CHAPTER IX

_The Waiter States His Fourth Case_

At the calm words of the waiter the judge showed symptoms of extreme consternation.

The waiter did not make any attempt, nor give any indication that he was at all anxious, to allay the other's perturbation. He seemed, indeed, to be singularly detached, and it was not until the judge's countenance showed that his disturbance was giving place to resentment that the waiter made a gesture that caused the judge to grit his teeth. The waiter yawned.

"You have made a declaration," began the judge, irritably; but the waiter brought his fist down with a resounding whack on the table.

"I have," he said firmly. "I have made a few declarations since I entered these premises; and this one is no less true than the others. I have said that the real murderer of Goff, the money-lender, is still alive. To go into a minor detail, he is at this moment in prison."

"I thought at first," remarked the judge, as his lip curled, "that you would claim the distinction of having yourself murdered Goff. You have two aliases----"

"Oh, I have more, but they do not affect our present considerations. I am not the man who murdered Goff. I have not murdered anybody yet. So far my attention has been directed to smaller matters in the crime calendar. And I have been studying the law."

"But you have not been observing it in obedience," thrust the judge at him angrily. "I am waiting, however, for you to prove what you have just said. I shall require absolute proof--and even then---- But I am prepared to listen to your explanation."

As a matter of fact, this was just what the judge, at that moment, was least inclined to do. He did not want to believe that the law for which he stood had been guilty of such a frightful mistake as to hang the wrong man. On the other hand, he was aware that such mistakes _were_ made in the past, few in number, of course, but still mistakes that were very regrettable. He had never come up against any mistake of that kind in his career and he could not admit that the law, which he so revered, had overlooked any item, or over-emphasized any point. Did not the foremost counsel argue in his court? Did not he himself explain every point of law to every jury before allowing them to retire to consider the verdict? These thoughts were running through his brain when he became aware that the waiter was speaking.

"I am asking you," the waiter was repeating, "to consider the inmates of Goff's house. There were the usual servants, all of whom we can rule out. There were the guests and there was the manservant, Williams. I should like you to use your powers of deduction in this matter. There were four guests----"

"Hadn't you better prove the innocence of Williams before you attach guilt to anybody else?"

"Very well. Nothing could be simpler. Williams did not shoot Goff. Williams went into the library, not to take the wineglass on the desk and so eliminate evidence that would go against him. He wasn't thinking of the glass. He was trying to find a document that Goff had on his desk. That was a letter which had been sent to Goff informing him of the past convictions which had sent Williams to prison. When he discovered that his employer was dead, Williams returned to the library to get that letter and destroy it. Do not you remember that such a letter was found on the desk?"

"I am not sure."

"Then look up your minutes and see if the letter is mentioned."

The judge obediently turned over the pages of the minute-book, but his mind was not really on the search. He was fuming inwardly. He felt that somehow he had been tricked, that this waiter had led him to commit a blunder.

"Have you found it?" asked the waiter, a little impatiently.

"No."

"Pass the book to me. Perhaps I shall be more successful."

The judge shoved the book along the polished table, frowning and glowering. He positively hated the waiter at that moment.

"Here it is," said the waiter, after a few moments. "Your finger was on the very page, my lord. Fancy not seeing the paragraph! It mentions that this letter was under the loan forms. It was read at the trial of Williams, who admitted its truth. You observe how this letter, which the wretched Williams was trying to hide, actually became part of the police network to send him to destruction. That letter was written by one of the guests, I fancy, but it was signed 'A friend.' Those anonymous friends are the very devils, aren't they?"

The judge did not answer. He was gazing at the table absently, chin in hand, his massive face wrinkled and creased with thought.

"Come, my lord, cannot you deduce which of the four guests killed Goff?"

"No."

"Do try!"

"I do not believe that a guest did."

"Tut, tut! Why be so obdurate when I am offering you proof? Now, do come. It is a good mental exercise. What do you say? Consider the characteristics of them all. You told the story and you knew these men quite well enough to describe them."

The judge raised his head and a look came into his eyes that showed he was taking an interest in the question put to him.

