The Oxford Book of American Det (77 page)

“Forgery,” he replied. “She forged her husband’s will in favour of herself, then applied the proceeds to build a new roof on the Leatherwood church. That’s part of the court record.”

“And what’s the other crime—the one she claims to be innocent of?”

“The murder of her husband, Jim Cancy. She not only claims to be innocent, she really is. The testimony in the trial proved that beyond a doubt.” I was shocked. “Then why did the judge condemn...”

The criminologist drew down his lips. “Because the proof of her innocence is psychological. Naturally, that lay beyond the comprehension of the jury, and the judge too, as far as that goes.”

I stared at my companion. “Can you prove her innocence, now, at this late date?”

“Certainly, if this paper has printed the court reporter’s notes correctly, and I’m sure it has.”

“Why, this is the most amazing thing I ever heard of—hitting in like this!”

“What do you mean ‘hitting in like this’?”

“Good heavens, don’t you see? Just as the sheriff is starting off with an innocent woman, just as the preacher is asking the Lord to send down some power to save her, here you come along at exactly the right moment. You know she is innocent and can prove it!”

Poggioli gave the dry smile of a scientific man. “Oh, I see. You think my coming here is providential.”

“Certainly. What else is there to think?”

“I regret to disillusion you, but it is not. It couldn’t be. It is nothing more than an extraordinary coincidence—and I can prove that, too.” With this my friend returned to his paper.

This left me frankly in a nervous state. It seemed to me we ought to do something for the woman outside. I looked at the man sitting next to us at the counter. He nodded his head sidewise at Poggioli. “He don’t live around here, does he?” I said he didn’t.

“If he don’t live here, how does he know what’s happened in these parts?”

“You heard him say he read it in the paper.”

“He didn’t do no such thing. I watched him. He didn’t read that paper a tall, he jest turned through it, like I would a picture book.”

I told him that was Poggioli’s way of reading. It is called sight-reading—just a look and he knew it.

The hill man shook his head, “Naw, Mister, I know better’n that. I’ve watched hunderds of men read that paper sence it’s laid thar on the counter, and the fassest one tuk a hour an’ twelve minutes to git through.”

I nodded. I was not interested, so I said, “I daresay that’s true.”

“Of course hit’s so,” he drawled truculently, “ever’thing I say is so.”

“I’m not doubting your word,” I placated, “it is you who are doubting mine. You see I know my friend’s ability at sight-reading.”

This silenced him for a few moments, then he said shrewdly, “Looky here, if he gits what he knows out’n that paper, how come him to say Cordy Cancy is innocent when the paper says she’s guilty?”

“Because the judgment in the paper doesn’t agree with the evidence it presents. My friend has gone over the evidence and has judged for himself that the woman is guilty of forgery but innocent of murder.”

This gave the hill man pause. A certain expression came into his leathery face. “He’s a detectif, ain’t he?”

“Well, not exactly. He used to be a teacher in the Ohio State University, and he taught detectives how to detect.”

“Mm—mm. Who hard [hired] him to come hyar?”

“Nobody,” I said, “he just dropped in by chance.”

“Chanst, huh? You expeck me to b’leve that?”

“Yes, I must say I do.”

“Well, jest look at it from my stan’point—him comin’ hyar the very minnit the preacher is prayin’ fer he’p and the shurrf startin’ with her to the penitentiary—a great detectif like him jest drap in by chanst. Do you expeck me to b’leve that?” All this was delivered with the greatest heat and my seat-mate seemed to hold me personally responsible for the situation.

“Well, what do you believe?” I asked in an amiable tone which gave him permission to believe anything he wanted to and no hard feelings.

“Why, jess what I said. I b’leve he wuz hard.”

His suspicion of Poggioli, who would never accept a penny for his criminological researches, amused me. “Well, that’s your privilege, but if it would strengthen your faith in me I will say that to the best of my knowledge and belief Professor Henry Poggioli’s arrival in Lanesburg, Tennessee, on the eve of Mrs. Cordy Cancy’s committal to the Nashville penitentiary, was a coincidence, a whole coincidence, and nothing but a coincidence, so help me, John Doe.”

I had hoped to lighten my companion’s dour mood, but he arose gloomily from his stool.

“I hope the Lord forgives you fer mawkin’ His holy words.”

