_ CHAPTER IV
The richly decorated reception rooms, brilliantly illuminated with soft incandescent lights artistically arranged behind banks of flowers, were filled with people. In the air was the familiar buzz always present in a room where each person is trying to speak at the same time. On all sides one heard fragments of inept conversation.
"So good of you to come! How well you're looking, my dear."
"My husband? Oh, he's at the club, playing poker, as usual. He hates music."
"I've such a terrible cold!"
"Trouble with servants? I should say so. I bounced my cook this morning."
"Aren't these affairs awefully tiresome?"
"I was so glad to come. I always enjoy your musicales."
"Dr. Bernstein coming? How perfectly delightful. I'll ask him for his autograph."
"What's psychology?"
"Something to do with religion, I think."
"Haven't we been having dreadful weather?"
"I saw you at the opera."
"Doesn't she look sweet?"
"Oh, I think it's just lovely."
People now arrived in quick succession and, forming little groups, the room soon presented an animated scene. The women in their smart gowns and the men in their black coats made a pleasing picture.
"My dear Mrs. Jeffries, how do you do this evening?" exclaimed a rich, deep voice.
The hostess turned to greet an elderly and distinguished-looking man who had just entered. Directly he came in voices were hushed, and on every side one heard the whisper:
"There's Judge Brewster, the famous lawyer."
There was a general craning of necks to catch a glimpse of the eminent jurist whose brilliant address to the jury in a recent
cause celebre had saved an innocent man from the electric chair.
Richard Brewster was a fine example of the old school statesman-lawyer of the Henry Clay type. He belonged to that small class of public men who are independent of all coteries, whose only ambition is to serve their country well, who know no other duty than that dictated by their oath and conscience. A brilliant and forceful orator, there was no office in the gift of the nation that might not have been his for the asking, but he had no taste for politics. After serving with honor for some years on the bench he retired into private practice, and thereafter his name became one to conjure with in the law courts. By sheer power of his matchless oratory and unanswerable logic he won case after case for his clients and it is a tribute to his name to record the plain fact that in all his career he never championed a cause of which he need be ashamed. Powerful financial interests had attempted to secure his services by offers of princely retainers, but without success. He fought the trusts bitterly every time he found them oppressing the people. He preferred to remain comparatively poor rather than enrich himself at the price of prostituting his profession.
Alicia advanced with extended hand.
"This is indeed kind, Judge," she exclaimed with a gracious smile. "I hardly dared hope that my poor musicale would be so honored."
The old lawyer smiled good-humoredly as he replied gallantly:
"I don't know much about music, m'm; I came to see you." Looking around he added: "You've got a nice place here."
He spoke in his characteristic manner--short, nervous, explosive sentences, which had often terrified his opponents in court.
"Lawyers are such flatterers," laughed Alicia as she nervously fanned herself, and looked around to see if her guests were watching.
"Lawyers only flatter when they want to," interrupted grimly Mr. Jeffries, who had just joined the group.
Alicia turned to greet a new arrival and the lawyer continued chatting with his host.
"I suppose you'll take a rest now, after your splendid victory," said the banker.
Judge Brewster shook his head dubiously.
"No, sir, we lawyers never rest. We can't. No sooner is one case disposed of than another crops up to claim our attention. The trouble with this country is that we have too much law. If I were to be guilty of an epigram I would say that the country has so much law that it is practically lawless."
"So you're preparing another case, eh?" said Mr. Jeffries, interested. "What is it--a secret?"
"Oh, no!" answered the lawyer, "the newspapers will be full of it in a day or two. We are going to bring suit against the city. It's really a test case that should interest every citizen; a protest against the high-handed actions of the police."
The banker elevated his eyebrows.
"Indeed," he exclaimed. "What have the police been doing now?"
The lawyer looked at his client in surprise.
"Why, my dear sir, you must have seen by the papers what's been going on in our city of late. The papers have been full of it. Police brutality, illegal arrests, assaults in station houses, star-chamber methods that would disgrace the middle ages. A state of affairs exists to-day in the city of New York which is inconceivable. Here we are living in a civilized country, every man's liberty is guaranteed by the Constitution, yet citizens, as they walk our streets, are in greater peril than the inhabitants of terror-stricken Russia. Take a police official of Captain Clinton's type. His only notion of the law is brute force and the night stick. A bully by nature, a man of the coarsest instincts and enormous physical strength, he loves to play the tyrant. In his precinct he poses as a kind of czar and fondly imagines he has the power to administer the law itself. By his brow-beating tactics, intolerable under Anglo-Saxon government, he is turning our police force into a gang of ruffians who have the city terror-stricken. In order to further his political ambitions he stops at nothing. He lets the guilty escape when influence he can't resist is brought to bear, but in order to keep up his record with the department he makes arrests without the slightest justification. To secure convictions he manufactures, with the aid of his detectives, all kinds of perjured evidence. To paraphrase a well-known saying, his motto is: 'Convict--honestly, if you can--but convict.'"
