A private chivalry

Mistress Kate Hobart, California-born and bred, was of the cheerful salt of the earth, a frank and outspoken young woman whose vivacity was unfettered, and to whom mystery and melancholy were alike insupportable. Having twice entertained the Langfords on Jack Mountain during the summer, she thought she knew the family well enough to enjoy a visit in the Denver household, and so had accepted Mrs. Langford’s invitation willingly. But after two such depressive days as had never before been ticked off in any calendar of hers, days which made her homesick for Jack Mountain, she went down to breakfast on the Saturday morning determined to make some excuse—any excuse—for flight.

But at the breakfast table she was moved to reconsider. In some manner quite as inexplicable as its gathering, the storm cloud had lifted in a night; and for the first time since her darkening of the Hollywood door she was made to feel that an atmosphere of gloomy mystery was not the normal respiratory medium of the household.

As yet, no one save his mother had seen the returned prodigal, but they all knew he was safe at home. And since he had seen fit to account for his absence by a most ingenious paraphrase of the truth, there was no hint of the terrible story wrapped up in the damp newspaper beside the judge’s plate to mar the good cheer of the meal. Isabel alone appeared to lag in the ascent of the mount of cheerfulness; whereat her father rallied her, as fathers will:

“What is it this morning, Bella? Is it the unattainable Paris art school, or just an everyday picture that doesn’t paint itself? You look as if you had lost a friend, or gained an enemy.”

Isabel choked at the unintentional pointing of the thrust, and Dorothy came to her rescue:

“Don’t be a tease, papa,” she begged. “Isabel is going to surprise us all some day, and then you will lose your courtesy title and be known as the father of Miss Langford, the artist.”

“‘A prophet is not without honour,’” quoted Mistress Kate. “I think Isabel does very good work; don’t you, Mrs. Langford?”

“I refuse to call it work,” the mother asserted, pouring a second cup of coffee for the guest. “It is a very proper accomplishment for a young woman, and as such I have always encouraged it.”

“Oh, don’t!” said Isabel, and when the judge looked up and saw the real distress in her eyes he changed the subject, or thought to.

“I wonder what has become of Harry lately,” he remarked, and thereupon Isabel quaked afresh and nerved herself for the worst that could possibly be said.

No one seemed to know, and it was Dorothy who ventured the suggestion that possibly the superintendent’s prolonged absence and Antrim’s added responsibility were accountable.

“And who may ‘Harry’ be?” inquired Kate.

“Young Mr. Henry Antrim, the son of an old friend of ours in Tennessee,” Mrs. Langford explained. “He is almost a member of the family, I may say,” she added, with a glance in Isabel’s direction which was not thrown away upon the guest.

The younger daughter dropped her napkin, stooped to recover it, and so had an obvious excuse for the painful flush called up by the suggestive reply. Her self-control was beginning to sag threateningly, and she gave a little sigh of relief when her father began to smooth out the morning paper.

“I saw in the paper yesterday that Harry was out with the president’s car,” he said, straightening the damp sheet and unfolding it. “Let us see if——”

They all looked up at the abrupt pause. The judge was sitting very straight in his chair, his thin lips compressed in two colourless lines, and a gray shadow of grief and anger spreading slowly from cheek to brow. The paper trembled a little in his hands, but he read steadily through the leaded nonpareil under the staring headlines. Mrs. Langford was the first to find speech.

“Robert!” she cried. “What is it?”

The judge pushed back his chair and rose stiffly, as one upon whom the palsy of old age had come suddenly.

“Send William to me in the library,” he said, and his voice had in it something of the judicial sternness which had so often struck hope out of a culprit’s heart in the courtroom days. He turned away, and then he remembered the guest, and came back to apologize with grave dignity. “You must excuse me—excuse us all, Mrs. Hobart. We are in great trouble; you can see for yourself.” And he gave her the newspaper.

He left the room, and Mrs. Langford followed at once. Kate looked askance at the paper, but she took it up at Dorothy’s nod. A glance at the staring headlines appalled her, but she saw that it was no time for nice distinctions in the conventional field, if she were to be of the helpers.

“Shall I read it aloud?” she asked.

“If you please,” Dorothy assented, slipping her arm around Isabel’s waist.

So Mistress Kate read, and stopped to gasp and read again:

“‘SACRIFICED TO OSIRIS!

“‘WILLIAM LANGFORD AND JAMES HARDING
PLAY CARDS, AND GEORGE BRANT
KILLS THE WINNER!

