"Bang!" went the judicial gavel.
"The juryman will please be silent!" shouted Judge Wetherell. "This is entirely out of order!" Then he quickly covered his face with his handkerchief. "Proceed!" he directed in a muffled tone.
"Where were we?" asked Mr. Tutt dreamily.
"Fatima, the daughter of Abbas," assisted the foreman, sotto voce.
"And I objected to Fatima, the daughter of Abbas!" snapped Pepperill.
"Well, well!" conceded Mr. Tutt. "She's dead, poor thing! Let her be. That is all, Mr. Kahoots."
It is difficult to describe the intense excitement these digressions from the direct testimony occasioned among the audience. The reference to the billiard-table cover and the murder of the unfortunate Fatima apparently roused long-smoldering fires. A group of Syrians by the window broke into an unexpected altercation, which had to be quelled by a court officer, and when quiet was restored the jury seemed but slightly attentive to the precisely similar yarns of Nicola Abbu, Menheem Shikrie, Fajal Mokarzel and David Elias, especially as the minutes of the Grand Jury showed that they had sworn to three entirely different sets of facts regarding the cause of Babu's death. Yet when the People rested it remained true that five witnesses, whatever the jury may have thought of them, had testified that Hassoun strangled Sardi Babu. The jury turned expectantly to Mr. Tutt to hear what he had to say.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "the defense is very simple. None of the witnesses who have appeared here was in fact present at the scene of the homicide at all. I shall call some ten or twelve reputable Syrian citizens who will prove to you that Kasheed Hassoun, my client, with a large party of friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when Sardi Babu came in with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, and that then, and only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot be established--evidently a stranger--seized Babu before he could fire again, and killed him--in self-defense."
Mr. William Montague Pepperill's jaw dropped as if he had seen the ghost of one of his colonial ancestors. He could not believe that he had heard Mr. Tutt correctly. Why, the old lawyer had the thing completely turned round! Sardi Babu hadn't gone to the restaurant. He had been in the restaurant, and it had been Kasheed Hassoun who had gone there.
Yet, one by one, placidly, imperturbably, the dozen witnesses foretold by Mr. Tutt, and gathered in by Bonnie Doon, marched to the chair and swore upon the Holy Bible that it was even as Mr. Tutt had said, and that no such persons as Mokarzel, Kahoots, Abbu, Shikrie and Elias had been in the restaurant at any time that evening, but on the contrary that they, the friends of Hassoun, had been there eating Turkish pie--a few might have had mashed beans with _taheenak_--when Sardi Babu, apparently with suicidal intent, entered alone to take vengeance upon the camel owner.
"That is all. That is our case," said Mr. Tutt as the last Syrian left the stand.
But there was no response from the bench. Judge Wetherell had been dozing peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid a decorous smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda and rustled it, and His Honor, who had been dreaming that he was riding through the narrow streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary so tall that he could peek through the latticed balconies at the plump, black-eyed odalisques within the harems, slowly came back from Turkey to New York.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said he, pulling himself together, "the defendant here is charged by the Grand Jury with having murdered Fatima the daughter of Abbas--I beg your pardon! I mean--who was it?--one Sardi Babu. I will first define to you the degrees of homicide--"
* * * * *
One day three months later, after Kasheed Hassoun had been twice tried upon the same testimony and the jury had disagreed--six to six, each time--Mr. Tutt, who had overstayed his lunch hour at the office, put on his stovepipe hat and strolled along Washington Street, looking for a place to pick up a bite to eat. It was in the middle of the afternoon and most of the stores were empty, which was all the more to his liking. He had always wanted to try some of that Turkish pie that they had all talked so much about at the trial. Presently a familiar juxtaposition of names caught his eye--Ghabryel & Assad. The very restaurant which had been the scene of the crime! Curiously, he turned in there. Like all the other places it was deserted, but at the sound of his footsteps a little Syrian boy not more than ten years old came from behind the screen at the end of the room and stood bashfully awaiting his order.
