“How terrible!” The white luminous spot of her face moved closer to the judge. “Don’t you hate to?”
The judge was a little afraid of her, for, besides the fact that she was rather imperious, her father was a very important person. He always strove to please everybody.
“Yes, of course it’s unpleasant—but one gets used to it. One gets used to everything, Miss Moira.”
“I should never get used to sending men to prison. I think all prisons ought to be abolished!”
The judge smiled at her tolerantly, thinking—in spite of the flaming glory of her hair that swept so low across her white brow—how much her intense blue eyes, her short, straight nose, her capable mouth with its full red lips were like the “Old Man’s.” He did not recall ever having seen her mother.
“That is easy to say, my dear! You must have been reading Bernard Shaw!”
“I haven’t. What does he say?” she inquired.
“That so long as we have prisons it doesn’t make much difference who occupy the cells.”
“Well, that’s just what I think!”
The judge fidgeted and pretended to examine the book before him. He wished that they would hurry along with Flynn. The girl was already becoming something of a nuisance. She made him uneasy. And she might so easily ask him a question that he couldn’t answer! So very easily! Still, he couldn’t very well have refused her request to be allowed to see him administer justice, for the all-powerful Richard Devens, her father, was one of his stanchest backers. Another thirteen months, and the judge would be up for re-election, going around soliciting campaign contributions, with his hat in his hand, if he were fortunate, or, if he were not, trying to enlist influence for a renomination — but in either case with his hat in his hand.
Moira Devens leaned back in her chair, leaving the judge momentarily in peace. Although she had never been in a court-room before, much less elevated upon a dais in full view of several hundred spectators, she was not in the least embarrassed. On the contrary, she rather enjoyed being there. As her father’s daughter she was used to receiving attention wherever she happened to be, and that she should be given a box seat at this particular drama seemed wholly natural.
Yet the performance was not at all like what she had expected. From what she had read in the newspapers she had always supposed a criminal trial to be a sort of gladiatorial combat, where wild beasts in the shape of bull-necked prosecutors and shyster lawyers fought with one another amid frenzied roars from the onlookers and bloodthirsty growls from the pens below; not a quiet, decorous affair like this, where if a juror coughed he covered his mouth with his hand, and where the only sound was the crackle made by Mr. Dollar as he turned the stiff leaves of the court record. So quiet and decorous, in fact, that she almost wondered if they were alive, these motionless figures in jury-box and on the benches.
One face in particular—a woman’s on the front bench—staring at her. A dead woman—or did she move? Out there—above—beyond—in the sunlight—there was air. But here——!
“May I?” she asked faintly, and filled a tumbler from the frosted silver ice-water pitcher beside the judge.
What a relief! Her forehead cooled. The blur lifted and the faces on the benches became definite. She could see the individual jurymen now—which of them had beards and which were bald—and the group of lawyers at the table outside the rail, with their books and brief-cases, and the rows of benches, one behind the other, filled with witnesses, relatives of prisoners, law students, persons waiting to see the judge, semi-respectables of all sorts, idlers, and “bums.” Some of the faces were grotesque, others jovial and mirth-provoking, some honest and direct, some cynical, crafty, and shifty-eyed—a haphazard collection of human animals. And all silent—all waiting for something.
It is getting darker. From outside at irregular intervals comes the clanging rush of an electric car, the distant roar of the elevated, the rumble of a mail-truck—inside only the soft rustle of papers and the murmur of the judge as he speaks to Mr. Dollar. The Quick and the Dead!
Somewhere in the subterranean caverns of the building a door bangs, and the woman on the front row of benches stifles a cry.
The judge looks up.
“Order there! Please see that there is quiet, Mr. Officer!”
The woman looks at him fearfully, one trembling hand covering the lower part of her mouth. She is emaciated, her lower lip sagging; but her face holds traces of beauty and she carries herself with a certain distinction. The judge beckons to the officer. “Who is that woman?” he asks curiously.
“Never saw her before, Yoronner. She’s a hop-head. All shot to pieces. Shall I put her out?”
The woman gives them a look of agonised appeal.
“Poor thing! Please! Oh, please don’t put her out!” Moira intercedes for her.
The judge hesitates and at that instant the door in the rear opens, and Flynn, the little murderer, enters, shambling along between two stalwart officers. They are so far away that they make no sound—mere moving figures on a film—as they skirt the edge of the room along a sort of runway.
“Order in the court!”
A burly, red-faced man with side-chops steps to the bar beside the defendant, who clutches the rail, cowering like a dog awaiting the lash. A murmur weaves along the benches. The Dead are coming to life. They sway forward in unison. The judge regards the prisoner almost affectionately. He feels sure that the defendant can harbour no personal animosity against him.
“Mr. Flynn,” he says in a soothing tone, “have you anything to say why judgement should not be pronounced against you?”
The prisoner appears dazed.
“Didn’t you hear His Honor’s question?” asks Mr. Dollar.
Still, Flynn makes no reply, and his counsel bends over and whispers in his ear.
“He has nothing to say, Yoronner,” replies Mr. O’Hara.
The judge gives a propitiatory rap with his ivory gavel. The Dead are harkening.
“James Flynn, you have been twice convicted of murder in the second degree, for the killing of William Fox and Arthur Brady, both police officers, in the performance of their duty. You are to be congratulated that the jury, in their mercy, did not find you guilty of murder in the first degree. There is nothing for me to say. The law gives me no discretion. The sentence of the court is that upon the first indictment, number 949,671, for the killing of William Fox, you be confined in the state’s prison at hard labour for the term of your natural life, and upon the second indictment, number 949,672, for the killing of Arthur Brady, that you be confined in the state’s prison at hard labour for the term of your natural life—the second sentence to begin immediately upon the completion of the first.”
Nobody apparently sees anything peculiar about the affair. Mr. O’Hara steps back, the officers take the prisoner by the shoulders, steer him into the runway again, and they start away rapidly. “They are hanging Danny Deever, you can hear the quick-step play!” As they reach the door in the rear there is a little disturbance. Two men are shaking hands with Flynn—now civilly dead—bidding him good-by. There is hardly a pause. “Good luck, Jim!” The door closes without sound. Presently, from the depths below comes the
