Held to Answer/Chapter 35
But though a very human hope was in his breast, the man who went out to face a public hearing on Saturday morning upon a charge of felony in the city where a week before he had been a popular idol, was not the same man who had stood trembling and bewildered in the vault room.
Rose had noticed first merely a physical change in her brother's appearance, as from day to day the situation became more intense. She saw lines deepen on his face, the knot of pain grow again and again upon his brow, and the whiteness of his skin increase to a point where it ceased to be white and became a parchment yellow, only paler than his tawny hair. But later she became conscious that there was taking place also a spiritual change, a certain rare elevation of the character of the man, giving at times the eerie feeling that this was not her brother, but some transfiguration taking place before her eyes.
When John Hampstead appeared in Judge Brennan's court room, something of this exaltation of character was discernible, even to those who had known the minister casually. Desiring ardently a happy outcome, the man revealed in himself something of a new capacity to endure yet further reverses.
Rose, Dick, and Tayna had been determined to accompany John and to sit beside him as he faced his accusers; but he forbade this, declaring that it would be construed by his enemies as an attempt to create sympathy.
Yet, despite the stoutness of the clergyman's hope for justice, the sight of the court room, of Judge Brennan upon his bench, the clerk and the official reporter at their desks, Searle, Wyatt, the detectives, the massed spectators,—packed, craning, curious,—and the vast crowd that had surged in the streets about the building and in the corridors, through which way had to be made for him, were all such sinister reminders of the position in which he stood, that for the time being they crumpled the very breastwork of innocence itself.
"The case of the People versus John Hampstead," announced the judge in matter-of-fact tones.
There was a slight movement among the group of attorneys, principals, officers, and witnesses within the rail and before the long table, as they either hitched chairs, or leaned forward with eyes and ears attentive. Outside, the closely packed onlookers breathed short in hushed expectancy.
"Prisoner at the bar, stand up!"
It was the monotonous, unfeeling voice of the clerk who said this, himself arising.
Hampstead, accustomed as his own legal battlings had made him to court formalities and to seeing men arraigned in just this language, failed to comprehend its significance when addressed to him. For an appreciable instant of time he sat unheeding, until every eye in the throng and the glance of every officer of the court stabbing into his face with inquiring wonder, recalled him to his position. Then he arose hastily, with traces of confusion which were so instantly repressed that when necks already craned stretched a little farther, and eyes already staring set their gaze yet more intently on the tall figure of the man, they saw his strongly moulded features as gravely impassive as some weather-blasted granite face upon a mountain.
But for all its massy strength, it was seen again to be a gentle face. The lips were firmly set, but the expression of the mouth was kindly. The eyes were fixed upon the clerk who read the charge against him, while the prisoner listened with a look at once solemn and dutiful, for it seemed that again John Hampstead had risen equal to the height on which he stood.
The tableau was an impressive one. It revealed the majesty of man bowing before the majesty of the law. It seemed to portray at once the ponderousness and the power fulness of organized government. A woman who was almost a stranger had touched a tiny lever and set the machinery of the law in operation against the most shining mark in all the community; and here was the man, with the guillotine of judgment poised above his head, answerable for his acts with his liberty and his reputation.
In feelingless monotones that galloped and hurdled through the maze of technical phrasings, the clerk read the complaint which charged the minister with the crime of burglary; then, pausing for breath, he asked the formal question:
"Is this your true name?"
"It is," the minister replied quietly, but in a voice of vibrant, carrying quality that must have penetrated to the outward corridor, and seemed to sweep a sense of moral power to every listener's ear.
The voice was answered by a sigh, involuntary and composite, that broke from somewhere beyond the rail. The hearing was on. The unbelievable had come to pass: John Hampstead, pastor of All People's Church, was actually standing trial like a common felon.
Briefly and casually the Court instructed Hampstead to his rights and that he was entitled to be represented by counsel of his own choosing, or to have counsel appointed for him by the Court.
The minister, still standing and speaking with deliberate composure, thanked the Court for its consideration, but stated that without disrespect to the legal profession which he greatly honored, he did not feel that his cause required expert defense; that in his experience he had acquired a considerable knowledge of court practice and would depend upon that, trusting his Honor to put him right if he stumbled into wrong.
The judge nodded comprehension and assent, and the defendant sat down.
"Are the People ready?" inquired the Court.
"We are," answered the crisp, crackly voice of Searle.
"And the defense?"
Hampstead, his arms folded passively, responded with a slight affirmative bow.
"We will call Miss Alice Higgins," announced Searle, his voice this time reflecting that sense of the dramatic which hung over the court room like a cloud, impregnating its atmosphere as if with an electric charge.
The woman known as Marien Dounay had been sitting at the right of Searle, gowned in tailored black, her person stripped of everything that looked like ornament. The wide, flat brim of her hat was carefully horizontal and valanced by a curtain of veiling, which, while black and large of cord, was wide meshed enough to show that the very colors of her cheeks were subdued, as if her whole person were in mourning over the somber duty to which she regretfully found herself compelled. And yet the beauty of her features, adorned by the black and sweeping eyebrows and lighted by the smouldering jet of her eyes, was never more striking than now, when, after standing for a moment, tall and graceful on the raised platform of the witness chair, she sat down, and leaning back composedly, swung about to where her glance could alternate between the eye of the Court who would hear her and that of Searle who would interrogate.
