The Argosy — page 395: what you’re looking at

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

372 Three Minutes to Twelve. in the trial, but my mind was wonderfully fascinated by this tale of horror. At length the weighty tones ceased and a murmur of relief and expectation ran round the assembly. At this moment the woman with the huge bonnet shifted her seat, and I obtained a full view of . the prisoner. I started involuntarily. Where had J seen that face before ? The jury returned after a short absence; the verdict was Guilty, accompanied with a recommendation to mercy. Again the judge’s solemn tones sounded through the court, again they ceased. There was dead silence. I sprang to my feet as if impelled to do so by some unseen power, and looked steadily at the prisoner. His face was averted. from me for the moment, but the looks of the people showed that he was about to speak. Slowly he turned round and, in a voice whose deep, earnest tones could be heard all over the assembly, he said : “There lives but one man who can prove me innocent—and there he stands.” With white face and outstretched arm he pointed—a? me. I gazed at him with a sudden flash of recognition. It was the man I had seen under the lamp. And, by a strange coincidence, at this moment the court clock struck twelve. The plea that had been set up by the defence was an alibi. But there was a space of some two hours that could not be accounted for, and the theory of the prosecution was that the crime had been. com- mitted during that time. My evidence supplied the missing link; for the place in which I had seen the man was so far distant from the scene of the murder that it was impossible for him to have been any- where near at the time of its commission. And the dream? Only a coincidence, you will say, ‘seitidlead or a fit of indigestion, or my timber contract. Nevertheless, as I nave told it you, so it happened. Explain it away who can. eS Sa Gomichbooks. co