The Just And The Unjust (45 page)

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.