Part 15

But the time was coming when she must practice all that Ronnie preached, and all that she believed. She was no fool, however intense her self-satisfaction. She was narrow, puritanical, in the sense to which that term has been debased, and eminently respectable. He might have converted her to devil worship and she would have remained respectable. Ronnie was going abroad after the trial. He had made money, and although he was not a very rich man, he had in addition to the solid fortune he had acquired through his association with Steppe, a regular income from his father's estate. He intended breaking with Steppe and was in negotiation for villas in the south of France and in Italy. Evie knew that she would accompany him, if he insisted. She knew equally well that she would no longer be accounted respectable. That thought horrified her. To her, a wedding ring was adequate compensation for many inconveniences. The fascinations of Ronnie were wearing thin: familiarity, without breeding contempt, had produced a mutation of values. The "exceedingly marvelous" had become the "pleasantly habitual." And she had, by accident, met a boy she had known years before. He had gone out to Canada with his parents and had returned with stories of immense spaces and snow-clad mountains and cozy farms, stories that had interested and unsettled her. And he had been so impressed by her, and so humble in the face of her imposing worldliness. Ronnie was, of course, never humble, and though he called her his beloved, she did not impress him, or make him blush, or feel gauche. She had more of the grand lady feeling with Teddy Williams than she could ever experience in the marble villas of Palermo. And Teddy placed a tremendously high value upon respectability. Still--he could not be compared with Ronnie.

She had consented to pay a visit to Ronnie's flat. She was halfway to losing her respectability when she reluctantly agreed, but the thrill of the projected adventure put Teddy Williams out of her mind. The great event was to be on the day after Ronnie came back from Wechester.

In the meanwhile, Ronnie, anticipating a dull stay at the assize town, made arrangements to fill in his time pleasantly.

The day before he left London he called on Madame Ritti and Madame gave a sympathetic hearing to his proposition.

"Yes, it will amuse Lola, but she must travel with her maid. One must be careful, is it not so? One meets people in such unlikely places and I will not have a word spoken against my dear girls."

IX

The case of the King against Ambrose Sault came on late in the afternoon of the third assize day. The assizes opened on the Monday and the first two and a half days were occupied by the hearing of a complicated case of fraudulent conversion; it was four o'clock in the afternoon when Sault, escorted by three warders, stepped into the pen and listened to the reading of the indictment.

It was charged against him that "He did wilfully kill and murder Paul Dimitros Moropulos by shooting at him with a revolving pistol with intent to kill and murder the aforesaid Paul Dimitros Moropulos."

He pleaded "Guilty", but by the direction of the Court, a technical plea of "Not Guilty" was entered in accordance with the practice of the law. The proceedings were necessarily short, the reading of the indictment, the swearing in of the jury, and the other preliminaries were only disposed of before the Court rose.

Wechester Assize Court dates back to the days of antiquity. There is a legend that King Arthur sat in the great outer hall, a hollow cavern of a place with vaulted stone roof and supporting pillars worn smooth by contact with the backs of thirty generations of litigants waiting their turn to appear in the tiny court house.

"I knew I was going to have a dull time," complained Ronnie. "Why on earth didn't they start the trial on Monday?"

"Partly because I could not arrive until today," said Sir John. "The judge very kindly agreed to postpone the hearing to suit my convenience. I had a big case in town. Partly, so the judge tells me, because he wanted to dispose of the fraud charges before he took the murder case. Are you really very dull, Ronnie?" He looked keenly at the other.

"Wouldn't anybody be dull in a town that offers no other amusement than a decrepit cinema?"

"I thought I caught a glimpse of you as I was coming from the station, and, unless I was dreaming, I saw you driving with a lady--it is not like you to be dull when you have feminine society."

"She was the daughter of a very old friend of mine," said Ronnie conventionally.

"You are fortunate in having so many old friends with so many pretty daughters," said Sir John drily.

Ronnie was in court at ten o'clock the following morning. The place was filled, the narrow public gallery packed. The scarlet robed judge came in, preceded by the High Sheriff, and followed by his chaplain; a few seconds later came the sound of Ambrose Sault's feet on the stairway leading to the dock.

He walked to the end of the pen, rested his big hands on the ledge and bowed to the judge. And then his eyes roved round the court. They rested smilingly upon Sir John, bewigged and gowned, passed incuriously over the press table and stopped at Ronald Morelle. His face was inscrutable: his thoughts, whatever they were, found no expression. Ronald met his eyes and smiled. This man had come to him with murder in his heart: but for Ronnie's ready wit and readier lie, his name, too, would have appeared in the indictment. That was his thought as he returned the gaze. Here was his enemy trapped: beyond danger. His smile was a taunt and an exultation. Sault's face was not troubled, his serenity was undisturbed. Rather, it seemed to Sir John, who was watching him, that there was a strange benignity in his countenance, that humanized and transfigured him.

