The Room with the Little Door

It is said that everything is relative. A fixed period of time, for instance, is either long or short, according to circumstances. There is an exception to this rule. Time is always long while the jury is out. Be this period eight hours or six minutes in duration, either constitutes a life-time. I know, for I have experienced both.

To a man whose brain is analytical, here is a splendid opportunity to administer to his mind some of its own medicine. While the first jury considered my case I noted my impressions in my little red diary, for, thought I, this is a road over which few travellers pass; it is really a unique experience, an episode in a life. I will record my impressions. That jury was most considerate; it did not hurry me in the slightest; it was out eight hours. I started to record my impressions while the second jury deliberated; it interrupted me in six minutes—but I have forgiven it.

Here are the thoughts which came to me during the period at the end of my first trial; but before I quote from my note-book—it will be unnecessary to open it, for I shall never forget what is inside—it may be of interest to know the circumstances under which the entries were written.

My trial for murder is almost over. The evidence against me has all been given—there was none offered in my defence, for technical reasons. The closing arguments by counsels have been made; the judge has charged the jury, and the jury is out. My fate rests upon the knees of the gods. All of which means that I am in a little iron pen, and that twelve men occupy the next room, deliberating whether life or death shall be my portion. I am very tired; for full three months I have been under a physical strain and a mental tension—I have been falsely accused, I am innocent. There are three who know this—myself, the man who did the murder, and God.

February 10, 1900. The first entry at 3.30 o’clock P.M.

The keepers are watching me curiously. Their trained eyes are like microscopes, through which they study and compare my conduct with that of previous defendants whom they have guarded under similar circumstances. They are calculating how long it will take for me to break down and show nervousness. I think they have a bet on the subject. It is irritating. If I should ask for a drink of water, they would exchange glances. I must not throw away my cigar before it is quite smoked up, neither must I let it go out—for these are bad signs. No laughter on my part, even should something impress me as being amusing—it would sound “forced.” And, above all, no blowing of the nose, even if I want to. They will suspect a surreptitious use of my handkerchief for another purpose. Any one may guess, and very cleverly, at mental agony expressed through physical distress. But what if there are no visible signs of distress? There shall be none. I wonder how they will interpret my occupation of writing this? If they imagine I am making my will they must think me possessed of much to give away.

I have speculated about my guards and answered their kind inquiries. I am killing time; the afternoon is slipping away quickly. At any rate, the jury cannot stay out much longer. I look at my watch—eight minutes and a half have passed. Good God! Only eight minutes and a half!

The second entry at four o’clock.

I am chemist enough to love an experiment. The jury is the unknown substance; the testimony, the reagent; my case is in solution; what will precipitate?

I think of the judge’s charge. I can repeat it word for word; it is seared into my brain; but it would have been more cruel had it aroused a false hope. How did it impress the jury? Over and over again, the old question cries out in my mind: “What will the jury do?”

You may be sure I selected pleasant-faced men; men with little fans made of wrinkles at the corners of their eyes; men who smiled often; who had pleasant voices.

What a change comes over a talesman when he becomes a juror! He is sworn. He takes his seat in the box; he will hold your life in his hand; you cannot get rid of him. Now you look at him in this new aspect, and there is a leer about his mouth, a cruelty in his eyes you had not seen before. Why did you select him—a man with a jaw like that? It was suicide.

I think of the prosecution’s case. They will convict me, of course. I reconsider it from my point of view. No, they cannot! No jury in the world could convict on such theories. But on what will they base an acquittal? There was no defence. I remember the surprises the district attorney’s office has sprung upon me—the unanswered witnesses, the fervent experts swearing to the impassioned hypothetical questions of the prosecutor, and his closing address, scathing, unjust. There is no chance for me—the odds are thousands to one against acquittal.

Even so, whispers Hope, that happens every day. Think of the lotteries—the odds in them are many thousands to one against the winning ticket; but one ticket must win. There can be no—That’s it! “The reasonable doubt”! But there has been no defence. It is hopeless. Then the presumption of innocence? Ah, they will disagree; I know it, I am sure of juror number ----; I shall have another chance; but what will the jury do? Perhaps they will exonerate me.

