By this time the court-room was filling up with its usual motley crowd of interested parties and spectators. There were the seekers after freedom, a heterogeneous collection of them, in all sorts and conditions of clothes, of all ages and of all kinds of faces and figures. There were the women from the millionaire colonies of the East, chic, sleek, and composed. They retired into a far corner with their attorneys, conferring in low tones, or else sitting, apparently unperturbed, while waiting for their cases to be called. There were always the adventuress types, chic, too, but made up with an eye to future conquest, their skirts always tighter or wider or shorter or longer than the style decreed, their hair a little more so-so, their lips redder, their cheeks rosier, and their faces whiter than their more conservative sisters of a narrower way. There were tired women from far states not allowing divorces for cruelty or desertion. They sat, in nondescript clothes, most of them, with eyes heavy-lidded, as if they were too weary to care much what happened to them. There were gay young creatures, dancers and small-time vaudeville actresses, who refused to take life seriously and who availed themselves of a dull season to make themselves free for another venture. There was a sprinkling of men, one of them a lumber magnate from an Eastern state, another a noted cabaret entertainer. They sat around, restlessly out of place, but at the same time taking an interest in those about them.
Supplementing these were the spectators. Among them were tourists who came to Reno for the express purpose of attending the divorce trials. Inquisitive folk, regular residents of the town, dropped in to pass an hour's time and to gather gossip for the afternoon tea-table. Club-women, anxious to find food for reform, took up their seats close to the railing, determined that no word of the testimony or proceedings should escape them. And there were the usual hangers-on, old men and women with nothing to do, who found entertainment in listening to the human dramas unfolded from the witness-stand.
Raymond Thomas, before taking his seat at the lawyers' table, took a comprehensive view of his audience. Lifting the skirt of his frock-coat, he sat down, viewing the world and himself complacently. He heard the court-room door swing to, and, looking up, he saw the sheriff coming toward him with Mrs. Margaret Davis by his side.
Mrs. Davis's six months' residence in Nevada had been established and she had come over from Calivada, where she had become quite one of the Jones family, to get her decree. She had expected to meet Mrs. Jones at the Riverside Hotel, but she had been late and had hurried over, her effort flushing her cheeks even beyond the heavy coat of peach-bloom with which she hid the natural roses of her cheeks. She had been scurrying like a chicken around the corridors when she had caught sight of Sheriff Blodgett and importuned him to see her safely to a seat in the court-room.
As soon as she saw Thomas she dismissed the sheriff summarily, while Thomas arose and went forward, opening the swinging gates that admitted the lawyers and witnesses behind the railing. Their greeting was effusive, and Thomas held Mrs. Davis's hand for a moment. She blushed vigorously and simpered:
"Oh, Mr. Thomas, my case comes up to-day, and I'm just worried sick about it. Do you think I could see Lem—" she stopped, hung her head, and looked coquettishly up at Thomas as she bit her lip, correcting herself, "I mean Judge Townsend?"
Thomas looked around to see if any one were listening. "I'm afraid you can't see him just now," he replied, leading her to a chair just under the judge's desk, which was set upon a high platform. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked, in his smooth, bland voice.
"I don't know." Mrs. Davis whined and twisted in her chair. "My lawyer's sick. I telephoned his doctor, who was just as mean as could be and said he couldn't come to court to-day. If I could only tell the judge—" She gave Thomas a look laden with understanding.
"There shouldn't be any trouble about that," laughed Thomas, dropping easily into the chair beside her. "You can explain the circumstances to the judge when your case is called, and—"
"But I don't want it postponed! A court-room scares me just half to death. I'll die if I have to put it off and go through screwing up my courage again. I just will!" She nodded her head emphatically until the bright blue plumes that fell from the back of her enormous picture-hat threatened Thomas's eyes.
He moved away from them, offering, after a moment's thought: "Well, I'll be very glad to represent you if you care to have me. There's nothing to your case, anyhow. The judge is a friend of yours, isn't he?"
Mrs. Davis hesitated and rolled her baby-blue eyes at him from under her heavily beaded lashes as she giggled. "Oh yes—he's a friend," and then, thinking better of her confidence, she ended, with a sigh, "that is, I know him—slightly."
Thomas smiled to himself, reassuring her. "Then don't give it a thought. Just leave everything to me."
A grateful hand was laid upon his arm and she looked up at him with fervid admiration. "You are so smart and so kind, Mr. Thomas. You've taken such a load off my mind. If anything went wrong after waiting all these months I'd just die—that's all there is about it."
At this moment the door of the judge's chambers opened and Lemuel Townsend appeared, clad in a Prince Albert suit and beaming on Mrs. Davis, who arose and walked well into the middle of the floor so that she should not escape his immediate attention.
This was a moment of great satisfaction for Thomas, who looked about the court-room, scrutinizing every man in it, his face brightening as he saw that John Marvin had not put in an appearance. When the sheriff had finished opening court he arose from his place at the lawyers' table, for he knew that the case of the railroad against John Marvin was the first upon the day's calendar. He pulled his revers together with a pompous gesture and opened his mouth to speak. Before he could do so Judge Townsend called to the clerk, whose desk was at one side of the bench, and suggested in low tones:
"I think this first case can go over—"
Thomas caught the words and disappointment drove the self-satisfaction from his face. He ventured to address the court: "If it please your Honor, this is an action for the wrongful taking of timber, and I've come a long way and I would like to get home—"
Townsend had not been listening to a word, his attention being concentrated on the tip of an upstanding feather on Mrs. Davis's hat, which could barely be seen over the top of his desk. "Eh? What's that?" he asked, sharply, not too pleased to be interrupted in his endeavor to catch further sight of Mrs. Davis.
Marvin not having put in an appearance, Thomas's hopes of winning the case for the railroad by default were high. He did not think Marvin would appear, but every delay might be fatal and it took an effort on his part to appear unperturbed. However, he managed to answer in urbane tones, "I was saying, your Honor, that—"
"Oh yes." Townsend bent his head and looked down with severe eyes over the top of his glasses. "Just a moment, please," he added, as Thomas would have finished his plea. Turning to the clerk, he ordered, "Let me see the list."
The list was handed to him and he ran down it, finally remarking to the clerk, "I think I will dispose of these short cases first." Half rising in his chair, he looked over the top of his desk to where Mrs. Davis was twisting and turning in her chair in an effort to get a look at him.
"Mrs. Davis," he called in gentle tones, "are you ready?"
She hurriedly precipitated herself into the middle of the space in front of the platform. "Why, yes," she answered, looking about as if she did not know where to turn and gathering her sealskin cape about her.
"I'll take your case at two o'clock," the judge said to Thomas, who shrugged his shoulders, but did not sit down as Townsend had expected him to do.
As the clerk called the case, "DavisversusDavis," Thomas moved close to the bench, exclaiming, "If it please your Honor—"
He was interrupted by a glower from Townsend, who said, "This case is DavisversusDavis, Mr. Thomas," his eyes wrinkling into a broad smile as he again turned his attention to Mrs. Davis, who stood, bewildered, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"I am quite aware that it is the Davis case, your Honor," Thomas answered, not without a note of triumph in his voice and demeanor. "I am the attorney for Mrs. Davis."