But though her composure appeared complete, and never upon any stage had her magnetic presence more completely centered all attention upon itself than in this melodrama of real life, it was none the less noticeable to the discerning that she had not glanced at Hampstead, whose sleeve her arm must have brushed in passing to the witness chair; and that she still avoided looking where he sat, but six feet distant, his own eyes resting upon her face with an odd, speculative light in them.
"Please state your name, business occupation or profession, and place of residence," began Searle, putting the opening interrogatory in the usual form through sheer force of habit.
"I am an actress by profession. My name is Alice Higgins; my place of residence is New York City."
"In your profession as an actress and to the public generally you are known as Marien Dounay?"
"Yes," replied the witness.
"You are the complainant in this action?"
"Yes."
"I will ask you," began Searle, "if you have ever seen this necklace before?"
He drew from a crumpled envelope that familiar tiny string of fire and offered it to the witness. Miss Dounay took it, passed it affectionately through her fingers, during which the brilliance of the gems appeared to be magnified, and then, holding the necklace by the two ends, dropped it for a moment upon her bosom,—a touch of naturalness that was either the height of art or the supreme of femininity.
"They are my diamonds," she replied.
"And what is their value?"
"Twenty-two thousand dollars."
"Lawful money of the United States?"
"Yes."
"Now, Miss Dounay," continued Searle, "will you be kind enough to relate to the Court when and under what circumstances you first missed your diamonds."
Miss Dounay told her story briefly and skillfully, with an appearance of reluctance when she came to relate the circumstances and facts which pointed to the minister as the thief. She stated that Hampstead had always shown curiosity regarding the diamonds and had especially questioned her concerning their value. As a trusted friend, whom she had known for years, and who during the last several weeks had visited her frequently and become rather frankly acquainted with her personal habits and mode of life, he knew where she kept the diamonds. That so far as she knew, he was the only one of her acquaintances who possessed this knowledge; that she had worn the diamonds in company with him during the evening preceding the supper party, at which she appeared without them; that no one but her guests were in this room in which the diamonds were kept temporarily, and that no one but him, so far as she remembered observing, was in that room alone; that it was her custom to keep the box containing these and other jewels in the hotel safe, and when, after the departure of her guests, she went to the casket to send it down-stairs, it was gone.
Her story done, and to the attorney's complete satisfaction, Searle then put the final formal questions:
"This property was taken against your will and without your consent?"
"Yes."
"This all happened in the City of Oakland, County of Alameda and the State of California?"
"Yes."
"That is all," concluded the prosecutor.
"Cross-examine," directed the Court, turning to the defendant.
"I have no desire to cross-examine," replied the minister quietly, but again with that vibrant, far-carrying note in his utterance.
"You are excused," said the judge to the actress.
With an expression of relief, Miss Dounay left the stand, still without once having directed her gaze at the accused, although he continued from time to time to regard her fixedly with a curious, doubtful look.
"Miss Julie Moncrief," announced the prosecutor.
Red-eyed and frightened, the French maid took the stand. In a trembling voice, and with at least one appealing glance at the minister, who appeared to regard her more sympathetically than her own mistress, the little woman gave her testimony. It told of finding the defendant alone in this room where the guests had been inspecting the models for the London production of the play. He was not near the table upon which the models were displayed, but standing by the chiffonier, with his arm absently thrown across the corner of it, and the hand within a few inches of the small drawer in which the diamonds reposed temporarily.
"What part of his body was toward the chiffonier?" asked the prosecutor.
"His back and side."
"Where was he looking?"
"Out toward the room to which the guests had withdrawn."
"As if watching for an opportunity of some sort?" suggested Searle.
Hampstead started, and his eyes kindled, but he did not speak. The Court, however, did.
"In view of the fact," interposed his Honor, "that Doctor Hampstead is unrepresented by counsel and taking no advantage of a technical defense, I will remind you, Mr. Searle, that your last question calls for a conclusion of the witness. She may testify where he was looking, but she cannot tell what she thinks his actions implied."
"Of course, your Honor, that is right," confessed Searle quickly. "The witness is somewhat hesitant and embarrassed, and the form of my question was inadvertent. Under the circumstances," he added suavely, "I am being especially careful not to take advantage of the defendant."
"That must be apparent to all, Mr. Searle," the judge palavered in return.
"Where was he looking?" queried Searle.
Having been properly coached by the attorney's question and his reply to the judge, the half frightened girl faltered:
"He was looking out, as if watching for an opportunity."
Color mounted to the cheeks of the judge. Searle looked properly surprised. The defendant smiled cynically.
"Strike out that portion of the answer which involves the conclusion as to why he was looking out," instructed the judge solemnly to the reporter.
"Certainly," exclaimed Searle apologetically. None the less, he was satisfied with his manœuvre. He knew the effect of the little French girl's conclusion could not be stricken out of the mind of the judge who had heard it expressed, nor out of the mind of the public before whom he was in reality trying his case.
