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He watched his friend's wind-driven progress for a moment, then slipped into his overcoat and, snatching up his hat, hurried from the room. Langham, with Moxlow, his law partner, occupied two handsomely furnished rooms on the first floor, of the one building in Mount Hope that was distinctly an office building, since its sky-scraping five stories were reached by an elevator.
Every morning he cleaned out the grates the first thing, and usually before Mr. North or Mr. Gilmore were up. Again Moxlow paused and glanced over the room. He must have been aware that to his eager audience the connection between Mr. North's and Mr. Gilmore's fireplaces and the McBride murder, was anything but clear. "Did you empty the ashes from the fireplaces in the apartments occupied by Mr.
But Moxlow persevered in his level tones, he was not to be hurried. He felt the case as good as won, and there was the taste of triumph in his mouth, for he was going to convict his man in spite of the best criminal lawyer in the state!
North was wanted as a witness," observed the general. "No, they say Moxlow had his eye on him from the start!" rejoined the foreman with repressed enthusiasm for Moxlow. The general sensed the enthusiasm and was affected unpleasantly by it. "It would be a great pity if Mr. Moxlow should be so unfortunate as to make a fool of himself!" he commented with unusual acidity. "What else did you hear?"
"I suppose Moxlow believes there's the making of a pretty strong case against him; eh, Marsh?" "I don't know; I can't tell what he thinks," said Langham briefly. "But in North's place, back there in the jail in one of those brand-new iron cages over the yard, how would you feel? That's what I want to know!" Langham met his glance for an instant and then his eyes fell.
Up to this point John North had felt only an impersonal interest in the proceedings, but now it flashed across him that Moxlow was seeking to direct suspicion toward him. How well the prosecuting attorney was succeeding was apparent.
"If you have anything to say, Marsh " Langham raised himself on his elbows and his lips moved convulsively, but only a dry gasping sound issued from them; he seemed to have lost the power of speech. "If North didn't kill McBride, who did?" repeated Moxlow.
He glanced about at a score of men witnesses, officials, and jury, and felt their sudden doubt of him, as intangibly but as certainly as he felt the dead presence just beyond the closed door. "We have one other witness," said Moxlow.
Montgomery shrugged his great slanting shoulders. "He's too damn perpendicular!" "He is," agreed Gilmore. "But what's this got to do with what you saw?" "Not a thing; but it makes me sweat blood whenever I think of the trick Moxlow served me, it ain't as if I had no one but myself! I got a family, see? I can't afford to go to jail, it ain't as if I was single!"
The moment of silence that followed this ominous signal was only broken when a deputy who had been nodding half asleep in his chair, sprang erect and hurried from the room. As the swinging baize doors banged at his heels, the crowd seemed to breathe again. Moxlow was the first to arrive. The deputy had found him munching a sandwich on the court-house steps.
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