The Rose in the Ring

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Letters from Joey Noakes and Ruby to the Jenisons set forth the
details of a visit to the Tombs on the day following the murder. Both
were constrained to remark that, in the view of Dick's confession, it
would go very hard with him; they could see no chance of escape for
him. Joey, however, urged David to contribute something toward
engaging the services of a clever lawyer who at least might save him
from the gallows. He stated that Ernie, after stubbornly maintaining
his own innocence, refused to pay out money for an attorney,
preferring to let the state provide counsel for him, under the law.
There was no mention of Braddock in either letter, for obvious
reasons.

Then the letter came from Mary Braddock. It was addressed to
Christine. The mother's heart cried out in the opening pages. David,
at least, could read between the lines. There were the tenderest
protestations of love and the most confident of prophecies, uttered
with a buoyancy of spirit that convinced and delighted the girl, who
had been so hungry for reassuring words. A new radiance enveloped her.
But he saw beyond the wistful, carefully considered sentences. He saw
the shadow of Thomas Braddock at the elbow of the woman as she wrote.

Near the bottom of the second page she abruptly took up the subject
which was, after all, uppermost in the minds of these anxious young
people.

"Your father," she began, "has changed his mind about going to the
mines in the Southwest. I saw him after that dreadful thing had
happened at Broadso's. He was afraid I might think he had a hand in
it, so he came at once to reassure me. Of course, he was not
implicated in any way. It will please you, Christine, to know that my
father had a long talk with him on the day following the murder, and
that he was more than merely impressed by the change in him. He firmly
believes that your father means to lead an honorable, upright life. I,
too, believe that he can work out his own redemption. Perhaps David
will bear me out in this. He saw him, and he noted the wonderful
change. Time, however, will tell. I ought not to be too rash with my
prophecies.

"He loves you. He wants to reclaim your love and respect. That is all
he has to live for, I firmly believe. For this reason, if for no
other, I am confident he will make a brave, a wonderful effort. What
he needs most of all is encouragement, sympathy, the promise of
ultimate reward. If he realizes that the time may yet come when he can
stand before you without shame on his own part, and be received
without shame on your part and David's, I am sure it will mean
everything to him in the struggle he is to make in the next three or
four years.

"He is now on his way to your grandfather's ranch in Montana, of which
he will assume the management next fall. The present manager is most
unsatisfactory to my father. He recognizes Tom's great ability in
handling men; his training in the school of hardship and adversity has
given him all the requisites necessary to the conducting of a large
ranch. You remember the name of the post-office where the mail for the
ranch is always sent. I implore you to write to him often. It will
mean so much to him, and, in the end, so much to you and yours. He
insists that you are to make no effort to see him. You can well
understand how he feels about it. Let _him_ come to you in his
own good time. That is best, I am sure. I strongly advise you to
respect his wishes in this connection.

"As for my own plans, I am going to the ranch with him. He needs me."

That was all she had to say of herself or her plans.

In the next sentence she spoke of Dick Cronk:

"I suppose you have read of that unhappy boy's arrest. Joey is trying
to raise means with which to employ capable counsel for him. I have
sent him a check for a thousand dollars, with the understanding that
my name is not to be mentioned as a donor. Your father says he cannot
conceive of Dick committing a murder. Nor can I. I have a strange
feeling that he did not do it, but, of course, that is silly in the
face of all that has come out. I am sorry for Dick. If David can find
it convenient to befriend him in any way, I am sure he will not
hesitate to help that poor, unfortunate boy who once did him an
unusual service.

"We are leaving at 5.30 for Chicago...."

The weeks passed rapidly for the blissful young Jenisons. The letters
from the far West were full of promise. Even the skeptical David was
compelled to admit to himself that the silver lining was discernible
against the black cloud that Mary Braddock had so deliberately set
herself under.

With his fair young wife he journeyed to New York toward the end of
their first month of married life. It had not required the advice or
suggestion of others to rouse in him a sense of duty. He owed more to
Dick Cronk than he could have hoped to repay under the most favorable
of circumstances: now it seemed utterly impossible to lift the
obligation. His first act was to send a large check to Joey Noakes.
This was followed by numerous encouraging letters to Dick Cronk, in
each of which he openly pledged himself to do all in his power to help
him in his great trouble.

Dick's replies were characteristic. They were full of quaint,
sarcastic references to his plight, glib comments on the close
proximity of the scaffold, and bitter lamentations over the detention
of his brother Ernie, whose misery and unhappiness seemed to weigh
more heavily with him than his own dire predicament.