“They are not the Lord’s holy words,” I reminded him, “they’re the sheriff’s words when he swears in a witness.”

“Anyway, you tuk His name in vain when you said ‘em.”

“Didn’t mention His name, sir. I said ‘John Doe.’”

“Anyway, Brother,” he continued in his menacing drawl, “you shore spoke with lightness. The Bible warns you against speakin’ with lightness—you kain’t git aroun’

that.” With this he took himself out of the cafe, scraping his feet in the doorway as a symbol of shaking my dust from his shoes.

As I watched the saturnine fellow go, Poggioli turned from his paper.

“Poses quite a riddle, doesn’t he?”

“Not for me,” I said. “I was born here in the hills.”

“You understand him?”

“I think so.”

“You didn’t observe any more precise and concrete contradiction about him?” I tried to think of some simple contradiction in the man, something plain. I knew when Poggioli pointed it out it would be very obvious, but nothing came to my mind. Tasked him what he saw.

“Two quite contradictory reactions: he was disturbed about my being a detective and about your near profanity.”

“I am afraid I don’t quite see what you mean.”

“I’ll make it simpler. He evidently was a deacon in some church.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he reproved the ‘lightness’ of your language. The scriptures instruct deacons to reprove the faults of the brethren, and lightness of language is one of them. So he was probably a deacon.”

“All right, say he was. What does that contradict?”

“His disturbance over my being a detective. Deacons are supposed to ally themselves with law and order.”

I laughed. “You don’t know your Tennessee hill deacons. That contradiction in them is historical. Their ancestors came here before the Revolution to worship God as they pleased and escape the excise tax. They have been for the Lord and against the law ever since.”

At this point another man hurried from the square into the Monarch cafe. I noted the hurry because under ordinary circumstances hill men never hurry, not even in the rain.

He glanced up and down the counter, immediately came to my companion, and lifted a hand. “Excuse me, Brother, but you’re not a preacher?”

“No, I’m not,” said my companion.

“Then you are the detective that was sent. Will you come with me?”

“Just what do you mean by ‘sent’?” asked the criminologist.

“Why the Lord sent you,” explained the man hurriedly but earnestly. “Brother Johnson was jest prayin’ to the Lord to send somebody to prove Sister Cordy Cancy innocent and keep her from going to the pen. Jim Phipps heard you-all talkin’ an’ hurried out an’ told us there was a detectif in here. So He’s bound to have sent ye.” Poggioli reflected. “I am sure I can prove the woman innocent—from the evidence printed in this paper. But what good will that do, when the trial is over and the woman already sentenced?”

“Brother,” said the countryman, “if the Lord started this work, don’t you reckon He can go on an’ finish it?”

“Look here, Poggioli,” I put in, “we’re here for some reason or other.”

“Yes, by pure chance, by accident,” snapped the psychologist. “Our presence has no more relation to this woman than...”

He was looking for a simile when I interrupted, “If you know she is innocent don’t you think it your duty to—“

The psychologist stopped me with his hand and his expression. “I believe I do owe a duty... yes... yes, I owe a duty. I’ll go do what I can.” The man who came for him was most grateful; so were all the people in the cafe, for they had overheard the conversation. Everybody was delighted except me. I didn’t like Poggioli’s tone, or the expression on his face. I wondered what he really was going to do.

Well, by the time we got out of the restaurant everybody in the square seemed to know who we were. There was a great commotion. The preacher’s prayer for help had been answered instantly. It was a miracle.

The sound-truck which had been booming stood in front of the county jail on the south side of the square. Beside the truck was the sheriff’s car with the woman prisoner handcuffed in the back seat. Near the car stood another woman holding a young baby in her arms. This infant, I gathered, was the prisoner’s child, and would be left behind in the Lanesburg jail while its mother went on to the penitentiary in Nashville. The crowd naturally was in sympathy with the woman and expected us immediately to deliver her from her troubles. I heard one of the men say as we pushed forward, “That heavy man’s the detective and that slim ‘un’s his stooge; he writes down what the big

‘un does.”

Frankly, I was moved by the situation, and I was most uneasy about the outcome. I asked Poggioli just what he meant to do.

He glanced at me as we walked. “Cure them of an illusion.”

“Just what do you mean—cure them of an...”

He nodded at the crowd around us. “I will prove to these people the woman is innocent, but at the same time show that my proof can be of no benefit to the prisoner.

