Part 51 (1/2)

III

”They pushed off the case with the obvious witnesses--police, doctor, and so on. Then the thing hardened down. Then Sabre saw what was coming at him--saw it at a clap and never had remotely dreamt of it; saw it like a tiger coming down the street to devour him; saw it like the lid of h.e.l.l slowly slipping away before his eyes. Saw it! I was watching him. He saw it; and things--age, greyness, lasting and immovable calamity--I don't know what--frightful things--came down on his face like the dust of ashes settling on a polished surface.

”You see, what this Humpo fiend was laying out for was, first that Sabre was the father of the girl's child, second that he'd deliberately put the poison in her way, and brutally told her he was done with her, and gone off and left her so that she should do what she had done and he be rid of her. Yes. Yes, old man. And he'd got a case! By the living Jingo, he'd got such a case as a Crown prosecutor only dreams about after a good dinner and three parts of a bottle of port. There wasn't a thing, there wasn't an action or a deed or a thought that Sabre had done for months and months past but bricked him in like bricking a man into a wall, but tied him down like tying a man in a chair with four fathoms of rope. By the living Jingo, there wasn't a thing.

”Listen. Just listen and see for yourself. Worked off the police evidence and the doctor, d'you see? Then--'Mr. Bright!' Old man comes up into the box. Stands there ma.s.sive, bowed with grief, chest heaving, voice coming out of it like an organ in the Dead March. Stands there like Lear over the body of Cordelia. Stands there like the father of Virginia thinking of Appius Claudius.

”Like this, his evidence went: Was father of the deceased woman (as they called her). Was employed as foreman at Fortune, East and Sabre's. Had seen the body and identified it. So on, so on.

”Then Humpo gets on to him. Was his daughter the sort of girl to meditate taking her life?--'Never! Never!' Great rending cry that went down to your marrow.

”Touching the trouble that befell her, the birth of her child--had she ever betrayed signs of loose character while living beneath his roof?--'Never! Never!'

”How came she first to leave his house? Was any particular individual instrumental in obtaining for her work which first took her from beneath his roof?--'There! There!' Clenched fist and half his body over the box towards Sabre.

”'Look here!' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here--!'

”They shut him up.

”'Answer the question, please, Mr. Bright.'--'Mr. Sabre led to her first going from me. Mr. Sabre!'

”Had this Mr. Sabre first approached him in the matter or had he solicited Mr. Sabre's help?--'He came to me! He came to me! Without rhyme, or reason, or cause, or need, or hint, or suggestion he came to me!'

”Was the situation thus obtained for the girl nearer her father's house or nearer Mr. Sabre's?--'Not a quarter of an hour, not ten minutes, from Mr. Sabre's house.'

”Had the witness any knowledge as to whether this man Sabre was a frequent visitor at the place of the girl's situation?--'Constantly, constantly, night after night he was there!'

”'Was he, indeed?' says Humpo, mightily interested. 'Was he, indeed?

There were perhaps great friends of his own standing there, one or two men chums, no doubt?'--'No one! No one!' cries the old man. 'No one but an old invalid lady, nigh bedridden, past seventy, and my daughter, my daughter, my Effie.'

”That was all very well, all very well, says Humpo. Mr. Bright's word was of course accepted, but had the witness any outside proof of the frequency of these visits to this bedridden old lady old enough to be the man Sabre's grandmother? Had the witness recently been shown a diary kept by Mr. Twyning at that period?--'Yes! Yes!'

”And it contained frequent reference to Sabre's mention in the office of these visits?--'Yes! Yes!'

”Did one entry reveal the fact that on one occasion this Sabre spent an entire night there?

”'Look here--' bursts out old Sabre. 'Look here--'

”Can't get any farther. Buddha on the throne shuts him up if he could have got any farther. 'Yes,' groans old Bright out of his heaving chest.

'Yes. A night there.'

”And on the very next day, the very next day, did this man Sabre rush off and enlist?--'Yes. Yes.'

”Viewed in light of the subsequent events, did that sudden burst of patriotism bear any particular interpretation?--'Running away from it,'

heaves the old man. 'Running away from it.'

”'Look here--' from Sabre again. 'Look here--' Same result.

”So this Humpo chap went on, piling it up from old Bright like that, old man; and all the time getting deeper and getting worse, of course. Sabre getting the girl into his own house after the old lady's death removes the girl from the neighbourhood; curious suddenness of the girl's dismissal during Sabre's leave; girl going straight to Sabre immediately able to walk after birth of child, and so on. Blacker and blacker, worse and worse.