_ In the meanwhile the day of Cowperwood's trial was drawing near.
He was under the impression that an attempt was going to be made
to convict him whether the facts warranted it or not. He did
not see any way out of his dilemma, however, unless it was to
abandon everything and leave Philadelphia for good, which was
impossible. The only way to guard his future and retain his
financial friends was to stand trial as quickly as possible, and
trust them to assist him to his feet in the future in case he
failed. He discussed the possibilities of an unfair trial with
Steger, who did not seem to think that there was so much to that.
In the first place, a jury could not easily be suborned by any one.
In the next place, most judges were honest, in spite of their
political cleavage, and would go no further than party bias would
lead them in their rulings and opinions, which was, in the main,
not so far. The particular judge who was to sit in this case, one
Wilbur Payderson, of the Court of Quarter Sessions, was a strict
party nominee, and as such beholden to Mollenhauer, Simpson, and
Butler; but, in so far as Steger had ever heard, he was an honest
man.
"What I can't understand," said Steger, "is why these fellows
should be so anxious to punish you, unless it is for the effect
on the State at large. The election's over. I understand there's
a movement on now to get Stener out in case he is convicted, which
he will be. They have to try him. He won't go up for more than
a year, or two or three, and if he does he'll be pardoned out in
half the time or less. It would be the same in your case, if you
were convicted. They couldn't keep you in and let him out. But
it will never get that far--take my word for it. We'll win before
a jury, or we'll reverse the judgment of conviction before the
State Supreme Court, certain. Those five judges up there are not
going to sustain any such poppycock idea as this."
Steger actually believed what he said, and Cowperwood was pleased.
Thus far the young lawyer had done excellently well in all of his
cases. Still, he did not like the idea of being hunted down by
Butler. It was a serious matter, and one of which Steger was
totally unaware. Cowperwood could never quite forget that in
listening to his lawyer's optimistic assurances.
The actual beginning of the trial found almost all of the inhabitants
of this city of six hundred thousand "keyed up." None of the
women of Cowperwood's family were coming into court. He had
insisted that there should be no family demonstration for the
newspapers to comment upon. His father was coming, for he might
be needed as a witness. Aileen had written him the afternoon
before saying she had returned from West Chester and wishing him
luck. She was so anxious to know what was to become of him that
she could not stay away any longer and had returned--not to go
to the courtroom, for he did not want her to do that, but to be
as near as possible when his fate was decided, adversely or otherwise.
She wanted to run and congratulate him if he won, or to console
with him if he lost. She felt that her return would be likely to
precipitate a collision with her father, but she could not help that.
The position of Mrs. Cowperwood was most anomalous. She had to
go through the formality of seeming affectionate and tender, even
when she knew that Frank did not want her to be. He felt
instinctively now that she knew of Aileen. He was merely awaiting
the proper hour in which to spread the whole matter before her.
She put her arms around him at the door on the fateful morning,
in the somewhat formal manner into which they had dropped these
later years, and for a moment, even though she was keenly aware
of his difficulties, she could not kiss him. He did not want to
kiss her, but he did not show it. She did kiss him, though, and
added: "Oh, I do hope things come out all right."
"You needn't worry about that, I think, Lillian," he replied,
buoyantly. "I'll be all right."
He ran down the steps and walked out on Girard Avenue to his former
car line, where he bearded a car. He was thinking of Aileen and
how keenly she was feeling for him, and what a mockery his married
life now was, and whether he would face a sensible jury, and so
on and so forth. If he didn't--if he didn't--this day was crucial!
He stepped off the car at Third and Market and hurried to his
office. Steger was already there. "Well, Harper," observed
Cowperwood, courageously, "today's the day."
The Court of Quarter Sessions, Part I, where this trial was to take
place, was held in famous Independence Hall, at Sixth and Chestnut
Streets, which was at this time, as it had been for all of a century
before, the center of local executive and judicial life. It was a
low two-story building of red brick, with a white wooden central
tower of old Dutch and English derivation, compounded of the square,
the circle, and the octagon. The total structure consisted of a
central portion and two T-shaped wings lying to the right and left,
whose small, oval-topped old-fashioned windows and doors were set
with those many-paned sashes so much admired by those who love
what is known as Colonial architecture. Here, and in an addition
known as State House Row (since torn down), which extended from
the rear of the building toward Walnut Street, were located the
offices of the mayor, the chief of police, the city treasurer, the
chambers of council, and all the other important and executive
offices of the city, together with the four branches of Quarter
Sessions, which sat to hear the growing docket of criminal cases.
The mammoth city hall which was subsequently completed at Broad
and Market Streets was then building.
An attempt had been made to improve the reasonably large courtrooms
by putting in them raised platforms of dark walnut surmounted by
large, dark walnut desks, behind which the judges sat; but the
attempt was not very successful. The desks, jury-boxes, and
railings generally were made too large, and so the general effect
was one of disproportion. A cream-colored wall had been thought
the appropriate thing to go with black walnut furniture, but time
and dust had made the combination dreary. There were no pictures
or ornaments of any kind, save the stalky, over-elaborated
gas-brackets which stood on his honor's desk, and the single swinging
chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling. Fat bailiffs
and court officers, concerned only in holding their workless jobs,
did not add anything to the spirit of the scene. Two of them in
the particular court in which this trial was held contended hourly
as to which should hand the judge a glass of water. One preceded
his honor like a fat, stuffy, dusty majordomo to and from his
dressing-room. His business was to call loudly, when the latter
entered, "His honor the Court, hats off. Everybody please rise,"
while a second bailiff, standing at the left of his honor when he
was seated, and between the jury-box and the witness-chair, recited
in an absolutely unintelligible way that beautiful and dignified
statement of collective society's obligation to the constituent
units, which begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All
those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall
be heard." However, you would have thought it was of no import
here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble.
