If an earthquake had suddenly shattered the stone house behind the hedge, it would have left him no more dazed.
"I won"t say that we "ve got him nailed," Saul hastened to explain, "but it begins to look bad for him."
"But, man dear," gasped Donaldson, "he is n"t a thug! He isn"t--"
"If he "s like the others he "s anything when he wants his smoke. I "ve seen more of them than you."
"Saul," he said, "you "re dead wrong about this! You "ve made a horrible mistake!"
"Perhaps. But he "ll have to explain some things."
Donaldson took a grip on himself.
"What"s the nature of your evidence?"
"There "s the question of where he got his funds, first; then the fact that all the attacks took place within a small radius of this house; then the motive, and finally the fact, that in a general way he answers to the description given by four witnesses. He "ll have to take the third degree on that, anyway."
The third degree would undoubtedly kill the boy, or, worse, break his spirit and drive him either to a mad-house or the solace of his drug.
It was a cruel thing to confront him with this at such a point in his life. It was fiendish, devilish. It was possible that they might even make the boy believe that in his blind madness he actually did commit these crimes. Then, as in a lurid moving picture, Donaldson recalled the uneasiness of the girl; the morning papers with their glaring headlines of the Riverside robberies, which he had found that morning scattered about the floor; her fear of the police, and the mystery of the untold story at which she had hinted. Take these, and the fact that in his madness Arsdale had actually made an attack upon the girl and upon himself, similar to those outside the house, and the chain was a strong one. The pity of it--coming now!
Yes, it was in this that the cruel injustice lay. Even admitting the boy to be guilty, it was still an injustice. The man who had done those things was outside the pale of the law; he was no more. Arsdale himself, Arsdale the clean-minded young man with a useful life before him, Arsdale with his new soul, had no more to do with those black deeds than he himself had. Yet that lumbering Juggernaut, the Law, could not take this into account. The Law did not deal with souls, but bodies.
To this day--what a hideous climax!
Saul detected the fear in Donaldson"s eyes,
"You know something about this, Don!" he asked eagerly.
He was no longer a friend; he was scarcely a man; he was a hound who has picked up his trail. His eyes had narrowed; his round face seemed to grow almost pointed. He chewed his cigar end viciously. He was alert in every nerve.
"You"d better loosen up," he warned, "it"s all right to protect a friend, but it can"t be done in a case of this sort. You as a lawyer ought to know that. It can"t be done."
"Yes, I know, I know. But I want to tell you again that you "re dead wrong about this. You haven"t guessed right, Beefy."
"That"s for others to decide," he returned somewhat sharply. "It "s up to you to tell what you know."
"It"s hard to do it--it"s hard to do it to you."
Donaldson"s face had suddenly grown blank--impa.s.sive. The mouth had hardened and his whole body stiffened almost as it does after death.
When he spoke it was without emotion and in the voice of one who has repeated a phrase until it no longer has meaning.
"I realize how you feel," Saul encouraged him, "but there"s no way out of it."
"No, there"s no way out of it. So I give myself up!"
"But it is n"t you I want,--it"s Arsdale."
"No, I guess it"s I. See how your descriptions fit me."
Saul pressed closer.
"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.
"Just this," answered Donaldson dully, "I can"t see an innocent man go to jail."
To his mind Arsdale was as innocent to-day as though not a shadow of suspicion rested upon him.
"Are you mad?"
"Not yet," answered Donaldson.
Saul waited a moment. In all his professional career he had never received a greater surprise than this. He would not have believed enough of it to react had it not been for Donaldson"s expression. Back of the impa.s.siveness he read guilt, read it in the restless shifting of the eyes and in the voice dead to hope. Then he said deliberately,
"I don"t believe you, Don."
"No? Yet you "ve got as much evidence against me as against Arsdale."
"But, G.o.d A"mighty, Donaldson, why should you do such a thing?"
"Why should the boy?"
Saul seized his arm.
"You don"t tell me that you"ve fallen into that habit?"
"Sit in a law-office and do nothing for three years, then--then, perhaps, you "ll understand."
Saul threw away his cigar. He studied again the thin face, the haggardness that comes of opium, the nervous fingers, the vacant shifty gaze of those on the sharp edge of sanity. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and declared quietly,
"I don"t believe you!"
"You "ll have to for the sake of those in the house. They "ve been good to me in there."
His voice was as hard as black ice and as cold. He looked more like a magnetized corpse than he did a man.
"I wish," he continued evenly, "I wish I might have been knocked over the head before it came to this. If I had known I had to face you, I would have let it come to that. But I didn"t expect this, Beefy."
"If this story is on the level, you "d better shut up," warned Saul.
"What you say will be used against you."
"Thanks for reminding me, but things have come out so wrong that I can"t even shut up. If you should go inside that house with the dream you sprang on me, you "d drive the boy crazy and kill the girl. The boy has been in a bad way, but he"s all straight again now, and yet you might make him believe he did these jobs when out of his head. And then--and then--why, it would kill them both! That"s why I could n"t let you do it. That"s why you _must n"t_ do anything like that."
Saul did not answer. He waited.
"So I might as well make a clean breast of it. Do you remember when the last job was?"
"Last Sat.u.r.day morning."