Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0147/01478.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01478}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Pudd'nhead Wilson
Chapter XX}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{wilson
himself
tom
glass
now
time
find
old
twins
case}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Title:       Pudd'nhead Wilson
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1905

Chapter XX

     Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to
be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great
caution.  Take the case of any pencil, sharpened by any woman: if you have
witnesses, you will find she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the
aspect of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth. - Pudd'nhead
Wilson's Calendar.

     The weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins but their
counsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and the day of trial came at last - the
heaviest day in Wilson's life; for with all his tireless diligence he had
discovered no sign or trace of the missing confederate.  "Confederate" was
the term he had long ago privately accepted for that person - not as being
unquestionably the right term, but as being at least possibly the right one,
though he was never able to understand why the twins did not vanish and
escape, as the confederate had done, instead of remaining by the murdered man
and getting caught there.

     The courthouse was crowded, of course, and would remain so to the
finish, for not only in the town itself, but in the country for miles around,
the trial was the one topic of conversation among the people.  Mrs. Pratt,
in deep mourning, and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats near Pembroke
Howard, the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a great array of friends
of the family.  The twins had but one friend present to keep their counsel
in countenance, their poor old sorrowing landlady.  She sat near Wilson, and
looked her friendliest.  In the "nigger corner" sat Chambers; also Roxy,
with good clothes on, and her bill of sale in her pocket.  It was her most
precious possession, and she never parted with it, day or night.  Tom had
allowed her thirty-five dollars a month ever since he came into his property,
and had said that he and she ought to be grateful to the twins for making
them rich; but had roused such a temper in her by this speech that he did not
repeat the argument afterward.  She said the old Judge had treated her child
a thousand times better than he deserved, and had never done her an
unkindness in his life; so she hated these outlandish devils for killing him,
and shouldn't ever sleep satisfied till she saw them hanged for it.  She was
here to watch the trial, now, and was going to lift up just one "hooraw" over
it if the County Judge put her in jail a year for it.  She gave her turbaned
head a toss and said, "When dat verdic' comes, I's gwyne to lif' dat roof,
now, I tell you."

     Pembroke Howard briefly sketched the State's case.  He said he would
show by a chain of circumstantial evidence without break or fault in it
anywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar committed the murder; that
the motive was partly revenge, and partly a desire to take his own life out
of jeopardy, and that his brother, by his presence, was a consenting
accessory to the crime; a crime which was the basest known to the calendar
of human misdeeds - assassination; that it was conceived by the blackest of
hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands; a crime which had broken
a loving sister's heart, blighted the happiness of a young nephew who was as
dear as a son, brought inconsolable grief to many friends, and sorrow and
loss to the whole community.  The utmost penalty of the outraged law would
be exacted, and upon the accused, now present at the bar, that penalty would
unquestionably be executed.  He would reserve further remark until his
closing speech.

     He was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house; Mrs. Pratt and
several other women were weeping when he sat down, and many an eye that was
full of hate was riveted upon the unhappy prisoners.

     Witness after witness was called by the State, and questioned at length;
but the cross-questioning was brief.  Wilson knew they could furnish nothing
valuable for his side.  People were sorry for Pudd'nhead; his budding career
would get hurt by this trial.

     Several witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his public
speech that the twins would be able to find their lost knife again when they
needed it to assassinate somebody with.  This was not news, but now it was
seen to have been sorrowfully prophetic, and a profound sensation quivered
through the hushed courtroom when those dismal words were repeated.

     The public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his knowledge,
through a conversation held with Judge Driscoll on the last day of his life,
that counsel for the defense had brought him a challenge from the person
charged at this bar with murder; that he had refused to fight with a
confessed assassin - "that is, on the field of honor," but had added
significantly, that he would be ready for him elsewhere.  Presumably, the
person here charged with murder was warned that he must kill or be killed the
first time he should meet Judge Driscoll.  If counsel for the defense chose
to let the statement stand so, he would not call him to the witness stand.
Mr. Wilson said he would offer no denial.  [Murmurs in the house - "It is
getting worse and worse for Wilson's case."]

