Lightnin'

Hammond hesitated. He had been in Thomas's office several times while Millie was employed there, and, though he had not met her, it was more than likely that she had seen him. The moment was dangerous.

"No, I don't think I had ever met them before," he said, slowly.

"All right," said Marvin, nodding his head complacently and going closer to the witness-stand.

"Mr. Hammond," he went on, "you have told the court that Mr. Jones was a lawbreaker."

Hammond fairly jumped to this question. "Yes," he flared. "You were a fugitive from justice and Jones was harboring you in his house."

Marvin smiled. "Didn't you just testify that Mrs. Jones was the sole owner of that house? That being so, how could Mr. Jones harbor a fugitive in his house, if he didn't own a house?"

Caught in his own net, Hammond twisted angrily in his chair, reddening as the spectators laughed and the sheriff pounded for order.

"Well, I don't suppose he could," he blurted.

"Then you will withdraw the statement that he broke the law?"

"Yes, I withdraw it," Hammond drawled.

Bill got up smiling from his chair and went over to Marvin, patting him proudly on the shoulder; but a look from the judge and a snarl from Blodgett sent him back again.

Marvin continued. "Now, up to the time you met Mr. Jones you did not know anything about him, did you?"

Hammond shrugged, drawing his mouth into an angry curve. "Of course not, but it didn't take me long to find out about him."

Marvin gave the arm of the witness-chair two angry thumps. "I agree with you there, Mr. Hammond," he said. "Eight hours after you first saw Mr. Jones he was driven from his house and you have never set eyes on him since. Yet you have testified that he is a drunkard, a loafer, a liar, and a lawbreaker!"

Hammond, startled at the swiftness with which Marvin had turned his testimony to profit, shrugged himself into a straight position. "Well, it didn't take me one hour to see what Jones was," he said.

Marvin nodded with half-closed eyes at Hammond and smiled reassuringly at Bill. "You also said he was cruel to his wife?"

Hammond nodded.

"In what way?"

Hammond hesitated, moving uneasily from side to side. "Well," he snarled, "his manner was insulting. He criticized the dress she was wearing before the other guests."

This amused the court-room, which in turn had to be quieted. "And do you think the claim of intolerable cruelty is substantiated by a husband's criticizing his wife's dress?" asked Marvin, smiling.

Thomas arose at once. "I object to that question," he said, his lips twitching and his face livid from disappointment and fear of what was coming next.

"I should think you would!" Marvin said, laughing.

The objection sustained, he went at his witness again. "You testified that Mr. Jones was a drunkard and that you had never seen him sober?"

"I never have," emphasized Hammond, insolently.

Going to the table, Marvin took Bill by the arm, assisted him to his feet and guided him into the middle of the court-room until he stood before the witness-stand. Then he asked of Hammond, motioning with his head toward Bill, "Is he drunk now?"

Bill stood quietly, a quizzical smile half closing his eyes, half opening his mouth.

Hammond, infuriated, swallowed in order to control himself, and then blurted with a disgusted shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know."

Having fulfilled Marvin's intention, Bill took his seat again and the cross-examination was resumed.

"If you don't know whether he is drunk or not now, how did you know the other time when you saw him?"

Hammond gazed fiercely into space, replying, finally, "Oh, it was plain enough then!"

Seeing that Hammond was ruffled and that he was also confused, Marvin felt that the time was now right to bring forth by a few swift, well-put questions the full purpose of Hammond and Thomas in bringing about the divorce between Bill and Mrs. Jones.

"It was not possible for you to get a good title to the property unless Mr. Jones signed the deed?" he asked.

At once Thomas was on his feet, objecting.

On Marvin's explanation that the complaint charged intoxication and that his question had a direct bearing on that point, the judge overruled the objection and Thomas took his seat again.

Not discerning the trap that Marvin had set for him, Hammond turned to the judge and said, in more even tones: "I don't mind answering in the least. The property belonged entirely to Mrs. Jones, but the husband's signature was wanted on the deed."

"And he refused to sign it?" Marvin's question came back.

"Yes," Hammond sneered, "after you told him not to."

Marvin once more challenged Hammond's soul with the searchlight of his own straightforward eye. "Was he drunk then?" he asked.

Hammond paused, then shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I think he was."

