Carmen Ariza Part 185

He glanced up at the great man, sitting so calmly before him. Then he thought suddenly of Avon. Then of Carmen.

"Mr. Ames," he said, "if I enter your employ, it must be with the stipulation that I shall have nothing to do with the Ketchim trial."

Ames's face went suddenly dark. "If you enter my employ, sir, it will be with the stipulation that you do as I say," he returned coldly.

And then the young lawyer saw through the mask. And his anger flamed high at what he discerned behind it. He rose and faced the great man.

"Mr. Ames," said he, "you have made a mistake. I am poor, and I need business. But I have not as yet fallen so completely under the spell of fortune-hunting as to sell my honor to a man like you! To enter your employ, I now see, would mean the total loss of character and self respect. It would mean a lowering of my ideals, whatever they may be, to your own vulgar standard. I may have done wrong in becoming a.s.sociated with Mr. Ketchim. In fact, I know that I have. But I pledged myself to a.s.sist him. And yet, in doing so, I scarcely can blacken my reputation to the extent that I should were I to become your legal henchman. I want wealth. But there are some terms upon which even I can not accept it. And your terms are among them. I bid you good morning."

Ames gave a snort of anger when Ca.s.s went out. Summoning Hood, he vented his great wrath upon that individual's bald pate. "And now," he concluded, "I want that fellow Ca.s.s so wound up that he will sneak off to a lonely spot and commit suicide! And if you can't do it, then I'll accept your resignation!"

"Very well, sir," replied Hood. "And, by the way, Mr. Ames, I have just learned that Judge Harris, father of the young man who came up with that girl, is in Colombia. Seems that he's taken some wealthy man down there to look at La Libertad mine."

"What!" Ames's eyes snapped fire.

"They believe you put one over on Ketchim, with the help of Monsignor Lafelle, and so they've gone down to get t.i.tles to that mine."

"By G--"

"And they say that--"

"Never mind what they say!" roared Ames. "Cable Wenceslas at once to see that those fellows remain permanently in Colombia. He has ways of accomplis.h.i.+ng that. Humph! Fools! Judge Harris, eh? Ninny! I guess Wenceslas can block his little game!"

His great frame shook slightly as he stood consuming with rage, and a slight hemorrhage started from his nostrils. He turned to the lavatory. And as he walked, Hood thought his left foot dragged slightly. But the lawyer made no comment.

And then, with the way well cleared, came the Ketchim trial, which has gone down in history as containing the most spectacular _denouement_ in the record of legal procedure in the New World. Had it been concerned, as was antic.i.p.ated, only with routine legal procedure against the man Ketchim, a weak-souled compound of feeble sycophancy and low morals, it would have attracted slight attention, and would have been spread upon the court records by uninterested clerks with never a second thought. But there were elements entering into it of whose existence the outside world could not have even dreamed. Into it converged threads which now may be traced back to scenes and events in three continents; threads whose intricate windings led through trackless forest and dim-lit church; through court of fas.h.i.+on and hut of poverty; back through the dark mazes of mortal thought, where no light s.h.i.+nes upon the carnal aims and aspirations of the human mind; back even to the doors of a palace itself, even to the proudest throne of the Old World.

But none of these elements found expression in the indictment against the frightened defendant, the small-visioned man who had sought to imitate the mighty Ames, and yet who lacked sufficient intelligence of that sort which manifests in such a perversion of skill and power.

Ames was a tremendous corruptionist, who stood beyond the laws simply because of the elemental fact that he himself made those laws. Ketchim was a plain deceiver. And his deception was religious fervor. Mingling his theology with fraud, he employed the unholy alliance for the purpose of exploiting the credulous who attended his prayer meetings and commented with bated breath upon his beautiful showing of religious zeal. He was but one of a mult.i.tude afflicted with the "dollar mania." His misfortune was that his methods were so antique that they could not long fail of detection. And it was because of his use of the mails for the purpose of deceit that the indictment had been drawn against Philip O. Ketchim _et al._ by the long-suffering, tolerant complainant, called the people.

