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CHAPTER XXV
JUDSON SUMMONED
Though the mills of the gods grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small.
– FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN.
Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking his immediate presence in the Judge's office.
The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience, leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse.
"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside the door of the private office. "You sent for me, I see."
My father returned his greeting and pointed to a chair. "Yes, I sent for you. I told you I would when I wanted to see you," he said, sitting down across the table from the sleek little man.
"Yes, yes, I remember, so you did. That's it, you did. I've not been back since, knowing you'd send for me; and then, I'm a business man and can't be loafing. But now this means business. That's it, business; when a man like Baronet calls for a man like me, it means something. After all, I'm right glad that the widow did speak to you. I was a little hard on her, maybe. But, confound it, a mother-in-law's like a wife, only worse. Your wife's got to obey, anyhow. The preacher settles that, but you must up and make your mother-in-law obey. Now ain't that right? You waited a good while; but I says, 'Let him think. Give him time.' That's it, 'give him time.' But to tell the truth I was getting a little nervous, because matters must be fixed up right away. I don't like to boast, but I've got the whip hand right now. Funny how a man gets to the top in a town like this." Oh, the poor little knave! Whom the gods destroy they first make silly, at least.
"And by the way, did you settle it with the widow, too? I hope you did. You'd be proud of me for a son, now Phil's clear out of it. And you and Mrs. Whately'd make the second handsomest couple in this town." He giggled at his own joke. "But say now, Baronet, it's took you an awful time to make up your mind. What's been the matter?" His familiarity and impudence were insufferable in themselves.
"I hadn't all the evidence I needed," my father answered calmly.
In spite of his gay spirits and lack of penetration that word "evidence" grated on Judson a little.
"Don't call it 'evidence'; sounds too legal, and nobody understands the law, not even the lawyers." He giggled again. "Let's get to business." A harsher tone in spite of himself was in his voice.
"We will begin at once," my father declared. "When you were here last Summer I was not ready to deal with you. The time has come for us to have an understanding. Do you prefer any witness or counsel, or shall we settle this alone?"
Judson looked up nervously into my father's face, but he read nothing there.
"I – well, I don't know quite what you mean. No, I don't want no witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know law books. This is our own business and nobody else's. I'd knock my best friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, man alive! this is sacred. That's it – an affair of the heart. Now be careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control was slipping.
"Amos Judson, I've listened patiently to your words. Patiently, too, I have watched your line of action, for three years. Ever since I came home from the war I have followed your business methods carefully."
The little man before him was turning yellow in spite of his self-assurance and reliance on his twin gods, money and deception, to carry him through any vicissitude. He made one more effort to bring the matter to his own view.
"Now, don't be so serious, Baronet. This is a little love affair of mine. If you're interested, all right; if not, let it go. That's it, let it go, and I'm through with you." He rose to his feet.
"But I'm not through with you. Sit down. I sent for you because I wanted to see you. I am not through with this interview. Whether it's to be the last or not will depend on conditions."
Judson was very uncomfortable and blindly angry, but he sat as directed.
"When I came home, I found you in possession of all the funds left by my friend, Irving Whately, to his wife and child. A friend's interest led me to investigate the business fallen to you. Irving begged me, when his mortal hours were few, to befriend his loved ones. It didn't take long to discover how matters were shaping themselves. But understanding and belief are one thing, and legal evidence is another."
"What was it your business?" Judson stormed. My father rose and, going to his cabinet, he took from an inner drawer a folded yellow bit of paper torn from a note book. Through the centre of it was a ragged little hole, the kind a bullet might have cut.
"This," he said, "was in Whately's notebook. We found it in his pocket. The bullet that killed him went through it, and was deadened a trifle by it, sparing his life a little longer. These words he had written in camp the night before that battle at Missionary Ridge:
"'If I am killed in battle I want John Baronet to take care of my wife and child.' It was witnessed by Cris Mead and Howard Morton. Morton's in the hospital in the East now, but Cris is down in the bank. Both of their signatures are here."
Judson sat still and sullen.
"This is why it was my business to find out, at least, if all was well with Mrs. Whately and her daughter. It wasn't well, and I set about making it well. I had no further personal interest than this then. Later, when my son became interested in the Whately family, I dropped the matter – first, because I could not go on without giving a wrong impression of my motives; and secondly, because I knew my boy could make up to Marjie the loss of their money."
"Phil hasn't any property," the widower broke in, the ruling passion still controlling him.
