Stribling Thomas Sigismund

A Daylight Adventure

T. S. Stribling

Although some of the work of southern author T(homas) S(igismund) Stribling (1881–1965) might be called local-color writing, the mainstream novels of this Pulitzer Prize winner are given substance by the author’s stance against racism and his talent for satire. Stribling was the product of Clifton, Tennessee, a small town where he lived for much of his life, and later another small town, Florence, Alabama. Typical of well-educated Southerners of his era, he became a teacher and a lawyer, and still found time to write. In his writing, he experimented with various forms, from a trilogy about life in the South to adventure stories set in exotic climes, such as Venezuela. Despite his 1933 Pulitzer for The Store, today he is best remembered for the detective stories in which he introduced the psychological sleuth Dr. Henry Poggioli.

Stribling’s stories of detection focus on the workings of the human mind as explained by Poggioli, an Ohio State University professor who specializes in psychology and criminology. The professor’s solutions of crimes depend less on interpreting physical clues and more on understanding human behavior.

Stribling published the first series of Poggioli stories in the pulp magazine Adventure in 1925 and 1926. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who became so weary of Sherlock Holmes that he killed him off, only to bring him back again, Stribling tired of his character and used Poggioli’s spectacular death as the climax of the “final” tale. But Stribling bowed to popular demand, revived the character, and began a second series in 1929 that took him through the early 1930s. A third, and final, series featured the professor’s activities from the end of World War II until 1957.

“A Daylight Adventure” is a good example of Stribling’s important contribution to the detective form. In it, psychology is at the center of the ratiocination with which the sleuth solves crimes. Stribling’s contribution was broader than that, however. He develops the mildly adversarial relationship between the sleuth and the narrator. And the sardonic wit that Stribling uses to illuminate rural southern society makes him an early exemplar of the detective novelist as regional writer and humorist.

A Daylight Adventure

The following notes concerning Mrs. Cordy Cancy were not made at the time of her alleged murder of her husband, James Cancy. Worse than that, they were not taken even at the time of her trial, but seven or eight months later at the perfectly hopeless date when Sheriff Matheny of Lanesburg, Tennessee, was in the act of removing his prisoner from the county jail to the state penitentiary in Nashville.

Such a lapse of time naturally gave neither Professor Henry Poggioli nor the writer opportunity to develop those clues, fingerprints, bullet wounds, and psychological analyses which usually enliven the story of any crime.

Our misfortune was that we motored into Lanesburg only a few minutes before Sheriff Matheny was due to motor out of the village with his prisoner. And even then we knew nothing whatever of the affair. We simply had stopped for lunch at the Monarch café in Courthouse Square, and we had to wait a few minutes to get stools at the counter. Finally, two men vacated their places. As Poggioli sat down, he found a copy of an old local newspaper stuck between the paper-napkin case and a ketchup bottle. He unfolded it and began reading. As he became absorbed almost at once in its contents, I was sure he had found a murder story, because that is about all the professor ever reads.

I myself take no interest in murders. I have always personally considered them deplorable rather than entertaining. The fact that I make my living writing accounts of Professor Poggioli’s criminological investigations, I consider simply as an occupational hazard and hardship.

The square outside of our cafe was crowded with people and filled with movement and noise. In the midst of this general racket I heard the voice of some revivalist preacher booming out through a loudspeaker, asking the Lord to save Sister Cordy Cancy from a sinner’s doom, and then he added the rather unconventional phrase that Sister Cordy was not the “right” sinner but was an innocent woman, or nearly so.

That of course was faintly puzzling — why a minister should broadcast such a remark about one of his penitents. Usually the Tennessee hill preacher makes his converts out to be very bad persons indeed, and strongly in need of grace, which I suppose most of us really are. Now to hear one woman mentioned in a prayer as “nearly innocent” was a sharp break from the usual.

I suppose Poggioli also caught the name subconsciously, for he looked up suddenly and asked me if the name “Cancy” had been called. I told him yes, and repeated what I had just heard over the megaphone.