The third entry: 5 o’clock.

I have gone over the merits of the case again, coolly, dispassionately. I have counted the points against me on the fingers of my right hand, and checked off the points in my favor on the left. I shall be convicted is my conclusion.

How will they take it at home—my mother, my—Stop that! Stop that! You are not to speculate on that subject; there must be no redness about the eyes, no twitching mouth when you face that jury for the last time. Use your brain—think of something else.

I am sick of the case; it can have but one issue. I must drive it from my mind by some other subject. I must have a proposition to prove—anything. Why does time pass so slowly? for instance; that will do.

It is going slowly. This afternoon is a life-time—but why? That is a very good subject; it is an intensely real one. That this afternoon is “a life-time” is not only figurative—it is literal. Think of it; as long a life-time as you will, is composed of what? Of course I mean mentally—not what happens; that is hardly worth chronicling. What constitutes our interest in life? Surely it is because we cannot tell what the next day—or the next moment, for that matter—may bring forth. We hope, but uncertainty gives that hope its zest. Because we cannot discount the future, the unexpected is life, and life is Doubt. Can enough doubt be crowded into a few hours, or even minutes, to constitute a life-time? You will know it possible if you have ever waited—while the jury is out.

This must be the secret of the drama—the mimic life—in which the aroused hopes and fears and sympathies are but other names for doubt. Imagine, then, the suspense, the doubt, of the waiting man in this play with real life or death, and concentrate the emotions of a whole audience into that single brain.

The fourth entry: 6.30 o’clock.

There is a noise in the street below. I look out of the window at the crowd; they are waiting also from curiosity. Newspapers are being sold—newspapers full of unjust and imaginary stories about me and mine. The journalists are eager to sell these inventions while interest in my case lasts, hence the newspapers are “extras.” While watching this I see the jury go to dinner in an old-fashioned white stage, such as used to carry passengers on Broadway. Perhaps it is the same stage in which I rode with my mother to Manhattanville thirty years ago—I a little fellow in kilt skirts and white stockings. How well I remember it!

The fifth entry: 8 o’clock.

They will allow no one to see me; that is, none of my friends, but curious officials come in on imaginary errands to look me over. The jury returned some time ago; they have now deliberated for five hours. Evidently some one is holding out. Having done so for this length of time, it looks like a disagreement; unless some one changes his mind. Why should a juror change his mind? He has sworn to go by the evidence. Do the opinions of his companions change the evidence?

I wish that there was no jury system. Having five judges to preside would be much better. They would go by facts, their ears would not be tickled by mere eloquence; experience would teach them when witnesses were lying. And, best of all, five judges would know the real value of expert testimony; yes, they would know that, for they would hear the official experts expounding one theory to-day, have heard its opposite yesterday, and will hear the repudiation of both to-morrow.

The sixth entry: 8.30 o’clock.

They brought me sandwiches and a cup of coffee. While disposing of them I talked to my friends the keepers, telling them about my experiences in the cattle business so long ago and so far away. They paid me the pretty compliment of saying that I take matters more coolly than any one they had ever seen; that I show no emotion—I knew they were watching for it. Am I confident? No, I am not. Strange to say, I am becoming indifferent. After all, what does it matter so far as I am concerned?

Like the stag making his last stand and being torn by the hounds, better die than escape wounded to suffer more; better have it over and done with. And as for my home, my family—stop that!

The seventh entry: 9 o’clock.

The refinement of cruelty. I have been taken into the court-room twice; each time with exposed nerves which are scraped and singed by the questions the jury has come in to ask, and the answers which push me nearer to the edge of the precipice. Each time I have gone prepared for the end. It is interesting, but not amusing. I saw my father last at two o’clock, seven hours ago. He has grown seven years older since then. My brother is in court. He is four years my senior; he looks an old man—I wonder how I look. My attorneys are very serious as they whisper together.

The eighth entry: 10 o’clock.

Three months I have been on trial; twice a day I have been taken into court—morning and afternoon. The signal which summons me is made by rapping a key on the iron door. This is symbolic—key and door. Which way will the key turn? Will the door open or close for me? I feel that the next summons will answer these questions. They are rapping the key on the door.

