SEVEN

 

1

 

JOE JACKMAN said, 'Well, Marty, another day, another dollar!' He held up his right hand, flexing the fingers. 'I wish it was! I suppose we'll be here all night with the arguments.' He, looked at the end of his middle finger. 'I was cutting some roses for my wife this morning before I came over, and damned if I didn't run a little bit of a thorn in there. It's exactly where it catches the stylo. Boy, is that sore!' Bunting said, 'Why don't you just take a knife and cut the finger off?'

'Huh!' said Jackman. 'Feeling good, are you? You 'd better wait till you find out what the jury says. You never should have let Genevieve Shute on that jury. She likes to be a mother to bad boys.' How about you, Nick? You think they ought to have another chance, don't you?'

'You fellows!' Nick Dowdy said. 'This Basso doesn't care, I guess. Stanley Howell, he'd like to have another chance; he'd like to do something to this Leming, I guess. We going to get through to-night, Marty?'

'I don't see why not. I don't see how they can argue very long. They haven't anything to argue. The charge may take some time, though.' Nick Dowdy said, 'Judge Vredenburgh was in the library here last night working on it, dictating to his daughter.'

'Annette?' said Joe Jackman. 'My God, does she know how to do anything?'

Bunting said to Abner, 'What was it at Newmarket?'

'LaBarre,' Abner said. He suppressed a feeling, not, certainly of satisfaction, for he would have preferred to find that Mason's story was true; but, perhaps, of self-justification. His suspicions, of which Marty had made him feel ashamed, would seem to have been well founded. He went on, 'It seems that Mason didn't get it quite straight. LaBarre was there at the time, and one of his officers saw the accident happen. What did the report say?'

Bunting said, 'It came up after I left this morning. I haven't had time to go back to the office. I haven't seen it. I thought Pete Wiener told you it was the other fellow's fault.'

'He did. I don't know why, unless LaBarre and his man didn't get over to Pete's office right away. They may have sent Mason over with someone else. They had the dead man to take care of, and I suppose it was a fine mess. Pete may have called me without waiting for them, as soon as he talked to Mason.'

'Well, we'd better see the report —'

Malcolm Levering pushed the door open and said, 'Judge wants you, Mr. Bunting.'

'All right,' Bunting said. 'Ab, phone Theda, will you, and ask her to bring that report up. We'd better see how we stand.'

Malcolm, who had withdrawn his head, now put it in again. 'Mr. Jackman, he wants you, too. Jury's coming back, Nick.' Left alone, Abner called Bunting's office. When he had finished, he dropped in another nickel. At the high school there was no answer, and the operator gave him his nickel back. Probably Bonnie had gone home; and he hesitated, not particularly wanting to talk to Cousin Mary; but if he didn't call now, he might not get another chance.

It was Jared, junior, who answered, his voice sharp and impudent. 'You got the wrong number,' he said. 'Come on!' said Abner. 'Hurry up.'

'What do you want her for?'

'None of your business,' Abner said. 'Oh, so you won't talk, huh? G'by —'

The telephone was taken away from him, and Bonnie said, 'Jared, if you don't stop trying to be funny —'

Jared said faintly, 'It's just your boy friend. He wants you to come over and pitch some woo —'

'Jared, when mother comes home, I'll —'

'Bonnie's mad,' yelled Jared more faintly, evidently leaving the room, 'and I'm glad —'

Bonnie said, 'Hello. Are you through?'

'No,' said Abner, 'and I don't know when we will be. But I want to see you to-night.'

'I don't know whether I have to go back to school or not. They're having another meeting at eight'

'Well, will you do something?'

'What?'

'If we aren't through, or if we are, and it's gone to the jury, we'll recess by six. Will you come over here and wait?'

'Where can I wait?'

'In the courtroom. Just sit up by the door, and when we break, I'll be able to go out and eat with you.'

'All right. I'm sorry I lost my temper at noon.'

Taken by surprise, Abner said, 'You look good that way. You'll come?'

'All right Oh, damn it Jared, go away!'

Before she hung up Jared could be heard yelling, 'Oh, Bonnie's swearing, Bonnie's swearing —'

Abner went into the courtroom and took his seat by Bunting. He thought of Jared with loathing.

 

 

2

 

Harry Wurts said, 'Ladies and gentlemen —' He arose, it was plain, not to exhort or harangue the jury, but to counsel with them in a friendly way and to ask them to consider with him some problems which, by the grave, even worried, expression of his face, troubled him.

Abner was not sure that you could call it guile. Harry was cynical about other men's motives, and quick to spot the pretence or the assumed role; but his own motives were so urgent, the importance to him of persuading or wheedling or winning so profound, that Harry always spoke when arguing for what he wanted with complete sincerity. It could not be said that his troubled frown was faked; this was a tough assignment; he frowned at its difficulties. He was troubled by the problem of how to phrase and arrange the few things he could say to give himself every chance, no matter how remote or small, of getting at just one juror, of giving just one man or woman some scruple or sentiment that, catching in the simple or the over-complicated mind, would stay there, resisting the consensus, immune to sense or reason, only hardened in obstinacy by the arguments or expostulations of the others.

Harry said, 'I think we have all been watching with something like amazement the work of the Commonwealth over the last few days. Mr. Bunting will shortly sum it up for you; and I look forward to hearing him. I think you will find that the case follows with an almost mathematical precision the lines laid down by Mr. Coates in his able opening—I refer, of course, to his remarkably detailed outline of what the prosecution was determined to prove, not to his rather impressionistic and imaginative history of the case. There, I think we all recognized a flight of fancy and took it with several grains of salt.'

Harry smiled good-humouredly and one or two jurors in automatic reaction smiled too. 'They should be congratulated,' Harry said. 'Because it is part of my business, I am a student, you might say, an amateur, of legal tactics; and nothing interests me more than to see a skilful hand taking material in itself of little weight or substance and shaping it so that the result appears as a solid and imposing structure. Of course, it is a false front; it is like stage scenery, and you must look at it from one angle only, or the sham will be apparent.' He smiled again, drew a deep breath, and shook his head.

'However,' he said, 'before we demolish the make-believe, I think we may learn something by looking at it just the way they want us to. Let us pretend that its foundations are real evidence; let us pretend that it is what it purports to be — a damning case. Actually we may see through it, but at least we must acknowledge the cunning that put it together. Here is no plain blunt tale. Every piece fits according to specifications. No sooner does the want of this or that detail appear than, like magic, it is produced. Perhaps a rubber hose or a little pressure on a drug-destroyed mind was needed to produce it; but there it is! The hat is perfectly empty; yet out pops the appropriate rabbit; in fact, a whole warren of rabbits. In the district attorney's coat-tails there must be many pockets —

'Briefly, members of the jury, what strikes us about this concoction is that it is too good. Things aren't like that in life. What we lawyers learn from experience with witnesses on the stand is exactly what you have learned yourself from your experience in meeting the everyday problems of sizing people up. Your natural common sense makes you distrust the man who knows all the answers. If I may venture a criticism, I think the prosecution would have served its purpose better if they had left just a few contingencies unprovided for; if, once in a while, one of their witnesses had seemed less than letter-perfect —'

A little edgy. Bunting said to Abner, 'And if I were to venture a criticism, I'd say he'd better cut that before somebody wakes up to the fact that when it comes to fooling people, he has a lot of ideas on the subject.' He took up a pencil and began to draw a dog on the margin of his pad.

Harry said, 'The purposes thus to be served are, I think, fairly plain. Mr. Coates, you may remember, asked you to find the defendants guilty of first degree murder with such penalty as you believed deserved. He avoided asking you outright for the death penalty, and this was an astute move. He did not want to fix in your minds the thought of the electric chair; for, as the case developed, you would then be constantly weighing what these men had actually done against what you were being asked to do to them. By now, you would almost certainly have reached the firm conviction that the crime and the demanded punishment did not balance, that here was no cool-headed and disinterested justice, but a vindictive hounding to death. It would be time enough to ask you to crown the district attorney's career with such a triumph when actual evidence and testimony were past, well-buried in words; and when an adroit summing up might manipulate them somewhat for your persuasion — though, of course, within the limits of propriety. I am sure the prosecution would not risk a censure from the Court.'

'I am not sure, Mr. Wurts,' Judge Vredenburgh said, 'that you have not been risking one yourself. I do not need to tell you that as a general rule counsel in argument must confine themselves to the facts brought out in evidence. Reasonable freedom of debate and illustration, yes. Gratuitous impugning of methods and motives, no. Proceed with that in mind.'

Harry said, 'Thank you for correcting any false impression I may have given, your Honour. I did not mean that the prosecution's methods and motives are those of malice. I meant simply to comment on what seemed to me an extraordinary zeal to convict, so that the jury might weigh the arguments with an open mind. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Stacey, for whose client I am also arguing, and I do not ask the acquittal of these men. That would not be justice. Their records show that they cannot be trusted; and while, in spite of the district attorney's efforts to make them appear to be, they are not on trial for their records, it is right for you to take into consideration the kind of men they are.

'What they are on trial for is murder. You may ask how this can be, when even the prosecution has not insisted that they actually killed anybody. Murder is killing. How can you be guilty of murder, if you don't kill? The answer is in a technicality, a provision of statute. In its wisdom the legislature has seen fit to declare, as it has the power and right to, that murder shall be a good many things besides that crime of killing with deliberate intent which is what you and I mean by it; and which I think we may with all reverence assume was Almighty God's meaning in the commandment: Thou shalt do no murder.'