The criminologist made some sort of silent calculation, then said, “Evidently Mrs. Cancy has had her baby and the sheriff is starting with her to the penitentiary in Nashville.”

I inquired into the matter. Poggioli tapped his paper. “Just been reading a stenographic account of the woman’s trial which took place here in Lanesburg a little over seven months ago. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, but she was pregnant at the time, so the judge ruled that she should remain here in Lanesburg jail until the baby was born and then be transferred to the state penitentiary in Nashville. So I suppose by this noise that the baby has arrived and the mother is on her way to prison.”

Just as my companion explained this the preacher’s voice boomed out, “Oh, Lord, do something to save Sister Cordy! Sheriff Matheny’s fixin’ to start with her to Nashville. Work a miracle, Oh, Lord, and convince him she is innocent. You kain’t desert her, Lord, when she put all her faith an’ trust in You. She done a small crime as You well know, but done it with a pyure heart and for Yore sake. So come down in Yore power an’ stop the sheriff and save an innocent woman from an unjust sentence. Amen.” Then in an aside which was still audible over the megaphone, “Sheriff Matheny, give us five minutes more. He’s bound to send Sister Cordy aid in the next five minutes.”

Now I myself am a Tennessean, and I knew how natural it was for a hill-country revivalist to want some special favor from the Lord, and to want it at once; but I had never before heard one ask the rescue of a prisoner on her way to Nashville. I turned to Poggioli and said, “The minister admits the woman has committed some smaller crime. What was that?”

“Forgery,” he replied. “She forged her husband’s will in favor of herself, then applied the proceeds to build a new roof on the Leatherwood church. That’s part of the court record.”

“And what’s the other crime — the one she claims to be innocent of?”

“The murder of her husband, Jim Cancy. She not only claims to be innocent, she really is. The testimony in the trial proved that beyond a doubt.”

I was shocked. “Then why did the judge condemn…”

The criminologist drew down his lips. “Because the proof of her innocence is psychological. Naturally, that lay beyond the comprehension of the jury, and the judge too, as far as that goes.”

I stared at my companion. “Can you prove her innocence, now, at this late date?”

“Certainly, if this paper has printed the court reporter’s notes correctly, and I’m sure it has.”

“Why, this is the most amazing thing I ever heard of — hitting in like this!”

“What do you mean ‘hitting in like this’?”

“Good heavens, don’t you see? Just as the sheriff is starting off with an innocent woman, just as the preacher is asking the Lord to send down some power to save her, here you come along at exactly the right moment. You know she is innocent and can prove it!”

Poggioli gave the dry smile of a scientific man. “Oh, I see. You think my coming here is providential.”

“Certainly. What else is there to think?”

“I regret to disillusion you, but it is not. It couldn’t be. It is nothing more than an extraordinary coincidence — and I can prove that, too.” With this my friend returned to his paper.

This left me frankly in a nervous state. It seemed to me we ought to do something for the woman outside. I looked at the man sitting next to us at the counter. He nodded his head sidewise at Poggioli. “He don’t live around here, does he?”

I said he didn’t.

“If he don’t live here, how does he know what’s happened in these parts?”

“You heard him say he read it in the paper.”

“He didn’t do no such thing. I watched him. He didn’t read that paper a tall, he jest turned through it, like I would a picture book.”

I told him that was Poggioli’s way of reading. It is called sight-reading — just a look and he knew it.

The hill man shook his head, “Naw, Mister, I know better’n that. I’ve watched hunderds of men read that paper sence it’s laid thar on the counter, and the fassest one tuk a hour an’ twelve minutes to git through.”

I nodded. I was not interested, so I said, “I daresay that’s true.”

“Of course hit’s so,” he drawled truculently, “ever’thing I say is so.”

“I’m not doubting your word,” I placated, “it is you who are doubting mine. You see I know my friend’s ability at sight-reading.”

