Read Ebook: Changeling and Other Stories by Byrne Donn

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Ebook has 2269 lines and 97341 words, and 46 pages

There was a tensing in court, a tightening, as of drama. Already there was a sense in every one's chilled veins of the horrible harness of the electric chair. But Donegan only drowsed.

"You can step down," the Court told the witness.

The rat-faced man crept from the witness-box, white, shaking still with the fear of Donegan's eye. He tried to get a seat in the benches, but none would make room for him. And though he had only done his duty, and that at command of the law, there was about him, as he slunk from the room, the look there was about him who was surnamed Iscariot, as he crept from the garden on the Mount of Olives, on the world's most tragic dawn.... Like a story from some old book there unrolled before the public the history of Anna Janssen of ten, or twelve, or fifteen years before, in a New York we know no longer, so changed is it in that brief space. Then it was a riotous spendthrift, a glorious waster, hell-roaring, somehow lovable, and now it is a burgess of standing, with all the burgess virtues.

And the eyes of the court-room glistened as old names appeared like Falstaffian ghosts. The Poodle Dog, the German Village, the Holland House, the Knickerbocker. Gorgeous, blowsy, out of a dim past they rose for an instant. Baron Wilkins's and Nigger Mike's. And there was the thin clink of glasses across forgotten bars. And at three o'clock of a morning the flying wedge at Pat's was hurling some truculent guest to the sidewalk. And gunmen were gunmen then, not strike-breakers.

Ichabod! Gone is glory!

And on this stage, and against this background, now leading woman to De Vries, now being supported by a caste of wasters, brokers, men about town, there moved Anna Janssen, the Swedish Beauty. Cast in the form and figure of a Norse goddess, fit for great epics, she was a figurante in a debauched side-show. Her eyes, which were blue as the sea and should have been pure and passionate as the sea, were drenched with wine, and her mouth, with its clear-cut outlines as of a woman of the painter Zorn's, which should have been firm as a budding flower, was relaxed and wet from kissing.

A woman of Broadway, hungered after and yet despised, she might have gone the accustomed path that leads from the chattering magnificence of Broadway to the sinister silence of Potter's Field. Down the old beaten decline toward sordid Death she could have gone, and none would have tried to stay her, none to help. And then the end. And the only result would have been a little chilling in the hearts of the newer Beauties of Broadway, a ghost whispering in their hearts the most terrible of epitaphs: The wages of sin is death. For a moment only. And some celebrity of Broadway might feel sad for an hour, with easy sentiment: "Poor Anna! And I knew her when she wore diamonds, and New York was at her feet!" Or some respectable citizen in his warm home might treasure secret, ashamed memories, and never avow them. And some one might even seek out her grave to say a hurried prayer and make an offering of flowers. And the rest would be silence.

But that, in a mood of drunken pique, she shot and killed Alastair de Vries!

Of her life there is little to be said. It is a life that a thousand girls have lived. Admit the evidence which satisfied a judge in a trial of murder and it boils down to this: The daughter of a Brooklyn mechanic, she got a place in the chorus of a big musical comedy, and was flattered and courted by the blades of Broadway. And the one to whom she fell victim was Alastair de Vries, who had forsaken Fifth Avenue to travel westward to Broadway. Of the old patroon stock which had settled New Amsterdam and been lords of the manor along the Hudson before the English came, bankers and traders, soldiers and explorers, all there remained of them was one moneyed boy who saw adventure only in ruining the daughters of tradesmen where his forebears had seen it in hacking out the destiny of a New World.

Blond, rather chubby, not yet thirty, Alastair de Vries had already had a large biography in the Sunday papers and weeklies of gossip in New York. Annette Janssen was one of perhaps twenty conquests and she was not the last. She was the all but last.

He took her from the chorus, gave her everything she desired, made her for her brief life the semiannual queen of Broadway.

And then a small brunette came along, acclaimed as the Queen of the Ponies, and, turning like a flash, De Vries hurried to conquer the new arrival. And Anna shot him, not because of jealousy, not because she loved him, but just to make trouble.

Day followed day, and witness witness, and item by item the sordid chronicle was written. Each fact attested and proved to the satisfaction of the court, to the satisfaction of the public. It was a sort of journey toward a definite objective--a journey on which the public was invited to see Justice hearken to the call of the people of the State of New York.

There was no doubt about it. Coldly, callously, for a whim, in a moment of piqued vanity, a chorus girl had shot a gentleman.

