The Glass Village

Three...

Judge Shinn was preoccupied during the service. Almost as preoccupied, Johnny observed, as Mr. Sheare. The minister mumbled throughout, and during the singing of the hymns he stood with eyes closed as if communing with the only Authority that had never failed him. To the Judge’s frank relief, Mr. Sheare dispensed with his sermon.

Johnny found his thoughts wandering to the man in the cellar. Kowalczyk was probably a Roman Catholic, and if he was devout this imprisonment in the coalbin of a Low Protestant church during a sacred service must seem to him a cruel and unusual punishment. No Latin, strange-sounding hymns, a priest who dressed like other men...

He dismissed Kowalczyk with an effort.

After the service the Judge conferred with Ferriss Adams. Then he took Hube Hemus aside. He was talking earnestly to Elizabeth Sheare when Millie Pangman waddled over and hovered.

“Yes, Millie, what is it?”

“Your Sunday dinner’s goin’ to be awful late, Judge,” the farmer’s wife said timidly. “I’ve got my own family’s dinner to get, and what with everythin’ that’s happened and all—”

“It’s all right, Millie,” the Judge barked. “We’ll manage,” and he turned back to Mr. Sheare.

Millie Pangman drew little Deborah away, crushed. Johnny went up to her. “Now don’t you worry about our dinner, Mrs. Pangman. I’ll fix it.”

“But I don’t like you havin’ to do that, Mr. Shinn.”

“Why not? I’ll enjoy it,” Johnny lied gallantly. “Is there anything in the house to make dinner with?”

“There’s a roast of beef in the refrig’rator I was goin’ to fix—”

“Say no more. I cut my eyeteeth on roasts of beef. We’ll make out fine.”

So Sunday afternoon found Johnny in the big Shinn kitchen up to his armpits in one of Millie Pangman’s aprons, pondering the mysteries of a boned rolled roast while Judge Shinn busied himself with equally mysterious telephone calls on the extension in his study. Johnny solved the culinary mystery when he dug a cookbook out of a cupboard drawer, and the discovery of a roast-thermometer he crowed over. But the mystery of the Judge’s phone calls remained one. Johnny found himself rather resenting the old man’s reticence. He wondered why. He prepared some dough for biscuits thoughtfully.

While he set the table in the dining room, the Judge passed through the hall without a glance. Johnny saw him cross the road and disappear in the church.

The Judge came back an hour later, frowning. Again he shut himself in his study; and Johnny had to knock five times before he answered.

They ate Johnny’s dinner in silence — rare roast beef, hot biscuits with country butter, gooseberry jam (found on the top shelf of a cupboard), and bread-and-butter pickles that came in a jar with a homemade pictorial label bearing the signature “Fanny Adams.” The Judge might have been eating fried woodchuck. He ate with a scowl, his gray brows bunched over his shrewd blue eyes.

But after dinner the old man suddenly chuckled and took Johnny’s arm. “Don’t know when I’ve savored a meal more, Johnny. Beats Millie’s cooking all hollow! Never mind the dishes, Millie’ll do ’em... I wanted to do some thinking and checking. Come on into my study.”

“First,” said the Judge, sinking into his leather swivel chair, “understand that I’m not trying to drag you into this, Johnny. But as long as you’re here, do you mind if I use you as a sounding board?”

“Well, I’m here,” said Johnny. “Sound off.”

“I don’t want you to think—”

“Cut the psychology, your honor,” said Johnny. “The maiden is willing. To listen, anyway.”

“Thank you,” said the Judge solemnly. “Let’s understand our position — excuse me, my position...”

“See here,” said Johnny, “apparently you have some notion that all breathing has ceased and somebody forgot to inter the remains. This thing interests me, Judge. If only as a confirmation of my thesis that God’s in His heaven, all’s wrong with the world. Where do we stand?”

“Well,” said the Judge, settling back carefully, “we have a thin edge to walk. My purpose is to make this proceeding as legally preposterous and indefensible as I can get away with.”

“Then why that speech about court personnel, defense counsel, and the rest of it? Seems to me all that makes it too real.”

“You didn’t let me finish. At the same time, let’s not underestimate my neighbors. They’re provincial and ignorant of a great many things, but they’re not fools. To the extent of their minimal knowledge we’ll have to conform to normal courtroom procedure. They certainly know that in every trial there must be someone to administer the oath, keep order, and so on. As a New England community steeped in the tradition of town meetings, caucuses, selectmen meetings and the like, they’re also minutes-conscious and will expect someone to keep a record of what goes on. And so on down the line.”

“That’s a complication,” frowned Johnny. “Seems to me there aren’t enough people available.”

“There’s a rather curious result mathematically,” said the Judge. He glanced at a pad of lined yellow paper on the desk. “Let’s take the problems in order. Bailiff. The natural choice is Burney Hackett. As town constable Burney can take charge of the prisoner’s comings and goings — they’ll consider that fitting and proper; as bailiff of the court he can keep order, serve as messenger, jury usher, and administer the oaths.

“Next: Court stenographer. We can’t avoid this, obviously, and we don’t want to avoid it. We want the most accurate transcript of what happens in the ‘courtroom’ for the permanent record.”

“Means you’ll have to call in some one from outside.”

“As it happens, no. Elizabeth Sheare trained herself in shorthand years ago to help her in her teaching work.”

“But don’t you need Mrs. Sheare as a jurywoman?”

“Love to have her as both,” remarked the Judge. “That would make a fine black smear on the trial record! But unfortunately Hube Hemus knows it, too. I can’t chance arousing Hube’s suspicions. He’s our key man. If we keep him satisfied, we’ll have no trouble with the others.

“Next: The prosecutor. I have the perfect choice—”

“Ferriss Adams,” said Johnny.

“Right. He couldn’t possibly be improved upon for our purposes. You heard Hube this morning; he was worried about it. In my capacity as a judge of the Superior Court, my appointment of Adams to be ‘special assistant state’s attorney’ is bound to please Hube and everyone else. As Aunt Fanny’s kin, Ferriss has strong feelings about the case and they’ll expect him to prosecute with a vengeance; they’ll have confidence in him. I’ve talked to Ferriss and explained confidentially what I’m after. He’s agreed to do it.

“Now for the defense: I’ve been over to see Kowalczyk—”

“Don’t think I don’t know it,” said Johnny. “All on your lone.”

“Now, now, I had my reason. Kowalczyk knows no lawyer, doesn’t know anyone around here, he says, and I’m going to appoint counsel, someone I can trust to play his part in this farce convincingly. In fact, I’ve already talked to him. He’s coming down from Cudbury this evening.”

“Who is he?”

“I introduced you to him last week. Andy Webster.”

“Judge Webster? But I thought you said he was retired and raising prize chrysanthemums.”

“He’s itching to get into this.” The Judge glanced at his pad. “That brings us to the jury.

“The jury, of course,” said the Judge, leaning back again, “is our real secret weapon. Almost without exception it will be packed with avowedly prejudiced jurymen whose opinions as to the defendant’s guilt have been fully formed in advance. Which is, for our purposes, just dandy!

“Let’s go through the voting population of Shinn Corners and see what we get.

“The Berrys, Peter and Emily, make two.

“Hubert and Rebecca Hemus, four. The Hemus twins are only eighteen.

“Hacketts. Burney’s our bailiff-etcetera, so he can’t serve, and Joel’s under age. Selina’s so deaf the others wouldn’t let her sit even if we wanted her. Their aim is a quick trial, and Selina’s insistence on having everything repeated to her till she hears it would prolong this thing into the next century. Therefore no Hacketts.

“Pangman.” The Judge referred again to his notes. “Orville and Millie, Eddie being under age and Merritt off in the Navy somewhere.”

“Two more, making six.”

“Prue Plummer.”

“Seven.”

“Scott. Earl’s helpless — hasn’t been out of the house for five years except on his porch. Old Seth’s not only in a wheelchair, he’s senile. And Drakeley’s only seventeen. Leaving Mathilda. She’ll have to serve while Judy takes care of the invalids.”

“Mathilda Scott, eight.”