Trials always wearied Ronnie. They were so slow, so tedious: there were so many fiddling details, usually unimportant, to be related and analyzed. Why did they take the trouble? Sault was guilty by his own confession, and yet they were treating him as though he were innocent. What did it matter whether it was eight or nine o'clock when the policeman stopped the car in Woking and asked Sault to produce his license? Why bother with medical evidence as to the course the bullet took--Moropulos was dead, did it matter whether the bullet was nickel or lead?

From time to time sheer ennui drove him out of the court. He had no work to do--his description of Sault in the dock, his impression of the court scene, had been written before he left his hotel. The verdict was inevitable.

Yet still they droned on, these musty lawyers; still the old man on the bench interjected his questions.

Sir John, in his opening speech, had discounted his client's confession. Sault felt that he was morally guilty. It was for the jury to say whether he was guilty in law. A man in fear of his life had the right to defend himself, even if in his defense he destroyed the life of the attacker. The revolver was the property of Moropulos, was it not fair to suppose that Moropulos had carried the pistol for the purpose of intimidating Sault, that he had actually threatened him with the weapon? And the judge had taken this possibility into account and his questions were directed to discovering the character and habits of the dead man.

Steppe, had he been in the box, would have saved the prisoner's life. Ronnie Morelle knew enough to enlighten the judge. Steppe had not come, Ronnie would have been amused if it were suggested that he should speak.

The end of the trial came with startling suddenness.

Ronnie was out of court when the jury retired, and he hurried back as they returned.

The white-headed associate rose from behind his book-covered table and the jury answered to their names.

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you considered your verdict?"

"We have."

The voice of the foreman was weak and almost inaudible.

"Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?"

A pause.

"Guilty."

There was a sound like a staccato whisper. A quick explosion of soft sound, and then silence.

"Ambrose Sault, what have you to say that my lord should not condemn you to die?"

Ambrose stood easily in the dock: both hands were on the ledge before him and his head was bent in a listening posture.

"Nothing."

His cheerful voice rang through the court. Ronnie saw him look down to the place where Sir John was sitting, and smile, such a smile of encouragement and sympathy as a defending lawyer might give to his condemned client; coming from the condemned to the advocate, it was unique.

The judge was sitting stiffly erect. He was a man of seventy, thin and furrowed of face. Over his wig lay a square of black silk, a corner drooped to his forehead.

"Prisoner at the bar, the jury have found the only verdict which it was possible for them to return after hearing the evidence." He stopped here, and Ronnie expected to hear the usual admonition which precedes the formal sentence, but the judge went on to the performance of his dread duty. "The sentence of this court is, and this court doth ordain, that you be taken from the place whence you came, and from thence to a place of execution, and there you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and your body shall afterwards be buried within the precincts of the prison in which you were last confined. And may God have mercy upon your soul."

Ambrose listened, his lips moving. He was repeating to himself word by word the sentence of the law. He had the appearance of a man who was intensely interested.

A warder touched his arm and awoke him from his absorption. He started, smiled apologetically, and, turning, walked down the stairs and out of sight.

"Good-bye, my friend--I shall see you once again," said Ronnie.

He had decided to leave nothing undone that would authorize his presence at the execution.

Going into the hall to see the procession of the judge with his halberdiers and his trumpet men, he saw Sir John passing and his eyes were red. Ronnie was amused.

"Are you traveling back to town tonight, Ronnie?"

"No, Sir John. I leave in the morning."

Sir John wrinkled his brows in thought.

"You saw him? Did you ever see a man like him? I am bewildered and baffled. Poor Sault, and yet why 'poor'? Poor world, I think, to lose a soul as great as his."

"He is also a murderer," said Ronnie with gentle sarcasm. "He has brutally killed two men--"

"There is nothing brutal in Ambrose Sault," Sir John checked himself. "I go back by the last train. I am dining with the judge in his lodgings and he told me I might bring you along."

"Thank you, I've a lot of work to do," said Ronnie so hastily that the other searched his face.

"I suppose you are alone here?"

"Quite--the truth is, I promised to drive with a friend of mine."

"A man?"

Lola came through the big doors at that moment.

"I was looking for you, Ronnie--my dear, I am bored to tears--"

Sir John looked after them and shook his head.

"Rotten," he said. That a man could bring his light o' love to this grim carnival of pain!

X

Late in the afternoon Christina received a note delivered by hand.

"Mother, would you mind if I spent the night with Miss Merville?"

Mrs. Colebrook shook her head without speaking. In these days she lived in an atmosphere of gloom, for she had adopted the right of chief griever.

