The Council of Justice, Edgar Wallace [english novels to read .txt] 📗

feared would mar this trial. He did not attempt to

whitewash the man we killed, or to exonerate him from his gross and

sordid crimes. Rather, he made plain the exact position of the law in

relation to myself, and with all he said I am in complete agreement.

The inequalities of the law are notorious, and I recognize the

impossibility, as society is constituted, of amending the law so that

crimes such as we have dealt with shall be punished as they deserve. I

do not rail against the fate that sent me here. When I undertook my

mission, I undertook it with my eyes open, for I, too,’ he smiled at

the upturned faces at the counsels’ bench, ‘I too am learned in the

law—and other things.’

 

‘There are those who imagine that I am consumed with a burning

desire to alter the laws of this country; that is not so. Set canons,

inflexible in their construction, cannot be adapted according to the

merits of a case, and particularly is this so when the very question of

“merit” is a contentious point. The laws of England are

good laws, wise and just and equitable. What other commendation is

necessary than this one fact, that I recognize that my life is forfeit

by those laws, and assent to the justice which condemns me’?

 

‘None the less, when I am free again,’ he went on easily, ‘I shall

continue to merit your judgment because there is that within me, which

shows clearly which way my path lies, and how best I may serve

humanity. If you say that to choose a victim here and a victim there

for condemnation, touching only the veriest fringe of the world of

rascaldom, I am myself unjust—since I leave the many and punish the

few—I answer that for every man we slew, a hundred turned at the

terror of our name and walked straightly; that the example of one death

saved thousands. And if you should seriously ask: Have you helped

reform mankind, I answer as seriously—Yes.’

 

He talked all this time to the judge.

 

‘It would be madness to expect a civilized country to revert to the

barbarism of an age in which death was the penalty for every other

crime, and I will not insult your intelligence by denying that such a

return to the bad days was ever suggested by me. But there has come

into existence a spurious form of humanitarianism, the exponents of

which have, it would appear, lost their sense of proportion, and have

promoted the Fear of Pain to a religion; who have forgotten that the

Age of Reason is not yet, and that men who are animal in all but human

semblance share the animal’s obedience to corrective discipline, share

too his blind fear of death—and are amenable to methods that threaten

his comfort or his life.’

 

He flung out his hand toward the judge.

 

‘You, my lord,’ he cried, ‘can you order the flogging of a brute who

has half killed one of his fellows, without incurring the bleating

wrath of men and women, who put everything before physical pain—

honour, patriotism, justice? Can you sentence a man to death for a

cruel murder without a thousand shrieking products of our time rushing

hither and thither like ants, striving to secure his release? Without a

chorus of pity—that was unexcited by the mangled victim of his

ferocity? “Killing, deliberate, wolfish killing by man”, say they

in effect, “is the act of God; but the legal punishment of death,

is murder.” That is why I expect no sympathy for the methods the

Four Just Men adopted. We represented a law—we executed

expeditiously. We murdered if you like. In the spirit and the letter

of the laws of England, we did murder. I acknowledge the justice of my

condemnation. I do not desire to extenuate the circumstances of my

crime. Yet none the less the act I cannot justify to your satisfaction

I justify to my own.’

 

He sat down.

 

A barrister, leaning over the public prosecutor’s back, asked:

 

‘What do you think of that?’

 

Sir William shook his head.

 

‘Bewildering,’ he said in despair.

 

The judge’s summing up was one of the briefest on record.

 

The jury had to satisfy their minds that the prisoner committed the

crime with which he was charged, and must not trouble themselves with

any other aspect of the case but that part plainly before them. Was the

man in the dock responsible for the killing of Lipski?

 

Without leaving the box, the jury returned its verdict.

 

‘Guilty!’

 

Those used to such scenes noticed that the judge in passing sentence

of death omitted the striking and sombre words that usually accompany

the last sentence of the law, and that he spoke, too, without

emotion.

 

‘Either he’s going to get a reprieve or else the judge is certain

he’ll escape,’ said Garrett, ‘and the last explanation seems

ridiculous.’

 

‘By the way,’ said his companion as they passed slowly with the

crowd into the roadway, ‘who was that swell that came late and sat on

the bench?’

 

‘That was his Highness the Prince of the Escorial,’ said Charles,

‘he’s in London just now on his honeymoon.’

 

‘I know all about that,’ said Jimmy, ‘but I heard him speaking

to the sheriff just before we came out, and it struck me that I’d heard

his voice before.’

 

‘It seemed so to me,’ said the discreet Charles—so discreet indeed

that he never even suggested to his editor that the mysterious mask who

gave evidence on behalf of George Manfred was none other than his Royal

Highness.

 

CHAPTER XV. Chelmsford

 

They took Manfred back to Wandsworth Gaol on the night of the trial.

The governor, standing in the gloomy courtyard as the van drove in with

its clanking escort, received him gravely.

 

‘Is there anything you want?’ he asked when he visited the cell that

night.

 

‘A cigar,’ said Manfred, and the governor handed him the case.

Manfred selected with care, the prison-master watching him

wonderingly.

 

‘You’re an extraordinary man,’ he said.