Bunting looked at Abner. 'Something for old Daniels,' he said. Abner could see him studying under his lowered eyelids the faces of the jurors; and no doubt wondering, as one always had to, if this or that choice from the panel had been good. Mr. Daniels was probably all right. He was a leading Baptist of one of the small severe sects. God's work, as such men saw it, usually included making the transgressor's way as hard as possible. For that very reason Abner remembered being surprised when the defence accepted Daniels; and so now it was necessary to wonder whose estimate of Daniels was correct.

Harry said, 'The legislature, let us hope, would not lightly have undertaken the presumptuous job of rewriting and giving new-fangled meanings to the Sixth Commandment; and we can follow part of their line of reasoning. It is reasonable to hold that a group of people, if they agree together to go and murder a man, and the first one who hits the victim kills him so that the others do not have to, and do not, take any part at all, just the same they are guilty of murder. Of course, that is not the case here. There was no agreement to murder Frederick Zollicoffer. Quite the contrary! Howell and Basso went along because they believed that he was to be taken home. They were unarmed; and, surprised, facing a vicious and desperate man with a gun, they could not prevent the crime. Bailey, the murderer, kept them in fear; and I don't think any of us, offered the choice they were offered — that is, keeping still, or dying — would have chosen differently. So much for that.'

Harry took a short thoughtful turn down past the box, his head bent, his hands clasped behind him. On the way back, he said, 'We come now to the legislature's further extension or invention by which the punishment deemed proper for the foul crime of murder may be inflicted for a number of other offences. This is new, in the sense that it has only recently been thought up and added to the law; but in another sense it is old, it is what we have so long and painfully struggled to get away from. It is a step back to those dark days of the eighteenth century when literally scores of crimes were punished by death. Those barbarous laws, as futile in practice as they were disgraceful in theory, were eventually abolished; not a little because the conscience and love of justice of members of juries made them refuse to bring in verdicts of guilty. Jurors might not be able to make the law; but they had something to say about justice, and they said it until even cruel judges and despotic kings had to listen.

'Well, neither can we make the law. We are supposed to abide by it. The law is that those who take part in one crime, kidnapping in this case, shall also be held to have taken part in another crime, murder, if, before the kidnapping is over, someone kills the kidnapped person. All the kidnappers do not have to join in the killing. As in this case, some may object and protest; but the law doesn't care about that. The essence of every other crime is intention; that is how you tell when it constitutes a crime. But not here. Here you may become a murderer without doing anything at all. You may be as innocent of any intent to kill as the engineer of a train that runs over a man who jumps in front of it.'

Harry shook his head. 'It isn't right. Instinctively we recoil from so gross an affront to wisdom and reason; yet that is the law. The legislators tell us what they have decided will be law and it goes into the books. Law is law; and if we say we don't like it, they simply laugh at us. They are the all-wise statesmen; and who are we? Why, we're a bunch of ignorant hicks who don't understand these things. We can shut up and sit down.

'Well, maybe we can; and maybe we are just ignorant hicks; but you at least, ladies and gentlemen, are more than that. You are duly selected and sworn jurors, free men and women; and if they laugh at you, that's their mistake, because you are the ones and the only ones who can by your verdict deliver over to them subjects or victims for the caprices of their law-making. It is your conscience, and not their vindictive or vainglorious vapourings, that are decisive. There is no power on earth that can force you to send to death men whose offences do not warrant death.'

Harry spoke with great earnestness, hammering home the successive sentences, not by raising his voice like an orator, but by putting force behind each moderately spoken word. Except for lifting or lowering his head, or bending his shoulders forward a little and then straightening up, he made no gestures. He did not show the consciousness, which few glib speakers can conceal, of handing it out, of going good. The jury listened, not spell-bound (a state that flattered a speaker on his manner and proved that he could give good entertainment; yet meant in fact that what he said hardly mattered); but disturbed, stirring with the discomfort of not knowing what to think.

Bunting said, 'Ab. That's Theda, up there at the door. Will you —'

Abner looked up. The door opened, awakening Everitt Weitzel. Everitt got stiffly to his feet, took the paper, and came limping down.

Harry said, 'The nature of these men's offences ought to appear from the evidence. Let us consider what the Commonwealth has offered us—'

Everitt came furtively across the well of the court and laid the papers he carried beside Bunting, who pushed them over where he and Abner could both read. 'Well,' Bunting whispered at last, 'that's clear enough. What did the kid do, deny it?'

'No,' said Abner, 'not exactly. Naturally, I wasn't holding a hearing. Jake was there. He made some remarks. I didn't pay much attention.'

'Well, what was LaBarre's trouble?'

'Somebody told him I said the state police shouldn't have made the charge manslaughter. Jake did say something like that. As far as I remember, all I said was that we would have to see the report. I may have told Mason that if it wasn't his fault, he needn't worry. He was sort of shaky, and I felt sorry for him.'

Bunting said, 'I don't know that I'd ever do that, Ab. Even if it's not his fault. Even if he's completely innocent, it's homicide. He's killed somebody, and if that's a little inconvenient for him, all right. I guess you could say being killed was not exactly convenient for the other fellow. You have to remember that you represent the Commonwealth, and that means the other fellow, the Negro who died.'

'I know that,' Abner said, flushing. 'I didn't mean —'

'I know you didn't. There's no harm done. Whether Mason says he's guilty or innocent doesn't matter — manslaughter's bailable. All we want is for him to put up two thousand dollars for his appearance at the inquest, and he can go home. I just mean, I wouldn't in a case like that let him talk to me about it; or express sympathy, if you did; or anything of that kind. If he's shaky, well, he ought to be shaky. He'll have a chance to tell his story in due course; and meanwhile, let him worry about what he's done. It usually does him good.'

Abner said, 'You told me to go out and see him. I didn't want to. Jake did most of the talking. I don't think he knew just what the evidence was —'

Judge Vredenburgh tapped the metal shaft of his desk lamp with his gold pencil. Harry had paused and turned to look at them. The Judge said, 'I think your conversation is disturbing counsel, Mr. District Attorney. If it is necessary for you to confer, confer in lower tones.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' Bunting said. 'Sorry, Mr. Wurts.' To Abner, he murmured, 'If Jake doesn't know, I think we'd better show him this. Probably he's at his office. Take it down, will you.' He pushed the report over to Abner, settled back in his chair, and turned his attention to Harry.

Harry said, 'The witness on whom the Commonwealth chiefly relied is Roy Leming. It won't be very pleasant for you, but I must ask you to look at him again, sitting over there beside the sheriff. There is said to be an honour among thieves, and that must be a low sort of honour; but even so it is too high for Leming. He is the snivelling coward who, to save his worthless skin, sells out his friends. Look at him! He is actually smiling. He is proud of his double-cross. He is happy thinking of his miserable life that the Commonwealth is going to let him keep as a reward for the story he cooked up. What word can you apply to such a man? One comes to my mind. With apologies to a common musteline mammal, known to zoologists as mephitis mephitis —in English, that means stink-stink, Leming is a plain skunk. This is what the Commonwealth expects us to trust and believe! This is —'

Abner went along below the bench and out the door by the Judge's chambers with Harry's voice pursuing him. Harry would stir them up a little, looking now for some sluggish juror who needed violence to move him. It was still not guile, or at least, not after the first word or two following the deliberate change of tone and appeal. His own tone affected Harry as much as it affected anyone else; he himself heard and heeded his own appeal. When he looked at Leming, Leming looked like a skunk to him, and he would rant on in full sincerity until some instinct told him that that was enough of that. Even after the door closed an echo of the tirade came through the dull stained glass transom. Abner went down the back steps and out under the arch.

The point he might have made if Judge Vredenburgh had not interrupted them preoccupied Abner, though it was hard to phrase it clearly. He could say that because Marty had chided him for being tough about Mason, he had taken care not to be — after all, Marty was right. It wasn't up to Abner to try Mason and find him guilty of having a father who knew Jesse. Accordingly he was careful to give Mason a break; and as a result, Marty now read him a lecture about his duties as counsel for a dead citizen — as though Abner were the one who tried to help Jesse try to help Jesse's consequential friend. Now, though presumably still representing the dead citizen, he was sent down to let Jake see the report so Jake would not be (if he were actually in any danger of being) taken by surprise when the police testified. The Commonwealth was under no obligation to show Jake its case and so give him a chance to do what he could to defeat it; but that was Marty for you! There was a characteristic open temperance about his actions — not that he couldn't be made to lose his temper, nor that he never did anything short-sighted. Abner had seen Marty make mistakes; yet the point probably was that he never saw Marty make a mistake without being astonished — in short, you recognized that it wasn't 'like' Marty. The things that were like him were wisdom and foresight, patience and temperateness.

Abner thought suddenly that if he had chosen to run for district attorney, and if he had been elected, he might not have found the job quite so simple as he seemed all along to have assumed. Just being familiar with the work might not have qualified him completely to take Marty's place. When he said, as he so often had to, 'Well, that's up to Marty,' he sometimes meant only that he could not act without Marty's consent; but often he meant, too, that he would not want to act without consulting Marty's experienced judgment. It was not easy to imagine anyone saying with so much confidence, 'That's up to Ab.' Making the effort, Abner thought of George Stacey. He might have offered George the job of assistant district attorney. George would probably have jumped at the chance; and Abner, with an amusement in some respects wry, could at least conceive of George asking what to do, and of George listening while Abner told him.

 

 

3

 

Jacob Riordan's office was a little red brick house next to the county administration building. It was older even than Abner's temple behind the bank. One in a one-time row of old lawyers' offices, it now stood alone, for the rest had been torn down and the county building occupied their sites. The changed level of the paving when Court Street had been first paved made it necessary to descend three steps to enter the door which opened directly on a large front room with a fireplace. Every inch of wall space was packed frame to frame, from the delicately moulded but dirty plaster ceiling to the yellowing paint of the low-panelled wainscoting, with an extraordinary collection of prints, pictures, and old notices.

