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Tut! Tut! Mr. Tutt. Arthur Train
Читать онлайн.Название Tut! Tut! Mr. Tutt
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066406097
Автор произведения Arthur Train
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
In the silence all could distinctly hear the ticking of the clock upon the rear wall of the court-room.
“Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Yes—no! Yes—no! Yes—no!” it went.
O’Brien squirmed, looked down at the rocking floor, and turned faint.
“Tick-tock! Tick-tock!” alternated the clock.
“Yes—no! Yes—no!” answered O’Brien’s pulse.
Everything was going black and white, and great pulpy gray spiders seemed grabbing at him from the circumambient air. If he put the thing through and answered “Yes”—insisted that he had been reading from the book, that old gray wolf down there would put the book in evidence and prove him a perjurer, send him up! A band of sweat oozed from beneath his red skull-cap of hair. Yet if he answered “No”—admitted that he had made the whole thing up—that there was not a word in the book about Mooney at all—it would be nearly as bad!
In his agony he almost clutched the flimsy legal straw of refusing to answer on the ground that his reply might tend to degrade or incriminate him! But this would leave him in an even worse position. No, he must answer!
“Tick—tock! Yes—no! Tick—tock! Yes—no! Which—what!”
He moistened his parched lips and swallowed twice. He coughed—for time; and fumbled for his handkerchief. After all, he had done nothing that was not strictly legal. He had not charged that Mooney was a professional crook; he had only asked him the question. That didn’t commit him to anything! You could ask what you chose and you were bound by the witness’ answer. A gleam like sunrise flashed across his seething brain. Ah, that would save him, perhaps! Old Tutt would be bound by his answer. And then he saw himself tricked again! Yes, Tutt might be bound in the case at bar—although his muddy mind wasn’t quite sure whether he would be or not—but he himself would be forever bound by the written record. He could never get rid of the millstone that his yes or no—no matter which he uttered—would hang about his neck! Old Tutt, like the Old Man of the Sea, would forever be upon his back!
“No,” he muttered at last in a woolly voice, so low and thick as to be hardly audible. “I was not—reading from the book.”
He bowed his head as if awaiting the headsman’s stroke. A hiss—a score of hisses—writhed through the air toward him from the benches. Captain Phelan made no attempt to stop them.
“You mean——” began Judge Watkins incredulously. Then with a look of disgust he turned his back upon O’Brien.
“Ye snake!” This time the tense sibilant was that of a woman.
Mr. Tutt gazed at the jury. The Lord had delivered his enemy into his hands.
“Now, gentlemen,” he said with a deprecating smile, “you may convict my client if you will.”
There was a moment’s puzzled silence, broken by the foreman.
“The hell we will!” he suddenly exploded. “The fellow we want to convict is O’Brien!”
And in the flurry of involuntary applause which followed, the ancient Dougherty was heard to murmur:
“Hearken unto your verdict as it stands recorded. You say the defendant is not guilty—and so say ye all!”
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