     Mrs. Pratt testified that she heard no outcry, and did not know what
woke her up, unless it was the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the front
door.  She jumped up and ran out in the hall just as she was, and heard the
footsteps flying up the front steps and then following behind her as she ran
to the sitting-room.  There she found the accused standing over her murdered
brother.  [Here she broke down and sobbed.  Sensation in the court.]
Resuming, she said the persons entering behind her were Mr. Rogers and Mr.
Buckstone.

     Cross-examined by Wilson, she said the twins proclaimed their innocence;
declared that they had been taking a walk, and had hurried to the house in
response to a cry for help which was so loud and strong that they had heard
it at a considerable distance; that they begged her and the gentlemen just
mentioned to examine their hands and clothes - which was done, and no blood
stains found.

     Confirmatory evidence followed from Rogers and Buckstone.

     The finding of the knife was verified, the advertisement minutely
describing it and offering a reward for it was put in evidence, and its exact
correspondence with that description proved.  Then followed a few minor
details, and the case for the State was closed.

     Wilson said that he had three witnesses, the Misses Clarkson, who would
testify that they met a veiled young woman leaving Judge Driscoll's premises
by the back gate a few minutes after the cries for help were heard, and that
their evidence, taken with certain circumstantial evidence which he would
call the court's attention to, would in his opinion convince the court that
there was still one person concerned in this crime who had not yet been
found, and also that a stay of proceedings ought to be granted, in justice
to his clients, until that person should be discovered.  As it was late, he
would ask leave to defer the examination of his three witnesses until the
next morning.

     The crowd poured out of the place and went flocking away in excited
groups and couples, talking the events of the session over with vivacity and
consuming interest, and everybody seemed to have had a satisfactory and
enjoyable day except the accused, their counsel, and their old-lady friend.
There was no cheer among these, and no substantial hope.

     In parting with the twins Aunt Patsy did attempt a good-night with a gay
pretense of hope and cheer in it, but broke down without finishing.

     Absolutely secure as Tom considered himself to be, the opening
solemnities of the trial had nevertheless oppressed him with a vague
uneasiness, his being a nature sensitive to even the smallest alarms; but
from the moment that the poverty and weakness of Wilson's case lay exposed
to the court, he was comfortable once more, even jubilant.  He left the
courtroom sarcastically sorry for Wilson.  "The Clarksons met an unknown
woman in the back lane," he said to himself - "that is his case!  I'll give
him a century to find her in - a couple of them if he likes.  A woman who
doesn't exist any longer, and the clothes that gave her her sex burnt up
and the ashes thrown away - oh, certainly, he'll find her easy enough!" This
reflection set him to admiring, for the hundredth time, the shrewd
ingenuities by which he had insured himself against detection - more, against
even suspicion.

     "Nearly always in cases like this there is some little detail or other
overlooked, some were little track or trace left behind, and detection
follows; but here there's not even the faintest suggestion of a trace left.
No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the air - yes, through the
night, you may say.  The man that can track a bird through the air in the
dark and find that bird is the man to track me out and find the Judge's
assassin - no other need apply.  And that is the job that has been laid out
for poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the world!  Lord, it will be
pathetically funny to see him grubbing and groping after that woman that
don't exist, and the right person sitting under his very nose all the time!"
The more he thought the situation over, the more the humor of it struck him.
Finally he said, "I'll never let him hear the last of that woman.  Every time
I catch him in company, to his dying day, I'll ask him in the guileless
affectionate way that used to gravel him so when I inquired how his unborn
law-business was coming along, 'Got on her track yet - hey, Pudd'nhead?'" He
wanted to laugh, but that would not have answered; there were people about,
and he was mourning for his uncle.  He made up his mind that it would be good
entertainment to look in on Wilson that night and watch him worry over his
barren lawcase and goad him with an exasperating word or two of sympathy and
commiseration now and then.

     Wilson wanted no supper, he had no appetite.  He got out all the finger-
prints of girls and women in his collection of records and pored gloomily
over them an hour or more, trying to convince himself that that troublesome
girl's marks were there somewhere and had been overlooked.  But it was not
so.  He drew back his chair, clasped his hands over his head, and gave
himself up to dull and arid musings.