On his arrival in town David went at once to the office of the great
criminal lawyer who had been engaged to defend the Cronks. There he
was met by Joey Noakes, Casey (no longer a contortionist but the owner
of a well-established plumbing business descended from his father) and
young Ben Thompson, the newspaper man who was soon to become Ruby's
husband. The man of law was brutally frank in his discussion of the
case. He had gone into it very thoroughly with the two prisoners. In
his mind there was no doubt as to the outcome of the trial. The men
had elected to be tried jointly. Richard Cronk did not have the ghost
of a hope to escape the extreme penalty; Ernest would be discharged.
There did not seem to be the remotest chance of saving Dick from the
gallows.

The testimony of the two prisoners would have but little weight with a
jury, and there were no extenuating circumstances behind which he
could go in support of his plea for leniency. The prisoners had
revealed to him their motive in visiting Broadso's place, going quite
fully into the details of the interview which ended in the shooting.
David's surprise and horror on learning these hitherto unmentioned
facts can well be imagined.

"Personally," said the lawyer, "I am inclined to the opinion that Dick
Cronk tells the truth when he says Grand drew a revolver on him and
that he shot in self-defense. If we can make the jury see it in that
light there may be some chance for him. That is the defense I shall
offer, in any event. The state, however, is in a position to make
light of the plea, and with tremendous effect. It is just as plausible
a theory that Grand himself drew in self-defense. The fact that Cronk
fired and Grand did not will go far toward substantiating that theory
in the minds of intelligent jurors. It is not at all likely that
Grand, who knew the character of his visitors, could be forestalled in
a shooting affair, especially if he had been the first to draw.
Gentlemen, I shall do my best, but I must say to you that it is a
hopeless fight. Young Cronk is perfectly indifferent as to his own
fate. He seems only anxious to have his brother acquitted of
complicity in the actual crime. Ernie Cronk says that he saw a
revolver in Grand's hand, but, you see, he is so vitally interested
that it is doubtful if his testimony will be credited. It is very
black for Dick Cronk. You may as well understand the situation. We
have one chance in a thousand of getting him off with a life sentence,
one in a million of securing an acquittal."

The next day David and Joey went to the Tombs to see the two men. Dick
came down to the visitor's cage, but Ernie stubbornly refused to see
the callers.

"He's in a terrible way, David," said Dick, in explanation of his
brother's attitude toward them. "You see, I'm an old hand at the
business, and I advised him to talk with no one except the lawyer.
It's bad policy, gabbing with everybody that comes along. Keep a close
tongue in your head, that's my motto. Ernie's followin' my advice
right up to the limit. He's so cussed stingy with his conversation
that he won't talk to himself. I don't believe he has said fifty words
out loud in the past two weeks. It's getting to be quite a joke among
the other guys in here. I never knew any one to be so careful as he
is. But, as I said before, he's in a bad way. It's telling on him,
poor kid. He can't see anything but the rope for both of us. And then,
Davy, my boy, he's got a particular reason for not seeing you. I guess
you know what it is. He's a terrible proud feller, Ernie is. Not a bit
like me in that respect. Now I'm willing to thank you for putting up
the coin for us, and all that, and I do thank you; but Ernie--well,
he's a curious kid. He can't bear to--well, you understand."

"Dick," began David as soon as the complacent rogue gave him the
opportunity to break in, "I want you to tell Joey and me just how it
happened. We are your best friends--"

The prisoner held up his hand, palm outward, shaking his head slowly
as he spoke. "I'd be a poor example for Ernie if I blabbed after
tellin' him to keep his trap shut. Excuse _me_, Davy. My lawyer
is the only one I talk to about the case. As he's your lawyer just as
much as he is mine, and more so, I guess, I don't mind if you chat
with him. He can tell you all he wants to. But not me. Nix, kid. Not
even to you and old Joey here, the greatest close-mouth in the
business. Why, I saw Joey last winter in that pantomime out West, and
he never said a word from the time the curtain went up till it went
down. Talk about your tight-lipped guys! Say, he's the king of them
all. He's the only actor I ever saw that wasn't kickin' for more words
to conquer. These gabby actors just give me a--"

"For heaven's sake, Dick, be serious!" cried David impatiently. "You
_must_ talk to us openly, frankly about--"

"I'm sorry, David," interrupted Dick, his face grave in an instant. "I
can't talk about it. I'd sooner not. You see, I've got to consider
Ernie. He's absolutely innocent. If I got to spoutin' around, I might
say something that could be twisted so's it would hurt him. So, if you
don't mind, I'll talk about the weather. How is it down in old
Virginia? How's old Jeff? And how is the cook-lady at Jenison Hall?
Say, I wish you'd mention me to her. I'm the ghost that took her pies
and cold chicken, you remember."

