Kitabı oku: «Gabriel Conroy», sayfa 29
CHAPTER IV.
WHAT AH FE DOES NOT KNOW
Thus admonished by the practical-minded Olly, Gabriel retired precipitately to the secure fastnesses of Conroy's Hill, where, over a consolatory pipe in his deserted cabin, he gave himself up to reflections upon the uncertainty of the sex and the general vagaries of womanhood. At such times he would occasionally extend his wanderings to the gigantic pine tree which still towered pre-eminently above its fellows in ominous loneliness, and seated upon one of its outlying roots, would gently philosophise to himself regarding his condition, the vicissitudes of fortune, the awful prescience of Olly, and the beneficence of a Creator who permitted such awkward triviality and uselessness as was incarnate in himself to exist at all! Sometimes, following the impulse of habit, he would encroach abstractedly upon the limits of his own domain, and find himself under the shadow of his own fine house on the hill, from which, since that eventful parting with his wife, he had always rigidly withheld his foot. As soon as he would make this alarming discovery, he would turn back in honourable delicacy and a slight sense of superstitious awe. Retreating from one of these involuntary incursions one day, in passing through an opening in a little thicket of "buckeye" near his house, he stumbled over a small workbasket lying in the withered grass, apparently mislaid or forgotten. Gabriel instantly recognised it as the property of his wife, and as quickly recalled the locality as one of her favourite resorts during the excessive mid-day heats. He hesitated and then passed on, and then stopped and returned again awkwardly and bashfully. To have touched any property of his wife's, after their separation, was something distasteful and impossible to Gabriel's sense of honour; to leave it there the spoil of any passing Chinaman, or the prey of the elements, was equally inconsistent with a certain respect which Gabriel had for his wife's weaknesses. He compromised by picking it up with the intention of sending it to Lawyer Maxwell, as his wife's trustee. But in doing this, to Gabriel's great alarm (for he would as soon have sacrificed the hand that held this treasure as to have exposed its contents in curiosity or suspicion), part of that multitudinous contents overflowed and fell on the ground, and he was obliged to pick them up and replace them. One of them was a baby's shirt – so small it filled the great hand that grasped it. In Gabriel's emigrant experience, as the frequent custodian and nurse of the incomplete human animal, he was somewhat familiar with those sacred, mummy-like enwrappings usually unknown to childless men, and he recognised it at once.
He did not replace it in the basket, but, with a suffused cheek and an increased sense of his usual awkwardness, stuffed it into the pocket of his blouse. Nor did he send the basket to Lawyer Maxwell, as he had intended, and in fact omitted any allusion to it in his usual account to Olly of his daily experience. For the next two days he was peculiarly silent and thoughtful, and was sharply reprimanded by Olly for general idiocy and an especial evasion of some practical duties.
"Yer's them lawyers hez been huntin' ye to come over and examine that there Chinaman, Ah Fe, ez is jest turned up ag'in, and you ain't no whar to be found; and Lawyer Maxwell sez it's a most important witness. And whar' bouts was ye found? Down in the Gulch, chirpin' and gossipin' with that Arkansas family, and totin' round Mrs. Welch's baby. And you a growed man, with a fammerly of yer own to look after. I wonder ye ain't got more sabe! – prancin' round in this yer shiftless way, and you on trial, and accused o' killin' folks. Yer a high ole Gabe – rentin' yerself out fur a dry nuss for nothin'!"
Gabriel (colouring and hastily endeavouring to awaken Olly's feminine sympathies): "It waz the powerfullest, smallest baby – ye oughter get to see it, Olly! 'Tain't bigger nor a squirrel – on'y two weeks old yesterday!"
Olly (outwardly scornful, but inwardly resolving to visit the phenomenon next week): "Don't stand yawpin' here, but waltz down to Lawyer Maxwell and see that Chinaman."
Gabriel reached the office of Lawyer Maxwell just as that gentleman and Arthur Poinsett were rising from a long, hopeless, and unsatisfactory examination of Ah Fe. The lawyers had hoped to be able to establish the fact of Gabriel's remoteness from the scene of the murder by some corroborating incident or individual that Ah Fe could furnish in support of the detailed narrative he had already given. But it did not appear that any Caucasian had been encountered or met by Ah Fe at the time of his errand. And Ah Fe's memory of the details he had already described was apparently beginning to be defective; it was evident nothing was to be gained from him even if he had been constituted a legal witness. And then, more than all, he was becoming sullen!