"None of Whately's property, no," my father replied; "but he has a wage-earning capacity which is better than all the ill-begotten property anybody may fraudulently gather together. Anyhow, I reasoned that if my boy and Whately's girl cared for each other, I would not be connected with any of their property matters. I have, however, secured a widow's pension and some back-pay for Mrs. Whately, and not a minute too soon." He smiled a little. "Oh, yes, Tell Mapleson went East on the same train I did in October. I just managed to outwit him in time, and all his affidavits and other documents were useless. He would have cut off that bit of assistance from a soldier's widow to help your cause. It would have added much value to your stock if Irving Whately's name should have been so dishonored at Washington that his wife should receive no pension for his service and his last great sacrifice. But so long as Phil and Marjie were betrothed, I let your business alone."
Judson could not suppress a grin of satisfaction.
"Now that there is no bond other than friendship between the two families, and especially since Marjie has begged me to take hold of it, I have probed this business of yours to the bottom. Don't make any mistake," he added, as Judson took on a sly look of disbelief. "You will be safer to accept that fact now. Drop the notion that your tracks are covered. I've waited for some time, so that one sitting would answer."
There was a halting between cowardly cringing and defiance, overlaid all with a perfect insanity of anger; for Judson had lost all self-control.
"You don't know one thing about my business, and you can't prove a word you say, you infernal, lying, old busybody, not one thing," he fairly hissed in his rage.
John Baronet rose to his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the little man trembled. No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the supremacy of that graceful motion and that penetrating look.
"It takes cannon for the soldier, the rope for the assassin, the fist for the rowdy; but, by Heaven! it's a ludicrous thing to squander gunpowder when insect powder will accomplish the same results. I told you, I had waited until I had the evidence," he said. "Now you are going to listen while I speak."
It isn't the fighter, but the man with the fighting strength, who wins the last battle. Judson cowered down in his chair and dropped his eyes, while my father seated himself and went on.
"Before Irving Whately went to the war he had me draw up a will. You witnessed it. It listed his property – the merchandise, the real estate, the bank stock, the cash deposits, and the personal effects. One half of this was to become Marjie's at the age of twenty (Marjie was twenty on Christmas Day), and the whole of it in the event of her mother's death. He did not contemplate his wife's second marriage, you see. That will, with other valuable papers, was put into the vault here in the courthouse for safe keeping, and you carried the key. While most of the loyal, able-bodied men were fighting for their country's safety, you were steadily drawing on the bank account in the pretence of using it for the store. Nobody can find from your bookkeeping how matters were in that business during those years.
"On the night Springvale was to be burned, you raided the courthouse, taking these and other papers away, because you thought the courthouse was to be burned that night. Mapleson got mixed up in his instructions, you remember, and Dodd nearly lost his good name in his effort to get these same papers out of the courthouse to burn them. You and Tell didn't 'tote fair' with him, and he thought you were here in town. You wouldn't have treated the parson well, had your infamous scheme succeeded. But you were not in town. You left your sick baby and faithful wife to carry that will and that property-list out to the old stone cabin, where you hid them. You meant to go back and destroy them after you had examined them more carefully. But you never could find them again. They were taken from your hiding-place and put in another place. You thought you were alone out there; also you thought you had outwitted Dodd. You could manage the Methodist Church South, but you failed to reckon with the Roman Catholics. While you were searching the draw to get back across the flood, Father Le Claire, wet from having swum the Neosho up above there, stopped to rest in the gray of the morning. You didn't see him, but he saw you."
My father paused and, turning his back on the cowardly form in the chair, walked to the window. Presently he sat down again.
"Mrs. Whately was crushed with grief over her husband's death; she was trustful and utterly ignorant in business matters; and in these circumstances you secured her signature to a deed for the delivery of all her bank stock to you. She had no idea what all that paper meant. She only wanted to be alone with her overwhelming sorrow. I need not go through that whole story of how steadily, by fraud, and misuse, and downright lie, you have eaten away her property, getting everything into your own name, until now you would turn the torture screw and force a marriage to secure the remnant of the Whately estate, you greedy, grasping villain!
