Glassford turned away.
"If the court," he said, "had any doubts in this matter, they would be resolved in favor of the defendant, but the court has none. My own knowledge of Mr. Broadwell and of his standing in the community leads me to declare that he is the very man for such important service, and the court feels that we are to be congratulated on having him to assist us in trying this case. The challenge is overruled. You may take your seat in the jury-box, Mr. Broadwell."
Glassford consulted his notes; the peremptory challenges were all exhausted now.
"The jury will rise and be sworn," he said.
Marriott had suffered his first defeat. He looked at the jury. A change had taken place; these twelve men no longer impressed him as an institution grown old and gray with the waste of ages. They no longer held for him any symbolic meaning; little by little, during the long, tedious hours, individualities had developed, the idea of unity had receded. Seen thus closely and with increasing familiarity, the formal disappeared, the man emerged from the mass, and Marriott found himself face to face with the personal equation. He sat with one arm thrown over the back of his chair and looked at them, watching, as it were, this institution disintegrate into men, merely; men without the inspiration of noble ideals, swayed by primitive impulses, unconsciously responsive to the obscure and mysterious currents of human feeling then flowing through the minds of the people, generating and setting in motion vague, terrible and irresistible powers. He could feel those strange, occult currents moving in him--he must set himself against them that he might stand, though all alone, for the ignorant boy whose soul had strayed so far.
He studied the faces of the twelve men, trying to discover some hope, some means of moving and winning them. There was old McGiffert, who alone of all the first venire had withstood the mutations of the last four days, sitting serene and triumphant, sure of his two dollars a day, utterly unconscious of the grave and tragic significance of the responsibilities he had been so anxious to assume. There was Osgood, the contractor, a long row of cigars, a tooth-brush, and a narrow comb sticking out of his waistcoat pocket; Duncan, with his short sandy hair covering sparsely a red scalp that moved curiously when he uttered certain words; Foley, constantly munching his tobacco, as he had been doing for sixty years, so that when he spoke he did so with closed lips; Slade, the man with the rough red face, who found, as Marriott had at first thought, amusement in everything, for he smiled often, showing his gums and a row of tiny unclean teeth; there was Grey, constantly moving his false teeth about in his mouth; Church, with thin gray hair, white mustache and one large front tooth that pressed into his lower lip; and then Menard, the grocer's clerk, wearing black clothes that long ago had passed out of fashion; his sallow, thin, unhealthy face wearing an expression of fright. Marriott recalled how uncertain Menard had been in his notions about capital punishment; how, at first, he had said he was opposed to it, and how at last, under Glassford's metaphysical distinctions, the boy had declared that he would do his duty. Marriott had been encouraged, thinking that Menard's natural impulses might reassert themselves, but now, alas, he recognized that Menard in the hands of other men would be but the putty he so much resembled. Then there were Reder, the gray old German, and Chisholm and McCann, the aged farmers with the unkempt beards, and Broadwell--ah, Broadwell! For it was Broadwell who held Marriott's gaze at last, as he held his interest; it was Broadwell, indeed, who was that jury. Naturally stronger than the rest, his reputation, his pomposity, the character Glassford had generously given him--all these marked him as the man who would reach that jury's verdict for it, and then, as foreman, solemnly bear it in.
Marriott looked at him, smug, sleek, overfed, unctuous, his shining bald head inclined at a meek angle, his little eyes half closed, his pendulous jowls hiding his collar, and realized that this was the man to whom he had to try Archie's case, and he would rather have tried the case to any other man in town. He wished that he had used his challenges differently; any other twelve of the two hundred men who had been summoned would have served his purpose better; he had a wild, impotent regret that he had not allowed the last man to remain before Broadwell suddenly appeared. Broadwell was standing there now with the others, his hand raised, his head thrown back, stretching the white flabby skin of his throat like a frog's, his eyes closed, as if he were about to pronounce a benediction on Archie before sending him to his doom.
