Claire knew who the relative was. She had gone the length of calling at Avenue Lodge, on her flight through town to the Continent, and her chief lament was not that murder had been committed, presumably by Tom, but that her name had been disgraced, her trust abused, her money spent in riot, and her life rendered unendurable in her native land. The lady was Tom’s step-mother.
There was another letter which he seemed to expect every day, and yet not to expect, and it never came, but they thought he must be in love. Claire considered it unlikely; how could a lover have done such a thing? And had he ever written to any girl? Daintree said he would inquire.
No friends had been to see him, no relations; but a noble lord, the same who had encumbered the bench at the Marylebone office, brought a party of friends, and received payment in kind for his insolent questions. The prisoner was reported to have asked him if there were no hospitals where his lordship could see the legs and arms cut off and listen to the screams; to have recommended bodily tortures, as likely to provide better sport than a poor dull devil like himself, and suggested the nearest slaughter-house if all else failed. His lordship had raised his cane and been cuttingly invited to lay it on, as he might not have such a chance every day. Whereupon the party retreated, highly amused, all but their leader, who was said to have marched straight across the street to book a window for the execution.
When Claire heard this story, she showed her feelings in a rather perilous manner. “Well done!” she cried, and clapped her hands. “So they have not taken all the spirit out of him yet! Let us be thankful, Mr. Daintree,” she added in an instant, “that it is at least a man of spirit whose cause you have espoused. Next to an innocent man, a spirited man has the best claim on one’s sympathy. It would be dreadful if he were neither the one nor the other!”
“But you know that I believe him to be both.”
“I have heard you say so. Yet you never go near him yourself.”
Daintree admitted his repugnance to personal contact with the prisoner. “I certainly prefer to draw the line at that,” said he, “especially as it could do no good. No, it was bad enough seeing him at Marylebone. I would give something to forget his face.”
“And why?” cried Claire. “Because in your heart, like all the rest of the world, you know him to be guilty! You may be sensitive, but you wouldn’t be as sensitive as all that if you honestly believed in his innocence. You do not. Yet you go on spending your money, throwing it away to gratify a passing impulse of mine! It’s madness, Mr. Daintree, it is indeed.”
The tears stood in her eyes as she spoke. But he had turned away as if unable to deny his latent unbelief; otherwise her face might have betrayed her even then. She felt that it must do so in the end; it was but another question of time. Such interviews left her spirit prostrate, her heart worn out with beating, and yet she sought them herself. The craving for news of Tom only deepened with the sense of his guilt. When Daintree was absent, the girl counted the hours till his return; when he returned, if she was not there to meet him, it was in order that he might think her less eager to hear than he to tell. And once when he not only thought so, but told her what he thought in his touchiest manner, it was a great moment for the actress, who was ceasing to feel ashamed of her part, what with custom and the dire necessity of it.
For now, more than ever, did Claire trust to the genius of the great magician retained for the defence; that vague power was the one hope left for her to cling to, and cling she did with all the might of aching heart and tortured mind. Claire’s notions of a trial were exceedingly simple, although her father had stood his within the year. On the other hand, her belief in the efficacy of counsel was unbounded, because Mr. Harding had been defended by a former officer of the Crown, and the charge had fallen to the ground, and everybody vowed it was the fine defence (combined with innocence); at least, everybody whose opinion Claire was in the way of hearing. Mr. Serjeant Culliford had not been Solicitor-General, but Claire was told that in a criminal case his rival did not exist. One night she heard that Culliford had accepted the brief; the next that he had probably earned his fee already, though Bassett would admit nothing of the kind, but complained instead of his own treatment at the barrister’s hands.
The fact was that Tom ought to have made a statement before the magistrate; then the defence would have had something to work upon at the trial. As it was they had nothing, until the learned serjeant devised a means of obtaining a statement at the eleventh hour. He went to Newgate, made Tom give him his version of the interview with Blaydes and of his subsequent proceedings; disbelieved every word, but kept nodding so encouragingly with his ugly, inscrutable, attentive face that Tom received the very opposite impression, and told his tale with some spirit and a gleam of hope. The great man heard him out, then glared at Bassett (who had given him a certain look), and addressed the prisoner in a kindly undertone.
