The Victorian Villains Megapack (59 page)

“When were you convicted?”

“I served six months for petty larceny in the penitentiary six years ago.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Quite sure? Think again!”

“Yes, sir,” almost inaudibly.

“Swear him.”

Again the book was forced toward the unwilling hand, and again it was refused.

“Have you no pity—no mercy?” his dark eyes seemed to say. Then they gave way to a look of utter hopelessness.

“I served three years in Charlestown for larceny, and was discharged two months ago.”

“Is that all?”

“O, God! Isn’t that enough?” suddenly groaned the prisoner. “No, no; it isn’t all! It’s always been the same old story! Concord, Joliet, Elmira, Springfield, Sing Sing, Charlestown—yes, six times. Twelve years.… I’m a
jailbird
.” He laughed harshly and rested wearily
against the wooden bar.

“Have you anything to say why judgment should not be pronounced against you?”

“Your Honor, will you hear me?” Graham choked back a dry sob.

The Judge slightly inclined his head.

“Yes. I’m a jailbird,” uttered the prisoner rapidly. “I’m only out two months.” There was no defiance in his voice now, and his eyes searched the face of the Judge, seeking for mercy. “I had a good home—no matter where—and a good father and mother. My father died and didn’t leave anything, and I had to work while my mother kept house. I worked on the farm, winter and summer, summer and winter, early and late. I got sick of it. I quit the farm and went to the city. I worked hard and did well. I learned shorthand, and finally got a job as a court stenographer. That’s how I know about the rules of evidence. Then I got started wrong, and by and by I took a fifty-dollar note and another fellow was sent up for it. After that I didn’t care. I had a good time—of its kind. It was better than a dog’s life on the farm, anyway. By and by I got caught, and then it was no use. Each time I got out I swore I’d lead an honest life. But I couldn’t. A convict might as well try to eat stones as to find a job. But when I got free this time I made up m
y mind to starve rather than get back again. I meant it, too. I tried hard. It was no use in Boston—they’re too respectable. All a convict can do there is to get a two weeks’ job sawing wood. At the end of that time he’s supposed to be able to take care of himself. I had to give it up and come to New York.

“It was August, and I went the rounds of the offices for three weeks, looking for work. No one wanted a stenographer, and there was nothing else to do that I could find. Once I thought I had something on the water-front, but the man changed his mind. A woman told me to go to Dr. Westminster, so I went. He was kind enough, said he was very busy, but would do all he could for me; that there was a special society for just such cases, and he would give me a card. I thanked him, and took the card and went to the society. The young woman there gave me two soup tickets, and said she would do all she could for me. Next day she reported that there was nothing doing just then, but if I could come back in about a month they could probably do better. Then she gave me another soup ticket. I drank the soup and then I went back to Dr. Westminster. He was rather annoyed at seeing me again, and said that he had done all that he could, but would bear me in mind; meantime, unless I heard from him,
it would be no use to call again. I’d lived on soup for two days.

“I got a meal by begging on the avenue. Then another woman told me to go to Dr. Emberdays, and I went to
him
. By this time I must have been looking pretty tough. He said that he would do what he could, and that there was a society to which he would give me a line. They asked me a devil of a lot of questions, and gave me a flannel undershirt. It made me sick! An undershirt in August, when I wanted bread and human sympathy!

“It was no use. I gave up parsons and tried the river-front again. I didn’t get over one meal a day, and my head ached all the time. I heard of a job at One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Street, carrying lumber. I got a nickel for holding a horse, and went up. It was a gang of niggers. They got a dollar a day. The boss was a nigger, too, and didn’t want cheap white trash. I almost went down on my knees to him, and finally he said I might come the next day. I slept in a field under a tree without anything to eat that night, and started in at seven the next morning. The thermometer went up to ninety-six, and we worked without stopping. I had to lug one end of a big stick, with a nigger under the other end, one hundred yards, then go back and get another. I got
so I didn’t know what I was doing. At eleven o’clock I fainted, and then I was sick, dreadfully sick. At three the boss nigger kicked me and said I had to stop faking or I wouldn’t get paid, and so I got up and lugged until six. But I was so ill I knew it was no use. I couldn’t do that kind of work.

“It was an awfully hot night. I got off the ‘L’ at Thirty-fourth Street and walked through to the avenue. When I got to the Waldorf I stopped and looked in the windows. There were men and women in there, and flowers and everything to eat—just what I could eat if I chose. And I had been working with niggers, Judge, all day long until I fainted, heaving timber. I just stood and waited, and when a chance came to snatch a roll of bills I took it. They couldn’t catch me. I was good for ten of ’em, Judge.