Thomas's announcement shocked Townsend into dropping a document he held in his hand. It fell on the desk and was blown by the strong east wind that came in from the window clear across the room. "Youare?" he asked, with a mouth fallen half open from surprise and annoyance, his spectacles tilting to the end of his nose.
Thomas did not answer at once, but flushed, turning, for the sake of a few moments in which to think, toward the clerk, who was scrambling after the paper. His glance on its way back to the judge met that of Blodgett, which had both a warning and an "I-told-you-so" quality in it.
"Well?" The judge's question was drawn into a length which further embarrassed Thomas. Being a young man of poise, however, he straightened the revers of his coat and settled them with a shake upon his shoulder, replying, graciously, "Mrs. Davis has appointed me in the place of Mr. Adams."
Townsend continued to stare most ungraciously at the young man in front of him, but Thomas, unabashed, went on: "Your Honor, I believe, is familiar with the complaint and has gone over the depositions submitted by the plaintiff. As the defendant has neither entered a denial, put in an appearance, nor been represented in court, I move that the plaintiff be granted an absolute separation from the defendant."
Swift shafts of indignation bolted from Townsend's eyes back and forth between Thomas and Margaret Davis. He saw that consternation was plainly written on the latter's baby face and that tears were gathering in her big blue eyes now pleadingly uplifted to his. His jaw relaxed and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. But Thomas' complacency at the softening in the judge's attitude was too much, and Townsend snapped out, "The motion is denied."
From her chair directly in front of the judge's desk Margaret Davis immediately jumped up, her eyes opening into large, round, moist orbs which threatened to grow moister as she asked, in a voice that fear had robbed of its ingenuousness, "Does that mean I can't get a divorce?"
Thomas was about to reassure her, when he was again interrupted by the judge, whose voice flattened as he looked away from her, afraid to trust the melting effect of her coy glances. "It means that the motion of your counsel is unusual and that I have good and sufficient reasons for denying it," he said, with emphasis.
Margaret put her handkerchief to her eyes to stem the threatening tide, while Thomas hastened to forestall the avalanche by informing her, as he placed a comforting hand on her arm, that he would be able, at least, to try the case.
Had Lem Townsend been able to prevent the latter, he would have done so, but he was too young as a jurist to allow criticism of his knowledge of points of law, and he reluctantly gave consent to the trial of the case.
It was with a beating heart and a jaw set against the impending quiver of a not too slender frame that she held up her hand for the oath and took her place upon the stand, looking about with a terror that was new born in eyes heretofore ungiven to everything but treacle. Her lips trembled an almost inaudible reply to the clerk's question.
She was still standing, and Thomas, noticing this, motioned her to be seated, beginning at the same time her examination.
"Mrs. Davis, where do you live?" he asked. His own tones were of no certain quality, for the firm pressure of Townsend's white lips and his obvious intention of steering clear of any attempt at honeyed coercion on Margaret Davis's part were not encouraging.
In vain she cast her eyes about in an effort to inveigle the sympathy of Lem Townsend. He stared straight ahead at the paper in front of him, although he saw not a word. Her answer to Thomas's question came with a gasp. "New York." Then realizing that her case was lost and her entire six months' sojourn at Calivada was as nothing unless she immediately corrected her mistake, she gasped a second time as she drew the folds of her blue-velvet cape about her. "Oh no! I don't mean that at all. I live here—I live here in Nevada and I've lived here long enough to get a divorce. The judge—" and here she stopped for breath, making another attempt to corral his stubborn favor—"his Honor—" she jerked, with a quick breath, "can tell—you that."
But the judge did not smile and his eyes remained rigid in their sockets as they glared at the paper in his hand.
"Just answer the questions, please, Mrs. Davis," Thomas cautioned her pleasantly, although as a witness she was disconcerting.
"Well," she drawled, fidgeting in her chair, "that's not easy when you're sworn to tell the truth."
A titter ran through the court-room and was brought to an abrupt end by the sheriff's gavel.
Thomas resumed his examination. "You are the wife of Gerald Davis, are you not?"
She nodded.
"And when and where were you married to him?"
"Seven years ago, October fifth—in Peoria." She glanced about at the sea of smiling faces, again seeking sympathy from the judge.
Again he was adamant.
"You were living in Peoria?"
The insinuation that anything less than a metropolis should be her abiding-place was more than she could bear and in turbulent leaps, broken by her gasps for breath, she blurted, her lips quivering and her eyes filling with tears: "I should—say—not! My husband and I were playing there. We were partners doing a dancing act—"
Thomas tried to interrupt her and succeeded with half a question. "When did your husband first show signs of not loving you and—"
He got no farther, for she went on, determined to get over the disagreeable business of being truthful. "He stopped loving me about a year before we were married."
This time a storm of laughter surged through the court-room and it took several taps of Blodgett's gavel to regain quiet. Undaunted, she finished her story. "It's really hard to explain why we were married. You see"—she hesitated and resumed jerkily—"we were in Peoria—and we were partners—and—and—it rained all week—Well, somehow it seemed a good idea at the time."
At this point it became necessary for Townsend, in order to maintain the dignity of the bench, to caution the spectators that if there were any more such outbursts of joy he would have the court-room cleared.
Thomas still maintained his control, although cold perspiration was wilting his highly polished collar. "But after you were married he was cruel to you, was he not?" he asked.
"I should say he was!" The answer was accompanied by an emphatic nod of the head and again she flew onward, over his head, determined that she should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
"Why," she opened her left hand and enumerated the said Gerald Davis's shortcomings by pressing its fingers with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, "he put his name on the bill in larger type than mine. He tried to strike me once—but he was a poor judge of distance. And—and—" she stopped. This time her appeal was directed to Thomas.
"He deserted you, did he not?" Thomas eagerly took up the thread, hoping to unravel the snarl she had worked with it.
"Well, we parted—"
"After he deserted you?"
Before Mrs. Davis could answer the last question, Townsend straightened the spectacles on his nose and entered the case. Slowly welling within him was a jealousy now overwhelming. His political ambitions alone had stood in the way of his descending from the bench and throwing Thomas out of the court-room. It was only by remaining silent that he had curbed his temper. Now it broke away from him, and he turned, thundering, "So far, Mr. Thomas, the witness has not testified that her husband deserted her!"
"Oh—" Margaret Davis turned squarely in her chair, pursing her carmine lips into an irresistible moue. "Of course he deserted me! We were playing in Chicago, and I went West and he stayed there and—"
"That looks to me, madam, as if you deserted him. So far, your testimony has not brought out anything to substantiate your complaint."
