Tutt and Mr. Tutt - Arthur Train
However, when the assistant district attorney opened the People's case
to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began to feel much more at ease. Indeed
O'Brien made it very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a very
grievous--he pronounced it "gree-vious"--offense in forcing his way into
another man's private house. It might or might not be burglary--that
would depend upon the testimony--but in any event it was a criminal,
illegal entry and he should ask for a conviction. A man's house was his
castle and--to quote from that most famous of orators and
statesmen--Edmund Burke--"the wind might enter, the rain might enter,
but the King of England might not enter!" Thus Schmidt could not enter
the house of Hepplewhite without making himself amenable to the law.
Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. O'Brien, and his drooping
spirits reared their wilted heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the
stand and elicited from him the salient features of the case. The jury
was vastly interested in the butler personally, as well as his account
rendered in the choicest cockney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his
master's bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he might
cross-examine.
And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered why he had been haunted
by that mysterious feeling of guilt; for by some occult and subtle
method of suggestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of
being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself into an attack upon Mr.
Hepplewhite and his retainers and upon the corrupt minions of the law
who had violated every principle of justice, decency and morality in
order to accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless
aristocrat--meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. Tutt forced from the
writhing Bibby the admission that the prisoner was sound asleep in the
pink silk fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was discovered that
he made no attempt to escape, that he did not assault anybody and that
he had appeared comatose from exhaustion; that there was no sign of a
break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses "worth five dollars
_apiece_"--Tutt invited the court's attention to this ingenuous
phraseology of Mr. Caput Magnus, as a literary curiosity--were a figment
of the imagination.
In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him away, while his master
shuddered at the open disclosure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity,
mendacity and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at once the
case began to break up and go all to pot. The jury got laughing at
Bibby, the footmen and the cops as Mr. Tutt painted for their
edification the scene following the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when
Schmidt was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldilocks in
the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed.
Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no better than had Bibby.
O'Brien, catching the judge's eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly
lowered his left lid--on the side away from the jury, thus officially
indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but that there was
nothing that could be done except to try it out to the bitter end.
Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. John De Puyster
Hepplewhite--take the stand!"
It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested that he would be called
for the prosecution. Possibly O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of
malice; possibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse
Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But at any rate he
certainly had no anticipation of what the ultimate consequence of his
act would be.
Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire intestinal mechanism
had been removed. But he had no time to take counsel of his fears.
Everybody in the courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. He
rose, feeling as one who dreams; that he is naked in the midst of a
multitude. He shrank back hesitating, but hostile hands reached out and
pushed him forward. Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the
first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, his adversary
who looked scornfully from Hepplewhite to the jury and then from the
jury back to Hepplewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a
man?"
"You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been referred to in the testimony
as the owner of the house in which the defendant was found?" inquired
O'Brien.
"Yes--yes," answered Mr. Hepplewhite deprecatingly.
"The first witness--Bibby--is in your employ?"
"Yes--yes."
"Did you have a silver tea set of the value of--er--at least five
hundred dollars in the house?"
"It was worth fifteen thousand," corrected Mr. Hepplewhite.
"Oh! Now, have you been served by the defendant's attorneys with a
summons and complaint in an action for false arrest in which damages are
claimed in the sum of one hundred thousand dollars?"
"I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrelevant."
"I think it shows the importance of the result of this trial to the
witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It shows this case isn't any
joke--even if some people seem to think it is."
"Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The question is irrelevant. The
jury is supposed to know that every case is important to those
concerned--to the defendant as well as to those who charge him with
crime."
O'Brien bowed.
"That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt."
The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and gazed quizzically down
upon the shivering Hepplewhite.
"You have been sued by my client for one hundred thousand dollars,
haven't you?" he demanded.
"Object!" shot out O'Brien.
"Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper question for
cross-examination. It may show motive."
Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting was over.
"Answer the question!" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt.
"But I thought--" he began.
"Don't think!" retorted the court sarcastically. "The time to think has
gone by. Answer!"
"I don't know what the question is," stammered Mr. Hepplewhite,
thoroughly frightened.
"Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing of the jury.
Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resignation.
