"Sworn to before me this fourteenth ) day of September, 1894 ) ARTHUR P. HAWKINS "ISAAC M. COHEN, "Notary Public, New York County."
There was something about this seedy rascal that filled me with disgust and suspicion, and he looked at me out of the corners of his evil eyes as if he knew that by some trick of fate he had me in his power and was gloating over it. Even while he was swearing to the paper he had a sickly sneer on his pimply face that sickened me, and when Cohen, my clerk, administered the oath to him he had the audacity to wink in his face and answer:
"It"s the truth--_not!_"
Cohen, who knew a thing or two and had taken affidavits before, merely laughed, but the words sent a shiver down my spine and I snarled out:
"Be careful what you"re saying! Do you swear that this affidavit of yours is true?"
"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" he hastened to answer, somewhat chagrined at my not taking as a joke what he had intended for one.
"Very well," I said to Cohen. "Show the gentleman out. I"m very busy. Good-day."
Afterward I would have given all the money I possessed to undo what I had done.
The case of Dillingham _versus_ Dillingham duly came on for trial, with Oscar Willoughby Bunce as the chief witness for defendant.
He had visited our office several times in an attempt to convince us that we were entirely misinformed in regard to the service of the papers in the original action and had insisted vehemently that he had personally delivered them to Hawkins in the office of the Astor House. Gottlieb had gently a.s.sured him that he must be mistaken and bowed him out, but Bunce for once in his little toy career was "all up in the air." He felt that his own integrity was, in some mysterious way, at stake, since it was upon his own testimony to the effect that he had made the service of the papers in question that the original decree had in part been granted.
The case was sent to a referee for hearing, and on the morning of the day set Gottlieb called me into his office and said:
"Harkee, Quib! I"ve a plan that will put our little friend Bunce"s nose out of joint for good. It is nearly seven years now since he has seen Hawkins and it was then only for a moment."
"Well," said I, "what is your game?"
"Come along to the hearing and you"ll find out, my lad," answered Gottlieb. "Don"t fail if you want to see some fun."
Curious to discover what trick Gottlieb would be able to play, I accordingly arranged my work so as to attend the hearing, which was to be held in the referee"s office in an old wooden building on Broadway. As I climbed the stairs I caught sight of Hawkins skulking on one of the landings, but he laid a finger on his lips and I pa.s.sed on and up to the attorney"s office. The room, like most old-fashioned lawyers" offices, was but dimly lighted, and on entering I found the other side, with the exception of Mrs.
Dillingham, already there. The referee sat at one end of a large table, surrounded by his books, with his stenographer beside him; and to his left sat Bunce and a lawyer named Stires, the present "attorney of record" for the defendant. I took my seat opposite them, introduced myself to the referee and waited. In a few moments the door opened noisily and Gottlieb entered with much bustle, accompanied by a clerk carrying books and papers and by a perfectly strange man, arrayed in very new clothes, who seemed much embarra.s.sed and doubtful as to what he should do.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen!" exclaimed Gottlieb breezily. "I regret to have kept you waiting, but I was unavoidably detained. Shall I sit down here? Yes? Very good. Please take your seat beside me, Mr. Hawkins."
The stranger blushed, fumbled his hat, and sat down bashfully in the place designated.
"Are you ready to proceed, gentlemen?" inquired the referee over his spectacles. "Call your first witness."
Bunce, who had been fidgeting in his eagerness to tell what he knew, instantly bobbed up and asked to be sworn.
After giving his name, age, and profession, he detailed how he had prepared the papers in the original case of Hawkins _versus_ Hawkins and served them upon the defendant personally at the Astor House.
"I handed them to Mr. Hawkins myself and explained them to him.
He was dressed very much as he is now," cried Bunce.
"Do you positively identify this gentleman on your oath as the person you served with the summons and complaint?" inquired Gottlieb as if the matter were merely one of routine.
"Absolutely!" retorted Bunce hotly. "I could identify him anywhere by the shape of his nose. I took especial pains to remark his appearance in case the service should ever be disputed."
"Thank you. That is all," said Gottlieb. Then turning to the stranger he directed him to take the stand.
"What is your name?" he asked sternly.
"Aaron Finkelstein--as you know very well, Mr. Gottlieb," answered the stranger.
"Do you recognize this gentleman who has just testified?" indicating Bunce.
"As far as I know I never saw him in my life," answered Finkelstein.
"Did he ever serve you with any papers--in the Astor House or anywhere else?"
"Never."
"What is your business?"
"I am an undertaker."
In an instant the room was in a turmoil, Bunce screaming out that he had been tricked by a parcel of shysters, Gottlieb indignantly defending his ruse as a perfectly proper method of discrediting Bunce, and the referee vainly endeavoring to restore order. As for myself, in spite of my anxiety over the whole affair, I could not do otherwise than laugh heartily over Bunce"s ludicrous mistake.
When Hawkins was brought in from outside, and, after proclaiming his ident.i.ty, denied ever being served in the original action, the referee was but little inclined to listen to Lawyer Bunce, who now corrected his testimony and swore just as insistently that the real Hawkins was the person to whom he had given the papers in the case.
Here, then, was as pretty a trick as had ever been played upon an unsuspecting and well-meaning lawyer; and by it Gottlieb had so strengthened our position that, very likely, the referee would have found for our side even had not Hawkins taken it upon himself to swear the matter through. Moreover, the only person who could have disproved the latter"s testimony or given evidence that might have militated against its probability--to wit, Crookshank, his former attorney--was dead and buried, and it seemed as if truth were buried with him. On the way back to our office I congratulated my partner on the Napoleonic strategy which he had displayed and a few days later a more substantial compliment followed, in the shape of an unqualified finding in our favor on the part of the referee.