"State what further you observed," directed the attorney. "Did you see him move, or anything?"
"He did not move; he only smiled at me and was still there in the same position when I went out. A few minutes later, I was surprised to see him bidding Miss Dounay good night."
"Strike out that the witness was surprised," commanded the Court sternly, while Julie shivered at the sharpness of Judge Brennan's tone.
"That is all," continued Searle.
"Do you wish to cross-examine?" inquired the judge, directing his glance to Hampstead.
"I do not," replied the minister.
This time the judge looked surprised, and there were slight murmurings, rustlings, and whisperings beyond the rail. The faltering testimony of the little maid had driven another nail deeply in the circumstantial case against the minister, and he had not made the slightest effort to draw it out by the few words of cross-examination that might have broken its hold entirely. He might, for instance, have asked if she saw any one else alone in this room. But the minister did not ask it.
Searle went on piling up his case. The detectives testified to the arrest of the minister, to the search of his person and house, and to the finding of the diamonds in the vault box, after which the jewels themselves were introduced in evidence and marked: People's Exhibit "A", while the envelope which had contained them and bore the minister's name and address upon the corner, became People's Exhibit "B."
Each detective and Wyatt was asked to describe minutely the actions of the minister from the time when the personal search ending in the discovery of the safe deposit key was proposed until the time when the diamonds were exposed to view upon the table in the vault room. By this means, Searle got before the Court the demeanor of the minister as indicating a consciousness of guilt.
Relentless in pursuing this line, Searle put on the defendant's own bondsmen, Wilson, Wadham, and Hayes, compelling them to describe, although with evident reluctance, the impetuous outburst against the opening of the box when the bond was being arranged, and the scene in the vault to which they had been witnesses.
Wilson, chafing at the position into which he was forced, was further roused when Searle exclaimed suddenly:
"I will ask you if the defendant, on or about the day that these diamonds were stolen, did not approach you for the urgent loan of a considerable sum of money."
Wilson glared and was silent.
"Did he, or did he not?" persisted Searle sharply.
"He did," snapped Wilson.
"How did he want it, cash or checks?"
"He wanted cash, but I do not see, Mr. Searle—" he began.
"Excuse me, Mr. Wilson, but I think you do see," replied Searle. "Did you give it to him?"
"I did," replied Wilson, "and I would have given him more—"
"I ask that a part of this answer be stricken out, your Honor, as volunteered by the witness, and not in response to the question," demanded Searle brusquely.
"I think we should not let ourselves become too technical," replied the Court, with a chiding glance at Searle, for Mr. Wilson was a person of some importance in the community.
Searle, slightly huffed, again addressed the witness.
"Did the defendant tell you what he wanted this large sum of money for?"
"No. Furthermore—" began the witness.
"That will do! That will do!" exclaimed Searle rising, and motioning with his hand as if to stop the witness's mouth. "That is all," he added quickly. "Cross-examine."
Wilson turned expectantly to Hampstead. He was aching to be permitted to say more, to offer testimony that would break the force of that which he had just given. But the minister, comprehending fully the generous desire of his friend, merely looked him in the eye and shook his head; for this was one of the trails neither he nor any one else must be permitted to pursue.
Having asked this series of questions of Wilson about the money, apparently as an afterthought, which it was not, Searle then recalled Hayes and Wadham, and put the same questions to them. Each made the same attempt to qualify and enlarge, but each was carefully held to a statement which pictured John Hampstead making desperate efforts among his friends to raise quickly what must have been a very large sum of money, for an unexplained purpose.
Searle felt this to be the climax of his case.
"The People rest," he exclaimed with dramatic suddenness, sitting down and inserting a thumb in his arm-hole, while after a defiant glance at the minister, he turned and scanned the spectators outside the rail for signs of approval of the skillful handling of their cause by him, their oath-bound servant.
But the eyes of the spectators were on the defendant, who now stepped to the platform and stood with upraised right hand before the clerk to be sworn. As he composed himself in the witness chair, his manner was cool and even meditative. The central figure in this tense, emotional drama, which had every significance for himself, he seemed scarcely more than aware of his surroundings.
"My name," he began deliberately, "is John Hampstead. I am thirty-one years old, and a minister of the gospel. I reside in the County of Alameda. I am the person named in this complaint. I was at Miss Dounay's supper party, although I did not stay to supper. I was probably in the exact position described by the maid, for I believe her to be truthful. However, I do not remember the incident, beyond the fact that the group gradually withdrew from this room, and I remained there in reflective mood for a short interval. I saw Miss Dounay's diamonds last that evening when she excused herself from the company to change her costume. I saw them next the morning after, upon the desk in my study."
The minister paused. The massed audience leaned forward, intent and breathless. Now his real defense was beginning. His manner, balanced and impersonal, was carrying conviction with it. The man was the defendant—the prisoner at the bar—yet he spoke deliberately, as if not himself but the truth were at issue.
