The Lifted Bandage by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews


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Page 2

"A coroner's jury isn't infallible. I don't believe it of Jack--a lot of
people don't believe it," he said.

The older man looked at him heavily. "You'd say that. Jack's friends
will. I've been trained to weigh evidence--I must believe it."

"Listen," the young man urged. "Don't shut down the gates like that. I'm
not a lawyer, but I've been trained to think, too, and I believe you're
not thinking squarely. There's other evidence that counts besides this.
There's Jack--his personality."

"It has been taken into consideration."

"It can't be taken into consideration by strangers--it needs years of
intimacy to weigh that evidence as I can weigh it--as you--You know best
of all," he cried out impulsively, "if you'll let yourself know, how
impossible it was. That Jack should have bought that pistol and taken it
to Ben Armstrong's rooms to kill him--it was impossible--impossible!"
The clinched fist came down on the black broadcloth knee with the
conviction of the man behind it. The words rushed like melted metal,
hot, stinging, not to be stopped. The judge quivered as if they had
stung through the callousness, touched a nerve. A faint color crawled
to his cheeks; for the first time he spoke quickly, as if his thoughts
connected with something more than gray matter.

"You talk about my not allowing myself to believe in Jack. You seem
not to realize that such a belief would--might--stand between me and
madness. I've been trying to adjust myself to a possible scheme of
living--getting through the years till I go into nothingness. I can't.
All I can grasp is the feeling that a man might have if dropped from
a balloon and forced to stay gasping in the air, with no place in it,
nothing to hold to, no breath to draw, no earth to rest on, no end to
hope for. There is nothing beyond."

"Everything is beyond," the young man cried triumphantly. "'The end,' as
you call it, is an end to hope for--it is the beginning. The beginning
of more than you have ever had--with them, with the people you care
about."

The judge turned a ghastly look upon the impetuous, bright face. "If
I believed that, I should be even now perfectly happy. I don't see how
you Christians can ever be sorry when your friends die--it's childish;
anybody ought to be able to wait a few years. But I don't believe it,"
he said heavily, and went on again as if an inertia of speech were
carrying him as an inertia of silence had held him a few minutes before.
"When my wife died a year ago it ended my personal life, but I could
live Jack's life. I was glad in the success and honor of it. Now the
success--" he made a gesture. "And the honor--if I had that, only the
honor of Jack's life left, I think I could finish the years with
dignity. I've not been a bad man--I've done my part and lived as seemed
right. Before I'm old the joy is wiped out and long years left. Why?
It's not reasonable--not logical. With one thing to hold to, with Jack's
good name, I might live. How can I, now? What can I do? A life must have
a _raison d'�tre._"

"Listen," the clergyman cried again. "You are not judging Jack as fairly
as you would judge a common criminal. You know better than I how often
juries make mistakes--why should you trust this jury to have made none?"

"I didn't trust the jury. I watched as I have never before known how to
watch a case. I felt my mind more clear and alert than common."

"Alert!" he caught at the word. "But alert on the side of
terror--abnormally clear to see what you dreaded. Because you are
fair-minded, because it has been the habit of your life to correct at
once any conscious prejudice in your judgment, you have swayed to the
side of unfairness to yourself, to Jack. Uncle," he flashed out, "would
it tear your soul to have me state the case as I see it? I might, you
know--I might bring out something that would make it look different."

Almost a smile touched the gray lines of his face. "If you wish."

The young man drew himself into his chair and clasped his hands around
his knee. "Here it is. Mr. Newbold, on the seventh floor of the Bruzon
bachelor apartments, heard a shot at one in the morning, next his
bedroom, in Ben Armstrong's room. He hurried into the public hall, saw
the door wide open into Ben's apartment, went in and found Ben shot
dead. Trying to use the telephone to call help, he found it was out of
order. So he rushed again into the hall toward the elevator with the
idea of getting Dr. Avery, who lived below on the second floor. The
elevator door was open also, and a man's opera-hat lay near it on the
floor; he saw, just in time, that the car was at the bottom of the
shaft, almost stepping inside, in his excitement, before he noticed
this. Then he ran down the stairs with Jack's hat in his hand, and got
Dr. Avery, and they found Jack at the foot of the elevator shaft. It was
known that Ben Armstrong and Jack had quarrelled the day before; it was
known that Jack was quick-tempered; it is known that he bought that
evening the pistol which was found on the floor by Ben, loaded, with one
empty shell. That's the story."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 29th Mar 2024, 5:36