t the debtors' door with
its forbidding spiked wicket; past the gallows gate with its festoons
of fetters; we walked in silence until we reached the entrance to the
Sessions House.

Here I was not a little relieved to find Thorndyke on the look-out for
us, for Mrs. Hornby, in spite of really heroic efforts to control her
emotion, was in a state of impending hysteria, while Juliet, though
outwardly calm and composed, showed by the waxen pallor of her cheeks
and a certain wildness of her eyes that all her terror was reviving; and
I was glad that they were spared the unpleasantness of contact with the
policemen who guarded the various entrances.

"We must be brave," said Thorndyke gently, as he took Mrs. Hornby's
hand, "and show a cheerful face to our friend who has so much to bear
and who bears it so patiently. A few more hours, and I hope we shall see
restored, not only his liberty, but his honour. Here is Mr. Anstey, who,
we trust, will be able to make his innocence apparent."

Anstey, who, unlike Thorndyke, had already donned his wig and gown,
bowed gravely, and, together, we passed through the mean and grimy
portals into a dark hall. Policemen in uniform and unmistakable
detectives stood about the various entries, and little knots of people,
evil-looking and unclean for the most part, lurked in the background or
sat on benches and diffused through the stale, musty air that
distinctive but indescribable odour that clings to police vans and
prison reception rooms; an odour that, in the present case, was
pleasantly mingled with the suggestive aroma of disinfectants. Through
the unsavoury throng we hurried, and up a staircase to a landing from
which several passages diverged. Into one of these passages--a sort of
"dark entry," furnished with a cage-like gate of iron bars--we passed
to a black door, on which was painted the inscription, "Old Court.
Counsel and clerks."

Anstey held the door open for us, and we passed through into the court,
which at once struck me with a sense of disappointment. It was smaller
than I had expected, and plain and mean to the point of sordidness. The
woodwork was poor, thinly disguised by yellow graining, and slimy with
dirt wherever a dirty hand could reach it. The walls were distempered a
pale, greenish grey; the floor was of bare and dirty planking, and the
only suggestions of dignity or display were those offered by the canopy
over the judge's seat--lined with scarlet baize and surmou