The Just and the Unjust by Vaughan Kester

V >> Vaughan Kester >> The Just and the Unjust

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

"You would not appreciate Andy's peculiar virtues even if I were to try
to describe them," said Marshall with a smile of sardonic humor.

"Do you consider him the right sort of a person to bring into your
home?"

"It won't hurt him!" said Marshall.

The judge, with a look on his face that mingled astonishment and injury,
sank back in his chair. He never attempted anything that even faintly
suggested flippancy, and he was unappreciative of this tendency in
others.

"You have not told me what this fellow's hold on you is?" he said, after
a moment's silence.

"Oh, he's done me one or two good turns."

"You mean in the way of money?"

Marshall nodded.

"Are you in his debt now, may I ask?"

"No," and Marshall moved restlessly.

"Are you quite frank with me, Marshall?" asked the judge with that rare
gentleness of voice and manner that only his son knew.

"Quite."

"Because it would be better to make every sacrifice and be rid of the
obligation."

Another long pause followed in which there came to the ears of the two
men the sound of a noisy waltz that Evelyn was playing. Again it was the
judge who broke the oppressive silence.

"I came here to-night, Marshall, because there is a matter I must
discuss with you. Perhaps you will tell me what you and Gilmore have
done with Joe Montgomery?"

Marshall had sought to prepare himself against the time when this very
question should be asked him, but the color left his cheeks.

"I don't think I know what you mean," he said slowly.

His father made an impatient gesture.

"Don't tell me that! What has become of Montgomery? Look at me! Two
nights ago he came to see me; I had sent for him; I had learned from
Nellie that he had practically deserted her. I learned further from the
man himself that you and Gilmore were largely responsible for this."

"He was drunk, of course."

"He had been drinking--yes--"

"Doesn't that explain his remarkable statement? What reason could Andy
or any one have for wishing to keep him from his wife?" asked Marshall
who had recovered his accustomed steadiness.

"He was ready with an answer for that question when I asked it. Do you
wish to know what that answer was?" said the judge.

Marshall did not trust himself to speak; he felt the judge's eyes on him
and could not meet them. He saw himself cowering there in his chair with
his guilt stamped large on every feature. His throat was dry and his
lips were parched, he did not know whether he could speak. His shoulders
drooped and his chin rested on his breast. What was the use--was it
worth the struggle? Suppose Montgomery, in spite of his promises, came
back to Mount Hope, suppose Gilmore's iron nerve failed him!

"You don't answer me, Marshall," said the judge.

"I don't understand you--" evaded Marshall.

"From my soul I wish I could believe you!" exclaimed his father. "If
it's not debt, what is the nature of your discreditable connection with
Gilmore?"

Marshall glanced up quickly; he seemed to breathe again; perhaps after
all Montgomery had said less than he supposed him to have said!

"I have already told you that I owe Gilmore nothing!"

"I should be glad to think it, but I warn you to stand clear of him and
his concerns, for I am going to investigate the truth of Montgomery's
story," declared the judge.

"What did he tell you?" Marshall spoke with an effort.

"That his evidence in the North case was false, that it was inspired by
Gilmore."

Marshall passed a shaking hand across his face.

"Nonsense!" he said.

"His story will be worth looking into. He stood for the truth of what he
said in part, he insisted that he saw a man cross McBride's shed on the
night of the murder and drop into the alley, and the man was not John
North. He seemed unwilling that North, through any instrumentality of
his, should suffer for a crime of which he was innocent; his feeling on
this point was unfeigned and unmistakable."

There was silence again, while the two men stared at each other. From
the parlor the jarring sound of the music reached them, inconceivably
out of harmony with the seriousness of their mood.

"I have wished to take no action in the matter of Montgomery's
disappearance until I saw you, Marshall," said the judge. "I have been
sick with this thing! Now I am going to lay such facts as I have before
Moxlow."

Marshall stared moodily into the fire. He told himself that the
prosecuting attorney would be in great luck if he got anything out of
Gilmore.

"I purpose to suggest to Moxlow a fresh line of investigation where this
important witness is concerned, and Mr. Gilmore as the man most likely
to clear up the mystery surrounding his disappearance from Mount Hope.
We may not be able to get anything very tangible out of him in the way
of information, but I imagine we may cause him some little anxiety and
annoyance. You can't afford to be mixed up in this affair, and I warn
you again to stand clear of Gilmore! If there is any truth in
Montgomery's statement it can only have the most sinister significance,
for I don't need to tell you that some powerful motive must be back of
Gilmore's activity. If North was not responsible for McBride's death,
where do the indications all point? Who more likely to commit such a
crime than a social outcast--a man plying an illegal trade in defiance
of the laws?"

