"That ain't possible," said Mr. Smilk.

"Oh, yes, it is. I'm a milliner, Ca.s.sius."

"I know you're a millionaire, but that don't,--"

"I said milliner."

"Run a mill of some kind?"

"No, I make hats for women."

As the incredulous burglar opened his mouth to say something the buzzer on the door sounded.

"They got here just in time," he subst.i.tuted.

CHAPTER FOUR

The case of the State vs. Ca.s.sius Smilk, charged with burglary, was finally set for trial the second week in February, just one year, one month and eleven days after his arrest in the apartment of Crittenden Yollop. There had been, it appears, a slight delay in getting 'round to his case. The dockets in all Parts of General Sessions were more or less clogged by the efforts of ex-convicts to get back into the penitentiary. Also, there were a great many murder cases that kept bobbing up every now and then for continuance on one plea or another to the disgust of the hara.s.sed judges; to say nothing of the re-trials made necessary by the jurors who listened more attentively to the lawyers who "summed up" than they did to the witnesses who were under oath to tell nothing but the truth.

Ca.s.sius, on arraignment, had pleaded not guilty, according to the ancient ritual of his profession. Notwithstanding his evident and expressed desire to return to a haven of peace and luxury, he was far too conscientious a criminal to violate the soundest--it may well be said, the elemental--law of his craft, by pleading guilty to anything.

It was a matter of principle with him. Circ.u.mstances had nothing to do with it. The instant he found himself in court, he reverted to type, somewhat gleefully setting about to make as much trouble as possible. He adhered to the principle that no criminal is adequately punished unless the people are made to pay for the privilege of suppressing him. The only way to make the people respect the law, he contended, is to let 'em understand that it costs money to enforce it. Besides, crime has a certain, clearly established dignity that must be reckoned with. The world thinks a great deal less of you if after you have violated the law, you also refuse to fight it.

Take the judge, for instance. (I quote Smilk.) What sort of an opinion does he have of you if you slide up to the little "gate,"

with your tail between your legs and plead guilty? Why, he hardly notices you. He has to put on his spectacles in order to see you at all and he doesn't even have to look in the statute book to refresh his memory as to the minimum penalty for larceny or whatever it is.

And the way the a.s.sistant District Attorney looks at you! And the bailiffs too. But put up a fight and see what happens. The whole blamed works sits up and takes notice. The judge looks over his spectacles and says to himself, "by gosh, he's a tough lookin' bird, that guy is;" the District Attorney goes around tellin' everybody in a whisper that you're a desperate character; the clerk of the court, the stenographer and all the bailiffs sort of wake up and act busy; the men waiting to be examined for jobs on the jury begin to fidget and wonder whether the judge is a "crab" or a nice, decent feller what'll let 'em off when they tell him they got sickness in the family, and all of 'em ha tin' you worse than poison because you didn't plead guilty.

He was remanded for trial within two weeks after his arrest. The court, finding him penniless, announced he would appoint counsel to defend him. Whereupon Smilk sauntered back to the Tombs with a light heart, confident that his sojourn there would be brief and that March at the very latest would see him snugly settled in his rent-free, food-free, landlordless home on the Hudson, entertainment for man and beast provided without discrimination, crime no object.

First of all, his lawyer unexpectedly got a job to represent a shady lady in a sensational breach of promise suit that drew weekly postponements over a period of five months and finally died a natural death out of court sometime in June.

This resulted in his lawyer becoming so affluent that it wasn't necessary for him to bother with Ca.s.sius, so he withdrew from the case. After some delay, another lawyer was appointed to defend him and things began to look up. But by this time the dockets had become so jammed with unrelated dilemmas, and the summer heat was so intense, that the new lawyer informed him he couldn't possibly sandwich him in unless he would consent to change his plea to "guilty", contending that the combination of humility and humidity would go a long ways towards softening the judge. But Ca.s.sius st.u.r.dily refused to cheapen himself.

