"What kind of a case is it?" she inquired.
"A murder case. Some Irishmen were engaged in a row, when one of the party received a knock on his head that proved too much for him, and died in consequence. My client was one of the contending parties; and has been suspected, from some imprudent expressions of his, to have been the man who struck the fatal blow. His preliminary examination comes off to-morrow or next day, and I must be present as a matter of course."
At an early hour of the morning succeeding this conversation, Mr. Stevens might have been seen in his dingy office, seated at a rickety desk which was covered with various little bundles, carefully tied with red tape. The room was gloomy and cheerless, and had a mouldy disagreeable atmosphere. A fire burned in the coal stove, which, however, seemed only to warm, but did not dry the apartment; and the windows were covered with a thin coating of vapour.
Mr. Stevens was busily engaged in writing, when hearing footsteps behind him, he turned and saw Mr. Egan, a friend of his client, entering the room.
"Good morning, Mr. Egan," said he, extending his hand; "how is our friend
McCloskey this morning?"
"Oh, it's far down in the mouth he is, be jabers—the life a'most scared out of him!"
"Tell him to keep up a good heart and not to be frightened at trifles," laughingly remarked Mr. Stevens.
"Can't your honour come and see him?" asked Egan.
"I can't do that; but I'll give you a note to Constable Berry, and he will bring McCloskey in here as he takes him to court;" and Mr. Stevens immediately wrote the note, which Egan received and departed.
After the lapse of a few hours, McCloskey was brought by the accommodating constable to the office of Mr. Stevens. "He'll be safe with you, I suppose, Stevens;" said the constable, "but then there is no harm in seeing for one's self that all's secure;" and thus speaking, he raised the window and looked into the yard below. The height was too great for his prisoner to escape in that direction; then satisfying himself that the other door only opened into a closet, he retired, locking Mr. Stevens and his client in the room.