This silenced him for a few moments, then he said shrewdly, “Looky here, if he gits what he knows out’n that paper, how come him to say Cordy Cancy is innocent when the paper says she’s guilty?”

“Because the judgment in the paper doesn’t agree with the evidence it presents. My friend has gone over the evidence and has judged for himself that the woman is guilty of forgery but innocent of murder.”

This gave the hill man pause. A certain expression came into his leathery face. “He’s a detectif, ain’t he?”

“Well, not exactly. He used to be a teacher in the Ohio State University, and he taught detectives how to detect.”

“Mm — mm. Who hard [hired] him to come hyar?”

“Nobody,” I said, “he just dropped in by chance.”

“Chanst, huh? You expeck me to b’leve that?”

“Yes, I must say I do.”

“Well, jest look at it from my stan’point — him comin’ hyar the very minnit the preacher is prayin’ fer he’p and the shurrf startin’ with her to the penitentiary — a great detectif like him jest drap in by chanst. Do you expeck me to b’leve that?”

All this was delivered with the greatest heat and my seat-mate seemed to hold me personally responsible for the situation.

“Well, what do you believe?” I asked in an amiable tone which gave him permission to believe anything he wanted to and no hard feelings.

“Why, jess what I said. I b’leve he wuz hard.”

His suspicion of Poggioli, who would never accept a penny for his criminological researches, amused me. “Well, that’s your privilege, but if it would strengthen your faith in me I will say that to the best of my knowledge and belief Professor Henry Poggioli’s arrival in Lanesburg, Tennessee, on the eve of Mrs. Cordy Cancy’s committal to the Nashville penitentiary, was a coincidence, a whole coincidence, and nothing but a coincidence, so help me, John Doe.”

I had hoped to lighten my companion’s dour mood, but he arose gloomily from his stool.

“I hope the Lord forgives you fer mawkin’ His holy words.”

“They are not the Lord’s holy words,” I reminded him, “they’re the sheriff’s words when he swears in a witness.”

“Anyway, you tuk His name in vain when you said ‘em.”

“Didn’t mention His name, sir. I said ‘John Doe.’”

“Anyway, Brother,” he continued in his menacing drawl, “you shore spoke with lightness. The Bible warns you against speakin’ with lightness — you kain’t git aroun’ that.” With this he took himself out of the café, scraping his feet in the doorway as a symbol of shaking my dust from his shoes.

As I watched the saturnine fellow go, Poggioli turned from his paper.

“Poses quite a riddle, doesn’t he?”

“Not for me,” I said. “I was born here in the hills.”

“You understand him?”

“I think so.”

“You didn’t observe any more precise and concrete contradiction about him?”

I tried to think of some simple contradiction in the man, something plain. I knew when Poggioli pointed it out it would be very obvious, but nothing came to my mind. I asked him what he saw.

“Two quite contradictory reactions: he was disturbed about my being a detective and about your near profanity.”

“I am afraid I don’t quite see what you mean.”

“I’ll make it simpler. He evidently was a deacon in some church.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he reproved the ‘lightness’ of your language. The scriptures instruct deacons to reprove the faults of the brethren, and lightness of language is one of them. So he was probably a deacon.”

“All right, say he was. What does that contradict?”

“His disturbance over my being a detective. Deacons are supposed to ally themselves with law and order.”

I laughed. “You don’t know your Tennessee hill deacons. That contradiction in them is historical. Their ancestors came here before the Revolution to worship God as they pleased and escape the excise tax. They have been for the Lord and against the law ever since.”

At this point another man hurried from the square into the Monarch café. I noted the hurry because under ordinary circumstances hill men never hurry, not even in the rain. He glanced up and down the counter, immediately came to my companion, and lifted a hand. “Excuse me, Brother, but you’re not a preacher?”

“No, I’m not,” said my companion.

“Then you are the detective that was sent. Will you come with me?”

“Just what do you mean by ‘sent’?” asked the criminologist.

