# Greater Love Hath No Man/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT
"THE prosecution rests"—the district attorney sat down, and, his hand rumpling in habit through his grey hair, looked over at John Randall, a stern, though not altogether unsympathetic smile upon his lips.
There was a sudden stir in the little courtroom—and a tremulous, sibilant sound, the involuntary intake of many breaths, seemed to waver, tense, full of suspense, over the packed and crowded benches.
It was already afternoon. One by one the witnesses had testified as Lee had called them, and now the State's case was at an end. One by one as Lee had finished with his witnesses, he had glanced toward Randall and nodded, signifying that they were at the disposal of the defence for cross-examination, but each time Randall had merely shaken his head.
It had not lasted long. Lee's examination of his witnesses—most of the forenoon had been taken up with the impanelling of a jury and the court formalities. The coroner had testified that Doctor Merton had come to his death from the blow of a heavy instrument over the left side of his head; the fender bar had been put in evidence; Marston had testified to Varge's confession; Robson had given his evidence; Harold Merton had followed; and after him, corroborating one point in his story, the disappearance of Varge from the house, had come Mrs. MacLaughlin—and that had been all.
​Once only had there been any demonstration—and that no more than a low rustle, the rubbing of clothes on chairs, the faint shuffle of feet, as Harold Merton had taken the stand. But this, Merton, for the first moment or so, had appeared to sense, for his face had seemed to pale a little as his restless black eyes had shot glances around the room, and his first words had come hoarse and jerky, stumbling. After that, he had made an excellent witness, creating an impression of credibleness, speaking quietly without haste or hesitation, facing the prisoner, his eyes holding steadily on Varge's face.
And through it all, Varge had sat with scarcely a movement, his head slightly bowed, beside Handerlie, the deputy sheriff; his eyes, except during Harold Merton's testimony, when from between clasped hands they had held the other magnetically, dividing their attention for the most part between John Randall and a large oblong parcel that lay on the table before the young attorney.
There had been something of quiet confidence in the way Randall had allowed each witness to step down unchallenged, implying something in reserve, a masked battery, to which all this was but extraneous and futile, that had troubled Varge more and more as the trial had progressed. "Thank God, I can save you," had been Randall's last words to him that morning. What had Randall discovered—what was in that unwieldy parcel on the attorney's table? Randall could not have got at the truth—he had let Harold Merton go from the stand unquestioned. What then? What was this thing that kept Randall sitting there so sure a master of himself?
​Nor had the young attorney's actions been significant only to Varge. From Joe Malloch, the blacksmith, who sat amongst those on the front bench, his doubled fists crowded between his knees, his honest, bearded face out-thrown a little from bended shoulders, to the twelve men in the jury box, each in attitudes of strained attention, to the set sea of faces behind Malloch, to Lee, the district attorney, whose glance more than once rested with speculative curiosity on the package before Randall, to Judge Crosswaite on the bench, silver-haired, his kindly face grave and serious, all seemed subtly conscious of some startling thing impending, that gradually had charged the courtroom with suspense until now that the crucial moment had arrived the very air seemed electrified with expectation.
John Randall rose with slow deliberation from his chair.
"Varge to the stand!"
A murmur, instantly hushed, swept through the room.
Varge stood up, and, for the first time since the trial had begun, the eyes of the two men met—in Randall's there was a light that seemed to mingle determination and assurance with a lurking sense of ironic command; in Varge's eyes there was only grave scrutiny.
As Varge, led by Handerlie, stepped into the witness box, and, with hand upraised, took the oath, every eye in the room was upon him. Motionless as he stood, he seemed like some splendid statue, the masterpiece of a famous sculptor, in which grace, strength and rugged beauty were wrought and blended with a master's skill—the hair, as it fell over the clear, white, broad brow, might have been put there by Michael Angelo himself; ​and the expression on his face, half sombre, half patient resignation, in perfect consonance with the rôle he played, might, too, have been the work of no less cunning fingers.
