A Voss and Pike Casefile: The Early Days
Section 45: The Faithful Servant
Penhale was convicted in the spring. The court was small, the benches hard and the evidence plain, and he spoke only once, to say he was sorry for the stair and for nothing else. The Sentinel called it a fall from grace and ran a drawing of a chapel at dusk.
The cannery was sold anyway. The Harborline men, the Chamber vote, the pay cut and the shuttered works stayed outside the trial, because the trial had one man in it and one man’s faith to examine. Ruth Haddow’s forty women went on packing at forty per cent less in a factory with a new name on the gate. Lilian Crane sold the house.
On the walk home the rain had stopped, and the pavement shone like a wet slate.
“We found out why he did it,” said Jonah.
“Yes,” you said. “We never found out why it was easy.”
Sociological note: Weber's insight (religious meanings can drive economic behaviour) explains Penhale's act without explaining the system around him. Action theory without structure gives a vivid motive and an incomplete account: Crane's profit motive, Harborline's money and the Chamber's silence were all conditions of the same night.