"Hush! For God's sake speak lower!" cried Marshall, giving way to an
uncontrollable emotion of terror.

Racked and shaken, he stared about him as if he feared another presence
in the room. The judge leaned forward and rested a thin hand on his
son's knee.

"Marshall, what do you know of Gilmore's connection with this matter?"

"I want him let alone! To lay such stress on Montgomery's drunken talk
is absurd!"

The judge's lips met in a determined line.

"I scarcely expected to hear that from you! I am not likely, as you
know, to be influenced in the discharge of my duty by any private
consideration."

He quitted his chair and stood erect, his figure drawn to its fullest
height.

"Wait--I didn't mean that," protested Marshall.

The judge resumed his chair.

"What did you mean?" he asked.

"What's the use of throwing Moxlow off on a fresh scent?"

"That's a very remarkable point of view!" said the judge, with a
mirthless laugh.

In the utter selfishness that his fear had engendered, it seemed a
monstrous thing to Langham that any one should wish to clear North, in
whose conviction lay his own salvation. More than this, he had every
reason to hate North, and if he were hanged it would be but a roundabout
meting out of justice for that hideous wrong he had done him, the shame
of which was ever present. He saw one other thing clearly, the necessity
that Gilmore should be left alone; for the very moment the gambler felt
the judge was moving against him, that moment would come his fierce
demands that he be called off--that Marshall quiet him, no matter how.

"Have you been near North since his arrest?" asked the judge, apparently
speaking at random.

"No," said Marshall.

"May I ask if you are offended because of his choice of counsel?"

"That has nothing to do with it!" said the younger man, moving
impatiently in his chair.

"I do not like your attitude in this matter, Marshall; I like it as
little as I understand it. But I have given my warning. Keep clear of
that fellow Gilmore, do not involve yourself in his fortunes, or the
result may prove disastrous to you!"

"I want him let alone!" said Marshall doggedly, speaking with desperate
resolution.

"Why?" asked the judge.

"Because it is better for all concerned; you--you don't know what you're
meddling with--"

He quitted his chair and fell to pacing to and fro. His father's glance,
uncertain and uneasy, followed him as he crossed and recrossed the room.

"I find I can not agree with you, Marshall!" said the judge at length.
"I do not like hints, and unless you can deal with me with greater
frankness than you have yet done, there is not much use in prolonging
this discussion."

"As you like, then," replied Marshall, wheeling on him with sudden
recklessness. "I want to tell you just this--you'll not hurt Gilmore,
but--"

Words failed him, and his voice died away on his white and twitching
lips into an inarticulate murmur.

He struggled vainly to recover the mastery of himself, but his fear, now
the growth of his many days and nights of torture, would not let him
finish what he had started to say.

"Very good, I don't want to hurt anybody, but I do want to find that
man, whoever he is, that you and Gilmore are shielding; the man Joe
Montgomery saw cross those sheds the night of the murder; I am going to
bend my every energy to learning who that man is, and when I have
discovered his identity--"

"You'll want to see him in North's place, will you?" asked Marshall. The
words came from him in a hoarse whisper and his arm was extended
threateningly toward his father. "You're sure about that? You can't
conceive of the possibility that you'd be glad not to know? You want to
have John North out of his cell and this other man there in his place;
you want to face him day after day in the court room--you're sure?" His
shaking arm continued to menace the judge. "Well, you don't need to find
Montgomery, and you don't need to hound Gilmore; I can tell you more
than they can--"

His bloodshot eyes, fixed and staring, seemed starting from their
sockets.

"The facts you want to know are hidden here!" He struck his hand
savagely against his breast and lurched half-way across the room, then
he swung about and once more faced the judge. "Why haven't you had the
wisdom to keep out of this,--or have you expected to find some one it
would be easier to pronounce sentence on than North? Did you think it
would be Gilmore?"

He scowled down on his father. It was appalling and unnatural, after all
his frightful suffering, his fear, and his remorse which never left him,
that his safety should be jeopardized by his own father! He had only
asked that the law be left to deal with John North, who, he believed,
had so wronged him that no death he could die would atone for the injury
he had done.