“‘Last night, at the solemn hour of midnight, another murder was added to the long list of crimes that have made bloody abattoirs of the temples of chance here and elsewhere. The “Osirian” clubhouse was the scene of the grim tragedy. The details of the killing are somewhat obscure, but it seems that William Langford, the young son of one of our most respected citizens, and James Harding, better known as the “Professor,” met in one of the private rooms of the Osirian for a quiet game of draw. About midnight a pistol shot rang out, and those who rushed to the scene found Harding weltering in his blood. He had been shot in the face as he sat in his chair, the bullet—a 45-calibre Colt—entering beside the left eye and passing out at the back to bury itself in the wall.

“‘The affair is shrouded in mystery, which will probably not be cleared up until the facts are brought out at the trial. It was at first supposed that young Langford had fired the fatal shot, but when the officers were about to arrest him, Brant, whose presence in the card room is unexplained, stepped out and surrendered himself. The motive for the crime is not far to seek. It is said, by those who know both, that Brant and the “Professor” have long been deadly enemies; and as the former had been seeking the latter at the various resorts in the city, it is supposed that the killing was the culmination of an old feud.

“‘Harding’s record is most unsavoury, and he has more than once been a fugitive from justice. The reports about his slayer are conflicting, some asserting that he is no other than “Plucky George” Brant, the notorious snap-shot faro dealer of the mining camps, while others say he is a civil engineer in the employ of the C. E. & W. Ry.’”

Dorothy went white at the third line of the heading and drew closer to her sister; and Kate was scarcely less moved when she put the paper down at the end.

“Isn’t it just simply dreadful!” she said; and the trite phrase showed how far beyond adequate speech the dreadful thing was.

Dorothy’s lips moved, but they were too dry to form even the single word of assent, and it was Isabel who answered:

“Indeed it is; it’s too awful to realize. But we all ought to be so thankful that Will was cleared so quickly and so easily.”

Dorothy drew herself up and stared at her sister as if she doubted that she had heard aright. Was it so easy, then, to choose between one’s lover and one’s brother?

“But, sister, is it any less terrible for that?” she cried out reproachfully.

“Oh, no; I suppose not. It is too awful to think about, anyway. But it is just what one would expect of Mr. Brant—the giving himself up, I mean. I wonder if what the paper says about him is true—about his double identity.”

“How can you think of that now!” Dorothy burst out passionately. “Of course it isn’t true; and even if it were—” She stopped short and caught her breath in a quick gasp, suddenly remembering Brant’s parable.

“I am afraid it is true,” said Kate sorrowfully. “He is an old friend of Ned’s, and Ned would never tell me how he came to meet him in Silverette, or what Mr. Brant was doing there.”

Dorothy’s heart was too full for any kind of utterance. The open disgrace brought upon the family by her brother; the terrible tragedy for which she felt that her letters to Brant were partly responsible; the dreadful fate that awaited the slayer of James Harding, and Isabel’s apparent indifference thereto—these were all past speech. And when there came a dim suspicion of a more horrible thing—a bare suggestion that Brant had shielded the real murderer by giving himself up in his stead—she burst into tears and ran from the breakfast room.

In the meantime William Langford was having an exceedingly painful quarter of an hour in the library. Much to her dissatisfaction, Mrs. Langford had not been permitted to accompany her son in the capacity of special pleader, and for once in his life the young man was compelled to face his father’s wrath unsupported, while his mother awaited the outcome with what fortitude she could summon in the deserted drawing-room.

“Tell me the whole story, and tell me the truth,” was the judge’s stern command when his son appeared before him.

William did neither. From long practice in presenting his own case at home in the most favourable light the young man was blankly unable to tell a straightforward story in plain words, though for this once his will to do it was good. But what he did tell put his father in possession of a fairly consistent series of facts. On the day before the tragedy the boy had met Harding and had become his guest at a hotel. There had been liquor and cards, he admitted—so much of the former that he had been afraid to come home. That was all.

“And how did you come to be in this place last night?”

“Harding took me there. He said it was a gentlemen’s club.”

“Didn’t you know it was a gambling house?”

The boy hung his head. “I—I guessed it was—after we got in.”

“Well, go on.”

“We went upstairs and began to play cards. Harding won everything I had, and then—” He stopped, but the lash of his father’s command struck him smartly.

“Tell it all. What then?”