Varge's hand dropped and rested on the rail. His eyes swept the courtroom with a single rapid glance—and held an instant upon the round, red, blatant face of Mart Robson, that somehow seemed to stand out and force itself upon his vision. Flashing, quick, curiously inconsequent it seemed, his mind went back to the day when, boys of ten, he had fought and licked the other for shoving Hettie Elmslie into a mud puddle; he remembered that very well, and he remembered Mrs. Merton's dismay and anxiety at his own puffed cheek, her gentle reproof tempered with a large slice of apple-sauce cake—no, it wasn't so curiously inconsequent after all—it was Mrs. Merton's face he saw now, steeling him against he knew not what was to come, as he fixed his eyes on John Randall again.
"Varge," began Randall, in a brisk, pleasant voice, "you have stated that at one o'clock in the morning, believing all of the household in bed, you stole downstairs to the library for the purpose of stealing Doctor Merton's cash-box?"
"Yes," Varge answered quietly.
"You did this deliberately, with premeditation?"
"Yes."
"You knew that the cash-box was kept in the wall cupboard?"
"Yes."
"Was this cupboard usually locked or unlocked?"
"Locked," replied Varge—and a load seemed ​suddenly swept from his mind; he knew now what Randall's "proof" was—it was to come out after all, to come out almost ironically. "Doctor Merton always carried the key with him."
"You expected, then, to find it locked?"
"Yes."
"And that night when you went to it, was it locked or unlocked?"
"Locked."
"How did you open it?"
"I pried it open with the fender bar."
"This one here, that has been put in evidence?"—Randall pointed to where the bar lay on the table.
"Yes."
"Where did you find the bar when you went into the room?"
"In its usual place—before the fireplace."
"Was it bent then, or straight?"
"It was straight."
Randall's voice rose suddenly, caustically.
"If you deliberately, premeditatively started out to burglarise a receptacle that you knew, or, amounting to the same thing, expected would be locked, doesn't it seem a rather strange thing that you went unprepared with any tool or implement with which to open it?"
A low sound, indescribable, more like a deep, prolonged sigh than anything else, swept through the courtroom. The jury, as one man, leaned forward more intently.
"I knew the fender bar was there—I intended to use that," answered Varge.
"Ah, I see!" said Randall smoothly. "You stole ​across the room, and at once picked up the fender bar from the fireplace?"
"Yes."
"The bar, you have said, was straight when you found it?"
"Yes."
"Where did you go then?"
"I went to the cupboard in the wall where the cash-box was kept."
"Let us be exact on this point," said Randall. "It is not more than two steps, three at the outside, the matter of a moment, to go from the fireplace to the cupboard. You stepped directly to the cupboard without going anywhere else in the room, or leaving the room?"
"I did."
"The bar was still in your hand and naturally, then, still straight when you reached the cupboard?"
"Yes."
"Very good," said Randall gently. "Now between the time you reached the cupboard and the time you say Doctor Merton leaped across the room upon you, did you leave your position in front of the cupboard?"
"No."
"And during that time you pried open the cupboard door with this bar?"
"Yes."
Randall whirled from the witness box and faced the jury. Gone now was his calm, easy manner, his quiet, conversational tones—passionate earnestness was in his face, and his voice rang strong and clear, carrying a thrill through the courtroom.
"Gentlemen of the jury," he cried impressively, "this ​man is innocent! The court will tell you, the district attorney himself will tell you that there is not a shred of evidence on which to convict him aside from his own confession. Now a man who voluntarily and of his own free will gives himself up to the authorities and confesses to a crime has no reason to tell anything but a bona fide story; it would be absurd to imagine that he would do anything else—if, gentlemen, he really committed that crime. There is no evidence, I say against the prisoner except his own story. If you convict him, you must convict him on that—and yet I will prove to you beyond the shadow of a doubt that according to that story it is impossible for him to have committed this crime. What does it mean, gentlemen of the jury? You know the prisoner. Most of you have known him all your lives. You know him for his clean, upright life. You know him for a man who, through love and gratitude to his benefactors, has put self aside and stayed with them because they needed him—a sacrifice the greater because, ambitious, a man whose intellect would carry him to a high place in any sphere, he has curbed ambition, crushed it back while those two he loved and would not leave still lived. But during these years Varge has studied and neglected no single opportunity for self-improvement. He has studied medicine with Doctor Merton, and I have heard Doctor Merton say myself that if he could have afforded it he would have sent Varge to college—but Doctor Merton could not afford it, gentlemen—and no one knew that better than Varge himself. Look at him, gentlemen of the jury! He stands there for the man he is, a man as utterly incapable of this thing as you or ​I—but a man, a man, gentlemen, capable of taking this thing upon himself to shield another."
