, "There are a great many Mexicans in here."

Mr. Dingley asked me more questions--if I had heard voices quarreling, and I had not; which side of the street had been in suns.h.i.+ne, and what color dress I had worn. I told him, thinking that this was nonsense again. And then Mr. Jackson said something to the judge, Mr. Dingley sat down, and Mr. Jackson leaned on the railing, making me think of a figure on the stage, and asked me why had I gone out at that early hour of the morning, what had been my business, how had it happened that I was walking through such a street as Dupont, and how did I suppose the doors of the saloon had happened to be open so early? It was all in such a tone as made my cheeks burn with a sense of shame and indignation, though I could not see what he was getting at. Then suddenly he veered and demanded how could I tell that the handle of the revolver had been mother-of-pearl when it had fallen on the shady side of the street, how large was it exactly, how had Johnny Montgomery held it, how had he thrown it, then--quickly leaning toward me--could I produce this revolver?

At this there were sounds from the back of the court like hisses, and voices choked off on the first syllable by rappings and calls of "Order!" The small man who was Mr. Dingley's a.s.sociate attorney was calling out, "I object, your Honor," very fiercely.

I felt faint, and did not know in the least what was the trouble. I began to answer that I had not touched the revolver, but the judge smiled at me, and said in his conversational voice: only now it was not indifferent but very kind, "You needn't answer that question."

So I said, "Thank you." And Mr. Jackson said, "That will do," and I noticed that some of the jurors were smiling, but quite nicely, so I didn't mind that, as I went down out of the witness-box.

"Can it be that this is all I am to do?" I thought. "Is it over?" I had expected this for so long in my days and in my dreams; and the moment had come and had pa.s.sed so quickly. And here was father waiting for me.

"I shall have to testify. I will take you to the witness room and you can wait for me there," he explained to me.

"Oh, no," I said, "let me stay here. I am afraid to be alone." I suppose the thought of the Spanish Woman occurred to him, for he did not insist, but really I was not afraid of anything except of having to leave the court room before I knew what the end was to be.

By the time I had got back to my seat they had already called another witness, and such a queer little, compact, positive-looking woman, with a very gay, very best hat, was sitting in the witness-box looking, possibly as I had looked, like a queer, scared animal in a pen.

She told how on the morning of May the seventh she had been awakened by a pistol shot, had looked out of the window and seen a woman running down the street. Questioned as to this woman's personal appearance, she said she could not tell, but that she wore a white dress. In what direction did she run? The woman thought south, yes, she was sure it was south. At this I saw father shake his head, for our house was north of Mr. Rood's gambling place, and I noticed that Johnny Montgomery, who had been very calm while I was talking, had now grown nervous and jerked about in his chair.

Father was the next witness, and when he came back again he really tried to insist that we should go home. But, for the first time in my life, I stood out against him. I said I could not go until I knew at least what was going to become of Johnny Montgomery. Father gave me such a strange look, neither angry nor sad--something which I did not at all understand. He didn't urge me further, he hardly looked at me, but I was conscious of his set profile while I listened to a disagreement between Mr. Dingley's a.s.sociate and Mr. Jackson. Mr.

Jackson waved his arms a good deal, but the little man kept saying, "I insist, your Honor!" And finally the judge seemed to decide it in a way that pleased Mr. Dingley's man; though Mr. Dingley himself seemed not to be interested, paying no attention at all to the little man, who kept leaning over and speaking excitedly to him, and the court crier was calling for "Latovier."

A pale, indefinite-looking creature rose up from somewhere out of the crowd and shuffled slowly toward the witness-box. "There he is," I heard the whispers around me. "Why, don't you know? That's the man who was s.h.i.+pped off. They only got him back yesterday. He's supposed to know--"

I felt in my heart that something decisive was coming, and I had a premonition it was going to be something bad; the man appeared so wretchedly nervous as he sat there in the witness-box. He kept glancing at Johnny Montgomery, shuffling his feet and s.h.i.+fting his hat from hand to hand and what they got out of him came not at all as a story, but only with very many questions.

It seemed he had a little gunsmith's shop, not very well known, to which, he admitted, gentlemen such as the prisoner there, hardly ever came. But he said that on a certain night, perhaps two months ago, the prisoner and another man had come into the shop and looked a long time and bargained for the very best pistol he had in the place. It was a mother-of-pearl handle, he said, with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of steel, and quite small. He had told them that it was hardly the weapon for a man to carry, and Johnny Montgomery had answered him that he did not mean to carry it long.

At this there was quite an uproar in the court, the lawyers shouting, the clerk trying to call order, and a great commotion in the press about the door. But I do not remember being afraid, only the inconvenience of having father keep his arm around my shoulders while I was trying to see how Johnny Montgomery looked. Finally quiet was restored, and then the man who had gone into the gunsmith's with Johnny testified; and after another pause, with all my expectations strained to tighter pitch than I could bear, came the general uprising which meant the court dismissed, that it was noon.