“It’s a lie,” said the little man in the box, white and shaking; “it is libelous!”
Manfred smiled again and dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
The judge might have reproved the prisoner for his irrelevant accusation, but allowed the incident to pass.
The case for the prosecution was drawing to a close when an official of the court came to the judge’s side and, bending down, began a whispered conversation with him.
As the final witness withdrew, the judge announced an adjournment and the prosecuting counsel was summoned to his lordship’s private room.
In the cells beneath the court, Manfred received a hint at what was coming and looked grave.
After the interval, the judge, on taking his seat, addressed the jury:
“In a case presenting the unusual features that characterize this,” he said, “it is to be expected that there will occur incidents of an almost unprecedented nature. The circumstances under which the evidence that will be given now, are, however, not entirely without precedent.” He opened a thick law book before him at a place marked by a slip of paper. “Here in the Queen against Forsythe, and earlier, the Queen against Berander, and earlier still and quoted in all these rulings, the King against Sir Thomas Mandory, we have parallel cases.” He closed the book.
“Although the accused has given no intimation of his desire to call witnesses on his behalf, a gentleman has volunteered his evidence. He desires that his name shall be withheld, and there are peculiar circumstances that compel me to grant his request. You may be assured, gentlemen of the jury, that I am satisfied both as to the identity of the witness, and that he is in every way worthy of credence.”
He nodded a signal to an officer, and through the judge’s door to the witness box there walked a young man. He was dressed in a tightly fitting frock coat, and across the upper part of his face was a half mask.
He leant lightly over the rail, looking at Manfred with a little smile on his clean-cut mouth, and Manfred’s eyes challenged him.
“You come to speak on behalf of the accused?” asked the judge.
“Yes, my lord.”
It was the next question that sent a gasp of surprise through the crowded court.
“You claim equal responsibility for his actions?”
“Yes, my lord!”
“You are, in fact, a member of the organization known as the Four Just Men?”
“I am.”
He spoke calmly, and the thrill that the confession produced, left him unmoved.
“You claim, too,” said the judge, consulting a paper before him, “to have participated in their councils?”
“I claim that.”
There were long pauses between the questions, for the judge was checking the replies and counsel was writing busily.
“And you say you are in accord both with their objects and their methods?”
“Absolutely.”
“You have helped carry out their judgment?”
“I have.”
“And have given it the seal of your approval?”
“Yes.”
“And you state that their judgments were animated with a high sense of their duty and responsibility to mankind?”
“Those were my words.”
“And that the men they killed were worthy of death?”
“Of that I am satisfied.”
“You state this as a result of your personal knowledge and investigation?”
“I state this from personal knowledge in two instances, and from the investigations of myself and the independent testimony of high legal authority.”
“Which brings me to my next question,” said the judge. “Did you ever appoint a commission to investigate all the circumstances of the known cases in which the Four Just Men have been implicated?”
“I did.”
“Was it composed of a Chief Justice of a certain European State, and four eminent criminal lawyers?”
“It was.”
“And what you have said is the substance of the finding of that Commission?”
“Yes.”
The Judge nodded gravely and the public prosecutor rose to cross-examination.
“Before I ask you any question,” he said, “I can only express myself as being in complete agreement with his lordship on the policy of allowing your identity to remain hidden.” The young man bowed.
“Now,” said the counsel, “let me ask you this. How long have you been in association with the Four Just Men?”
“Six months,” said the other.
“So that really you are not in a position to give evidence regarding the merits of this case—which is five years old, remember.”
“Save from the evidence of the Commission.”
“Let me ask you this—but I must tell you that you need not answer unless you wish—are you satisfied that the Four Just Men were responsible for that tragedy?”
“I do not doubt it,” said the young man instantly.
“Would anything make you doubt it?”
“Yes,” said the witness smiling, “if Manfred denied it, I should not only doubt it, but be firmly assured of his innocence.”
“You say you approve both of their methods and their objects?”
“Yes.”
“Let us suppose you were the head of a great business firm controlling a thousand workmen, with rules and regulations for their guidance and a scale of fines and punishments for the preservation of discipline. And suppose you found one of those workmen had set himself up as an arbiter of conduct, and had superimposed upon your rules a code of his own.”
“Well?”
“Well, what would be your attitude toward that man?”
“If the rules he initiated were wise and needful I would incorporate them in my code.”
“Let me put another case. Suppose you governed a territory, administering the laws—”
“I know what you are going to say,” interrupted the witness, “and my answer is that the laws of a country are as so many closely-set palings erected for the benefit of the community. Yet try as you will, the interstices exist, and some men will go and come at their pleasure, squeezing through this fissure, or walking boldly through that gap.”
“And you would welcome an unofficial form of justice that acted as a kind of moral stopgap?”
“I would welcome clean justice.”
“If it were put to you as an abstract proposition, would you accept it?”
The young man paused before he replied.
“It is difficult to accommodate one’s mind to the abstract, with such tangible evidence of the efficacy of the Four Just Men’s system before one’s eyes,” he said.
“Perhaps it
