Читать книгу The Man with the Wooden Spectacles - Harry Stephen Keeler - Страница 7

CHAPTER IV

Mr. Silas Moffit Drives a Bargain!

“Well, Judge,” Silas Moffit said, after an embarrassing pause, “Mr. Vann as much as told me that this trial will just be a formality at best—that it’s cut and dried as to its verdict—the fellow being hawgtied, so to speak, at every angle. So hopelessly—as I could see right then—that—as I gathered even then—Mr. Vann considered the fellow a fool not to have confessed—and taken a life sentence, which would automatically bring him parole in 33 years, Now, however, so even Mr. Vann implied—the fellow’s in for the chair, and—but again forgive me, Judge, since all this suggests a decision on your part that hasn’t yet been rendered. And nobody in all Chicago but knows that you make your own decisions—and always have. And that they’re not only 100 per cent just, but 101 per cent so!—and 101 per cent legal to boot!” Silas Moffit saw that stern face relaxing a bit. And hurried on. “Anyway, Judge, to get back to the point between us, the moment Mr. Vann told me of this case, it occurred to me: why—here is exactly the kind of case where my niece ought to get her courtroom baptism.”

“Your niece? Who is your niece?”

“Elsa Colby is her name, Judge. She’s a graduate in law—Northwestern U—just finished early last month because of having a final course to take in the summer school. She specialized in criminal law—but has never had a case.”

“Elsa Colby, eh? Yes—I think I remember that name—on the last docket of the young lawyers newly admitted to the Bar. Well—but specializing—so early in the game?

That’s rank foolhardyism, isn’t it? It seems to me that—but what does the girl do all day? Twiddle her thumbs—in her office?”

“Mighty near, Judge. She keeps busy—embroidering a quilt laid out on a rack covering nearly one wall of her office. Which is in the old Ulysses S. Grant Building.

Though I doubt if she’s got enough money to buy the colored silks to complete the—the northwest corner of the fool quilt. But anyway, Judge, my favor is this: I would like you to appoint Elsa to defend this fellow—this fellow—whom Mr. Vann nabbed; and, Judge, if you’ll do that, I’ll renew the mortgage on this place. And for 5 years, Judge. Which length of time will surely bring your improvement through. That, Judge, is how much I think of Elsa—and how much I want to see her get her baptismal fire, so to speak.”

“Hm? Well how old is she?”

“24, Judge.”

“24, eh? Well—is she a good bright girl?”

“Well—she won a Phi Beta Kappa key—it’s something you get in college only when—”

“Yes, I know,” nodded Penworth. “That means she stood over go in all her studies—bar none!”

“Then, Judge, would you be willing—to give Elsa the appointment—as defender of this fellow?”

Judge Penworth laughed a bit mirthlessly. Yet appeared to be tremendously relieved. “Good God, Moffit, considering that that’s all you ask—and that it has nothing whatsoever to do with my own rulings and decisions on this fellow tonight—and that I haven’t been able to find a single mortgage company in all Chicago that will look at a renewal here—I’m willing to appoint the devil himself! Particularly since—if you’d gone to Mike Shurely first—he’d have doubtlessly begged me, as a personal favor to him, to appoint her. Yes—sure—I’ll appoint her. I’m waiting a telephonic call-back now from a lawyer whom I had in mind to appoint—but, when he calls, I’ll just say that what I had to say to him was off. Yes. Now what’s this girl’s phone number?”

“It’s Dearborn 8722,” said Silas Moffit, with great haste.

“And she’s always there. If by any chance she weren’t, however—well, you have my number, of course—and, at a word from you, I’ll round up her whereabouts for you.”

“All—right! Dearborn—yes. 8722.” The Judge was enter­ing this data in a tiny notebook which, with fitted pencil, he apparently kept under his pillow. “And the name—Elsa Colby? Yes.” He closed his notebook. “Consider her, then, Mr. Moffit, appointed. Absolutely! And I feel quite free at appointing her, moreover, for the case really does appear to be but an academic formality. For the fellow is—at least from present considerations—mad to go to trial. But that, of course, is his funeral!”

“Yes,” assented Silas Moffit. “And doubtlessly, his funeral, in this instance, literally as well as figuratively.” He tapped his toe uneasily. “Er—Judge?”

“Yes? What?”

