So far as the presentation of the case went, the county attorney had it
all his own way. Certain of the bank's moneys were missing, and they
had been replaced by worthless mining stock. Specifically, the charge
was that I had been borrowing the bank's money and investing it in the
mining stock--all without authority from anybody higher up--and that at
the last I had grown panic-stricken, or something, and had turned the
stock in as part of the bank's assets.
Chandler, the prosecuting attorney, called only two witnesses, Withers
and Fitch. They both testified that they had heard me admit that I was
guilty. There were no details given which could involve Agatha Geddis.
It was merely stated that my admission of guilt was made at Abel
Geddis's house, and both witnesses asserted that Geddis himself was not
present.
Whitredge leaned over and whispered to me while this evidence was being
taken.
"Chandler knows, and we all know, that this acknowledgment of yours was
made in a talk with Miss Geddis. We are all willing to spare her the
humiliation of being brought into court. But it is your perfect right
to have her called if you wish it."
Knowing well enough by this time what I was in for, I was still foolish
enough, or besotted enough, to shake my head. "I don't wish it," I
said; and since this was practically telling Whitredge not to do so, he
did not cross-examine the two witnesses.
When the prosecution rested, Whitredge took up his line of defense. He
tried to show, rather lamely, I thought, that I had always lived within
my means, hadn't been dissipated, and had never been known to bet,
either on horse races or on the stock market; that whatever I had done
had been done without criminal intent. In this part of the trial I had
a heart-warming surprise. The afternoon train from Glendale brought a
big bunch of young people, and a good sprinkling of older ones, all
eager to testify to my former good character. I saw then how unfair I
had been in the bitterness of that first day. The shock of my arrest
had simply dammed up the sympathy stream like a sudden frost; but now
the reaction had come and I was not without friends. That little
demonstration went with me though many a long and weary day afterward.
Naturally, the greater part of this "character evidence" was thrown out
as irrelevant. The trial wasn't held for the purpose of ascertaining
what sort of a young man I had been in the past. It was supposed to be
an attempt to get at the facts in a particular case; and according to
the testimony of two uncontradicted witnesses, I had admitted these
facts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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