Part 25 (2/2)

The candidate went on with his story of the consequences; the crime had been committed; the profits had been reaped and enjoyed, but slumbering justice, awake at last, was at hand; it was time for the wicked to tremble, the price must be repaid, doubly, trebly, fivefold. Now he personified the guilty party, the opposition, which he treated as an individual; he compared it to a man who had committed a deed of horror, but who long had hidden his crime from the world; others might be suspected of it, others might be punished for it, but he could never forget that he himself was guilty; though he walked before the world innocent, the sense of it would always be there, it would not leave him night or day; every moment, even, before the full exposure it would be inflicting its punishment upon him; it would be useless to seek escape or to think of it, because the longer the guilty victim struggled the more crus.h.i.+ng his punishment would be. The correspondents forgot to write, and, like the audience, hung upon every word and gesture of Jimmy Grayson, as he made his great denunciatory speech; they felt that he was stirred by something unusual, that some great and extraordinary motive was impelling him, and they followed eagerly where he led them.

Harley saw the look of awe on the faces of the audience grow and deepen.

With their overwhelming admiration of Jimmy Grayson, they seemed to have conceived, too, a sudden fear of him. His long, accusing finger was shaken in their faces, he was not alone denouncing a guilty man, but he was seeking out their own hidden sins, and presently he would point at them his revealing finger.

Hobart stood with the three witnesses beside the door, still in the dazzling light. Harley was sure that not one of the four had moved in the last half-hour, and Jimmy Grayson still held them all with his gaze.

Harley suddenly saw something like a flash of light, a signal glance, as it were, pa.s.s between him and Hobart, and the next instant the voice of the candidate swelled into greater and more accusing volume.

”Now you behold the guilty man!” said Jimmy Grayson. ”I have shown him to you. He seems to the world full of pride and power, but he knows that justice is pursuing him, and that it will overtake him; he trembles, he cowers, he flees, but the avenging footsteps are behind him, and the sound of them rings in his frightened ears like a death-knell to his soul. A wall rises across his way. He can flee no farther; he turns back from the wall, raises his terror-stricken eyes, and there before him the hand of fate is raised; its finger points at him, and a terrible voice proclaims, 'Thou art the guilty man!”

The form of Jimmy Grayson swelled and towered, his hand was raised, the long forefinger pointed directly at the four who stood in the dazzling light, and the hall resounded with the tremendous echoes of his cry, ”Thou art the guilty man!”

As if lifted by a common impulse, the great audience rose with an indescribable sound and faced about, following Jimmy Grayson's long, accusing finger.

The man Williams threw his arm before his face, as if to protect himself, and, with a terrible cry, ”Yes, I did it!” fell in a faint on the floor.

They were all on the train the next day, and Harley was reading from a copy of the Grayville _Argus_ an account of Boyd's release and the ovation that the people had given him.

”How did you trace the crime to Williams, Hobart?” asked Harley.

”I didn't trace it; it was Jimmy Grayson who brought it out by giving him 'the third degree,'” replied Hobart, though there was a quiet tone of satisfied pride in his voice. ”You know that in New York, when they expose a man at Police Headquarters to some such supreme test, they call it giving him 'the third degree,' and that's what we did here. It seems that Williams was in the saloon when Boyd and his partner quarrelled, and he knew they had a lot of gold from the claim in their cabin. His object was robbery. When he saw Wofford go on ahead, he followed him quickly to the cabin, and killed him with the knife which lay on a table. He expected to have time to get the gold before Boyd came, but Boyd arrived so soon that he was barely able to slip out. Then Williams, cunning and bold enough, came back as if he were a chance pa.s.ser-by, and had been called by Metzger and Thorpe. The other two were as innocent as you or I.

”I could not make up my mind which of the three was guilty, and I induced Jimmy Grayson to help me. It was right in line with his speech--no harm done even if the test had failed--and then the man who managed the lights at the opera-house, a friend of Boyd's, helped me with the stage effects. Jimmy Grayson, of course, knew nothing about that. I borrowed the idea. I have read somewhere that Aaron Burr by just such a device once convicted a guilty man who was present in court as a witness when another was being tried for the crime.”

”Well, you have saved his life to an innocent man,” said Harley.

”And I have cost a guilty one his.” And then, after a moment's pause, Hobart added, with a little s.h.i.+ver:

”But I wouldn't go through such an ordeal again at any price. When Jimmy Grayson thundered out, 'Thou art the guilty man,' it was all I could do to keep from crying, 'Yes, I am, I am!'”

XIV

THE DEAD CITY

As they left the hall, Churchill overtook Harley and tapped him on the shoulder. Harley turned and saw an expression of supreme disgust on the face of the _Monitor's_ correspondent, but Harley himself only felt amus.e.m.e.nt. He knew that Churchill meant attack.

”I never saw anything more theatrical and ill-timed,” said Churchill.

”Of course, it was all prearranged in some manner. But the idea of a Presidential nominee taking such a risk!”

”He has saved an innocent man's life, and I call that no small achievement.”

”Because the trick was successful; but it was a trick, all the same, and it was beneath the dignity of a Presidential nominee.”

”There was but little risk of any kind,” said Harley, shortly, ”and even had it been larger, it would have been right to take it, when the stake was a man's life. Churchill, you are hunting for faults, you know you are, or you would not be so quick to see them.”

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