'The facts are as clear as daylight.'

'If they be so, your son will soon be a free man.'

'If you could feel what his wife suffers in the meantime!'

'Though I did feel it,--though we all felt it; as probably we do, for though we be officials still we are men,--how should that help us? You would not have a man pardoned because his wife suffers!'

'Knowing how she suffered, I do not think I should let much gra.s.s grow under my feet while I was making the inquiry.'

'I hope there is no such gra.s.s grows here. The truth is, Mr. Caldigate, that, as a rule, no person coming here on such an errand as yours is received at all. The Secretary of State cannot, either in his own person or in that of those who are under him, put himself in communication with the friends of individuals who are under sentence. I am sure that you, as a man conversant with the laws, must see the propriety of such a rule.'

'I think I have a right to express my natural anxiety.'

'I will not deny it. The post is open to you, and though I fear that our replies may not be considered altogether satisfactory, we do give our full attention to the letters we receive. When I heard that you had been here, and had expressed an intention of returning, from respect to yourself personally I desired that you might be shown into my room. But I could not have done that had it not been that I myself have not been concerned in this matter.' Then he got up from his seat, and Mr.

Caldigate found himself compelled to leave the room with thanks rather than with indignation.

He walked out of the big building into Downing Street, and down the steps into the park. And going into the gardens, he wandered about them for more than an hour, sometimes walking slowly along the water-side, and then seating himself for a while on one of the benches. What must he say to Hester in the letter which he must write as soon as he was back at his hotel? He tried to sift some wheat out of what he was pleased to call the chaff of Mr. Brown's courtesy. Was there not some indication to be found in it of what the result might be? If there were any such indication, it was, he thought, certainly adverse to his son. In whose bosom might be the ultimate decision,--whether in that of the Secretary, or the judge, or of some experienced clerk in the Secretary's office,--it was manifest that the facts which had now been proven to the world at large for many days, had none of the effects on that bosom which they had on his own. Could it be that Shand was false, that Bagwax was false, that the postage-stamp was false,--and that he only believed them to be true? Was it possible that after all his son had married the woman? He crept back to his hotel in Jermyn Street, and there he wrote his letter.

'I think I shall be home to-morrow, but I will not say so for certain. I have been at the Home Office, but they would tell me nothing. A man was very civil to me, but explained that he was civil only because he knew nothing about the case. I think I shall call on Mr. Bagwax at the Post-office to-morrow, and after that return to Folking. Send in for the day-mail letters, and then you will hear from me again if I mean to stay.'

At ten o'clock on the following day he was at the Post-office, and there he found Bagwax prepared to take his seat exactly at that hour.

Thereupon he resolved, with true radical impetuosity, that Bagwax was a much better public servant than Mr. Brown. 'Well, Mr. Caldigate,--so we've got it all clear at last,' said Bagwax.

There was a triumph in the tone of the clerk's voice which was not intelligible to the despondent old squire. 'It is not at all clear to me,' he said.

'Of course you've heard?'

'Heard what? I know all about the postage-stamp, of course.'

'If Secretaries of State and judges of the Court of Queen's Bench only had their wits about them, the postage-stamp ought to have been quite sufficient,' said Bagwax, sententiously.

'What more is there?'

'For the sake of letting the world know what can be done in our department, it is a pity that there should be anything more.'

'But there is something. For G.o.d's sake tell me, Mr. Bagwax.'

'You haven't heard that they caught Crinkett just as he was leaving Plymouth?'

'Not a word.'

'And the woman. They've got the lot of 'em, Mr. Caldigate. Adamson and the other woman have agreed to give evidence, and are to be let go.'

'When did you hear it?'

'Well;--it is in the "Daily Tell-tale." But I knew it last night,--from a particular source. I have been a good deal thrown in with Scotland Yard since this began, Mr. Caldigate, and, of course, I hear things.'

Then it occurred to the squire that perhaps he had flown a little too high in going at once to the Home Office. They might have told him more, perhaps, in Scotland Yard. 'But it's all true. The depositions have already been made. Adamson and Young have sworn that they were present at no marriage. Crinkett they say, means to plead guilty; but the woman sticks to it like wax.'

The squire had written a letter by the day-mail to say that he would remain in London that further day. He now wrote again, at the Post-office, telling Hester all that Bagwax had told him, and declaring his purpose of going at once to Scotland Yard.

