"I have no further questions to ask you." To the magistrate: "The observation I desire to make is this. No one can be more anxious than the accused that the fullest light should be thrown upon this sad affair, and that the murderer of his father shall be brought to justice. He himself has offered a reward of £500 for the discovery of the murderer. But we enter a strong protest to any unnecessary delay in the disclosure of the evidence we have to combat. To arrest a man on a charge so serious without sufficient evidence to support it, and merely because the police deem it necessary that some person should be put on his trial, would be monstrous. I make no complaint against the police, but there have been occasions on which they have erred, and have inflicted cruel injustice upon innocent persons. There was the Great Porter Square case, in which a son, accused of the murder of his father, was brought up at the magistrate's court no fewer than seven times. The police had nothing against him, and he was eventually proved to be innocent. I trust similar tactics will not be pursued in the present case. To any unnecessary delay we shall offer the most strenuous opposition. Will bail be allowed?"
The Magistrate: "No. I have no doubt the police will do their duty. The case stands adjourned till this day week, at eleven in the morning."
CHAPTER LV.
[CONSTABLE APPLEBEE ON THE WATCH.]
A man may be an easy-going man all his life, and go down to his grave without anything occurring to take him, as it were, out of himself, or to make him, either suddenly or by gradual stages, a different being from that which those most intimate with him believe him to be. We have seen this exemplified in Dick Remington, who, from an easy-going, irresponsible being, with no definite or serious aim in life, and with an apparently conspicuous lack of industry and application, has suddenly become an earnest, strong-minded, strong-willed man, bent upon a task which would tax the most astute intellect.
An experience of this nature, but in a different way, had come to Constable Applebee, in whose mind certain agitating visions had been conjured up by the appearance of the reward bills. The usually calm depths were stirred, and the peaceful current of his daily duties became convulsed. If he could earn only one of the rewards he was a made man, let alone the chances of promotion. The prospect was alluringly disturbing, and it made Constable Applebee restless and watchful. When a dull man gets an idea into his head it becomes a fixture; to argue with him is time thrown away; it is there, and he sticks to it, perhaps because of its novelty; and when that idea carries with it the prospect of a lump of money all the logicians in the world are powerless to remove it until the sterner logic of fact, proves it to be false. And even then he doubts and shakes his head.
Applebee's idea, which had created these visions of fame and a golden future, was that the man who had committed the murder and who had the jewels in his possession, was no other than Mr. Dick Remington. Whether he alone was the culprit, or in collusion with Mr. Reginald Boyd, time would show.
He kept his counsel; not even in the wife of his bosom did he confide. He knew that Detective Lambert had the case in hand, the great detective who had brought so many mysterious crimes to light. What if he, Applebee, could succeed in proving himself Lambert's equal and snatching the prize from him? The prospect of such a triumph was dazzling. Dick met Applebee at the entrance of Deadman's Court, and gave him good evening.
"Good evening," said Constable Applebee.
He was not a man of overpowering intellect, and with this weighty matter in his mind he had not the wit to say good evening in his usual cordial manner. Dick noticed the change of tone, but attached no importance to it.