“I worrying—your wife?”
“Yes, you. She’s not the girl she was, except by fits and starts. Until a week or so ago, she was like a little sprite of happiness. She couldn’t move without singing, her eyes and her feet danced all the time. Now she’s completely changed. She’s frightened. That night frightened her, and since then you’ve scared her half to death. Now what’s at the back of your mind? The whole business seems clear enough to every one else.”
“Stop!” Sir Richard begged.
Andrew drew off his other glove and threw it into the hat by his side.
“I’ll stop when I’ve finished,” he persisted. “Let me get this off my chest, Dick. We’re old friends, and what’s the good of being old friends if we can’t be honest with each other. As I say, here I have the sweetest and happiest little wife who ever drifted from heaven into a man’s life. There was never a cloud upon her face, never anything but a smile upon her lips. Then comes that night. What happens? A burglary. Well, why not? The Glenlitten jewels are worth having a shot at, if the man’s clever enough. This one apparently was. Then De Besset chances, most unfortunately, to be looking out of his window and sees the fellow on his way up the ladder.”
“Stop!” Sir Richard insisted. “There is not a shred of evidence to prove that De Besset did anything of the sort.”
“But what evidence is necessary?” Andrew demanded. “Why else should he have been in Félice’s room?”
The lawyer made no reply. There was a brief silence, the significance of which Andrew, fortunately for the preservation of his self-control, failed to grasp.
“Naturally, as soon as he’s seen the fellow,” he continued, “he dashes in to warn Félice and protect her if necessary—clang the bell or anything. He did just what I should have done. He arrives there as the burglar gets his knee over the window sill and is on the point of clutching the jewels. He goes for him, poor devil, gets it through the heart, and away flies the burglar. Félice has just strength enough to cry out, and the thing’s over. Well, now they have caught the burglar, and a damned good job too. But what on earth are you worrying Félice about? Why do you come and talk all this terrible tosh to her about a man’s life, and her evidence, and where the flash came from? How could that poor child tell where the flash came from in her panic-stricken state? And what the hell does it matter, anyway? It’s your job as a lawyer, of course, to get the burglar off if you can, but for God’s sake get him off some other way than by frightening Félice to death. He shot De Besset all right. As for any one else being in the room—between you and me, Richard, that’s tosh. There couldn’t have been any one else there. Félice must have discovered them before she turned the light out. The thing is utter rot to start with, and yet you go on bullying the poor child until she doesn’t know where she is… . No, don’t stop me! Let’s go to the bottom of it, Dick. I respect your profession all right. You’re hired to get a man off if you can, and you often do it damned cleverly, but in this case the man’s got to get what he deserves, whoever defends him. What right have you to come and, for the sake of stirring up a cloud of mystery, frighten Félice so that she’ll go into the witness box, if ever you drag her there, in such a state of mind that she won’t know what she’s saying? She saw nothing except the flash. She heard a shot. She saw a man fall dead, and that man her friend. My God, that’s shock enough for any woman! You can’t make any more out of it. You can’t change it. Why drive her distracted by pretending that if she tells her story differently she may save a man’s life. Your profession’s all right, Dick, you have to do your best in it, but there are limits. I tell you frankly I’m not going to have Félice driven half crazy for you to try to win one more case and save a man from the gallows who ought to hang. Take that from me, Dick.”
Andrew paused after probably the longest speech he had ever made in his life. Sir Richard, after his one interruption, had listened with unchanged face. He hesitated for a moment before replying.
“Andrew,” he said gravely, “you have spoken exactly as Andrew, Marquis of Glenlitten, husband of a very adorable wife, would be likely to speak. I have listened to you, haven’t I, without interruption— I have heard every word you have said. I sympathise with you more than I shall ever be able to tell you. And listen—I shall go so far as this. If I were able to accept the situation as you have quoted it, I would abjure all the craft I have acquired, I would seek to make no capital by any effort at a sensational denouement to the trial of this man, I would withdraw from the case, and I would say: ‘Here is a criminal. Sooner than that I should hurt the wife of a dear friend by torturing her, in the witness box or elsewhere, let him hang. He is guilty; let him hang.’ But you see against that I have reason to believe there is something else.”
“What?” Andrew demanded.
The lawyer looked across the table. The words were precise, and the light in his eyes was clear and truthful.
“I do most firmly and honestly believe,” he said, “not as a lawyer, but as a man, that it was not the burglar who shot De Besset.”
There was a brief, tense silence. Some one in the adjoining waiting room coughed, a taxi drew up at the outside entrance, there was the sound of swing doors, another of the waiting clients rustled his newspaper. The background of these trifling sounds seemed to make the breathless silence which reigned in the room where the two men sat all the more impressive. Andrew was once again, and more forcibly than ever, oppressed with the idea of sinister possibilities. He stared into his friend’s face, into the narrow, clear eyes, tried with all the force of which he was capable to learn what lay behind that wrinkled forehead, to gather some idea of what was passing in the mind of the man.
“If it was not the burglar who shot De Besset, who do you suppose it was?” he demanded. “You do not for a moment dare to suggest—that it might have been Félice?”
Sir Richard shook his head firmly.
“That is one evil thought, Andrew,” he said, “which you can expel from your mind at once. I am sure that it was not Félice. Your wife could never be guilty of a crime of that sort.”
“A crime of that sort?” Andrew repeated harshly. “What the devil do you mean?”
“It was crudely put,” the other confessed. “I have the greatest admiration and respect for your wife, Andrew. I have almost envied you your happiness. Félice is so sweet, so wonderful, so delightful in her simplicity, in her unspoilt childishness—but you see how my life has been spent.”
He waved his hand in a little gesture towards the dusty, volume-lined walls, the great rows of tin boxes.
“I live in a world of facts, grim facts. I live for facts. They rule my life. They guide my brain. And now, to close our interview, I come to this, Andrew. I believe, and I have already some evidence of the fact, that De Besset was shot by a third man who has not yet appeared in the case.”
Andrew glared at him across the desk.
“A third man!” he muttered. “A man who must have been concealed in my wife’s bedroom! God, man, I wonder I don’t take you by the throat!”
“I wonder you don’t, knowing you as I do,” the lawyer replied solemnly. “Yet I have to tell you of my conviction, Andrew, and, believing that, can you blame me if I try to save this fellow’s life, to seek the truth at any cost?”
Andrew rose unsteadily to his feet. He made no attempt to shake hands with his friend. He clutched at the side of the table.
“One more question,” he persisted. “Do you believe that Félice knew or guessed that there was another man in the room?”
“I’m afraid I do,” was the grave reply. “Remember, Andrew, she may have some perfectly good explanation and, when the time comes, she will probably tell us everything. You see,” he went on earnestly, “the law is like a great machine. I don’t pretend that I have any sentimental sympathy with this