Chapter SIXTEEN: At His Own Door

Judge Langham sat in his library before a brisk wood fire with the day's papers in a heap on the floor beside him. In repose, the one dominant expression of the judge's face was pride, an austere pride, which manifested itself even in the most casual intercourse. Yet no man in Mount Hope combined fewer intimacies with a wider confidence, and his many years of public life had but augmented the universal respect in which he was held.

Now in the ruddy light of his own hearth, but quite divorced from any sentiment or sympathy, the judge was considering the case of John North. His mind in all its operations was singularly clear and dispassionate; a judicial calm, as though born to the bench, was habitual to him. It was nothing that his acquaintance with John North dated back to the day John North first donned knee-breeches.

He shaded his face with his hand. In the long procession of evil-doers who had gone their devious ways through the swinging baize doors of his court, North stalked as the one great criminal. Unconsciously his glance fixed itself on the hand he had raised to shield his eyes from the light of the blazing logs, and it occurred to him that that hand might yet be called on to sign away a man's life.

The ringing of his door-bell caused him to start expectantly, and a moment later a maid entered to say that a man and a woman wished to see him.

"Show them in!" said the judge.

And Mr. Shrimplin with all that modesty of demeanor which one of his sensitive nature might be expected to feel in the presence of greatness, promptly insinuated himself into the room.

The little lamplighter was dressed in those respectable garments which in the Shrimplin household were adequately described as his "other suit," and as if to remove any doubt from the mind of the beholder that he had failed to prepare himself for the occasion, he wore a clean paper collar, but no tie, this latter being an adornment Mr. Shrimplin had not attempted in years. Close on Shrimplin's heels came a jaded unkempt woman in a black dress, worn and mended. On seeing her the judge's cold scrutiny somewhat relaxed.

"So it's you, Nellie?" he said, and motioned her to a chair opposite his own.

Not knowing exactly what was expected of him, Mr. Shrimplin remained standing in the middle of the room, hat in hand.

"Be seated, Shrimplin," said the judge, sensing something of the lamplighter's embarrassment in his presence and rather liking him for it.

"Thank you, Judge," replied Shrimplin, selecting a straight-backed chair in a shadowy corner of the room, on the very edge of which he humbly established himself.

"Better draw nearer the fire, Shrimplin!" advised the judge.

"Thank you, Judge, I ain't cold," rejoined Mr. Shrimplin in his best manner.

The judge turned to the woman. She had once been a servant in his household, but had quitted his employ to marry Joe Montgomery, and to become by that same act Mr. Shrimplin's sister-in-law. The judge knew that her domestic life had been filled with every known variety of trouble, since from time to time she had appealed to him for help or advice, and on more than one occasion at her urgent request he had interviewed the bibulous Joe.

"I hope you are not in trouble, Nellie," he said, not unkindly.

"Yes I am, Judge!" cried his visitor in a voice worn thin by weariness.

"It's that disgustin' Joe!" interjected Mr. Shrimplin from his corner, advancing his hooked nose from the shadows. "Don't take up the judge's time, Nellie; time's money, and money's as infrequent as a white crow."

And then suddenly and painfully conscious of his verbal forwardness, the little lamplighter sank back into the grateful gloom of his corner and was mute.

"It's my man, Judge--" said Nellie.

And the judge nodded comprehendingly.

"I don't know how me and my children are to live through the winter, I declare I don't, Judge, unless he gives me a little help!"

"And the winter ain't fairly here yet, and it's got a long belly when it does come!" said Mr. Shrimplin.

Immediately the little man was conscious of the impropriety of his language. He realized that the happy and forcefully expressed philosophy with which he sought to open Custer's mind to the practical truths of life, was a jarring note in the judge's library.

"Joe's acting scandalous, Judge, just scandalous!" said Nellie with sudden shrill energy. "That man would take the soul out of a saint with his carryings-on!"

"It seems to me there is nothing new in this," observed the judge a little impatiently. "Is he under arrest?"

"No, Judge, he ain't under arrest--" began Nellie.

"Which ain't saying he hadn't ought to be!" the little lamplighter snorted savagely. He suddenly remembered he was there to give his moral support to his sister-in-law.

"That man's got a new streak into him, Judge. I thought he'd about done everything he could do that he shouldn't, but he's broke out in a fresh spot!"

"What has he been doing, Nellie?" asked the judge, who felt that his callers had so far lacked in directness and definiteness.

"What ain't he been doing, you'd better say, Judge!" cried Nellie miserably.

"Is he abusing you or the children?"

"I don't see him from one week's end to another!"

"Am I to understand that he has deserted you?" questioned the judge.

"No, I can't say that, for he sends his clothes home for me to wash and mend."

"Ain't that the human sufferin' limit?" gasped Mr. Shrimplin.

"I suppose you wash and mend them?" And the judge smiled faintly.