“The Sheares.” The Judge fingered his chin. “Elizabeth is our stenographer. Samuel Sheare, let us pray, will be in. Or on.”

“But you can’t do that,” protested Johnny. “A minister of the gospel serving on a jury in a first degree murder case? For one thing, Mr. Sheare probably doesn’t believe in capital punishment—”

“And in this state,” nodded the Judge, smiling, “conviction in a first degree murder case carries with it the death penalty. Exactly. And, by the way, Samuel Sheare does have conscientious scruples against capital punishment. My problem’s going to be to get him to refrain from expressing them in the courtroom. If he’ll keep quiet, we may have a fighting chance to slip him into the panel.”

“Nine,” said Johnny, shaking his head. “It’s hard to keep in mind that as far as this trial is concerned we’re on the side of lawlessness and disorder. Keep going!”

“You’ll see a lot worse before it’s over,” said the Judge. “Calvin Waters. Now Calvin’s another problem. A juryman who hasn’t been right in the head since the age of three is, of course, just in line with what we’re looking for on this jury. Trouble, is they know Calvin, too. Well, they haven’t much choice. It’s Calvin Waters, alias Laughing, or we won’t reach the sacred number twelve.

“Let’s see now... beginning to scrape bottom...”

“Wait a minute. Calvin Waters, number ten. How about that old man on the hill? Hosey Lemmon?”

“Won’t serve. Hube’s already sent Burney Hackett up to sound old Lemmon out. Hosey grabbed his shotgun, said he wouldn’t have anything to do with killings and trials, that he knew nothing about Fanny’s murder, didn’t want to know, and refused to take any part. Burn almost got his leg blown off.”

“Then who’s left? The Isbels! That’s two right there. There’s your twelve.”

“It might appear so to you,” said Judge Shinn, “which shows how tricky appearances can be. Yes, there’s Mert, and there’s Sarah, who’s twenty-nine, and that’s two, and ten plus two make twelve. Only in this case they don’t. Those two add up to one.”

“Coventry,” murmured Johnny. “I noticed Friday that Aunt Fanny’s guests steered clear of Sarah and her little girl. The others wouldn’t accept her, eh?”

“Oh, they’d accept her, especially in a thing like this,” said the Judge. “It’s Mert who wouldn’t.”

“Hér own father?”

“I didn’t tell you about Sarah. Can’t think of a better illustration of what we’re up against.” The Judge sighed. “It happened — yes, Sarah was nineteen — about ten years ago. Mert’s wife Hillie was alive then; Sarah was their only child. She was a bouncy, pretty girl, not the washed-out dishrag you see today.

“Well, it happened around Christmas time. A traveling man from New York, drygoods or notions or something, had his car break down during a blizzard, and between waiting for the county plows to come through and clear the road and his car to be fixed by Peter Berry, he was snowed in here till after New Year’s. Stayed with the Berrys, as I recall, in their spare room. At a fee, of course. With the holiday goings-on and all, Sarah was in the village a good deal that week. And when the traveling man left, she left with him.”

“Elopement?”

“That’s what we thought. Mert and Hillie were fit to be tied. Not only was the man a New Yorker, he had a furrin-sounding name — at least it wasn’t Anglo-Saxon — and, what was worse, he was an atheist, or pretended to be. Good deal of a smart aleck; I don’t doubt he was pulling the yokels’ legs. His gibes at religion made Mert Isbel froth at the mouth. And this was the man who’d run off with his only daughter.

“As if that wasn’t bad enough, about a year later Sarah came home. She hadn’t written once during that year, and when she got home we realized why. She showed up with a baby, Mary-Ann, and no husband. In fact, she hadn’t seen the man she’d run away with for months. He’d got her pregnant and abandoned her, and of course he’d never married her.”

“Dirty dog,” said Johnny pleasantly.

“Well, there are dirty dogs and dirty dogs,” said the Judge. “I give you Mert Isbel as a relative example.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hillie died. Between her daughter’s disgrace and her husband’s Biblical tantrums — and a heart that was never very strong — Hillie just gave up the ghost. And from the day Mert buried his wife, he hasn’t uttered one syllable of recognizable human speech to Sarah or the child.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Well, you’ve seen them together. Have you noticed Merton Isbel so much as glance Sarah’s way, or at Mary-Ann? They live in the same farmhouse, Sarah keeps house for him, prepares his meals, makes his bed, darns his socks, separates his cream, churns his butter, helps him with the milking and in the fields, and he pretends she has no existence whatsoever. The invisible woman, with an invisible child.”

“And Shinn Corners?” said Johnny in a clipped way.

“No, no, you’ve got the wrong picture, Johnny. The people here feel very sorry for her. Mert’s an exceptional case.

“Adultery to the Puritan,” said the Judge, “has always been a serious crime, because like murder it endangers the family and the town. But fornication was, and is, different. It’s a private misdemeanor, hurting the offender chiefly.”

“And it’s always been so common,” remarked Johnny.

“Yes, indeed. Remember, the Puritan is a practical man. He keeps the statute making fornication a crime on the books as a matter of principle, but he winks at it more often than not because he knows if he didn’t there wouldn’t be enough jail room to hold all the criminals.

“No, the stone in this furrow is Mert Isbel. We feel sorry for Sarah and Mary-Ann, but we can’t show it except when Mert isn’t around. And that’s practically never. He compounds his cruelty by making sure Sarah doesn’t get out of his sight. At church, or whenever they make a public appearance, we ignore Sarah and the little girl because if we didn’t he’d make their lives even more hellish than they are. And he’s quite capable of going on a rampage if he’s balked. Then, too, of course, they’re his daughter and granddaughter. In old Yankeeland, my boy, you don’t interfere in a family affair... Only one in town who ever gave Mert his comeuppance was Aunt Fanny. She didn’t care if Mert was around or not. She invariably singled out Sarah and the child for special attention. For some reason, Mert was afraid of old Aunt Fanny. At least, he ignored her kindness to the outcasts.

“Well, that’s the story,” said Judge Shinn, “and now you know why Sarah Isbel can’t serve on this jury. Mert simply wouldn’t have it. It would have to be either Mert or Sarah, and of the two the town obviously will pick Mert. He’s the head of a family, the taxpayer, the property owner, the deacon of the church.

“And that,” said the Judge, “makes eleven.”

“But there’s no one left,” said Johnny. “Or have I forgotten somebody?”

“No, that’s all there are.”

“Oh, I see. You’re going to put an eleven-man jury over on them.”

“I doubt if I could get away with it.”

“But... then what are you going to do, Judge?”

“Well,” said the Judge, doodling on his pad, “there’s you.”

“Me!” Johnny was flabbergasted. “You mean you’re counting on me as the twelfth juror?”

“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t want to bother.”

“But—”

“It would be kind of convenient, though,” said Judge Shinn vaguely.

“In what way, in God’s name?”

“You sitting among these people, Johnny? Why, I’d have someone I could trust sitting in on the trial, hearing and seeing everything that goes on.”

“Might be a kick at that,” said Johnny.

“Then you’ll do it?” The Judge dropped the pencil. “That’s fine, Johnny! Even if a slipup occurs and by some miracle Sarah Isbel gets on the jury to make a twelfth — or Hosey Lemmon changes his mind or Earl Scott insists on being wheeled over — I’d still have you as the alternate; you heard me lay the groundwork for a thirteenth juror.”

“But how can I serve on a jury here?” asked Johnny. “I’m not a voter. I’m not even a resident of this state. They’d never accept a stranger.”

“Well, not exactly a stranger, Johnny. You do carry the Shinn name. Anyway,” said the Judge, “they’re going to have to accept you. Did I ever tell you I know a dozen ways to skin a balky calf? Here’s one of them.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out two sheets of legal-size paper clipped together. It was a printed form, its blank spaces filled in by typewriter.

“You finagler,” said Johnny. “You have that all made out. What is it?”

