Much Darker Days Part 10

'Which is absurd,' I found myself saying, in the language of Eukleides, the grand old Greek.

Human justice! What is justice? See how it can err! Was there ever such a boundless, unlimited blunder in the whole annals of penny fiction?

Probably not. I remember nothing like it in all the learned pages of the _London Journal_ and the _Family Herald_. Mrs. Henry Wood and Miss Braddon never dreamed of aught like this. Philippa _must_ be told. It was too good a joke. Would she laugh? Would she be alarmed?

Picture me lying on the ground, with the intelligence fresh in my mind.

I felt confidence, on the whole, in Philippa's sense of humour.

Then rose the temptation.

Trust this man (William Evans, late the Sphynx) to the vaunted array of justice!

Let him have a run for his money.

Nay, more.

Go down and see the fun!

Why hesitate? You cannot possibly be implicated in the deed. You will enjoy a position nearly unique in human history. You will see the man, of whose murder you thought you were guilty, tried for the offence which you know was committed by your wife.

Every sin is not easy. My sense of honour arose against this temptation.

I struggled, but I was mastered. I _would_ go and see the trial. Home I went and broached the subject to Philippa. The brave girl never blenched. She had no hesitations, no scruples to conquer.

'Oh! Basil,' she exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, 'wot larx! When do we start?'

The reader will admit that I did myself no injustice when, at the commencement of this tale, I said I had wallowed in crime.

CHAPTER XII.--Judge Juggins.

WE got down to Newnham, where the 'Sizes were held, on the morning of September 20th. There we discovered that we had an hour or two for refreshment, and I may say that both Philippa and I employed that time to the best advantage. While at the hotel I tried to obtain the file of the _Times_. I wanted to look back and see if I could find the account of the magisterial proceedings against the truly unlucky William Evans.

After all, should I call him unlucky? He had escaped the snare I had laid for him, and perhaps (such things have been) even a Newnham jury might find him not guilty.

But the file of the _Times_ was not forthcoming.

I asked the sleepy-eyed Teutonic waiter for it. He merely answered, with the fatuous patronising grin of the German _kellner_:--

'You vant?'

'I want the file of the Times!'

'I have the corkscrew of the good landlord; but the file of the _Times_ I have it not. Have you your boots, your fish-sauce, your currycomb?' he went on. Then, lapsing into irrelevant local gossip, 'the granddaughter of the blacksmith has the landing-net of the bad tailor.'

'I want my bill, my note, my _addition_, my _consommation_,' I answered angrily.

'Very good bed, very good post-horse,' he replied at random, and I left the County Hotel without being able to find out why suspicion had fallen on "William Evans".

We hailed one of the cabs which stood outside the hotel door, when a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice, strange but not unfamiliar, exclaimed, 'Dr. South, as I am a baronet--'

I turned round suddenly and found myself face to face with

Sir Runan Errand!

My brain once more began to reel. Here were the real victim and the true perpetrators of a murder come to view the trial of the man who was charged with having committed it!

Though I was trembling like an aspen leaf? I remembered that we lived in an age of 'telepathy' and psychical research.

Sir Runan was doubtless what Messrs. Myers and Gurney call a _visible apparition_ as distinguished from the common _invisible apparition_.

If a real judge confesses, like Sir E. Hornby, to having seen a ghost, why should not a mere accessory after the fact?

Regaining my presence of mind, I asked, 'What brings you here?'

'Oh, to see the fun,' he replied. 'Fellow being tried for killing me.

The morbid interest excited round here is very great. Doubt your getting front seats.'

'Can't you manage it for me?' I asked imploringly.

'Daresay I can. Here, take my card, and just mention my name, and they'll let you in. Case for the prosecution, by the way, _most_ feeble.'

Here the appearance, handing me a card, nodded, and vanished in the crowd.

I returned to Philippa, where I had left her in the four-wheeler. We drove off, and found ourselves before a double-swinging (ay, ominous as it seemed, _swinging_) plain oak door, over which in old English letters was written--

CRIMINAL COURT.

I need not describe the aspect of the court. Probably most of my readers have at some time in their lives found themselves in such a place.

True to the minute, the red-robed Judge appears. It is Sir Joshua Juggins, well known for his severity as 'Gibbeting Juggins.'

Ah, there is little hope for William Evans.

I have learned from a neighbour in court the evidence against Evans is purely circ.u.mstantial. He has been found in possession of a peculiar key, believed to have belonged to Sir Runan.

Well may they call the case for the prosecution weak.

William must have found that fatal key which Philippa took from the slain man.

On that accident the whole presumption of his guilt is founded.

The Grand Jury (country gentlemen--idiots all!) find a 'True Bill.'

The clerk reads the indictment that 'he, William Evans, did feloniously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought, kill and murder Sir Runan Errand, Baronet.'

As the reading goes on Philippa is strangely moved.