The Crime and the Criminal Part 60

BOOK IV--THE CRIMINAL.

(_The Author tells the Tale_.)

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

MR. TENNANT SPEAKS.

"I saw her! I saw her!"

"None of that now. You'd better come quietly."

Mr Tennant looked at the warder who spoke. With the a.s.sistance of his colleague the man was hurrying him along in a fashion which, even at that moment of amazement and of horror, in some subtle way reminded him of his school days.

"I saw her!" he repeated.

"So you might have done; n.o.body says you didn't. Only don't let's have any fuss."

The man spoke as one might speak, not ill-naturedly, but with the superior wisdom of a senior to a fractious child. Mr. Tennant knew that he was not understood; that it was no use to attempt to make himself understood. His mind was in a chaos. What was he to do?

It had come to him in a flash of revelation that he had been made the subject of some hideous mockery, the victim of some malevolent plot; that he had been racked and re-racked for nothing at all; that he had stood his trial for the murder of a woman, who, all the time, was actually alive; that the law had committed some grotesque blunder; that he had been condemned to be hung for another person's crime.

What was he to do?

He did nothing till he was back again in gaol. In the condemned cell this time. n.o.body had told him, but he knew what it was. He knew that here a long line of murderers had awaited their fate, that here he would be kept until he was hung.

A natural shudder shook him as he realised that they were about to thrust him into this last abiding-place of the d.a.m.ned. He felt that if he did not speak so as to make himself understood before they had him fast in there he would never have a chance to speak at all: That if that door clanged upon his silence, hope, for him, would have died with its clangour.

He turned to the warder.

"I wish to see the governor."

"You can't see the governor now."

"I must. Listen to me." He tried to restrain his emotion, to hold himself in hand. "Some extraordinary error has taken place. Just as I was leaving the court I saw the woman whom I am charged with having killed."

The warder stared, as if inclined to laugh.

"I am not mad, nor am I dreaming; nor did I see a ghost. I saw this woman. She was as much alive as you or I. She was among a number of other women on the bench near the judge. She stood up and she stared at me. I saw her as plainly as I see you. There has been some astounding mistake. Tell the governor that I must see him at once or it will be too late. If you do not tell him my blood may be upon your head."

"All right."

The warder clanged the door, and went.

Mr. Tennant was left alone in that abode of the haunted.

Would the man tell him? Would the governor come? Would he listen if he came? Would they stir a finger? Would they believe him? Would they pay the slightest attention to anything that he said?

It would have been hard enough to hang believing her dead, although he had not killed her, but now that he had seen her standing up and looking at him, and smiling at his agony----!

This explained the two ghostly visitations. It was not a ghost, it was herself he had seen. All this time he had been suffering the agonies of the d.a.m.ned, and she had been laughing in her sleeve. How she must have enjoyed the play! Oh, what a fool he had been!

What was that? Was that footsteps ringing on the stone pavement along the vaulted corridor? He listened. It was somebody going, not coming.

Suppose the governor would not come?

There was a bell. Should he ring it and make a scene and in that way emphasise the expression of his desire? If he could succeed in no other way, he would try that. It was time that was precious. Every moment that pa.s.sed made his task the harder. If they had only given him an opportunity to proclaim the woman's ident.i.ty! If they only had! If he could only get back into the court even now and stop her before again she vanished into air!

Would the governor not come?

Then he would ring the bell and wake the echoes of the prison, and keep on ringing until they either disconnected the bell or put him into irons. He would not hang without a struggle now. He would ring at once.

Ah! There was some one coming.

Two persons. He could hear two separate tramp tramps, one falling a little behind the other as they came along the flagstones.

The door was opened. It was the governor.

"You wish to see me?"

"I do, sir."

Again Mr. Tennant tried to master himself, to hold himself in hand. He realised to the full, and very late in the day, how much might hinge upon his being able to preserve his presence of mind.

"What do you wish to say?"

"I wish to say that the woman whom I am charged with having murdered was actually in the court."

"Nonsense."

"It is not nonsense. It is the simple truth. I saw her as plainly as I see you."

The governor eyed him with what, for him, was a look of ferocity--unofficially, he was one of the softest-hearted creatures breathing.

"Man, don't tell such tales to me."

"I am telling you the absolute, literal truth. I have felt all along that there was something about the medical evidence which I did not understand. The woman they described was not the woman who fell out of the train. Now I understand how it was. That woman is not dead. I saw her, just now, alive, in court."

"Why did you not interrupt the proceedings to say so?"

"I did not see her before sentence was p.r.o.nounced. When I did see her I was so astonished that, before I had recovered sufficiently from my astonishment to be able to speak the warders removed me from the court.

I told the warders who it was that I had seen."