“After that it was easy. I met some of the fellows that had served time with me and got back into the old life. Judge, it’s no use. I don’t blame you for what you are going to do, nor I don’t blame the jury. Anyone could see through the bluff I put up. I’m guilty. I’m a jailbird, I say. I’m done. Only I’ve had no chance, Judge. Give me another; let me go back to the farm. I’ll go, I swear I will! It’ll kill me to go to prison. I’m a human being. God meant me to live out of doors,
and I’ve spent half of my life inside stone walls. Let me go back to the country. I’ll go, Judge. I’m a human being. Give me one more chance.”

There was no sound when the prisoner stopped speaking. The judge did not reply for a full minute. His face wore its habitual look of sadness. Then he spoke in a very low tone, but one which was distinctly audible in the silence of the court-room.

“Graham, you have read your own sentence. You have confessed that you cannot lead an honest life. Your fault is that you will not work. There are a thousand farms within a hundred miles, where you could earn a livelihood for the asking. Your intelligence is of a high order. By ordinary application you could have risen far above your fellows. You are a dangerous criminal—all the more dangerous for your ability. You almost outwitted the jury, and conducted your own case more ably than nine out of ten lawyers would have done. You have ruined your own life, and cast away a pearl of price. You have my pity, but I cannot allow it to affect my duty. Graham, I sentence you to State Prison for ten years.”

The prisoner shivered, and covered his face with his hands. Then the officer clapped him on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.

“Gentlemen, you are excused.” The Judge bowed to t
he jury.

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” bawled the attendant: “all persons having business with Part One of the General Sessions of the Peace, held in and for the County of New York, may now depart. This Court stands adjourned until tomorrow morning at half past ten o’clock.”

IN THE COURSE OF JUSTICE, by Arthur Train

Taken from
McAllister and His Double
(1905).

“The Law is a sort of ho
cuspocus
science that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.”

I

A trim, neatly dressed young man, holding in one of his carefully gloved hands a bamboo cane, sat upon a bench in Union Square one brilliant October morning some ten years ago. All about him swarms of excited sparrows chattered and fought among the yellow leaves. A last night’s carnation languished in his button-hole, and his smoothly shaven lantern-jaw and high cheekbones suggested the type of upper Broadway and the Tenderloin. In spite of this, the general effect was not unpleasing, especially as his sparse curly hair, just turning gray at the temples, disclosed a forehead suggestive of more than usual intelligence in a face otherwise ordinary. A shadowy, inscrutable smile from time to time played upon his features, at one moment making them seem good-naturedly sympathetic, at another, sinister. The casual observer would have classed him as a s
tudent or actor. He was both, and more.

From a large jewelry store across the way presently emerged a diminutive messenger-boy carrying a small, square bundle, and turned into Broadway. The man on the bench, known to his friends as “Supple Jim,” rose unobtrusively to his feet. The apostle of Hermes stopped to buy a cent’s worth of mucilaginous candy from the Italian on the corner, and then, whistling loudly, dawdled upon his way. The man followed, manœuvring for position, while the boy, now in the chewing stage and struggling violently, lingered to inspect a mechanical toy. The supple one accomplished a flank movement, approached, touched him on the shoulder, and displayed a silver badge beneath his coat.

“Young man, I’m from the Central Office, and need your help. About a block from here a feller will come runnin’ after you and say they’ve given you the wrong bundle—see? He’ll hand you another, and tell you to give him the one you’ve got. He’s a crook—‘Paddy the Sneak’—old game! See?”

The boy was all attention, his jaws motionless.

“Yep!” he replied, his eyes glistening delightedly.

“Well, I’ll be right behind you; and when he
throws the game into you, just pretend you fall to it an’ hand him your box. Then I’ll make the collar. Are you on?”

“Say, that’s easy!” grinned the boy.

“Show us what you’re good for, then, and I’ll have the Inspector send you some passes for the theayter.”

The boy started on in business-like fashion. As his interlocutor had predicted, a hatless “feller” overtook him, breathless, and entered into voluble explanation. The messenger exchanged bundles, and then, eyes front, continued up the street until the detective should pounce upon his victim. For some strange reason no such event took place. At the end of the block he cast a furtive glance behind him. Both Paddy and the Central Office man had vanished, to dispose in a Bowery pawnshop of the fruits of their short hour of toil, dividing between them one hundred and sixty dollars as the equivalent of the diamond stud which the box had contained.

Half an hour later, drawn by a fascination which he found irresistible, the hero of this legal memoir took a car to the Criminal Courts Building, and made his way to the General Sessions.

