She walked over and handed the paper to Mr. Leg. He took it with a glance of surprise at finding her there. He motioned her to a chair and she sat down, not ten feet from the prisoner. But she didn’t notice that, for she was busy watching Mr. Leg’s face as he read the slip of paper. It expressed doubt, stupefaction, incredulous joy; his face grew pale at the unexpectedness of it, and he stood looking at the paper, hardly believing his eyes.
“Go on with the witness, Mr. Leg,” came the voice of Judge Manton from the bench.
“Yes, your honor — I... what—” the lawyer stammered. “That is, I’m through with the witness, your honor.”
The prosecuting attorney bobbed up from his chair to say that he would not cross-examine, and sat down again. Mr. Leg hastened over to whisper to Miss Venner, pointing to the slip of paper:
“Is this true, is it possible?”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered back. “He just telephoned from Yonkers. I came right over—”
She was interrupted by the voice of Judge Manton:
“Call your next witness, Mr. Leg.”
He had just one left — a young woman who, like the preceding witness, had known Mrs. Mount during the time she had lived with her husband, and whose function it was to testify to the prisoner’s excellent character during that period and the unfailing tenderness and affection he had shown his wife, even when she had begun to neglect her home. Mr. Leg asked many questions; he made them as long as possible, and he drawled his words.
In the past two days he had learned something about the art of killing time, and though the testimony of this particular witness would ordinarily have occupied barely fifteen minutes, he succeeded in keeping her on the stand almost an hour. Finally he was forced to stop, and the witness was dismissed.
“Have you any more witnesses?” asked Judge Manton.
Mr. Leg hadn’t, but he did have an idea.
“I would like to recall Mount for a few questions, your honor.”
The judge nodded impatiently, and the prisoner was summoned to the witness chair. Mr. Leg began questioning him concerning the disappearance of his wife four years before. Then he switched to the night of the murder, and once more Mount told of his entry into the apartment house, of the man he saw in the hall, and of the finding of his wife’s body. This consumed some time, until finally an interruption came from Judge Manton:
“This has all been gone over before, Mr. Leg.”
“Yes, your honor, I—”
The lawyer stopped and turned. His ear caught the sound of the almost noiseless opening of the swinging door of the courtroom. Every eye in the room followed the direction of his gaze, and what they saw was the entrance of a little, gray-haired man with a scraggly mustache, followed by a twenty-year-old youth, who had a firm grip on the other’s arm.
Mr. Leg turned to address the court:
“I am through with the witness—”
Again he was interrupted, this time by a cry of amazement from the lips of the gray-haired man who had just entered. There was an instant commotion; the spectators rose to their feet and craned their necks to see the man who had uttered the cry, and who was now saying to the youth:
“You didn’t tell me — you didn’t tell me—”
The face of Judge Manton had turned pale with irritation at this disorder in his court. He rapped on the desk with his gavel and called out sharply:
“Order! Silence! Sit down!”
But by this time Mr. Leg had met Dan’s eyes and read their message of assurance and triumph. He turned to the judge:
“Your honor, that man is my next witness. I apologize for the disturbance.” Again he turned to look at Dan.
“Patrick Cummings to the stand!”
The spectators sat down again, though whispers were still going back and forth over the room. The prosecuting attorney was leaning back in his chair with the amused and bored smile he had worn throughout the presentation of the defense. (It must be admitted that Mr. Leg had shown himself a fearful tyro.) William Mount was looking indifferently across the table at Miss Venner; as for her, she was gazing with bright eyes at Dan as he led Patrick Cummings up to the rail and turned him over to the court attendant, who conducted him to the witness chair.
Dan crossed over to Mr. Leg and murmured in his ear:
“Just get him started on his story. He’ll do the rest. I’ll prompt you if you need it.”
Then he took a chair at the lawyer’s elbow.
The witness gave his name to the clerk and was sworn in. His voice trembled, his hands were nervously gripping the arms of the chair, and his eyes were shifting constantly from side to side with an expression of fear. In answer to Mr. Leg’s first question, he said his name was Patrick Cummings, his address No. 311 Murray Street, Albany, and his occupation janitor, though he was not working at present.
“Did you ever work in New York City?” asked Mr. Leg.
“Yes, sir.”
“As janitor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“At what address?”
“No. 714 West One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Street.”
“When did you start work there?”
The witness thought a moment.
“I don’t know exactly; but it was sometime in July 1912.”
One of the jurors in the last row interrupted to say that the witness was not speaking loud enough for him to hear. Judge Manton, who had been gazing directly at Cummings ever since he took the chair, admonished him to speak louder.
“Where did you work before that?” continued Mr. Leg.
“In Philadelphia, sir. That was my first job in New York.”
“How long were you janitor at No. 714 West One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Street?”
“Nearly three years.”
“Were you there on April 3, 1915?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dan got up from his chair to whisper something in Mr. Leg’s ear. The lawyer nodded and returned to the witness.
“Cummings, did you ever see Mrs. Elaine Mount, known as Alice Reeves, a tenant in the house where you were janitor?”
“I knew Miss Reeves, yes, sir.”
“She lived there quite a while, didn’t she?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t know how long; she was there when I came.”
“Did you see Miss Reeves often?”
“Oh, yes, I saw her every day; sometimes two or three times.” Again Dan got up to whisper a suggestion in the lawyer’s ear; from this time on, indeed, half the questions were suggested by him. As for the witness, he was losing, little by little, the nervous fright that had possessed him when he took the chair. His voice was becoming stronger and louder, and his eyes had gained an expression of determination and defiance.
“Now, Cummings, do you know if Miss Reeves ever had any callers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, did she?”
“She had one.”
“Only one?”
“There were others, sir, but not very often; but this man came every two or three days, sometimes oftener than that.”
“So it was a man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you describe him?”
The witness hesitated, then spoke in a louder voice than before:
“He was a man about thirty-eight or forty, with dark hair and dark eyes. He was a good-looking man.”
“And you say he would call often on Miss Reeves. How do you know he was calling on her?”
“Why, he would go in her flat.”
“Did you see him go in?”