ing on," he said in a pleased tone. "This means a trip to
Scotland, but I'll wait until the inquest is over."

CHAPTER IX

At the inquest on the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks, which was held at
the Hampstead Police Court, there was an odd mixture of classes in the
crowd that thronged that portion of the court in which the public were
allowed to congregate. The accounts of the crime which had been
published in the press, and the atmosphere of mystery which enshrouded
the violent death of one of the most prominent of His Majesty's judges,
had stirred the public curiosity, and therefore, in spite of the fact
that every one was supposed to be out of town in August, the attendance
at the court included a sprinkling of ladies of the fashionable world,
and their escorts.

Both branches of the legal profession were numerously represented. All of
the victim's judicial colleagues were out of town, and though some of
them intended as a mark of respect for the dead man to come up for the
funeral, which was to take place two days later, they were too familiar
with legal procedure to feel curiosity as to the working of the machinery
at a preliminary inquiry into the crime. They were emphatic among their
friends on the degeneracy of these days which rendered possible such an
outrageous crime as the murder of a High Court judge. The fact that it
was without precedent in the history of British law added to its enormity
in the eyes of gentlemen who had been trained to worship precedent as the
only safe guide through the shifting quicksands of life. They were
insistent on the urgency of the murderer being arrested and handed over
to Justice in the person of the hangman, for--as each asked
himself--where was this sort of crime to end? In spite of the degeneracy
of the times they were reluctant to believe in such a far-fetched
supposition as the existence of a band of criminals who, in revenge for
the judicial sentences imposed on members of their class, had sworn to
exterminate the whole of His Majesty's judges; but, until the murderer
was apprehended and the reason for the crime was discovered, it was
impossible to say that the English judicature would not soon be called
upon to supply other victims to criminal violence. The murder of a judge
seemed to them a particularly atrocious crime, in the punishment of which
the law might honourably sacrifice temporarily its well-earned reputation
for delay.

The bar was represented chief