John Baer - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5 — August 1922)

“This,” he said, briefly.

Necks were craned in his direction. The jurymen leaned forward in their seats, and the judge adjusted his spectacles. The prosecuting attorney stared at the object with a frown, half of annoyance, half of contempt — then transferred his gaze to the face of his opponent, who sat slumped in his chair, seemingly the least interested of anybody.

The prisoner and the girl exchanged glances.

The tension was broken by the Colonel saying in his soft, crooning voice:

“Please tell the court where you found that — pigeon’s feather, Dr. Shale.”

“I found it imbedded in the dead man’s brain, three inches below the skull.”

“That’ll be all, Doctor, thanks,” counsel said.

When the witness returned to his seat he leaned over and laid the feather upon the table beside the prisoner’s counsel. The colonel picked it up and placed it upon his blotter in plain sight of the court.

The prosecuting attorney scowled at Dr. Shale. The coroner’s verdict had been: “Death from blow upon the head. Cause unknown.” He had refused point-blank to return an indictment for murder upon the evidence submitted, so Attorney Warren had gone ahead on his own account.

“Pigeon’s feather!” he scoffed. “Nothing of the sort! Swallow’s feather, that’s what it is.”

“I beg your pardon?” There was irritation in the colonel’s voice for the first time. “It’s a pigeon’s feather.”

The jurymen looked at one another. Most of them knew a pigeon’s feather when they saw one and all of them were positive that the object on the colonel’s blotter — a slim, steel-blue feather — was not a pigeon’s.

A cynical smile played about the corners of the prosecutor’s thin lips.

“If you expect to win this case on ornithological decisions, you’d better take a week off and study up on the subject, Melvin Edgerly,” he sneered. “I’ll stake my reputation, legal and otherwise, that the feather on your blotter is a swallow’s feather. I think I know what I’m talking about. I didn’t get my degree in ornithology at Standford for nothing.”

“That’s so,” the colonel admitted, suddenly. “I remember now, you used to be bugs on birds’ nests, and eggs, and things, when you were a kid, Warren.”

“It was my hobby, if that’s what you mean,” the prosecutor replied, stiffly.

The colonel might have observed here that robbing the nests of inoffensive songsters for the purpose of studying them was more of a cruelty than a hobby, but he forebore. Instead he leaned forward in his chair, and, fastening his china blue eyes on the prosecutor’s face, said calmly:

“For the purpose of securing expert testimony on a question of ornithology, I hereby subpoena you, Robert Warren, as a witness for the defense. Take the stand, please.”

The prosecutor’s jaw dropped.

“What!”

He looked about him appealingly, at this unheard of procedure.

“It’s unethical, I know, Warren,” the colonel sighed, deprecatingly, “but I’m within my rights.” He turned to the judge. “How about it, your Honor?” he asked.

“I–I suppose so, Colonel,” the judge replied, helplessly, “but — but—” he ended lamely.

“I won’t — be made a monkey of before the court,” the prosecutor stormed, shaking his fist at the colonel. “I refuse—!”

“Gentle — men!” the judge admonished. He turned to the outraged attorney. “Better take the stand, Warren, before I’m forced to fine you for contempt of court.”

“All right—!” the attorney snapped, subsiding.

He stalked to the witness chair, suffered himself to be sworn in, then shot his opponent a baleful glance. The colonel looked up, blandly, and handed him the feather.

“Please tell the court in your own terms — scientific terms — if you wish, how you know that this is a swallow’s feather.”

The witness cleared his throat, and pulled himself together.

For three minutes steady he explained to the court how he knew that the feather in his hand was a swallow’s feather. Warming up to his subject, he forgot, momentarily, his anger at his opponent’s unethical conduct. He went into details about the differences between the feathers of birds of prey and those of song-birds, and the comparative wing-power of the different species. He even touched upon the subject of protective coloration.

When he was through there was not a man in the court-room who doubted for a moment that the feather in his hand was a swallow’s feather, and when the prisoner’s attorney excused him he went back to his table conscious of having won another victory over the defense.

He replaced the feather upon his own table beside the bronze bust and sat down. A smile rode across his heavy jowl. A verdict of guilty seemed a foregone conclusion, now. By his rambling digressions the prisoner’s counsel had strengthened the case of the State, instead of weakening it, and now the counsel seemed to realize it for the first time. He sat slumped back in his chair with his stubby fingers interlocked across his loose-fitting vest, his putty-like face sunk deep in apparent gloom.

Only his china blue eyes were alert. Those who sat near him noted the odd, veiled look that had crept into them.

“Please proceed, Colonel.”

The judge’s voice roused him to action. Running his hand into his pocket, he pulled out an old thumb-marked note-book, opened it and took from it a feather identical with the one on the prosecutor’s table. Leaning over he laid the second feather beside the first one.

“I took this one from a swallow’s nest under the eaves of Sargent’s house just above my client’s window,” he said, in a flat, colorless tone, as if it concerned no one.

The jurymen looked at one another, then at their foreman. They sensed that something momentous was about to be presented to them. The colonel glanced their way, but not at them. He seemed to be regarding some point above their heads, beyond them.

“Upon one of the wooden brackets supporting the eaves, I found a deep gouge, torn out of the soft redwood by some hard object striking it.” His voice rose to a slightly sharper pitch as he went on. “The bracket is two feet above my client’s window and four feet below the lowest point of the eaves.”

Arising, he walked to the window near the judge’s bench, opened it and ran down the upper sash. The window was in direct line of vision of the jurymen. Pulling an old-fashioned Colts forty-five from his pocket, he raised the pistol and fired it upward through the half-open sash.

The entire court-room was on its feet before the report had died away. The judge towered, menacingly, above the man who had dared to disturb the tranquillity of his court in such an unheard of manner. His eyes were flashing, but they grew wide with amazement when a heavy, transparent object shot by the window and struck the cement pavement outside, with a report louder than the discharge of the pistol.

Judge, prosecutor and jury crowded about the window and looked out. Upon the sidewalk under the window lay the shattered remains of a huge icicle.

The counsel for the defense was speaking. His voice was no longer flat, nor colorless, nor even drawling.

“The feather which my learned colleague so obligingly and correctly classified as a swallow’s feather became frozen to the point of a giant icicle that dropped from the eaves near the swallow’s nest, and struck Old Sargent on the head, killing him instantly. The icicle in its downward course struck the redwood bracket, hence the gouge in the wood. The feather was driven three inches into Sargent’s head by the force of the impact. The strong thaw which dislodged the icicle melted it away by morning, thus obliterating completely the weapon — if I may term it a weapon — by which Mr. Sargent met his death. I ask the court to instruct the jury for acquittal.”