By Advice of Counsel Part 9

"My young friend," he interrupted, "when Ephraim Tutt says a thing man to man--as I have been speaking to you--he means what he says. I have told you that I expected to acquit my client. My only reason for offering a plea is the very slight--and it is a very slight--chance that an Arabian quarrel can be made the basis of a conviction for murder.

When you know me better you will not feel so free to impugn my sincerity. Are you prepared to entertain my suggestion or not?"

"Most certainly not!" retorted W.M.P. with the shadow of a sneer.

"Then I will bid you good-day," said Mr. Tutt, taking his hat from the window ledge and turning to the door. "And--you young whippersnapper,"

he added when once it had closed behind him and he had turned to shake his lean old fist at the place where W.M.P. presumably was still sitting, "I'll show you how to treat a reputable member of the bar old enough to be your grandfather! I'll take the starch out of your darned Puritan collar! I'll harry you and fl.u.s.ter you and heckle you and make a fool of you, and I'll roll you up in a ball and blow you out the window, and turn old Ha.s.soun loose for an Egyptian holiday that will make old Rome look like thirty piasters! You pinheaded, pretentious, pompous, egotistical, niminy-piminy--"

"Well, well, Mr. Tutt, what's the matter?" inquired Peckham, laying his hand on the old lawyer's shoulder. "What's Peppy been doing to you?"

"It isn't what he's been doing to me; it's what I'm going to do to him!"

returned Mr. Tutt grimly. "Just wait and see!"

"Go to it!" laughed the D.A. "Eat him alive! We're throwing him to the lions!"

"No decent lion would want him!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "He might maul him a little, but I won't. I'm just going to give him a full opportunity to test his little proposition that the inst.i.tutions of these jolly old United States are perfectly adapted to settle quarrels among all the polyglot prevaricators of the world and administer justice among people who are still in a barbarous or at least in a patriarchal state. He's young, and he don't understand that a New York merchant is entirely too conscientious to find a man guilty on testimony that he would discount heavily in his own business."

"Go as far as you like," laughed Peckham.

"Oh, I'm only going as far as Bagdad," answered Mr. Tutt.

Deputy a.s.sistant District Attorney Pepperill complacently set about the preparation of his case, utterly unconscious of the dangers with which his legal path was beset. As he sat at his s.h.i.+ny oaken desk and pressed the b.u.t.ton that summoned the stenographer it seemed to him the simplest thing in the world to satisfy any jury of what had taken place and the summit of impudent audacity on the part of Mr. Tutt to have suggested that Ha.s.soun should be dealt with otherwise than a first-degree murderer. And it should be added parenthetically that W.M.P., in spite of his New England temperament, had a burning ambition to send somebody to the electric chair.

In truth, on its face the story as related by Fajala Mokarzel and the other friends of Sardi Babu the deceased pillow-sham vender was simplicity itself. Besides Sardi Babu and Mokarzel there had been Nicola Abbu, the confectioner; Menheem s.h.i.+krie, the ice-cream vendor; Habu Kahoots, the showman; and David Elias, a pedler. All six of them, as they claimed, had been sitting peacefully in Ghabryel & a.s.sad's restaurant, eating _kibbah arnabeiah_ and _mamoul_. Sardi had ordered _sheesh kabab_. It was about nine o'clock in the evening, and they were talking politics and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

Suddenly Kasheed Ha.s.soun, accompanied by a smaller and much darker man, had entered and striding up to the table exclaimed in a threatening manner: "Where is he who did say that he would spit upon the beard of my bishop?"

Thereupon Sardi Babu had risen and answered: "Behold, I am he."

Immediately Kasheed Ha.s.soun, and while his accomplice held them at bay with a revolver, had leaned across the table and grabbing Sardi by the throat had broken his neck. Then the smaller man had fired off his pistol and both of them had run away. The simplest story ever told.

There was everything the law required to send any murderer to the chair, and little Mr. Pepperill had a diagram made of the inside of the restaurant and a photograph of the outside of it, and stamped the indictment in purple ink: Ready for Trial.

Contemporaneously Mr. Tutt was giving his final instructions to Mr.

Bonnie Doon, his stage manager, director of rehearsals and general superintendent of arrangements in all cases requiring an extra-artistic touch.

"It's too bad we can't cart a few hundred cubic feet of the Sahara into the court room and divert the Nile down Center Street, but I guess you can produce sufficient atmosphere," he said.