"Of course," admitted Mrs. Montgomery simply.

"Does he contribute anything toward your support?" asked the judge.

The woman laughed sarcastically at this.

"It takes a barkeeper to pry Joe loose from his coin," interjected Mr. Shrimplin. "Get down to details, Nellie, and tell the judge what kind of a critter you're hitched up to."

"He told Arthur, that's my oldest boy, if I didn't stop bothering him, that he was just man enough to pay five dollars for the fun of knocking the front off my face!"

"That was a choice one to hand out to an eldest son, wasn't it, your Honor?" said the little lamplighter, tugging at his flaxen mustache.

"I just manage to keep a roof over our heads," went on Nellie, "and without any thanks to him; but he has plenty of money, and where it comes from I'd like to know, for he ain't done a lick of work in weeks!"

"Fact, Judge!" remarked Mr. Shrimplin. "I've made it my business lately to keep one eye on Joe. He spends half his time loafin' at Andy Gilmore's rooms, and the other half gettin' pickled."

"What do you wish me to do?" asked the judge, addressing himself to Mrs. Montgomery.

"I wish, Judge, that you'd send word to him that you want to see him!"

"And toss a good healthy scare into him!" added Mr. Shrimplin aggressively.

"But he might not care to respect the summons; there is no reason why he should," explained the judge.

"If he knows you want to see him, he'll come here fast enough!" said Nellie.

The judge turned to Shrimplin.

"Will you tell him this, Shrimplin, the first time you see him?"

"Won't I!" said the little lamplighter. "Certainly, Judge--certainly!" and his agile fancy had already clothed the message in verbiage that should terrify the delinquent Joe.

"Very well, then; but beyond giving him a word of advice and warning; I can do nothing."

A night or two later, as the judge, who had spent the evening at Colonel Harbison's, came to his own gate, he saw a slouching figure detach itself from the shadows near his front door and advance to meet him midway of the graveled path that led to the street. It was Joe Montgomery.

"Well, my man!" said the judge, with some little show of sternness. "I suppose you received my message?"

Montgomery uncovered his shock of red hair, while his bulk of bone and muscle actually trembled in the presence of the small but awesome figure confronting him. He might have crushed the judge with a blow of his huge fist, but no possible provocation could have induced him to lay hands on Nellie's powerful ally.

"That skunk Shrimplin says my old woman's been here," he faltered, "poisonin' your mind agin me!" A sickly grin relaxed his heavy jaws. "The Lord only knows what she expects of a man--I dunno! The more I try, the worse she gets; nothin' satisfies her!"

His breath, reeking of whisky, reached the judge.

"This is all very well, Montgomery, but I have a word or two to say to you--come into the house."

He led his disreputable visitor into the library, turned up the gas, and intrenched himself on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire. The handy-man had kept near the door leading into the hall.

"Come closer!" commanded the judge, and Montgomery, hat in hand, advanced a step. "I wish to warn you, Montgomery, that if you persist in your present course, it is certain to bring its own consequences," began the judge.

"Sure, boss!" Joe faltered abjectly.

"I understand from Nellie that you have practically deserted your family," continued the judge.

"Ain't she hateful?" cried Joe, shaking his great head.

"When she married you, she had a right to expect you would not turn out the scoundrel you are proving yourself."

"Boss, that's so," agreed Montgomery.

"This won't do!" said the judge briskly. "Nellie says she doesn't see you from one week's end to another; that you have money and yet contribute nothing toward her support nor the support of your family."

"I am willin' to go home, Judge!" said Montgomery, fingering his cap with clumsy hands. He took a step nearer the slight figure on the hearth-rug and dropped his voice to a husky half maudlin whisper. "He won't let me--see--I'm a nigger slave to him! I know I got a wife--I know I got a family, but he says--no! He says--'Joe, you damned old sot, you'll go home with a few drinks inside your freckled hide and begin to shoot off your mouth, and there'll be hell to pay for all of us!'"

"He? What are you saying--who won't let you go home?" demanded the judge.

"Andy Gilmore; he's afraid my old woman will get it out of me. I tell him I'm a married man but he says, 'No, you old soak, you stay here!'"

"What has Andy Gilmore to do with whether you go home or not?" inquired the judge.

"It's him and Marsh," said the handy-man. "They bully me till I'm that rattled--"

"Marsh--do you mean my son, Marshall?" interrupted the judge.

"Yes, boss--"

"I don't understand this!" said the judge after a moment of silence. "Why should Mr. Gilmore or my son wish to keep you away from your wife?"

"It's just a notion of theirs," replied Montgomery with sudden drunken loyalty. "And I'll say this--money never come so easy--and stuff to drink! Andy's got it scattered all about the place; there ain't many bars in this here town stocked up like his rooms!"

The judge devoted a moment to a close scrutiny of his caller.

