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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason, by 
-Melville Davisson Post
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason
-
-Author: Melville Davisson Post
-
-Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51956]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE SCHEMES ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-THE STRANGE SCHEMES OF RANDOLPH MASON
-
-By Melville Davisson Post
-
-Author Of "The Clients Of Randolph Mason"
-
-G. P. Putnam's Sons
-
-New York and London
-
-1896
-
-
-TO
-
-JOHN A. HOWARD
-
-SKILFUL LAWYER, AND COURTEOUS GENTLEMAN
-
-
-
-
-THE STRANGE SCHEMES OF RANDOLPH MASON.
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTION.
-
-THE teller of strange tales is not the least among benefactors of men.
-His cup of Lethe is welcome at times even to the strongest, when the
-_tædium vito_ of the commonplace is in its meridian. To the aching
-victim of evil fortune, it is ofttimes the divine anaesthetic.
-
-To-day a bitter critic calls down to the storyteller, bidding him turn
-out with the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, for the reason
-that there is no new thing, and the pieces with which he seeks to build
-are ancient and well worn. "At best," he cries, "the great one among you
-can produce but combinations of the old, some quaint, some monstrous,
-and all weary." But the writer does not turn out, and the world swings
-merrily on.
-
-Perhaps the critic forgets that if things are old, men are new; that
-while the grain field stands fast, the waves passing over it are not one
-like the other. The new child is the best answer.
-
-The reader is a clever tyrant. He demands something more than people
-of mist. There must be tendons in the ghost hand, and hard bones in the
-phantom, else he feels that he has been cheated.
-
-Perhaps, of all things, the human mind loves best the problem. Not
-the problem of the abacus, but the problem of the chess-board when the
-pieces are living; the problem with passion and peril in it; with the
-fresh air of the hills and the salt breath of the sea. It propounds this
-riddle to the writer: Create mind-children, O Magician, with red blood
-in their faces, who, by power inherited from you, are enabled to secure
-the fruits of drudgery, without the drudgery. Nor must the genius of
-Circumstance help. Make them do what we cannot do, good Magician, but
-make them of clay as we are. We know all the old methods so well, and we
-are weary of them. Give us new ones.
-
-Exacting is this taskmaster. It demands that the problem builder
-cunningly join together the Fancy and the Fact, and thereby enchant and
-bewilder, but not deceive. It demands all the mighty motives of life in
-the problem. Thus it happens that the toiler has tramped and retramped
-the field of crime. Poe and the French writers constructed masterpieces
-in the early day. Later came the flood of "Detective Stories" until
-the stomach of the reader failed. Yesterday, Mr. Conan Doyle created
-Sherlock Holmes, and the public pricked up its ears and listened with
-interest.
-
-It is significant that the general plan of this kind of tale has never
-once been changed to any degree. The writers, one and all, have labored,
-often with great genius, to construct problems in crime, where by acute
-deduction the criminal and his methods were determined; or, reversing
-it, they have sought to plan the crime so cunningly as to effectually
-conceal the criminal and his methods. The intent has always been to
-baffle the trailer, and when the identity of the criminal was finally
-revealed, the story ended.
-
-The high ground of the field of crime has not been explored; it has not
-even been entered. The book-stalls have been filled to weariness with
-tales based upon plans whereby the _detective_, or _ferreting_ power
-of the State might be baffled. But, prodigious marvel! no writer has
-attempted to construct tales based upon plans whereby the _punishing_
-power of the State might be baffled.
-
-The distinction, if one pauses for a moment to consider it, is striking.
-It is possible, even easy, deliberately to plan crimes so that the
-criminal agent and the criminal agency cannot be detected. Is it
-possible to plan and execute wrongs in such a manner that they will have
-all the effect and all the resulting profit of desperate crimes and yet
-not be crimes before the law?
-
-There is, perhaps, nothing of which the layman is so grossly ignorant
-as of the law. He has grown to depend upon what he is pleased to call
-common sense. Indeed his refrain, "The law is common sense," has at
-times been echoed by the judiciary. There was never a graver error. The
-common sense of the common man is at best a poor guide to the criminal
-law. It is no guide at all to the civil law.
-
-There is here no legal heresy. Lord Coke, in the seventeenth century,
-declared that the law was not the natural reason of man, and that men
-could not, out of their common reason, make such laws as the laws of
-England were. The laws have not grown simpler, surely, and if they could
-not be constructed by the common reason of men, they could certainly not
-be determined by it. That men have but indistinct ideas of the law is to
-be regretted and deplored. For their protection they should know it; and
-there is need of this protection. The voices of all men were not joined
-in the first great cry for law and order, nor are they all joined now.
-The hands of a part of mankind have ever been set against their fellows;
-for what great reason no man can tell. Maybe the Potter marred some, and
-certainly evil Circumstance marred some. But, by good hap, industry has
-always, and intelligence has usually, been on the law's side. Ofttimes,
-however, the Ishmælites raise up a genius and he, spying deep, sees the
-weak places in the law and the open holes in it, and forces through,
-to the great hurt of his fellows. And men standing in the market-places
-marvel.
-
-We are prone to forget that the law is no perfect structure, that it
-is simply the result of human labor and human genius, and that whatever
-laws human ingenuity can create for the protection of men, those same
-laws human ingenuity can evade. The Spirit of Evil is no dwarf; he has
-developed equally with the Spirit of Good.
-
-All wrongs are not crimes. Indeed only those wrongs are crimes in which
-certain technical elements are present. The law provides a Procrustean
-standard for all crimes. Thus a wrong, to become criminal, must fit
-exactly into the measure laid down by the law, else it is no crime;
-if it varies never so little from the legal measure, the law must, and
-will, refuse to regard it as criminal, no matter how injurious a wrong
-it may be. There is no measure of morality, or equity, or common right
-that can be applied to the individual case. The gauge of the law is
-iron-bound. The wrong measured by this gauge is either a crime or it is
-not. There is no middle ground.
-
-Hence is it, that if one knows well the technicalities of the law, one
-may commit horrible wrongs that will yield all the gain and all the
-resulting effect of the highest crimes, and yet the wrongs perpetrated
-will constitute no one of the crimes described by the law. Thus the
-highest crimes, even murder, may be committed in such manner that
-although the criminal is known and the law holds him in custody, yet it
-cannot punish him. So it happens that in this year of our Lord of the
-nineteenth century, the skilful attorney marvels at the stupidity of the
-rogue who, committing crimes by the ordinary methods, subjects himself
-to unnecessary peril, when the result which he seeks can easily be
-attained by other methods, equally expeditious and without danger of
-liability in any criminal tribunal This is the field into which the
-author has ventured, and he believes it to be new and full of interest.
-
-In order to develop these legal problems the author appreciated the need
-for a central figure. This central figure must of necessity be a lawyer
-of shrewdness and ability. Here a grave difficulty presented itself.
-No attorney, unless he were a superlative knave, could be presumed to
-suggest the committing of wrongs entailing grievous injury upon innocent
-men. On the other hand, no knave vicious enough to resort to such wrongs
-could be presumed to have learning enough to plan them, else he would
-not be driven to such straits. Hence the necessity for a character who
-should be without moral sense and yet should possess all the requisite
-legal acumen. Such a character is Randolph Mason, and while he may seem
-strange he is not impossible.
-
-That great shocks and dread maladies may lop off a limb of the human
-mind and leave the other portions perfect, nay, may even wrench the
-human soul into one narrow groove, is the common lesson of the clinic
-and the mad-house. An intellect, keen, powerful, and yet devoid of any
-sense of moral obligation, would be no passing wonder to the skilled
-physician; for no one knows better than he that often in the house of
-the soul there are great chambers locked and barred and whole passages
-sealed up in the dark. Nor do men marvel that great minds concentrated
-on some mighty labor grow utterly oblivious to human relations and see
-and care for naught save the result which they are seeking. The chemist
-forgets that the diamond is precious, and burns it; the surgeon forgets
-that his patient is living and that the knife hurts as it cuts. Might
-not the great lawyer, striving tirelessly with the problems of men, come
-at last to see only the problem, with the people in it as pieces on a
-chess-board?
-
-It may be objected that the writer has prepared here a text-book for the
-shrewd knave. To this it is answered that, if he instructs the enemies,
-he also warns the friends of law and order; and that Evil has never yet
-been stronger because the sun shone on it.
-
-It should not be forgotten that this book deals with the law as it is
-and with no fanciful interpretation of it. The colors are woven into a
-gray warp of ancient and well settled legal principles, obtaining with
-full virtue in almost every state. The formula for every wrong in this
-book is as practical as the plan of an architect and may be played out
-by any skilful villain. Nor should it be presumed that the instances
-dealt with are exhaustive. The writer has presented but a few of the
-simpler and more conspicuous; there is, in truth, many another. Indeed
-the wonder grows upon him that the thief should stay up at night to
-steal.
-
-Wheeling, W. Va., June 1, 1896.
-
-
-
-
-
-I--THE CORPUS DELICTI
-
-
-_[See Lord Hale's Rule, Russell on Crimes. For the law in New York see
-18th N. Y. Reports, 179; also N. Y. Reports, 49* page 137. The doctrine
-there laid down obtains in almost every State, with the possible
-exception of a few Western States, where the decisions are muddy.]_
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-THAT man Mason," said Samuel Walcott, "is the mysterious member of this
-club.
-
-He is more than that; he is the mysterious man of New York."
-
-"I was much surprised to see him," answered his companion, Marshall St.
-Clair, of the great law firm of Seward, St. Clair, & De Muth. "I had
-lost track of him since he went to Paris as counsel for the American
-stockholders of the Canal Company. When did he come back to the States?"
-
-"He turned up suddenly in his ancient haunts about four months ago,"
-said Walcott, "as grand, gloomy, and peculiar as Napoleon ever was in
-his palmiest days. The younger members of the club call him 'Zanona
-Redivivus'. He wanders through the house usually late at night,
-apparently without noticing anything or anybody. His mind seems to be
-deeply and busily at work, leaving his bodily self to wander as it
-may happen. Naturally, strange stories are told of him; indeed, his
-individuality and his habit of doing some unexpected thing, and doing
-it in such a marvellously original manner that men who are experts at it
-look on in wonder, cannot fail to make him an object of interest. He has
-never been known to play at any game whatever, and yet one night he sat
-down to the chess table with old Admiral Du Brey. You know the Admiral
-is the great champion since he beat the French and English officers in
-the tournament last winter. Well, you also know that the conventional
-openings at chess are scientifically and accurately determined. To
-the utter disgust of Du Brey, Mason opened the game with an unheard of
-attack from the extremes of the board. The old Admiral stopped and, in
-a kindly patronizing way, pointed out the weak and absurd folly of his
-move and asked him to begin again with some one of the safe openings.
-Mason smiled and answered that if one had a head that he could trust he
-should use it; if not, then it was the part of wisdom to follow blindly
-the dead forms of some man who had a head. Du Brey was naturally angry
-and set himself to demolish Mason as quickly as possible. The game was
-rapid for a few moments. Mason lost piece after piece. His opening was
-broken and destroyed and its utter folly apparent to the lookers-on. The
-Admiral smiled and the game seemed all one-sided, when, suddenly, to
-his utter horror, Du Brey found that his king was in a trap. The foolish
-opening had been only a piece of shrewd strategy. The old Admiral fought
-and cursed and sacrificed his pieces, but it was of no use. He was gone.
-Mason checkmated him in two moves and arose wearily.
-
-"'Where in Heaven's name, man,' said the old Admiral, thunderstruck,
-'did you learn that masterpiece?'
-
-"'Just here,' replied Mason. 'To play chess, one should know his
-opponent. How could the dead masters lay down rules by which you could
-be beaten, sir? They had never seen you'; and thereupon he turned and
-left the room. Of course, St. Clair, such a strange man would soon
-become an object of all kinds of mysterious rumors. Some are true and
-some are not. At any rate, I know that Mason is an unusual man with a
-gigantic intellect. Of late he seems to have taken a strange fancy to
-me. In fact, I seem to be the only member of the club that he will
-talk with, and I confess that he startles and fascinates me. He is an
-original genius, St. Clair, of an unusual order."
-
-"I recall vividly," said the younger man, "that before Mason went to
-Paris he was considered one of the greatest lawyers of this city and he
-was feared and hated by the bar at large. He came here, I believe, from
-Virginia and began with the high-grade criminal practice. He soon became
-famous for his powerful and ingenious defences. He found holes in the
-law through which his clients escaped, holes that by the profession at
-large were not suspected to exist, and that frequently astonished the
-judges. His ability caught the attention of the great corporations. They
-tested him and found in him learning and unlimited resources. He pointed
-out methods by which they could evade obnoxious statutes, by which they
-could comply with the apparent letter of the law and yet violate its
-spirit, and advised them well in that most important of all things, just
-how far they could bend the law without breaking it. At the time he left
-for Paris he had a vast clientage and was in the midst of a brilliant
-career. The day he took passage from New York, the bar lost sight of
-him. No matter how great a man may be, the wave soon closes over him in
-a city like this. In a few years Mason was forgotten. Now only the older
-practitioners would recall him, and they would do so with hatred and
-bitterness. He was a tireless, savage, uncompromising fighter, always a
-recluse."
-
-"Well," said Walcott, "he reminds me of a great world-weary cynic,
-transplanted from some ancient mysterious empire. When I come into the
-man's presence I feel instinctively the grip of his intellect. I tell
-you, St. Clair, Randolph Mason is the mysterious man of New York."
-
-At this moment a messenger boy came into the room and handed Mr. Walcott
-a telegram. "St. Clair," said that gentleman, rising, "the directors of
-the Elevated are in session, and we must hurry."
-
-The two men put on their coats and left the house.
-
-Samuel Walcott was not a club man after the manner of the Smart Set, and
-yet he was in fact a club man. He was a bachelor in the latter thirties,
-and resided in a great silent house on the avenue. On the street he was
-a man of substance, shrewd and progressive, backed by great wealth. He
-had various corporate interests in the larger syndicates, but the basis
-and foundation of his fortune was real estate. His houses on the avenue
-were the best possible property, and his elevator row in the importers'
-quarter was indeed a literal gold mine. It was known that, many years
-before, his grandfather had died and left him the property, which, at
-that time, was of no great value. Young Walcott had gone out into
-the gold-fields and had been lost sight of and forgotten. Ten years
-afterward he had turned up suddenly in New York and taken possession
-of his property, then vastly increased in value. His speculations were
-almost phenomenally successful, and, backed by the now enormous value of
-his real property, he was soon on a level with the merchant princes.
-His judgment was considered sound, and he had the full confidence of
-his business associates for safety and caution. Fortune heaped up riches
-around him with a lavish hand. He was unmarried and the halo of his
-wealth caught the keen eye of the matron with marriageable daughters.
-He was invited out, caught by the whirl of society, and tossed into its
-maelstrom. In a measure he reciprocated. He kept horses and a yacht. His
-dinners at Delmonico's and the club were above reproach. But with all he
-was a silent man with a shadow deep in his eyes, and seemed to court the
-society of his fellows, not because he loved them, but because he either
-hated or feared solitude. For years the strategy of the match-maker
-had gone gracefully afield, but Fate is relentless. If she shields
-the victim from the traps of men, it is not because she wishes him to
-escape, but because she is pleased to reserve him for her own trap.
-So it happened that, when Virginia St. Clair assisted Mrs. Miriam
-Steuvisant at her midwinter reception, this same Samuel Walcott fell
-deeply and hopelessly and utterly in love, and it was so apparent to the
-beaten generals present, that Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant applauded
-herself, so to speak, with encore after encore. It was good to see this
-courteous, silent man literally at the feet of the young debutante. He
-was there of right. Even the mothers of marriageable daughters admitted
-that. The young girl was brown-haired, brown-eyed, and tall enough, said
-the experts, and of the blue blood royal, with all the grace, courtesy,
-and inbred genius of such princely heritage.
-
-Perhaps it was objected by the censors of the Smart Set that Miss St.
-Clair's frankness and honesty were a trifle old-fashioned, and that
-she was a shadowy bit of a Puritan; and perhaps it was of these same
-qualities that Samuel Walcott received his hurt. At any rate the hurt
-was there and deep, and the new actor stepped up into the old time-worn,
-semi-tragic drama, and began his rôle with a tireless, utter sincerity
-that was deadly dangerous if he lost.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-Perhaps a week after the conversation between St. Clair and Walcott,
-Randolph Mason stood in the private writing-room of the club with his
-hands behind his back.
-
-He was a man apparently in the middle forties; tall and reasonably broad
-across the shoulders; muscular without being either stout or lean. His
-hair was thin and of a brown color, with erratic streaks of gray. His
-forehead was broad and high and of a faint reddish color. His eyes were
-restless inky black, and not over-large. The nose was big and muscular
-and bowed. The eyebrows were black and heavy, almost bushy. There were
-heavy furrows, running from the nose downward and outward to the corners
-of the mouth. The mouth was straight and the jaw was heavy, and square.
-
-Looking at the face of Randolph Mason from above, the expression in
-repose was crafty and cynical; viewed from below upward, it was savage
-and vindictive, almost brutal; while from the front, if looked squarely
-in the face, the stranger was fascinated by the animation of the man and
-at once concluded that his expression was fearless and sneering. He was
-evidently of Southern extraction and a man of unusual power.
-
-A fire smouldered on the hearth. It was a crisp evening in the early
-fall, and with that far-off touch of melancholy which ever heralds the
-coming winter, even in the midst of a city. The man's face looked tired
-and ugly. His long white hands were clasped tight together. His entire
-figure and face wore every mark of weakness and physical exhaustion; but
-his eyes contradicted. They were red and restless.
-
-In the private dining-room the dinner party was in the best of spirits.
-Samuel Walcott was happy. Across the table from him was Miss Virginia
-St. Clair, radiant, a tinge of color in her cheeks. On either side,
-Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant and Marshall St. Clair were brilliant and
-light-hearted. Walcott looked at the young girl and the measure of his
-worship was full. He wondered for the thousandth time how she could
-possibly love him and by what earthly miracle she had come to accept
-him, and how it would be always to have her across the table from him,
-his own table in his own house.
-
-They were about to rise from the table when one of the waiters entered
-the room and handed Walcott an envelope. He thrust it quickly into his
-pocket In the confusion of rising the others did not notice him, but
-his face was ash-white and his hands trembled violently as he placed the
-wraps around the bewitching shoulders of Miss St. Clair.
-
-"Marshall," he said, and despite the powerful effort his voice was
-hollow, "you will see the ladies safely cared for, I am called to attend
-a grave matter."
-
-"All right, Walcott," answered the young man, with cheery good-nature,
-"you are too serious, old man, trot along."
-
-"The poor dear," murmured Mrs. Steuvisant, after Walcott had helped them
-to the carriage and turned to go up the steps of the club,--"The poor
-dear is hard hit, and men are such funny creatures when they are hard
-hit."
-
-Samuel Walcott, as his fate would, went direct to the private
-writing-room and opened the door. The lights were not turned on and in
-the dark he did not see Mason motionless by the mantel-shelf. He went
-quickly across the room to the writing-table, turned on one of the
-lights, and, taking the envelope from his pocket, tore it open. Then he
-bent down by the light to read the contents. As his eyes ran over the
-paper, his jaw fell. The skin drew away from his cheek-bones and his
-face seemed literally to sink in. His knees gave way under him and he
-would have gone down in a heap had it not been for Mason's long arms
-that closed around him and held him up. The human economy is ever
-mysterious. The moment the new danger threatened, the latent power
-of the man as an animal, hidden away in the centres of intelligence,
-asserted itself. His hand clutched the paper and, with a half slide, he
-turned in Mason's arms. For a moment he stared up at the ugly man whose
-thin arms felt like wire ropes.
-
-"You are under the dead-fall, aye," said Mason. "The cunning of my enemy
-is sublime."
-
-"Your enemy?" gasped Walcott. "When did you come into it? How in God's
-name did you know it? How your enemy?"
-
-Mason looked down at the wide bulging eyes of the man.
-
-"Who should know better than I?" he said. "Haven't I broken through all
-the traps and plots that she could set?"
-
-"She? She trap you?" The man's voice was full of horror.
-
-"The old schemer," muttered Mason. "The cowardly old schemer, to strike
-in the back; but we can beat her. She did not count on my helping
-you--I, who know her so well."
-
-Mason's face was red, and his eyes burned. In the midst of it all he
-dropped his hands and went over to the fire. Samuel Walcott arose,
-panting, and stood looking at Mason, with his hands behind him on the
-table. The naturally strong nature and the rigid school in which the man
-had been trained presently began to tell. His composure in part returned
-and he thought rapidly. What did this strange man know? Was he simply
-making shrewd guesses, or had he some mysterious knowledge of this
-matter? Walcott could not know that Mason meant only Fate, that he
-believed her to be his great enemy. Walcott had never before doubted his
-own ability to meet any emergency. This mighty jerk had carried him off
-his feet. He was unstrung and panic-stricken. At any rate this man had
-promised help. He would take it. He put the paper and envelope carefully
-into his pocket, smoothed out his rumpled coat, and going over to Mason
-touched him on the shoulder.
-
-"Come," he said, "if you are to help me we must go."
-
-The man turned and followed him without a word. In the hall Mason put
-on his hat and overcoat, and the two went out into the street. Walcott
-hailed a cab, and the two were driven to his house on the avenue.
-Walcott took out his latch-key, opened the door, and led the way into
-the library. He turned on the light and motioned Mason to seat himself
-at the table. Then he went into another room and presently returned with
-a bundle of papers and a decanter of brandy. He poured out a glass of
-the liquor and offered it to Mason. The man shook his head. Walcott
-poured the contents of the glass down his own throat. Then he set the
-decanter down and drew up a chair on the side of the table opposite
-Mason.
-
-"Sir," said Walcott, in a voice deliberate, indeed, but as hollow as a
-sepulchre, "I am done for. God has finally gathered up the ends of the
-net, and it is knotted tight."
-
-"Am I not here to help you?" said Mason, turning savagely. "I can beat
-Fate. Give me the details of her trap."
-
-He bent forward and rested his arms on the table. His streaked gray hair
-was rumpled and on end, and his face was ugly. For a moment Walcott did
-not answer. He moved a little into the shadow; then he spread the bundle
-of old yellow papers out before him.
-
-"To begin with," he said, "I am a living lie, a gilded crime-made sham,
-every bit of me. There is not an honest piece anywhere. It is all lie.
-I am a liar and a thief before men. The property which I possess is not
-mine, but stolen from a dead man. The very name which I bear is not my
-own, but is the bastard child of a crime. I am more than all that--I am
-a murderer; a murderer before the law; a murderer before God; and worse
-than a murderer before the pure woman whom I love more than anything
-that God could make."
-
-He paused for a moment and wiped the perspiration from his face.
-
-"Sir," said Mason, "this is all drivel, infantile drivel. What you are
-is of no importance. How to get out is the problem, how to get out."
-
-Samuel Walcott leaned forward, poured out a glass of brandy and
-swallowed it.
-
-"Well," he said, speaking slowly, "my right name is Richard Warren. In
-the spring of 1879 I came to New York and fell in with the real Samuel
-Walcott, a young man with a little money and some property which his
-grandfather had left him. We became friends, and concluded to go to the
-far west together. Accordingly we scraped together what money we could
-lay our hands on, and landed in the gold-mining regions of California.
-We were young and inexperienced, and our money went rapidly. One April
-morning we drifted into a little shack camp, away up in the Sierra
-Nevadas, called Hell's Elbow. Here we struggled and starved for perhaps
-a year. Finally, in utter desperation, Walcott married the daughter of a
-Mexican gambler, who ran an eating-house and a poker joint. With them we
-lived from hand to mouth in a wild God-forsaken way for several years.
-After a time the woman began to take a strange fancy to me. Walcott
-finally noticed it, and grew jealous.
-
-"One night, in a drunken brawl, we quarrelled, and I killed him. It was
-late at night, and, beside the woman, there were four of us in the poker
-room,--the Mexican gambler, a half-breed devil called Cherubim Pete,
-Walcott, and myself. When Walcott fell, the half-breed whipped out his
-weapon, and fired at me across the table; but the woman, Nina San Croix,
-struck his arm, and, instead of killing me, as he intended, the bullet
-mortally wounded her father, the Mexican gambler. I shot the half-breed
-through the forehead, and turned round, expecting the woman to attack
-me. On the contrary, she pointed to the window, and bade me wait for her
-on the cross-trail below.
-
-"It was fully three hours later before the woman joined me at the place
-indicated. She had a bag of gold dust, a few jewels that belonged to her
-father, and a package of papers. I asked her why she had stayed behind
-so long, and she replied that the men were not killed outright, and that
-she had brought a priest to them and waited until they had died.
-This was the truth, but not all the truth. Moved by superstition or
-foresight, the woman had induced the priest to take down the sworn
-statements of the two dying men, seal it, and give it to her. This paper
-she brought with her. All this I learned afterwards. At the time I knew
-nothing of this damning evidence.
-
-"We struck out together for the Pacific coast. The country was lawless.
-The privations we endured were almost past belief. At times the woman
-exhibited cunning and ability that were almost genius; and through
-it all, often in the very fingers of death, her devotion to me never
-wavered. It was dog-like, and seemed to be her only object on earth.
-When we reached San Francisco, the woman put these papers into my
-hands." Walcott took up the yellow package, and pushed it across the
-table to Mason.
-
-"She proposed that I assume Walcott's name, and that we come boldly to
-New York and claim the property. I examined the papers, found a copy
-of the will by which Walcott inherited the property, a bundle of
-correspondence, and sufficient documentary evidence to establish his
-identity beyond the shadow of a doubt. Desperate gambler as I now was,
-I quailed before the daring plan of Nina San Croix. I urged that I,
-Richard Warren, would be known, that the attempted fraud would be
-detected and would result in investigation, and perhaps unearth the
-whole horrible matter.
-
-"The woman pointed out how much I resembled Walcott, what vast changes
-ten years of such life as we had led would naturally be expected to make
-in men, how utterly impossible it would be to trace back the fraud
-to Walcott's murder at Hell's Elbow, in the wild passes of the
-Sierra Nevadas. She bade me remember that we were both outcasts, both
-crime-branded, both enemies of man's law and God's; that we had nothing
-to lose; we were both sunk to the bottom. Then she laughed, and said
-that she had not found me a coward until now, but that if I had turned
-chicken-hearted, that was the end of it, of course. The result was, we
-sold the gold dust and jewels in San Francisco, took on such evidences
-of civilization as possible, and purchased passage to New York on the
-best steamer we could find.
-
-"I was growing to depend on the bold gambler spirit of this woman, Nina
-San Croix; I felt the need of her strong, profligate nature. She was
-of a queer breed and a queerer school. Her mother was the daughter of
-a Spanish engineer, and had been stolen by the Mexican, her father.
-She herself had been raised and educated as best might be in one of
-the monasteries along the Rio Grande, and had there grown to womanhood
-before her father, fleeing into the mountains of California, carried her
-with him.
-
-"When we landed in New York I offered to announce her as my wife, but
-she refused, saying that her presence would excite comment and perhaps
-attract the attention of Walcott's relatives. We therefore arranged that
-I should go alone into the city, claim the property, and announce myself
-as Samuel Walcott, and that she should remain under cover until such
-time as we would feel the ground safe under us.
-
-"Every detail of the plan was fatally successful. I established my
-identity without difficulty and secured the property. It had increased
-vastly in value, and I, as Samuel Walcott, soon found myself a rich man.
-I went to Nina San Croix in hiding and gave her a large sum of money,
-with which she purchased a residence in a retired part of the city, far
-up in the northern suburb. Here she lived secluded and unknown while I
-remained in the city, living here as a wealthy bachelor.
-
-"I did not attempt to abandon the woman, but went to her from time to
-time in disguise and under cover of the greatest secrecy. For a
-time everything ran smooth, the woman was still devoted to me above
-everything else, and thought always of my welfare first and seemed
-content to wait so long as I thought best. My business expanded. I was
-sought after and consulted and drawn into the higher life of New York,
-and more and more felt that the woman was an albatross on my neck. I put
-her off with one excuse after another. Finally she began to suspect
-me and demanded that I should recognize her as my wife. I attempted to
-point out the difficulties. She met them all by saying that we should
-both go to Spain, there I could marry her and we could return to America
-and drop into my place in society without causing more than a passing
-comment.
-
-"I concluded to meet the matter squarely once for all. I said that I
-would convert half of the property into money and give it to her, but
-that I would not marry her. She did not fly into a storming rage as I
-had expected, but went quietly out of the room and presently returned
-with two papers, which she read. One was the certificate of her marriage
-to Walcott duly authenticated; the other was the dying statement of her
-father, the Mexican gambler, and of Samuel Walcott, charging me with
-murder. It was in proper form and certified by the Jesuit priest.
-
-"Now," she said, sweetly, when she had finished, 'which do you prefer,
-to recognize your wife, or to turn all the property over to Samuel
-Walcott's widow and hang for his murder?'
-
-"I was dumbfounded and horrified. I saw the trap that I was in and I
-consented to do anything she should say if she would only destroy the
-papers. This she refused to do. I pleaded with her and implored her to
-destroy them. Finally she gave them to me with a great show of returning
-confidence, and I tore them into bits and threw them into the fire.
-
-"That was three months ago. We arranged to go to Spain and do as she
-said. She was to sail this morning and I was to follow. Of course I
-never intended to go. I congratulated myself on the fact that all trace
-of evidence against me was destroyed and that her grip was now broken.
-My plan was to induce her to sail, believing that I would follow. When
-she was gone I would marry Miss St. Clair, and if Nina San Croix
-should return I would defy her and lock her up as a lunatic. But I was
-reckoning like an infernal ass, to imagine for a moment that I could
-thus hoodwink such a woman as Nina San Croix.
-
-"To-night I received this." Walcott took the envelope from his pocket
-and gave it to Mason. "You saw the effect of it; read it and you will
-understand why. I felt the death hand when I saw her writing on the
-envelope."
-
-Mason took the paper from the envelope. It was written in Spanish, and
-ran:
-
-"Greeting to Richard Warren.
-
-"The great Senor does his little Nina injustice to think she would go
-away to Spain and leave him to the beautiful American. She is not so
-thoughtless. Before she goes, she shall be, Oh so very rich! and the
-dear Senor shall be, Oh so very safe! The Archbishop and the kind Church
-hate murderers.
-
-"Nina San Croix.
-
-"Of course, fool, the papers you destroyed were copies.
-
-"N. San C."
-
-To this was pinned a line in a delicate aristocratic hand, saying that
-the Archbishop would willingly listen to Madam San Croix's statement if
-she would come to him on Friday morning at eleven.