"I am not asking you what you think," Marvin remarked. "You said under oath that you never saw him sober. Was he drunk when he refused to sign that deed?"

"Yes, he was!" Hammond reiterated, quickly.

"And you tried to induce him to sign such an important document as that when he was drunk?" Marvin asked the question in a slow, concise tone and looked up at the judge to gather the impression made by Hammond's evident duplicity.

The deep water into which Hammond had walked was making itself felt and he tried to wade toward shore.

"I never tried to get him to sign! He didn't sign it!" he snapped.

"No, he wasn't drunk enough for that! He wasn't drunk at all. He was as sober as he is at this moment!"

"You mean to call me a liar?" Hammond, his red neck swelling over the top of his collar, and his small, close-together black eyes flashing angrily, got up and made a threatening move toward his questioner.

Marvin, although much smaller, did not flinch. "No, I mean to prove it," he answered.

Judge Townsend made a quieting gesture to Hammond, who sat down in the witness-chair again as Marvin went on with his rapid-fire.

"Now you called Mr. Jones a liar, didn't you?"

"Yes," was Hammond's gruff reply. "And everybody who knows him says the same thing!"

"Oh," said Marvin, with a shake of his head. "So you testified that he was a liar because you heard others say so?"

"No," jerked Hammond, "he lied to me."

"What did he tell you that was untrue?"

"Everything," said Hammond.

"Can you repeat one lie that Mr. Jones told you?"

"Oh, he told me so many," was the impatient reply, "I can't recall them. Oh yes," after a pause, "he said he drove a swarm of bees across the plains in the dead of winter."

Bill, who was facing him, and who had not taken his eyes from him, burst into a loud laugh, the whole court-room, even to the judge, following suit, while Marvin raised his voice above the uproar to ask, "Now, how do you know that is a lie?"

"Why, I know the thing is impossible!" Hammond said, contemptuously.

"Why?"

"It's all nonsense," sneered Hammond, with an angry gesture.

"That is precisely what it is, Mr. Hammond, and that is just what Mr. Jones meant it to be! What else did he say?"

"What's the difference?" asked Hammond. "You admit it's all nonsense."

"Not all, Mr. Hammond." Marvin raised his voice and he looked searchingly at the judge. "He said at least one thing that was not nonsense. He said to his wife, 'Mother, these two men are trying to rob you.' Do you remember that, Mr. Hammond? You were all there. Do you remember that he said you and Mr. Thomas were trying to rob Mrs. Jones?"

In order to make his question more impressive, Marvin nodded at Hammond and pointed to Mr. Thomas, and then directed a glance toward Mrs. Jones. Her hands were still folded in her lap and her head bent toward them.

Everett Hammond, his face purple with rage, shouted at Marvin, "I don't propose to sit here and be insulted by a criminal like you!"

Thomas, too, had risen and come forward. Standing on the other side of Marvin and looking down upon him, he exclaimed, with quivering, blue lips: "This is insufferable, your Honor! This gentleman has come here to give disinterested testimony, as a favor, and he is subjected to the insults – "

Judge Townsend interrupted him calmly: "I think the defense has brought out quite clearly that this witness's testimony is not disinterested. This divorce has got to be obtained to give him a deed to the Jones property, hasn't it?"

Thomas grew conciliatory, endeavoring to impress upon the judge that the property sale had nothing to do, at all, with the testimony of Hammond.

"Well, I wouldn't call him exactly disinterested," responded Townsend, with a wise glance.

"Nevertheless, your Honor, I protest against this man's insulting manner," Thomas shouted. "How it is possible for such a person, a person who even now ought to be serving a jail sentence, to be admitted to the bar, I can't see!" He backed to his chair and sat down, taking up a book and slamming it back on the table.

Until now Marvin had been complete master of the situation, but Thomas's last words drove the blood from his face and he grew troubled as he looked up at the judge and then away and out through the window into space. There had been something on his mind, but he had been able to keep it in the background because of Bill's predicament. And now it came to the surface again.

Townsend studied Marvin intently for several moments and then he asked, quietly, "You are an attorney in good standing, are you not?"

At the judge's question, Thomas got up and looked down upon Marvin, in insolent inquiry.

Marvin did not answer at once; then he walked over to the judge's bench and with his head bowed said, "No, your Honor, I am not."