“Then he got me to put my promise to get some papers away from Mr. Brant up against all the money on the table. I thought he was just joking, y’know, and I did it—and he won.”

The judge groaned in the bitterness of his spirit. “It wasn’t enough for you to be a knave; you must be a fool as well. Go on.”

“Then he said I must pay; that if I didn’t, he’d give me away for what I did the night before.”

“And what was that?”

Again the boy hung his head and went dumb. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Which is another way of saying that you were too drunk to know what you were about. God help us!” said the judge, and he got up to walk to the window. When he could trust himself to speak he began again:

“About these papers that Harding wanted you to get from Brant: what were they?”

“I don’t know—some affidavits or something that Brant was holding over him.”

“How were you to get them?”

“Any way I could. I was—to—steal them—I suppose.”

“And you—you deliberately put your honour, my honour, the good name you have made a hissing and a reproach, on the table as a stake in a game of cards!”

“I—I thought it was only a joke—before God, I did! And when I found out it wasn’t, I kicked, and we quarrelled.”

The dreadful suspicion that had just sent Dorothy sobbing to her room seized upon the judge and gripped him till his knees trembled. “You—you quarrelled?” he echoed. “Go on—go on, my son; let me know the worst.”

It is a hardened son indeed who can look unmoved upon the vicarious anguish of a father. William Langford was not unmoved, but the churlish habit had grown to be second nature, and all the gates of generous expression were closed and barred. He went on as if it were another’s story, and not his own, that he was telling.

“He cursed me, and said I’d have to do it. I swore I wouldn’t, and when I started to get up he held his gun on me. That scared me, but it made me madder, too, and I told him I wouldn’t talk any more till he put that gun down. He did put it down—laid it on the table—and I jumped for it. I don’t know just what I meant to do if I got hold of it. Part of the time I wanted to kill him, and part of the time I was scared stiff for fear he’d kill me.”

The culprit stopped to take breath. The effort of such continuous truth-telling was exhausting.

“Go on,” said the father.

“I don’t know as I can—so that you’ll understand. When I jumped for the pistol everything seemed to happen at once. The room was only a little box of a place, lighted by an electric globe sticking out from the wall at the end nearest the door. There was a big chandelier hanging from the ceiling right over the table, but that wasn’t lighted. Just as I jumped up the light went out with a smash, and there were three of us grabbing for the pistol on the table, instead of two. I got hold of it, somebody snatched it and pushed me back, and the shot was fired, all in the same breath. Then some one on the outside snapped the key of the big chandelier, and I saw that Harding was shot right where he sat.”

The judge crossed the room unsteadily and laid his hand on his son’s head. “William, you say ‘the shot was fired’; tell me, as you hope to be forgiven, did you fire that shot?”

The boy hesitated, doubting for the moment his ability to answer the question truthfully. The memories of the past eight-and-forty hours were like those of a fantastic dream in which a single incident more or less was hard to affirm or deny.

“I—I don’t think I did,” he stammered. “Most of the time I’m sure I didn’t; I was sure of it when the officers started to take me, and told ’em so. But there is a queer thing about it that I can’t understand. I told you that I grabbed the pistol in the dark, and that somebody snatched it from me just as the shot was fired. That’s true, and I’d swear to it if I stood on the gallows. But when the thing was done, I found that pistol in my hand just as if I’d never let go of it, and I threw it on the floor as if it had been hot and burned me.”

“But surely you can remember whether you fired it or not!”

“It seems as if I’d ought to, but I can’t. I was stunned and scared up and crazy mad all in one breath, and the whole thing happened before you could swallow twice. I’m glad I don’t have to remember.”

“Don’t have to remember? What do you mean?”

“Why, Brant settled it when he gave himself up, didn’t he? And yet, if he hadn’t done that, I’d have been ready to swear that he didn’t fire the pistol, either.”

The judge shook his head despairingly. “This uncertainty of yours is simply maddening, William. If you know you didn’t fire the shot yourself, why do you think Brant didn’t fire it?”

“Because the noise didn’t seem near enough, and I didn’t see any flash. The room was dark, y’know, and rattled as I was I’d ought to have seen it if it had been fired as close to me as that.”

The judge shook his head again, and began to pace the floor in a fresh access of grief and humiliation. But the exigencies of the case presently asserted themselves.

“I believe you have told me the truth, or that you have tried to tell it. But you must pull yourself together and get the facts in the shape of a consistent story. You will be put upon the witness stand, and Brant’s life may depend upon your testimony.”

