"What say you: guilty or not guilty?" asked the Associate in a hard
metallic voice in which there was no trace of interest in the answer.
"Not guilty," replied the foreman.
There was a muffled cheer from the gallery, which was suppressed by the
stentorian cry of the ushers, "Silence in the court!"
"A pack of damned fools," said the exasperated Inspector Chippenfield.
Rolfe understood that his chief referred to the jury, and he nodded the
assent of a subordinate.
CHAPTER XX
"Hill has bolted!"
Rolfe flung the words at Inspector Chippenfield in a tone which he was
unable to divest entirely of satisfaction. "Fancy his being the guilty
party after all," he added, with the tone of satisfaction still more
evident in his voice. "I often thought that he was our man, and that he
was playing with you--I mean with us."
Inspector Chippenfield had betrayed surprise at the news by dropping his
pen on the official report he was preparing. But it was in his usual tone
of cold official superiority that he replied:
"Do you mean that Hill, the principal witness in the Riversbrook murder
trial, has disappeared from London?"
"Disappeared from London? He's bolted clean out of the country by this
time, I tell you! Cleared out for good and left his unfortunate wife and
child to starve.
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