Mrs. Balfame: A Novel

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  It was nearly six o'clock. The court-room with its round white ceilinglooked like a crypt in the soft glow of the artificial light, and theJudge, in his black silk gown, with his handsome patrician face,clean-cut but rather soft and flushed with good living, might have beenan abbot seated aloft in judgment upon a recalcitrant nun. Mrs. Balfamein her crepe completed the delusion--if the imaginative spectatorglanced no further. The district attorney, who was summing up, lookedmore like a wasp than ever as he darted back and forth in front of thejury-box, shouting and shaking his fists. Occasionally he would hook hisfingers in his waistcoat, balance himself on his heels and with a meremoderation of his rasping tones, demonstrate a contemptuous faith in thestrength of his case.

  It is to be admitted that his arguments and expositions, hisdenunciations and satirical refutations, were quite as convincing asthose of the counsel for the defence had been, such being the elasticityof the law and of the legal mind; but although an able and powerfulspeaker, he lacked the personal charm and magnetism, the almost tragicalenthusiasm and conviction, alternating with cold deliberate logic, thathad thrilled all present to the roots of their beings during the longhours of the morning. Rush, whether he lost or won, had made hisreputation as one of the greatest pleaders ever heard at the bar of NewYork State. He had finished at a quarter to one. Immediately after theopening of the afternoon session Gore had darted into the breach,speaking with a dramatic rapidity for four hours. He sat down at sixo'clock; and Mrs. Balfame felt as if turning to stone while the Judge,standing, charged the jury and expounded the law covering the threedegrees of murder: first, second, manslaughter. It was their privilegeto convict the prisoner at the bar of any of these, unless convinced ofher innocence.

  He dwelt at length upon the degree called manslaughter, as if the ideahad occurred to him that Mrs. Balfame, justly indignant, had run outwhen she heard her husband's voice raised in song, and had fired fromthe grove by way of administering a rebuke to an erring andinconsiderate man. The second bullet had been made much of by Rush, asindicating that two people, possibly gun-men, had shot at once, but thedistrict attorney held no such theory and had ignored the bullet foundin the tree. It was apparent, however, that the Judge had given to thissecond bullet a certain amount of judicial consideration.

  The jury filed out, not to their luxurious quarters in the Paradise CityHotel, a mile away, but to a stark and ugly room in the Court-housewhere they must remain in acute discomfort until they arrived at averdict. The Judge had his dinner brought to him in a private roomadjoining theirs, and even the reporters and spectators snatched a hastymeal at the Dobton hostelry, so sure were they all that the jury wouldreturn within the hour. Mrs. Balfame did not take off her hat with itsheavy veil, but sat in her quarters at the jail with several of herfriends, outwardly calm, but with her mind on the rack and unable toshare the dinner sent over from the Inn by Mr. Cummack for herself andher guests.

  The hours passed, however, and the jury did not return. Once the head ofthe foreman emerged, and the sheriff, misunderstanding his surly demandfor a pitcher of ice water, rushed over for Mrs. Balfame, the Judge wassummoned, and the reporters, men and women, raced one another up theCourt-house stairs. Mrs. Balfame, schooled to the awful ordeal ofhearing herself pronounced a murderess in one form or other, but biddenby her friends to augur an acquittal from a mere three hours'deliberation, walked in with her usual quiet remoteness and took herseat. She was sent back at once.

  Rush paced the road in front of the Court-house. He had little hope. Hehad studied their faces day by day and believed that several, at least,were persuaded of Mrs. Balfame's guilt. Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Gifning andMrs. Cummack sat with Mrs. Balfame, who found the effort to maintain thehigh equilibrium demanded by her admiring friends as rasping an ordealto her nerves as waiting for that final summons whose menace grew withevery hour the jury wrangled. Finally she took off her hat and suggestedthat they knit, and the needles clicked through the desultoryconversation until, after midnight, they all attempted to sleep.

  The Judge extended himself on a sofa in the private room devoted to hisuse; he dared not leave the Courthouse. He told the district attorney(who told it to the sheriff, who told it to the reporters) that the juryquarrelled so persistently and so violently that he found it impossibleto sleep, and that the language they used was appalling.