“Why the Lord sent you,” explained the man hurriedly but earnestly. “Brother Johnson was jest prayin’ to the Lord to send somebody to prove Sister Cordy Cancy innocent and keep her from going to the pen. Jim Phipps heard you-all talkin’ an’ hurried out an’ told us there was a detectif in here. So He’s bound to have sent ye.”

Poggioli reflected. “I am sure I can prove the woman innocent— from the evidence printed in this paper. But what good will that do, when the trial is over and the woman already sentenced?”

“Brother,” said the countryman, “if the Lord started this work, don’t you reckon He can go on an’ finish it?”

“Look here, Poggioli,” I put in, “we’re here for some reason or other.”

“Yes, by pure chance, by accident,” snapped the psychologist. “Our presence has no more relation to this woman than…”

He was looking for a simile when I interrupted, “If you know she is innocent don’t you think it your duty to—”

The psychologist stopped me with his hand and his expression. “I believe I do owe a duty. yes. yes, I owe a duty. I’ll go do what I can.”

The man who came for him was most grateful; so were all the people in the café, for they had overheard the conversation. Everybody was delighted except me. I didn’t like Poggioli’s tone, or the expression on his face. I wondered what he really was going to do.

Well, by the time we got out of the restaurant everybody in the square seemed to know who we were. There was a great commotion. The preacher’s prayer for help had been answered instantly. It was a miracle.

The sound-truck which had been booming stood in front of the county jail on the south side of the square. Beside the truck was the sheriff’s car with the woman prisoner handcuffed in the back seat. Near the car stood another woman holding a young baby in her arms. This infant, I gathered, was the prisoner’s child, and would be left behind in the Lanesburg jail while its mother went on to the penitentiary in Nashville. The crowd naturally was in sympathy with the woman and expected us immediately to deliver her from her troubles. I heard one of the men say as we pushed forward, “That heavy man’s the detective and that slim ‘un’s his stooge; he writes down what the big ‘un does.”

Frankly, I was moved by the situation, and I was most uneasy about the outcome. I asked Poggioli just what he meant to do.

He glanced at me as we walked. “Cure them of an illusion.”

“Just what do you mean — cure them of an. ”

He nodded at the crowd around us. “I will prove to these people the woman is innocent, but at the same time show that my proof can be of no benefit to the prisoner. This ought to convince the crowd that providence had nothing to do with the matter, and it ought to make them, as a group, a little more rationalistic and matter-of-fact. That is what I consider it my duty to do.”

His whole plan appeared cruel to me. I said, “Well, thank goodness, you won’t be able to do that in five minutes, and the sheriff gave them only that much more time before he starts out.”

My hope to avoid Poggioli’s demonstration was quashed almost at once. I saw the sheriff, a little man, climb out of his car, walk across to the sound-truck, and take the microphone from the minister. Then I heard the sheriff’s voice boom out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I understand there really is help on the way for Mrs. Cancy. Whether it is miraculous help or jest human help, I don’t know. But anyway I’m extendin’ Mrs. Cancy’s time to prove her innocence one more hour before we start to Nashville.”

A roar of approval arose at this. The minister in the truck then took over the loudspeaker, “Brothers and Sisters,” he began in his more solemn drawl, “they ain’t one ounce of doubt in my soul as to who sent this good man. I’ll introduce him to you. He is Dr. Henry Poggioli the great detective some of you have read about in the magazines. The Lord has miraculously sent Dr. Poggioli to clear Sister Cordy Cancy from her troubles. And now I’ll introduce Sister Cordy to Dr. Poggioli. Doctor, Sister Cordy don’t claim complete innocence, but she’s a mighty good woman. She did, however, forge her husban’s will by takin’ a carbon paper and some of his old love letters and tracin’ out a will, letter by letter. She sees now that was wrong, but she was workin’ for the glory of the Lord when she done it.”