Jake had fitted in framed clerks' certificates showing that he was entitled to plead before the Orphans Courts of several counties, the Superior Court, and the United States Supreme Court; but almost everything else was left from the days when it had been Webster Binns's office. There were Currier & Ives prints of presidents and presidential candidates of a hundred years ago; not, however, like most such prints, collected for their quaintness within the last decade, but put up when they were published and never since moved (nor even, you might think, dusted). There were daguerreo-types of people nobody could any longer identify. There was a framed pair of faded tickets, signed by Mr. Binns's grandfather as president of the company, entitling the purchaser to pass one gate on the Childerstown & Western Turnpike with the amounts in shillings and pence. There were several broadside advertisements, brown as dead leaves, offering a reward to the re-coverer of runaway slaves. There was a black-edged announcement of the schedule of President Lincoln's funeral train. There was the lithograph called Gentlemen of the Jury which in the '70s must have been sold to half the law offices in America. There was a framed letter with a two foot column of signatures dated 1890 and inviting Mr. Binns to a testimonial dinner to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his admission to the bar.

Abner could remember Mr. Binns, who was ninety-eight years old when he died. His birthdays had become civic celebrations, and everyone anticipated with confident excitement that he would live to be over a hundred. To the day of his death Mr. Binns came each morning to the office here — the firm was Binns & Riordan then — and at ninety-five he argued a case before Judge Coates in Common Pleas. Abner had heard his father say that the argument was one of the ablest he ever listened to.

To a child, Mr. Binns with his mop of white hair down over his coat collar, his huge rugged face and vast dignified belly, was more of a monster than a man, and when Abner read about ogres in children's books, he thought of them as looking like Mr. Binns. Much later, he began to value the memory. It came to seem something of a personal accomplishment to have looked with his own eyes at a man who had been named Webster because Mr. Binns's father's friend, Daniel Webster, on his way to Washington to argue the later celebrated Dartmouth College Case, was a guest in the house that day in 1818 when Webster Binns was born. This had been a law office, then as now, so the odds were that Daniel Webster had stood in this room, and perhaps for a few minutes, or even longer, rested his godlike fundament in one of the heavy Windsor chairs that still stood here.

Abner let the door slam and since nobody was in the outer room called, 'Jake!'

The white panelled sliding doors were parted at the back, and Jake showed himself, leaning forward from the window-ledge on which he seemed to have been sitting. 'Oh, Ab,' he said. 'Come on in. Gone to the jury?'

'No,' Abner said. 'They're arguing. Look, Jake. Marty's just got the police report in the Mason case. He thought you'd better see it.'

Jacob Riordan's seamed, yet oddly young-looking face came to attention. Abner had hoped to find out whether Jake knew all along; but the changed expression gave nothing away. It simply accepted what Abner said as of interest, and waited, prepared for him to continue.

'Want to see it?' said Abner.

'Be glad to, thanks. Come in.'

Stepping into the room, Abner held the folded sheets out. He saw then that Jake was not alone. Hunched in a padded leather chair in the corner sat Jesse Gearhart.

'Oh, Sorry,' Abner said. 'Didn't mean to interrupt you.'

'You don't,' Jake said. 'As a matter of fact, we—' He took the report, seating himself on the window-ledge again, and held it up to read.

Jesse said, 'Stopped raining, Ab?'

Abner nodded. Jake's eyes shifted quickly over the lines of typewriting and after a moment's silence he said, 'Uh-huh.'

'Did you know that?' said Abner.

'I didn't know exactly what their story was going to be.'

'It doesn't look so good,' Abner said.

'No. Well, thanks for letting me see it.'

'O.K.,' said Abner. He did what he could to cover the fact that he was taken aback. He held his hand out for the report; and Jesse cleared his throat.

'Got a minute, Ab?' he said.

'Sure,' said Abner.

Jesse said, 'Jake and I were talking over various members of the bar.' He paused and Abner could hear from the barred back windows of the county building the punctuated key strokes and light banging shift of an adding machine. 'This matter of district attorney is going to take a lot of consideration.' His pale, steady, tired eyes looked up at Abner from the corner. 'You don't have any idea of reconsidering, do you?'

The adding machine began again. Along the pavement in front somebody walked scuffling his feet and whistling. Abner said, 'Reconsider what? You thought you'd better get somebody else, Jesse. There's nothing I can very well reconsider.'

Jesse said, 'We'll have to get somebody else, if you won't run. If you will, we'd rather have you.'

Jake, humped in silhouette against the window, said, 'What's the trouble, Ab? Not enough money?'

Abner said, 'There's enough for me. I told Jesse last night what the trouble was.'

Jesse said, 'Well, Ab, it didn't seem very clear. Except you didn't like politics. You didn't say why. If you mean that you don't want to go out campaigning, asking people for votes — well, we would have to get somebody else. And, as I think I said last night, if you won't go to that much trouble, it must mean you don't want the job much; and if you don't want the job —'

Abner said, 'I'm perfectly willing to speak for the ticket.'

Jake said, 'Well, what is biting you, Ab?' He spoke good-humoredly, though his tone made it clear that he thought Abner was unreasonable in answering always beside the point. Abner didn't deny it. Deviousness seemed unreasonable to him, too; but his profession had taught him to curb the impulse to blurt out what was on his mind. He certainly wasn't afraid of displeasing Jesse; but a man who let himself say what he couldn't back up with acceptable proof wasted everybody's time and showed that he had no judgment.

Abner could say, plain and blunt, that what bit him, for one thing, was Jesse's virtual control of public monies. The county placed every year scores of separate orders for supplies and services, and the general fund expenditures ran to about five hundred thousand dollars; and if anything were certain, it was that little or none went to people of whom Jesse disapproved. This was an observable fact; but simply stating it was not good enough. What was Abner trying to imply? The orders were filled by sealed bids to the county commissioners in answer to public advertisements and the comptroller's scrutiny ruled out all the easy or shocking grafts of forty or fifty years ago. There was no reason to doubt that everything the county bought, from a gross of typewriter ribbons to a tractor, was the best available at the price. Abner could say, if he wanted to, that it was very strange how enemies of Jesse's either did not have the required materials, or if they did, were always underbid on them; but that was all he could say. Then there was the matter of jobs. As good as at his disposal, Jesse had hundreds, even thousands, of little presents in the form of road maintenance work. Nobody opposed to Jesse ever got one of them. So what? Somebody had to keep up the roads. Abner might know that certain men were on the payroll because they could get Jesse votes; and that such jobs were calculatingly distributed through the upper, middle, and lower county so that party workers everywhere would be encouraged and see that their own turn might come. Jesse was using the public payroll to maintain his personal power.

But what did you mean, get Jesse votes? When Abner said a thing like that he ought to give specific examples. If he could show Jesse accepting a bundle of bought votes and exchanging a job for them, that was one thing. If he merely knew it came down to that, it was something else, and no good for his purpose. People had a right to vote for those whose election seemed to them to their advantage. What else was voting for?

If, on these or any other grounds, Abner wanted to question the budget, he was given every opportunity to. Annually the Examiner published the whole thing, certified by the auditors, accounted for in detail enough to fill seven or eight double columns. If Abner thought that some of it went into Jesse's pocket, all he had to do was challenge the item, and, at a hearing where every facility would be given him, show that was where it went. Jesse might have influence, but he did not have enough to keep himself out of jail if he were found diverting public funds.

Abner said, 'That isn't what I meant by politics. I told Jesse what I meant. I'll say it to you both, because you both know about it. This Mason business. I don't care whose son he is —' Abner was aware, as he said it, that it was a silly thing to say, or at least a silly way of saying what he meant. He sounded self-righteous.

Jesse said, 'Well, Ab, you wouldn't say he wasn't entitled to a defence, would you?'

'He's entitled to just what everyone else is entitled to. No more. No less.'

'What's he getting?' said Jake. 'More or less?'

'I don't know yet. That's what I may find out'

'If you mean what I'm going to do for him,' Jake said, 'why, I'll tell you now, if you want. We haven't any evidence, except his own statements. If it seems at the inquest to-morrow that it was his fault, I'll advise him to plead guilty. When it comes up, I'd plan to introduce character witnesses; and I'd ask the judge not to send him to jail. I don't think he ought to go; and I don't think the judge will think he ought to go. Do you think he should?'

'No,' said Abner,' there'd be no point in that.'

'Well,' said Jake, 'suppose instead of being a rich man's kid, a college boy with enough money to pay a stiff fine, the son of a prominent man, he was a tough little nut with no friends and no money. Would he go to jail then?'

'That's up to the judge.'

'The rich boy goes home; the poor boy goes to jail. That the way you see it?'

'O.K.,' said Abner. 'Money's a useful thing to have. When you pick your father, pick a man who amounts to something. If the judge fines Mason, and he can pay, and does, he's free as far as the law's concerned. And that's as far as I'm concerned.'

The momentary light of amusement in Jake's eyes faded to boredom. Strictly speaking, it was not his affair. His good nature made him willing to lend a hand in putting right something that seemed to him easily fixed; but he was not going to argue about it. Jesse, who had been sitting in patience, waiting for Jake and Abner to finish their exchange, said, 'Do you want to think it over, Ab?'

'I've thought it over,' Abner said. 'I'll run, on condition that —' He paused; for it would be inane to say 'on condition that I have a free hand.' Who was refusing it? He could not say, 'on condition that you don't butt in' — it was too childishly offensive. He said, 'On condition that I make my own appointments.'

