Flash and Filigree (8 page)

In five minutes the Doctor walked half the frontal length of the building, retraced his steps to the cloistered dome and entered the main door, past which he was inside a great, octagonal reception room. The temperature here, like that in an air-conditioned cinema, was immediately refreshing. High above were countless thin panels of frosted skylight, meeting ice-white walls and, below the floor of green slate, an effect given point at the great room’s center by the location there of a booth structure, also octagonal, marked on each side
Information,
and made entirely of aluminum. Standing just inside the door, the Doctor examined the room at length. The surrounding walls held numbered glass doors, three to each of the eight sides, leading, as Dr. Eichner knew, to the various chambers of law, opening and closing in both directions, soundlessly.

Having digested the scene, he went directly, as planned, to the Information Booth and, without a word, presented his convocation. The booth was occupied by a pale old man in a seersucker suit who was reading a pocket-book held flat before him on the metal counter. The old man looked first at the convocation, then at the Doctor with an air of annoyance, perhaps for his speechlessness since he in turn kept an exaggerated silence and, returning the convocation, simply pointed to a directional indicator, near one of the doors, marked, like the convocation, “16th District, 8th Sessions.” Dr. Eichner had not expected these directional indicators, apparently a recent innovation, as they had not been mentioned in the description of the building; so, for the moment, he was taken aback.

“Good!” he said then, receiving the convocation in his hand again and starting to leave; but he stopped short, as on an afterthought, and spoke out amiably to the old man who had already gone back to his book.

“This is Judge Fisher’s Session, isn’t it?”

“Judge Thornton Fisher?” said the other, raising his thin gray head. He looked at the Doctor cagily, as though suspecting a trap, and shook his head, a slow wag with eyes closed. “Not Judge Fisher,” he said flatly, but continued at once in a forgiving tone, “Judge Fisher is not here any more.” Unmistakably, there was finality and an irritating piety in his voice, and he might have returned straightaway to his reading, but Dr. Eichner was not to be put off.

“Where is Judge Fisher then?” he asked abruptly. “If there’s been a change in 8th Sessions, why wasn’t public notice given? That’s customary, isn’t it?”

The querulous edge in the Doctor’s voice was so genuine that the old man realized then he wasn’t being baited after all, and so, even closed the book to make the most of it, leaning forward across the aluminum, his white face livid now in sudden and almost obscene confidence.

“Well, he’s dead,” he said in a soft whining effort to get some of the Doctor’s sympathy himself, and so saying, half-satisfied, sat back stiffly to hold his book in readiness and continue as matter-of-fact: “Day before yesterday. Or maybe it was Wednesday; it
was
Wednesday. Asphyxiation by carbon monoxide . . .”

“Well, wasn’t public notice given?” asked the Doctor, impatient now that time was growing short.

“It was in the
papers,
” replied the old man, frowning fixedly at the Doctor; and then suddenly, as though on pure impulse, he reached in his pocket and drew out a flat, limp-worn billfold. His movement was abrupt, but, once the billfold was out, he opened it with slow effort and, even more laboriously, unfolded the newspaper clipping he took from inside, at last spreading it flat on the counter before them both. The banner read:

“TRAGEDY IN WOODLAWN”

and beneath:

“Custom Cadillac Is

His Death-Chamber”

“I know this banner,” said Dr. Eichner, almost challengingly. “There’s no indication here that . . .” He broke off then with a show of impatience and read the item in its entirety. It began: “Thornton K. Fisher, prominent civic leader and judge, resident of the fashionable Woodlawn district, was found late last evening, dead of asphyxiation, in his automobile.” The item continued at some length, describing the circumstances of the tragedy, the discovery of the body, and so on, concluding: “Friends and relations knew of no reason why Judge Fisher would have wanted to take his own life.”

Dr. Eichner did not ordinarily read the newspapers, preferring rather to get the news in weekly retrospect, from the periodicals—for these organs treated events of a preceding week as an understandable sequence, and gave them discernible pattern. On the previous evening, however, in preparing for the hearing, he had scanned the last week’s daily papers, so as to be up to date. Apparently, the ambiguous banner for the Fisher tragedy had misled him into overlooking the substance of the item. Even so, he finished reading it now with a snort of contempt and flung the clipping, as though it were actually worthless, to one side. “Still no indication,” he said emphatically, “of a change in 8th Sessions! Who’s presiding now?”