"Do you mean to say that you are not a member of the bar?" There was surprise and injured dignity and at the same time a strong savor of pity in Lem Townsend's voice.

Thomas and Hammond exchanged smiles of triumph, the former advancing to a place by Marvin's side in front of the judge.

The horror in Millie's face told Marvin that her last shred of consideration for him had been torn away.

Bill alone held faith, smiling encouragement at the lad who had been his only friend when his hour was at its worst.

With eyes on the ground, slowly, and in low voice, Marvin explained, "No, I have never been admitted to the bar, your Honor. But Mr. Jones had taken a long journey from the Soldiers' Home, on his own account and at his own expense, to testify in my case. When, without warning, this action for divorce was called, I knew it was a conspiracy." The injustice accorded Bill drew Marvin from himself again. Pointing at Hammond and Thomas, he raised his voice. "I knew that these two conspirators – "

Thomas interrupted him by jumping from his seat and making a menace with his right arm.

"Sit down, Mr. Thomas," Townsend commanded. "I will attend to this. You are making a very serious charge, Mr. Marvin, and if you believe you can substantiate it you will find the courts open to you. In the mean time you must be aware that you had no right whatever to undertake the trial of this case under the guise of being an attorney. You are guilty of a reprehensible act, and if I did not believe there were mitigating circumstances I would punish you most severely for contempt of court." He ordered the stenographer to strike out all of the cross-examination.

"Mr. Thomas," he asked, "have you finished with your witness?"

"If the cross-examination is to be stricken out, I will not take up the court's time with any redirect testimony. We have had enough," Thomas said.

Hammond got up and shook himself as if he were rid of a heavy burden; but as he walked from the stand Marvin made one more plea. "One moment, please, your Honor," he asked. "Before the witness is excused – "

Townsend interrupted him. "You have no standing in this court, young man. If you wish to remain, you may take a seat on the visitors' bench," and he pointed to a vacant seat just outside of the railing.

If there was one person in the court-room who was pleased at that moment, it was Blodgett. He arose, caressing his mustache, and opened the gate.

"This way," he called out, giving an overbearing wave of his hand.

As he came to the gate, Marvin stopped. He was thinking hard. It did not seem right that Bill should be left alone to fight his way with those two keen schemers. He knew that Lem Townsend would look after Lightnin' in so far as he could justifiably do so, but the figure of the lonely old man, smiling complacently in the midst of his trouble, touched Marvin deeply, and he delved into his mind in an effort to find a way to help him.

Then, unexpectedly, Lightnin' solved the problem. Getting to his feet, he stood quietly before the bench, looking up at Townsend with an odd excitement in his eyes.

"Your Honor," he asked, in his usual drawl, "a defendant has the right to plead his own case, ain't he?"

"Yes, he has," Townsend replied, with a nod.

"Well," said Bill, "I guess I'll plead this case myself!"

Marvin hesitated. He had thought of this himself, of course, but had dismissed the idea, not feeling quite sure as to the advisability of it. Now, however, the deed was done. Quickly he put an arm over Bill's shoulder and led him beside the witness-stand, where Hammond still sat. Bill looked up at Townsend and smiled.

"It's all right, Judge," he remarked, with his humorous twinkle. "I was a lawyer once!"

CHAPTER XVIII

The court-room fairly seethed with interest. The crowd was smiling, amused; but, under the surface smile, every face reflected a strong sympathy for the quaint old figure standing there, about to fight his own battle. As Bill turned to conduct his case, Blodgett took Marvin by the arm.

"You come out here!" he commanded, roughly.

Marvin pulled his arm free and appealed to the judge.

"I am a witness for the defense, your Honor," he said.

"Then you may remain where you are," replied Townsend, with a nod. He looked at Lightnin'. "Examine your witness," he directed.

For a moment Lightnin' stood in front of the frowning man in the chair and silently inspected him with humorous interest, from the top of his sleek, pomaded head to the gleaming toes of his immaculate boots.

"Looks kinder all polished up, don't he?" Bill remarked.

The noise of the general laughter and the pounding of the sheriff's gavel seemed to distract Townsend's attention; anyway, he uttered no objection when Marvin slipped from his place among the witnesses and dropped into his former chair directly behind Bill. Looking up at Townsend, Lightnin' resumed:

"The things Marvin asked him were all right, your Honor," he said. Then, with a terse but rather humorous shrug, he addressed Hammond, "Answer 'em!"