And then in the mind of every one there loomed, as it approached nearer until its horrible lines, its terrifying aura were visible, the objective of the voyage--the dreadful electric chair.

"Why does n't Donegan do something? Why? Why? Why does n't he put up a fight at least?"

But Donegan drowsed on. Only when the prisoner in the dock threw him a swift look of appeal, as she did occasionally when some damning point was raised, did he drop the granite mask. Now and then her face would blanch under the tan, and her mouth quiver. And then would come a miracle in Donegan. Those harsh bulldog features would relax, the glinting eyes open, and over the hated face would play the smile of--oh, forty years ago--when he was just an innocent, likable Irish boy, and not a great jurist, whom communion with the sinister qualities of the law, and battles for life and liberty, and knowledge of strange strata in the minds of men, which is good for none to know, had transformed into a dark angel with a protective and flaming sword.

But the smile did n't reassure the public.

"Yes, he 's smiling. He 's confident, all right. But why does n't he do something?"

Had the people in the court-room read of this trial in their homes--read the bare facts, the testimony of witnesses, there was not one who would have wasted a second thought on Anna Janssen. Perhaps in the hearts of one or two there would have lingered the feeling that it was not right she should be strapped horribly in the chair. But that would have been chivalry, not justice. One and all would have said: "That is what the death penalty is for--to remove from human contact one who has no right to God's sunshine, and who has arrogated to her vile and puny self the right of the Creator, the disposal of human life. Muffle her up. Hustle her away. Throw on the current and hide her in quicklime. Life is not for such as she!"

But between the woman whom the witnesses had drawn in black, sinister colors and the lady in the dock there was a continent of difference. True, she was the same height, the same figure, but for a healthy development of years. True, such marks of identification as Anna Janssen the chorus girl had, might be noted on the body of her who was a prisoner at the bar.

But the body of Anna Janssen the chorus girl was soft and white and made for sinister loving, while that of the woman in the dock was healthy and hard and tanned, after the fashion of Eve, whom the Lord God made in the garden. And Anna Janssen's had swayed alluringly with provocative sophistication, while the carriage of this woman was erect and of great dignity. And the eyes of the chorus girl had been full of evil knowledge and unhealthy flame, but this woman's had wistfulness and a strange mystery.

And in the heart of every one there rose a cry: "This is not the same woman. This is a good woman!"

There is a theory of an old medical school whose name--not that it matters--I regret to have forgotten. And it is this: that every seven years the human body changes. We have not the same bones, nor the same skin, the same muscles at thirty-five that we had at twenty-eight. They are worn out and are eliminated, and new tissue takes their place. It may be wrong, but it is a very taking theory. It explains to us how the track athlete of some years ago becomes the paunchy, bald-headed, repulsive man of to-day. It explains how the well-fed man of the world may turn into a harsh-faced monk. It explains to us how the soft, succubine chorus girl of a dozen years before became the splendid amazon that Anna Janssen is to-day.

And yet this may be wrong about the body. But about the mind there is one thing certain, not a theory but a fact--that people change completely. Like a child's slate, the mind is, on which a thousand things are written. The young take so much for granted; the old know. And gallantly they write this for a fact, that for a falsehood. But day by day they live and learn, as the old saw goes. And simple equations become quadratic. And the writing on the slate is altered month by month, as new factors of life are realized. All is a correction, a readjustment.

This is gradual, but occasionally, very occasionally, by some mental or spiritual cataclysm all on the slate is sponged clear. And a new and startling departure takes its place. As we see in the inner personality of Anna Janssen the change from the petty arithmetic of Broadway, the venal crooked sums of Sinister Street, to the gigantic calculus of life as the Lord God conceived it, when He formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul....

The district attorney turned from his last witness to the twelve men in the box. "Gentlemen," he said, in the manner of a workman well satisfied with the progress of the job in hand, "I have proved the crime and proved the perpetrator, the circumstances, the setting, the motive. There is but one more thing to be done to clinch this case home like a nail in a horse's shoe. It is now ten years between the time this murder was committed and the bringing of the prisoner to the bar of justice. There is but one more thing to do to remove the smallest iota of doubt that the prisoner at the bar and Anna Janssen, Alastair de Vries's mistress, are one and the same person. And to prove this I shall call to the witness-stand the detective who arrested Anna Janssen in Tahiti, and in whose custody the prisoner has been from that day until she was brought to justice here--a period of nine years and four months in all."

"Officer Thomas McCarthy!"

"Officer Thomas McCarthy to the stand."

