The Turn of the Balance

XVII

At six o'clock on the evening of the day the State rested, Marriott found himself once more at the jail. He passed the series of grated cells from which their inmates peered with the wistful look common to prisoners, and paused before Archie's door. He could see only the boy's muscular back bowed over the tiny table, slowly dipping chunks of bread into his pan of molasses, eating his supper silently and humbly. The figure was intensely pathetic to Marriott. He gazed a moment in the regret with which one gazes on the dead, struck down in an instant by some useless accident. "And yet," he thought, "it is not done, there is still hope. He must be saved!"

"Hello, Archie!" he said, forcing a cheerful tone.

Archie started, pushed back his chair, drew his hand across his mouth to wipe away the crumbs, and thrust it through the bars.

"Don't let me keep you from your supper," said Marriott.

Archie smiled a wan smile.

"That's all right," he said. "It isn't much of a supper, and I ain't exactly hungry."

Archie grasped the bars above his head and leaned his breast against the door.

"Well, what do you think of it, Mr. Marriott?"

"I don't know, Archie."

"Looks as if I was the fall guy all right."

Marriott bit his lip.

"We have to put in our evidence in the morning, you know."

"Yes."

"And we must decide whether you're going on the stand or not."

"I'll leave it to you, Mr. Marriott."

Marriott thought a moment.

"What do you think about it?" he asked presently.

"I don't know. You see, I've got a record."

"Yes, but they already know you've been in prison."

"Sure, but my taking the stand would make the rap harder. That fellow Eades would tear me to pieces."

Marriott was silent.

"And then that old hixer on the jury, that wise guy up there in the corner." Archie shook his head in despair. "Every time he pikes me off, I know he's ready to hand it all to me."

"You mean Broadwell?"

"Yes. He's one of those church-members. That's a bad sign, a bad sign." Archie shook his head sadly. "No, it's a kangaroo all right, they're going to job me." Archie hung his head. "Of course, Mr. Marriott, I know you've done your best. You're the only friend I got, and I wish–I wish there was some way for me to pay you. I can't promise you, like some of these guys, that I'll work and pay you when I get–" He looked up with a sadly humorous and appreciative smile. "Of course, I–"

"Don't, Archie!" said Marriott. "Don't talk that way. That part of it's all right. Cheer up, my boy, cheer up!" Marriott was trying so hard to cheer up himself. "We haven't played our hand yet; we'll give 'em a fight. There are higher courts, and there's always the governor."

Archie shook his head.

"Maybe you won't believe me, Mr. Marriott, but I'd rather go to the chair than take life down there. You don't know what that place is, Mr. Marriott."

"No," said Marriott, "but I can imagine."

Then he changed his tone.

"We've plenty of time to talk about all that," he went on. "Now we must talk about to-morrow. Look here, Archie. Why can't you go on the stand and tell your whole story–just as you've told it to me a hundred times? It convinced me the first time I heard it; maybe it would convince the jury. They'd see that you had cause to kill Kouka!"

"Cause!" exclaimed the boy. "Great God! After the way he hounded me–I should say so! Why, Mr. Marriott, he made me do it, he made me what I am. Don't you see that?"

"Of course I do. And why can't you tell them so?" Marriott was enthusiastic with his new hope.

"Oh, well," said Archie with no enthusiasm at all, "with you it's different. You look at things different; you can see things; you know there's some good in me, don't you?"

It was an appeal that touched Marriott, and yet he felt powerless to make the boy see how deeply it touched him.

"And then," Archie went on–he talked with an intense earnestness and he leaned so close that Marriott could smell the odor of coffee on his breath–"when I talk to you, I know somehow that–well–you believe me, and we're sitting down, just talking together with no one else around. But there in that court-room, with all those people ready to tear my heart out and eat it, and the beak–Glassford, I mean–and the blokes in the box, and Eades ready to twist everything I say; well, what show have I got? You can see for yourself, Mr. Marriott."

Archie spread his hands wide to show the hopelessness of it all.

"Well, I think you'd better try, anyhow. Will you think it over?"

XVIII

Marriott heard the commotion as he entered the elevator the next morning, and as the cage ascended, the noise increased. He heard the click of heels, the scuff of damp soles on the marble, and then the growl of many men, angry, beside themselves, possessed by their lower natures. The chorus of rough voices had lost its human note and sunk to the ugly register of the brutish. Drawing nearer, he distinguished curses and desperate cries. And there in the half-light at the end of the long corridor, the crowd swayed this way and that, struggling, scrambling, fighting. Hats were knocked off and spun in the air; now and then an arm was lifted out of the mass; now and then a white fist was shaken above the huddle of heads. Two deputy sheriffs, Hersch and Cumrow, were flattened against the doors of the criminal court, their faces trickling with sweat, their waistcoats torn open; and they strained mightily. The crowd surged against them, threatening to press the breath out of their bodies. They paused, panting from their efforts, then tried again to force back the crowd, shouting:

"Get back there, damn you! Get back!"

