Edwin Balmer

“ Neil collected his dizzy wits; the reaction from his long oppression left him unsteady. “Thank you—thank you,” he repeated, “but I'm not open to an offer.”
“Why not?” Guyler bent forward quickly. “Some one ahead of us?”
“No.”
“Then what's the big idea? Not that Congress idea I heard about in Norfolk! Good Lord, man, after this you don't doubt yourself enough to consider you're cut out for a career in Congress! You're a lawyer! I've been absolutely straight with you; can't you take a chance on me? We're not in court. ”

“ You've got to fight crookedness—if you want to see justice done—fight it as you fight fire. With fire! Do you get me? Or Guyler will set another murderer loose to stroll the streets and laugh at the law and the poor jays who try to enforce it—like you!”
Hallowell moved his hand and struck Neil familiarly. Neil, not trusting himself yet to speak, drew away with repulsion. Hallowell arose and turned his back to disregard it. ”

“ Neil gazed at Guyler. “I found it in the mud beside the creek on Hazen's Road. Some children had it. I thought at first you'd planted it there; afterwards I knew you hadn't, but I saw the evidence through.”
“And you want to go back home to run for Congress! Don't do that; you've got the stuff for success! Get geared right—don't lose your nerve; stay in high and see where you travel!” He tossed a memorandum to Neil. “There's my idea of the value you'd be to us to start. ”

“ Neil said, “when the witness has answered this question, I am satisfied to have finished with him till Friday morning. I am willing to give the defense the respite it desires!” He turned again toward Kane.
“Yes,” the prisoner answered.
WAITING, as was his custom, till the crowd had cleared, Neil followed the prisoner's counsel out to the street. Guyler did not delay for him, with the condescending courtesy he had shown after former sessions. Kramer did not seem to see him at all; and Macey swiftly slipped away. ”

“ She was white and lithe and soft in summer things, a linen dress, with gay scarf and dainty, pointed buckskin shoes; her light flaxen hair was parted and drawn severely back; she tantalized him most that way when with her blue eyes suddenly laughing she altered in a second from a prim to roguish Priscilla. For she was twenty-two, young enough to try and utterly fail to look a little older to him of twenty-eight. ”

“ It was leading to Hazen's Crossroad at the creek-bridge; and as that meant return to the trial, they stopped the car and got out. They found a brown glade still warm in the sun where for a while they sat and watched the creek flowing at their feet.
“The case, as it stands now,”—Neil said aloud his thoughts then—“is exactly this—”
“Dear, ought we?”
“Oh, Marion, it means all our future! Everything! I can't really think of anything else at all!”
“I know!” She seized his hand, which had clasped hers, and bending, she brought it to her lips. “Nor I! What is it?” ”

“ Shall we go home?”
After he had taken Marion home, the license-plate was more of a problem than before. He drove on still pondering; he continued to the Belfast Road, and the direction guided his decision. There was only one logical place to put the plate that was the place where it belonged and from which Guyler had taken it. Neil did not know the exact spot to which he should return it; but it must be near the Belfast Road about seven miles out. He drove that far. I was quite dark now, and he got out and opened his tool-box and tossed the license-plate into a little thicket. ”

“ Because you did wrong in using that evidence of the license-number as you did, you've made so much of it in your mind that you've come to think of it as all the evidence which convicted Kane. But it wasn't that, dear; Kane was a horrible man; he—he did that thing of which you convicted him. He would have been convicted, anyway.
“Neil, I know he would, for he's guilty! I wont say it's woman's instinct, for men had it too—the men on the jury as well as those in the courtroom. I knew all during those last days, before the license-tag was brought in at all, that he was guilty ”

“ Now Neil heard his name; when he came out, some one yelled for everybody to go up the square away from the courthouse; men seized Neil and hustled him along.
Saunders was at his shoulder. “You've got those Chicago crooks on the run, Neil! Say, do we know it! The boys like you for this morning; and they're going to send you to Congress! News just came and 's spreading about. Joe Armistead's resigned; he's going to Venezuela or somewhere. Post got the wire while you were laying out Guyler! The boys want you, when you've got him all laid out, to go to Washington for them!” ”

“ He had found himself often, recently observing children. These were building with bits of board and sticks and an oblong piece of metal. Neil observed them for some time before a jump of his pulse signaled recognition of the metal piece. It was an Illinois automobile license-plate and painted the color of the current year; the number was 67,452! It was the number which had been attached to the car Kane had take from the Union Avenue garage on the night of the murder and which had been missing when he returned. The was no doubt about it; Neil's own witnesses had put figures in evidence—67,452! ”

“ They told me to be ready, when the time comes to put me up.”
“Ready, Neil? How?”
“Well, other men will run against me, of course. The Belfast people will want either Dana or Macey. They're both older than I, and have a lot more experience—there's no use fooling ourselves about it; and they're both stronger to-day than I. But neither of 'em are in public office now. I am. People are watching me; public cases will come to me which will show what I'm worth. I'm sure to have my chance between now and the nomination, Hallowell says. Big cases 'break' in a place like this every once in so often ”

“ Macey followed then Guyler, closing for the defense, spoke for more than three hours. For the State, Neil spoke again for barely ten minutes—he asked again the extreme penalty. Then the judge gave the case to the jury.
The judge left—he was to be called if the jury reported or asked for further instructions. Guyler and Kramer went out leaving Macey; then Neil's assistants went to a café, finally he went out too, but he did not ear; he walked back to his room and back. Men stopped him on the street, complimenting him, assuring him of success. Hallowell halted him. ”

“ NEIL sat back dazed. while Guyler picked up one of the cigars he had flung down, and chewed the end off. “Only one sloppy thing about that, Thurston, if you don't mind a criticism from the losing side; it might have been safer to have had your farmer find it where Kane lost it instead of farther down.
“We had the devil of a hopeless case,” went on Guyler. “Still, we were licked; and when Guyler, Wadrop and Kramer lose any case, they know they've had a man against 'em too good to be getting his mail from a third-class post office. That means we want you with us. ”

“ We couldn't see how you could have got there before us. But you'd got it, of course; and you handled it right! An ordinary fool would have stuck it in evidence right away, and we'd have handled it easy ”