"They were brought there," the witness was saying, "by a man who told me that he had stolen them. He appeared to be excited. Indeed, his condition was pitiable. I advised him to immediately return the diamonds to Miss Dounay, confess his crime to her, and throw himself upon her mercy; but there were circumstances which made it impossible for him to act immediately. That is all."
The minister turned from the Court, whom he had been addressing, and faced Searle, as if awaiting cross-examination. The audience had listened with painful interest to the minister's story. The manner of it had unquestionably carried conviction, but its very unbolstered simplicity had in it something of the shock which provokes doubt. This effect was heightened by its extreme brevity and a suggestion of reticence in the narrative.
"Have you concluded?" asked the Court, reflecting the general surprise.
"I have," replied the minister, with the same quiet voice in which he had given his testimony.
"Begin your cross-examination," instructed Judge Brennan.
"Who is the man who brought these diamonds to you?" asked Searle, hurling the question swiftly.
"I cannot tell you," answered the minister gravely.
"Why can you not tell?" The voice of Searle was harshly insistent. "Don't you know who the man was?"
"I do, most assuredly."
"Why can you not tell it?"
"Because the secret is not mine."
"Not yours?" A sneer appeared on the lips of Searle.
"It came to me by way of the Protestant confessional," explained the minister.
"The Protestant confessional! What do you mean by that?" barked the prosecutor.
"Simply," replied the minister, "that the instinct of confession is very strong in every nature moved to penitence and a hope of reform; so that every minister and priest of whatever faith becomes the repository of a vast number of confessions of fault and failure, some trivial and some grave. I used the term 'Protestant confessional' because the Roman Catholic Church erects the confessional to a place of established and formal importance. In most other communions it is merely incidental to pastoral experience, but none the less it is a factor in all effort at rehabilitation of character."
"And you will not give the name, even to protect yourself?"
"It is not," replied the witness, "a matter in which I feel that I have any choice. The confession was not made to me as an individual, but to me as a minister of God. I will hold that confidence sacred and inviolate at whatever cost until the Day of Judgment."
Dramatically, though unconsciously, the witness lifted his right hand, as though he renewed an oath to God.
For the first time, too, the utterance of the defendant had betrayed personal feeling, and for a moment there was a sheen upon his features, as of a man who had toiled upward through shadows to where the light from above broke radiantly upon his brow.
"And you take advantage of the fact that such a confession as you allege is privileged under the law and need not be testified to by you?"
"As I said before," reiterated the minister, with a calm dignity that refused to be ruffled by the sneer in the cross-examiner's question, "I do not feel that the secret is mine."
The impression that at this point the witness was retiring behind intrenchments that were very strong was no more lost upon Searle than upon the spectators, and he immediately attacked from another quarter.
"We are to understand, then, Doctor, that your guilty demeanor which has been testified to by your friends as well as the officers was entirely because you knew the discovery of the diamonds in your box would lend color to the charge made against you?"
This was another trail that Hampstead must not allow to be pursued.
"You are at liberty to make whatever interpretation of my demeanor you wish, Mr. Searle," he replied, a trifle tartly.
"Yes, Doctor Hampstead; we are agreed upon that," rejoined the prosecutor dryly, at the same time making a gallery play with his eyes. "You say," Searle continued presently, "it was temporarily impossible for the man who brought these diamonds to you to return them to Miss Dounay. Why did you not return them yourself instead of placing them in your vault to await the convenience of the thief?"
The insulting scorn of the latter part of this question was meant to be diverting to the audience as well as highly disconcerting to the witness, but the minister smothered the sneer by replying sincerely and courteously:
"I felt, Mr. Searle, that my problem was to rebuild in the man a sense of responsibility to a trust and the courage to act upon a moral impulse. Wisely, or unwisely, I insisted that the entire procedure of restoration should devolve upon the penitent himself. His first spiritual battle was to nerve himself to face the owner of the diamonds."
"Precisely," observed Mr. Searle smoothly, abandoning the jury rail, against which he had been leaning, to balance himself upon the balls of the feet and rub his palms blandly. "And in the meantime, while this thief was gathering his courage, did your consideration for your friend, Miss Dounay, impel you to notify her that the diamonds were in your custody and would be returned to her very soon?"
"Not alone was I impelled to do that," replied the minister; "but the unfortunate man urged such a step upon me. I declined for the same reason. My entire course of action was dictated by a desire to make this man morally stronger by compelling him to assume and discharge his own responsibilities. I was willing to point out the course; but he must walk the way alone. I will forestall your next question by saying that for the same reason I did not notify the police."
Searle was nettled by the easy compactness with which the minister cemented the walls of his defense more closely by each reply to the questions in cross-examination.
"You are aware, Mr. Hampstead," he thundered with a sudden change of tactics, "that the act which you have just set forth, so far from setting up a defense to this charge, proves you guilty under the law as an accessory after the fact."
"I am not aware of it," replied the minister, with distinct emphasis. "My impression was that the law considers not only an act but the intent of the act. The intent of my act was not to conceal a crime, but to reconstruct the character of a man."
Searle darted a hasty and apprehensive glance at the massed faces behind the rail.