“Where defending constitutional democracy and due process is concerned,” said Judge Shinn, “I’m an unmitigated scoundrel. Why, Johnny, this is a warranty deed relating to a piece of property I own at the western boundary of my holdings, a house and ten acres. The house is usually rented under a lease, but the last lessee moved two years ago and it’s stood untenanted ever since. This,” and the Judge took another paper from the drawer, “is a bill of sale. Under its terms I, Lewis Shinn, am selling you, John Jacob Shinn, the house and ten acres covered by the deed for the sum of — what do you offer?”

“At the moment,” said Johnny with a grin, “my checking account shows a balance of four hundred and five dollars and thirty-eight cents.”

“For the sum of ten thousand dollars in imaginary currency, and you will kindly sign a paper — this is my Yankee heritage speaking — promising to ‘sell’ the property back to me at the same terms when this is over. I don’t know how many laws I’m breaking,” said the Judge, “and I find myself singularly unable to worry about it just now. The point is, when Andy Webster gets here he can witness my signature and yours, and first thing tomorrow morning we’ll take the deed over to the Town Hall and have Burney Hackett in his capacity as town clerk record same, for which you will pay him out of hand the sum of four dollars, thereby becoming a Shinn Corners property owner entitled to all the responsibilities thereof, which under the ruling I’m going to make when the jury is empaneled will include your responsibility to serve on a Shinn Corners jury. There’s nothing impresses a Yankee more than the recording of a deed to a piece of land. Little side issues like length of residence, non-voting, and so forth, we shall conveniently ignore.”

Johnny was staring at the Judge in a puzzled way.

“What’s the matter?” said the Judge.

“I’m trying to squeeze a feeling of reality out of this,” said Johnny. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. All these shenanigans... Aren’t you whipping up an awfully big tempest for such a little teapot, Judge?”

“You think it’s little?”

“It’s subatomic. One man, who’s probably guilty to begin with! And you stand a whole town on its head, befuddle a bunch of perfectly capable cops and county officials, drag the governor of your state into it...”

Judge Shinn got out of his chair and began to pace up and down before his law books, his brows coming together as if meeting a challenge.

“One man,” he said slowly. “Yes, put that way it sounds ridiculous. But that’s only because you’re thinking of Josef Kowalczyk as if he existed in a vacuum. What’s one man? Well, Johnny, one man is not merely Josef Kowalczyk. He’s you, he’s me, he’s Hube Hemus — he’s everybody. It always starts with one man. A man named John Peter Zenger, a German immigrant, was tried for seditious libel in 1735 in New York for having published some polemical articles in his weekly. One man. Another man, named Andrew Hamilton, defended Zenger’s right to print the truth. Hamilton’s success in securing Zenger’s acquittal established freedom of the press in America.

“Someone has to keep on the alert, Johnny. We’ve been lucky. Luckier, maybe, than we deserve. We’ve always had someone to watch over us.

“You take the debates during the founding of the Constitution,” said Judge Shinn. “The debaters who demanded guarantees of procedural due process weren’t arguing from mere theory. The adoption of the Bill of Rights, in particular the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, had behind it real fears, fears that had grown out of actual happenings in colonial history. For instance, the witchcraft trials in Massachusetts in 1692.

“In those trials,” said the Judge, “the judges were laymen, the Attorney General was a merchant. Not a single person trained in the law was involved with the court or the trial proceedings in any way whatsoever. The witch court, under the highsounding name of Special Court of Oyer and Terminer, allowed its prosecutor to present what they called ‘spectral evidence’ and to put on the stand a parade of confessed or reformed ‘witches’ to testify against the accused. Anybody from the crowd who clamored to be heard, irrespective of the relevance or legal propriety of his testimony, was allowed to do so. Result: twenty persons smeared by hearsay, superstition and hysteria, found guilty, most of them hanged — one, an octogenarian, was actually pressed to death. The same kind of thing is going on today before the so-called Supreme People’s Courts in Communist China. And for that matter in Washington, where men’s reputations are destroyed and their capacity to earn a living is paralyzed without a single safeguard of due process.

“And let’s not shunt the blame onto the Congressional committees,” said the Judge. “The blame is ours, not theirs. The demagogue in Congress couldn’t operate for one day in an atmosphere of common horse sense. It’s public hysteria that keeps him going strong.

“Proving, Johnny,” said Judge Shinn, “that people can’t always be trusted. Human beings, even in a democracy, are too prone to degenerate into mobs. That’s why the Shinn Corners versus Josef Kowalczyk teapot, Johnny, contains a tempest big enough to destroy all of America. Who’s going to protect the people from their worst enemy — themselves — except the individual here and there seizing on an individual case and refusing to let go?”

“Hear, hear,” said Johnny.

Judge Shinn stopped pacing. He bent over his desk to finger the yellow pad, throwing a sidelong look at Johnny.

“Sorry,” said Johnny. “But I’m so damned fed up with words.”

The Judge nodded. “Don’t blame you,” he said briskly. “Let’s get down to cases. Suppose I tell you, Johnny, my real reason for wanting you on that jury.”

Johnny stared.

The Judge studied him speculatively, pinching his lip.

“Yes?” said Johnny.

“No,” the Judge said. “I’ll let you tell me. Let’s go across the road and pay a visit to Josef Kowalczyk.”

Eddie Pangman was on late afternoon guard duty before the church. He no longer looked unhappy. He whistled as he marched, and he executed his sentry turns with a military gusto, in an excited solemnity that enlivened his long face and made it curiously little-boyish.

He passed the Judge and Johnny along gravely.

Drakeley Scott, patroling the rear, was another story. Drakeley Scott was not a boy exuberantly playing games. He was like a man who, under severe strain to escape the pressures of manhood, has gone back to the child. His pimpled face was pinchy, with a ghastly overcast; he held his narrow shoulders in tense readiness; there was something furtively eager in his excitement.

When he saw the two men he looked uncomfortable, and something of the hurt Johnny had seen in his eyes in Peter Berry’s store Friday morning came back into them; but only for a moment.

He said defiantly, “I don’t know if I’m s’posed to let you through, Judge. Hube Hemus said—”

“I’ll tell you what, Drakeley,” said Judge Shinn with tremendous earnestness. “At the first move Johnny Shinn or I makes to let the prisoner escape, you shoot to kill. Fair enough?”

The Scott boy flushed scarlet.

“Who has the key to the bin?”

“There’s a guard down there,” mumbled the boy.

They went past him down the crumbling stone steps to the church cellar. Johnny blinked after the sunshine. As he accommodated to the gloom he made out rough rafters overhead bearing irregular axmarks. They had been hewn out of whole oak trees; some of the original bark clung, looking petrified. There was a storage bin, an oldfashioned coal furnace, and the coalbin.

The coalbin was large and entirely enclosed. The door was slightly ajar, a lock hanging open from a new-looking hasp. Light came through chinks in the walls.

On a chair facing the bin door, a shotgun across his knees, sat Merton Isbel. The chair was part of an old broken pew, which seemed to Johnny fitting. The craggy features bunched at sight of him.

“Someone in there with him, Mert?” asked the Judge.

“Mr. Sheare.” Isbel’s bass voice had an unused sound.

Judge Shinn touched Johnny’s arm. “Before we go in,” he said in a low voice.

“Yes?”

“I want you to pretend you’re interested in him.”

“In Kowalczyk? But I am.”

“Question him, Johnny.”

Johnny nodded.

The minister’s voice answered the Judge’s knock, and they entered the bin.

The only coal Johnny saw was a small heap in a corner, apparently the leftovers of the previous winter’s supply. But coal dust was everywhere. An attempt had been made — by the Sheares, he felt sure — to sweep it up, but the prisoner’s movements had scattered it again; and nothing could be done about the soot on the walls, which looked as if they had been sprayed with lampblack.

The one window high in the rough foundation wall, the chute window, had been newly boarded up. Light came from a 25-watt bulb in a naked ceiling socket protected by a wire cage.

Josef Kowalczyk sat on the edge of a cot drinking hot tea out of a water glass. A folding table was strewn with the remains of a meal. Mr. Sheare was stacking the dishes on a tray when they came in.

“He’s had a hearty dinner,” said the minister cheerfully. “Wanted his tea in a glass with lemon and jelly, European style. Judge, don’t you think he’s lookin’ a good deal better?”

