"I call twenty witness!" announced Mr. Kahoots with a grand air.
"You don't need to!" retorted Mr. Tutt. "Now tell us why you had to leave Syria?"
"I go in camel business at Coney Island," answered the witness demurely.
"What!" shouted the lawyer. "Didn't you run away from home because you were convicted of the murder of Fatima, the daughter of Abbas?"
"Me? No!" Mr. Kahoots looked shocked.
Mr. Tutt bent over and spoke to Bonnie Doon, who produced from a leather bag a formidable document on parchment-like paper covered with inscriptions in Arabic and adorned with seals and ribbons.
"I have here, Your Honor," said he, "the record of this man's conviction in the Criminal Court in Beirut, properly exemplified by our consuls and the embassy at Constantinople. I have had it translated, but if Mr. Pepperill prefers to have the interpreter read it—"
"Show it to the district attorney!" directed His Honor.
Pepperill looked at it helplessly.
"You may read your own translation," said the court drowsily.
Mr. Tutt bowed, took up the paper and faced the jury.
"This is the official record," he announced. "I will read it.
"'In the name of God.
"'On a charge of the murder of the gendarmes Nejib Telhoon and Abdurrahman and Ibrahim Aisha and Fatima, daughter of Hason Abbas, of the attack on certain nomads, of having fired on them with the intent of murder, of participation and assistance in the act of murder, of having shot on the regular troops, of assisting in the escape of some offenders and of having drawn arms on the regular troops, during an uprising on Sunday, January 24, 1303—Mohammedan style—between the inhabitants of the Mezreatil-Arab quarter in Beirut and the nomads who had pitched their tents near by, the following arrested persons, namely—Metri son of Habib Eljemal and Habib son of Mikael Nakash and Hanna son of Abdallah Elbaitar and Elias Esad Shihada and Tanous son of Jerji Khedr and Habib son of Aboud Shab and Elias son of Metri Nasir and Khalil son of Mansour Maoud and Nakhle son of Elias Elhaj and Nakhle son of Berkat Minari and Antoon son of Berkat Minari and Lutfallah son of Jerji-Kefouri and Jabran Habib Bishara and Kholil son of Lutf Dahir and Nakhle Yousif Eldefoumi, all residents of the said quarter and Turkish subjects, and their companions, sixty-five fugitives, namely—Isbir Bedoon son of Abdallah Zerik and Elias son of Kanan Zerik and Amin Matar and Jerji Ferhan alias Baldelibas and Habu son of Hanna Kahoots and—'"
Deputy Assistant District Attorney Pepperill started doubtfully to his feet.
"If the court please," he murmured in a sickly voice, "I object. In the first place I don't know anything about this record—and I object to it on that ground; and in the second place a trial and conviction in the absence of a defendant under our law is no conviction at all."
"But this man is a Turkish subject and it's a good conviction in Turkey," argued Mr. Tutt.
"Well, it isn't here!" protested Pepperill.
"You're a little late, aren't you?" inquired His Honor. "It has all been read to the jury. However, I'll entertain a motion to strike out—"
"I should like to be heard on the question," said Mr. Tutt quickly. "This is an important matter."
Unexpectedly a disgruntled-looking talesman in the back row held up his hand.
"I'd like to ask a question myself," he announced defiantly, almost arrogantly, after the manner of one with a grievance. "I'm a hard-working business man. I've been dragged here against my will to serve on this jury and decide if this defendant murdered somebody or other. I don't see what difference it makes whether or not this witness cut a tablecloth in two or murdered Fatima, the daughter of What's his Name. I want to go home—sometime. If it is in order I'd like to suggest that we get along."
Judge Wetherell started and peered with a puzzled air at this bold shatterer of established procedure.
"Mister Juryman," said he severely, "these matters relate directly to the credibility of the witness. They are quite proper. I—I—am—surprised—"
"But, Your Honor," expostulated the iconoclast upon the back row, "I guess nobody is going to waste much time over this Turkish snake charmer! Ain't there a policeman or somebody we can believe who saw what happened?"
"Bang!" went the judicial gavel.
"The juryman will please be silent!" shouted Judge Wetherell. "This is entirely out of order!" Then he quickly covered his face with his handkerchief. "Proceed!" he directed in a muffled tone.
"Where were we?" asked Mr. Tutt dreamily.
"Fatima, the daughter of Abbas," assisted the foreman, sotto voce.
"And I objected to Fatima, the daughter of Abbas!" snapped Pepperill.
"Well, well!" conceded Mr. Tutt. "She's dead, poor thing! Let her be. That is all, Mr. Kahoots."
It is difficult to describe the intense excitement these digressions from the direct testimony occasioned among the audience. The reference to the billiard-table cover and the murder of the unfortunate Fatima apparently roused long-smoldering fires. A group of Syrians by the window broke into an unexpected altercation, which had to be quelled by a court officer, and when quiet was restored the jury seemed but slightly attentive to the precisely similar yarns of Nicola Abbu, Menheem Shikrie, Fajal Mokarzel and David Elias, especially as the minutes of the Grand Jury showed that they had sworn to three entirely different sets of facts regarding the cause of Babu's death. Yet when the People rested it remained true that five witnesses, whatever the jury may have thought of them, had testified that Hassoun strangled Sardi Babu. The jury turned expectantly to Mr. Tutt to hear what he had to say.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "the defense is very simple. None of the witnesses who have appeared here was in fact present at the scene of the homicide at all. I shall call some ten or twelve reputable Syrian citizens who will prove to you that Kasheed Hassoun, my client, with a large party of friends was sitting quietly in the restaurant when Sardi Babu came in with a revolver in his hand, which he fired at Hassoun, and that then, and only then, a small dark man whose identity cannot be established—evidently a stranger—seized Babu before he could fire again, and killed him—in self-defense."
Mr. William Montague Pepperill's jaw dropped as if he had seen the ghost of one of his colonial ancestors. He could not believe that he had heard Mr. Tutt correctly. Why, the old lawyer had the thing completely turned round! Sardi Babu hadn't gone to the restaurant. He had been in the restaurant, and it had been Kasheed Hassoun who had gone there.
Yet, one by one, placidly, imperturbably, the dozen witnesses foretold by Mr. Tutt, and gathered in by Bonnie Doon, marched to the chair and swore upon the Holy Bible that it was even as Mr. Tutt had said, and that no such persons as Mokarzel, Kahoots, Abbu, Shikrie and Elias had been in the restaurant at any time that evening, but on the contrary that they, the friends of Hassoun, had been there eating Turkish pie—a few might have had mashed beans with taheenak—when Sardi Babu, apparently with suicidal intent, entered alone to take vengeance upon the camel owner.
"That is all. That is our case," said Mr. Tutt as the last Syrian left the stand.
But there was no response from the bench. Judge Wetherell had been dozing peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid a decorous smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda and rustled it, and His Honor, who had been dreaming that he was riding through the narrow streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary so tall that he could peek through the latticed balconies at the plump, black-eyed odalisques within the harems, slowly came back from Turkey to New York.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said he, pulling himself together, "the defendant here is charged by the Grand Jury with having murdered Fatima the daughter of Abbas—I beg your pardon! I mean—who was it?—one Sardi Babu. I will first define to you the degrees of homicide—"
One