Opening of the book
Book I
THE GENTLEMAN FROM TOLEDO
I
A SǵĵǡǵƯƗƿƄ CLjƗƿŕƗŠŧƿŕŧ
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Macbeth
The town clock of Sibley had just struck twelve. Court had adjourned, and Judge Evans, with one or two of the leading lawyers of the county, stood in the doorway of the courthouse discussing in a friendly way the eccentricities of criminals as developed in the case then before the court. Mr. Lord had just ventured the assertion that crime as a fine art was happily confined to France; to which District
Attorney Ferris had replied:
“And why? Because atheism has not yet acquired such a hold upon our upper classes that gentlemen think it possible to meddle with such matters. It is only when a student, a doctor, a lawyer, determines to put aside from his path the secret stumbling-block to his desires or his ambition that the true intellectual crime is developed.
That brute whom you see slouching along over the way is the type of the average criminal of the day.”
And he indicated with a nod a sturdy, ill-favored man, who, with pack on his back, was just emerging from a grassy lane that opened out from the street directly opposite the courthouse.
“Such men are often seen in the dock,” remarked Mr. Orcutt, of more than local reputation as a criminal lawyer. “And often escape the penalty of their crimes,” he added, watching, with a curious glance, the lowering brow and furtive look of the man who, upon perceiving the attention he had attracted, increased his pace till he almost broke into a run.
“Looks as if he had been up to mischief,” observed Judge Evans.
“Rather as if he had heard the sentence which was passed upon
Keep listening free
Readnara
