In spite of all that he had been through and all that he was facing, Kittredge looked surprisingly well. A little pale, perhaps, but game to the end, and ready always with his good-natured smile. All the ladies liked him. He had such nice teeth and such well-kept hands! A murderer with those kind, jolly eyes? Never in the world! they vowed, and smiled and stared their encouragement.
A close observer would have noticed, however, that Lloyd's eyes were anxious as they swept the spread of faces before him; they were searching, searching for one face that they could not find. Where was Alice? Why had she sent him no word? Was she ill? Had any harm befallen her? Where was Alice?
So absorbed was Kittredge in these reflections that he scarcely heard the thundering denunciations hurled at him by the public prosecutor in his fierce and final demand that blood be the price of blood and that the extreme penalty of the law be meted out to this young monster of wickedness and dissimulation.
Nor did Lloyd notice the stir when one of the court attendants made way through the crush for a distinguished-looking man, evidently a person of particular importance, who was given a chair on the platform occupied by the three black-robed judges.
"The Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck!" whispered eager tongues, and straightway the awe-inspiring name was passed from mouth to mouth. The Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck! He had dropped in in a dilettante spirit to hear the spirited debate, and the judges were greatly honored.
Alas for the baron! It was surely some sinister prompting that brought him here to-day, so coldly complacent as he nodded to the presiding judge, so quietly indifferent as he glanced at the prisoner through his single eyeglass. The gods had given Coquenil a spectacular setting for his triumph!
And now, suddenly, the blow fell. As the prosecuting officer soared along in his oratorial flight, a note was passed unobtrusively to the presiding judge, a modest little note folded on itself without even an envelope to hold it. For several minutes the note lay unnoticed; then the judge, with careless eye, glanced over it; then he started, frowned, and his quick rereading showed that a spark of something had flashed from that scrap of paper.
The presiding judge leaned quickly toward his associate on the right and whispered earnestly, then toward his associate on the left, and, one after another, the three magistrates studied this startling communication, nodding learned heads and lowering judicial eyebrows. The public prosecutor blazed through his peroration to an inattentive bench.
No sooner had the speaker finished than the clerk of the court announced a brief recess, during which the judges withdrew for deliberation and the audience buzzed their wonder. During this interval the Baron de Heidelmann-Bruck looked frankly bored.
On the return of the three, an announcement was made by the presiding judge that important new evidence in the case had been received, evidence of so unusual a character that the judges had unanimously decided to interrupt proceedings for a public hearing of the evidence in question. It was further ordered that no one be allowed to leave the courtroom under any circumstances.