The Mystery of the Clasped Hands: A NovelBoothby, Guy
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The Mystery of the Clasped Hands: A Novel
Boothby, Guy
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
When they left him, half-an-hour later, Godfrey sat himself down on his
bed and resigned himself to his own miserable thoughts. What enemy had
he who hailed from Vienna? He could think of no one among the circle of
his acquaintances who had ever been there. Certainly no one who would be
likely to do him such an irreparable wrong. After that he thought of his
dear ones at home, and broke down completely. His supper was sent away
untouched. He felt as though he could not have swallowed a mouthful,
even had his life depended on it. At last he retired to bed, but not to
rest. When he rose next morning, he felt older by a dozen years.
“This will never do,” he said to himself. “If I go on like this, people
will begin to think from my appearance that I am guilty. No, they shall
see that I am not afraid to look any man in the face.”
Then the door was unlocked, and he was informed that it was time to set
off for the magistrate’s court.
CHAPTER XII
The preliminary investigation before the magistrate calls for but little
comment. The evidence was, with but few exceptions, that which had been
given before the coroner on the Monday and Wednesday preceding. If it
were remarkable for anything it was for the number of spectators in the
Court. The building, in which the coroner’s inquiry had been conducted,
had been crowded, but the police-court was packed, not with the
poorly-clad spectators which one usually meets and associates with that
miserable place, but by well-dressed and even aristocratic members of
society. When Godfrey recovered from his first feeling of shame at
finding himself in such a place and in such a position, and looked about
him, he recognised several people whom he had once accounted his
friends, but who had now schemed and contrived by every means in their
power, to obtain permission to watch, what they thought would amount to
his degradation and final extinction. Pulling himself together he gazed
boldly around him, and more than one person there told himself or
herself that a man who could look at one like that could never be guilty
of such a crime as murder. Mr. Rolland, the counsel who had been
retained by Codey for the defence, was a tall, handsome man, and of
others, little above middle-age. He was the possessor of a bland, suave
manner which had the faculty of extracting information from the most
unwilling and reluctant witnesses. Near him sat Mr. Codey himself,
keen-eyed and on the alert for anything that might tend to his client’s
advantage. The curiosity of the visitors was not destined, however, to
be gratified, for, when certain of the witnesses had been examined, the
case was adjourned for a week, and Godfrey returned to Holloway by the
way he had come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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