“Forgot my subpœna, Cap’n. I’m a witness. Just let me in, please!” he said, with a smile of easy good-nature.

Old Flaherty, the superannuated door-keeper, known as The Eagle, eyed the young man suspiciously for a moment, and then, grumbling, allowed him to enter the court-room. The thief who had so easily secured admittance, fought his way persistently through the throng, elbowed by the gruff officer at the inner gate, and selecting the best seat on the front bench, compelled its earlier occupants to make room for him with a calm assurance and matter-of-course superiority which they had not the courage to oppose.

Supple Jim listened with interest to the call of the calendar. A few lawyers, with their witnesses, whose cases had gone over until the morrow, struggled out through the crush at the door, with no perceptible diminution in the throng within. The clerk prepared to call the roll of the jury.

“Trial jurors in the case of ‘The People against Richard Monohan,’ please answer to your names.”

The twelve, in varying keys, had all replied; the trial was “on” again, having been interrupted, evidently, by the adjournment of the afternoon before. A venerable complainant now resumed the story of how two young men, whose acquaintance he had made in a saloon the previous Sunday evening, had followed him into the street, assaulted him on his way home and robbed him of his ring. He positively identified the prisoner as the one who had wrenched it from his finger.

Next, an officer testified to having arrested the defendant upon the old gentleman’s description, and to having found in his pocket a pawn-ticket calling for the ring in question.

The case, in the vernacular of the courts, was “dead open and shut.”

The People “rested,” and the defendant, a miserable specimen of those wretched beings that constitute the penumbra of crime, took the stand. His defence was absurd. He denied ever before having seen his accuser, had not been in the saloon, had not taken the ring, had not pawned it, had bought the ticket from a man on the corner who, he remembered, had told him he was getting a bargain at three dollars. He could not describe this “man,” or account for his own whereabouts on the evening in question. He had been drunk at the time. It was a story as old as theft itself.

The prosecutor winked at the jury, and the Judge once more summoned the apostolic-looking complainant to the chair.

“You realize, sir, the terrible consequences to this young man should you be mistaken? Are you quite sure that he is one of the persons who robbed you?” he inquired with becoming gravity.

The witness raised himself by his cane, and stepping down to where the prisoner sat, gazed searchingly into his stolid face.

“God knows,” said he, “I wouldn’t harm a hair of his head. But by all that’s holy, I swear he’s the man who took my ring.”

A wave of interest passed over the assembled attorneys. That was business for you! No use to cross-examine an old fellow like
him
. There was a great nodding of heads and shuffling of feet.

“Do you think you could identify your other assailant if you should see him?” continued the judge.

“I’m sure of it,” calmly replied the witness.

“Very well, sir,” continued his Honor; “see if you can do so.”

Half of the audience moved uneasily, and glanced longingly toward the closed means of exit. A woman tittered hysterically. The witness slowly descended, and, escorted by a policeman, began his inspection, scrutinizing each face with care. Quietly he moved along the first bench, and then, gently shaking his head, along the second. The interest became breathless. A sigh of relief rippled along the settees after him. The only spectator unmoved by what was taking place was Supple Jim, who smiled genially at the old gentleman as the latter glanced at him and passed on. Four rows—five rows—six rows—seven rows. At last there was but one bench left, and the excitement reached the point of ebullition. Would he find him? Were they going to be disappointed after all? Only half a bench left! Only two men left! Ah! What was that? People shoved one another in the back, craning their heads to see what was doing in the distant corner where the complainant stood. Suddenly the searcher faced the Judge, and, pointing to the last occupant of the rear settee, announced with conviction:

“Your Honor,
this
is the other man!”

A murmur travelled rapidly around the court-room. Honors were even between a Judge who could thus unerringly divine the presence of a malefactor and a patriarch who, out of so great a multitude, was able unhesitatingly to pick out a midnight assailant.

The “criminal” attorneys whispered among themselves: “Well, say! What do you think of that! All right, eh? Well, I guess! Well, say!”

This picturesque digression concluded, interest again centred in the defendant, of whose ultimate conviction there could no longer be any doubt.

Not that the identification of the accomplice had any real significance, since the man so ostentatiously picked out by the patriarch in court had been caught red-handed at the time of the robbery within a block of the saloon, was already under indictment as a co-defendant, and being out on bail had merely been brought in under a bench warrant and placed among the spectators. But the performance had a distinct dramatic value, and the jury could not be blamed for making the natural deduction that if the complainant was right as regards the one,
ipso facto
he must be as to the other. That the complainant had already identified him at the police-station and at the Tombs seemed a matter of small importance. The point was, apparently, that the old fellow had a good memory, and one upon which the jury could safely rely.

