The Argosy — page 193: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Secret of the Sea. 181 would have served as an additional incentive to Murray, had any such been needed, to press forward unflinchingly towards the end he had in view. From that day forward no one could accuse Gerald of any want of enthusiasm for the cause he had adopted as his own. He put his hand to the plough and he never looked backward again. The first, and perhaps the most difficult move in the game they had set themselves to play, had been solved for them by the merest accident. Jacoby was still alive. There was no need for them to trouble them- selves further on that score. The next move, and one hardly less difficult than the first one, was to find out where Jacoby was now living; and-the question that Gerald at once set himself to answer was this: What is the likeliest and readiest mode of discovering the whereabouts of this mane Among the papers which had come into the hands of Miss Bellamy at the death of Ambrose Murray’s wife, were certain verbatim accounts of the trial for the Tewkesbury murder. These papers Miss Bellamy had carefully preserved, and they were now handed over by her to Gerald, who proceeded to read them carefully through three or four times, by which means he made himself master of all the details of the case as they had presented themselves at the trial. A certain Mr. Frodsham had been Murray’s counsel on that occasion, and very admirable had been the speech, and very cogent the arguments, employed by him in his attempt to prove the innocence of his client— an attempt which, as we have already seen, did not succeed. To Gerald, turning the whole case over in his mind, it seemed that the first thing to do was to find out this Mr. Frodsham, see him, consult with him, tell him in confidence of Murray’s escape, and ascertain whether, after so long a time, his experience could suggest any feasible plan for proving, or even attempting to prove, the innocence of a client for whose sake, twenty years ago, all his eloquence had been exerted in vain. In setting about the task which he had thus taken in hand, and which he was thoroughly determined to go through with, Gerald did mot expect to derive much assistance from Murray himself, nor, in fact, did he. Murray was altogether too unpractical; he had been shut up too long from the busy, struggling world around him to enable him to cope with it face to face, or to grope his way through such a blind man’s maze as his own case necessarily involved, at every step of which a knot would have to be disentangled, or a difficulty of some kind encountered and overcome. He could asseverate earnestly enough that Jacoby was the murderer, and that the sole object for which he now lived was to bring the crime home to him; but when asked by what means that was to be done, he was like a child who had lost itself in some dark place. He could only cling to Gerald, and ask him to think, to devise, to scheme for him. ‘I have faith— CORNICE OOS (GO)