It was useless for them to continue. He smilingly but stubbornly
refused to be moved by their eloquence. To all of their subtly-worded
entreaties he gave but the one, oft-repeated response:

"I guess you'd better discuss that with Mr. Prull, the lawyer."

They gave it up, but not until the time allotted to them as visitors
was nearly over.

"Mr. Prull has all the facts. Let him do the worrying," quoth Dick,
the philosopher. "Ernie will get off, dead sure. As for yours truly, I
made my bed, so I guess I'll have to sleep in it. Joey, I'll have the
laugh on you. You always said I was a crazy freak when I told you
where I was going to end. Just you remember that, will you, when you
read about me doing the groundless dance one of these fine days. My
old man did it before me. He was seventeen minutes strangling, they
say. Almost a record-breaking performance. To tell you the truth,
Joey, I'd be downright disappointed if I should happen to cash in
natural-like. It would be an awful jolt to my faith in Fate."

"For the love of 'eaven, Dick, don't go on like that," groaned Joey. A
cold perspiration was standing on his forehead. "You ought to 'ave
some regard for my feelings."

Dick laughed merrily. "There you go! Always thinkin' of yourself. I've
always heard that Englishmen haven't got any feelings."

"Well, they 'ave," was Joey's retort.

"Say, David, what's the latest news from Brad?" He listened with great
interest to David's brief recital. "Good for Brad!" he exclaimed. "I
always said he'd come out clean if he had a chance. I say, Mrs. Brad's
a brick. She'll bring him around, see if she don't. He ain't a natural
crook, Brad ain't. He's got a conscience and he can't get away from
that. No man's a real crook who has a conscience. I've got my own
definition of the word 'conscience': a mental funeral with only one
mourner. Say, kid, I guess I saved your father-in-law's neck when I
plugged old Grand--"

"Dick, don't breathe that, I implore you," cried David. "He had
promised Mrs. Braddock that he'd go away. It can do no good to drag
him into all this."

"Well," said Dick reflectively, "I guess you'd better ask Mr. Prull
about that. He knows all the facts."

"I beg your pardon, Dick. I'm sorry I spoke so quickly."

"It's all right, kid. No harm done. Don't worry. There won't be
anything said about Brad's _original_ intentions. I hope Christine--I
should say Mrs. Jenison--is well. I know she must be happy."

"She is both, Dick. She is very deeply interested in your case."

"I hope you won't let her send me roses and sweet violets, kid. That's
an awful gag they're workin' now. There's a fellow down the line here
that cut his wife's head nearly off in two places--on both sides of
the neck--and he's getting pink roses and lilies of the valley by the
cab-load."

"Christine is sending books and fruit, and three times a week you are
to have a dinner fit for a--"

The sudden fierce glare in the prisoner's eyes caused David to stop in
amazement.

"Look here," demanded Dick savagely, "ain't poor Ernie to have any o'
these things? Is he to set by and see me eat--what?"

"You are to be treated alike, of course," cried David quickly. Dick's
face cleared. He looked down in evident embarrassment.

"Excuse me, kid. I--I always get riled when I think of him getting the
worst of anything. I'm sure we'll both be terrible grateful to Chris--
to Mrs. Jenison. She's an angel,--as of course you know, kid. Sending
me books, eh? Tell her I like Dickens, will you? And, say, there's
_one_ book she needn't go to the trouble of sendin' me."

"You mean the--the Bible?"

"Yes."

"Dick, you don't really mean that. You--"

"I've already got one," said the prisoner simply. His eyes fell with
curious inconsistency. They saw his chin and lower lip quiver ever so
slightly. He scraped the floor with his foot a time or two, and his
fingers tightened on the bars. "It's a little one my mother gave me
when I was a kid. I've always kept it. Funny little old Bible, with
print so small you can't hardly read it, 'specially that place where
all them guys with the jay names were being begot. They seem to run
together a good deal--I mean the names. I guess they must have run
together considerable themselves, if accounts are true. Yes, my ma
gave it to me for being a good boy once."