Jesse said, 'The statutes give you the authority to do that, Ab. You have to have the approval of the Court in the case of any county detective you appoint —'

Jake said, 'You don't want to get rid of Costigan, do you?'

'No,' said Abner. 'We can work together all right. I don't want to change anything there. But I'll have to have an assistant, and —'

Jake said, 'Got someone in mind?'

'Yes. I have George Stacey in mind.'

'I think he might be all right,' Jake said. 'He's got a good head. But doesn't he have to have been a member of the bar for a certain number of years? Five?'

Jesse said, 'That's only the district attorney himself. About John Costigan, you may have to replace him. I'm not sure he won't be running for sheriff on this ticket. Wish Hugh could succeed himself; but since he can't — that's in confidence, for the moment.'

'How about Warren Lyall?' Jake said. 'Isn't he going to feel that he-'

'He's too young,' Jesse said. 'He wouldn't be good at all. He hasn't any claim on it.'

"He's got a lot of friends in Warwick —'

'No,' said Jesse. 'I know about his friends.'

Abner said, 'Well, I've got to get back to court.'

'Yes,' said Jesse. He got up. 'I've got to go, too, Jake. See you tomorrow.' He went through the outer room with Abner and they came up the steps to the street together. The afternoon had grown brighter with a haze of sunlight close behind the grey clouds. On Abner's face a light warm west wind blew and the pavements were beginning to dry.

Jesse said, 'I spoke to Rawle. You don't think you could get over there to-night, do you?'

'Well, Jesse, I don't know. I can't do much about anything until this case is over, until the verdict's in.'

'No. Well, I think we have a good chance of stopping the whole business. There's no sense in it, really. Eleanor Carver ought to know better.' He paused a moment, and Abner could see that he was spending it in a quick, silent review of his mind's full dossier on Miss Carver. Miss Carver, the now-elderly daughter of a former president of the Childerstown National Bank, had the leisure and the money and the officiousness to take a hand in local politics; and Abner supposed that she often made a nuisance of herself. Jesse said, 'Doc Mosher's just stubborn. I think Alfred Hobbs' idea was that Rawle could be embarrassed into resigning. You see the Examiner?' Abner said, 'I saw Maynard's draft of the story.' Jesse took a folded copy of the paper from his pocket, half opened it, and tapped a boxed column on the front page. It was headed:' Why Did No One Know?'

'You might read it when you get time,' Jesse said, handing it over. 'That's going to make a lot of trouble. Maynard shouldn't have done it He isn't helping anything; he's just fanning up a factional row. You heard Hartshorn this morning when he made Judge Irwin mad. What does that sort of thing get you? Maynard ought to think a little.'

Though nothing was expressed in Jesse's voice but regret, a weary reasoning against a course that his experience disapproved, it was possible to read into it more than that. The Examiner's was not the only shop where the county printing could be done; and unless Maynard wanted to lose seven or eight thousand dollars worth of business, perhaps be ought to be careful. Touched on the sore spot again, Abner did not say anything. They were in front of the courthouse, and Abner nodded to Jesse and ran up the steps. Not so settled in his mind as it seemed to Abner that he ought to be, he stood still in the hall.

Through the door of the office of the clerk of the Orphans Court came Miss Hulsizer, Hermann Mapes' deputy. She nodded to Abner and went upstairs, entering the register's office. Since Hermann was in court, Abner realized that there would now be no one in the office she had left. He walked directly over. As he foresaw, the big room was empty. He passed around the counter under the ranks of japanned tin filing boxes and the shelves in which the buckram bound docket folios lay on their sides. A series of drawers was set into the back of the counter; and Abner opened them quickly one after another until he found a stack of 'Application for Marriage Licence' forms. Flipping the top one off, he folded it, shoved it in his pocket, and shut the drawer. Miss Hulsizer's steps could be heard on the stairs, returning, but he was able to slip out, not yet in her line of vision, push the swinging door of the courtroom vestibule silently open, and disappear.

The well-managed purloining cheered him, for Abner had not been looking forward much to the barrage of leers and witticisms which Hermann, considering it a perquisite of his office, laid down on any personal acquaintance who came in to get a form. This way, Hermann would not find out about it until the application was returned.

Through the oval lights in the second pair of swinging doors Abner could see the body of the court below the curving rows of the numerous but scattered spectators, set like a calm hushed stage with the silent orderly arrangement of people in their appointed places. More time had passed than Abner thought, for Harry was back in his seat and it was now Marty who was talking to the jury. Abner let himself in, went quietly down the sloping aisle, crossed over to the Commonwealth's table, and sat down.

4

Bunting was not an eloquent speaker. His thoughts were clear and logical, and he put them plainly; but unlike Harry who could speak in many manners, and in all of them give the impression of naturalness and simplicity, Bunting had only one manner, and he unselfconsciously was natural and simple. Along with the virtue, he had the vice of unself-consciousness. Absorbed in what he wished to say, he never thought of standing off and looking at himself to see how he was doing, or of asking himself if this were the way he would like to be talked to. His custom was to instruct juries. He assumed (and not incorrectly) that when their duty was made plain they would do it without being coaxed or urged.

Bunting told them, with no effort to arrange his material to any advantage except that of orderliness, what the evidence was and what facts proceeded from it. He did not argue; he made statements. Though he respected the letter of his obligation in ethics not to assert outright his personal belief in the guilt of those he prosecuted, his whole presence and manner asserted it for him. Of course they were guilty! No rational person could doubt that the man against whom a grand jury found a true bill had committed the offence charged. The trial determined not whether he had done it, but whether he was going to be punished for it.

A miscarriage of justice, with some good, brave man in the interesting and dramatic plight of standing trial for what he never did, might get by in a book or a play where anything could be made plausible. In practice, in real life, it could be made plausible only to those ignorant of how a prisoner at the bar arrived there. He was not arrested on some random arbitrary suspicion, dragged in without ceremony, and arraigned out of hand. Experienced investigators found such overwhelming evidence against him that they knew he was the one, he must have done it, and then they arrested him. A justice of the peace heard his explanations, if he cared to make any, and noted them down for him. The district attorney's office checked all this over, saw the prisoner, saw the other witnesses, and satisfied that it could not be otherwise, charged him in a bill of indictment. When the Grand Jury found that bill a true bill, it meant that at least twelve and often twenty-three disinterested persons of generally admitted prudence and common sense agreed that the evidence showed that the prisoner must have done it The prisoner could be innocent still, just as a bet on a thousand to one chance could sometimes come off. It was not practical to take so remote a possibility into serious account.

In the case against Howell and Basso there was not even the one chance in a thousand. Abner could see that this, the incontestable, the uncontested, certainty that they were guilty as charged made Marty even drier and more matter of fact. He answered Harry by ignoring him; and here perhaps a lack of all art served as well as art could have. The singleness of purpose that was too busy to bother with what Harry said must surprise and then impress every listener. They were surprised because Bunting, obliged to sit still while Harry derided him and his case, did not take the opportunity to respond in kind. They were impressed because, though they would have enjoyed a joined contest, they after all respected the man who would not stoop to it.

The jury might be — and looking at them, Abner saw that they, or several of them, were cruelly bored; but Bunting's moral ascendancy of fixed purpose and unsmiling resolve compelled their attention. Whether they liked it or not, they listened while he told them that there were no facts in conflict and no issue in doubt. The point for them was (a) nobody denied that Frederick Zollicoffer had been kidnapped, and while still in the custody of his kidnappers, killed; (b) nobody denied that Howell and Basso assisted in the kidnapping. That was all there was to it. If the jury believed that the evidence established this point (and what alternative was there?), let them bring in a verdict of first degree murder and assign the death penalty as by law provided.

Bunting, his lips coming together firmly as he stopped speaking, looked at the jurors in a sharp, detached way to see if anybody did not understand. Because he never built his arguments to a high point, he was never in any danger of anti-climax, there was no effect to spoil. Bunting had concluded; but seeing some movement of mouth or expression of eye that did not satisfy him, he went drily on to conclude again.

He said, 'In conclusion, Members of the Jury, I will remind you of what this evidence shows, at the same time, about the character of the defendants. In law, Basso's refusal to plead and testify isn't a sign of guilt; but it is a good indication that he is non-co-operative, that he feels contempt for the law and for society. Howell says now that he didn't want to see Zollicoffer killed; but his character as a criminal is such that we may reasonably doubt it. He did not want to get caught, yes; I am sure of that; and at the time, the surest way not to get caught must have seemed to dispose of Zollicoffer and hide his body where it could never be found. I think he assented for that reason. I think the effect of leniency on such characters would be to prove to them, and incidentally to the criminal circles of several large cities, that you can get away with murder. I don't think you would want to give notice to a lot of city criminals that if they come across the county line here and commit their crimes they will get off easy. For this reason, too, the Commonwealth asks you for a verdict that will leave no doubt that here the law is fully enforced.'

He nodded briefly, nodded again to Judge Vredenburgh, and came over and sat down by Abner. He looked at his watch and said, 'Twenty-five minutes. That's not bad. See Jake?'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'We will now take a recess for five minutes; after which I will charge the jury.'

Abner said, 'Jake and Jesse were there.'

Harry Wurts got up and came over to the Commonwealth's table. 'Well, gents,' he said, 'want to bet? Too late! Offer withdrawn in toto.' George Stacey came over, too; and Harry said to him,' Go on, George; give him the works. Ask him what he meant by trying to prejudice the jury against your client.'

Bunting said, 'I'd like to know what you meant by vindictive.'

'I meant you,' Harry said. 'What else is it? What's the difference between you and them? I'll tell you. They never meant to kill anyone; but you set out with malice prepense to burn them. Say, if I wrote the laws, I'd require the prosecutor who asked the death penalty and the jury that voted it to attend the execution. Then you might know what you were talking about.'

