The Glass Village полностью

“Peter said. Two-nineteen.”

“Between the time you went in and the time you came out, Mr. Hemus, did anyone in the store leave? Step out for a few minutes, maybe?”

“No.” Hube Hemus shifted squarely in the witness chair, challenging Judge Shinn. “Your honor, I want to ask a question.”

“As a witness, Mr. Hemus—” began the Judge.

“I’m askin’ as a juror. Juror’s got a right to ask questions, ain’t he?”

“All right, Hube,” said the Judge in a friendly way, but fast.

“What I want to know is, why’s everybody bein’ asked where they were round the time of the murder? Who’s on trial here, like Em Berry asked — this furrin tramp, or Shinn Corners?”

Talk fast, Mr. Moto, thought Johnny, grinning to himself. It had been too good to last, anyway. He wondered what the Judge was going to say, feeling a hearty gratitude that it was the Judge who had to say it.

Johnny thought the Judge, who had grown the merest bit ruddy about the ears, did a remarkable job of improvisation.

“Hube, how much do you know about trials?”

Hemus kept looking at him. “Not much.”

“Think I know anything about trials?”

“Expect you do, Judge.”

“What’s the purpose of a trial, Hube?”

“Prove a man guilty.”

“How is a man proved guilty in a court of law?”

“Through evidence and testimony.”

“Is all evidence the same, Hube?” Hemus frowned; as he frowned, his jaws began to grind. “No,” the Judge answered himself. “There are two kinds of evidence, direct and indirect. What evidence would prove most directly in this case that Josef Kowalczyk did in fact strike Fanny Adams on the head with that poker until she fell dead?”

Hemus thought that over. Finally he said, “Guess if somebody’d seen him do it.”

Judge Shinn beamed. “Exactly. Did you see him do it, Hube?”

“No. I was in Peter’s store...”

“How could the attorneys responsible for the proper conduct of this trial know that you were in Peter’s store at the time of the murder, Hube, and therefore didn’t see the defendant do it... unless they asked you?”

Bong! said Johnny to himself.

Hube Hemus’s jaws ground away furiously.

“How could they find out who did see him do it, if anybody did,” the Judge went on with terrible eloquence, “unless they asked everybody where they were?”

Hemus’s back drooped. “Didn’t think to see it that way, Judge. But,” he added quickly, “that’s not the only way to prove a man guilty—”

“’Course not, Hube,” said Judge Shinn indulgently. “Trial is a complicated business. All sorts of angles to it. This case may very well be decided solely on circumstantial evidence — most murder cases are. But I think you’d be the first to stand up and say, Hube, that everyone in Shinn Corners wants to do this right. So now if Judge Webster is through with his cross-examination, let’s get on with the trial, shall we?”

And Judge Webster was through. Judge Webster, in fact, was taken with a coughing fit that doubled his frail old carcass over.

“No more questions,” he spluttered, waving helplessly.

Although it was early, Judge Shinn recessed for lunch.

Court reconvened for the afternoon session with all participants under control, although through varying disciplines. The forces of law and order, who had come into the room in the well-being of danger bypassed and easy going ahead, soon glanced at one another doubtfully. The jury and the bailiff were too quiet, their never-loose mouths jammed shut.

The defendant sat down warily, watching like an animal. He had sensed the hardening at once. There was a smear of egg at one corner of his mouth, a clue to Elizabeth Sheare’s complicity.

Rebecca Hemus’s great buttocks squeezed between the rungs of the witness chair in long rolls, like sausages. She kept sucking at her teeth and moving her lower jaw from side to side in a bovine continuity. Her stare disconcerted Judge Shinn, and he kept glancing elsewhere.

That’s it, thought Johnny. They’ve talked over the Judge’s double talk and they’ve spotted it for what it was. He felt rather sorry for the Judge.

Rebecca’s testimony confirmed her husband’s. Hube and the boys had worked in the field all Saturday morning while she and Abbie were in the truck garden weeding and thinning. When the harrow broke down and Hube left for Peter Berry’s, the twins came over and cultivated in the rows till the rain began. They all ran back to the house and the boys fixed a separator that needed doing. When Hube got back he and the twins went out to the barn. Then about twenty or twenty-five minutes past three Prue Plummer phoned the terrible news, Hube got into the car, she and Abbie and the boys got into the truck...

“In other words, Mrs. Hemus,” said Adams, “at two-thirteen Saturday afternoon you, your daughter, and Tommy and Dave were in your house within sight of one another?”

“We were,” said Rebecca Hemus accusingly.

Andrew Webster waived cross-examination, and Mrs. Hemus was excused.

“I recall to the stand,” said Adams, “Reverend Samuel Sheare.”