The Just And The Unjust (50 page)

'Well, I think you could do worse. He's all right, when he doesn't try to copy Harry Wurts. Harry's a good lawyer, and I like him; but there's a little too much — well, his speech to the jury. A little too smart. It must be eight o'clock. We'd better go in'.'

Abner said, 'Albert happen to hear anything, sir?'

'About ready to convict, according to him. Of course, he's a little deaf, and the door's thick.' Judge Vredenburgh smiled and got to his feet. 'Coming in, Horace?'

'Yes, I will,' Judge Irwin said. 'All right, Marty. I think we can get that in Monday morning. Evan Washburn understands?'

'Yes, sir. It was his idea. I told him that the Commonwealth had no objection to hearing it without a jury. It seems to me fundamentally a matter of law.'

'Yes,' Judge Irwin said. 'A lottery is a scheme for the distribution of prizes by chance. If the facts are admitted, then the only question is whether the facts do amount to such distribution. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'll have a chance to look it up to-night, I hope.'

Abner said to Bunting, 'Want to see me?'

'Yes. Just the list for to-morrow. We can do that while we're waiting.'

2

Bunting sat back in his chair and rocked it slowly on its spring. 'Quarter past nine,' he said. 'I guess Albert was wrong.' He clasped his hands behind his head. 'I don't know whether it's a good sign or not. Of course, some of them have to shoot their faces off. You couldn't stop old Daniels making a speech. It beats me, what they have to argue about.'

Abner swung around in his own chair, looking at the electric lighted cavern of the court. The judges had left the bench. The four state policemen in uniform had gathered by the water-cooler, whispering and yawning. On the tiers of benches a number of spectators sat patiently — Abner glanced at them a moment, making a rough count by twos, and got eighty-four.

Bunting said, 'The Judge is going to have cots brought in at ten o'clock and they can just stay, he says. We might get some action when they see those cots. They're some they had over at the armoury, made of sticks and canvas.'

Abner said, 'Let's get out.'

'Not the Attorneys' Room. Harry's in there; and I don't feel in the mood for Harry. We'll go out front.'

'I can get a typewriter in Mat's office. Might as well make some carbons of this.' Abner took up the yellow pad on which they had been working out the order of cases for to-morrow.

They went up the aisle together to the swinging doors. Most of the spectators looked at them with discouragement at this fresh indication that nothing was going to happen. Abner saw Grandpa, his head hung, his moustache twitching, as he breathed through his mouth, asleep.

Under a green shaded light in the Clerk of Quarter Sessions' Office Mat and Theodore Bosenbury were playing checkers. Mat said, 'Marty, this is getting tiresome.'

Abner said, 'Here's something the clerk ought to do: but I guess I'll do it for him.' He sat down before the typewriter in the corner. 'Where do you keep the paper?'

'There,' said Mat, absent-mindedly. 'Bosey here is the damnedest old bastard. He's got me in that end game again. White to play —'

'Want to abandon?' said Bosenbury. 'It's going to be a draw.'

'Keep your pants on. I got to think.'

There were steps on the marble pavement outside the door and Bunting said, 'Thought you were at school.'

Maynard Longstreet strode in. 'To hell with them! It's over.'

'What happened?' said Abner, dropping his hands from the typewriter keys.

'Vote of confidence for Rawle. Of all the crooked, stinking — confidence! What do they mean, confidence? You know what Holstrom said? Said the County Superintendent was not empowered to take action unless he saw definite cause for complaint! He ought to have his eyes examined!'

Bunting said, 'Was it unanimous?'

'It was not. There's some decency left. Doc Mosher and Hobbs are going to forward a petition to the state board.'

'Two of them,' Bunting said. 'Waste of postage.'

Abner began to typewrite again. Mat Rhea said, 'Maynard, let me ask you something. Why don't you work on your paper?'

'Ah, you jerks!' Maynard said. 'Every damn one of you here is in the public trough. What do I expect?'

'You act like you expected some of the swill,' Mat Rhea said. He hunched his round shoulders and turned his face up, grinning in the light of the shaded lamp. 'Know what makes more noise than two pigs under a gate?'

'Every damn one of you is so busy sucking up to Jesse!'

'When we ought to be sucking up to you, I suppose,' Mat said. 'Damn if I don't believe you think you're a moulder of public opinion! Why, you ought to get wise to yourself! Maynard, I never met anyone who gave two hoots what the
Examiner
said; and I don't believe you ever did, either. Why, the only reason anyone buys your paper is to see what the stores are advertising — well, no; some of them may buy it to see if you got in that Cousin Mamie visited them over Sunday.'