Tears unrestrained burst forth at this moment. The thought that not only had she lost all chance of securing her freedom, but that Lemuel Townsend, whose attentions had helped to while away a six months which would otherwise have been dull to one accustomed to a barrage of suitors at the stage door, was more than she could bear. Pointing to Thomas, she sobbed into a purple silk handkerchief that smelled not faintly of patchouli. "That's because he told me to do nothing but answer his questions, and then he asked me all the wrong things—" Her emotion, out of bounds, spent itself in a cataract of tears. Unable to go on, she sat there, trying to stem the tears with a handkerchief inadequate for their volume.
Thomas tried to save his case. "Your Honor—I—"
He hesitated, Margaret Davis coming to his rescue. "Oh, I don't mean to blame you," she said to him, addressing the last of her remark to the judge. "He doesn't know anything about my case!"
What Lemuel Townsend would have liked to do at that moment was to have taken her in his arms and reassure her, as old fools are apt to do with naïve young creatures. But her apparent friendliness with Thomas and her deceitfulness in employing him for her attorney was more than he could condone. He would not relax his stern exterior, although his interior was softening. "Then, why," he asked, in measured tones, "is he appearing for you if he does not understand your case?"
Recognizing the opportunity for explanation, Margaret wiped her eyes, sniffed, and, went on: "My lawyer's sick, you see. And I wanted to tell you all about it, but Mr. Thomas explained that I couldn't see you. And he said he'd do everything for me, and you'd give me a divorce without any trouble at all."
Thomas whitened and turned to the table, where he fingered his brief-case nervously. He could not brave the glare which he knew Townsend was directing at him, nor the tirade he feared would follow.
"When did he tell you all that?" the judge asked, his nostrils quivering with rage, his voice strained to a tenor.
"Just now." Margaret grew happily voluble and she nodded her head back and forth like a child of six as she ogled the judge. "When I came into court he was here and I told him the trouble I was in. It's the only time I've seen him since you asked me not to."
Townsend was so relieved that he did not hear the last of her remark and the noisy delight of the spectators also escaped him. He was bent upon one purpose, that of chastising Thomas. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" he asked Margaret, in tender tones, forgetting, in his ardor, that there was such a thing as a court-room. He leaned far over the desk and beamed upon her. "There, there, don't let it upset you." He offered her a glass of water.
As she took it, Thomas stepped up to the bench again and tried to palliate the judge's wounded sensibilities. "If your Honor please, I was simply acting from a friendly standpoint and I thought—"
"No matter what your motives were, sir, you presumed when you told the plaintiff what the court's rulings would be." He turned abruptly from Thomas and leaned graciously toward the plaintiff. "Now, Mrs. Davis," he resumed, "let me question you. Why did you leave your husband in Chicago?"
Reassured, Margaret bridled coyly and answered, lifting her lids to the judge: "Because he didn't show up for a performance and I had to go on alone—and afterward the manager told him the act was better without him. And he sulked and stayed away from the theater all the rest of the week and on our next jump he refused to go with me." Her last words dwindled into a plaintive whine.
"And you were obliged to go without him?" Lem Townsend subtly gave a slight nod of his head which Margaret caught and interpreted into a vigorous acquiescence with her own curly blond head.
"Did you try to have him go with you?" Again the hint and again Margaret scored her point.
"Of course I did!" she responded. "I mean, yes—your Honor. But he said he'd show me how long I could go it on my own; but I showedhim, for I've never seen him since. I only heard from him once and that was when I sent him money."
"Have you tried to see him?" Lem Townsend asked the last question grudgingly, but he felt that his own honor in the case was in danger of impeachment, and he was sure that his slight nod would be followed as it had before. He was right.
"Of course I did. Mr. Blackmore—he was our manager—gave me his sworn statement."
Townsend for the first time really saw the paper in front of him. He read it carefully, answering in tones of quick delight. "Yes, here it is and a deposition dated Chicago stating that Davis left you without warning and refused to dance with you again."
"Yes, your Honor," she cooed.
There was silence while Townsend scrutinized the papers in front of him. Margaret sat with her eyes anxiously fastened on him. With a nod of satisfaction he shoved the papers aside and, smiling down at her, announced in kindly tones, "Your decree is granted."
"Your Honor!" She arose from her chair and sat down in it again, a copious flow of tears making it impossible for her to leave the stand.
Townsend reached for the glass of water and held it toward her once again. "Please, please, Mrs. Davis," he endeavored to calm her, but his compassion only served to bring on another storm. "I'msoemotional," she sobbed, "I can't stop it!"
Townsend looked about helplessly. A sudden awakening to his own prerogative solved the dilemma. "Mr. Sheriff, announce a recess," he ordered. And leaving the bench, he went to Mrs. Davis and guided her into his chambers.
The crowd filed out of the court-room, while Thomas, weak with shame and disappointment, took his seat at the table again, impatiently toying with a paper-knife that had fallen from his pin-seal brief-case.
Blodgett went to him and leaned over with the intention of reassuring him, when there was a disturbance at the window which opened from a balcony a few feet above the street. Both of the men turned just in time to see John Marvin climb through the window and pull his suit-case in after him.
The sheriff stepped forward, hesitating as he realized his powers were negative in a court-room.
"Here, what you doing?" the clerk called out, getting up from his desk.
The sheriff glared and handled the manacles in his pocket with an intemperate disgust.
Marvin looked at him and laughed, answering the clerk. "I've got business in this court. I'm John Marvin and I'm appearing in the case the Pacific Railroad has brought against me." He did not deign to glance at Thomas, who had arisen, facing him, white from the blow to his hope of obtaining a judgment by default.
Marvin went calmly to the other end of the attorneys' table and opened up his shabby brown-canvas brief-case. He whistled to himself softly as he did so and glanced at Thomas, whose pallid mouth was drawn into a dogged sneer.
Blodgett went back to his seat just within the swinging gates that gave entrance behind the railing and sat glaring at Marvin. Quiet reigned in the court; then a faint shuffle of feet was heard beyond the door.
As Blodgett looked around, the door of the court-room opened gently and Bill Jones, clad in a Civil War veteran's uniform, faded from the sun, its brass buttons tarnished, and wearing his soldier's black soft hat with its gold cord cocked jauntily over one eye, sauntered down the aisle, holding out his hand to Marvin, who had jumped from his seat and bounded around the table to greet him.
"Hello, John!" Lightnin' drawled, grinning. "How's tricks? You look kinder legal this morning?"
As Bill made his way through the swinging gates, Blodgett put out a detaining arm, asking, with a scowl, "Here, what doyouwant?"
"Been arrestin' any one in California lately?" Bill slid past Blodgett, ignoring his attempt to stop him, the old twinkle in his eye as he touched what he knew to be the sheriff's sensitive spot.
"Well, Lightnin'," Marvin exclaimed, "how did you get here and what in the world have you come for?"
"Yer case ain't over yet, is it?"
Marvin shook his head, repeating his first question.
Bill did not reply at once. Not wanting Marvin to know that he and Zeb had been nearly two weeks getting there, and that they had come in much the same way they had gone, riding when they could get a lift on a train or a wagon, walking when they could not, he pretended to forget the young man's questions, asking one himself instead, "What time your case comin' up?"
"Two o'clock."
