The Fortune Hunter

Chapter XII. Exit Mr. Feuerstein

The matron brought her up into the front room of the station house at eight in the morning. Casey looked at her haggard face with an expression of satisfaction. "Her nerve's going," he said to the sergeant. "I guess she'll break down and confess to-day."

They drove her to court in a Black Maria, packed among thieves, drunkards and disorderly characters. Upon her right side pressed a slant-faced youth with a huge nose and wafer-thin, flapping ears, who had snatched a purse in Houston Street. On her left, lolling against her, was an old woman in dirty calico, with a faded black bonnet ludicrously awry upon scant white hair--a drunkard released from the Island three days before and certain to be back there by noon.

"So you killed him," the old woman said to her with a leer of sympathy and admiration.

At this the other prisoners regarded her with curiosity and deference. Hilda made no answer, seemed not to have heard. Her eyes were closed and her face was rigid and gray as stone.

"She needn't be afraid at all," declared a young woman in black satin, addressing the company at large. "No jury'd ever convict as good-looking a girl as her."

"Good business!" continued the old woman. "I'd 'a' killed mine if I could 'a' got at him--forty years ago." She nodded vigorously and cackled. Her cackle rose into a laugh, the laugh into a maudlin howl, the howl changing into a kind of song--

"Cork up in there!" shouted the policeman from the seat beside the driver.

The old woman became abruptly silent. Hilda moaned and quivered. Her lips moved. She was murmuring, "I can't stand it much longer--I can't. I'll wake soon and see Aunt Greta's picture looking down at me from the wall and hear mother in the kitchen--"

"Step lively now!" They were at the Essex Market police court; they were filing into the waiting-pen. A lawyer, engaged by her father, came there, and Hilda was sent with him into a little consultation room. He argued with her in vain. "I'll speak for myself," she said. "If I had a lawyer they'd think I was guilty."

After an hour the petty offenders had been heard and judged. A court officer came to the door and called: "Hilda Brauner!"

Hilda rose. She seemed unconcerned, so calm was she. Her nerves had reached the point at which nerves refuse to writhe, or even to record sensations of pain. As she came into the dingy, stuffy little courtroom she didn't note the throng which filled it to the last crowded inch of standing-room; did not note the scores of sympathetic faces of her anxious, loyal friends and neighbors; did not even see her father and Otto standing inside the railing, faith and courage in their eyes as they saw her advancing.

The magistrate studied her over the tops of his glasses, and his look became more and more gentle and kindly. "Come up here on the platform in front of me," he said.

Hilda took her stand with only the high desk between him and her. The magistrate's tone and his kind, honest, old face reassured her. And just then she felt a pressure at her elbow and heard in Otto's voice: "We're all here. Don't be afraid."

"Have you counsel--a lawyer?" asked the magistrate.

"No," replied Hilda. "I haven't done anything wrong. I don't need a lawyer."

The magistrate's eyes twinkled, but he sobered instantly to say, "I warn you that the case against you looks grave. You had better have legal help."

Hilda looked at him bravely. "I've only the truth to tell," she insisted. "I don't want a lawyer."

"We'll see," said the magistrate, giving her an encouraging smile. "If it is as you say, you certainly won't need counsel. Your rights are secure here." He looked at Captain Hanlon, who was also on the platform. "Captain," said he, "your first witness--the man who found the body."

"Meinert," said the captain in a low tone to a court officer, who called loudly, "Meinert! Meinert!"

A man stood up in the crowd. "You don't want me!" he shouted, as if he were trying to make himself heard through a great distance instead of a few feet.

"You want--"

"Come forward !" commanded the magistrate sharply, and when Meinert stood before him and beside Hilda and had been sworn, he said, "Now, tell your story."

"The man--Feuerstein," began Meinert, "came into my place about half-past one yesterday. He looked a little wild-- as if he'd been drinking or was in trouble. He went back into the sitting-room and I sent in to him and--"

"Did you go in?"

"No, your Honor."

"When did you see him again?"

"Not till the police came."

"Stand down. I want evidence, not gossip. Captain Hanlon, who found the body? Do you know?"

"Your Honor, I understood that Mr. Meinert found it."

The magistrate frowned at him. Then he said, raising his voice, "Does any one know who found the body?"

"My man Wielert did," spoke up Meinert.

A bleached German boy with a cowlick in the center of his head just above his forehead came up beside Hilda and was sworn.

"You found the body?"

"Yes," said Wielert. He was blinking stupidly and his throat was expanding and contracting with fright.

"Tell us all you saw and heard and did."

"I take him the brandy in. And he sit and talk to himself. And he ask for paper and ink. And then he write and look round like crazy. And he make luny talk I don't understand. And he speak what he write--"

Captain Hanlon was red and was looking at Wielert in blank amazement.

"What did he write?" asked the magistrate.

"A letter," answered Wielert. "He put it in a envelope with a stamp on it and he write on the back and make it all ready. And then I watch him, and he take out a knife and feel it and speak with it. And I go in and ask him for money."

"Your Honor, this witness told us nothing of that before," interrupted Hanlon. "I understood that the knife--"

"Did you question him?" asked the magistrate.

"No," replied the captain humbly. And Casey and O'Rourke shook their big, hard-looking heads to indicate that they had not questioned him.

"I am curious to know what you have done in this case," said the magistrate sternly. "It is a serious matter to take a young girl like this into custody. You police seem unable to learn that you are not the rulers, but the servants of the people."

"Your Honor--" began Hanlon.

