“Cantercot, if you say Tom’s guilty I’ll knock you down.” The little cobbler turned upon his tall friend like a roused lion. Then he added, “I beg your pardon, Cantercot, I don’t mean that. After all, I’ve no grounds. The judge is an honest man, and with gifts I can’t lay claim to. But I believe in Tom with all my heart. And if Tom is guilty I believe in the Cause of the People with all my heart all the same. The Fads are doomed to death, they may be reprieved, but they must die at last.”
He drew a deep sigh, and looked along the dreary Road. It was quite dark now, but by the light of the lamps and the gas in the shop windows the dull, monotonous Road lay revealed in all its sordid, familiar outlines; with its long stretches of chill pavement, its unlovely architecture, and its endless stream of prosaic pedestrians.
A sudden consciousness of the futility of his existence pierced the little cobbler like an icy wind. He saw his own life, and a hundred million lives like his, swelling and breaking like bubbles on a dark ocean, unheeded, uncared for.
A newsboy passed along, clamoring “The Bow murderer, preparations for the hexecution!”
A terrible shudder shook the cobbler’s frame. His eyes ranged sightlessly after the boy; the merciful tears filled them at last.
“The Cause of the People,” he murmured, brokenly, “I believe in the Cause of the People. There is nothing else.”
“Peter, come in to tea, you’ll catch cold,” said Mrs. Crowl.
Denzil went in to tea and Peter followed.
Meantime, round the house of the Home Secretary, who was in town, an ever-augmenting crowd was gathered, eager to catch the first whisper of a reprieve.
The house was guarded by a cordon of police, for there was no inconsiderable danger of a popular riot. At times a section of the crowd groaned and hooted. Once a volley of stones was discharged at the windows. The newsboys were busy vending their special editions, and the reporters struggled through the crowd, clutching descriptive pencils, and ready to rush off to telegraph offices should anything “extra special” occur. Telegraph boys were coming up every now and again with threats, messages, petitions and exhortations from all parts of the country to the unfortunate Home Secretary, who was striving to keep his aching head cool as he went through the voluminous evidence for the last time and pondered over the more important letters which “The Greater Jury” had contributed to the obscuration of the problem. Grodman’s letter in that morning’s paper shook him most; under his scientific analysis the circumstantial chain seemed forged of painted cardboard. Then the poor man read the judge’s summing up, and the chain became tempered steel. The noise of the crowd outside broke upon his ear in his study like the roar of a distant ocean. The more the rabble hooted him, the more he essayed to hold scrupulously the scales of life and death. And the crowd grew and grew, as men came away from their work. There were many that loved the man who lay in the jaws of death, and a spirit of mad revolt surged in their breasts. And the sky was gray, and the bleak night deepened and the shadow of the gallows crept on.
Suddenly a strange inarticulate murmur spread through the crowd, a vague whisper of no one knew what. Something had happened. Somebody was coming. A second later and one of the outskirts of the throng was agitated, and a convulsive cheer went up from it, and was taken up infectiously all along the street. The crowd parted—a hansom dashed through the center. “Grodman! Grodman!” shouted those who recognized the occupant. “Grodman! Hurrah!” Grodman was outwardly calm and pale, but his eyes glittered; he waved his hand encouragingly as the hansom dashed up to the door, cleaving the turbulent crowd as a canoe cleaves the waters. Grodman sprang out, the constables at the portal made way for him respectfully. He knocked imperatively, the door was opened cautiously; a boy rushed up and delivered a telegram; Grodman forced his way in, gave his name, and insisted on seeing the Home Secretary on a matter of life and death. Those near the door heard his words and cheered, and the crowd divined the good omen, and the air throbbed with cannonades of joyous sound. The cheers rang in Grodman’s ears as the door slammed behind him. The reporters struggled to the front. An excited knot of working men pressed round the arrested hansom, they took the horse out. A dozen enthusiasts struggled for the honor of placing themselves between the shafts. And the crowd awaited Grodman.
XII
Grodman was ushered into the conscientious Minister’s study. The doughty chief of the agitation was, perhaps, the one man who could not be denied. As he entered, the Home Secretary’s face seemed lit up with relief. At a sign from his master, the amanuensis who had brought in the last telegram took it back with him into the outer room where he worked. Needless to say not a tithe of the Minister’s correspondence ever came under his own eyes.
“You have a valid reason for troubling me, I suppose, Mr. Grodman?” said the Home Secretary, almost cheerfully. “Of course it is about Mortlake?”
“It is; and I have the best of all reasons.”
“Take a seat. Proceed.”
“Pray do not consider me impertinent, but have you ever given any attention to the science of evidence?”
“How do you mean?” asked the Home Secretary, rather puzzled, adding, with a melancholy smile, “I have had to lately. Of course, I’ve never been a criminal lawyer, like some of my predecessors. But I should hardly speak of it as a science; I look upon it