 

‘And I need to be,’ was the reply, ‘for I have before me an ordeal

which is only relieved of its gruesomeness by its uniqueness.’

 

‘There will be a petition for reprieve, of course,’ said the

governor.

 

‘Oh, I’ve killed that,’ laughed Manfred, ‘killed it with icy blast

of satire—although I trust I haven’t discouraged the “Rational

Faithers” for whom I have made such handsome posthumous provision.’

 

‘You are an extraordinary man,’ mused the governor again. ‘By the

way, Manfred, what part does the lady play in your escape?’

 

‘The lady?’ Manfred was genuinely astonished. ‘Yes, the woman who

haunts the outside of this prison; a lady in black, and my chief warder

tells me singularly beautiful.’

 

‘Ah, the woman,’ said Manfred, and his face clouded. ‘I had hoped

she had gone.’

 

He sat thinking.

 

‘If she is a friend of yours, an interview would not be difficult to

obtain,’ said the governor.

 

‘No, no, no,’ said Manfred hastily, ‘there must be no interview—at

any rate here.’

 

The governor thought that the interview ‘here’ was very unlikely,

for the Government had plans for the disposal of their prisoner, which

he did not feel his duty to the State allowed him to communicate. He

need not, had he known, have made a mystery of the scheme.

 

Manfred kicked off the clumsy shoes the prison authorities had

provided him with—he had changed into convict dress on his return to

the gaol—and laid himself down dressed as he was, pulling a blanket

over him.

 

One of the watching warders suggested curtly that he should

undress.

 

‘It is hardly worth while,’ he said, ‘for so brief a time.’

 

They thought he was referring again to the escape, and marvelled a

little at his madness. Three hours later when the governor came to the

cell, they were dumbfounded at his knowledge.

 

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ said the Major, ‘but you’re to be

transferred to another prison—why, you aren’t undressed!’

 

‘No,’ said Manfred, lazily kicking off the cover, ‘but I thought the

transfer would be earlier.’

 

‘How did you know?’

 

‘About the transfer—oh, a little bird told me,’ said the prisoner,

stretching himself. ‘Where is it to be—Pentonville?’

 

The governor looked at him a little strangely.

 

‘No,’ he said.

 

‘Reading?’

 

‘No,’ said the governor shortly.

 

Manfred frowned.

 

‘Wherever it is, I’m ready,’ he said.

 

He nodded to the attendant warder as he left and took an informal

but cheery farewell of the governor on the deserted railway station

where a solitary engine with brake van attached stood waiting.

 

‘A special, I perceive,’ he said.

 

‘Goodbye, Manfred,’ said the governor and offered his hand.

 

Manfred did not take it—and the Major flushed in the dark.

 

‘I cannot take your hand,’ said Manfred, ‘for two reasons. The first

is that your excellent chief warder has handcuffed me, behind—’

 

‘Never mind about the other reason,’ said the governor with a little

laugh, and then as he squeezed the prisoner’s arm he added, ‘I don’t

wish the other man any harm, but if by chance that wonderful escape of

yours materializes, I know a respected officer in the Prison Service

who will not be heartbroken.’

 

Manfred nodded, and as he stepped into the train he said:

 

‘That lady—if you see her, tell her I am gone.’

 

‘I will—but I’m afraid I may not tell her where.’

 

‘That is at your discretion,’ said Manfred as the train moved off.

The warders drew down the blinds, and Manfred composed himself to

sleep.

 

He woke with the chief warder’s hand on his arm and stepped out on

to the platform as the day was breaking. His quick eye searched the

advertisement boards on the station. He would have done this

ordinarily, because they would tell him where he was, supposing for

some reason the authorities had wished to keep his destination a secret

from him. But he had a particular interest in advertising just then.

The station was smothered with the bills of a travelling cheap jack—an

unusual class of advertisement for the austere notice boards of a

railway station. Huge flaming posters that said ‘Everything is Right’,

and in smaller type underneath ‘Up to-date’. Little bills that said,

‘Write to your cousin in London…and tell her that Gipsy Jack’s

bargain,’ etc. ‘Go by the book!’ said another. Marching down the stairs

he observed opposite the station yet further evidence of this

extravagant cheap jack’s caprice, for there were big illuminated signs

in evidence, all to the same effect. In the shuttered darkness of the

cab, Manfred smiled broadly. There was really no limit to the ingenuity

of Leon Gonsalez. Next morning when the governor of Chelmsford Gaol

visited him, Manfred expressed his intention of writing a letter to his

cousin—in London.

 

‘Did you see him?’ asked Poiccart.

 

‘Just a glimpse,’ said Leon. He walked over to the window of the

room and looked out. Right in front of him rose the grim facade of the

gaol. He walked back to the table and poured himself out a cup of tea.

It was not yet six o’clock, but he had been up the greater part of the

night.

 

‘The Home Secretary,’ he said between gasps as he drank the scalding

hot liquid, ‘is indiscreet in his correspondence and is generally a

most careless man.’ It was apropos of Manfred’s coming.

 

‘I have made two visits to the right honourable gentleman’s house in

this past fortnight, and I am bursting with startling intelligence. Do

you know that Willington, the President of the