The Shadow of the Rope | Page 5

that which it
had hidden when she saw him last.
"Murdered!" whispered Rachel, breaking her long silence with a gasp.
"The work of thieves!"
The policemen exchanged a rapid glance.
"Looks like it," said the one who had opened the door, "I admit."
There was a superfluous dryness in his tone; but Rachel no more
noticed this than the further craning of heads in the doorway.
"But can you doubt it?" she cried, pointing from the broken window to

the spilled ink. "Did you think that he had shot himself?"
And her horror heightened at a thought more terrible to her than all the
rest. But the constable shook his head.
"We should have found the pistol--which we can't," said he. "But shot
he is, and through the heart."
"Then who could it be but thieves?"
"That's what we all want to know," said the officer; and still Rachel had
no time to think about his tone; for now she was bending over the body,
her white hands clenched, and agony enough in her white face.
"Look! look!" she cried, beckoning to them all. "He was wearing his
watch last night; that I can swear; and it has gone!"
"You are sure he was wearing it?" asked the same constable,
approaching.
"Absolutely certain."
"Well, if that's so," said he, "and it can't be found, it will be a point in
your favor."
Rachel sprang upright, her wet eyes wide with pure astonishment.
"In my favor?" she cried. "Will you have the goodness to explain
yourself?"
The constables were standing on either side of her now.
"Well," replied the spokesman of the pair, "I don't like the way that
window's broken, for one thing, and if you look at it you'll see what I
mean. The broken glass is all outside on the sill. But that's not all,
ma'am; and, as you have a cab, we might do worse than drive to the
station before more people are about."
CHAPTER II

THE CASE FOR THE CROWN
It was years since there had been a promise of such sensation at the Old
Bailey, and never, perhaps, was competition keener for the very few
seats available in that antique theatre of justice. Nor, indeed, could the
most enterprising of modern managers, with the star of all the stages at
his beck for the shortest of seasons, have done more to spread the lady's
fame, or to excite a passionate curiosity in the public mind, than was
done for Rachel Minchin by her official enemies of the Metropolitan
Police.
Whether these gentry had their case even more complete than they
pretended, when the prisoner was finally committed for trial, or
whether the last discoveries were really made in the ensuing fortnight,
is now of small account--though the point provided more than one
excuse for acrimony on the part of defending counsel during the
hearing of the case. It is certain, however, that shortly after the
committal it became known that much new evidence was to be
forthcoming at the trial; that the case against the prisoner would be
found even blacker than before; and that the witnesses were so many in
number, and their testimony so entirely circumstantial, that the
proceedings were expected to occupy a week.
Sure enough, the case was accorded first place in the November
Sessions, with a fair start on a Monday morning toward the latter end of
the month. In the purlieus of the mean, historic court, it was a morning
not to be forgotten, and only to be compared with those which followed
throughout the week. The prisoner's sex, her youth, her high bearing,
and the peculiar isolation of her position, without a friend to stand by
her in her need, all appealed to the popular imagination, and produced a
fascination which was only intensified by the equally general feeling
that no one else could have committed the crime. From the judge
downward, all connected with the case were pestered for days
beforehand with more or less unwarrantable applications for admission.
And when the time came, the successful suppliant had to elbow every
yard of his way from Newgate Street or Ludgate Hill; to pass three
separate barriers held by a suspicious constabulary; to obtain the good

offices of the Under Sheriff, through those of his liveried lackeys; and
finally to occupy the least space, on the narrowest of seats, in a
varnished stall filled with curiously familiar faces, within a few feet of
the heavily veiled prisoner in the dock, and not many more from the
red-robed judge upon the bench.
The first to take all this trouble on the Monday morning, and the last to
escape from the foul air (shot by biting draughts) when the court
adjourned, was a white-headed gentleman of striking appearance and
stamina to match;