CHAPTER VI.
A QUESTION OF COMITY.
The morning of the fateful 15th of September dawned at last; and long before the hour fixed for the official inquiry, the court-room was filled to overflowing by a crowd gathered from every grade of Society, to each member of which the arrest and possible fate of so prominent a person as Patricia Hildreth assumed a special and individual importance.
The very secrecy and mystery that had surrounded the case from the outset, and the reticence of the Press regarding it—usually so garrulous and self-opinionated—served only to whet the sensation-loving appetite of the community. The examination being held in open court, any one was free to enter, and to exercise that naïve candour of criticism and good-natured interference in other people's affairs peculiarly American. Not a member of the assemblage but was cognisant of the case in all its details, or who could not, at a moment's notice, reel off a synopsis of its peculiar features, embracing the names, social standing, personal incomes, and general habits of the persons most implicated in it.
The Folly, the Deerhound, and Esther Newbold, as the mistress of both, were fully canvassed, together with Miss Darling's openly expressed anger at being detained by the accusing party to give special evidence, and Mr. Tremain's extraordinary conduct in refusing to act as Miss Hildreth's solicitor; while Patricia's private life, her jewels, wealth, and beauty, were scarcely more absorbing topics than were the treachery, blackheartedness and ingratitude of Vladimir Mellikoff; who, having been received with such cordial hospitality, returned it in so evil and back-handed a fashion.
A strong party of Patricia's friends occupied prominent places, among whom were George Newbold, Sir Piers Tracey, Freddy Slade, and Jack Howard, further enforced by a feminine contingent of the super-chics, to whom a morning spent in a court of inquiry, of which they formed, as it were, an independent jury, to decide upon the guilt or innocence of one of their own sex and order, offered too new a sensation to be despised in this age of satiated experience. They came, therefore, arrayed in the most exquisite of costumes, and bringing with them their individual fads and fancies in the way of salts, eau-de-cologne, and fans. They rustled into their places with the same arrogance and assurance with which they distinguished a "first night" at Wallack's or the opera, and, raising their long tortoise-shell handled pince-nezs with elaborate superciliousness, gazed at the gathering crowd with the same indifference as they inspected the unfamiliar face of an aspirant to histrionic fame whose success was still in embryo.
Patricia Hildreth had indeed no severer tribunal to stand before than these butterflies of the hour, who were equally ready to bestow upon her smiles, congratulations, and assurances of their undeviating fidelity, or scoffs and jeers of objurgation—none the less defamatory because spoken in soft tones and with downcast eyes—according as the decision was given for or against her.
As the great clock in the tower of the City Hall struck ten, echoed by all the lesser clocks of the neighbourhood, the little crowd of black-coated lawyers and attorneys, that filled the space between the bench and a certain railed off space, within which a chair had been placed, separated, the different members taking their places to right and left of the official bench set apart for the District Judge, before whom Patricia Hildreth was to stand arraigned, by virtue of arrest, on a charge of murder. It was understood, of course, that the proceedings were in a manner informal; the inquiry purported to deal solely with the validity of the warrant issued against Miss Hildreth, and did not in any sense partake of the nature of a trial; that, should Count Mellikoff substantiate the arrest, would take place in St. Petersburg, before a Russian tribunal. Nevertheless, to all those concerned in the case, and to the onlookers, this official inquiry was regarded in the light of a trial, especially since, owing to the gravity of the circumstances, witnesses were to be allowed on both sides.
John Mainwaring's dark, clean-shaven face wore a somewhat anxious expression as he bent down towards George Newbold and spoke earnestly to him. Mr. Tremain, Esther, and Miss Darling were not present in the court-room; later they were to be called to give evidence. Count Mellikoff was there, however, looking very pale but perfectly self-possessed, his deep-set burning eyes flashing looks of disdain upon the unfriendly crowd, whose hostile expressions did not fail to reach his ears.