"My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had my client arrested
and charged with being a burglar, had you made any personal inquiry as
to the facts?"
"I didn't have him arrested!" protested the witness.
"You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the defendant with burglary?"
roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care! You know there is such a crime as perjury,
do you not?"
"No--I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite abjectly. "That is, I've
heard about perjury--but the police attended to everything for me."
"Aha!" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war horse depicted in
the Book of Job. "The police 'attended' to my client for you, did they?
What do you mean--for you? Did you pay them for their little attention?"
"I always send them something on Christmas," said Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just
like the postmen."
Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a titter ran round the
court room.
"Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we wish to know is
whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas
dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and
charged him with burglary by your authority?"
"I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepplewhite "Really I
didn't. I assumed that they knew what to do under such circumstances. I
didn't suppose they needed any authority from me."
Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen.
"Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to avoid responsibility?
Are you thinking of what your position will be if the defendant is
acquitted--with an action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?"
Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite almost burst into tears.
He had suffered a complete moral disintegration--did not know where to
turn for help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have risen against
him. He opened his mouth to reply, but the words would not come. He
looked appealingly at the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The
whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leering eyes. Why had God
made him a rich man? Why was he compelled to suffer those terrible
indignities? He was not responsible for what had been done--why then,
was he being treated so abominably?
"I don't want this man punished!" he suddenly broke out in fervent
expostulation. "I have nothing against him. I don't believe he intended
to do any wrong. And I hope the jury will acquit him!"
"Oho!" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien gazed at Hepplewhite
in stupefaction. _Was_ this a man?
"So you admit that the charge against my client is without foundation?"
insisted Mr. Tutt.
Hepplewhite nodded weakly.
"I don't know rightly what the charge is--but I don't think he meant any
harm," he faltered.
"Then why did you have the police put him under arrest and hale him
away?" challenged Mr. Tutt ferociously.
"I supposed they had to--if he came into my house," said Mr.
Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: "I know it sounds silly--but
frankly I did not know that I had anything to say in the matter. If your
client has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly reimburse
him as handsomely as you wish."
O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his hands and whispered toward
the bench: "Take it away, for heaven's sake!"
"That is all!" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, making an elaborate
bow in the direction of Mr. Hepplewhite. "Thank you for your excellent
intentions!"
A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged himself back to his
seat among the spectators.
He felt as though he had passed through a clothes wringer. Dimly he
heard Mr. Tutt addressing the court.
"And I move, Your Honor," the lawyer was paying, "that you take the
counts for burglary in the first, second and third degrees away from the
jury on the ground that there has been a complete failure of proof that
my client broke into the house of this man Hepplewhite either by night
or by day, or that he assaulted anybody or stole anything there, or ever
intended to."
"Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree with you, Mr. Tutt.
There is no evidence here of any breaking. In fact, the inferences are
all the other way."
"I further move that you take from the consideration of the jury the
remaining count of illegally entering the house with intent to commit a
crime and direct the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence,"
continued Mr. Tutt.
"But what was your client doing in the house?" inquired the judge. "He
had no particular business in it, had he?"
"That does not make his presence a crime, Your Honor," retorted the
lawyer. "A man is not guilty of a felony who falls asleep on my haycock.
Why should he be if he falls asleep in my bed?"
The judge smiled.
"We have no illegal entry statute with respect to fields or meadows, Mr.
Tutt," he remarked good-naturedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the
jury decide whether this defendant went into that house for an honest
or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper question for them to pass
upon. Proceed with your case."
Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, the chief witness for
the prosecution throws up his hands and offers to repay the defendant
for the wrong he has done him, naturally it is all over but the
shouting.
"There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. Tutt told the
court, "in view of the admissions made by the last witness. I am ready
to proceed with the summing up."
"As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed then."
Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepplewhite dimly heard Mr. Tutt
addressing the jury and saw them lean forward to catch his every word.
Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestingly: "May I ask why you made
those fool statements on the witness stand?"
"Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," returned Mr.
Hepplewhite tartly.
"Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. "And you'll get soaked
for about twenty thousand dollars for false arrest!"
"I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's more I hope Mr. Tutt
gets a substantial fee out of it. He strikes me as a lawyer who knows
his business!"