"That is all," he exclaimed dramatically, with a cynical smile and an uptoss of his hands, calculated cleverly to portray his opinion of the utter lack of standing such replies as those of the minister could gain him in a court of justice.
Judge Brennan looked at Hampstead. "Have you anything in rebuttal?" he asked.
"Nothing," replied the minister, arising and stepping down to his chair at the long table, where he remained standing while the attentive expression of Court and spectators indicated appreciation that the climax of the defendant's effort was at hand.
The very bigness of the thing the man was trying to do was in some sense an attest of character, and here and there among the onlookers ran little currents of reviving sympathy for the clergyman, who stood waiting quietly for the moment in which to begin his final effort as an attorney in his own behalf.
Keenly sensitive to the subtlest emotions of the crowd, he understood perfectly well that the effect of his testimony had been at least sufficient to secure a verdict of suspended judgment from the spectators; and he expected far more from the balanced mind of the judge; so that it was with a feeling of renewed confidence, almost an anticipation of triumph, that he prepared to make the final move.
"If the Court please," he began dispassionately, as if pleading for a cause that had no more than an abstract meaning for himself, "I desire to move at this time the dismissal of the complaint, upon the ground that the evidence is insufficient to warrant the holding of the defendant for trial before the Superior Court."
The minister stopped for breath, and there was another of those strange, composite sighs from beyond the rail.
"In support of that motion," and a note of growing significance appeared in the speaker's tone, "I argue nothing, except to ask this Court to accept as true every word of testimony spoken by every witness heard upon the stand this morning."
The Court looked puzzled, but the ministerial defendant went on:
"I believe the truth has been spoken by Miss Dounay—by the maid—by the officers—and by my own friends. Yet the facts testified to may be true,"—the minister's voice rose,—"and the inference to which they point be wickedly and damnably false! It is so with this case; for be it noted that I ask your Honor to consider also that my testimony is true. It denies no statement; it controverts no fact in the case of the prosecution. On the contrary, it confirms them; but it also explains them." Again the defendant's voice was rising. "It confirms the facts, but it utterly refutes the inference that this defendant at the bar is guilty. Consider the entire fabric of evidence as a seamless garment of truth, and you can dismiss the complaint with an untroubled brow. Reason is satisfied! Justice is done!"
Hampstead paused, and a shade of apprehension came to his face, for his eye had traveled for a moment to that massed expectancy without the rail.
"The verdict of your Honor is to me,"—Hampstead in his growing earnestness had abandoned the fictional distinction between the pleader and his client,—"of more than usual importance, for by it hangs the verdict of the people whose interest is attested by those packed benches yonder. Without disrespect to your Honor, I can say that I care more for their verdict than for that of any twelve men in any jury box or any judge upon any bench.
"But under the circumstances the whole people cannot actually judge—they can only be my executioners. They have not heard me speak. They can not look me in the eye, nor observe by my demeanor whether I speak like an honest man or a contemptible fraud. They see me only through a cloud of skillfully engendered suspicion. They hear my voice only faintly amid a clamorous confusion of poisoned tongues. Your Honor must see for them, and speak for them. Your Honor's verdict will be their verdict. I tremble for that verdict. I plead for it!
"I ask your Honor to take account of the difficulty of my position, presuming, as the law instructs the Court to presume, that it is the position of an innocent person. Bound by the most inviolable vow which a man can take, I am unable to offer to you a conclusive defense by presenting the man who committed the crime. He may be in this court room now, cowering with a consciousness of his guilt and in awe at beholding its consequences to the one who has helped him. He may be an officer of this Court; he might be your Honor, sitting upon the bench, which, of course, is unthinkable—yet no more unthinkable to me than that I should be charged with this crime. But though he be here at my very side, I cannot reach out my hand and say: 'That is the man.' I will not touch him nor look at him. Unless he speaks—and I confess that there is an outside reason why I should absolutely forbid him to speak—there is no defense that can be offered, beyond the simple story I have told you.
"May I not, also, without being accused of egotism, remind your Honor that if it is decided that I appear sufficiently guilty to warrant a criminal trial in the Superior Court, my work in this community will be at an end."
The minister was speaking for the first time with a show of deep feeling, and an indulgent sneer appeared upon the lips of Searle. This was not legitimate argument. Yet a mere preacher might not be supposed to know it, and therefore he, Searle, would magnanimously allow the man to talk himself out, if his Honor did not stop him.
But the Court was also complaisant, and the minister went on with passionate earnestness to plead:
"Regardless of the ultimate verdict of a jury, the stigma of a felony trial will be upon me for life. From this very court room I shall be taken to your identification bureau. I shall be weighed, stripped, measured—my thumb prints taken—my features photographed like those of any criminal!"
As Hampstead proceeded, his speech began to be punctuated with spasmodic breaks, as if the prospective humiliation was one at which his sensitive nature revolted violently.
"And those finger prints," he labored—"those measurements—and that photograph—will become a part—of the criminal records—of the State of California—for as long as the paper upon which they are made shall last!"
"No! No!! No!!!" shrilled a hysterical voice that burst out suddenly and ended as abruptly as it began.
