"But you must forgive me," she said. "Whether I am as wicked as you told me I was when we parted or not, you must tell me that you take me for what I am, that you expect no change in me." She paused a moment, and then cried out with sudden vehemence: "Oh, I have done you injustice! I didn"t know how n.o.ble you could be! But it is too late; I cannot alter now."
An angry throb convulsed the man during her first words. At the end he ground his teeth and clenched his hands together.
"Silence, Eleanor! If you speak to me like that again, I shall go.
There are to be no thanks, no praises. Never refer to the past. I know you and understand. If I cannot tear all hope out of my heart, what is that to you? I ask nothing, and will take nothing unless it is freely given."
He ceased, and she looked at him with a mixture of grat.i.tude and fear.
Then he referred to her dreadful situation.
"I needn"t tell you, Eleanor, that as your counsel you must confide in me fully. I have heard the story so far as it is public, and up to now I may tell you that, as a matter of law, you are in no real danger."
Eleanor stared at him.
"In no danger? What do you mean? Is the murderer discovered?"
"No, and never may be. But neither is the body."
"Why, what difference does that make?"
"Don"t you know?" answered the barrister. "I thought most people knew that till the body was discovered no one could be convicted of murder."
A ray of hope shone out in the prisoner"s face.
"Then do you mean that Miss Lewis may be alive still?" she asked quickly.
"No, no. n.o.body doubts that she is dead, nor that someone has killed her. But the point is this, that you cannot be legally tried and convicted. The body has disappeared."
The heavy shade of despair settled down once more.
"What good is that?" she answered reproachfully. "If they believe me guilty it makes it worse for me, because I can never be acquitted. I shall be suspected till I die. Oh, I would rather suffer death, I think."
"Hush, hush!" he exclaimed, shocked and agitated. "Listen to me, and try to bear it as best you can. The evidence against you is simply overwhelming. Probably I am the only man in the world who believes in your innocence."
"Except the murderer," she interrupted.
"Except the murderer, of course. But what I want to say is this--as things stand now no jury that ever breathed would acquit you. Only a miracle can reveal the truth. But what I can do, and mean to do, for you is to save you on the ground I have told you of. You must expect nothing more."
"George, it will kill me! Alone, hated, abhorred, what use would my life be to me when the whole world believed me guilty? No, I will pray for a miracle; but if not----" She stopped and panted in anguish of soul.
Her suffering was reflected on the man"s face.
"Don"t--don"t talk like that!" he cried. "Remember, there will be always one who trusts you, one who reveres you, loves you! I don"t mean to ask anything. I would not speak to you like this if I could help it; but remember, if the worst comes to the worst, you have always one friend to turn to, one man who asks no higher joy than to pa.s.s his life with you, whether here or in some far-off country, and devote himself to soothing your distress."
While he was unfolding these views a sudden misgiving entered Eleanor"s mind. Rising up, she crossed the cell to where he sat, and, laying her hands on his shoulders, she gazed full into his eyes.
"George," she uttered in solemn tones, "I adjure you to tell me the truth. Do you really believe me innocent?"
"Before G.o.d, I do!" burst out his answer, as he looked her in the face.
She was satisfied, and returned to her seat.
"And now," said Tressamer, a.s.suming a more lawyer-like tone, "tell me all that occurred that night."
A long conversation followed, of which the barrister took copious notes in his pocket-book. It was late in the afternoon when he came out of the cell and went to secure accommodation in Porthstone for the night.
His step was slow, his head drooping, as he came along the esplanade.
Suddenly he saw in front of him a concourse of people following a policeman, who held something in his hand, and a gentleman dressed in the unmistakable garb which proclaims the seaside visitor.
As the crowd came on, Tressamer noticed that this gentleman appeared much agitated. Even the constable"s face betrayed an excitement unusual among his kind. But it never occurred to the barrister that this excitement could be connected in any way with the case in which he was so deeply concerned. He took a closer glance at what the policeman was carrying, and then, to his horror, perceived that it was a human hand, the fingers still gay with precious rings. The next moment they all came up to where he was, and he heard someone in the crowd saying:
"That"s the hand of the woman that was murdered. A gentleman has just found it in Newton Bay."
The fearful truth burst on him like a thunder-clap. The blood forsook his veins; he staggered helplessly to the nearest seat and sank down upon it, moaning to himself: "Lost! She is lost!"