     Tom Driscoll dropped in, an hour after dark, and said with a pleasant
laugh as he took a seat:

     "Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and
obscurity for consolation, have we?" and he took up one of the glass strips
and held it against the light to inspect it.  "Come, cheer up, old man;
there's no use in losing your grip and going back to this child's-play merely
because this big sunspot is drifting across your shiny new disk.  It'll pass,
and you'll be all right again," - and he laid the glass down.  "Did you think
you could win always?"

     "Oh, no," said Wilson, with a sigh, "I didn't expect that, but I can't
believe Luigi killed your uncle, and I feel very sorry for him.  It makes me
blue.  And you would feel as I do, Tom, if you were not prejudiced against
those young fellows."

     "I don't know about that," and Tom's countenance darkened, for his
memory reverted to his kicking; "I owe them no good will, considering the
brunette one's treatment of me that night.  Prejudice or no prejudice,
Pudd'nhead, I don't like them, and when they get their deserts you're not
going to find me sitting on the mourner's bench."

     He took up another strip of glass, and exclaimed:

     "Why, here's old Roxy's label!  Are you going to ornament the royal
palaces with nigger pawmarks, too?  By the date here, I was seven months old
when this was done, and she was nursing me and her little nigger cub.
There's a line straight across her thumb-print.  How comes that?" and Tom
held out the piece of glass to Wilson.

     "That is common," said the bored man, wearily.  "Scar of a cut or a
scratch, usually" - and he took the strip of glass indifferently, and raised
it toward the lamp.

     All the blood sunk suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he
gazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a corpse.

     "Great Heavens, what's the matter with you, Wilson?  Are you going to
faint?"

     Tom sprang for a glass of water and offered it, but Wilson shrank
shuddering from him and said:

     "No, no! - take it away!" His breast was rising and falling, and he
moved his head about in a dull and wandering way, like a person who has been
stunned.  Presently he said, "I shall feel better when I get to bed; I have
been overwrought to-day; yes, and overworked for many days."

     "Then I'll leave you and let you get to your rest.  Good-night, old
man." But as Tom went out he couldn't deny himself a small parting gibe:
"Don't take it so hard; a body can't win every time; you'll hang somebody
yet."

     Wilson muttered to himself, "It is no lie to say I am sorry I have to
begin with you, miserable dog though you are!"

     He braced himself up with a glass of cold whisky, and went to work
again.  He did not compare the new finger-marks unintentionally left by Tom
a few minutes before on Roxy's glass with the tracings of the marks left on
the knife-handle, there being no need of that (for his trained eye), but
busied himself with another matter, muttering from time to time, "Idiot that
I was! - nothing but a girl would do me - a man in girl's clothes never
occurred to me." First, he hunted out the plate containing the finger-prints
made by Tom when he was twelve years old, and laid it by itself; then he
brought forth the marks made by Tom's baby fingers when he was a suckling of
seven months, and placed these two plates with the one containing this
subject's newly (and unconsciously) made record.

     "Now the series is complete," he said with satisfaction, and sat down
to inspect these things and enjoy them.

     But his enjoyment was brief.  He stared a considerable time at the three
strips, and seemed stupefied with astonishment.  At last he put them down and
said, "I can't make it out at all - hang it, the baby's don't tally with the
others!"

     He walked the floor for half an hour puzzling over his enigma, then he
hunted out two other glass plates.

     He sat down and puzzled over these things a good while, but kept
muttering, "It's no use; I can't understand it.  They don't tally right, and
yet I'll swear the names and dates are right, and so of course they ought to
tally.  I never labeled one of these things carelessly in my life.  There is
a most extraordinary mystery here."

     He was tired out, now, and his brains were beginning to clog.  He said
he would sleep himself fresh, and then see what he could do with this riddle.
He slept through a troubled and unrestful hour, then unconsciousness began
to shred away, and presently he rose drowsily to a sitting posture.  "Now
what was that dream?" he said, trying to recall it; what was that dream? -
it seemed to unravel that puz - "

     He landed in the middle of the floor at a bound, without finishing the
sentence, and ran and turned up his light and seized his "records." He took
a single swift glance at them and cried out:

     "It's so!  Heavens, what a revelation!  And for twenty-three years no
man has ever suspected it!"