"We are afraid that we haven't made much out of your friend, Ah Fe," said Arthur, taking Gabriel's hand. "You might try if you can revive his memory, but it looks doubtful."
Gabriel gazed at Ah Fe intently – possibly because he was the last person who had spoken to his missing wife. Ah Fe returned the gaze, discharging all expression from his countenance, except a slight suggestion of the habitual vague astonishment always seen in the face of a newborn infant. Perhaps this peculiar expression, reminding Gabriel as it did of the phenomenon in the Welch family, interested him. But the few vague wandering questions he put were met by equally vague answers. Arthur rose in some impatience; Lawyer Maxwell wiped away the smile that had been lingering around his mouth. The interview was ended.
Arthur and Maxwell passed down the narrow stairway arm in arm. Gabriel would have followed them with Ah Fe, but turning toward that Mongolian, he was alarmed by a swift spasm of expression that suddenly convulsed Ah Fe's face. He winked both his eyes with the velocity of sheet-lightning, nodded his head with frightful rapidity, and snapped and apparently dislocated every finger on his right hand. Gabriel gazed at him in open-mouthed wonder.
"All litee!" said Ah Fe, looking intently at Gabriel.
"Which?" asked Gabriel.
"All litee! You shabbee 'all litee!' She say 'all litee.'"
"Who's she?" asked Gabriel, in sudden alarm.
"You lifee! – shabbee? – Missee Conloy! She likee you – shabbee? Me likee you! – shabbee? Miss Conloy she say 'all litee!' You shabbee shelliff?"
"Which?" said Gabriel.
"Shelliff! Man plenty chokee bad man!"
"Sheriff, I reckon," suggested Gabriel, with great gravity.
"Um! Shelliff. Mebbe you shabbee him bimeby. He chokee bad man. Much chokee. Chokee like hellee! He no chokee you. No. Shabbee? She say 'shelliff no chokee you.' Shabbee?"
"I see," said Gabriel, significantly.
"She say," continued Ah Fe, with gasping swiftness, "she say you talkee too much. She say me talkee too much. She say Maxwellee talkee too much. All talkee too much. She say 'no talkee!' Shabbee? She say 'ash up!' Shabbee? She say 'dly up!' Shabbee? She say 'bimeby plenty talkee – bimeby all litee!' Shabbee?"
"But whar ez she – whar kin I git to see her?" asked Gabriel.
Ah Fe's face instantly discharged itself of all expression. A wet sponge could not have more completely obliterated all pencilled outline of character or thought from his blank slate-coloured physiognomy than did Gabriel's simple question. He returned his questioner's glance with ineffable calmness and vacancy, patiently drew the long sleeves of his blouse still further over his varnished fingers, crossed them submissively and Orientally before him, and waited apparently for Gabriel to become again intelligible.
"Look yer," said Gabriel, with gentle persuasiveness, "ef it's the same to ye, you'd be doin' me a heap o' good ef you'd let on whar thet July – thet Mrs. Conroy ez. Bein' a man ez in his blindness bows down to wood and stun, ye ain't supposed to allow fur a Christian's feelings. But I put to ye ez a far-minded brethren – a true man and a man whatsoever his colour that it's a square thing fur ye to allow to me whar thet woman ez ez my relation by marriage ez hidin'! Allowin' it's one o' my idols – I axes you as a brother Pagan – whar ez she?"
A faint, flickering smile of pathetic abstraction and simplicity, as of one listening to far-off but incomprehensible music stole over Ah Fe's face. Then he said kindly, gently, but somewhat vaguely and unsatisfactorily —
"Me no shabbee Melican man. Me washee shirtee! dollah and hap dozen!"
CHAPTER V.
THE PEOPLE V. JOHN DOE alias GABRIEL CONROY, AND JANE ROE alias JULIE CONROY. BEFORE BOOMPOINTER, J
The day of the trial was one of exacting and absorbing interest to One Horse Gulch. Long before ten o'clock the Court-room, and even the halls and corridors of the lately rehabilitated Court House, were thronged with spectators. It is only fair to say that by this time the main points at issue were forgotten. It was only remembered that some of the first notabilities of the State had come up from Sacramento to attend the trial; that one of the most eminent lawyers in San Francisco had been engaged for the prisoner at a fee variously estimated from fifty to one hundred thousand dollars, and that the celebrated Colonel Starbottle of Siskiyou was to assist in the prosecution; that a brisk duel of words, and it was confidently hoped, a later one of pistols, would grow out of this forensic encounter; that certain disclosures affecting men and women of high social standing were to be expected; and, finally, that in some mysterious way a great political and sectional principle (Colonel Starbottle was from the South and Mr. Poinsett from the North) was to be evolved and upheld during the trial – these were the absorbing fascinations to One Horse Gulch.