'Ah!' said Maynard. 'Heard anything from upstairs, Marty?'

"What's the trouble?' Mat said. 'Trying to change the subject? Trying to suck up to the district attorney?'

Bunting said, 'We haven't heard yet. Wait a minute. Is that Everitt?' He stepped to the door and looked into the hall. 'Want me?' he said.

Everitt, limping up from the courtroom, stopped and said, 'Yes, they do, Marty. Mat, too. Right away. The jury's coming down.'

Mat Rhea said, 'Well, halleluiah! Now, let it stand, Bosey. We aren't done yet. We'll come back afterward.' He caught his coat up and pulled it on. 'Out of my way!' he said. 'Judge gets on the bench before I'm there, and I'll catch it. Clerk? Clerk? Where's the clerk?'

Abner typed the last words and drew the sheets from the machine. 'Just the same,' Maynard said to Bunting as they went into the hall, 'letting that school business go, not doing anything at all about it, is an outrage.' He turned his head, looking back at Abner morosely. 'So they got you in it, too,' he said. 'Jesse said you'd represent Rawle, or whatever the hell, if they had a hearing. Did he ask you to?'

Abner said, 'He didn't ask me not to.'

'I get it,' Maynard said. 'I didn't at first, but I do now.'

Maynard's derisive, wise look did not make clear just what he got; but it was clear enough that, rummaging in his store of local information, Maynard had put together links for a chain of interest that bound Abner to Mr. Rawle, though on the face of it they hardly knew each other.

Perhaps Maynard remembered suddenly that Mr. Rawle's secretary was Janet Drummond, who was related to the Coateses, and furthermore was supposed to be Abner's girl. Perhaps, because he knew that Jesse was going to run Abner for district attorney, he figured that in exchange, Abner was naturally expected to help bolster up Rawle, and so maintain Jesse's influence on the School Board.

Maynard was right.

Those were the facts — Bonnie was his girl; Jesse was going to run him for district attorney; so Abner could see that he stood 'convicted in advance of any implications those facts might have. It was not possible to be above the reasonable calumny of a suspicious man's suspicions; and dismayed for a moment, Abner remembered his father saying 'You know whether it's a bargain or not. You know what you take and what you give.'

The point, driven unexpectedly home, checked his annoyance and eased his embarrassment. Abner saw that he really did not have to say anything. He said, 'Do you?' and went into court.

3

From his seat Abner watched the hall door open and Albert Unruh dodder in. Albert stepped aside and the jury, a close-grouped walking throng filled the gap. The moment was one that Abner had often sat through and always with an anxiety, great or small depending on how important the issue seemed to him, but uncontrollable. When, as to-night, the anxiety was great, he could feel it physically, a pressure on the nerves, a constriction of the stomach. Abner's reason might assure him that the jury's finding must be first degree murder; but since that was, after all, what he wanted it to be, he heard reason with distrust. Uncomfortably, with anxious distraction, he looked around him.

Dark all day, the night-bound court now appeared bright, filled with light. Through the round skylight the great lamps poured down a radiance like the daylight of overcast noon. This illusion of being outdoors made a man's height inconsiderable. People sitting and standing appeared to cast no shadows. On the bench and on Joe Jackman's desk the reading lamps burned brightly. The hundred or more watching faces, out of the direct light, sloped wanly up to the shadowed windows.

There were a few last movements.

Hugh Erskine nodded to Warren Lyall and Max Eich, left them, and crossed the carpet with quick heavy steps to his chair. Albert Unruh shut the door to the hall through which the jury had come. The state police officers took up their posts with a creak of belts and boots. At the defence's table Harry Wurts sat glum and tired. Abner observed with surprise that Harry's reddish hair was thinning on top. The pale downpour of light shone distinctly on Harry's scalp.

When everything was quiet, Judge Vredenburgh leaned forward, looking down at Joe Jackman, and said, 'You may note that the defendants and their council are in court. You may take this verdict.'

He sat back; and beside him, Judge Irwin hitched himself back, too, clasping and tightening his hands, composing his bare, bony face.

Under the bench Mat Rhea stood up. He had in his hand a board with a clamp to hold papers. He looked at it and said, 'Stanley Howell'.