“That’s all very well,” said he; “the only pity is that we didn’t have it at Marylebone; for you see your tongue will be tied at the Old Bailey. No, no, you couldn’t know. You may thank your solicitor. It was his duty to advise—”
“Excuse me, sir,” interrupted that gentleman, “but I really must protest! I never supposed we should be unable to call a single witness for the defence, and I did not think the story—”
“Think!” snapped Culliford. “Who wants you to think? There’s a class of man, sir, that is most dangerous when it thinks; you appear to belong to it. Be good enough not to interrupt me again; we must have that statement by hook or crook to work upon, and there is only one way now of getting it as evidence. Tell a turnkey or a wardsman what you have told me, Erichsen, and the other side are pretty safe to put him in the box. Then I shall cross-examine him, and have something to talk to the jury about. Do I think we have a leg to stand upon? Two, sir, two, and better ones than they suppose; only tell the turnkeys exactly what you have told me; and good-day to you. Come, Mr. Bassett; I’ve something more to say to you.”
And so Tom had his eyes opened to the little ways of great lawyers, but his impression of his champion was by no means an unfavourable one; for the glib, spruce Bassett he disliked; but this rough tongue and rugged face filled him with confidence, and so redoubled his gratitude towards his unknown ally, who heard that he had spoken of him with tears in his eyes, and who did not fail to let Claire hear it too.
Upon her, meanwhile, the strain was beginning to tell; more than once she was within an ace of breaking down at a tell-tale moment. And just when her nerves were at their highest pitch, and the situation hardly to be borne, there came the new development which well-nigh turned her brain.
It began with a comparatively small matter, the unprovoked insolence of Claire’s maid; but this was the growth of days, not a sudden thing; though it was only when her jangled nerves could endure it no longer that Claire whipped out her purse, put a months wages on the dressing-table, and bade the woman begone.
Hannah the maid put her thin, strong arms akimbo, and burst out laughing in her mistress’s face.
“This instant, eh? And you think you’ll get rid of me for two-pound-five? That you won’t then — nor yet for twenty guineas. So now you know.”
“We shall see,” said Claire, moving over to the bell.
“I wouldn’t ring, miss, if I were you.”
“Then will you go? You have been insolent beyond words; force me to do it, and I shall send for a policeman to turn you out.”
“I wouldn’t do that, miss, either; or I may tell the policeman something you won’t like.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say; but I don’t mind saying it plainer to oblige. I shall tell him who you were with on the night of a certain murder, and what he said to you, and what you could tell against him in the witness-box if they like to put you there! That’s all, Miss Harding. You look faint. I wouldn’t ring just yet if I were you; here’s a glass of water in the meanwhile.”
Claire had indeed turned white as paper.
Instinctively she took the glass, but it slipped through her fingers and fell into the fender with a crash. The room seemed full of pale faces, low brows and venomous black eyes set close together, all spinning round her in nauseous whirligig like demons dancing. She sank into a chair and hid her face; but started and recoiled from the touch of cool fingers, wet with rose-water, upon her temples.
“Keep away from, me!” she cried faintly. “Do not dare to touch me again. So it was you at the gate that night? I remember now!”
“It was me, miss.”
“You shut it?”
“I did.”
“And pray how do you know who he was?” and her voice was stronger. ~ You never were at Winwood in your life!”
“Perhaps not: but I can put two and two together as well as most: besides, I’m not that hard of hearing! Come, let’s be plain; you’ve confessed to the master, miss, and you’ve confessed to me.”
There was a pause for proper comprehension; then said the young lady, with ineffable scorn, “And to how many more — through your lips?”
“Never a soul! That was too good a one not to keep. No, I just seen him first, and then set to work to find out who he was. But I never said I seen him to a soul.”
