A private chivalry

For two weeks after the judge’s first interview with his unwilling client the possibility of successfully defending Brant receded steadily, and no new discoveries came to countermine the wall of evidence which was slowly and surely closing in upon him.

In this interval Colonel Bowran had returned, and, contrary to Brant’s expectation or desire, had at once championed his draughtsman’s cause. There had been more than one stormy interview—they were tempestuous on the colonel’s part, at least—in which the chief engineer’s wrath was directed at Brant’s obduracy. And when expostulation and friendly abuse had failed, the colonel sought out Judge Langford and Forsyth, joining forces cordially with the prisoner’s friends, but bringing nothing helpful in the way of additional information.

On the other hand, the prosecution lacked nothing but the culprit’s confession of having a complete case. Brant’s record was exploited, and the details of his previous quarrel with Harding, or so much of them as were known to Draco’s bartender, were dragged out of Deverney as sound teeth are extracted from the jaw of an unwilling patient.

So much of the State’s side of the case was known to Brant’s friends—by what means Forsyth’s young men could best have explained—and there was consternation among them in just proportion. If the tide could not be stemmed before the rapidly approaching day of the trial, the judge knew he should go into court without any case. And, making due allowance for the change that had recently been wrought in public sentiment, he had every reason to fear the worst for his client.

“I tell you, Forsyth, the man will hang in spite of everything we can do.”

So much the judge was impelled to say in one of the many conferences with the editor, and Forsyth had nothing to offer in rebuttal.

“I’m afraid he will,” said the editor. And then: “We are all in the same boat, and on the same side of the boat—all but Harry Antrim. He still asserts his belief in Brant’s innocence. In his way he is as obdurate as Brant himself. But it is entirely sentiment on his part. I wish his faith had a better foundation.”

So Antrim had wished many times; and after having racked his brain for a fortnight for something tangible wherewith to buttress his belief, he was finally indebted to the chapter of accidents for a clew which seemed to point most hopefully.

It was in the afternoon of that day in which Judge Langford had summed up Brant’s case in the talk with the editor. Antrim had been rummaging in his safe for a missing paper, and had chanced to come upon the sealed envelope given him by Brant for safe-keeping on the morning after the burglary at Mrs. Seeley’s.

His first impulse was to send it posthaste to the judge; his next was to break the seal and read the sworn evidence of Harding’s guilt in the year-agone crime committed in Taggett’s Gulch. Five minutes later he was writing a note to Dorothy, begging her to come quickly to the office.

Dorothy answered the note in person, and Antrim took her into the superintendent’s room and closed the door. What he had to say brooked neither listeners nor interruptions.

“I’m awfully glad you came right away,” he began. “I was afraid something might hinder you, and what I want to talk about won’t wait.”

Dorothy sat down in the superintendent’s big chair and unpinned her veil. “I was just getting ready to come down for Isabel when Tommie came. He said it was a ‘rush message,’ so I caught the next car.”

“That was lucky.” Antrim was tramping up and down before her, full to bursting with his news. Suddenly he stopped and confronted her. “Dorothy, would you still be glad to believe that Brant isn’t guilty?”

She sat up very straight at this and the sensitive chin quivered a little. “That is a hard question, Harry. If it wasn’t Mr. Brant——”

“I know what you are thinking about,” he broke in. “But just leave Will out of it entirely; try to forget that he was there.”

“If I could do that, the question—your question—would answer itself.”

“That is all I want to know. Now I have believed all along that Brant didn’t do it; and a little while ago I found some papers which go to show that he could have no possible motive for doing it. It isn’t necessary to go over the whole thing, but you will understand what I mean when I tell you that these papers are Brant’s, and any time he wanted to get rid of Harding all he had to do was to turn them over to the district attorney of Pitkin County. That would have been the end of Mr. Murderer Harding as soon as they could catch and hang him.”

“You say you found these papers—where?”

“In my safe. Brant gave them to me to keep for him.”

“Do you know why he did that?”

“No.”

“I do.” She tugged at the fingers of her glove and a light came into her eyes that told Antrim more than she would have admitted by word of mouth under torture. “It was because he was afraid to keep them; afraid he might be tempted to let the law do what everybody is saying he did with his own hand. Harry, he is innocent!”

“Of course he is; that is what I’ve been saying all along. Now there are two of us who believe it, and something has got to be done quick.”

“What had you thought of?”

“I can’t think—I’m too foolishly rattled to think; and that is why I sent for you. You can plan all around the rest of us. What do you say?”

Dorothy sat back in the great chair and thought it all out in the turning of a leaf.

“Mr. Brant must be made to listen to reason,” she said decisively. “He must let papa defend him; he must let papa use these papers; and he must tell us all the things we don’t know.”

Antrim’s gesture was of despair. “Pity’s sake! that is just what we have all been trying to get him to do for two whole weeks!”

“I can’t help it; that is what must be done.”

“And done it shall be, if you will only go a step farther and tell me how we are to bring it about.”

“Can’t you persuade him?”

“Persuade nothing! Why, Dorothy, you haven’t an idea what a mule the man is! Your father, and Forsyth, and Colonel Bowran, and I have fairly worn ourselves out trying to make him open his head. There isn’t a thing any of us could think of that hasn’t been tried; not a— Yes, by Jove, there is one thing, too!”

An inspiration much too large to be readily clothed in words came to Antrim, dazzling him with its invincible simplicity. Dorothy divined it with quick intuition, and her heart sank within her at the bare suggestion.

“What is it?” she asked faintly.

“Why, it is the simplest thing in the world! Brant won’t talk to any of us, but if you will go to him——”

“O Harry—I can’t, I can’t!” she wailed.

But he would not be turned aside. “Yes, you can, Dorothy, and you must. It is life and death with him now. Only this morning Forsyth told me it was all up with him. Think of a man being hanged for a thing that he didn’t do; think how awful it would be if you had to remember that you might have done something to prevent it, and didn’t! Think of—think of Isabel, Dorothy, and be a brave little sister of mercy, as you have always been to every one in trouble.”

“Oh, don’t, don’t!” she pleaded pitifully. “Don’t say any more, Harry. You haven’t any idea of what you are asking me to do, but I—I’ll go. Can we do it now—right away—before I have to go home and face them all again?”

Antrim made a quick dash for his hat and coat, and they were halfway to the jail before she spoke again.

“Isn’t it a very dreadful thing for me to do?” she asked shamefacedly. “Do—do ladies ever go to see the prisoners?—alone, I mean.”

“I don’t know; and you must not care, Dorothy—not for this once. I’ll go as far as the corridor with you and wait till you come out. You must just keep saying to yourself that it is life and death; and—and Isabel’s happiness,” he added softly.

She caught the inspiration of his unselfishness, and answered it in kind.

“You are very good and noble, Harry. I’ll remember; and I’ll try to do my part—as you are doing yours. Is this the place? Oh, what a terrible Castle of Despair!”