The firm ground on which he had been standing had crumbled all at once. The law point on which he had relied to save Eleanor"s life, in spite of the crushing weight of evidence against her, was robbed by this accidental discovery of more than half its strength. Who could any longer pretend to doubt whether a murder had been committed? Hence Tressamer"s despair. Coupled with what Eleanor had said to him in their interview, however, it drove him to seek more earnestly than he would otherwise have done for some theory of defence upon the facts, some means whereby, if possible, to force a doubt into the minds of the jury, and wring from them a verdict of acquittal.
To this task he now devoted himself. He a.s.sumed the part of a detective rather than a barrister. In the case of an ordinary client conduct such as this would not have been tolerated for a moment by the rigid etiquette of the Bar; but where a case is of such a nature that the barrister is personally concerned, and where he acts as a private individual pursuing his own interests, etiquette has nothing to say.
In joining the Bar a man does not cease to be a citizen and to enjoy the rights and privileges of ordinary mortals. It is only in his professional character that his acts come under that rigid supervision which is at once the dread and envy of inferior professions.
But, in any event, George Tressamer"s present mood would not have let him give much weight to considerations of such a character. Too much was at stake. He had to keep in constant communication with Eleanor, to encourage her in face of the ordeals of the coroner and the magistrates, and to protect her from the zeal of the various graduates of the Incorporated Law Society who were thirsting to win glory in her defence.
As a blind to the public, he caused the rumour to be spread that she was without professional advice. This idea was confirmed when it got to be known that she had refused the services of Messrs. Pollard and other gentlemen of the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile Tressamer was enabled to go about with less publicity and to pursue his inquiries. Eleanor was disposed to wonder at him for not employing a detective. But he soon explained that.
"I know detectives," he said to her. "I have seen them in the witness-box and out of it. They are admirable men in their own groove.
Give them an ordinary crime--a robbery or a forgery--and they can grapple with it. They will track the defaulting cashier to America for you, or run down the absconding broker in the depths of the Australian Bush. But there their usefulness ends. They are no good in the face of a real mystery like this. This is not a question of clever detection; it is a case of reading the human heart and penetrating its motives. A genius could help us, but I know of no genius in Scotland Yard. No, I will do what I can; and if I come to anything in the way of ordinary detective work I will send for Sergeant Wright."
So he continued to work alone. He had by this time seen and talked with every witness whose name appeared in the brief for the Crown. He had been present, with the air of a casual spectator, at the inquest, and afterwards at the inquiry before the magistrates, which ended in the committal of Eleanor to the a.s.sizes to take her trial for wilful murder.
He did not tell Eleanor much as to the results of his inquiries. He would simply mention that he had been talking to Simons, or that he had had a game of billiards with John Lewis, and she had to form her own idea of what had pa.s.sed between them.
Finally, he went up to London and plunged into that minute study of Hale and Hawkins which had awakened the surprise of his friend Prescott. He was thus kept occupied till both he and his friend were summoned down from town by the approach of the a.s.sizes.
CHAPTER IV.
THE a.s.sIZES.
On a certain day in the month of July our lady the Queen, probably clad in ermine, and wearing on her head that gorgeous specimen of the jeweller"s art which, when not in use, may be viewed at the Tower of London for the absurdly moderate sum of sixpence--our lady the Queen, I say, was reminded by her faithful Chancellor that various prisoners were awaiting trial in different parts of England and Wales, and among other places in Mynyddshire.
Whereupon her Majesty, with that constant attention to the welfare of her people which befits a sovereign, at once sat down and wrote, or possibly only signed, a stately doc.u.ment requiring and empowering Sir Daniel Buller, Knight, one of the judges of her High Court; Sir John Wiseman, Knight, another of the aforesaid judges; Walter Reynold Davies, Esquire, one of her counsel learned in the law; Joseph Robert Pollington, Esquire, another of her counsel learned in the law; and Henry Jones, Esquire, yet a further specimen of her counsel learned in the law, to proceed to Mynyddshire, and there and then open the gaols and try such prisoners as were inside them.
In a similar and not less elaborate doc.u.ment she thoughtfully went on to provide for their hearing and deciding, at the same time, any disputes over civil matters which might possibly have arisen among the population of that remote locality since it was last honoured by the presence of such bright visitants. This considerate act on her Majesty"s part was, of course, intended to save her emissaries a second journey. Even a monarch, in the administration of justice, need not be above killing two birds with one stone.