Harry Wurts gave Howell a contemptuous jog with his elbow. Mat Rhea said, 'Will you please rise?'

Howell came erect. He balanced himself by pressing the fingertips of one hand to the table top. With the other hand he clutched a fold of the cloth of his trousers and hung on to it. His narrow little mouth was pursed, his half-closed eyes blank.

Mat Rhea said, 'Members of the Jury.' He peered over at them where they stood together flanked by the blue jackets of Malcolm Leveling and Albert Unruh. 'This verdict will be as to Stanley Howell only.' He cleared his throat. 'Jurors, look upon the prisoner; prisoner, look upon the jurors.'

Sedately, he stole a glance at the paper clamped on the board. 'Members of the Jury, have you agreed upon your verdict in the issue joined between the Commonwealth and Stanley Howell' —he consulted the paper again — 'on bill number nineteen, May Sessions, 1939; first count, murder? How say you, do you find this defendant guilty or not guilty?'

Louis Blandy at the head of the group lifted a hand and scratched his neck. He felt the embarrassment of his conspicuous position. His eye, shifting, met Abner's; and he looked away, confused, probably feeling that all these lawyers and people were waiting for him to make some mistake; and feeling, too, that he was
very
likely to make one in pronouncing a rigmarole not familiar to him. He said, 'We, the jury, find —'

He stopped; for his mind, obsessed with the idea of forgetting, duly and naturally performed the act it thought he wanted. He was silent, struggling through an awful instant; then he broke out, more loudly than he intended, 'We find the prisoners at the bar, find them both, guilty of murder in the second degree.' There was a dead silence.

Blandy had spoken so loud that nobody could have failed to hear him. Mysteriously emanated, the mental jarring or repercussion from the scores of separate brains, each hearing, each understanding, each reacting, could be felt like a stir of air across the electric lighted void of the court. Howell's stiff figure gave way and he sat down. The colour jumped up Harry Wurt's cheeks; and Harry broke the silence, calling harshly, 'I didn't hear that. You what?'

'Find them guilty, second degree,' Blandy said. Bunting pushed back his chair, bumping it against Abner's chair, and stood up. 'Your Honour,' he said, 'if the jury has brought in one verdict for both —'

Judge Vredenburgh's face was congested. He said, 'Mr. Blandy, didn't you hear what the clerk said to you?' He drew down his upper lip and held his mouth tight closed a moment. 'This verdict is for Stanley Howell. You were instructed to bring in separate verdicts. Why didn't you?'

'Yes, sir,' Blandy said, paralysed. 'We got separate verdicts here.'

'Do not give them together, then! What is the verdict of the jury as to Stanley Howell?'

'Murder, second degree.'

Recovering himself, Blandy put into his voice a note of truculence. To the wounding of his vanity, he had let himself get confused with everyone looking; to the worse wounding of it, he had quailed at Judge Vredenburgh's look and scathing tone. Now he felt his wounds. He never asked to be mixed up in any of this; and if they didn't want to hear what he had to say, they didn't have to ask him. His face grew sulky in lines of coarse and irritable impudence. If Judge Vredenburgh didn't like their verdict, why Judge Vredenburgh could take it and shove it — Bunting, still on his feet, had turned red. He said, 'Your Honour, I ask that the jury be polled.'

'Oh, now, wait!' said Harry Wurts, up too. The gleam in his eye offended Abner; and probably it offended Judge Vredenburgh. The Judge said sharply, 'Quiet, please!'

He turned to Judge Irwin and whispered a moment. Looking around again, he said, 'The Commonwealth's request is granted. The Court considers it an eminently suitable measure for the Commonwealth to take under these unusual circumstances. Are you objecting, Mr. Wurts?'

'No, sir,' said Harry. 'But I never happened to have heard of it being done before. It is not usual, certainly.'

'The circumstances, I am very glad to say, are not usual. The purpose of polling the jury is to ascertain whether or not the announced verdict is in fact the verdict of each and every juror. The Commonwealth has no less right to this assurance than the defendant. The jury will be polled, Mr. Clark!'

Mat Rhea fumbled with the papers on his board, transposing them. He said, 'Members of the Jury, you may be seated —'

'No!' said Judge Vredenburgh. 'Let them stand! As each name is called, that juror will step to the front where we can see him; and in a clear, distinct tone, audible to the Court and counsel, he will answer the question of the clerk. Proceed!'