"Was ever thirty-five thousand dollars earned so easily!" laughed Gottlieb over his cigar as we were dining at Delmonico"s.
"So long as Hawkins stays bought--yes," I answered.
"Don"t be a death"s head, Quib!" he retorted. "Why, even if he turned State"s evidence, no one would believe him! Have another gla.s.s of this vintage--we can drink it every night now for a year at Dillingham"s expense!"
"Well, here"s to you, Gottlieb!" I answered, filling my goblet with creaming wine; "and here"s to crime--whereby we live and move and have our being!"
And we clinked our gla.s.ses and drained them with a laugh.
I had now been a resident of New York for upward of twenty years and had acquired, as the junior member of the firm of Gottlieb & Quibble, an international reputation. It is true that my partner and I felt it to be beneath our dignity to advertise in the newspapers --and, indeed, advertising in New York City was for us entirely unnecessary--but we carried a card regularly in the English journals and received many retainers from across the water; in fact, we controlled practically all the theatrical business in the city, drawing the contracts for the managers and being constantly engaged in litigations on their behalf. We had long since abandoned as trivial all my various profit-sharing schemes, and, with the exception of carrying on our pay-rolls many of the attendants attached to the police and other criminal courts, had practically no "runners." We did not need any. There was no big criminal case in which we were not retained for the defence and rarely a divorce action of any notoriety where we did not appear for one of the parties.
This matter of Hawkins"s was the first in twenty years in which he had ever deliberately faked an entire case! Yet, if ever there was a safe opportunity to do so, this seemed the one, and I cannot even now charge Gottlieb with recklessness in taking the chances that he did; but, as luck would have it, there were two facts connected with the Dillingham annulment the significance of which we totally overlooked--one, that Bunce was not so much of a fool as he looked, and the other, that Mrs. Dillingham was a mother.
Once, however, judgment had been entered to the effect that Mrs.
Dillingham had never lawfully ceased to be Mrs. Hawkins, then the real reason of our client"s anxiety to be rid of his wife and her child, a girl of six years, became apparent; for he instantly announced his engagement to a fashionable widow, who lacked money if not experience, and who needed the one as much as he had a super- abundance of the other. He made a fairly liberal allowance for his child and its mother, and since this was paid monthly through our office, I had an opportunity of making their acquaintance; and I confess that I had no sooner done so than I began to have a sort of regret for my own part in the transaction. For Mrs. Dillingham --Hawkins, or whatever she was--proved to be a rather sweet-faced young woman, with great, sad blue eyes and a winsomely childish innocence of expression that concealed, as I afterward found out, a will of iron and a heart full of courage.
She used to come and wait for Gottlieb or me to pay over her money, and while she waited she would sit there so helplessly, looking withal so lovely, that the clerks cannot be blamed for having talked to her. Incidentally she extracted from the susceptible Cohen various trifles in the way of information which later proved highly inconvenient. Yet she never asked me or my partner any questions or showed the slightest resentment at the part we had played as her husband"s attorneys in ruining her life. Sometimes she brought the little girl with her and I marvelled that Dillingham could have sacrificed such a charming little daughter so easily.
Six months pa.s.sed and the Dillingham scandal ceased to be a matter of public or even of private interest. Other affairs, equally profitable, engaged our attention, and the waiter, Hawkins, having received a substantial honorarium from the firm"s bank account, had pa.s.sed completely out of our minds. I had that winter been giving a series of dinners at my house to actor clients and their managers, and these had proved conspicuously successful for the reason that my guests were of the sort who, after the wine had begun to flow, had no hesitation in entertaining the rest of the company by an exhibition of their talents. Occasionally, as part of the fun, I would do a bit of a turn myself by way of reviving old memories of the c.o.c.k and Spur and my Athenaeum days in Boston.
It was on one of these festive occasions--not unlike, my readers may recall, my famous translation from college during my banquet at the Cambridge Tavern--that Fate struck me my first severe blow.
My guests were still sitting at table while one of the ladies executed a fantastic dance amid the wine-gla.s.ses, when my butler touched me upon the arm and whispered that Mr. Gottlieb was outside and desired to see me on urgent business. Excusing myself, I hurried out, greeting my partner rather impatiently, as I disliked to be interrupted by business details in my hours of relaxation; but one sight of his weazened little hawk face sufficed to tell me that no trifling matter was at stake. He was in his day clothes, which were even more than ordinarily dishevelled, and his face, usually pale, was chalklike.
"Quibble," he cried in a rasping voice as soon as my man had gone, "our luck"s turned! That woman has tricked us. She and Bunce went down to Crookshank"s office and, under the pretext of looking for some deed or release, went through his papers and turned up some letters from Hawkins in regard to the original divorce proceedings.
They"ve got one in which he admits being served by Bunce in the Astor House and asks Crookshank to appear for him. They"ve got another, written after Dillingham had fixed him, telling Crookshank to put in no defence. Yesterday she and Bunce went before the grand jury, who returned an indictment against Hawkins for perjury.
Then she telegraphed him to come on to New York and meet her to arrange some money matters; and when he stepped off the train this afternoon he was arrested and taken to police head-quarters."
"My G.o.d!" I cried, turning quite faint. "What"s to be done?"