“I do, Mr. Sheare.” The Judge glanced at the dishes. “Some of Elizabeth’s famous boiled dinner, I see.”

The minister said in a firm voice, “Someone must take care of his bodily needs. I wish we could do somethin’ about this coal dust.”

“You’ve done wonders, Mr. Sheare.”

A white chamberpot stood in one corner.

The minister’s troubled smile returned. He picked up the tray and went out. The door remained open.

Merton Isbel sat watching them.

The prisoner set down his empty glass with a start, as if he had just noticed them. He started to rise.

“Sit down, sit down, Kowalczyk,” said the Judge testily.

Kowalczyk sank back, staring at Johnny.

He was wearing his own clothes again; Elizabeth Sheare had evidently tried to clean as well as mend them, with indifferent results. The gray flannel shirt she had washed and ironed. Either his shoes were beyond repair or the village fathers had decreed their confiscation: he wore old carpet slippers, presumably Mr. Sheare’s. His colorless hair was combed; aside from a badly swollen lower lip, where he had lost the tooth, his face was unmarked.

The stubble of blondish beard was salted with gray and white now; Johnny suspected that Mr. Sheare had been forbidden to provide a razor. Beneath the stubble and the dark gray skin the face was skeletal, with flaring jaws and high cheekbones, the ears wide and prominent, the forehead low with heavily furred bulges of bone above the eyes. The eyes themselves, still timid, still burning, were deep in his head. His neck was loose and stringy over a large Adam’s apple; it looked like the neck of a gobbler. His hands were work hands, joints swollen, nails cracked, fingertips splayed. He kept them clasped between his thighs and his torso bent forward, as if his groin still ached.

He looked sixty-five. It was hard to remember that he was in his early forties.

“This gentleman,” said Judge Shinn to the staring man, “is interested in your story, Kowalczyk. He’s had a lot of experience talking to men in trouble. His name is Mr. Shinn.”

“Sheen,” said the prisoner. “Mister Sheen, what they do to me?” He spoke awkwardly, with a thick accent.

Johnny glanced at the Judge. The Judge nodded.

“Kowalczyk,” said Johnny. “Do you know why you are here in this cellar, a prisoner?”

The man raised his thin shoulders, dropped them. It was an Old World gesture, saying: I know, I do not know, what does it matter?

“Tell me everything that happened yesterday,” said Johnny. “But first I wish to know more about you, Kowalczyk, your life, where you came from, where you were going. Will you tell me?”

“Tell Judge before,” said the prisoner. “What they do to me?”

“Tell me,” Johnny smiled.

The prisoner unclasped his hands and rubbed the palms slowly together, addressing the floor of the coalbin. “Me Polish. Had got wife, two child, old mother, old father in Poland. Nazis come, kill them. Me, put labor camp. After war, Communists. No good. Escape, come America, have cousin New York, live by cousin three year. Try get job—”

“Did you have a trade in the old country?”

“Work l’ather.”

“Lather?” said Johnny. “You mean you were a barber?”

“No, no. L’ather, like for shoe.”

“Oh, leather! Leather worker? Tanning, that sort of thing?”

“Yes,” said Josef Kowalczyk with a trace of animation. “Good worker, me. Old father, he learn me trade.” Then the shoulders went up and down again, and the animation died. “In America no can get job l’ather worker. No got union card. I like belong union, but got no money pay dues. Got no ref — no ref—”

“Work references?”

“Yes. So no can work l’ather job. Then cousin die, heart. Go live Polish family Brooklyn, friend my cousin. Work odd job, one day here, two day there. Friend get ’nother baby, no more room Kowalczyk. Say why not go country, Josef, get work farm. I go, I walk country. Get job one farm, two farm, walk more, work again—”

The prisoner stopped, glancing at Judge Shinn helplessly.

“Apparently,” explained the Judge, “he’s been an itinerant farm worker for the past several years, wandering all over New England. From what I gather he doesn’t like farm work, feels it’s beneath him, and has never given up the hope that he’d find a job at his old trade. Where were you coming from, Kowalczyk, when you passed through this village yesterday?”

“Come long. From far. Walk eight-nine day.” Kowalczyk frowned, concentrating; then he slapped his forehead impatiently. “No ’member name place last work. Sleep barn, do chore for eat, walk more. Lose money—”

“Oh, you had some money?” said Johnny.

“Seven dollar. Lose. Fall out hole pocket.” Kowalczyk frowned again. “No like lose money. People say you tramp, I show money. No tramp, see? But people say you tramp, no can show money — lose — so tramp!” Kowalczyk jumped up, his broad jaws rippling. “No like for be call tramp!” he cried.

“Not many of us do,” said Johnny. “Where were you going?”

“Polish farmer Petunxit say can get job Cudbury l’ather factory,” muttered Kowalczyk. “He say no union that factory. So walk quick for to get job...” He sank to the cot again. He lay down and turned his face to the sooty wall.

Johnny glanced at Judge Shinn. The Judge’s face was impassive.

“Kowalczyk.” He touched the prisoner’s shoulder. “Why did you kill the old lady?”

The man sat up with such violence that Johnny stepped back. “Not kill!” he shouted. “Not kill!” He rolled off the cot and seized Johnny’s lapels with both hands. “Not kill!”

Over Kowalczyk’s head Johnny saw Merton Isbel beyond the bin door with the shotgun across his knees and his eyes glittering.

“Sit down.” John took the man’s bony wrists and gently forced him back on the cot. “Before you go on, I’m going to try to tell you why the people in this village believe you murdered the old lady.”

“Not kill,” whispered the prisoner.

“Listen, Kowalczyk. Try to understand what I say. You were seen going up to the old lady’s house twenty minutes or so before she died—”

“Not kill,” repeated Kowalczyk.

“You actually spent some time in the old lady’s house. How do I know this? Because the Judge and I met you walking on the road in the rain, no more than a mile and a quarter from the village, at twenty-five minutes to three yesterday afternoon. It certainly didn’t take you three-quarters of an hour to walk a trifle over a mile. A man walks about three miles an hour, and we saw with our own eyes how fast you were walking. So you couldn’t have been on the road more than twenty or twenty-five minutes when we passed you. That means you left the village at ten or fifteen minutes past two o’clock. But it was no later than ten minutes to two when a woman of the village saw you walk up to the old lady’s house. So, we say, between ten minutes to two and about a quarter past two you must have been in the old lady’s house. If you were, you were there about the time she was killed, which was two-thirteen. You see?”

The prisoner rocked, his hands clasped tightly again. “Not kill,” he groaned.

“If you were in the house, you had the opportunity to kill her. If you were in the house, you also had the means — the poker from her fireplace. If you were in the house, you also had motive — the hundred and twenty-four dollars hidden in the handkerchief about your waist.

“That’s the case against you, Kowalczyk. In fact, we don’t have to suppose you were in the house. We know it. The money proves you were there. The stolen money.” Johnny paused, wondering how much of this the man understood. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

“Not kill,” said the prisoner, rocking. “Steal, yes. Kill, not!”

“Oh, you admit stealing the hundred and twenty-four dollars?”

“Never I steal before!” cried Josef Kowalczyk. “But lose seven dollar — I see lots money in jar... Is not good. Is wrong. Is terrible do that. But lose seven dollar... Steal, yes. But not kill, not kill...”

Kowalczyk began to cry. It was dry and soundless, the kind of weeping a man might have learned in the nightmare reaches of the European darkness — a slave laborer’s weeping, kept silent because silence was a locked door insuring the dignity of grief.

Johnny turned away. He took out a pack of cigarets and, without quite knowing why, set it down on the folding table with a packet of matches.

“No matches!” The rumble came from Merton Isbel.

Johnny lit a cigaret and placed it between the prisoner’s lips. At the contact Kowalczyk recoiled. Then he sucked hungrily on the cigaret, and after a moment he began to talk.