-
-"You see," said Walcott, desperately, "there is no possible way out. I
-know the woman--when she decides to do a thing that is the end of it.
-She has decided to do this."
-
-Mason turned around from the table, stretched out his long legs, and
-thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Walcott sat with his head down,
-watching Mason hopelessly, almost indifferently, his face blank and
-sunken. The ticking of the bronze clock on the mantel-shelf was loud,
-painfully loud. Suddenly Mason drew his knees in and bent over, put both
-his bony hands on the table, and looked at Walcott.
-
-"Sir," he said, "this matter is in such shape that there is only one
-thing to do. This growth must be cut out at the roots, and cut out
-quickly. This is the first fact to be determined, and a fool would know
-it. The second fact is that you must do it yourself. Hired killers are
-like the grave and the daughters of the horse-leech,--they cry always,
-'Give, Give,' They are only palliatives, not cures. By using them you
-swap perils. You simply take a stay of execution at best. The common
-criminal would know this. These are the facts of your problem. The
-master plotters of crime would see here but two difficulties to meet:
-
-"A practical method for accomplishing the body of the crime.
-
-"A cover for the criminal agent.
-
-"They would see no farther, and attempt to guard no farther. After they
-had provided a plan for the killing, and a means by which the killer
-could cover his trail and escape from the theatre of the homicide, they
-would believe all the requirements of the problems met, and would stop.
-The greatest, the very giants among them, have stopped here and have
-been in great error.
-
-"In every crime, especially in the great ones, there exists a third
-element, pre-eminently vital. This third element the master plotters
-have either overlooked or else have not had the genius to construct.
-They plan with rare cunning to baffle the victim. They plan with vast
-wisdom, almost genius, to baffle the trailer. But they fail utterly
-to provide any plan for baffling the punisher. Ergo, their plots are
-fatally defective and often result in ruin. Hence the vital necessity
-for providing the third element--the _escape ipso jure_."
-
-Mason arose, walked around the table, and put his hand firmly on Samuel
-Walcott's shoulder. "This must be done to-morrow night," he continued;
-"you must arrange your business matters to-morrow and announce that you
-are going on a yacht cruise, by order of your physician, and may
-not return for some weeks. You must prepare your yacht for a voyage,
-instruct your men to touch at a certain point on Staten Island, and wait
-until six o'clock day after to-morrow morning. If you do not come aboard
-by that time, they are to go to one of the South American ports
-and remain until further orders. By this means your absence for an
-indefinite period will be explained. You will go to Nina San Croix in
-the disguise which you have always used, and from her to the yacht,
-and by this means step out of your real status and back into it without
-leaving traces. I will come here to-morrow evening and furnish you with
-everything that you shall need and give you full and exact instructions
-in every particular. These details you must execute with the greatest
-care, as they will be vitally essential to the success of my plan."
-
-Through it all Walcott had been silent and motionless. Now he arose, and
-in his face there must have been some premonition of protest, for Mason
-stepped back and put out his hand. "Sir," he said, with brutal emphasis,
-"not a word. Remember that you are only the hand, and the hand does not
-think." Then he turned around abruptly and went out of the house.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-The place which Samuel Walcott had selected for the residence of Nina
-San Croix was far up in the northern suburb of New York. The place
-was very old. The lawn was large and ill-kept; the house, a square
-old-fashioned brick, was set far back from the street, and partly hidden
-by trees. Around it all was a rusty iron fence. The place had the air of
-genteel ruin, such as one finds in the Virginias.
-
-On a Thursday of November, about three o'clock in the afternoon, a
-little man, driving a dray, stopped in the alley at the rear of the
-house. As he opened the back gate an old negro woman came down the steps
-from the kitchen and demanded to know what he wanted. The drayman asked
-if the lady of the house was in. The old negro answered that she was
-asleep at this hour and could not be seen.
-
-"That is good," said the little man, "now there won't be any row. I
-brought up some cases of wine which she ordered from our house last week
-and which the Boss told me to deliver at once, but I forgot it until
-to-day. Just let me put it in the cellar now, Auntie, and don't say
-a word to the lady about it and she won't ever know that it was not
-brought up on time."
-
-The drayman stopped, fished a silver dollar out of his pocket, and gave
-it to the old negro. "There now, Auntie," he said, "my job depends upon
-the lady not knowing about this wine; keep it mum."
-
-"Dat's all right, honey," said the old servant, beaming like a May
-morning. "De cellar door is open, carry it all in and put it in de back
-part and nobody aint never going to know how long it has been in 'dar."
-
-The old negro went back into the kitchen and the little man began to
-unload the dray. He carried in five wine cases and stowed them away in
-the back part of the cellar as the old woman had directed. Then, after
-having satisfied himself that no one was watching, he took from the dray
-two heavy paper sacks, presumably filled with flour, and a little bundle
-wrapped in an old newspaper; these he carefully hid behind the wine
-cases in the cellar. After a while he closed the door, climbed on his
-dray, and drove off down the alley.
-
-About eight o'clock in the evening of the same day, a Mexican sailor
-dodged in the front gate and slipped down to the side of the house. He
-stopped by the window and tapped on it with his finger. In a moment a
-woman opened the door. She was tall, lithe, and splendidly proportioned,
-with a dark Spanish face and straight hair. The man stepped inside. The
-woman bolted the door and turned round.
-
-"Ah," she said, smiling, "it is you, Senor? How good of you."
-
-The man started. "Whom else did you expect?" he said quickly.
-
-"Oh!" laughed the woman, "perhaps the Archbishop."
-
-"Nina!" said the man, in a broken voice that expressed love, humility,
-and reproach. His face was white under the black sunburn.
-
-For a moment the woman wavered. A shadow flitted over her eyes, then she
-stepped back. "No," she said, "not yet."
-
-The man walked across to the fire, sank down in a chair, and covered
-his face with his hands. The woman stepped up noiselessly behind him and
-leaned over the chair. The man was either in great agony or else he was
-a superb actor, for the muscles of his neck twitched violently and his
-shoulders trembled.
-
-"Oh," he muttered, as though echoing his thoughts, "I can't do it, I
-can't!"
-
-The woman caught the words and leaped up as though some one had struck
-her in the face. She threw back her head. Her nostrils dilated and her
-eyes flashed.
-
-"You can't do it!" she cried. "Then you do love her! You shall do it!
-Do you hear me? You shall do it! You killed him! You got rid of him!
-but you shall not get rid of me. I have the evidence, all of it. The
-Archbishop will have it to-morrow. They shall hang you! Do you hear me?
-They shall hang you!"
-
-The woman's voice rose, it was loud and shrill. The man turned slowly
-round without looking up, and stretched out his arms toward the woman.
-She stopped and looked down at him. The fire glittered for a moment
-and then died out of her eyes, her bosom heaved and her lips began to
-tremble. With a cry she flung herself into his arms, caught him around
-the neck, and pressed his face up close against her cheek.
-
-"Oh! Dick, Dick," she sobbed, "I do love you so! I can't live without
-you! Not another hour Dick! I do want you so much, so much, Dick!" The
-man shifted his right arm quickly, slipped a great Mexican knife out of
-his sleeve, and passed his fingers slowly up the woman's side until he
-felt the heart beat under his hand, then he raised the knife, gripped
-the handle tight, and drove the keen blade into the woman's bosom. The
-hot blood gushed out over his arm, and down on his leg. The body, warm
-and limp, slipped down in his arms. The man got up, pulled out the
-knife, and thrust it into a sheath at his belt, unbuttoned the dress,
-and slipped it off of the body. As he did this a bundle of papers
-dropped upon the floor; these he glanced at hastily and put into his
-pocket. Then he took the dead woman up in his arms, went out into the
-hall, and started to go up the stairway. The body was relaxed and heavy,
-and for that reason difficult to carry. He doubled it up into an awful
-heap, with the knees against the chin, and walked slowly and heavily up
-the stairs and out into the bath-room. There he laid the corpse down
-on the tiled floor. Then he opened the window, closed the shutters, and
-lighted the gas. The bath-room was small and contained an ordinary steel
-tub, porcelain-lined, standing near the window and raised about six
-inches above the floor. The sailor went over to the tub, pried up the
-metal rim of the outlet with his knife, removed it, and fitted into its
-place a porcelain disk which he took from his pocket; to this disk
-was attached a long platinum wire, the end of which he fastened on the
-outside of the tub. After he had done this he went back to the body,
-stripped off its clothing, put it down in the tub and began to dismember
-it with the great Mexican knife. The blade was strong and sharp as a
-razor. The man worked rapidly and with the greatest care.
-
-When he had finally cut the body into as small pieces as possible, he
-replaced the knife in its sheath, washed his hands, and went out of the
-bath-room and down stairs to the lower hall. The sailor seemed perfectly
-familiar with the house. By a side door he passed into the cellar. There
-he lighted the gas, opened one of the wine cases, and, taking up all
-the bottles that he could conveniently carry, returned to the bath-room.
-There he poured the contents into the tub on the dismembered body, and
-then returned to the cellar with the empty bottles, which he replaced in
-the wine cases. This he continued to do until all the cases but one were
-emptied and the bath tub was more than half full of liquid. This liquid
-was sulphuric acid.
-
-When the sailor returned to the cellar with the last empty wine bottles,
-he opened the fifth case, which really contained wine, took some of
-it out, and poured a little into each of the empty bottles in order to
-remove any possible odor of the sulphuric acid. Then he turned out the
-gas and brought up to the bath-room with him the two paper flour sacks
-and the little heavy bundle. These sacks were filled with nitrate of
-soda. He set them down by the door, opened the little bundle, and took
-out two long rubber tubes, each attached to a heavy gas burner, not
-unlike the ordinary burners of a small gas-stove. He fastened the tubes
-to two of the gas jets, put the burners under the tub, turned the gas
-on full, and lighted it. Then he threw into the tub the woman's clothing
-and the papers which he had found on her body, after which he took up
-the two heavy sacks of nitrate of soda and dropped them carefully into
-the sulphuric acid. When he had done this he went quickly out of the
-bath-room and closed the door.
-
-The deadly acids at once attacked the body and began to destroy it; as
-the heat increased, the acids boiled and the destructive process was
-rapid and awful. From time to time the sailor opened the door of the
-bath-room cautiously, and, holding a wet towel over his mouth and nose,
-looked in at his horrible work. At the end of a few hours there was only
-a swimming mass in the tub. When the man looked at four o'clock, it was
-all a thick murky liquid. He turned off the gas quickly and stepped
-back out of the room. For perhaps half an hour he waited in the hall;
-finally, when the acids had cooled so that they no longer gave off
-fumes, he opened the door and went in, took hold of the platinum wire
-and, pulling the porcelain disk from the stop-cock, allowed the awful
-contents of the tub to run out. Then he turned on the hot water, rinsed
-the tub clean, and replaced the metal outlet. Removing the rubber tubes,
-he cut them into pieces, broke the porcelain disk, and, rolling up the
-platinum wire, washed it all down the sewer pipe.
-
-The fumes had escaped through the open window; this he now closed and
-set himself to putting the bath-room in order, and effectually removing
-every trace of his night's work. The sailor moved around with the very
-greatest degree of care. Finally, when he had arranged everything to his
-complete satisfaction, he picked up the two burners, turned out the gas,
-and left the bath-room, closing the door after him. From the bath-room
-he went directly to the attic, concealed the two rusty burners under a
-heap of rubbish, and then walked carefully and noiselessly down the
-stairs and through the lower hall. As he opened the door and stepped
-into the room where he had killed the woman, two police-officers sprang
-out and seized him. The man screamed like a wild beast taken in a trap
-and sank down.
-
-"Oh! oh!" he cried, "it was no use! it was no use to do it!" Then he
-recovered himself in a manner and was silent. The officers handcuffed
-him, summoned the patrol, and took him at once to the station-house.
-There he said he was a Mexican sailor and that his name was Victor
-Ancona; but he would say nothing further. The following morning he sent
-for Randolph Mason and the two were long together.
-
-
-
-
-IV.
-
-The obscure defendant charged with murder has little reason to complain
-of the law's delays. The morning following the arrest of Victor Ancona,
-the newspapers published long sensational articles, denounced him as
-a fiend, and convicted him. The grand jury, as it happened, was
-in session. The preliminaries were soon arranged and the case was
-railroaded into trial. The indictment contained a great many counts,
-and charged the prisoner with the murder of Nina San Croix by striking,
-stabbing, choking, poisoning, and so forth.
-
-The trial had continued for three days and had appeared so
-overwhelmingly one-sided that the spectators who were crowded in the
-court-room had grown to be violent and bitter partisans, to such an
-extent that the police watched them closely. The attorneys for the
-People were dramatic and denunciatory, and forced their case with
-arrogant confidence. Mason, as counsel for the prisoner, was indifferent
-and listless. Throughout the entire trial he had sat almost motionless
-at the table, his gaunt form bent over, his long legs drawn up under his
-chair, and his weary, heavy-muscled face, with its restless eyes, fixed
-and staring out over the heads of the jury, was like a tragic mask.
-The bar, and even the judge, believed that the prisoner's counsel had
-abandoned his case.
-
-The evidence was all in and the People rested. It had been shown that
-Nina San Croix had resided for many years in the house in which the
-prisoner was arrested; that she had lived by herself, with no other
-companion than an old negro servant; that her past was unknown, and that
-she received no visitors, save the Mexican sailor, who came to her house
-at long intervals. Nothing whatever was shown tending to explain who
-the prisoner was or whence he had come. It was shown that on Tuesday
-preceding the killing the Archbishop had received a communication from
-Nina San Croix, in which she said she desired to make a statement of
-the greatest import, and asking for an audience. To this the Archbishop
-replied that he would willingly grant her a hearing if she would come
-to him at eleven o'clock on Friday morning. Two policemen testified
-that about eight o'clock on the night of Thursday they had noticed the
-prisoner slip into the gate of Nina San Croix's residence and go down
-to the side of the house, where he was admitted; that his appearance
-and seeming haste had attracted their attention; that they had concluded
-that it was some clandestine amour, and out of curiosity had both
-slipped down to the house and endeavored to find a position from which
-they could see into the room, but were unable to do so, and were about
-to go back to the street when they heard a woman's voice cry out in
-great anger: "I know that you love her and that you want to get rid of
-me, but you shall not do it! You murdered him, but you shall not
-murder me! I have all the evidence to convict you of murdering him! The
-Archbishop will have it to-morrow! They shall hang you! Do you hear me?
-They shall hang you for his murder!" that thereupon one of the policemen
-proposed that they should break into the house and see what was wrong,
-but the other had urged that it was only the usual lovers' quarrel and
-if they should interfere they would find nothing upon which a charge
-could be based and would only be laughed at by the chief; that they had
-waited and listened for a time, but hearing nothing further had gone
-back to the street and contented themselves with keeping a strict watch
-on the house.
-
-The People proved further, that on Thursday evening Nina San Croix had
-given the old negro domestic a sum of money and dismissed her, with the
-instruction that she was not to return until sent for. The old woman
-testified that she had gone directly to the house of her son, and later
-had discovered that she had forgotten some articles of clothing which
-she needed; that thereupon she had returned to the house and had gone
-up the back way to her room,--this was about eight o'clock; that
-while there she had heard Nina San Croix's voice in great passion and
-remembered that she had used the words stated by the policemen; that
-these sudden, violent cries had frightened her greatly and she had
-bolted the door and been afraid to leave the room; shortly thereafter,
-she had heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs, slowly and with
-great difficulty, as though some one were carrying a heavy burden; that
-therefore her fear had increased and that she had put out the light and
-hidden under the bed. She remembered hearing the footsteps moving about
-up-stairs for many hours, how long she could not tell Finally, about
-half-past four in the morning, she crept out, opened the door, slipped
-down stairs, and ran out into the street. There she had found the
-policemen and requested them to search the house.
-
-The two officers had gone to the house with the woman. She had opened
-the door and they had had just time to step back into the shadow when
-the prisoner entered. When arrested, Victor Ancona had screamed with
-terror, and cried out, "It was no use! it was no use to do it!"
-
-The Chief of Police had come to the house and instituted a careful
-search. In the room below, from which the cries had come, he found a
-dress which was identified as belonging to Nina San Croix and which
-she was wearing when last seen by the domestic, about six o'clock that
-evening. This dress was covered with blood, and had a slit about two
-inches long in the left side of the bosom, into which the Mexican knife,
-found on the prisoner, fitted perfectly. These articles were introduced
-in evidence, and it was shown that the slit would be exactly over the
-heart of the wearer, and that such a wound would certainly result in
-death. There was much blood on one of the chairs and on the floor. There
-was also blood on the prisoner's coat and the leg of his trousers, and
-the heavy Mexican knife was also bloody. The blood was shown by the
-experts to be human blood.
-
-The body of the woman was not found, and the most rigid and tireless
-search failed to develop the slightest trace of the corpse, or the
-manner of its disposal. The body of the woman had disappeared as
-completely as though it had vanished into the air.
-
-When counsel announced that he had closed for the People, the judge
-turned and looked gravely down at Mason. "Sir," he said, "the evidence
-for the defence may now be introduced."
-
-Randolph Mason arose slowly and faced the judge.
-
-"If your Honor please," he said, speaking slowly and distinctly,
-"the defendant has no evidence to offer." He paused while a murmur of
-astonishment ran over the court-room. "But, if your Honor please," he
-continued, "I move that the jury be directed to find the prisoner not
-guilty."
-
-The crowd stirred. The counsel for the People smiled. The judge looked
-sharply at the speaker over his glasses. "On what ground?" he said
-curtly.
-
-"On the ground," replied Mason, "that the _corpus delicti_ has not been
-proven."
-
-"Ah!" said the judge, for once losing his judicial gravity.
-
-Mason sat down abruptly. The senior counsel for the prosecution was on
-his feet in a moment.
-
-"What!" he said, "the gentleman bases his motion on a failure to
-establish the _corpus delicti?_ Does he jest, or has he forgotten the
-evidence? The term '_corpus delicti_' is technical, and means the body
-of the crime, or the substantial fact that a crime has been committed.
-Does any one doubt it in this case? It is true that no one actually saw
-the prisoner kill the decedent, and that he has so sucessfully
-hidden the body that it has not been found, but the powerful chain of
-circumstances, clear and close-linked, proving motive, the criminal
-agency, and the criminal act, is overwhelming.
-
-"The victim in this case is on the eve of making a statement that would
-prove fatal to the prisoner. The night before the statement is to be
-made he goes to her residence. They quarrel. Her voice is heard, raised
-high in the greatest passion, denouncing him, and charging that he is a
-murderer, that she has the evidence and will reveal it, that he shall be
-hanged, and that he shall not be rid of her. Here is the motive for the
-crime, clear as light. Are not the bloody knife, the bloody dress, the
-bloody clothes of the prisoner, unimpeachable witnesses to the criminal
-act? The criminal agency of the prisoner has not the shadow of a
-possibility to obscure it. His motive is gigantic. The blood on him,
-and his despair when arrested, cry 'Murder! murder!' with a thousand
-tongues.
-
-"Men may lie, but circumstances cannot. The thousand hopes and fears and
-passions of men may delude, or bias the witness. Yet it is beyond the
-human mind to conceive that a clear, complete chain of concatenated
-circumstances can be in error. Hence it is that the greatest jurists
-have declared that such evidence, being rarely liable to delusion or
-fraud, is safest and most powerful. The machinery of human justice
-cannot guard against the remote and improbable doubt. The inference
-is persistent in the affairs of men. It is the only means by which the
-human mind reaches the truth. If you forbid the jury to exercise it,
-you bid them work after first striking off their hands. Rule out the
-irresistible inference, and the end of justice is come in this land; and
-you may as well leave the spider to weave his web through the abandoned
-courtroom."
-
-The attorney stopped, looked down at Mason with a pompous sneer,
-and retired to his place at the table. The judge sat thoughtful and
-motionless. The jurymen leaned forward in their seats.
-
-"If your Honor please," said Mason, rising, "this is a matter of law,
-plain, clear, and so well settled in the State of New York that even
-counsel for the People should know it. The question before your Honor is
-simple. If the _corpus delicti,_ the body of the crime, has been proven,
-as required by the laws of the commonwealth, then this case should go to
-the jury. If not, then it is the duty of this Court to direct the jury
-to find the prisoner not guilty. There is here no room for judicial
-discretion. Your Honor has but to recall and apply the rigid rule
-announced by our courts prescribing distinctly how the _corpus delicti_
-in murder must be proven.
-
-"The prisoner here stands charged with the highest crime. The law
-demands, first, that the crime, as a fact, be established. The fact that
-the victim is indeed dead must first be made certain before any one
-can be convicted for her killing, because, so long as there remains
-the remotest doubt as to the death, there can be no certainty as to
-the criminal agent, although the circumstantial evidence indicating
-the guilt of the accused may be positive, complete, and utterly
-irresistible. In murder, the _corpus delicti_, or body of the crime, is
-composed of two elements:
-
-"Death, as a result.
-
-"The criminal agency of another as the means.
-
-"It is the fixed and immutable law of this State, laid down in the
-leading case of Ruloff v. The People, and binding upon this Court, that
-both components of the _corpus delicti_ shall not be established by
-circumstantial evidence. There must be direct proof of one or the other
-of these two component elements of the _corpus delicti_. If one is
-proven by direct evidence, the other may be presumed; but both shall not
-be presumed from circumstances, no matter how powerful, how cogent, or
-how completely overwhelming the circumstances may be. In other words, no
-man can be convicted of murder in the State of New York, unless the body
-of the victim be found and identified, or there be direct proof that the
-prisoner did some act adequate to produce death, and did it in such a
-manner as to account for the disappearance of the body."
-
-The face of the judge cleared and grew hard. The members of the bar were
-attentive and alert; they were beginning to see the legal escape open
-up. The audience were puzzled; they did not yet understand. Mason turned
-to the counsel for the People. His ugly face was bitter with contempt.
-
-"For three days," he said, "I have been tortured by this useless
-and expensive farce. If counsel for the People had been other than
-playactors, they would have known in the beginning that Victor Ancona
-could not be convicted for murder, unless he were confronted in this
-courtroom with a living witness, who had looked into the dead face of
-Nina San Croix; or, if not that, a living witness who had seen him drive
-the dagger into her bosom.
-
-"I care not if the circumstantial evidence in this case were so strong
-and irresistible as to be overpowering; if the judge on the bench, if
-the jury, if every man within sound of my voice, were convinced of the
-guilt of the prisoner to the degree of certainty that is absolute; if
-the circumstantial evidence left in the mind no shadow of the remotest
-improbable doubt; yet, in the absence of the eye-witness, this prisoner
-cannot be punished, and this Court must compel the jury to acquit him."
-The audience now understood, and they were dumbfounded. Surely this was
-not the law. They had been taught that the law was common sense, and
-this,--this was anything else.
-
-Mason saw it all, and grinned. "In its tenderness," he sneered, "the law
-shields the innocent. The good law of New York reaches out its hand and
-lifts the prisoner out of the clutches of the fierce jury that would
-hang him."
-
-Mason sat down. The room was silent. The jurymen looked at each other
-in amazement. The counsel for the People arose. His face was white with
-anger, and incredulous.
-
-"Your Honor," he said, "this doctrine is monstrous. Can it be said that,
-in order to evade punishment, the murderer has only to hide or destroy
-the body of the victim, or sink it into the sea? Then, if he is not seen
-to kill, the law is powerless and the murderer can snap his finger in
-the face of retributive justice. If this is the law, then the law for
-the highest crime is a dead letter. The great commonwealth winks at
-murder and invites every man to kill his enemy, provided he kill him
-in secret and hide him. I repeat, your Honor,"--the man's voice was now
-loud and angry and rang through the court-room--"that this doctrine is
-monstrous!"
-
-"So said Best, and Story, and many another," muttered Mason, "and the
-law remained."
-
-"The Court," said the judge, abruptly, "desires no further argument."
-
-The counsel for the People resumed his seat. His face lighted up with
-triumph. The Court was going to sustain him.
-
-The judge turned and looked down at the jury. He was grave, and spoke
-with deliberate emphasis.
-
-"Gentlemen of the jury," he said, "the rule of Lord Hale obtains in this
-State and is binding upon me. It is the law as stated by counsel for
-the prisoner: that to warrant conviction of murder there must be direct
-proof either of the death, as of the finding and identification of the
-corpse, or of criminal violence adequate to produce death, and exerted
-in such a manner as to account for the disappearance of the body; and
-it is only when there is direct proof of the one that the other can be
-established by circumstantial evidence. This is the law, and cannot now
-be departed from. I do not presume to explain its wisdom. Chief-Justice
-Johnson has observed, in the leading case, that it may have its probable
-foundation in the idea that where direct proof is absent as to both the
-fact of the death and of criminal violence capable of producing
-death, no evidence can rise to the degree of moral certainty that the
-individual is dead by criminal intervention, or even lead by direct
-inference to this result; and that, where the fact of death is not
-certainly ascertained, all inculpatory circumstantial evidence wants
-the key necessary for its satisfactory interpretation, and cannot be
-depended on to furnish more than probable results. It may be, also,
-that such a rule has some reference to the dangerous possibility that
-a general preconception of guilt, or a general excitement of popular
-feeling, may creep in to supply the place of evidence, if, upon other
-than direct proof of death or a cause of death, a jury are permitted to
-pronounce a prisoner guilty.
-
-"In this case the body has not been found and there is no direct proof
-of criminal agency on the part of the prisoner, although the chain of
-circumstantial evidence is complete and irresistible in the highest
-degree. Nevertheless, it is all circumstantial evidence, and under the
-laws of New York the prisoner cannot be punished. I have no right of
-discretion. The law does not permit a conviction in this case, although
-every one of us may be morally certain of the prisoner's guilt. I am,
-therefore, gentlemen of the jury, compelled to direct you to find the
-prisoner not guilty."
-
-"Judge," interrupted the foreman, jumping up in the box, "we cannot find
-that verdict under our oath; we know that this man is guilty."
-
-"Sir," said the judge, "this is a matter of law in which the wishes of
-the jury cannot be considered. The clerk will write a verdict of not
-guilty, which you, as foreman, will sign."
-
-The spectators broke out into a threatening murmur that began to grow
-and gather volume. The judge rapped on his desk and ordered the bailiffs
-promptly to suppress any demonstration on the part of the audience. Then
-he directed the foreman to sign the verdict prepared by the clerk, When
-this was done he turned to Victor Ancona; his face was hard and there
-was a cold glitter in his eyes.
-
-"Prisoner at the bar," he said, "you have been put to trial before this
-tribunal on a charge of cold-blooded and atrocious murder. The evidence
-produced against you was of such powerful and overwhelming character
-that it seems to have left no doubt in the minds of the jury, nor indeed
-in the mind of any person present in this court-room.
-
-"Had the question of your guilt been submitted to these twelve arbiters,
-a conviction would certainly have resulted and the death penalty would
-have been imposed. But the law, rigid, passionless, even-eyed, has
-thrust in between you and the wrath of your fellows and saved you from
-it I do not cry out against the impotency of the law; it is perhaps as
-wise as imperfect humanity could make it. I deplore, rather, the genius
-of evil men who, by cunning design, are enabled to slip through the
-fingers of this law. I have no word of censure or admonition for you,
-Victor Ancona. The law of New York compels me to acquit you. I am only
-its mouthpiece, with my individual wishes throttled. I speak only those
-things which the law directs I shall speak.
-
-"You are now at liberty to leave this court-room, not guiltless of the
-crime of murder, perhaps, but at least rid of its punishment. The eyes
-of men may see Cain's mark on your brow, but the eyes of the Law are
-blind to it."
-
-When the audience fully realized what the judge had said they were
-amazed and silent. They knew as well as men could know, that Victor
-Ancona was guilty of murder, and yet he was now going out of the
-court-room free. Could it happen that the law protected only against the
-blundering rogue? They had heard always of the boasted completeness of
-the law which magistrates from time immemorial had labored to perfect,
-and now when the skilful villain sought to evade it, they saw how weak a
-thing it was.
-
-
-
-
-V.
-
-The wedding march of Lohengrin floated out from the Episcopal Church
-of St. Mark, clear and sweet, and perhaps heavy with its paradox of
-warning. The theatre of this coming contract before high heaven was
-a wilderness of roses worth the taxes of a county. The high caste of
-Manhattan, by the grace of the check-book, were present, clothed in
-Parisian purple and fine linen, cunningly and marvellously wrought.
-
-Over in her private pew, ablaze with jewels, and decked with fabrics
-from the deft hand of many a weaver, sat Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant as
-imperious and self-complacent as a queen. To her it was all a kind of
-triumphal procession, proclaiming her ability as a general. With her
-were a choice few of the _genus homo_ which obtains at the five-o'clock
-teas, instituted, say the sages, for the purpose of sprinkling the holy
-water of Lethe.
-
-"Czarina," whispered Reggie Du Puyster, leaning forward, "I salute you.
-The ceremony _sub jugum_ is superb."
-
-"Walcott is an excellent fellow," answered Mrs. Steuvisant; "not a vice,
-you know, Reggie."
-
-"Aye, Empress," put in the others, "a purist taken in the net. The
-clean-skirted one has come to the altar. Vive la vertu!"
-
-Samuel Walcott, still sunburned from his cruise, stood before the
-chancel with the only daughter of the blue-blooded St. Clairs. His face
-was clear and honest and his voice firm. This was life and not romance.
-The lid of the sepulchre had closed and he had slipped from under it.
-And now, and ever after, the hand red with murder was clean as any.
-
-The minister raised his voice, proclaiming the holy union before God,
-and this twain, half pure, half foul, now by divine ordinance one flesh,
-bowed down before it. No blood cried from the ground. The sunlight of
-high noon streamed down through the window panes like a benediction.
-
-Back in the pew of Mrs. Miriam Steuvisant, Reggie Du Puyster turned down
-his thumb. "Habet!" he said.
-
-
-
-
-II--TWO PLUNGERS OF MANHATTAN
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-FOR my part, Sidney," said the dark man, "I don't agree with your faith
-in Providence at all. For the last ten years it has kept too far afield
-of our House in every matter of importance. It has never once shown its
-face to us except for the purpose of interposing some fatal wrecker just
-at the critical moment. Don't you remember how it helped Barton Woodlas
-rob our father in that shoe trust at Lynn? And you will recall the
-railroad venture of our own. Did not the cursed thing go into the hands
-of a receiver the very moment we had gotten the stock cornered? And look
-at the oil deal. Did not the tools stick in both test wells within fifty
-feet of the sand, and all the saints could not remove them? I tell you I
-have no faith in it. The same thing is going to happen again."