"Nobody else seems to care about poor Mr. Sault," she had said many times. "I really can't understand you, Christina, after all he has done for you, I won't say that you're heartless, because I will never believe that about a child of mine. You're young."

"Do you think Mr. Sault would like to know that you go weeping about the house for his sake?" asked Christina patiently.

"Of course he would! I would like somebody to grieve over me and I'm sure he'd like to know that somebody was dropping a silent tear over him."

On the whole, Mrs. Colebrook preferred to be alone that night. The late editions would have the result of the trial. Evie would be out, too. She was going to a theatre with Teddy Williams. That, Mrs. Colebrook thought, was heartless, but Evie had an excuse. Mr. Sault had done nothing for her: had even quarreled with her.

So Christina went gladly to her new friend. She saw the doctor for a minute in the hall and in his professional mood, Dr. Merville was charming.

"You open up vistas of a new career for me, Miss Colebrook," he laughed. "With you as a shining example, I am almost inclined to take up osteopathy in my old age! Really, you have mended wonderfully."

In Beryl's little room she heard the news.

"We expected it, of course," she said. "Did Sir John wire anything about Ambrose--how he bore it?"

"Yes, here is the telegram."

Christina read: "Sault sentenced to death. He showed splendid courage and calmness."

"Naturally he would," said Christina quietly. "I am glad the strain is over, not that I think it was a strain for him. Beryl, I hope we are going to be worthy disciples of our friend? There are times when I am very afraid. It is a heavy burden for a badly equipped mind like mine. But I think I shall go through without making a weak fool of myself. I almost wish that _I_ was marrying Jan Steppe. The prospect would take my mind off--no it wouldn't. And it doesn't in your case."

"I don't want to have my mind relieved of Ambrose," said Beryl. "We can do nothing, Christina. We never have been able to do anything. Ambrose could appeal, but of course, he won't do anything of the sort. I had a mad idea of going to see him. But I don't think I could endure that."

Christina shook her head.

She saw him every day. He never left her; he was sitting there now with his hands folded, silent, thoughtful. She avoided saying anything that would hurt him. In moments when Evie annoyed her, as she did lately, the thought that Ambrose would not approve, cut short her tart retort. She confessed this much and Beryl agreed. She felt the same way.

Beryl had had another bed put in her own room and they talked far into the night. There was nothing that Ambrose had ever said which they did not recall. He had said surprisingly little.

"Did he ever tell you in so many words that he loved you, Beryl?"

Only for a second did Beryl hesitate. "Yes," she said.

"You didn't want to tell me that, did you? You were afraid that I should be hurt. I'm not. I love his loving you. I don't grudge you a thought. He ought to love somebody humanly. I always think that the one incompleteness of Christ was his austerity. That doesn't sound blasphemous or irreverent, does it? But he missed so much experience because he was not a father with a father's feelings. Or a husband with a husband's love. I suppose theological people can explain this satisfactorily. I am taking an unlearned view--"

Evie was very nervous, thought Christina, when she saw her the next afternoon. Usually she was self-possession itself. She snapped at the girl when she asked her how she had enjoyed the play, although she was penitent immediately.

"Mother has been going on at me for daring to see a play the night poor Ambrose was sentenced," she said. "I'm sure nobody feels more sorry than I do. You're different to mother. I ought to have known that you weren't being sarcastic."

"How is Teddy? I remember him when he was a tiny boy. Do you like him, Evie?"

Evie pursed her red lips. "He's not bad," she granted. "He's very young and--well, simple."

"You worldly old woman!" smiled Christina. "You make me feel a hundred!"

Yes, Evie was nervous. And she took an unusual amount of trouble in dressing.

"Where are you going tonight--all dolled up?"

Evie was pained. "That is an _awfully_ vulgar expression, Chris: it makes me feel like one of those street women. I am going to meet a girl friend."

"Where are you going, Evie?" Christina quietly insisted.

"I am going to see Ronnie, if you want to know. You make me tell lies when I don't want to," snapped Evie. "Why can't you leave me alone?"

Christina sighed. "Why don't I, indeed," she agreed wearily. "What is to be, will be: I can't be responsible for your life, and it is stupid of me to try. Go ahead, Evie, and good luck."

A remark which considerably mystified Evie Colebrook. But, as she told herself, she had quite enough to try her without worrying about Christina and her morbid talk. The principal cause of her worry was an exasperating lapse of memory. In the agitation of the proposal, she had forgotten whether Ronnie had asked her to meet him in the park at the usual place, or whether she had agreed to go straight to the flat. An arrangement had been made one way or the other, she was sure. She decided to go to the flat.

Beryl came to the same decision.

