"What're you doing perched out there?" he asked. "Come down with me—I'll find room for you."
"No," said Brent. "I'm all right here; I may have to leave. And I'm not on in this affair. It's Hawthwaite's show. And is he right, this time?"
"God knows!" exclaimed Tansley. "He's something up his sleeve anyway. Queerest business ever I knew! Simon! If it had been Krevin alone, now. Here, I'll sit by you—I'm not on, either—nobody's instructed me. I say, you'll not notice it, but there's never been such a show of magistrates on that bench for many a year, if ever. Crowded! every magistrate in the place present. And the chief magistrate to be in the dock presently! That's dramatic effect, if you like!"
Brent was watching the dock: prisoners came into it by a staircase at the back. Krevin came first: cool, collected, calmly defiant—outwardly, he was less concerned than any spectator. But Simon shambled heavily forward, his big, flabby face coloured with angry resentment and shame. He beckoned to his solicitor and began to talk eagerly to him over the separating partition; he, it was evident, was all nerves and eagerness. But Krevin, after a careful look round the court, during which he exchanged nods with several of his acquaintance, stood staring reflectively at Meeking, as if speculating on what the famous barrister was going to say in opening the case.
Meeking said little. The prisoners, he observed, addressing the bench in quiet, conversational tones, were charged, Krevin Crood with the actual murder of the late Mayor, John Wallingford; Simon, with being accessory to the fact, and, if they had not absconded during the previous twenty-four hours, two other well-known residents of the borough, Stephen Mallett and James Coppinger, would have stood in the dock with Simon Crood, similarly charged. He should show their worships by the evidence which he would produce that patient and exhaustive investigation by the local police had brought to light as wicked a conspiracy as could well be imagined. There could be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person after hearing that evidence, that Simon Crood, Mallett and Coppinger entered into a plot to rid themselves of a man who, had his investigations continued, would infallibly have exposed their nefarious practices to the community, nor that they employed Krevin Crood to carry out their designs. He would show that the murder of Wallingford was deliberately plotted at Mallett's house, between the four men, on a certain particular date, and that Krevin Crood committed the actual murder on the following evening. Thanks to the particularly able and careful fashion in which Superintendent Hawthwaite had marshalled the utterly damning body of evidence against these men, their Worships would have no difficulty in deciding that there was a prima facie case against them and that they must be committed to take their trial at the next Assizes.
Hawthwaite, called first, gave evidence as to the arrest of the two prisoners. He arrested Krevin Crood in the passage leading from Bull's Snug about 6.30 the previous evening, and Simon at his own home, half an hour later. Krevin took the matter calmly, and merely remarked that he, Hawthwaite, was making the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life; Simon manifested great anger and indignation, and threatened an action for false imprisonment. When actually charged neither of the accused made any answer at all.
The superintendent stood down, and Meeking looked towards an inner door of the court. An attendant came forward at his nod, bearing a heavy package done up in Crown canvas and sealed. At the same moment a smart-looking young man answered to the name of Samuel Owthwaite and stepped alertly into the witness-box.