He had reached the old lady’s kitchen door a few minutes after being refused by “the other lady.” He had knocked, and the old lady had come to the door. He had asked for something to eat. The old lady had said she did not feed beggars, but that if he was willing to work for his food she would feed him well. He had said yes, he would do anything, he was not a beggar, he would work for his meal, what work did she have for him to do? She had said to him, you will find some logs behind the barn and an ax in the barn. Take the ax and split the logs in quarters for firewood, they are too heavy for an old woman as they are, and they will burn better in quarters. He had gone to the barn, found the ax, walked through the lean-to and around behind the barn, where the logs were lying, and he had set to work splitting them with the ax. He had split many logs in the past three years during his wanderings from farm to farm, and he was expert. It took him only a few minutes—

“How many logs did you split?” interrupted Johnny.

“Six log,” said the prisoner.

“You split each log into four pieces?”

“Four. Yes.”

“And this took you only a few minutes, you say?”

“Go quick when know how.”

“How many minutes, Kowalczyk?”

The prisoner shrugged. He was no man to count the minutes, he said. But very few. He remembered that just as he had finished splitting the last log, the rain began.

“Two o’clock,” murmured Judge Shinn.

He had hurriedly but neatly stacked the firewood in the empty lean-to, replaced the ax in the barn, and run back to the house. The old lady had made him wipe his feet on a mat before he could enter.

He had thought her a very queer old lady. First, she had refused him food unless he worked. Then, the work she had given him to do was to split firewood — in July! Then, when he had split the firewood, she had not only had ready for him on the kitchen table a plate piled high with boiled ham and potato salad and a big piece of berry pie and a pitcher of milk, but while he was eating she had taken down from the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet a jar stuffed with money and she had given him from it a fifty-cent piece. Then she had put the jar back and gone through the swinging door into another room, and he was left alone with the money.

He choked on the food, temptation had been so strong. It was no excuse, he said, but his pockets were empty, and this old woman seemed to have so much. If he was to get a job in the Cudbury leather factory at his old trade, he would need money to make himself look clean and prosperous, to rent decent lodgings as a working man of self-respect should, instead of bedding down on hay in a barn like a beast. It was no excuse, but temptation was too strong. He had bolted down only half the food on the plate, he had not touched the berry pie or the milk. He had got noiselessly out of the chair and tiptoed to her door and swung it open a little. The old lady was standing in the other room, her back to him, painting a picture. He had swung the door shut without sound, reached up to the jar, taken out all the paper money, and run out of the old lady’s house. And he had walked very fast up the road leading to Cudbury, clutching the money in his pocket. Only once had he stopped in the rain, to go behind some bushes, wrap the stolen money in his handkerchief, tie it to a length of rope he had in his satchel, and tie the rope around his waist beneath his clothing.

And that was all he knew about the old lady, said the prisoner. He had done wrong, he had stolen her money, for this he should be punished. But kill? No! He had left her alive, painting a picture in the room beyond her kitchen. He could not kill. He would not kill. He had seen too much killing in his life. Blood made him sick. He swore by the Holy Mother of God, crossing himself, that he had not touched so much as a hair of the old lady’s head. Only her money...

Judge Shinn was regarding Johnny quizzically, as if to ask, Now you’ve heard his story, how sure are you he killed Aunt Fanny?

The prisoner lay back on the cot again. He seemed indifferent. Evidently he had not expected to be believed, he had told his story only because it was required of him.

Kowalczyk closed his eyes.

Johnny stood over him, puzzled. In the course of his Intelligence and Criminal Investigation work in the Army, he had questioned many men, and long ago he had learned to detect the subtle aroma of falsehood. About this man he was not sure. By every physical and psychological sign, Josef Kowalczyk was telling the truth. But there were serious discrepancies.

Judge Shinn said nothing.

Johnny said, “Kowalczyk.”

The man opened his eyes.

“You say that the wood you split you stacked in the lean-to next to the barn. How long were the logs you split? How many feet?”

The prisoner held his hands apart.

“About three feet. They were all the same length?”

Kowalczyk nodded.

“Why do you lie, Kowalczyk?”

“I not lie!”

“But you do. There is no firewood in the lean-to, the lean-to is empty. There is no firewood in the barn, in the house, or anywhere about the house. There are no fresh chips of wood around the wood block behind the barn, such as there would have been had you split logs there as you claim. I know, Kowalczyk, because I myself have searched. Why do you lie about this?”

“I not lie! Split wood with ax, put in shed!”

“And why did you run away when we passed you on the road in the rain? Was this the act of a man who is innocent?”

“Money. Steal money...”

He had stolen money and so he had carried around his thin waist the dragging weight of guilt. But it had been guilt for having stolen, not for having killed...

They left him in the coalbin, his gray face turned once more to the sooty wall. As they stepped out of the bin Merton Isbel slammed the door and snapped the lock in the hasp. Then the farmer resumed his seat facing the door, the shotgun balanced on his knees.

“Well?” demanded the Judge as they strolled back to the Shinn house.

Johnny said: “I don’t know.”

“I’d hoped you’d form a more positive opinion than I. However, even this doubt is important. We’ve both had plenty of experience weighing the reliability of testimony. If neither of us can say this man is definitely lying or telling the truth, there may be something wrong. Something that has to be followed up.”

“The firewood story alone,” muttered Johnny, “will be enough to hang him. I mean as far as these people are concerned. Because there’s not the slightest evidence to corroborate his story. And yet — if he didn’t split any wood for Aunt Fanny, why does he insist he did?”

“It might be simply this,” said the Judge as they mounted to his porch, “that in his twisted mind a story of having worked for a meal gives him an aura of honesty not usually associated with murderers.”

“Then why does he admit to having stolen her money?”

“He could hardly deny it, since the money was found on him.”

They were both silent.

But back in his study, the Judge said, “Now you know why I want you on that absurdity of a jury, Johnny. Kowalczyk’s story brings up an interesting alternative...”

“Which is that if he’s innocent,” nodded Johnny, “somebody else is guilty.”

“Exactly.”

They stared at each other across the desk.

The Judge said slowly, “Unless we can come up with another stranger in Shinn Corners yesterday, for which there’s no evidence whatever — I’ve already sounded out everyone within reach — Fanny Adams was beaten to death by someone in this village who’d known her all his life. I use the masculine pronoun,” growled the Judge, “in its inclusive sense. It doesn’t take much strength to smash the skull of a ninety-one-year-old woman with a heavy poker.”

“In other words, you want me on that jury as a detective? My job being to detect who among your neighbors clobbered Aunt Fanny if Josef Kowalczyk didn’t?”

“Yes.”

Johnny thought of what he had had to cover with the kitchen towel in the Adams studio... He had the queerest sense of personal loss. Ten minutes of conversation in a noisy room, one touch of the dry warm hand — how could he feel that he had known this old woman from the cradle? Yet her death touched a vital, secret center in him. It left him uncomfortable. Almost emotional.

“All right, Judge,” said Johnny.

An altercation outdoors about nine o’clock that night brought them on the run. They found Burney Hackett and Orville Pangman at the intersection being tough with the ancient driver of an ancient Cadillac.

It was ex-Judge Andrew Webster of Cudbury, complete with sleepy eyes, gaunt little fine-boned face, and the trembling movements of a centenarian. Johnny had to help him out of his car.

“It’s the bones,” he said to Johnny as Judge Shinn explained his identity and status to the constable and the farmer. “Get dryer and stiffer by the year. Bones and skin. I’m beginning to look like something dug out of an Egyptian tomb. Seems to me medical science could find a cure for old age. It’s the curse of mankind... Well, well, Lewis, what have you got yourself into? Armed men! Insurrection! I can hardly wait to hear the silly details.”

Johnny drove Judge Webster’s car around to the Shinn garage. When he went into the house carrying Andy Webster’s bag, the two jurists had their heads together in the study. Johnny took the suitcase upstairs to one of the guest rooms, opened the windows, rummaged until he located the linen closet, made the bed, laid out towels. He reflected that Millie Pangman could hardly have done better.

He went back downstairs to find Ferriss Adams with Judge Shinn and Webster, looking harassed.

