By Advice of Counsel
and for the statutes, you will not set up your own ideas of what the law
ought to be in defiance of the law as it stands. I order you to answer!
If you do not I shall be obliged to take steps to compel you to do so."
In the dead silence that followed, the stones in the edifice of Miss
Beekman's inherited complacency, with each beat of the clock, fell one
by one to the ground until it was entirely demolished. Vainly she
struggled to test her conscience by her loyalty to her country's laws.
But the task was beyond her.
Tightly compressing her lips she sat silent in the chair, while the
delighted reporters scribbled furious messages to their city editors
that Miss Althea Beekman, one of the Four Hundred, was defying Judge
Babson, and to rush up a camera man right off in a taxi, and to look her
up in the morgue for a front-page story. O'Brien glanced uneasily at
Babson. Possible defiance on the part of this usually unassuming lady
had not entered into his calculations. The judge took a new tack.
"You probably do not fully understand the situation in which you are
placed," he explained. "You are not responsible for the law. Neither are
you responsible in any way for the consequences to this defendant,
whatever they may be. The matter is entirely out of your hands. You are
compelled to do as the court orders. As a law-abiding citizen you have
no choice in the matter."
Miss Althea's modest intellect reeled, but she stood her ground, the
ghost of the Signer at her elbow.
"I am sorry," she replied, "but my own self-respect will not allow me to
answer."
"In that case," declared Babson, playing his trump card, "it will be my
unpleasant duty to commit you for contempt."
There was a bustle of excitement about the reporters' table. Here was a
story!
"Very well," answered Miss Beekman proudly. "Do as you see fit, and as
your own duty and conscience demand."
The judge could not conceal his annoyance. The last thing in the world
that he wished to do was to send Miss Althea to jail. But having
threatened her he must carry out his threat or forever lose face.
"I will give the witness until tomorrow morning at half after ten
o'clock to make up her mind what she will do," he announced after a
hurried conference with O'Brien. "Adjourn court!"
Miss Beekman did not go to bed at all that night. Until a late hour she
conferred in the secrecy of her Fifth Avenue library with her
gray-haired solicitor, who, in some mysterious way, merely over the
telephone, managed to induce the newspapers to omit any reference to his
client's contemptuous conduct in their morning editions.
"There's no way out of it, my dear," he said finally as he took his
leave--he was her father's cousin and very fond of her--"this judge has
the power to send you to jail if he wants to--and dares to! It's an even
chance whether he will dare to or not. It depends on whether he prefers
to stand well with the McGurks or with the general public. Of course I
respect your attitude, but really I think you are a little quixotic.
Points of honor are too ephemeral to be debated in courts of justice. To
do so would be to open the door to all kinds of abuses. Dishonest
witnesses would constantly avail themselves of the opportunity to avoid
giving evidence."
"Dishonest witnesses would probably lie in the first place!" she
quavered.
"True! I quite overlooked that!" he smiled, gazing down at her in an
avuncular manner. "But to-day the question isn't open. It is settled,
whether we like it or not. No pledge of privacy, no oath of secrecy--can
avail against demand in a court of justice. Even confessions obtained by
fraud are admissible--though we might wish otherwise."
Miss Beekman shrugged her shoulders.
"Nothing you have said seems to me to alter the situation."
"Very well," he replied. "I guess that settles it. Knowing you and the
Beekman breed! There's one thing I must say," he added as he stood in
the doorway after bidding her good night--"that old fellow Tutt has
behaved pretty well, leaving you entirely alone this way. I always had
an idea he was a sort of shyster. Most attorneys of that class would
have been sitting on your doorstep all the evening trying to persuade
you to stick to your resolution not to give their client away, and to do
the square thing. But he's done nothing of the sort. Rather decent on
the whole!"
"Perhaps he recognizes a woman of honor when he sees one!" she retorted.
"Honor!" he muttered as he closed the door. "What crimes are sometimes
committed in thy name!"
But on the steps he stopped and looked back affectionately at the
library window.
"After all, Althea's a good sport!" he remarked to himself.
* * * * *
At or about the same moment a quite dissimilar conference was being held
between Judge Babson and Assistant District Attorney O'Brien in the
café of the Passamaquoddy Club.
"She'll cave!" declared O'Brien, draining his glass. "Holy Mike! No
woman like her is going to stay in jail! Besides, if you don't commit
her everybody will say that you were scared to--yielded to influence.
You're in the right and it will be a big card for you to show that you
aren't afraid of anybody!"
Babson pulled nervously on his cigar.
"Maybe that's so," he said, "but I don't much fancy an appellate court
sustaining me on the law and at the same time roasting hell out of me as
a man!"
"Oh, they won't do that!" protested O'Brien. "How could they? All
they're interested in is the law!"
"I've known those fellows to do queer things sometimes," answered the
learned judge. "And the Beekmans are pretty powerful people."
"Well, so are the McGurks!" warned O'Brien.
