"It seems that he was in the court-house as a spectator during the trial. He didn't know me at the time, though he might, for he seems to have been in this neighborhood time and again,--at least in the State. He is a trouble man himself,--some ten years ago he shot and killed a State senator here in Saintsbury. He was acquitted, because he got some friends to swear that Senator Benbow had made a motion as though to draw a gun, though he was found afterwards to be unarmed. But popular anger was so aroused against him, he had to leave the State, and he has drifted down stream ever since,--pretty far down, I imagine; fairly subterranean at times. All this I have found out since he forced his acquaintance upon me. I knew nothing of him before."
"What is his name? Where is he to be found?"
"Alfred Barker. He has an office in the Phœnix Building at present. Whether he has any legitimate business I do not know. He hangs out under the shingle of the Western Land and Improvement Co., but I have a feeling that that is only a cover."
"A man who has lived that sort of a life is probably vulnerable," I said cheerfully. "I'll see what I can find out about him. In the meantime, I, as your attorney, will keep this appointment for you next Monday evening."
"I thought that would probably be your plan. But now that I have put it into your hands, I am more than half sorry I did not keep it to myself and meet him with a revolver."
I shook my head. "For a burnt child, you have curiously little respect for the fire of the law."
Clyde had risen, and he stood looking at me with an impersonal sternness that made his eyes hard.
"My life, and, what I value far more, my reputation, my name, are in that fellow's hands. And he is an unhung murderer,--his life is already forfeit."
"His time will come," I said hastily. My new client looked altogether too much as though he were disposed to hurry on the slow-paced law! I could not encourage such reflections.
Clyde nodded, but with an absent air, as though he were following his own thoughts rather than my words, and soon took his leave.