The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and fat that they
remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and the days when Delancey Nicoll was
the White Hope of the Brownstone Court House--declared Mr. Tutt's
summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old
lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of
the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the _vox humana_ of
pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began
by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon
tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until
all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to
hide his face behind the _Law Journal_; ridiculed the idea of a criminal
who wanted to commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed in
broad daylight; and then brought tears to their eyes as he pictured the
wretched homeless tramp, sick, footsore and starving, who, drawn by the
need of food and warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed,
arrested and jailed simply because he had violated the supposed sanctity
of a rich man's home.
The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches a piece of meat held
over its nose. They smiled with him, they wept with him, they glared at
Mr. Hepplewhite and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, whom Mr.
Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. The very stars in their
courses seemed warring for Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan: "There
was nothing to it!"
"Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that in this land of
liberty in which we are privileged to dwell no man can be convicted of a
crime except by a jury of his peers--a right sacred under our
Constitution and inherited from Magna Charta, that foundation stone of
English liberty, in which the barons forced King John to declare that
'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or
exiled, or in any way harmed ... save by the lawful judgment of his
peers or by the law of the land.'
"Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the arbitrary character of
our laws and the inequality with which they are administered.
"But in this case the chief witness has already admitted the innocence
of the defendant. There is nothing more to be said. The prosecution has
cried '_Peccavi!_' I leave my client in your hands."
He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his forehead with his silk
handkerchief. The judge looked down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows.
"I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's charge," remarked
the latter carelessly.
"Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the defendant is accused of
entering the house of Mr. Hepplewhite with the intent to commit a crime
therein--"
Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for what seemed to him
several hours. He had but one thought--to escape. His ordeal had been
far worse than he had anticipated. But he had made a discovery. He had
suddenly realized that one cannot avoid one's duties to one's fellows by
leaving one's affairs to others--not even to the police. He perceived
that he had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had tried to
escape from his responsibilities as a citizen by hiding behind the thick
walls of his stone mansion on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he
would do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, was not the
jury ever going to set the poor man free?
They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long time in order merely to
reach a verdict which was a mere formality. Ah! There they were! Mr.
Hepplewhite watched with palpitating heart while they straggled slowly
in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunctory inquiry as to what their
verdict was. Mr. Hepplewhite did not hear what the foreman said in
reply, but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their seats and
heard a loud murmur rise throughout the court room.
"What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. "What did you say,
Mister Foreman?"
"I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied the foreman calmly.
Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors who had betrayed
him.
"Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six confidentially. "You did
the best you could. Your argument was fine--grand--but nobody could ever
make us believe that your client went into that house for any purpose
except to steal whatever he could lay his hands on. Besides, it wasn't
Mr. Hepplewhite's fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that has
got to be protected against himself."
He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon the psychology of the
situation had not the judge at that moment ordered the prisoner
arraigned at the bar.
"Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His Honor sharply.
"Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. "I've done three or
four bits, I'm a burglar. But you can't give me more than a year for
illegal entry."
"That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. "And it isn't half
enough!" He hesitated. "Perhaps under the circumstances you'll tell us
what you were doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?"
"Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the superior air of one
who has put something over. "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches
coming up the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was asleep."
Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bonnie Doon.
"Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured me that fellow was only
a harmless tramp!"
"Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said."
"He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt wrathfully. "I don't
believe he knows what he is. Did you ever hear of such an outrageous
verdict? With not a scrap of evidence to support it?"
Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully.
"Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems to have sized him up
rather better than we did."
"Jury!" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heavenward. "'Sweet land of
liberty!'"
Lallapaloosa Limited
"Ethics: The doctrine of man's duty in respect to
himself and the rights of others."
--CENTURY DICTIONARY.
"I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared;
but it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently
degraded in my own estimation unless I was insulted
with a very considerable bribe."
--POOH-BAH.
"I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin informed Mr. Tutt as
he entered the office one morning, "and not a single one of them is
listed on the Stock Exchange."
"What securities are those?" asked her employer, hanging his tall hat on
the antiquated mahogany coat tree in the corner opposite the screen that
ambushed the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any securities," he
remarked as he applied a match to the off end of a particularly green
and vicious-looking stogy.
"Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss Wiggin. "Don't you
remember those great piles of bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left
here with you to keep for him?"
"Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. Barrows is not a
physician," he corrected her, running his eye over the General Sessions
calendar. "He's only a 'doc'--that is to say, one who doctors. You know
you can doctor a lot of things besides the human anatomy. No, I guess
they're not listed on the Stock Exchange or anywhere else."
"Well, here's a schedule I made of them--Miss Sondheim typed it--and
their total face value is seventeen million eight hundred thousand
dollars. I tried to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall
Street had ever heard of any of them--excepting of one that was traded
in on the curb up to within a few weeks. There's Great Lakes and
Canadian Southern Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water Front
and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado
Land Company--dozens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or,
so far as I can find out, any tangible existence--but the one I spoke
of."
"Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt absently as he
searched through the _Law Journal_ for the case he was going to try that
afternoon. "You said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You
astonish me!"
"It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost sounds as if they
meant it for a joke--Horse's Neck Extension."
"I guess they meant it for a joke all right--on the public," chuckled
her employer. "How many shares are there?"
"A hundred thousand," she answered.
"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "How on earth did old Doc
manage to get hold of them?"
"It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss Wiggin. "That would
mean ten thousand dollars--"
"If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. "Which he probably didn't.
What's it selling for now?"
"It isn't selling at all."
Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie.
"When you haven't anything better to do," he said to her, "why don't you
go round and see what has become of--of--Horse's Neck Extension?"
"I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel rich just to talk
about such things. I just love it."
"Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just that kind of feeling,"
mused Mr. Tutt. "There are two things that women--particularly trained
nurses--seem to like better than anything else in the world--babies and
stock certificates."
Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he gathered up his
papers and took down his hat from the tree.
"I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," remarked Miss
Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty cents."
"That's all you know about it, my dear," he answered. "More likely it
would cost me a hundred thousand dollars."
* * * * *
Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck, carefully
placed his cigar where it would not char his Italian Renaissance desk
and smoothed out the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The
Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, handed to him. The list
was typed on thin sheets; of foolscap and contained the names of
stockholders, but as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr.
Elderberry's desk for five years without being disturbed it was inclined
to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Greenbaum's fingers.
Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate-glass lake that separated
him from the other directors of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had
detected his associates in a crime.
"Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost insulting tone,
though below the surface he was an entirely genial person, "that the new
vein in the Amphalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck almost to
where we quit work in Number Nine five years ago."
"If it does it will make it a bonanza property," emphatically declared
his partner, Mr. Scherer, a dolichocephalous person with very black hair
and thin bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at ten
cents a share."
"We did!" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be shaken out. We've got
all the stock that hasn't gravitated to the cemeteries."
"Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it will come near
enough to make Horse's Neck worth dollars per share. It's a
heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who
controls Amphalula?"
"We do," snapped Greenbaum.
"Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake out the sleepers,
reorganize, and sell or hold as seems most advisable later on."
Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively.
"If you gentlemen will pardon me--I have been considering this matter
for some little time," he hazarded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the
professional salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treasurer
of the Amphalula, and general factotum, representative and interlocking
director for Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining
enterprises, combining in his person almost as many offices as, Pooh-Bah
in "The Mikado." Though he could not have claimed to serve as "First
Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High
Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop
of Titipu and Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one,"
he could with entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of being
simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice-president of Hooligan Gulch
and Red Water, secretary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension,
Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Nevada Mastodon, Leaping
Frog, Orelady Mine, Why Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of
Blimp Consolidated.
All these various properties were either owned or controlled by Scherer,
Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and had been acquired with the use of the same
original capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the present
moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly honorable business house,
from both their own point of view and that of the Street. Everything
they did was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one of these
active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Greenbaum, the dolichocephalous
Scherer and the acephalous Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive
work or contributed anything toward the common weal. In fact, distress
to somebody in some form, and usually to a large number of persons,
inevitably followed whatever deal they undertook, since their business
was speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad ones upon an
unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck had permitted
to deceive itself.