"GUILTY, MY LORD"
The days slipped away. Visitors came, gazed, and departed. Our attorney exhorted Jenny every day to consider her decision and to prepare a defence.
'Consider, Madame,' he urged earnestly, 'you will stand before a Court already prepossessed by the knowledge of your history, in your favour. There will be no pressure of points against you. It will be shown, nay, it is already well known, that you have, by your own unaided efforts, defeated a most odious conspiracy and made it possible for the conspirators to be brought to justice. This fact, further, assigns reasons and motives for the persecution and the malignity of their friends. I am prepared to show that at the time when you are charged with receiving stolen property you were occupying a fine position; that you were solvent because you were receiving large sums of money: that you were the last person to be tempted even to receive stolen goods especially those of a mean and worthless character. Those who might otherwise be ready to perjure themselves against you will be afraid to speak since this last business. You have this protection brought about by your own action. It will be impossible to prove that you had any knowledge of the property found on your premises.'
'All that is true. Yet, dear Sir, I cannot change my mind.'
'It is so true that I cannot believe it possible under the circumstances for a jury to convict: you are also, Madame, which is a very important feature in the case, possessed of a face and form whose loveliness alone proclaims your innocence.'
'Oh! Sir, if loveliness had aught to do with justice! But could I, even then, rely upon that claim?'
'Let me instruct Counsel. He will brush aside the evidence! Good Heavens! What evidence! A woman swears that she saw the property carried into your house during the whole of a certain night. That is quite possible. Certain shopkeepers have been found to swear to some of the articles found in your rooms as their own. How do they know? One bale of goods is like another. That kind of evidence is worth very little. But if the things are theirs how are you to be connected with them? I shall prove that you lived in a great house with many servants: that it was quite easy to carry things in and out of that house without your knowledge: I shall call your servants, who will swear that they know nothing of any such conveyance of goods. I will prepare a defence for you in which you will state that you had no knowledge of these things: nor do you know when, or by whom, they were brought into the house: you will point to your troop of servants, including footmen, waiters, carvers, cooks, butlers and women of all kinds: you will ask if a manager of any place of entertainment is to be held responsible for what was brought under his roof—that you were not in want of money and that if you were the rubbish lying in your garrets would be of no use to you. And so on. There could not possibly be found a better defence.'
'I know one better still,' said Jenny quietly.
'Tell me what it is, then.'
'I have already told you. Once more then. My mother has long been notorious as a receiver of stolen goods. The people used to bring their plunder to the Black Jack by a back entrance: under the house there are stone vaults and a great deal of property can be stored there. When I understood that we should want the evidence of my mother I was obliged to offer her a large sum of money as a bribe before she would consent. When she found that I would give no more, she accepted my offer but on conditions. 'Remember,' she said. 'None of us will ever be able to show our faces at the Black Jack any more. We should be murdered for sure, for going against our own people.'