Marriott slipped through a side door into the judge's chamber. The room was filled. Glassford, Eades, Lamborn, all the attachés of the court were there. Bentley, the sheriff, had flung up a window, and stood there fanning himself with his broad-brimmed hat, disregarding exposure, his breath floating in vapor out of the window. On the low leather lounge where Glassford took his naps sat Archie close beside Danner. When he saw Marriott a wan smile came to his white face.

"They tried to get at me!" The phrase seemed sufficient to him to explain it all, and at the same time to express his own surprise and consternation in it all.

"They tried to get at me!" Archie repeated in another tone, expressing another meaning, another sensation, a wholly different thought. The boy's lips were drawn tightly across his teeth; he shook with fear.

"They tried to get at me!" he repeated, in yet another tone.

Old Doctor Bitner, the jail physician, had come with a tumbler half-full of whisky and water.

"Here, Archie," he said, "try a sip of this. You'll be all right in a minute."

"He's collapsed," the physician whispered to Marriott, as Archie snatched the glass and gulped down the whisky, making a wry face, and shuddering as if the stuff sickened him.

"I'm all in, Mr. Marriott," said Archie. "I've gone to pieces. I'm down and out. It's no use." He hung his head, as if ashamed of his weakness.

"Well, you know, my boy, that we must begin. It's up to us now. Can you take the stand?"

"No! No!" Archie shook his head with emphasis. "I can't! I can't! That fellow Eades would tear me to pieces!"

Marriott argued, expostulated, pleaded, but in vain. The boy only shook his head and said over and over, each time with a new access of terror:

"No, Eades would tear me to pieces."

"Come on, Gordon," called Glassford, who had finished his cigar, "we can't wait any longer."

The following morning, the defense having put in its evidence and rested, Lamborn began the opening argument for the State. It had long been Lamborn's ambition to make a speech that would last a whole day. He had made copious notes, and when he succeeded in speaking a full half-hour without referring to them, he was greatly encouraged. When he was compelled finally to succumb, and consult his notes, he began to review the evidence, that is, he repeated what the witnesses had already told. After that he began to fail noticeably in ideas and frequently glanced at the clock, but he thought of the statutes, and he read to the jury the laws defining murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, and manslaughter, and then declaring that the crime Archie had committed was clearly murder in the first degree, he closed by urging the jury to find him guilty of this crime.

In the afternoon Pennell opened the arguments for the defense. Having won the oratorical contest at college, and having once been spoken of in print as the silver-tongued, Pennell pitched his voice in the highest key, and soon filled the court-room with a prodigious noise; he had not spoken fifteen minutes before he had lashed himself into a fury, and with each new, fresh burst of enthusiasm, he raised his hoarse voice higher and higher, until the throats of his hearers ached in sympathy. But at the end of two hours he ceased to wave his arms, no longer struck the bar of the jury-box with his fist, the strain died away, and he sank into his chair, his hair disheveled, his brow and neck and wrists glistening with perspiration, utterly exhausted, but still wearing the oratorical scowl.

All this time Eades and Marriott were lying back in their chairs, in the attitudes of counsel who are reserving themselves for the great and telling efforts of the trial, that is, the closing arguments. When Marriott arose the next morning to begin his address, the silence was profound. He looked about him, at Glassford, at Eades, at the crowd, straining with curious, gleaming eyes. In the overflowing line of men within the bar on either side of the jury-box he recognized several lawyers; their faces were white against the wall; they seemed strange, unnatural, out of place. The jury were uneasy and glanced away, and though Broadwell lifted his small eyes to him, it was without response or sympathy. Marriott was chilled by the patent opposition. Then, somehow, he detected old man Reder stealing a glance at Archie; he kept his eye on Reder. What was Reder thinking of? "Thinking, I suppose," thought Marriott, "that this settles it, and that there is nothing to do now but to send Archie to the chair."

Reder, however, in that moment was really thinking of his boyhood in Germany, where his father had been a judge like Glassford; one day he had found among the papers on his father's desk the statement of a case. An old peasant had accidentally set fire to a forest on an estate and burned up wood to the value of forty marks, for this he was being tried. He felt sorry for the peasant and had begged his father to let him go. When he came home at night he asked his father–

Marriott made an effort, mastered himself; he thought of Archie, leaning forward eagerly, his eyes fixed on him with their last hope. He had a vision of Archie as he had seen him in the jail–he saw again the supple play of his muscles under the white skin of his breast, full of health, of strength, of life–kill him? It was monstrous! A passion swelled within him; he would speak for him, he would speak for old man Koerner, for Gusta, for all the voiceless, submerged poor in the world.... He began.... Some one was sobbing.... He glanced about. It was old Mrs. Koerner, in tears, the first she had shed during the trial.... Archie was looking at her.... He was making an effort, but tears were glistening in the corners of his eyes....