'I thought you did write the laws,' Bunting said. 'It certainly sounded like it, when you were giving them that stuff— there comes your man back; you'd better go hold his hand.'

George had been standing with an indecisive smile, probably waiting for Harry to indicate what they ought to do next. Abner said, 'George, there's something I want to see you about. Going to have any time to-morrow?'

'All day, I guess,' George said. 'I haven't got anything on.' Harry had started back to the defence's table. He stopped now and said. 'He wants to see you about being assistant district attorney and dog-robber in chief. Just say no. Why should you do all the dirty work?

George blushed. He looked away in confusion, showing that he might not be averse to the idea, if by any chance he were going to be offered the job; but Harry and Harry's kidding had taught him useful lessons in wariness. He said stiffly, 'Any time you like, Ab'. Basso had come in with Hugh Erskine, and George went over and seated himself.

Bunting looked at Abner and said, 'Are you going to run?'

'Unless Jesse changes his mind.'

'He doesn't change his mind,' Bunting said. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'I didn't know until just now. We didn't settle it last night. And what do you mean, he doesn't change his mind? He changed something; because Jake said he was ready to plead Mason guilty. They weren't ready yesterday.'

'Look, Ab,' Bunting said, 'Jesse very likely would do what he could for Mason; but he won't do what he can't. I suppose he asked Jake not to make a fuss.' He picked up a pencil and began to bounce it lightly on its rubber eraser. 'There's such a thing as give and take,' he said. 'Did you mention Mason to him last night?'

'I may have said —'

'Yes. Well, don't get cocky about it; but he made up his mind long ago that he wanted you on the primary ballot. It's not the easiest thing in the world to get up a ticket. He didn't change his mind. He just decided that if you were worrying yourself about some idea you had about Mason well, that could be fixed. That's give.'

'Yes.' said Aber, 'and what's take?'

'Take's when you tell him you'll run.' Bunting paused and held the pencil poised. 'If he does something for you, you do something for him.' He gave Abner his faint, tight-lipped smile. 'Only, I wouldn't try to stick him on the deal, if I were you. A lot of people have tried to stick Jesse. Nobody I ever heard of ever did, except maybe Jared Wacker, and that wasn't politics.'

'This isn't any deal,' said Abner. He knew that his tone was huffy and he tried to modify it by laughing. 'He doesn't have to give me anything.'

'That's right. He doesn't. Just keep that in mind. But I guess you want him to.'

'What do you mean, I want him to?'

'For crying out loud!' Bunting said. 'Nobody's making you be district attorney. If you run, it must be because you want to. If you went into the primaries and tried to get the nomination on your own, do you know what you'd get? About twenty write-ins. If you ran as an independent, do you know what you'd get? You'd get the pants licked off you. Now, why don't you act your age? This isn't the college debating society election where you vote for the other fellow to show how modest you are. You may be the best man for the job, and I think you are; but nobody's going to bring it to you on a platter.'

'I know,' said Abner, 'but do you mind very much if I still don't like the way it's run? What right has Jesse to decide who's going to be what? Does he own the county?'

Bunting said, 'Standing off and saying you don't like the way things are run is kid stuff — any kid can work out a programme of more ice cream and less school and free movies and him telling people what to do instead of people always telling him —'

Abner said, 'I don't want any more ice cream, thanks.'

'Maybe you don't; but what you're saying is the same damn thing. If things were run according to your ideas instead of the way they are run, it would be much better. Who says so? Why you say so! That's what the dopes, the Communists and so on, all the boys who never grew up, say. Who's going to be better for it? Their fellow-men? Horse feathers! I don't say some of them don't hope so; but the only thing they can be sure of is that it would be better for them.'

In Cambridge Abner had seen a few people who said they were Communists. Naturally they had not bothered to explain their ideas to Abner. If they had, he would not have known what to say; they seemed queer and set apart, like poets, or homosexuals, so that it was hard to think of them as real people. He did not pretend to understand them, and he would admit that they all seemed to have something wrong with them; but on the other hand, Marty had probably never seen a Communist, so how did he come to know so much about them? Abner said, 'So you say.'

'What I say is,' Bunting said, 'until you have some responsibility, do something besides kick, or try to heave in a few monkey wrenches, you aren't going to know what you're talking about. Sure, one way to get rid of the rats is burn down the barn! That's brilliant. Wait until it's been up to you for a few years, until you've had to decide, until you've seen how a few of those brilliant ideas turn out. Wait until you have to do the work instead of the talking. Then you may begin to know something, not just think you know.' He pulled open the table drawer before him and tossed the pencil into it.

'I never claimed to know much of anything,' Abner said.

Bunting looked past him to the door of the Judge's chambers. Judge Irwin was coming out, drawing his robe together over his blue serge suit. He carried his bald head and distinguished thin face bent forward, moving in nervous haste; but he was soon brought to a halt by two state policemen. They had left their seats at the end of the row and stood talking together in such a position that they blocked Judge Irwin's route to the bench steps. Judge Irwin pulled up, hesitating with the quaint but pleasant delicacy of a shy man.

One of the troopers, hearing or sensing a movement behind him, glanced over his shoulder. His companion looked, too; and they stepped away in confusion, apologizing. Judge Irwin smiled in gentle embarrassment. Abner could hear him say, 'Thank you —' as though it were their courtroom, not his. 'I thought I would come in and hear the charge.'

Still more confused, one of the troopers said, 'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'

'Well, you'll learn!' Bunting said, looking back to Abner. 'God, how you'll learn!'

Judge Irwin passed along the bench quickly and took his seat. Bunting said, 'We'd better shut up. I guess Vredenburgh's ready.'

5

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Members of the Jury: in this bill of indictment the two defendants on trial before you are charged, together with Roy Leming, with murder. It is averred that they did kill and murder within this county one Frederick Zollicoffer.'

He paused, tilting his head to rest a moment against the high carved back of the chair, his eyes focusing on something far off which he seemed to look at with a stoical severity. He said, 'Two only of the defendants named in the bill are on trial before you, because there has been a severance or separation of the defendants for the purposes of this trial. Therefore, your duties in this case relate only to Stanley Howell and Robert Basso.'

He cleared his throat, looked at the desk before him, and then directly at the jurors. 'You have listened patiently and closely to the testimony for three days. You have indicated by your attention that you know the seriousness of your task. You were picked after a painstaking examination of many members of the panel in order that both sides might be satisfied that each of you was intelligent and unprejudiced. You have noticed, no doubt, how you have been guarded and perhaps restricted. This surveillance was not at the whim of the Court. The law requires it. The law is solicitous that the defendants shall have a fair trial, and also that the Commonwealth's case shall be fairly and impartially heard apd tried.'

Abner tipped his chair, easing himself to a more comfortable angle. He looked past the defence's table to Warren Lyall, who sat in the tipstaff's seat behind. Next to Warren was Mrs. O'Hara, and next to her sat Susie Smalley, one thin leg thrown over the other under the skimpy skirt. She seemed to be staring blankly at the back of Howell's head. John Clark sat next to her. His air was calm and pompous. Dewey Smith was next to him, and Dewey was thoughtfully picking his nose. With an expression so like John Clark's that it could be seen to be what it was — the professional expression—Mr. Servadei looked at the Judge, polite and reflective. Between him and Hugh Erskine sat Leming. Leming was uneasy; and Abner supposed that he would go on being uneasy as long as Howell and Basso lived.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'The distinguishing mark of murder is malice aforethought. This is not malice in its ordinary meaning alone, a particular ill-will, a spite or grudge. Malice is a legal term, implying much more. It means wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, carelessness of consequence, and a mind without regard for social duty. Of possible kinds of murder, the Act of Assembly provides as follows: "Murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration of, or in attempting to perpetrate, any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, or kidnapping, shall be deemed murder in the first degree; and all other kinds of murder shall be deemed murder in the second degree"

Judge Vredenburgh looked up from his desk. 'You will notice that under this Act, murder in the first degree may be by poison or lying in wait. There is no evidence of such means in this case. Or it may be any wilful, deliberate, premeditated killing. It may equally well be any and all killing, whether premeditated or not, done in the perpetration of those felonies named.

'In the kind of murder described as wilful, deliberate and premeditated the intention to kill is the essence of the offence. Therefore, if an intention to kill exists, it is wilful. If the circumstances evince a mind fully conscious of its own purpose, it is deliberate. If sufficient time is afforded for the mind to formulate a plan of action, it is premeditated. No particular period of time is fixed by law as sufficient. It may be very short. It must be long enough for the intent to form, for the means or instrument to be selected, and for the design to be carried into execution.'

Bunting murmured to Abner, 'Hope he doesn't get too highfalutin for them. Know what evince means?'

'And so do they,' said Abner. Judge Vredenburgh's style, especially when he had worked on it, was better than the legal average. The Judge talked the way he looked — severe, somewhat curt, short with liars and people who wasted his time; his even-handed sense of justice sometimes overborne, or nearly overborne, by his well-known little crotchets; his sharp observation and good sense supplying him material from which he occasionally (he was no joking judge) struck out a flash of quick, rather grumpy, humour. Abner preferred Vredenburgh's charges to Judge Irwin's.

