Part 39 (1/2)
”I suppose you know what this means?” he threatened, an ugly note in his quiet voice.
”I don't give a d.a.m.n what it means,” rejoined Keith with deadly earnestness, ”and if you don't get out of here I'll throw you out!”
Morrell went hastily.
Keith slammed his papers into a drawer, locked it and his office door, and went directly to the office of the _Bulletin_. There, seated in all the chairs, perched on the tables and window ledges, he found a representative group. He recognized most of them, including James King of William, Coleman, Hossfros, Isaac Bluxome, Talbot Ward, and others.
A dead silence greeted his appearance. He stopped by the door.
”You have, of course, heard the news,” he said. ”I have come here to state unequivocally, and for publication, that the Cora trial will be pushed as rapidly and as strongly as is in the power of the District Attorney's office. And if legal evidence of corruption can be obtained, proceedings will at once be inaugurated to indict the bribe givers.”
A short silence followed this speech. Several men looked toward one another. The tension appeared to relax a trifle.
”I am glad to hear this, sir, from your own lips,” at last said Coleman formally, ”and I wish you every success.”
Another short and rather embarra.s.sed silence fell.
”I should like to state privately to you gentlemen, and not for publication”--Keith, paused and glanced toward King, who nodded rea.s.suringly--”that I have evidence, but unfortunately not legal, that James McDougall has been guilty, either personally or through agents, of bribery and corruption; and it is my intention to undertake his disbarment if I can possibly get proper evidence.”
”Whether he bribed or didn't bribe, he knew perfectly well that Cora was guilty,” stated King positively. ”And he had no right to take the case.”
But at that period this was an extreme view, as it still is in the legal mind.
”I suppose every man has a moral right to a defence,” said Coleman doubtfully. ”If every lawyer should refuse to take Cora's case, as you say McDougall should have refused, why the man would have gone undefended!”
”That's all right,” returned King, undaunted, ”He ought to have a lawyer--appointed by the court--to see merely that he gets a fair trial; not a lawyer--hired, prost.i.tuted, at a great price--to try by every technical means to get him off.”
”A lawyer must, by the ethics of his profession, take every case brought him, I suppose,” some one enunciated the ancient doctrine.
”Well, if that is the case,” rejoined King hotly, ”the law warps the thinking and the morals of any man who professes it. And if I had a son to place in life, I most certainly should not put him in a calling that deliberately trains his mind to see things that way!”
”I am sorry you have so low an opinion,” spoke up Keith from the doorway. ”I am afraid I must hold the contrary as to the n.o.bility of my chosen profession. It can be disgraced, I admit. That it has been disgraced, I agree. That it can be redeemed, I am going to prove.”
He bowed and left the office.
XLIII
Morrell went directly from Keith's office to Keith's house. He was not particularly angry; for some time he had expected just this result, but since he had threatened, he intended to accomplish. Finding Nan Keith at home, he plunged directly at the subject in his most direct and English fas.h.i.+on. She listened to him steadily until he had finished.
”Is that all?” she then asked him quietly,
”That's all,” he acknowledged.
She arose.
”Then I will say, Mr. Morrell, that I do not believe you. I know my husband thoroughly, and I am beginning to know you. I believe that is my only comment. Good afternoon.”
He made a half attempt to point to her the way to corroborative evidence, but she swept this superbly aside, Finally he took his correct leave, half angry, half amused, wholly cynical, for to his mind the reason for her indifference to the news he brought lay in what he supposed to be her relations with Ben Sansome.
”Bally a.s.s!” he apostrophized himself. ”Might have known how she'd take it.”