“And why not to me until to-day?”
“Why, because I wanted to know your game. And it wasn’t that easy to find out; you see, miss, you’re a pretty deep one yourself!”
Claire sat still in her chair. She was now perfectly calm, and even experiencing an odd sense of relief in facing an overt crisis after so many secret tremors and hidden shocks. “And what is your object, Hannah?” said she at last. “Suppose they put me in the witness-box, what would you gain by it? You probably think I would do anything to avoid the exposure; on the contrary, I would tell everything to the whole world if I thought it could do any good. But the case is so black already that, on the other hand, it could do very little harm. Your threat is less terrible than you imagine.”
“Is that so?” with an evil smile. Hey-day! but it’s an artful one. Suppose I told that there Daintree, instead of the police? What then?”
Claire had suspected this. Yet it took her breath away when it came. “So you are a professional spy!” she gasped. “I might have known it all along, you vile woman, from your face!” To be sure she might have known it then; for the sallow face turned a deeper yellow; the black eyes came as close together as the nozzles of a double-barrelled gun, to blaze as though both triggers had been pulled at once.
“Ah, yes! We don’t all show it in our faces, do we?” hissed the woman. “And which is the worst, I wonder — them that does or them that doesn’t? Is it worse to cheat the man that’s fond of you, like you’ve done, or to tell him, as I mean to do, that he’s being cheated? You think you’ve found me out; he shall find you out! To make one lover pay for the other lover’s defence — a pretty game — and five hundred golden guineas — a pretty price! But he hasn’t paid them yet; no, and he never shall; you may take your oath to that!”
“He must,” said Claire, in a whisper. “The trial begins the day after to-morrow. He has gone too far to draw back now.”
“Not he, when I tell him all I know. He’d pay another five hundred to get your fellow hung! You know him, and you know that, too, as well as I do.”
“I don’t know it,” said Claire, with a last brave effort.
“I know that I have been more than once on the verge of telling him myself. But if you tell him — now — after all these dreadful days, well” — with a sob— “it will kill me, and there’s an end of it! Oh, I am no match for a woman like you. Tell me what you want, and it is yours if I have it. Money? You shall have all I’ve got!”
“Which don’t amount to much,” laughed the other. “No, but I’m glad to see you come to reason. Bothered if I don’t admire your game too much not to want to see it out now it’s got so far. Maybe I can lend a hand; but not for money. Here’s your jewel-box; you’ve got to make your faithful maid a few small presents.”
“Oh, take your choice; only hold your tongue.”
So trinkets rang like sovereigns in their tray, as this vulture picked and chose among them, and clawed first a sapphire ring.
“I’ve had my eye on this ever since I came!”
“Then take it.”
“This coral brooch is another of my favourites.”
“Take it, too.”
“These here earrings that you never wear; you’ll never miss them.”
“Take anything you like.”
“All right, then. Just to finish up, I’ll have the diamond pendant—”
“No! That you must leave.”
“You said I was to take anything I liked.”
“Well, it’s true I hope never to have to wear it again. I shall not want it in my grave, and that’s where I hope to go. Oh! oh! the sooner the better!” And the poor girl broke down completely.
“Stuff and nonsense, miss! And see here,” generously; “all you’ve got to do when you want to wear them is to ask me, and I’ll lend you any one of ‘em you like, and welcome! Now, then; what do you think of me now?”
And Claire, looking up through her tears, saw the woman decked out already, rings in her ears and on her finger, the brooch and pendant gleaming and glittering on her black stuff dress, and a quiet smile upon her wicked face. Claire could almost have smiled herself.
“And for these you’ll hold your tongue until after the trial?”
“Till all’s blue, you mean! I should think I would — and do anything you like, miss, to lend a hand.”
Her mistress leapt to her feet, a living flame.
“Then put those things in your pocket and be out of my sight! Now — now — before I sacrifice him for a fiend like you!”