A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition
to these there were present a court clerk--small, pale, candle-waxy,
with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair
and beard, who looked for all the world like an Americanized and
decidedly decrepit Chinese mandarin--and a court stenographer.
Judge Wilbur Payderson, a lean herring of a man, who had sat in
this case originally as the examining judge when Cowperwood had
been indicted by the grand jury, and who had bound him over for
trial at this term, was a peculiarly interesting type of judge,
as judges go. He was so meager and thin-blooded that he was
arresting for those qualities alone. Technically, he was learned
in the law; actually, so far as life was concerned, absolutely
unconscious of that subtle chemistry of things that transcends all
written law and makes for the spirit and, beyond that, the inutility
of all law, as all wise judges know. You could have looked at his
lean, pedantic body, his frizzled gray hair, his fishy, blue-gray
eyes, without any depth of speculation in them, and his nicely
modeled but unimportant face, and told him that he was without
imagination; but he would not have believed you--would have fined
you for contempt of court. By the careful garnering of all his
little opportunities, the furbishing up of every meager advantage;
by listening slavishly to the voice of party, and following as
nearly as he could the behests of intrenched property, he had
reached his present state. It was not very far along, at that.
His salary was only six thousand dollars a year. His little fame
did not extend beyond the meager realm of local lawyers and judges.
But the sight of his name quoted daily as being about his duties,
or rendering such and such a decision, was a great satisfaction
to him. He thought it made him a significant figure in the world.
"Behold I am not as other men," he often thought, and this comforted
him. He was very much flattered when a prominent case came to his
calendar; and as he sat enthroned before the various litigants and
lawyers he felt, as a rule, very significant indeed. Now and then
some subtlety of life would confuse his really limited intellect;
but in all such cases there was the letter of the law. He could
hunt in the reports to find out what really thinking men had
decided. Besides, lawyers everywhere are so subtle. They put the
rules of law, favorable or unfavorable, under the judge's thumb
and nose. "Your honor, in the thirty-second volume of the Revised
Reports of Massachusetts, page so and so, line so and so, in Arundel
versus Bannerman, you will find, etc." How often have you heard
that in a court of law? The reasoning that is left to do in most
cases is not much. And the sanctity of the law is raised like a
great banner by which the pride of the incumbent is strengthened.
Payderson, as Steger had indicated, could scarcely be pointed to
as an unjust judge. He was a party judge--Republican in principle,
or rather belief, beholden to the dominant party councils for his
personal continuance in office, and as such willing and anxious
to do whatever he considered that he reasonably could do to further
the party welfare and the private interests of his masters. Most
people never trouble to look into the mechanics of the thing they
call their conscience too closely. Where they do, too often they
lack the skill to disentangle the tangled threads of ethics and
morals. Whatever the opinion of the time is, whatever the weight
of great interests dictates, that they conscientiously believe.
Some one has since invented the phrase "a corporation-minded judge."
There are many such.
Payderson was one. He fairly revered property and power. To him
Butler and Mollenhauer and Simpson were great men--reasonably sure
to be right always because they were so powerful. This matter of
Cowperwood's and Stener's defalcation he had long heard of. He
knew by associating with one political light and another just what
the situation was. The party, as the leaders saw it, had been put
in a very bad position by Cowperwood's subtlety. He had led Stener
astray--more than an ordinary city treasurer should have been led
astray--and, although Stener was primarily guilty as the original
mover in the scheme, Cowperwood was more so for having led him
imaginatively to such disastrous lengths. Besides, the party
needed a scapegoat--that was enough for Payderson, in the first
place. Of course, after the election had been won, and it appeared
that the party had not suffered so much, he did not understand
quite why it was that Cowperwood was still so carefully included
in the Proceedings; but he had faith to believe that the leaders
had some just grounds for not letting him off. From one source
and another he learned that Butler had some private grudge against
Cowperwood. What it was no one seemed to know exactly. The general
impression was that Cowperwood had led Butler into some unwholesome
financial transactions. Anyhow, it was generally understood that
for the good of the party, and in order to teach a wholesome lesson
to dangerous subordinates--it had been decided to allow these
several indictments to take their course. Cowperwood was to be
punished quite as severely as Stener for the moral effect on the
community. Stener was to be sentenced the maximum sentence for
his crime in order that the party and the courts should appear
properly righteous. Beyond that he was to be left to the mercy
of the governor, who could ease things up for him if he chose, and
if the leaders wished. In the silly mind of the general public
the various judges of Quarter Sessions, like girls incarcerated
in boarding-schools, were supposed in their serene aloofness from
life not to know what was going on in the subterranean realm of
politics; but they knew well enough, and, knowing particularly
well from whence came their continued position and authority,
they were duly grateful. _