But that one story stirred the imagination of the public. And the sordid tale told of a woman killing her fickle lover in an attack of offended vanity faded into a golden haze of romance. The scented smell of the tropics came to their nostrils, and their eyes saw golden sands and phosphorescent seas. And here the palms murmured with a rustle as of exotic silks, and the Bird of Paradise winged its iridescent flight through the opaque Marquesan dusk. And the spirits of strange gods moved upon the face of the waters....

Here was a setting for Scheherazade and here characters for a master writer: a patrolman of New York, young, athletic, unspoiled, canny with the knowledge of his native city, brave as only his kind is brave; and here a woman from the sloughs of the Tenderloin, an admitted beauty, a proven murderess.

What drama had happened in that isle of dreams, in that immense act of nine rolling years? And did she love him, or did she hate him? And had he succumbed to her, as Adam to Lilith in Eden, before Eve was? Or had he resisted her as Anthony of Egypt resisted the succuba in the desert near Fayum? And did she wheedle him with words sweeter than honey? Or did she curse him with strange black blasphemies? Or was it just one long, dumb vigil of hatred? Or had they become friends, hunter and hunted, marooned now on the islands of strange dead gods?

In God's name, what?

At any rate they would soon know.

"Officer Thomas McCarthy, this way!"

Then, of a sudden, up rose Howard Donegan. The judge on his bench, the jurymen, the prosecuting attorney, the court, the prisoner herself, all looked at him with a hesitant surprise. Somehow his action was surprisingly dramatic. He stood up slowly and said nothing, but looked around. Into the drama of crime and romance, there was injected a new element, powerful, sluggish, but immensely sure.

"If it please the Court," went his heavy, significant voice, "may I say a few words?"

"It is hardly regular, at this period, Mr. Donegan," the judge said, puzzled. "Surely you will have an opportunity later on."

"The opportunity is opportune only now." Like some strange gargoyle in an old cathedral the great animal appeared. His eyes, under their threatening hoods, were black and beady like the eyes of some malevolent creature of the jungle. His mouth, a wide, thin slit, pouted like the mouth of a fish. His sedentary body was massive and grotesque like some monster of a mad artist's drawing. His voice creaked like unoiled machinery. But--God!--what power was there!

"Your Honor, men of the jury, and Mr. District Attorney, at any point I could have obstructed the course of this trial until all of you were weary in your chairs. I could have obfuscated facts and motives and testimony until you were as uncertain of truth as Pilate. The woman Wilkins--I could have shown that her word was no more to be depended on than the word of the village idiot. Mr. Howland Christy, De Vries's relative--I could have shaken him on the stand until he would have been uncertain of his testimony, for he is an honest man. And the usher of the cabaret--if I had concentrated on him, I could have made that whisky-sodden brain, that broken will, contradict everything he had said.

"But I did none of these things. I made no haze of doubt out of honest facts. For why? Because these facts are true. I grant them freely!"

There were a rustle and a murmur in the room. The public was suddenly aghast. What was this from Donegan? Treachery? Who ever heard of a counsel granting things like that? Good Lord! what was the man doing? The murmuring went on in spite of the judge's gavel, the attendants' cries.

Donegan swept the room with his black, minatory glance, and the murmuring died.

"Your Honor, Mr. District Attorney, men of the jury, a crime is not an instantaneous action. What goes before a crime is important, and not less important is what follows it. Has the affair been brooded over, or has it been the result of momentary passion, and has the deed been regarded with smug satisfaction, or with quaking horror?

"And what effect has this had on the prisoner, on the world, on its time? So many things have to be taken into consideration when we are adjudging the crime.

"Gentlemen, the law and legal procedure are as easy to comprehend as a child's primer. The office of the district attorney is to see that a malefactor is brought to justice. The office of the jury is to decide whether that action was or was not done. The object of the judge is to weigh, decide, and in the name of the people say what shall be done with a member of the community who has hurt the interests of the community by his or her action. The duty of the counsel for the prisoner is to see that his client is not traduced by false witnesses, nor his or her liberty endangered by unfacts.

"But the object of all in the court-room is to see that justice is done, though the heavens crumble.

"This is hardly regular, Mr. Donegan."

"I ask this in the name of Justice!"

"This is a court of Justice, Mr. Donegan." The judge's manner had a slight rebuke. "But if the district attorney is agreeable--"

The district attorney, a little nettled, but rather awed before the tremendous purpose of Donegan, shrugged his shoulders.

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