And this was how Claire was followed along her narrow ledge, by one who might push her from it at any moment: so that she had now not only her own feet to watch, but the treacherous hand behind her back as well.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRIAL OPENS
A DAT or two before the trial, when Bassett called at the prison, Tom handed him a little, broken-backed card; and the speaking eye, that had been dull and dumb for six long days, was once more eloquent with light and life. Bassett took the card gingerly between an effeminate finger and thumb, and examined it with a critical brow. It was a pawn-ticket for a suit of clothes.
“Well, my good fellow, and what have I to do with this?”
“Show it to my friend, and pray him, in pity’s name, to add to all his other noble kindnesses by redeeming me those things. It will be the greatest kindness of all!”
“What! To find you a change of clothes?”
“No; to help me look a gentleman at my trial. For months and months I haven’t cared a rush what I looked. But once I did; and I do now. It came back to me last night, when I found that pawn-ticket in this old waistcoat-pocket. I could hardly sleep for thinking what a sight I should be in court as I am. Oh, sir, you despair of saving me; I have seen it in your face all along; then save my self-respect, and I shall be as grateful as if it were my life.” It was his self-respect that had come back to him in the night.
The clothes arrived next morning: a brown frock-coat with three-inch lapels, velvet waistcoat, and Cossack trousers with straps. Tom spread them out with unforeseen misgivings.
“They are smarter than I thought,” said he, dubiously. “I wanted to look a gentleman, but not a dandy. I had rather remain a sight than come out jaunty in the dock.” But he wore them after all; and round his neck a new black stock from the unknown open hand that he so longed to clasp in his; and in his eyes (though one was still discoloured) a spirited light that filled some hearts, and silenced every tongue, when the prisoner was brought into court. And so much for Thomas Erichsen’s desire to look a gentleman at his trial; it had made a man of him, which was better still. His appearance excited an almost palpable thrill of pity for one so gallant, so guilty, and so young. But we may pity and still condemn; an
d in all that crowded court there were but two persons who had not condemned Tom Erichsen before the trial began.
His own impressions may be noted. They were very intense, and very irrelevant. The court was much smaller than he had supposed; the judge and he were scarce twenty feet apart; that was Culliford’s wig almost under his nose; and there was a certain homeliness in such proximity, as also in the easy conversational tone with which the barristers presently got to work. The judge was a depressing old gentleman with a permanently pained expression; one of the first things Tom noticed about him was that the scarlet of his robes and that of the judgment seat were a violently bad match. As for the jury, their twelve hats were piled on the window-sill behind their heads; and Tom found himself more interested in the different sizes, shapes and qualities than in the faces of the men who were to decide his fate. Then the jury-box reminded him of the church wardens’ pew in his father’s church, and he saw with dim eyes until a strident formula made him start, whereupon he pleaded “Not guilty” with a catch in his voice which so vexed him that he repeated his plea with emphasis, and glanced defiantly right and left. On his right were spectators and reporters in descending rows as at a theatre; but because the court was so much smaller than he had pictured it, there were also fewer spectators than he had been prepared to face. He was some hours in discovering that as many more were gloating upon the hair of his head and the tips of his ears from the public galleries behind his back.
The swearing-in of the jury again reminded him of Winwood days; the functionary employed had just such an intonation as a neighbouring curate there, and was equally indistinct; for though he repeated his formula twelve times, “well and truly try” were the only words Tom ever caught. Then at the further end of the front row of wigs and gowns, there arose a somewhat diffident gentleman, who proceeded to open the case in a somewhat hesitating manner, which set Tom’s heart beating, for this was the senior counsel for the Crown. He did not seem at all a formidable person; his sentences had occasionally no middle, quite frequently no end; and his gentlemanly, mild face was in striking contrast to the powerful, rude visage of Mr. Serjeant Culliford, who sat trimming a quill, with half a smile upon his long, thin lips, the personification of confident superiority. Tom looked from the one to the other, and his beating heart leapt: it was a weak man with a strong case against a strong man with a weak case; there was a chance for him yet. —
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 86