PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE
By Lyman Bryson
Into the judge’s empty office came the attorney for the defense, followed by his client. The attorney for the defense wore belligerent hair and spectacles. His manner was more upright and simple than his speech, which was full of guile. His client was heavy, of the ugly fatness often characteristic of ward politicians, porcine, grossly genial. They had come to escape the gaping crowd. The attorney was recovering from his four-hour address to the jury. Sweat stood under his upstanding hair, and he wiped his wrists with a limp handkerchief.
“Honest John” looked at his lawyer with dull admiration. “Tom, that was a great speech.” Then, as if this might be too humble praise for a politician to give his hireling, he added: “Best you ever made.”
Tom Jenison made no reply. When he was tired there was a quality of frankness in his eyes as if cleverness had been assumed for business purposes.
“How long will they be out?” asked Honest John, thinking of the twelve who were debating in a nearby room on sending him to the penitentiary for stealing public money.
“How should I know?” Jenison spoke petulantly.
The politician sat quietly, his fat hands folded above the top of his trousers on his negligee shirt. He was thinking that generous public sentiment might avail little with the twelve men now busy with his destiny. He sighed tremulously.
“You’re not worried, are you?”
“No—guess not. I’m all right.”
The composure of the politician began to desert him. He flushed and sighed and slapped at flies. His jaw relaxed and slid down. His hands trembled.
“Tom,” he began, “what are the chances?”
“I don’t know. Scared?”
“I’m a little nervous. That’s all.”
Jenison had loved the fight for its own sake. Spectators supposed he defended Honest John only to earn his huge hire, but that had not been all his motive. It had not occurred to him before that his client was not as courageous as himself. He supported the “presumption of innocence” and pitted himself against machinery of prosecutor and court. But if his client was a coward his fight seemed suddenly unworthy.
Honest John’s puffy eyes filled with tears. “You’ve been a good friend to me, Tom.”
“Oh, cut that.”
“Yes, you have. I appreciate it.”
Jenison, looking at him, wondered that he could ever have thought this man a friend or worth an effort to save. The wretched face sickened him.
“You’re the only man who knows how I feel.” His client was trying to explain his collapse. “I can’t face guilty. I know you’d keep up the fight as long as I kept up the money”—his attorney winced—“but I couldn’t stand another trial. I’m ready for ’em.”
“Ready? How?”
“I’ve got it here.” Honest John tapped his chest, then drew out a narrow pill box.
Contempt came back into Jenison’s eyes. “What are you telling me for? Go tell some one who’d care.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Tom.”
“Oh, yes, you do. You’d never take that stuff. You haven’t the nerve. You’re stalling for sympathy.”
The politician turned to an ice-water stand and dropped two tablets into a glass of water. He said with tremulous bravado, “All right—here goes.”
“You might as well drink it,” answered the attorney. “God knows you’re guilty. You’ll pay for it some time.”
The glass went halfway to Honest John’s lips and then back to the stand. “I think—I’ll wait.”
“I thought so. You’ll wait until you’re behind bars, and then you’ll wish you’d taken your medicine.” Jenison spoke as if it had been his professional advice to his client to drink the potion. “It takes a man to quit when the game’s up. I suppose in a way I’m as dishonest as you, but there’s a chance for me to clean up, because I’m not afraid. If I thought the name helping you has given me would stick, I’d be glad to take your poison.”
They heard a shuffling of feet in the courtroom.
“There’s an officer announcing that they’ve reached a verdict,” said Jenison. He looked his client in the eyes and added, “I hope it’s guilty!”
“Why—I don’t—what’s the matter? I’ll pay you.”
Jenison blazed. “Yes, you’ll pay! It’s all money to you! Do you think if I’d known you for a coward I’d have made this fight? I hate myself now to think I ever took your money!”
His client looked at him in stupid silence.
“And let me tell you something else. You’re the last thief I’ll work for. I’m done with keeping your kind out of jail.” Huge self-disgust overwhelmed him. “I’ll never take another cent of crook’s money as long as I live, so help me God!”
They heard the slow procession of the jury filing into the court to deliver the speedy verdict. Jenison felt his soul crawling with shame. A convulsive sigh made him turn. Honest John had raised the glass to his lips. His eyes bulged with fear, and he spilled half the liquid on his shirt. Before Jenison could reach him he had swallowed it. Horror held the attorney for an instant, then he burst through the doorway into the courtroom.
A lank man in the jury box smiled as he entered. That meant “Not guilty.” Without noticing the attorney’s ghastly excitement the judge said, “If the respondent will return the verdict will be delivered.”
Jenison controlled himself and stood straight.
“If your honour please,” he said, “if your honour please”—he could only point through the doorway at Honest John’s body straddled in a chair—“the respondent has delivered his own verdict.”