The Glass Village

The Judge looked suddenly quite old. “Nothing. Nothing, Johnny. It has nothing to do with you. It’s me. I’ve sat on the bench in Cudbury for too many years to be en rapport with Shinn Corners. Hube Hemus has passed the word around.”

It was from Ferriss Adams that they learned what had happened in the cellar of the church when the prisoner was brought down to the coalbin. Adams had the story from Samuel Sheare, whom he had sought out to discuss arrangements for Fanny Adams’s funeral. Mr. Sheare had been present in the cellar; he had insisted on providing the prisoner with dry clothing — the man’s teeth were clacking from immersion and chill. When he brought the clothing, the minister had asked Constable Hackett and the Hemuses to leave him alone with the prisoner; they had refused and ordered the man to strip. Either he misunderstood or he understood too well — doubled over in agony still, the man had resisted furiously. The Hemus twins had torn the clothes from his body.

In his jacket Burney Hackett found a paper identifying him as one Josef Kowalczyk — “Mr. Sheare spelled it for me,” Ferriss Adams said, “it ends in c-z-y-k, which Mr. Sheare says the fellow pronounces ‘chick’” — aged forty-two, a Polish immigrant admitted to the United States under a special refugee quota in 1947. They had also found, in a dirty knotted handkerchief tied to a rope slung around Kowalczyk’s naked waist, a hundred and twenty-four dollars.

“And that’s the clincher,” snapped the Cudbury lawyer. “Because Mr. Sheare says that yesterday, at Aunt Fanny’s open house, she took him into her kitchen for a private talk. She told him she’d noticed Elizabeth Sheare’s summer dresses were pretty shabby, and she wanted him to buy his wife a new one. She reached up to the top shelf of her old pine cabinet, where she’s always kept her row of spice jars, and she took down the cinnamon jar. There was some change in it and a roll of bills, When Mr. Sheare protested, Aunt Fanny said to him, ‘Don’t ye worry none about my runnin’ short, Mr. Sheare. You know I keep some cash here for emergencies. There’s a hundred and forty-nine dollars and change in this jar, and if I can’t give Elizabeth Sheare a new dress out of it without her knowin’, what in the land’s sake can I do with it?’ And she peeled off two tens and a five and pressed them into Mr. Sheare’s hand. A hundred and forty-nine dollars in Aunt Fanny’s cinnamon bank only the day before,” said Ferriss Adams, “she gave twenty-five of it to Samuel Sheare, there’s nothing left in Aunt Fanny’s cinnamon jar — they’ve already checked that — and here’s a hundred and twenty-four dollars hidden under Kowalczyk’s undershirt... smelling of cinnamon. It’s what the Judge and I as lawyers, Mr. Shinn,” said Adams dryly, “call circumstantial evidence, but I’d say those are pretty damning circumstances. Wouldn’t you, Judge?”

“As presumptive of theft, Ferriss, yes,” said the Judge.

“Judge, he’s guilty as hell and you know it!”

“Not legally, I don’t. Ferriss, are you staying around the village this evening?”

“I’ll have to. I’ve got to see about the undertaking arrangements. As soon as the coroner gets here and gives us a release — it’ll have to be tonight! — I’m having Cy Moody of Comfort pick up the body. Why, Judge?”

“Because, Ferriss,” said Judge Shinn slowly, “I don’t like one little bit what’s going on. I’ve got to appeal to you as a practicing lawyer sworn to uphold the laws of the state to disregard your personal feelings, Ferriss, and help me stop... whatever’s brewing. As Fanny Adams’s kin you ought to be able to exercise some sobering influence on these upset people. Tonight may be crucial, Ferriss. I’ll stay out of the way. Will you try to talk them into handing Kowalczyk over to the sheriff or the state police?”

“Hube Hemus is the man,” muttered the Cudbury lawyer. “The tail that wags your wacky community. Why is Hube acting so God-Almighty, Judge? What’s Hube’s beef?”

“It’s compounded of many things, Ferriss. But principally, I think, the murder of his brother Laban before the war.”

“The Gonzoli case! I’d clean forgot about that. Cudbury jury acquitted him, didn’t it? Then I’m afraid, Judge,” said Adams, shaking his head, “you’re asking for the impossible.”

“Do your best, Ferriss.” The Judge squeezed Adams’s arm and turned away. He was shivering.

“I think, your honor,” said Johnny, “I’d better get you into your house before you go off on a pneumonia kick. Did you ever get a Japanese rubdown? March!”

But the Judge did not smile.