CHAPTER I
THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE
London, in the spring! Sunshine; the Thames agleam with silver ripples, singing as it flows; red sails! Joyous London that has emerged from fogs and basks beneath blue skies! Thoroughfares that give forth a glad hum; wheels singing, too; whips that crack in sprightly arpeggios. On the streets, people, not shadows, who walk with a swing; who really seem to breathe and not slink uncannily by! Eyes that regard you with human expression; faces that seem capable of emotion; figures adorned in keeping with the bright realities of the moment. London; old London young again; grimy, repulsive London now bright, shimmering, beautiful!
In such a London, on such a day, about ten o'clock in the morning, three persons whose appearance distinguished them from the ordinary passers-by, turned into a narrow thoroughfare not far from the Strand.
"Quite worth while going to hear John Steele conduct for his client, I assure you!" observed one, a tall, military-looking man, who walked with a slight limp and carried a cane. "He's a new man, but he's making his mark. When he asked to be admitted to the English bar, he surprised even his examiners. His summing-up in the Doughertie murder case was, I heard his lordship remark, one of the most masterly efforts he ever listened to. Just tore the circumstantial evidence to pieces and freed his man! Besides his profession at the bar, he is an unusually gifted criminologist; takes a strong personal interest in the lowest riffraff; is writing a book, I understand--one of the kind that will throw a new light on the subject."
"Just what is a criminologist?" The speaker, a girl of about eighteen, turned as she lightly asked the question, to glance over her shoulder toward several persons who followed them.
"One who seeks to apply to the criminal the methods of psychology, psychiatry and anthropology," he answered with jesting impressiveness.
She laughed. "But you said this Mr. Steele comes from our part of the world, did you not, Captain Forsythe?"
"So I understand, Miss Jocelyn. Not much of a person to talk about himself, don't you know,"--tentatively stroking an imposing pair of mustaches, tinged with gray,--"but he has mentioned, I believe, living in New Zealand; or was it Australia?"
"Australia?" the cold, metallic tones of the third person, a man of about three-and-thirty, inquired. "Most likely the other place, or we should have heard--"