The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

He knew that honestly, by open agreement, he could not extract another single dollar from the treasury of the city of Philadelphia. He knew that if he left the office without this check and sent a boy for it, the aroused city treasurer would have time to inform his clerks, and that then no further money could be obtained. That’s why! That’s why, gentlemen, if you really want to know.

“Now, gentlemen of the jury, I am about done with my arraignment of this fine, honorable, virtuous citizen whom the counsel for the defense, Mr. Steger, tells you you cannot possibly convict without doing a great injustice. All I have to say is that you look to me like sane, intelligent men—just the sort of men that I meet everywhere in the ordinary walks of life, doing an honorable American business in an honorable American way. Now, gentlemen of the jury [he was very soft-spoken now], all I have to say is that if, after all you have heard and seen here to-day, you still think that Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood is an honest, honorable man—that he didn’t steal, willfully and knowingly, sixty thousand dollars from the Philadelphia city treasury; that he had actually bought the certificates he said he had, and had intended to put them in the sinking-fund, as he said he did, then don’t you dare to do anything except turn him loose, and that speedily, so that he can go on back to-day into Third Street, and start to straighten out his much-entangled financial affairs. It is the only thing for honest, conscientious men to do—to turn him instantly loose into the heart of this community, so that some of the rank injustice that my opponent, Mr. Steger, alleges has been done him will be a little made up to him. You owe him, if that is the way you feel, a prompt acknowledgment of his innocence. Don’t worry about George W. Stener. His guilt is established by his own confession. He admits he is guilty.

He will be sentenced without trial later on. But this man—he says he is an honest, honorable man. He says he didn’t think he was going to fail. He says he used all that threatening, compelling, terrifying language, not because he was in danger of failing, but because he didn’t want the bother of looking further for aid. What do you think? Do you really think that he had purchased sixty thousand dollars more of certificates for the sinking-fund, and that he was entitled to the money? If so, why didn’t he put them in the sinking-fund? They’re not there now, and the sixty thousand dollars is gone. Who got it? The Girard National Bank, where he was overdrawn to the extent of one hundred thousand dollars! Did it get it and forty thousand dollars more in other checks and certificates? Certainly. Why?

Do you suppose the Girard National Bank might be in any way grateful for this last little favor before he closed his doors?

Do you think that President Davison, whom you saw here testifying so kindly in this case feels at all friendly, and that that may possibly—I don’t say that it does—explain his very kindly interpretation of Mr. Cowperwood’s condition? It might be. You can think as well along that line as I can. Anyhow, gentlemen, President Davison says Mr. Cowperwood is an honorable, honest man, and so does his counsel, Mr. Steger. You have heard the testimony. Now you think it over. If you want to turn him loose—turn him loose. [He waved his hand wearily.] You’re the judges. I wouldn’t; but then I am merely a hard-working lawyer—one person, one opinion. You may think differently—

that’s your business. [He waved his hand suggestively, almost contemptuously.] However, I’m through, and I thank you for your courtesy. Gentlemen, the decision rests with you.”

He turned away grandly, and the jury stirred—so did the idle spectators in the court. Judge Payderson sighed a sigh of relief.

It was now quite dark, and the flaring gas forms in the court were all brightly lighted. Outside one could see that it was snowing.

The judge stirred among his papers wearily, and turning to the jurors solemnly, began his customary explanation of the law, after which they filed out to the jury-room.

Cowperwood turned to his father who now came over across the fast-emptying court, and said:

“Well, we’ll know now in a little while.”

“Yes,” replied Cowperwood, Sr., a little wearily. “I hope it comes out right. I saw Butler back there a little while ago.”

“Did you?” queried Cowperwood, to whom this had a peculiar interest.

“Yes,” replied his father. “He’s just gone.”

So, Cowperwood thought, Butler was curious enough as to his fate to want to come here and watch him tried. Shannon was his tool.

Judge Payderson was his emissary, in a way. He, Cowperwood, might defeat him in the matter of his daughter, but it was not so easy to defeat him here unless the jury should happen to take a sympathetic attitude. They might convict him, and then Butler’s Judge Payderson would have the privilege of sentencing him—giving him the maximum sentence. That would not be so nice—five years!

He cooled a little as he thought of it, but there was no use worrying about what had not yet happened. Steger came forward and told him that his bail was now ended—had been the moment the jury left the room—and that he was at this moment actually in the care of the sheriff, of whom he knew—Sheriff Adlai Jaspers. Unless he were acquitted by the jury, Steger added, he would have to remain in the sheriff’s care until an application for a certificate of reasonable doubt could be made and acted upon.

“It would take all of five days, Frank,” Steger said, “but Jaspers isn’t a bad sort. He’d be reasonable. Of course if we’re lucky you won’t have to visit him. You will have to go with this bailiff now, though. Then if things come out right we’ll go home. Say, I’d like to win this case,” he said. “I’d like to give them the laugh and see you do it. I consider you’ve been pretty badly treated, and I think I made that perfectly clear. I can reverse this verdict on a dozen grounds if they happen to decide against you.”

He and Cowperwood and the latter’s father now stalked off with the sheriff’s subordinate—a small man by the name of “Eddie”

Zanders, who had approached to take charge. They entered a small room called the pen at the back of the court, where all those on trial whose liberty had been forfeited by the jury’s leaving the room had to wait pending its return. It was a dreary, high-ceiled, four-square place, with a window looking out into Chestnut Street, and a second door leading off into somewhere—one had no idea where.

It was dingy, with a worn wooden floor, some heavy, plain, wooden benches lining the four sides, no pictures or ornaments of any kind. A single two-arm gas-pipe descended from the center of the ceiling. It was permeated by a peculiarly stale and pungent odor, obviously redolent of all the flotsam and jetsam of life—criminal and innocent—that had stood or sat in here from time to time, waiting patiently to learn what a deliberating fate held in store.

Cowperwood was, of course, disgusted; but he was too self-reliant and capable to show it. All his life he had been immaculate, almost fastidious in his care of himself. Here he was coming, perforce, in contact with a form of life which jarred upon him greatly. Steger, who was beside him, made some comforting, explanatory, apologetic remarks.

“Not as nice as it might be,” he said, “but you won’t mind waiting a little while. The jury won’t be long, I fancy.”

“That may not help me,” he replied, walking to the window.

Afterward he added: “What must be, must be.”

His father winced. Suppose Frank was on the verge of a long prison term, which meant an atmosphere like this? Heavens! For a moment, he trembled, then for the first time in years he made a silent prayer.

Chapter XLIV

Meanwhile the great argument had been begun in the jury-room, and all the points that had been meditatively speculated upon in the jury-box were now being openly discussed.

It is amazingly interesting to see how a jury will waver and speculate in a case like this—how curious and uncertain is the process by which it makes up its so-called mind. So-called truth is a nebulous thing at best; facts are capable of such curious inversion and interpretation, honest and otherwise. The jury had a strongly complicated problem before it, and it went over it and over it.

Juries reach not so much definite conclusions as verdicts, in a curious fashion and for curious reasons. Very often a jury will have concluded little so far as its individual members are concerned and yet it will have reached a verdict. The matter of time, as all lawyers know, plays a part in this. Juries, speaking of the members collectively and frequently individually, object to the amount of time it takes to decide a case. They do not enjoy sitting and deliberating over a problem unless it is tremendously fascinating.