The morning saw him living up to his promise; and long before the arrival of the magistrate or, indeed, before the night’s harvest of prisoners was brought over from the lockup and thrust into the three little “detention rooms” below the court, he was there with Dollops and Ducroix, observing with wonder that groups of evil-looking fellows of the Apache breed were hanging round the building as he approached, and that later on others of the same kidney slipped in and took seats in the little courtroom and kept constantly whispering one to the other while they waited for the morning session to begin.
“Gawd’s truth, guv’ner, look at ’em—the ’ole blessed place is alive with the bounders,” whispered Dollops. “Wot do you think they are up to, sir? Makin’ a rush and settin’ the pedler free when he comes up before the Beak? There’s twenty of ’em waitin’ round the door if there’s one.”
Narkom made no reply. The arrival of the magistrate focussed all eyes on the bench and riveted his attention with the rest.
The proceedings opened with all the trivial cases first—the night’s sweep of the dragnet: drunks and disorderlies, vagrants and pariahs. One by one these were brought in and paid their fines and went their way, unheeded; for this part of the morning’s proceedings interested nobody, not even the Apaches. The list was dragged through monotonously; the last blear-eyed sot—a hideous, cadaverous, monkey-faced wretch whose brutal countenance sickened Narkom when he shambled up in his filthy rags—had paid his fine, and gone his way, and there remained now but a case of attempted suicide to be disposed of before the serious cases began. This latter occupied the magistrate’s time and attention for perhaps twenty minutes or so, then that, too, was disposed of; and then a voice was heard calling out for the unknown man arrested last night at the Inn of the Seven Sinners to be brought forward.
In an instant a ripple of excitement ran through the little court. The Apache fraternity sat up within and passed the word to the Apache fraternity without, and these stood at attention—close-lipped, dark-browed, eager, like human tigers waiting for the word to spring. Every eye was fixed on the door through which that pretended mute should be led in; but although others had come at the first call, he came not even at the second, and the magistrate had just issued an impatient command for the case to be called yet a third time, when there was a clatter of hasty footsteps and the keeper of the detention rooms burst into the court pale as a dead man and shaking in every nerve.
“M’sieur le Juge!” he cried out, extending his two arms. “Soul of Misfortunes, how shall I tell? He is not there—he is gone—he is escape, that unknown one. When I shall unlock the room and call for Jean Lamareau, the drunkard, at the case before the last, there shall come out of the dimness to me what I shall think is he and I shall bring him here and he shall be fine and dismissed. But, m’sieur, he shall not be Jean Lamareau after all! I shall go now and call for the unknown and I shall get no answer; I shall go in and make of the place light, and there he shall be, that real Jean Lamareau—stripped of his clothes, choked to unconsciousness, alone on the floor, and the other shall have paid his fine and gone!”
A great cry went up, a wild confusion filled the court. The Apaches within rose and ran with the news to the Apaches without; and these, joining forces, scattered and ran through the streets in the direction the escaped prisoner had been seen to take.
But through it all Narkom sat there squeezing his hands together and laughing in little shaking gusts that had a heart throb wavering through them; for to him this could mean but one thing.
“Cleek!” he said, leaning down and shrilling a joyous whisper into Dollops’ ear. “But one man in all the world could have done that thing—but one man in all the world would have dared. It was he—it was Cleek! God bless his bully soul!”