Shouts of approval here—”Glory be!” “Save her, Lord!” and so forth. The divine continued, “Jim Cancy, her husban’, was a mawker and a scoffer. He wouldn’t contribute a cent to the Lord’s cause nor bend his knee in prayer. So Sister Cordy forged his will for religious ends. Now I guess the Lord knew Jim was goin’ to git killed. But Sister Cordy didn’t have a thing in the world to do with that. He jest got killed. And you all know what she done with his money — put a new roof on the Leatherwood churchhouse. Save her, Oh, Lord, from the penitentiary!” (Another uproar of hope and sympathy here.) “And Brothers and Sisters, look how she acted in the trial, when suspicion fell on her for Jim’s murder. She didn’t spend one cent o’ that money for a lawyer. She said it wasn’t hers to spend, it was the Lord’s and He would save her. She said she didn’t need no lawyer on earth when she had one in Heaven. She said He would send her aid. And now, praise His name, He has sent it here at this eleventh hour.” Again he was interrupted by shouts and applause. When a semi-silence was restored, he said, “Dr. Poggioli, you can now prove Sister Cordy innocent of her husband’s murder and set her free.”

In the renewed uproar the minister solemnly handed the microphone down to Poggioli on the ground. I have seldom been more nervous about any event in Poggioli’s eventful career. I didn’t suppose he would be in any actual danger from the irate hill people when they found out what he was trying to do, but on the other hand a mob can be formed in the South in about three minutes. And they are likely to do anything — ride a man out of town on a rail, tar and feather him, give him a switching, depending on how annoyed they are. Poggioli never lived in the South, he had no idea what he was tampering with.

He began, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have little to say. I have just read the report of Mrs. Cancy’s trial in your county paper. From it I have drawn absolute proof of her innocence of her husband’s murder, but unfortunately that proof can be of no benefit to her.”

Cries of “Why won’t it?” “What’s the matter with it?” “What makes you talk like that?”

“Because, my friends, of a legal technicality. If I could produce new evidence the trial judge could reopen her case and acquit Mrs. Cancy. But a reinterpretation of old evidence is not a legal ground for a rehearing. All I can do now is to demonstrate to you from the evidence printed in your county paper that Mrs. Cancy is innocent of murder, but still she must go on with the Sheriff to the penitentiary in Nashville.”

Despair filled the square; there arose outcries, pleas, oaths. The revivalist quashed this. He caught up his microphone and thundered, “Oh, ye of little faith, don’t you see Sister Cordy’s salvation is at hand? Do you think the Lord would send a detectif here when it wouldn’t do no good? I’m as shore of victory as I’m standin’ here. Brother Poggioli, go on talkin’ with a good heart!”

The irony of the situation stabbed me: for Poggioli to intend a purely materialistic solution to the situation, and the minister who had besought his aid to hope for a miracle. It really was ironic. Fortunately, no one knew of this inner conflict except me or there would have been a swift outbreak of public indignation. The scientist began his proof:

“Ladies and gentlemen, your minister has recalled to your memory how Mrs. Cordy Cancy forged her husband’s will by tracing each letter of it with a carbon paper from a package of her husband’s old love letters. But he did not mention the fact that after she did this — after she had underscored and overscored these letters and made them the plainest and most conclusive proof of her forgery — she still kept those love letters! She did not destroy them. She put them in a trunk whose key was lost, and kept them in the family living room. Now every man, woman, and I might almost say child, sees clearly what this proves!”

Of course in this he was wrong. He overestimated the intelligence of his audience. Those nearer to him, who could make themselves heard, yelled for him to go on and explain.

“Further explanation is unnecessary,” assured the psychologist. “If she felt sufficiently sentimental about her husband to preserve his love letters, obviously she did not mean to murder him. Moreover, she must have realized her marked-over letters would constitute absolute proof of the minor crime of forgery. She must have known that if her husband were murdered, her home would be searched and the tell-tale letters would be found. Therefore, she not only did not murder her husband herself but she had no suspicion that he would be murdered. Those letters in her unlocked trunk make it impossible that she should be either the principal or an accessory to his assassination.”