"Was it Brunner?" he asked. "That loud-voice----"

"No, it was not Brunner."

The judge considered for a moment.

"I have it," he said, confidently. "It was Oakland, the man who sneered----"

"It was not Oakland."

"No? Strange. There are only two left. It could not have been the doctor, Finn----"

"Why could it not have been the doctor, Finn?"

"Why, he was a professional man--one who, to use his own words, was discredited--but he was the only man of those four who had command of himself----"

"That is just why it was Finn who killed Goff."

"What!"

"It is disappointing, perhaps, to you, but it is true. Finn, the man who had been a prosperous doctor and surgeon at one time, killed Goff, the money-lender."

"Why did he do so?"

"The reason goes back some years. Finn was a clever enough man, but he was a very reckless man. He drank and gambled more than was good for him. He took life much too irreverently, as some practical scientists are apt to do. He found that practicability rebounded and struck him. He was in a hole for cash. He came to Goff, who loaned him a sum. To pay that back at high interest Finn did things which were very unprofessional. Step by step. Goff sent him women patients. You understand? But the law, when a woman died, laid its hand on Finn. He was sent to prison. That ended his career as a doctor."

The waiter paused, and tapped the table with his forefinger, just as was the judge's habit when emphasizing a point in law.

"The authorities were so keen to prove the guilt that they did not lift their eyes to anyone else, and so they missed seeing Finn. Goff had Finn tied up with loans. He made a slave of him. It became a matter of Finn doing what Goff said. Finn had come down to ask for money. Goff refused. It is easy to follow the mental process of Finn. If Goff was out of the way he might be free to re-establish himself somehow. Remember, Finn cared little for human life. His profession had lowered its value. So he shot Goff. And he took the notes in the safe."

Again the waiter paused, again his forefinger tapped the table.

"Now you are thinking that the notes were found under the carpet in the manservant's room. Finn had them. But Finn was a man with a clear brain. He was impressed with the inspector's insistence that the murderer was sure to leave a clue. If the notes were found on him, supposing the police searched the house, he was lost. He went upstairs ostensibly for cigarettes. It was then he laid the banknotes under the carpet in the manservant's room. Is there any other item you would like to have explained?"

"How do you know all this?" demanded the judge in a suppressed tone.

"Finn told me. He is in prison now. It was in prison I met him. He spent the money recklessly. He became a hanger-on. Then he took again to the business that Goff had taught him. His patients were women. But his professional ability was impaired and he committed another disastrous mistake. He was sent to a convict prison, having been charged with manslaughter and sentenced for that crime."

The waiter leaned forward and whispered the name of a prison.

"You will find Finn there now. He is a desperate man, but he is not a bad prisoner. The other prisoners know that he claims the murder of Goff. He was questioned by the governor, who sent a report to the State Department; and the State Department pigeonholed it, being unable to lift a hand against Finn. Have not you here a case where the law defeated itself? You believers in the judgment of death! Is it not enough to make you grind your teeth in humiliation?"

The judge stroked his chin with deliberation. He felt like grinding his teeth, but not in humiliation; in a temper that was swiftly rising against this man who had teased and taunted him all night! But at the same time the judge was too old a hand to allow his temper to master him. If he was to overcome this tantalizing, jibing individual he could do it only by assuming a pose he was far from feeling. But for the moment he seemed unable to assume any pose. Through his brain there was surging a frantic idea, a bitterness that flared out in his tone as he fired a question at the waiter. His anger overcame his discretion.

"You, of course, knew all this when you suggested the case of Goff to me?"

"Ah, didn't you say that it was more than possible that you would have selected the case apart from my suggestion?"

"But you forced the card on me! You made me take the case, knowing that you had information I had no knowledge of! It was cheating!"

"Steady! Steady! You use a harsh word, my lord. There is nothing to complain of. You, a lawyer, know it is an old trick. Did you ever, in your pleadings before you became a judge, let the other side know what card you had up your sleeve until the moment arrived to present it? Come, come!"

The judge flushed and glowered.