-
-"There is some truth in your rant, brother," replied the light man, "but
-I cling to my superstition. We have a cool million in this thing, a cool
-million. If we can only break the Chicago corner the market is bound to
-turn. The thing is below the cost of production now, and this western
-combine is already groggy. Ten thousand would break its backbone, and
-leave us in a position to force the market up to the ceiling."
-
-"But how in Heaven's name, Sidney, are we going to get the other five
-thousand? To-day at ten I put up everything that could be scraped
-together, begged, or borrowed, and out of it all we have scarcely five
-thousand dollars. For any good that amount will do we might as well have
-none at all. We know that this combine would in all probability weather
-a plunge of five thousand, while a bold plunge of ten thousand would
-rout it as certainly as there is a sun in heaven, but we only have half
-enough money and no means of getting another dollar. If there were ten
-millions in it the case would be the same. The jig is up."
-
-"I don't think so, Gordon. I don't give it up. We must raise the money."
-
-"Raise the money!" put in the other, bitterly; "as well talk of raising
-the soul of Samuel. Did n't I say that I had raised the last money that
-human ingenuity could raise; that there was not another shining thing
-left on earth to either of us, but our beauty?--And it would take genius
-to raise money on that, Sidney, gigantic genius."
-
-He stopped, and looked at his brother. The brother poured his soda into
-the brandy, and said simply, "We must find it."
-
-"You find it," said Gordon Montcure, getting up, and walking backward
-and forward across the room.
-
-For full ten minutes Sidney Montcure studied the bottom of his glass.
-Then he looked up, and said, "Brother, do you remember the little
-bald-headed man who stopped us on the steps of the Stock Exchange last
-week?"
-
-"Yes; you mean the old ghost with the thin, melancholy face?"
-
-"The same. You remember he said that if we were ever in a desperate
-financial position we should come to the office building on the Wall
-Street corner and inquire for Randolph Mason, and that Mason would show
-us a way out of the difficulty; but that under no circumstances were we
-to say how we happened to come to him, except that we had heard of his
-ability."
-
-"I recall the queer old chap well," said the other. "He seemed too clean
-and serious for a fakir, but I suppose that is what he was; unless he is
-wrong in the head, which is more probable."
-
-"Do you know, brother," said Sidney Montcure, thrusting his hands into
-his pockets, "I have been thinking of him, and I have a great mind to go
-down there in the morning just for a flyer. If there is any such man as
-Randolph Mason, he is not a fakir, because I know the building, and he
-could not secure an office in any such prominent place unless he was
-substantial."
-
-"That is true, although I am convinced that you will find Randolph Mason
-a myth."
-
-"At any rate, we have nothing to lose, brother; there may be something
-in it. Will you go with me to-morrow morning?"
-
-The dark man nodded assent, and proceeded to add his autograph to the
-club's collection, as evidenced by its wine ticket.
-
-Gordon and Sidney Montcure were high-caste club men of the New York
-type, brokers and plungers until three p.m., immaculate gentlemen
-thereafter. Both were shrewd men of the world. And as they left the
-Ephmere Club that night, that same club and divers shop-men of various
-guilds had heavy equitable interests in the success of their plans.
-
-Shortly after ten the following morning, the two brothers entered the
-great building in which Randolph Mason was supposed to have his office.
-There, on the marble-slab directory, was indeed the name; but it bore no
-indication of his business, and simply informed the stranger that he
-was to be found on the second floor front. The two men stepped into the
-elevator, and asked the boy to show them to Mr. Mason's office. The boy
-put them off on the second floor, and directed them to enquire at
-the third door to the left. They found here a frosted glass door with
-"Randolph Mason, Counsellor," on an ancient silver strip fastened to the
-middle panel. Sidney Montcure opened the door, and the two entered. The
-office room into which they came was large and scrupulously clean.
-
-The walls were literally covered with maps of every description. Two
-rows of mammoth closed bookcases extended across the room, and there
-were numerous file cases of the most improved pattern. At a big
-flat-topped table, literally heaped with letters, sat their friend, the
-little bald, melancholy man, writing as though his very life and soul
-were at stake.
-
-"We desire to speak with Mr. Mason, sir," said Sidney Montcure,
-addressing the little man. The man arose, and went into the adjoining
-room. In a moment he returned and announced that Mr. Mason would see the
-gentlemen at once in his private office.
-
-They found the private office of Randolph Mason to be in appearance much
-like the private office of a corporation attorney. The walls were lined
-with closed bookcases, and there were piles of plats and blue prints and
-bundles of papers scattered over a round-topped mahogany table.
-
-Randolph Mason turned round in his chair as the men entered.
-
-"Be seated, gentlemen," he said, removing his eye-glasses. "In what
-manner can I be of service?" His articulation was metallic and precise.
-
-"We have had occasion to hear of your ability, Mr. Mason," said Gordon
-Montcure, "and we have called to lay our difficulty before you, in the
-hope that you may be able to suggest some remedy. It may be that our
-dilemma is beyond the scope of your vocation, as it is not a legal
-matter."
-
-"Let me hear the difficulty," said Mason, bluntly.
-
-"We are in a most unfortunate and critical position," said Gordon
-Montcure. "My brother and myself are members of the Board of Trade, and,
-in defiance of the usual rule, occasionally speculate for ourselves.
-After making elaborate and careful investigation, we concluded that the
-wheat market had reached bottom and was on the verge of a strong and
-unusual advance. We based this conclusion on two safe indications: the
-failure in production of the other staples, and the fact that the price
-of wheat was slightly below the bare cost of production. This status of
-the market we believed could not remain, and on Monday last we bought
-heavily on a slight margin. The market continued to fall. We covered our
-margins, and plunged, in order to bull the market. To our surprise the
-decline continued; we gathered all our ready money, and plunged again.
-The market wavered, but continued to decline slowly. Then it developed
-that there was a Chicago combine against us. We at once set about
-ascertaining the exact financial status of this combine, and discovered
-that it was now very weak, and that a bold plunge of ten thousand
-dollars would rout it. But unfortunately all our ready money was now
-gone. After exhausting every security and resorting to every imaginable
-means we have only five thousand dollars in all. This sum is utterly
-useless under the circumstances, for we know well that the combine would
-hold out against a plunge of this dimension and we would simply lose
-everything, while a bold, sudden plunge of ten thousand would certainly
-break the market and make us a vast fortune. Of course, no sane man will
-lend us money under circumstances of this kind, and it is not possible
-for us to raise another dollar on earth." The speaker leaned back in his
-chair, like a man who has stated what he knows to be a hopeless case.
-"We are consuming your time unnecessarily," he added; "our case is, of
-course, remediless."
-
-Mason did not at once reply. He turned round in his chair and looked
-out of the open window. The two brothers observed him more closely.
-They noticed that his clothing was evidently of the best, that he was
-scrupulously neat and clean, and wore no ornament of any kind. Even the
-eyeglasses were attached to a black silk guard, and had a severely plain
-steel spring.
-
-"Have you a middle name, sir?" he said, turning suddenly to Sidney
-Montcure.
-
-"Yes," replied the man addressed, "Van Guilder; I am named for my
-grandfather."
-
-"An old and wealthy family of this city, and well known in New England,"
-said Mason; "that is fortunate." Then he bent forward and looking
-straight into the eyes of his clients said: "Gentlemen, if you are ready
-to do exactly what I direct, you will have five thousand dollars by
-to-morrow night. Is that enough?"
-
-"Ample," replied Gordon Montcure; "and we are ready to follow your
-instructions to the letter in any matter that is not criminal."
-
-"The transaction will be safely beyond the criminal statutes," said
-Mason, "although it is close to the border line of the law."
-
-"'Beyond, is as good as a mile," said Gordon Montcure; "let us hear your
-plan."
-
-"It is this," said Mason. "Down at Lynn, Massachusetts, there is
-a certain retired shoe manufacturer of vast wealth, accumulated by
-questionable transactions. He is now passing into the sixties, and, like
-every man of his position, is restless and unsatisfied. Five years ago
-he concluded to build a magnificent residence in the suburbs of Lynn. He
-spared nothing to make the place palatial in every respect. The work has
-been completed within the past summer. The grounds are superb, and
-the place is indeed princely. As long as the palace was in process of
-building, the old gentleman was interested and delighted; but no
-sooner was it finished than, like all men of his type, he was at
-once dissatisfied. He now thinks that he would like to travel on the
-continent, but he has constructed a Frankenstein Monster, which he
-imagines requires his personal care. He will not trust it to an agent,
-he does not dare to rent it, and he can find no purchaser for such a
-palace in such a little city. The mere fact that he cannot do exactly
-as he pleases is a source of huge vexation to such a man as old Barton
-Woodlas, of the Shoe Trust."
-
-The two Montcures apparently gave no visible evidence of their mighty
-surprise and interest at the mention of the man who had robbed their
-father, yet Mason evidently saw something in the tail of their eyes, for
-he smiled with the lower half of his face, and continued: "You, sir,"
-he said, speaking directly to Sidney Montcure, "must go to Lynn and buy
-this house in the morning."
-
-"Buy the house!" answered the man, bitterly, "your irony approaches the
-sublime; we have only five thousand dollars and no security. How could
-we buy a house?"
-
-"I am meeting the difficulties, if you please, sir," said Mason, "and
-not yourself. At ten tomorrow you must be at Lynn. At two p.m. you will
-call upon Barton Woodlas, giving your name as Sidney Van Guilder, from
-New York. He knows that family, and will at once presume your wealth.
-You will say to him that you desire to purchase a country place for your
-grandfather, and heard of his residence. The old gentleman will at once
-jump at this chance for a wealthy purchaser, and drive you out to his
-grounds. You will criticise somewhat and make some objections, but will
-finally conclude to purchase, if satisfactory terms can be made. Here
-you will find Barton Woodlas a shrewd business dealer, and you must
-follow my instructions to the very letter. He will finally agree to take
-about fifty thousand dollars. You will make the purchase proposing to
-pay down five thousand cash, and give a mortgage on the property for the
-residue of the purchase money, making short-time notes. Five thousand in
-hand and a mortgage will of course be safe, and the old gentleman will
-take it. You demand immediate possession, and as he is not residing in
-the house you will get it. Go with him at once to his attorney, pay the
-money, have the papers signed and recorded, and be in full possession of
-the property by four o'clock in the afternoon."
-
-Mason stopped abruptly and turned to Gordon Montcure. "Sir," he said
-curtly, "I must ask you to step into the other office and remain until
-I have finished my instructions to your brother. I have found it best
-to explain to each individual that part of the transaction which he is
-expected to perform. Suggestions made in the presence of a third party
-invariably lead to disaster." Gordon Montcure went into the outer room
-and sat down. He was impressed by this strange interview with Mason.
-Here was certainly one of the most powerful and mysterious men he had
-ever met,--one whom he could not understand, who was a mighty enigma.
-But the man was so clear and positive that Montcure concluded to do
-exactly as he said. After all, the money they were risking was utterly
-worthless as matters now stood.
-
-In a few moments Sidney Montcure came out of the private office and
-took a cab for the depot, leaving his brother in private interview with
-Randolph Mason.
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-The following afternoon, Gordon Montcure stepped from the train at
-Lynn. An hour before, _en route_, he had received a telegram from
-Mason saying that the deal had been made and that his brother was in
-possession of the property, and authorizing him to proceed according to
-instructions. He was a man of business methods and began at once to play
-his part. Calling a carriage, he went to the court-house and ascertained
-that the deed had been properly recorded. Then he drove to the hotel of
-Barton Woodlas and demanded to see that gentleman at once. He was shown
-into a private parlor and in a few minutes the shoe capitalist came
-down. He was a short, nervous, fat man with a pompous strut.
-
-"Mr. Woodlas, I presume," said Gordon Mont-cure.
-
-"The same, sir," was the answer; "to what am I indebted for this honor?"
-
-"To be brief," replied Montcure, "I am looking for one Sidney Van
-Guilder. I am informed that he was to-day with you in this city. Can you
-tell me where I can see him?"
-
-"Why, yes," said the old gentleman, anxiously; "I suppose he is out at
-the residence I to-day sold him for his grandfather. Is there anything
-wrong?"
-
-"What?" cried Montcure, starting up, "You sold him a residence to-day?
-Curse the luck! I am too late. He is evidently into his old tricks."
-
-"Old tricks," said the little fat man, growing pale, "what in Heaven's
-name is wrong with him? Speak out, man; speak out!"
-
-"To come at once to the point," said Gordon Montcure, "Mr. Van Guilder
-is just a little offcolor. He is shrewd and all right in every way
-except for this one peculiarity. He seems to have an insane desire to
-purchase fine buildings and convert them into homes for his horses. He
-has attempted to change several houses on Fifth Avenue into palatial
-stables, and has only been prevented by the city authorities. In all
-human probability the house you have sold him will be full of stalls by
-morning."
-
-"My house full of stalls!" yelled the little fat man, "my house that
-I have spent so much money on, and my beautiful grounds a barn-yard!
-Never! never! Come on, sir, come on, we must go there at once!" And
-Barton Woodlas waddled out of the room as fast as his short legs could
-carry him. Gordon Montcure followed, smiling.
-
-Both men climbed into Montcure's carriage and hurried out to the
-suburban residence. The grounds were indeed magnificent, and the house a
-palace. As they drove in, they noticed several Italian laborers digging
-a trench across the lawn. Barton Woodlas tumbled out of the carriage and
-bolted into the house, followed by Montcure. Here they found a scene of
-the greatest confusion. The house was filled with grimy workmen. They
-were taking off the doors and shutters, and removing the stairway, and
-hammering in different portions of the house until the noise was like
-bedlam.
-
-Sidney Van Guilder stood in the drawing-room, with his coat off,
-directing his workmen. His clothing was disarranged and dusty but he
-was apparently enthusiastic and happy. "Stop, sir! stop!" cried Barton
-Woodlas, waving his arms and rushing into the room. "Put these dirty
-workmen out of here and stop this vandalism at once! At once!"
-
-Sidney Van Guilder turned round smiling. "Ah," he said, "is it you,
-Mr. Woodlas? I am getting on swimmingly you see. This will make a
-magnificent stable. I can put my horses on both floors, but I will be
-compelled to cut the inside all out, and make great changes. It is a
-pity that you built your rooms so big."
-
-For a moment the little man was speechless with rage; then he danced
-up and down and yelled: "Oh, you crazy fool! You crazy fool! You are
-destroying my house! It won't be worth a dollar!"
-
-"I beg your pardon," said Van Guilder, coldly, "this is my house and I
-shall do with it as I like. I have bought it and I shall make a home
-for my horses of it by morning. It cannot possibly be any business of
-yours."
-
-"No business of mine!" shouted Woodlas, "what security have I but the
-mortgage? And if you go on with this cursed gutting the mortgage won't
-be worth a dollar. Oh, my beautiful house! My beautiful house! It is
-awful, awful! Come on, sir," he yelled to Gordon Montcure, "I will find
-a way to stop the blooming idiot!"
-
-With that he rushed out of the house and rolled into the carriage,
-Gordon Montcure following. Together the two men were driven furiously to
-the office of Vinson Harcout, counsellor for the Shoe Trust.
-
-That usually placid and unexcitable gentleman turned round in
-astonishment as the two men bolted into his private office. Woodlas
-dropped into a chair and, between curses and puffs of exhaustion,
-began to describe his trouble. When the lawyer had finally succeeded in
-drawing from the irate old man a full understanding of the matter, he
-leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully.
-
-"Well," he said, "this is an unfortunate state of affairs, but there is
-really no legal remedy for it. The title to the property is in Mr. Van
-Guilder. He is in possession by due and proper process of law, and he
-can do as he pleases, even to the extent of destroying the property
-utterly. If he chooses to convert his residence into a stable, he
-certainly commits no crime and simply exercises a right which is
-legally his own. It is true that you have such equitable interest in
-the property that you might be able to stop him by injunction
-proceedings--we will try that at any rate."
-
-The attorney stopped and turned to his stenographer. "William," he said,
-"ask the clerk if Judge Henderson is in the court-room." The young man
-went to the telephone and returned in a moment. "Judge Henderson is not
-in the city, sir," he said. "The clerk answers that he went to Boston
-early in the day to meet with some judicial committee from New York and
-will not return until to-morrow."
-
-The lawyer's face lengthened. "Well," he said, "that is the end of it.
-We could not possibly reach him in time to prevent Mr. Van Guilder from
-carrying out his intentions."
-
-Gordon Montcure smiled grimly. Mason had promised to inveigle away the
-resident judge by means of a bogus telegram, and he had done so.
-
-"Oh!" wailed the little fat man, "is there no law to keep me from being
-ruined? Can't I have him arrested, sir?"
-
-"Unfortunately, no," replied the lawyer. "He is committing no crime, he
-is simply doing what he has a full legal right to do if he so chooses,
-and neither you nor any other man can interfere with him. If you attempt
-it, you at once become a violator of the law and proceed at your peril.
-You are the victim of a grave wrong, Mr. Woodlas. Your security is being
-destroyed and great loss may possibly result. Yet there is absolutely
-no remedy except the possible injunction, which, in the absence of
-the judge, is no remedy at all. It is an exasperating and unfortunate
-position for you, but, as I said, there is nothing to be done."
-
-The face of Barton Woodlas grew white and his jaw dropped. "Gone!" he
-muttered, "all gone, five thousand dollars and a stable as security for
-forty thousand! It is ruin, ruin!"
-
-"I am indeed sorry," said the cold-blooded attorney, with a feeling of
-pity that was unusual, "but there is no remedy, unless perhaps you could
-repurchase the property before it is injured."
-
-"Ah," said the little fat man, straightening up in his chair, "I had not
-thought of that. I will do it. Come on, both of you," and he hurried to
-the carriage without waiting for an answer.
-
-At the residence in question the three men found matters as Barton
-Woodlas had last seen them, except that the trench across the lawn was
-now half completed and the doors and shutters had all been removed from
-the house and piled up on the veranda.
-
-Sidney Van Guilder laughed at their proposition to repurchase. He
-assured them that he had long been looking for just this kind of
-property, that it suited him perfectly, and that he would not think of
-parting with it. The attorney for Wood-las offered two thousand dollars'
-advance; then three, then four, but Sidney Van Guilder was immovable.
-Finally Gordon Montcure suggested that perhaps the city would not allow
-his stable to remain after he had completed it, and advised him to
-name some price for the property. Van Guilder seemed to consider this
-possibility with some seriousness. He had presumably had this trouble in
-New York City, and finally said that he would take ten thousand dollars
-for his bargain. Old Barton Woodlas fumed and cursed and ground his
-teeth, and damned every citizen of the State of New York from the coast
-to the lakes for a thief, a villain, and a robber.
-
-Finally, when the Italians began to cut through the wall of the
-drawing-room and the fat old gentleman's grief and rage were fast
-approaching apoplexy, the lawyer raised his offer to seven thousand
-dollars cash, and Sidney Van Guilder reluctantly accepted it and
-dismissed his workmen. The four went at once to the law office of Vinson
-Harcout, where the mortgage and notes were cancelled, the money paid,
-and the deed prepared, reconveying the property and giving Barton
-Woodlas immediate possession.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-At nine-thirty the following morning, the two brothers walked into the
-private office of Randolph Mason and laid down seven thousand dollars on
-his desk. Mason counted out two thousand and thrust it into his pocket.
-"Gentlemen," he said shortly, "here is the five thousand dollars which I
-promised. I commend you for following my instructions strictly."
-
-"We have obeyed you to the very letter," said Gordon Montcure, handing
-the money to his brother, "except in one particular."
-
-"What!" cried Mason, turning upon him, "you dared to change my plans?"
-
-"No," said Gordon Montcure, stepping back, "only the fool lawyer
-suggested the repurchase before I could do it."
-
-"Ah," said Randolph Mason, sinking back into his chair, "a trifling
-detail. I bid you goodmorning."
-
-
-
-
-III--WOODFORD'S PARTNER
-
-_[See Clark's Criminal Law, p. 274, or any good text-book for the
-general principles of law herein concerned. See especially State vs.
-Reddick, 48 Northwestern Reporter, 846, and the long list of cases there
-cited, on the proposition that the taking of partnership funds by one of
-the general partners, even with felonious intent, constitutes no crime.
-Also, Gary vs. Northwestern Masonic Aid Association, 53 Northwestern
-Reporter, 1086.]_
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-AFTER some thirty years, one begins to appreciate in a slight degree
-the mystery of things in counter-distinction to the mystery of men. He
-learns with dumb horror that startling and unforeseen events break into
-the shrewdest plans and dash them to pieces utterly, or with grim malice
-wrench them into engines of destruction, as though some mighty hand
-reached out from the darkness and shattered the sculptor's marble, or
-caught the chisel in his fingers and drove it back into his heart.
-
-As one grows older, he seeks to avoid, as far as may be, the effect of
-these unforeseen interpositions, by carrying in his plans a factor of
-safety, and, as what he is pleased to call his "worldly wisdom" grows,
-he increases this factor until it is a large constant running through
-all his equations dealing with probabilities of the future. Whether in
-the end it has availed anything, is still, after six thousand years,
-a mooted question. Nevertheless, it is the manner of men to calculate
-closely in their youth, disregarding the factor of safety, and ignoring
-utterly the element of Chance, Fortune, ar Providence, as it may please
-men to name this infinite meddling intelligence. Whether this arises
-from ignorance or some natural unconscious conviction that it is useless
-to strive against it, the race has so far been unable to determine.
-That it is useless to, the weight of authorities would seem to indicate,
-while, on the other hand, the fact that men are amazed and dumbfounded
-when they first realize the gigantic part played by this mysterious
-power in all human affairs, and immediately thereafter plan to evade
-it, would tend to the conviction that there might be some means by which
-these startling accidents could be guarded against, or at least their
-effect counteracted.
-
-The laws, if in truth there be any, by which these so-called fortunes
-and misfortunes come to men, are as yet undetermined, except that they
-arise from the quarter of the unexpected, and by means oftentimes of the
-commonplace.
-
-On a certain Friday evening in July, Carper Harris, confidential
-clerk of the great wholesale house of Beaumont, Milton, & Company of
-Baltimore, was suddenly prostrated under the horror of this great truth.
-For the first time in his life Fate had turned about and struck him, and
-the blow had been delivered with all her strength.
-
-Up to this time he had been an exceedingly fortunate man. To begin with,
-he had been born of a good family, although, at the time of his father's
-death, reduced in circumstances. While quite a small boy, he had been
-taken in as clerk through the influence of Mr. Milton, who had been a
-friend of his father. The good blood in the young man had told from the
-start. He had shown himself capable and unusually shrewd in business
-matters, and had risen rapidly to the position of chief confidential
-clerk. In this position he was intrusted with the most important matters
-of the firm, and was familiar with all its business relations. His
-abilities had expanded with the increasing duties of his successive
-positions. He had done the firm much service, and had shown himself to
-be a most valuable and trustworthy man. But, with it all, the eyes of
-old Silas Beaumont had followed his every act, in season and out of
-season, tirelessly. It was a favorite theory of old Beaumont, that
-the great knave was usually the man of irreproachable habits, and
-necessarily the man of powerful and unusual abilities, and that, instead
-of resorting to ordinary vices or slight acts of rascality, he was wont
-to bide his time until his reputation gained him opportunity for some
-gigantic act of dishonesty, whereby he could make a vast sum at one
-stroke.
-
-Old Beaumont was accustomed to cite two scriptural passages as the basis
-of his theory, one being that oft-quoted remark of David in his haste,
-and the other explanatory of what the Lord saw when he repented that he
-had made man on the earth.
-
-Like all those of his type, when this theory had once become fixed with
-him, he sought on all occasions for instances by which to demonstrate
-its truthfulness. Thus it happened that the honesty and industry
-of young Harris were the very grounds upon which Beaumont based his
-suspicions and his acts of vigilance.
-
-When it was proposed that Carper Harris should go to Europe in order to
-buy certain grades of pottery which the firm imported, Beaumont grumbled
-and intimated that it was taking a large risk to intrust money to him.
-He said the sum was greater than the young man had been accustomed
-to handle, that big amounts of cash were dangerous baits, and then
-he switched over to his theory and hinted that just this kind of
-opportunity would be the one which a man would seize for his master act
-of dishonesty. The other members of the firm ridiculed the idea, and
-arranged the matter over Silas Beaumont's protest.
-
-Thus it happened that about seven o'clock on the eventful Friday,
-Carper Harris left Baltimore for New York. He carried a small hand-bag
-containing twenty thousand dollars, with which he was to buy foreign
-exchange. Arriving at the depot he had checked his luggage and had gone
-into the chair-car with only his overcoat and the little hand-bag. He
-laid his overcoat across the back of the seat and set the little satchel
-down in the seat beside him. He had been particularly careful that the
-money should be constantly guarded, and for that reason he had attempted
-to keep his hand on the handle of the bag during the entire trip,
-although he was convinced that there was no danger or risk of any
-consequence, for the reason that no one would suspect that the satchel
-contained cash. When he arrived in New York he had gone directly to his
-hotel and asked to be shown up to his room. It was his intention to look
-over the money carefully and see that it was all right, after which he
-would have it placed in one of the deposit boxes in the hotel safe until
-morning.
-
-When Harris set the hand-bag down on the table under the light, after
-the servant had left the room, something about its general appearance
-struck his attention, and he bent down to examine it closely. As he did
-so his heart seemed to leap into his throat, and the cold perspiration
-burst out on his forehead and began to run down his face in streams. The
-satchel before him on the table was not the one in which he had placed
-the money in Baltimore, and with which he had left the counting-house of
-Beaumont, Milton, & Company. The young man attempted to insert the key
-in the lock of the satchel, but his hand trembled so that he could not
-do it, and in an agony of fear he threw down the keys and wrenched the
-satchel open. His great fear was only too well founded. The satchel
-contained a roll of newspapers. For a moment Carper Harris stood dazed
-and dumbfounded by his awful discovery; then he sank down in a heap on
-the floor and covered his face with his hands.
-
-Of all the dreaded calamities that Fate could have sent, this was
-the worst. All that he had hoped for and labored for was gone by a
-stroke,--wiped out ruthlessly, and by no act or wrong of his. The man
-sat on the floor like a child, and literally wrung his hands in anguish,
-and strove to realize all the terrible results that would follow in the
-wake of this unforeseen calamity.
-
-First of all there was Beaumont's theory, and the horror of the thought
-gripped his heart like a frozen hand. It stood like some grim demon
-barring the only truthful and honorable way out of the matter. How could
-he go back and say that he had been robbed. Beaumont would laugh the
-idea to scorn and gloat over the confirmation of his protest. Little
-would explanation avail. His friends would turn against him, and join
-with Beaumont, and seek to make the severity of their accusation against
-him atone for their previous trust and confidence, and their disregard
-of what they would now characterize as Mr. Beaumont's unusual foresight.
-And then, if they would listen to explanation, what explanation was
-there to make? He had left their counting-house with the money in the
-afternoon, and now in New York in the evening he claimed to have been
-robbed. And how? That some one had substituted another hand-bag for the
-one with which he started, without attacking him and even without his
-slightest suspicion--a probable story indeed! Why, the hand-bag there on
-the table was almost exactly like the one he had taken with him to the
-company's office. No one but himself could tell that it was not the same
-bag. The whole matter would be considered a shrewd trick on his part,--a
-cunningly arranged scheme to rob his employers of this large sum of
-money. In his heated fancy he could see the whole future as it would
-come. The hard smile of incredulity with which his story would be
-greeted,--the arrest that would follow,--the sensational newspaper
-reports of the defalcation of Carper Harris, confidential clerk of the
-great wholesale house of Beaumont, Milton, & Company. The newspapers
-would assume his guilt, as they always do when one is charged with
-crime; they would speak of him as a defaulter, and would comment on the
-story as an ingenious defence emanating from his shrewd counsel. Even
-the newsboys on the street would convict him with the cry of, "All about
-the trial of the great defaulter!" The jury its very self, when it went
-into the box, would be going there to try a man already convicted of
-crime. This conviction would have been forced upon them by the reports,
-and they could not entirely escape from it, no matter how hard they
-might try. Why, if one of them should be asked suddenly what he was
-doing, in all possibility, if he should reply without stopping to think,
-he would answer that he was trying the man who had robbed Beaumont,
-Milton, & Company. So that way was barred, and it was a demon with a
-flaming sword that kept it.
-
-The man arose and began to pace the floor. He could not go back and tell
-the truth. What other thing could he do? It was useless to inform the
-police. That would simply precipitate the storm. It would be going
-by another path the same way which he had convinced himself was so
-effectually blocked. Nor did he dare to remain silent. The loss would
-soon be discovered, and then his silence would convict him, while flight
-was open confession of the crime.
-
-Carper Harris had one brother living in New York,--a sort of black sheep
-of the family, who had left home when a child to hazard his fortunes
-with the cattle exporters. The family had attempted to control him, but
-without avail. He had shifted around the stock-yards in Baltimore, and
-had gone finally to New York, and was now a commission merchant, with an
-office in Jersey City. The relation between this man and the family had
-been somewhat strained, but now, in the face of this dreaded disaster,
-Harris felt that he was the only one to appeal to--not that he hoped
-that his brother could render him any assistance, but because he must
-consult with some one, and this man was after all the only human being
-whom he could trust.
-
-He hastily scribbled a note, and, calling a messenger, sent it to his
-brother's hotel. Then he threw himself down on the bed and covered his
-face with his hands. What diabolical patience and cunning Fate sometimes
-exhibits! All the good fortune which had come to young Harris seemed to
-have been only for the purpose of smoothing the way into this trap.
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-What is wrong here, Carper?" said William Harris, as he shut the door
-behind him. "I expected to find a corpse from the tone of your note.
-What's up?"
-
-The commission merchant was a short heavy young man with a big square
-jaw and keen gray eyes. His face indicated bull-dog tenacity and
-unlimited courage of the sterner sort.
-
-Carper Harris arose when his brother entered. He was as white as the
-dead. "William," he said, "I wish I were a corpse!"
-
-"Ho! ho!" cried the cattle-man, dropping into a chair. "There is a big
-smash-up on the track, that is evident. Which is gone, your girl or your
-job?"
-
-"Brother," continued Carper Harris, "I am in a more horrible position
-than you can imagine. I don't know whether you will believe me or not,
-but if you don't, no one will."
-
-"You may be a fool, Carper," answered the commission merchant, closing
-his hands, on the arms of his chair, "but you are not a liar. Go on,
-tell me the whole thing."