Slowly but inexorably the full significance of Marshall's words dawned
on the judge. He had risen from his chair dumb and terror-stricken. For
a moment they stood without speech, each staring into the other's face.
Presently the judge stole to Marshall's side.

"Tell me that I misunderstand you!" he whispered in entreaty, resting a
tremulous hand on his son's arm.

But the latter was bitterly resentful. His father had forced this
confession, from him, he had given him no choice!

"Why should I tell you that now?" he asked, as he roughly shook off his
father's hand.

"Tell me I misunderstand you!" repeated the judge, in a tone of abject
entreaty.

"It's too late!" said Marshall, his voice a mere whisper between parched
lips. He tossed up his arms in a gesture that betokened his utter
weariness of soul. "My God, how I've suffered!" he said chokingly, and
his eyes were wet with the sudden anguish of self-pity.

"Marshall!"

The judge spoke in protest of his words. Marshall turned abruptly from
him and crossed the room. The spirit of his fierce resentment was dying
within him, for, after all, what did it signify how his father learned
his secret!

From the parlor there still came the strains of light music; these and
Marshall's echoing tread as he strode to and fro, filled in the ghastly
silence that succeeded. Then at length he paused before his father, and
once more they looked deep into each other's eyes, and the little space
between was for both as an open grave filled with dead things--hopes,
ambitions, future days and months and years--days and months and years
when they should be for ever mindful of his crime! For henceforth they
were to dwell in the chill of this direful shadow that would tower above
all the concerns of life whether great or small; that would add despair
to every sorrow, and take the very soul and substance from every joy.

The judge dropped into his chair, but his wavering glance still searched
his son's face for some sign that should tell him, not what he already
knew but what he hoped might be,--that Marshall was either drunk or
crazed; but he only saw there the reflection of his own terror. He
buried his head in his hands and bitter age-worn sobs shook his bent
shoulders. After a moment of sullen waiting for him to recover, Marshall
approached and touched him on the arm.

"Father--" he whispered gently.

The judge glanced up.

"It's a lie, Marshall!"

But Marshall only stared at him until the judge again covered his face
with his hands.

When he glanced up a few moments later, he found himself alone. Marshall
had stolen from the room.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SHRIMPLIN TO THE RESCUE

Beyond the flats and the railroad tracks and over across the new high,
iron bridge, was a low-lying region much affected by the drivers of
dump-carts, whose activity was visibly attested by the cinders, the
ashes, the tin cans, the staved-in barrels and the lidless boxes that
everywhere met the eye.

On the verge of this waste, which civilization had builded and shaped
with its discarded odds and ends, were the meager beginnings of a poor
suburb. Here an enterprising landlord had erected a solitary row of
slab-sided dwellings of a uniform ugliness; and had given to each a
single coat of yellow paint of such exceeding thinness, that it was
possible to determine by the whiter daubs of putty showing through, just
where every nail had been driven.

Only the very poorest or the most shiftless of Mount Hope's population
found a refuge in this quarter. The Montgomerys being strictly eligible,
it was but natural that Joe should have taken up his abode here on the
day the first of the eight houses had been finished. Joe was burdened by
no troublesome convictions touching the advantages of a gravelly soil
or a southern exposure, and the word sanitation had it been spoken in
his presence would have conveyed no meaning to his mind. He had never
heard of germs, and he had as little prejudice concerning stagnant water
as he had predilection for clear water. He knew in a general way that
all water was wet, but further than this he gave the element no thought.

Thus it came about that his was the very oldest family seated in this
delectable spot. The young Montgomerys could with perfect propriety
claim precedence at all the stagnant pools that offered superior
advantages as yielding a rich harvest of tadpoles. While the mature
intelligence might have considered these miniature lakes as highly
undesirable, the young Montgomerys were not unmindful of their
blessings. As babies, clothed in shapeless garments, they launched upon
the green slime their tiny fleet of chips, and, grown a little older, it
was here they waded in the happy summer days. The very dump-carts came
and went like perpetual argosies, bringing riches--discarded furniture
and cast-off clothing--to their very door.

In merciful defiance of those hidden perils that lurk where sanitation
and hygiene are unpractised sciences, Joe's numerous family throve and
multiplied. The baby carriage which had held his firstborn,--Arthur, now
aged fourteen,--was still in use, the luster of its paint much dimmed
and its upholstery but a memory. It had trundled a succession of little
Montgomerys among the cinder piles; indeed, it was almost a feature of
the landscape, for Joe's family was his chiefest contribution to the
wealth of his country.