"You mean the testimony he has already given will stand?" asked the judge.

"I got a right to ask 'em again, 'ain't I?" questioned Bill.

Townsend nodded. Hammond could much better stand the young and impatient manner of John Marvin than he could the wise humor of Bill. He grew red and shifted in his chair angrily, asking the judge:

"Do I have to go all over that, your Honor?"

"Would your replies be the same?" Townsend's eyes as well as his question begged Hammond for the answer and he was not comfortable. But there was nothing else for him to do, and after a moment's hesitation, in which he lowered his lids to avoid the judge's scrutiny, he replied:

"Certainly."

The cross-examination reinstated, Hammond for the fourth time started to leave the stand. Bill held up his hand and snapped in a determined tone, but with a smile playing among the wrinkles of his face:

"Hold on! I got some more for you!"

His victim threw himself back into the chair with a shrug and a sneer as he gave his head an irate shake.

"Mr. Hammond," Bill went on, "when you went after Mr. Marvin with the sheriff, what was the charge against him?"

Hammond answered, with a ready enthusiasm, "Trespassing on the property of the Pacific Railroad Company."

Bill nodded his head and said:

"Uh, ha."

He assumed an air of wisdom and raised his voice to the pitch that it seldom knew, but to have the floor again after so many months was having its effect upon him and he was taking the task in the same way and with the same glee as if it were the opportunity for telling a good story.

"If he was on their property," he began – then he seemed to forget what it was he was going to ask. He turned to Marvin in whispered conference. The unusual character of his procedure did not affect Lemuel Townsend, who was anxious to give the old man his full chance.

His way evidently made clearer by Marvin's advice, Bill sauntered slowly back to Hammond.

"If he was on the railroad's property, what did you have to do with it?" he asked.

"Oh, that's easy enough!" said Hammond, nonchalantly crossing one leg over the other. "I went at the request of the president of the road."

Bill grinned. "You sold the railroad the land he was trespassing on, didn't you?"

Thomas broke in with an endeavor to show that the question was irrelevant, but Townsend, knowing Bill's natural acumen, felt that the question did have some real connection with the case.

"Mr. Thomas," he said, "you and your witness have been accused of conspiracy. If I were you, I would allow him to answer Mr. Jones."

Thomas knew that he was sparring for his life and he didn't intend to let the question get by if he could help it, so he tried another subterfuge.

"Your Honor," he deplored, his voice hoarse with anger, "I don't propose to defend the witness and myself from such a ridiculous charge at this time. We are not on trial. This is a divorce action." He glared at Marvin, pulling his cuffs angrily, in a way that he had, down over his wrists.

But the judge's opinion was unchanged. "If there is any conspiracy about this action, the court wants to know it. Answer the question."

With an insulting drawl, Hammond did as he was bid.

"I purchased the property for the railroad, acting as their agent."

"Who did you buy it from?" Bill snapped.

"Mr. Thomas."

"When did you buy it?" asked Bill.

"About ten months ago."

Bill's shoulders straightened at Hammond's reply and he drew himself together with a quick shrug, taking a swift step forward and peering into Hammond's face.

"That was three months before you bought mother's place?" he asked.

"Yes," jerked Hammond, sulkily.

"Then, why did you say you had never met him until you met him at the hotel?"

Hammond started, alarm in the quick glance that traveled from Bill to Raymond Thomas. He realized he had overstepped himself. Thinking the better plan would be to brave it out, he bellowed:

"Because I never did!"

Bill smiled at him and said, in his slow, gentle monotone:

"You bought all that land of him and never saw him about it?" He looked up at the judge and laughed. "And he called me a liar!"

Hammond got up, but Bill detained him. "Don't go away," he admonished, with a jaunty toss of his head. "We got some more for you, 'ain't we?" and he looked at Marvin, who smiled in approval. "I've got a good one for him!" Bill went on.

"You know the railroad company leased the waterfall on mother's place and put a power-plant there?"

"I believe they have," said Hammond, impatiently.

"And you know that the railroad pays you more for that lease in a month than you agreed to give mother in a year?"

