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_ "Your muffler--I'll get it," said Constance. "Cyril, run upstairs
and get father's muffler. You know the drawer."
Cyril ran. It behoved everybody, that morning, to be prompt and
efficient.
"I don't need any muffler, thank you," said Samuel, coughing and
smothering the cough.
"Oh! But, Sam--" Constance protested.
"Now please don't worry me!" said Samuel with frigid finality.
"I've got quite enough--!" He did not finish.
Constance sighed as her husband stepped, nervous and self-
important, out of the side-door into the street. It was early, not
yet eight o'clock, and the shop still unopened.
"Your father couldn't wait," Constance said to Cyril when he had
thundered down the stairs in his heavy schoolboy boots. "Give it
to me." She went to restore the muffler to its place.
The whole house was upset, and Amy still an invalid! Existence was
disturbed; there vaguely seemed to be a thousand novel things to
be done, and yet she could think of nothing whatever that she
needed to do at that moment; so she occupied herself with the
muffler. Before she reappeared Cyril had gone to school, he who
was usually a laggard. The truth was that he could no longer
contain within himself a recital of the night, and in particular
of the fact that he had been the first to hear the summons of the
murderer on the window-pane. This imperious news had to be
imparted to somebody, as a preliminary to the thrilling of the
whole school; and Cyril had issued forth in search of an
appreciative and worthy confidant. He was scarcely five minutes
after his father.
In St. Luke's Square was a crowd of quite two hundred persons,
standing moveless in the November mud. The body of Mrs. Daniel
Povey had already been taken to the Tiger Hotel, and young Dick
Povey was on his way in a covered wagonette to Pirehill Infirmary
on the other side of Knype. The shop of the crime was closed, and
the blinds drawn at the upper windows of the house. There was
absolutely nothing to be seen, not even a policeman. Nevertheless
the crowd stared with an extraordinary obstinate attentiveness at
the fatal building in Boulton Terrace. Hypnotized by this face of
bricks and mortar, it had apparently forgotten all earthly ties,
and, regardless of breakfast and a livelihood, was determined to
stare at it till the house fell down or otherwise rendered up its
secret. Most of its component individuals wore neither overcoats
nor collars, but were kept warm by a scarf round the neck and by
dint of forcing their fingers into the furthest inch of their
pockets. Then they would slowly lift one leg after the other.
Starers of infirm purpose would occasionally detach themselves
from the throng and sidle away, ashamed of their fickleness. But
reinforcements were continually arriving. And to these new-comers
all that had been said in gossip had to be repeated and repeated:
the same questions, the same answers, the same exclamations, the
same proverbial philosophy, the same prophecies recurred in all
parts of the Square with an uncanny iterance. Well-dressed men
spoke to mere professional loiterers; for this unparalleled and
glorious sensation, whose uniqueness grew every instant more
impressive, brought out the essential brotherhood of mankind. All
had a peculiar feeling that the day was neither Sunday nor week-
day, but some eighth day of the week. Yet in the St. Luke's
Covered Market close by, the stall-keepers were preparing their
stalls just as though it were Saturday, just as though a Town
Councillor had not murdered his wife--at last! It was stated, and
restated infinitely, that the Povey baking had been taken over by
Brindley, the second-best baker and confectioner, who had a stall
in the market. And it was asserted, as a philosophical truth, and
reasserted infinitely, that there would have been no sense in
wasting good food.
Samuel's emergence stirred the multitude. But Samuel passed up the
Square with a rapt expression; he might have been under an
illusion, caused by the extreme gravity of his preoccupations,
that he was crossing a deserted Square. He hurried past the Bank
and down the Turnhill Road, to the private residence of 'Young
Lawton,' son of the deceased 'Lawyer Lawton.' Young Lawton
followed his father's profession; he was, as his father had been,
the most successful solicitor in the town (though reputed by his
learned rivals to be a fool), but the custom of calling men by
their occupations had died out with horse-cars. Samuel caught
young Lawton at his breakfast, and presently drove with him, in
the Lawton buggy, to the police-station, where their arrival
electrified a crowd as large as that in St. Luke's Square. Later,
they drove together to Hanbridge, informally to brief a barrister;
and Samuel, not permitted to be present at the first part of the
interview between the solicitor and the barrister, was humbled
before the pomposity of legal etiquette.
