He looked around him measuring those against whom he had to fight. To his left he saw Mary McPhillip sitting. She had her hands in her lap. She was leaning forward slightly, with a nervous expectant look in her eyes, looking at Gallagher. She cast a terrified glance, occasionally, towards Gypo, but her eyes always came back to Gallagher’s face as if they were fascinated by it. It was obvious that she was terrified and that her mind was trying to keep itself fixed on the object of the prayers which her moving lips were uttering. Gypo saw the terror in her quivering face and knew that he had nothing to fear from her. Then he looked at the three judges. He knew those masked men. They were merely puppets, politicians, figure-heads who would do Gallagher’s bidding, afraid to contradict him. Ha! Gallagher was the man he had to fight. Gallagher and that rat Mulholland. He saw them over by the little table with their heads together. He fixed his eyes on them. Feverishly he set himself to form a plan, not that he hoped anything at this hour from the formation of a plan, but merely because making a plan was an end in itself to his peculiar reason. But he could not even think of a plan. All his energies were concentrated on maintaining his anger at fever heat. He struggled feebly with threads of ideas and then dropped them hopelessly. He doubled up his fists and held them, knuckles downwards, one on each hip. The two armed men who stood behind him, saw his back muscles rise and strain against his dungaree jacket. Then the silence broke. Gallagher got up with his open notebook in his hand. He walked over to the judges’ table. He placed the notebook in front of the judges, pointing out something with his finger. The centre judge nodded. Gallagher walked back again to his table and sat down. Gypo followed every movement with frenzied excitement. He seemed to be on the point of jumping to his feet and rushing at Gallagher. The two sentries in the doorway and the two armed men standing behind Gypo’s back slipped their fingers over their revolver triggers. They leaned forward slightly. There was a tense moment. Then Gallagher looked at Gypo and began to speak sharply, in a low, restrained voice. “Now Gypo,” he began, “tell us how you spent your time from six o’clock this evening until you came in here at half-past one. Hurry up. Don’t waste any time. We are in a hurry.” Gypo’s eyes almost shut. Then his face seemed to swell. His mouth contorted. “What’s it got to do with you where I ben?” he thundered in a queer, hollow voice. It seemed his mouth had gone dry. “You never know,” said Gallagher carelessly. “It might be interesting for us to know. Don’t you feel like telling us how you’ve been amusing yourself from the time you met Francis Joseph McPhillip at six o’clock in the Dunboy Lodging House until you came in here?” “An’ supposin’ I don’t tell ye, what are ye goin’ to do? Wha’?”