"But defrauding Irving Whately's heirs and getting possession of that store isn't the full limit of your 'business.' You and Tell Mapleson, after cutting Dodd and Conlow out of the game, using Conlow only as a cat's paw, you two have been conducting a systematic commerce on commission with one Jean Pahusca, highway robber and cut-throat, who brings in money and small articles of value stolen in Topeka and Kansas City and even St. Louis, with the plunder that could be gathered along the way, all stored in the old stone cabin loft and slipped in here after dark by as soft-footed a scoundrel as ever wore a moccasin. You and Tell divide the plunder and promise Jean help to do his foes to death – fostering his savage blood-thirsty spirit."
"You can't prove that. Jean's word's no good in law; and you never found it out through Le Claire. He's Jean's father; Dodd says so." Judson was choking with rage.
"The priest can answer that charge for himself," my father said calmly. "No, it was your head clerk, Thomas O'Meara, who took a ten days' vacation and stayed at night up in the old stone cabin for his health. You know he has weak lungs. He found out many things, even Jean's fear of ghosts. That's the Indian in Jean. The redskin doesn't live that isn't afraid of a ghost, and O'mie makes a good one. This traffic has netted you and Mapleson shamefully large amounts.
"Where's my evidence?" he asked, as Judson was about to speak. "Ever since O'mie went into the store, your books have been kept, and incidentally your patronage has increased. That Irishman is shrewd and to the last penny accurate. All your goods delivered by Dever's stage, or other freight, with receipts for the same are recorded. All the goods brought in through Jean's agency have been carefully tabulated. This record, sworn to before old Joseph Mead, Cris's father, as notary, and witnessed by Cam Gentry, Cris Mead, and Dr. Hemingway, lies sealed and safe in the bank vault.
"One piece of your trickery has a double bearing; here, and in another line. Your books show that gold rings, a watch chain, sundry articles of a woman's finery charged to Marjory Whately, taken from her mother's income, were given as presents to another girl. Among them are a handsome fur collar which Lettie Conlow had on this very morning, and some beautiful purple ribbon, a large bow of which fastened with a valuable pin set with brilliants I have here."
He opened a drawer of his desk and lifted out the big bow of purple ribbon which Lettie lost on the day Marjie and I went out to the haunted cabin. "In your stupid self-conceit you refused to grant a measure of good common sense and powers of observation to those about you. I have seen your kind before; but not often, thank God!"
My father paused, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. Judson evidently fancied his case closed and he was beginning to hunt for a way out, when his accuser spoke again.
"Your business transactions, however, rank as they are, cannot equal your graver deeds. Human nature is selfish, and a love of money has filled many a man's soul with moth and rust. You are not the only man who, to get a fortune, turned the trick so often that when an opportunity came to steal, he was ready and eager for the chance. Some men never get caught, or being known, are never brought to the bar of account; but you have been found out as a thief and worse than a thief; you have tried to destroy a good man's reputation. With words that were false, absolutely false, you persuaded a defenceless woman that her noble husband – wearing now the martyr's crown of victory – you persuaded her, I say, that this man had done the things you yourself have done in his name – that he was a business failure, a trickster, and an embezzler. With Tell Mapleson and James Conlow and some of that Confederate gang from Fingal's Creek, swearing to false affidavits, you made Mrs. Whately believe that his name was about to be dishonored for wrongs done in his business and for fraudulent dealing which you, after three years of careful sheltering, would no longer hide unless she gave her daughter to you in marriage. For these days of wearing grief to Mrs. Whately you can never atone. You and Tell, as I said a while ago, almost succeeded in your scheme at Washington. To my view this is infinitely worse than taking Irving Whately's property.
"All this has been impersonal to me, except as the wrongs and sorrows of a friend can hurt. But I come now to my own personal interest. And where that is concerned a man may always express himself."
Judson broke out at this point unable to restrain himself further.
"Baronet, you needn't mind. You and me have nothing in the world in common."
My father held back a smile of assent to this.
"All I ever did was to suggest a good way for you to help Mrs. Whately, best way in the world you could help her if you really feel so bad about her. But you wouldn't do it. I just urged it as good for all parties. That's it, just good for all of us; and it would have been, but I didn't command you to it, just opened the way to help you."
My father did not repress the smile this time, for the thought of Judson commanding him was too much to bear unsmilingly. The humor faded in a moment, however, and the stern man of justice went on with his charge.
"You tried to bring dishonor upon my son by plans that almost won, did win with some people. You adroitly set on foot a tale of disgraceful action, and so well was your work done that only Providence prevented the fulfilling of your plans."
"He is a fast young man; I have the evidence," Judson cried defiantly. "He's been followed and watched by them that know. I guess if you take Jean Pahusca's word about the goods you'll have to about the doings of Phil Baronet."