Nominally the people's interests were in the hands of the Public Prosecutor, a certain smug young worldling named Ellis. But, as that gentleman owed his appointment to Ames, it is not surprising that at his right hand sat Hood and his well trained staff. Nominally, too, Judge Spencer conducted the trial strictly upon its merits, not all of which lay with the people. But the judge might have been still prosecuting petty cases back in the unknown little district from which he came, had it not been for the great influence of Ames, long since, who had found him on a certain occasion useful. And so the jury panel contained none but those who, we may be very sure, were amenable to the tender pressure of a soft hand lined with yellow gold. And only those points of evidence were sustained which conduced to the incrimination of the miserable defendant. Ketchim was doomed before the trial began.

And yet, to subserve the dark schemes of Ames, and to lengthen the period of torture to which his victims should be subjected, the trial was dragged through many days. Besides, even he and his hirelings were bound to observe the formalities.

It was at the suggestion of Ca.s.s that no effort had been made to procure bail for Carmen after her arrest. The dramatic may always be relied upon to carry a point which even plain evidence negatives. And she, acquiescing in the suggestion, remained a full two weeks in the Tombs before Ames's eager counsel found their opportunity to confront her on the witness stand and besmirch her with their black charges.

The Beaubien was prostrated. But, knowing that for her another hour of humiliation and sorrow had come, she strove mightily to summon her strength for its advent. Father Waite toiled with Ca.s.s day and night.

Hitt and Haynerd, without financial resources, pursued their way, grim and silent. The Express was sinking beneath its mountainous load. And they stood at the helm, stanch to their principles, not yielding an iota to offers of a.s.sistance in exchange for a reversal of the policy upon which the paper had been launched.

"We're going down, Hitt," said Haynerd grimly. "But we go with the flag flying at the mast!"

Yet Hitt answered not. He was learning to know as did Carmen, and to see with eyes which were invisible.

It was just when the jury had been impaneled, after long days of petty wrangling and childish recrimination among the opposing lawyers, that Stolz came to Ames and laid down his sword. The control of C. and R.

should pa.s.s unequivocally to the latter if he would but save Ketchim from prison.

Then Ames lay back and roared with laughter over his great triumph. C.

and R! Poof! He would send Stolz' nephew to prison, and then roll a bomb along Wall Street whose detonation would startle the financial world clean out of its...o...b..t! Stolz had failed to notice that Ames's schemes had so signally worked out that C. and R. was practically in his hands now! The defeated railroad magnate at length backed out of the Ames office purple with rage. And then he pledged himself to hypothecate his entire fortune to the rescue of his worthless nephew.

Thus, in deep iniquity, was launched the famous trial, a process of justice in name only, serving as an outlet for a single man's long nurtured personal animosities. The adulterous union of religion and business was only nominally before the bar. The victims, not the defendant only, not the preachers, the washerwomen, the factory girls, the widows, and the orphans, whose life savings Ketchim had drawn into his net by the lure of pious benedictions, but rather those unfortunates who had chanced to incur the malicious hatred of the great, legalized malefactor, Ames, by opposition to his selfish caprice, and whose utter defeat and discrediting before the public would now place the crown of righteous expediency upon his own chicanery and extortion and his wantonly murderous deeds.

The prosecution scored from the beginning. Doctor Jurges, utterly confused by the keen lawyers, and vainly endeavoring to follow the dictates of his conscience, while attempting to reconcile them with his many talks with Darius Borwell, gave testimony which fell little short of incriminating himself. For there were produced letters which he had written to members of his congregation, and which for subtlety and deception, though doubtless innocently done, would have made a seasoned promoter look sharp to his own laurels.

Then Harris was called. He had been summoned from Denver for the trial. But his stuttering evidence gave no advantage to either side.

And then--crowning blunder!--Ca.s.s permitted Ketchim himself to take the stand. And the frightened, trembling broker gave his own cause such a blow that the prosecution might well have asked the judge to take the case from the jury then and there. It was a legal _faux pas_; and Ca.s.s walked the floor and moaned the whole night through.

Then, as per program, the prosecution called Madam Beaubien. Could not that sorrowing woman have given testimony which would have aided the tottering defense, and unmasked the evil genius which presided over this mock trial? Ah, yes, in abundance! But not one point would the judge sustain when it bordered upon forbidden territory. It was made plain to her that she was there to testify against Ketchim, and to permit the Ames lawyers to bandy her own name about the court room upon the sharp points of their cruel cross-questions and low insinuations.

