By Advice of Counsel
"Never see whom?"
"Dees man--judge."
"I'm not talking about the judge."
"I nevvair see no one."
"Didn't you tell the Grand Jury that Hassoun stabbed Babu with a long
knife?"
"I dunno heem!"
"Who?"
"Gran' Jury."
"Didn't you go into a big room and put your hand on a book and swear?"
"I no swear--ever!"
"And tell what you saw?"
"I tell what I saw."
"What did you see?"
"I saw Hassoun break heem hees neck."
"Didn't you say first that Hassoun stabbed Babu?"
"No--nevvair!"
"Then didn't you come back and say he shot him?"
"No--nevvair!"
"And finally, didn't you say he strangled him--after you had heard that
the coroner's physician had decided that that was how he was killed?"
"Yes--he break heem hees neck."
Mr. Kahoots was apparently very much bored, but he was not bored in
quite the same way as the judge, who, suddenly rousing himself, asked
Mr. Tutt if he had any basis for asking such questions.
"Why, certainly," answered the old lawyer quietly. "I shall prove that
this witness made three absolutely contradictory statements before the
Grand Jury."
"Is that so, Mister District Attorney?"
"I don't know," replied Pepperill faintly. "I had nothing to do with the
proceedings before the Grand Jury."
Judge Wetherell frowned.
"It would seem to me," he began, "as if a proper preparation of the case
would have involved some slight attention to--Well, never mind! Proceed,
Mr. Tutt."
"Kahoots!" cried the lawyer sternly. "Isn't it a fact that you have
been convicted of crime yourself?"
The proprietor of the merry-go-round drew himself up indignantly.
"Me? No!"
"Weren't you convicted of assault on a man named Rafoul Rabyaz?"
"Me? Look here, sir! I tell you 'bout dat! This Rafoul Rabyaz he my
partner, see, in pool, billiard and cigar business on Greenwich Street.
This long time ago. Years ago. We split up. I sell heem my shares, see.
I open next door--pool table, café and all. But I not get full half the
stock. I not get the tablecloth, see. I was of the tablecloth you know
short. It don't be there. I go back there that time. I see heem. I say,
'We don't count those tablecloth.' He say, 'Yes.' I say,'No.' He
say,'Yes.' I say 'No.' He say, 'Yes.' I say, 'No'--"
"For heaven's sake," exclaimed Judge Wetherell, "don't say that again!"
"Yes, sair," agreed the showman. "All right. I say, 'No.' I say, 'You
look in the book.' He say, 'No.' We each take hold of the cloth. I have
a knife. I cut cloth in two. I give heem half. I take half. I say, 'You
take half; I take half.' He say, 'Go to hell!'"
He waved his hand definitively.
"Well?" inquired Mr. Tutt anxiously.
"Dat's all!" answered Mr. Kahoots.
One of the jurymen suddenly coughed and thrust his handkerchief into his
mouth.
"Then you stuck your knife into him, didn't you?" suggested Mr. Tutt.
"Me? No!"
Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips.
"You were convicted, weren't you?"
"I call twenty witness!" announced Mr. Kahoots with a grand air.
"You don't need to!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "Now tell us why you had to
leave Syria?"
"I go in camel business at Coney Island," answered the witness demurely.
"What!" shouted the lawyer. "Didn't you run away from home because you
were convicted of the murder of Fatima, the daughter of Abbas?"
"Me? No!" Mr. Kahoots looked shocked.
Mr. Tutt bent over and spoke to Bonnie Doon, who produced from a leather
bag a formidable document on parchment-like paper covered with
inscriptions in Arabic and adorned with seals and ribbons.
"I have here, Your Honor," said he, "the record of this man's conviction
in the Criminal Court in Beirut, properly exemplified by our consuls and
the embassy at Constantinople. I have had it translated, but if Mr.
Pepperill prefers to have the interpreter read it--"
"Show it to the district attorney!" directed His Honor.
Pepperill looked at it helplessly.
"You may read your own translation," said the court drowsily.
Mr. Tutt bowed, took up the paper and faced the jury.
"This is the official record," he announced. "I will read it.
"'In the name of God.
"'On a charge of the murder of the gendarmes Nejib Telhoon and
Abdurrahman and Ibrahim Aisha and Fatima, daughter of Hason Abbas, of
the attack on certain nomads, of having fired on them with the intent of
murder, of participation and assistance in the act of murder, of having
shot on the regular troops, of assisting in the escape of some offenders
and of having drawn arms on the regular troops, during an uprising on
Sunday, January 24, 1303--Mohammedan style--between the inhabitants of
the Mezreatil-Arab quarter in Beirut and the nomads who had pitched
their tents near by, the following arrested persons, namely--Metri son
of Habib Eljemal and Habib son of Mikael Nakash and Hanna son of
Abdallah Elbaitar and Elias Esad Shihada and Tanous son of Jerji Khedr
and Habib son of Aboud Shab and Elias son of Metri Nasir and Khalil son
of Mansour Maoud and Nakhle son of Elias Elhaj and Nakhle son of Berkat
Minari and Antoon son of Berkat Minari and Lutfallah son of
Jerji-Kefouri and Jabran Habib Bishara and Kholil son of Lutf Dahir and
Nakhle Yousif Eldefoumi, all residents of the said quarter and Turkish
subjects, and their companions, sixty-five fugitives, namely--Isbir
Bedoon son of Abdallah Zerik and Elias son of Kanan Zerik and Amin Matar
and Jerji Ferhan alias Baldelibas and Habu son of Hanna Kahoots and--'"
Deputy Assistant District Attorney Pepperill started doubtfully to his
feet.
