“That’s the easiest part of it. I’ve got to face my wife with this story. Not to-night, but to-morrow anyhow. Sweet job, eh? A white man don’t enjoy squashing the life out of even a guinea-pig in cold blood, let alone a boy’s mother. And reporters’ll begin coming here by sunrise for interviews, and folks’ll be staring at us in the street and offering their measly sympathy and then running off to tell the neighbors how we took it. And every paper we pick up will be full of the ‘latest d’vel’pments’ and all that. And those of us who know Jerry will get into the pleasing habit of remembering what a cute, friendly kid he used to be when he was little, and the great things we used to dream he’d do when he grew up, and how we hustled so’s he’d have as good a chance in life as any young feller on earth. And then we’ll remember he’s waiting in jail to be tried for murdering a chorus slattern’s lover, and all the black, filthy shame he’s put on decent folks that was fools enough to love him, and the way he’s fulfilled them silly hopes of ours. Oh, yes, Wendell, I guess I ‘realize,’ all right, all right. I don’t need no ‘wakening sense.’ But maybe I’ve made it clear to you now why it is I don’t go cavorting off by the next train to console and cheer up the boy who’s brought this on us. I don’t just hanker——”
“Don’t take that tone, I beg, sir!” pleaded the lawyer, deeply pained by what underlay the father’s half-scoffing, ironical tirade. “He may live it down. He is only twenty-four. The jury will surely be lenient. After all, there’s the ‘unwritten law’ and——”
“And of all the slimy rot ever thought up by a paretic’s brain, that same ‘unwritten law’ is about the rankest specimen,” snarled Caleb. “By the time a man’s learned to live up to all the written laws, I guess he won’t have a hell of a lot of leisure left to go moseying around among the unwritten ones. Whenever a coward takes a pot-shot at some one within half a mile of a petticoat, up goes the ‘unwritten law’ scream. Use it if you like in the trial, but for God’s sake cut out such hypocritical bosh when you’re talking to me. ‘Unwritten law!’ Why don’t the Legislature take a day off and write it?”
“Then you won’t come with me to town?” asked the lawyer, with another covert glance at his watch.
“Come with you and tell Jerry how sorry I am for him, and how I sympathize with him for killing his mother—for that’s what it’ll come to—and for wrecking a name I’ve spent all my life building up for him, and for making me the shame of all my friends? No, Wendell, I guess I’ll have to deprive him of that treat. I’ll think up later what’s best to do about him. In the meantime get him acquitted.”
“Acquitted? That is not so easy. But——”
“Not so easy? Why ain’t it? Didn’t I tell you to draw on me for all you wanted? I’ve got somewhere between forty and fifty millions all told. The jury don’t live this side of the own-your-own-cloud suburbs of heaven that hasn’t at least one man on it that $100,000 will buy. If not that, then $1,000,000. I’ll leave the details to you. Buy enough jurors to ‘hang’ every verdict till they get tired of trying Jerry and turn him loose to save the State further expense. If a murderer ain’t convicted on his first trial, it’s a cinch he’s never going to be on his second or third. Now, it’s up to you to buy that drawn verdict for the first trial, and then for the others till they acquit him or parole him in your custody. It’s been done before, and it’ll be done again. This ain’t a ‘life-and-death matter’ as you called it. It’s a question of dollars and cents. And as long as I’ve got enough of those same dollars and cents, no boy of mine’s going to the death-chair or to life imprisonment either. You’ll have to hustle for that train. If you miss it, come back and I’ll put you up for the night.”
Tense excitement, as was lately his way, had made the formerly taciturn Railroader voluble. He now, as frequently since the night of his speech at the reception, noted this, himself, with a vague surprise.
“If Jerry wants any ready money, just now——” he began, as he escorted the lawyer to the door.
“He seems to have plenty for any immediate needs,” returned Wendell. “I saw the contents of his pockets that the police had taken charge of. Besides the morphine case and a few cards and a packet of letters in a sealed wrapper, there were large-denomination bills to the amount of——”