“I see. Well, in that case, possibly we should divide that forty thousand dollars in a different manner,” Pugh said thoughtfully, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “One portion sufficient for your needs as far as brandy and champagne are concerned — let us say an amount equivalent to what the cupboard may have held — I leave it to your honesty to make the estimate — and the balance to me.”
“Hey! Here! None of that!” Briggs said, outraged, and turned to the others. “Look at him, would you! What did I tell you about him? Twenty thousand dollars he gets for a few hours’ work, work on a scheme Billy-Boy thought up, and he’s still not satisfied! He!”
“Tim!” Carruthers said sternly. “Be quiet!”
“I will not be quiet! I—”
He paused, as he seemed to have lost his audience. They had all turned at a discreet cough from the butler, heard above Briggs’s diatribe through long practice on the butler’s part. Pugh nodded.
“Yes, Symes?”
“That — that — that gentleman who was here just this morning, Sir Percival,” Symes began, but before he could go further, Harold pushed into the room. He was alone and seemed in some sort of a daze.
“Yes?” Pugh asked politely.
Harold looked around the room slowly. His eyes seemed to focus only when they came to Carruthers.
“Pops—”
“Yes, Harold?” Carruthers said in a kindly tone.
“Pops, I didn’t know where else to look for you. I—” He stopped.
“What’s the trouble, Harold?” Carruthers’ tone was soothing.
Harold swallowed and took a deep breath, as if to furnish power for a speech he hated to make but knew he had to.
“Pops — when we got back to the farmhouse, Clare, he run right into the house, so I come in after him and he’s at the safe. And when he got it open and saw the package only had newspaper inside, he said—” Harold paused.
“What did Clarence say, Harold?”
“He was like a maniac, pops. A real maniac. I seen a guy like that went off his nut in Joliet, once, tried to bite right through the cell bars. Bust all his teeth before they drag him loose...”
“What did Clarence say, Harold?”
“He — he said he was goin’ to kill all you guys. He meant it. I know, I seen guys like that before. They don’t care what happens to them, they’re so mad. And he said if I didn’t go along and help, he’d start the killing with me. He meant it, pops. He had a gun in the safe along with the rest of the dough, had it in a little box I never knew what was in it before —”
For the first time Pugh interrupted.
“How much money was there, Harold?”
“Nine grand, six hundred. I counted it afterward—”
Carruthers cast a reproachful look at Pugh and then went back to Harold.
“After what, Harold?”
“After I hit him with the shovel,” Harold said simply, and suddenly sat down in a chair, staring at his hands.
The police, called at Pugh’s insistence as an officer of the court, had taken away a still dazed, unresisting Harold. The others in the room, feeling somewhat in shock, stared at each other silently. At last Simpson spoke, a look of sadness on his long, thin face; he spoke for them all.
“Poor Harold...”
“But, certainly,” Carruthers said, looking at Pugh, “it’s a simple case of self-defense?”
Pugh shook his head.
“It would be a most difficult defense, and one I should never think any advocate worth his salt would even faintly consider. Look at the evidence: an open safe, nine thousand six hundred dollars in American money to be quarreled over; a record — which I am sure their housekeeper will testify to when she is located — that Clarence’s treatment of Harold was always of contempt; Harold’s record of violence in the United States, while Clarence’s record is one of nonviolence. Add to that the fact that the police would have only Harold’s unsupported word that Clarence had gone mad with anger and was capable of, and planning, our murders. Then, when you add to all that the size of Harold, as opposed to the size of Clarence, and I’m afraid that self-defense would be a most difficult case to support.”
It was all too true, and they all knew it.
“It looks hopeless,” Briggs said glumly.
Pugh looked at him in total surprise.
“Do you think so? I shouldn’t think so at all. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact.”
They all looked at him. “But you said—” Simpson began.
“I said self-defense was a poor defense. That’s all I said.” Pugh glanced at the wall clock. “And now I’m afraid it’s getting a bit late, and I shall have to be up in the morning to have a word with Harold in prison and get him to recall a bit more accurately the events of the evening.”
“Can we possibly contribute a bit of money toward Harold’s defense?” Carruthers asked anxiously. “Out of our share of that forty thousand dollars?”
“Wait a second!” Briggs began hotly.
“It will not be necessary,” Pugh said before Briggs could continue. “I shall be content to take this case just for the nine thousand six hundred dollars that Harold possesses.” He walked them to the door and paused in the foyer. “If you wish, though,” he added, “you might consider paying Harold’s air fare back to the United States. He will be quite destitute after paying my fee.”
Briggs opened his mouth to scream, but again Pugh spoke before the little man could get a sound out.
“You really can well afford it,” Sir Percival said gently. “I see in tonight’s papers that the Namibian Chartered Mines did not go dry, after all; it seems it was merely a false rumor begun by one of the company directors in a vain attempt to corner all the shares at a vastly reduced price. He is being held by the authorities at the moment, and the stock, since his arrest, has gone up almost double in price to what it was a week ago...”
Chapter 16
Sir Percival Pugh stood and considered the jury a moment. They looked like almost all the juries he had ever faced, eagerly awaiting his expertise to clarify the confusion created by the prosecution for the Crown, Sir Osbert Willoughby, in his opening remarks. At last, satisfied, Sir Percival nodded and turned first to the judge, and then back to the jury.
“My Lord, gentlemen of the jury. I have heard my worthy opponent claim that my client, Harold Nishbagel, did willfully and with malice aforethought — those words not being original with my worthy opponent, I might mention, despite his attempt to make them appear so — take a shovel and beat his long-time friend and close associate, Clarence Wellington Alexander, to death.
“Gentlemen, my Lord, nothing could be further from the truth. Harold Nishbagel would not harm a fly. I have three witnesses to this fact, witnesses of such unimpeachable probity that even Sir Osbert will be forced to accept their irrefutable honesty. They will testify to Harold Nishbagel’s unflagging kindness and dislike of anything smacking of violence. I might mention in passing, gentlemen, that Nishbagel, in its original Osage Indian language, means exactly that — kind-heartedness, moderation, abatement, tranquillity. To an Osage named Nishbagel, doing anything of a forceful nature would be to violate the code of the Osages, and bring upon one the curse of all his Osage ancestors.”
Sir Percival paused to sip a glass of water. He dabbed at his lips while watching the jury from the corner of his eye. Their own eyes, like those of a sparrow locked in frozen rigidity to those of a snake, followed his every move. Gotcha! Pugh thought with uncharacteristic reversion to his Irish ancestors, and went on, his voice calmly continuing to hypnotize them.
“Gentlemen, what are the true facts of this case? Did Harold Nishbagel raise a shovel and bring it down upon the head of his friend, Clarence Wellington Alexander? Yes, gentlemen, he did.”