This ought to convince the crowd that providence had nothing to do with the matter, and it ought to make them, as a group, a little more rationalistic and matter-of-fact.

That is what I consider it my duty to do.”

His whole plan appeared cruel to me. I said, “Well, thank goodness, you won’t be able to do that in five minutes, and the sheriff gave them only that much more time before he starts out.”

My hope to avoid Poggioli’s demonstration was quashed almost at once. I saw the sheriff, a little man, climb out of his car, walk across to the sound-truck, and take the microphone from the minister. Then I heard the sheriff’s voice boom out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I understand there really is help on the way for Mrs. Cancy.

Whether it is miraculous help or jest human help, I don’t know. But anyway I’m extendin’ Mrs. Cancy’s time to prove her innocence one more hour before we start to Nashville.”

A roar of approval arose at this. The minister in the truck then took over the loudspeaker, “Brothers and Sisters,” he began in his more solemn drawl, “they ain’t one ounce of doubt in my soul as to who sent this good man. I’ll introduce him to you.

He is Dr. Henry Poggioli the great detective some of you have read about in the magazines. The Lord has miraculously sent Dr. Poggioli to clear Sister Cordy Cancy from her troubles. And now I’ll introduce Sister Cordy to Dr. Poggioli. Doctor, Sister Cordy don’t claim complete innocence, but she’s a mighty good woman. She did, however, forge her husban’s will by takin’ a carbon paper and some of his old love letters and tracin’ out a will, letter by letter. She sees now that was wrong, but she was workin’ for the glory of the Lord when she done it.” Shouts of approval here—“Glory be!, Save her, Lord!” and so forth. The divine continued, “Jim Cancy, her husban’, was a mawker and a scoffer. He wouldn’t contribute a cent to the Lord’s cause nor bend his knee in prayer. So Sister Cordy forged his will for religious ends. Now I guess the Lord knew Jim was goin’ to git killed. But Sister Cordy didn’t have a thing in the world to do with that. He jest got killed. And you all know what she done with his money—put a new roof on the Leatherwood churchhouse. Save her, Oh, Lord, from the penitentiary!” (Another uproar of hope and sympathy here.) “And Brothers and Sisters, look how she acted in the trial, when suspicion fell on her for Jim’s murder. She didn’t spend one cent o’ that money for a lawyer. She said it wasn’t hers to spend, it was the Lord’s and He would save her. She said she didn’t need no lawyer on earth when she had one in Heaven.

She said He would send her aid. And now, praise His name, He has sent it here at this eleventh hour.” Again he was interrupted by shouts and applause. When a semi-silence was restored, he said, “Dr. Poggioli, you can now prove Sister Cordy innocent of her husband’s murder and set her free.”

In the renewed uproar the minister solemnly handed the microphone down to Poggioli on the ground. I have seldom been more nervous about any event in Poggioli’s eventful career. I didn’t suppose he would be in any actual danger from the irate hill people when they found out what he was trying to do, but on the other hand a mob can be formed in the South in about three minutes. And they are likely to do anything—

ride a man out of town on a rail, tar and feather him, give him a switching, depending on how annoyed they are. Poggioli never lived in the South, he had no idea what he was tampering with.

He began, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have little to say. I have just read the report of Mrs. Cancy’s trial in your county paper. From it I have drawn absolute proof of her innocence of her husband’s murder, but unfortunately that proof can be of no benefit to her.”

Cries of “Why won’t it?” “What’s the matter with it?” “What makes you talk like that?”

“Because, my friends, of a legal technicality. If I could produce new evidence the trial judge could reopen her case and acquit Mrs. Cancy.

But a reinterpretation of old evidence is not a legal ground for a rehearing. All I can do now is to demonstrate to you from the evidence printed in your county paper that Mrs.

Cancy is innocent of murder, but still she must go on with the Sheriff to the penitentiary in Nashville.”

Despair filled the square; there arose outcries, pleas, oaths. The revivalist quashed this.

He caught up his microphone and thundered, “Oh, ye of little faith, don’t you see Sister Cordy’s salvation is at hand? Do you think the Lord would send a detectif here when it wouldn’t do no good? I’m as shore of victory as I’m standin’ here. Brother Poggioli, go on talkin’ with a good heart!”