  Midnight came and passed. The sob-sisters, worn out, went home. MissSarah Austin and Miss Alys Crumley had not returned to the Court-houseafter dinner. The sheriff appeared at the entrance of the courtroom andannounced that the last trolley would leave for Elsinore andneighbouring towns within five minutes. Most of the spectators filedsleepily out. A few of Mrs. Balfame's less intimate but equally devotedfriends remained in their seats near her empty chair, and shortly aftermidnight the warden's wife brought them over hot coffee and sandwiches.

  The reporters, having long since consumed all the chocolate and peanutson sale below, strolled back and forth between the Court-house and thebar of the Dobton Inn. They were bored and indignant and sought the onlyconsolation available. They returned periodically to the court-room,growing, as the hours passed, more formal, polite, silent. One lost hisway in the jury-box and was steered by a court official to thesympathetic haven of his brothers.

  The room itself, its floor littered with tinfoil, peanut-shells, andnewspapers, its tables and chairs out of place, looked like a ConeyIsland excursion boat. Finally two reporters laid their heads down on atable and went to sleep, but the rest continued to address one anotherat long intervals, in distant tones, obeying the laws of etiquette, butwith a secret and scornful reluctance.

  Broderick, who was reasonably sober, had wandered in and out many times.Occasionally he walked the road with Rush, and more than once he hadendeavoured to get Miss Crumley on the telephone. He had eventelephoned to the hospital to ascertain if she were there. A week agoonly he had accidentally discovered that Dr. Anna had been summoned byMrs. Balfame shortly after the murder and had passed many hours alonewith her; "it being the deuce and all to extract any information fromthat closed corporation of Mrs. Balfame's friends." Broderick hadsurprised it out of a group at the Elks' Club in the course ofconversation and then had set his phenomenal memory to work, with theresult that he was convinced Alys Crumley held the key to the wholesituation. He had gone to her house and pleaded with her to take him outto the hospital and obtain a statement from the sick woman before it wastoo late, representing in powerful and picturesque language the awfulperil of Rush.

  "I've reason to know," he had concluded, "that Cummack and two or threeothers have their suspicions, and there isn't a question that if thejury brings in a verdict of guilty in any degree--and they're apigheaded lot--Rush will be arrested at once. These devoted friends ofMrs. Balfame have accumulated enough evidence to begin on. He may havegone to Brooklyn that night, but he was seen to get off the train atElsinore about a quarter of an hour before the shooting. They've beendoing a lot of quiet sleuthing, but if Mrs. Balfame is acquitted they'lllet him off. They don't want any more scandal, and they like him,anyhow. But I have a hunch she won't be acquitted; and then, innocent orguilty, there'd be no saving him. So for heaven's sake, stir yourself."

  But Alys had replied: "I have besought my aunt, and she will not permitDr. Anna to be disturbed. She says her only chance for life is atranquil mind, and that the shock of hearing that Enid Balfame was ontrial for murder would kill her--let alone asking her to do her best tosend her to the chair. I've done _my_ best, but it seems hopeless."

  This conversation had taken place on Thursday. To-day was Tuesday. Theywere very reticent at the hospital, but he had reason to believe thatDr. Anna had taken a turn for the worse. Could Alys Crumley be outthere, and could she have taken that minx Sarah Austin with her? Itwould be just like a girl to go back on a good pal like himself and handa signal triumph over to another girl, who would get out of the game theminute some fellow with money enough offered to marry her. He ground histeeth.
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  He was standing near the doors of the court-room and staring at theclock whose hands pointed to a quarter to one. Suddenly he heard hisname called from below. He sauntered out and leaned over the balustrade.A weary page was ascending when he caught sight of the star reporter.

  "Brabant Hospital wants you on the 'phone," he announced, with supremeindifference.

  Broderick leaped down the winding stair and into the booth. It seemed tohim that his very ears were quivering as he listened to Alys Crumley'sfaint agitated voice. "Come out quickly and bring a stenographer," itsaid. "And suppose you ask Mr. Rush to come too. Just tell thesheriff--to--to postpone things a bit if the jury should be ready tocome in before you return. Hurry, Jim, hurry."