In the meantime, new crimes had been committed by countless gentlemen of leisure; the Tombs was full of men clamoring for attention, and there was an undetected waiting list outside that stretched all the way from the Battery to the lower extremities of Yonkers.

The princ.i.p.al witness, Mr. Crittenden Yollop, did his best to behave n.o.bly. He thrice postponed a business trip to Paris in order to be within reach when Ca.s.sius needed him. Then, in the fall, when things looked most propitious for a speedy termination of Smilk's suspense, the millinery business took a sudden and alarming turn for the worse and Mr. Yollop fell into the hands of the specialists. He had his teeth ex-rayed, his sinuses probed, his eyes examined, his stomach sounded, his intestines visited, his nerves tampered with, his blood tested, his kidneys explored, his heart observed, his ears inspected, his gall stones (if he had any) shifted, his last will and testament drawn up, his funeral practically arranged for,--all by different scientists,--and then was ordered to go off somewhere in the country and play golf for his health. He went to Hot Springs, Virginia, and inside of two weeks contracted the golf disease in its most virulent form. He got it so bad that other players looked upon him as a scourge and avoided him even to the point of self-sacrifice. It was said of him that when he once got on a green it was next to impossible to get him off of it.

But all this is neither here nor there. Suffice to say that shortly after his return to New York, Mr. Yollop paid a more or less clandestine visit to the Tombs, where he saw Ca.s.sius. This was the week before the trial was to open. He found the crook in a disconsolate frame of mind.

"Don't call me Yollop," he managed to convey to the prisoner. "I gave another name to the jailer or whatever he is. Is it jail bird?

It wouldn't look right for the prosecuting witness to come down here to see you. They think I'm your brother-in-law."

Smilk glowered. "Has your hearin' improved any?" he inquired, after locating the disc.

"No, of course not."

"Then," said the prisoner, "I can't tell you what I think of you without the whole d.a.m.n' jail hearin' me, so I guess you'd better beat it."

"Splendid! That's just the way I might have expected you to talk to your brother-in-law."

"Well, what do you want anyhow?"

"I don't think that's a very nice way to speak to a--"

"Come on, what do you want to see me about? Get it over with and get out. It can't help my case any if it gets noised around that you come down here to pay a friendly visit to me. I'm havin' a hard enough time as it is. It's gettin' so it's almost impossible to get back into the pen even--"

"See here, Ca.s.sius, I've been giving your case a great deal--of serious thought. I want to help you out of this sc.r.a.pe if there is any way to do it."

"That's just what I thought you'd be up to," groaned Ca.s.sius.

"What's got into you? Have you soured on life, or what is it?"

"Not a bit of it. You do not get my meaning. Your wife came to see me yesterday afternoon."

"My wife? Which one?"

"A tallish one with a flat nose."

"Yes, I know her. What'd she want?"

"She asked me to be as easy on you as I could, on account of the children."

"How many children has she got now?"

"Four, she informs me. The youngest is two and a half."

Ca.s.sius seemed to be doing a bit of mental arithmetic. He pondered well before speaking. Then he said: "Did she say whose children?"

"I a.s.sumed them to be yours, Ca.s.sius."

Smilk grinned. "Well, I guess she's adopted a couple since the last time I saw her, which was five years ago last Spring. I been married twice since then. So she wants you to go easy on me, eh?"

"She seems to think that if I intercede for you the judge will let you off with a suspended sentence, and then you can go to work and support your family."

"It's time she woke up," snarled Smilk.

"I been at large quite a bit in the last ten years and if she can prove that I ever supported her,--why, darn her hide, what right has she got to accuse me of supportin' her when she knows I've never been guilty of doin' it? She knows as well as anything that she supported me on three different occasions when I was out for a month or two at a stretch. I will say this for her, she supported me better than the other two did,--a lot better. And it's her own fault her nose is flat. If she'd stood still that time--But I'm not goin'

to discuss family affairs with you, Mr. Yol--"

"Sh! Easy!"