"It is outrageous," said Mr. Jeffries. "No one can approve such methods. Of course, in dealing with the criminal population of a great city, they cannot wear kid gloves, but Captain Clinton certainly goes too far. What is the specific complaint on which the suit is based?"
"Captain Clinton," replied the judge, "made the mistake of persecuting a young woman who happened to be the daughter of a wealthy client of mine. One of his detectives arrested her on a charge of shoplifting. The girl, mind you, is of excellent family and irreproachable character. My client and his lawyer tried to show Captain Clinton that he had made a serious blunder, but he brazened it out, claiming on the stand that the girl was an old offender. Of course, he was forced at last to admit his mistake and the girl went free, but think of the humiliation and mental anguish she underwent! It was simply a repetition of his old tactics. A conviction, no matter at what cost."
"What do you hope to bring about by this suit?"
"Arouse public indignation, and if possible get Captain Clinton dismissed from the force. His record is none too savory. Charges of graft have been made against him time and time again, but so far nothing has been proved. To-day he is a man of wealth on a comparatively small salary. Do you suppose his money could have come to him honestly?"
In another corner of the salon stood Dr. Bernstein, the celebrated psychologist, the centre of an excited crowd of enthusiastic admirers.
Alicia approached a group of chattering women. Each was more elaborately dressed than her neighbor, and loaded down with rare gems. They at once stopped talking as their hostess came up.
"It was so good of you to come!" said Alicia effusively to a fat woman with impossible blond hair and a rouged face. "I want to introduce Dr. Bernstein to you."
"Oh, I shall be delighted," smiled the blonde. Gushingly she added: "How perfectly exquisite you look to-night, my dear."
"Do you think so?" said Alicia, pleased at the clumsy flattery.
"Your dress is stunning and your tiara simply gorgeous," raved another.
"Your musicales are always so delightful," exclaimed a third.
At that moment Mr. Jeffries caught his wife by the arm and drew her attention to some newcomers. With a laugh she left the group and hurried toward the door. Directly she was out of earshot, the three women began whispering:
"Isn't she terribly overdressed?" exclaimed the blonde. "The cheek of such a
parvenue to wear that tiara."
"Her face is all made up, too," said another.
"These affairs of hers are awfully stupid, don't you think so?" piped the third.
"Yes, they bore everybody to death," said the blonde. "She's ambitious and likes to think she is a social leader. I only come here because it amuses me to see what a fool she makes of herself. Fancy a woman of her age marrying a man old enough to be her father. By the bye, I don't see her
beau here to-night."
"You mean that scamp, Robert Underwood?"
"Isn't it perfectly scandalous, the way he dances after her? I'm surprised Mr. Jeffries allows him to come to the house."
"Maybe there's been a row. Perhaps that explains why he's not here to-night. It's the first time I've known him absent from one of her musicales."
"He's conspicuous by his absence. Do you know what I heard the other day? I was told that Underwood had again been caught cheating at cards and summarily expelled from the club--kicked out, so to speak."
"I'm not at all surprised. I always had my doubts about him. He induced a friend of mine to buy a picture, and got a tremendous price for it on the false representation that it was a genuine Corot. My friend found out afterward that he had been duped. Proceedings were threatened, but Underwood managed to hush the affair by returning part of the money."
In another part of the room a couple were discussing Mr. Jeffries as he stood talking with Judge Brewster.
"Did you notice how Mr. Jeffries has aged recently? He no longer seems the same man."
"No wonder, after all the trouble he's had. Of course you know what a disappointment his son turned out?"
"A scamp, I understand. Married a chorus girl and all that sort of thing."
"Not exactly, but almost as bad. The girl was a waitress or something like that in a restaurant. She's very common; her father died in prison. You can imagine the blow to old Jeffries. He turned the boy adrift and left him to shift for himself."
Alicia approached her husband, who was still talking with Judge Brewster. She was leaning on the arm of a tall, handsome man with a dark Van Dyke beard.
"Who are you discussing with such interest?" she demanded, as she came up with her escort.
"We were talking of Captain Clinton and his detestable police methods," said the banker.
"Judge," said Alicia, turning to the lawyer, "allow me to introduce Dr. Bernstein. Doctor, this is Judge Brewster."
The stranger bowed low, as he replied courteously:
"The fame of Judge Brewster has spread to every State in the Union."
A faint smile spread over the face of the famous lawyer as he extended his hand:
"I've often heard of you, too, doctor. I've been reading with great interest your book, 'Experimental Psychology.' Do you know," he went on earnestly, "there's a lot in that. We have still much to learn in that direction."
"I think," said Dr. Bernstein quietly, "that we're only on the threshold of wonderful discoveries."
Pleased to find that her two distinguished guests were congenial, Alicia left them to themselves and joined her other guests.
