I said I believed intellectually that capital punishment was pointless, merely vengeance, but when you saw a thing of this kind you simply felt that the perpetrators should be put out of this world.

She was silent, and I blundered again. I said, “Ruth, why should this make anything wrong between us? I didn’t murder anyone.”

Then it all burst out of her, in agony, in bitterness. “No? Haven’t you been working night and day, so excited, so eager too to be in on the kill, and don’t you want to see them hang even though you’re intellectually against it!” She doubled over, weeping. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

If I could have admitted, then, some feeling of shame, we might have got past that dreadful barrier. I see that now.

The two families could no longer deny the facts to themselves. Artie had been permitted to telephone his mother; thus she had indeed finally heard it from his own voice. “Yes, Mother, it’s true, I did it. I’m sorry for what it’ll do to the family. I’ll do anything you want me to.” It went on like that. His mother couldn’t speak except to repeat his name and ask over and over again, “Why? Why? How could you, Artie?”

Mrs. Straus was upstairs when Artie’s telephone call came. She and Artie’s father took the call together; though he would not speak into the phone, he sat beside her. Then he went into his study.

All were afraid for him. Randolph Straus was high-strung, sensitive; that was why he was sometimes so unapproachable. A nephew of Nathan Weiss, the founder of the great Corporation, he was now its executive head, and already, Straus knew he would resign. The name must not blot the company. He would resign, for he could not face the world.

What private guilts arose in each of the parents? Did Artie’s mother ask herself if it was a punishment for unfaithfulness to her church, for not raising her children as Catholics? Did his father partly revert, asking himself if the ancient archaic laws could be in force?

Then, at last, his brother Gerald walked in and said, “We have to make plans.”

Plans, plans – what plans were there to make? But he came out with Gerald, and sat with them; his sons, his brothers, his wife’s brothers, and the Feldschers had come. There was talk in twos, in threes, mostly hushed – the child’s clothes burned in their own furnace, right here in this house – and the dreaded word unuttered, then uttered at last. It could only be insanity.

And that word sounded at last the deeper fears. For as in every large family, there was one who was sick – a cousin in an asylum – and now the waves seemed to reach for them all. Would every girl of the family feel the dread fate in her womb? Was this what Artie had done to them?

But Randolph Straus would not accept it. And he stood up and spoke for all of them to hear. “It’s his own fault! That boy had everything! Since he was a child, he’s been taking advantage, getting himself into trouble because he knew we’d have to get him out of it. We’ve covered up every mess he got into – he lied, he was wild, he cheated at cards, he stole; yes, we all knew it. He drove like a wild man, not caring for anyone’s life. No one can say we didn’t try with him; he’s no good, and now he has done this and he will pay for it himself! Let him take the consequences of the law.”

His voice did not break but seemed barely to reach to the last word. And he would speak no other word. He had denounced Artie, he had reverted to those ancient archaic laws, he would not speak Artie’s name ever again, he did not want to hear of him.

After a moment his brother Gerald said, “But we’ve got to get him a defence. You can’t call that interfering with the law.”

Lewis remarked, “Whatever we do, they’ll say we’re trying to buy it.”

James said, “If we don’t help him, it’ll look worse.”

The sons confronted their father. But the father remained silent. No matter what was done, Artie’s life saved, or his body hanged, to him Artie was eliminated.

With this point reached, cousin Ferdinand Feldscher suggested talking to Judah Steiner; the families should perhaps best act in unison.

When the call came from the Strauses, Judah Steiner did not have the strength to go. “You go, Max. What needs to be done for him, do it.”

Max had seen many of them only a few days ago at his engagement party. They asked solicitously about his fiancée – had she gone back to New York?

“She’s fine, just saw her – she’s taking it like one of the family.”

Artie’s father was no longer in the room; his Uncle Gerald had taken charge. The gloom and shame had been brushed aside; there was work to be done, a campaign to organize.

The question had two parts: what was best for the families? And what could be best for the boys?

Who could say in so many words what stood darkly in every mind: best for all might be the quickest, the quietest end. If the boys had to hang, then let it be got over with; there was no need for a spectacular trial with the family names in the headlines for months to come.

It was Ferdinand Feldscher who finally suggested, “Plead guilty, then there’s no jury trial, only a quick hearing. Ordinarily on a guilty plea you would get a deal, a life sentence, but in this case-”

But Uncle Gerald Straus spoke up. Was it a foregone conclusion that there could be no other verdict? What about insanity?

Edgar Feldscher spread his palms. “Of course they’re sick, the crime itself shows it. But if you plead insanity you automatically go before a jury, that’s the law. And in a case like this, I can’t imagine any jury letting them live.”

Gerald said, “There is no such thing as being sure of what a jury will do.” He would get the best help there was, he said, even if it cost a million dollars! And if the case remained in the headlines, let it! The harm had already been done. At least, let the world see that their families stood by these two brainsick children!

The younger Feldscher the bald-domed Edgar, had been listening as though gathering up all that was valuable; his voice was soft, in contrast to Uncle Gerald’s. “We could do something more than merely defend them. We could spare nothing to try to find out, as far as modern science can, what made them do it.” They all looked at him with the respect owed a man who worried over the deeper elements in things. All of them knew how close Edgar had been to the cousin who had become mentally troubled. Now Edgar ended, rather tentatively, “Suppose we get the best men, even from Vienna. Make a full study. Perhaps it could prove of some use to humanity, too.”

Uncle Gerald said that was a real point. Especially if it was going to be an insanity defence. But right now strategy was the problem. First, as to legal counsel. Ferdinand Feldscher was certainly one of the biggest trial lawyers in the whole country -

“No, no, you don’t have to watch out for my feelings, Gerry,” Ferdinand interrupted. “We all know there is only one man to go to.”

“My father always believes in getting the best,” Max Steiner said.

James Straus said, “The question is, would Wilk take it? I understand he only defends the poor.”

“He’ll take it, he’ll take it,” Ferdinand Feldscher said, “out of vanity if for nothing else.”

Even though it was past midnight, Gerald was for going directly to Wilk’s house.

“Go home, go home,” Judah Steiner kept telling his sister-in-law and her husband, until at last she said, “You’ll be all right?” and he promised her he would go right up to bed.

He went through the motions of undressing, and then he drew on a robe and returned downstairs.

Unaccountably there had come into his mind the thought, Maybe it was because for the last baby they had wanted a girl.

He was uncomfortable with it. He had never let his mind go into such things, these complicated psychological things that people brought into the conversation nowadays. He had not even wanted to know, exactly, that story about the boys a couple of years ago, in Charlevoix; Max had brought him the story – well, you know, a couple of young boys horsing around. Such things, the dirty things in life, had to be shut out.