“Why didn't he sell it long ago?”
“He couldn't very well manage it without coming to New York, and he was so closely watched that he couldn't do that without running a very great risk. Evidently she, believing absolutely in his innocence, induced him to give himself up and have his name cleared of the stigma that was upon it. This is mere conjecture, of course.”
“Well, she's a brick, at any rate,” said Sampson, with some enthusiasm.
Wilks smiled. “That verdict, at least, is universal. Justice, however, has miscarried in more cases than I care to mention, simply because some little woman proves herself to be a brick. No doubt you will recall any number of such cases right here in New York. If we had had the remotest idea what Miss Hildebrand was like, we would have put up a strenuous kick against her sitting beside the prisoner where you all could see and be seen. She made it hard for you to convict the old man, and she certainly wormed the recommendation to the Court out of you. To tell you the truth, we feared an acquittal. When the jury stayed out all night I said to myself: 'We're licked, sure as shooting. 'The best we looked for was a disagreement. I've been told that the first half dozen ballots stood eleven to one for acquittal. So you see, I wasn't far off in my surmise. It has taught me a lesson. There will be no more attractive, thoroughly upsetting young ladies to cast spells over judge, jury, and lawyers if I can help it. I hope you will pardon me for saying it, Mr. Sampson, but I am firmly convinced if there had been no Miss Alexandra Hildebrand in the case you gentlemen would have brought in your verdict in twenty minutes.”
“I suppose you know that I am the one who stood out against the eleven,” said Sampson.
“I suspected as much. I don't mind saying that the State counted on you, Mr. Sampson.” Sampson started. How was this? The State counted on him also? Suddenly he flushed.
“I had a notion that Miss Hildebrand counted on me, Mr. Wilks.”
“She did,” said the lawyer. “I think she lost a little of her confidence, however, as the trial progressed. She appeared to be devoting nearly all of her energies to you. You, apparently, were the one who had to be subdued, if you will forgive the term. She is the cleverest, shrewdest young woman I've ever seen. She is the best judge of men that I've ever encountered—far and away better than I or any one connected with our office. When that jury was completed I realised, with a sort of shock, that it was she who selected it. She made but one mistake—and that was in you. There is where we were smarter than she. I knew that you would do the right thing by us, in spite of your very palpable efforts to get off. If there had been some one else in your place, Mr. Sampson, James Hildebrand would have been acquitted.”
“Possibly,” said Sampson, with a sinking of the heart. He felt like a Judas! She had made but one mistake, and it was fatal!
“As I was saying,” went on Wilks, blowing rings toward the ceiling, “women play thunder with us sometimes. A friend of mine from Chicago dined with me last night. He is in the State's Attorney's office out there and he's down here on business. You ought to hear him on the subject of women mixing up in criminal cases. He says it's fatal—if they're pretty and appealing. Nine times out of ten they have more nerve, more character and a good deal more intelligence than the average juryman, and Mr. Juror is like wax in their hands. Take a case they had out there last fall—the Brownley case—you read about it, perhaps. Young fellow from Louisiana got into bad company in Chicago, and went all wrong. Gambled and then had to rob his employers to get square with the world. His father and sister came up from New Orleans and made a fight for him. They got the best legal talent in town, and then little sister sat beside brother and petted him from time to time. A cinch! The jury was out an hour. Not guilty! See what I mean? And you remember the Paris case a year or two ago when the detectives nabbed a couple of international card sharks and bunco men after they had worked the Atlantic for two years straight without being landed? French juries tried 'em separately. One of them got five years and the other got off scot free. Why? Because his pretty young wife turned up and—well, you know the French! Woman is lovely in her place, but her place isn't in the court-room unless she favours the prosecution.”