Always the Babbington case; everywhere the Babbington case.
It was the talk of the town, and of a dozen other towns; newspapers in Europe received cabled reports of it. The reputation of it was world-wide. It was discussed in Paris and in London, as well as in New York and Newport, Lenox and Lakewood. The Babbington case absorbed the interest of the hour in all quarters, and in almost every walk of life.
Nick Carter confessed to himself that he had never before been instrumental in bringing a case to justice that received quite the amount of attention and comment that the Babbington case was getting.
Her lawyers had put in a masterly defense, and they were great lawyers, who were familiar with every quip and trick of a court trial. Nick Carter had no doubt that the woman would go free, notwithstanding the fact that he personally knew her to be as guilty of the crime as the man who had actually committed it. Therefore he was not surprised when the foreman of the jury pronounced the two words which set her free:
“Not guilty.�
There were cheers in the courtroom, and some hisses, at the pronouncement; both quickly suppressed by the court officers.
The law was guilty of no delay in its dealings with Thomas Lynne. Before Mrs. Babbington was brought to trial, Thomas Lynne had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
In her defense Mrs. Babbington admitted meeting the murderer in Scotland, and becoming engaged to him, but insisted that she had no idea that it was not J. Cephas Lynne, the father of Edythe, to whom she had become engaged, and that she believed, as others had been led to believe, that it was the valet and not the master who had died so suddenly in Switzerland.
The jury chose to credit her story rather than to believe the theory of the prosecution. That is the whole story of the crime, the trial, and the acquittal.
Such was the end of that other chapter of crime and sorrow and sudden death; and such is the beginning of the present history which we have chosen to call “The Babbington Case,� because it all came about in a measure as a consequence of that trial.