William Augustine Leahy

“ Every man in the court-room saw the wife and two children, sitting behind drawn curtains in the carriage of the chief mourners, and beyond this picture the bodies of six victims, four of them young girls, done to death at the prompting of avarice. The prisoner himself seemed to understand, for he shut his teeth, though his bold eyes still dared the multitude. But they rested more and more upon the lovely face which was his one point of consolation in that unfriendly assemblage. Badger's indifferent voice showed no quiver when he asked Miss Lund to step down and called for Robert Floyd. ”

“ Was it a man?" answered Emily. "Rather a monster, no more than half-human."
"It had the form of a man," said Shagarach, "as I felt it through the glass."
Rachel was busy bandaging his cuts with plaster during this conversation, but they bled through, calling for the surgeon's thread.
"But it snarled like a tiger," said the mother.
"Oh the wild, blue eyes! They were staring at me through the cleft of the draperies. And the demon leer, and the forehead, retreating like a frog's——"
"It is the oaf I passed on the pier," cried Shagarach, interrupting Emily. "We have found Mr. Skull-and-Crossbones." ”

“ With wonderful strength the fugitive raised himself erect, sprung from the insecure footing of the slippery boards, and began clambering up the ledge.
"After him, Wolf!" cried McCausland, and the bloodhound, nerved by his tones, tore up the ledge in the monster's wake. McCausland and Silsby clambered as best they could on all fours, and presently Shagarach, hearing the outcry, followed them. The crack of the inspector's revolver was heard once, but the fugitive had turned like lightning and hurled his adze. McCausland uttered a sharp cry as the pistol was struck from his hand. ”

“ Shagarach was satisfied at last. An adequate motive for Harry's deed was clearly in view. It was not the most heinous crime which had been committed to gratify the gamester's passion.
"I wish to be with you on that occasion."
"It will be hard," answered Kennedy, his face clouded with consternation and a torrid flush of something like shame sweeping over it. "The Dove-Cote is too well guarded."
"The Dove-Cote!" Shagarach was betrayed into an ejaculation of surprise. This was the "Tough-Coat" which Aronson's imperfect articulation had disguised.
"It may be hard, but it is not impossible." ”

“ From Rosalie's hard glance at Shagarach, Emily knew there was as much blame in her heart for the lawyer as for her lover. And Rosalie was not the only girl who would have ransomed Harry Arnold, perjurer, self-seeker, gambler, as he owned himself to have been, with her life, if such a price should be asked.
"Are they sisters?" asked the thoughtless, misled by their golden hair, when the two beautiful girls went out together, leaving Mme. Violet behind. But a student of faces would never have fallen into such an error. ”

“ Dobbs' voice grew hoarse with excitement. Robert replaced the block on his side, and heard the convict doing the same on the other. As Longlegs passed, Dobbs fell into a tremendous spasm of coughing. The turnkey hastened to the end of the corridor, jangling his keys as if deriding the derision with which he was greeted all the way. He had run his gantlet too often to heed the jeers and grimaces he met. There was a sound as if he were unlocking the farther door and then relocking it from the outside.
"That's a very useful cough," whispered Dobbs to Floyd. ”

“ Shagarach's eyes had left Emily's face and strayed toward the window. Twice he had asked her to repeat, as though he were catching up a lost thread. At last he arose abruptly and shut down the sash, muffling the minstrelsy at the height of its wildest abandon.
"Our street troubadours distract you?" asked Emily.
"The violinist is a gypsy," said the lawyer, shutting his eyes. Emily remembered this saying afterward, and even now she began to understand why a certain compassion, mingled with the fear and admiration which this man so gifted, but so meanly surrounded, aroused. ”

“ This catalogue of the victims moved the spectators, and Emily noticed the woman in black crying softly in her handkerchief.
"I will not attempt to instruct your consciences or call to your minds the responsibility which rests upon your shoulders as well as upon mine. For I am convinced that every man before me approaches this case with the same unwillingness which I myself have felt, but also with the same determination to uphold the law, to do justice and nothing more or less than justice, to all parties, that I myself have formed." ”

“ Today hundreds flocked to hear his pleading of a cause, judges leaned over alertly, as if learning their duty from him, and the very hangers-on of the courtroom acquired a larger view of the moral law when Shagarach expounded it.
"My own beginnings were as humble," he said.
"You are a criminal lawyer by choice, people say."
"The moral alternative of innocence or guilt, of liberty or imprisonment—sometimes, as now, of life or death—exalts a cause in my eyes far above any elevation to which mere financial litigation can attain." ”

“ Under the smooth, bony brow that marks the Hebrew shone two eyes of extraordinary splendor, the largest, Emily thought, she had ever seen, and set the widest apart—brown and melting as a dog's, but glowing, as no dog's ever did, with profundities of human intelligence. Wide open at all times, they cast penetrating glances, never sidelong, always full—the eyes of a soul-searcher, a student of those characters, legible but elusive ”