“I feel now that I should warn you that poor Elsa—when you tell her you’ve appointed her—will fight like a little wildcat—do everything to get out of it—try—”

“Fight—me?” said the Judge aghast. “Fight—me?” he repeated, and with a trace of irritation in his voice. “Why—that’s no way for a youngster to do—just starting out in law. She—she should be glad—to be appointed—to get the lucrative $100 fee alone. She should be glad, moreover, that the office of Public Defender is now abolished here in Chicago—and that some of the Public Defender’s former at salary is now divided up amongst less fortunate criminal lawyers. She should be glad—”

“Yes, Judge—but she won’t be! She’ll beg, plead, threaten —try everything on God’s green earth—to make you let her out. And I want to ask you, therefore, if—for her own sake—you’ll tell her frankly that if she refuses to take the case, you will—under the new statutes that permit you to do so—write her disbarment.”

Bewilderment and displeasure both, plainly, lay on the Judge’s face. But it appeared to be the former that got the upper hand. “But—but why,” he asked, “will she—will she fight me?”

“Why? Because she’s afraid—to take her first case. Afraid, lest she do some injustice to her client, and—”

But the Judge laughed quietly. “My goodness! A deaf-and-dumb lawyer couldn’t hurt this fellow’s chances! At least—from what you just read me, and from what Mr. Vann told me. But if she’s like you say, Mr. Moffit, she’ll probably blow up in court, and—”

“Blow—up—in—court? Don’t you believe it, Judge. It’s just pre-performance stage-fright. I saw her twice—in amateur theatricals—darn near collapse before going on the stage; but when she did go on, she—she was the hit of the show.”

“Well, that merely demonstrates what I’ve always maintained: The Baptismal Fire—in every field—is its own excuse.”

“So I think. But now Judge—if she balks—in fact, when she balks!—will you threaten her with disbarment?”

“Threaten her—with disbarment? I—I will disbar her!”

The Judge was becoming downright angry, as the hypothetical picture, plainly, grew more objective in his mind.

“I—I will disbar her. Not only under my absolute rights as Chief Commissioner of the Ethical Practices Subdivision—but also under the new statutes which allow any judge who has been on the bench as long as I have to do exactly that. And just as I would disbar any lawyer who refused to take a kind court’s benevolent appointment. Yes—I’ll give her a 3-month’s disbarment as her very first, and most valuable, lesson in criminal law. I’ll—” He broke off, his wrath—of choleric nature—obviously fading a bit. “But oh, Moffit, the girl will take the case all right—and be glad to.”

But to this Silas Moffit made no reply. Except to rub his hands together with satisfaction. Then, pulling out a great turnip of a gold watch, he rose hastily. “I’m so glad, Judge. And relieved. I love that girl—my half-brother’s only daughter, you know—and I realize that she must make that plunge sooner or later. Now—with this as a start—everything will be under way for her legal career. I look to see her make good very quickly then—yes.”

“Well, her chance has arrived,” said the Judge meaningfully. “She’s appointed. The minute you leave.”

“And one more thing—and I will.” The Judge was attentive. “May I also have the favor granted which all along was one you thought I wanted? In short, Judge, may I come to this trial tonight?”

“Well, now, Moffit, since you read me off those facts, involving so many persons, I can see plainly that—huge as my drawing room is, downstairs—there’ll be witnesses a-plenty, of necessity, packed in it tonight; and inasmuch as now I’ve consented—”

“Well, it was just,” interrupted Silas Moffit, “that I would love to see dear Elsa get her baptismal fire, I have no interest in the case itself, rest assured. Only in Elsa. And then, too, it occurred to me at the same time what a nice gesture it would be if, when her name is announced by your clerk in the improvised courtroom as official defender—and she arises to acknowledge herself as defense counsel—I could pass up to you that 5-year renewal on that mortgage. And—”

“I quite understand,” said Penworth, hastily. “Yes—quite. Well, you may attend, Moffit. In fact—you may be John Q. Public himself! Yes. For the public, in general, will not be in attendance at this trial. The Press, yes—but the public, no. But you shall be the official Public! And the hour, let me say, is 8 p.m. sharp. And I’ll see that your name is put down on whatever list of permitable entrants Mr. Mullins receives from Mr. Vann—for Mr. Mullins, before taking up his official position tonight as my court clerk and bailiff combined, will attend to the admitting of all the proper entrants and their disposition in the courtroom. As for Mr. Vann, I’m sure he will later authorize my having put your name down.”

“I’m quite sure he will,” declared Silas Moffit quietly.

And even meaningfully. “And now—I’ll be going.”

And standing not on the order of so doing, Silas Moffit bowed himself to the doorway—only to be called back by Penworth.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Mr. Moffit?”