The sheriff sauntered up to them. Bill knew the purpose of his approach was to catch the drift of their conversation, so he turned abruptly, his hands in his back pockets, and grinned at Blodgett. Nodding toward Marvin, he drawled, "I'm a witness for him. I got to testify how you served a warrant on him."
The sheriff glared and slouched over to his chair, throwing himself into it as he pulled his black sombrero down over his eyes.
Marvin, his arm about Bill's shoulders, leaned over him, guiding him gently to the attorneys' table. "Well, Lightnin'," he questioned, in an indulgent voice, "how did you happen to show up here?"
"I promised you, didn't I?"
"But that was a long time ago. I supposed you'd forgotten all about it."
Bill glanced quickly at him and smiled. "I ain't never forgotten nothin' since I was four years old."
Marvin, happy to see the old Lightnin' behind the boast, smiled, asking him, "How did you know the trial was to-day?"
"That's easy," Bill replied, as he sat against the edge of the table, steadying himself with his hands. "I seen it in a Reno paper at the Home."
"But I told you the time I came to see you that you needn't bother about coming. I wouldn't have had you come all this long way for the world if I had known it." There was concern in Marvin's voice as he slowly dropped into a chair in front of Bill.
"That's why I didn't say nothin'."
"Where did the money come from?"
"I saved my pension." Bill glanced slyly at him. Catching his questioning eye, he stopped and looked through the window into the distance.
"You told me you sent your pension money to your wife!"
"I did—some of it. I sent mother six dollars, but I didn't get no answer." The laughter went from Bill and he leaned over, looking toward the far hills, strange, unreal purple against the clear, cold blue of the April sky.
Marvin watched him, asking, "Did you tell her you were in the Soldiers' Home?"
"No." Bill's voice was devoid of inflection.
"Then she probably didn't know where you were."
"Where else could I be?" His lips were puckered into a whistle, although they were quivering and no tune came. It was always this way when he thought of mother, so he straightened himself and stood by Marvin's chair, forcing a smile to his lips and jerking out, "And six dollars is six dollars."
The court-room was filling again, five minutes having elapsed since recess was declared. A side door opened and Townsend came into court. Blodgett stood up, pounded the desk with his gavel and announced the opening of the session. Bill and Marvin, rising to order, started and looked at each other as Thomas entered the room just behind the judge. Following him was Everett Hammond, who, when he saw Bill and Marvin together at the attorneys' table, began vigorous and anxious whispering in Thomas's ear as he took his place next to him on the other side of the table.
Margaret Davis entered from the judge's chambers. She was accompanied by Mrs. Jones and Millie.
Bill did not see them. His eyes were fastened on Hammond and Thomas in close conference.
But suddenly, as he turned to take in the rest of the people in the room, his eyes alighted on his wife. He arose and wandered toward her, exclaiming, as she came to meet him, "Why, mother, what are you doing here?" He stared at her and held out his hand.
Mrs. Jones was so surprised to see him that she could not speak and stood still, her hands in the air half-way between her waist and shoulder.
Millie was the first to answer him. "Oh, daddy—" She was going to put her arms around him, when Blodgett rapped upon the table for order.
Tears sprang to Mrs. Jones's eyes and Margaret Davis arose and led her to a chair next to hers and just at the foot of the platform, from which Townsend smiled happily upon them.
"Come along, Mr. Clerk!" There was cheer in Townsend's voice as he directed another saccharine shaft toward Margaret. "I've got an important engagement and I want to get through. Call the next case."
Bill, his eyes still on his wife, walked slowly to the table and sat down just behind Marvin.
"JonesversusJones," read the clerk, standing at one side of the platform and unfolding the document he held in his hand.
Bill did not hear him. He was gazing at Mrs. Jones, an old tenderness in his eyes, a bitter longing in his heart. Drifting, living only for the hour, as was his nature, but one scar had remained unobliterated upon his memory, one hope alone flickered in the lonely sanctuary of a soul that had known no conflicts. His affection for his wife had been something deeper than emotion, something lighter than passion. It had been the lasting quantity in a life of fleeting concepts, and his six months at the Home had subdued it into a dull ache which found relief only when a faint optimism brought vague dreams of a remote reunion.
Her presence in court puzzled him. He felt that it must have something to do with the sale of the place, or, perhaps, with Marvin's case. And yet he was sure she knew nothing of the transaction between Mrs. Marvin and Thomas, or between Rodney Harper and Marvin. Whatever it was, it had brought a ray of expectancy to Bill, and he jumped as he was brought out of his reverie by Marvin's perplexed whisper: "JonesversusJones. By Jove, Lightnin', I believe that's you!"
"Me?" Bill glanced around as if he were half awake and leaned far forward in his chair, putting his hand to his ear and straining to catch every word as the clerk read the complaint:
"To the people of the State of Nevada, Mary Jones, PlaintiffversusWilliam Jones, Defendant. A civil action wherein the said plaintiff deposes and says she was lawfully married to the said defendant on the 14th day of June, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, in the state of Nevada. The said plaintiff prays this court for a permanent annulment of her marriage vows, the defendant, William Jones, having disregarded and broken all obligations of the marriage contract, thereby causing the plaintiff great suffering and mental agony and the said Mary Jones claims a final separation and divorce from the said William Jones on the grounds of failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty. Subscribed and sworn to me on the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen. Alexander Bradshaw, Notary: Raymond Thomas, Attorney for the plaintiff."
When the clerk had finished Bill sent a beseeching glance toward his wife. Each word of the document had entered far into a mind little given to taking account. One by one he had tolled off the record against him, placing the accusations in two files—the true and the false. That his wife had cause for anger against him he now, for the first time, fully realized. But he was bewildered, and when Bill was bewildered it was his habit to seek enlightenment.
After a moment, in which Mrs. Jones darted swift glances from beneath a brow bowed with regret, he turned to Marvin, who had arisen and was standing back of his chair, bending over him, and asked, simply, "Is that all about me?"
Blodgett tapped his sheriff's gavel.
Townsend caught Bill's question and asked, "What did you say?"
Marvin, knowing that Bill was inadequate to the test placed upon him, came quickly to the rescue. Standing in front of the judge, he explained: "Your Honor, Mr. Jones is the unconscious defendant in this case. It just happened that he came to court to-day to be a witness in another case. He has had no previous knowledge of this action."
Before he could go farther Raymond Thomas, upon whom the entire situation was reacting in swift, powerful threats to his cause, arose, his face drawn with the agony of frustration, his voice high pitched from the effort to subdue the feelings fast getting beyond his control. "The defendant's whereabouts were unknown to us, your Honor, and the court allowed us to serve notice by publication."
"Publication in what?" Marvin demanded, as he darted contempt at Thomas.
Townsend answered him. "Proper service was given, if the defendant could not be located." To Bill he addressed the next question, "Is that what you asked about?"
Still confused, and not yet quite getting the trend of the whole matter, he asked, in his quiet, disinterested way, "Who, me?"
"Yes," replied the judge. "You made some remark after the complaint was read."
"I wasn't sure I'd got it straight," Bill said, looking ahead of him, mouth half open.