Gard was repeating the oath:
"'You and each of you do solemnly swear that you will well and truly try and true deliverance make in the cause now pending, wherein the State is plaintiff and Archie Koerner is defendant, s'elp you God.'"
Broadwell bowed, as if for the jury; Marriott almost expected him to say "Amen."
XIV
The next morning there were the same eager, impatient crowds, but there were yet other preliminaries; the case must now be stated to the jury.
And Eades, speaking solemnly, told the jury of the pursuit of Archie and the death of Kouka, all of which had been repeated many times. He spoke of the importance of government, of the sacredness of human life, how heinous a sin it is to kill people, and how important it was to put Archie to death immediately in order that this truth might be better understood, how serious were the juror's duties, how disagreeable his own duties, and so forth. Then he began to describe the murder of Margaret Flanagan, but Marriott objected. They wrangled over this for some time, and, indeed, until Eades, assured that the jurors had been sufficiently reminded of the Flanagan murder, felt satisfied. Then Marriott stated the case for the defense, and finally, that afternoon, the trial began in earnest.
Bentley, following his elaborate system of arrangement, bustled about with a deputy at hand so that he could command him, pushed back the crowd, locked the doors, and thereafter admitted no one unless he wished to. The spectators filled the space outside the bar, and encroached on the space within, forming a dense, closely-packed circle in the center of which were the jury, the lawyers at their tables, Archie and Danner, the reporters, the old stenographer, and Glassford looking down from the bench. The spectators in a strained, nervous silence stared into the pit where the game was to be played, the game for which Eades and Marriott were nerving themselves, the game that had Archie's life for its colossal stake.
But as the afternoon wore on, expectations were not realized; the interest flagged. It was seen that the sensations would not come for days, the proceedings were to move slowly and with a vast and pompous deliberation to their unrevealed climax. Eades called as witnesses several laborers who had been of the crowd that pursued Archie and Curly down the tracks that morning. After them came Weber, the coroner, a fleshy man with red face and neck, who described the inquest, then his official physician, Doctor Zimmerman, a young man with a pointed beard, who wore three chains on his breast, one for the eye-glasses he was constantly readjusting, another for his clinical thermometer, and another for his watch. He gave the details of the post-mortem examination, described the dissection of Kouka's body, and identified the bullet.
The crowd pressed forward, trying to find some sensation in the ghastly relic. Eades gave the bullet to the nearest juryman, who examined it carefully and passed it on. It went from hand to hand of the jurymen, each rolled it in his palm, studied it with a look of wisdom; finally it returned to Eades. And the jurors leaned back in their chairs, convinced that Kouka was dead.
The next morning there were other laborers, other physicians, then railroad detectives, who identified the revolver. The day wore away, the atmosphere of the court-room became heavy and somnolent. As skilfully as he could, Eades drew from his witnesses their stories, avoiding all questions that might disclose facts to Archie's advantage, and Marriott battled with these hostile witnesses in long cross-examinations, seeking in vain for some flaw, some inconsistency.
The tedium told on the nerves,--Eades and Marriott had several quarrels, exchanged insults, Glassford was petulant, the stolid jurymen exhaled breaths as heavy as snores. Another day came, and judge and lawyers began with steadier nerves, more impersonal and formal manners; they were able to maintain a studious courtesy, the proceedings had an institutional character, something above the human, but as the day advanced, as the struggle grew more intense, as the wrangling became more frequent, it was seen that they were but men, breaking down and giving way to those passions their calm and stately institution condemned and punished in other men.
And through it all Archie sat there silent, and, as the newspaper men scrupulously reported each day, unmoved. But Marriott could hear him breathe, and when occasionally he glanced at him, could see tiny drops of moisture glistening on his brow, could see the cords swelling in his neck, could even hear the gurgle in his throat as he tried to swallow.
Archie rarely spoke; he glanced at the witnesses, now and then at the jurors, but most of all at Eades. Thus far, however, the testimony had been formal; there was yet no evidence of premeditation on Archie's part, and that was the vital thing.
