Mr. Jerome clutched his assistant’s arm and tried to quiet him, but Osborne shook him off. Justice Lambert looked at him and smiled his enigmatic, up-the-State smile.
“I will interrupt you, Mr. Osborne,” he said, “whenever I think it necessary. Now go on.”
Mr. Osborne went back to his place and drank a large glass of water. That soothed him, but for the rest of the session his nerves were out of tune, and then the burden of politeness lay heavy upon him. Then for a little while he questioned the prisoner as to his knowledge of chemistry. Molineux admitted that his attainments were fairly good. He knew of it all a paint maker need know.
So far Osborne had been defeated all along the line. The defendant had answered every question unhesitatingly and with engaging frankness. He had parried every thrust, even that deadly lunge of his fifteen-year-old co-respondent.
The Assistant District Attorney seemed to think in lumps. He jumped backward and forward in his cross-examination in a way that would have baffled an ordinary witness.
Never once, however, did he lead Molineux into a quagmire. Osborne sat down, drank a glass of water, and whispered to Jerome. While his adversary sought for a new weapon, Molineux turned and looked through the green-shaded window. For an instant the alert air of self-possession, the look of the ready swordsman, fell away from his face. The old, weary prison look crept over it. It was as though a mask had slipped from some tired dancer’s face. He looked haggard, yellow, old. As he turned he saw, just over his head, the cruel Roman symbol of vengeance—the faces and the axe; saw, too, the calm women who spin the thread of life, crouching on the shadowy, frescoed wall, a naked skull at their feet. Something seemed to grip his throat. He strangled a moment, then he coughed and spat. With a sudden gesture he drew his hands across his eyes and pulled himself together. Osborne’s burnt-out eyes were fixed on him. At that very instant he had himself in hand again. From that moment he never for a second lowered his guard. His attention was persistent as the pull of a magnet. His will was like steel. He shunned every quagmire and escaped every pitfall with marvellous dexterity, and with seeming unconsciousness that he had passed the peril by.
He is an extraordinary man. The brain in him is first rate. His intelligence is high above the average. Withal there seems no insincerity in him. He was fighting for his life, but he talked as calmly as though he had been in a drawing-room. Not only did he answer every question, he went out of his way to volunteer information. He answered questions to which his counsel objected until Mr. Black said: “Oh, well, let him answer—let him tell everything.” And it was this very frankness that at first confused and finally baffled the great Apache of the prosecution. Moreover, his courtesy was charming. When Mr. Osborne floundered in the midst of an intricate sentence the defendant would help him out.
Gradually this told upon the Assistant District Attorney’s nerves. It is difficult to bully a polite, accomplished man, and Mr. Osborne’s successful cross-examinations have always been those in which he banged the witness about the ears with a bludgeon. An hour before the usual time for the adjournment of court he had had enough of it. To his ill-concealed discontent he was told to go on with his cross-examination. He shifted from subject to subject, playing, as it were, round the case. Always the little prisoner met him, cool, efficient, ready. At last, upon the insistence of District-Attorney Jerome, an adjournment was granted. Mr. Osborne went away to furbish up new weapons for to-day.
Molineux stood up. He glanced at the jury. They were whispering together. Evidently it had been a good day for the defence. The rapier had mastered the bludgeon. And as he stood there, waiting for the jailmen to take him to his cell and lock him in, his father came up, a smile on his careworn, tragic face, and laid one arm around his neck.
“I am proud of you, my boy,” he said; “proud of you.”