"I've heard a lot of—"
The foreman rapped vigorously with an inkwell, splashing the fluid over his fingers and quite a considerable area of table-top.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Let us talk this thing over quietly and calmly. Mr. Pushkin seems to have a wrong conception as to what constitutes evidence. Now, let me have the floor for a few minutes, and I'll try to explain to him what constitutes evidence."
One hour and twenty minutes later Mr. Pushkin admitted that he DID have a wrong conception as to what constitutes evidence, but still maintained that he hated like sin to convict a man who had tried so hard to get work and couldn't.
The non-smoking gentleman was one of the three who comprised the minority. He was a mild little chap with weak eyes and the sniffles. By profession he was a clock maker. He said he believed that the defendant was unquestionably guilty of bigamy and that the State had erred in charging him with burglary. He was perfectly willing to send the man up for bigamy because, according to the evidence, it took precedence over the crime alleged to have been committed in December, 1919. In other words, he explained, Smilk had committed bigamy some years prior to the burglary of Mr. Yollop's apartment and he believed in taking things in their regular order. Of course, he went on to say, he would be governed by the opinion of the judge if it were possible under the circumstances to obtain it. He did not think it would be legal to put the burglary charge ahead of the bigamy charge, but if the judge so ordered he would submit, notwithstanding his conviction that it would be unconstitutional. Several gentlemen wanted to know what the constitution had to do with it, and he, becoming somewhat exasperated, declared that the present jury system is a joke, an absolute joke.
"Well, it's just such men as you that make it a joke," growled Juror No. 12.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" admonished the foreman. "Let us have no recriminations, please. It occurs to me that we ought to send a note to the court, asking for instructions on this point."
The note was written and despatched in care of the glowering bailiff, who, it seems, had an engagement to go to the movies that evening and couldn't believe his ears when he ascertained that the boobs had not yet agreed upon a verdict in what he regarded as the clearest case that had ever come under his notice.
In the meantime, the third juror explained his vote for acquittal. He was a large, heavy-jowled man with sandy mustache and a vacancy among his upper teeth into which a pipe-stem fitted neatly. He was the superintendent of an apartment building in Lenox Avenue.
"I think it's a frame-up," he said, pausing to use the bicuspid vacancy for the purpose of expectoration. "That's what I think it is. Now I'm in a position as superintendent of a flat building to know a lot about what goes on among the bachelor tenants. I ain't sayin' that the prisoner didn't go to Mr. What's-His-Name's flat without an invitation. You bet your life he wasn't expected, if my guess is correct. I tell you what I think,—and my opinion ought to be worth a lot, lemme tell you,—I think there's something back of all this that wasn't brought out in the trial. Now here's something I bet not one of you fellers has thought about. What evidence is there that this Chancy woman is that deaf man's sister? Not a blamed word of evidence, except their own statement. She ain't his sister any more than I am. Did you ever see two people that looked less like they was related to each other? You bet you didn't. Now I got a hunch that the prisoner follered her to that guy's apartment. What for, I don't know. Maybe for blackmail. He got onto what was goin' on, and makes up his mind to rake in a nice bunch of hush-money. That's been done a couple of times in the apartment buildin' I'm superintendent of. A feller I had workin' for me as a porter cleaned up five or six hundred dollars that way, he told me. This robbery business sounds mighty fishy to me. Now I'm only tellin' you the way the thing looks to me. I don't think that woman is Wollop's sister any more than she is mine. It's a frame-up, the whole thing is. Look at the way this Wollop says he tied her up and all that. Humph!—Can't you fellers see through this whole business? He tied her up so's the police would find her tied up, that's what he done. The chances are she's some woman customer of his that's got stuck on him, tryin' hats and all that,—and maybe gettin' all the hats she wants for nothin',—and this feller Smilk he gets onto the game and goes out for a little money. See what I mean?"