Strangely enough it was the complaining witness who had cried out. She had risen and stood with hands outstretched protestingly to the minister, while whispering hoarsely: "It cannot be! It cannot be!"
"Madam!" thundered the minister, viewing the woman sternly, his own emotion of self-sympathy disappearing at this unexpected sign of softness in her, while his eyes blazed indignantly: "That is a police regulation which by long custom has come to have all the force of law. If you doubt it, your accomplice there will so inform you!"
Hampstead, as he uttered the last words, had shifted his blazing glance to Searle, who at first disconcerted and endeavoring to pull Miss Dounay back into her seat, now rose and turned toward the defendant, his own face aflame, and hot words poised upon his tongue.
But Judge Brennan was rapping for silence.
"Compose yourself, madam!" he ordered sternly.
But before the minister's accusing glance, Miss Dounay was already dropping back into her chair, and as if in dismay at her outbreak, buried her face in her hands, while Searle, quivering with fury, snarled out:
"I resent, your Honor, with all my manhood, the epithet which this defendant has gratuitously and insultingly flung at me."
"Be seated, Mr. Searle," commanded the judge. "Doctor Hampstead's position is very distressing. He will withdraw the objectionable epithet."
"I withdraw it," acknowledged the minister, recovering his poise; yet he said it doggedly and uncompromisingly, qualifying his withdrawal with: "But your Honor will take into account that the manner of the representative of the District Attorney has been offensive to me, though some of the time veiled by an exaggerated pretense of courtesy. It has seemed to me the manner of an accomplice of the complaining witness, and I withdraw the statement more out of respect to this Court than out of consideration for him."
Searle glared, but resumed his seat, giving vent to his temper in a violent jerk of his chair as he dropped into it.
"You may conclude your remarks," observed the Court to Hampstead.
"There is nothing to add," replied the minister, after a reflective interval, "except to urge again that your Honor consider the grave consequences of yielding to a one-sided view of the case. I ask only that truth be honored and justice done!"
With this the defendant sat down.
Miss Dounay appeared to have regained her composure, but, white and still, her glance was now fixed as noticeably upon the face of the defendant as before she had markedly avoided it.
With a hitch to his vest and a forward thrust of the chin, Searle rose to attack the plea of the defendant.
"Your Honor may well ask with Pilate: 'What is truth?'" he began, the manner of his speech showing that while his self-control was admirable, his mood was that vindictive one into which many a prosecutor appears to work himself when arising to assail the cause of a defendant.
"However," he prefaced, "I must first apologize to your Honor for the momentary loss of control on the part of the complaining witness. Your Honor will realize that her emotions were wantonly and deliberately played upon by the defendant in a skillful endeavor to create sympathy for himself. The fact that he succeeded so readily is an eloquent bit of testimony to the sympathetic nature of this estimable and brilliant woman, to the ease with which her confidence is gained, and the painful reluctance with which she performs her duty in this sad case: for any way we view it, it is a sad case, your Honor, and no one regrets more than I the harsh words which must be spoken in the course of my own duty to the people of this county.
"However," and Searle paused for a moment as if both gathering breath and steeling himself for the vicious assault he proposed to make: "Addressing myself to the plea of the defendant for a dismissal of this case, I must say flatly that the motion itself, the argument to support it, and the testimony upon which it is based, constitute the most audacious combination of effrontery and offensive egotism to which a court was ever asked to listen. I congratulate your Honor upon the patience and self-control with which you have contained yourself while permitting this defendant to go on from statement to statement, involving himself deeper in this dastardly crime with every word.
"If, your Honor, in all my days at the bar as a prosecutor, I have ever looked into the face of a guilty man, it is the face of this man!—this egotist!—this boastful braggart!—" As Searle hurled each epithet, he worked his passion higher and shook an offensively, impudently accusing finger at the defendant; "this hypocrite!—this paddler of the palms of neurasthenic women!—this associate of criminals!—this shepherd of black sheep, who now sits here with a sneer upon his lips—lips which have just committed the most appalling sacrilege by seeking to cloak the guilt of a dastardly act with the sacred gown of a priest of God!"
As a matter of fact, there was no sneer discernible to any one else upon the lips of the defendant. At first smiling at the mock-fury into which Searle was lashing himself, they had become white and bloodless under the sting of these heaped-up insults. But this last was more than the man could stand in silence.
"Is my position so defenseless, I ask your Honor," Hampstead interrupted, "that I am compelled to endure this?"
The judge bestowed a chiding glance upon the attorney, but replied to the minister:
"A certain liberty is allowed the prosecutor."
"But that liberty should not be a license to defame!" protested the defendant.
"Am I to be permitted to proceed with my argument or not?" bawled Searle in his most bullying manner, while he glared at the audacious minister.
"You may proceed," replied the Court, affecting not to notice the disrespect with which it had been addressed.
Searle continued, lapsing now into an argumentative strain.
"The defendant himself has said that the case against him is without a flaw. He has had the effrontery to urge that your Honor accept the testimony against him as true testimony. He has only argued that if we are to believe the witnesses for the prosecution, we are also to believe him. I say—I affirm with all the force at my command—that we are not to believe him at all!
