CHAPTER XXIX.

CHARGED WITH FELONY.

The remarkable circumstances attending the arrest of Vibert Trevor, his high connections, and the official position which his father had for many years held, made the affair in which he was implicated cause a very great sensation in the upper ranks of London society. Never before had the police-court in which Vibert was for the second time to appear been so crowded by the wearers of fashionable bonnets, sable muffs, and ermine tippets. Never before had so many carriages (some of them bearing coronets) blocked up the narrow avenues to the magistrate's court. The police had some difficulty in clearing a way for aristocratic ladies through crowds of roughs assembled to see "a gent in the hands of the bobbies!" Expectation was on the tiptoe. To many of Vibert's gay companions--the young men with whom he had played at billiards, the pretty girls with whom he had danced--the sight of him standing at the bar to answer a charge of passing forged notes, gave a thrill of excitement more delightful than could have been afforded by the most sensational novel, or the most charmingly tragical play.

Information was circulated amidst the mixed throng, where news was eagerly passed from mouth to mouth, that the police at Liverpool had been unsuccessful in their attempts to discover and arrest the person who had called himself Colonel Standish. No person of that name, no one answering to the description given of his person, had inquired after the box of jewels at the place to which Vibert was to have sent it. No individual called Standish had taken his passage in any vessel about to sail for America. The police were eagerly on the alert, but had, it was said, discovered no clue that could lead to the arrest of the principal criminal.

"The monkey who used the cat's paw to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, has got clear off to the jungle," observed a fashionable-looking young man, who had been one of Vibert's most particular friends. "Poor Grimalkin is caught with the nuts in his claws, and will have something to bear in addition to the pain of the burning!" The speaker, as he ended the remark, raised his gold eye-glass to his eyes, to enable him to see more distinctly every nervous twitch on the face of poor Vibert, who, attended by his father, uncle, and brother, at that moment approached the bar.

"Ah! how changed the poor boy looks--how shamefaced!" whispered Alice to a companion; for Alice was there in her fashionable hat with its scarlet feather. "To think that I should have danced and talked nonsense with one who is standing where all the low thieves and pickpockets stand!" The little lady rose on tiptoe to have a better view over the shoulders of those in front of her; but had the grace to hope that the poor prisoner would not turn his eyes in her direction. There was no danger of his so doing, the wretched youth could not raise his eyes from their fixed stare on the floor.

"Vibert's brother looks more ill than the prisoner does," observed the companion of Alice; "he has a bandage on his head. One would think that Bruce had been brought to the bar for prize-fighting, or for leading the roughs in a row!"

"Hush! hush! he is going to be sworn as a witness,--some one is giving him a glass of cold water; I wish that I could hand him my scent-bottle," whispered Alice, who was touched by Bruce's evident struggle to overcome physical suffering and mental exhaustion by the force of strong will.

Bruce was sworn as a witness. Very simply and concisely he gave evidence as to what the reader knows already. He told of his hearing a noise, entering the chamber next to his own, seeing the forgers, and receiving, while struggling with Standish, a stunning blow from some heavy instrument wielded by Harper.

Harper's name had not even been mentioned in the evidence given on the preceding day, Vibert not being in the slightest degree aware of the strange old man's complicity in the crime of forging bank-notes. Bruce's narrative, given in a low but clear and steady voice, commanded breathless attention. The silence observed in the crowded court was scarcely broken even by the rustle of a lady's silk dress.

"You say that you were stunned by the blow given by this man Harper," observed the magistrate. "Did you long continue in an unconscious state?"

"I know not how long I remained senseless," was the answer of Bruce; "probably the cold night air revived me, for I found, when I came to life, that the two forgers were bearing me into the wood. I lay perfectly still, and they doubtless considered me dead, for the men uttered words to each other which I was certainly not intended to hear."

"Can you recall to memory any of those words?" the magistrate inquired.

Bruce had a tenacious memory, and what had passed on that eventful night had been as it were branded on it, never to be erased. He at once replied to the magistrate's question.

"The first words which I remember hearing were some spoken by Harper--'How could you trust Vibert Trevor to pass my notes?' said he.

"'I trusted him no more than in angling I trust the fly on my hook,' answered Standish. 'I use him to make the gudgeons bite; but the fool knows no more of the nature of the work to which I have put him than does the senseless fly that covers the barb.'"

A thrill of satisfaction went through the court. Mr. Trevor could not restrain a faint exclamation of thankfulness at this clear testimony to the innocence of his unfortunate son drawn from Standish himself.

