Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/75

 and the expression on his face, half sombre, half patient resignation, in perfect consonance with the rôle he played, might, too, have been the work of no less cunning fingers.

Varge's hand dropped and rested on the rail. His eyes swept the courtroom with a single rapid glance—and held an instant upon the round, red, blatant face of Mart Robson, that somehow seemed to stand out and force itself upon his vision. Flashing, quick, curiously inconsequent it seemed, his mind went back to the day when, boys of ten, he had fought and licked the other for shoving Hettie Elmslie into a mud puddle; he remembered that very well, and he remembered Mrs. Merton's dismay and anxiety at his own puffed cheek, her gentle reproof tempered with a large slice of apple-sauce cake—no, it wasn't so curiously inconsequent after all—it was Mrs. Merton's face he saw now, steeling him against he knew not what was to come, as he fixed his eyes on John Randall again.

"Varge," began Randall, in a brisk, pleasant voice, "you have stated that at one o'clock in the morning, believing all of the household in bed, you stole downstairs to the library for the purpose of stealing Doctor Merton's cash-box?"

"Yes," Varge answered quietly.

"You did this deliberately, with premeditation?"

"Yes."

"You knew that the cash-box was kept in the wall cupboard?"

"Yes."

"Was this cupboard usually locked or unlocked?"

"Locked," replied Varge—and a load seemed