-
-Carper Harris drew up a chair to the table and began to go over the
-whole affair from the beginning to the end. As he proceeded, the muscles
-of his brother's face grew more and more rigid, until they looked as
-hard and as firm as a cast. When he finally finished and dropped back
-into his chair, the cattle-man arose and without a word went over to the
-window, and stood looking out over the city, with his hands behind
-his back. There was no indication by which one could have known of
-the bitter struggle going on in the man's bosom, unless one could
-have looked deep into his eyes; there the danger and despair which he
-realized as attendant upon this matter shone through in a kind of fierce
-glare.
-
-Finally he turned round and looked down half smilingly at his brother.
-"Well, Carper," he said, "is that all the trouble? We can fix that all
-right."
-
-"How?" almost screamed young Harris, bounding to his feet, "how?"
-
-The commission merchant came back leisurely to his chair and sat down.
-His features were composed and wore an air of pleasant assurance. "My
-boy," he began, "this is tough lines, to be sure, but you are worth
-a car-load of convicts yet. Sit down then, and I will straighten this
-thing out in a jiffy. I have been devilish lucky this season, and I now
-have about sixteen thousand dollars in bank. You have, I happen to
-know, some five thousand dollars in securities which came to you out of
-father's estate when it was settled. Turn these securities over to
-me and go right on to Europe as you intended. I will realize on the
-securities, and with the money I now have will be enabled to
-purchase the exchange which you require, and will have it sent to you
-immediately, so there will be no delay. You can go right on with your
-business as you intended, and neither old Beaumont nor any other living
-skinflint will ever know of this robbery."
-
-Carper Harris could not speak. His emotion choked him. He seized his
-brother's hand and wrung it in silence, while the tears streamed down
-his face.
-
-"Come, come," said the cattle-man, "this won't do! Brace up! I am simply
-lending you the money. You can return it if you ever get able. If you
-don't, why, it came easy, and I won't ever miss the loss of it."
-
-"May God bless you, brother!" stammered Carper Harris. "You have saved
-me from the very grave, and what is more--from the stigma of a felon.
-You shall not lose this money by me. I will repay it if Heaven spares my
-life."
-
-"Don't go on like a play-actor, Carper," said the cattle-man, rising and
-turning to the door. "Pull yourself together, gather up your duds, and
-skip out to London. The stuff will be there by the time you are ready
-for it." Then he went out and closed the door behind him.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-I had to lie to him," said William Harris. "There was no other way out
-of it. I knew it was the only means by which I could get him out of
-the country. If he stayed here they would nab him and put him in the
-penitentiary in spite of the very devil himself. It is all very well to
-talk about even-eyed justice and all that rot, but a young man in
-that kind of a position would have about as much show as a snowball in
-Vesuvius. The best thing to do was to put him over the pond, and the
-next thing was to come here. I did both, now what is to be done?"
-
-"It is evident," said Randolph Mason, "that the young man is the victim
-of one of our numerous gangs of train robbers, and it is quite as
-evident that it is utterly impossible to recover the stolen money. The
-thing to be done is to shift the loss."
-
-"Shift the loss, sir," echoed the cattle-man; "I don't believe that I
-quite catch your meaning."
-
-"Sir," said Mason, "the law of self-preservation is the great law
-governing the actions of men. All other considerations are of a
-secondary nature. The selfish interest is the great motive power. It is
-the natural instinct to seek vicarious atonement. Men do not bear a hurt
-if the hurt can be placed upon another. It is a bitter law, but it is,
-nevertheless, a law as fixed as gravity."
-
-"I see," said the commission merchant; "but how is this loss to be
-shifted on any one? The money is gone for good; there is no way to get
-it back, and there is no means by which we can switch the responsibility
-to the shoulders of any other person. The money was placed in Carper
-Harris's custody, he was instructed to use great care in order to
-prevent any possible loss. He left Baltimore with it. The story of his
-robbery would only render him ridiculous if it were urged in his behalf.
-He alone is responsible for the money; there is no way to shift it."
-
-"I said, sir," growled Mason, "that the loss must be shifted. What does
-the responsibility matter, provided the burden of loss can be placed
-upon other shoulders? How much money have you?"
-
-"Only the five thousand dollars which I received from the sale of his
-securities," answered the man. "The story which I told him about the
-sixteen thousand was all a lie; I have scarcely a thousand dollars to my
-name, all told."
-
-Mason looked at the cattle-man and smiled grimly. "So far you have done
-well," he said; "it seems that you must be the instrument through which
-this cunning game of Fate is to be blocked. You are the strong one;
-therefore the burden must fall on your shoulders. Are you ready to bear
-the brunt of this battle?"
-
-"I am," said the man, quietly; "the boy must be saved if I have to go to
-Sing Sing for the next twenty years."
-
-
-
-
-IV.
-
-The traveller crossing the continent in a Pullman car is convinced that
-West Virginia is one continuous mountain. He has no desire to do other
-than to hurry past with all the rapidity of which the iron horse is
-capable. He can have no idea that in its central portion is a stretch of
-rolling blue-grass country, as fertile and as valuable as the stock-farm
-lands of Kentucky; with a civilization, too, distinctly its own, and not
-to be met with in any other country of the world. It seems to combine,
-queerly enough, certain of the elements of the Virginia planter, the
-western ranchman, and the feudal baron. Perhaps nowhere in any of the
-United States can be found such decided traces of the ancient feudal
-system as in this inland basin of West Virginia, surrounded by great
-mountain ranges, and for many generations cut off from active relations
-with the outside world. Nor is this civilization of any other than
-natural growth. In the beginning, those who came to this region were
-colonial families of degree,--many of them Tories, hating Washington and
-his government, and staunch lovers of the king at heart, for whom
-the more closely settled east and south were too unpleasant after the
-success of the Revolution. Many of them found in this fertile land lying
-against the foot-hills, and difficult of access from either the east
-or west, the seclusion and the utter absence of relations with their
-fellows which they so much desired. With them they brought certain
-feudal customs as a basis for the civilization which they builded.
-The nature of the country forced upon them others, and the desire
-for gain--ever large in the Anglo-Saxon heart--brought in still other
-customs, foreign and incongruous.
-
-Thus it happened that at an early day this country was divided into
-great tracts, containing thousands of acres of grass lands, owned by
-certain powerful families, who resided upon it, and, to a very large
-extent, preserved ancient customs and ancient ideas in relation to men.
-The idea of a centrally situated manor-house was one adhered to from
-the very first, and this differed from the Virginia manor in that it
-was more massive and seemed to be built with the desire of strength
-predominating, as though the builder had yet in mind a vague notion of
-baronial defences, and some half hope or half fear of grim fights, in
-which he and his henchmen would defend against the invader. Gradually,
-after the feudal custom, the owner of one of these great tracts gathered
-about him a colony of tenants and retainers, who looked after his stock
-and grew to be almost fixtures of the realty and partook in no degree of
-the shiftless qualities of the modern tenant. They were attached to the
-family of the master of the estate, and shared in his peculiarities and
-his prejudices. His quarrel became their own, and personal conflicts
-between the retainers of different landowners were not infrequent. At
-such times, if the breaches of the peace were of such a violent order
-as to attract the attention of the law, the master was in honor bound
-to shield his men as far as possible, and usually his influence was
-sufficient to preserve them from punishment.
-
-Indeed it was the landowner and his people against the world. They were
-different from the Virginians in that they were more aggressive and
-powerful, and were of a more adventurous and hardy nature. They were
-never content to be mere farmers, or to depend upon the cultivation of
-the soil. Nor were they careful enough to become breeders of fine stock.
-For these reasons it came about that they adopted a certain kind of
-stock business, combining the qualities of the ranch and the farm. They
-bought in the autumn great herds of two-year-old cattle, picking them
-up along the borders of Virginia and Kentucky. These cattle they brought
-over the mountains in the fall, fed them through the winter, and turned
-them out in the spring to fatten on their great tracts of pasture land.
-In the summer this stock was shipped to the eastern market and sold
-in favorable competition with the corn-fed stock of the west, and the
-stable-fed cattle of Virginia and Pennsylvania. As this business grew,
-the little farmer along the border began to breed the finer grades of
-stock. This the great landowners encouraged, and as the breeds grew
-better, the stock put upon the market from this region became more
-valuable, until at length the blue-grass region of West Virginia has
-become famous for its beef cattle, and for many years its cattle have
-been almost entirely purchased by the exporters for the Liverpool
-market.
-
-So famous have the cattle of certain of these great landowners become,
-that each season the exporters send men to buy the stock, and not
-infrequently contract for it from year to year. Often a landowner, in
-whom the speculative spirit is rife, will buy up the cattle and make
-great contracts with the exporter, or he will form a partnership with an
-eastern commission merchant and ship with the market. The risks taken in
-this business are great, and often vast sums of money are made or lost
-in a week. It is a hazardous kind of gambling for the reason that great
-amounts are involved, and the slightest fall in the market will often
-result in big loss. With the shipping feature of this business have
-grown certain customs. Sometimes partnerships will be formed to continue
-for one or more weeks, and for the purpose of shipping. One drove of
-cattle or a number of droves; and when the shippers are well known the
-cattle are not paid for until the shipper returns from the market, it
-being presumed that he would not carry in bank sufficient money to pay
-for a large drove.
-
-It is a business containing all the peril and excitement of the stock
-exchange, and all its fascinating hope of gain, as well as its dreaded
-possibility of utter ruin. Often in a grimy caboose at the end of a
-slow freight train is as true and fearless a devotee of Fortune, and as
-reckless a plunger as one would find in the pit on Wall Street, and not
-infrequently one with as vast plans and as heavy a stake in the play
-as his brother of the city. Yet to look at him--big, muscular, and
-uncouth--one would scarcely suspect that every week he was juggling with
-values ranging from ten to sixty thousand dollars.
-
-One Monday morning of July, William Harris, a passenger on the through
-St. Louis express of the Baltimore & Ohio, said to the conductor that
-he desired to get off at Bridgeport, a small shipping station in this
-blue-grass region of West Virginia. The conductor answered that his
-train did not stop at this station, but that as the town was on a grade
-at the mouth of a tunnel he would slow up sufficiently for Mr. Harris to
-jump off if he desired to assume the risk. This Harris concluded to do,
-and accordingly, as the train ran by the long open platform beside the
-cattle pens, he swung himself down from the steps of the car and jumped.
-The platform was wet, and as Harris struck the planks his feet slipped
-and he would have fallen forward directly under the wheels of the coach
-had it not been that a big man standing near by sprang forward and
-dragged him back.
-
-"You had a damned close call there, my friend," said the big man.
-
-"Yes," said Harris, picking himself up, "you cut the undertaker out of a
-slight fee by your quick work."
-
-The stranger turned sharply when he heard Harris's voice and grasped him
-by the hand. "Why, Billy," he said, "I did n't know it was you. What are
-you doing out here?"
-
-"Well, well!" said Harris, shaking the man's hand vigorously, "there is
-a God in Israel sure. You are the very man I am looking for, Woodford."
-
-Thomas Woodford was a powerfully built man--big, and muscular as an
-ox. He was about forty, a man of property, and a cattle-shipper known
-through the whole country as a daring speculator of almost phenomenal
-success. His plans were often gigantic, and his very rashness seemed to
-be the means by which good fortune heaped its favors upon him. He was
-in good humor this morning. The reports from the foreign markets
-were favorable, and indications seemed to insure the probability of a
-decidedly substantial advance at home. He put his big hand upon Harris's
-arm and fairly led him down the platform. "What is up, Billy?" he asked,
-lowering his voice.
-
-"In my opinion," answered Harris, "the big combine among the exporters
-is going to burst and go up higher than Gilderoy's kite, and if we can
-get over to New York in time, we will have the world by the tail."
-
-"Holy-head-of-the-church!" exclaimed the cattle-shipper, dropping his
-hands. "It will be every man for himself, and they will have to pay
-whatever we ask. But we must get over there this week. Next week
-everything that wears hoofs will be dumped into Jersey City. Come over
-to the hotel and let us hold a council of war."
-
-The two men crossed the railroad track and entered the little
-eating-house which bore the high-sounding and euphonious title of "Hotel
-Holloway." They went directly up the steps and into a small room in the
-front of the building overlooking the railroad. Here Woodford locked the
-door, pulled off his coat, and took a large chew of tobacco. It was
-his way of preparing to wrestle with an emergency--a kind of mechanical
-means of forcing his faculties to a focus.
-
-"Now, Billy," he said, "how is the best way to begin?"
-
-Harris drew up his chair beside the bed on which his companion had
-seated himself.
-
-"The situation is in this kind of shape," he began.
-
-"The exporters have all the ships chartered and expect Ball & Holstein
-to furnish the cattle for next week's shipments. I believe that old Ball
-will kick out of the combine and tell the other exporters in the trust
-that they may go to the devil for their cattle. You know what kind of
-a panic this will cause. The space on the boats has been chartered and
-paid for, and it would be a great loss to let it stand empty. Nor could
-they ship the common stock on the market. All these men have foreign
-contracts, made in advance and calling for certain heavy grades of
-stock, and they are under contract to furnish a certain specified
-number of bullocks each week. They formed the combine in order to avoid
-difficulties, and have depended on a pool of all the stock contracted
-for by the several firms, out of which they could fill their boats when
-the supply should happen to be short or the market temporarily high. The
-foreign market is rising, and the old man is dead sure to hold on to the
-good thing in his clutches. I was so firmly convinced that the combine
-was going to pieces that I at once jumped on the first train west and
-hurried here to see you. The exporters must fill their contracts no
-matter what happens. If old Ball kicks over, as he is sure to do, the
-market will sail against the sky. We will have them on the hip if we can
-get the export cattle into New York, but we have no time to lose.
-These cattle must be bought to-day, and carred here to-morrow. Do you
-understand me?"
-
-"Yes," said the cattle-shipper, striking his clenched right hand into
-the palm of his left. "It is going to be quick work, but we can do it or
-my name is not Woodford."
-
-"We must have at least twelve carloads of big export cattle," continued
-Harris. "Not one to weigh less than sixteen hundred pounds. They must be
-good. Now, where can you get them quickest?"
-
-"Well," answered the shipper, thoughtfully, "old Ralph Izzard has the
-best drove, but he wants five cents for them, and that is steep, too
-steep."
-
-"No," said Harris, "that is all right if they are good. We have no time
-to run over the country to hunt them up. If these are the right kind we
-will not stand on his price."
-
-"You can stake your soul on them being the right kind, Billy," answered
-the cattle-shipper enthusiastically. "Izzard picked them out of a drove
-of at least a thousand last fall, and he has looked after the brutes and
-pampered them like pet cats. They will go over sixteen hundred, every
-one of them, and they are as fat as hogs and as broad on the backs as a
-bed. I could slip out to his place and buy them to-night and have them
-here in time to car to-morrow, if you think we can give the old man his
-price."
-
-"They will bring six and a half in New York, and go like hot cakes,"
-said Harris, "but you will have to get out of this quick or you may run
-into a crowd of buyers from Baltimore."
-
-"All right, Billy," said the cattle-shipper, rising and pulling on
-his coat, "I will tackle the old man to-night. We had better go to
-Clarksburg, and there you can lay low, and can come up to-morrow on the
-freight that stops here for the cattle. I will go out to Izzard's from
-there, and drive here by noon to-morrow. The accommodation will be along
-in about a half hour. I will go down and order the cars."
-
-"Wait a moment, Woodford," said Harris, "we ought to have some written
-agreement about this business."
-
-"What is the use?" answered the shipper. "We will go in even on it, but
-if you want to fix up a little contract, go ahead, and I will sign it.
-By the way, old Izzard is a little closer than most anybody else; we may
-have to pay him something down."
-
-"I thought about that," said Harris, "and I brought some money with me,
-but I did n't have time to gather up much. I have about six thousand
-dollars here. Can you piece out with that?"
-
-"Easy," replied the shipper. "The old devil would not have the nerve to
-ask more than ten thousand down."
-
-William Harris seated himself at the table and drew up a memorandum of
-agreement between them, stating that they had formed a partnership
-for the purpose of dealing in stock, and had put into it ten thousand
-dollars as a partnership fund; that they were to share the profits or
-losses equally between them, and that the partnership was to continue
-for thirty days. This agreement both men signed, and Harris placed it in
-his pocket. Then the two men ordered the cattle cars for the following
-day and went to Clarksburg on the evening train.
-
-Here Harris asked Woodford if he should pay over to him the five
-thousand dollars or put it in the bank. To this the cattle-shipper
-replied that he did not like to take the risk of carrying money over the
-country, and that it would be best to deposit it and check it out as it
-should be needed.
-
-Woodford and Harris went to the bank. The shipper drew five thousand
-dollars from his own private account, put it with the five thousand
-which Harris handed him, and thrust the package of bills through the
-window to the teller.
-
-"How do you wish to deposit this money, gentlemen?" asked the officer.
-
-"I don't know, hardly," said the shipper, turning to his companion;
-"what do you think about it, Billy?"
-
-"Well," said the commission-merchant, thoughtfully, "I suppose we had
-better deposit it in the firm name of Woodford & Harris, then you can
-give your checks that way and they wont get mixed with your private
-matters."
-
-"That is right," said the cattle-shipper, "put it under the firm
-name." Whereupon the teller deposited the money subject to the check of
-Woodford & Harris.
-
-"Now, Billy," continued Woodford, as they passed out into the street, "I
-will buy these cattle and put them on the train to-morrow. You go down
-with them. I will stay here and look over the country for another drove,
-and, if you want more, telegraph me."
-
-"That suits me perfectly," replied Harris. "I must get back to New
-York, and I can wire you just how matters stand the moment I see the
-market." Then the two men shook hands and Harris returned to his hotel.
-
-The following afternoon William Harris went to Bridgeport on the freight
-train. There he found twelve cars loaded with cattle, marked "Woodford
-& Harris." At Grafton he hired a man to go through with the stock, and
-took the midnight express for New York.
-
-The partnership formed to take advantage of the situation which
-Harris had so fluently described, had been brought about with ease and
-expedition. Woodford was well known to William Harris. He had met him
-first in Baltimore where young Harris was a mere underling of one of the
-great exporting firms. Afterwards he had seen him frequently in Jersey
-City, and of late had sold some stock for him. The whole transaction was
-in close keeping with the customs of men in this business.
-
-The confidence of one average cattle-man in another is a matter of
-more than passing wonder. Yet almost from time immemorial it has been
-respected, and instances are rare indeed where this confidence has been
-betrayed to any degree. Perhaps after all the ancient theory that
-"trust reposed breeds honesty in men," has in it a large measure
-of truthfulness, and if practised universally might result in huge
-elevation of the race. And it may be, indeed, that those who attempt to
-apply this principle to the business affairs of men are philanthropists
-of no little stature. But it is at best a dangerous experiment, wherein
-the safeguards of society are lowered, and whereby grievous wrongs break
-in and despoil the citizen.
-
-To the view of one standing out from the circle of things, men often
-present queer contradictions. They call upon the state to protect them
-from the petty rogue and make no effort to protect themselves from the
-great one. They place themselves voluntarily in positions of peril, and
-then cry out bitterly if by any mishap they suffer hurt from it, and
-fume and rail at the law, when it is themselves they should rail at.
-The wonder is that the average business man is not ruined by the rogue.
-Surely the ignorance of the knave will not protect him always.
-
-The situation would seem to arise from a false belief that the
-protection of the law is a great shield, covering at all points against
-the attacks of wrong.
-
-
-
-
-V.
-
-On Saturday afternoon about three o'clock, the cashier of the Fourth
-National Bank in the town of Clarksburg called Thomas Woodford as he
-was passing on the street, and requested him to come at once into the
-directors' room. Woodford saw by the man's face that there was something
-serious the matter and he hurried after him to the door of the private
-office. As he entered, Mr. Izzard arose and crossed the room to him. The
-old man held a check in his hand and was evidently laboring under great
-excitement.
-
-"Woodford," he cried, thrusting the check up into the cattle-shipper's
-face, "this thing is not worth a damn! There is no money here to pay
-it."
-
-"No money to pay it!" echoed Woodford. "You must be crazy. We put the
-money in here Monday. There's ten thousand dollars here to pay it."
-
-"Well," said the old man, trembling with anger, "there is none here now.
-You gave me this check Tuesday on my cattle which you and Harris bought,
-and you told me there was money here to meet it. I thought you were
-all right, of course, and I did not come to town until to-day. Now the
-cashier says there is not a cursèd cent here to the credit of you and
-Harris."
-
-The blood faded out of the cattle-shipper's face, leaving him as white
-as a sheet. He turned slowly to the cashier: "What became of that
-money?" he gasped.
-
-"Why," the officer replied, "it was drawn out on the check of yourself
-and Harris. Did n't you know about it? The check was properly endorsed."
-
-"Show me the check," said Thomas Woodford, striving hard to control the
-trembling of his voice. "There must be some mistake."
-
-The cashier went to his desk and returned with a check, which he spread
-out on the table before the cattle-shipper. The man seized it and
-carried it to the light, where he scrutinized it closely. It was in
-proper form and drawn in the firm name of "Woodford & Harris," directing
-the Fourth National Bank to pay to William Harris ten thousand dollars.
-It was properly endorsed by William Harris and bore the stamp of the New
-York Clearing House.
-
-"When was this check cashed?" asked Woodford.
-
-"It was sent in yesterday," answered the cashier. "Is there anything
-wrong with it?"
-
-For a time Woodford did not speak. He stood with his back to the two men
-and was evidently attempting to arrive at some solution of the matter.
-Presently he turned and faced the angry land-owner.
-
-"There has been a mistake here, Mr. Izzard," he said, speaking slowly
-and calmly. "Suppose I give you my note for the money; the bank here
-will discount it, and you will not be put to any inconvenience."
-
-To this the old gentleman readily assented. "All I want," he assured the
-shipper, "is to be safe. Your note, Woodford, is good for ten times the
-sum."
-
-Thomas Woodford turned to the desk and drew a negotiable note for the
-amount of the check. This he gave to Mr. Izzard, and then hurried to
-the telegraph office, where he wired Harris asking for an immediate
-explanation of the mysterious transaction.
-
-He was a man accustomed to keep his own counsels, and he was not yet
-ready to abandon them. He gave directions where the answer was to be
-sent, then he went to the hotel, locked himself in his room, and began
-to pace the floor, striving to solve the enigma of this queer proceeding
-on the part of William Harris.
-
-The transaction had an ugly appearance. The money had been placed in the
-bank by the two men for the express purpose of meeting this check, which
-he had given to Izzard as a part payment on his stock. Harris knew this
-perfectly, and had suggested it. Now, how should it happen that he had
-drawn the money in his own name almost immediately upon his arrival in
-New York?
-
-Could it be that Harris had concluded to steal the money? This the
-cattle-shipper refused to believe. He had known Harris for years, and
-knew that he was considered honest, as the world goes. Besides, Harris
-would not dare to make such a bold move for the purpose of robbery.
-His name was on the back of the check; there was no apparent attempt to
-conceal it. No, there could be but one explanation, considered Woodford:
-Harris had found the market rising and a great opportunity to make a
-vast sum of money; consequently he had bought more stock and had been
-compelled to use this money for the purpose of payment. There could be
-no other explanation, so the cattle-shipper convinced himself.
-
-Thomas Woodford was not a man of wavering decisions. When his conclusion
-was once formed, that was the end of it. He went over to the wash-stand,
-bathed his face, and turned to leave the room. As he did so, some one
-rapped on the door; when he opened it, a messenger boy handed him a
-telegram. He took the message, closed the door, and went over to the
-window. For a moment the dread of what the little yellow envelope might
-possibly contain, made the big rough cattle-shipper tremble. Then he
-dismissed the premonition as an unreasonable fear, and with calm finger
-opened the message. The telegram was from New York, and contained
-these few words: "Have been robbed. Everything is lost," and was signed
-"William Harris."
-
-Thomas Woodford staggered as if some one had dealt him a terrible blow
-in the face. The paper fell from his fingers and fluttered down on the
-floor. The room appeared to swim round him; his heart thumped violently
-for a moment, and then seemed to die down in his breast and cease its
-beating. He sank down in his chair and fell forward on the table,
-his big body limp under the shock of this awful calamity. It was all
-perfectly plain to him now. The entire transaction from the beginning to
-the end had been a deep-laid, cunning plan to rob him. The checking out
-of the ten thousand dollars was but a small part of it Harris had sold
-the cattle, and, seeking to keep the money, had simply said that he had
-been robbed. The story about the probable dissolution of the exporters'
-combine had been all a lie. He had been the dupe--the easy, willing
-dupe, of a cunning villain.
-
-William Harris had come to West Virginia with the deliberate intention
-of inveigling him into this very trap. He had left New York with the
-entire scheme well planned. He had stopped at Bridgeport and told him
-the plausible story about what would happen to the combine, in order to
-arouse his interest and draw him into the plot and to account for his
-own presence in the cattle region. It was a shrewdly constructed tale,
-which, under the circumstances, the most cautious man in the business
-would have believed.
-
-The man winced as he recalled how cunningly Harris had forced him to do
-the very things he desired done, without appearing to even suggest them.
-There was the deposit of the fund in the partnership name,--that seemed
-all reasonable enough. It had not occurred to him that this money would
-then be subject to Harris's check as well as his own. Then, too, it was
-reasonable that he should go out and buy the cattle, and Harris ship
-them,--Harris was a commission-merchant by trade, and this division of
-the work was natural. Such a robbery had not occurred before in all the
-history of this business, and how fatally well all the circumstances and
-the customs of the trade fitted into the plan of this daring rascal!
-
-Then, like a benumbing ache, came the gradual appreciation of the
-magnitude of this loss. The cattle were worth twenty thousand dollars.
-He had agreed to pay Izzard that sum for the drove, and then there was
-the five thousand of his own money. Twenty-five thousand dollars in all.
-It was no small sum for the wealthiest to lose, and to this man in his
-despair it loomed large indeed.
-
-Financial ruin is an evil-featured demon at best. The grasp of his hand
-is blighting; the leer of his sunken face, maddening. It requires strong
-will to face the monster when one knows that he is coming, even after
-his shadow has been flitting across one's path for years. When he leaps
-down suddenly from the dark upon the shoulders of the unsuspecting
-passer-by, that one must be strong indeed if all that he possesses of
-virtue and honesty and good motive be not driven out from him.
-
-The old clock on the court-house struck five, its battered iron tongue
-crying out from above the place where men were accustomed to resort for
-Justice.
-
-The sound startled Woodford and reminded him of something. He arose and
-went to the window and stood looking at the gaunt old building.
-
-Yes, there was the Law. He had almost forgotten that, and the Law would
-not tolerate wrong. It hated the evil-doer, and hunted him down even to
-the death, and punished him. Men were often weak and half blind, but the
-Law was strong always, and its eyes were far-sighted. The world was not
-so large that the rogue could hide from it. In its strength it would
-seek him out and hold him responsible for the evil he had done. It stood
-ever in its majesty between the knave and those upon whom he sought to
-prey; its shadow, heavy with warning, lay always before the faces of
-vicious men.
-
-In his bitterness, Woodford thanked Heaven that this was true. From the
-iron hand of the Law; William Harris should have vengeance visited upon
-him to the very rim of the measure.
-
-
-
-
-VI.
-
-Randolph Mason looked up from his desk as William Harris burst into his
-office. The commission-merchant's face was red, and he was panting with
-excitement. "Mr. Mason," he cried, "there is trouble on foot; you must
-help me out!"
-
-"Trouble," echoed Mason, "is it any new thing to meet? Why do you come
-back with your petty matters?"
-
-"It is no petty matter, sir," said Harris; "you planned the whole thing
-for me, and you said it was no crime. Now they are trying to put me
-in the penitentiary. You must have been wrong when you said it was no
-crime."
-
-"Wrong?" said Mason, sharply. "What fool says I am wrong?"
-
-"Why, sir," continued Harris, rapidly, "Thomas Woodford has applied to
-the Governor for an extradition, asking that I be turned over to the
-authorities of West Virginia on the charge of having committed a felony.
-You said I could draw out the partnership fund and keep it, and that I
-could sell the cattle and buy foreign exchange with the money, and it
-would be no crime. Now they are after me, and you must go to Albany and
-see about it."
-
-"I shall not go to Albany," said Mason. "You have committed no crime and
-cannot be punished."
-
-"But," said Harris, anxiously, "won't they take me down there? Won't the
-Governor turn me over to them?"
-
-"The Governor," continued Mason, "is no fool. The affidavit stating the
-facts, which must accompany the application, will show on its face
-that no crime has been committed. You were a partner, with a partner's
-control of the funds. The taking of partnership property by one partner
-is no crime. Neither did you steal the cattle. They were sold to you.
-Your partner trusted you. If you do not pay, it is his misfortune.
-It was all a business affair, and by no possible construction can be
-twisted into a crime. Nor does it matter how the partnership was formed,
-so that it existed. It is no crime to lie in regard to an opinion.
-You have violated no law,--you have simply taken advantage of its weak
-places to your own gain and to the hurt of certain stupid fools. The
-Attorney General will never permit an extradition in this case while the
-world stands. Go home, man, and sleep,--you are as safe from the law as
-though you were in the grave."
-
-With that, Randolph Mason arose and opened the office door. "I bid you
-good-morning, sir," he said curtly.
-
-The Governor of New York pushed the papers across the table to the
-Attorney General. "I would like you to look at this application for the
-extradition of one Harris, charged with committing a felony in the State
-of West Virginia," he said. "The paper seems to be regular, but I am
-somewhat in doubt as to the proper construction to be placed upon the
-affidavit stating the facts alleged to constitute this crime."
-
-
-
-
-VII.
-
-
-The Attorney General took the papers and went over them rapidly. "Well,"
-he said, "there is nothing wrong with the application. Everything
-is regular except the affidavit, and it is quite clear that it fails to
-support this charge of felony."
-
-"I was inclined to that opinion," said the Governor, "and I thought best
-to submit the matter to you."
-
-"It is usual," continued the Attorney General, "to grant the application
-without question, where the papers are regular and the crime is
-charged, and it is not required that the crime be charged with the legal
-exactness necessary in an indictment. The Governor is not permitted to
-try the question whether the accused is guilty or not guilty. Nor is
-he to be controlled by the question whether the offence is or is not a
-crime in his own State, the question before him being whether the act
-is punishable as a crime in the demanding State. The Governor cannot go
-behind the face of the papers nor behind the facts alleged to constitute
-a crime, and if these facts, by any reasonable construction, support the
-charge of crime, the extradition will usually be granted. But it is a
-solemn proceeding, and one not to be trifled with, and not to be invoked
-without good cause, nor to be used for the purpose of redressing civil
-injuries, or for the purpose of harassing the citizens; and where on
-the face of the affidavit it is plainly evident that no crime has been
-committed, and that by no possible construction of the facts stated
-could the matter be punishable as a crime, then it is the duty of the
-Governor to refuse the extradition.