"You mean the grounds on which the action is based?" the judge persisted.
There was a pause, in which Bill looked first at Thomas, whose lids drooped under the old man's scrutiny, and then at his wife, who hung her head. "I guess so," he jerked, drumming his fingers softly on the table.
Townsend ordered the clerk to repeat that part of the complaint wherein the grounds for the suit were mentioned. The clerk repeated, "Failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty."
Bill listened attentively. As the clerk sat down, Bill looked up at the judge, asking, "Is that all?"
"Don't you think it's enough?" There was admonition in his manner, but there was a certain gentleness in his voice and a smile of sympathy lurked at the corners of his mouth. It was difficult for Lemuel Townsend, who knew the lovable side of the careless old man, but he was determined to maintain the dignity and the integrity of the law, and he knew that he must remain unbiased, no matter how strong his feeling was that here there had been sad tampering with truth and the finer essences of happiness.
His severity did not touch Bill. His sense of humor, always close to the surface, asserted itself. A gleam that was half derision, half amusement, lighted his eyes as he grinned up at the judge. "Sounded as if there was more the first time."
Marvin again stood before the judge. He knew that Bill had no one to defend him and he had not felt the necessity of offering himself. He just took it for granted that Bill would turn to him in the dilemma and so he took the case in his hands. "I am counsel for the defendant, your Honor," he said, "and he is entering a general denial."
"Are you counsel for the defense?" Townsend's astonishment was evident in his long-drawn inflection. He had not heard of Marvin's admission to the bar. Neither had he seen the young man about lately, and the whole situation puzzled him.
Before Marvin could answer him, Bill was out of his seat, replying for him, "Yes, sir, he is my lawyer."
It was not the judge's way to admit himself baffled. Turning to Thomas, he instructed him to call his witnesses.
Marvin took a seat in front of Bill at the attorneys' table, while Bill on the edge of his chair leaned forward expectantly, his eyes fastened not on Thomas, but upon his wife, who sat with her head bowed and her eyes staring into her lap.
Thomas beckoned to Mrs. Jones, calling her name.
As she arose, Hammond, who sat next to Thomas on the other side of the table from Marvin and Bill, and who had appeared indifferent and bored so far in the proceedings, jumped to his feet, dismay written on every feature, and hastened to whisper in his partner's ear: "Are you crazy? The most dangerous thing you can do, now that old Jones is in court, is to call her to the stand."
Thomas in his vaunted shrewdness had overlooked this possibility, but now that Hammond mentioned it to him he saw what disastrous complications Mrs. Jones's presence on the witness-stand might lead to. Nodding in answer to Hammond's counsel, he again turned to Mrs. Jones, saying, "I don't think it will be necessary for you to testify at all, Mrs. Jones." As she sat down, he smiled at Millie, addressing her, "Miss Buckley, will you take the stand, please?"
Millie had not expected to be called, and as she arose at his summons her face flushed with embarrassment. She stood still momentarily and her eyes met Marvin's for the first time since he had appeared in court. With an angry flash they quickly sought the witness-chair, and, although trembling at the ordeal before her, she made an effort to trip lightly to the stand. As she took her place and was sworn in by the clerk her replies were scarcely audible. Casting frightened glances up through her long lashes at Thomas, she was reassured by a smile. After the preliminary examination as to her adoption by Bill and Mrs. Jones and her residence with them since she was three years old, he began upon the intimate questions which he hoped would weave a web of incriminating evidence against Bill, evidence which would redound to his justification in the part he had played in bringing about the divorce.
"Miss Buckley," he asked, pulling nervously at his cuffs and bringing them down two or three inches below his sleeves, "Mrs. Jones has toiled early and late to provide for the family ever since you can remember, has she not?"
Millie nodded, gazing anxiously at Bill, who, far forward on his chair, was drinking in every word she said. There was a pitiful accusation behind the sadness in the eyes with which he returned her gaze.
As Thomas continued she, like her mother, concentrated her attention on her hands folded tight in her lap.
"Why did you leave home three years ago, Miss Buckley?"
"To earn my living, of course," was the reply, in low, reluctant tones.
"What did you do with your wages?"
Millie hesitated. After taking out barely enough to live on in meager fashion she had sent most of the remainder home, not because either Mrs. Jones or Bill had asked for help, but because she knew how difficult was their living during the long winter months when their only source of income was Bill's pension and the few mountain people who dropped in when passing back and forth and remain overnight and for a meal or so. Had she known that she was to be called as a witness she might even have refused to accompany Mrs. Jones to court, for Bill's derelictions could never outweigh the knowledge that it was he who had saved her from an orphanage. She swallowed the lump in her throat, but even this did not keep back her tears at the thought that her answer might be the betrayal of the old man who had been a father to her through all the years.
Thomas saw her disinclination and understood the condition of mind which prompted it. He knew he must call his persuasive powers to his aid, so he went very close to the witness-stand, and, leaning over her, spoke in his softest tones.
"I am sorry to have to ask these questions, Miss Buckley, because I know how you dread to testify in this case, but it is unavoidable. Will you answer my question? You sent the greater part of your wages home, did you not?" He spoke as if he, too, were distressed.
Millie, falling into the trap, sighed, "Yes, sir."
"And you really left home to earn money in order to help support the Jones family, didn't you?"
Again, overcome by the complications of the situation in which she found herself, she was unable to answer except with a reluctant nod.
"Did you ever see Mrs. Jones's husband drunk?"
As Thomas asked this question he looked toward Bill. Millie did not answer. The tears gathered in her eyes and she wiped them away, burying her face in the handkerchief she held in one of her hands.
Thomas insisted. "You have seen him in that condition hundreds of times, have you not?"
There was a malicious note in his voice this time, as well as in the look he directed at the old man at the table.
Millie caught it, and a slight antagonism crept into her voice as she straightened in her chair, answering, in surprise, "Why, I never counted."
Thomas was deriving a long-desired satisfaction in his prodding of Bill, and it threatened his shrewder self-control. "But he was in the habit of coming home drunk, wasn't he?" There was real glee in the question, but it escaped Millie this time. With a beseeching glance at Thomas, and one which pleaded for forgiveness toward Bill, she said, slowly, "Sometimes."
"And because of the poverty brought about by those bad habits you were obliged to leave—"
Here Millie broke in. Forgetting her embarrassment and the crowded court-room in the realization that words were being put into her mouth, words which fell far short of the truth, she burst out, indignantly: "Why, I never said any such thing! I went away to work because there was no opportunity in Calivada to earn any money, and I thought as long as I was going at all I might just as well go to San Francisco where I could make a salary large enough to take care of myself and to help Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who have been very good to me."
Thomas saw that he had overstepped himself and he groped in his mind for new questions, until a scowl from Hammond reminded him that it might be better to stop rather than to bring out evidence which might turn against them and in favor of Bill. So he dismissed Millie from the stand.
She stood up while Thomas took his place next to Hammond at the table. But Marvin, after a few whispered words with Bill, took Thomas's place by the witness-chair, holding up a detaining hand and calling, "Miss Buckley!"