There had been periods varying from a few days to a few weeks when the
Montgomerys were sole tenants of that row of slab-sided houses; their
poverty being a fixed condition, they were merely sometimes poorer. No
transient gleam of a larger prosperity had ever illuminated the horizon
of their lives, and they had never been tempted to move to other parts
of the town where the ground and the rents were higher.

Residents of this locality, not being burdened with any means of
locomotion beyond their own legs, usually came and went by way of the
high iron bridge; their legal right of way however was by a neglected
thoroughfare that had ambitiously set out to be a street, but having
failed of its intention, presently dwindled to a pleasant country road
which not far beyond crossed the river by the old wooden bridge below
the depot.

It was the iron bridge which Mrs. Montgomery, escorted by the daring
Shrimplin, had crossed that fateful night of her interview with Judge
Langham, and it was toward it that her glance was turned for many days
after in the hope that she might see Joe's bulk of bone and muscle as he
slouched in the direction of the home and family he had so wanted only
forsaken. But a veil of mystery obscured every fact that bore on the
handy-man's disappearance; no eye penetrated it, no hand lifted it.

Soon after Montgomery's disappearance his deserted wife fell upon evil
times indeed. In spite of her bravest efforts the rent fell hopelessly
in arrears. For a time her pride kept her away from the Shrimplins, who
might have helped her. To go to the little lamplighter's was to hear
bitter truths about her husband; Mr. Shrimplin's denunciations were
especially fierce and scathing, for here he felt that righteousness was
all on his side and that in abusing the absconding Joe he was performing
a moral act.

But at last Nellie's fortunes reached a crisis. An obdurate landlord set
her few poor belongings in the gutter. Even in the most prosperous days
their roof-tree had flourished but precariously and now it was down and
level with the dust; seeing which Mrs. Montgomery placed her youngest in
the ancient vehicle which had trundled all that generation of
Montgomerys, drew her apron before her eyes and wept. But quickly
rallying to the need for immediate action she swallowed her pride and
sent Arthur in quest of his uncle, who was well fitted by sobriety,
industry and thrift, to cope with such a crisis.

Mr. Shrimplin's only weaknesses were such as spring from an eager
childlike vanity, and a nature as shy as a fawn's of whatever held even
a suggestion of danger. To Custer he could brag of crimes he had never
committed, but an unpaid butcher's bill would have robbed him of his
sleep; also he wore a very tender heart in his narrow chest, though he
did his best to hide it by assuming a bold and hardy air and by
garnishing his conversation with what he counted the very flower of a
brutal worldly cynicism.

Thus it was that when Arthur had found his uncle and had stated his
case, Mr. Shrimplin instantly summoned to his aid all his redoubtable
powers of speech and fell to cursing the recreant husband and father.
Having eased himself in this manner, and not wishing Arthur to be
entirely unmindful of his vast superiority, he called the boy's
attention to the undeniable fact that he, Shrimplin, could have been
kicked out of doors and Joe Montgomery would not have lifted a hand to
save him. Yet all this while the little lamplighter, with the boy at his
heels, was moving rapidly across the flats.

From the town end of the bridge, youthful eyes had descried his coming
and the word was quickly passed that the uncle of all the little
Montgomerys was approaching, presumably with philanthropic intent. This
rumor instantly stimulated an interest on the part of the adult
population, an interest which had somewhat languished owing to the
incapacity of human nature to sustain an emotional climax for any
considerable length of time. Untidy women and idle-looking men with the
rust of inaction consuming them, quickly appeared on the scene, and when
the little lamplighter descended from the railway tracks it was to be
greeted with something like an ovation at the hands of his
sister-in-law's neighbors.

His ears caught the murmur of approval that passed from lip to lip and
out of the very tail of his bleached eyes he noted the expression of
satisfaction that was on every face. Even the previously obdurate
landlord met him with words of apology and conciliation. It was a happy
moment for Mr. Shrimplin, but not by so much as the flicker of an
eyelash did he betray that this was so. He had considered himself such a
public character since the night of the McBride murder that he now
deemed it incumbent to preserve a stoic manner; the admiration of his
fellows could win nothing from the sternness of his nature, so he
ignored the neighbors, while he was barely civil to the landlord. The
big roll of bills which, with something of a flourish, he produced from
the pocket of his greasy overalls, settled the rent, and the neighbors
noted with bated breath that the size of this roll was not perceptibly
diminished by the transaction.

