"Well, I'll see him anyway."
Marriott had waited thus for Archie and for other men who had done crimes; but never for one who had killed a man. He felt a new, unpleasant sensation, a nervous apprehension, just a faint sickness, and then--Archie came.
The boy stepped into the turnkey's room with a certain air of relief; he straightened himself, stretched, and within the flannel undershirt that showed his white, muscular neck to its base, his chest expanded as he filled his lungs with the welcome air. He threw away his cigarette, came forward and pressed Marriott's hand, strongly, with hearty gratitude.
The turnkey led them to a dingy room, and locked them in a closet used as a consulting cabinet by those few prisoners who could secure lawyers.
The gloom was almost as thick as the dust in the closet. Marriott thought of all the tragedies the black hole had known; and wondered if Archie had any such thoughts. He could not see Archie's face clearly, but it seemed to be clouded by too many realities to be conscious of the romantic or the tragic side of things. It was essential to talk in low tones, for they knew that the turnkey was listening through the thin, wooden partition. Marriott waited for Archie to begin.
"Well?" he said presently.
"Got a match, Mr. Marriott?" Archie asked.
Marriott drew out his silver match-box, and then looked at Archie's face glowing red in the tiny flame of the light he made for his cigarette.
The action calmed and reassured Marriott Archie's face wore no unwonted or tragic expression; if his experience had changed him, it had not as yet set its mark on him. Marriott lighted a cigarette himself.
"I was afraid you wouldn't come," said Archie, dropping to the floor the match he economically shared with Marriott, and then solicitously pressing out its little embers with his foot.
"I got your message only this morning."
"Humph!" sneered Archie. "That's the way of them coppers. I asked 'em to 'phone you the morning they made the pinch."
"Well, they didn't."
"No, they've got it in for me, Mr. Marriott; they'll job me if they can.
I was worried and 'fraid I'd have to take some other lawyer."
"They told me you had seen others."
"Oh, some of them guys was here tryin' to tout out a case; you know the kind. Frisby and Pennell, some of them dead ones. I s'pose they were lookin' for a little notoriety."
The unpleasant sensation Marriott felt at Archie's recognition of his own notoriety was lost in the greater disgust that he had for the lawyers who were so anxious to share that notoriety. He knew how Frisby solicited such cases, how the poor and friendless prisoners eagerly grasped at the hopes he could so shamelessly hold out to them, how their friends and relatives mortgaged their homes, when they had them, or their furniture, or their labor in the future, to pay the fees he extorted. And he knew Pennell, the youth just out of law-school, who had the gift of the gab, and was an incorrigible spouter, having had the misfortune while in college to win a debate and to obtain a prize for oratory. His boundless conceit and assurance made up for his utter lack of knowledge of law, or of human nature, his utter lack of experience, or of sympathy. He had no principles, either, but merely a determination to get on in the world; he was ever for sale, and Marriott knew how his charlatanism would win, how soon he would be among the successful of the city.
"I tell you, Archie," he was saying, "I can't consent to represent you if either of these fellows is in the case."
"Who? Them guys? Not much!" Archie puffed at his cigarette. "Not for me. I'm up against the real thing this time." He gave a little sardonic laugh.
It was difficult to discuss the case to any purpose in that little closet with its dirt and darkness, and the repressing knowledge that some one was straining to hear what they would say. Marriott watched the spark of Archie's cigarette glow and fade and glow and fade again.
"We can't talk here," said Archie. "You pull off my hearing as soon as possible, and get me out of here. When I get over to the pogey I'll have a chance to turn around, and we can talk. Bring it on as soon's you can, Mr. Marriott. Won't you? God! It's hell in that crum box, and those drunks snoring and snorting and havin' the willies all night.
Can't you get it on to-morrow morning?"
"Can we be ready by then?"
"Oh, there's nothin' to it down here. We'll waive."
"We'll see," said Marriott, with the professional dislike of permitting clients to dictate how their desperate affairs should be managed. "You see I don't know the circumstances of the affair yet. All I know is what I've read in the papers."
"Oh, well, to hell with them," said Archie. "Never mind what they say.
They're tryin' to stick me for that Flanagan job. You know, Mr.
Marriott, I didn't have nothin' to do with that, don't you?"
Archie leaned forward in an appeal that was irresistible, convincing.
"Yes, I know that."
"All right, I want you to know that. I ain't that kind, you know. But Kouka--well, I got him, but I had to, Mr. Marriott; I had to. You see that, don't you? He agitated me to it; he agitated me to it."
He repeated the word thus strangely employed a number of times, as if it gave him relief and comfort.
"Yes, sir, he agitated me to it. I had to; that's all. It was a case of self-defense."
Marriott was silent for a few moments. Then he asked:
"Have you talked to the police?"
Archie laughed.
"They give me the third degree, but--there was nothin' doin'."
Marriott was relieved to find that he did not have to face the usual admission the police wring from their subjects, but Archie went on:
"Of course, that don't make no difference. They can frame up a confession all right."
"They'd hardly do anything that desperate," said Marriott, though not with the greatest assurance.
"Well," said Archie, "I wouldn't put it past 'em."
Marriott finished his cigarette in a reflective silence, dropped it to the floor and imitated Archie in the care with which he extinguished it.
Then he sighed, straightened up and said:
"Well, Archie, let's get down to business; tell me the particulars."
And Archie narrated the events that led up to the tragedy.
"I wanted to see the old people--and the kids--and Gus." He was silent then, and Marriott did not break the silence.
"Say, Mr. Marriott," the boy suddenly asked, "where is Gus?"
"I don't know."
"What's become of her? Do you know that?"
"N-no--," said Marriott. He felt that Archie was eying him shrewdly.
"You know," said Archie in the lowest tone, "I'm afraid, I've got a kind of hunch--that she's--gone wrong."
Marriott feared his own silence, but he could not speak.
"Hell!" Archie exclaimed, in a tone that dismissed the question. "Well, I wanted to go home, and I goes, Curly and me. Kouka followed; he plants himself across the street, gets the harness bulls, and they goes gunning. Curly, he sees him--Curly can see anything. We lammed. The coppers misses us; and we gets on a freight-car. They cuts that car out, and we stays in it all night. Damn it! Did you ever hear o' such luck? Now did you, Mr. Marriott?"