Mr. Tutt smiled one of his genial weather-beaten smiles at the youngster and glancing idly over the bill of fare ordered _biklama_ and coffee. Then he lit a stogy and stretched his long legs comfortably out under the narrow table. Yes, this was the very spot where either Sardi Babu and his friends had been sitting the night of the murder or Kasheed Hassoun and his friends--one or the other; he wondered if anybody would ever know which. Was it possible that in this humdrum little place human passions had been roused to the taking of life on account of some mere difference in religious dogma? Was this New York? Was it possible to Americanize these people? A door clattered in the rear, and from behind the screen again emerged the boy carrying a tray of pastry and coffee.
"Well, my little man," said Mr. Tutt, "do you work here?"
"Oh, yes," answered the embryonic citizen. "My father, he owns half the store. I go to school every day, but I work here afterward. I got a prize last week."
"What sort of a prize?"
"I got the English prize."
The lawyer took the child's hand and pulled him over between his knees. He was an attractive lad, clean, responsive, frank, and his eyes looked straight into Mr. Tutt's.
"Sonny," he inquired his new friend, "are you an American?"
"Me? Sure! You bet I'm an American! The old folks--no! You couldn't change 'em in fifty years. They're just what they always were. They don't want anything different. They think they're in Syria yet. But me--say, what do you think? Of course I'm an American!"
"That's right!" answered Mr. Tutt, offering him a piece of pastry. "And what is your name?"
"George Nasheen Assad," answered the boy, showing a set of white teeth.
"Well, George," continued the attorney, "what has become of Kasheed Hassoun?"
"Oh, he's down at Coney Island. He runs a caravan. He has six camels. I go there sometimes and he lets me ride for nothing. I know who you are," said the little Syrian confidently, as he took the cake. "You're the great lawyer who defended Kasheed Hassoun."
"That's right. How did you know that, now?"
"I was to the trial."
"Do you think he ought to have been let off?" asked Mr. Tutt whimsically.
"I don't know," returned the child. "I guess you did right not to call me as a witness."
Mr. Tutt wrinkled his brows.
"Eh? What? You weren't a witness, were you?"
"Of course I was!" laughed George. "I was here behind the screen. I saw the whole thing. I saw Kasheed Hassoun come in and speak to Sardi Babu, and I saw Sardi draw his revolver, and I saw Kasheed tear it out of his hand and strangle him."
Mr. Tutt turned cold.
"You saw that?" he challenged.
"Sure."
"How many other people were there in the restaurant?" inquired Mr. Tutt.
"Nobody at all," answered George in a matter-of-fact tone. "Only Kasheed and Sardi. Nobody else was in the restaurant."
Contempt of Court
The court can't determine what is honor.--Chief Baron Bowes, 1743.
I know what my code of honor is, my lord, and I intend to adhere to it.--John O'Conner, M.P., in Parnell Commission's Proceedings, 103d Day; Times Rep. pt. 28, pp. 19 _ff_.
Well, honor is the subject of my story.--Julius Caesar, Act I, Sc 2.
"What has become of Katie--the second waitress?" asked Miss Althea Beekman of Dawkins, her housekeeper, as she sat at her satinwood desk after breakfast. "I didn't see her either last night or this morning."
Dawkins, who was a mid-Victorian, flushed awkwardly.
"I really had to let the girl go, ma'am!" she explained with an outraged air. "I hardly know how to tell you--such a thing in this house! I couldn't possibly have her round. I was afraid she might corrupt the other girls, ma'am--and they are such a self-respecting lot--almost quite ladylike, ma'am. So I simply paid her and told her to take herself off."
Miss Beekman looked pained.
"You shouldn't have turned her out into the street like that, Dawkins!" she expostulated. "Where has she gone?"
Dawkins gazed at her large feet in embarrassment.
"I don't know, ma'am," she admitted. "I didn't suppose you'd want her here so I sent her away. It was quite inconvenient, too--with the servant problem what it is. But I'm hoping to get another this afternoon from Miss Healey's."
Miss Beekman was genuinely annoyed.
"I am seriously displeased with you, Dawkins!" she returned severely. "Of course, I am shocked at any girl in my household misbehaving herself, but--I--wouldn't want her to be sent away--under such circumstances. It would be quite heartless. Yes, I am very much disturbed!"