-
-"In this case the authorities in the demanding State have filed an
-affidavit setting forth at length the facts alleged to constitute a
-felony. This paper shows substantially that a general partnership was
-formed by William Harris and Thomas Woodford, and that pursuant to such
-business relations certain partnership property came into the possession
-of Harris; this property he converted to his own use. It is clear that
-this act constituted no crime under the statutes of West Virginia or
-the common law there obtaining. The property was general partnership
-property; the money taken was a general partnership fund, subject to the
-check of either partner. The partner Harris was properly in possession
-of the cattle as a part owner. He was also lawfully entitled to the
-possession of the partnership fund if he saw fit to draw it out and use
-it. If it be presumed that his story of the robbery is false, and that
-he deliberately planned to secure possession of the property and money,
-and did so secure possession of it, and converted it to his own use, yet
-he has committed no crime. He has simply taken advantage of the trust
-reposed in him by his partner Woodford, and has done none of those acts
-essential to a felony. The application must be refused."
-
-"That was my opinion," said the Governor, "but such a great wrong had
-been done that I hesitated to refuse the extradition."
-
-"Yes," answered the Attorney General, "all the wrong of a serious
-felony has been done, but no crime has been committed. The machinery
-of criminal jurisprudence cannot be used for the purpose of redressing
-civil wrong, the distinction being that, by a fiction of law, crimes are
-wrongs against the State, and in order to be a crime the offence must be
-one of those wrongs described by the law as being against the peace and
-dignity of the State. If, on the other hand, the act be simply a wrong
-to the citizen and not of the class described as being offences against
-the State, it is no crime, no matter how injurious it may be or how
-wrongful to the individual. The entire transaction was a civil matter
-resulting in injury to the citizen, Woodford, but it is no crime, and is
-not the proper subject of an extradition."
-
-The Governor turned around in his chair. "James," he said to his private
-secretary, "return the application for the extradition of William
-Harris, and say that upon the face of the papers it is plainly evident
-that no crime has been committed."
-
-The blow which Fate had sought to deliver with such malicious cunning
-against the confidential clerk of Beaumont, Milton, & Company had been
-turned aside, and had fallen with all its crushing weight upon the
-shoulders of another man, five hundred miles to westward, within the
-jurisdiction of a distant commonwealth.
-
-
-
-
-IV--THE ERROR OF WILLIAM VAN BROOM
-
-
-_[The lawyer will at once see that the false making of this paper is no
-forgery, and that no crime has been committed. See the Virginia case of
-Foulke in 2 Robinson's Virginia Reports, 836; the case of Jackson vs.
-Weisiger, 11 Ky. (Monroe Reports), 214; and the later case of Charles
-Waterman vs. The People, 67 111., 91.]_
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-THE morning paper contained this extravagant personal: "Do not suicide.
-If you are a non-resident of New York in difficulty, at nine to-night
-walk east by the corner of the -------- Building with a copy of this
-paper in your right hand."
-
-The conservative foreigner, unfamiliar with our great dailies, would,
-perhaps, be surprised that the editor would print such a questionable
-announcement in his paper, but at this time in New York the personal
-column had become a very questionable directory, resorted to by all
-classes of mankind for every conceivable purpose, be it gain, adventure,
-or even crime; no one thought to question the propriety of such
-publications. Indeed, no one stopped to consider them at all, unless he
-happened to be a party in interest.
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-
-A few minutes before the hour mentioned in the above personal, a cab
-came rattling down --------
-
-Street. The driver wore a fur-cap and a great-coat buttoned up around
-his ears. As he turned the corner to the -------- Building, he glanced
-down at his front wheel and brought his horses up with a jerk. There was
-evidently something wrong with the wheel, for he jumped down from the
-box to examine it. He shook the wheel, took off the tap, and began to
-move the hub carefully out toward the end of the axle. As he worked he
-kept his eyes on the corner. Presently a big, plainly dressed man walked
-slowly down by the building. He carried a half-open newspaper in his
-right hand and seemed to be keeping a sharp lookout around him. He
-stopped for a moment by the carriage, satisfied himself that it was
-empty, and went on. At the next corner he climbed up on the seat of the
-waiting patrol wagon and disappeared.
-
-The cabman seemed to be engrossed with the repair of his wheel and
-gave no indication that he had seen the stranger. Almost immediately
-thereafter a second man passed the corner with a newspaper in prominent
-evidence. He was a "hobo" of the most pronounced type and marched by
-with great difficulty. After he had passed, he turned round and threw
-the newspaper into the gutter with a volley of curses.
-
-The cabman worked on at his wheel. He had now removed it to the end of
-the axle and was scraping the boxing with his knife. At this moment a
-young man wearing a gray overcoat and a gray slouch hat came rapidly
-down the street. At the corner he put his hand quickly into his overcoat
-pocket, took out a newspaper, and immediately thrust it into his other
-pocket. The cabman darted across the street and touched him on the
-shoulder. The man turned with a quick, nervous start. The cabman took
-off his cap, said something in a low tone, and pointed to his wheel.
-The two men crossed to the carriage. The cabman held the axle and the
-stranger slipped the wheel into place, while the two talked in low
-tones. When it was done, the stranger turned round, stepped up on the
-pavement, and hurried on by the building. The cabman shut his door with
-a bang, climbed up on his box, and drove rapidly down -------- Street.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-Parks," said Randolph Mason, taking off his great-coat in the private
-office, "who wanted to see me at this unusual hour?"
-
-"He was a Philadelphia man, he said, sir," answered the little
-melancholy clerk.
-
-"Well," said Mason, sharply, "did he expect to die before morning that I
-should be sent for in the middle of the night?"
-
-"He said that he would leave at six, sir, and must see you as soon as
-possible, so I thought I had best send for you."
-
-"He is to be here at ten, you say?"
-
-"At ten, sir," answered the little man, going out into the other office
-and closing the door behind him. When the door was closed, Parks went
-over to a corner of the room, took up a hackman's overcoat and fur cap,
-put them into one of the bookcases and locked the sliding top. Then he
-went quietly out of the room and down the steps to the entrance of the
-building.
-
-In the private office Randolph Mason walked backward and forward with
-his hands in his pockets. He was restless and his eyes were bright.
-
-"Another weakling," he muttered, "making puny efforts to escape from
-Fate's trap, or seeking to slip from under some gin set by his fellows.
-Surely, the want of resources on the part of the race is utter, is
-abysmal. What miserable puppets men are! moved backward and forward in
-Fate's games as though they were strung on a wire and had their bellies
-filled with sawdust! Yet each one has his problem, and that is the
-important matter. In these problems one pits himself against the
-mysterious intelligence of Chance,--against the dread cunning and the
-fatal patience of Destiny. Ah! these are worthy foemen. The steel grates
-when one crosses swords with such mighty fencers."
-
-There was a sound as of men conversing in low tones in the outer office.
-Mason stopped short and turned to the door. As he did so, the door was
-opened from the outside and a man entered, closed the door behind him,
-and remained standing with his back against it.
-
-Randolph Mason looked down at the stranger sharply. The man wore a gray
-suit and gray overcoat; he was about twenty-five, of medium height,
-with a clean-cut, intelligent face that was peculiar; originally it had
-expressed an indulgent character of unusual energy. Now it could not be
-read at all. It was simply that silent, immobile mask so sought after by
-the high-grade criminal. His face was white, and the perspiration, was
-standing out on his forehead, indicating that he was laboring under some
-deep and violent emotion. Yet, with all, his manner was composed and
-deliberate, and his face gave no sign other than its whiteness; it was
-calm and expressionless, as the face of the dead.
-
-Randolph Mason dragged a big chair up to his desk, sat down in his
-office chair and pointed to the other. The stranger came and sat down
-in the big chair, gripping its arms with his hands, and without
-introduction or comment began to talk in a jerky, metallic voice.
-
-"This is all waste of time," he said. "You won't help me. There is no
-reason for my being here. I should have had it over by this time, and
-yet that would not help her, and she is the only one. It would be the
-meanest kind of cowardice to leave her to suffer; and yet I dare not
-live to see her suffer, I could not bear that. I love her too much for
-that, I----"
-
-"Sir," said Mason, brutally, "this is all irrelevant rant. Come to the
-point of your difficulty."
-
-The stranger straightened up and passed his hand across his forehead.
-"Yes," he said, "you are right, sir; it is all rant. I forget where I
-am. I will be as brief and concise as possible.
-
-"My name is Camden Gerard. I am a gambler by profession. My mother
-died when I was about ten years old and my father, then a Philadelphia
-lawyer, found himself with two children, myself and my little sister, a
-mere baby in arms. He sent me to one of the eastern colleges and put the
-baby in a convent. Thus things ran on for perhaps ten or twelve years.
-The evil effect of forcing me into a big college at an early age soon
-became apparent I came under the influence of a rapid and unscrupulous
-class and soon became as rapid and unscrupulous as the worst. I went all
-the paces and gradually became an expert college gambler of such high
-order that I was able to maintain myself. At about twelve my sister
-Marie began to show remarkable talent as an artist and my father,
-following her wishes, took her to Paris and placed her in one of the
-best art schools of that city. In a short time thereafter my father
-died suddenly, and it developed after investigation that he had left no
-estate whatever. I sold the books and other personal effects, and found
-myself adrift in the world with a few hundred dollars, no business, no
-profession, and no visible means of support, and, further, I had this
-helpless child to look after.
-
-"I went to supposed friends of my father and asked them to help me into
-some business by which I could maintain myself and my little sister.
-They promised, but put me off with one excuse after another, until I
-finally saw through their hypocrisy and knew that they never intended
-to assist me. I felt, indeed, that I was adrift, utterly helpless and
-friendless, and the result was, that I resorted to my skill as a gambler
-for the purpose of making a livelihood. For a time fortune favored me,
-and I lived well, and paid all the college expenses of Marie. I was
-proud of the child. She was sweet and lovable, and developing into a
-remarkably handsome girl. About two months ago, my luck turned sharply
-against me; everything went wrong with long jumps. Night after night
-I was beaten. Anybody broke me, even the 'tender-feet,' I gathered
-together every dollar possible and struggled against my bad fortune, but
-to no purpose. I only lost night after night. In the midst of all, Marie
-wrote to me for money to pay her quarterly bills. I replied that I would
-send it in a short time. I pawned everything, begged and borrowed and
-struggled, and resorted to every trick and resource of my craft; but all
-was utterly vain and useless. I was penniless and stranded. On the heels
-of it all, I to-day received another letter from Marie, saying that her
-bills must be paid by the end of the month, or they would turn her out
-into the city."
-
-His voice trembled and the perspiration poured out on his forehead. "You
-know what it means for a helpless young girl to be turned out in Paris,"
-he went on; "I know, and the thought of it makes me insanely desperate.
-Now," said the man, looking Mason squarely in the eyes, "I have told you
-all the truth. What am I to do?"
-
-For a time Mason's face took on an air of deep abstraction. "This is
-Saturday night," he said, as though talking to himself. "You should
-complete it by Friday. There is time enough."
-
-"Young man," he continued, speaking clearly and precisely, "you are to
-leave New York for West Virginia to-morrow morning. A messenger boy will
-meet you at the train, with a package of papers which I shall send. In
-it you will find full instructions and such things as you will need.
-These instructions you are to follow to the very letter. Everything will
-depend on doing exactly as I say, but," he continued, with positive and
-deliberate emphasis, "this must not fail."
-
-The man arose and drew a deep breath. "It will not fail," he said; "I
-will do anything to save her from disgrace,--anything." Then he went
-out.
-
-At the entrance of the building Parks stepped up and touched the
-stranger on the shoulder. "My friend," he said, "I will bring those
-papers myself, and I will see that you have sufficient money to carry
-this thing through. But remember that I am not to be trifled with. You
-are to come here just as soon as you return."
-
-
-
-
-IV.
-
-Shortly before noon on Monday morning, Camden Gerard stepped into the
-jewelry establishment of William Van Broom, in the city of Wheeling, and
-asked for the proprietor. That gentleman came forward in no very kindly
-humor. Upon seeing the well dressed young man, he at once concluded that
-he was a high-grade jewel drummer, and being a practical business man,
-he was kindly at sales and surly at purchases.
-
-"This is Mr. Van Broom, I believe," said the young man. "My name
-is Gerard. I am from New York, sir." Then noticing the jeweller's
-expression, he added, quickly: "I am not a salesman, sir, and am not
-going to consume your time. I am in West Virginia on business, and
-stepped in here to present a letter of introduction which my friend,
-Bartholdi, insisted upon writing."
-
-The affability of the jeweller returned with a surge. He bowed and
-beamed sweetly as he broke the seal of the letter of introduction. The
-paper bore the artistic stamp of Bartholdi and Banks, the great diamond
-importers, and ran as follows:
-
-"William Van Broom, Esq.,
-
-"Wheeling, West Va.
-
-"Dear Sir:
-
-"This will introduce Mr. Camden Gerard. Kindly show him every possible
-courtesy, for which we shall be under the greatest obligations.
-
-"Most sincerely your obedient servants,
-
-"Bartholdi and Banks"
-
-The jeweller's eyes opened wide with wonder. He knew this firm to be the
-largest and most aristocratic dealers in the world. It was much honor,
-and perhaps vast benefit, to be of service to them, and he was flattered
-into the seventh heaven.
-
-"I am indeed glad to meet you, sir," he said, seizing the man's hand and
-shaking it vigorously. "I certainly hope that I can be of service. It is
-now near twelve; you will come with me to lunch at the club?"
-
-"I thank you very much," answered Camden Gerard, "but I am compelled
-to go to the Sistersville oil field on the noon train. However, I will
-return at eight, and shall expect you to dine with me at the hotel."
-
-The jeweller accepted the invitation with ill-concealed delight. The
-young man thanked him warmly for his kindly interest, bade him good-day,
-and went out.
-
-That night at eight, Camden Gerard and Mr. William Van Broom dined
-in the best style the city could afford. The wine was excellent and
-plentiful, and Gerard proved to be most entertaining. He was brilliant
-and considerate to such a degree, that when the two men parted for
-the night the jeweller assured himself that he had never met a more
-delightful companion.
-
-The following morning Camden Gerard dropped into the store for a few
-moments, and while conversing with his friend Van Broom, noticed a
-little ring in the show window. He remarked on its beauty, and intimated
-that he must purchase a birthday present for his little daughter. The
-jeweller took the ring from the case and handed it to Gerard. That
-gentleman discovered that it was far prettier than he had at first
-imagined it, and inquired the price.
-
-"It is marked at twenty-five dollars," said the jeweller.
-
-"Why," said Camden Gerard, "that is very cheap; I will take it."
-
-The jeweller wrapped up the ring and gave it to the New Yorker. That
-gentleman paid the money and returned to his hotel.
-
-The next day Camden Gerard was presumably down in the great Tyler County
-oil field. At any rate he returned to the city on the evening train and
-dined with Van Broom at the club. As the evening waned, the men grew
-confidential. Gerard spoke of the vast fortunes that were made in oil.
-He said that the West Virginia fields were scarce half developed, but
-that they had already attracted the attention of the great Russian
-companies and that gigantic operations might be soon expected.
-He denounced the autocratic policy of the Czar in regard to oil
-transportation, and hinted vaguely at vast international combines. He
-spoke of St. Petersburg and the larger Russian cities; of the manners
-and customs of the nobility; of their vast fortunes, and their very
-great desire to invest in America. He intimated vaguely that there now
-existed in New York a colossal syndicate backed by unlimited Russian
-capital, but he gave the now excited and curious jeweller no definite
-information concerning himself or his business in West Virginia,
-shrewdly leaving Van Broom to draw his own inferences.
-
-It was late when William Van Broom retired to his residence. He was
-happy and flattered, and with reason. Had he not been selected by the
-great firm of Bartholdi & Banks to counsel with one who, he strongly
-suspected, was the private agent of princes?
-
-About two o'clock on the following Thursday afternoon, Mr. Camden Gerard
-called upon William Van Broom and said that he wished to speak with
-him in his private office. The New Yorker was soiled and grimy, and
-had evidently just come from a train, but he was smiling and in high
-spirits.
-
-When the two men were alone in the private office, Camden Gerard took a
-roll of paper from his pocket, and turned to Van Broom. "Here are some
-papers," he said, speaking low that he might not be overheard. "I have
-no secure place to put them, and I would be under great obligations to
-you if you would kindly lock them up in your safe."
-
-"Certainly," said the jeweller, taking the papers and crossing to the
-safe. He threw back the door and pulled out one of the little boxes. It
-contained an open leather case in which there was a magnificent diamond
-necklace.
-
-"By George!" said Camden Gerard, "those are splendid stones."
-
-"Yes," answered Van Broom, taking out the case and handing it to the
-New Yorker. "They are too valuable for my trade; I am going to return
-them."
-
-Camden Gerard carried the necklace to the light and examined it
-critically. The stones were not large but they were clear and flawless.
-
-"What are these worth?" he said, turning to Van Broom.
-
-"Thirty-five hundred dollars," answered the jeweller.
-
-"What!" cried Gerard, "only thirty-five hundred dollars for this
-necklace? It is the cheapest thing I ever saw. You are away under the
-foreign dealers."
-
-"They are cheap," said Van Broom. "That is almost the wholesale price."
-
-"But," said Camden Gerard, "you must be mistaken. Your mark is certainly
-wrong. I have seen smaller stones in the Russian shops for double the
-price."
-
-"We can't sell the necklace at that figure," said Van Broom, smiling.
-"We are not such sharks as your foreign dealers."
-
-"If you mean that," said Camden Gerard, "I will buy these jewels here
-and now. I had intended purchasing something in the east for my wife,
-but I can never do better than this."
-
-The New Yorker took out his pocket-book and handed Van Broom a bill.
-"Before you retract," he said, "here is fifty to seal the bargain. Get
-your hat and come with me to the bank."
-
-"All right," said Mr. Van Broom, taking the money. "The necklace is
-yours, my friend." Camden Gerard closed the leather case and put it into
-his pocket. The jeweller locked the safe, put on his hat, and the two
-went out of the store and down the street to the banking house of the
-Mechanics' Trust Company. Mr. Gerard enquired for the cashier. The
-teller informed him that the cashier was in the back room of the bank
-and if he would step back he could see him. The New Yorker asked his
-companion to wait for a moment until he spoke with the cashier. Then he
-went back into the room indicated by the teller, closing the door after
-him.
-
-The cashier sat at a table engaged with a pile of correspondence. He was
-busy and looked up sharply as the man entered.
-
-"Sir," said the New Yorker, "have you received a sealed package from the
-Adams Express Company consigned to one Camden Gerard?"
-
-"No," answered the cashier, turning to his work.
-
-"You have not?" repeated Gerard, excitedly, "then I will run down to
-the telegraph office and see what is the matter." Thereupon he crossed
-hurriedly to the side door of the office, opened it and stepped out into
-the street. The cashier went on with his work.
-
-For perhaps a quarter of an hour William Van Broom waited for his
-companion to conclude his business with the cashier. Finally he grew
-impatient and asked the teller to remind Mr. Gerard that he was waiting.
-The teller returned in a moment and said that the gentleman had gone to
-the telegraph office some time ago. The jeweller's heart dropped like a
-lead plummet. He turned without a word and hurried to the office of the
-Western Union. Here his fears were confirmed, Camden Gerard had not been
-in the office. He ran across the street to the hotel and enquired for
-the New Yorker. The clerk informed him that the gentleman had paid his
-bill and left the hotel that morning. The jeweller's anxiety was at
-fever heat, but with all he was a man of business method and knew the
-very great value of silence. He called a carriage, went to the chief
-of police, and set his machinery in motion. Returning to his place of
-business he opened the safe and took out the package of papers which
-Camden Gerard had given him. Upon examination this proved to be simply
-a roll of blank oil leases. Then remembering the letter of introduction,
-he telegraphed to Bartholdi & Banks. Hours passed and not the slightest
-trace of Camden Gerard could be found. The presumed friend of the great
-diamond importers had literally vanished from the face of the earth.
-
-About four o'clock the jeweller received an answer from Bartholdi &
-Banks, stating that they knew no such man as Camden Gerard and that his
-letter of introduction was false. Mr. William Van Broom was white with
-despair. He put the letter and answer into his pocket and went at once
-to the office of the prosecuting attorney for the State and laid the
-whole matter before him.
-
-"My dear sir," said that official, when Mr. Van Broom had finished his
-story, "your very good friend Camden Gerard owes you thirty-four hundred
-and fifty dollars, which he will perhaps continue to owe. You may as
-well go back to your business."
-
-"What do you mean?" said the jeweller.
-
-"I mean," replied the attorney, "that you have been the dupe of a shrewd
-knave who is familiar with the weak places in the law and has resorted
-to an ingenious scheme to secure possession of your property without
-rendering himself liable to criminal procedure. It is true that if the
-diamonds were located you could attach and recover them by a civil
-suit, but it is scarcely possible that such a shrewd knave would permit
-himself to be caught with the jewels, and it is certain that he has some
-reasonably safe method by which he can dispose of them without fear of
-detection. He has trapped you and has committed no crime. If you had
-the fellow in custody now, the judge would release him the moment an
-application was made. The entire matter was only a sale. He bought the
-jewels and you trusted him. He is no more a law-breaker than you are. He
-is only a sharper dealer."
-
-"But, sir," cried the angry Van Broom, spreading the false letter out on
-the table, "that is forged, every word of it. I will send this fellow to
-the penitentiary for forgery. I will spend a thousand dollars to catch
-him."
-
-"If you should spend a thousand dollars to catch him," said the
-attorney, smiling, "you would never be able to send him to the
-penitentiary on that paper. It is not forgery."
-
-"Not forgery!" shouted the jeweller, "not forgery, man! The rascal wrote
-every word of that letter. He signed the name of Bartholdi & Banks at
-the bottom of it. Every word of that paper is false. The company never
-heard of it. Here is their telegram."
-
-"Mr. Van Broom," said the public prosecutor, "listen to me, sir. All
-that you say is perhaps true. Camden Gerard doubtless wrote the entire
-paper and signed the name of Bartholdi & Banks, and presented it to
-you for a definite purpose. To such an act men commonly apply the term
-forgery, and in the common acceptation of the word it is forgery and a
-reprehensible wrong; but legally, the false making of such a paper as
-this is not forgery and is no crime. In order to constitute the crime
-of forgery, the instrument falsely made must be apparently capable of
-effecting a fraud, of being used to the prejudice of another's right. It
-must be such as might be of legal efficacy, or might be the foundation
-of some legal liability.
-
-"This paper in question, although falsely made, has none of the vital
-elements of forgery under the law. If genuine, it would have no legal
-validity, as it affects no legal rights. It would merely be an
-attempt to receive courtesies on a promise, of no legal obligation, to
-reciprocate them; and courtesies have never been held to be the subject
-of legal fraud. This is a mere letter of introduction, which, by no
-possibility, could subject the supposed writer to any pecuniary loss or
-legal liability. It is not a subject of forgery, and its false making is
-no crime.
-
-"Men commonly believe that all writings falsely made or falsely altered
-are forgeries. There was never a greater error. Forgery may be committed
-only of those instruments in writing which, if genuine, would, or might
-appear as the foundation of another man's liability, or the evidence of
-his right. All wrongful and injurious acts are not punished by the
-law. Wrongs to become crimes must measure up to certain definite and
-technical standards. These standards are laid down rigidly by the law
-and cannot be contracted or expanded. They are fixed and immutable. The
-act done must fit closely into the prescribed measure, else it is no
-crime. If it falls short, never so little, in any one vital element, the
-law must, and will, disregard it as criminal, no matter how injurious,
-or wrongful, or unjust it may be. The law is a rigid and exact science."
-
-Mr. William Van Broom dropped his hands to his sides and gazed at the
-lawyer in wonder.
-
-"These facts," continued the attorney, in his clear, passionless voice,
-"are matters of amazement to the common people when brought to their
-attention. They fail to see the wise but technical distinctions. They
-are willing to trust to what they are pleased to call common-sense, and,
-falling into traps laid by the cunning villain, denounce the law for
-impotency."
-
-"Well," said the jeweller, as he arose and put on his overcoat, "what is
-the good of the law anyhow?"
-
-The prosecuting attorney smiled wearily. To him the wisdom of the
-law was clear, beautiful, and superlatively just. To the muddy-headed
-tradesman it was as color to the blind.
-
-
-
-
-V.
-
-Over in the art school of old Monsieur Pontique, Marie Gerard saw
-the result of the entire matter in the light of kindness and sweet
-self-sacrifice; and perhaps she saw it as it was. This is a queer world
-indeed.
-
-
-
-
-V--THE MEN OF THE JIMMY
-
-_[See Ranney vs. The People, 22 N.Y.R., 413; Scott vs. The People, 66
-Barb. [N.Y], 62; The People vs. Blanchard, 90 N. Y. Repts., 314.
-Also, Rex vs. Douglas, 2 Russell on Crimes, 624, and other cases there
-cited.]_
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-PARKS," said Randolph Mason, "has Leslie Wilder a country place on the
-Hudson?"
-
-"Yes, sir," replied the bald little clerk. "It is at Cliphmore, I think,
-sir."
-
-"Well," said Mason, "here is his message, Parks, asking that I come to
-him immediately. It seems urgent and probably means a will. Find out
-what time a train leaves the city and have a carriage."
-
-The clerk took the telegram, put on his coat, and went down on the
-street. It was cold and snowing heavily. The wind blew up from the
-river, driving the snow in great, blinding sheets. The melancholy Parks
-pulled his hat down over his face, walked slowly round the square, and
-came back to the entrance of the office building. Instead of taking the
-elevator he went slowly up the steps into the outer office. Here he took
-off his coat and went over to the window, and stood for some minutes
-looking out at the white city.
-
-"At any rate he will not suspect me," he muttered, "and we must get
-every dollar possible while we can. He won't last always."
-
-At this moment a carriage drove up and stopped by the curb. Parks turned
-round quickly and went into Mason's private office. "Sir," he said,
-"your train leaves at six ten, and the carriage is waiting."
-
-When Randolph Mason stepped from the train at the little Cliphmore
-station, it was pitch dark, and the snow was sweeping past in great
-waves. He groped his way to the little station-house and pounded on the
-door. There was no response. As he turned round a man stepped up on the
-platform, pulled off his cap, and said, "Excuse me, sir, the carriage is
-over here, sir." Mason followed the man across the platform, and up what
-seemed to be a gravel road for perhaps twenty yards. Here they found
-a closed carriage. The man threw open the door, helped Mason in, and
-closed it, forcing the handle carefully. Then he climbed up in front,
-struck the horses, and drove away.
-
-For perhaps half an hour the carriage rattled along the gravel road, and
-Mason sat motionless. Suddenly he leaned over, turned the handle of the
-carriage door, and jerked it sharply. The door did not open. He tucked
-the robes around him and leaned back in the seat, like a man who had
-convinced himself of the truth of something that he suspected. Presently
-the carriage began to wobble and jolt as though upon an unkept country
-road. The driver pulled up his horses and allowed them to walk. The snow
-drifted up around him and he seemed to have great difficulty in
-keeping to the road Presently he stopped, climbed down from the box
-and attempted to open the door. He apparently had some difficulty, but
-finally threw it back and said: "Dis is de place, sir."
-
-Randolph Mason got out and looked around him. "This may be the place,"
-he said to the man, "but this is not Wilder's."'
-
-"I said dis here is de place," answered the man, doggedly.
-
-"Beyond a doubt," said Mason, "and since you are such a cunning liar I
-will go in."
-
-The driver left the horses standing and led the way across what seemed
-to be an unkept lawn, Mason following. A house loomed up in the dark
-before them. The driver stopped and rapped on the door. There was no
-light visible and no indication of any inhabitant. The driver rapped
-again without getting any response. Then he began to curse, and to kick
-the door violently.
-
-"Will you be quiet?" said a voice from the inside, and the door opened.
-The hall-way was dark, and the men on the outside could not see the
-speaker.
-
-"Here is de man, sir," said the driver.
-
-"That is good," replied the voice; "come in."
-
-The two men stepped into the house. The man who had bid them enter
-closed the door and bolted it. Then he took a lantern from under his
-coat and led them back through the hall to the rear of the building.
-The house was dilapidated and old, and had the appearance of having been
-deserted for many years.
-
-The man with the lantern turned down a side hall, opened a door, and
-ushered Mason into a big room, where there was a monster log fire
-blazing.
-
-This room was dirty and bare. The windows were carefully covered from
-the inside, so as to prevent the light from being seen. There was no
-furniture except a broken table and a few old chairs. At the table
-sat an old man smoking a pipe. He had on a cap and overcoat, and was
-studying a newspaper spread out before him. He seemed to be spelling
-out the words with great difficulty, and did not look up. Randolph
-Mason took off his great-coat, threw it over a chair, and seated himself
-before the fire. The man with the lantern placed it on the mantel-shelf,
-took up a short pipe, and seating himself on a box by the hearth corner,
-began to smoke. He was a powerful man, perhaps forty years old, clean
-and decently dressed. His forehead was broad. His eyes were unusually
-big and blue. He seemed to be of considerable intelligence, and his
-expression, taken all in all, was innocent and kindly.
-
-For a time there was nothing said. The driver went out to look after
-his horses. The old man at the table labored on at his newspaper, and
-Randolph Mason sat looking into the fire. Suddenly he turned to the man
-at his left. "Sir," said he "to what difficulty am I indebted for this
-honor?"
-
-"Well," said the man, putting his pipe into his pocket, "the combination
-is too high for us this time; we can't crack it. We knew about you and
-sent for you."
-
-"Your plan for getting me here does little credit to your wits," said
-Mason; "the trick is infantile and trite."
-
-"But it got you here anyhow," replied the man.
-
-"Yes," said Mason, "when the dupe is willing to be one. But suppose I
-had rather concluded to break with your driver at the station? It is
-likewise dangerous to drive a man locked in a carriage when he may
-easily kill you through the window."
-
-"Trow on de light, Barker," said the old man at the table; "what is de
-use of gropin'?"
