The case of the State vs. Cassius Smilk, charged with burglary, wasfinally set for trial the second week in February, just one year,one month and eleven days after his arrest in the apartment ofCrittenden Yollop. There had been, it appears, a slight delay ingetting 'round to his case. The dockets in all Parts of GeneralSessions were more or less clogged by the efforts of ex-convicts toget back into the penitentiary. Also, there were a great many murdercases that kept bobbing up every now and then for continuance on oneplea or another to the disgust of the harassed judges; to saynothing of the re-trials made necessary by the jurors who listenedmore attentively to the lawyers who "summed up" than they did to thewitnesses who were under oath to tell nothing but the truth.
Cassius, on arraignment, had pleaded not guilty, according to theancient ritual of his profession. Notwithstanding his evident andexpressed desire to return to a haven of peace and luxury, he wasfar too conscientious a criminal to violate the soundest--it maywell be said, the elemental--law of his craft, by pleading guilty toanything.
It was a matter of principle with him. Circumstances had nothing todo with it. The instant he found himself in court, he reverted totype, somewhat gleefully setting about to make as much trouble aspossible. He adhered to the principle that no criminal is adequatelypunished unless the people are made to pay for the privilege ofsuppressing him. The only way to make the people respect the law, hecontended, is to let 'em understand that it costs money to enforceit. Besides, crime has a certain, clearly established dignity thatmust be reckoned with. The world thinks a great deal less of you ifafter you have violated the law, you also refuse to fight it.
Take the judge, for instance. (I quote Smilk.) What sort of anopinion does he have of you if you slide up to the little "gate,"with your tail between your legs and plead guilty? Why, he hardlynotices you. He has to put on his spectacles in order to see you atall and he doesn't even have to look in the statute book to refreshhis memory as to the minimum penalty for larceny or whatever it is.And the way the Assistant District Attorney looks at you! And thebailiffs too. But put up a fight and see what happens. The wholeblamed works sits up and takes notice. The judge looks over hisspectacles and says to himself, "by gosh, he's a tough lookin' bird,that guy is;" the District Attorney goes around tellin' everybody ina whisper that you're a desperate character; the clerk of the court,the stenographer and all the bailiffs sort of wake up and act busy;the men waiting to be examined for jobs on the jury begin to fidgetand wonder whether the judge is a "crab" or a nice, decent fellerwhat'll let 'em off when they tell him they got sickness in thefamily, and all of 'em ha tin' you worse than poison because youdidn't plead guilty.
He was remanded for trial within two weeks after his arrest. Thecourt, finding him penniless, announced he would appoint counsel todefend him. Whereupon Smilk sauntered back to the Tombs with a lightheart, confident that his sojourn there would be brief and thatMarch at the very latest would see him snugly settled in hisrent-free, food-free, landlordless home on the Hudson, entertainmentfor man and beast provided without discrimination, crime no object.
First of all, his lawyer unexpectedly got a job to represent a shadylady in a sensational breach of promise suit that drew weeklypostponements over a period of five months and finally died anatural death out of court sometime in June.
This resulted in his lawyer becoming so affluent that it wasn'tnecessary for him to bother with Cassius, so he withdrew from thecase. After some delay, another lawyer was appointed to defend himand things began to look up. But by this time the dockets had becomeso jammed with unrelated dilemmas, and the summer heat was sointense, that the new lawyer informed him he couldn't possiblysandwich him in unless he would consent to change his plea to"guilty", contending that the combination of humility and humiditywould go a long ways towards softening the judge. But Cassiussturdily refused to cheapen himself.
In the meantime, new crimes had been committed by countlessgentlemen of leisure; the Tombs was full of men clamoring forattention, and there was an undetected waiting list outside thatstretched all the way from the Battery to the lower extremities ofYonkers.
The principal witness, Mr. Crittenden Yollop, did his best to behavenobly. He thrice postponed a business trip to Paris in order to bewithin reach when Cassius needed him. Then, in the fall, when thingslooked most propitious for a speedy termination of Smilk's suspense,the millinery business took a sudden and alarming turn for the worseand Mr. Yollop fell into the hands of the specialists. He had histeeth ex-rayed, his sinuses probed, his eyes examined, his stomachsounded, his intestines visited, his nerves tampered with, his bloodtested, his kidneys explored, his heart observed, his earsinspected, his gall stones (if he had any) shifted, his last willand testament drawn up, his funeral practically arranged for,--allby different scientists,--and then was ordered to go off somewherein the country and play golf for his health. He went to Hot Springs,Virginia, and inside of two weeks contracted the golf disease in itsmost virulent form. He got it so bad that other players looked uponhim as a scourge and avoided him even to the point ofself-sacrifice. It was said of him that when he once got on a greenit was next to impossible to get him off of it.