At ten o'clock Gabriel, accompanied by his counsel, entered the Court-room, followed by Colonel Starbottle. Judge Boompointer, entering at the same moment, bowed distantly to Arthur, and familiarly to Colonel Starbottle. In his otium off the bench, he had been chaffed by the District Attorney, and had lost large sums at play with Colonel Starbottle. Nevertheless he was a trifle uneasy under the calmly critical eyes of the famous young advocate from San Francisco. Arthur was too wise to exhibit his fastidiousness before the Court; nevertheless, Judge Boompointer was dimly conscious that he would on that occasion have preferred that the Clerk who sat below him had put on a cleaner shirt, and himself refrained from taking off his cravat and collar, as was his judicial habit on the Wingdam circuit. There was some slight prejudice on the part of the panel to this well-dressed young lawyer, which they were pleased to specify and define more particularly as his general "airiness." Seeing which, Justice, on the bench, became more dignified, and gazed severely at the panel and at Arthur.
In the selection of the jury there was some difficulty; it was confidently supposed that the prisoner's counsel would challenge the array on the ground of the recent Vigilance excitement, but public opinion was disappointed when the examination of the defence was confined to trivial and apparently purposeless inquiry into the nativity of the several jurors. A majority of those accepted by the defence were men of Southern birth and education. Colonel Starbottle, who, as a representative of the peculiar chivalry of the South, had always adopted this plan himself, in cases where his client was accused of assault and battery, or even homicide, could not in respect to his favourite traditions object to it. But when it was found that there were only two men of Northern extraction on the jury, and that not a few of them had been his own clients, Colonel Starbottle thought he had penetrated the theory of the defence.
I regret that Colonel Starbottle's effort, admirably characterised by the Banner as "one of the most scathing and Junius-like gems of legal rhetoric ever known to the Californian Bar," has not been handed down to me in extenso. Substantially, however, it appeared that Colonel Starbottle had never before found himself in "so peculiar, so momentous, so – er – delicate a position. A position, sir – er – er – gentlemen, fraught with the deepest social, professional – er – er – he should not hesitate to say, upon his own personal responsibility, a position of the deepest political significance! Colonel Starbottle was aware that this statement might be deprecated – nay, even assailed by some. But he did not retract that statement. Certainly not in the presence of that jury, in whose intelligent faces he saw – er – er – er – justice – inflexible justice! – er – er – mingled and – er – mixed with – with chivalrous instinct, and suffused with the characteristic – er – er – glow of – er – er – !" (I regret to add that at this supreme moment, as the Colonel was lightly waving away with his fat right hand the difficulties of rhetoric, a sepulchral voice audible behind the jury suggested "Robinson County whisky" as the origin of the phenomena the Colonel hesitated to describe. The judge smiled blandly and directed the deputy sheriff to preserve order. The deputy obeyed the mandate by looking over into the crowd behind the jury, and saying, in an audible tone, "You'd better dry up thar, Joe White, or git out o' that!" and the Colonel, undismayed, proceeded.) "He well understood the confidence placed by the defence in these gentlemen. He had reason to believe that an attempt would be made to show that this homicide was committed in accordance with certain – er – er – principles held by honourable men – that the act was retributive, and in defence of an invasion of domestic rights and the sanctity of wedlock. But he should show them its fallacy. He should show them that only a base pecuniary motive influenced the prisoner. He should show them – er – er – that the accused had placed himself, firstly, by his antecedent acts, and, secondly, by the manner of the later act, beyond the sympathies of honourable men. He should show them a previous knowledge of certain – er – er – indiscretions on the part of the prisoner's wife, and a condonation by the prisoner of those indiscretions, that effectually debarred the prisoner from the provisions of the code; he should show an inartistic, he must say, even on his own personal responsibility, a certain ungentlemanliness, in the manner of the crime that refused to clothe it with the – er – er – generous mantle of chivalry. The crime of which the prisoner was accused might have – er – er – been committed by a Chinaman or a nigger. Colonel Starbottle did not wish to be misunderstood. It was not in the presence of – er – Beauty – " (the Colonel paused, drew out his handkerchief, and gracefully waved it in the direction of the dusky Manuela and the truculent Sal – both ladies acknowledging the courtesy as an especial and isolated tribute, and exchanging glances of the bitterest hatred) – "it is not, gentlemen, in the presence of an all-sufficient and enthralling sex that I would seek to disparage their influence with man. But I shall prove that this absorbing – er – er – passion, this – er – er – delicious – er – er – fatal weakness, that rules the warlike camp, the – er – er – stately palace, as well as the – er – er – cabin of the base-born churl, never touched the calculating soul of Gabriel Conroy! Look at him, gentlemen! Look at him, and say upon your oaths, upon your experience as men of gallantry, if he is a man to sacrifice himself for a woman. Look at him, and say truly, as men personally responsible for their opinions, if he is a man to place himself in a position of peril through the blandishments of – er – er – Beauty, or sacrifice himself upon the – er – er – altar of Venus!"
