Hand and Ring

a bow⁠—I don’t remember; or, at least, tried to murmur some excuse, but the look that came into her face paralyzed me, and I stopped before I had gotten very far, and waited to hear what she would say. But she did not say much; she merely rose, and, turning toward me, exclaimed: ‘No apologies; you are a detective, I suppose?’ And when I nodded, or made some other token that she had guessed correctly, she merely remarked, flashing upon me, however, in a way I do not yet understand: ‘Well, you have got what you desired, and now can go.’ And I went, Byrd, went; and I felt puzzled, I don’t know why, and a little bit sore about the heart, too, as if⁠—Well, I can’t even tell what I mean by that if. The only thing I am sure of is, that Mansell’s cause hasn’t been helped by this day’s job, and that if this lady is asked on the witness stand where she was during the hour everyone believed her to be safely shut up with the telescopes and charts, we shall hear⁠—”

“What?”

“Well, that she was shut up with them, most likely. Women like her are not to be easily disconcerted even on the witness stand.”

XXVI

“He Shall Hear Me!”

There’s some ill planet reigns;
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favorable.

Winter’s Tale

The time is midnight, the day the same as that which saw this irruption of Hickory into Professor Darling’s observatory; the scene that of Miss Dare’s own room in the northeast tower. She is standing before a table with a letter in her hand and a look upon her face that, if seen, would have added much to the puzzlement of the detectives.

The letter was from Mr. Orcutt and ran thus:

I have seen Mr. Mansell, and have engaged myself to undertake his defence. When I tell you that out of the hundreds of cases I have tried in my still short life, I have lost but a small percentage, you will understand what this means.

In pursuance to your wishes, I mentioned your name to the prisoner with an intimation that I had a message from you to deliver. But he stopped me before I could utter a word. “I receive no communication from Miss Dare!” he declared, and, anxious as I really was to do your bidding, I was compelled to refrain; for his tone was one of hatred and his look that of ineffable scorn.

This was all, but it was enough. Imogene had read these words over three times, and now was ready to plunge the letter into the flame of a candle to destroy it. As it burned, her grief and indignation took words:

“He is alienated, completely alienated,” she gasped; “and I do not wonder. But,” and here the full majesty of her nature broke forth in one grand gesture, “he shall hear me yet! As there is a God above, he shall hear me yet, even if it has to be in the open court and in the presence of judge and jury!”

Book III

The Scales of Justice

XXVII

The Great Trial

Othello	What dost thou think?
Iago	Think, my lord?
Othello	By heav’n, he echoes me. As if there was some monster in his thought Too hideous to be shown.

Othello

Sibley was in a stir. Sibley was the central point of interest for the whole country. The great trial was in progress and the curiosity of the populace knew no bounds.

In a room of the hotel sat our two detectives. They had just come from the courthouse. Both seemed inclined to talk, though both showed an indisposition to open the conversation. A hesitation lay between them; a certain thin vail of embarrassment that either one would have found it hard to explain, and yet which sufficed to make their intercourse a trifle uncertain in its character, though Hickory’s look had lost none of its rude good-humor, and Byrd’s manner was the same mixture of easy nonchalance and quiet self-possession it had always been.

It was Hickory who spoke at last.

“Well, Byrd?” was his suggestive exclamation.

“Well, Hickory?” was the quiet reply.

“What do you think of the case so far?”

“I think”⁠—the words came somewhat slowly⁠—“I think that it looks bad. Bad for the prisoner, I mean,” he explained the next moment with a quick flush.

“Your sympathies are evidently with Mansell,” Hickory quietly remarked.

“Yes,” was the slow reply. “Not that I think him innocent, or would turn a hair’s breadth from the truth to serve him.”

“He is a manly fellow,” Hickory bluntly admitted, after a moment’s puff at the pipe he was smoking. “Do you remember the peculiar straightforwardness of his look when he uttered his plea of ‘Not guilty,’ and the tone he used too, so quiet, yet so emphatic? You could have heard a pin drop.”

“Yes,” returned Mr. Byrd, with a quick contraction of his usually smooth brow.

“Have you noticed,” the other broke forth, after another puff, “a certain curious air of disdain that he wears?”

“Yes,” was again the short reply.

“I wonder what it means?” queried Hickory carelessly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe.

Mr. Byrd flashed a quick askance look at his colleague from under his half-fallen lids, but made no answer.

“It is not pride alone,” resumed the rough-and-ready detective, half-musingly; “though he’s as proud as the best of ’em. Neither is it any sort of make-believe, or I wouldn’t be caught by it. ’Tis⁠—’tis⁠—what?” And Hickory rubbed his nose with his thoughtful forefinger, and looked inquiringly at Mr. Byrd.

“How should I know?” remarked the other, tossing his stump of a cigar into the fire. “Mr. Mansell is too deep a problem for me.”

“And Miss Dare too?”

“And Miss Dare.”

Silence followed this admission, which Hickory broke at last by observing:

“The day that sees her on the witness stand will be interesting, eh?”

“It is not far off,” declared