A breath of astonishment went over the crowd at the simplicity of Poggioli’s deduction. Everyone felt that he should have thought of that for himself.

Poggioli made a motion for quiet and indicated that his proof was not concluded. Quiet returned and the psychologist continued.

“Your minister tells us, and I also read it in the evidence printed in your county paper, that Mrs. Cancy did not hire an attorney to defend her in her trial. She used the entire money to place a new roof on the old Leatherwood church, and she told the court the reason she did this was because God would defend her.”

Here shouts arose. “He did! He’s doin’ it now! He’s sent you here to save her!”

Poggioli held up a hand and shook his head grimly. This was the point of his whole appearance in the square — the materialistic point by which he hoped to rid these hill people of too great a reliance on providential happenings and place them on the more scientific basis of self-help. He intoned slowly:

“I regret to say, ladies and gentlemen, that my appearance here is pure accident. Why? Because I have come too late. If a supernal power had sent me here to save an innocent woman — and she is an innocent woman — if a supernal power had sent me, it would certainly have sent me in time. But I am not in time. The trial is over. All the proof is in. We cannot possibly ask a new trial on the ground of a reinterpretation of old proof, which is what I am giving you. That is no ground for a new trial. So this innocent woman who is on her way to the penitentiary must go on and serve out her unjust term. My appearance here today, therefore, can be of no service to anyone and can be attributed to nothing but pure chance.”

At this pitiful negation an uproar arose in the square. Men surged toward the sheriff, yelling for him to turn the woman free or they would do it for him. Cooler heads held back the insurgents and voices shouted out:

“Dr. Poggioli, who did do the murder? You know ever’thing — who done it!”

The criminologist wagged a negative hand. “I have no idea.”

“The devil!” cried a thick-set fellow. “Go ahead an’ reason out who killed Jim Cancy — jest like you reasoned out his wife was innocent!”

“I can’t do that. It’s impossible. I haven’t studied the evidence of the murder, merely the evidence that proves non-murder — a completely different thing.”

“Go ahead! Go ahead!” yelled half a dozen voices. “The Lord has he’ped you so fur — He’ll stan by you!”

It was amusing, in a grim fashion, for the crowd to twist the very materialistic point Poggioli was making into a logical basis for a spiritualistic interpretation. However, I do not think Poggioli was amused. He held up his hands.

“Friends, how could I know anything about this when I stopped over for lunch in this village only one hour ago?”

A dried-up old farmer, whose face had about the color and texture of one of his own corn shucks, called out, “Somebody shot Jim, didn’t they Dr. Poggioli?”

“Oh, yes, somebody shot him.”

“Well, have you got any idyah of the kind of man who shot Jim Cancy?”

“Oh, certainly. I have a fairly clear idea of the kind of man who murdered Cancy.”

“I allowed you had, Brother, I allowed you had,” nodded the old fellow with satisfaction. “The Lord put it into my heart to ast you exactly that question.” The old fellow turned to the officer, “Shurrf Matheny, has he got time to tell what kind of a fellow murdered Jim before you start with Sister Cordy to the pen?”

The officer held up his hand. “I am extendin’ Sister Cordy’s startin’ time two more hours — so we can find out who murdered her husban’ instid of her.”

“O.K.,” called a woman’s voice, “go ahead and tell us the kind of skunk that done that!”

“Well, Madam, I would say it was a man who shot Jim Cancy.”

“Oh, yes, we all know that,” shouted several listeners. “Women don’t shoot nobody, they pisen ‘em… as a rule.” “Go on, tell us somp’m else.”

