Then the silence broke. Gallagher got up with his open notebook in his hand. He walked over to the judges’ table. He placed the notebook in front of the judges, pointing out something with his finger. The centre judge nodded. Gallagher walked back again to his table and sat down. Gypo followed every movement with frenzied excitement. He seemed to be on the point of jumping to his feet and rushing at Gallagher. The two sentries in the doorway and the two armed men standing behind Gypo’s back slipped their fingers over their revolver triggers. They leaned forward slightly. There was a tense moment. Then Gallagher looked at Gypo and began to speak sharply, in a low, restrained voice.
“Now Gypo,” he began, “tell us how you spent your time from six o’clock this evening until you came in here at half-past one. Hurry up. Don’t waste any time. We are in a hurry.”
Gypo’s eyes almost shut. Then his face seemed to swell. His mouth contorted.
“What’s it got to do with you where I ben?” he thundered in a queer, hollow voice. It seemed his mouth had gone dry.
“You never know,” said Gallagher carelessly. “It might be interesting for us to know. Don’t you feel like telling us how you’ve been amusing yourself from the time you met Francis Joseph McPhillip at six o’clock in the Dunboy Lodging House until you came in here?”
“An’ supposin’ I don’t tell ye, what are ye goin’ to do? Wha’?”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you that. But we can do a lot. You know that yourself, don’t you? You have your choice in the matter. You either tell me or I’ll go to the trouble of telling you and the court myself.” He paused for an instant and then added: “with the help of Bartly Mulholland here.”
Then he stared at Gypo dispassionately, with the cold and indifferent look of a man examining a statue. Gypo’s chest heaved in and out. He had not been prepared for this point-blank attack from Gallagher. He had expected that Gallagher would adopt his usual tactics of friendliness and cajolery, trusting to madden his prey into letting some choice important word slip unawares from his lips. Gypo felt himself actually cheated out of his rights by this insultingly crude and insolent attack. Gallagher was not even doing him the honour of playing with him. Then he must know everything already. Did he?
The last trace of his self-control left Gypo. He abandoned himself to a frenzy of passion. a delirious wave of ferocity mastered him. He clenched his fists so that the bones cracked. His right leg went so rigid that the boot rushed along the stone floor with a harsh scraping sound, until it brought up with a bang against the leg of the form. There it stayed. His knee was pointed and shivering. He opened his mouth and yelled, almost incoherently, a torrent of blasphemous and obscene oaths at Gallagher. He yelled them in an endless sentence, without a verb or pronoun or conjunction. He kept yelling until he had to stop for breath.
When Gypo stopped, Mary McPhillip’s sobs became audible. She was trembling violently and sobbing. Gallagher got up, walked past Gypo without taking the slightest notice of him and took Mary by the arm. He led her up to the judges’ table.
“I have no further need of this witness,” he said, “so I suppose I may take her into another room.”
The judges nodded. He led Mary out of the room. Gypo’s eyes followed him everywhere. He was staring wildly and he seemed to have lost all power of directing his bodily activities. He was shivering spasmodically in his legs. Gallagher came back into the room and sat down at his table.
Still Gypo’s eyes were concentrated on Gallagher’s face. His outburst had left him completely empty, like a shaken sack. There was a pain at the pit of the stomach. Mob orators know that pain, when they have spoken for over an hour under a perfect hail of frenzied interruptions. His eyes were dazed. Some machinal force kept his eyes concentrated on Gallagher’s face. He responded to every movement of Gallagher’s face in a half-conscious way. Every time Gallagher moved a limb he felt a sharp stab in the pit of the stomach. He was conscious of even the most minute movements. A thing that terrified him especially was Gallagher’s chronic habit of twitching his cheeks by grinding his back teeth at intervals.
As before, this agony lasted during a few moments only, during the time that Gallagher was looking at some notes on his table, with furrowed forehead. But the moments seemed years, the agony was so concentrated. Gallagher spoke again.
Then again a strange change came over Gypo. For as soon as Gallagher spoke he felt an instantaneous relief. He breathed deeply. He sighed. A delicious tremor swept over his body like a cool breeze sweeping the back of a sultry sea in summer. His jaws set again. Gallagher’s voice had a different ring in it. It was softer. It was friendly. It was … honour bright … it was argumentative. Then there was a chance. … There must be a chance yet …
“What did you mean, Gypo?” cried Gallagher. “What did you mean by telling us all those lies about the Rat Mulligan? You should be ashamed of yourself. Even if you got a grudge against a man, that’s no reason why you should try to get a thing like that slung on to him. Good Lord! You’re a funny man, Gypo. What put it into your head
