By Advice of Counsel
"That's true," agreed his chief. "That's as far as she'd go, too, in
defying the law. But I don't much like it. Those Beekmans have a lot of
influence, and if she got sore she could make us a heap of trouble!
Besides it's sort of a scaly trick making her give up on him like that."
O'Brien raised his brows.
"Scaly trick! He's a murderer, isn't he? And he'll get off if we don't
call her. It's a matter of duty, as I see it."
"All the same, my son, your suggestion has a rotten smell to it. We may
have to do it--I don't say we won't--but it's risky business!" replied
Peckham dubiously.
"It's a good deal less risky than not doing it, so far as your candidacy
next autumn is concerned!" retorted his assistant. "We won't let her
suspect what we're goin' to do; and the last minute I'll call her to the
stand and cinch the case! She won't even know who called her! Perhaps I
can arrange with Judge Babson to call her on some other point and then
pretend to sort of stumble onto the fact of the confession and examine
her himself. That would let us out. I can smear it over somehow."
"You'd better," commented Peckham, "unless you want a howl from the
papers! It would make quite a story if Miss Althea Beekman got on the
rampage. She could have your scalp, my boy, if she wanted it!"
"And McGurk could have yours!" retorted O'Brien with the impudence born
of knowledge.
The prosecution of Shane O'Connell, which otherwise might have slowly
languished and languishing died, took on new life owing to the evidence
thus innocently delivered into the hands of the district attorney; in
fact it became a _cause célèbre_. The essential elements to convict were
now all there--the _corpus delicti_, evidence of threats on the part of
the defendant, of motive, of opportunity, and--his confession. The law
which provides that the statement of an accused "is not sufficient to
warrant his conviction without additional proof that the crime charged
has been committed" would be abundantly satisfied--though without his
confession there would have been no proof whatever that the crime
charged had been committed by him.
Thus, without her knowing it, Miss Beekman was an essential witness and,
in fact, the pivot upon which the entire case turned.
The day of the great sporting event came. With it arrived in full
panoply the McGurks, their relatives and followers. All Cherry Hill
seemed to have packed itself into Part I of the Supreme Court. There was
an atmosphere somehow suggestive of the races or a prize fight. But it
was a sporting event which savored of a sure thing--really more like a
hanging. They were there to make holiday over the law's revenge for the
killing of the darling of the Pearl Button Kids. Peckham personally
assured McGurk that everything was copper-fastened.
"He's halfway up the river already!" he said jocularly.
And McGurk, swelling with importance and emotion, pulled a couple of
cigars from his pocket and the two smoked the pipe of peace.
But the reader is not particularly concerned with the progress of the
trial, for he has already attended many. It is enough to say that a jury
with undershot jaws, who had proved by previous experience their
indifference to capital punishment and to all human sympathy, were
finally selected and that the witnesses were duly called, and testified
to the usual facts, while the Pearl Button Kids and the rest, spitting
surreptitiously beneath the benches, eagerly drank in every word. There
was nothing for Mr. Tutt to do; nothing for him to deny. The case built
itself up, brick by brick. And Shane O'Connell sat there unemotionally,
hardly listening. There was nothing in the evidence to reflect in any
way upon the honor of the O'Connells in general or in particular. He had
done that which that honor demanded and he was ready to pay the
penalty--if the law could get him. He assumed that it would get him. So
did the Tutts.
But when toward the end of the third day nothing had yet been brought
forward to connect him with the crime Tutt leaned over and whispered to
Mr. Tutt, "D'ye know, I'm beginning to have a hunch there isn't any
case!"
Mr. Tutt made an imperceptible gesture of assent.
"Looks that way," he answered out of the corner of his mouth. "Probably
they'll spring the connecting evidence at the end and give us the _coup
de grâce_."
At that moment a police witness was released from the stand and O'Brien
stepped to the bench and whispered something to the judge, who glanced
at the clock and nodded. It was twenty minutes of four, and the jury
were already getting restless, for the trial had developed into a
humdrum, cut-and-dried affair.
Miss Beekman sitting far back in the rear of the court room suddenly
heard O'Brien call her name, and a quiver of apprehension passed through
her body. She had never testified in any legal proceeding, and the idea
of getting up before such a crowd of people and answering questions
filled her with dismay. It was so public! Still, if it was going to help
O'Connell--
"Althea Beekman," bellowed Cap. Phelan, "to the witness chair!"
Althea Beekman! The gentle lady felt as if she had been rudely stripped
of all her protective clothing. Althea! Did not the law do her the
courtesy of calling her even "Miss"? Nerving herself to the performance
of her duty she falteringly made her way between the crowded benches,
past the reporters' table, and round back of the jury box. The judge,
apparently a pleasant-faced, rather elderly man, bowed gravely to her,
indicated where she should sit and administered the oath to her himself,
subtly dwelling upon the phrase "the whole truth," and raising his eyes
heavenward as he solemnly pronounced the words "so help you God!"
"I do!" declared Miss Beekman primly but decidedly.
