Only seven were hanged
the proprietor to sell an empty potato sack. Then he strolled toward
the outskirts of the suburb. It was dark now. He passed out toward
the meadows. He sat down by a hedge and parceled up his booty.
He tied the bundles of notes together, adding the notes he had
received from the "fence" for the watches. He put the loose silver,
which was in a canvas bag, on top of the notes, but retained
sufficient for his immediate wants. With his tools he dug a hole and
put the tools, wrapped in the case, into the hole and covered it up,
marking the spot by a tree and putting a large stone on the top.
With the notes and silver tied up in his sack he rose to his feet and
struck across the country, his bundle under his arm.
He went straight to the excavations he had noted from the train when
he arrived at the suburb. He descended the embankment of loose
rubble and rock and took a pickax, which he carried toward a large
tree well away from the diggings. He dug another hole at the tree
roots and buried his money, marking the tree so that he would know it
again. Then he returned the pickax and in time reached the high-road.
He went back to see if the receiver was still at home. There was a
light in the room where he had interviewed the receiver, but The Mole
wanted to make sure. He threw a pebble against the window. The
receiver's head appeared as the blind was drawn aside. The Mole
dropped down among the shrubbery, and when the receiver's head was
withdrawn The Mole moved away, grinning to himself. The receiver was
where Lammie wanted him to be.
The Mole then went home. He was perfectly content. His plans had
worked without a hitch.
There was an arrangement with his wife that she manipulated the blind
of their front room as a signal to him when he was returning home.
If the blind was halfway down, cutting equally across the upper and
lower sashes of the window, it meant that the police were waiting
inside to interview him. The police often called on The Mole after a
burglary. He had been in prison several times. Now, however, he had
his defenses so well set that he was without any anxiety. He acted
characteristically, banging the gate as he entered the front garden,
and walking into the front room boldly enough.
He whistled softly to himself as he entered the room. Two men were
sitting behind the door; his wife was by the fire. Her eyes
fluttered toward her husband.
"From the Yard," she said, with a movement of her hand toward the
visitors. "They want a word with you, Abe. I've told 'em you've
been on the straight. Lookin' for a job of work, I told them, which
you can prove."
"You bet," said The Mole.
He turned toward the men, who had risen to their feet.
"I'm glad you come. I want a word with you about a fiver that a Yid
give my wife. I've warned her about that fiver and I was up seein'
the Yid now. If he's been using her to pass stuff----"
"We did come about money," said one of the men.
"Expected it. Huh."
The Mole took a cigarette and lit it in a matter-of-fact way. It was
just as he had thought. His wife would be taken, not himself.
"But there is something else, Lammie," went on the man. "I have a
warrant for your arrest. There is another charge against you."
"Come off it," laughed The Mole. "I hadn't anything to do with that
fiver. My wife will tell you who gave it to her. What's the other
charge, anyway?"
"The watchman of a store has been murdered, Lammie. Fingerprints
were found on a showcase that was upset. You forgot to wear gloves
before you pushed it over. But the main charge is not burglary.
That watchman was an ex-convict who had been in his job only a few
weeks. We have identified him all right. The charge against you is
parricide."
"What's that?" asked The Mole, hoarsely.
"A parricide," explained the officer as he put the handcuffs on the
unresisting Mole, "is a man who murders his own father."
The judge paused for an impressive moment, then stretched out his
hand toward one of the two glasses on the table before the waiter.
To his astonishment and chagrin, the waiter raised a remonstrating
finger.
CHAPTER V
_The Waiter States His Second Case_
"Surely!" cried the judge; and his tone rang high, charged with
indignant protest.
In the one word was a whole speech of dissent, a compressed synopsis
of his surprise and sense of injustice.
He drew back his hand inch by inch, while the waiter's finger
remained poised. There was something Solomonic in that uplifted
finger, something, too, of satanophany in its rigidity that had a
chilling effect on the judge's outcry.
"Who are you?" he demanded, forcing a certain authority into his
voice that he was far from feeling.
"All things in their places," responded the waiter. Then he dropped
his finger. His expression, which had been commandingly pregnant,
changed to one of engaging frankness.
"Your lordship's eagerness to justify the black cap," he said,
"reminds me of an incident that occurred during a race meeting at
Aintree some time ago. You must be aware that at one time the royal
racing colors included a black cap, and on this occasion the valet of
a royal amateur steeplechaser had, in the hurry of packing the kit,
omitted to include the cap. Just when the race was about to begin
the loss was discovered. Where was a black cap to be found? In the
midst of the anxiety a humble spectator observed that very famous
Judge Hawkins, who was as eager to see a horse race as he was willing
to sentence men to death. 'Ask old 'Awkins,' shouted the spectator.
'He's bound to have a black cap in his pocket!'"
In spite of himself a gray smile twisted the judge's features at the
waiter's story; but he pulled himself together and frowned.
