Читать книгу The Man who was Two - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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The weary time had dragged on with one adjournment after another, until at length Raymond Mallison was committed for trial on a charge of attempted murder. Fortunately for him, Walter Pennington's injuries had not proved fatal, though it was doubtful if the injured man would ever be himself again. There had been some trouble which had interfered with the spine, and it looked as if Pennington would in future be a hopeless imbecile. All this had taken time, and when the day came for Mallison to take his trial at the Central Criminal Court, more than four months had elapsed. During that period nothing had been heard of Gilette except a postcard or two from the Argentine, and it was just like that brilliantly erratic genius to put in a dramatic appearance at a psychological moment. He dropped in on Sir Marston the night before the trial as if he had not been away at all.

"Well, here we are again," he said. "Just back from foreign shores. I have had a fine time out yonder, and I can tell you that the big film story moves apace. I have got all the Argentine details worked out, and I am back here because I feel it in my bones that the dramatic climax will take place in England."

"It all sounds very interesting," Sir Marston smiled. "But what have you been doing all the time?"

"Oh, practically everything. Clerk in a store, cattle-driving up country. For a whole fortnight I posed before an audience of cowboys as a magician. Jolly successful, too. As a conjuror they regarded me as 'It.' But never mind about me. Is it true that Mallison is to be tried to-morrow?"

Sir Marston nodded, and Gilette went on.

"Poor chap," he said. "It's a rum thing, Sir Marston, that I never ran against him. I know Peggy well enough, and I have been coming and going to Merston for years. And yet I never had a chance to see Mallison. I don't even know what he's like."

"Oh, well," Sir Marston said. "It doesn't matter. You see in Mallison's early days I had not the privilege of being your guardian. You never came to Merston when you were a schoolboy, and when you began visiting my Merston studio Mallison was in London carving out his career. But I suppose you'll go to the court to-morrow?"

"Why, yes," Gilette said dryly. "I came back almost on purpose. Unless I am greatly mistaken, that trial scene will figure in my big cinema play. But what about Peggy?"

"Oh, the poor child's bearing up well enough," the painter explained. "I believe she insists upon being present. I have tried my best to dissuade her, and so has Hetty, but all to no avail. I think it is a great mistake. Mallison is bound to be convicted; in fact, there is no alternative. As a protest I propose to stay away myself. I may have to attend as a witness to character, but beyond that I would rather keep out of it."

It was a grey and gloomy day that dawned on Mallison's trial, and the Central Criminal Court bore a chilling and forbidding aspect as Gilette turned into the building in company with Peggy Ferriss and Hetty Bond. He had gone round at Mrs. Bond's house with the idea of giving the girls some support, and Peggy had clutched at it gratefully. She looked very pale and drawn, and was evidently suffering keenly from the suspense and mental agony of the past few months. Moreover there was nothing in the way of hope to sustain her. She had tried to convince herself that some time or another the truth would be established, and the overwhelming evidence against Roy Mallison be dissipated by the cold logic of events. But nothing in the way of a miracle had happened, and she knew now that Mallison would have to suffer for what she was convinced was the crime of another. She sat there, in a dim corner of the court, watching the proceedings, and each minute becoming more and more convinced that there was no hope for the man in the dock. It seemed to her that the whole thing was some evil dream, and that the slight figure there, the centre of all eyes, was not her lover but some figment of a diseased imagination. And when the time came to adjourn for luncheon, and the crushing weight of evidence against the prisoner piled higher and higher, she felt that she could stand it no longer.

"Take me away," she whispered to Hetty.

"Take me back to your house and let me lie somewhere and die. Oh, why did I come? Why didn't I listen to reason?"

Gilette rose promptly enough and presently put the two girls into a taxi. He came back to the court-house after lunch, and sat there following the proceedings with the deepest interest until at length the judge summed up dead against the prisoner, and the jury had retired to consider their verdict. It was impossible for Gilette to see the prisoner's face, for he kept it more or less steadily turned to the jury box, and, moreover, in the dimly-lighted court with its grey, depressing atmosphere, it was impossible to recognise anyone even a few yards away. Then with a sudden restlessness, which he would have found it difficult to account for, Gilette rose and left the court. He knew that it would be some time before the jury came back with their verdict, for the prisoner's counsel had raised one or two ingenious legal points, and these the judge had been at some pains to explain to the jury.

It was nearly dark when Gilette reached the street, and a cold slanting rain had already begun to fall, but he hardly heeded this, for his mind just then was far away. Nobody knew except himself how this tangled skein of crime and mystery was inexplicably wound in with the strange course of events which had sent him hot-foot to the Argentine. But sooner or later, unless he was greatly mistaken, the broken pieces of the puzzle would be fitted together and the amazing story brought to a logical conclusion. All this was rather confused and mixed in Gilette's mind, but that sanguine temperament of his, admitted of no failure. He walked along the dark wet streets seeing men as trees, and more or less lost to his surroundings. He was even unaware of the fact that it was raining; he was a different Gilette altogether from the volatile humorous youth that most of his friends accepted as the real man. And just then, when his thoughts were farthest enough away, he almost collided with a slender, veiled figure coming towards him.

"I--I beg your pardon," he said, snatching at his hat. "Really, I--Peggy, good heavens, is that you?"

"I couldn't help it," Peggy said in a small, still voice. "I lay on my bed trying to sleep, but thinking, thinking, until I felt as if I was going mad. Then I slipped out without the others knowing, and came down here, because I could not wait for the verdict. Not but what I know exactly what it will be. Let us walk. Somewhere, anywhere, so that I can get away from myself. I suppose that it is not all over yet?"

"I think not," Gilette said. "That's what I'm waiting for. My dear girl, I have grown as restless as you are--I simply couldn't stay in court. Look here, let me put you into a cab. Do you know how hard it is raining?"

"Oh, what does that matter?" Peggy cried. "What does it matter if I'm wet through? Let us walk."

They moved along the streets in silence for the best part of an hour or more, but always coming hack to the place where they had met, and where they were likely to get the first news. It was raining dismally still, a thin driving pencil of rain volleyed down the streets by the strong wind that was blowing. And so they wandered on side by side until presently a newsboy appeared in the distance shouting his wares. He came long, heedless of the storm, with a pile of wet sheets on his shoulders.

"'Evenin' Noos,'" he cried. "'Evenin' Noos.' Six-thirty edition. All the winners. Dastardly outrage in Clerkenwell. The Pennington case. Verdict of the jury. Speshul."

Peggy drew a long deep breath. Then she threw back her veil and looked Gilette straight in the face. She was deadly pale, but her eyes were brave enough.

"Get a paper," she whispered.

Gilette snatched a paper from the boy's shoulder and flung him a coin. Then he fluttered over the damp leaves until he came to the blank whiteness of the Stop Press column, and his eyes followed the one blurred line in the centre of it. The rain spat on the paper and blurred it still worse.

"Pennington Case," he read. "Verdict. Five years' penal servitude." And that was all.