Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 6, 1923 — page 130: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

912 This was directed against Christopher Sidney, a well-known art dealer in whose innocuous replies Claudia could find no reason for the attitude of the belligerent- mannered assistant district attorney, but a knowing smile flitted across Dreyer’s face and in answer to her questioning look he whispeved tersely : “Sells his pictures to your friends, ‘doesn’t he? Prosecution won’t take a chance on his hurting trade.” Juror number five eventuated in the per- son of a millionaire whose exploits in the sporting world were so celebrated that a ripple of amusement ran through the spec- tators when he described himself as a “ dog fancier.” A baker, stolid and rotund, a flashily garbed stockbroker and a powerful, black-browed, shambling youth who admit- ted in a rich brogue that he drove a motor truck by profession and preference, were all three accepted before the noon recess, with intervals between when the successful claimants to exemption trickled through one legal crevice or another. “Going splendidly, Mrs. Hamersley, splendidly!”? Dreyer announced when after a luncheon that she could not touch Claudia reappeared with her guard in the anteroom. “The jury box two-thirds full and not a challenge from our side yet! Couldn’t get a better lot of men together for our pur- pose!” “Look out for the next session, though,”’ Rowe warned. ‘I recognize a few of the talesmen left and if one or two of them got by our challenge the best we could hope for would be a disagreement.” Claudia listened in bewilderment. So many nationalities, and classes, and varied interests were represented already that the jury box had assumed to her mind the character of a melting pot and somehow she found her interest waning as that dual sense of detachment increased. She saw herself as a mere puppet, the central figure, to be sure, in this grim drama, but only a figure, her fellow actors absorbed in their own parts. Save for perfunctory courtesy Dreyer seemed to have forgotten her ex- istence and even Uncle Matt’s tone was absent and preoccupied now when he ad- dressed her, the anxious, hopeless despair- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, ing adviser and friend of that dark hour on the previous day lost in the urbane but grimly alert barrister. “The D. A. slipped in a few of his pet unwashed on this panel, did he?” Dreyer had responded to Rowe’s remark with char- acteristic bluntness. ‘‘ We’ll take care of them. We’ve put over one or two good things on him ourselves! Number two— Fay, the fat fellow with a chain of shoe stores—happens to be run ragged by private dicks employed by his suspicious wife, and he’ll fall with tears of hopeless regret for the angelic faith bestowed by our client on her husband, while number five—Eddie Ankers, the millionaire sport—was crazy about just one girl that anybody has ever been able to discover. She died a couple of years ago and she was the image of Mrs. Hamersley here, although a less refined type. He'll look at her and see an idealized double of his old love, and when we turn on the sob stuff there won’t be anything to it as far as he is concerned.” Claudia eyed the dry, cynical little as- sociate counsel in growing wonder. Was he omniscient, that he could know the hidden trials and sorrows of these two out of all that panel and plan coolly to make capital of them? Matthew Rowe voiced her surprise for her. ‘* How the devil do you know that?” he demanded, adding: “If we go on at this rate the box will be full by mid-afternoon, and then Kitchell will have his first fling. We may get a line from that on whether or not they’ve got Zorn and are going to spring him as a star witness. That fellow is a mystery! How he has managed to keep out of their clutches all this time—if he has!—is beyond me, and my men had to give him up as a bad job. J never took any stock in Stephen Munson’s notion, of course, but I’m surprised that the boy hasn’t reported one way or the other to us before the case opened.” That thought had been in the back of Claudia’s mind for several days past and she realized now that it had been Stephen’s face for which with unacknowledged hope she had looked among the spectators that morning. He had said with all the fervor TA GomiilGcdoo ©