XV
And yet Marriott knew better than to hope. As he walked to the court-house Monday morning, he wondered how he was to get through the week. He looked on those he met as the strangely happy and favored beings of another world, and envied them keenly, even the ragged outcasts shoveling the newly-fallen snow from the sidewalks. And there in the upper corridor was that hated crowd, that seemed to be in league with Eades, Glassford, the jury, the police, the whole machinery of the state, to kill Archie, to stamp his identity out of the world. Just then the crowd gyrated in precipitated interest, and he saw Bentley and Danner bringing Archie down the hall, all three stamping the snow from their boots. And he saw another figure, new to him, but one that instantly filled him with strange foreboding. Why, he could not tell, but this was the effect of the figure that shambled down the corridor.
The man was alone, a tall gaunt form in rough gray clothes, with a long gray face, walking in loose gangling strides, flinging his huge feet one after the other, leaving moist tracks behind him. A hickory cane dangled by its crook from his left arm, he slowly smoked a cigar, taking it from his mouth occasionally with an uncouth gesture. As he swung along in his awkward, spraddling gait, his frame somehow conveyed paradoxically an impression of strength. It seemed that at any moment this man was in danger of coming apart and collapsing--until Marriott caught his restless eye.
Archie had seen him the instant he entered the corridor. Marriott detected Archie's recognition, and he looked intently for some inkling of the meaning. The man, in the same instant, saw Archie, stopped, took his cigar from his lips, spat, and said in a peculiar, soft voice:
"Why, Archie, my boy."
This incident deepened Marriott's foreboding. A few moments later, as the bailiff was opening court, the man entered with a familiar and accustomed air, and Bentley got a chair and made him comfortable so that he might enjoy the trial.
"Who's that man?" Marriott whispered to Archie.
"That? That's old Jimmy Ball, the deputy warden at the pen."
"What do you suppose--"
"He's here to knock, that's what. He's here to rap ag'in me, the old--"
Archie applied his ugly epithet with an expression of intensest hatred, and glared at Ball. Now and then Archie repeated the epithet under his breath, trying each time to strengthen it with some new oath.
But Marriott just then had no time to learn the significance of this strange presence. Eades was calling a witness.
"Detective Quinn!"
Quinn came in after the usual delay, walking with the policeman's swagger even after years on the detective force. He came in with his heavy shoulders set well back, and his head held high, but his eyes had the fixed stare of self-consciousness. Taking the oath, he ascended the witness-stand, leaned over, placed his hat against the side of the chair, and then, crossing one fat thigh over the other, held it in position with his hand. On his finger flashed a diamond, another diamond sparkled on his shirt-front.
"Pipe the rocks!" whispered Archie. "Know where he got 'em? Jane nicked a sucker and Quinn made her give 'em to him for not rapping."
Marriott impatiently waved Archie into silence; like all clients he was constantly leaning over at critical moments of the trial to say immaterial things, and, besides, his hot moist breath directly in Marriott's ear was very unpleasant.
Eades led Quinn through the preliminaries of his examination, and then in a tone that indicated an approach to significant parts of the testimony, he said:
"You may now state, Mr. Quinn, when you next saw the defendant."
Quinn threw back his head, fingered his close-cropped red mustache, and reflected as if he had not thought of the subject for a long time. He was conscious that he was thus far the most important witness of the trial. He relished the sensation, and, knowing how damaging his testimony would be, he felt a crude satisfaction. Presently he spoke, his voice vibrating like a guitar string in the tense atmosphere.
"The Friday morning before the Flanagan murder."
"Where did you meet him?"
"In Kentucky Street near Cherokee."
"Was he alone, or was some one with him?"
"Another man was with him."
"Who was that other man--if you know?"
"He was an old-timer; they call him Dad."
"What do you mean by an 'old-timer'?"
"An old-time thief--an ex-convict."
"Very well. Now tell the jury what you did--if anything."