"Yes," said the lawyer musingly, "man has studied for centuries the mechanism of the body, but he has neglected entirely the mechanism of the mind."
Dr. Bernstein smiled approvingly.
"We are just waking up," he replied quickly. "People are beginning to look upon psychology seriously. Up to comparatively recently the layman has regarded psychology as the domain of the philosopher and the dreamer. It did not seem possible that it could ever be applied to our practical everyday life, but of late we have made remarkable strides. Although it is a comparatively new science, you will probably be astonished to learn that there are to-day in the United States fifty psychological laboratories. That is to say, workshops fully equipped with every device known for the probing of the human brain. In my laboratory in California alone I have as many as twenty rooms hung with electric wires and equipped with all the necessary instruments--chronoscopes, kymographs, tachistoscopes, and ergographs, instruments which enable us to measure and record the human brain as accurately as the Bertillon system."
"Really, you astonish me!" exclaimed the judge. "This is most interesting. Think of laboratories solely devoted to delving into mysteries of the human brain! It is wonderful!"
He was silent for a moment, then he said:
"It is quite plain, I think, that psychology can prove most useful in medicine. It is, I take it, the very foundation of mental healing, but what else would it do for humanity? For instance, can it help me, the lawyer?"
Dr. Bernstein smiled.
"You gentlemen of the law have always scoffed at the very suggestion of bringing psychology to your aid, but just think, sir, how enormously it might aid you in cross-examining a witness. You can tell with almost scientific accuracy if the witness is telling lies or the truth, and the same would be clear to the judge and the jury. Just think how your powers would be increased if by your skill in psychological observation you could convince the jury that your client, who was about to be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone, was really innocent of the crime of which he was charged. Why, sir, the road which psychology opens up to the lawyer is well-nigh boundless. Don't you use the Bertillon system to measure the body? Don't you rely on thumb prints to identify the hand? How do you know that we psychologists are not able to-day to test the individual differences of men?"
"In a word," laughed the judge, "you mean that any one trained to read my mind can tell just what's passing in my brain?"
"Precisely," replied the doctor with a smile; "the psychologist can tell with almost mathematical accuracy just how your mental mechanism is working. I admit it sounds uncanny, but it can be proved. In fact, it has been proved, time and time again."
Alicia came up and took the doctor's arm.
"Oh, Dr. Bernstein," she protested, "I can't allow the judge to monopolize you in this way. Come with me. I want to introduce you to a most charming woman who is dying to meet you. She is perfectly crazy on psychology."
"Don't introduce me to her," laughed the judge. "I see enough crazy people in the law courts."
Dr. Bernstein smiled and followed his hostess. Judge Brewster turned to chat with the banker. From the distant music room came the sound of a piano and a beautiful soprano voice. The rooms were now crowded and newcomers were arriving each minute. Servants passed in and out serving iced delicacies and champagne.
Suddenly the butler entered the salon and, quietly approaching Alicia, handed her a letter. In a low tone, he said:
"This letter has just come, m'm. The messenger said it was very important and I should deliver it at once."
Alicia turned pale. She instantly recognized the handwriting. It was from Robert Underwood. Was not her last message enough? How dare he address her again and at such a time? Retiring to an inner room, she tore open the envelope and read as follows:
DEAR MRS. JEFFRIES: This is the last time I shall ever bore you with my letters. You have forbidden me to see you again. Practically you have sentenced me to a living death, but as I prefer death shall not be partial, but full and complete oblivion, I take this means of letting you know that unless you revoke your cruel sentence of banishment, I shall make an end of it all. I shall be found dead, Monday morning, and you will know who is responsible. Yours devotedly,
ROBERT UNDERWOOD.
An angry exclamation escaped Alicia's lips, and crushing the note up in her hand, she bit her lips till the blood came. It was just as she feared. The man was desperate. He was not to be got rid of so easily. How dare he--how dare he? The coward--to think that she could be frightened by such a threat. What did she care if he killed himself? It would be good riddance. Yet suppose he was in earnest, suppose he did carry out his threat? There would be a terrible scandal, an investigation, people would talk, her name would be mentioned. No--no--that must be prevented at all costs.
Distracted, not knowing what course to pursue, she paced the floor of the room. Through the closed door she could hear the music and the chatter of her guests. She must go to see Underwood at once, that was certain, and her visit must be a secret one. There was already enough talk. If her enemies could hear of her visiting him alone in his apartment that would be the end.
"Yes--I must see him at once. To-morrow is Sunday. He's sure to be home in the evening. He mentions Monday morning. There will still be time. I'll go and see him to-morrow."
"Alicia! Alicia!"
The door opened and Mr. Jeffries put his head in.
"What are you doing here, my dear?" he asked. "I was looking everywhere for you. Judge Brewster wishes to say good night."
"I was fixing my hair, that's all," replied Alicia with perfect composure. _