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 Counsel for the Defense

 By

 Leroy Scott

 Author of

 "The Shears of Destiny," "To Him That Hath,"
 "The Walking Delegate"

 Frontispiece by
 Charles M. Chapman

 GARDEN CITY    NEW YORK
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
 1912




 _Copyright, 1911, 1912, by_
 LEROY SCOTT

 _All rights reserved, including that of
 translation into foreign languages,
 including the Scandinavian_




[Illustration: "THRILLING WITH AN UNEXPECTED HOPE, KATHERINE ROSE AND
TRIED TO KEEP HERSELF BEFORE THE EYES OF DOCTOR SHERMAN LIKE AN
ACCUSING CONSCIENCE"]




 TO
 HELEN




PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

KATHERINE WEST.

DR. DAVID WEST, her father.

ARNOLD BRUCE, editor of the _Express_.

HARRISON BLAKE, ex-lieutenant-governor.

MRS. BLAKE, his mother.

"BLIND CHARLIE" PECK, a political boss.

HOSEA HOLLINGSWORTH, an old attorney.

BILLY HARPER, reporter on the _Express_.

THE REVEREND DR. SHERMAN, of the Wabash Avenue Church.

MRS. SHERMAN, his wife.

MRS. RACHEL GRAY, Katherine's aunt.

ROGER KENNEDY, prosecuting attorney.

JUDGE KELLOG.

MR. BROWN, of the National Electric & Water Company.

MR. MANNING, a detective.

ELIJAH STONE, a detective.




CONTENTS


   CHAPTER                                             PAGE

     I. Westville Prepares to Celebrate                  3
    II. The Bubble Reputation                           15
   III. Katherine Comes Home                            30
    IV. Doctor West's Lawyer                            49
     V. Katherine Prepares for Battle                   63
    VI. The Lady Lawyer                                 80
   VII. The Mask Falls                                  98
  VIII. The Editor of the _Express_                    116
    IX. The Price of a Man                             131
     X. Sunset at The Sycamores                        146
    XI. The Trial                                      158
   XII. Opportunity Knocks at Bruce's Door             172
  XIII. The Deserter                                   191
   XIV. The Night Watch                                212
    XV. Politics Make Strange Bedfellows               226
   XVI. Through The Storm                              240
  XVII. The Cup of Bliss                               250
 XVIII. The Candidate and the Tiger                    264
   XIX. When Greek Meets Greek                         276
    XX. A Spectre Comes to Town                        295
   XXI. Bruce to the Front                             311
  XXII. The Last Stand                                 328
 XXIII. At Elsie's Bedside                             346
  XXIV. Billy Harper Writes a Story                    368
   XXV. Katherine Faces the Enemy                      388
  XXVI. An Idol's Fall                                 403
 XXVII. The End of The Beginning                       418




COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE




CHAPTER I

WESTVILLE PREPARES TO CELEBRATE


The room was thick with dust and draped with ancient cobwebs. In one
corner dismally reposed a literary junk heap--old magazines,
broken-backed works of reference, novels once unanimously read but now
unanimously forgotten. The desk was a helter-skelter of papers. One of
the two chairs had its burst cane seat mended by an atlas of the
world; and wherever any of the floor peered dimly through the general
debris it showed a complexion of dark and ineradicable greasiness.
Altogether, it was a room hopelessly unfit for human habitation; which
is perhaps but an indirect manner of stating that it was the office of
the editor of a successful newspaper.

Before a typewriter at a small table sat a bare-armed, solitary man.
He was twenty-eight or thirty, abundantly endowed with bone and
muscle, and with a face----But not to soil this early page with
abusive terms, it will be sufficient to remark that whatever the
Divine Sculptor had carved his countenance to portray, plainly there
had been no thought of re-beautifying the earth with an Apollo. He was
constructed not for grace, but powerful, tireless action; and there
was something absurdly disproportionate between the small machine and
the broad and hairy hands which so heavily belaboured its ladylike
keys.

It was a custom with Bruce to write the big local news story of the
day himself, a feature that had proved a stimulant to his paper's
circulation and prestige. To-morrow was to be one of the proudest days
of Westville's history, for to-morrow was the formal opening of the
city's greatest municipal enterprise, its thoroughly modern
water-works; and it was an extensive and vivid account of the next
day's programme that the editor was pounding so rapidly out of his
machine for that afternoon's issue of the _Express_. Now and then, as
he paused an instant to shape an effective sentence in his mind, he
glanced through the open window beside him across Main Street to
where, against the front of the old Court House, a group of
shirt-sleeved workmen were hanging their country's colours about a
speakers' stand; then his big, blunt fingers thumped swiftly on.

He had jerked out the final sheet, and had begun to revise his story,
making corrections with a very black pencil and in a very large hand,
when there sauntered in from the general editorial room a pale, slight
young man of twenty-five. The newcomer had a reckless air, a humorous
twist to the left corner of his mouth, and a negligent smartness in
his dress which plainly had its origin elsewhere than in Westville.

The editor did not raise his eyes.

"In a minute, Billy," he said shortly.

"Nothing to hurry about, Arn," drawled the other.

The young fellow drew forward the atlas-bottomed chair, leisurely
enthroned himself upon the nations of the earth, crossed his feet upon
the window-sill, and lit a cigarette. About his lounging form there
was a latent energy like that of a relaxed cat. He gazed rather
languidly over at the Square, its sides abustle with excited
preparation. Across the fronts of stores bunting was being tacked;
from upper windows crisp cotton flags were being unscrolled. As for
the Court House yard itself, to-day its elm-shaded spaces were
lifeless save for the workmen about the stand, a litigant or two going
up the walk, and an occasional frock-coated lawyer, his vest
democratically unbuttoned to the warm May air. But to-morrow----

The young fellow had turned his head slowly toward the editor's copy,
and, as though reading, he began in an emotional, declamatory voice:

"To-morrow the classic shades of Court House Square will teem with a
tumultuous throng. In the emblazoned speakers' stand the Westville
Brass Band, in their new uniforms, glittering like so many grand
marshals of the empire, will trumpet forth triumphant music fit to
burst; and aloft from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory----"

"Go to hell!" interrupted Bruce, eyes still racing through his copy.

"And down from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory," continued
Billy, with a rising quaver in his voice, "Mr. Harrison Blake,
Westville's favourite son; the Reverend Doctor Sherman, president of
the Voters' Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway
County's able-bodiest or