"Silence!" interrupted the magistrate, rapping on the desk with his gavel. "Proceed, Wielert. What kind of knife was it?"

"The knife in his throat afterward," answered Wielert. "And I hear a sound like steam out a pipe--and I go in and see a lady at the street door. She peep through the crack and her face all yellow and her eye big. And she go away."

Hilda was looking at him calmly. She was the only person in the room who was not intensely agitated. All eyes were upon her. There was absolute silence.

"Is that lady here?" asked the magistrate. His voice seemed loud and strained.

"Yes," said Wielert. "I see her."

Otto instinctively put his arm about Hilda. Her father was like a leaf in the wind.

Wielert looked at Hilda earnestly, then let his glance wander over the still courtroom. He was most deliberate. At last he said, "I see her again."

"Point her out," said the magistrate-- it was evidently with an effort that he broke that straining silence.

"That lady there." Wielert pointed at a woman sitting just outside the inclosure, with her face half-hid by her hand.

A sigh of relief swelled from the crowd. Paul Brauner sobbed.

"Why, she's our witness!" exclaimed Hanlon, forgetting himself.

The magistrate rapped sharply, and, looking toward the woman, said, "Stand up, Madam. Officer, assist her!"

The court officer lifted her to her feet. Her hand dropped and revealed the drawn, twitching face of Sophie Liebers.

"Your Honor," said Hanlon hurriedly, "that is the woman upon whose statement we made our case. She told us she saw Hilda Brauner coming from the family entrance just before the alarm was given."

"Are you sure she's the woman you saw?" said the magistrate to Wielert. "Be careful what you say."

"That's her," answered Wielert. "I see her often. She live across the street from Meinert's."

"Officer, bring the woman forward," commanded the magistrate.

Sophie, blue with terror, was almost dragged to the platform beside Hilda. Hilda looked stunned, dazed.

"Speak out!" ordered the magistrate.

"You have heard what this witness testified."

Sophie was weeping violently. "It's all a mistake," she cried in a low, choked voice. "I was scared. I didn't mean to tell the police Hilda was there. I was afraid they'd think I did it if I didn't say something."

"Tell us what you saw." The magistrate's voice was severe. "We want the whole truth."

"I was at our window. And I saw Hilda come along and go in at the family entrance over at Meinert's. And I'd seen Mr. Feuerstein go in the front door about an hour before. Hilda came out and went away. She looked so queer that I wanted to see. I ran across the street and looked in. Mr. Feuerstein was sitting there with a knife in his hand. And all at once he stood up and stabbed himself in the neck--and there was blood--and he fell--and--I ran away."

"And did the police come to you and threaten you?" asked the magistrate.

"Your Honor," protested Captain Hanlon with an injured air, "she came to us."

"Is that true?" asked the magistrate of Sophie.

Sophie wept loudly. "Your Honor," Hanlon went on, "she came to me and said it was her duty to tell me, though it involved her friend. She said positively that this girl went in, stayed several minutes, then came out looking very strange, and that immediately afterward there was the excitement. Of course, we believed her."

"Of course," echoed the magistrate ironically. "It gave you an opportunity for an act of oppression."

"I didn't mean to get Hilda into trouble. I swear I didn't," Sophie exclaimed. "I was scared. I didn't know what I was doing. I swear I didn't!"

Hilda's look was pity, not anger. "Oh, Sophie," she said brokenly.

"What did your men do with the letter Feuerstein wrote?" asked the magistrate of Hanlon suspiciously.

"Your Honor, we--" Hanlon looked round nervously.

Wielert, who had been gradually rising in his own estimation, as he realized the importance of his part in the proceedings, now pushed forward, his face flushed with triumph. "I know where it is," he said eagerly. "When I ran for the police I mail it."

There was a tumult of hysterical laughter, everybody seeking relief from the strain of what had gone before. The magistrate rapped down the noise and called for Doctor Wharton. While he was giving his technical explanation a note was handed up to the bench. The magistrate read:

GERMAN THEATER, 3 September.

YOUR HONOR--I hasten to send you the inclosed letter which I found in my mail this morning. It seems to have an important bearing on the hearing in the Feuerstein case, which I see by the papers comes up before you to-day.

Very truly yours,

WILLIAM KONIGSMARCK,

Manager.

The magistrate handed the inclosure to a clerk, who was a German. "Read it aloud," he said. And the clerk, after a few moments' preparation, slowly read in English:

To the Public:

Before oblivion swallows me--one second, I beg!

I have sinned, but I have expiated. I have lived bravely, fighting adversity and the malice which my superior gifts from nature provoked. I can live no longer with dignity. So, proud and fearless to the last, I accept defeat and pass out.

I forgive my friends. I forget my enemies.

Exit Carl Feuerstein, soldier of fortune, man of the world. A sensitive heart that was crushed by the cruelty of men and the kindness of women has ceased to beat.

CARL FEUERSTEIN.

P. S. DEAR. MR. KONIGSMARCK-- Please send a copy of the above to the newspapers, English as well as German.

C. F.

The magistrate beamed his kindliest upon Hilda. "The charge against you is absurd. Your arrest was a crime. You are free."

Hilda put her hand on Otto's arm. "Let us go," she murmured wearily.

As they went up the aisle hand in hand the crowd stood and cheered again and again; the magistrate did not touch his gavel--he was nodding vigorous approval. Hilda held Otto's hand more closely and looked all round. And her face was bright indeed.

Thus the shadow of Mr. Feuerstein-- of vanity and false emotion, of pose and pretense, passed from her life. Straight and serene before her lay the pathway of "work and love and home."