"No doubt about Phil being followed and watched, but as to taking Jean Pahusca's word, I wouldn't take it on oath about anything, not a whit more than I would take yours. When a man stands up in my court and swears to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he must first understand what truth is before his oath is of any effect. Neither Jean nor you have that understanding. Let me tell you a story: You asked Phil to escort Lettie Conlow home one night in August. About one o'clock in the morning Phil went from his home down to the edge of the cliff where the bushes grow thick. What took him there is his own business. It is all written in a letter that I can get possession of at any time that I need it, Lettie was there. Why, I do not know. She asked him to go home with her, but he refused to do so."
Judson would have spoken but my father would not permit it here.
"She started out to that cabin at that hour of the night to meet you, started with Jean Pahusca, as you had commanded her to do, and you know he is a dangerous, villainous brute. He had some stolen goods at the cabin, and you wanted Lettie to see them, you said. If she could not entrap Phil that night, Jean must bring her out to this lonely haunted house. You led the prayer meeting that week for Dr. Hemingway. Amos Judson, so long as such men as you live, there is still need for guardian angels. One came to this poor wilful erring girl that night in the person of Bud Anderson, who not only made her tell where she was going, but persuaded her to turn back, and he saw her safe within her own home."
"It's Phil that's deceived her and been her downfall. I can prove it by Lettie herself. She's a very warm friend and admirer of mine."
"She told me in this room not two hours ago that Phil had never done her wrong. It was she who asked to have you summoned here this morning, although I was ready for you anyhow."
The end of Judson's rope was in sight now. He collapsed in his chair into a little heap of whining fear and self-abasement.
"Your worst crime, Judson, is against this girl. You have used her for your tool, your accomplice, and your villainously base purposes. You bribed her, with gifts she coveted, to do your bidding. You lived a double life, filling her ears with promises you meant only to break. Even your pretended engagement to Marjie you kept from her, and when she found it out, you declared it was false. And more, when with her own ears she heard you assert it as a fact, you sought to pacify her with promises of pleasures bought with sin. You are a property thief, a receiver of stolen goods, a defamer of character. Your hand was on the torch to burn this town. You juggled with the official records in the courthouse. You would basely deceive and marry a girl whose consent could be given only to save her father's memory from stain, and her mother from a broken heart. And greatest and blackest of all, you would utterly destroy the life and degrade the soul of one whose erring feet we owe it to ourselves to lead back to straight paths. On these charges I have summoned you to this account. Every charge I have evidence to prove beyond any shadow of question. I could call you before the civil courts at once. That I have not done it has not been for my son's sake, nor for Marjie's, nor her mother's, but for the sake of the one I have no personal cause to protect, the worst one connected with this business outside of yourself and that scoundrel Mapleson – for the sake of a woman. It is a man's business to shield her, not to drag her down to perdition. I said I would send for you when it was time for you to come again, when I was ready for you. I have sent for you. Now you must answer me."
Judson, sitting in a crumpled-up heap in the big armchair in John Baronet's private office, tried vainly for a time to collect his forces. At last he turned to the one resource we all seek in our misdoing: he tried to justify himself by blaming others.
"Judge Baronet," his high thin voice always turned to a whine when he lowered it. "Judge Baronet, I don't see why I'm the only one you call to account. There's Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow and the Rev. Dodd and a lot more done and planned to do what I'd never 'a dreamed of. Now, why do I have to bear all of it?"
"You have only your part to bear, no more; and as to Tell Mapleson, his time is coming."
"I think I might have some help. You know all the law, and I don't know any law." My father did not smile at the evident truth of the last clause.
"You can have all the law, evidence, and witnesses you choose. You may carry your case up to the highest court. Law is my business; but I'll be fair and say to you that a man's case is sometimes safer settled out of court, if mercy is to play any part. I've no cause to shield you, but I'm willing you should know this."
"I don't want to go to court. Tell's told me over and over I'd never have a ghost of a show" – he was talking blindly now – "I want somebody to shake you loose from me. That's it, I want to get rid of you."
"How much time will it require to get your counsel and come here again?"
If a man sells his soul for wealth, the hardest trial of his life comes when he first gets face to face with the need of what money cannot buy; that is, loyalty. Such a trial came to Judson at this moment. Mapleson had warned him about Baronet, but in his puny egotistic narrowness he thought himself the equal of the best. Now he knew that neither Mapleson nor any other of the crew with whom he had been a law-breaker would befriend him.
