had saved the innocent and exposed the guilty!
As they stood there and pondered, each man in silence, on his own private thoughts, the policeman returned, bringing with him the doctor whose evidence had weighed most against Ogilvy at the trial. Jerry Stokes started to see the marvellous alteration in the fellow's face. He was pale and haggard; his lips were parched; and his eyes had a sunken and hollow look with remorse and horror. Cold sweat stood on his brow. His mouth twitched horribly. It was clear he had just passed through a terrible crisis.
He turned first to Jerry. His lips were bloodless, and trembled as he spoke; his throat was dry; but in a husky voice he still managed to deliver himself of the speech that haunted him. "Your letter did it," he said slowly, fixing his eyes on the hangman; "I couldn't stand that. It broke me down utterly. All night long I lay awake and knew I had sent him to the gallows in my place. It was terrible—terrible! But I wouldn't give way: I'd made up my mind, and I meant to pull through with it. Then the morning came—the morning of the execution, and with it your letter. Till that moment I thought nobody knew but myself. I wasn't even suspected. When I saw you knew, I could stand it no longer. You said: 'If you let this innocent man swing in your place, I, the common hangman, will refuse to execute him. If he dies, I'll avenge him. I'll hound you to your grave. I'll follow up clues till I've brought your crime home to you. Don't commit two murders instead of one. It'll do you no good, and be worse in the end for you.' When I read those words—those terrible words!—from the common hangman, 'Ah, heaven!' I thought, 'I need try to conceal it no longer.' All's up now. I've come to confess. Thank heaven I'm in time! Sheriff, let this man go. It was I who poisoned her!"
There was a dead silence again for several seconds. Jerry Stokes was the first of them all to break it. "I knew it," he said solemnly. "I was sure of it. I could have sworn to it."
"And I am sure of it, too," the condemned man put in, with tremulous lips. "I was sure it was he; but how on earth was I to prove it?"
The sheriff looked about him at all three in turn. "Well," he said deliberately, with a sigh of relief, "I must telegraph for instructions to Ottawa immediately. Prisoner, you are not reprieved; but under these peculiar circumstances, as Dr. Wade makes a voluntary confession of having committed the crime himself, I defer the execution for the present on my own responsibility. Jailer, I remit Mr. Ogilvy to the cells till further instructions arrive from the Viceroy. Policeman, take charge of Dr. Wade, who gives himself into custudy for the murder of Mrs. Ogilvy. Stokes, perhaps you did right after all. Ten minutes' delay made all the difference. If you'd consented to hang the prisoner at first, this confession might only have come after all was over."
The doctor turned to Jerry, with the wan ghost of a grim smile upon his work and pallid face. The marks of a great struggle were still visible in every line. "And you won't be baulked of your fee, after all," he added, with a ghastly effort at cynical calmness; "for you'll have me to hang before you have seen the end of this business."
But Jerry shook his head. "I ain't so sure about that," he said, scratching his thick, bullet poll, and holding his great square neck a little on one side. "I ain't so sure of my trade as I used to be once, sheriff and gentlemen. I always used to hold it was a useful, a respectable, and a necessary trade, and of benefit to the community. But I've began to doubt it. If the law can string up an innocent man like this, and no appeal, except for the exertions of the public executioner, why, I've began to doubt the expediency, so to speak, of capital punishment. I ain't so certain as I was about the usefulness of hanging. Dr. Wade, I think somebody else may have the turning of you off. Mr. Ogilvy, I'm glad, sir, it was me that had the hanging of you. An onscrupulous man might ha' gone for his fee. I couldn't do that: I gone for justice. Give me your hand, sir. Thank you. You needn't be ashamed of shaking hands once in a way with a public functionary—especially when it's for the last time in his official career. Sheriff, I've had enough of this 'ere work for life. I go back to the lumbering trade. I resign my appointment."
It was a great speech for Jerry—an oratorical effort. But a prouder or happier man there wasn't in Kingston that day than Jeremiah Stokes, late public executioner.
