CHAPTER XXXVII
It was two o'clock and ten minutes. The eleven remaining spectators, one of them a woman in evening dress, were sound asleep. The sheriff was pacing up and down with his hands behind his back, his perturbed glance ranging between the clock and the door leading into the jury-room. Occasionally he slipped on a bit of the debris and kicked it aside. The reporters slumbered at their tables or stared moodily ahead. One gnawed his pencil; another tore leaves of copy paper into morsels and laboriously built something that looked like a child's house of blocks. Outside it was deathly still. The snow was falling softly. It was too early for a cock-crow. Occasionally some one snored. The footfalls of the sheriff made no noise.
Suddenly every reporter present sat up with the scent of blood in his nostrils. Their ears twitched. The fumes blew out of their highly organised brains like mist before a bracing wind. An automobile was dashing down the road, its horn shrieking a series of brief peremptory notes, which sounded like "Wait! Wait! Wait!"
It came to an abrupt halt before the Court-house door, and almost simultaneously Wagstaff, who had wandered forth once more, ran up the stairs and into the court-room.
"There's something in the wind, boys," he cried, smoothing his hair and steering carefully for his chair. "Rush, Broderick, three other men, Sarah Austin and Alys Crumley, were in that car. They've all gone straight to the Judge. Something big is going to break, as sure as death."
The sheriff retired hastily to the region behind the court-room.
The young men adjusted their chairs, arranged their copy-paper neatly, and sharpened their pencils. Mrs. Balfame's friends went forward to the door behind the jury-box which led to the tunnel. Even the sleepy spectators sat up nervously.
Ten minutes passed. Then the sheriff, his face now stolid and important, bustled in and across to the jury-room, opened the door and summoned the occupants. In every stage of dishabille they filed sullenly in; the sheriff went through the tunnel for Mrs. Balfame.
The Judge, without his gown and his hair ruffled, was in his seat when the prisoner entered. She came hurriedly, her great repose broken, her face grey. Rush, who had entered behind the Judge, met her and whispered: