The trial had proceeded swiftly, as was the way with the Supreme Court in Calford. Already the late winter day was drawing to its close. The carefully screened lights had been lit, and the heavy haze prevailing had contrived to depress their brilliancy.
The Court was crowded from end to end. A sea of intent faces filled the background of at least three walls. The fourth was where sat Chief Justice Pansarta, and other officials of the Court. Every face was slightly raised and peering, even amongst the most hardened servants of the law. It was as though all were determined to miss nothing of interest, no display of emotion, no sign that might be given by any of the principals in the moving drama. It was all powerfully human. And it had the effect of reducing every soul in the place to a single level.
It was no different in the well of the Court. Counsel, and official, and privileged spectator, sat packed together in the limited space at disposal. And above the intense, though restless hush rose and fell the tones of the voices of the various actors; counsel, witness, judge, and ushers.
The only spectator with space at his disposal was Superintendent Croisette, who sat alone at the little table set aside for the use of Mounted Police officials. He sat with his alert face supported on his hand, and in such a position that the entire Court came under his scrutiny. His keen gray eyes were watching, searching. And his ears were strained for every inflection in the voices to which he was listening. He knew the crux of the trial had been reached. Annette Estevan was in the witness box. And she had just concluded her evidence in chief.
And what evidence it had been. The girl had told it with damning clarity under the skilful shepherding of the prosecuting counsel. It was full of all that which drives the human soul to bitter partisanship against the wrongdoer.
But Superintendent Croisette had had enough of Annette, and the story he knew almost by heart. It was the same, dreadfully the same, as he and Fyles had searched together. The story Annette had told at the preliminary hearing had not been changed one iota.
Croisette had watched closely during the recital of the girl’s evidence. He had been looking for revealing signs. And he had not been wholly disappointed.
The dusky cheeks had become almost ashen under the girl’s ordeal. Her big eyes were restless and burning. There had been a telltale averting whenever it was possible to escape the compelling gaze of the counsel inviting her story. Furthermore, at no moment was her look steady. There were moments, too, when real passion swept the girl in fierce, stormy gusts. They were the moments when she was forced to bare her woman’s secrets to the Court.
Croisette realized Annette’s unquestioning belief in the Wolf’s guilt. And so he was able the more surely to dismiss the ultimate theory of Sergeant Fyles. But he also realized something else. Annette was nearly at the extremity of her nervous resources. And he wondered how she would endure the cross-examination now about to start.
He was glad to turn from the sight of Annette’s gripping hands upon the rail of the witness box to the easy, lounging, unemotional figure of the prisoner in the dock.