Millie glared at him, blushed deeply, and walked off the stand. She had not been able to forgive him for his advice to Bill and still held him responsible for Bill's leaving home, as she had felt that if Bill had not been prejudiced against Thomas and Hammond the place would have been sold and they would have all been living together in comfort.
But she did not get very far. As she left the platform Townsend motioned her to return and, submerging his personal friendship for her beneath his judicial duties he exclaimed, severely:
"One moment, Miss Buckley. The counsel for the defense has asked you a question."
Millie turned her back on Marvin as she dropped into the chair again. A smile played on Marvin's lips, but it was a rueful one. To come thus face to face with her in a situation where he was compelled to be her antagonist in order to see that justice was done to his old friend was not a happy ordeal for him.
Townsend knew what was going on between the young people and he felt keenly for them, but it was a part of him to hold to his duty always and not to his own personal biases. His severity did not relax even when Millie pouted: "I don't want to answerhisquestions! Must I?"
The people in the court-room, interested and amused at the unusual dénouement, went into a peal of laughter which received swift check from the sheriff's gavel. She flushed violently and obeyed Judge Townsend's admonishment that she must answer all of Marvin's questions.
Marvin's first inquiry did not tend to make things any easier for her.
"Who employed you as a stenographer?" he asked. His back was turned to Thomas, but he could feel the latter shifting in his chair.
Finding no mercy in Townsend's manner, she succumbed to the inevitable, snapping, with a toss of her head, "Mr. Thomas!"
"ThisMr. Thomas?" Marvin asked.
"Yes," said Millie. There had been nothing in her heart but deepest misery and shame at having to testify against Bill during her examination by Thomas. Now she was fired by a resentment against Marvin, Bill being forced out of the equation. Her answers came in a swift defiance that bespoke a determination to make it as difficult for him as possible. Marvin, seeing at once that she and Mrs. Jones were still plastic in the hands of Thomas and Hammond, was tempted into battle.
"Did Mr. Thomas," he asked, "give you this position because you told him you wanted to be of financial assistance to the Jones family?"
Millie opened her mouth to reply, but Thomas was on his feet at once, objecting to the question.
Facing the judge, Marvin ignored Thomas, saying, "I am quite willing to withdraw it if it is found objectionable, your Honor."
Thomas stepped quickly to Marvin's side. He was a few inches the taller and he glared down at Marvin, who stared back, his jaw set in the resolution to stand firm against the man he knew to be a fraud.
That he was standing on thin ice Thomas knew, and he knew also that bluff was the only feasible strategy to employ against the unforeseen crisis wrought by Bill's sudden and unexpected arrival. "Don't flatter yourself that I mind any question you might ask," he emphasized, "only this one has no bearing on the case."
At this, Townsend sustained the objection. Marvin, resorting to a legal trick, changed the form of the question, for he was bound to prove his point. "Well, Miss Buckley," he asked, "Mr. Thomas has taken an interest in your affairs and given you advice?"
The insinuation was more than Millie could bear calmly. She turned quickly, meeting his eyes in anger as she flashed a significant smile toward Thomas.
"Mr. Thomas has been more than kind to me always. He has given me advice when I had no one else to turn to."
"And you have always followed his advice?"
Following his key, Millie replied, "Always, implicitly, in spite of whatothers—" and she paused long enough to send a pointed shaft Marvin's way—"have said against him."
Marvin grinned and continued, "Miss Buckley, you have never known Mr. Jones to be cruel or even unkind to his wife, have you?"
An objection from Thomas was overruled, the judge contending that cruelty was one of the grounds in the complaint. As he had forgotten how the question read, he asked the stenographer to repeat it. Millie answered in the negative and Marvin prodded her further, "You have never seen him unkind to any one or anything, have you?"
Gentleness had always been such an ever-present quality in Bill's treatment of Millie that she forgot her anger for the moment and hastened to reply, as she smiled sweetly at Bill, "Daddy has always been most kind to me and every one else."
This was an opportunity to lead her into an admission which might immediately quash all of the grounds of the complaint. Marvin saw it at once and took advantage of it. "Now, Miss Buckley," he argued, "the complaint asks for a divorce on the grounds of drunkenness, failure to provide and cruelty. In all honesty you know that not one of these is the real reason that Mrs. Jones has asked for a divorce, don't you?"
Unused to the ways of the law and its peculiar methods of arriving at conclusions, Millie was perplexed. The only excuse in her mind for the divorce had been that it would bring about the sale of the property and that Mrs. Jones would thereby have sufficient money with which to find Bill, which would mean happiness for the three of them. Had Thomas not intervened with an objection which the judge sustained, she would have given her answer, but as it was she remained silent.
Marvin, determined to prove Bill Jones's simple sweetness, so that he would at least be understood by the world, went to his purpose again.
"Miss Buckley, you know that Mr. Jones loved his wife, loved her devotedly, don't you?" he asked.
Townsend beamed in judicial humor upon Marvin and laughed. "How can she know that? That's not an astute question for a lawyer to ask, and I don't sanction such methods."
The question, however, had brought back a certain softness in Millie's attitude. Forgetting for the moment her dislike of Marvin, she smiled, but to regret it and to efface the smile with a frown.
His examination of Millie had been difficult for Marvin. Into his mind had crowded old memories—happy walks along the cliff in San Francisco, afternoons in Golden Gate Park, and days in the office when he had dared to hope that some day she might learn to care. His heart leaped at the thought of moonlight strolls in the mountain woods and along the shores of the lake. Those were days when she had interested herself in his plans and it all came back to him with desperate force as her unintentional smile awakened a poignant longing within him. A whirlwind of reminiscent emotion caught him in its teeth.
"If it please your Honor," he said, his eyes shining, "there is one thing that a woman does know, and that is whether a man loves her or not! She may believe a man to be a contemptible liar. She may say that she will hate and despise him always, but somehow down in her heart, if he really loves her, she knows it!"
Forgetting that there was such a place as a court-room, or that he was defending a divorce suit against Bill Jones, all he saw was the scorn in the eyes of the girl he loved. All he felt was that he was fighting single-handed against overwhelming odds for his own happiness. He leaned close to the witness-chair and looked into the girl's eyes, and she, seeing in his eyes the thing that she had tried to forget through all the long and sorrowful months, turned away from him, lest she should betray the longing that lurked in her own heart. But Marvin's fervid plea flamed higher and higher and he went on:
"If a woman is a man's ideal—if he would gladly lay down his life for her—she knows it and no matter what she says about him or what anybody else says about him the knowledge that he cares more for her than for anything else in the entire universe must count for something, and I contend, your Honor—"
He got no farther. The whole court-room was in roars of laughter and the sheriff's gavel was knocking loudly on his table. Millie, unable to bear the situation any longer, was sobbing aloud. Townsend arose quickly and, leaning over his desk, shook a warning finger at Marvin.
"Hold on there!" he called, half in humor and half in anger. "Are you trying a divorce case or are you making love?"