A buzz stirred the courtroom, grew louder, swelled into a suppressed cheer—and stilled to an expectant hush at Judge Crosswaite's stern command for silence.
Varge had not moved even by so much as a slight change of position, but at Randall's words a faint tinge had dyed his cheeks, and into his eyes had come a soft, almost tender light as they rested on his friend. He had no choice—once started, Randall must go on. And now, as Randall paused, Varge, with well-simulated nervousness, threw his weight from one foot to the other, faced a trifle to his left—and across the room to where Harold Merton was already beginning to huddle in his chair, the dark eyes flashed a swift, reassuring signal.
Randall, quick in his movements now, had taken up the bent fender bar and was holding it out before the jury.
"This bar, gentlemen," he said, in a low, earnest voice, "is the bar that struck down Doctor Merton; this bar is the bar that forced open the cupboard door. That is positive, certain. The prosecution has told you so, and it is a fact—the marks and indents on the door prove it. Varge tells us that it was straight when he stepped with it in front of the cupboard. The prosecution appears to have assumed that it was bent in prying open the door, and it looks as though that might be so. There is nothing remarkable about the bar—it looks as though that might be so. But examine it again carefully—note its size and weight. Gentlemen, I am casting no reflections on the prosecution that they ​overlooked the point I am going to bring out. Their position and mine was different. With them the confession had been voluntary and practically stood for guilt—with me, I knew in my soul that the prisoner was innocent. But he would not talk to me, gentlemen. I knew that, clever as he was, clever as was the story he had manufactured to save another, there was almost certain to be a little flaw somewhere that had escaped him. His life, gentlemen, was in my hands—I had to find that flaw. I thank God that I have been able to do it. Gentlemen, this bar was not bent in prying open the cupboard door; it was bent before it ever went near it—or, in other words, before the door could be pried open with this bar, as it was beyond question, the bar must have been bent. See here, gentlemen; see how simple is the proof of that statement."
Randall stepped to the table, picked up the parcel that had been the subject of so much curiosity and speculation, removed the wrapping and exhibited a drawing, some five feet long by three feet wide.
"I have here," he said, "a sketch, drawn to scale, of the cupboard and the end wall itself between the fire-place and the side wall of the room; and here"—he picked up a little pointer that had been enclosed with the package—"I have a piece of stick that is the exact length of the fender bar, if the fender bar were straightened out. See then, what we have. Here is the lock of the cupboard where the end of the bar was inserted. It is just one foot and six inches from the side wall. The bar is four feet long. We stick the thin end of the straight bar in by the lock to pry the door open. See, like this"—he set the drawing on end on the floor, and, ​holding it by one hand, dropped to his knees and placed one end of his stick at the indicated position. "The floor represents the side wall projecting at right angles, of course. What happens? Nothing. The bar is too long. There is absolutely no leverage, not enough even to take up the little slack in the crack of the door itself. The bar is too long—it must first be bent before it can be of any service. But wait! There must be no possibility of error here. You may say that while the door could only be opened from this side and that the bar had to be bent to do it, the bar might first have been inserted and levered the other way, or even upward or downward, where there is more space, and so bent. But that, waiving aside all consideration of the strength and thickness of the bar, which to begin with would make it improbable, is, with a moment's consideration, proved to be a fallacy. There was room only to insert the thin, flattened, spear-shaped ends of the bar, anywhere around the casing, between the door and the door casing, and these would have bent or broken long before the thicker part of the bar, the middle of the bar, yielded to the strain—and yet these ends are as straight to-day as the day they were forged."