Just the same, the charge was to the jury, and Judge Irwin, whose habit was to ramble along, repeating himself, saying it the long way, impressed on the jury the things they should know. The circumlocutions gave his hearers time to take in a point, mull over it a moment so that it left an impression; and then, without the worried feeling that they had meanwhile missed something, they found the next point before them. Judge Irwin, though talking all the time, contrived not to say anything until they were ready and waiting.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'All felonious homicides and intentional killings are presumed by the law to be murder in the second degree. This is a presumption apart from and not to be confused with the invariable presumption that all defendants are innocent. The Court instructs you so to presume, here as in every criminal case. The burden of proving guilt is and remains on the Commonwealth throughout the trial. In the case of murder, the Commonwealth must also prove that the murder amounts to more than murder in the second degree. For the purpose of so proving, the Commonwealth has offered testimony along two lines: first, that the killing was wilful, deliberate, and premeditated on the part of the person or persons alleged to have shot Frederick Zollicoffer, which is to say also on the part of those who were present, knowingly helping, aiding and abetting the act. Second, that the felonious killing of Frederick Zollicoffer was perpetrated in the course of committing a kidnapping in which the defendants are alleged to have taken part. If the Commonwealth has established these contentions, or either of them, beyond your reasonable doubt, then these defendants, or either of them, would be guilty of murder in the first degree.'

Judge Vredenburgh took a sip of water from the paper cup standing in a holder on his desk. He turned a sheet of his manuscript. In the courtroom there was a corresponding little stir and pause. At the defence's table Stanley Howell put his head toward Harry and made an anxious inquiry. Basso's head was bent, his eyes closed. He was either asleep or giving a good imitation of sleep. Behind them, Susie still stared, her mouth open a little.

Judge Vredenburgh drew a breath and leaned forward, his elbow on the desk, his chin on his hand. He said: 'Most of you are probably familiar with the term; but the Court will now define reasonable doubt as it is understood in the law. Reasonable doubt is a doubt that arises out of the evidence or lack of evidence. It is such a doubt as would make a reasonable man in the conduct of his own affairs and in a matter of importance to him, pull up, hesitate, and seriously consider whether the thing he thinks of doing is right and wise. It must, however, be a real and substantial doubt; not, for instance, the idle reflection that nothing is perfectly certain in this life. It is a doubt that bases itself on serious gaps or loopholes in the evidence; that persists actively and positively. It is the doubt of a man who has heard and considered all the contentions of the prosecution, and yet who is not satisfied that the defendant must have done what he is charged with doing.

'If you feel such a doubt about the guilt of these defendants it is your duty to give them the benefit of your doubt and to acquit them, or that one of them that the doubt touches. If, on the other hand, you find no good ground for doubt, if what you have heard results in your abiding conviction of their guilt, it is equally your duty to convict both or either of them.'

Judge Vredenburgh looked at the defence's table where Basso still sat with his head bent and eyes closed. Judge Vredenburgh compressed his lips; and George, watching him, moved an elbow, jogging Basso's arm. Basso's eyes came open and Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Before referring to the testimony and your duties toward it, the Court deems it proper to instruct you on the status of the defendant, Robert Basso —'

Basso closed his eyes again and it was plain that Judge Vredenburgh observed his impudence. Judge Vredenbrugh said, 'When he was arraigned before us, Robert Basso elected to stand mute. That is, he refused to enter a plea. The prisoner's plea is the answer he makes to the clerk when the clerk after reading the bill of indictment to him in open court, asks him whether he pleads guilty or not guilty.

'In a capital case, where life is or may be at stake, the law is tender of the prisoner. 'Judge Vredenburgh paused; and Basso could not have been quite so indifferent as he seemed, for he must have felt the terrible silence and his eyes opened. Judge Vredenbrugh said, 'If he does not know his rights, the law will inform him of them and sustain him in them. If the prisoner cannot or will not safeguard his own interests, the law will safeguard them for him. It will not allow him, by any act that the Court can nullify or neutralize, to put himself, his rights, or his interests in jeopardy greater than the jeopardy that a man who pleads properly and is tried by God and his country submits to. Therefore we directed that a plea of not guilty be entered for Robert Basso. That became his plea; and it was, and it is, in no way prejudiced by his refusal to plead for himself. He has the benefit of the presumption that he is an innocent man. You may infer nothing from his refusal to plead, or his failure to testify; and in making up your minds about his guilt or innocence you will ignore everything but the actual evidence presented to you.'

The colour of repressed annoyance faded off Judge Vredenburgh's forehead. Glad to get back to an impersonal topic, he said, 'We will now consider the testimony. First of all, I wish to point out that it is your duty to remember it. You will not accept —'

Abner, who could feel little interest in hearing that story all over again, looked at the jurors. He did not believe that Basso would get the benefit of being considered innocent. The habit of innocence, unjustly accused, is not to keep still. In its alarm and indignation, innocence cannot wait to answer. Silence showed a wish to conceal something, and no juror was going to suppose that the 'something' was innocence. Even the law, trying to maintain that fiction, was perhaps tender not so much of the prisoner as of the record that might go up on an appeal.

Behind Abner, in the seats along the curving rail, there was a sound of smothered disturbance, and Abner, recovering the Judge's unattended last words, realized that they had been about Frederick Zollicoffer's body. Mrs. Zollicoffer, whose presence Abner had almost forgotten, sat beyond the centre aisle next to Mrs. Meade in her tipstaff's jacket and frilled collar. She had begun to cry and Mrs. Meade bent toward her to see whether she was going to require attention. Next to her, on the other side, William Zollicoffer gave her an awkward, heavy-handed pat.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'We come now to the testimony of Roy Leming. Leming was an accomplice of these men, and the testimony of an accomplice is not looked on in law as evidence of a high type. He is, to an extent, an impeached witness by reason of his own participation in the crime; and anything he says should be received with caution. If you are satisfied that some or all of his statements are truthful, you should, of course, accept them, even if they are uncorroborated. However, we will particularize only statements of his that did receive corroboration.'

Leming, sitting below Hugh Erskine, shifted with embarrassment; and Abner was obliged to smile. No doubt Leming was genuinely hurt to hear his honour aspersed; and you could learn from Leming's look of protest the farcical nature of the ideas a man could entertain about himself.

Judge Vredenburgh was saying,' — it was testified that Frederick Zollicoffer was made to sit on the floor in the back of the car, his back against the left-hand door, his face toward the right hand-door —'

Harry Wurts lifted his eyes from the pad in front of him, held up his hand, and said, 'That is twisted, your Honour.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'I would be glad to have you correct me.'

'His back was against the right-hand door and he faced the left-hand door.'

'That is right,' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'I recall now. Just the reverse of what we stated. The iron weights were in the car, and —'

Bunting said to Abner,' Remind me to speak to Washburn, will you?' He had been looking over his shoulder. Looking, too, Abner saw that several members of the bar were sitting at the long table with Adelaide Maurer and Maynard Longstreet and two city reporters. Evan Washburn, slight and grey-headed, saw Abner looking at him and nodded. He was a lawyer who did not often appear in court. Abner said, 'Is he going to handle the lottery thing?'

'I think so. That's what I want to see him about. With this out of the way, we can get on with that.'

Judge Vredenburgh lifted off his glasses and set them on the desk before him. He turned his chair a little, looking more directly at the jury, and said, 'That is the testimony in general outline. If it is accepted as truthful, it would amount to proof of guilt, and of the grade or degree of guilt. According to statements made here in the stand, the defendants helped to kidnap Frederick Zollicoffer, they helped to keep him prisoner, they, together, took him out in the car and were there with him at the moment he was killed. If you believe the sum of these statements — that Frederick Zollicoffer was murdered by their fellow kidnapper, Bailey, while still in their power, then I say to you that you would be justified in returning, and the opinion of the Court is that you ought to return, a verdict of murder in the first degree.'

Though it must long have been obvious to every listener that in applying the law to the facts this was bound to be the advice of the Court, the sound of it in words fell, too quiet to be the crack, like the hush of doom. The instant's silence was ended by a general light stir. Several members of the jury let their faces turn, looking at Basso's closed eyes and at Howell who sat rigid gazing at the bench. Judge Irwin lifted a hand and began to pinch the skin beneath his chin. In the light of his lamp, Joe Jackman cocked his head, the last word transcribed, his stylo poised awaiting the next one.

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'It is necessary for us to call your attention to the matter of Howell's confession. Against one of the defendants, Stanley Howell, the Commonwealth offers an alleged written confession. This confession states that Howell made and signed it of his own free will, and without force, coercion, or inducement being used to secure it. The defendant Howell admits that he signed this confession, but testified on the stand that it was not voluntary, but extorted from him by beating and abuse. Therefore you are posed with a query: was this confession free, as the Commonwealth's testimony maintained; or was it forced, as the defence claims? That the defendant may have been questioned closely and frequently —'

Looking straight across at them, Abner considered the faces of the jurors as, presumably, they attempted to form that opinion now required of them — Louis Blandy, Genevieve Shute, Old Man Daniels (and his friend, God). The truth was, it would never cross your mind to ask the opinion of any one of them on a matter of importance. Old Man Daniels was a plain fool. Blandy, since his bakery business was a going concern, must have practical sense; but would you ask his advice about anything, except perhaps how to adulterate breadstuffs to the nice point at which the product would be not so bad that nobody would buy, yet not so foolishly good that money was thrown away on it? Genevieve Shute had the face of a silly middle-aged woman, and one look was enough to warn you that, though a great talker, she had learned in forty odd years of life nothing about anything. Perry Vandermost, in the back row, was a house painter. All Abner knew about him was that he was not one of the 'good' painters in Childerstown, the ones people who insisted on a first class job waited to get. Except by looking at the slips on Marty's card, Abner could not even be sure what the rest of the names were—there was a farmer or two; a younger woman; and one man, probably the fat one, had said he was a salesman —

Judge Vredenburgh's voice sank into silence, and rousing himself, Abner looked at him. The Judge pushed aside his manuscript, snapped out the reading light and leaned back, resting his hands flat on the desk. He said, 'I will recapitulate. This is the application of the law. You have two theories to consider in reaching your conclusion about the possible guilt of the defendants. First, whether the killing of Frederick Zollicoffer was wilful, deliberate, and premeditated. Second, whether the murder was committed in perpetration of the felony of kidnapping. If you find, on either one of these theories, that they are guilty, it is sufficient to convict them of murder in the first degree. We say to you that in the opinion of the Court, if you find these defendants or either of them guilty of murder in the first degree, then the death penalty would be the just and proper punishment. However, by the Act of Assembly, you will determine that point, and you are not bound by the opinion of the Court.'