It was over at last. He had done all he could. Men were crowding about him, congratulating him–Pennell, Bentley, his friends among the lawyers, Glassford, and, yes, even Eades.

"I never heard you do better, Gordon," said Eades.

Marriott thanked him. But then Eades could always be depended on to do the correct thing.

All that afternoon Archie sat there and listened to Eades denouncing him. When Marriott had finished his speech, Archie had felt a happiness and a hope–but now there was no hope. Eades was, indeed, tearing him to pieces. How long must he sit there and be game, and endure this thing? Would it never end? Could Eades speak on for ever and for ever and never cease his abuse and denunciation? Would it end with evening–if evening ever came? No; evening came, but Eades had not finished. Morning came, and Eades spoke on and on. He was speaking some strange words; they sounded like the words the mission stiffs used; they must be out of the Bible. He noticed that Broadwell was very attentive.

"He'll soon be done now, Archie," whispered Marriott, giving him a little pat on the knee; "when they quote Scripture, that's a sign–"

Yes, he had finished; this was all; soon it would be over and he would know.

The jurymen were moving in their seats; but there was yet more to be done. The judge must deliver his charge, and the jurors settled down again to listen to Glassford with even greater respect than they had shown Eades.

During the closing sentences of Eades's speech Glassford had drawn some papers from a drawer and arranged them on his desk. These papers contained portions of charges he had made in other criminal cases. Glassford motioned to the bailiff, who bore him a glass of iced water, from which Glassford took a sip and set it before him, as if he would need it and find it useful in making his charge. Then he took off his gold eye-glasses, raised his eyebrows two or three times, drew out a large handkerchief and began polishing his glasses as if that were the most important business of his life. He breathed on the lenses, then polished them, then breathed again, and polished again.

Glassford had selected those portions of the charges he kept in stock, which assured the jury of the greatness of the English law, told how they must consider a man innocent until he had been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that they must not draw any conclusions unfavorable to the prisoner at the bar from the fact that he had not taken the witness-stand, and so on. These instructions were written in long, involved sentences, composed as nearly as possible of words of Latin derivation. Glassford read them slowly, but so as to give the impression that it was an extemporaneous production.

The jurymen, though many of them did not know the meaning of the words Glassford used, thought they all sounded ominous and portentous, and seemed to suggest Archie's guilt very strongly. For half an hour Glassford read from his instructions, from the indictment and from the statutes, then suddenly recalling the fact that the public was greatly interested in this case, he began to talk of the heinousness of this form of crime and the sacredness of human life. In imagination he could already see the editorials that would be printed in the newspapers, praising him for his stand, and this, he reflected, would be beneficial to him in his campaign for renomination and reelection. Finally he told the jurymen that they must not be affected by motives of sympathy or compassion or pity for the prisoner at the bar or his family, for they had nothing to do with the punishment that would be inflicted upon him. Then he read the various verdicts to them, casually mentioning the verdict of "not guilty" in the tone of an after-thought and as a contingency not likely to occur, and then told them, at last, that they could retire.

At five o'clock the jury stumbled out of the box and entered the little room to the left.

XIX

It was four o'clock in the morning, and the twelve men who were to decide Archie's fate were still huddled in the jury room. For eleven hours they had been there, balloting, arguing, disputing, quarreling, and then balloting again. Time after time young Menard had passed around his hat for the little scraps of paper, and always the result was the same, eleven for conviction, one for acquittal. For a while after the jury assembled there had been three votes for conviction of murder in the second degree, but long ago, as it seemed at that hour, these three votes had been won over for conviction of murder in the first degree, which meant death. At two o'clock Broadwell had declared that there was no use in wasting more time in voting, and for two hours no ballot had been taken. The electric lamps had glowed all night, filling the room with a fierce light, which, at this hour of the winter morning, had taken on an unnatural glare. The air was vitiated, and would have sickened one coming from outside, but these men, whose lungs had been gradually accustomed to it, were not aware how foul it was. Once or twice in the night some one had thrown up a window, but the older men had complained of the cold, and the window had to be closed down again. In that air hung the dead odor of tobacco smoke, for in the earlier hours of the night most of the men–all, indeed, save Broadwell–had smoked, some of them cigars, some pipes. But now they were so steeped in bodily weariness and in physical discomfort and misery that none of them smoked any longer. On the big oaken table in the middle of the room Menard's hat lay tilted on its side, and all about lay the ballots. Ballots, too, strewed the floor and filled the cuspidors, little scraps of paper on which was scribbled for the most part the one word, "Guilty," the same word on all of them, though not always spelled the same. One man wrote it "Gildy," another "Gilty," still another "Gility." But among all those scattered scraps there was a series of ballots, the sight of which angered eleven of the men, and drove them to profanity; on this series of ballots was written "Not guilty." The words were written in an invariable, beautiful script, plainly the chirography of some German.