A private chivalry

When a great misfortune threatens, the heavens are darkened and the smaller ills are obscured; but when the eclipse passes, the lesser evils magnify themselves, assuming abnormal proportions in a field wherein they are no longer secondary. What time Judge Langford was oppressed by the fear that his son had added a murder to the sum of his iniquities, the disgrace consequent upon the dragging of the family name into the public prints seemed trifling. But when it became apparent that William was not to be hanged, the lesser misfortune demanded a hearing, and the judge shut himself up in his library to mourn over the wreck of the good name he had builded.

To him in his sorrowful seclusion came Dorothy, grief-stricken and incoherent, staggering under a burden of remorseful anguish too heavy to be borne alone. The judge loved his elder daughter with an affection which was both tenderer and less prideful than that shared by the younger; and he postponed his private grief in the effort to measure and assuage hers.

“What is it, Dorothy, daughter—anything worse than the worst?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes, papa; and it is all my fault!” she sobbed, leaning against the high mantel and covering her face with her hands.

“Your fault? But I don’t understand. What is it that is your fault?”

“A good part of what has happened, and all that is going to happen. Mr. Brant was in that place last night because I had asked him to go. He was looking for Will, to bring him home.”

“But you say you had asked him. How could that be?”

Dorothy dried her eyes and told the whole story bravely, beginning with the chance meeting in Mr. Crosswell’s study, and ending by handing her father the two notes received from Brant. The judge read the notes thoughtfully and the lines of anxiety deepened in his face.

“You did it for the best, and no one could have foreseen such terrible consequences. It was a most natural thing for you to do, and I am far from reproaching you. But you are right; this complicates the affair most grievously. It makes us in a certain sense responsible, and that without helping to clear up the mystery. If the young man’s purpose was to rescue William—and that seems to be very evident—why under heaven should he spoil a good deed by committing a murder in the very midst of it?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know! But if I hadn’t sent him he wouldn’t have been there!”

“No, probably not; but you mustn’t try to carry more than your proper share of the burden. Whatever his motive for killing the man, it must surely go back of Harding’s connection with William.”

“If I could only be sure of that!” sighed Dorothy; and then she added hopelessly: “Not that it would make any difference. It is done, and it can never, never be undone.”

“Yes, it would make some difference,” said the father reflectively; “not in fact, but in the ethics of the fact. Nevertheless, it would not greatly lessen our responsibility. We must make this young man’s cause our own now, at any cost.” Here spoke the loyal Southern gentleman.

“And he can be cleared—you can save him?” she faltered, brightening up a little.

But her father shook his head doubtfully at that.

“It would be more than any one could promise at present; he is acting very singularly”—and Dorothy’s hopes were slain when the judge told the story of the preliminary examination. When she had heard him through, the horrible suspicion came again and refused to be driven away, but she could not bring herself to speak of it to her father. Will a murderer? Oh, no; anything but that!

Not until his daughter had gone away and he had sat down to go thoughtfully over the details again did the judge realize what his championship of Brant would require of him. Then it became evident, with a keen pang of fresh misfortune, that he was bound hand and foot; that any effort made to clear Brant must inevitably result in entangling his own son. As the matter rested, William was free and unsuspected, and George Brant would hang—if the jury so willed. But if by any effort of any one Brant should be proved innocent— The alternative was as plain as the handwriting on the wall of Belshazzar’s banquet hall, and to the full as appalling.

The luncheon hour came and went unheeded, and the autumn afternoon waned toward a cloudy evening, and still the judge plodded wearily back and forth in the narrow space between his writing table and the bookcases, striving with his paternal love as many a father has striven since the day when Abraham the Just was commanded to make trial of his faith. It was the father against the man, and what wonder if, after all the hours of stern conflict, the father won?

“I can not do it,” he said at length, setting his face flintwise against all arguments. “A man’s first duty is to his own flesh and blood. If William were guilty it would be different; though even then I doubt if I could play the Roman. No, Brant must take his chance; I can’t help him.”

So saying, the judge went up to dress for dinner; but his decision did not prevent him from telephoning to Antrim as he came down again, asking the chief clerk to come to the house that evening.

