The Evil Shepherd | Page 3

breast of it, of course--Wensley, his lawyer, advised
him to, in fact--but the story he told me was precisely the story he told
at the inquest."
They were established now in their easy-chairs, and Wilmore
summoned a waiter.
"Two large whiskies and sodas," he ordered. "Francis," he went on,
studying his companion intently, "what's the matter with you? You

don't look as though your few days in the country last week had done
you any good."
Francis glanced around as though to be sure that they were alone.
"I was all right when I came up, Andrew," he muttered. "This case has
upset me."
"Upset you? But why the dickens should it?" the other demanded, in a
puzzled tone. "It was quite an ordinary case, in its way, and you won
it."
"I won it," Francis admitted.
"Your defence was the most ingenious thing I ever heard."
"Mostly suggested, now I come to think of it," the barrister remarked
grimly, "by the prisoner himself."
"But why are you upset about it, anyway?" Wilmore persisted.
Francis rose to his feet, shook himself, and with his elbow resting upon
the mantelpiece leaned down towards his friend. He could not rid
himself altogether of this sense of unreality. He had the feeling that he
had passed through one of the great crises of his life.
"I'll tell you, Andrew. You're about the only man in the world I could
tell. I've gone crazy."
"I thought you looked as though you'd been seeing spooks," Wilmore
murmured sympathetically.
"I have seen a spook," Francis rejoined, with almost passionate
seriousness, "a spook who lifted an invisible curtain with invisible
fingers, and pointed to such a drama of horrors as De Quincey, Poe and
Sue combined could never have imagined. Oliver Hilditch was guilty,
Andrew. He murdered the man Jordan--murdered him in cold blood."
"I'm not surprised to hear that," was the somewhat puzzled reply.

"He was guilty, Andrew, not only of the murder of this man, his partner,
but of innumerable other crimes and brutalities," Francis went on. "He
is a fiend in human form, if ever there was one, and I have set him
loose once more to prey upon Society. I am morally responsible for his
next robbery, his next murder, the continued purgatory of those forced
to associate with him."
"You're dotty, Francis," his friend declared shortly.
"I told you I was crazy," was the desperate reply. "So would you be if
you'd sat opposite that woman for half-an-hour, and heard her story."
"What woman?" Wilmore demanded, leaning forward in his chair and
gazing at his friend with increasing uneasiness.
"A woman who met me outside the Court and told me the story of
Oliver Hilditch's life."
"A stranger?"
"A complete stranger to me. It transpired that she was his wife."
Wilmore lit a cigarette.
"Believe her?"
"There are times when one doesn't believe or disbelieve," Francis
answered. "One knows."
Wilmore nodded.
"All the same, you're crazy," he declared. "Even if you did save the
fellow from the gallows, you were only doing your job, doing your
duty to the best of poor ability. You had no reason to believe him
guilty."
"That's just as it happened," Francis pointed out. "I really didn't care at
the time whether he was or not. I had to proceed on the assumption that
he was not, of course, but on the other hand I should have fought just as

hard for him if I had known him to be guilty."
"And you wouldn't now--to-morrow, say?"
"Never again."
"Because of that woman's story?"
"Because of the woman."
There was a short silence. Then Wilmore asked a very obvious
question.
"What sort of a person was she?"
Francis Ledsam was several moments before he replied. The question
was one which he had been expecting, one which he had already asked
himself many times, yet he was unprepared with any definite reply.
"I wish I could answer you, Andrew," his friend confessed. "As a
matter of fact, I can't. I can only speak of the impression she left upon
me, and you are about the only person breathing to whom I could speak
of that."
Wilmore nodded sympathetically. He knew that, man of the world
though Francis Ledsam appeared, he was nevertheless a highly
imaginative person, something of an idealist as regards women,
unwilling as a rule to discuss them, keeping them, in a general way,
outside his daily life.
"Go ahead, old fellow," he invited. "You know I understand."
"She left the impression upon me," Francis continued quietly, "of a
woman who had ceased to live. She was young, she was beautiful, she
had all the gifts--culture, poise and breeding--but she had ceased to live.
We sat with a marble table between us, and a few feet of oil-covered
floor. Those