Every eye was turned upon Gabriel. And certainly at that moment he did not bear any striking resemblance to a sighing Amintor or a passionate Othello. His puzzled, serious face, which had worn a look of apologetic sadness, was suffused at this direct reference of the prosecution; and the long, heavy lower limbs, which he had diffidently tucked away under his chair to reduce the elevation of his massive knees above the ordinary level of one of the court-room chairs, retired still further. Finding himself, during the Colonel's rhetorical pause, still the centre of local observation, he slowly drew from his pocket a small comb, and began awkwardly to comb his hair, with an ineffective simulation of pre-occupation and indifference.
"Yes, sir," continued the Colonel, with that lofty forensic severity so captivating to the spectator, "you may comb yer hair" (hyar was the Colonel's pronunciation), "but yer can't comb it so as to make this intelligent jury believe that it is fresh from the hands of – er – er – Delilah."
The Colonel then proceeded to draw an exceedingly poetical picture of the murdered Ramirez – "a native, appealing to the sympathies of every Southern man, a native of the tropics, impulsive, warm, and peculiarly susceptible, as we all are, gentlemen, to the weaknesses of the heart." The Colonel "would not dwell further upon this characteristic of the deceased. There were within the sound of his voice, visible to the sympathising eyes of the jury, two beings who had divided his heart's holiest affections – their presence was more eloquent than words. This man," continued the Colonel, "a representative of one of our oldest Spanish families – a family that recalled the days of – er – er – the Cid and Don John – this man had been the victim at once of the arts of Mrs. Conroy and the dastardly fears of Gabriel Conroy; of the wiles of the woman and the stealthy steel of the man."
"Colonel Starbottle would show that personating the character and taking the name of Grace Conroy, an absent sister of the accused, Mrs. Conroy, then really Madame Devarges, sought the professional aid of the impulsive and generous Ramirez to establish her right to a claim then held by the accused – in fact, wrongfully withheld from his own sister, Grace Conroy. That Ramirez, believing implicitly in the story of Madame Devarges with the sympathy of an overflowing nature, gave her that aid until her marriage with Gabriel exposed the deceit. Colonel Starbottle would not characterise the motives of such a marriage. It was apparent to the jury. They were intelligent men, and would detect the unhallowed combination of two confederates, under the sacrament of a holy institution, to deceive the trustful Ramirez. It was a nuptial feast at which – er – er – Mercury presided, and not – er – er – Hymen. Its only issue was fraud and murder. Having obtained possession of the property in a common interest, it was necessary to remove the only witness of the fraud, Ramirez. The wife found a willing instrument in the husband. And how was the deed committed? Openly and in the presence of witnesses? Did Gabriel even assume a virtue, and under the pretext of an injured husband challenge the victim to the field of honour? No! No, gentlemen. Look at the murderer, and contrast his enormous bulk with the – er – slight, graceful, youthful figure of the victim, and you will have an idea of the – er – er – enormity of the crime."
After this exordium came the testimony – i.e., facts coloured more or less unconsciously, according to the honest prejudices of the observer, his capacity to comprehend the fact he had observed, and his disposition to give his theory regarding that fact rather than the fact itself. And when the blind had testified to what they saw, and the halt had stated where they walked and ran, the prosecution rested with a flush of triumph.