Looking down at the defence's table, Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Before we take up points submitted for charge, do counsel wish any further instructions on any of the aforesaid matters?'

Harry Wurts said, 'No, sir.'

'Mr. District Attorney?'

'Nothing further, sir.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'The defendants have submitted several points for charge to the jury.' He snapped on his reading light and leaned forward. 'The first of which is refused; and therefore not read. The second' — he paused, pursing his lips — 'is refused; and therefore not read. The third was fully covered in the general charge, and is therefore not read.'

A copy of Harry's points lay on the table before him and Abner looked at them. The third was that Howell's confession was evidence only against Howell. The fourth was: 'If the jury find from the evidence that Frederick Zollicoffer was not killed in the perpetration of a kidnapping, they cannot return a verdict of murder in the first degree.' Most of the ten items were innocuous and could be dismissed as unnecessary; but Judge Vredenburgh was prepared to find one or two of them less innocuous than they looked, being in fact framed as artfully as possible with the hope of catching him in a moment's oversight or inattention so that he would refuse what technically must be affirmed and give Harry the lucky break of a reversible error.

Judge Vredenburgh said slowly, 'The fourth point is refused and therefore not read. The fifth point is covered in the general charge and would be mere repetition. The sixth point' —Judge Vredenburgh smiled and looked at Harry, letting Harry see that he was not blind to dangerous ground; but he wanted Harry to wonder a moment — 'is as follows', he continued. 'If the jury believe that the defendants were unarmed at the time of the killing of Frederick Zollicoffer, and had such a fear of Bailey that they were unable to form a deliberate intent, the verdict cannot be first degree murder.' He paused and added, 'Affirmed as stated. But of course if the jury find that the defendants took part in the kidnapping, the Act of Assembly holds that deliberate intent in the killing does not have to be shown. Seventh point; refused as stated. Eighth and ninth points were fully covered in the general charge. Tenth point' — the corners of his mouth drew down —'is refused and therefore not read.'

Looking at the carbon copy, Abner saw that the tenth point was: 'Under all the evidence the verdict must be not guilty.'

Judge Vredenbrugh snapped out the light again. He said, 'Members of the Jury, we will say a word more as to the form of your verdict. Your verdict in this case may be not guilty as to both defendants, or it may be not guilty as to one defendant. Your verdict may be guilty of murder in the first degree as to both defendants, or it may be guilty of murder in the first degree as to one defendant, and a different verdict as to the other defendant. Your verdict may be guilty of murder in the second degree as to both defendants, or as to one defendant, with a different verdict as to the other.

'In short, you will render for each defendant an independent verdict. Both may be the same; but you will, in arriving at them, consider them separately and independently. We have already told you that, in case either one or both verdicts is murder in the first degree, you are required also to fix the penalty, which may be either life imprisonment or death. If your verdict is murder in the second degree, the penalty will be imposed by the Court, and does not concern you.

'You will take this case, Members of the Jury, and give it your very careful consideration, all the consideration that the gravity of the crime merits, all the consideration that the length of the testimony requires. You will render your verdict unaffected by any bias or prejudice, or hatred or sympathy. Such feelings have no place in the deliberations and conclusions of a jury. We suggest to you that you look upon this task as a problem to be solved by a co-operative effort, to which each of you must devote his judgment and understanding; and not as a contest or debate in which sides may be taken and arguments advanced for the sake of arguing. It is a cold question of fact for you. You will render that verdict that your reason and your consciences approve.' He looked down at Mat Rhea and said, 'Swear the officers.' Harry Wurts said, 'If the Court please, and before the jury retires, and in their presence, I want to ask a general exception to your Honour's charge; also an exception to the defendants' points for charge that were refused; also that portion of your Honour's charge wherein you stated that the kidnapping enterprise did not end until the victim was returned.'

Judge Vredenburgh said, 'Exceptions allowed as requested. How about you, Mr. Stacey?'

'Yes, sir. The same, if the Court please.'

'Allowed also for the defendant Robert Basso.'

Malcolm Levering and Albert Unruh came up to the bar, their bald heads and blue jackets close together as they put their hands on the bible Nick Dowdy held open for them.

Standing up, Mat Rhea said, 'You do swear that you will well and truly keep this jury in some private and convenient place, until they have agreed upon their verdict; and that you will not suffer any person to speak to them, nor speak to them yourselves, without the leave of the Court, except it be to ask them if they have agreed on their verdict. So help you God.'

Judge Vredenburgh and Judge Irwin arose on the bench. Nick Dowdy closed the bible and taking up his mallet hit the block. 'The Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery here in this day holden stands adjourned until eight o'clock p.m.'

Bunting leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head and stretching. He looked at the clock and said, 'Ten of six. You going home? I guess I will.'

'Want me for anything?'

'No.'

'How about Washburn? There he goes.'

Bunting came to his feet. 'O.K. See you later.'

The aisle leading up to the main doors was filled with moving people. Abner saw Bonnie sitting in the shadowed top row beside Everitt Weitzel who was talking to her. He went over and stood with the group at the foot of the aisle waiting to go up. Just ahead of him was Adelaide Maurer looking at her folded sheets of copy paper. She smiled in a worried way, waiting an instant so that Abner came beside her.

She said, 'Ab, how long do you think it will take? I want to send my story in. When it gets late, they always find some reason to cut it, darn them!'

Abner said, 'They oughtn't to be very long. I doubt if they have to argue much about these foreigners. You write out what you have, and we'll get the rest of it for you by nine o'clock. How's that?'

Adelaide said, 'If you don't, I'll sue you.'

She went ahead, and Abner, now almost the last in the long procession, reached the top bench. Everitt Weitzel had gone, and he sat down by Bonnie. 'Want to go eat?' he said. 'Do you have to eat a lot?'

'Why?'

'Come down to the house and I'll fix you something. Jared's in some scout show, or I don't know what, and Mother has to go to it. She'll be back by eight, but she didn't want to leave the twins alone all that time.'

'Why not?'

'Harold isn't feeling well. He was over at the Simpson's, and one of the kids bought a lot of cream puffs, or says he did — I think, as a matter of fact, they probably swiped them from Blandy's delivery truck. Harold must have had a good many and they made him pretty sick.'

'Even one of those would make you pretty sick,' Abner said. 'Blandy's foreman of this jury. I guess he'd better go home and take care of his business.'

'Aren't you through yet?'

'I wish we were. The jury just went out.' He looked down at the well of the court, now almost empty. Bunting was talking to Evan Washburn over by the big table. Hugh Erskine came through the door from the back hall and made his way around the jury's empty chairs and started up the aisle. Reaching the top, he said, 'Hello, Bonnie. What do you want to hang around here for? I wouldn't, if they didn't pay me.'

'Get them off your hands?' Abner said.

'And glad to! No fooling, Ab; every time. I'm glad to! I don't like that Basso boy. He's a mean one. I'll feel a lot better when they take those boys away. Look. Do you think I have to bring them back here until the jury comes in? I didn't get a chance to ask the Judge.'

'I don't think so, Hugh. I don't see why. I don't think there's any reason for them to be present until the verdict is read.'

'I didn't know, exactly.'

Hugh's broad, good-natured smile went to Bonnie. 'Trouble is, we don't have enough murders around here,' he said to her. 'Don't know the rules. Well, I'll get me some supper.' He went on out of the doors.

'Let's get us some,' Abner said. 'We'll have to go by my office and pick up the car. I left it in the garage down there this morning. You going over to school to-night?'

'The meeting's at half past eight; yes. I'm so worried about Mr. Rawle. He's so upset.'

'I wouldn't worry about him,' Abner said. 'Jesse's got that pretty well under control.'

'Well, Mr. Gearhart doesn't run the school board.'

'That's what you think,' said Abner.

6

At seven o'clock the low clouds broke over the western hills and showed behind them, far higher, and far off against the deep blue of fair weather, alto-cumulus patterns shadowed grey below, brightly white edged. Through gaps and chinks the broad sun streamed in splendour. Childerstown, washed and shining, was flooded with golden light. The wind fell and there was a great chatter of birds.

Sunlight came in the open door and poured across the table in Cousin Mary's kitchen where Abner sat eating scrambled eggs and chicken livers. Looking at him across the shaft of sun, Bonnie said, 'That's nice. It will be nice to-morrow.'

'Who cares?' said Abner. 'I'll be in court.' He pushed his plate away. 'No. I don't want any more.'

'Well, you might say it was good.'

'I never said you couldn't cook. You ought to make some man a wonderful wife. That reminds me —' He got up and went into the dining-room where he had laid his coat on the table. Coming back, he stood behind her and said, 'Do you know how to write?'

'You're certainly feeling flip,' Bonnie said. She drank the rest of her coffee.

Looking down at her head, on which the slight disorder of the brown hair was lighted golden in the sun. Abner could see a tinge of colour come up on her cheeks. He said, 'You know damn well what I've got here. "We, the undersigned in accordance with the statements hereinafter contained, the facts set forth wherein we and each of us do solemnly swear are true and correct to the best of our knowledge and belief, do hereby make application to the Clerk of the Orphans Court" — I swiped it from Hermann's office this afternoon. He doesn't know I've got it. Now, here's what you do. Full name and surname — you know that. Colour — what colour are you, anyway? You look pink to me.'