Antrim promised readily enough, the more willingly since he suspected the reason for the summons and hoped to be able to do something in Brant’s behalf. Accordingly, he boarded a car immediately after supper and was presently set down in the Highlands. Isabel met him at the door and would gladly have been plastic; but Antrim was, in his way, a man of one idea at a time, and at that moment he was too full of concern for his friend to think overmuch of his own affair. Whereat Isabel was piqued, and the angel of reconciliation spread its wings and flew away.

“Is your father at home?” Antrim asked, after what Isabel thought was the coldest of greetings.

“Yes, my father is at home, and he is in the library,” she replied, with the accent precise. And when Antrim disappeared she went back to the drawing-room and played many unmusical staccato exercises on the piano.

“Good evening, Harry,” said the judge, greeting his visitor cordially. “Come in and sit down; you have been neglecting us lately.”

Antrim admitted it in one word, not wishing to go a-swimming in that pool.

“I asked you to come over because I wanted to have a talk with you about Brant,” the judge went on. “You know him better than any of us, and I thought you might have some suggestions to offer. He mustn’t be allowed to hang himself without benefit of clergy.”

“That is exactly what he is going to do,” replied Antrim, who had been to see the prisoner in the city jail during the afternoon. “He won’t talk about bail; and I can’t get him to listen to a word about having a lawyer.”

“What does he say?” queried the judge.

“As nearly nothing as a man can and keep on talking.”

“Do you know anything about the affair yourself, Harry?—any more than the newspapers tell, I mean.”

“How much do you know?” asked Antrim cautiously, not wishing to betray Dorothy.

The judge smiled. “I know all that Dorothy can tell me,” he rejoined.

“All right; then that lets me out, though I haven’t much to add. We were out together nearly all Thursday night, looking for Will, and we arranged to go out again last night. Brant seemed to have found out something during the day, for in the evening he gave me a description of this man Harding, and told me I’d be likely to find him and Will together. When we separated I was to go to the hotels and lodging houses, and he was to make the round among the dives.”

The judge remembered his talk with Brant after the Draco raid and William’s first home-bringing, and was once more able to put two and two together. “It is very evident that there are some earlier chapters to the story,” he said, “and if Brant won’t tell us about them we must find some one who will. It may be there are extenuating circumstances in the background which will help out at the trial.”

He rose and pressed the bell-push; and Antrim made haste to define his own position before an interruption should slay the opportunity.

“You are going on the supposition that Brant is guilty,” he said quickly. “I don’t believe he is.”

“You don’t?” The judge’s tone evinced more deprecation than he could honestly lay claim to. “But, my dear boy, have you considered the alternative?”

“No.” Antrim admitted it frankly. “I haven’t looked at it in that light at all. But I know Brant, and I think I know him pretty well. I don’t believe he is any more capable of killing a man in cold blood than I am.”

“I know; but that is only inference. You forget the evidence—” The judge was going on to summarize the evidence, but the coming of the servant interrupted him. “Yes, I rang,” he said to the housemaid. “Ask Mrs. Hobart if she will be good enough to come to the library.”

Kate complied at once, and the judge introduced Antrim. “Have this chair, Mrs. Hobart,” he said. “We were discussing the mur—the tragedy of last night. Mr. Antrim is a friend of Brant’s, and I understood you to say that your husband knows him well. Can you tell us anything of his history?”

Kate shook her head slowly, and, being inclined at times to be wary out of all proportion to her sex and age, replied guardedly: “Nothing more than that he and Ned were college classmates.”

“Have you written to your husband yet?”

“No; I thought he would get the papers before he would my letter.”

“So he will; but I think it will be well to ask him to come down. You might write to-night, and Mr. Antrim will mail your letter.”

“I’ll do better than that—I’ll wire,” said Kate. “May I write at your table?”

She wrote the message and gave it to Antrim, and after a little more talk the chief clerk took his leave. He found his way to the front door alone, and Isabel watched his departure from the stairhead; after which concession to her pique she went to her room and did penance after the fashion of quick-tempered lovers the world over.