They had established severally: that the deceased had died from the effects of a knife wound; that Gabriel had previously quarrelled with him and was seen on the hill within a few hours of the murder; that he had absconded immediately after, and that his wife was still a fugitive, and that there was ample motive for the deed in the circumstances surrounding the prisoner.
Much of this was shaken on cross-examination. The surgeon who made the autopsy was unable to say whether the deceased, being consumptive, might not have died from consumption that very night. The witness who saw Gabriel pushing the deceased along the road, could not swear positively whether the deceased were not pulling Gabriel instead, and the evidence of Mrs. Conroy's imposture was hearsay only. Nevertheless bets were offered in favour of Starbottle against Poinsett – that being the form in which the interest of One Horse Gulch crystallised itself.
When the prosecution rested, Mr. Poinsett, as counsel for defence, moved for the discharge of the prisoner, no evidence having been shown of his having had any relations with or knowledge of the deceased until the day of the murder, and none whatever of his complicity with the murderess, against whom the evidence of the prosecution and the arguments of the learned prosecuting attorney were chiefly directed.
Motion overruled. A sigh of relief went up from the spectators and the jury. That any absurd technical objection should estop them from that fun which as law-abiding citizens they had a right to expect, seemed oppressive and scandalous; and when Arthur rose to open for the defence, it was with an instinctive consciousness that his audience were eyeing him as a man who had endeavoured to withdraw from a race.
Ridiculous as it seemed in reason, it was enough to excite Arthur's flagging interest and stimulate his combativeness. With ready tact he fathomed the expectation of the audience, and at once squarely joined issue with the Colonel.
Mr. Poinsett differed from his learned friend in believing this case was at all momentous or peculiar. It was a quite common one – he was sorry to say a very common one – in the somewhat hasty administration of the law in California. He was willing to admit a peculiarity in his eloquent brother's occupying the line of attack, when his place was as clearly at his, Mr. Poinsett's side. He should overlook some irregularities in the prosecution from this fact, and from the natural confusion of a man possessing Colonel Starbottle's quick sympathies, who found himself arrayed against his principles. He should, however, relieve them from that confusion, by stating that there really was no principle involved beyond the common one of self-preservation. He was willing to admit the counsel's ingenious theory that Mrs. Conroy – who was not mentioned in the indictment, or indeed any other person not specified – had committed the deed for which his client was charged. But as they were here to try Gabriel Conroy only, he could not see the relevancy of the testimony to that fact. He should content himself with the weakness of the accusation. He should not occupy their time, but should call at once to the stand the prisoner; the man who, the jury would remember, was now, against all legal precedent, actually, if not legally, placed again in peril of his life, in the very building which but a few days before had seen his danger and his escape.
He should call Gabriel Conroy!
There was a momentary sensation in the court. Gabriel uplifted his huge frame slowly, and walked quietly toward the witness-box. His face slightly flushed under the half-critical, half-amused gaze of the spectators, and those by whom he brushed as he made his way through the crowd noticed that his breathing was hurried. But when he reached the box, his face grew more composed, and his troubled eyes presently concentrated their light fixedly upon Colonel Starbottle. Then the clerk mumbled the oath, and he took his seat.
"What is your name?" asked Arthur.
"I reckon ye mean my real name?" queried Gabriel, with a touch of his usual apology.
"Yes, certainly, your real name, sir," replied Arthur, a little impatiently.
Colonel Starbottle pricked up his ears, and lifting his eyes, met Gabriel's dull, concentrated fires full in his own.
Gabriel then raised his eyes indifferently to the ceiling. "My real name – my genooine name – is Johnny Dumbledee, J-o-n-n-y, Johnny, D-u-m-b-i-l-d-e, Johnny Dumbledee!"
There was a sudden thrill, and then a stony silence. Arthur and Maxwell rose to their feet at the same moment. "What?" said both those gentlemen, sharply, in one breath.
"Johnny Dumbledee," repeated Gabriel, slowly and with infinite deliberation; "Johnny Dumbledee ez my real name. I hev frequent," he added, turning around in easy confidence to the astonished Judge Boompointer, "I hev frequent allowed I was Gabriel Conroy – the same not being the truth. And the woman ez I married —her name was Grace Conroy, and the heap o' lies ez thet old liar over thar" (he indicated the gallant Colonel Starbottle with his finger) "hez told passes my pile! Thet woman, my wife ez was and ez – waz Grace Conroy." (To the Colonel, gravely:) "You hear me! And the only imposture, please your Honour and this yer Court, and you gentl'men, was ME!"
