?

"What's past is past," he said gruffly. "But if Tom Mortlake hangs, you
go to Portland."

"How can I help Tom hanging?"

"Help the agitation as much as you can. Write letters under all sorts of
names to all the papers. Get everybody you know to sign the great
petition. Find out where Jessie Dymond is--the girl who holds the proof
of Tom Mortlake's innocence."

"You really believe him innocent?"

"Don't be satirical, Denzil. Haven't I taken the chair at all the
meetings? Am I not the most copious correspondent of the Press?"

"I thought it was only to spite Wimp."

"Rubbish. It's to save poor Tom. He no more murdered Arthur Constant
than--you did!" He laughed an unpleasant laugh.

Denzil bade him farewell, frigid with fear.

Grodman was up to his ears in letters and telegrams. Somehow he had
become the leader of the rescue party--suggestions, subscriptions came
from all sides. The suggestions were burnt, the subscriptions
acknowledged in the papers and used for hunting up the missing girl.
Lucy Brent headed the list with a hundred pounds. It was a fine
testimony to her faith in her dead lover's honor.

The release of the Jury had unloosed "The Greater Jury," which always
now sits upon the smaller. Every means was taken to nullify the value of
the "palladium of British liberty." The foreman and the jurors were
interviewed, the judge was judged, and by those who were no judges. The
Home Secretary (who had done nothing beyond accepting office under the
Crown) was vituperated, and sundry provincial persons wrote
confidentially to the Queen. Arthur Constant's backsliding cheered many
by convincing them that others were as bad as themselves; and well-to-do
tradesmen saw in Mortlake's wickedness the pernicious effects of
socialism. A dozen new theories were afloat. Constant had committed
suicide by Esoteric Buddhism, as witness his devotion to Mme. Blavatsky,
or he had been murdered by his Mahatma, or victimized by Hypnotism,
Mesmerism, Somnambulism, and other weird abstractions. Grodman's great
point was--Jessie Dymond must be produced, dead or alive. The electric
current scoured the civilized world in search of her. What wonder if the
shrewder sort divined that the indomitable detective had fixed his last
hope on the girl's guilt? If Jessie had wrongs why should she not have
avenged them herself? Did she not always remind the poet of Joan of Arc?

Another week passed; the shadow of the gallows crept over the d