-
-"Well," said the younger man, "the fact is simply this: The Boss and
-Leary and a 'supe' were cracking a safe out in the States. They were
-tunnelling up early in the morning, when the 'supe' forced a jimmy
-through the floor. The bank janitor saw it, and they were all caught and
-sent up for ten years. We have tried every way to get the boys out,
-but have been unable to do anything at all, until a few days ago we
-discovered that one of the guards could be bribed to pass in a kit, and
-to hit the 'supe' if there should be any shooting, if we could put up
-enough stuff. He was to be discharged at the end of his month anyway,
-and he did not care. But he would not move a finger under four thousand
-dollars. We have been two weeks trying to raise the money, and have
-now only twelve hundred. The guard has only a week longer, and another
-opportunity will not occur perhaps in a lifetime. We have tried
-everything, and cannot raise another hundred, and it is our only chance
-to save the Boss and Leary."
-
-"Dat is right," put in the old man; "it don't go at all wid us, we is
-gittin' trowed on it, and dat is sure unless dis gent knows a good ting
-to push, and dat is what he is here fur, to name de good ting to push.
-Dat is right, dat 's what we 's got to have, and we 's got to have it
-now. We don't keer no hell-room fur de 'supe,' it's de Boss and Leary we
-wants."
-
-Randolph Mason got up and stood with his back to the fire. The lines of
-his face grew deep and hard. Presently he thrust out his jaw, and began
-to walk backward and forward across the room.
-
-"Barker," muttered the old man, looking up for the first time, "de guy
-has jimmy iron in him."
-
-The blue-eyed man nodded and continued to watch Mason curiously.
-Suddenly, as he passed the old man at the table, Mason stopped short
-and put his finger down on the newspaper. The younger man leaped up
-noiselessly, and looking over Mason's shoulder read the head-lines under
-his finger. "Kidnapped," it ran. "The youngest son of Cornelius Rockham
-stolen from the millionaire's carriage. Large rewards offered. No clew."
-
-"Do you know anything about this?" said Mason, shortly.
-
-"Dat 's de hell," replied the old man, "we does n't."
-
-Mason straightened up and swung round on his heel. "Sir," he said to
-the man Barker, "are you wanted in New York?"
-
-"No," he replied, "I am just over; they don't know me."
-
-"Good," said Mason, "it is as plain as a blue print. Come over here."
-
-The two crossed to the far corner of the room. There Mason grasped the
-man by the shoulder and began to talk to him rapidly, but in a voice too
-low to be heard by the old man at the table. "Smoove guy, dis," muttered
-the old man. "He may be fly in de nut, but he takes no chances on de
-large audejence."
-
-For perhaps twenty minutes Randolph Mason talked to the man at the wall.
-At first the fellow did not seem to understand, but after a time his
-face lighted up with wonder and eagerness, and his assurance seemed to
-convince the speaker, for presently they came back together to the fire.
-
-"You," said Mason to the old man, "what is your name?"
-
-"It cuts no ice about de label," replied the old man, pulling at his
-pipe. "Fur de purposes of dis seeyance I am de Jook of Marlbone."
-
-"Well," said Mason, putting on his coat, "Mr. Barker will tell your
-lordship what you are to do."
-
-The big blue-eyed man went out and presently returned with the carriage
-driver. "Mr. Mason," he said, "Bill will drive you to the train and you
-will be in New York by twelve."
-
-"Remember," said Mason, savagely, turning around at the door, "it must
-be exactly as I have told you, word for word."
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-I tell you," said Cornelius Rockham, "it is the most remarkable
-proposition that I have ever heard."
-
-"It is strange," replied the Police Chief, thoughtfully. "You say the
-fellow declared that he had a proposition to make in regard to
-the child, and that he refused to make it save in the presence of
-witnesses."
-
-"Yes, he actually said that he would not speak with me alone or where he
-might be misunderstood, but that he would come here to-night at ten and
-State the matter to me and such reliable witnesses as I should see fit
-to have, not less than three in number; that a considerable sum of money
-might be required, and that I would do well to have it in readiness;
-that if I feared robbery or treachery, I should fill the house with
-policemen, and take any and every precaution that I thought necessary.
-In fact, he urged that I should have the most reliable men possible for
-witnesses, and as many as I desired, and that I must avail myself of
-every police protection in order that I might feel amply and thoroughly
-secure."
-
-"Well," said the Police Chief, "if the fellow is not straight he is a
-fool. No living crook would ever make such a proposition."
-
-"So I am convinced," replied Mr. Rockham. "The precautions he suggests
-certainly prove it. He places himself absolutely in our hands, and knows
-that if any crooked work should be attempted we have everything ready to
-thwart it; that there is nothing that he could accomplish, and he would
-only be placing himself helplessly in the grasp of the police. However,
-we will not fail to avail ourselves of his suggestion. You will see to
-it, Chief?"
-
-"Yes," said the officer, rising and putting on his coat. "We will give
-him no possible chance. It is now five. I will send the men in an hour."
-
-At ten o'clock that night, the palatial residence of Cornelius Rockham
-was in a state of complete police blockade. All the approaches were
-carefully guarded. The house itself, from the basement to the very roof,
-literally swarmed with the trusted spies of the police. The Chief
-felt indeed that his elaborate precautions were in a vast measure
-unnecessary. He was not a quick man, but he was careful after a
-ponderous method, and trusted much to precautionary safeguards.
-
-Cornelius Rockham, the Chief, and two sergeants in citizen's dress, were
-waiting. Presently the bell rang and a servant ushered a man into the
-room. He was big and plainly dressed. His hair was brown and his
-eyes were blue, frank and kindly and his expression was pleasant and
-innocent, almost infantile.
-
-"Good-evening, gentlemen," he said, "I believe I am here by appointment
-with Mr. Rockham."
-
-"Yes," replied Cornelius Rockham, rising, "pray be seated, sir. I have
-asked these gentlemen to be present, as you suggested."
-
-"Your time is valuable, no doubt," said the man, taking the proffered
-chair, "and I will consume as little of it as possible. My name is
-Barker. I am a comparative stranger in this city, and by pure accident
-am enabled to make the proposition which I am going to make. Your child
-has been missing now for several days, I believe, without any clew
-whatever. I do not know who kidnapped it, nor any of the circumstances.
-It is now half-past ten o'clock. I do not know where it is at this time,
-and I could not now take you to it. At eleven o'clock to-night, I shall
-know where it is, and I shall be able to take you to it. But I need
-money, and I must have five thousand dollars to compensate me for the
-information."
-
-The man paused for a moment, and passed his hand across his forehead.
-"Now," he went on, "to be perfectly plain. I will not trust you, and
-you, of course, will not trust me. In order to insure good faith on both
-sides, I must ask that you pay me the money here, in the presence of
-these witnesses, then handcuff me to a police officer, and I will take
-you to the child at eleven o'clock. You may surround me with all the
-guards you think proper, and take every precaution to insure your
-safety and prevent my escape. You will pardon my extreme frankness, but
-business is business, and we all know that matters of this kind must be
-arranged beforehand. Men are too indifferent after they get what they
-want." Barker stopped short, and looked up frankly at the men around
-him.
-
-Cornelius Rockham did not reply, but his white, haggard face lighted
-up hopefully. He beckoned to the Police Chief, and the two went into an
-adjoining room.
-
-"What do you think?" said Rockham, turning to the officer.
-
-"That man," replied the Chief, "means what he says, or else he is an
-insane fool, and he certainly bears no indication of the latter. It is
-evident that he will not open his mouth until he gets the money, for
-the reason that he is afraid that he will be ignored after the child
-is recovered. I do not believe there is any risk in paying him now, and
-doing as he says; because he cannot possibly escape when fastened to a
-sergeant, and if he proves to be a fake, or tries any crooked work, we
-will return the money to you and lock him up."
-
-"I am inclined to agree with you," replied Rockham; "the man is
-eccentric and suspicious, but he certainly will not move until paid, and
-we have no charge as yet upon which to arrest him. Nor would it avail us
-anything if we did. There is little if any risk, and much probability of
-learning something of the boy. I will do it."
-
-He went down to the far end of the hall and took a package of bills from
-a desk. Then the two men returned to the drawing-room.
-
-"Sir," said Rockham to Barker, "I accept your proposition, here is the
-money, but you must consider yourself utterly in our hands. I am willing
-to trust you, but I am going to follow your suggestion."
-
-"A contract is a contract," replied Barker, taking the money and
-counting it carefully. When he had satisfied himself that the amount was
-correct he thrust the roll of bills into his outside coat-pocket.
-
-"It is now fifteen minutes until eleven," said the Police Chief,
-stepping up to Barker's chair, "and if you are ready we will go."
-
-"I am ready," said the man, getting up.
-
-The Police Chief took a pair of steel handcuffs from his pocket, locked
-one part of them carefully on Barker's left wrist and fastened the other
-to the right wrist of the sergeant. Then they went out of the house and
-down the steps to the carriages.
-
-The Police Chief, Barker, and the sergeant climbed into the first
-carriage, and Mr. Rockham and the other officer into the second.
-
-"Have your man drive to the Central Park entrance," said Barker to the
-Chief. The officer called to the driver and the carriages rolled away.
-At the west entrance to Central Park the men alighted.
-
-"Now, gentlemen," said Barker, "we must walk west to the second corner
-and wait there until a cab passes from the east. The cab will be close
-curtained and will be drawn by a sorrel cob. As it passes you will dart
-out, seize the horse, and take possession of the cab. You will find the
-child in the cab, but I must insist for my own welfare, that you make
-every appearance of having me under arrest and in close custody."
-
-The five men turned down the street in the direction indicated. Mr.
-Rockham and one of the officers in the front and the other two following
-with Barker between them. For a time they walked along in silence.
-Then the Police Chief took some cigars from his pocket, gave one to the
-sergeant, and offering them to Barker said, "Will you smoke, sir?"
-
-"Not a cigar, I thank you," replied the man, "but if you will permit me
-I will light my pipe." The two men stopped. Barker took a short pipe and
-a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, filled the pipe and lighted it; as
-he was about to return the pouch to his coat pocket, an old apple-woman,
-hobbling past, caught the odor and stopped.
-
-"Fur de love of Hivin, Mister," she drawled, "give me a pipe uv yer
-terbaccy?" Barker laughed, tossed her the pouch, and the three hurried
-on.
-
-At the corner indicated the men stopped. The Police Chief examined the
-handcuffs carefully to see that they were all right; then they drew back
-in the shadow and waited for the cab. Eleven o'clock came and passed and
-the cab did not appear. Mr. Rockham paced the sidewalk nervously and the
-policemen gathered close around Barker.
-
-At half-past eleven o'clock Barker straightened up, shrugged his
-shoulders, and turned to the Police Chief. "It is no use," he said,
-"they are not here and they never will come now."
-
-"What!" cried the Police Chief savagely, "do you mean that we are
-fooled?"
-
-"Yes," said Barker, "all of us. It is no use I tell you, the thing is
-over."
-
-"It is not over with you, my man," growled the Chief. "Here, sergeant,
-get Mr. Rockham his money and let us lock this fellow up."
-
-The sergeant turned and thrust his hand into Barker's outside
-coat-pocket, then his chin dropped and he turned white. "It is gone!" he
-muttered.
-
-"Gone!" shouted Rockham; "search the rascal!"
-
-The sergeant began to go carefully over the man. Suddenly he stopped.
-"Chief," he muttered, "it was in that tobacco pouch."
-
-The Police Chief staggered back and spun round on his heel. "Angels of
-Hell!" he gasped, "it was a cute trick, and it threw us all, every one
-of us."
-
-Rockham bounded forward and brought his hand down heavily on Barker's
-shoulder. "As for you, my fine fellow," he said, bitterly, "we have you
-all right and we will land you in Sing Sing."
-
-Barker was silent. In the dark the men could not see that he was
-smiling.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-The court-room of Judge Walter P. Wright was filled with an interested
-audience of the greater and unpunished criminals of New York. The
-application of Barker for a _habeas corpus_, on the ground that he had
-committed no crime, had attracted wide attention. It was known that the
-facts were not disputed, and the proceeding was a matter of wonder.
-
-Some days before, the case had been submitted to the learned judge. The
-attorneys for the People had not been anxious enough to be interested,
-and looked upon the application as a farce. The young man who appeared
-for Barker announced that he represented one Randolph Mason, a
-counsellor, and was present only for the purpose of asking that Barker
-be discharged, and for the further purpose of filing the brief of Mason
-in support of the application. He made no argument whatever, and had
-simply handed up the brief, which the attorneys for the People had not
-thought it worth their while to examine.
-
-Barker sat in the dock, grim and confident. The attorneys for the
-commonwealth were listless. The audience was silent and attentive. It
-was a vital matter to them. If Barker had committed no crime, what a
-rich, untramped field was open. The Judge laid his hand upon the books
-piled up beside him and looked down at the bar.
-
-"This proceeding," he began, "is upon the application of one Lemuel
-Barker for a writ of _habeas corpus_, asking that he be discharged from
-custody, upon the ground that he has committed no crime punishable at
-common law or under the statutes of New York. An agreed state of facts
-has been submitted, upon which he stands charged by the commonwealth
-with having obtained five thousand dollars from one Cornelius Rockham
-by false pretences. The facts are, briefly, that on the 17th day of
-December Barker called at the residence of Rockham and said that he
-desired to make a proposition looking to the recovery of the lost child
-of said Rockham, but he desired to make it in the presence of witnesses,
-and would return at ten o'clock that night. Pursuant to his appointment,
-Barker again presented himself at the residence of said Rockham, and,
-in the presence of witnesses, declared, in substance, that at that time
-(then ten o'clock) he knew nothing of the said child, could not produce
-it, and could give no information in regard to it, but that at eleven
-o'clock he would know where the child was and would produce it; and
-that, if the said Rockham would then and there pay him five thousand
-dollars, he would at eleven o'clock take them to the lost child. The
-money was paid and the transaction completed.
-
-"At eleven o'clock, Barker took the men to a certain corner in the upper
-part of this city, and it there developed that the entire matter was a
-scheme on his part for the purpose of obtaining the said sum of money,
-which he had in some manner disposed of; and that he in fact knew
-nothing of the child and never intended to produce it.
-
-"The attorneys for the People considered it idle to discuss what
-they believed to be such a plain case of obtaining money under false
-pretences; and I confess that upon first hearing I was inclined to
-believe the proceeding a useless imposition upon the judiciary. I have
-had occasion to change my opinion."
-
-The attorneys present looked at each other with wonder and drew their
-chairs closer to the table. The audience moved anxiously.
-
-"The prisoner," continued the Judge, "has filed in his behalf the
-remarkable brief of one Randolph Mason, a counsellor. This I have
-read, first, with curiosity, then interest, then wonder, and, finally,
-conviction. In it the crime sought to be charged is traced from the
-days of the West Saxon Wights up to the present, beginning with the most
-ancient cases and ending with the later decisions of our own Court of
-Appeals. I have gone over these cases with great care, and find that
-the vital element of this crime is, and has ever been, the false and
-fraudulent representation or statement as to an _existing_ or _past
-fact_. Hence, no representation, however false, in regard to a _future_
-transaction can be a crime. Nor can a false statement, _promissory_ in
-its nature, be the subject of a criminal charge.
-
-"To constitute this crime there must always be a false representation
-or statement as to a _fact_, and that _fact_ must be a _past_ or an
-_existing fact_. These are plain statements of ancient and well settled
-law, and laid here in this brief, almost in the exact language of our
-courts.
-
-"In this case the vital element of crime is wanting. The evidence fails
-utterly to show false representation as to any _existing fact_. The
-prisoner, Barker, at the time of the transaction, positively disclaimed
-any knowledge of the child, or any ability to produce it. What he did
-represent was that he would know, and that he would perform certain
-things, in the future. The question of remoteness is irrelevant. It is
-immaterial whether the future time be removed minutes or years.
-
-"The false representation complained of was wholly in regard to a future
-transaction, and essentially promissory in its nature, and such a wrong
-is not, and never has been, held to be the foundation of a criminal
-charge."
-
-"But, if your Honor please," said the senior counsel for the People,
-rising, "is it not clearly evident that the prisoner, Barker, began with
-a design to defraud; that that design was present and obtained at the
-time of this transaction; that a representation was made to Rockham
-for the purpose of convincing him that there then existed a _bona
-fide_ intention to produce his child; that money was obtained by false
-statements in regard to this intention then existing, when in fact such
-intention did not exist and never existed, and statements made to induce
-Rockham to believe that it did exist were all utterly false, fraudulent,
-and delusive? Surely this is a crime."
-
-The attorney sat down with the air of one who had propounded an
-unanswerable proposition. The Judge adjusted his eyeglasses and began to
-turn the pages of a report. "I read," he said, "from the syllabus of the
-case of The People of New York vs. John H. Blanchard. 'An indictment
-for false pretences may not be founded upon an assertion of an existing
-intention, although it did not in fact exist. There must be a false
-representation as to an existing fact.'
-
-"Your statement, sir, in regard to intention, in this case is true, but
-it is no element of crime."
-
-"But, sir," interposed the counsel for the People, now fully awake to
-the fact that Barker was slipping from his grasp, "I ask to hold this
-man for conspiracy and as a violator of the Statute of Cheats."
-
-"Sir," said the Judge, with some show of impatience, "I call your
-attention to Scott's case and the leading case of Ranney. In the
-former, the learned Court announces that if the false and fraudulent
-representations are not criminal there can be no conspiracy; and, in the
-latter, the Court says plainly that false pretences in former statutes,
-and gross fraud or cheat in the more recent acts, mean essentially the
-same thing.
-
-"You must further well know that this man could not be indicted at
-common law for cheat, because no false token was used, and because in
-respect to the instrumentality by which it was accomplished it had no
-special reference to the public interest.
-
-"This case is most remarkable in that it bears all the marks of a gross
-and detestable fraud, and in morals is a vicious and grievous wrong, but
-under our law it is no crime and the offender cannot be punished."
-
-"I understand your Honor to hold," said the baffled attorney, jumping to
-his feet, "that this man is guilty of no crime; that the dastardly act
-which he confesses to have done constitutes no crime, and that he is to
-go out of this court-room freed from every description of liability or
-responsibility to any criminal tribunal; that the law is so defective
-and its arm so short that it cannot pluck forth the offender and punish
-him when by every instinct of morality he is a criminal. If this be
-true, what a limitless field is open to the knave, and what a snug
-harbor for him is the great commonwealth of New York!"
-
-"I can pardon your abruptness," said the Judge, looking down upon the
-angry and excited counsellor, "for the reason that your words are almost
-exactly the lament of presiding Justice Mullin in the case of Scott.
-But, sir, this is not a matter of sentiment; it is not a matter of
-morality; it is not even a matter of right. It is purely and simply a
-matter of law, and there is no law."
-
-The Judge unconsciously arose and stood upright beside the bench. The
-audience of criminals bent forward in their seats.
-
-"I feel," he continued, "for the first time the utter inability of the
-law to cope with the gigantic cunning of Evil. I appreciate the utter
-villainy that pervaded this entire transaction. I am convinced that it
-was planned with painstaking care by some master mind moved by Satanic
-impulse. I now know that there is abroad in this city a malicious
-intelligence of almost infinite genius, against which the machinery
-of the law is inoperative. Against every sentiment of common right, of
-common justice, I am compelled to decide that Lemuel Barker is guilty of
-no crime and stands acquit."
-
-It was high noon. The audience of criminals passed out from the temple
-of so-called Justice, and with them went Lemuel Barker, unwhipped and
-brazen; now with ample means by which to wrest his fellows in villainy
-from the righteous wrath of the commonwealth. They were all enemies of
-this same commonwealth, bitter, never wearying enemies, and to-day they
-had learned much. How short-armed the Law was! Wondrous marvel that they
-had not known it sooner! To be sure they must plan so cunningly that
-only the Judge should pass upon them. He was a mere legal machine.
-
-He was only the hand applying the rigid rule of the law. The danger was
-with the jury; there lay the peril to be avoided. The jury! how they
-hated it and feared it! and of right, for none knew better than they
-that whenever, and where-ever, and however men stop to probe for it,
-they always find, far down in the human heart, a great love of common
-right and fair dealing that is as deep-seated and abiding as the very
-springs of life.
-
-
-
-
-VI--THE SHERIFF OF GULLMORE
-
-
-_[The crime of embezzlement here dealt with is statutory. The venue of
-this story could have been laid in many other States; the statutes are
-similar to a degree. See the Code of West Virginia; also the late case
-of The State vs. Bolin, 19 Southwestern Reporter, 650; also the long
-list of ancient cases in Russell on Crimes, 2d volume.]_
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-IT is hard luck, Colonel," said the broker, "but you are are not the
-only one skinned in the deal; the best of them caught it to-day. By
-Jupiter! the pit was like Dante's Inferno!"
-
-"Yes, it's gone, I reckon," muttered the Colonel, shutting his teeth
-down tight on his cigar; "I guess the devil wins every two out of
-three."
-
-"Well," said the broker, turning to his desk, "it is the fortune of
-war."
-
-"No, young man," growled the Colonel, "it is the blasted misfortune of
-peace. I have never had any trouble with the fortune of war. I could
-stand on an ace high and win with war. It is peace that queers me.
-Here in the fag-end of the nineteenth century, I, Colonel Moseby Allen,
-sheriff of Gull-more County, West Virginia, go up against another man's
-game,--yes, and go up in the daytime. Say, young man, it feels queer at
-the mellow age of forty-nine, after you have been in the legislature of
-a great commonwealth, and at the very expiration of your term as sheriff
-of the whitest and the freest county in West Virginia,--I say it feels
-queer, after all those high honors, to be suddenly reminded that you
-need to be accompanied by a business chaperon."
-
-The Colonel stood perfectly erect and delivered his oration with the
-fluency and the abandon of a southern orator. When he had finished, he
-bowed low to the broker, pulled his big slouch hat down on his forehead,
-and stalked out of the office and down the steps to the street.
-
-Colonel Moseby Allen was built on the decided lines of a southern
-mountaineer. He was big and broad-shouldered, but he was not well
-proportioned. His body was short and heavy, while his legs were long.
-His eyes were deep-set and shone like little brown beads. On the whole,
-his face indicated cunning, bluster, and rashness. The ward politician
-would have recognized him among a thousand as a kindred spirit, and the
-professional gambler would not have felt so sure of himself with such a
-face across the table from him.
-
-When the Colonel stepped out on the pavement, he stopped, thrust his
-hands into his pockets, and looked up and down Wall Street; then he
-jerked the cigar out of his mouth, threw it into the gutter, and began
-to deliver himself of a philippic upon the negative merits of brokers
-in general, and his broker in particular. The Virginian possessed
-a vocabulary of smooth billingsgate that in vividness and diversity
-approached the sublime. When he had consigned some seven generations
-of his broker's ancestry to divers minutely described localities in
-perdition, he began to warm to his work, and his artistic profanity
-rolled forth in startling periods.
-
-The passers-by stopped and looked on in surprise and wonder. For a
-moment they were half convinced that the man was a religious fanatic,
-his eloquent, almost poetic, tirade was so thoroughly filled with holy
-names. The effect of the growing audience inspired the speaker. He
-raised his voice and began to emphasize with sweeping gestures. He had
-now finished with the broker's ancestry and was plunging with a rush
-of gorgeous pyrotechnics into the certain future of the broker himself,
-when a police officer pushed through the crowd and caught the irate
-Virginian by the shoulder.
-
-Colonel Allen paused and looked down at the officer.
-
-"You," he said, calmly, "I opine are a minion of the law; a hireling of
-the municipal authorities."
-
-"See here," said the officer, "you are not allowed to preach on the
-street. You will have to come with me to the station-house."
-
-The Colonel bowed suavely. "Sir," he said, "I, Colonel Moseby Allen,
-sheriff of Gullmore County in the Mountain State of West Virginia, am a
-respecter of the law, even in the body of its petty henchmen, and if
-the ordinances of this Godforsaken Gomorrah are such that a free-born
-American citizen, twenty-one years old and white, is not permitted
-the inalienable privilege of expressing his opinion without let or
-hindrance, then I am quite content to accompany you to the confines of
-your accursed jail-house."
-
-Allen turned round and started down the street with the officer. He
-walked a little in advance, and continued to curse glibly in a low
-monotone. When they were half way to the corner below, a little man
-slipped out of the crowd and hurried up to the policeman. "Mike," he
-whispered, putting his hand under the officer's, "here is five for you.
-Turn him over to me."
-
-The officer closed his hand like a trap, stepped quickly forward, and
-touched his prisoner on the shoulder.
-
-As the Virginian turned, the officer said in a loud voice: "Mr. Parks,
-here, says that he knows you, and that you are all right, so I 'll let
-you go this time." Then, before any reply could be made, he vanished
-around the corner.
-
-Colonel Allen regarded his deliverer with the air of a world-worn cynic.
-"Well," he said, "one is rarely delivered from the spoiler by the hand
-of his friend, and I cannot now recall ever having had you for an enemy.
-May I inquire what motive prompts this gracious courtesy?"
-
-"Don't speak so loud," said Parks, stepping up close to the man. "I
-happen to know something about your loss, Colonel Allen, and perhaps
-also a way to regain it. Will you come with me?"
-
-The Virginian whistled softly. "Yes," he said.
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-This is a fine hotel," observed Colonel Allen, beginning to mellow
-under the mystic spell of a five-course dinner and a quart of Cliquot.
-"Devilish fine hotel, Mr. Parks. All the divers moneys which I in my
-official capacity have collected in taxes from the fertile county of
-Gullmore, would scarcely pay for the rich embellishment of the barber
-shop of this magnificent edifice."
-
-"Well, Colonel," said the bald Parks, with a sad smile, "that would
-depend upon the amount of the revenues of your county. I presume that
-they are large, and consequently the office of sheriff a good one."
-
-"Yes, sir," answered the Virginian, "it is generally considered
-desirable from the standpoint of prominence. The climate of Gullmore is
-salubrious. Its pasture lands are fertile, and its citizens cultured
-and refined to a degree unusual even in the ancient and aristocratic
-counties of the Old Dominion. And, sir,"--here the Colonel drew himself
-up proudly, and thrust his hand into the breast of his coat,--"I am
-proud, sir,--proud to declare that from time to time the good citizens
-of Gullmore, by means of their suffrage, and with large and comfortable
-majorities, have proclaimed me their favorite son and competent
-official. Six years ago I was in the legislature at Charleston as the
-trusted representative of this grand old county of Gullmore; and four
-years ago, after the fiercest and most bitterly contested political
-conflict of all the history of the South, I was elected to that most
-important and honorable office of sheriff,--to the lasting glory of my
-public fame, and the great gratification of the commonwealth."
-
-"That gratification is now four years old?" mused Parks.
-
-Colonel Moseby Allen darted a swift, suspicious glance at his
-companion, but in a moment it was gone, and he had dropped back into his
-grandiloquent discourse. "Yes, sir, the banner county of West Virginia,
-deserting her ancient and sacred traditions, and forgetting for the time
-the imperishable precepts of her patriotic fathers, has gone over to
-affiliate with the ungodly. We were beaten, sir,--beaten in this
-last engagement,--horse, foot, and dragoons,--beaten by a set of
-carpet-baggers,--a set of unregenerate political tricksters of such
-diabolical cunning that nothing but the gates of hell could have
-prevailed against them. Now, sir, now,--and I say it mournfully, there
-is nothing left to us in the county of Gullmore, save only honor."
-
-"Honor," sneered Parks, "an imaginary rope to hold fools with! It wont
-fill a hungry stomach, or satisfy a delinquent account." The little
-clerk spoke the latter part of his sentence slowly and deliberately.
-
-Again the suspicious expression passed over the face of Colonel Allen,
-leaving traces of fear and anxiety in its wake. His eyes, naturally
-a little crossed, drew in toward his nose, and the muscles around his
-mouth grew hard. For a moment he was silent, looking down into his
-glass; then, with an effort, he went on: "Yes, the whole shooting-match
-is in the hands of the Philistines. From the members of the County Court
-up to the important and responsible position which I have filled for the
-last four years, and when my accounts are finally wound up, I----"
-
-"Your accounts," murmured Parks, "when they are finally wound up, what
-then?"
-
-Every trace of color vanished from the Virginian's face, his heavy jaws
-trembled, and he caught hold of the arms of the chair to steady himself.
-
-Parks did not look up. He seemed deeply absorbed in studying the bottom
-of his glass. For a moment Colonel Moseby Allen had been caught off his
-guard, but it was only for a moment. He straightened up and underwent
-a complete transformation. Then, bending forward, he said, speaking low
-and distinctly: "Look here, my friend, you are the best guesser this
-side of hell. Now, if you can pick a winning horse we will divide the
-pool."
-
-The two men were at a table in a corner of the Hoffman café, and, as it
-chanced, alone in the room. Parks glanced around quickly, then he leaned
-over and said: "That depends on just one thing, Colonel."
-
-"Turn up the cards," growled the Virginian, shutting his teeth down
-tight on his lip.
-
-"Well," said Parks, "you must promise to stick to your rôle to the end,
-if you commence with the play."
-
-The southerner leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin
-thoughtfully. Finally he dropped his hand and looked up. "All right," he
-muttered; "I'll stand by the deal; throw out the cards."
-
-Parks moved his chair nearer to the table and leaned over on his elbow.
-"Colonel," he said, "there is only one living man who can set up a
-successful counter-plot against fate, that is dead certain to win, and
-that man is here in New York to-day. He is a great lawyer, and besides
-being that, he is the greatest plotter since the days of Napoleon. Not
-one of his clients ever saw the inside of a prison. He can show men how
-to commit crimes in such a way that the law cannot touch them. No matter
-how desperate the position may be, he can always show the man who is in
-it a way by which he can get out. There is no case so hopeless that he
-cannot manage it. If money is needed, he can show you how to get it--a
-plain, practical way, by which you can get what you need and as much as
-you need. He has a great mind, but he is strangely queer and erratic,
-and must be approached with extreme care, and only in a certain way.
-This man," continued the little clerk, lowering his voice, "is named
-Randolph Mason. You must go to him and explain the whole matter, and you
-must do it just in the way I tell you."
-
-Again the Virginian whistled softly. "My friend," he said, "there is
-a little too much mystery about this matter. I am not afraid of you,
-because you are a rascal; no one ever had a face like you that was not
-a rascal. You will stick to me because you are out for the stuff, and
-there is no possible way to make a dollar by throwing the game. I am
-not afraid of any living man, if I have an opportunity to see his face
-before the bluff is made. You are all right; your game is to use me in
-making some haul that is a little too high for yourself. That is what
-you have been working up to, and you are a smooth operator, my friend. A
-greenhorn would have concluded long ago that you were a detective, but
-I knew a blamed sight better than that the moment you made your first
-lead. In the first place, you are too sharp to waste your time with any
-such bosh, and in the second place, it takes cash to buy detectives,
-and there is nobody following me with cash. Gullmore county has no kick
-coming to it until my final settlements are made, and there is no man
-treading shoe leather that knows anything about the condition of my
-official business except myself, and perhaps also that shrewd and
-mysterious guesser--yourself. So, you see, I am not standing on
-ceremonies with you. But here, young man, comes in a dark horse, and you
-want me to bet on him blindfolded. Those are not the methods of Moseby
-Allen. I must be let in a little deeper on this thing."