“ He ground his teeth, as Walter had seen him in Shagarach's office, and roared with fists clenched at some invisible adversary.
"Run, run," called Walter, dragging Emily with him along the little footpath—on, on. They could hear their own footsteps echoed behind, but the roars did not appear to be gaining on them.
"Faster! Faster!" urged Emily, as Walter weakened. The briers scratched her dress, the boughs brushed in her face, but what were these to the monster behind them? She dared not turn, lest his fierce eyes should be glaring into hers and his grimy hands clutch at her flying hair. ”

“ The two men chattering in low tones at a side table had not stood up or noticed the interruption.
"I can't believe it, McCausland," answered John Davidson, the fire marshal. "There is no motive. It's devilish. It's beneath flesh and blood. Four lives already and heaven knows how many more. It isn't in human kind to do that without a reason."
"Mankind is my kind, too," answered McCausland, pleasantly, but in such a manner as to convey the idea that he was a diver of some experience into the deep-sea depths of human turpitude. "But suppose we look at the status quo. ”

“ Gradually they widened and spread, as though instinct with life, one working faster than the other. Then suddenly a little circle of flame curled out, and before the onlookers realized the miracle in progress, the waste basket was throwing up red tongues of fire and sighing softly. If it were not for Sire's furious barking the railing of the bar might have caught. As it was, its varnish had begun to crackle before the nearest court officer recovered his presence of mind and threw the blazing basket out of the window.
Gazing at Shagarach the spectators waited breathlessly for an elucidation. ”

“ There was an interval of suspense that seemed an age.
"Is there any one in the house?" was the first question of Patrolman Chandler, when he galloped up to the scene. He had been attracted at once by the barking of Sire.
"Mr. Robert," cried Bertha, wringing her hands. "Mr. Robert was in the study." The crowd looked up and measured the swift gains of the destructive element.
"Young Floyd?" said Chandler. Then he rushed into the house and up the first flight of winding stairs, the dog, as he did so, following him with a great fusillade of delighted barks. ”

“ Was this the criminal lawyer, the granite-lipped reasoner of the immobile forehead, forever pacing to and fro, folding his arms in solution of problems?
The memory of the barren law office was vivid upon her, and of the austere occupant, the last being in the world from whom dithyrambics would be expected. She found it hard to reconcile the task-ridden Shagarach with this praiser of Firdusi, the half-fabulous minstrel who had loved to recline on silken divans, smothered with roses and waited upon by his hundred slaves.
"Inspect them," said Shagarach. Emily reached for the Persian shelf. ”

“ Robert Floyd was no man to lean on strangers, yet Shagarach's words were as soothing to him as a gentle hand laid on a feverish forehead.
"Your cousin Harry came here to verify his knowledge of the will, which disinherited him, did he not?"
"Harry was disinherited, that is true."
"How came you to give up the profession of botanist, in which your uncle trained you?"
"Men interest me more than vegetables."
"But you refused your uncle's wealth, that would have given you power among men." ”

“ On the threshold of an ante-room Inspector McCausland was cordially shaking hands with Shagarach. In the front row of the spectators sat Mrs. Arnold, thin-lipped and cold, beside a sad-faced woman in black. She had bowed distantly to the prisoner—no longer fettered, but permitted to occupy a seat in the "cage" in full view—between Dr. Silsby and Emily Barlow, who had bravely elected to join him. Evidently he was not one of those who grow plump on jail regime and batten under the shadow of the scaffold. ”

“ He found himself chasing Serena Lamb around an enormous bass drum, as big as the Heidelberg tun, on the stretched skin of which the oaf, the manikin and the pantaloon were dancing a fandango. Still he chased Serena and still she escaped him, the toes of the dancers pounding a heavy tattoo. Faster and faster pursuer and pursued whirled around the side of the drum, till Aronson's head swam like a kitten's in hot pursuit of his own tail. At last in his despair he hurled the subpoena at Serena's head. ”

“ Emily started back as red as fire.
"Go, darling," cried Robert, between his set teeth, while shouts of "Ta, ta, Robert," "Kiss me, Emily," intermingled with the foul ribaldry generated in minds shut away from all purifying touch of womanhood, taunted the fleeing girl and roused her imprisoned lover's passion to frenzy. He could have strangled three of them single-handed.
"Better call daytimes, miss, when the men are working in the shops," said Gradger. He had not taken Emily for a girl who herself had to work daytimes in a shop. ”

“ Harry could count twenty friends to Robert's one. People called him by his given name at the second or third meeting. Women, in particular, circled about him like moths about a taper. But Floyd, who shunned no man's eye, sought no woman's. This may have been why the one girl to whom he had given his heart believed his nature to be of sterling gold.
There was much in the prison life to quicken the thoughts of so serious an observer, but all his attempts to record the impressions had ended in failure. He soon realized that no man can at once live and write. ”