"Besides," went on the waiter, "the information I possessed was available to everybody who cared to find it out. Doubtless the State Department I have mentioned feels a little reticent about the Goff case. To admit a great miscarriage of the law would militate against the security of the public mind. Ah, and to think that convicts in a prison know what the public never guesses! My lord, is not the object of my coming here tonight to let you see the point of view that you and the public seldom perceive? I assure you it is. Alas, for the defense of John Williams, the manservant! It never had a chance against the trained legal minds of state-paid officials who desired a conviction and an execution. Why did Williams not keep on yelling his innocence from the moment he was arrested? I shall tell you. It was because he was already a victim of the law."

"What do you mean?" asked the judge.

"You have told me what I already knew--namely, that Williams had been sent to preventive detention. It was you who sent him. Listen to me."

The waiter rose to his feet and wagged a finger in the judge's face.

"I tell you there is a prison full of men in this country--and there are prisons full of men in other countries--where the fiercest hatred of your law is fostered by the conditions under which these men live. They are, or they hold they are, serving two sentences for one crime. Is that fair? Is it just?"

"I know of no prison of the kind, sir!"

"Yes, you do. And you have sent men there. Two sentences for one crime! When they have served their first sentence they are sent to preventive detention for a period of not less than five, and not more than ten, years. Two sentences for one crime! So many years in a convict prison is a punishment enough for most crimes. To be transferred to another prison for another term is a frightful injustice. Two sentences for one crime, my lord! How would you like to serve them?"

"My dear sir, be calm!" expostulated the judge. "You must be aware that you are referring to habitual criminals----"

"Habitual sentences!"

"These men must have had at least three convictions against them after the age of sixteen years; and they must be shown to be living dishonestly----"

"Stop it! Living dishonestly! What about your business crooks, and fakes, and bluffers, and four-flushers, and company promoters, and gamblers in stocks and lives, and slum owners, and rack-renters, and all the petty and great dishonesties that go on every day, winked at by the law and encouraged by the society you smugly defend?"

"Exaggerations, my dear sir! If the law is broken the legal process may easily be set in motion. The habitual criminals who are sent to preventive detention are recidivists whose cases are considered by--shall I say it humbly?--wise judges, who send them to detention under discretionary powers----"

"Discretionary tommyrot! Two sentences for one crime! Two sentences for one crime! And not always for even one crime! A police interrogation may lead to a charge. Harsh opponents of the police call this a frame-up. How many ordinary people know that if a policeman asks questions they have the right to say, 'I will not answer'? And answers may be misrepresented unwillingly. The judge and jury are prejudiced against a wretch the moment he appears in the dock. The betting is a gold mine to a hayseed against the prisoner! That was why John Williams, who had endured preventive detention, did not open his lips. His prison life had taught him that if he showed resentment, if he protested, if he cried aloud in his agony that he was a victim of a police mistake, he would be put through an examination--which, with exquisite humor, is called 'making a statement'--that would reduce him to pulp mentally and a wreck physically. Oh no, the third degree is not practiced in this country! Not at all! But there is damned little difference between the British legal enticement to 'make a statement' and the French or American third-degree torture! Two sentences for one crime! And so John Williams was silent--the silence of the beaten, hurt, scared animal caught in a net. His solicitor did not believe in John Williams for a moment! He accepted the defense because he wanted to figure in a big murder trial! The swine that lawyers are! And he suggested the defense to Williams, the defense of insanity and innocence all mixed up and so distorted that Williams, led onward by his lawyer, never really had a chance. It was you, my lord, who tried the case. Is it not a fact that the defending counsel frankly admitted that he had advised his client to throw himself on the mercy of the jury when he saw the arguments going against him? Answer me, is not that so?"

"It is. I recollect the speech."

"You recollect the speech! Do you recollect the prisoner? Fighting for his life in the midst of a whirl of legal arguments he did not understand, and procedure he did not follow. So he was hanged. Thus the law murdered him, after it had bullied him and smashed him and cowed him and frightened him. The majesty of the law! The blindness of justice! Supposing I made an additional charge against you, my lord! Supposing I said that I would now try you for the murder of John Williams, what would you say?"