“Well, let me see,” pondered Poggioli aloud. “Let us begin back with the forgery itself. Mrs. Cancy did this. She admits it. But she did not originate the idea, because that is a highly criminal idea and she does not have a highly criminal psychology. She has, in fact, a very religious and dutiful psychology. I also know that if she had been bright enough to think of tracing the will from her old love letters, she would have realized how dangerous they were to keep in her unlocked trunk and would have destroyed them immediately. Therefore, I know somebody suggested to her how she could forge the will.”

More angry shouts interrupted here, as if the crowd were reaching for the real criminal. Some voices tried to hush the others so the psychologist could proceed. Eventually Poggioli went on.

“All right, Mrs. Cancy did not originate the idea of forgery. Then she was used as a tool. But she is not a hard, resolute woman. Just look at her there in the sheriff’s car and you can see that. She is a soft, yielding woman and would not carry any plan through to its bitter end. But in her trial she did carry a plan through to its bitter end, and this end, odd to say, was to put a new roof on the Leatherwood church. Ladies and gentlemen, a new roof on Leatherwood church was the basic motive for Cancy’s murder. It is fantastic, but it is the truth. Mrs. Cancy refused to hire a lawyer when she came to trial. Why? To save the money to put a roof on Leatherwood church. So the person who persuaded her to commit the forgery must also have persuaded her to withhold the money for the church roof, and that God would come down and set her free from the charge of murder.”

At this the enthusiasm of the crowd knew no bounds. They flung up their hats, they yelled, they cried out that now the Lord had come to help Sister Cordy just like He had promised. The sheriff arose in his car and shouted that he extended Sister Cordy’s leaving time for the rest of the day. He yelled that they were hot on the trail of the man who done it and he would remain in town to make the arrest.

I could see Poggioli was unnerved. It would take a cleverer psychologist than I am to explain why he should be. Of course, his demonstration was going awry. He was not getting where he had intended to go. He lifted up his hands and begged the crowd.

“My friends, please remember this. I do not know the man. I have no idea who he is. I can only give you his type.”

“All right,” shouted many voices, “go on and give us his type, so Sheriff Matheny can arrest him!”

The criminologist collected himself. “As to his type: I ate lunch in the Monarch cafe a little while ago and was reading an account of Mrs. Cancy’s trial in your county paper. As I read, a gentleman beside me said that he had been watching strangers read the story of that trial for months, as it lay there on the lunch counter. It is possible such a man might have some connection with the murder; or he may have been morbidly curious about crime in general—”

Shouts of satisfaction here—”Go ahead, now you’re gittin’ somewhere!”

Poggioli stopped them. “Wait! Wait! I by no means incriminate this gentleman. I am trying to show you the various hypotheses which a criminologist must apply to every clue or piece of evidence.”

“All right, Doctor, if he didn’t kill Jim Cancy, who did?”

Poggioli mopped his face. “That I do not know, nor do I know anything whatever about the man in the café. I am simply trying to give you a possible psychological description of the murderer. Now, this man at my table also reprimanded my friend here for what he considered to be an infraction of a religious formality. In fact, he became quite angry about it. That would link up with the fact that Jim Cancy was reported to be a free-thinker. A free-thinker would have irritated such a man very deeply. If Cancy had jibed at this man’s faith, the fellow would have felt that any punishment he could inflict on the mocker would be justified, even unto death. Also, he could have persuaded himself that any money he might receive from Cancy’s death should be devoted to the welfare of the church — as for example, to put a new roof on the Leatherwood church. Following these plans, he could have easily influenced Mrs. Cancy to forge Cancy’s will, with the understanding that the money would go to the church. Then he could have waylaid and shot Cancy, and made the will collectible. This would have accomplished two things; gratify his private revenge and make a contribution to the church. The murderer could be of that type or he could be of a completely different type which I shall now try to analyze…”

How many more types Poggioli would have described nobody knew, for at this juncture the sheriff discovered that his prisoner had fainted. This created a tremendous commotion. For a hill woman to faint was almost as unparalleled as for a horse to faint. Sheriff Matheny arose in his car and hallooed that he would carry no sick woman to the Nashville pen, and that Mrs. Cancy should remain here with her baby until she was completely recovered, even if it took a week. After making this announcement, the officer climbed out of his car and disappeared in the throng.