"I could all right--if I had a camel," remarked Bonnie.

"Atmosphere is necessary," continued Mr. Tutt. "Real atmosphere! Have 'em in native costume--beads, red slippers, hookahs, hoochi-koochis."

"I get you," replied Mr. Doon. "You want a regular Turkish village.

Well, we'll have it all right. I'll engage the entire Streets of Cairo production from Coney and have Franklin Street crowded with goats, a.s.ses and dromedaries. I might even have a caravan pitch its tents alongside the Tombs."

"You can't lay it on too strong," declared Mr. Tutt. "But you don't need to go off Was.h.i.+ngton Street. And, Bonnie, remember--I want every blessed Turk, Greek, Armenian, Jew, Arab, Egyptian and Syrian that saw Sardi Babu kill Kasheed Ha.s.soun."

"You mean who saw Kasheed Ha.s.soun kill Sardi Babu," corrected Bonnie.

"Well--whichever way it was," agreed Mr. Tutt.

When at length the great day of the trial arrived Judge Wetherell, ascending the bench in Part Thirteen, was immediately conscious of a subtle Oriental smell that emanated from no one could say where, but which none the less permeated the entire court room. It seemed to be a curious compound of incense, cabbage, garlic and eau de cologne, with a suggestion of camel. The room was entirely filled with Syrians. One row of benches was occupied by a solemn group of white-bearded patriarchs who looked as if they had momentarily paused on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

All over the room rose the murmur of purring Arabic. The stenographer was examining a copy of Meraat-ul-Gharb, the clerk a copy of El Zeman, and in front of the judge's chair had been laid a copy of Al-Hoda.

His honor gave a single sniff, cast his eye over the picturesque throng, and said: "Pst! Captain! Open that window!" Then he picked up the calendar and read: "'People versus Kasheed Ha.s.soun--Murder.'"

The stenographer was humming to himself:

_Bagdad is a town in Turkey On a camel tall and jerky_.

"Are both sides ready to try this case?" inquired Judge Wetherell, choking a yawn. He was a very stout judge and he could not help yawning.

Deputy a.s.sistant District Attorney Pepperill and Mr. Tutt rose in unison, declaring that they were. At or about this same moment the small door in the rear of the room opened and an officer appeared, leading in Kasheed Ha.s.soun. He was an imposing man, over six feet in height, of dignified carriage, serious mien, and finely chiseled features. Though he was dressed as a European there was nevertheless something indefinably suggestive of the East in the cut of his clothes; he wore no waistcoat and round his waist was wound a strip of crimson cloth. His black eyes glinted through lowering brows, wildly, almost fiercely, and he strode haughtily beside his guard like some unbroken stallion of the desert.

"Well, you may as well proceed to select a jury," directed the court, putting on his gla.s.ses and studying his copy of Al-Hoda with interest.

Presently he beckoned to Pepperill.

"Have you seen this?" he asked.

"No, Your Honor. What is it?"

"It's a newspaper published by these people," explained His Honor.

"Rather amusing, isn't it?"

"I didn't know they had any special newspaper of their own," admitted Pepperill.

"They've got eight right in New York," interjected the stenographer.

"I notice that this paper is largely composed of advertis.e.m.e.nts,"

commented Wetherell. "But the advertisers are apparently scattered all over the world--Chicago; Pittsburgh; Canton; Winnipeg; Albuquerque; Brooklyn; Tripoli; Greenville, Texas; Pueblo; Lawrence, Ma.s.sachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; Fall River; Detroit--"

"Here's one from Roxbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, and another from Mexico City,"

remarked the clerk delightedly.

"And here's one from Paris, France," added the stenographer. "Say! Some travelers!"

"Well, go on getting the jury," said the judge, yawning again and handing the paper to the clerk.

At that moment Mr. Salim Zahoul, the interpreter procured by Mr.

Pepperill, approached, bowed and, twisting his purple mustache, addressed the court: "Your Excellence: I haf to zay dat dees papaire eet haf articles on zis affair--ze _memkaha_--zat are not diplomatique."

Judge Wetherell blinked at him.

"Who's this man?" he demanded.

"That's the interpreter," explained W.M.P.

"Interpreter!" answered the court. "I can't understand a word he says!"

"He was the best I could get," apologized Pepperill, while the countenance of Mr. Zahoul blazed with wrath and humiliation. "It's very difficult to get a fluent interpreter in Arabic."