If this story were true, then certainly his son would soon be liberated.

Chapter LVIII

Mr. Smirkie Is Ill-used

It was on a Tuesday that Mr. Caldigate made his visit to the Home Office, and on the Thursday he returned to Cambridge. On the platform whom should he meet but his brother-in-law Squire Babington, who had come into Cambridge that morning intent on hearing something further about his nephew. He, too, had read a paragraph in his newspaper, 'The Snapper,' as to Crinkett and Euphemia Smith.

'Thomas Crinkett, and Euphemia Smith, who gave evidence against Mr. John Caldigate in the well-known trial at the last Cambridge a.s.sizes, have been arrested at Plymouth just as they were about to leave the country for New Zealand. These are the persons to whom it was proved that Caldigate had paid the enormous sum of twenty thousand pounds a few days before the trial. It is alleged that they are to be indicted for perjury. If this be true, it implies the innocence of Mr. Caldigate, who, as our readers will remember, was convicted of bigamy. There will be much in the whole case for Mr. Caldigate to regret, but nothing so much as the loss of that very serious sum of money. It would be idle to deny that it was regarded by the jury, and the judge, and the public as a bribe to the witnesses. Why it should have been paid will now probably remain for ever a mystery.'

The squire read this over three times before he could quite understand the gist of it, and at last perceived,--or thought that he perceived,--that if this were true the innocence of his nephew was incontestable. But Julia, who seemed to prefer the paternal mansion at Babington to her own peculiar comforts and privileges at Plum-c.u.m-Pippins, declared that she didn't believe a word of it; and aunt Polly, whose animosity to her nephew had somewhat subsided, was not quite inclined to accept the statement at once. Aunt Polly expressed an opinion that newspapers were only born to lie, but added that had she seen the news anywhere else she would not have been a bit surprised. The squire was prepared to swear by the tidings. If such a thing was not to be put into a newspaper, where was it to be put? Aunt Polly could not answer this question, but a.s.sisted in persuading her husband to go into Cambridge for further information.

'I hope this is true,' said the Suffolk squire, tendering his hand cordially to his brother-in-law. He was a man who could throw all his heart into an internecine quarrel on a Monday and forget the circ.u.mstance altogether on the Tuesday.

'Of what are you speaking?' asked the squire of Folking, with his usual placid look, partly indifferent and partly sarcastic, covering so much contempt of which the squire from Suffolk was able to read nothing at all.

'About the man and the woman, the witnesses who are to be put in prison at Plymouth, and who now say just the contrary to what they said before.'

'I do not think that can be true,' said Mr. Caldigate.

'Then you haven't seen the "Snapper"?' asked Mr. Babington, dragging the paper out of his pocket. 'Look at that.'

They were now in a cab together, going towards the town, and Mr.

Caldigate did not find it convenient to read the paragraph. But of course he knew the contents. 'It is quite true,' he said, 'that the persons you allude to have been arrested, and that they are up in London. They will, I presume, be tried for perjury.'

'It is true?'

'There is no doubt of it.'

'And the party are splitting against each other?' asked Mr. Babington eagerly.

'Two of them have already sworn that what they swore before was false.'

'Then why don't they let him out?'

'Why not, indeed?' said Mr. Caldigate.

'I should have thought they wouldn't have lost a moment in such a case.

They've got one of the best fellows in the world at the Home Office. His name is Brown. If you could have seen Brown I'm sure he wouldn't have let them delay a minute. The Home Office has the reputation of being so very quick.'

In answer to this the squire of Folking only shook his head. He would not even condescend to say that he had seen Brown, and certainly not to explain that Brown had seemed to him to be the most absurdly-cautious and courteously-dilatory man that he had ever met in his life. In Trumpington Street they parted, Mr. Caldigate proceeding at once to Folking, and Mr. Babington going to the office of Mr. Seely the attorney. 'He'll be out in a day or two,' said the man of Suffolk, again shaking his brother-in-law's hand; 'and do you tell him from me that I hope it won't be long before we see him at Babington. I've been true to him almost from the first, and his aunt has come over now. There is no one against him but Julia, and these are things of course which young women won't forget.'

Mr. Caldigate almost became genial as he accepted this a.s.surance, telling himself that his brother magistrate was as honest as he was silly.