* * * * *
"Now, Miss Beekman," said Judge Babson most genially the next morning,
after that lady had taken her seat in the witness chair and the jury had
answered to their names, "I hope you feel differently to-day about
giving your testimony. Don't you think that after all it would be more
fitting if you answered the question?"
Miss Althea firmly compressed her lips.
"At least let me read you some of the law on the subject," continued His
Honor patiently. "Originally many people, like yourself, had the
mistaken idea that what they called their honor should be allowed to
intervene between them and their duty. And even the courts sometimes so
held. But that was long ago--in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. To-day the law wisely recognizes no such thing. Let me read
you what Baron Hotham said, in Hill's Trial in 1777, respecting the
testimony of a witness who very properly told the court what the accused
had said to him. It is very clearly put:
"'The defendant certainly thought him his friend, and he'--the
defendant--'therefore did disclose all this to him. Gentlemen, one has
only to say further that if this point of honor was to be so sacred as
that a man who comes by knowledge of this sort from an offender was not
to be at liberty to disclose it the most atrocious criminals would every
day escape punishment; and therefore it is that the wisdom of the law
knows nothing of that point of honor.'"
Miss Beekman listened politely.
"I am sorry," she replied with dignity. "I shall not change my mind. I
refuse to answer the question, and--and you can do whatever you like
with me."
"Do you understand that you are in contempt of this court? Do you intend
to show contempt for this court?" he demanded wrathfully.
"I do," answered Miss Althea. "I have contempt for this court."
A titter danced along the benches and some fool in the back of the room
clapped his hands.
Judge Babson's face grew hard and his eyes narrowed to steel points.
"The witness stands committed for contempt," he announced bitingly. "I
direct that she be confined in the city prison for thirty days and pay a
fine of two hundred and fifty dollars. Madam, you will go with the
officer."
Miss Althea rose while the ghost of the Signer encircled her with his
arm.
Mr. Tutt was already upon his feet. He knew that the ghost of the Signer
was there.
"May I ask the court if the witness, having been committed for the
contemptuous conduct of which she is obviously guilty, may remain in
your chambers until adjournment, in order that she may arrange her
private affairs?"
"I will grant her that privilege," agreed Judge Babson with internal
relief. "The request is quite reasonable. Captain Phelan, you may take
the witness into my robing room and keep her there for the present."
With her small head erect, her narrow shoulders thrown back, and with a
resolute step as befitted the descendant of a long line of ancestors
Miss Althea passed behind the jury box and disappeared.
The twelve looked at one another dubiously. Both Babson and O'Brien
seemed nervous and undecided.
"Well, call your next witness," remarked the judge finally.
"But I haven't any more witnesses!" growled O'Brien. "And you know it
almighty well, you idiot!" he muttered under his breath.
"If that is the people's case I move for the defendant's immediate
discharge," cried Mr. Tutt, jumping to his feet. "There is no evidence
connecting him with the crime."
McGurk, furious, sprang toward the bar.
"See here! Wait a minute! Hold on, judge! I can get a hundred
witnesses--"
"Sit down!" shouted one of the officers, thrusting him back. "Keep
quiet!"
Babson looked at O'Brien and elevated his forehead. Then as O'Brien
gave a shrug the judge turned to the expectant jury and said in
apologetic tones:
"Gentlemen of the jury, where the people have failed to prove the
defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the court
to direct a verdict. In this case, though by inference the testimony
points strongly toward the prisoner, there is no direct proof against
him and I am accordingly constrained--much as I regret it--to instruct
you to return a verdict of not guilty."
In the confusion which followed the rendition of the verdict a messenger
entered breathlessly and forcing his way through the crowd delivered a
folded paper to Mr. Tutt, who immediately rose and handed it to the
clerk; and that official, having hurriedly perused it and pursed his
lips in surprise, passed it over the top of the bench to the judge.
"What's this?" demanded Babson. "Don't bother me now with trifles!"
"But it's a writ of habeas corpus, Your Honor, signed by Judge Winthrop,
requiring the warden to produce Miss Beekman in Part I of the Supreme
Court, and returnable forthwith," whispered Mr. McGuire in an
awe-stricken voice. "I can't disregard that, you know!"
"What!" cried Babson. "How on earth could he have issued a writ in this
space of time? The thing's impossible!"
"If Your Honor please," urbanely explained Mr. Tutt, "as--having known
Miss Beekman's father--I anticipated that the witness would pursue the
course of conduct which, in fact, she has, I prepared the necessary
papers early this morning and as soon as you ordered her into custody my
partner, who was waiting in Judge Winthrop's chambers, presented them to
His Honor, secured his signature and brought the writ here in a
taxicab."
Nobody seemed to be any longer interested in O'Connell. The reporters
had left their places and pushed their way into the inclosure before the
dais. In the rear of the room O'Brien was vainly engaged in trying to
placate the Pearl Button Kids, who were loudly swearing vengeance upon
both him and Peckham. It was a scene as nearly turbulent as the old
yellow clock had ever witnessed. Even the court officers abandoned any
effort to maintain order and joined the excited group about Mr. Tutt
before the bench.
"Does Your Honor desire that this matter be argued before the Supreme