Part 56 (2/2)
THE TRIAL
After Mr. Ballard's visit to the jail, he took upon himself to do what he could for the young man, out of sympathy and friends.h.i.+p toward both parties, and in the cause of simple justice. He consulted the only available counsel left him in Leauvite, a young lawyer named Nathan Goodbody, whom he knew but slightly.
He told him as much of the case as he thought proper, and then gave him a note to the prisoner, addressing him as Harry King. Armed with this letter the young lawyer was soon in close consultation with his new client. Despite Nathan Goodbody's youth Harry was favorably impressed. The young man was so interested, so alert, so confident that all would be well. He seemed to believe so completely the story Harry told him, and took careful notes of it, saying he would prepare a brief of the facts and the law, and that Harry might safely leave everything to him.
”You were wounded in the hip, you say,” Nathan Goodbody questioned him. ”We must not neglect the smallest item that may help you, for your case needs strengthening. You say you were lamed by it--but you seem to have recovered from that. Is there no scar?”
”That will not help me. My cousin was wounded also, but his was only a flesh wound from which he quickly recovered and of which he thought nothing. I doubt if any one here in Leauvite ever heard of it, but it's the irony of fate that he was more badly scarred by it than I. He was struck by a spent bullet that tore the flesh only, while the one that hit me went cleanly to the bone, and splintered it. Mine laid me up for a year before I could even walk with crutches, while he was back at his post in a week.”
”And both wounds were in the same place--on the same side, for instance?”
”On the same side, yes; but his was lower down. Mine entered the hip here, while he was struck about here.” Harry indicated the places with a touch of his finger. ”I think it would be best to say nothing about the scars, unless forced to do so, for I walk as well now as I ever did, and that will be against me.”
”That's a pity, now, isn't it? Suppose you try to get back a little of the old limp.”
Harry laughed. ”No, I'll walk straight. Besides they've seen me on the street, and even in my father's bank.”
”Too bad, too bad. Why did you do it?”
”How could I guess there would be such an impossible development?
Until I saw Miss Ballard here in this cell I thought my cousin dead.
Why, my reason for coming here was to confess my crime, but they won't give me the chance. They arrest me first of all for killing myself.
Now that I know my cousin lives I don't seem to care what happens to me, except for--others.”
”But man! You must put up a fight. Suppose your cousin is no longer living; you don't want to spend the rest of your life in the penitentiary because he can't be found.”
”I see. If he is living, this whole trial is a farce, and if he is not, it's a tragedy.”
”We'll never let it become a tragedy, I'll promise you that.” The young man spoke with smiling confidence, but when he reached his office again and had closed the door behind him, his manner changed quickly to seriousness and doubt.
”I don't know,” he said to himself, ”I don't know if this story can be made to satisfy a jury or not. A little shady. Too much coincidence to suit me.” He sat drumming with his fingers on his desk for a while, and then rose and turned to his books. ”I'll have a little law on this case,--some point upon which we can go to the Supreme Court,” and for the rest of that day and long into the night Nathan Goodbody consulted with his library.
In antic.i.p.ation of the unusual public interest the District Attorney directed the summoning of twenty-five jurors in addition to the twenty-five of the regular panel. On the day set for the trial the court room was packed to the doors. Inside the bar were the lawyers and the officers of the court. Elder Craigmile sat by Milton Hibbard.
In the front seats just outside the bar were the fifty jurors and back of them were the ladies who had come early, or who had been given the seats of their gentlemen friends who had come early, and whose gallantry had momentarily gotten the better of their judgment.
The stillness of the court room, like that of a church, was suddenly broken by the entrance of the judge, a tall, spare man, with gray hair and a serious outlook upon life. As he walked toward his seat, the lawyers and officers of the court rose and stood until he was seated.
The clerk of the court read from a large book the journal of the court of the previous day and then handed the book to the judge to be signed. When this ceremony was completed, the judge took up the court calender and said,--
”The State _v._ Richard Kildene,” and turning to the lawyers engaged in the case added, ”Gentlemen, are you ready?”
”We are ready,” answered the District Attorney.
”Bring in the prisoner.”
When Harry entered the court room in charge of the sheriff, he looked neither to the right nor to the left, and saw no one before him but his own counsel, who arose and extended a friendly hand, and led him to a seat beside himself within the bar.
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