“Just got back from Cudbury,” Adams complained. “Had to hire Peter Berry’s car, darn him. There’s a man who would try to make a profit selling tickets to his wife’s labor pains. Had to get some fresh clothes and leave a sign on my office door — my girl’s on her vacation, of course, just when I need her most!” He had been busy all afternoon between his personal affairs in Cudbury and the more immediate matters relating to his grandaunt. He had had to ask Orville Pangman to take charge of her cow; the Jersey was now with the Pangman herd. He had also locked up the old lady’s paintings for safekeeping, pending the appointment of an executor by the county judge of probate. She had left no will despite his frequent urgings, Adams explained in answer to Judge Shinn’s question, and the settling of her estate was bound to be a long-drawn-out process. As a further safeguard, he had assumed the responsibility of authorizing Burney Hackett to write the comprehensive policy on the paintings which had led Hackett to Fanny Adams’s kitchen and the discovery of her body. He himself was going to stay at the Adams house until the emergency was over, a precaution the older lawyers approved.

They sat around for an hour discussing the conspiracy. The object, they agreed, was to go through the motions of a murder trial, giving it a sufficient appearance of legality to satisfy the Shinn Corners insurgents and wean them step by step away from their rebellious mood.

“Consequently you must prosecute with vigor, Ferriss,” said Judge Shinn, “and Andy, you must defend in kind. We’re in the position of a referee and two prize fighters getting together to cook up a fixed fight. We’ve got to make it look good while nobody gets hurt. There must be objections, arguments between counsel, rulings and overrulings by the bench, recesses out of hearing of the jury, and all the rest of it. At the same time, I want as many rules in the book broken as possible, for the record. We are in the remarkable position of deliberately invading as many of the accused’s legal rights as we possibly can for the ultimate purpose of protecting them. In many ways, the protection of Kowalczyk’s rights is more important at this time than the establishment of his guilt or innocence.”

“I suppose,” said Adams, “there’s no chance that Kowalczyk may slip through on a double jeopardy plea later?”

“No, Ferriss,” said Judge Shinn. “If this jury finds him guilty, as of course it will, he himself will want the proceeding declared no trial, so that he’ll have a legitimate chance to draw a not-guilty verdict in a future trial. And if by some miracle Shinn Corners lets him go, we’ve got the whole farce on the record, with all the breaches and errors, to prove non-trial. In either event, the law’s rights will be protected equally with Kowalczyk’s.”

“I hope so.” Fanny Adams’s grandnephew sounded grim. “Because for my money the s.o.b. is as guilty as the Polish hell he’s booked for!”

Old Andy Webster was shaking his head. “Unbelievable. Incredible. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

He and Adams solemnly witnessed the signatures of Judge Shinn and Johnny on the documents relating to the “sale” of the house and ten acres, and then the three men left — Adams to circulate among the villagers breathing prosecutional fire, Judge Shinn to escort Andy Webster to the cellar of the church to interview his “client.”

Johnny went to bed, on the theory that there was something indecent about a man’s dreaming in an upright position.

The dream illusion persisted all day Monday. The day was excessively humid, with the shimmering quality of such days, but it was crisp and sharp compared with the wavery nature of events. From the early morning march up Four Corners Road with Town Clerk Burney Hackett to the Town Hall for the recording of the deed, Johnny kept fighting fuzziness.

Hube Hemus drove up to the little building as Hackett wrote laboriously in the huge town ledger; Judge Shinn had phoned him during breakfast. The Judge gravely explained to the First Selectman the purpose of the property sale.

“If we’re to try the defendant in a special Shinn Corners court as authorized by Governor Ford, Hube,” said the Judge, “we’ve got to be very careful to do things right. Have you gone over the panel?”

“Aya,” said Hemus. “Been worryin’ me, Judge. Don’t figger to come out to the twelve jurors the law requires.”

“My point exactly.”

“But bein’ a property owner don’t make a man eligible for jury duty right off,” said Hemus. “Got to come from the votin’ list.”

Johnny felt a chill. Not once had Hemus glanced his way. He might have been one of the campchairs.

“That’s true, of course,” said Judge Shinn. “You certainly know the law, Hube. So this is going to have to be irregular. I’ll make a special ruling in my cousin’s case. After all, this is a special sort of trial.”

“Might get Earl Scott over,” muttered the First Selectman.

“Might,” agreed Judge Shinn. “Might at that, Hube. Only thing is, a man who’s paralyzed, chronic invalid, hasn’t been out of his house for five years... might not look very good in the record.”

Hube Hemus thought this over. “Guess you’re right, Judge. But Mr. Shinn ain’t a voter. Ain’t even took up town residence. Maybe Sarah Isbel...”

“Why, Hube, that’s right!” said the Judge, looking relieved. “Never thought of Sarah at all. Just naturally figured if we got Sarah we’d lose Mert. But if you think Mert wouldn’t kick up a fuss...”

Burney Hackett spat into the spittoon at his feet. “That’s ridic’lous. He’d flick it up faster’n Orville’s herd bull.”

“And we’ve got to have twelve, Hube. At least twelve.” The Judge frowned. “Rather be irregular on a special ruling about one juror than go into court with fewer jurors than the law insists on and have the whole case ruled a mistrial afterwards by the Supreme Court of Errors.”

Hube Hemus wriggled. “Durn that Hosey Lemmon!”

“Of course, if we could get old Lemmon to change his mind, our problems are solved.”

“Can’t. Went lookin’ for Hosey myself late last night and couldn’t even find him. He’s lit out for somewheres... Mr. Shinn,” said Hemus suddenly, “hear you went over yesterday afternoon and talked to the tramp.”

“Oh?” said Johnny, startled. “Why, yes. Yes, Mr. Hemus, I did.”

“My suggestion, Hube,” the Judge put in, to Johnny’s relief. “Mr. Shinn’s had a heap of experience with criminals in the Army. Wanted to see if he could make Kowalczyk confess.”

“He ain’t confessin’ nothin’.” Hackett hit the spittoon again. “Knows better.”

Hemus’s whole head swiveled toward Johnny again. “Mert Isbel says he told you his cock-and-bull story.”

Johnny managed a sneer. “I did catch the prisoner in what appears to be a mighty big lie, Mr. Hemus.”

“’Bout the firewood?”

“That’s right.”

Hemus grunted. His jaws ground exasperatingly for a long time. Then he said to Judge Shinn, “Well, I guess we got no choice,” and he stumped out and got into his car and drove away.

Burney Hackett went into the back room to lock up the ledger.

“You’re in,” said the Judge softly.

Johnny found himself yawning.

The day’s next dream followed hard on the Hemus fragment. A few minutes past nine, County Coroner Barnwell showed up from Cudbury in a car driven by a redhaired man with golden freckles and a roving eye.

“My God, it’s Usher Peague of the Times-Press,” said Judge Shinn tragically. “Now we’re in the soup for fair. That Barnwell! Come on before Peague gets hurt!”

The car had been surrounded at the intersection by armed men. They pushed their way through, the Judge waving frantically.

“Hello, Ush! Barnwell, I want to see you.”

The editor of the Cudbury Times-Press grinned as he stood at bay beside his car. “It’s okay, men,” he was saying. “I haven’t got a thing on me but a pad and a pencil.” He waved at Johnny, whom he had interviewed with great skill the week before.

Judge Shinn said wrathfully to the coroner, “Barnwell, have you lost what little mind you have? I thought I’d made myself clear over the phone. Why did you tell Usher Peague, of all people!”

“I didn’t tell Peague,” retorted Coroner Barnwell, “Peague told me. He heard about it somewhere — from Doc Cushman, for all I know, or Cy Moody. A country newspaper gets automatic coverage on deaths, Judge; they’re one of its most important items. Peague queried me on it, and I thought I’d better bring him over myself rather than let him run around loose. You didn’t think you could keep this a secret from the newspapers forever?”

“I could hope. Well, we’ll have to face it. But what do we say to him?”

“If you want my advice,” said Johnny, “take Peague into your confidence. He’ll get the story anyway. For another thing, he edits a weekly paper that comes out on Thursdays. This is only Monday morning. By Thursday we ought to be well out of this thing. The only problem is to get Peague to agree not to tip off the wire services, and that’s no problem if he wants a scoop on the story.”