But, she protested, her knowledge of the Simiti company's affairs had come through another person.

And who might that be?

Mr. J. Wilton Ames.

Ah! But Mr. Ames should give his own testimony--for was it not he who had, not long since, legally punished the witness on a charge of defamation of character? The witness was dismissed. And the spectators knew that it was because the righteous prosecution could no longer stain its hands with one who bore such a tarnished name as she.

And then, taunted and goaded to exasperation, the wronged woman burst into tears and flayed the bigamist Ames there before the court room crowded with eager society ladies and curious, non-toiling men. Flayed him as men are seldom flayed and excoriated by the women they trample.

The bailiffs seized her, and dragged her into an ante-room; the judge broke his gavel rapping for order, and threatened to clear the court; and then Ca.s.s, too young and inexperienced to avoid battle with seasoned warriors, rose and demanded that Madam Beaubien be returned to the stand.

The astonished judge hesitated. Ca.s.s stood his ground. He turned to the people, as if seeking their support. A great murmur arose through the court room. The judge looked down at Ames. That man, sitting calm and unimpa.s.sioned, nodded his head slightly. And the woman was led back to the chair.

"It may have an important bearing upon the case, Your Honor!" cried the young lawyer for the defense. "Mr. Ames is to take the stand as an important witness in this case. If Madam Beaubien brings such a charge against him, it gives us reason to believe his honor peccable, and his testimony open to suspicion!"

It was a daring statement, and the whole room gasped, and held its breath.

"I object, Your Honor!" shouted the chief prosecutor, Ellis. "The lawyer for the defense is in contempt of court! Madam Beaubien has been shown to be a--"

"The objection is sustained!" called the judge. "The charge is utterly irrelevant! Order in the court!"

_"His first wife's portrait--is in a gla.s.s window--in his yacht!"_ cried the hysterical Beaubien. Then she crumpled up in a limp ma.s.s, and was led from the chair half fainting.

At the woman's shrill words a white-haired man, dressed in black, clerical garb, who had been sitting in the rear of the room close to the door, rose hastily, then slowly sat down again. At his feet reposed a satchel, bearing several foreign labels. Evidently he had but just arrived from distant lands.

Consternation reigned throughout the room for a few minutes. Then Ca.s.s, believing that the psychological moment had arrived, loudly called Carmen Ariza to the stand. The dramatic play must be continued, now that it had begun. The battle which had raged back and forth for long, weary days, could be won, if at all, only by playing upon the emotions of the jury, for the evidence thus far given had resulted in showing not only the defense, but likewise the Beaubien, and all who had been a.s.sociated with the Simiti company, including Ca.s.s himself, to be partic.i.p.ators in gross, intentional fraud.

The remaining witness, the girl herself, had been purposely neglected by the prosecution, for the great Ames had planned that she must be called by the defense. Then would he bring up the prost.i.tute, Jude, and from her wring testimony which must blast forever the girl's already soiled name. Following her, he would himself take the stand, and tell of the girl's visits to his office; of her protestations of love for him; of her embracing him; and of a thousand indiscretions which he had carefully garnered and stored for this triumphant occasion.

But the judge, visibly perturbed by the dramatic turn which the case seemed to be taking, studied his watch for a moment, then Ames's face, and then abruptly adjourned court until the following day. Yet not until Ca.s.s had been recognized, and the hounded girl summoned from her cell in the Tombs, to take the stand in the morning for--her life!

CHAPTER 17

In the days to come, when the divine leaven which is in the world to-day shall have brought more of the carnal mind's iniquity to the surface, that the Sun of Truth may destroy the foul germs, there shall be old men and women, and they which, looking up from their work, peep and mutter of strange things long gone, who shall fall wonderingly silent when they have told again of the fair young girl who walked alone into the crowded court room that cold winter's morning. And their stories will vary with the telling, for no two might agree what manner of being it was that came into their midst that day.

Even the bailiffs, as if moved by some strange prescience, had fallen back and allowed her to enter alone. The buzz of subdued chatter ceased, and a great silence came over all as they looked. Some swore, in awed whispers, when the dramatic day had ended, and judge and jury and wrangling lawyer had silently, and with bowed heads, gone quiet and thoughtful each to his home, that a nimbus encircled her beautiful head when she came through the door and faced the gaping mult.i.tude.