"Proceed, sir, with your evidence," said the magistrate to Bruce Trevor. The witness went on with his story.

"'How then is the lad to forward the jewels?' asked Harper.

"'He is to direct them to me under my assumed name,' replied Standish; 'but I shall be too wary to claim the box myself. Aunt Jael, whom no one suspects, will call at the office for the jewels, and bring them to us at the White Raven, where we shall keep close till the _Penguin_ sails.'"

"Did you hear anything more regarding the plans of these men?" the magistrate asked.

"No; but I had heard enough to put the police on the right scent on my return to Myst Court," answered Bruce.

This was all the evidence which young Trevor could give which bore directly on the charge against his brother; but so much of interest remained to be learned, that the examination went on.

"What do you suppose that this man Harper and his accomplice intended to do with you, when they carried you through the wood?" asked the magistrate.

"They intended to throw my corpse into the pond on the heath," answered Bruce in the same calm tone. "I knew as much from what they muttered, though I cannot recall the words; and I reserved myself for one last desperate struggle for life. As we left the wood, Harper found out, perhaps by some involuntary movement that I made, that I was alive. I was set down under a hedge, and there followed some conversation between the two men regarding my fate, of the nature of which I could guess more than I heard. There was something said about 'gallows' and 'hanging for it,' so I concluded that the ruffians thought it a more serious matter to be tried for murder than for the forgery of bank-notes. The men lifted me up again, and carried me into the house of the woman hitherto called Jael Jessel, whom I now found to be the wife of the one and the aunt of the other. In that house I was blindfolded, gagged, and bound to a table. Half swooning as I was, I knew little of what was passing around me, save that I judged from the sounds that I heard that the forgers were moving their goods and leaving the place. How many hours I passed alone after their departure I cannot tell. A great storm came on, and at last a fire-bolt struck the dwelling, shattering the door, and setting the place on fire. Then followed the entrance of my sister, who, alarmed at my absence, was searching for me, and who found me in the helpless condition in which the forgers had doubtless hoped that I would have remained for days undiscovered. I was scarcely likely to have survived till the evening, had not timely succour arrived."

Before Bruce had quite finished giving his evidence, tidings were brought to the magistrate from Liverpool, which excited such interest amongst the crowd thronging the court that an irrepressible murmur of satisfaction arose. The police, following the clue given by Bruce Trevor, had arrested at a low public-house, called the White Raven, three persons answering to the description given of Harper and his associates. The woman, it appeared, had inquired at the coach-office for a box directed to Colonel Standish, which, it could not be doubted, was that which was to contain the jewels. Other suspicious circumstances seemed to place it beyond question that the individuals now in custody were Harper, Standish, and Jael. The first named had been recognized by a policeman as an engraver, who had been taken up before on a charge of forgery, but who had been dismissed for want of sufficient evidence to convict him. Jael, it appeared, was his wife; and Harper had found in her nephew, Horace Standish, _alias_ John Stobb, an unscrupulous accomplice in carrying out his guilty designs. It afterwards appeared that the Harpers and their confederate had taken their passages in the _Penguin_ under three different assumed names.

Vibert still stood as a prisoner at the bar, but he was not long to remain in so humiliating a position. The magistrate, who had from the first doubted the young man's guilt, was now convinced, by Bruce's testimony, that the prisoner had never been an accomplice in the crime of the forgers, but in pure ignorance had passed false notes so skilfully engraved as almost to defy detection. The magistrate therefore dismissed the charge against the prisoner, and Vibert once more was free.

A louder hum of approbation, accompanied by some clapping of hands, followed the order for Vibert's release. But to Vibert that release brought no joyful sense of freedom, and the favourable verdict no feeling of exultation. The youth was humiliated--even to the dust. He had only escaped condemnation as a felon, by being convicted of acting as a fool. He had been the easy dupe, the senseless tool of a designing villain. His emblem was the gaudy fly hiding the hook of the angler! Under such circumstances the congratulations of the so-called friends who now pressed around him were to Vibert but as a stinging insult. His one wish was to escape all notice, to fly from his fellow-creatures, and to hide his head where no one should know of his folly and the disgrace to which it had brought him. Many hands were held out to the late prisoner, words were spoken which were meant to be kind; but Vibert would not notice the hands, nor listen to the words. He bent down his head till his long hair almost hid his cheeks, which were glowing with shame. Vibert pushed his way through the crowd, scarcely able to draw a full breath till he had reached the street, rushed into his uncle's carriage, in which Emmie was anxiously waiting, and pulled down the blinds to shut himself out from the sight of mankind.