"Steppe and I are going to Ronnie's place tonight," said Dr. Merville. "It will be a sort of--er--board meeting as Jan is leaving London tomorrow. I haven't had a chance of asking him about a matter which affects me personally. You do not read the financial newspapers, do you, Beryl? You haven't heard from the Fennings, or any of the people you know--er--any unpleasant comment?"

She shook her head again.

"Jan was asking me again about--you, Beryl. I can't get him to talk about anything else. I think you will have to decide one way or the other." He was pulling on his gloves, an operation which gave him an excuse for looking elsewhere than at her. "It struck me that he was growing impatient. You are to please yourself--but the suspense is rather getting on my nerves."

She made no answer until, accompanying him to the door, she made a sudden resolve.

"How long will you be at Ronnie's?" she asked.

"An hour, no longer, I think, why?"

"I wondered," she said.

It was lamentably, wickedly weak in her; a servile surrender to expediency. She knew it, but in her desperation she seized the one straw that floated upon the inexorable current which was carrying her to physical and moral damnation. Ronnie must save her: Ronnie, to whom she had best right of appeal. It was a bitter, hateful confession, that, despising him, she loved him. She loved the two halves of the perfect man. Sault and Ronnie Morelle were the very soul and body of love. She loathed herself--yet she knew it was the truth. Ronnie must help. He might not be so vile as she believed him to be: there might be a spirit in him, a something to which she could reach. The instinct of honor, some spark of courage and justice transmitted to him by the men and women who bred him. Anything was better than Steppe, she told herself wildly, anything! She dreamed of him, terrible dreams that revolted her to wakefulness: by day she kept him from her mind. And then came night and the unclean dreams that made her very soul writhe in an agony of shame, lest, in dreaming, she had exposed a foulness which consciously she had seen in herself.

If Ronnie failed--

("Ronnie will fail: you know he will fail," whispered the voice of reason.)

She could but try.

XI

A foreign-looking servant opened the door to Evie Colebrook.

"Mr. Morelle is out, Mademoiselle, is he expecting you?"

She was in a flutter, ready to fly on the least excuse. "Yes--but I will come back again."

François opened the door wide. "If Mademoiselle will wait a little--perhaps Mr. Morelle will return very soon."

François was an ugly, bullet-headed little man, and his name was a war creation. It was in fact "Otto", and he was a German Swiss.

She came timidly into the big room and was impressed by the solid luxury of it. She would not sit, preferring to walk about, delighted with the opportunity of making so leisurely an inspection of a room hallowed by such associations. So this was where Ronnie worked so hard. She laid her hand affectionately upon the big black table. François watched her a little sadly. He had a sister of her age and, in his eyes at least, as pretty. Moreover, François had grown tired of his employer. Men servants were in demand and he would have no difficulty in finding another job. Except for this: Ronald paid extraordinarily good wages.

He saw her pick up a framed photograph. "This is Mr. Morelle's portrait, isn't it? I don't like it."

Evie felt on terms with the man. It seemed natural that she should. She had wondered if François would be at Palermo, too.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, that is his portrait."

Evie frowned critically at the picture. "It is not half good looking enough."

"That is possible, Mademoiselle," said François, without enthusiasm.

He had never done such a thing before. He marveled at his own temerity, even now.

"Mademoiselle, you will not be angry if I say somethings?" he asked, and as he grew more and more agitated, his English took a quainter turn.

Evie opened her eyes in astonishment. "No, of course not."

"And you must promise not to tell Mr. Morelle."

"It depends," hesitated the girl, and then, "I promise."

"Mademoiselle," said François a little huskily, "I have a little sister so big as you in Switzerland. Her name is Freda, and, Mademoiselle, when I see you here, I think of her, and I say, I will speak to this good young lady. Mademoiselle, I do not like to see you here!" He said this dramatically.

Evie went crimson. "I don't know what you mean."

"I have make you cross," said François, in an agony of self-reproach. "You think I am silly, but I speak with a good heart."

There was only one way out of this awkward conversation. Evie became easily confidential. She spoke as a woman of the world to a man of the world.

"Of course you did," she said. "I appreciate what you say, François. If I saw a girl--well--compromising herself, I mean a girl who hadn't my experience of the world, I'd say the same as you, but--"

A knock at the outer door interrupted her. François shot an imploring glance in her direction, and she nodded.

"There you are, Ronnie--didn't you say I was to come straight here?"

"Hello, Evie," he seemed a little annoyed. "I told you I would meet you at the Statue."

Evie was abashed. "Oh, I am sorry," she began, but he went on.

"Any letters, François?"

"Yes, M'sieur, on the desk."

"All right, clear out."

But François lingered. "M'sieur."

"Well?" asked Ronnie, turning with a scowl.

François was ill at ease.

"Tomorrow my brother is coming from Interlaken, may I have an evening for myself, M'sieur?"