-
-"All I want you to do," said Parks, putting his hand confidentially
-on the Virginian's arm, "is simply to go and see Randolph Mason, and
-ap-proach him in the way I tell you, and when you have done that, I will
-wager that you stay and explain everything to him."
-
-Colonel Allen leaned back in his chair and thrust his hands into his
-pockets. "Why should I do that?" he said curtly.
-
-"Well," murmured the little man mournfully, "one's bondsmen are entitled
-to some consideration; and then, there is the penitentiary. Courts have
-a way of sending men there for embezzlement."
-
-"You are correct," said Allen, quietly, "and I have not time to go."
-
-"At any rate," continued Parks, "there can be no possible danger to you.
-You are taking no chances. Mr. Mason is a member of the New York bar,
-and anything you may tell him he dare not reveal. The law would not
-permit him to do so if he desired. The whole matter would be kept as
-thoroughly inviolate as though it were made in the confessional. Your
-objections are all idle. You are a man in a desperate position. You are
-up to your waist in the quicksand, now, and, at the end of the year, it
-is bound to close over your head. It is folly to look up at the sky and
-attempt to ignore this fact. I offer to help you--not from any goodness
-of heart, understand, but because we can both make a stake in this
-thing. I need money, and you must have money,--that is the whole thing
-in a nutshell. Now," said Parks, rising from his chair, "what are you
-going to do?"
-
-"Well," said the Virginian, drawing up his long legs and spreading out
-his fat hands on the table, "_Colonel Moseby Allen, of the county of
-Gullmore, will take five cards, if you please_."
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-This must be the place," muttered the Virginian, stopping under the
-electric light and looking up at the big house on the avenue. "That
-fellow said I would know the place by the copper-studded door, and
-there it is, as certain as there are back taxes in Gullmore." With that,
-Colonel Moseby Allen walked up the granite steps and began to grope
-about in the dark door-way for the electric bell. He could find no trace
-of this indispensable convenience, and was beginning to lapse into a
-flow of half-suppressed curses, when he noticed for the first time an
-ancient silver knocker fastened to the middle of the door. He seized it
-and banged it vigorously.
-
-The Virginian stood in the dark and waited. Finally he concluded that
-the noise had not been heard, and was about to repeat the signal when
-the door was flung suddenly open, and a tall man holding a candle in his
-hand loomed up in the door-way.
-
-"I am looking," stammered the southerner, "for one Randolph Mason, an
-attorney-at-law."
-
-"I am Randolph Mason," said the man, thrusting the silver candlestick
-out before him. "Who are you, sir?"
-
-"My name is Allen," answered the southerner, "Moseby Allen, of Gullmore
-county, West Virginia."
-
-"A Virginian," said Mason, "what evil circumstance brings you here?"
-
-Then Allen remembered the instructions which Parks had given him so
-minutely. He took off his hat and passed his hand across his forehead.
-"Well," he said, "I suppose the same thing that brings the others. We
-get in and plunge along just as far as we can. Then Fate shuts down
-the lid of her trap, and we have either to drop off the bridge or come
-here."
-
-"Come in," said Mason. Then he turned abruptly and walked down
-the hall-way. The southerner followed, impressed by this man's
-individuality. Allen had pushed his way through life with bluff and
-bluster, and like that one in the scriptural writings, "neither feared
-God nor regarded man." His unlimited assurance had never failed him
-before any of high or low degree, and to be impressed with the power of
-any man was to him strange and uncomfortable.
-
-Mason turned into his library and placed the candlestick on a table in
-the centre of the floor. Then he drew up two chairs and sat down in one
-of them motioning Allen to the other on the opposite side of the table.
-The room was long and empty, except for the rows of heavy book-cases
-standing back in the darkness. The floor was bare, and there was no
-furniture of any kind whatever, except the great table and the ancient
-high-back chairs. There was no light but the candle standing high in its
-silver candlestick.
-
-"Sir," said Mason, when the Virginian had seated himself, "which do you
-seek to evade, punishment or dishonor?"
-
-The Virginian turned round, put his elbows on the table, and looked
-squarely across at his questioner. "I am not fool enough to care for the
-bark," he answered, "provided the dog's teeth are muzzled."
-
-"It is well," said Mason, slowly, "there is often difficulty in dealing
-with double problems, where both disgrace and punishment are sought to
-be evaded. Where there is but one difficulty to face, it can usually be
-handled with ease. What others are involved in your matter?"
-
-"No others," answered the Virginian; "I am seeking only to save myself."
-
-"From the law only," continued Mason, "or does private vengeance join
-with it?"
-
-"From the law only," answered Allen.
-
-"Let me hear it all," said Mason.
-
-"Well," said the Virginian, shifting uneasily in his chair, "my affairs
-are in a very bad way, and every attempt that I have made to remedy
-them has resulted only in disaster. I am walking, with my hands tied,
-straight into the penitentiary, unless some miracle can be performed in
-my favor. Everything has gone dead against me from my first fool move.
-Four years ago I was elected sheriff of Gullmore county in the State
-of West Virginia. I was of course required by law to give a large bond.
-This I had much difficulty in doing, for the reason that I have no
-estate whatever. Finally I induced my brother and my father, who is
-a very old man, to mortgage their property and thereby secured the
-requisite bond. I entered upon the duties of my office, and assumed
-entire control of the revenues of the county. For a time I managed them
-carefully and kept my private business apart from that of the county.
-But I had never been accustomed to strict business methods, and I soon
-found it most difficult to confine myself to them. Little by little I
-began to lapse into my old habit of carelessness. I neglected to keep
-up the settlements, and permitted the official business to become
-intermixed with my private accounts. The result was that I awoke one
-morning to find that I owed the county of Gullmore ten thousand dollars.
-I began at once to calculate the possibility of my being able to meet
-this deficit before the expiration of my term of office, and soon found
-that by no possible means would I be able to raise this amount out of
-the remaining fees. My gambling instincts at once asserted themselves.
-I took five thousand dollars, went to Lexington, and began to play the
-races in a vain, reckless hope that I might win enough to square my
-accounts. I lost from the very start. I came back to my county and went
-on as before, hoping against hope that something would turn up and
-let me out. Of course this was the dream of an idiot, and when the
-opposition won at the last election, and a new sheriff was installed,
-and I was left but a few months within which to close up my accounts,
-the end which I had refused to think of arose and stared me in the face.
-I was now at the end of my tether, and there was nothing there but
-a tomb. And even that way was not open. If I should escape the
-penitentiary by flight or by suicide, I would still leave my brother and
-my aged father to bear the entire burden of my defalcations; and when
-they, as my bondsmen, had paid the sum to the county, they would all be
-paupers."
-
-The man paused and mopped the perspiration from his face. He was now
-terribly in earnest, and seemed to be realizing the gravity and the
-hopelessness of his crime. All his bluster and grandiloquent airs had
-vanished.
-
-"Reckless and unscrupulous as I am," he went on, "I cannot bear to
-think of my brother's family beggars because of my wrong, or my father
-in his extreme old age turned out from under his own roof and driven
-into the poor-house, and yet it must come as certainly as the sun will
-rise tomorrow."
-
-The man's voice trembled now, and the flabby muscles of his face
-quivered.
-
-"In despair, I gathered up all the funds of the county remaining in my
-hands and hurried to this city. Here I went to the most reliable broker
-I could find and through him plunged into speculation. But all the
-devils in hell seemed to be fighting for my ruin. I was caught in that
-dread and unexpected crash of yesterday and lost everything. Strange
-to say, when I realized that my ruin was now complete, I felt a kind of
-exhilaration,--such, I presume, as is said to come to men when they are
-about to be executed. Standing in the very gaping jaws of ruin, I
-have to-day been facetious, even merry. Now, in the full glare of this
-horrible matter, I scarcely remember what I have been doing, or how I
-came to be here, except that this morning in Wall Street I heard some
-one speak of your ability, and I hunted up your address and came without
-any well defined plan, and, if you will pardon me, I will add that it
-was also without any hope."
-
-The man stopped and seemed to settle back in his chair in a great heap.
-
-Randolph Mason arose and stood looking down at the Virginian.
-
-"Sir," said Mason, "none are ever utterly lost but the weak. Answer my
-question."
-
-The Virginian pulled himself together and looked up.
-
-"Is there any large fund," continued Mason, "in the hands of the
-officers of your county?"
-
-"My successor," said Allen, "has just collected the amount of a levy
-ordered by the county court for the purpose of paying the remainder due
-on the court-house. He now has that fund in his hands."
-
-"When was the building erected?" said Mason.
-
-"It was built during the last year of my term of office, and paid for in
-part out of levies ordered while I was active sheriff. When my successor
-came in there still remained due the contractors on the work some thirty
-thousand dollars. A levy was ordered by the court shortly before my term
-expired, but the collection of this levy fell to the coming officer, so
-this money is not in my hands, although all the business up to this time
-has been managed by me, and the other payments on the building made
-from time to time out of moneys in my hands, and I have been the chief
-manager of the entire work and know more about it than any one else. The
-new sheriff came into my office a few days ago to inquire how he was to
-dispose of this money."
-
-Mason sat down abruptly. "Sir," he said almost bitterly, "there is not
-enough difficulty in your matter to bother the cheapest intriguer in
-Kings county. I had hoped that yours was a problem of some gravity."
-
-"I see," said the Virginian, sarcastically, "I am to rob the sheriff of
-this money in such a manner that it won't be known who received it, and
-square my accounts. That would be very easy indeed. I would have only to
-kill three men and break a bank. Yes, that would be very easy. You might
-as well tell me to have blue eyes."
-
-"Sir," said Randolph Mason, slowly, "you are the worst prophet unhung."
-
-"Well," continued the man, "there can be no other way, If it were turned
-over to me in my official capacity what good would it do? My bondsmen
-would be responsible for it. I would then have it to account for, and
-what difference, in God's name, can it make whether I am sent to the
-penitentiary for stealing money which I have already used, or for
-stealing this money? It all belongs to the county. It is two times six
-one way, and six times two the other way."
-
-"Sir," said Mason, "I retract my former statement in regard to your
-strong point. Let me insist that you devote your time to prophecy. Your
-reasoning is atrocious."
-
-"I am wasting my time here," muttered the Virginian, "there is no way
-out of it."
-
-Randolph Mason turned upon the man. "Are you afraid of courts?" he
-growled.
-
-"No," said the southerner, "I am afraid of nothing but the
-penitentiary."
-
-"Then," said Mason, leaning over on the table, "listen to me, and you
-will never see the shadow of it."
-
-
-
-
-IV.
-
-I suppose you are right about that," said Jacob Wade, the newly elected
-sheriff of Gullmore county, as he and Colonel Moseby Allen sat in the
-office of that shrewd and courteous official. "I suppose it makes
-no difference which one of us takes this money and pays the
-contractors,--we are both under good bonds, you know."
-
-"Certainly, Wade, certainly," put in the Colonel, "your bond is as good
-as they can be made in Gullmore county, and I mean no disrespect to the
-Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe when I assert that the whole kingdom
-of heaven could not give a better bond than I have. You are right, Wade;
-you are always right; you are away ahead of the ringleaders of your
-party. I don't mind if I do say so. Of course, I am on the other side,
-but it was miraculous, I tell you, the way you swung your forces into
-line in the last election. By all the limping gods of the calendar, we
-could not touch you!" Colonel Moseby Allen leaned over and patted his
-companion on the shoulder. "You are a sly dog, Wade," he continued. "If
-it had not been for you we would have beaten the bluebells of Scotland
-out of the soft-headed farmers who were trying to run your party. I told
-the boys you would pull the whole ticket over with you, but they did
-n't believe me. Next time they will have more regard for the opinion of
-Moseby Allen of Gull-more." The Colonel burst out into a great roar of
-laughter, and brought his fat hand down heavily on his knee.
-
-Jacob Wade, the new sheriff, was a cadaverous-looking countryman, with a
-face that indicated honesty and egotism. He had come up from a farm, and
-had but little knowledge of business methods in general, and no idea of
-how the duties of his office should be properly performed. He puffed
-up visibly under the bald flattery of Allen, and took it all in like a
-sponge.
-
-"Well," said Wade, "I suppose the boys did sort of expect me to help
-them over, and I guess I did. I have been getting ready to run for
-a long time, and I aint been doing no fool things. When the Farmers
-Alliance people was organizing, I just stayed close home and sawed wood,
-and when the county was all stirred up about that there dog tax, I kept
-my mouth shut, and never said nothing."
-
-"That 's what you did, Wade," continued the Colonel, rubbing his hands;
-"you are too smooth to get yourself mixed up with a lot of new-fangled
-notions that would brand you all over the whole county as a crank. What
-a man wants in order to run for the office of sheriff is a reputation
-for being a square, solid, substantial business man, and that is what
-you had, Wade, and besides that you were a smooth, shrewd, far-sighted,
-machine politician."
-
-Jacob Wade flushed and grew pompous under this eloquent recital of his
-alleged virtues. Allen was handling his man with skill. He was a natural
-judge of men, and possessed in no little degree the rare ability of
-knowing how to approach the individual in order to gain his confidence
-and goodwill.
-
-"No," he went on, "I am not partisan enough to prevent me from
-appreciating a good clearheaded politician, no matter what his party
-affiliations may be. I am as firm and true to my principles as any of
-those high up in the affairs of state. I have been honored by my party
-time and again in the history of this commonwealth, and have
-defended and supported her policies on the stump, and in the halls of
-legislation, and I know a smooth man when I see him, and I honor him,
-and stick to him out of pure love for his intelligence and genius."
-
-The Colonel arose. He now felt that his man was in the proper humor to
-give ready assent to the proposition which he had made, and he turned
-back to it with careless indifference.
-
-"Now, Jacob," he said lowering his voice, "this is not all talk. You are
-a new officer, and I am an old one. I am familiar with all the routine
-business of the sheriffalty, and I am ready and willing and anxious to
-give all the information that can be of any benefit to you, and to do
-any and everything in my power to make your term of office as pleasant
-and profitable as it can be made. I am wholly and utterly at your
-service, and want you to feel that you are more than welcome to command
-me in any manner you see fit. By the way, here is this matter that we
-were just discussing. I am perfectly familiar with all that business.
-I looked after the building for the county, collected all the previous
-levies, and know all about the contracts with the builders--just what
-is due each one and just how the settlements are to be made,--and I am
-willing to take charge of this fund and settle the thing up. I suppose
-legally it is my duty to attend to this work, as it is in the nature of
-unfinished business of my term, but I could have shifted the whole
-thing over on you and gotten out of the trouble of making the final
-settlements with the contractors. The levy was ordered during my term,
-but has been collected by you, and on that ground I could have washed my
-hands of the troublesome matter if I had been disposed to be ugly. But
-I am not that kind of a man, Wade; I am willing to shoulder my lawful
-duties, and wind this thing up and leave your office clear and free from
-any old matters."
-
-Jacob Wade, sheriff of Gullmore county, was now thoroughly convinced
-of two things. First, that he himself was a shrewd politician, with
-an intellect of almost colossal proportions, and second, that Colonel
-Moseby Allen was a great and good man, who was offering to do him a
-service out of sheer kindness of heart.
-
-He arose and seized Allen's hand. "I am obliged to you, Colonel, greatly
-obliged to you," he said; "I don't know much about these matters yet,
-and it will save me a deal of trouble if you will allow me to turn
-this thing over to you, and let you settle it up. I reckon from the
-standpoint of law it is a part of your old business as sheriff."
-
-"Yes," answered Allen, smiling broadly, "I reckon it is, and I reckon I
-ought n't to shirk it."
-
-"All right," said Wade, turning to leave the office, "I 'll just hand
-the whole thing over to you in the morning." Then he went out.
-
-The ex-sheriff closed the door, sat down in his chair, and put his feet
-on the table. "Well, Moseby, my boy," he said, "that was dead easy. The
-Honorable Jacob Wade is certainly the most irresponsible idiot west of
-the Alleghany mountains. He ought to have a committee,--yes, he ought to
-have two committees, one to run him, and one to run his business." Then
-he rubbed his hands gleefully. "It is working like a greased clock," he
-chuckled, "and by the grace of God and the Continental Congress, when
-this funeral procession does finally start, it wont be Colonel Moseby
-Allen of the county of Gullmore who will occupy the hearse."
-
-
-
-
-V.
-
-The inhabitants of the city could never imagine the vast interest
-aroused in the county of Gullmore by the trial of Colonel Moseby Allen
-for embezzlement. In all their quiet lives the good citizens had not
-been treated to such a sweeping tidal wave of excitement. The annual
-visits of the "greatest show on earth" were scarcely able to fan the
-interests of the countrymen into such a flame. The news of Allen's
-arrest had spread through the country like wildfire. Men had talked
-of nothing else from the moment this startling information had come to
-their ears. The crowds on Saturday afternoons at the country store had
-constituted themselves courts of first and last resort, and had passed
-on the matter of the ex-sheriff's guilt at great length and with
-great show of learning. The village blacksmith had delivered ponderous
-opinions while he shod the traveller's horse; and the ubiquitous justice
-of the peace had demonstrated time and again with huge solemnity that
-Moseby Allen was a great criminal, and by no possible means could be
-saved from conviction. It was the general belief that the ex-sheriff
-would not stand trial; that he would by some means escape from the jail
-where he was confined. So firm-rooted had this conviction become that
-the great crowd gathered in the little county seat on the day fixed
-for the trial were considerably astonished when they saw the ex-sheriff
-sitting in the dock. In the evening after the first day of the trial,
-in which certain wholly unexpected things had come to pass, the crowd
-gathered on the porch of the country hotel were fairly revelling in the
-huge sensation.
-
-Duncan Hatfield, a long ungainly mountaineer, wearing a red
-hunting-shirt and a pair of blue jeans trousers, was evidently the
-Sir-Oracle of the occasion.
-
-"I tell you, boys," he was saying, "old Moseby aint got no more show
-than a calliker apron in a brush fire. Why he jest laid down and give
-up; jest naturally lopped his ears and give up like a whipped dog."
-
-"Yes," put in an old farmer who was standing a little back in the crowd,
-"I reckon nobody calkerlated on jest sich a fizzle."
-
-"When he come into court this mornin'," continued the Oracle, "with that
-there young lawyer man Edwards, I poked Lum Bozier in the side, and told
-him to keep his eye skinned, and he would see the fur fly, because I
-knowed that Sam Lynch, the prosecutin' attorney, allowed to go fer old
-Moseby, and Sam is a fire-eater, so he is, and he aint afraid of nuthin
-that walks on legs. But, Jerusalem! it war the tamest show that ever
-come to this yer town. Edwards jest sot down and lopped over like a
-weed, and Sam he begun, and he showed up how old Moseby had planned this
-here thing, and how he had lied to Jake Wade all the way through, and
-jest how he got that there money, and what an everlasting old rascal
-he was, and there sot Edwards, and he never asked no questions, and he
-never paid no attention to nuthin."
-
-"Did n't the lawyer feller do nuthin at all, Dunk?" enquired one of
-the audience, who had evidently suffered the great misfortune of being
-absent from the trial.
-
-"No," answered the Oracle, with a bovine sneer, "he never did nothin
-till late this evenin. Then he untangled his legs and got up and said
-somethin to the jedge about havin to let old Moseby Allen go, cause what
-he had done was n't no crime.
-
-"Then you ought to a heard Sam. He jest naturally took the roof off;
-he sailed into old Moseby. He called him nine different kinds of
-horse-thieves, and when he got through, I could see old Ampe Props
-noddin his head back thar in the jury-box, and then I knowed that it
-were all up with Colonel Moseby Allen, cause that jury will go the way
-old Ampe goes, jest like a pack of sheep."
-
-"I reckon Moseby's lawyer were skeered out," suggested Pooley Hornick,
-the blacksmith.
-
-"I reckon he war," continued the Oracle, "cause when Sam sot down, he
-got up, and he said to the jedge that he didn't want to do no argufying,
-but he had a little paper that would show why the jedge would have to
-let old Moseby go free, and then he asked Sam if he wanted to see it,
-and Sam he said no, he cared nuthin for his little paper. Then the
-feller went over and give the little paper to the jedge, and the jedge
-he took it and he said he would decide in the mornin'."
-
-"You don't reckon," said the farmer, "that the jedge will give the old
-colonel any show, do you?"
-
-"Billdad Solsberry," said the Oracle, with a grave judicial air, as
-though to settle the matter beyond question, "you are a plumb fool. If
-the angel Gabriel war to drop down into Gullmore county, he could n't
-keep old Moseby Allen from goin' to the penitentiary."
-
-Thus the good citizens sat in judgment, and foretold the doom of their
-fellow.
-
-
-
-
-VI.
-
-On Monday night, the eleventh day of May, in the thirty-third year of
-the State of West Virginia, the judge of the criminal court of Gullmore
-county, and the judge of the circuit court of Gullmore county were to
-meet together for the purpose of deciding two matters,--one relating to
-the trial of Moseby Allen, the retiring sheriff, for embezzling funds
-of the county, amounting to thirty thousand dollars, and the other, an
-action pending in the circuit court, wherein the State of West Virginia,
-at the relation of Jacob Wade, was seeking to recover this sum from the
-bondsmen of Allen. In neither of the two cases was there any serious
-doubt as to the facts. It seemed that it was customary for the retiring
-sheriff to retain an office in the court building after the installation
-of his successor, and continue to attend to the unfinished business of
-the county until all his settlements had been made, and until all the
-matters relating to his term of office had been finally wound up and
-administered.
-
-In accordance with this custom, Moseby Allen, after the expiration of
-his term, had continued in his office in a quasi-official capacity, in
-order to collect back taxes and settle up all matters carried over from
-his regular term.
-
-It appeared that during Allen's term of office the county had built a
-court-house, and had ordered certain levies for the purpose of raising
-the necessary funds. The first of the levies had been collected by
-Allen, and paid over by him to the contractors, as directed by the
-county court. The remaining levies had not been collected during his
-term, but had been collected by the new sheriff immediately after his
-installation. This money, amounting to some thirty thousand dollars,
-had been turned over to Allen upon his claim that it grew out of the
-unfinished affairs of his term, and that, therefore, he was entitled to
-its custody. He had said to the new sheriff that the levy upon which it
-had been raised was ordered during his term, and the work for which it
-was to be paid all performed, and the bonds of the county issued, while
-he was active sheriff, and that he believed it was a part of the matters
-which were involved in his final settlements. Jacob Wade, then sheriff,
-believing that Allen was in fact the proper person to rightly administer
-this fund, and knowing that his bond to the county was good and would
-cover all his official affairs, had turned the entire fund over to him,
-and paid no further attention to the matter.
-
-It appeared that, at the end of the year, Moseby Allen had made all of
-his proper and legitimate settlements fully and satisfactorily, and
-had accounted to the proper authorities for every dollar that had
-been collected by him during his term of office, but had refused and
-neglected to account for the money which he had received from Wade. When
-approached upon the subject, he had said plainly that he had used this
-money in unfortunate speculations and could not return it. The man had
-made no effort to check the storm of indignation that burst upon him;
-he firmly refused to discuss the matter, or to give any information in
-regard to it. When arrested, he had expressed no surprise, and had gone
-to the jail with the officer. At the trial, his attorney had simply
-waited until the evidence had been introduced, and had then arisen and
-moved the court to direct a verdict of not guilty, on the ground that
-Allen, upon the facts shown, had committed no crime punishable under the
-statutes of West Virginia.
-
-The court had been strongly disposed to overrule this motion without
-stopping to consider it, but the attorney had insisted that a memorandum
-which he handed up would sustain his position, and that without mature
-consideration the judge ought not to force him into the superior
-court, whereupon his Honor, Ephraim Haines, had taken the matter under
-advisement until morning.
-
-In the circuit court the question had been raised that Allen's bond
-covered only those matters which arose by virtue of his office, and that
-this fund was not properly included. Whereupon the careful judge of that
-court had adjourned to consider.
-
-It was almost nine o'clock when the Honorable Ephraim Haines walked into
-the library to consult with his colleague of the civil court. He
-found that methodical jurist seated before a pile of reports, with his
-spectacles far out on the end of his nose,--an indication, as the said
-Haines well knew, that the said jurist had arrived at a decision, and
-was now carefully turning it over in his mind in order to be certain
-that it was in spirit and truth the very law of the land.
-
-"Well, Judge," said Haines, "have you flipped the penny on it, and if
-so, who wins?"
-
-The man addressed looked up from his book and removed his spectacles. He
-was an angular man, with a grave analytical face.
-
-"It is not a question of who wins, Haines," he answered; "it is a
-question of law. I was fairly satisfied when the objection was first
-made, but I wanted to be certain before I rendered my decision. I have
-gone over the authorities, and there is no question about the matter.
-The bondsmen of Allen are not liable in this action."
-
-"They are not!" said Haines, dropping his long body down into a chair.
-"It is public money, and the object of the bond is certainly to cover
-any defalcations."
-
-"This bond," continued the circuit judge, "provides for the faithful
-discharge, according to law, of the duties of the office of sheriff
-during his continuance in said office. Moseby Allen ceased to be sheriff
-of this county the day his successor was installed, and on that day this
-bond ceased to cover his acts. This money was handed over by the lawful
-sheriff to a man who was not then an officer of this county. Moseby
-Allen had no legal right to the custody of this money. His duties as
-sheriff had ceased, his official acts had all determined, and there was
-no possible way whereby he could then perform an official act that would
-render his bondsmen liable. The action pending must be dismissed. The
-present sheriff, Wade, is the one responsible to the county for this
-money. His only recourse is an action of debt, or assumpsit, against
-Allen individually, and as Allen is notoriously insolvent, Wade and his
-bondsmen will have to make up this deficit."
-
-"Well," said Haines, "that is hard luck."
-
-"No," answered the judge, "it is not luck at all, it is law. Wade
-permitted himself to be the dupe of a shrewd knave, and he must bear the
-consequences."
-
-"You can depend upon it," said the Honorable Ephraim Haines, criminal
-judge by a political error, "that old Allen won't get off so easy with
-me. The jury will convict him, and I will land him for the full term."
-
-"I was under the impression," said the circuit judge, gravely, "that a
-motion had been made in your court to direct an acquittal on the ground
-that no crime had been committed."
-
-"It was," said Haines, "but of course it was made as a matter of form,
-and there is nothing in it."
-
-"Have you considered it?"
-
-"What is the use? It is a fool motion."
-
-"Well," continued the judge, "this matter comes up from your court
-to mine on appeal, and you should be correct in your ruling. What
-authorities were cited?"
-
-"Here is the memorandum," said the criminal judge, "you can run down the
-cases if you want to, but I know it is no use. The money belonged to the
-county and old Allen embezzled it,--that is admitted."
-
-To this the circuit judge did not reply. He took the memorandum which
-Randolph Mason had prepared for Allen, and which the local attorney
-had submitted, and turned to the cases of reports behind him. He was a
-hard-working, conscientious man, and not least among his vexatious cares
-were the reckless decisions of the Honorable Ephraim Haines.
-
-The learned judge of the criminal court put his feet on the table and
-began to whistle. When at length wearied of this intellectual diversion,
-he concentrated all the energy of his mammoth faculties on the highly
-cultured pastime of sharpening his penknife on the back of the Code.
-
-At length the judge of the circuit court came back to the table, sat
-down, and adjusted his spectacles. "Haines," he said slowly, "you will
-have to sustain that motion."
-
-"What!" cried the Honorable Ephraim, bringing the legs of his chair down
-on the floor with a bang.
-
-"That motion," continued the judge, "must be sustained. Moseby Allen has
-committed no crime under the statutes of West Virginia."
-
-"Committed no crime!" almost shouted the criminal jurist, doubling his
-long legs up under his chair, "why, old Allen admits that he got this
-money and spent it. He says that he converted it to his own use; that it
-was not his money; that it belonged to the county. The evidence of the
-State shows that he cunningly induced Wade to turn this money over to
-him, saying that his bond was good, and that he was entitled to the
-custody of the fund. The old rascal secured the possession of this money
-by trickery, and kept it, and now you say he has committed no crime. How
-in Satan's name do you figure it out?"
-
-"Haines," said the judge, gravely, "I don't figure it out. The law
-cannot be figured out. It is certain and exact. It describes perfectly
-what wrongs are punishable as crimes, and exactly what elements
-must enter into each wrong in order to make it a crime. All right of
-discretion is taken from the trial court; the judge must abide by the
-law, and the law decides matters of this nature in no uncertain terms."
-
-"Surely," interrupted Haines, beginning to appreciate the gravity of the
-situation, "old Allen can be sent to the penitentiary for this crime. He
-is a rank, out and out embezzler. He stole this money and converted it
-to his own use. Are you going to say that the crime of embezzlement is a
-dead letter?"
-
-"My friend," said the judge, "you forget that there is no equity in the
-criminal courts. The crime of embezzlement is a pure creature of the
-statute. Under the old common law there was no such crime. Consequently
-society had no protection from wrongs of this nature, until this evil
-grew to such proportions that the law-making power began by statute to
-define this crime and provide for its punishment. The ancient English
-statutes were many and varied, and, following in some degree thereafter,
-each of the United States has its own particular statute, describing
-this crime as being composed of certain fixed technical elements. This
-indictment against Moseby Allen is brought under Section 19 of Chapter
-145 of the Code of West Virginia, which provides: 'If any officer,
-agent, clerk or servant of this State, or of any county, district,
-school district or municipal corporation thereof, or of any incorporated
-bank or other corporation, or any officer of public trust in this State,
-or any agent, clerk or servant of such officer of public trust, or any
-agent, clerk or servant of any firm or person, or company or association
-of persons not incorporated, embezzle or fraudulently convert to his
-own use, bullion, money, bank notes or other security for money, or
-any effects or property of another person which shall have come to his
-possession, or been placed under his care or management, by virtue of
-his office, place or employment, he shall be guilty of larceny thereof.'
