The old man—he was seventy—was accused of having misappropriated something like fifty thousand dollars of the funds belonging to a real-estate and investment concern in which he was not only a partner but also its secretary and treasurer. The alleged crime had been committed some five years prior to the day on which he was brought to trial.
After having evaded capture for four years and a half by secluding himself in Europe, he voluntarily had returned to the States, giving himself up to the authorities. Sampson abused himself secretly for having allowed such a theatric incident as this to get by without notice on his part. Other prospective jurors sitting nearby appeared to know all about the case, for he caught sundry whispered comments that enlightened him considerably. He realised that he had been singularly and criminally negligent.
A protracted and confidential confab took place between the Court and the counsel for both sides. Every juror there hoped that they were discussing some secret and imperative reason for indefinitely postponing the case after all—or, perhaps, better than that, the prisoner was going to plead guilty and save all of them!
Finally the little group before the bench broke up and one of the attorneys for Hildebrand approached the rail and held open the gate. A woman entered and took a seat beside the prisoner. Sampson, with scant interest in the woman herself—except to note that she was slender and quite smartly attired—was at once aware of a surprising politeness and deference on the part of the transmogrified lawyers, both of whom smirked and scraped and beamed with what they evidently intended to be gallantry.
The attorneys for the state regarded the lady with a very direct interest, and smiled upon her, not condescendingly or derisively as is their wont, but with unmistakable pleasure. A close observer would have detected a somewhat significant attentiveness on the part of the justice, a middle-aged gentleman whose business it was to look severe and ungenial. He gave his iron-grey moustache a tender twist at each end and placed an elbow on the desk in front of him, revealing by that act that he was as human as any one else.
I have neglected to state that Sampson was thirty, smooth-faced, good-looking, a consistent member of an athletic club and a Harvard man who had won two H's and a cum laude with equal ease. You will discover later on that he was unmarried.
He was the seventeenth talesman called. Two jurors had been secured. The other fourteen had been challenged for cause and, for the life of him, he couldn't see why. They all looked pretty satisfactory to him. He garnered a little hope for himself in the profligate waste of good material. If he could sustain his customary look of intelligence there was a splendid chance that he too would be rejected.
It seemed to him that the attendant in announcing his name and place “of residence after the oath vociferated with unusual vehemence. Never before had he heard his name uttered with such amazing gusto.
“You have heard the statement concerning the charge against the defendant, Mr. Sampson,” said the assistant district attorney, taking his stand directly in front of him. “Before going any farther, I will ask if you know of any reason why you cannot act as a juror in this case?”
Sampson had always been honest in his responses. He never had lied in order to “get off.” Subterfuges and tricks, yes—but never deliberate falsehood.