“He won’t.”
“I’d sure like to see her,” said Jimmy.
CHAPTER X
THE ALIBI
“And all love’s clanging trumpets shocked and blew.”
“The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from; that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn’t going to begin at his time of life.”—Alice in Wonderland.
The justice of the peace, when the county court was not in session, held hearings in the courtroom proper, which occupied the entire second story of the county courthouse. The room was crowded. It was a new courthouse; there are people impatient to try even a new hearse; and this bade fair to be Arcadia’s first cause célèbre.
Jeff sat in the prisoner’s stall, a target for boring eyes. He was conscious of an undesirable situation; exactly how tight a place it was he had no means of knowing until he should have heard the evidence. The room was plainly hostile; black looks were cast upon him. Deputy Phillips, as he entered arm in arm with the sometime devil, gave the prisoner an intent but non-committal look, which Jeff rightly interpreted as assurance of a friend in ambush; he felt unaccountably sure of the devil’s fraternal aid; Monte, lolling within the rail of the witness-box, smiled across at him. Still, he would have felt better for another friendly face or two, he thought—say, John Wesley Pringle’s.