Silas Moffit surveyed his person all over, from head to foot. And then a startled look of utter unbelief came over his face: the look of a man who simply can’t believe he has been solicited for a bribe, but who yet has heard—with his very own ears!—no less than—

“We-ell no, Judge,” he stammered. “I’m not. That is—”

“Well, how about your bumbershoot yonder?” And a dry amused smile hovered over the jurist’s lips.

“Good God—yes—of course!” And Silas Moffit hastily retrieved it. “I think I leave my confounded umbrella someplace at least once a day. For—but now, Judge, I note you smiling!—and of course now you’re going to ask me why I carry one—rain or shine! Which practically everybody does ask—sooner or later—and which I’ll wager not less than one person will yet today before the day is out.

“No, I am not,” Judge Penworth said hastily, though with a pronounced show of dignity. “I quite am not going to ask any question about a purely personal eccent—er—um—predilec­tion. Lest,” he added ruefully, “you show me my place by asking me about one of my own. Such as my deplorable habit of—but I’ve nothing to ask,” he finished, smiling dryly back from the bed.

“You’re a real gentleman, Judge!” Anyone could see Silas Moffit was in grand fettle. “And it’s a real pleasure to meet up with breeding around this town. Well, I’ll be going now, so that you can tell my niece—the good news!”

And with a final good-bye, Silas Moffit left the room—this time for good—nodding, after he reached the down stairs front hall, towards Mullins who was now coming up from the basement with two chairs not nearly so fine as the first two he had been carrying.

Silas Moffit let himself out. And hurried down the soapstone steps. Up the block. And around the corner. And into a drugstore. In which, first buying a slug, he stepped into a single triple-glassed phone booth standing alone and isolated up front.

His voice was jubilant as he asked for Chocktaw 8888 and even more jubilant when he recognized the masculine voice of his son-in-law on the other end.

“Manny?” he said hurriedly.

“Yes. This—this is Popp’n’law?”

“Yes.” Silas Moffit made a momentary grimace. “Say Manny, get out the D. C. papers from the lockbox at once so they may be immediately put of record, and—”

“D. C. papers, Popp’n’law? D.—C.? What papers, maybe—do you mean? Now if you mean the ones you signed yesterday—the revised ones we worked out together to disinherit Saul by 101 per cent so’s he won’t have a show in hell to ever get a single penny from your estate, why of course I can get ’em out, and—”

“No, no, no, no, you imbecile!” put in Silas Moffit irritably. “I mean—but since you have introduced the subject, I want to go all over those papers again with you tomorrow—with a still finer-toothed comb—so that we can be 199 per cent sure, instead of just 101 per cent sure, that he hasn’t a chance in—”

“But—but he ain’t got a chance,” the man at the other end practically wailed. “He’s cut out now of even inheriting by way of me—or Bella. And—listen, Popp’n’law, have you just seen Saul?”

“Seen Saul? No I haven’t seen the filthy, lousy, upstart, stinking, dirty son of a bastard bitch—and I don’t want to.”

“Nor do I—but the papers I’m talking about now—and which I want you to get out at once—are the double-conveyance papers.”

“Double—double?” the man on the other end queried, as one actually scratching his head.

“The ‘ring-around-the rosy’ papers, you imbecile. Funny thing you couldn’t keep in mind papers by which you and your father make not less than $10,000 each! The serially numbered papers, in short, constituting the deed from me to you for $110,000—and the deed from you to your father for $2000—and the contract between him and you to pay you $10,000 cash down, and $5,000 a month, assigned back to me—and his $10,000 check to you, endorsed by you back to me.”

“But—but Popp’n’law, we can’t put papers of record that ain’t validated yet by a prior conveyance from Elsa.

And—”

“No? Well, probably not. But the recording office is open all night in the County Building, isn’t it?”

“Yes—sure, Popp’n’law. But—but Elsa ain’t yet forfeited her rights—”

“Well, just to chop off all discussion, Manny, she has! Or rather, will have—by about midnight tonight, more or less. A fact! For she’s appointed, Manny! By the court. On a case. And it’s a case that she can’t possibly win. And if she refuses to take it, Manny—she’s to be disbarred!”

“Oi!” The exclamation from the man on the end was a half-shout—half grunt—of triumph. And with a note of satisfac­tion in it that was exactly that to be found in a hungry wolf’s pleased growl when surveying a luscious field mouse. “And—and in either one of those two cases—by the contingential quitclaim papers she signed—Colby’s Nugget—is yours?”

“Correct, Manny!” replied Silas Moffit, hungrily. “In either case—her hundred thousand equity is mine. And adds itself to my ten thousand equity! Her part is mine—yes—but minus the $10,000 cut to you—and the same to your father. All right. Get all the papers out, Manny—and see you later!”