But all this is neither here nor there. Suffice to say that shortlyafter his return to New York, Mr. Yollop paid a more or lessclandestine visit to the Tombs, where he saw Cassius. This was theweek before the trial was to open. He found the crook in adisconsolate frame of mind.
"Don't call me Yollop," he managed to convey to the prisoner. "Igave another name to the jailer or whatever he is. Is it jail bird?It wouldn't look right for the prosecuting witness to come down hereto see you. They think I'm your brother-in-law."
Smilk glowered. "Has your hearin' improved any?" he inquired, afterlocating the disc.
"No, of course not."
"Then," said the prisoner, "I can't tell you what I think of youwithout the whole damn' jail hearin' me, so I guess you'd betterbeat it."
"Splendid! That's just the way I might have expected you to talk toyour brother-in-law."
"Well, what do you want anyhow?"
"I don't think that's a very nice way to speak to a--"
"Come on, what do you want to see me about? Get it over with and getout. It can't help my case any if it gets noised around that youcome down here to pay a friendly visit to me. I'm havin' a hardenough time as it is. It's gettin' so it's almost impossible to getback into the pen even--"
"See here, Cassius, I've been giving your case a great deal--ofserious thought. I want to help you out of this scrape if there isany way to do it."
"That's just what I thought you'd be up to," groaned Cassius."What's got into you? Have you soured on life, or what is it?"
"Not a bit of it. You do not get my meaning. Your wife came to seeme yesterday afternoon."
"My wife? Which one?"
"A tallish one with a flat nose."
"Yes, I know her. What'd she want?"
"She asked me to be as easy on you as I could, on account of thechildren."
"How many children has she got now?"
"Four, she informs me. The youngest is two and a half."
Cassius seemed to be doing a bit of mental arithmetic. He ponderedwell before speaking. Then he said: "Did she say whose children?"
"I assumed them to be yours, Cassius."
Smilk grinned. "Well, I guess she's adopted a couple since the lasttime I saw her, which was five years ago last Spring. I been marriedtwice since then. So she wants you to go easy on me, eh?"
"She seems to think that if I intercede for you the judge will letyou off with a suspended sentence, and then you can go to work andsupport your family."
"It's time she woke up," snarled Smilk.
"I been at large quite a bit in the last ten years and if she canprove that I ever supported her,--why, darn her hide, what right hasshe got to accuse me of supportin' her when she knows I've neverbeen guilty of doin' it? She knows as well as anything that shesupported me on three different occasions when I was out fo
r a monthor two at a stretch. I will say this for her, she supported mebetter than the other two did,--a lot better. And it's her own faulther nose is flat. If she'd stood still that time--But I'm not goin'to discuss family affairs with you, Mr. Yol--"
"Sh! Easy!"
"It's all right. He ain't listenin'."
"What is your brother-in-law's name?" in a whisper.
"I never had but one name for him, and it's something I wouldn'tcall you for anything in the world," said Smilk. "Let's make itBill. You ain't goin' to do what she asks, are you? You ain't goin'to do a dirty trick like that are you,--Bill?"
"I thought I would come down and talk the matter over with you,Cash. I'm in quite a dilemma. She says if I don't help you out ofthis scrape she and all your children will haunt me to my dying day.It sounds rather terrible, doesn't it?"
"I can't think of anything worse," acknowledged Cassius, solemnly.
"She asked me what I thought your sentence would be, and I told herI doubted very much whether you'd get more than a year or so, inview of all the extenuating circumstances,--that is to say, yourself-restraint and all that when you had not only the jewels but therevolver as well. That seemed to cheer her up a bit."
"You made a ten strike that time, Bill," said Smilk, his facebrightening. "I didn't give you credit for bein' so clever. If shethinks I'll be out in a year or two, maybe she'll be satisfied tokeep her nose out of my affairs. If you had told her I was dead sureto go up for twenty years or so, she'd come and camp over there inthe Criminal Courts Building and just raise particular hell witheverything."
Mr. Yollop turned his face away. "I'm sorry to bring bad news toyou, Cash, but she's made up her mind to attend your trial nextMonday. She's going to bring the children and--"
He was interrupted by the string of horrific oaths that issued,pianissimo, through the twisted lips of the prisoner. After a time,Cassius interrupted himself to murmur weakly:
"If she does that, I'm lost. We got to head her off somehow,Mr.--er--Bill."
"I don't see how it can be managed. She has a perfect right toattend the pro--"
"Wait a minute, Bill," broke in the other eagerly. "I got an idea.If you give her that roll of mine, maybe she'll stay away."
"What roll are you talking about?"
"My roll of bills,--you remember, don't you?"
"My good man, I haven't got your roll of bills. And besides Icouldn't put myself in the position of--of--er--what is it you callit?--tinkering with witnesses to defeat the ends of justice."