The laughter in the court-room began again, but subsided, for there was something in the situation that struck deep into the hearts of the spectators and they knew that, grotesque as it might appear, shattered romance was stalking before them.
Marvin, himself once again, lowered his voice and pleaded, apologetically: "I beg your pardon, your Honor. I did not mean to go so far." Smiling sadly at Millie, he added, "That is all, Miss Buckley."
"I should say it is quite enough!" satirized the judge. "I think we had better get back to business."
Without looking at Marvin, Millie left the stand and took her seat beside her mother. Thomas called Everett Hammond as the next witness.
Hammond, although outwardly nonchalant, was inwardly ill at ease. Marvin's appearance in court followed so closely by Bill's arrival was a contact that puzzled him. Millie's hesitancy as a witness was another feature which he felt was not altogether in favor of the cause of the Golden Gate Land Company. During her testimony he had kept close watch of her mother, who several times wept audibly, burying her face in her handkerchief. He knew that he and Thomas were playing a close game and that the slightest contradiction in his testimony might set Mrs. Jones to thinking in the wrong direction; especially with Bill Jones in the court-room, his eyes divided between the witness-stand and his wife. He assumed an air of bravado as he took the stand, glaring down at Marvin, who was seated not far from him and who was smiling blandly upon him.
Preliminaries over, Thomas launched into Hammond's direct examination. "How long have you known Mr. and Mrs. Jones?" he asked.
"I met them first," Hammond answered, pausing to think, "about seven months ago."
"Kindly tell the court how you happened to meet them."
Hammond, looking at the judge, answered: "I was asked to consider the purchase of a piece of property belonging to Mrs. Jones. I had some other business near by and stopped off at the Joneses' place."
"What was the other business?" was Thomas's next question. He glanced at Marvin, who met his look with straightforward, unswerving eyes, which turned Thomas's attention to his witness.
"The Pacific Railroad," said Hammond, scowling at Marvin, "was being robbed of timber in that locality and they sent me with the sheriff," he nodded toward Blodgett, who flushed at the memory of that embarrassing incident, "to arrest the thief."
"Who was the thief?" There was triumph in Thomas's voice as he asked the question.
"His name is John Marvin."
"Since that time, you have had dealings with Mrs. Jones, have you not?"
"I have, and I have always found her to be an honest and splendid woman." Hammond smiled over at her.
"And Mr. Jones was a source of trouble and great embarrassment to her, wasn't he?"
This time Hammond made Bill the goal of his insulting focus. "Yes, sir, he was! He was shiftless and drinking, cruel and untruthful." With a malicious sneer he added, "Why, to my knowledge, he's the biggest liar in the county!"
All this time, without a word, Bill had been sitting on the edge of his chair, accepting the testimony against him in the same indifferent manner in which he met most of life's difficulties. Hammond's last remark proved to be the first telling blow at his equanimity. It was too much! This Hammond person had called him, Bill Jones, a liar! In Lightnin's code, shrunken and old though he was, there could be but one answer. Calmly and quietly Bill stood up and began to draw his faded blue coat from his bent old shoulders.
Every eye in the court-room was on Bill. There was even a cheer, which the judge, half out of his chair, failed to reprove. Townsend knew that Bill was sore tried and had been brought to the point where his temper was not an impulse, but a last resort. His personal sympathies were with Lightnin's fistic intent. However, the order of his court must be observed and he signed to Blodgett, who raised his gavel. Before it was necessary to bring it down upon the table Marvin was quickly on his feet. He put a restraining hand on Bill's arm and with the other hand drew the coat back into its place on the bent shoulders.
In amused contempt, Thomas continued his examination.
"Did you ever see Mr. Jones drunk?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, I never saw him any other way." Hammond laughed lightly.
"And you saw him abuse his wife?"
"Yes, sir."
"You heard him tell lies?"
"I did indeed. Why, he broke the law by harboring a fugitive from justice in his house."
Thomas, having brought skilfully to the attention of the court the numerous charges that he hoped would result in securing Mrs. Jones a divorce, dismissed Hammond from the stand.
His experience as a witness had not been a joyous one to Hammond, and he prepared to take quick action on his dismissal, but Marvin had other intentions.
Standing between Hammond and his way of escape, Marvin exclaimed: "I am not through with the witness, Mr. Thomas! I also have some questions to ask him." With a scowl Hammond threw himself back into the chair.
"You say, Mr. Hammond, that you had business dealings with Mrs. Jones? Do you mind telling the court what that business was?"
"Not at all," said Hammond, defiantly. "I purchased three hundred and twenty-nine acres of land, including buildings, from Mrs. Jones for some clients of mine."
"Why didn't you consult Mr. Jones?" asked Marvin.
"Because Mrs. Jones was the sole owner," sneered Hammond.
Marvin looked him in the eye and said, slowly:
"You had seen the records?"
Hammond grunted in acquiescence and Marvin went on, each question bringing his victim nearer to an outburst of temper, which he hoped would lead to the self-contradictions he was sparring for.
"Now you testified that you first met Mr. and Mrs. Jones about seven months ago. Do you remember the exact date?"
"No, I don't recall the exact date. Perhaps you can," he emphasized, with a contemptuous twist of his black mustache. "It was the day I brought the sheriff there with a warrant for your arrest."
Marvin, undaunted by this attempt to slander him, took occasion to give a thrust at Blodgett, who had been glaring at him all through the case. "Possibly the sheriff will remember the date," he said, with a smile, while Blodgett squirmed in his chair. "And you also met Mr. Thomas on that same day, did you not?"
Hammond made no reply. It was his desire to make the court think that he and Thomas had never known each other previous to this transaction. He directed an imploring and searching squint toward Thomas. Receiving no help and seeing trouble in the gray pallor that had spread over Thomas's face, he floundered on, "Yes, I think that was the day I met Raymond Thomas—and Miss Buckley was there, too."
"Are you sure you had never met Miss Buckley or Mr. Thomas before? In his office in San Francisco, for instance?"
Hammond hesitated. He had been in Thomas's office several times while Millie was employed there, and, though he had not met her, it was more than likely that she had seen him. The moment was dangerous.
"No, I don't think I had ever met them before," he said, slowly.
"All right," said Marvin, nodding his head complacently and going closer to the witness-stand.
"Mr. Hammond," he went on, "you have told the court that Mr. Jones was a lawbreaker."
Hammond fairly jumped to this question. "Yes," he flared. "You were a fugitive from justice and Jones was harboring you in his house."
Marvin smiled. "Didn't you just testify that Mrs. Jones was the sole owner of that house? That being so, how could Mr. Jones harbor a fugitive in his house, if he didn't own a house?"
Caught in his own net, Hammond twisted angrily in his chair, reddening as the spectators laughed and the sheriff pounded for order.
"Well, I don't suppose he could," he blurted.
"Then you will withdraw the statement that he broke the law?"
"Yes, I withdraw it," Hammond drawled.
Bill got up smiling from his chair and went over to Marvin, patting him proudly on the shoulder; but a look from the judge and a snarl from Blodgett sent him back again.