"You are some sort of a relative of Mr. Gilmore's, are you not?" he asked at length.

"We're cousins, boss."

"Why does he wish to keep you away from your family?" the judge spoke after another brief pause.

"It's my old woman," and Montgomery favored the judge with a drunken leer. "Suppose I was to go home full, what's to hinder her from gettin' things out of me? I'm a talker, drunk or sober, and Andy Gilmore knows it--that's what he's afraid of!"

"What have you to tell that could affect Mr. Gilmore? Do you refer to the gambling that is supposed to go on in his rooms? If so, he is at needless pains in the matter; Mr. Moxlow will take up his case as soon as the North trial is out of the way."

Montgomery started, took a forward step, and dropping his voice to an impressive whisper, said:

"Judge, what are you goin' to do with young John North?"

"I shall do nothing with John North; it is the law--society, to which he is accountable," rejoined the judge.

"Will he be sent up, do you reckon?" asked Montgomery, and his small blue eyes searched the judge's face eagerly.

"If he is convicted, he will either be sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of years or else hanged." The judge spoke without visible feeling.

The effect of his words on the handy-man was singular. A hoarse exclamation burst from his lips, and his bloated face became pale and drawn.

"You mustn't do that, boss!" he cried, spreading out his great hands in protest. "A term of years--how many's that?"

"In this particular instance it may mean the rest of his life," said the judge.

Montgomery threw up his arms in a gesture of despair.

"Don't you be too rough on him, boss!" he cried. "For life!" he repeated in a tone of horror. "But that ain't what Andy and Marsh tell me; they say his friends will see him through, that he's got the general back of him, and money--how's that, Judge?"

"They are making sport of your ignorance," said the judge, almost pityingly.

"I'm done with them!" cried Joe Montgomery with a great oath. He raised one clenched hand and brought it down in the opened palm of the other. "Andy's everlastingly lied to me; I won't help send no man up for life!"

"What do you mean?" demanded the judge, astonished at this sudden outburst, and impressed, in spite of himself, by the man's earnestness.

"Just what I say, boss! They can count me out--I'm agin 'em, I'm agin 'em every time!" And again, as if to give force to his words, he swung his heavy first around and struck the open palm of his other hand a stinging blow. "Eatin' and sleepin', I'm agin 'em! I ain't liked the look of this from the first, and now I'm down and out, and they can go to hell for all of me!"

The judge rested an elbow on the chimneypiece and regarded Montgomery curiously. He knew the man was drunk; he knew that sober he would probably have said much less than he was now saying, but he also knew that there was some powerful feeling back of his words.

"If you are involved in any questionable manner with Mr. Gilmore, I should advise you to think twice before you go further with it. Mr. Gilmore is shrewd, he has money; you are a poor man and you are an ignorant man. Your reputation is none of the best."

"Thank you, boss!" said Montgomery gratefully.

"Mr. Gilmore probably expects to use you for his own ends regardless of the consequences to you," finished the judge.

"Supposin'--" began the handy-man huskily, "supposin', boss, I was to go into court and swear to something that wasn't so; what's that?" and he bent a searching glance on the judge's face.

"Perjury," said the judge laconically.

"What's it worth to a man? I reckon it's like drinkin' and stealin', it's got so many days and costs chalked up agin it?"

"I think," said the judge quietly, "that you would better tell me what you mean. Ordinarily I should not care to mix in your concerns, but on Nellie's account--"

"God take a likin' to you, boss!" cried Montgomery. "I know I ought to have kept out of this. I told Andy Gilmore how it would be, that I hadn't the brains for it; but he was to stand back of me. And so he will--to give me a kick and a shove when he's done with me!"

He saw himself caught in that treacherous fabric Gilmore had erected for John North, whose powerful friends would get him clear. Andy and Marsh would go unscathed, too. Only Joe Montgomery would suffer--Joe Montgomery, penniless and friendless, a cur in the gutter for any decent man to kick! He passed the back of his hand across his face.

"It's a hell of a world and be damned to it!" he muttered hoarsely under his breath.

"You must make it clearer to me than this!" said the judge impatiently.

Montgomery seemed to undergo a brief but intense mental struggle, then he blurted out:

"Boss, I lied when I said it was North I seen come over old man McBride's shed that night!"

"Do you mean to tell me that you perjured yourself in the North case?" asked the judge sternly.

"Sure, I lied!" said the handy-man. "But Andy Gilmore was back of that lie; it was him told me what I was to say, and it's him that kept houndin' me, puttin' me up to say more than I ever agreed to!" He slouched nearer the judge. "Boss, I chuck up the whole business; do you understand? I want to take back all I said; I'm willin' to tell the God A'mighty's truth!"