-
-"This is the statute describing the offence sought to be charged. All
-such statutes must be strictly construed. Applying these requisites of
-the crime to the case before us, we find that Allen cannot be convicted,
-for the reason that at the time this money was placed in his hands he
-was not sheriff of Gullmore county, nor was he in any sense its agent,
-clerk, or servant. And, second, if he could be said to continue an
-agent, clerk, or servant of this county, after the expiration of his
-term, he would continue such agent, clerk, or servant for the purpose
-only of administering those matters which might be said to lawfully
-pertain to the unfinished business of his office. This fund was in
-no wise connected with such unfinished affairs, and by no possible
-construction could he be said to be an agent, clerk, or servant of this
-county for the purpose of its distribution or custody. Again, in order
-to constitute such embezzlement, the money must have come into his
-possession by virtue of his office. This could not be, for the reason
-that he held no office. His time, had expired; Jacob Wade was sheriff,
-and the moment Jacob Wade was installed, Allen's official capacity
-determined, and he became a private citizen, with only the rights and
-liabilities of such a citizen.
-
-"Nor is he guilty of larceny, for the very evident reason that the
-proper custodian, Wade, voluntarily placed this money in his hands, and
-he received it under a _bona fide_ color of right."
-
-The Honorable Ephraim Haines arose, and brought his ponderous fist down
-violently on the table. "By the Eternal!" he said, "this is the cutest
-trick that has been played in the two Virginias for a century. Moseby
-Allen has slipped out of the clutches of the law like an eel."
-
-"Ephraim," said the circuit judge, reproachfully, "this is no frivolous
-matter. Moseby Allen has wrought a great wrong, by which many innocent
-men will suffer vast injury, perhaps ruin. Such malicious cunning is
-dangerous to society. Justice cannot reach all wrongs; its hands are
-tied by the restrictions of the law. Why, under this very statute, one
-who was _de facto_ an officer of the county or State, by inducing some
-other officer to place in his hands funds to which he was not legally
-entitled, could appropriate the funds so received with perfect impunity,
-and without committing any crime or rendering his bondsmen liable. Thus
-a clerk of the circuit court could use without criminal liability any
-money, properly belonging to the clerk of the county court, or sheriff,
-provided he could convince the clerk or sheriff that he was entitled to
-its custody; and so with any officer of the State or county, and this
-could be done with perfect ease where the officers were well known to
-each other and strict business methods were not observed. Hence all the
-great wrong and injury of embezzlement can be committed, and all the
-gain and profit of it be secured, without violating the statute or
-rendering the officer liable to criminal prosecution. It would seem
-that the rogue must be stupid indeed who could not evade the crime of
-embezzlement."
-
-The man stopped, removed his spectacles, and closed them up in their
-case. He was a painstaking, honest servant of the commonwealth, and,
-like many others of the uncomplaining strong, performed his own duties
-and those of his careless companion without murmur or comment or hope of
-reward.
-
-The Honorable Ephraim Haines arose and drew himself up pompously. "I
-am glad," he said, "that we agree on this matter. I shall sustain this
-motion."
-
-The circuit judge smiled grimly. "Yes," he said, "it is not reason or
-justice, but it is the law."
-
-At twelve the following night Colonel Moseby Allen, ex-sheriff of the
-county of Gullmore, now acquitted of crime by the commonwealth,
-hurried across the border for the purpose of avoiding certain lawless
-demonstrations on the part of his countrymen,--and of all his acts of
-public service, this was the greatest.
-
-
-
-
-VII.--THE ANIMUS FURANDI
-
-
-_[See the case of State vs. Brown et al.% 104 Mo., 365; the strange case
-of Reuben Deal, 64 N. C., 270; also on all fours with the facts here
-involved, see Thompson vs. Commonwealth, 18 S. W. Rept., 3022; and the
-very recent case of The People vs. Hughes, 39 Pacific Rept., 492;
-also Rex vs. Hall, Bodens case, and others there cited, 2 Russell on
-Crimes.]_
-
-
-
-
-I.
-
-I AM tired of your devilish hints, why can't you come out with it,
-man?" The speaker was half angry.
-
-Parks leaned forward on the table, his face was narrow and full of
-cunning. "Mystery is your long suit, Hogarth, I compliment you."
-
-"You tire me," said the man; "if you have any reason for bringing me
-here at this hour of the night I want to know it."
-
-"Would I be here in the office at two o'clock in the morning, with a
-detective and without a reason? Listen, I will be plain with you. I must
-get Mr. Mason out of New York; he is going rapidly, and unless he gets
-a sea-voyage and a change of country he will be in the mad-house. He is
-terribly thin and scarcely sleeps any more at all. No human being
-can imagine what a monster he is to manage, or in what an infinitely
-difficult position I have been placed. When we came here from Paris,
-after the unfortunate collapse of the canal syndicate, the situation
-that confronted me was of the most desperate character. Mr. Mason was
-practically a bankrupt. He had spent his entire fortune in a mighty
-effort to right the syndicate, and would have succeeded if it had not
-been for the treachery of some of the French officials. He had been
-absent so long from New York that his law practice was now entirely
-lost, and, worst of all, this mysterious tilt of his mind would render
-it utterly impossible for him ever to regain his clientage. For a time
-I was in despair. Mr. Mason was, of course, utterly oblivious to the
-situation, and there was no one with whom I could advise, even if I
-dared attempt it. When everything failed in Paris, Mr. Mason collapsed,
-physically. He was in the hospital for months; when he came out, his
-whole nature was wrenched into this strange groove, although his mind
-was apparently as keen and powerful as ever and his wonderful faculties
-unimpaired. He seemed now possessed by this one idea, that all the
-difficulties of men were problems and that he could solve them.
-
-"A few days after we landed in New York, I wandered into the
-court-house; a great criminal had been apprehended and was being tried
-for a desperate crime. I sat down and listened. As the case developed,
-it occurred to me that the man had botched his work fearfully, and that
-if he could have had Mr. Mason plan his crime for him he need never have
-been punished. Then the inspiration came. Why not turn this idea of Mr.
-Mason to account?
-
-"I knew that the city was filled with shrewd, desperate men, who
-feared nothing under high heaven but the law, and were willing to take
-desperate chances with it. I went to some of them and pointed out the
-mighty aid that I could give; they hooted at the idea, and said that
-crime was crime and the old ways were the best ways."
-
-Parks paused and looked up at the detective. "They have since changed
-their minds," he added.
-
-"What did Mr. Mason think of your method of securing clients?" said
-Hogarth.
-
-"That was my greatest difficulty," continued Parks. "I resorted to every
-known trick in order to prevent him from learning how the men happened
-to come to him, and so far I have been successful. He has never
-suspected me, and has steadily believed that those who came to him with
-difficulties were attracted by his great reputation. By this means, Mr.
-Mason has made vast sums of money, but what he has done with it is a
-mystery. I have attempted to save what I could, but I have not enough
-for this extended trip to the south of France. Now, do you understand
-me?"
-
-"Yes," answered the detective, "you want to find where his money is
-hidden."
-
-"No," said Parks, with a queer smile, "I am not seeking impossible
-ventures. What Randolph Mason chooses to make a mystery will remain so
-to the end of time, all the detectives on the earth to the contrary."
-
-"What do you want, then?" asked Hogarth, doggedly.
-
-Parks drew his chair nearer to the man and lowered his voice. "My
-friend," he said, "this recent change in the administration of the city
-has thrown you out on your uppers. Your chief is gone for good, and with
-him all your hopes in New York. It was a rout, my friend, and they have
-all saved themselves but you. What is to become of you?"
-
-"God knows!" said the detective. "Of course I am still a member of the
-agency, but there is scarcely bread in that."
-
-"This world is a fighting station," continued Parks. "The one intention
-of the entire business world is robbery. The man on the street has no
-sense of pity; he grows rich because he conceives some shrewd scheme
-by which he is enabled to seize and enjoy the labor of others. His only
-object is to avoid the law; he commits the same wrong and causes the
-same resulting injury as the pirate. The word 'crime,' Hogarth, was
-invented by the strong with which to frighten the weak; it means
-nothing. Now listen, since the thing is a cutthroat game, why not have
-our share of the spoil?" Hogarth's face was a study; Parks was shrewdly
-forcing the right door.
-
-"My friend," the little man went on, "we can make a fortune by a twist
-of the wrist, and go scot-free with the double eagles clinking in
-our pockets. We can make it in a day, and thereafter wag our heads at
-fortune and snap our fingers at the law."
-
-"How?" asked the detective. The door had broken and swung in.
-
-"I will tell you," said Parks, placing his hand confidentially on the
-man's shoulder. "Mr. Mason has a plan. I know it, because yesterday he
-was walking up Broadway, apparently oblivious to everything. Suddenly
-his face cleared up, and he stopped and snapped his fingers. 'Good!'
-he said, 'a detective could do it, and it would be child play, child
-play.'"
-
-Hogarth's countenance fell. "Is that all?" he said.
-
-"All!" echoed Parks, bringing his hand down on the table. "Is n't that
-enough, man? You don't know Randolph Mason. If he has a plan by which a
-detective can make a haul, it is good, do you hear, and it goes."
-
-"What does this mean, Parks?" said a voice.
-
-The little clerk sprang up and whirled round. In his vehemence he had
-not noticed the door-way. Randolph Mason stood in the shadow. He was
-thin and haggard, his face was shrunken and unshaven, and he looked worn
-and exhausted.
-
-"Oh, sir," said Parks, gathering himself quickly, "this is my friend
-Braxton Hogarth, and he is in great trouble. He came here to ask me for
-help; we have been talking over the matter for many hours, and I don't
-see any way out for him."
-
-"Where has the trap caught him?" said Mason, coming into the room.
-
-"It is an awful strange thing, sir," answered the clerk. "Mr. Hogarth's
-only son is the teller of the Bay State Bank in New Jersey. This morning
-they found that twenty thousand dollars was missing from the vault. No
-one had access to the vault yesterday but young Hogarth. The cashier was
-in this city, the combination was not known to any others. There is no
-evidence of robbery. The circumstances are so overwhelming against young
-Hogarth that the directors went to him and said plainly that if the
-money was in its place by Saturday night he would not be prosecuted,
-and the matter would be hushed up. He protested his innocence, but they
-simply laughed and would not listen to him. The boy is prostrated, and
-we know that he is innocent, but there is no way on earth to save
-him unless Mr. Hogarth can raise the money, which is a hopeless
-impossibility."
-
-Parks paused, and glanced at Hogarth, the kind of glance that obtains
-among criminals when they mean, "back up the lie."
-
-The detective buried his face in his hands.
-
-"The discretion of Fate is superb," said Mason. "She strikes always the
-vulnerable spot. She gives wealth if one does not need it; fame, if one
-does not care for it; and drives in the harpoon where the heart is."
-
-"The strange thing about it all, sir," continued Parks, "is that Mr.
-Hogarth has been a detective all his life and now is a member of the
-Atlantic Agency. It looks like the trailed thing turning on him."
-
-"A detective!" said Mason, sharply. "Ah, there is the open place, and
-there we will force through."
-
-The whole appearance of the man changed in an instant. He straightened
-up, and his face lighted with interest. He drew up a chair and sat down
-at the table, and there, in the chill dark of that November morning, he
-unfolded the daring details of his cross-plot, and the men beside him
-stared in wonder.
-
-
-
-
-II.
-
-About one o'clock on Thursday afternoon, William Walson, manager of the
-great Oceanic Coal Company, stepped out of the Fairmont Banking House in
-the Monongahela mining regions of West Virginia. It was pay-day at his
-mine, and he carried a black leather satchel in his hand containing
-twenty thousand dollars in bills. At this time the gigantic plant of
-this company was doing an enormous business. The labor unions of the
-vast Pennsylvania coal regions were out on the bitterest and most
-protracted strike of all history. The West Virginia operators were
-moving the heavens in order to supply the market; every man who could
-hold a pick was at work under the earth day and night.
-
-The excitement was something undreamed of. The region was overrun with
-straggling workmen, tramps, "hobos," and the scum criminals of the
-cities, and was transformed as if by magic into a hunting-ground where
-the keen human ferret stalked the crook and the killer with that high
-degree of care and patience which obtains only with the man-hunter.
-
-William Walson was tall, with short red beard and red hair, black eyes,
-and rather a sharp face; his jaw was square, bespeaking energy, but his
-expression was rather that of a man who won by the milder measures of
-conciliation and diplomacy. For almost a month he had been taxing his
-physical strength to the uttermost, and on this afternoon he looked worn
-and tired out utterly. He walked hurriedly from the bank door to the
-buck-board, untied the horse, raised the seat, and put the satchel down
-in the box under the cushion, then climbed in and drove away.
-
-The great plant of the Oceanic Coal Company was on a branch of the
-railroad, some considerable distance from the main line by rail, but
-only a few miles over the hills from the Fairmont Junction. William
-Walson struck out across the country road. The sun shone warm. He had
-lost so much sleep that presently he began to feel drowsy, and as the
-horse jogged along he nodded in his seat.
-
-About a mile from the town, at the foot of a little hill in the woods,
-a man stepped suddenly out from the fence and caught the horse by the
-bridle. Walson started and looked up. As he did so the stranger covered
-him with a revolver and bade him put up his hands and get out of the
-buck-board. The coal dealer saw in a moment that the highwayman meant
-what he said, and that resistance would be folly. He concluded also
-that he was confronted by one of the many toughs at large in the
-neighborhood, and that the fellow's intention was simply to rob him of
-his personal effects and such money as he might have in his pockets; it
-was more than probable that the man before him had no knowledge of the
-money hidden under the seat and would never discover it.
-
-"Tie your horse, sir," said the highwayman.
-
-Walson loosed the hitch strap and fastened the horse to a small tree by
-the roadside.
-
-"Turn your back to me," said the robber, "and put out your hands behind
-you." The coal dealer obeyed, thinking that the fellow was now going
-through his pockets. To his surprise and astonishment the man came up
-close behind him and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.
-
-"What do you mean by this?" cried Watson, whirling round on his heels.
-
-The big man with the revolver grinned. "You will find out soon enough,"
-he said. "Move along; the walking is good."
-
-William Watson was utterly at sea. He could not understand why this man
-should kidnap him, and start back with him to the town. What could the
-highwayman possibly mean by this queer move? At any rate it was evident
-that he had no knowledge of the money, and Walson reasoned shrewdly
-that, if he remained quiet and submissive, the vast sum in the
-buck-board would escape the notice of this erratic thief.
-
-The two men walked along in silence for some time; the highwayman was
-big, with keen gray eyes and a shrewd face; he seemed curiously elated.
-When the two came finally to the brow of the hill overlooking the town,
-Walson stopped and turned to his strange captor; he was now convinced
-that the fellow was a lunatic.
-
-"Sir," he said, "what in Heaven's name are you trying to do?"
-
-"Introduce you to your fellows in Sing Sing, my friend," answered the
-highwayman. "The gang will be glad to welcome Red Lead Jim."
-
-It all came to the coal dealer in a moment "Oh, you miserable ass!" he
-cried, "what an infernal mistake! My name is William Walson, I am the
-manager of the Oceanic Coal Company, there is twenty thousand dollars in
-that buck-board. I must go back to it or it will be lost. Here take off
-these damned handcuffs, and be quick about it." And he literally danced
-up and down in the road with rage.
-
-His companion leaned against the fence and roared with laughter. "You
-are a smooth one, Red, but the job and your twenty thousand will keep."
-
-Walson's face changed. "Come," he said, "let us get this fool business
-over," and he began to run down the hill to the town, his captor
-following close beside him.
-
-Men came out into the street in astonishment when they saw the strange
-pair. Walson was dusty and cursing like a pirate. He called upon the
-crowd that was quickly gathering, to identify him and arrest his idiotic
-kidnapper. The people explained that Mr. Walson was all right, that he
-was a prominent citizen, that it was all some horrible mistake. But
-the fellow hung on to his man until he got him to the jail. There the
-sheriff freed Walson and demanded an explanation. The mob crowded around
-to hear what it all meant. The stranger seemed utterly astonished at the
-way the people acted. He said that his name was Braxton Hogarth, that
-he was a New York detective, an employee of the Atlantic Agency; that he
-was trailing one Red Lead Jim, a famous bank cracker who was wanted
-in New York for robbery and murder; that he had tracked him to West
-Virginia, and that coming suddenly upon William Walson in the road he
-had believed him to be the man, had arrested him, and brought him at
-once to the town in order to have him extradited. He said that if Walson
-was not the man it was the most remarkable case of mistaken identity on
-record. He then produced a photograph, to which was attached a printed
-description. The photograph was an excellent likeness of Walson, and the
-description fitted him perfectly. The coal dealer was dumbfounded and
-joined with the crowd in admitting the excusableness of the detective's
-mistake under the very peculiar circumstances, but he said that the
-story might not be true, and asked the sheriff to hold the detective
-in custody until he was fully convinced that everything was as Hogarth
-said. The detective declared himself perfectly satisfied with this
-arrangement, and William Walson secured a horse and hurried back to his
-buck-board.
-
-The perilous vocation of Hogarth had inured him to tragic positions.
-He was thoroughly master of his hand and was playing it with quiet and
-accurate precision. He asked the sheriff to telegraph the agency and
-inform it of the situation and said that it would immediately establish
-the truth of his statement.
-
-That night the mining town of Fairmont was in an uproar. The streets
-were filled with excited men loudly discussing the great misfortune that
-had so strangely befallen the manager of the Oceanic Coal Company. It
-had happened that when William Walson returned to his buck-board,
-after his release by the sheriff, he found the horse lying dead by
-the roadside, and the buck-board a heap of ashes and broken irons. The
-charred remains of the satchel were found under the heap of rubbish, but
-it was impossible to determine whether the money had been carried away
-or destroyed by the fire. A jug that had lately contained liquor was
-found near by. All the circumstances indicated that the atrocious
-act was the malicious work of some one of the roving bands of drunken
-cutthroats. But the wonder of it all was the coincidence of the
-detective and the glaring boldness of the fiend "hobos."
-
-The Atlantic Agency of New York, answered the sheriff's telegram
-immediately, confirming Hogarth's statement, and referring to the
-District Attorney of New York and the Chief of Police; These answered
-that the agency was all right and that its statement should be accepted
-as correct. Finally, as a last precaution, the sheriff and the president
-of the Oceanic Coal Company talked with the New York Police Chief by
-long-distance telephone. When they were at length assured that the
-detective's story was true, he was released and asked to go with the
-president before the board of directors. Here he went fully over the
-whole matter, explaining that the man, Red Lead Jim, was a desperate
-character, and for that reason he had been so severe and careful, not
-daring to risk the drive back to town in the buck-board. When asked his
-theory of the robbery, he said that the first impression of the people
-was undoubtedly correct, that the country was full of wandering gangs of
-desperate blacklegs, that the money being in paper was perhaps destroyed
-by the fire and not discovered at all by the thugs in their malicious
-and drunken deviltry.
-
-The board of directors were not inclined to censure Hogarth, suggesting
-that after all he had perhaps saved the life of William Walson, as it
-was evident that the drunken "hobos" would have murdered him if he
-had been present when they chanced upon the horse and buck-board.
-Nevertheless, the detective seemed utterly prostrated over the great
-loss that had resulted from his unfortunate mistake, and left for New
-York on the first train.
-
-
-
-
-III.
-
-The following night two men stepped from the train at Jersey City and
-turned down towards the ferry. For a time they walked along in silence;
-suddenly the big one turned to his companion. "Parks," he said, "you are
-a lightning operator, my boy, you should play the mob in a Roman drama."
-
-"I fixed the 'hobo' evidence all right, Hogarth," answered the other,
-"and I have not forgotten the trust fund," whereupon he winked at his
-big companion and tapped on the breast of his coat significantly.
-
-The detective's face lighted up and then grew anxious. "Well," he said,
-lowering his voice, "are we going to try the other end of it?"
-
-"Why not?" answered the little clerk. "Don't we need the trust fund
-doubled?"
-
-
-
-
-IV.
-
-The great gambling house of Morehead, Opstein, & Company was beginning
-to be deserted by the crowd that had tempted the fickle goddess all
-night long to their great hurt. It was now four o'clock in the morning,
-and only one or two of the more desperate losers hung on to play. Snakey
-the Parson, a thin delicate knave, with a long innocent, melancholy
-face, was dealing faro for the house. "Snakey" was a "special" in the
-parlance of the guild; his luck was known to come in "blizzards"; if he
-won, to use the manager's language, he won out through the ceiling,
-and if he lost, he lost down to his health. For this reason Snakey the
-Parson was not a safe man as a "regular," but he was a golden bonanza
-when the cards went his way, and to-night they were going his way.
-
-The stragglers drifted out one by one and the dealer was preparing
-to quit the table when the door opened and two men entered: one was a
-little old man with a white beard and a lean, hungry face; the other
-was a big, half-drunken cattle drover. The two came up to the table and
-stood for a moment looking at the lay-out. A faint smile passed over
-the face of Snakey the Parson, he knew the types well, they were western
-cattle-shippers with money.
-
-"How high do ye go, mister?" said the little man.
-
-"Against the sky," answered the dealer, sadly.
-
-"Then I'll jist double me pile," said the little old man, reaching down
-into his pocket and fishing up a roll of bills wrapped in a dirty old
-newspaper. He counted the money and placed it upon the table.
-
-The dealer looked up in astonishment. "Ten thousand!" he said.
-
-"Yep," answered the old man, "an I want ter bet hit on the jack er
-spades."
-
-The dealer pushed a stack of yellow chips across the table.
-
-"No, siree," said the player, "you don't give me no buttons. I' ll put
-my pile on this side and you put your pile on t'other side, and the
-winner takes 'em."
-
-Snakey the Parson wavered a moment. It was against the rules, but here
-was too good a thing to lose. He turned, counted out the money, and
-placed it on his right, and began to deal from the box. The cards fell
-rapidly. For a time the blacks ran on the side of the house. Suddenly
-they changed and the queen and the ten of spades fell on the left. The
-dealer saw the card under his thumb and paused. The keen eyes of the old
-man were fixed on him. He determined to take the long chance, knowing
-that the loss was only temporary; and the jack of spades came up and
-fell on the side of the stranger.
-
-With a whoop of joy the old man clutched the money. "I am going to try
-her agin!" he cried.
-
-"Hold on," said the big cattle-drover, pushing up to the table; "my wad
-is as good as you; it is my turn now."
-
-The dealer grinned. "You can both play, gentlemen," he said, speaking
-with a low, sweet accent.
-
-"No, we can't," muttered the drover, with the childish obstinacy of a
-half-drunken man. "I want the whole shooting match to myself; he can
-have the next whirl at her."
-
-Thereupon the drover dragged a big red pocket book from somewhere inside
-his coat, took out a thick, straight package of bills, and laid it down
-on the table.
-
-"How much?" said the dealer, running his finger over the end of the
-package.
-
-'"Same as Abe's," said the drover.
-
-"Here," said the little old man, peevishly, "if you won't let me play,
-bet my roll with yourn," and he pushed the ten thousand of his own money
-to his companion, and placed the money, which he had won from the bank,
-in his pocket. The drover took the money and piled it up on the ace of
-spades.
-
-The dealer's face grew pensive and sweet; it was all right this time; he
-was going to round off the night with a golden _coup d' état_. He opened
-the safe behind him, counted out twenty thousand in big bills, and piled
-it up on one side of the bank. Then he opened the box and began. The old
-man wandered around the room; the big, half-drunken cattle-shipper hung
-over the table. Snakey, the Parson scarcely saw either; he was intent on
-manipulating the box, and his hand darted in and out like a white snake.
-Suddenly the ace of spades flew out, and fell on the side of the house.
-The quick dealer clapped his left hand over the box and put out his
-right for the player's money. As he did so, the big drover bent forward
-and thrust a revolver into his face.
-
-"No, you don't," he growled, "this is my money and I will not leave it,
-thank you."
-
-Snakey the Parson glanced at the man and knew that he had been fooled,
-but he was composed and clear-headed. Under the box on the right were
-weapons and the electric button; he began to take his right hand slowly
-from the table.
-
-"Stop!" said the drover, sharply, "that game won't work!"
-
-The dealer looked up into the player's face, and dropped his hands; he
-was a brave man, and desperate, as gamblers go, but he knew death when
-he saw it; his face turned yellow and became ghastly, but he did not
-move.
-
-The drover took up his money from the lay-out, and handed it to the
-old man. He used his left hand only, and did not take his eyes from the
-gambler's face. The old man thrust the bundle of bills in his pocket,
-and hurried from the room. The gambler sat rigid as a wax figure. The
-drover waited until his companion had sufficient time to get thoroughly
-away from the house; then he began to move slowly backward to the door,
-keeping the gambler covered with the weapon. The faro dealer watched
-every move of the drover, like a hawk, but he did not attempt to take
-his hand from the table; the muzzle of the revolver was too rigid; it
-was simply moving backward from his face in a dead straight line. At
-the door the drover stopped, drew himself together, then sprang suddenly
-through and bounded down the stairs.
-
-Snakey the Parson touched the electric button, and as the drover rushed
-into the street, two policemen caught him by the shoulder.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-Well," said the Police Chief, "I am tired of making an ass of myself;
-Mr. Mason says this cattle drover has committed no crime except a petty
-assault, and if he is right, I want to know it. That man beats the very
-devil. Every time I have sent up a case against his protest the judges
-have pitched me out on my neck, and the thing has got to be cursedly
-monotonous."
-
-The District Attorney smiled grimly, and turned around in his chair.
-"Have you given me all the details?" he said.
-
-"Yes," answered the official, "just exactly as they occurred."
-
-The District Attorney arose, thrust his hands into his pockets, and
-looked down at the great man-hunter; there was a queer set to his mouth,
-and the merest shadow of a twinkle in his eyes.
-
-"Well, my friend," he said, "you are pitched out on your neck again."
-
-The official drew a deep breath, and his face fell. "Then it is not
-robbery?" he said.
-
-"No," answered the attorney.
-
-"Well," mused the Police Chief, "this law business is too high for me. I
-have spent my life dealing with crimes, and I thought I knew one when I
-saw it; but I give it up, I don't know the first principles. Why, here
-is a fellow who voluntarily goes into a gambling house, plays and loses,
-then draws a revolver and forcibly takes away the money which, by the
-rules of the play, belongs to the house; robs the dealer by threatening
-to kill him; steals the bank's money, and fights his way out. It cannot
-matter that the man robbed was a lawbreaker himself, or that the crime
-occurred in a gambling house. It is the law of New York that has been
-violated; the place and parties are of no importance. Here is certainly
-the force and the putting in fear that constitute the vital element of
-robbery; and yet you say it is not robbery. You have me lost all right."
-
-"My dear sir," put in the District Attorney, "the vital element of
-robbery is not the force and terror but is what is called in the books
-the _animus furandi_, meaning the intention to steal. The presence of
-this felonious intent determines whether or not the wrong is a crime.
-If it be not present there can be no robbery, no matter how great
-the force, violence, or putting in fear, or how graven serious, or
-irreparable the resulting injury.
-
-"It is true indeed that the force and terror are elements, but the vital
-one is the intent. If force and violence one takes his own property from
-the possession of another, it is no robbery; nor is it robbery for one
-to take the property of another by violence under the belief that it
-is his own, or that he has some right to it, or by mistake or
-misunderstanding, although vast loss be caused thereby and great wrong
-and hurt result."
-
-"I have no hope of ever understanding it," said the Police Chief; "I am
-only a common man with a short life time."
-
-"Why, sir," continued the attorney, "it is as plain as sunlight. Robbery
-is compounded of larceny and force. It is larceny from the person by
-violence, but in order to constitute it the property must be taken
-from the peaceable possession of the party and it must be taken _animo
-furandi_. Neither of these happened in the case you state, because the
-faro dealer, by means of an unlawful game, could not secure any color
-of right or title to the money which he should win by it. Therefore the
-money taken was not his property, and could not have been taken from his
-peaceable possession.
-
-"In the second place, this vital element of robbery, the animus furandi,
-is totally wanting, for the reason that the player, in forcibly seizing
-the money which he had lost, was actuated by no intention to steal,
-but, on the contrary, was simply taking possession of his own property,
-property to which he had a full legal right and title."
-
-"But," put in the officer, "there was the other ten thousand which the
-old man won, they got away with that; if the game was unlawful they had
-no right to that."
-
-"True," said the lawyer. "The old man had no title to the ten thousand
-which he had won, but he did not steal it; the dealer gave it to him of
-his own free will, and the old man had it in his possession by the full
-voluntary consent of the dealer some time before the resort to violence.
-There was clearly no crime in this."
-
-"Damn it all!" said the Police Chief, wearily, "is there no way to get
-at him, can't we railroad him before a jury?"
-
-The District Attorney looked at the baffled officer and grinned
-ominously. "My friend," he said, "there is no power in Venice can alter
-a decree established. The courts have time and again passed upon cases
-exactly similar to this, and have held that there was no crime, except,
-perhaps, a petty misdemeanor. We could not weather a proceeding on
-_habeas corpus_ ten minutes; we could never get to a jury. When the
-judge came to examine the decisions on this question we would go out, as
-you expressed it, on our necks."
-
-"Well," muttered the Police Chief, as he pulled on his coat, "it is just
-as Randolph Mason said, out he goes."
-
-The attorney laughed and turned to his desk. The officer crossed to
-the door, jerked it open, then stopped and faced round. "Mr. District
-Attorney," he said, "won't there be hell to pay when the crooks learn
-the law?" Then he stalked through and banged the door after him.
-
-The District Attorney looked out of the window and across the street at
-the dirty row of ugly buildings. "Humph!" he said, "there is something
-in that last remark of the Chief."
-
-
-
-
-VI.
-
-Braxton Hogarth, detective, member of the Atlantic Agency, in good
-standing, now, by right of law and by virtue of his craft, restored
-to his freedom and identity, stepped back and was swallowed up by the
-crowd.
-
-The great ocean liner steamed out from the port of New York on its
-pathless journey to the sunny south of France. Randolph Mason sat in an
-invalid chair close up to the rail of the deck; he was grim, emaciated,
-and rigidly ugly. His body was exhausted, worn out utterly long ago,
-but the fierce mysterious spirit of the man was tireless and wrought on
-unceasingly.
-
-For a time he was silent, his eyes wide, and his jaw set like a wolf
-trap. Suddenly he clutched the rail and staggered to his feet.
-
-"Parks," he muttered,--"Parks, this ship is worth a million dollars.
-Come with me to the cabin and I will show you how it may be wrested
-from the owners and no crime committed; do you understand me, Parks? no
-crime!"
-
-_Note.--For the purpose of a complete demonstration, two situations are
-here combined. In the first, the crime of robbery was committed, but
-in such a manner as to completely evade an inference of the _animus
-furandi_, although it was in fact present and obtained. In the second,
-there was no robbery, the _animus furandi_ being entirely absent,
-although it apparently existed in a conspicuous degree._
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason, by 
-Melville Davisson Post
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