It was a surprise to Hammond, and evidently to Marvin, too, that Bill should know anything of the details of either the lease of the railroad company or of what payment had been promised to Mrs. Jones. A great light flashed on Marvin – obviously Bill Jones had not been altogether wasting his time during his prolonged disappearance! Hammond, beginning to suspect that Bill knew more than he had been given credit for, decided that ignorance was the best stand to take.

"How should I know the petty details of the railroad's lease?" he said.

"How should you know?" echoed Bill, his voice raised, unwontedly clear and ringing. "Didn't the railroad lease the waterfall from a bum concern called the Golden Gate Land Company? Didn't you, actin' for the Golden Gate Company, put through the deal? Don't you know that the Golden Gate Land Company is controlled by yourself and Raymond Thomas – ain't you and Thomas the whole works o' that – "

Thomas was on his feet with an objection, but the judge had no opportunity to overrule it, for Bill had something to say and he was going to say it. He lifted his voice above that of Thomas, calling out and waving his arms violently in an excitement he had never known before.

"And all your stocks in the name of rummies?"

His eyes twinkled as Marvin came up to him and whispered. Again waving his arms, Bill shouted:

"Dummies, I mean – dummies!"

Thomas had been tried to the point of despair. There was a lump in his throat as he beseeched the judge:

"I protest against this!"

The judge interrupted him. "I am beginning to believe in this plot story."

"Then let him go on," was Bill's agreeable reply.

Hammond jumped up out of his chair and descended from the witness-stand.

"Your Honor," he said, in an angry tone, "I absolutely refuse to submit to this any longer – to stand here and be made to look like a criminal!"

Bill could not withstand the chance for another quip and he smiled at his antagonist. "Well, you look natural," he remarked.

"Do you expect me to stand for this?" Hammond stormed.

"Sit down, if you want to," said Bill, restored to his old nonchalance. "I'm through with you," and he turned his back on Hammond and went over to Marvin.

Thomas, keyed to a high pitch, knew that something must be done at once, for he saw that not only the Jones case was crumbling, but he sensed trouble ahead in his afternoon's venture, so he resorted to Everett Hammond's tactics of placing the matter in an absurd light.

"All this ridiculous testimony," he argued, "has no possible connection with the case in point, but I propose to prove that all the accusations against the witness and myself are not only groundless but absolutely malicious, and I shall do this at the first opportunity."

Unable to stand the situation any longer, he went back and took his seat.

Marvin had sat quiet all through this controversy. Now he forgot the judge's admonition as to his place in the case. He got up, stating to the judge:

"Your Honor, Mr. Thomas will have that opportunity at two o'clock this afternoon, when the Pacific Railroad's action against me comes before the court. At that time I will submit documentary proof that these men control the Golden Gate Land Company and have been buying up all the land wanted by the Pacific Railroad. I will submit to the court twenty cases where the Golden Gate Land Company has swindled innocent farmers out of their property and paid them with worthless stock. I will prove to the court – "

"Just a moment, Mr. Marvin," Townsend stopped him. "It will be most interesting for you to prove your statements at two o'clock; but in the mean time I must warn you again that you are not a party to this divorce action and have no standing as an attorney in this court."

Marvin bowed to the ruling and retired quietly to his seat. He stared calmly at Thomas, seeming to have no fear that he had prematurely revealed his own case and that his opponents might have an opportunity to take advantage of his statements.

"If the defense wishes you for a witness, Mr. Marvin," said Townsend, "you may be sworn."

Bill was on his feet again and, turning to the judge, said: "I don't need no witness! I didn't know nothing about it at all until I got here, but I've been thinking it over ever since and I have made up my mind that mother's right. If mother can prove them things they read," and he nodded toward the clerk, "she could get a divorce, couldn't she?"

Townsend replied in the affirmative. Bill smiled sadly and, glancing at Mrs. Jones, who was crying as if her heart would break, he went on, "Well, I can prove them for her."

"You can prove them?" Townsend asked, in surprise.

"Oh yes," said Bill, with a flash of humor. "I used to be a judge."

He stood still in the middle of the floor and looked into space for a moment. He was a dejected figure as the humor that was his habit left him and he stood there deserted by all but Marvin. But it was not his way to remain an object of pity, either to himself or to anybody else, and with a slight shrug he straightened and looked the judge in the eye. Placing his hand in front of him, he tolled off the first count on the thumb of his right hand.