But he was not the only one to kneel there. With a sound of love and misery impossible to describe, Zadok had leaped from the box and had grovelled at those dear feet, kissing the insensible hands and praying for those shut eyes to open. Even after Arthur had lifted her into the sleigh, the man remained crouching where she had fallen, with his eyes roaming back and forth in a sightless stare from her to myself, muttering and groaning, and totally unheedful of Arthur’s commands to mount the box and drive home. Finally some one else stepped from the crowd and mercifully took the reins. I caught one more glimpse of her face, with Arthur’s bent tenderly over it; then the sleigh slipped away.
An officer shook Zadok by the arm and he got up and began to move aside. Then I had mind to face my own fate, and, looking up, I met Sweetwater’s eye.
It was quietly apologetic.
“I only wished to congratulate you,” said he, “on the conclusion of a case in which I know you are highly interested.” Lifting his hat, he nodded affably and was gone before I could recover from my stupor.
It was for Clifton to show his indignation. I was past all feeling. Farce as an after-piece never appealed to me.
Would I have considered it farce if I could have heard the words which this detective was at that moment whispering into the district attorney’s ears:
“Do you want to know who throttled Adelaide Cumberland? It was not her brother; it was not her lover; it was her old and trusted coachman.”
XXXV
“AS IF IT WERE A MECCA”
—I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks
Which I will practise.
Merchant of Venice.