It seemed to Samuel a game. The whole rigmarole of police and
police-cells and formalities seemed insincere. His cousin's case
was not like any other case, and, though formalities might be
necessary, it was rather absurd to pretend that it was like any
other case. In what manner it differed from other cases Samuel did
not analytically inquire. He thought young Lawton was self-
important, and Daniel too humble, in the colloquy of these two,
and he endeavoured to indicate, by the dignity of his own
demeanour, that in his opinion the proper relative tones had not
been set. He could not understand Daniel's attitude, for he lacked
imagination to realize what Daniel had been through. After all,
Daniel was not a murderer; his wife's death was due to accident,
was simply a mishap.
But in the crowded and stinking court-room of the Town Hall,
Samuel began to feel qualms. It occurred that the Stipendiary
Magistrate was sitting that morning at Bursley. He sat alone, as
not one of the Borough Justices cared to occupy the Bench while a
Town Councillor was in the dock. The Stipendiary, recently
appointed, was a young man, from the southern part of the county;
and a Town Councillor of Bursley was no more to him than a petty
tradesman to a man of fashion. He was youthfully enthusiastic for
the majesty and the impartiality of English justice, and behaved
as though the entire responsibility for the safety of that vast
fabric rested on his shoulders. He and the barrister from
Hanbridge had had a historic quarrel at Cambridge, and their
behaviour to each other was a lesson to the vulgar in the art of
chill and consummate politeness. Young Lawton, having been to
Oxford, secretly scorned the pair of them, but, as he had engaged
counsel, he of course was precluded from adding to the eloquence,
which chagrined him. These three were the aristocracy of the
court-room; they knew it; Samuel Povey knew it; everybody knew it,
and felt it. The barrister brought an unexceptionable zeal to the
performance of his duties; be referred in suitable terms to
Daniel's character and high position in the town, but nothing
could hide the fact that for him too his client was a petty
tradesman accused of simple murder. Naturally the Stipendiary was
bound to show that before the law all men are equal--the Town
Councillor and the common tippler; he succeeded. The policeman
gave his evidence, and the Inspector swore to what Daniel Povey
had said when charged. The hearing proceeded so smoothly and
quickly that it seemed naught but an empty rite, with Daniel as a
lay figure in it. The Stipendiary achieved marvellously the
illusion that to him a murder by a Town Councillor in St. Luke's
Square was quite an everyday matter. Bail was inconceivable, and
the barrister, being unable to suggest any reason why the
Stipendiary should grant a remand--indeed, there was no reason--
Daniel Povey was committed to the Stafford Assizes for trial. The
Stipendiary instantly turned to the consideration of an alleged
offence against the Factory Acts by a large local firm of potters.
The young magistrate had mistaken his vocation. With his steely
calm, with his imperturbable detachment from weak humanity, he
ought to have been a General of the Order of Jesuits.
Daniel was removed--he did not go: he was removed, by two bare-
headed constables. Samuel wanted to have speech with him, and
could not. And later, Samuel stood in the porch of the Town Hall,
and Daniel appeared out of a corridor, still in the keeping of two
policemen, helmeted now. And down below at the bottom of the broad
flight of steps, up which passed dancers on the nights of
subscription balls, was a dense crowd, held at bay by other
policemen; and beyond the crowd a black van. And Daniel--to his
cousin a sort of Christ between thieves--was hurried past the
privileged loafers in the corridor, and down the broad steps. A
murmuring wave agitated the crowd. Unkempt idlers and ne'er-do-
wells in corduroy leaped up like tigers in the air, and the
policemen fought them back furiously. And Daniel and his guardians
shot through the little living lane. Quick! Quick! For the captive
is more sacred even than a messiah. The law has him in charge! And
like a feat of prestidigitation Daniel disappeared into the
blackness of the van. A door slammed loudly, triumphantly, and a
whip cracked. The crowd had been balked. It was as though the
crowd had yelled for Daniel's blood and bones, and the faithful
constables had saved him from their lust.
Yes, Samuel had qualms. He had a sickness in the stomach.
The aged Superintendent of Police walked by, with the aged Rector.
The Rector was Daniel's friend. Never before had the Rector spoken
to the Nonconformist Samuel, but now he spoke to him; he squeezed
his hand.
"Ah, Mr. Povey!" he ejaculated grievously.
"I--I'm afraid it's serious!" Samuel stammered. He hated to admit
that it was serious, but the words came out of his mouth.