The old man gathered up the clipping ruefully, even ignoring the Doctor, who looked on amazed that the other could still imagine the clipping to be of any use. Suddenly, however, he was evidently so touched by the old man’s false scorn that he reached out his hand and laid it gently on his shoulder. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It was simply that the coverage in that item seemed so . . . so
inadequate.
I really . . .”

“Judge Fisher was a good man,” said the other defiantly, as though he were wincing under the Doctor’s hand; and when he raised his eyes, there were actually tears there. “A good man,” he repeated, and it was evident that with the slightest encouragement he would cry wholeheartedly.

“I’m sure of it,” said the Doctor, patting his shoulder. “I’m very sure of it. And I’m sorry.” Then, after a reasonable pause, he continued, “I must leave now. I have a Hearing in 8th Sessions.” He looked at his watch; it was 10:35. “I wonder if you could tell me who’s presiding now.”

The old man had taken out his handkerchief and was blowing his nose. “Judge Lester,” he said indistinctly, and the Doctor, his head back slightly, eyes half closed in an attitude of concentration, recalled a dozen or so other names beginning with
L.
“Not
Lessing
?” he ventured at last, with a frown to express the doubt of it.

“Judge Lessing? Judge Tom Lessing is in 18th District Criminal Courts,” said the old man indignantly, and immediately appeared to be warming toward the Doctor. “Judge Howard Lester,” he said, putting his handkerchief away now to sit bright-eyed, white hands folded tight and small.

“I don’t know him then,” said the Doctor seriously. “What are his leanings?”

“How’s that?” cried the old man.

“I mean, what is his background?”

“Judge Lester? He’s from out of state,” replied the old man expansively, “Arizona. Tucson, I believe. Tucson, Arizona. Did you say you have a Hearing? Today?”

“Yes. But, just a moment—you say that Judge Lester is from
Arizona
? Isn’t that unusual, that he should be from out of state? This is a County matter, is it not?”

“Not at all!” replied the old man knowingly. “Not-at-all. Judge Fisher was born in Vienna himself! An American citizen though. His mom and dad were both Americans. His dad—I knew Judge Fisher’s daddy—was with the State Department in Vienna. Mark Fisher! A grand old man! Markham R. Fisher.” He ended somewhat lamely, and it was obvious that he had really exaggerated how well he had known the elder Fisher.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” said Dr. Eichner almost coldly. “What I’m referring to is Judge Lester’s
County record,
his past decisions.”

The old man, perhaps only at a loss being told he did not understand, seemed taken aback. Then he tightened his clasped hands and said with a child-like haughtiness, “I’m afraid we don’t give out that type of information.”

Dr. Eichner started to speak, but glanced at his watch instead. He was already ten minutes late for the Hearing. “I believe that’s my door there, isn’t it?” he asked in a more formal, friendly way, gesturing toward where the other had pointed before.

“That’s right. At the end of the hall,” replied the old man gloomily.

“Well, thanks for your trouble,” said the Doctor with a wave of his hand, “and good morning.”

The other responded with a sulky nod, but as Dr. Eichner turned to move away, he called after him warmly: “It ain’t the Judge that matters at a Hearin’, it’s the Jury!” and he even gave him a smile of hope.

“Yes, of course,” said the Doctor almost without hearing, for he had suddenly recalled the name,
Lester,
and seemed convinced now that it was a bad lookout all around.

W
HEN
D
R.
E
ICHNER
reached 8th Sessions antechamber, he was more than ten minutes late, and the Hearing had already begun. He was admitted at once by a shabbily uniformed attendant who gave him a strange look as he quietly opened the courtroom door.

Here was a small amphitheater of the kind in use in most European universities, arranged in circular rows of seats, rising tier upon tier, and falling back in ascension like the walls of a wooden bowl. The dominant impression was the room’s structure and the wooden-eye emptiness of the seats, the Jury taking a mere four rows of six seats each, besides which there were only present the Judge, Court Clerk, one or two minor attendants and a smattering of spectators, since these Hearings were, by and large, closed sessions. Above the top row of seats was a rim of sky-lights under the flat ceiling and, through the use of murals in concentrically graduated perspective, this had nearly the illusion of being vaulted.

