THE STORYTELLER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8783, 13 July 1914, Page 5

THE STORYTELLER

THE RIGHT WOMAN —THE WRONG MAN CHAPTER XXXIL ‘•lt would be so-much wiser if you would acknowledge things.” •‘But I have nothing to acknowledge.” it was the morning of the trial, and Bob and his solicitor were together in the cell. It was what is called by courtesy a furnished cell, that is, R had a strip of carpet, a table, a cbair. Bob sat iu the chan. 'lhe month’s confinement, four long weeks of inaction, in which all there was to do was to ponder and puzzle over this thing that had befallen him, had left indelible marks on his face. His solicitor .paced restlessly up and down the strip of carpet, and it was quite evident that of Bob's reiterated protestations ot innocence ho did not believe one single word. “Well, of course, I’vo instructed .Bradbury in exact 'accordance with what you say. But there’s time yet, you know, to completely alter the line of defence if only you would. Bradbury advises it, strongly. If you would only plead provocation, say it was an accident, you’d get off, 1 believe, scot free. But to stick to this uncompromisingdenial. Well, you know, it’s fatal.” “I stick to the truth,” said Bob doggedly. “I never saw the fellow. I’ve no doubt he had other enemies. There’s evidently someone else besides me who hated him.”

“Yes, I dare say—if only wo could find him. But w© can’t. There isn't even a suggestion of ill-will on anybody’s part but yours. Come, Mr Carteret, why not take up that line of defence, even if it isn’t accurate in all its details?'’

“Because it’s a lie,” said Bob bluntly, “and I'm not going to tell a lie to save my neck twice over. I’ll never believe a jury -would convict on the evidence against me.’’ “You’ve got Soamcs against you*” said the solicitor gloomily, “and he’s bent on a conviction. One can’t say which way .tilings’ll go.” “And the chances are against me!”' The solicitor nociticu. Very emphatically they were. • “Well, good-bye, Mr Carteret,” he said, with almost too pronounced a cheerfulness, “keep your spirits up. Bradbury vdi 11 do Tils "best tor yob. He’ll get you off if any man can.” • And whilst Bob sat in his cell, and waited doggedly for the moment when he must stand in the prisoner’s dock on trial for his life, a dark-eyed girl was waiting on the stops of the grimy little court-house for the opening of tho doors. She went in among the first, and mad© her way straight to the seat she had decided upon yesterday, a seat from which she could see judge, jury, and, above and beyond all, the prisoner at the, bar. How would he look after the long weeks of waiting? What would he think of her should h© ever know that by a word she could have released him —and she had failed to speak that word? All the four long weeks Daphne had been silent, torn between.,conflicting duties, afraid either to speak or be silent, uelpless to save the man she loved except by betraying tho man she had married. For to all her entreaties and persuasions Freddie steadily turnled a deaf ear. He would neither see [her nor answer Iter letters. All hope that he would move in the matter was dead. And without him Daphne could do nothing. “Unless they sentence him,” she whispered to herself, her hands twisted hard together to still their’ tremblImg under rne dark cloak she wore. “If they sentence him I shall speak. ,It may not be any good, they may not jbelieve me, the whole world will blame |me—but I can’t let him suffer unjustly. If they punish him I will tell everything.” She had not seen, him, though Dyn and Susie bad botn visited him in prison, and Susie had plainly expected her to go, too. But had she seen him she must have told all that she knew, and to the very end she had hoped that such conscience as Freddie possessed might yet assert itself, and drive him into paths of repentance and peace. Bob had written to her once—just one or two lines. “Yon will hear evil of me. Please don’t ‘believe it. lam quite innocent.” And jshe had replied in two words only: “I know.” That was all. He did not sc© her when, the first strangeness of His position "gone, his glance ran round the crowded court. The November day was murky and dim, and the gaslight: showed him nothing but a blur of • unfamiliar faces. He did not even see his father, not many-yards away, until he heard his [agonised “Oh, Bob, my lad.” Daphne said nothing. Every sense she had seemed absorbed in gazing, gazing at the altered face that, but for her, need have known nothing of these weeks of pain. But her indecision, her vacillation was over now. They might [refuse to hear her, but before they could stop her she would tell "che truth—if they sentenced him. The long day of bewildering cere[monial and dreary routine wore itself away. Counsel for the prosecution had spoken, piling up with deadly accuracy one black fact after another against Robert Carteret’s chance of acquittal. The court had adjourned for luncheon quit© cheerfully and as a matter of course, though a man’s life hung in the balance. And after luncheon Evan Bradbury, K.C.-, Robert’s counsel, replied. How futile it sounded, even in Robert Carteret’s own ears. What did it amount to, after all? An unsupported denial of what looked like indisputable facts. It was tame, flat, absolutely unconvincing. He could not shake the testimony of any one . of Soames’ witnesses, ho could not offer any alternative theory to that set up by the prosecution, he could only deny. Did the fellow himself believe in his . innocence, Bob asked himself frowning at him across the dusty well of the court?

Then came the judge’s summing-up, dead against the prisoner, as ho pointed with unerring, judicial finger to motive, opportunity, and crime. “We have heard, gentlemen of the jury, of the sudden appearance of 'this man whose body was found in the sea as an unexpected and unwelcome claimant of everything that up to that moment Hie prisoner in the dock had regarded as his own. Ho, the new-comer, did not find it easy to establish his claim; those who should have welcomed, repudiated him. Where he had every right to look' for at least a sym pathetic hearing he found nothing but dislike and rebuff. He may not have been in all respects a son for a father to welcome with pride, but justice is the right even of a wrong-doer. Very little justice is meted out to him. Step by step ho fights his way to his rights, and at last succeeds in attaining at

least the first of them, a place under his father’s roof. “But does the younger brother, who all his life, however innocently, has usurped the elder son’s privileges, give them up with decency? Xo; ho refuses' to see his brother at all. Worsted in an unworthy conflict-, he arranges to leave his home before his brother can come into it. It is whilst smarting under this sense of deprivation that by evil fortune, so it appears from the evidence before me, ho media the man who has ousted him from Ids place. Is it a quarrel, a blow, a fair stand-up fight between the man who claims and the man who loses?