The waiter stopped and his face returned to its normal calm. He had worked himself up into a fever of excitement during his harangue and his voice had been raised almost to a shouting tone. It was evident that he was deeply stirred and in a dangerous state. But his wildness had only the effect of raising the indignation of the judge. The latter perceived that this man was a criminal who was suffering from a distorted sense of values.

"Preventive detention," he said, hotly, "is not what you describe it at all. It is meant for the benefit of the prisoners themselves, to reform them and make them useful members of society. The establishment to which you refer is conducted----"

"Aw, cut it out!" cried the waiter, staring at the judge unflinchingly. "You can't tell anything about preventive detention. I've had some."

"But not enough!" cried the judge, swiftly.

"On the contrary, too much! I came from preventive detention to see you!"

The accent of the retort was so incisive that it penetrated the judge's heart and caused him to draw in his breath.

"My lord," said the waiter after a pause, "I think you are aware that you have lost your case and that I may, with perfect fairness, add another glass to my collection. You do not seem to be very successful tonight in your advocacy of the law."

"I protest that you forced a card in the case of Goff, the money-lender. You had facts--if what you have said is true--which never came before me when I tried the case."

"That is a poor excuse, my lord. All these facts were mentioned during the hearing of the case--all but the facts relating to Finn. The case was built up by the police, and on their evidence you summed up and the jury convicted. You dismissed the evidence of Williams that he came down for a letter as a thin excuse. All of you--police, prosecuting counsel, jury and judge--concentrated on Williams when you might have considered Finn. And besides, can you honestly say that you knew nothing about the confession Finn made after he was sent to prison--it was overheard by a warder and communicated to the governor, and I have told you that a report went to the State Department concerned. You must have known there was such a statement----"

"Men often make statements that are untrue."

"There you go again--always trying to sink items that oppose your judgment! You see how you are prejudiced, perhaps unconsciously. Well, well! I will take the glass without further argument."

And the waiter lifted a glass from beside a sleeping member and placed it beside the others.

"Have you anything to say before judgment is passed on you?" asked the waiter in a hollow voice.

Coming swiftly on the top of what had already been said, the question acted as a sting to the judge's highly strung nerves. He jerked forward and began to speak rapidly in a high falsetto key.

"I have a great deal to say. I oppose your judgment altogether. I have not been given a chance. I have been placed in a false position. I have been forced to plead when my function for years has been to judge, to sum up----"

"But you used to defend or prosecute with brilliance!"

"Years ago. And then one had time to consider one's case before presenting it----"

"You complain of being pressed into a defense without having an opportunity to study your brief?"

"I certainly do."

The waiter considered for a moment, deep in thought. Seeing his apparent reflection on this point, and believing that he had made an impression, the judge went on.

"There is a vast difference between hearing a case and presenting one. In the latter instance one has had time to consider the line of attack or defense, according to law. In the former the duty of a judge is to keep counsel strictly to the law. A judge does not know anything about a case before he hears it. A counsel knows everything. The positions here are all wrong. You have known more about cases than I, and have brought forward evidence of the existence of which I was not aware. How, then, could a defense meet a prosecution on fair and equal grounds? Now, had I been in the position of judge--my usual position--the results would have been very different."

"But you accepted the challenge!"

"Perhaps a little unwisely," murmured the judge.

The waiter glanced at the glasses in front of him.

"I agree," he remarked, drily.

"At the same time," cried the judge, "I repeat that I have not had any opportunity of studying my brief----"

"And you think that if you had been in the position of judge you would have reversed the result?"

"It would have been my natural office to sum up with fairness and clarity so far as the law is concerned----"

"But it is the law that is on trial!"

"Admittedly. But there is a spirit as well as a letter of the law. You must know that the proportion of persons who are actually hanged for murder is small compared with the number charged, and, I may say, proved guilty. Leniency is often exercised----"

"We are not discussing leniency. The issue is simply whether the state has a right to take life. You hold that it has. I hold that it has not. You grumble that you have not had time to study your brief. Why, you have had all your professional life to study it!"