"Am I to understand that you deny the justice of the death sentence
of Abe Lammie? Stop fooling and let us keep to a clear issue.
Lammie accepted his fate."
"By all means. I merely told the story as a balance to the one you
recited a short time ago. Do you seriously put forward the fact of a
man accepting his fate as an argument in favor of capital punishment?
That is no argument at all. You have mentioned an ancient custom of
a Chinese ruler. Let me mention a custom that still prevails in that
country. Commanders of British warships raiding the lairs of Chinese
pirates have often found that if they demand prisoners to be handed
over, the headman of a village is willing to hand over a number of
innocent people for execution in place of the guilty parties, who may
have fled to the interior. The guiltless persons themselves do not
object to being beheaded. They act as substitutes for the guilty
because of the old Chinese custom whereby a condemned man may give a
substitute's family compensation for his act. Doubtless your penal
code would condemn this custom, but a Chinaman who believed in it
would see no cause for complaint."
"I am not concerned with Chinese beliefs," said the judge. "Do you
decline to admit that Abe Lammie's death on the scaffold was justice?"
"Before I answer that I must ask your indulgence to relate my second
case," replied the waiter. "It may have a bearing on the case of Abe
Lammie. We shall come to a definite conclusion regarding both cases
when I have finished. The bases of both are rooted in the same soil.
But by a peculiar chance the reference to pirates has some relation
to the case I am about to present. This murder occurred at Wapping."
"What on earth has that to do with pirates in China?"
"Nothing whatever, but it is reminiscent of pirates in England. You
cannot have forgotten that Execution Dock was situated at Wapping."
The waiter waited for the judge to make some sort of admission, but
beyond a slight nod of his head the judge did not answer. He seemed,
in fact, to be somewhat befogged at the reference to Wapping, and
settled himself to listen as the waiter cleared his throat and turned
over the leaves of the minute-book.
"I have no other reason for referring to Execution Dock," continued
the waiter as he leaned back in his chair and regarded the judge
closely to make sure that he was paying attention, "than to point out
how many men ended their lives quite unprotestingly there. I make a
point of this to offset the idea in your mind that the judgment of
death is always opposed by the victims. Such is not the case. The
pirates who were condemned at the Old Bailey, as a matter of fact, as
often as not declined to put up a very strong defense. Having been
condemned, they were placed in chains in a cart and transported
through the streets of Wapping at a very slow pace. The populace
usually pelted them with mud and refuse. Before the cart containing
these unfortunate men the Marshal of the Admiralty drove, equally
slowly, in his gorgeous carriage. His officials carried the badge of
his office, a silver oar. That silver oar can still be seen in the
Law Courts of London.
"In this way the dismal cavalcade proceeded to Execution Dock. A
gallows was erected in the river at low-water mark, and there the
wretched prisoners were hanged and gibbeted. Three tides washed over
their bodies before they were cut down and taken away for further
disgrace. The bodies were tarred, placed in an iron cage, and hung
in chains so that all could see. The famous Captain Kidd was treated
in this fashion.
"It was within a stone's throw of the site of Execution Dock that
Jeff S. Connolly killed a woman and began his flight from the law.
A great many of you anti-abolitionists hold that if a criminal had
the fear of death in front of him he would not kill. That is a
foolish supposition, and because I know it is a foolish supposition,
and because you, my lord, sentenced Jeff S. Connolly to death, I
desire to present him to you in an original light, as it is the true
light. In a word, he was
THE MAN WHO WISHED TO BE HANGED
The murder he had committed had no relieving features. It was
sordid, passionate, terrible. He killed a woman because she had
ceased to love him and had proved unfaithful. One is not sure
whether he intended to kill her. Certainly the first thought that
crossed his mind, when he saw her lying dead at his feet, was that it
was one of the easiest things in the world to kill a human being.
Connolly was an American who had lived most of his life in England.
He was usually a quiet, inoffensive man; but something of the
primitive was in his nature. He killed this woman in a wild, Berserk
rage of fury. Perhaps the necessity to stifle her cries when he
first attacked her had something to do with the frightful end. And
when she lay there, battered to death, he stood up and breathed
deeply, conscious that he must now get away.
The few trinkets she wore were not of great value, but he took them.
He stepped over to the window and looked out.
No one was about. The narrow street was dark; her cries had not
aroused the neighbors. He slipped out of the doorway, closing it
behind him, and walked smartly away.
His brain was in a whirl, the struggle had thrown him into a strange
state of unreality. The world had somersaulted in these few minutes.
He boarded an omnibus and went to his lodgings, with the object of
going to bed and resuming his ordinary routine; but when he let
himself into his room he found it impossible to do so. He was driven
by a demon of unrest. He sat down and tried to think out the best
way of escape.
One fact was patent. There was no doubt the woman would be found.
There was equally no doubt the police would trail the city for her
murderer. They might find a clue, a fingerprint, something that
would lead them to him. He looked at his coat; a button had been