MEANWHILE, after the manner of cross purposes in New York, wherein Regan craftily proceeded with his gigantic raid on all Francis' holdings while Francis and Bascom vainly strove to find his identity, so in Panama were at work cross purposes which involved Leoncia and the Solanos, Torres and the Jefe, and, not least in importance, one, Yi Poon, the rotund and moon-faced Chinese.
The little old judge, who was the Jefe's creature, sat asleep in court in San Antonio. He had slept placidly for two hours, occasionally nodding his head and muttering profoundly, although the case was a grave one, involving twenty years in San Juan, where the strongest could not survive ten years. But there was no need for the judge to consider evidence or argument. Before the case was called, decision and sentence were in his mind, having been put there by the Jefe. The prisoner's lawyer ceased his perfunctory argument, the clerk of the court sneezed, and the judge woke up. He looked about him briskly and said: "Guilty." No one was surprised, not even the prisoner.
"Appear to-morrow morning for sentence. Next case."
Having so ordered, the judge prepared to settle down into another nap, when he saw Torres and the Jefe enter the courtroom. A gleam in the Jefe's eye was his cue, and he abruptly dismissed court for the day.
"I have been to Rodriguez Fernandez," the Jefe was explaining five minutes later, in the empty courtroom. "He says it was a natural gem, and that much would be lost in the cutting, but that nevertheless he would still give five hundred gold for it. Show it to the judge, Senor Torres, and the rest of the handful of big ones."
And Torres began to lie. He had to lie, because he could not confess the shame of having had the gems taken away from him by the Solanos and the Morgans when they threw him out of the hacienda. And so convincingly did he lie that even the Jefe he convinced, while the judge, except in the matter of brands of strong liquor, accepted everything the Jefe wanted him to believe. In brief, shorn of the multitude of details that Torres threw in, his tale was that he was so certain of the jeweler's under-appraisal that he had despatched the gems by special messenger to his agent in Colon with instructions to forward to New York to Tiffany's for appraisement that might lead to sale.
As they emerged from the courtroom and descended the several steps that were flanked by single adobe pillars marred by bullet scars from previous revolutions, the Jefe was saying:
"And so, needing the aegis of the law for our adventure after these geins, and, more than that, both of us loving our good friend the judge, we will let him in for a modest share of whatever we shall gain. He shall represent us in San Antonio while we are gone, and, if needs be, furnish us with the law's protection."
Now it happened that behind one of the pillars, hat pulled over his face, Yi Poon half — sat, half — reclined. Nor was he there by mere accident. Long ago he had learned that secrets of value, which always connoted the troubles of humans, were markedly prevalent around courtrooms, which were the focal points for the airing of such troubles when they became acute. One could never tell. At any moment a secret might leap at one or brim over to one. Therefore it was like a fisherman casting his line into the sea for Yi Poon to watch the defendant and the plaintiff, the witnesses for and against, and even the court hangeron or casual-seeming onlooker.
So, on this morning, the one person of promise that Yi Poon had picked out was a ragged old peon who looked as if he had been drinking too much and yet would perish in his condition of reaction if he did not get another drink very immediately. Bleary-eyed he was, and red-lidded, with desperate resolve painted on all his haggard, withered lineaments. When the court-room had emptied, he had taken up his stand. outside on the steps close to a pillar.