Guilty Bonds

“Is it a fact that on the night previous to his departure from Elveham, some unpleasant incident occurred?”

“I know nothing of it. I have heard that the prisoner had some little difference with his wife.”

“Come, sir,” demanded my counsel sharply, “did you not overhear a conversation in the early morning?”

The witness appeared confused.

“Yes, I did,” he admitted. “I heard my cousin ask him to wait a stipulated period for an explanation.”

“Have you any idea what this explanation is?”

“None.”

“Then, after all, you are unable to throw any light whatever upon these mysterious crimes?” he asked, in a strange harsh voice.

“I’ve told you all I know,” replied Demetrius, a trifle paler than before.

Mr Roland flung down his brief upon the table, slowly resumed his seat, and pushed his wig from off his forehead with a perplexed gesture.

I could hardly realise my situation. What could it all possibly mean? What was the object of this seaman giving evidence when he could throw no light upon the matter, except that he actually saw me following the murderer from Bedford Place?

He had taken a seat in the well of the Court with his face turned towards me.

“Sergius Hertzen.”

As the words rang through the place I started. I had not seen Vera’s uncle since our marriage, as he went to Zurich immediately afterwards.

There was a shuffling near the door, and the old man entered. As he mounted the steps to the witness-box I noticed he had aged considerably.

“What are you, Mr Hartzen?” Mr Paget asked, referring to his brief at the same moment.

“Police agent.”

“And your nationality?”

“Russian.”

The old man a police agent! Dumbfounded, I looked blankly around me.

“You are father of the previous witness?”

“I am.”

“Now, what evidence can you give regarding the charge against the prisoner?”

There was a dead and painful silence.

“We first met at the Hotel Isotta, Genoa, about a month after the murder in Bedford Place. We frequently played écarté together, and on one occasion he paid me a debt with the three five-pound notes I now produce.”

“And what is there peculiar about them?”

“I have since ascertained that their numbers correspond with those now known to have been stolen from the house in Bedford Place.”

The thought flashed across my mind that once, when I had lost to him, I had discharged the debt with three notes. From whom I received them I could not tell.

“What else do you know about the affair?” was the insinuating question of the prosecuting counsel.

“Well; some three months after this I was present at the Central Tribunal at St. Petersburg, when prisoner was sentenced to the mines for complicity in the murder of a hotel-keeper. The sentence, however, was never carried out, for on the way to Siberia he escaped, returning to England.”

“It’s a lie! I was exiled without trial,” I shouted. Amid the loud cries of “Silence,” counsel turned to the judge, and with a cruel smile about his lips remarked, “You see, my lord, prisoner admits he was exiled.”

Mr Roland made an impatient motion to me to preserve silence; so seeing my protests were useless, I sank again into my chair, and tried to conquer my fate by bearing it.

Mr Crane the junior counsel defending me, cross-examined him at some length, but resumed his seat without being able to shake his testimony.

The waiter who had attended to me at the Charing Cross Hotel, and two of my own servants were called, but their evidence was immaterial and uninteresting.

I felt a strange morbid yielding to a superstitious feeling that I could not shake off, and sat as one in a dream, until the Court rose and I was sent back to my cell.

Chapter Thirty

The Eleventh Hour

Next morning my trial was resumed.

There was the same array of counsel; the same crowd of curious onlookers lounging on the benches like carrion crows around a carcase; the same strange, half-visionary procession of judges, lawyers and witnesses, who passed and repassed before me, sometimes ludicrous, but generally gloomy and depressing.

The jury looked pale and weary. They had been locked up during the night, and now several of them were yawning. None gave indication that they felt the responsibility of the sentence they had to pronounce.

I sat in the dock heedless of everything; I had grown callous. I had one thought only: Why had not Vera made her promised explanation?

A few minor witnesses were called, and the case for the prosecution closed.

At last Mr Roland rose to make his speech in my defence. The circumstantial evidence already produced was, I knew, sufficient to cause the jury to find me guilty, and I listened in rapt attention to the clear, concise arguments of the famous advocate.

But how unsatisfactory was his speech – how weak was his defence! With a sinking heart I saw more than one of the jury smile incredulously when my innocence was asserted.

“I admit, gentlemen,” said Mr Roland, in the course of his address, “that this case is enshrouded in mystery; but while asserting that the prisoner is innocent, I tell you plainly there is a secret. The key to this enigma is known to one person alone, and that person, for reasons with which I am myself unacquainted, is not in a position to divulge it. That this secret bears directly upon the crime is obvious, nevertheless it is a most unfortunate circumstance that the mystery cannot be wholly elucidated by a satisfactory explanation. However, I have several witnesses whom I purpose calling before you; and having heard them, I shall ask you to discharge the prisoner, feeling assured you will be convinced that he is entirely innocent.”

“But, Mr Roland, this is a most extraordinary case,” interposed the judge. “You speak of a person who knows the secret and refuses to give evidence. If this is so, this person is party to the crime. To whom do you refer?”

Counsel held a brief consultation with his junior, then rose again.

The Court was all expectancy.

“I refer, m’lord, to no less a person than the prisoner’s wife!”

The reply caused a sensation. Vera knew the secret! I was not wrong.