Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 119: what you’re looking at

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

IN may be out of order, but he’s damned right! Cosgreve has still got to prove he didn’t murder Jacob Klien!”’ And that was his honor’s chance. While the court room still hung on the sound of the prosecuting attorney’s voice, Judge Fairlove saw his opportunity to take to himself something of the limelight which had beat so pitilessly upon every other being at the trial but him. “Young feller,” he boomed, and leaned far forward in his chair, “‘ Ben Creevy talks sense. What more defense have you got to offer to this court?” Cosgrove then experienced that moment of hesitation which must come to the gambler who possesses but one trump and knows that the game depends on when that trump is played. For he was now faced by the predicament which had occupied him through all the days since his arrest—a predicament which he had hoped to ame- liorate by moving the court and jury with the picture he had drawn of his probity and unassailable character. The fact was that Klien had died by a bullet from his gun, and there was only one person whom he could call to witness that he had fired in self-defense. He had known from the beginning that this was so, and had assailed himself often with the question of what in this dilemma he would do. Would he call her to testify for him? Would he be capable of placing her upon that platform and subjecting her to the in- quisition which she would surely have to bear from Creevy, whatever testimony she gave to the questions he would put? The question had tormented him throughout the trial, and now, as he was brought to the test, he knew that he could not go ahead. The hot pain which had seared him when Creevy had dragged her name so iniquitous- ly into the evidence before, now recurred to him. To place her in the box would be to subject her to a publicity tenfold as infamous. All her most secret thoughts and delicate feelings would be paraded in the limelight of the calumny which Creevy would pour upon her with his cross-exami- nation. The one matter of her strained relations THE EVENT OF DEATH. 269 with her father, the union with Lederer upon which Mason Farley had insisted— Cosgrove winced as he recollected how she had shrank from the remembrance of it. ‘It was shameful!” she had cried. And Creevy would endeavor to show that she had plotted to gain her father’s fortune through his murder. ! These thoughts flashed through Cos- grove’s mind as he was confronted with the demand for quick action. His defense so swiftly begun, so dexterously pursued, must be continued without a halt. Up to this point he had not failed to touch home with each thrust of his blade. But on this, the most vital issue of his defense, he paused, he wavered. He appeared for the first time at a loss. Watching him, Hazel Farley’s heart fell. She had followed this case in silence, but she had followed it with her soul. With her heart near to bursting as the case had gone against him, she had watched the mob rise to the lash of Creevy’s tactics with the de- termination to throw herself between it and the man she loved if his life fell into the balance. When the perilous moment came she had whipped a gun from the holster at Gaines’s side and leaped to her place beside him; and she had known that no small part of the spell which had halted that mob was due to her presence at his side. When she had seen the reins once more in Cosgrove’s hands, launched on that ad- mirable attack which was his defense, she had settled back in her chair with the sure knowledge that all was over save the for- malities of victory. She had followed his splendid sword play with exhilaration, sweeping onward in her heart as he swept onward to triumph. And now she saw him falter, waver; with a cold constriction of her heart she saw him, in the most critical moment of defense, perceptibly pull up. He swept the court room with his eyes as though seeking aid from the empty air. There was a second when his gaze alighted upon hers and he saw agony there. Then, afraid lest she divine that she was the cause of his hesitation, he swung with his surprise attack upon the judge. “Mr. Creevy has come to life,”’ he said; Gomichbooks (E@)