Counsel for the Defense

Counsel for the Defense
Leroy Scott

Scott Leroy

Counsel for the Defense

TO

HELEN

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

Katherine West.

Dr. David West, her father.

Arnold Bruce, editor of the Express.

Harrison Blake, ex-lieutenant-governor.

Mrs. Blake, his mother.

“Blind Charlie” Peck, a political boss.

Hosea Hollingsworth, an old attorney.

Billy Harper, reporter on the Express.

The Reverend Dr. Sherman, of the Wabash Avenue Church.

Mrs. Sherman, his wife.

Mrs. Rachel Gray, Katherine’s aunt.

Roger Kennedy, prosecuting attorney.

Judge Kellog.

Mr. Brown, of the National Electric & Water Company.

Mr. Manning, a detective.

Elijah Stone, a detective.

CHAPTER I

WESTVILLE PREPARES TO CELEBRATE

The room was thick with dust and draped with ancient cobwebs. In one corner dismally reposed a literary junk heap – old magazines, broken-backed works of reference, novels once unanimously read but now unanimously forgotten. The desk was a helter-skelter of papers. One of the two chairs had its burst cane seat mended by an atlas of the world; and wherever any of the floor peered dimly through the general débris it showed a complexion of dark and ineradicable greasiness. Altogether, it was a room hopelessly unfit for human habitation; which is perhaps but an indirect manner of stating that it was the office of the editor of a successful newspaper.

Before a typewriter at a small table sat a bare-armed, solitary man. He was twenty-eight or thirty, abundantly endowed with bone and muscle, and with a face – But not to soil this early page with abusive terms, it will be sufficient to remark that whatever the Divine Sculptor had carved his countenance to portray, plainly there had been no thought of re-beautifying the earth with an Apollo. He was constructed not for grace, but powerful, tireless action; and there was something absurdly disproportionate between the small machine and the broad and hairy hands which so heavily belaboured its ladylike keys.

It was a custom with Bruce to write the big local news story of the day himself, a feature that had proved a stimulant to his paper’s circulation and prestige. To-morrow was to be one of the proudest days of Westville’s history, for to-morrow was the formal opening of the city’s greatest municipal enterprise, its thoroughly modern water-works; and it was an extensive and vivid account of the next day’s programme that the editor was pounding so rapidly out of his machine for that afternoon’s issue of the Express. Now and then, as he paused an instant to shape an effective sentence in his mind, he glanced through the open window beside him across Main Street to where, against the front of the old Court House, a group of shirt-sleeved workmen were hanging their country’s colours about a speakers’ stand; then his big, blunt fingers thumped swiftly on.

He had jerked out the final sheet, and had begun to revise his story, making corrections with a very black pencil and in a very large hand, when there sauntered in from the general editorial room a pale, slight young man of twenty-five. The newcomer had a reckless air, a humorous twist to the left corner of his mouth, and a negligent smartness in his dress which plainly had its origin elsewhere than in Westville.

The editor did not raise his eyes.

“In a minute, Billy,” he said shortly.

“Nothing to hurry about, Arn,” drawled the other.

The young fellow drew forward the atlas-bottomed chair, leisurely enthroned himself upon the nations of the earth, crossed his feet upon the window-sill, and lit a cigarette. About his lounging form there was a latent energy like that of a relaxed cat. He gazed rather languidly over at the Square, its sides abustle with excited preparation. Across the fronts of stores bunting was being tacked; from upper windows crisp cotton flags were being unscrolled. As for the Court House yard itself, to-day its elm-shaded spaces were lifeless save for the workmen about the stand, a litigant or two going up the walk, and an occasional frock-coated lawyer, his vest democratically unbuttoned to the warm May air. But to-morrow —

The young fellow had turned his head slowly toward the editor’s copy, and, as though reading, he began in an emotional, declamatory voice:

“To-morrow the classic shades of Court House Square will teem with a tumultuous throng. In the emblazoned speakers’ stand the Westville Brass Band, in their new uniforms, glittering like so many grand marshals of the empire, will trumpet forth triumphant music fit to burst; and aloft from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory – ”

“Go to hell!” interrupted Bruce, eyes still racing through his copy.

“And down from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory,” continued Billy, with a rising quaver in his voice, “Mr. Harrison Blake, Westville’s favourite son; the Reverend Doctor Sherman, president of the Voters’ Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway County’s able-bodiest orator, will pour forth prodigal and perfervid eloquence upon the populace below. And Dr. David West, he who has directed this magnificent work from its birth unto the present, he who has laid upon the sacred altar of his city’s welfare a matchless devotion and a lifetime’s store of scientific knowledge, he who – ”

“See here, young fellow!” The editor slammed down the last sheet of his revised story, and turned upon his assistant a square, bony, aggressive face that gave a sense of having been modelled by a clinched fist, and of still glowering at the blow. He had gray eyes that gleamed dogmatically from behind thick glasses, and hair that brush could not subdue. “See here, Billy Harper, will you please go to hell!”

“Sure; follow you anywhere, Arn,” returned Billy pleasantly, holding out his cigarette case.

“You little Chicago alley cat, you!” growled Bruce. He took a cigarette, broke it open and poured the tobacco into a black pipe, which he lit. “Well – turn up anything?”

“Governor can’t come,” replied the reporter, lighting a fresh cigarette.

“Hard luck. But we’ll have the crowd anyhow. Blake tell you anything else?”

“He didn’t tell me that. His stenographer did; she’d opened the Governor’s telegram. Blake’s in Indianapolis to-day – looking after his chances for the Senate, I suppose.”

“See Doctor West?”

“Went to his house first. But as usual he wouldn’t say a thing. That old boy is certainly the mildest mannered hero of the day I ever went up against. The way he does dodge the spot-light! – it’s enough to make one of your prima donna politicians die of heart failure. To do a great piece of work, and then be as modest about it as he is – well, Arn, I sure am for that old doc!”

“Huh!” grunted the editor.

“When it comes time to hang the laurel wreath upon his brow to-morrow I’ll bet you and your spavined old Arrangements Committee will have to push him on to the stand by the scruff of his neck.”

“Did you get him to promise to sit for a new picture?”

“Yes. And you ought to raise me ten a week for doing it. He didn’t want his picture printed; and if we did print it, he thought that prehistoric thing of the eighties we’ve got was good enough.”

“Well, be sure you get that photo, if you have to use chloroform. I saw him go into the Court House a little while ago. Better catch him as he comes out and lead him over to Dodson’s gallery.”

“All right.” The young fellow recrossed his feet upon the window-sill. “But, Arn,” he drawled, “this certainly is a slow old burg you’ve dragged me down into. If one of your leading citizens wants to catch the seven-thirty to Indianapolis to-morrow morning, I suppose he sets his alarm to go off day before yesterday.”