He paused abruptly. In his excitement he had forgotten what the truth meant, what it would mean to the man before him. He was vaguely aware that in abler hands than his own, this knowledge which he possessed would have been molded into a terrible weapon, but he was impotent to use it; with every advantage his, he felt only the desperate pass in which he had placed himself. If Gilmore and Marshall Langham could juggle with John North's life, what of his own life when the judge should have become their ally!

"Me and you'll have to fix up what I got to say, boss!" he added with a cunning grin.

"Do you mean you wish to make a statement to me?" asked the judge.

The handy-man nodded. The judge hesitated.

"Perhaps we would better send for Mr. Moxlow?" he suggested.

But Montgomery shook his head vehemently.

"I got nothin' to say to that man Moxlow!" he growled with sullen determination.

"Very well, then, if you prefer to make your statement to me," and the judge turned to his desk.

"Hold on, boss, we ain't ready for that just yet!" Joe objected. He was sober enough, by this time.

"What is it you wish to tell me?"

And the judge resumed his former position on the hearth-rug.

"First you got to agree to get me out of this."

"I can agree to nothing," answered the judge quietly.

"I ain't smart, boss, but Joe Montgomery's old hide means a whole lot to Joe Montgomery! You give me your word that I'll be safe, no matter what happens!"

"I can promise you nothing," repeated the judge.

"Then what's the use of my tellin' you the truth?" demanded Montgomery.

"It has become the part of wisdom, since you have already admitted that you have perjured yourself."

"Boss, if it wasn't John North I seen in the alley that day, who was it?" and he strode close to the judge's side, dropping his voice to a whisper.

"Perhaps the whole story was a lie."

The handy-man laughed and drew himself up aggressively.

"I'm a man as can do damage--I got to be treated right, or by the Lord I'll _do_ damage! I been badgered and hounded by Marsh and Andy Gilmore till I'm fair crazy. They got to take their hands off me and leave me loose, for I won't hang no man on their say-so! John North never done me no harm, I got nothing agin him!"

"You have admitted that your whole story of seeing John North on the night of the McBride murder is a lie," said the judge.

"Boss, there is truth enough in it to hang a man!"

"You saw a man cross McBride's sheds?"

And the judge kept his eyes fastened on the handy-man's face.

"I seen a man cross McBride's shed, boss."

"And you have sworn that that man was John North."

"I swore to a lie. Boss, we got to fix it this way: I seen a man come over the roof and drop into the alley; I swore it was John North, but I never meant to swear to that; the most I promised Andy was that I'd say I thought it _looked_ like John North, but them infernal lawyers got after me, and the first thing I knowed I'd said it _was_ John North!"

"Your story is absurd!" exclaimed the judge, with a show of anger.

The handy-man raised his right hand dramatically.

"It's God A'mighty's everlastin' truth!" he swore.

"Understand, I have made you no promises," said the judge, disregarding him.

"You're goin' back on me!" cried Montgomery. "Then you look out. I'm a man as can do harm if I have a mind to; don't you give me the mind, boss!"

"I shall lay this matter before Mr. Moxlow in the morning," replied the judge quietly and with apparent indifference, but covertly he was watching the effect of his words on Montgomery.

"And then they'll be after me!" cried the handy-man.

"Very likely," said the judge placidly.

Montgomery glanced about as though he half expected to see Gilmore rise up out of some shadowy corner.

"Boss, do you want to know who it was I seen come over old man McBride's shed? Do you want to know why Andy and Marsh are so set agin my goin' home to my old woman? Why they give me money? It's a pity I ain't a smarter man! I'd own 'em, both body and soul!"

"Man, you are mad!" cried the judge.

But this man who was usually austere and always unafraid, was feeling a strange terror of the debased and slouching figure before him.

"Do you reckon you're man enough to hear what I got in me to tell?" asked Montgomery, again raising his right hand high above his head as if he called on Heaven to witness the truth of what he said. "Why won't they let me go home to my old woman, boss? Why do they keep me at Andy Gilmore's--why do they give me money? Because what I'm tellin' you is all a lie, I suppose! Just because they like old Joe Montgomery and want him 'round! I don't think!" He threw back his head and laughed with rough sarcasm. "You're a smarter man than me, boss; figure it out; give a reason for it!"

But the judge, white-faced and shaken to his very soul, was silent; yet he guessed no part of the terrible truth Montgomery supposed he had made plain to him. At the most he believed Marshall was shielding Gilmore from the consequences of a crime the gambler had committed.

Montgomery, sinister and menacing, shuffled across the room and then back to the judge's side.

"You ask Marsh, boss, what it all means. I got nothin' more to say! Ask him who killed old man McBride! If he don't know, no man on this green earth does!"

The judge's face twitched convulsively, but he made no answer to this.

"Ask him!" repeated the handy-man, and swinging awkwardly on his heel went from the room without a single backward glance.

An instant later the street-door closed with a noisy bang.