Presently Mr. Shrimplin found himself standing alone with Nellie; the
landlord had departed with his money, while the neighbors, having
devoted the greater part of the day to a sympathetic interest in Mrs.
Montgomery's fortunes, now had leisure for their own affairs.

"Why didn't you send for me sooner?" demanded the little man with some
asperity. "No sense in having your things put out like this when you
only got to put them back again!"

"If Joe was only here this would never have happened!" said Mrs.
Montgomery, giving way to copious tears.

But Mr. Shrimplin seemed not so sure of this. The settling of the
handy-man's difficulties had been one of the few extravagances he had
permitted himself. His glance now fell on the small occupant of the
decrepit baby carriage, and he gave a start of astonishment.

"Lord!" he ejaculated, pointing to the child. "You don't mean to tell me
that's yours, too?"

"Three weeks next Sunday," said Mrs. Montgomery.

"Another one,--well, I don't wonder you've kept still about it! What's
the use of bringing children into the world when you can't half take
care of 'em?"

"I didn't keep still about it,--only I had so much to worry me!" said
Nellie, with a shadowy sort of resentment at the little lamplighter's
words and manner.

"It's a nice-looking baby!" admitted Mr. Shrimplin, relenting.

"It's a boy, see--he's got his father's eyes and nose--"

"I don't know about the eyes, but the nose is a durn sight whiter than
Joe's! Maybe, though, when it's Joe's age it will use the same brand of
paint."

"What you got it in for Joe for? He never done nothing to you!" said
Joe's wife, with palpable offense.

"He ought to be stood up and lammed over the head with a club!" observed
Mr. Shrimplin, with considerable acrimony of tone. "You'd have thought
that being a witness would have made a man out of Joe if anything
would,--and how does he act? Why, he lights out; he gets to be good for
something beside soaking up whisky and spoiling his insides, and he
skips the town; now if that ain't a devil of a way for him to act, I'd
like to know what you call it!"

"He was a good man--" declared Mrs. Montgomery with conviction. "A good
man, but unfortunate!"

"Well, if he suits you, Nellie--"

"He does!"

"I'm glad of it," retorted Mr. Shrimplin, taking a chew of tobacco. "For
I don't reckon he'd ever suit any one else!"

"You and none of my family never liked Joe!" said Mrs. Montgomery.

"Well, why should we?" demanded Mr. Shrimplin impatiently.

"Your wife,--my own sister, too,--said he should never darken her door,
and he was that proud he never did! You couldn't have dragged him
there!" said Mrs. Montgomery, and the ready tears dimmed her eyes.

"And you couldn't have dragged him away quick enough if he had a-come!
Now don't you get tearful over Joe, you can't call him no prodigal; his
veal's tough old beef by this time! But I never had nothing in
particular against him more than I thought he ought to be kicked clean
off the face of the earth!" said Mr. Shrimplin, rolling his drooping
flaxen mustache fiercely between his stubby thumb and its neighboring
forefinger.

Such personal relations as the little lamplighter had sustained with the
handy-man had invariably been of the most friendly and pacific
description. Esteeming Joe a gentleman of uncertain habits, and of
criminal instincts that might at any moment be translated into vigorous
action, Mr. Shrimplin had always been at much pains to placate him. In
the heat of the moment, however, all this was forgotten, and Mr.
Shrimplin's love of decency and rectitude promptly asserted itself.

"It's easy enough to pick flaws in a popular good-looking man like Joe!"
said Mrs. Montgomery, with whom time and absence had been at work, also,
and to such an extent that the first dim glint of a halo was beginning
to fix itself about the curly red head of her delinquent spouse.

"And a whole lot of good them good looks of his has done you, Nellie,"
rejoined Mr. Shrimplin, with a little cackle of mirth.

"He never even seen his youngest!" said Mrs. Montgomery, giving
completely away to tears at this moving thought of the handy-man's
deprivation.

"I reckon he could even stand that," observed Mr. Shrimplin unfeelingly.
"I bet he never knowed 'em apart."

"Why he was just wrapped up in them and me,--just wrapped up!" cried
Mrs. Montgomery.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20