a livelier
interest when he was readily recognized on the street. The news of the
murder had, evidently, already become city property. He was indicated to
individuals unaware of his identity, with a rapid sketch of the crime,
of fabulous ascribed possessions, and hinted oriental indulgence. He
strode on rapidly, his shoulders squared, his expression contemptuous,
challenging; but within he was possessed by an apprehension increasing
at every step. It was not, fortunately, far from Sanderson's Hotel to
the City Hall; west on Chestnut Street they reached their destination at
the following corner. The loungers from the trees before the State House
had gathered, with an increasing mob aware of the hearing within, at the
entrance to the municipal offices. The windows on either side of the
marble steps were crowded with faces, ribald or blank or censorious, and
Jasper Penny had to force his way into the building. He tried to recall
if there was another, more private, ingress, through which Susan might
be taken; but his thoughts evaded every discipline; they whirled in a
feverish course about the sole fact of the public degradation he had
brought on Susan Brundon. They passed the doors of civic departments, he
saw their signs--Water, City Treasurer, and then entered the Mayor's
chamber.
The latter was seated at a table facing the room with his back to a wide
window, opening on the blank brick wall of the Philosophical Society
building; and at one side the High Constable of the district in which
the murder had been committed was conversing with the Sheriff. Beside
them, Jasper Penny saw, there were only some clerks present and three
policemen. The Mayor spoke equably to the Ironmaster, directed a chair
placed for his convenience, and resumed the inspection of a number of
reports. He had a gaunt, tight-lipped face framed in luxuriant whiskers,
a severely moral aspect oddly contradicted by trousers of tremendous
sporting plaid, a waistcoat of green buckskin cassimere, while his silk
hat held a rakish, forward angle. The Constable and Sheriff punctuated
their converse by prodigious and dexterous spitting into a dangerously
far receptacle, and the clerks and police murmured together. The Mayor,
finally glancing at a watch enamelled, Jasper Penny saw, with a fay of
the ballet, spoke to the room in general. "Ten and past. Well! Well!
Where are the others? Who is to come still, Hoffernan?"
"Mr. Jannan, sir; and a witness," a clerk
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