His eyes were wet when he looked up at David's face again. His smile
seemed more twisted than usual.

"Where is it now, Dick?" asked Jenison, a lump coming into his throat.
Joey was plainly, almost offensively amazed.

"Why,--why, Ernie's got it. He didn't have anything else to read, so
he took it a couple of weeks ago. I--I guess I'll ask him for it some
day soon. Oh, yes, there _is_ something I want to speak to you about,
Joey. A couple o' years ago I took out a life insurance policy in favor
of Ernie, and also an accident policy. I couldn't keep up the accident
one, but the other's paid up to next January. Maybe I won't have to pay
on it again. It's for five thousand. I want you to see that he gets the
money if--if I--well, you know. The policy is in the safe over at old
Isaac's pawnshop,--you know the place. I'll write and ask him to come
down and see me, and I'll tell him to give you the paper, if you don't
mind, Joey."

"Sure, Dick. I'll take charge of it. You're very good to Ernie, and
thoughtful, lad."

"Well, I guess I ought to be," remarked Dick dryly.

David from the first had been more or less certain that Dick was not
the one who shot Grand. He could not drive the ugly conviction from
his mind. It occurred to him at this juncture to put his theory to the
test, hoping to catch Dick off his guard.

"The police are now saying that you did not do the shooting, Dick." He
watched the other's face narrowly.

There was not so much as a flicker of alarm.

"They don't think the old boy committed suicide, do they?" asked Dick,
with a chuckle of scorn for the obtuseness of the police.

"No. They're working on some new evidence, that's all."

"It's grand to have a reputation like mine," grinned the amiable
rogue. "They won't even believe me when they catch me red-handed. Once
a liar, always a liar. That's their idea, eh? If I was to turn around
and say I didn't do it, I suppose they'd believe me? Well, nix! I
guess not!"

David and Joey left almost immediately after this, promising to visit
him from time to time, and to do all in their power to aid Mr. Prull.

"Well, so long," said Dick at parting. "Say, Joey, will you remember
me to Ruby? I wish her all the luck in the world."

The summer months wore away and toward the middle of October the case
of the State _vs_. Cronk and Cronk came up. There was little or
no public interest in the hearing. Two sets of friends, rather small
circles very widely apart, were deeply interested, and that was all.
The Jenisons and their friends formed one contingent, while the other
was made up from that shifting, stealthy element of humanity known as
the "under-world."--pickpockets, cracksmen and ne'er-do-wells who had
been the associates of Dick Cronk in one way or another, off and on,
for years.

The plea of self-defense was ably presented by a great lawyer, but it
was shattered by the State quite as easily as he had anticipated. He
made an eloquent, impassioned appeal for clemency. The jury was out
not more than an hour. Their verdict was an acquittal for Ernest
Cronk, a conviction for murder in the first degree against Richard,
with the recommendation that he be hanged by the neck until dead.

Following the conviction came the application for a new trial, which
was not granted. The record in the case was so clear of error and the
proof so conclusive that Mr. Prull declined to carry the matter to the
higher courts, realizing the hopelessness of such a proceeding. Then
began the systematic, earnest effort to induce the governor to commute
the sentence to life imprisonment. He declined to interfere.

Dick Cronk was doomed.

At eleven o'clock on the morning of a bitterly cold Friday in January
a grim, sullen group of men, evil-faced fellows whose eyes were heavy
with dread, and whose lips hung limp with dejection, crowded around
the stove in a squalid, ill-smelling basement room. They spoke but
seldom; their voices were rarely raised above the hoarse half-whisper
of anxiety known only to men who wait in patience for a thing of
horror to come to pass, an inevitable, remorseless thing from which
there is no escape.

They shivered as they crouched close to the red-hot stove,
notwithstanding the almost unbearable heat of the foul, windowless
room in which they were gathered. Their faces were pallid, their eyes
bloodshot, their flesh a-quiver.

Occasionally one or another of them would go to the door to listen for
sounds in the black passage beyond. He would resume his seat without a
word to his fellows, each of whom looked up with stark, questioning
eyes. Then they would fall to staring at the walls again, or at the
floor, their chins in their hands. At their feet lay the newspapers,
eagerly read and discarded by each and every member of this little
group. There was a "noon extra," fresh from a ten o'clock press. It
had been the last to fall into their hands.

They tried to smoke, but the water of mortal terror filled their
mouths. The smell of dead, dank tobacco pervaded the room.

