A fitting client--thought Brunton--for this other adulterer, this Ronald Cavendish with his gutter-press backing, to defend. But he would defend her in vain!
The K.C.'s long fingers prodded among the papers. Ever since the Cairns case, he had derived--subconsciously--a satisfaction, a secret chop-licking satisfaction, from his title of "hanging prosecutor." It was as though, harrying Mrs. Cairns to her death, he had taken his revenge on all women. And he thought: "Hilda Cairns escaped my rope. Lucy Towers shall not escape it."
Concentrating again, he reread the entire evidence. Outside it grew darker--silent. He switched on the opal-shaded reading-lamp; and sent David Patterson home. It was good--good to be alone with this chess-game of death: Messalina for its queen, his brain the mover of those pawns which would sweep her from the board.
Brunton's gray pupils shrank to pin-points. There were flaws, flaws in the evidence. The chess-board, as prepared by the solicitors for the Crown, lacked one pawn; the pawn of premeditation. Given himself, with his gift of oratory, to defend her, Lucy Towers might escape the black-cap sentence of the murderess.
Now the K. C.'s brain took the other side of the chess-board. He played the queen against himself; played her to the stalemate of "manslaughter." That would be Cavendish's gambit; a reduction of the charge.
But could Cavendish succeed?
For a long time Hector Brunton sat motionless, brooding; a cruel figure in the green glare of the desk-light. Then he drew the proof of Maggie Peterson's evidence from the paper pile; and, recasting it word by word, saw the rope tighten, tighten round his victim's neck, saw her drop feet first through the sliding floor.
God! but it would be good--good to know Cavendish beaten; to know him as incapable of defending this woman as of defending that other.
And at that, abruptly, the K.C.'s concentration snapped. The Furies were on him again, lashing at his loins, lashing him to blood-frenzy. He sprang to his feet; and his chair crashed backward as he sprang. This woman, this Lucy Towers, must hang. Hang! Between him and his enemy, between him and the man whose body possessed Aliette, she, the Messalina of the slums, stood for a symbol. Destroying the one, he would destroy all three. This was his chance; his chance for revenge.
Vengeance at last! Too long Aliette and Cavendish had eluded him--eluded the torturer.