"Then God help us, for we are lost!"
He ransacked every article of furniture the room contained. Tore open the mattresses, ripped up the boards, looked up the chimney. But there were no diamonds. And that night she slept in jail. Mr. Watson started off to tell his story to the meeting as best he might. Mr. and Mrs. Burgoyne remained behind, searching for the missing stones. About one o'clock, Mr. Watson still being absent, a telegram was received at the local police station containing instructions to detain Mrs. Burgoyne on a charge of felony, "warrant coming down by train." Mr. Watson had evidently told his story to an unsympathetic audience. Mrs. Burgoyne was arrested and taken off to the local lock-up--all idea of bail being peremptorily pooh-poohed. Mr. Burgoyne tore up to town in a state of semi-madness. When Mr. Staunton heard the story, his affliction was at least, equal to his son-in-law's. Dr. Muir was telegraphed for, and a hurried conference was held in the office of a famous criminal lawyer. That gentleman told them plainly that at present nothing could be done.
"Even suppose the diamonds are immediately forthcoming, the case will have to go before a magistrate. You don't suppose the police will allow you to compound a felony. That is what it amounts to, you know."
As for the medical point of view, it must be urged, of course; but the lawyer made no secret of his belief that if the medical point of view was all they had to depend on, the case would, of a certainty, be sent to trial.
"But it seems to me that at present there is not a tittle of evidence. Your wife, Mr. Burgoyne, has been arrested, I won't say upon your information, but on the strength of words which you allowed to escape your lips. But they can't put you in the box; you could prove nothing if they did. When the case comes on they'll ask for a remand. Probably they'll get it, one remand at any rate. I shall offer bail, which they'll accept. When the case comes on again, unless they have something to go on, which they haven't now, it will be dismissed. Mrs. Burgoyne will leave the court without a stain upon her character. We shan't even have to hint at kleptomania, or klepto anything."
More than once that night Mr. Burgoyne meditated suicide. All was over. She--his beloved!--through his folly--slept in jail. And if, by the skin of her teeth, she escaped this time, how would it be the next? She was guilty now--they might prove it then! And when he thought of the numerous precautions he had hedged her round with heretofore, it seemed marvellous that she had gone scot free so long. And suppose she had been taken at the outset of her career--in the affair of the jewels at the Grand Hotel--what would have availed any plea he might have urged before a French tribunal? He shuddered as he thought of it.
He never attempted to go to bed. He paced to and fro in his study like a caged wild animal. If he might only have shared her cell! The study was on the ground floor. It opened on to the garden. Between two and three in the morning he thought he heard a tapping at the pane. With a trembling hand he unlatched the window. A man stood without.
"Watson!"
As the name broke from him Mr. Watson staggered, rather than walked, into the room.
"I--I saw the light outside. I thought I had better knock at the window than disturb the house."