Leroy Scott - Counsel for the Defense

She stood quivering, gasping, while he crossed to the door. As his hand fell upon the knob she sprang forward.

“Wait!” she cried. “Wait! He has a lawyer!”

He paused.

“Indeed! And whom?”

“One who is going to make you take back every cowardly word you have printed!”

“Who is it, Katherine?” It was her father who spoke.

She turned. Doctor West had raised his head, and in his eyes was an eager, hopeful light. She bent over him and slipped an arm about his shoulders.

“Father dear,” she quavered, “since we can get no one else, will you take me?”

“Take you?” he exclaimed.

“Because,” she quavered on, “whether you will or not, I’m going to stay in Westville and be your lawyer.”

For a long space after Bruce had gone Katherine sat quiveringly upon the old haircloth sofa beside her father, holding his hands tightly, caressingly. Her words tumbled hotly from her lips – words of love of him – of resentment of the injustice which he suffered – and, fiercest of all, of wrath against Editor Bruce, who had so ruthlessly, and for such selfish ends, incited the popular feeling against him. She would make such a fight as Westville had never seen! She would show those lawyers who had been reduced to cowards by Bruce’s demagogy! She would bring the town humiliated to her father’s feet!

But emotion has not only peaks, but plains, and dark valleys. As she cooled and her passion descended to a less exalted level, she began to see the difficulties of, and her unfitness for, the rôle she had so impulsively accepted. An uneasiness for the future crept upon her. As she had told Mr. Blake, she had never handled a case in court. True, she had been a member of the bar for two years, but her duties with the Municipal League had consisted almost entirely in working up evidence in cases of municipal corruption for the use of her legal superiors. An untried lawyer, and a woman lawyer at that – surely a weak reed for her father to lean upon!

But she had thrown down the gage of battle; she had to fight, since there was no other champion; and even in this hour of emotion, when tears were so plenteous and every word was accompanied by a caress, she began to plan the preliminaries of her struggle.

“I shall write to-night to the league for a leave of absence,” she said. “One of the things I must see to at once is to get admitted to the state bar. Do you know when your case is to come up?”

“It has been put over to the September term of court.”

“That gives me four months.”

She was silently thoughtful for a space. “I’ve got to work hard, hard! upon your case. As I see it now, I am inclined to agree with you that the situation has arisen from a misunderstanding – that the agent thought you expected a bribe, and that you thought the bribe a small donation to the hospital.”

“I’m certain that’s how it is,” said her father.

“Then the thing to do is to see Doctor Sherman, and if possible the agent, have them repeat their testimony and try to search out in it the clue to the mistake. And that I shall see to at once.”

Five minutes later Katherine left the house. After walking ten minutes through the quiet, maple-shaded back streets she reached the Wabash Avenue Church, whose rather ponderous pile of Bedford stone was the most ambitious and most frequented place of worship in Westville, and whose bulk was being added to by a lecture room now rising against its side.

Katherine went up a gravelled walk toward a cottage that stood beneath the church’s shadow. The house’s front was covered with a wide-spreading rose vine, a tapestry of rich green which June would gorgeously embroider with sprays of heart-red roses. The cottage looked what Katherine knew it was, a bower of lovers.

Her ring was answered by a fair, fragile young woman whose eyes were the colour of faith and loyalty. A faint colour crept into the young woman’s pale cheeks.

“Why – Katherine – why – why – I don’t know what you think of us, but – but – ” She could stammer out no more, but stood in the doorway in distressed uncertainty.

Katherine’s answer was to stretch out her arms. “Elsie!” Instantly the two old friends were in a close embrace.

“I haven’t slept, Katherine,” sobbed Mrs. Sherman, “for thinking of what you would think – ”

“I think that, whatever has happened, I love you just the same.”

“Thank you for saying it, Katherine.” Mrs. Sherman gazed at her in tearful gratitude. “I can’t tell you how we have suffered over this – this affair. Oh, if you only knew!”

It was instinctive with Katherine to soothe the pain of others, though suffering herself. “I am certain Doctor Sherman acted from the highest motives,” she assured the young wife. “So say no more about it.”

They had entered the little sitting-room, hung with soft white muslin curtains. “But at the same time, Elsie, I cannot believe my father guilty,” Katherine went on. “And though I honour your husband, why, even the noblest man can be mistaken. My hope of proving my father’s innocence is based on the belief that Doctor Sherman may somehow have made a mistake. At any rate, I’d like to talk over his evidence with him.”

“He’s trying to work on his sermon, though he’s too worn to think. I’ll bring him right in.”

She passed through a door into the study, and a moment later reëntered with Doctor Sherman. The present meeting would have been painful to an ordinary person; doubly so was it to such a hyper-sensitive nature. The young clergyman stood hesitant just within the doorway, his usual pallor greatly deepened, his thin fingers intertwisted – in doubt how to greet Katherine till she stretched out her hand to him.

“I want you to understand, Katherine dear,” little Mrs. Sherman put in quickly, with a look of adoration at her husband, “that Edgar reached the decision to take the action he did only after days of agony. You know, Katherine, Doctor West was always as kind to me as another father, and I loved him almost like one. At first I begged Edgar not to do anything. Edgar walked the floor for nights – suffering! – oh, how you suffered, Edgar!”

“Isn’t it a little incongruous,” said Doctor Sherman, smiling wanly at her, “for the instrument that struck the blow to complain, in the presence of the victim, of his suffering?”

“But I want her to know it!” persisted the wife. “She must know it to do you justice, dear! It seemed at first disloyal – but finally Edgar decided that his duty to the city – ”

“Please say no more, Elsie.” Katherine turned to the pale young minister. “Doctor Sherman, I have not come to utter one single word of recrimination. I have come merely to ask you to tell me all you know about the case.”

“I shall be glad to do so.”

“And could I also talk with Mr. Marcy, the agent?”

“He has left the city, and will not return till the trial.”

Katherine was disappointed by this news. Doctor Sherman, though obviously pained by the task, rehearsed in minutest detail the charges he had made against Doctor West, which charges he would later have to repeat upon the witness stand. Also he recounted Mr. Marcy’s story. Katherine scrutinized every point in these two stories for the loose end, the loop-hole, the flaw, she had thought to find. But flaw there was none. The stories were perfectly straightforward.

Katherine walked slowly away, still going over and over Doctor Sherman’s testimony. Doctor Sherman was telling the indubitable truth – yet her father was indubitably innocent. It was a puzzling case, this her first case – a puzzling, most puzzling case.