"I ask your Honor to consider first the motive for his testimony. The man is hopelessly involved. The charge of burglary is a simple one, compared with the broader indictment of moral profligacy which the whole community is at this moment prepared to find against him. Ruin stares him in the face. His pose is shattered. His disguise is penetrated. If he goes from this court room to the identification bureau of which he has spoken in his mawkish plea for sympathy, as I believe he will go, he goes to be catalogued with criminals, and to be damned forever in the esteem of his neighbors.
"To avert that, would not your Honor expect this defendant to be willing to perjure himself without a qualm? Will a man who has lived a lie before a whole community for five years hesitate to add another in an endeavor to avert his impending fate? Will a man who has stolen the jewels of his trusted friend hesitate to swear falsely in denial of such an act? Will a man who has worked upon the sympathy of his friends to secure large sums of money for a purpose so doubtful that it is undisclosed— Will he hesitate to work upon the sympathies here by words and implications, by innuendoes that are as false to religion as to fact?
"Your Honor knows that he would not so hesitate. Your Honor knows, through long familiarity with the law of evidence, that the testimony of a defendant in his own behalf, because of his intense interest in the outcome of his case, is always to be weighed with extreme care.
"I believe under such circumstances not only the motives, the springs of action, but the probable mental processes of the witness are to be taken into account. I ask your Honor what a defendant involved in the mesh of circumstantial evidence here presented would probably do under these circumstances. Your own judgment answers with mine that he would probably lie, and exactly as this defendant has lied!"
Again Searle turned and shook his long arm with insulting undulations in the direction of the defendant, after which he continued:
"Turning from probabilities to experience, I ask your Honor out of his memory of years of service upon the bench, what does the arrested thief—taken like this one, with the loot in his possession—what does he do? Why, he either confesses his crime, or he tells you that he is not the thief but an innocent third party, who unwittingly received the loot from the man of straw, whom his imagination and his necessities have created. That latter alternative is the defense of this alleged minister of the Gospel! He had not the honesty to confess, but tells instead that same old lie which criminals and felons have been telling in that same witness chair since this Court was first established.
"Yet this defendant's story has not even the merit of a pretense to ignorance that the goods he held were stolen goods. He boldly admits that he knew they were stolen; that he was personally acquainted with the owner; that he knew the distress of her mind; knew the police departments of half a dozen cities were searching for the jewels, and that the newspapers were giving the widest publicity to the facts and thus joining in the chase for loot and looter. And yet he calmly permits these diamonds to repose in his vault with never a word or hint to calm the distress of his friend or relieve the peace officers of burdensome labors in which they were engaging and the unnecessary expense which they were thus putting upon the taxpayers who support them!
"Why, your Honor, if the witness's own story is true, he has given this Court an abundant ground for holding him to answer to the Superior Court, not indeed upon the exact charge named in that complaint, but as an accessory after the fact to said charge.
"But it is not true. To use his own phrase, it is wickedly and damnably false! So palpably false that it collapses upon the mere examination of your Honor's mind without argument from me.
"Yet I cannot close without calling attention to the sheer recklessness with which this thief and perjurer has heightened the infamy of his position by an act of brazen sacrilege. He has sought to make plausible his weak, unimaginative lie that he received these goods instead of stealing them, by pretending that he received them in his capacity as a religious confessor, under conditions that bound him to a silence which the voice of God alone could break.
"That, in itself, is a claim that should bring the blush of shame to the cheek and rouse the hot resentment of every honest minister and of every honest priest, and make them join with the outraged feelings of honest laymen and of citizens generally in demanding that justice descend upon this man and strike him from the pedestal of self-righteous egotism upon which he stands.
"Turning again for a moment to the question of probabilities: I ask your Honor if it is probable, even thinkable, that any minister, standing in the position of regard in which this minister stood last Sunday morning before the eyes of his people, would deem a crisis like this insufficient to unseal his lips and absolve him from his confessional vows? His very duty to his God and to his congregation, to the poor dupes of his hypocrisy, to say nothing of his duty to himself, would compel him to go upon the witness stand voluntarily and reveal the name of the alleged thief!
"Such a consideration again forces upon any unbiased mind the conviction that this man is not speaking the truth. View him as a thief, and you suspect that his story is a lie. Try to view him as a minister, acting honestly and in good faith, and you no longer suspect, but you deeply and unalterably know that his story is a lie!"
Searle, now at the height of his self-induced passion, as well as at the climax of his argument, stood bent over, his eyes blazing at the judge, his face red, his neck swollen, his features working in rage, and his voice deepening to a bull-like roar, while with an upper-cut gesture of his clenched fist and right arm, he appeared to lift the words to some mighty height and hurl them like a thunder bolt of doom.
The minister, sitting with every muscle taut, as he strained under the viciousness of this assault, felt just before its climax some insensible cause directing his gaze from the face of his official accuser to that of his real Nemesis, the actress, and was surprised to see her crouching like a tigress for a spring, with eyes fixed upon the prosecutor, and a look of unutterable malice, hate, and loathing in their savage beams.