Behind her upon the court-room wall towered in its flowing draperies the
majestic figure of the Goddess of the Law, blindfolded and holding aloft
the scales of justice. Beside her sat in the silken robes of his sacred
office a judge who cleverly administered that law to advance his own
interests and those of his political associates. In front of her,
treacherously smiling, stood the cynical, bullet-headed O'Brien. At a
great distance Mr. Tutt leaned on his elbows at a table beside Shane
O'Connell. To them she directed her gaze and faintly smiled.
"Miss Beekman," began O'Brien as courteously as he knew how, "you
reside, do you not, at Number 1000 Fifth Avenue, in this city and
county?"
"I do," she answered with resolution.
"Your family have always lived in New York, have they not?"
"Since 1630," she replied deprecatingly and with more confidence.
"You are prominent in various philanthropic, religious and civic
activities?"
"Not prominent; interested," she corrected him.
"And you make a practise of visiting prisoners in the Tombs?"
She hesitated. What could this be leading to?
"Occasionally," she admitted.
"Do you know this defendant, Shane O'Connell?"
"Yes."
"Did you see him on the twenty-third day of last month?"
"I think so--if that was the day."
"What day do you refer to?"
"The day I had the talk with him."
"Oh, you had a talk with him?"
"Yes."
"Where did you have that talk with him?"
"In the counsel room of the Tombs."
O'Brien paused. Even his miserable soul revolted at what he was about to
do.
"What did he say?" he asked, nervously looking away.
Something in his hangdog look warned Miss Beekman that she was being
betrayed, but before she could answer Mr. Tutt was on his feet.
"One moment!" he cried. "May I ask a preliminary question?"
The court signified acquiescence.
"Was that conversation which you had with the defendant a confidential
one?"
"I object to the question!" snapped O'Brien. "The law recognizes no
confidential communications as privileged except those made to a priest,
a physician or an attorney. The witness is none of these. The question
is immaterial and irrelevant."
"That is the law," announced the judge, "but under all the circumstances
I will permit the witness to answer."
Miss Beekman paused.
"Why," she began, "of course it was confidential, Mr. Tutt. O'Connell
wouldn't have told me anything if he had supposed for one moment I was
going to repeat what he said. Besides, I suggested that I might be able
to help him. Yes, certainly our talk was confidential."
"I am sorry," gloated O'Brien, "but I shall have to ask you what it
was."
"That is not a question," said Mr. Tutt calmly.
"What did the defendant say to you in the counsel room of the Tombs on
the twenty-third of last month?" cautiously revised O'Brien.
"I object!" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form towering until seemingly it
matched that of the blind goddess in height. "I object to the answer as
requiring a breach of confidence which the law could not tolerate."
Judge Babson turned politely to Miss Beekman.
"I regret very much that I shall be obliged to ask you to state what
the defendant said to you. You will recall that you yourself volunteered
the information that you had had the talk in question. Otherwise"--he
coughed and put up his hand--"we might possibly never have learned of
it. A defendant cannot deprive the people of the right to prove what he
may have divulged respecting his offense merely by claiming that it was
in confidence. Public policy could never allow that. It may be
unpleasant for you to answer the question but I must ask you to do so."
"But," she protested, "you certainly cannot expect me to betray a
confidence! I asked O'Connell to tell me what he had done so that I
could help him--and he trusted me!"
"But you are not responsible for the law! He took his chance!"
admonished the judge.
Slowly Miss Althea's indignation rose as she perceived the dastardly
trick which O'Brien had played upon her. Already she suspected that the
judge was only masquerading in the clothing of a gentleman. With a white
face she turned to Mr. Tutt.
"Does the law require me to answer, Mr. Tutt?" she inquired.
"Do not ask questions--answer them," ordered Babson brusquely, feeling
the change in her manner. "You are a witness for the people--not the
defendant."
"I am not a witness against O'Connell!" she declared. "This
man"--indicating O'Brien scornfully--"has in some way found out that
I--Oh, surely the law doesn't demand anything so base as that!"
There was silence. The wheels of justice hung on a dead center.
"Answer the question," remarked His Honor tartly.
All Miss Beekman's long line of ancestors turned in their graves. In her
Beekman blood the chief justice, the ambassador, the great editor, the
signer of the Declaration of Independence, stirred, awoke, rubbed their
eyes and sternly reared themselves. And that blood--blue though it was
instead of scarlet like the O'Connells'--boiled in her veins and burned
through the delicate tissue of her cheeks.
"My conscience will not permit me to betray a confidence!" she cried
angrily.
"I direct you to answer!" ordered the judge.
"I object to the court's threatening the witness!" interjected Mr. Tutt.
"I wish it to appear upon the record that the manner of the court is
most unjudicial and damaging to the defendant."
"Take your seat, sir!" barked Babson, his features swelling with anger.
"Your language is contemptuous!"
The jury were leaning forward intently. Trained militiamen of the
gibbet, they nevertheless admired this little woman's fearlessness and
the old lawyer's pugnacity. On the rear wall the yellow face of the old
self-regulating clock, that had gayly ticked so many men into the
electric chair, leered shamelessly across at the blind goddess.
"Answer the question, madam! If, as you claim, you are a patriotic
citizen of this commonwealth, having due respect for its institutions