The last entry: midnight.

I was right. I found out about the key and the door on the third summons. It is not three times and—out.

I entered the yellow room. It was packed. Every one turned to look at me. It was a picture of a storm at sea; the pale faces were the whitecaps. It foreboded trouble—shipwreck. A little strain of music had run in my head all the afternoon—“The Blessing of the Poniards,” from the “Huguenots”—a full orchestra seemed to play it then; I marched to it.

We sat down and waited for the jury. While doing so this thought intruded itself upon me: Had I the gambler’s fever; would “wheel” or “bank” ever interest me again after this?

Imagine becoming excited over a hundred dollars placed on the red or black! Of what concern would be a little white ball running around and tumbling into holes; or cards, two at a time, being drawn from a silver box; or, for that matter, five pasteboards held in my own hand?

The jury entered; they would not look at me. I knew. The judge entered; we all rose to show our respect—for his gown. He looked pleased; he must have known the verdict as well as I.

“The jury will rise.”

“The prisoner will rise.”

What luck! The chimes from the “New York Life” building, around the corner, struck eleven. Yes, so it proved. “New York Life” was bidding me good-by. The gentlemen of the jury had agreed upon a verdict. They found the prisoner guilty of murder in the first degree.

There was applause from the judge’s chambers; a woman’s voice cried out, “Oh, good! Good—good!” A window opened and I saw a carrier-pigeon flash out and fly away. All this to the accompaniment of a groan which ran around the court-room. One woman—God bless her—fainted; and then I felt my father’s hand in mine.

The game is over, and I have lost. I must be a good loser, for the crowd in the corridors cheered me—cheered a convicted man on his way to the “Bridge of Sighs.”

Then I was under a compound microscope. Convicted men seem to be interesting men; at least, not one of those unwinking eyes would have missed a single tit-bit of my agony had I displayed any. But plain, vulgar pride came to my rescue; for I had seen convicted men carried back to the Tombs, undressed, and put to bed like sick babies; I had heard them howl all night and beg for liquor; some of them had tried to throw themselves downstairs.

But my mother, my—stop that! For God’s sake don’t think of that; perhaps later, in the dark----

We crossed the “Bridge of Sighs.” We stepped into the prison yard, flooded with moonlight. It was like the last act of “Romeo and Juliet” among the tombs. Poor, mad Romeo! I thought of other moonlit scenes; of another Romeo; of love vows never to be renewed—that is, I started to think of them—something I must not do. It was all the fault of the queen of night. I had not bathed in her mysterious light for twelve long months. (It was three years before I worshipped her glory again.)

Never in my life have I been so touched; never so near breaking down, as when, on that night, the keepers in the Tombs, where I had lodged so long, expressed to me their sympathy and confidence. I believed in their sincerity then; I have never doubted it since.

Next morning.

I went to my little cell; and, with my best philosophy, undid the chattels I had packed so carefully that morning and addressed to home. I slept. What? Sleep? Certainly. There was no more suspense; I was legally dead. Life had stopped with its forfeiture; relief had come from doubt. I slept. It proved my proposition of the afternoon.

The Second Jury. Nov. 11, 1902.

The jury sitting at my second trial has retired, and three years later I find myself under almost precisely similar circumstances to those just described. I will note the variations. The suspense, the doubt, should be worse than at the previous trial, knowing, as I do, what it is to be a convicted man, and what it would mean to go all through it again. I know it, all the way from the ceremony of passing the death sentence to the opening of the little door.

Strangely enough, that same strain of music hums in my brain, repeating itself over and over again. I do not believe I have thought of it once during the last three years. Yet, here it is, and I shall march to it again.

What will the jury do?

I do not think about my case this time; if acquitted, I shall be pleased for my father’s and mother’s sake. If convicted, as far as I am personally concerned I am absolutely indifferent. I am like a man who, having fallen from the roof of some sky-scraper, lies mangled in the street below. Suppose an old friend comes along and kicks him? He cannot feel it because his back is broken. I can suffer no more whatever happens; and I have forgotten how to rejoice.

Acquitted, convicted—I am indifferent. Since that night I watched the dawn come to the Death-Chamber, as God lives, I have not cared.