Antrim took a car and left it at the corner nearest the telegraph office. Ten steps from the crossing he ran upon Jarvis, and the reporter began forthwith to ransack him for details in Brant’s affair. Antrim set his teeth upon a resolve to tell nothing, and ended by telling all he knew, salving his conscience by reasserting his belief in Brant’s innocence.

“Right there is where I am stuck myself, but I am going to settle that point before I’m an hour older,” quoth the reporter, adding, “You may come along and help, if you want to.”

“Settle it?” echoed Antrim. “How can anybody do that?”

“You stay right with me and I’ll show you.”

They went on together, first to the Western Union office, that Antrim might do his errand, and then to the Osirian. On the way to the clubhouse Jarvis stopped short and smote his thigh.

“By Jupiter, Harry, but your part of the story turns on an oxy-hydrogen side light that beats the moon! I’ll bet a gold mine to an Indian cayuse that I’ve got the whole play down pat. Here is the layout: He is soft on the girl; he goes on a still hunt for the girl’s brother; he catches his Toughness killing him a man for breakfast, and coolly steps into Mr. Brother’s shoes—all for the sake of the girl. That is George Brant to a hair, if I’m any judge of my kind. Come on till I prove it to you like twice two.”

Antrim went aghast at the bare possibility, but he held his peace and followed Jarvis blindly. The reporter’s calling procured them ready admission to the exclusive palace of Chance, and they found the room on the second floor untenanted, as it was sure to be. Jarvis posted his companion near the door and in line with the end of the table where Brant must have stood. Then he placed the chairs on either side of the table, about where they were when Harding and Langford had sat in them. The stage set, he began his demonstration:

“Now, we know that Harding was hit on the side of his face nearest to you, but that proves nothing more than that he might have turned away just at the moment of the firing. But if you will hold the end of this tape, I’ll show you that Brant couldn’t have fired that shot from your end of the table, unless it turned a corner in Harding’s head.”

He unwound the tape, gave one end of it to Antrim, and drew it taut as nearly as might be through the space where the murdered man’s head must have been. That done, he turned and stared blankly at his assistant.

“What is it?” Antrim demanded.

“B’gosh, I’ve proved too much!” said the reporter. “Can’t you see? The bullet that made this hole in the wall was fired from about where you stand. By Jove! that lets young Langford out, but say, it puts Brant in head over ears!”

Antrim dropped his end of the tape and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Just the same, I don’t believe it,” he said doggedly. “And, what’s more, I never will until Brant admits it himself.”

“Bully for you!” cried Jarvis heartily. “You are the kind of a friend to have at a pinch! Well, there is nothing more to be found out here. Let’s go down and have a drink, and then you’ll tell me more about that burglary business. I was so full of this other thing that I didn’t quite catch on.”

“No drinks,” said Antrim briefly when they were once more in the street and Jarvis was pointing for a barroom. “Come up to Mrs. Seeley’s with me, if you like, and I’ll tell you and show you all there is to be heard and seen.”

Jarvis acquiesced, grumbling, and the chief clerk was as good as his word. But if the reporter made any fresh discoveries in Brant’s room he kept his own counsel. By this time Antrim was catching at straws. The meeting with Jarvis and the experiment with the tape measure in the card room damped his courage, and left his belief in Brant’s innocence more nearly shaken than it had been at any time during the eventful day. None the less, he remained steadfast, as his last word to Jarvis testified.

“You are interested in getting to the bottom of this thing on general principles, aren’t you?” he asked, as he let the reporter out at the street door.

“Sure thing.”

“I supposed so. Well, you just go ahead on the supposition that Brant didn’t do it, and you will be more likely to succeed. Good night.”

“You are a crank,” said the reporter, laughing, as he ran down the steps.

And yet such is the impact of one man’s assertion hurled repeatedly against a wall of self-evident fact that Jarvis actually found himself ignoring the evidence and building theories based on the major “if.” He toppled them over as fast as they rose, but they straightway grew again, and it took another conference with his chief, the night editor, to fully fortify his reason against the assaults of Antrim’s insistent faith.