"They ain't one of 'em 'll stand by a fellow when he's down, not a one," the little man declared.
"No, they never do; remember that," John Baronet replied.
"Well, what is it you want?" he whined.
"What are you going to do? Settle this in court or out of it?"
"Out of it, out of it," Judson fairly shrieked. "I'd be put out of the Presbyterian Church if this gets into the courts. I've got a bank account I'm not ashamed of. How much is it going to take to settle it? What's the least will satisfy you?"
"Settle it? Satisfy me? Great heavens! Can a career like this be atoned for with a bank check and interest at eight per cent?" My father's disgust knew no bounds.
"You are going to turn over to the account of Marjory Whately an amount equal to one-half the value of Whately's estate at the time of his death, with a legal rate of interest, which according to his will she was to receive at the age of twenty. The will," my father went on, as he read a certain look in Judson's face, "is safe in the vault of the courthouse, and there are no keys available to the box that holds it. Also, you are going to pay in money the value of all the articles charged to Marjory Whately's account and given to other people, mostly young ladies, and especially to Lettie Conlow. Your irregular business methods in the management of that store since O'mie began to keep your records you are going to make straight and honest by giving all that is overdue to your senior partner, Mrs. Irving Whately. Furthermore, you are going to give an account for the bank stock fraudulently secured in the days of Mrs. Whately's deep sorrow. This much for your property transactions. You can give it at once or stand suit for embezzlement. I have the amounts all listed here. I know your bank account and property possession. Will you sign the papers now?"
"But – but," Judson began. "I can't. It'll take more than half, yes, all but two-thirds, I've got to my name. I can't do it. I'll have to hire to somebody if I do."
"You miserable cur, the pity is you can't make up all that you owe but that cannot be proved by any available record. Only one thing keeps me back from demanding a full return for all your years of thieving stewardship."
"Isn't that all?" Judson asked.
"Not yet. You cannot make returns for some things. If it were all a money proposition it would be simple. The other thing you are going to do, now mark me, I've left you the third of your gains for it. You are going to make good your promise to Lettie Conlow, and you will do it now. You will give her your name, the title of wife. Your property under the Kansas law becomes hers also; her children become the heirs to your estate. These, with an honest life following, are the only conditions that can save you from the penitentiary, as an embezzler, a receiver of stolen goods, a robber of county records, a defamer of innocent men, an accomplice in helping an Indian to steal a white girl, and a libertine.
"I shall not release the evidence, nor withdraw the power to bring you down the minute you break over the restrictions. Amos Judson," (there was a terrible sternness in my father's voice, as he stood before the wretched little man), "there is an assize at which you will be tried, there is a bar whose Judge knows the heart as well as the deed, and for both you must answer to Him, not only for the things in which I give you now the chance to redeem yourself, but for those crimes for which the law may not now punish you. There is here one door open beside the one of iron bars, and that is the door to an honest life. Redeem your past by the future."
For the person who could have seen John Baronet that day, who could have heard his deep strong voice and felt the power of his magnetic personality, who could have been lifted up by the very strength of his nobility so as to realize what a manhood such as his can mean – for one who could have known all this it were easy to see to how hard a task I have set my pen in trying to picture it here.
"No man's life is an utter failure until he votes it so himself." My father did not relax his hold for a moment. "You must square yours by a truer line and lift up to your own plane the girl you have promised to marry, and prosperity and happiness such as you could never know otherwise will come to you. On this condition only will you escape the full penalty of the law."
The little widower stood up at last. It had been a terrible grilling, but his mind and body, cramped together, seemed now to expand.
"I'll do it, Judge Baronet. Will you help me?"
He put out his hand hesitatingly.
My father took it in his own strong right hand. No man or woman, whether clothed upon with virtue or steeped in vice, ever reached forth a hand to John Baronet and saw in his face any shadow of hesitancy to receive it. So supreme to him was the ultimate value of each human soul. He did not drop the hand at once, but standing there, as father to son he spoke:
"I have been a husband. Through all these long years I have walked alone and lonely, yearning ever for the human presence of my loved one lying these many years under the churchyard grasses back at old Rockport. Judson, be good to your wife. Make her happy. You will be blessed yourself and you will make her a true good woman."
There was a quiet wedding at the Presbyterian parsonage that evening. The name of only one witness appeared on the marriage certificate, the name in a bold hand of John Baronet.
