At the “Monopôle”—having, of course, no notion who I really was—they were very polite. No, Madame Wingham was not in; they couldn’t say where she was; a letter had come for her early and she had gone out. Instinctively, I felt the letter was from Teddy, imploring succor.
I left the hotel at once and drove straight up to Monaco. At the cathedral I dismissed the carriage and walked on to the law courts. What to do I had no idea; watch the proceedings, at any rate, incognito from the back, and, at the worst, hear with my own sad ears how much poor Teddy got. Any thought of rescue was, of course, out of the question. What could a poor old person of sixty do against soldiers and gendarmes?
The criminal court of Monaco sits in a bare upper room, close to the cathedral. Outside, steep steps of the usual Palais de Justice inverted V-shape lead up to it, with, at their head, a bare flag-pole, like a barber’s sign. Up the steps I walked, and with beating heart (for my own sake, I confess, as much as for poor Teddy’s) entered the fatal, the lethal chamber. It was very full and stuffy. News of our victory and the capture of one of the band no doubt had spread, for the public part was crammed, tightly as sardines and garlic. Facing, under a crucifix, from over which the dingy green curtain was drawn, sat three judges; three real judges, in their bands and toques and ermine! Common white bedroom blinds scarcely kept the sun out, streaming in mistily on the members of the bar in beards and gowns, on the greffier busily writing, and the usher waiting to summon the luckless Parsons to the dock. Just at present the judges were bending the weight of their intellects on a couple of market-women charged with fighting; and there, tightly wedged against the partition, stood the forlorn Mrs. Wingham, a handkerchief in her black kid grasp, bending and talking tearfully to the barrister seated below, whom she apparently had engaged for the defence.
I made my way to her and pulled her sleeve.
“Come outside,” I whispered; “it’s I—hush!—Vincent Blacker.”
She stared at me, and then at last followed obediently to the door. We stood outside at the head of the steps.
“They’ve got him, I suppose?” I asked.
“Oh, you cowards!” she gasped, “to run away and leave him.”
“Never mind that now,” I answered; “I have come back, at any rate. Let us consider what can be done. You’ve got some one to defend him?”
“But the man talks such horrible French, I can’t understand a word he says,” she moaned, “and he reeks of garlic. And where’s my brother, James Thompson?”