“The arguments to the jury will be concluded to-morrow morning and there ought to be a verdict before night. How would you like to go around there with me at ten o 'clock and hear the State's closing argument? I can manage it easily, although it's hard to get tickets. In a word, it is the most popular show in town. Standing room only. Come along, and I'll bet my head you'll never forget the experience.”
“I hate a court-room,” said Sampson.
“Well, you won't hate this one. I've been dropping in every day for an hour or so, and, by gad, it is interesting.” A faraway, dreamy look came into Dorr's spectacled eyes. “Rodriguez is a wonderful character. You see such chaps only in books and plays—seldom in plays, however, for you couldn't find actors to look the part. He is a Spaniard, a native of Mexico City, and as lofty as any grandee you'd find in old Granada itself. Private detectives caught him in Tokio last summer, after a world-wide search of three years. He is charged with forgery. Forged a deed to some property in Berkeley and got away with the proceeds of the sale. He stubbornly maintains that the deed was a bona-fide instrument, and is fighting tooth and nail against the people who accuse him. I 'd like to have you see him, Sampy.”
The next morning, a bit bored but conscious of a thrill of interest in attending a trial in the capacity of spectator instead of talesman, Sampson accompanied the editor to the court-room where the case of the State vs. Victoriana Rodriguez was being heard. The corridors and approaches were packed with people. A subdued buzz of excitement pervaded the air. Every face in the throng revealed the ultimate of eagerness, each body was charged with a muscular ambition to crowd past the obstructing bodies before it. Sampson had never witnessed anything like this before. He demurred.
“See here, Jimmy, I refuse to surge with a mob like this. Good-bye, old man. See you—”
But Dorr conducted him to the private entrance to the judge's chambers, and a few minutes later into the crowded court-room. They found places behind the row of reporters and stood with their backs to the wall.
The jury was in the box, awaiting the opening of court. Sampson surveyed them with some interest. They were a youngish lot of men and, to his way of thinking, about as far from intelligent as the average New York jury. They looked dazed, bewildered and distinctly uncomfortable. He knew how they were feeling—no one knew better than he!
The prisoner entered, followed by his counsel, and took his seat. Sampson favoured Dorr with a smile of derision. Rodriguez was a most ordinary looking fellow—swarthy, unimposing and at least sixty years of age. He was not at all Sampson's conception of a Spanish grandee. Certainly he was not the sort of chap an author would put into a book with the expectation of having his readers accept him as a hero.
“Good Lord, Jimmy, is that the marvellous character you've been talking about!” whispered the New Yorker. “Why, he's just a plain, ordinary greaser. Nothing lofty about him.”
But Jimmy didn't hear. He was gazing in rapt eagerness over the heads of the seated throng outside the railing. Sampson leaned forward and whispered something to the reporter from Dorr's paper. He repeated the remark, receiving no response the first time. The young fellow's reply, when it came, was what Sampson, from his vast experience in law courts, summed up as “totally irrelevant and not pertinent to the case.”