In a far corner, huddled against the wall, there was a shivering,
silent figure, a Pariah even among these under-world outcasts. He sat
apart from the others, denied a place in the circle, despised and
abhorred by the men he once had scorned because they were the devil-
may-care companions and emulators of his brother. His beady black eyes
never shifted from the low, padlocked door in the opposite end of the
room. He, too, was waiting for the dread news from the upper world.
His breathing was sharply audible, as of one drugged by sleep; his
body had not moved an inch in an hour or more, so fierce was the
suspense that held him rigid. From time to time he swallowed, although
his mouth was dry and empty; there was a rattling sound accompanying
the act that suggested the hoarse croak of a frog. Always his gaze was
on the door, never wavering, unblinkng, fascinated by the horror that
was creeping down to him as surely as the sun crept up to the apex of
the day.

Noon! Twelve o'clock, midday! The hour they were dreading!

One of the shivering thieves beside the stove drew forth from a ragged
pocket the plutocratic timepiece of a millionaire victim. The way his
eyes narrowed as he looked at its face told the silent observers that
it was twelve o'clock and after. Unconsciously every figure stiffened,
every jaw was set, every nostril spread with the intake of air. Every
mind's eye in that fear-sick group leaped afar and drew a picture of
the thing that was happening--then! At that very instant it was
happening!

"Oh!" groaned some one, half aloud.

"It's after twelve," muttered another thickly.

"The jig's up wid Dick, kids. Blacky ought to be here wid de extry.
Wot's a keepin' him?" said the first speaker, glaring over his
shoulder in the direction of the door.

"Twelve sharp, that's wot it says," shuddered a small, pinched thief.
"He's a-swingin' now."

Suddenly a wild, appalling shriek arose from the corner behind them.
As one man, they whirled. Their gaze fell upon the cringing figure
over there, now groveling on the floor in the agony of a terror that
severed all the restraining bonds that had held his tongue so long.

They shrank back as their minds began to grasp the words he was
shrieking in his madness.

He was sobbing out the thing that each man there had suspected from
the first!

For many minutes they listened to his ravings, stupefied, aghast. Then
a stealthy glance swept round the circle as if inspired by one central
intelligence. It crept out of the corners of rattish eyes, reading as
it ran the sinister circle, and hurried back to its intense,
malevolent business of transfixing the quarry in the corner.

A hand reached down and grasped the leg of a short, heavy stool.
Another went lower and clutched a long, murderous bar of iron that
served as a poker. Savage eyes went in quest of deadly things, and
purposeful hands obeyed the common impulse.

Then they advanced....

Later, the stealthy, shivering group stole forth from the room and
down the black hallway that led to the street. The last man out cast a
terrified glance at the still, shapeless object in the corner as he
closed the door behind him and fled after his fellows. When they came
from the passage into the full light of day, each skulker looked at
his hands and found that they shook as if with a mighty ague.

Even as they blinked their eyes in the glaring sunlight, an excited
young man came rushing toward them from the opposite side of the
street. They paused irresolute. The newcomer was white, excited--yes,
jubilant. In his hand he carried a newspaper, the heavy black
headlines standing out in bold relief.

"He's got a reprieve!" he was shouting eagerly. "Look 'ere! See wot it
says."

Fascinated, they slunk back into the dark passage, to listen in
stupefaction while the joyous Blacky repeated the astounding news from
the prison.

"Mr. Jenison and his wife done it," cried Blacky, his eyes gleaming.
"It says so here. They went to the gov'nor this morning and put it up
to him in a way that made him grant a reprieve for thirty days, so's
Mr. Jenison can get the real facts before him. That means a pardon
sure, kids. Say, Jenison's all right! He's the kind of a friend to
have, he is. He never quit on Dick. Say, where's Ernie? We'd better
put him wise."

"It won't make any difference to Ernie now," said one of the rogues,
wiping his wet brow with his hand.

Blacky fell away with a great look of dread in his eyes. He
understood.

"We'd better duck out o' this," he muttered vaguely. "It says here
that the cops are going to question Ernie. They're out huntin' for him
by this time, kids."

"They know he was here wid us, and they'll find him sure," cried one
shifty-eyed fellow. "Me to the woods."

"Hold on. Spike," interposed another grimly. "We got to stand together
on this. We got to stick by Dick, now he has a chance. We got to stay
here and tell 'em what Ernie said to us in there. It's the only way.
We'll do time for it, but what's the dif? Dick was doin' more for
Ernie. We're sure to get off light, when it all comes out."

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