"But she ain't a witness, Bill. You couldn't possibly get in wrong.What's more, it's my money, and I got a right to give it to my wife,ain't I? Ain't I got a right to give money to my own wife,--or toone of my wives, strictly speakin',--and to my own children? Ain'tI?"
"That isn't the point. I refuse to be a party to any such game. Weneed not discuss it any farther. As I said before, I haven't yourroll of bills, and if I had it I--"
"Oh, yes, you have. You got it right up there in your apartment. Istuck it away behind a--"
"Stop! Not another word, Cassius. I don't want to know where it is.If you persist in telling me, I'll--I'll ask the judge to let youoff with the lightest sentence he can--"
"Oh, Lord, you WOULDN'T do that, would you?"
"Yes, I would. What do you mean by secreting stolen property in myapartments?"
"I didn't steal it. I found it, I tell you."
"Bosh!"
"Hope I may die if I didn't."
"Well, it may stay there till it rots, so far as I am concerned."
"No danger of that," said Smilk composedly. "A friend of mine iscomin' around some night soon to get it. What else did she say?"
"Eh?"
"What else did my wife say?"
"Oh! Well, among other things, she wondered if it would be possibleto get an injunction against the court to prevent him from deprivingher of her only means of support. She says everybody is gettinginjunctions these days and--"
"Bosh!" said Smilk, but not with conviction. An anxious, inquiringgleam lurked in his eyes.
Mr. Yollop continued:
"I told her it was ridiculous,--and it is. Then she said she wasgoing to see your lawyer and ask him to put her on the witness standto testify that you are a good, loyal, hard-working husband and thatyour children ought to have a father's hand over them, and a lotmore like that."
"She tried that once before and the court wouldn't let her testify,"said Smilk. "But anyhow, I'll tell my lawyer to kick her out of theoffice if she comes around there offering to commit perjury."
"I rather fancy she has considered that angle, Cassius. She says ifshe isn't allowed to testify, she's going to attempt suicide rightthere in the court-room."
"By gum, she's a mean woman," groaned Smilk.
"I'm obliged to agree with you," said Mr. Yollop, compressing hislips as a far-away look came into his eyes. "If I live to be athousand years old, I'll never forget the way she talked to me whenI finally succeeded in telling her I was busy and she would have toexcuse me. It was something appalling."
"Course. I suppose I got myself to blame," lamented Cassiusruefully. "I don't know how many times I come near to doin' it anddidn't because I was so darned chicken-hearted."
"I have decided, Cash, that you ought to go up for life,--or forthirty years, at least. So when I go on the stand I intend to doeverything in my power to secure the maximum for you. At first, Iwas reluctant to aid you in your efforts to lead a life of ease andenjoyment but recent events have convinced me that you are entitledto all that the law can give you."
"It won't do much good if she's to set there in the Courtroom,snivelling and lookin' heart-broke, with a pack of half-starved kidshangin' on to her. Like as not, she won't give 'em anything to eatfor two or three days so's they'll look the part. I remember two ofthem kids fairly well. The Lord knows I used to take all kinds ofrisks to provide clothes and all sorts of luxuries for them,--andfor her too. I used to give 'em bicycles and skates and goldwatches,--yes, sir, we had Christmas regularly once a month. And shenever was without fur neck-pieces and muffs and silk stockings andeverything. The trouble with that woman is, she can't stand poverty.She just keeps on hopin' for the day to come when she can wear allsorts of finery and jewels again, even if I do have to go to thepenitentiary for it. All this comes of bein' too good a provider,Bill. You spoil 'em."
Mr. Yollop was thinking, so Cassius, after waiting a moment,scratched his head and ventured:
"That guy's beginnin' to fidget, Bill. I guess your time's about up.What are you thinkin' about?"
"I was thinking about your other wives. How many did you say youhave?"
"Three, all told. The other two don't bother me much."
"Haven't you ever been divorced from any of them?"
"Not especially. Why?"
"Where do the other two live, and what are their names?"
"Elsie Morton and Jennie Finch. I mean, those are their marriednames. I use a different alias every time I get married, you see.Course, my first wife,--the one you met,--her name is Smilk. Imarried her when I was young and not very smart. Elsie lives inBrooklyn and Jennie keeps a delicatessen up on the West Side."
"Do they know where you are?"
"I don't think so. I forgot to tell 'em I was out on parole lastyear."
"And they have never been divorced from you?"
"No. They couldn't prove anything on me as long as I was locked upin the penitentiary."
"Does either one of them know about the other two?"
"I should say not! What do you think I am?"
"Don't lose your temper, Cassius. I am trying to think of some wayto help you,--and I believe I see a ray of hope. You were regularlymarried to Elsie and Jennie,--I mean, by a minister, and so on?"
"Sure. They both got their marriage certificates. I always believein doin' things in the proper legal way. It's only fair and right.They--"
"Never mind. Give me their addresses."
CHAPTER FIVE
 
;