"If the court please," he murmured in a sickly voice, "I object. In the
first place I don't know anything about this record--and I object to it
on that ground; and in the second place a trial and conviction in the
absence of a defendant under our law is no conviction at all."
"But this man is a Turkish subject and it's a good conviction in
Turkey," argued Mr. Tutt.
"Well, it isn't here!" protested Pepperill.
"You're a little late, aren't you?" inquired His Honor. "It has all been
read to the jury. However, I'll entertain a motion to strike out--"
"I should like to be heard on the question," said Mr. Tutt quickly.
"This is an important matter."
Unexpectedly a disgruntled-looking talesman in the back row held up his
hand.
"I'd like to ask a question myself," he announced defiantly, almost
arrogantly, after the manner of one with a grievance. "I'm a
hard-working business man. I've been dragged here against my will to
serve on this jury and decide if this defendant murdered somebody or
other. I don't see what difference it makes whether or not this witness
cut a tablecloth in two or murdered Fatima, the daughter of What's his
Name. I want to go home--sometime. If it is in order I'd like to suggest
that we get along."
Judge Wetherell started and peered with a puzzled air at this bold
shatterer of established procedure.
"Mister Juryman," said he severely, "these matters relate directly to
the credibility of the witness. They are quite proper.
I--I--am--surprised--"
"But, Your Honor," expostulated the iconoclast upon the back row, "I
guess nobody is going to waste much time over this Turkish snake
charmer! Ain't there a policeman or somebody we can believe who saw what
happened?"
"Bang!" went the judicial gavel.
"The juryman will please be silent!" shouted Judge Wetherell. "This is
entirely out of order!" Then he quickly covered his face with his
handkerchief. "Proceed!" he directed in a muffled tone.
"Where were we?" asked Mr. Tutt dreamily.
"Fatima, the daughter of Abbas," assisted the foreman, sotto voce.
"And I objected to Fatima, the daughter of Abbas!" snapped Pepperill.
"Well, well!" conceded Mr. Tutt. "She's dead, poor thing! Let her be.
That is all, Mr. Kahoots."
It is difficult to describe the intense excitement these digressions
from the direct testimony occasioned among the audience. The reference
to the billiard-table cover and the murder of the unfortunate Fatima
apparently roused long-smoldering fires. A group of Syrians by the
window broke into an unexpected altercation, which had to be quelled by
a court officer, and when quiet was restored the jury seemed but
slightly attentive to the precisely similar yarns of Nicola Abbu,
Menheem Shikrie, Fajal Mokarzel and David Elias, especially as the
minutes of the Grand Jury showed that they had sworn to three entirely
different sets of facts regarding the cause of Babu's death. Yet when
the People rested it remained true that five witnesses, whatever the
jury may have thought of them, had testified that Hassoun strangled
Sardi Babu. The jury turned expectantly to Mr. Tutt to hear what he had
to say.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "the defense is very simple. None of the
witnesses who have appeared here was in fact present at the scene of the
homicide at all. I shall call some ten or twelve reputable Syrian
citizens who will prove to you that Kasheed Hassoun, my client, with a
large party of friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when Sardi
Babu came in with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, and
that then, and only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot be
established--evidently a stranger--seized Babu before he could fire
again, and killed him--in self-defense."
Mr. William Montague Pepperill's jaw dropped as if he had seen the ghost
of one of his colonial ancestors. He could not believe that he had heard
Mr. Tutt correctly. Why, the old lawyer had the thing completely turned
round! Sardi Babu hadn't gone to the restaurant. He had been in the
restaurant, and it had been Kasheed Hassoun who had gone there.
Yet, one by one, placidly, imperturbably, the dozen witnesses foretold
by Mr. Tutt, and gathered in by Bonnie Doon, marched to the chair and
swore upon the Holy Bible that it was even as Mr. Tutt had said, and
that no such persons as Mokarzel, Kahoots, Abbu, Shikrie and Elias had
been in the restaurant at any time that evening, but on the contrary
that they, the friends of Hassoun, had been there eating Turkish pie--a
few might have had mashed beans with _taheenak_--when Sardi Babu,
apparently with suicidal intent, entered alone to take vengeance upon
the camel owner.
"That is all. That is our case," said Mr. Tutt as the last Syrian left
the stand.
But there was no response from the bench. Judge Wetherell had been
dozing peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid a
decorous smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda and
rustled it, and His Honor, who had been dreaming that he was riding
through the narrow streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary so
tall that he could peek through the latticed balconies at the plump,
black-eyed odalisques within the harems, slowly came back from Turkey to
New York.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said he, pulling himself together, "the
defendant here is charged by the Grand Jury with having murdered Fatima
the daughter of Abbas--I beg your pardon! I mean--who was it?--one Sardi
Babu. I will first define to you the degrees of homicide--"
* * * * *
One day three months later, after Kasheed Hassoun had been twice tried
upon the same testimony and the jury had disagreed--six to six, each
time--Mr. Tutt, who had overstayed his lunch hour at the office, put on
his stovepipe hat and strolled along Washington Street, looking for a
place to pick up a bite to eat. It was in the middle of the afternoon
and most of the stores were empty, which was all the more to his liking.
He had always wanted to try some of that Turkish pie that they had all
talked so much about at the trial. Presently a familiar juxtaposition of
names caught his eye--Ghabryel & Assad. The very restaurant which had