The room was in silence when the Doctor entered with the attendant, the process having apparently reached a stage where nothing more could be done without the presence of the principal party. The two went directly to the wooden stand placed in the center of the floor, just in front of the raised presidium where Judge Lester sat.

All thin and silver outside his black robes, Judge Lester would have borne a strong resemblance to the actor, Lewis Stone, except that he wore heavy, shell-rimmed glasses.

The attendant, addressing first the Judge, and then the Jury, which was seated in a body on the Judge’s left, twenty-four variously dressed men and women, all seemingly serious and middle-aged, announced the Dr. Eichner and indicated by a polite movement of his arm that he should take his place in the stand. The Doctor nodded gravely toward both Judge and Jury before stepping up into the low railed box.

“I am very sorry to be late,” he said. “I was unexpectedly detained. I ask this Court’s indulgence.” Here, he almost imperceptibly lowered his head, as in apology to the Court. This gesture, which was not without a certain old world dignity, was immediately followed by a whispery stirring in the Grand Jury box.

Judge Lester threw a look of caution toward that body and, softly clearing his throat, addressed Dr. Eichner.

“The report of Police Officers Stockton and Fiske has been heard by this Jury—including your initial account of the accident—and finally, your statement before Captain Meyer as well. These are entered into Court Records and are, of course, available for your study. Naturally, it was desirable that you be present during this testimony, since whatever statement you may wish to make now could have perhaps been better arranged, more deliberately pertinent to the testimony already heard. However, that cannot be helped. So I will ask you now to describe in your own words how the—the accident occurred. As you may know, I am here solely in an advisory capacity to both the Jury and yourself as the principal party. You will therefore address your remarks to the Jury.”

Dr. Eichner scrutinized the Judge for a moment, perhaps realizing with relief that this mild-mannered man, and relatively young, was certainly not whom he had first wrongly supposed, a certain other Judge Lester, an obscure Justice who, several years ago, had come to notoriety through his severity in traffic violation cases, an undue severity, indeed, which had resulted at last in his impeachment.

“With your permission,” said Dr. Eichner, confident even to bowing slightly toward the Judge who, in turn, acknowledged this by tilting one hand, fingers extended, up from the base of the palm, flashing the stark white of it against the black folds of his chest.

“As Judge Lester has suggested,” began Dr. Eichner, speaking earnestly to the Jury who themselves at once settled back in attitudes of deliberate interest and comfort, “it is to be regretted that I was not present to hear the testimony of Officers Stockton and Fiske. As for the reading of my statement before Chief Meyer, let me say first off, that, providing the proper
emphasis
and
intonation
were given that reading, the statement is adequate, and we need not elaborate on it today. Naturally, of course, I shall want to see Court Records account of both. And until then, I shall make no comment thereon that should be taken as
definitive.
Presumably, however, the testimony of Officers Stockton and Fiske here this, morning would correspond to their report given to Chief Meyer—a report with which I am familiar—and which might be described as adequate
in fact
—so far as it goes—but, I’m afraid, entirely false in
spirit.
I say this without wishing to prejudice this Court, or any official who may be present, against these Officers. If their handling of this case was, in the strictest sense, improper, and deserves corrective attention—then let the departments concerned take note. It would be inopportune, however, for us to consider here the failure of these officers, in any other connection than as could serve to explain away the false emphasis drawn from certain circumstances surrounding this case—namely then, that their knowledge of
these
circumstances
was
. . . limited.

“Now, you are familiar with my statement before Chief Meyer. It is, substantially, correct. You have heard Judge Lester hesitate before the word, ‘accident.’ Advisedly so. I am prepared to maintain, indeed, to
insist,
upon the contrary: that here was no accident, but a deliberate attempt on my life, by persons unknown. One of these persons is now dead, in the city morgue, in a state beyond identification. Of the known parties to this conspiracy, however, this much may be said: one was a woman; two others, men—one of whom is perhaps also dead, or very seriously injured. My descriptions of each, as well as of the vehicle involved, are, of course, at the disposition of any authority concerned.”