“Of course,” he said, “I speak only of my impression, but that is that she may rely absolutely upon his adopting this course.”
“I trust this enables us to end this interview,” she said, with no relaxation of her dignity.
CHAPTER VII
Hunting Broken Bones
MILLBANK cherished its tragedy as something that gave it pre-eminence among its neighbours, and half the male population turned detectives on the spot. To many members of the community, however, the affair bore a most serious aspect, heightened by the conviction that no actual progress had been made towards the solution of the mystery. Such men as McManus, the county attorney, and the town counsel, looked upon the testimony which tended to implicate Oldbeg as a concession to the public demand that something should be done, and as covering rather than revealing the serious business of the investigation. They were inclined to be indignant at what they regarded as the direction of unjust suspicion against an innocent person, and the more so when they saw how public sentiment was roused against the unfortunate man.
In fact, there were whispers among the least responsible that if the law was to interpose delays, it might become the duty of the citizens to take the execution of justice into their own hands. It was the county judge who first called attention to the danger to the town and county that lurked in such loose talk, indulged in at the start by idle men and boys, but working as a leaven that might finally affect the entire community.
“There’s just the material down there to give your town a blacker tragedy than it’s had yet,” he said to McManus one day after court. “The guilty had better go unpunished than be punished through violation of the law.”
McManus turned sharply, with that nervous quickness that made him forget the judge in the speaker:
“The guilty! The guilty! No man is guilty till the law has found him so! How long since suspicion was proof?”
The judge, who appreciated the strain which the death of his partner and friend had thrown upon McManus, let the brusqueness of the answer pass, but still was insistent: