'It is of no use,' I said to my uncle, 'to protest, to ask what my cousins mean, or how I could have injured Matthew, had I desired. I may tell you, Sir, that I learned only a short time ago that Matthew was a gambler: that the affairs of the House were desperate: and that an attempt was to be made upon my life—an attempt of which Matthew was cognizant—even if he did not formally consent. So, Sir, I take my leave.'
They actually did not know that Matthew was within the same walls.—Father and son: the father on the Masters' side, dignified at least with the carriage of fallen authority: the son a ragged, shambling creature, with no air at all save that of decay and ruin. Unfortunate indeed was our House: dismal indeed was its fall: shameful was its end.
CHAPTER XIX
THE END OF THE CONSPIRACY
The trial of our four friends for conspiracy took place in the middle of January. For my own part, I had to relate in open Court the whole history with which you are already acquainted: the clause in my father's will giving me a chance of obtaining a large fortune if I should survive my cousin: the attempts made by Mr. Probus to persuade me to sell the chance of succession: the trumping up of a debt which never existed: my imprisonment in a debtors' Prison: my release by Jenny's assistance: the renewed attempts of Mr. Probus to gain my submission: his threats: and the truth about the alleged robbery. I also stated that two of the defendants had been imprisoned in the King's Bench at the same time as myself and that they were at that time close companions.
The Counsel for the defence cross-examined me rigorously but with no effect. My story was plain and simple. It was, in a word, so much to the interest of Mr. Probus to get me to renounce my chance that he stuck at nothing in order to effect this purpose—or my death.
I sat down and looked about me. Heavens! with what a different mind from that with which I stood in the dock now occupied by my enemies. I should have been more than human had I not felt a great satisfaction at the sight of these four men standing in a row. Let me call it gratitude, not satisfaction. The spectacle of the chief offender, the contriver of the villainy, Mr. Probus, was indeed enough to move one's heart to terror, if not to pity. The wretched man had lost, with the whole of his money, the whole of his wits. The money was his God, his Religion, his Heaven: he had lost the harvest of a life: he was old: he would get no more clients: he would save no more money. He would probably have to make a living, as others of his kind have done, by advising and acting as an attorney for the rabble of St. Giles's and Clerkenwell. He stood with rounded shoulders and bowed head: he clutched at the iron spikes before him: he pulled the sprigs of rue to pieces: he appeared to pay no attention at all to the evidence.
Mr. Merridew, on the other hand, showed in his bearing the greatest possible terror and anxiety: he gasped when his Counsel seemed to make a point in his favour: he shivered and shook when his part in the plot was exposed. He who had given evidence in so many hanging cases unconcerned, now stood in the dock himself. He was made to feel—what he had never before considered—the natural horror of the prisoner and the dreadful terror of the sentence.
The case might have been strengthened by the evidence of the landlady of the Black Jack. She, worthy soul, was out of the way, and no one inquired after her. Nor was her daughter Doll present on the occasion. But there was evidence enough. The gaolers and masters of the country prisons proved the real character of the two witnesses who called themselves respectively a clergyman and a country gentleman. Ramage, the clerk, proved, as before, that Probus brought Merridew to the Counting House. Jack, the country lad, proved the consultations at the Black Jack between Probus, Merridew, and the two others. These two, indeed, behaved with some manliness. They had given up all hope of an acquittal and could only hope that the sentence would be comparatively light. They therefore made a creditable appearance of undaunted courage, a thing which is as popular in their profession as in any other.