Chapter 34

The Fat Man Goes Under

It was two days later that the girl met Joses in the village street.

She crossed to him swiftly, and she was white and sparkling.

"Here's your knife, Mr. Joses," she said, handing it him.

There came into his eyes at once that hunted look.

He put both hands behind him and bowed with his honeyed smile.

"It's not mine, Miss Woodburn, thank you," he said.

The girl was growing apace.

A few months back she would have said "It is," and have dropped it at his feet. Now she answered:

"You may have it whenever you like to call for it," and passed on.

A little farther down the street she met the vicar.

On her face was that frosty look that Mr. Haggard said made him afraid.

"Well, Boy?" he said.

"Good morning, Mr. Haggard," she answered, but she did not stop.

That evening she called at the cottage where Joses lodged and handed Mrs. Boam the knife done up in brown paper.

"Will you give this to Mr. Joses?" she said.

The woman's apron was to her lips, and over it her frightened eyes peered at the girl.

"He's gone, Miss," she said.

The girl was surprised.

"Gone?" she said. "Where?"

The woman nibbled her apron.

"An hour since. The police come for him. I was makin' the tea."

That strange tide of Other-Consciousness overwhelmed the girl.

"Are you fond of him?" asked the Voice that used her as an instrument.

The woman with the streaming eyes nodded over her apron.

"Our Jenny love him," she said.

End of Part I

Battle

It was Old Mat who was responsible for the arrest of Joses on the charge of incendiarism.

"I got to do me duty by the pore feller," he said quietly. "And will do, de we. Same as the Psalmist says. It's _because_ you love 'em you got to chastise of 'em. Only where it is," he ended disconsolately, "don't somehow seem as they _can_ understand."

The evidence was fairly plain. Jerry had marked the tout late in the afternoon of the day in question cross the Paddock Close from the public park and enter the shed half an hour before the fire; while Monkey Brand, coming off the hill, on his return from the hunt, swore he had seen him emerge from the shed as flames broke from the thatched roof.

It was growing dusk at the time, and the distance was considerable, as Monkey admitted, but the little jockey maintained with restraint and emphasis that "he'd know that waddle anywheres."

Joses did not go undefended. The fact of his value to the Three J's, if ever in doubt, was proved beyond question by the fact that they paid a good lawyer to keep him out of gaol. And it was notorious that the Three J's never gave except where they got.

Indeed, one of the funniest scenes at the trial took place when Ikey Aaronsohnn, who it was said had returned post-haste from America for the purpose, Jaggers, and Chukkers, one after the other, stood up in the witness-box and gave evidence solemnly as to the character of the accused.

"Of course we know he _has_ made a little mistake in the past, pore chap," said Jaggers, who looked like an austere Stiggins. "But he's a _good_ man for all that."

"A hopeful penitent," suggested the prosecuting counsel.

"There's 'ope for all, I 'ope, sir," said Jaggers, with quiet manliness.

The case against the accused seemed black; but he met it with extraordinary courage and resource.

He admitted that he had been in the shed at the time alleged.

He said that he had gone there to smoke out of the wind, and admitted further that he _had_ set the shed on fire--by accident.

When asked in court why, if he had set the shed on fire by accident, he had run away, his defence was simple and convincing.

He said he was afraid. He'd been in trouble before.

"And once you've been in trouble, the police know you, and you never get a chance. I got a panic, and I bolted--very foolishly."

The defence evidently impressed both judge and jury. And had it been simply a question of setting fire to the shed the accused might have got off; but there was the further matter of Four-Pound-the-Second.

How did the yearling come to be in the shed?

Joses retorted that it was not for him to say; but he suggested that it had come on to rain, and that the colt had sought shelter from the storm.

It was there that Silver came in.

The papers said, and said truly, that the young banker gave his evidence with obvious reluctance.

"Was the colt in the shed when you came up?" asked the prosecuting counsel.

"Yes."

"Was it raining?"

"It was drizzling."

"Was the door shut?"

"Yes."

"How was it shut?"

"With a wooden latch."

"That you lifted to let the colt out?"

"Yes."

"Could the wind have banged the door to?"

"Possibly."

"Could the latch have _fallen_ into its place?"

"I don't know."

"What d'you think?"

"I doubt it."

In cross-examination the aim of the counsel for the defence was to show that the evidence of the witness was unreliable because he was actuated by personal malevolence against the accused.

"Have you had words with the prisoner on more than one occasion?"

"Yes."

"It was a word from you that put the police on to him in the first instance?"

"It was _not_," with warmth.

"You found a knife you believed to belong to the prisoner in the shed after the fire?"

"Outside the shed."

"And you took the knife to the police?"

"I did not."

"Where is the knife now?"

"I don't know."

"Who did you give it to?"

"Miss Woodburn."

The girl was called. Her evidence was very brief. Mr. Silver had given her the knife. She had taken it to the cottage where the prisoner lodged and handed it back to the woman there.

To substantiate the charge that Mr. Silver was actuated by malice, the counsel for the defence called evidence to prove the scene that had taken place between the witness and the accused on the way to the meet.

On this point the prisoner gave further evidence himself.

"You met Mr. Silver later in the day?"

"I did."

"What happened?"

"He rode at me and struck me."

"What for?"

"He said he'd show a ---- convict how to speak to a gentleman; and he'd get me put away."

"Was anybody present?"

The accused laughed.

"No fear! He waited till he got me alone."

"What time was this?"

"About two-thirty."

"Where?"

"Just outside Prior's Wood."

Mr. Silver, recalled by the prosecuting counsel, was re-examined as to the facts alleged by Joses.

"Did you strike the prisoner?"

"I gave him one with the lash of my crop."

"Under what circumstances?"

The witness explained.

"Did you say the words attributed to you?"

"I did _not_."

"Did any words pass between you?"

There was a pause.

"After I struck him, while he was messing about with his knife, he said: 'I'll do time for you!'"

"Did you say anything?"

There was another pause.

"I said: 'What! More?'"

In cross-examination the counsel for the defence asked the young banker what he meant when he said to the prisoner--"'What! More?'"

Silver was silent.

"Were you referring to the fact that the accused had been in trouble?"

"Yes."

"And you're a sportsman?"

No answer.

"And a gentleman?"

In his speech for the prosecution counsel pointed out that the motive for the crime--the one point in doubt--had been established. Joses had been a little too clever and had established it himself. He had supplied the one missing link, and would be hung in a chain of his own making. The two men had come to words and blows. Joses, smarting alike in body and mind, had trotted home and, beside himself with rage and a desire for revenge, had committed this most insensate and abominable crime.

The jury found the prisoner guilty without leaving the box, and the judge, who described the crime as deliberate, malignant, and the work of a frustrated fiend, gave him a swinging sentence.