The two men heard Peter’s story and changed it a little, and then heard him over again and pronounced him all right, and Peter went back to his hotel room and waited in trepidation for his hour in the limelight. When they took him to court his knees were shaking, but also he had a thrill of real importance, for they had provided him with a body-guard of four big huskies; also he saw two “bulls” whom he recognized in the hallway outside the court-room, and many others scattered thru the audience. The place was packed with Red sympathizers, but they had all been searched before they were allowed to enter, and were being watched every moment during the trial. When Peter stepped into the witness box he felt as Tom Duggan and Donald Gordon must have felt that night when the white glare from thirty or forty automobiles was beating upon them. Peter felt the concentrated Red hate of two or three hundred spectators, and now and then their pent-up fury would break restraint; there would be a murmur of protest, or perhaps a wave of sneering laughter, and the bailiff would bang on the table with his wooden mallet, and the judge would half rise from his seat, and declare that if that happened again he would order the court-room cleared.
Not far in front of Peter at a long table sat the seventeen defendants, looking like trapped rats, and every one of their thirty-four rat eyes were fixed upon Peter’s face, and never moved from it. Peter only glanced that way once; they bared their rats’ teeth at him, and he quickly looked in another direction. But there also he saw a face that brought him no comfort; there sat Mrs. Godd, in her immaculate white chiffons, her wide-open blue eyes fixed upon his face, her expression full of grief and reproach. “Oh, Mr. Gudge!” she seemed to be saying. “How can you? Mr. Gudge, is this Peace. . . justice. . . Truth. . . Law?” And Peter realized with a pang that he had cut himself off forever from Mount Olympus, and from the porch chair with the soft silken pillows! He turned away toward the box where sat the twelve jurymen and women. One old lady gave him a benevolent smile, and a young farmer gave him a sly wink, so Peter knew that he had friends in that quarter—and after all, they were the ones who really counted in this trial. Mrs. Godd was as helpless as any “wobbly,” in the presence of this august court.
Peter told his story, and then came his cross-questioning, and who should rise and start the job but David Andrews, suave and humorous and deadly. Peter had always been afraid of Andrews, and now he winced. Nobody had told him he was to face an ordeal like this! Nobody had told him that Andrews would be allowed to question him about every detail of these crimes which he said he had witnessed, and about all the conversations that had taken place, and who else was present, and what else had been said, and how he had come to be there, and what he had done afterwards, and what he had had to eat for breakfast that morning. Only two things saved Peter, first the constant rapid-fire of objections which Stannard kept making, to give Peter time to think; and second, the cyclone-cellar which Stannard had provided for him in advance. “You can always fail to remember,” the deputy had said; “nobody can punish you for forgetting something.” So Peter would repeat the minute details of a conversation in which Alf Guinness had told of burning down the barn, but he didn’t remember who else had heard the conversation, and he didn’t remember what else had been said, nor what was the date of the conversation.
Then came the blessed hour of noon, with a chance for Peter to get fixed up again before the court resumed at two. He was questioned again by Stannard, who patched up all the gaps in his testimony, and then again he failed to remember things, and so avoided the traps which Andrews set for his feet. He was told that he had “done fine,” and was escorted back to the Hotel de Soto in triumph, and there for a week he stayed while the defense made a feeble effort to answer his testimony. Peter read in the papers the long speeches in which the district attorney and the deputy acclaimed him as a patriot, protecting his country from its “enemies within;” also he read a brief reference to the “tirade” of David Andrews, who had called him a “rat” and a “slinking Judas.” Peter didn’t mind that, of course—it was all part of the game, and the calling of names is a pretty sure sign of impotence.
Less easy to accept placidly, however, was something which came to Peter that same day—a letter from Mrs. Godd! It wasn’t written to him, but he saw H............