"It is true the evidence is wholly circumstantial. No eye but God's saw this foul deed done. But since William Rufus was found dead in the New Forest, with Walter Tyrrell's arrow in his breast, men have been convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence, and will continue to be so convicted as long as probability remains the guide of life.
"I am obliged, therefore, to remand you for trial, not only on the charge of arson, but upon the graver charge of homicide involved in it under the peculiar circumstances of the case. This is not a final verdict. Far be it from me, one erring man, to say that the government has fastened this crime upon you beyond reasonable doubt. But in the face of the evidence which has been brought forward I could not order your release. It becomes my unhappy duty, as the examining magistrate, to commit you to custody, to await the approaching session of the grand jury."
When Emily Barlow awoke from her swoon she found herself in the arms of old John Davidson. Perhaps it was as well she did not hear the jeer of execration which greeted the prisoner outside when he passed over the sidewalk, ironed between two stalwart officers, into the jail van. McCausland's identification with the case had affected public opinion profoundly, for he was said never to have failed to convict a criminal whom he had once brought into court. But possibly the outburst was due to the circumstance that this was the neighborhood in which the Lacy girls lived and that their funeral had taken place that very morning.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLOUDS THICKEN.
"Shagarach is the man to defend him, Miss Barlow," said old John Davidson. She was lying back against the cushions of the cab, with cheeks as white as the handkerchief she held to her lips. For the marshal had kindly offered to accompany her home and she had told him part of her story.
She was, as McCausland had said to the district attorney, a photographic retoucher. You must know that a negative when it leaves the camera is no more fit for display than milk fresh from the cow is drinkable. All the minor blemishes which you and I, not being made in the stamp of bluff old Oliver, dislike to see perpetuated in our counterfeit presentments, must be carefully stippled out. The work is not without its irksomeness, requiring long hours of labor as well as firmness of touch. The strain upon the young lady's eyes was evident, and her face, for all its beauty, was as delicate as thinnest porcelain. One felt that her fingers, if she held them toward the sun, would show the red suffusion of a child's. But her earnings supported a family of five, and her character had won the love of Robert Floyd.
"Who is Shagarach?" she asked, as if struck by the name.
"Shagarach! Why, Shagarach's the coming man, the greatest criminal lawyer in the state and the greatest cross-examiner in the world—a mind reader, black art in it. Never lost a case."