Judge Shinn convinced Hubert Hemus that the presence of the press was a necessary evil, and then he hustled Peague away from the villagers, who seemed to fascinate the Cudbury editor.

“Who’s declared war on whom, and who gets shot?” the newspaperman was saying. “What goes on here, Judge?”

“All in good time, Usher,” said the Judge soothingly. “How’s Remember?”

“She blooms. Listen, don’t con me! There’s something rotten in Shinn Corners, and I’m not leaving till I find out what.”

When Peague saw old Andy Webster in the Shinn house, his reddish eyes widened. “They got you away from your ’mums! This must be big. Come on, men. What’s the story?”

“Tell him, Johnny,” said Judge Shinn.

Johnny told him. Peague listened in suspicious silence. He was a former big-city newspaperman who had settled in Cudbury, married Remember Bagley, publisher of the Cudbury weekly, and taken over the editorship. During Johnny’s recital Peague glanced at the two old men as if he suspected a practical joke; but at the end his eyes were glistening.

“Peague the Lucky,” he said softly. “What a story! You mean if I tried to leave Shinn Corners now Remember’d maybe be picking buckshot out of my rear? They’re not kidding? Man, oh, man. I’m going to try it.”

Johnny grabbed him. “What would you do with the story now, anyway? Donate it to the Associated Press?” They closed in on him. “Look, Peague. We’re at your mercy. You can’t use the story till Thursday. Why not stick it out with us here? Report the trial!”

“They’ll let you sit in as a spectator, Ush,” said Judge Shinn. “I’ve got the First Selectman’s promise. I’ll go further. If you’re worried about other reporters, I give you my word that if any other newspaperman shows up he’ll have to stay out of town to wait for your story. You can be our sole representative of the press. Does anyone else on your paper suspect anything?”

“No.”

“What about Remember?” demanded Judge Webster. “That wife of yours has the pickup of a vacuum cleaner.”

“I’ll handle Remember,” said Peague absently. “Okay, it’s a deal. If I can also interview this Whatsisname, that is. By the way, is he guilty?”

Fanny Adams’s living room looked distorted, too. Most of the furniture had been hauled into other rooms. Midway between the front windows an old chestnut dropleaf table had been set up for Judge Shinn, before a tall wing chair. A hickory Windsor stood beside the table as the witness chair. Elizabeth Sheare had been installed at a small kneehole desk before the corner cupboard containing Aunt Fanny’s collection of Sheffield.

Two rows of six campchairs each, from the Town Hall, were arranged along the fireplace side of the room at right angles to the “bench,” as the jury “box.” A long pine trestle table from Aunt Fanny’s dining room, blackened and rubbed by time, faced the Judge; this was for defendant and opposing counsel. Other camp-chairs and chairs from the house stood in rows behind the counsel table for the panel; in a front seat sat Usher Peague, an endtable before him to write on. (Coroner Barnwell had been ordered back to Cudbury. He went in Peague’s car, his chin over his shoulder longingly.)

At ten minutes of ten everyone was there.

Josef Kowalczyk was brought in by the Hemus twins. His arrival precipitated an argument. Constable-Bailiff Hackett remarked in tones of nasal displeasure that the conveyance of the prisoner to and from the coalbin cell was part of his, Hackett’s, official duties; the twins might go along as extra guards, but the defendant was to be in his personal charge and might not be moved or removed except under his direction. The twins replied in expressionless drawls that they were the bastard’s guards this morning and don’t let your tin badge go to your thick head. Judge Shinn ruled in Constable-Bailiff Hackett’s favor.

“Morever,” said the Judge, “there will be no profanity in this court. Any use of bad language, any outburst against the defendant or other interruption to the orderly conduct of these proceedings, will expose the violator to a citation for contempt of court. I will not entertain as an excuse the youth of the violator. Take off those chains!”

The twins had lashed Kowalczyk’s wrists with a length of chain, which they had then passed around his waist and secured at his back. Another length of chain was hooked to the waist chain, and the prisoner had come in on this lead like a dog on a leash, Dave Hemus gripping the end of it while Tommy Hemus prodded the chained man along with the muzzle of his gun.

Hubert Hemus said something from his seat; his sons immediately removed the chains.

“The defendant is not to be secured in this fashion again, Constable,” said the Judge sharply. “You may take proper precautions against a possible attempt at escape, of course, but this is an American court, not a Communist one.”

“Yes, your honor.” Burney Hackett glared at the Hemus boys. “Won’t happen again!”

“All persons not eligible for jury duty, or not required as witnesses or for other purposes, will leave the courtroom. There are to be no children here. Has any provision been made for the care of the youngsters?”

Hubert Hemus spoke up from his chair: “Judge, we decided that durin’ sessions of the court the young children would be kept on the school grounds in charge of Selina Hackett, seein’ that Selina can’t serve on account of bein’ so deef, with the older girls like my Abbie and Cynthy Hackett helpin’ out, and Sarah Isbel.”

“All persons addressing the court will please rise when doing so,” said Judge Shinn curtly.

Hube Hemus’s jaw dropped. “Yes, Judge,” he said. He rose uncertainly. Then he sat down again.

Someone — Johnny thought it was Prue Plummer — tittered. Hemus flushed.

Johnny wondered why the Judge had gone out of his way to humiliate the all-powerful First Selectman. It seemed an unnecessary discipline. To antagonize Hemus when the object was to conduct the proceedings so smoothly as to cover up the deliberate infractions they planned...

“Counsel, are we ready to select a jury?”

Andrew Webster and Ferriss Adams rose and said they were.

Johnny swallowed a grin. His honor was back in the groove and off to the races. Court had not been formally convened, no charge had been read into the record, no “People Against Kowalczyk”... the defendant had not even entered his plea. For all the record would show, they might have been preparing to try Andy Webster.

But then Johnny lost all appetite for humor. He saw Josef Kowalczyk’s face.

The prisoner sat by Andrew Webster’s side at the pine table with the quivering rigidity of a man who expects a bullet in the back. The two jurists had felt it wiser not to reveal their plan to Kowalczyk; clearly, he thought he was on trial for his life.

He had made an effort to present a decent appearance. His hair was carefully brushed; he had tried to scrub the coal dust from his skin; he wore a dark tie, whose sobriety suggested Pastor Sheare’s wardrobe. But his skin was even grayer and darker this morning, the timid eyes wilder and more sunken. Even the bruise on his lower lip was white. He sat gripping the edge of the table with both hands.

“The town clerk will read the selectmen’s roll of eligible jurors,” said Judge Shinn. “One at a time, please.”

Burney Hackett read from a paper in a loud voice: “Hubert Hemus!”

The First Selectman rose from his campchair and went to the witness chair.

“Mr. Adams?”

Ferriss Adams came away from the pine table.

“Your name.”

“Hubert Hemus.” Hemus was still smarting under Judge Shinn’s reprimand.

“Mr. Hemus, have you formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, Josef Kowalczyk?”

“Do I have to answer that?” He glared at the lawyer.

“The state’s attorney must ask that question, Mr. Hemus,” the Judge said sternly. “And you must answer it truthfully if you wish to serve on this jury.”

“Sure I’ve formed an opinion!” exploded the First Selectman. “So’s everybody else. That murderin’ tramp was caught practic’ly redhanded!”

Johnny apologized mentally to Judge Shinn, who was putting a handkerchief to his mouth. Get Hemus mad enough...

“But if the evidence should cast a reasonable doubt on the defendant’s guilt,” Adams asked quickly, “you would not vote to convict him, Mr. Hemus, even though as of this moment you’re convinced he’s guilty?”

And that nailed it to the record.

Hemus looked grateful. “Mr. Adams, I’m a fair man. If they convince me he’s not guilty, why, I’ll vote that way. But they got to convince me.”

Some of the women giggled.

“Let the record show that there was laughter from the panel at that last remark,” said the Judge to Elizabeth Sheare complacently. “There must be no demonstrations in the court! Proceed, Mr. Adams.”

Adams turned to old Andy Webster. “Does counsel wish to challenge?”

