Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/159

Rh the dock, and faced a firmament of eyes gleaming and straining for a first glimpse of his countenance. It flushed and fell—he was so taken aback—and he went down the stairs with a sob in his throat.

“Come, come!” said his custodian; “you’re doing much better than I expected. You’ve got the best of it in counsel, anyway; he’s made three or four good points already.”

Tom brightened a little. “But I didn’t quite see the force of that last one,” said he; “what was he driving at there?”

“Why, have you forgotten the only two questions he put the officer who described the position of the body?” asked the other; and he answered his own question while Tom was trying to remember. “The body was lying face down; he wanted to know whether they could see the stock as it lay, and whether there was a pin in the stock when they turned him over. Now don’t you see? That pin’s still missing, and they may prove it was better worth taking than the watch itself!”

Under the turnkey’s supervision, the prisoner was sitting down to eat in a cell beneath the court; but at these words he dropped knife and fork and looked up with hope’s fitful fever on his cheeks and in his eyes.

“I see! I see!” he cried. “Oh, what a magnificent man to defend a poor fellow like me! He’ll save me yet—he’ll save me, I do believe!”

“We’ll hope for the best,” said the turnkey; “but there’s no denying that’s a goodish point. You see,” confidentially, “we know what you done with the watch, but there’s none on us knows what you done with the pin!”

Tom started, stricken to the quick.