He looked at the Superintendent of Police, expecting the
Superintendent to assure him that it was not serious; but the
Superintendent only raised his small white-bearded chin, saying
nothing. The Rector shook his head, and shook a senile tear out of
his eye.
After another chat with young Lawton, Samuel, on behalf of Daniel,
dropped his pose of the righteous man to whom a mere mishap has
occurred, and who is determined, with the lofty pride of
innocence, to indulge all the whims of the law, to be more
royalist than the king. He perceived that the law must be fought
with its own weapons, that no advantage must be surrendered, and
every possible advantage seized. He was truly astonished at
himself that such a pose had ever been adopted. His eyes were
opened; he saw things as they were.
He returned home through a Square that was more interested than
ever in the facade of his cousin's house. People were beginning to
come from Hanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, Turnhill, and villages such
as Moorthorne, to gaze at that facade. And the fourth edition of
the Signal, containing a full report of what the Stipendiary and
the barrister had said to each other, was being cried.
In his shop he found customers, as absorbed in the trivialities of
purchase as though nothing whatever had happened. He was shocked;
he resented their callousness.
"I'm too busy now," he said curtly to one who accosted him."
"Sam!" his wife called him in a low voice. She was standing behind
the till.
"What is it?" He was ready to crush, and especially to crush
indiscreet babble in the shop. He thought she was going to vent
her womanly curiosity at once.
"Mr. Huntbach is waiting for you in the parlour," said Constance.
"Mr. Huntbach?"
"Yes, from Longshaw." She whispered, "It's Mrs. Povey's cousin.
He's come to see about the funeral and so on, the--the inquest, I
suppose."
Samuel paused. "Oh, has he!" said he defiantly. "Well, I'll see
him. If he WANTS to see me, I'll see him."
That evening Constance learned all that was in his mind of
bitterness against the memory of the dead woman whose failings had
brought Daniel Povey to Stafford gaol and Dick to the Pirehill
Infirmary. Again and again, in the ensuing days, he referred to
the state of foul discomfort which he had discovered in Daniel's
house. He nursed a feud against all her relatives, and when, after
the inquest, at which he gave evidence full of resentment, she was
buried, he vented an angry sigh of relief, and said: "Well, SHE'S
out of the way!" Thenceforward he had a mission, religious in its
solemn intensity, to defend and save Daniel. He took the
enterprise upon himself, spending the whole of himself upon it, to
the neglect of his business and the scorn of his health. He lived
solely for Daniel's trial, pouring out money in preparation for
it. He thought and spoke of nothing else. The affair was his one
preoccupation. And as the weeks passed, he became more and more
sure of success, more and more sure that he would return with
Daniel to Bursley in triumph after the assize. He was convinced of
the impossibility that 'anything should happen' to Daniel; the
circumstances were too clear, too overwhelmingly in Daniel's
favour.
When Brindley, the second-best baker and confectioner, made an
offer for Daniel's business as a going concern, he was indignant
at first. Then Constance, and the lawyer, and Daniel (whom he saw
on every permitted occasion) between them persuaded him that if
some arrangement was not made, and made quickly, the business
would lose all its value, and he consented, on Daniel's behalf, to
a temporary agreement under which Brindley should reopen the shop
and manage it on certain terms until Daniel regained his freedom
towards the end of January. He would not listen to Daniel's
plaintive insistence that he would never care to be seen in
Bursley again. He pooh-poohed it. He protested furiously that the
whole town was seething with sympathy for Daniel; and this was
true. He became Daniel's defending angel, rescuing Daniel from
Daniel's own weakness and apathy. He became, indeed, Daniel.
One morning the shop-shutter was wound up, and Brindley, inflated
with the importance of controlling two establishments, strutted in
and out under the sign of Daniel Povey. And traffic in bread and
cakes and flour was resumed. Apparently the sea of time had risen
and covered Daniel and all that was his; for his wife was under
earth, and Dick lingered at Pirehill, unable to stand, and Daniel
was locked away. Apparently, in the regular flow of the life of
the Square, Daniel was forgotten. But not in Samuel Povey's heart
was he forgotten! There, before an altar erected to the martyr,
the sacred flame of a new faith burned with fierce consistency.
Samuel, in his greying middle-age, had inherited the eternal youth
of the apostle. _
Read next: BOOK II CONSTANCE: CHAPTER V - ANOTHER CRIME: PART III
Read previous: BOOK II CONSTANCE: CHAPTER V - ANOTHER CRIME: PART I
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