Ex-Judge Webster rose solemnly. “In view of the limited panel, your honor, I submit that the utilization of challenges during the selection of this jury would effectually prevent a jury from being selected. Consequently, if we are to have a trial — and I assume that to try Josef Kowalczyk for murder is what we are all here for — I cannot challenge and I do not challenge.”

Neatly done, thought Johnny as Andrew Webster sat down.

“Hubert Hemus will be entered as Juror Number One. Clerk will proceed with the panel.”

“Orville Pangman,” read Burney Hackett.

The comedy went on. By one device or another, between them Ferriss Adams and Andy Webster, with occasional help from Judge Shinn, maneuvered each panelist into admitting his bias for the record. None was challenged.

It went quickly. Orville Pangman was Juror Number Two. Merton Isbel was Juror Number Three. Burney Hackett read his own name and was disqualified. Mathilda Scott was Juror Number Four; neither her husband’s nor her father-in-law’s name was brought up. Peter Berry was Juror Number Five. The name of Hosey Lemmon was called; no one responded, and Lemmon was stricken from the rolls at the Judge’s direction.

Johnny awaited with curiosity the examination of Samuel Sheare. They had to ask the minister the same questions they were throwing at the others; and Adams did so.

“Have you formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant?”

“I have not,” said the minister in a firm voice.

Johnny looked around. But none of Mr. Sheare’s flock seemed resentful of their pastor’s affirmation of open-mindedness. They expected him to carry the burden of Christian charity as befitting his spiritual calling. Apparently they did not consider it possible that he might vote for an acquittal when the evidence should have been presented. There were sometimes advantages, Johnny grinned to himself, in dealing with single-track minds.

Mr. Sheare became Juror Number Six. He was not asked if he believed in capital punishment, and he did not volunteer a statement of his belief. Mr. Sheare had been got to, and Johnny, watching Judge Shinn’s bland benignity, thought he knew by whom.

Elizabeth Sheare was excused as not qualifying, since she was acting as court stenographer.

Rebecca Hemus, Millie Pangman, Emily Berry, and Prue Plummer were selected in rapid succession as Jurors Number Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten, and they took their seats behind the six men in the jury “box.”

There was some difficulty in getting Calvin Waters to understand what he was being called upon to do. In the course of his examination the conspirators managed to get into the record the town handyman’s having fallen on his head as a baby, his lifelong reputation for dull-wittedness, and the fact that he was barely able to write and could read only a few simple words. Hube Hemus looked uncomfortable, but he voiced no objection.

Calvin Waters was recorded as Juror Number Eleven and duly shuffled to the fifth chair in the second row of jurors, his empty face momentarily filled with bewilderment.

“Continue, Mr. Clerk.”

“Sarah Isbel.”

She was the only one left in the spectators’ section except Johnny and Usher Peague.

At the reading of her name, Sarah Isbel went white. Merton Isbel was gathering himself, his craggy features stormy. The woman jumped up and said faintly, “I can’t serve on any jury. I have my child to...” The rest went away with her. When the front door banged, Merton Isbel sat down again.

“A member of a panel may not arbitrarily refuse to serve on a jury,” said Judge Shinn. “The bailiff will return Sarah Isbel to the courtroom.”

“Your honor.” The old farmer got up, rumbling. “I serve on no jury with her. Ye let the daughter of Sodom sit, I leave.”

The room was very quiet. Judge Shinn rubbed his chin as if here loomed a formidable problem. Then he said, “Very well, Mr. Isbel. I yield to necessity. There is no profit in gaining one juror while losing another. In view of your threat, Sarah Isbel is excused.”

And all this, Johnny thought with wonder, is going down in Elizabeth Sheare’s notebook. Yielding to necessity! Threats! It would undoubtedly make the most remarkable transcript in the history of American jury trials.

“Proceed, Mr. Clerk,” snapped Judge Shinn.

“I can’t, your honor,” said Burney Hackett feebly. “That’s all we got. Except for Mr. John Jacob Shinn, who got to be a property owner only this mornin’—”

“Oh, yes,” said the Judge, as if he had quite forgotten. “I said I’d make a special ruling on that, didn’t I? Because it appears, ladies and gentlemen, that unless we avail ourselves of the services of Mr. Shinn, we can’t satisfy the legal requirements of a twelve-person jury and therefore we can’t try the defendant in Shinn Corners.”

The jurors were staring at Johnny with distaste, whispering among themselves. Cruel, cruel the dilemma. Either a trial with a rank outsider sitting among them in a vital village affair, or no trial.

Judge Shinn waited.

And at last their heads inclined toward Hubert Hemus, and the First Selectman said something in an impatient undertone, and they all sank back, troubled but nodding.

The Judge promptly said: “So, although Mr. John Shinn is so newly in residence among us that he is not yet on the voting list from which the jury panel must be drawn, I rule that he may sit as a juror in this case if he otherwise qualifies.”

And there, thought Johnny as he went up to the witness chair assisted by a sly prod from Ush Peague’s pencil, is as grandly garbled a ruling as ever was delivered from a bench. How could a man otherwise qualify when the “otherwise” was what disqualified him?

Yes, he was familiar with the facts of the case. No, he had formed no opinion as to the defendant’s guilt or innocence... At this, in contrast to their genial sufferance when Samuel Sheare had made the same answer, the people of Shinn Corners glowered... And Andy Webster waved him cheerily away, and Johnny took the last vacant chair in the second row and immediately discovered that certain powerful emanations from the person and clothing of Laughing Waters were going to create a major problem of the case — for Juror Number Twelve, at any rate.

The last dreamlike development of the morning was Judge Shinn’s recessing of the trial in order to allow court, jurors, prosecutor, defense counsel, stenographer, and bailiff to attend the funeral of the victim whose alleged murderer they were in process of trying.

“Court will reconvene,” said the Judge, “at one P.M.”

Even the funeral had the quality of something seen in a dream. Or a play, Johnny thought. This might be Our Town, minus the rain. The burying ground was uneven, little swells of ground running into one another, with the bleached and blurry edges of the headstones sticking out of them in all directions, old, old, older-seeming than the soil that held them drearily. Johnny felt an unreasonable reluctance to setting foot among them.

The Comfort undertaker’s hearse had started from the Adams house and all of Shinn Corners — men and women and children — trudged along behind it up Shinn Road toward the Corners, women fanning themselves with their hands, men wiping their foreheads in the sticky forenoon haze; and they had slowly turned right at the intersection into Four Corners Road and passed the horse trough and the parsonage and come to the sagging iron gate of the cemetery. And Cy Moody and his helper eased the expensive-looking casket out of the hearse, and Ferriss Adams and Judge Shinn and Hubert Hemus and Orville Pangman and Merton Isbel and Peter Berry took hold of the handles and began the death march among the ancient stones to the raw hole dug by Calvin Waters in the very early, morning; and Johnny shivered.

He hardly heard the nasal monotone of Samuel Sheare reading the service for the dead, for it was not good to listen closely to such things read in the dedicated mumble of a man addressing God directly, without regard for neighbor or murderer or even his own troubled soul. Johnny looked instead among the graves and beyond, to Isbel’s cornfield, and farther to the south the barn and lean-to of the departed old woman, so near to the place of her birth and yet so far from its living beauty. How often had Fanny Adams stood here listening to Samuel Sheare mutter the final farewell to others? How often had she painted this very scene — the field, the cemetery, perhaps these same mourners? He remembered the liveliness of her eyes and the warmth of her old hands, the deep wise voice with its touch of Yankee asperity; and Johnny was saddened and depressed.

He searched the headstones and saw Shinns scattered among them like sterile seed, Shinns whose blood ran in his veins and who were stranger strangers to him than the Chinese and Koreans. He saw dates so old they had worn away, names so forgotten they seemed visitants from another planet. Thankful Adams, She was an empty tale, a morning flower, cut down and withered in its hour... Widow Zilpha, relict of Reverend Nathaneal Urie... Jebuon Waters, O Mortality... Here Lieth Elhanon Shinn Died of Scalding but God will Heal him...

And you, Fanny Adams, he thought. You and me both.