The judge was silent. The waiter looked at the glasses in front of him once more.

He seemed to have forgotten the judge's presence, so deeply was he engrossed in his secret thoughts. A few minutes passed. Suddenly the waiter jumped up and gave an exclamation expressive of futility.

"You lawyers! The audacity of you! And the unreasonableness of you! Your minds are encased in a crust of unhuman, stubborn inflexibility! Stromatic brains! Drive you from one stronghold, you find another round the corner! Destroy your web and, spider-like, you begin to weave again!"

He started to pace up and down the room, muttering to himself.

The judge smiled behind his hand. The man was certainly mad. He had given away to the judge in this outburst the key to his peculiar insanity, the weakness that was also his strength.

He stopped and cast a look of purpose on the judge.

"But I shall break through that crust!" he roared. "I shall drive you out of your fortresses! I shall destroy your webs! I shall compel you to admit defeat!"

He resumed his stride, head bent more than ever, shoulders hunched up.

The judge remained silent. He was sure now that he understood the mania of the waiter. The man was suffering from some real or imaginary grievance that had become an obsession and had developed his argumentation until it was mental disease. To such an unbalanced mind there was no satisfaction unless his opponent admitted defeat. It was victory in debate that he desired more than anything. Only the surrender of an antagonist to his deluded logic would calm him.

The judge watched him with a new interest. Was the man really insane? Would the law accept a plea of insanity when he was in the dock? For in the dock the judge intended him to be. Anyhow, there strode the waiter, a tall man, strongly built, his face wrinkled in perplexity. And around the table sprawled the members of the Clue Club entirely unconscious of the situation. The flask of liquid that was the antidote to their sleep was just beyond the judge's reach. If only he could obtain command of the circumstances! He coughed and raised his voice.

"Why be so troubled?" he said in a tone he strove to make persuasive. "Supposing we adjourn the discussion until after Christmas----"

He was thinking that he would have the man under arrest within twenty-four hours. But that thought was swept from his mind when the waiter turned on him fiercely.

"There will not be any adjournment!"

"But we are both tired!"

"You may be. I am not. I came here to convince you, and I shall convince you! I came here to defeat you, and I shall defeat you! I came here to convict you, and I shall convict you! I came to force your admission of defeat and the justice of your conviction. I shall get this admission!"

There was so much energy in the declaration that the judge saw he was up against a will equal to his own.

"As a counsel," continued the waiter, with emphasis, "you are a failure. You have not won a case tonight. But that is not all I wish. I desire most of all your admission of failure."

The judge bowed understandingly. His diagnosis of this queer temperament was correct!

"Your obstinacy alone remains to be overcome," pursued the other, his brows lowering. "You ought to throw up the sponge, but your mentality is unpliable and is petrified. You raise the excuse that you have not had time to study your brief. More than anything I desire to leave you no excuse, no consolation in your defeat. I am thinking how to proceed."

The judge could not hide a smile that crept round his mouth.

"When I said I had not had time to study my brief," he remarked, "I hinted that as a judge----"

The waiter interrupted him with a shout as if he divined a way.

"As the prosecutor," he cried, "I have the right to make the final speech. That is needless since you have no chance to win in the capacity of counsel. Do I take it you prefer to be regarded as a judge?"

"I have always been perfectly sanguine of my abilities in my judicial capacity."

"You are willing to be judge in a case that has not yet been tried?"

"A hypothetical case would be welcomed."

"Or an actual case?"

"All the better."

"You will judge it according to law, in the spirit as well as in the letter thereof?"

"Without fear or favor, without affection or ill-will, according to the evidence placed before me, as the law does direct, in the faithful discharge of my duty to my sovereign lord, the king, and a true and honest direction to the jury will I give, so help me God!"

"The oath!" cried the waiter.

"Test me!" cried the judge.

The waiter sat down and laid the bludgeon by his right hand.

"I propose," he said, gravely, "to submit to your lordship the basest crime of all."