But with this scene thrown for a moment on the screen of his mind, the suddenly sobering utterance of Searle indicated that he was concluding his argument, and the defendant's eyes returned quickly to the attorney's face.
"For these reasons, your Honor," the man was saying, "so patent and bristling from the testimony that I need not even have spoken of them in order to bring them to your attention, I ask you to find that the offense as charged in the complaint has been committed, and that there is sufficient cause to believe the defendant guilty thereof, and to order that he be held to answer before the Honorable, the Superior Court of the County of Alameda and the State of California."
Searle sat down and wiped his brow,—confident that he had added greatly to his reputation by a masterly argument which had sealed the fate of a man, against whom, despite the minister's suspicions, he really had nothing in the world but that instinct for the chase to which, once a strong nature gives up, it may find itself led on to excesses that are the extreme of injustice.
The audience moved restlessly yet silently, shifting cramped muscles tenderly and rubbing strained eyes; but still alert for the issue of the scene which in one hour and fifty minutes had been played from one climax to another.
"You have the opportunity to reply," said the Court, addressing Hampstead.
"The spirit and the manner of this address is its own reply," answered the defendant quickly, believing hopefully that it was.
But the audience, more discerning than the defendant, issued the last of its long-drawn collective sighs, foreseeing that the drama was now at its inevitable end.
In sharp, machine-like tones, the verdict of Judge Brennan was pronounced:
"Held to answer! Bail doubled! Adjourned!"
The gavel fell sharply, and the eyes of the Court darted a warning glance beyond the rail as if to forestall a possible demonstration of any sort. But there was none. A kind of restraint appeared to hold the court and spectators in thrall. Then the official reporter closed his notebook with an audible whisk; the clerk, gathering his papers, snapped them loudly with rubber bands; and the judge arose and started toward his chambers, while Wyatt moved over and took his place significantly by the side of Hampstead. As if this broke the spell, there was a shuffling of many feet, while the minister was immediately surrounded by his bondsmen and a few friends. The friends pressed his hand and stepped away into the outgoing crowd; but the bondsmen went with him into the judge's chambers, where the new surety was quickly executed. After this, wringing the hand of each of the three men feelingly, Hampstead asked to be excused.
"I have an humiliating experience to undergo," he explained, with a meaningful glance at Detective Larsen who, representing the Bureau of Identification, stood waiting. "I prefer to face that humiliation alone."
"I understand," exclaimed Wilson, his face flushing. "It is a damned outrage! I didn't know such a thing could be done. I thought every man was presumed innocent until proven guilty! Instead of that, they put him in the Rogues' Gallery!"
"You are as innocent as an angel from heaven," averred the white-bearded Wadham extravagantly, as he laid an affectionate hand upon the shoulder of the younger man.
"You are, indeed," echoed Hayes, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I confess again that we doubted for a time, but your character rises triumphant to the test."
The minister was unwilling to trust himself to further speech; for his disappointment with the verdict had been great, and the sympathetic loyalty of these trusted friends made self-control difficult, so with only a nod of comprehension, he turned quickly to where Detective Larsen waited.
It was nearly one hour later when the minister, clothed again, stepped out upon the street. Behind him was his record in the criminal history of the State of California. He had seen his name go into the card index with a wife murderer on one side of him and the author of an unmentionable crime upon the other. With the sickening memory of his loathsome ordeal searing his brain he was only half-conscious of the clatter and bang of the busy city life about him. Mercifully the gaping crowd had dispersed. Hurrying people went this way and that, intent upon their own concerns. But a newsboy, intent, too, on his concerns, thrust the noon edition of The Sentinel before the minister's eyes. Seeking the headline by habit, as the eyes of the victim turn to the torturing irons, he read in letters as black and bold as any he had seen that week, the verdict of Judge Brennan.
"HELD TO ANSWER!"
Instinctively Hampstead paused, like a man in a daze, then passed his hand before his eyes to blot the black letters from his sight. In the identification bureau, the meaning of those three words had just been defined to the most sensitive part of his nature in abhorrent and revolting terms. The sight of that headline to be flaunted on every street corner was like seeing these words, with their loathsome connotation, spread upon a banner that arched over the whole sky of life for him. It overwhelmed him with a sense of the public obloquy to which he was now to be subjected.
On the street car, as he rode homeward, the minister felt the eyes of the people upon him,—curiously he knew, derisively he imagined; yet some were in reality sympathetic. The conductor, as he took the clergyman's nickel, touched his hat respectfully, thus subtly indicating that there was some vestige of religious character still outwardly attaching to his person. And a workman, his tools in his hand and the stain of his craft upon his clothes, leaned over and touched the minister upon the arm.
"My boy was playing the ponies in Beany Webster's place," he said. "You saved him for me. I don't care what else you done; if they ever got me on the jury, there's one would never convict you of anything."
The minister recognized the friendliness of the remark with a cordial smile, and put out his hand to grasp gratefully the soiled one of the toiler. That handclasp was immensely strengthening to him. He felt as if he had taken hold of the great, steadying hand of God.