Marvin continued. "Now, up to the time you met Mr. Jones you did not know anything about him, did you?"
Hammond shrugged, drawing his mouth into an angry curve. "Of course not, but it didn't take me long to find out about him."
Marvin gave the arm of the witness-chair two angry thumps. "I agree with you there, Mr. Hammond," he said. "Eight hours after you first saw Mr. Jones he was driven from his house and you have never set eyes on him since. Yet you have testified that he is a drunkard, a loafer, a liar, and a lawbreaker!"
Hammond, startled at the swiftness with which Marvin had turned his testimony to profit, shrugged himself into a straight position. "Well, it didn't take me one hour to see what Jones was," he said.
Marvin nodded with half-closed eyes at Hammond and smiled reassuringly at Bill. "You also said he was cruel to his wife?"
Hammond nodded.
"In what way?"
Hammond hesitated, moving uneasily from side to side. "Well," he snarled, "his manner was insulting. He criticized the dress she was wearing before the other guests."
This amused the court-room, which in turn had to be quieted. "And do you think the claim of intolerable cruelty is substantiated by a husband's criticizing his wife's dress?" asked Marvin, smiling.
Thomas arose at once. "I object to that question," he said, his lips twitching and his face livid from disappointment and fear of what was coming next.
"I should think you would!" Marvin said, laughing.
The objection sustained, he went at his witness again. "You testified that Mr. Jones was a drunkard and that you had never seen him sober?"
"I never have," emphasized Hammond, insolently.
Going to the table, Marvin took Bill by the arm, assisted him to his feet and guided him into the middle of the court-room until he stood before the witness-stand. Then he asked of Hammond, motioning with his head toward Bill, "Is he drunk now?"
Bill stood quietly, a quizzical smile half closing his eyes, half opening his mouth.
Hammond, infuriated, swallowed in order to control himself, and then blurted with a disgusted shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know."
Having fulfilled Marvin's intention, Bill took his seat again and the cross-examination was resumed.
"If you don't know whether he is drunk or not now, how did you know the other time when you saw him?"
Hammond gazed fiercely into space, replying, finally, "Oh, it was plain enough then!"
Seeing that Hammond was ruffled and that he was also confused, Marvin felt that the time was now right to bring forth by a few swift, well-put questions the full purpose of Hammond and Thomas in bringing about the divorce between Bill and Mrs. Jones.
"It was not possible for you to get a good title to the property unless Mr. Jones signed the deed?" he asked.
At once Thomas was on his feet, objecting.
On Marvin's explanation that the complaint charged intoxication and that his question had a direct bearing on that point, the judge overruled the objection and Thomas took his seat again.
Not discerning the trap that Marvin had set for him, Hammond turned to the judge and said, in more even tones: "I don't mind answering in the least. The property belonged entirely to Mrs. Jones, but the husband's signature was wanted on the deed."
"And he refused to sign it?" Marvin's question came back.
"Yes," Hammond sneered, "after you told him not to."
Marvin once more challenged Hammond's soul with the searchlight of his own straightforward eye. "Was he drunk then?" he asked.
Hammond paused, then shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I think he was."
"I am not asking you what you think," Marvin remarked. "You said under oath that you never saw him sober. Was he drunk when he refused to sign that deed?"
"Yes, he was!" Hammond reiterated, quickly.
"And you tried to induce him to sign such an important document as that when he was drunk?" Marvin asked the question in a slow, concise tone and looked up at the judge to gather the impression made by Hammond's evident duplicity.
The deep water into which Hammond had walked was making itself felt and he tried to wade toward shore.
"I never tried to get him to sign! He didn't sign it!" he snapped.
"No, he wasn't drunk enough for that! He wasn't drunk at all. He was as sober as he is at this moment!"
"You mean to call me a liar?" Hammond, his red neck swelling over the top of his collar, and his small, close-together black eyes flashing angrily, got up and made a threatening move toward his questioner.
Marvin, although much smaller, did not flinch. "No, I mean toproveit," he answered.
Judge Townsend made a quieting gesture to Hammond, who sat down in the witness-chair again as Marvin went on with his rapid-fire.
"Now you called Mr. Jones a liar, didn't you?"
"Yes," was Hammond's gruff reply. "And everybody who knows him says the same thing!"
"Oh," said Marvin, with a shake of his head. "So you testified that he was a liar because you heard others say so?"
"No," jerked Hammond, "he lied to me."
"What did he tell you that was untrue?"
"Everything," said Hammond.
"Can you repeat one lie that Mr. Jones told you?"
"Oh, he told me so many," was the impatient reply, "I can't recall them. Oh yes," after a pause, "he said he drove a swarm of bees across the plains in the dead of winter."
Bill, who was facing him, and who had not taken his eyes from him, burst into a loud laugh, the whole court-room, even to the judge, following suit, while Marvin raised his voice above the uproar to ask, "Now, how do you know that is a lie?"
"Why, I know the thing is impossible!" Hammond said, contemptuously.
"Why?"
"It's all nonsense," sneered Hammond, with an angry gesture.
"That is precisely what it is, Mr. Hammond, and that is just what Mr. Jones meant it to be! What else did he say?"
"What's the difference?" asked Hammond. "You admit it's all nonsense."
"Not all, Mr. Hammond." Marvin raised his voice and he looked searchingly at the judge. "He said at least one thing that was not nonsense. He said to his wife, 'Mother, these two men are trying to rob you.' Do you remember that, Mr. Hammond? You were all there. Do you remember that he said you and Mr. Thomas were trying to rob Mrs. Jones?"
In order to make his question more impressive, Marvin nodded at Hammond and pointed to Mr. Thomas, and then directed a glance toward Mrs. Jones. Her hands were still folded in her lap and her head bent toward them.
Everett Hammond, his face purple with rage, shouted at Marvin, "I don't propose to sit here and be insulted by a criminal like you!"
Thomas, too, had risen and come forward. Standing on the other side of Marvin and looking down upon him, he exclaimed, with quivering, blue lips: "This is insufferable, your Honor! This gentleman has come here to give disinterested testimony, as a favor, and he is subjected to the insults—"
Judge Townsend interrupted him calmly: "I think the defense has brought out quite clearly that this witness's testimony is not disinterested. This divorce has got to be obtained to give him a deed to the Jones property, hasn't it?"
Thomas grew conciliatory, endeavoring to impress upon the judge that the property sale had nothing to do, at all, with the testimony of Hammond.
"Well, I wouldn't call him exactly disinterested," responded Townsend, with a wise glance.
"Nevertheless, your Honor, I protest against this man's insulting manner," Thomas shouted. "How it is possible for such a person, a person who even now ought to be serving a jail sentence, to be admitted to the bar, I can't see!" He backed to his chair and sat down, taking up a book and slamming it back on the table.
Until now Marvin had been complete master of the situation, but Thomas's last words drove the blood from his face and he grew troubled as he looked up at the judge and then away and out through the window into space. There had been something on his mind, but he had been able to keep it in the background because of Bill's predicament. And now it came to the surface again.