"Listen!" he said under his breath to Rogers. "I think they must have the goods on Mister Wisenheimer at last. Usually he's the cockiest person round this building. Now take a look at him." Indeed, there was a visible air of self-abasement about Lieutenant Weil as he crossed the wide chamber. It was a thing hard to define in words; yet undeniably there was a diffidence and a reluctance manifest in him, as though a sense of guilt wrestled with the man's natural conceit and assurance. "Rogers," said La Farge, "let's hustle out and 'phone in what we've got and then come back right away. If this fellow's going to get the harpoon stuck into him I want to be on hand when he starts bleeding." Only a few of the dwindled crowd turned back to hear the beginning of the case, whatever it might be, against the Jew. The rest scattered through the corridors, heading mainly for the exits, so that the two newspaper men had company as they hurried toward the main door, making for their offices across the street. When they came back the long cross halls were almost deserted; it had taken them a little longer to finish the job of telephoning than they had figured. At the door of the trial room stood one bulky blue figure. It was the acting bailiff. "How far along have they got?" asked La Farge as the policeman made way for them to pass in. "Captain Meagher is the first witness," said the policeman. "He's the one that's makin' the charge." "What is the charge?" put in Rogers. "At this distance I couldn't make out--Cap Meagher, he mumbles so," confessed the doorkeeper. "Somethin' about misuse of police property, I take it to be." "Aha!" gloated La Farge in his gratification. "Come on, Rogers--I don't want to miss any of this." It was plain, however, that they had missed something; for, to judge by his attitude, Captain Meagher was quite through with his testimony. He still sat in the witness chair alongside the deputy commissioner's desk; but he was silent and he stared vacantly at vacancy. Captain Meagher was known in the department as a man incredibly honest and unbelievably dull. He had no more imagination than one of his own reports. He had a long, sad face, like a tired workhorse's, and heavy black eyebrows that curved high in the middle and arched downward at each end--circumflexes accenting the incurable stupidity of his expression. His black mustache drooped the same way, too, in the design of an inverted magnet. Larry Magee had coined one of his best whimsies on the subject of the shape of the captain's mustache. "No wonder," he said, "old Meagher never has any luck--he wears his horseshoe upside down on his face!" Just as the two reporters, re-entering, took their seats the trial deputy spoke. "Is that all, Captain Meagher?" he asked sonorously. "That's all," said Meagher. "I note," went on Donohue, glancing about him, "that the accused does not appear to be represented by counsel."