'Ab,' she said, 'I told you —'

'You picked the wrong person. In Marty's office we don't let you talk yourself out of something.' Reaching down, he pushed aside the cup and plate, clearing a space on the table to spread out the printed form. Opening a fountain pen he put it in her hand. 'Statement of Female. See?' he said. 'Write your name. Janet. J-a-n—'

From upstairs a voice, plaintive, not urgent, screamed, 'Bonnie!'

'All right, darling,' Bonnie called.

'Darling, hell!' said Abner. 'Let him wait. He just thinks it's time he had a little attention.'

'Well, I know what that feels like,' Bonnie said. She laid down the fountain pen and stood up.

'So do I,' said Abner. 'I think it's time I had a little attention. Sit down.'

'No. I have to see what he wants.'

'No. You have to see what I want.'

'I know what you want. You want your own way. Well, you could have had it once. But not now. So why don't we just call it off?' She stood straight and tense, her hands raised and clasped together. 'Well,' said Abner, 'I can't make you do anything, of course —'

'That's where you're wrong,' Bonnie said. 'You could make me do anything. If you knew how. If you wanted to. I was a fool to tell you what I told you last night. I thought I could tell you — Inez or anyone would say I was crazy — that I ought to keep you guessing, that I ought to get someone else interested in me and try to make you jealous. If I could. Only I don't want you to be guessing. I don't want you to be jealous. If I had to do it by a lot of little tricks —'

'Well, what do you want?' Abner sat on the edge of the table. 'Maybe we can get it for you.'

'Don't sit there. You spilled honey all over that. I have to go upstairs now.'

'No, you don't. Your patient's coming down. I can hear him. What is it you want?'

Bonnie turned. In the wide door of the dining-room Harold appeared. He was clad in a faded pair of pyjamas, half off his thin tanned body. His light hair was on end and his feet were bare. 'Bonnie,' he said. 'Darling, you must go right back to bed!'

'I'm hungry.'

'You must be awful sick,' Abner said. 'That's a bad sign, being hungry. I guess you need some more castor oil.'

Harold gave him an offended look and said, 'Bonnie, can I have something to eat?'

'You can't have anything much, Harold. Do you want some milk toast?'

'All right.'

'Then you go back to bed, and I'll bring it up to you. Now, hurry. Right upstairs!'

'Will you stay while I eat it?'

'If I have time. Mother will be home pretty soon.'

'Where's Philip?'

'He's out playing. Upstairs now!'

Harold had been moving closer. He put out a hand and took hold of Bonnie's wrist, clinging to it. He said, 'Why doesn't he have to come in?'; but it was plain that he was little interested in the answer. He wanted to touch her because of the comfort or pleasure it gave him.

'He will have to, in a moment,' Bonnie said. Harold took her by the hips and pressed his forehead against her thigh. Bonnie laid her hand on his head a moment, and said, 'Go on, dear; or there won't be time to bring you anything.'

'All right.' Reluctantly he let her go, turned and padded quickly through the dining-room.

Abner said, 'No. Let's not call it off. What is it you want?'

Bonnie crossed over to the ice-box and took out a bottle of milk. She unhooked a saucepan from the row hanging above the electric stove, snapped on a switch, and poured milk into the saucepan. She said, 'I guess I want somebody who will trust me —about everything. Mother made a mess of her life because of that.'

'I don't see that much of it was her fault.'

'No. She doesn't see that any of it was her fault. She was crazy about Wacker. I'm not going to live that kind of a life.' She dropped a slice of bread into the electric toaster.

Abner said, 'There have been lawyers who never absconded with any trust funds.'

'I don't mean just that. I mean I'm not going to be any man's dear little woman and not worry about anything until he runs off with his stenographer. Get me a bowl out of there, will you?'

Abner took a bowl from the cabinet and put it on the table.

Bonnie said, 'She had no business not to know. I mean, how could anyone married to a man not know that he was in trouble about money? How could she not know he didn't want her any more, and that there was this stenographer? How could she not know that he was the kind of person who would steal and then run? Mother could. It never crossed her mind. She never really knew a thing about him; and I suppose he didn't know much about her — except maybe that she was a fool who wanted a man.'

That was a good description of Cousin Mary; and Bonnie would always have known it; but Abner doubted if she had ever said it before. He did not know how much anyone ever really learned about anyone else; but he was aware of a knowledge of Bonnie that let him be sure that she would be sorry she had said that. Abner said, 'In my line of work you find out a good deal about how people happen to get into trouble. They don't look where they're going. It's like a man driving a car. If everyone kept his eyes on the road there wouldn't be any accidents; but nobody keeps his eyes on the road all the time. You still haven't told me what you want.' She said, 'I want you to trust me.'

'You'll have to say what you mean.'

'Well, here's one thing. You argue about my job. I'm probably going to lose this one; but if we got married we'd have to take care of Mother. I'm sorry; but I'd have to; and what I have to do, we have to do. If we can get by without my working, then I won't work if you don't want me to. Give me that bowl.'

'That isn't what you said last time.'

'I didn't know I needed to say it.' She took the bowl and put a piece of toast in it. 'Can't you see that I'd never, just because I wanted to, do what you didn't want me to? You'd only have to tell me. And everything you did want me to do, I'd do with all my heart.' She took up the saucepan, her hand shaking a little, and poured the scalding milk over the toast.

'We can get by,' Abner said. 'Do you mind living up at the house for a while — well, what I mean is, we might have to do it as long as Father lived.'

'I wouldn't mind living with you anywhere, if —'

'No. Wait. Listen. I think there is a pretty good chance I'll be elected district attorney next November. It's a chance. We haven't lost an election in eighteen years; but that doesn't mean we couldn't lose this one. If we win it, I'll be pretty well fixed. Now, do we have to wait to find out whether I do or not?'

'We don't have to wait for anything.'

'Well, then, sit down and fill the paper out. That's too hot for him to eat.'

'All right.'

She sat on the edge of the metal framed chair and picked the pen up. Abner stood leaning against the sink, looking at her. He found that he held an unlighted cigarette that he had sometime taken out. He drew a booklet of matches from his pocket. The fancy black script on the orange front said Childerstown Inn. On the back was a street plan showing where the inn stood in relation to the through routes.

Abner turned it over, taking in the inconsequential detail, which his mind, brought to a nervous pause, made use of as something to think about. He was, in fact, a little frightened by the irrevocable step he had now taken, and had now made Bonnie take. He did not doubt that it was a good step, and the right step; but just as when, in Jake Riordan's office, he had committed himself to Jesse, he was now obliged to wonder whether he was embarking on more than he had the abilities to manage. This was a large order, too. The commitments were not only similar, but linked to each other. He committed himself to Jesse, and so gained a free hand to commit himself here; and the two together must break up the pattern of life which he was used to and knew how to manage.

Living it, the life had seemed to Abner vaguely unsatisfactory; but when he put an end to it there were obvious good points to be remembered. For one simple and artless item, it never mattered when he got home; and though there was rarely or never anything to keep him out and the freedom was useless, he could feel himself being shut in; one after another the ways out closing. Until this afternoon he had also been free to say what he thought about Jesse; but he was not free any longer. As Marty said, he could not stand off and talk in his new position. If he did not like the way things were, he could no longer merely make a complaint; he himself was part of how things were; and he himself would have to work a plan out, implement it, and take the responsibility if it failed.

The sunset light shafted across the table and Bonnie moved the pen from blank space to blank space. Her clear script, wet and shining as the pen point traced it, was already dry on the first lines. Without looking up, she read aloud, 'Is applicant an imbecile, epileptic, of unsound mind, or under guardianship as a person of unsound mind, or under the influence of any intoxicating liquor or narcotic drug —' She gave a short nervous laugh.

'Write, no,' Abner said. He lit the cigarette. 'You can sign it there, and on the second line above. I'll have Arlene notarize it to-morrow. And don't forget you'll have to go down to Doctor Mosher's.'

'All right.'

'You don't sound very sure,' Abner said. He spoke awkwardly, aware in the absurdity of the moment that she felt no surer than he did.

She put the cap on the fountain pen. 'I am,' she said, 'but I —' She looked at him. 'Well, I never did this before.' She held the pen out politely.

Taking it, Abner balanced his cigarette on the edge of the drain board. With the hand thus freed, he caught her hand.

'Ab,' she said, 'do you really —'

'Yes,' he said. 'I really.'

Tightening his grip on her hand, he drew her out of the chair. 'It's not as bad as all that,' he said. The taut scared-to-death look on her face made him laugh, even as it filled him with compunction; and suddenly he remembered what he had forgotten — that if he suffered losses, he would have inestimable gains, the charms of her mind and body so joined that there was no distinguishing them. Both troubled his senses and both exalted his heart. Answering the repressed, the unformed, query that must all along have been in his mind, Abner thought: I would take any damn job. It seemed to him right that he should. He bent and kissed her. 'Ah, Ab,' she said, 'you won't be sorry, will you — '

From upstairs Harold yelled faintly, 'Bonnie!'

'Oh, Lord!' she said, laughing. 'Yes, darling! I'm coming!' She pushed Abner away and took the bowl of milk toast.

"Well, hurry up,' said Abner, somewhat shaken. 'I have to get to court. I'll drive you over to school.'

'No,' said Bonnie. 'I'll have to stay until Mother comes. I don't need to be at school until half past eight. You go, will you. I'll have to tell Mother.'

'Want some help?'

'No. I don't want you to be here.'