The Judge charged the law, and the jury retired, returning almost immediately with a verdict of “Guilty of robbery in the first degree.”

The prisoner at the bar swayed for an instant, steadied himself, and stood clinging to the rail, while his counsel made the usual motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment.

“Clear the box! Clear the box!” shouted the clerk, and the jury, their duty comfortably discharged, filed slowly out.

The court-room rapidly emptied itself into the corridors. Supple Jim waited on the steps of the building until a young woman, carrying a baby, came wearily out, and, as she passed, thrust a roll of bills into her hand.

“Your feller’s been
done dirt
!” he growled. “Take that, and put it out of sight. Don’t give it to any
lawyer
, now! You’ll need it yourself.” Then he sprang lightly upon the rear platform of a surface car as it whizzed by, and vanished from her astonished gaze.

Thus was an innocent man convicted, while crime triumphant played the part of benefactor.

II

The next morning Supple Jim, sitting in the warm sunshine in the bay-window of his favorite restaurant, lazily finished a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs, glancing casually, meanwhile, at the morning paper which lay open before him. At a respectful distance his attendant awaited the moment when this important guest should snap his fingers, demand his damage, and call for a Carolina Perfecto. These would be forthcoming with alacrity, for Mr. James Hawkins was more of an autocrat on Fourteenth Street than a Pittsburg oil magnate at the Waldorf. Just now the Supple James was reading with keen enjoyment how, the day before, a quick-witted old gentleman had brought a malefactor to justice. At one of the paragraphs he broke into a gentle laugh, perusing it again and again, apparently with intense enjoyment.

Had ever such a farce been enacted in the course of justice! He tossed away the paper and swore softly. Of course, the only thing that had rendered such a situation possible at all was the fact that the aged Farlan was a superlative old ass. To hear him tell his yarn on the stand, you would have thought that it gave him positive pain to testify against a fellow being. Did you ever see such white hair and such a big white beard? Why, he looked like Dowie or Moses, or some of those fellows. When Jim had tripped him up and slipped off the ring, the old chap had already swallowed half a dozen “County Antrims,” and wasn’t in a condition to remember anything or anybody. The idea of his going so piously into court and swearing the thing on to Monohan; it gave you the creeps! A fellow might go to “the chair” as easy as not, in just the same way. Of course, Jim had not intended to get the young greenhorn into any trouble when he had sold him the pawn-ticket. He had been just an easy mark. And when the police had arrested him and found the ticket in his pocket, there was not any call for Jim to set them straight. That was just Monohan’s luck, curse him! Let him look out for himself.

But to see the patriarch carefully forging the shackles upon the wrong man, had filled Jim with a wondering and ecstatic bewilderment. The stars in their courses had seemed warring in his behalf.

Think of it! That fellow Monohan could get twenty years! It made him mad, this infernal conspiracy, as it seemed to him, between judges and prosecutors. It mattered little, apparently, whether they got the right man or not, so long as they got someone! What business had they to go and convict a fellow who was innocent, and put him, “Jim,” the cleverest “gun” in the profession, in such a position? He wondered if folks in other lines of business had so many problems to face. The stupidity of witnesses and the trickery of lawyers was almost beyond belief. It was a perennial contest, not only of wit against wit, strategy against strategy, but, worst of all, of wit against impenetrable dulness. Why, if people were going to be so careless about swearing a man’s liberty away, it was time to “get on the level.” You might be nailed any time by mistake, and then your record would make any defence impossible. You had the right to demand common honesty, or, at least,
intelligence
, on the part of the prosecution.

But the main question was, What was going to become of Monohan? Well, the boy was convicted, and that was the end of it. It was quite clear to Jim that, had he been victimized in the same way, no one would have bothered about it at all. It was simply the fortune of war.

But twenty years! His own pitiful aggregate of six, with vacations in between, as it were, looked infinitesimal beside that awful burial alive. He’d be fifty when he came out—if he ever came out! Sometimes they died like flies in a hot summer. And then there was always Dannemora—worst of all, Dannemora! It would kill
him
to go back. He couldn’t live away from the main stem
now
. Why, he hadn’t been in
stir
for five years. All his prison traits, the gait, the hunch, were effaced—gone completely. His brows contracted in a sharp frown.

“What’s the use?” he muttered as he rose to go. “He ain’t worth it! I can stake his wife and kids till his time’s up! But, God!
I
could never go back!”