"When this is all over we'll get him down to Matching, and manage
better than that. I should think they'll hardly go on with the
Session, as nobody has done anything since the arrest. While Mr. Finn
has been in prison legislation has come to a standstill altogether.
Even Plantagenet doesn't work above twelve hours a day, and I'm
told that poor Lord Fawn hasn't been near his office for the last
fortnight. When the excitement is over they'll never be able to get
back to their business before the grouse. There'll be a few dinners
of course, just as a compliment to the great man,--but London will
break up after that, I should think. You won't come in for so much
of the glory as you would have done if they hadn't found the stick.
Little Lord Frederick must have his share, you know."

"It's the most singular case I ever knew," said Sir Simon Slope that
night to one of his friends. "We certainly should have hanged him but
for the two accidents, and yet neither of them brings us a bit nearer
to hanging any one else."

"What a pity!"

"It shows the danger of circumstantial evidence,--and yet without it
one never could get at any murder. I'm very glad, you know, that the
key and the stick did turn up. I never thought much about the coat."

CHAPTER LXVII

The Verdict

On the Wednesday morning Phineas Finn was again brought into the
Court, and again placed in the dock. There was a general feeling
that he should not again have been so disgraced; but he was still a
prisoner under a charge of murder, and it was explained to him that
the circumstances of the case and the stringency of the law did not
admit of his being seated elsewhere during his trial. He treated the
apology with courteous scorn. He should not have chosen, he said,
to have made any change till after the trial was over, even had any
change been permitted. When he was brought up the steps into the dock
after the judges had taken their seats there was almost a shout of
applause. The crier was very angry, and gave it to be understood that
everybody would be arrested unless everybody was silent; but the
Chief Justice said not a word, nor did those great men the Attorney
and Solicitor-General express any displeasure. The bench was again
crowded with Members of Parliament from both Houses, and on this
occasion Mr. Gresham himself had accompanied Lord Cantrip. The two
Dukes were there, and men no bigger than Laurence Fitzgibbon were
forced to subject themselv