The clang of the front-door bell broke in upon them, and the painful interview was at an end. The caller was an officer, come to summon William Langford as a witness in the preliminary examination, which was set for ten o’clock. The judge groaned inwardly at this fresh proof of the relentless march of publicity and disgrace, but he got his hat and coat and went with his son.

There were no new developments in the courtroom. William Langford told his story more coherently than the judge had believed it could be told; and, in accordance with his expressed determination, Brant refused counsel and maintained a stubborn silence. Hence the magistrate, having no alternative, ordered a plea of “Not guilty” to be entered for him, remanded him to jail, and fixed his bail at the sum of ten thousand dollars.

Forsyth and Antrim were both present at the preliminary examination, and after it was over the latter introduced Judge Langford and the editor. True to his promise to befriend Brant in the time of need, the judge immediately offered to procure bondsmen, but Forsyth shook his head.

“It is no use,” he explained. “He won’t accept bail, and I can’t even get him to consent to employ counsel.”

“But, my dear sir, that is sheer folly! Indeed, in this case it is worse than folly—it is suicide.” So said the judge, and so he fully believed.

“I know it; that is just what I tell him. But he is as stubborn as a mule.”

The lawyer in the judge awoke at this, and he became interested at once on the part of the mulish one. “What reason does he give, pray?”

Forsyth hesitated, not knowing precisely how far he might confide in the questioner. So he felt his way:

“He doesn’t give any reason; he simply refuses to talk. But I have my own theory. We are all friends of his, I take it, and I may speak plainly?”

“Certainly; go on.”

“Well, he is a singular fellow in some respects, and you can’t apply the law of averages. I believe he did the thing deliberately, and for some reason which does not appear on the surface. And, having done it, he means to let the law take its course without opposition—to take the consequences.”

“H’m,” said the judge reflectively; then he remembered how easy it would have been for Brant to have shifted suspicion to Will, and his heart warmed toward the culprit. “We mustn’t allow that, Mr. Forsyth. Of course, the court will assign him counsel at the trial whether he wants it or not, but we mustn’t let it come to that. Do you see him again, and endeavour to make him listen to reason.”

Forsyth promised to do what he might toward that desirable end, and the judge and his son left the courtroom together. The editor followed with Antrim, and when the Langfords were out of earshot the chief clerk put in his word:

“You may say what you please, Forsyth, but I am not going to believe that Brant did it till he admits it himself.”

“But, my dear boy, hasn’t he as good as admitted it already?”

“No. In what little he has said he has dodged that point very cunningly.”

“Of course he has; that is the proper thing to do. He is not obliged to criminate himself.”

“It is proper enough, as you say, but, don’t you see, it doesn’t fit into your theory. If he killed the man and is determined to take the consequences, why on top of earth shouldn’t he plead ‘Guilty’ and be done with it?”

That was a logical question, and Forsyth was unable to answer it. When he had said as much the inevitable alternative suggested itself, and he spoke of it:

“If you exonerate Brant, you put the boy in a bad box.”

Antrim had thought about that. “I can’t help it,” he said promptly. “The tree will have to lie where it falls. If you go back to motives, you will have to admit that, according to his own story, the thing looks bad for Will. He was the one who was quarrelling with Harding.”

“Yes, but—pshaw! I can’t believe it, Antrim. Why, he is only a boy!”

“That is true. But it is also true that he is a young tough, hot-headed and quick-tempered. I have known him all his life, and neither the thing itself nor the denial of it is much beyond him.”

They had reached the corner where Antrim should turn aside to go to his office, and the editor stopped and regarded his companion curiously.

“You are a friend of the Langfords, aren’t you?” he asked.

“If they have a better one, I don’t know it. But right is right. I should say the same if Will Langford were my own brother,” Antrim asserted stoutly. “I know you won’t agree with me, and I don’t expect any one else will, but I say George Brant isn’t guilty, and, unless he admits it himself in so many words, I am going to stick to it till the last dog is dead.”

Forsyth went his way unconvinced, but it was inevitable that Antrim’s suggestion should colour the editor’s talk with Brant that afternoon. And the colouring had its effect, too, though not in the way Forsyth would have wished. While the prisoner said little, and no thing of that little that could be construed into an admission of guilt, the editor left the jail with his own assumption confirmed and fortified beyond a question of doubt. Furthermore, he had failed utterly in the renewed attempt to make Brant listen to reason in the matter of employing counsel.