On a certain Saturday in April--five-and-twenty years after Michael White went down into the silence of imprisonment, soon to pass into the greater silence of a yet narrower cell; five-and-twenty years after his son had uttered his savage warning to John Westwood, the sequel was beginning to take shape. As yet it was a little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand; but the cloud was destined to grow to vast proportions, blacker and more threatening as time went on, shadowing London with a great terror of darkness, and begetting fear throughout the length and breadth of England. CHAPTER III THE LEAGUERS’ FIRST MOVE In the Solicitor-General’s chambers, in Paper Buildings, Bobby Herrick was fuming, and looking at his watch. At intervals Wilson, the head-clerk, fussed in and out with briefs and papers. All the bundles were tied together with the inevitable tape; well may it blush red for the unholy and mendacious things it has enfolded! Westwood’s clerk, however, never blushed. For one thing, he had bargained so remorselessly for heavier fees at moments critical for his employer’s clients that he had lost the power of feeling shame. For another, he had a thick and doughy skin which preserved the same unhealthy hue at all times and in all places. He was a prosperous man, belonging, it was said, to the ranks of “gigmanity,” for he kept his pony chaise at Brixton. There were some who said that Josiah Wilson would sell his little soul for gold if only Mephistopheles would care to make a bid. He certainly had investments, and his average income from “clerk’s fees” (which immemorial usage extracts from the client, instead of from the advocate) was quite substantial. Many a struggling junior at the Bar would have been thankful to earn a third of that average income. Wilson really earned nothing except in the manner indicated; but he wore a silk-fronted frock-coat and a massive watch-chain. Nature, in its abhorrence of a straight line, had taken care that there should be no straight line in the waistcoat which that gleaming chain adorned. “Sir John’s late this morning,” said Wilson. “Yes, I know he is,” agreed Herrick impatiently. “Something wrong, I expect,” suggested Wilson, with a shifty look. “Good heavens! I hope not.” Herrick started up. “Why, everything depends on his being in Court. He’s going to claim his privilege and reply on the whole case for the Crown.” “He can’t if he isn’t there,” said Wilson. “He was a bit queer yesterday. Liver--that’s what it is,” he added hesitatingly. “Confound his liver!” Herrick muttered, under the slight cover of his fair moustache. “Look here,” he said aloud, “why don’t you ring him up?” “I might do that,” assented Wilson, but not with enthusiasm. “He seemed all right in Court yesterday; a bit fagged, nothing more. It’s the House that knocks him up.” “He wasn’t all right last night when I took down that last report from Scotland Yard.”