Randall rose to his feet, put aside the drawing, took up the fender bar again and walked directly to the jury box.
"Gentlemen, the man who bent that bar is the man who murdered Doctor Merton—but it was not the prisoner at the bar. I have told you before that if you convict him, you must convict him on his own story. Take that story from his lips. He stood there before the cupboard holding the straight bar, he had nothing to bend it ​with except his bare hands, and yet he must have bent it before he could pry open the cupboard door with it. Take the bar"—he shoved it suddenly into the foreman's hands—"try to bend it against the floor, with your hands, across your knees, in any possible way that was possible to him—struggle with it, I beg you with all reverence in God's name, for a man's life is at stake."
A breathless silence fell upon the room. From one to another of the twelve men's hands the bar passed, each in his own way exerting futilely all his strength upon it. The foreman returned it gravely to Randall.
"You cannot bend it," said Randall passionately. "Of course you cannot bend it—it requires mechanical means to bend it. I believe that it was bent by some mechanical means outside and brought there before Varge ever entered that room; and I believe that when he entered that room Doctor Merton was already dead—murdered, gentlemen, at the hands of some one Varge is offering his own life to save—murdered at the hands of the man, who for some purpose that Varge is trying to conceal, had previously bent that bar. Yet wait! You are strong men and you cannot bend it, but let us put it to still further proof."
Randall turned from the jury, walked rapidly across the room and halted before the blacksmith, seated on the front bench.
"Joe Malloch," he said quickly, "you are the strongest man I know in Berley Falls. Can you bend this bar?"
The smith shook his head.
"Not me," said he. "I can't."
"Try," said Randall.
​"Ain't no use to try. I can't," repeated Malloch.
"Try," insisted Randall.
Malloch rose from his chair, took the bar, swung it over his shoulders and strained with it against his thick bull-neck, then against the floor, across his knees, across his chest. His face was purple as he shook his head and, handing it back, sat down.
Straight then, Randall strode to the witness box and extended the bar to Varge. His face was flushed with emotion and he swept the hair, straggling into his eyes, away with a jerky motion of his hand, but his voice rose vibrant, strong with triumph.
"Varge, as you stand there you have the same opportunity to accomplish what you must have done as you had that night. If you are guilty, you bent this bar. Show the jury how you did it."
Varge took it quietly from the other's hands.
"John," he said, in a low, grave undertone, "I am guilty. Have you forgotten what happened in the cell this morning?"
A sudden, startled look flashed into Randall's eyes, the colour fled from his face leaving him deadly pale, and he stumbled back a step.
Varge raised the bar.
Neither court nor courtroom officers could stop it—as one, from the rear bench to the front, men rose to their feet and craned forward.
The veins on Varge's neck and wrists were standing out like great knotted cords, his wrists seemed to go as white as the colour of milk, a sweat bead burst from his forehead, then another—and the bar was straight in his hands.
​The wild confusion died finally away in a sullen murmur. Five, ten minutes passed. Voices, somehow incongruous, unnatural, broke the otherwise tense silence—those of the judge, the district attorney, and once Randall's in a broken plea for clemency to the jury. And then Varge stood up to face the twelve men who had not left the box, and the single, ominous words fell from the foreman's lips.
"Guilty."
The district attorney rose from his chair.
"May it please the court, it becomes my duty to move that sentence be passed upon the prisoner, and I so move."
Judge Crosswaite, too, had risen, and a stillness, awed, more intense than any that had preceded it, was upon the room, as he spoke.
"Varge, have you anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon you?"
"Nothing," Varge answered, in a low voice—and bowed his head.
"The extreme penalty under the statutes of this Commonwealth for the crime you have committed," said Judge Crosswaite, in stern, grave tones, "is death. But your previous record, your voluntary confession, seem to me just grounds for invoking the mercy of the law." There was a pause, then came the solemn words: "The sentence of this court is that you be taken to the town of Hebron and be there confined in the State Penitentiary for the rest of your natural life."