Everybody was gratified. They came pouring around Poggioli to congratulate him on his speech. A fat man elbowed up, seized Poggioli by the arm, motioned at me, too, and shouted at us to come to dinner in his hotel. Poggioli said we had just eaten at the Monarch cafe.

“Then you-all are bound to be hungry. Come on, my wife sent me over here to bring ye. She feeds all the revivalists and their singers who come to preach in the square.”

The criminologist repeated that we were not hungry, but the fat man came close to him and said in what was meant for an undertone:

“Don’t make no diff’runce whether you are hungry or not — my wife wants you to come inside while you and your buddy are alive!”

“Alive!” said my friend.

“Shore, alive. Do you think Deacon Sam Hawley will let any man stand up in the public square and accuse him of waylayin’ Jim Cancy, and then not kill the man who does the accusin’?”

My friend was shocked. “Why, I never heard of Deacon Sam Hawley!”

“He’s the man you et by, and he knows you. Come on, both of you!”

“But I was simply describing a type—”

“Brother, when you go to a city you find men in types — all dentists look alike, all bankers look alike, all lawyers look alike, and so on; but out here in these Tennessee hills we ain’t got but one man to a type. And when you describe a man’s type, you’ve described the man. Come on in to my hotel before you git shot. We’re trying to make Lanesburg a summer resort and we don’t want it to git a bad name for murderin’ tourists.”

We could see how a hotel owner would feel that way and we too were anxious to help preserve Lanesburg’s reputation for peace and friendliness. We followed our host rather nervously to his hotel across the square and sat down to another lunch.

There was a big crowd in the hotel and they were all talking about the strange way the Lord had brought about the conviction of Deacon Sam Hawley, and rescued a comparatively innocent woman from an unjust sentence. Poggioli pointed out once or twice that the woman was not out of danger yet, but all the diners around us were quite sure that she soon would be.

The whole incident seemed about to end on a kind of unresolved anticlimax. The diners finally finished their meal and started out of the hotel. We asked some of the men if they thought it would be safe for us to go to our car. They said they didn’t know, we would have to try it and see. Poggioli and I waited until quite a number of men and women were going out of the hotel and joined them. We were just well out on the sidewalk when a brisk gunfire broke out from behind the office of the Lane County Weekly Herald, which was just across the street from the hotel. It was not entirely unexpected. Besides, that sort of thing seemed to happen often enough in Lanesburg to create a pattern for public action. Everybody jumped behind everybody else, and holding that formation made for the nearest doors and alleys. At this point Sheriff Matheny began his counterattack. It was from a butcher’s shop close to the hotel. How he knew what point to pick out, I don’t know; whether or not he was using us for bait, I still don’t know.

At any rate, the sheriff’s fourth or fifth shot ended the battle. Our assailant, quite naturally, turned out to be Deacon Sam Hawley. He was dead when the crowd identified him. In the skirmish the sheriff was shot in the arm, and everybody agreed that now he would not be able to take Mrs. Cancy to the penitentiary for a good three months to come. She was reprieved at least for that long.

As we got into our car and drove out of Lanesburg, the crowd was circulating a petition to the Governor to pardon Mrs. Cordelia Cancy of the minor crime of forgery. The petition set forth Mrs. Cancy’s charity, her purity of heart, her generosity in using the proceeds of her crime for the church, and a number of her other neighborly virtues. The village lawyer put in a note that a wife cannot forge her husband’s signature. He argued that if she cannot steal from him, then she cannot forge his name, which is a form of theft. She simply signs his name for him, she does not forge it.

The petition was signed by two hundred and forty-three registered Democratic voters. The Governor of Tennessee is a Democrat.

At this point we drove out of Lanesburg…

1950

Content

Stribling Thomas Sigismund A Daylight Adventure

A Daylight Adventure