Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

The hand resisted the effort as though the dead man still had strength. But Parker had to have that ring. And down the road some one was coming. In desperation as savage as had been his attack, Parker used the knife again.

He was tried, found guilty and executed.

George Manners was released, but had to wait weary months before the woman he loved recovered sufficiently to marry.

And Justice, whom the ironic gods had for the time pushed off her pedestal, regained it.

The Flight of Stephen Barr J. S. Fletcher

Archer Dawe, man of many disguises, tracks a coffin and a body to the million dollar loot from a bank robbery.

* * *

“Guilty!”

The foreman of the jury uttered the fatal word with the hesitation of a man who is loath to voice the decision which deprives a human being of his liberty. He and his fellow jurymen kept their eyes away from the man in the dock; every one of them at some time or another had partaken of his good fare, drunk his vintage wines, smoked his cabinet cigars, and now—

“You find the prisoner guilty; and that is the verdict of you all?”

“We find the prisoner guilty, and that is the verdict of us all,” repeated the foreman in dull tones.

Something in his mien suggested that he was glad to have to say no more. He and his eleven companions in the cramped-in jury-box wanted to get away, to breathe, to have done with an ugly passage in the life of their little town. What need of more talking? It had been impossible not to find their old friend and neighbor guilty. Of course, he was guilty — guilty as Cain or Judas. Get the thing over.

The man in the dock seemed to share the opinion of the jury. His face was absolutely emotionless as he heard the fatal words drop limply from the foreman’s lips, and he shook his head with something of a contemptuous smile when asked if he had anything to say as to why sentence should not be passed upon him. What was there to say?

“John Barr,” said the stern-faced embodiment of justice whom he faced. “You have been convicted on the clearest evidence of the very serious crime of embezzlement. There were no fewer than nine counts in the indictment against you. It was only considered necessary to proceed with one — that relating to your embezzlement during the month of July, 1926, of a sum of three thousand seven hundred dollars, the moneys of your employers, the Yorkshire Banking Company — and upon that charge you have been found guilty.

“But it has been clearly established during the course of your trial that this forms only a small part of your depredations upon your employers’ funds.

“I note that the sums mentioned in the nine counts total up to nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars, and we have heard it stated by the prosecution that there are further sums to be accounted for, and that the probable total loss to the bank will exceed two million dollars.

“Now, there are several unfortunate features about this case, and not the least unfortunate lies in the fact that it is believed that a very considerable portion of the money which you have embezzled is at this moment at your disposal. Appeals have been made to you from time to time, since you were first committed for trial, to make restitution. All these appeals have been in vain.

“Now, if it be a fact that any part of the money of which you have robbed your employers is recoverable, let me beg of you to make proper restitution for the sake of your own conscience and the honor of your family, which, as I am informed, has long occupied a foremost position in this town.

“This has been a singularly painful case, and it is a painful thing for me, in the discharge of my duty, to feel obliged to pass upon you a sentence of ten years’ penal servitude.”

John Barr heard his sentence with as little show of emotion as he had heard the verdict of the jury. He looked round the court for a moment as if seeking some face.

A man sitting in a retired seat caught his eye — a man who bore a distinct resemblance to him, and who had listened to the whole of the proceedings with downcast head. This man was now regarding the convicted man with an intent look.

John Barr, for the fraction of a second, returned it; then, with a quick glance round him — the glance of a man who looks at familiar objects and faces for the last time — he bowed to the seat of justice, turned, and was gone.

The people who had crowded the court since the door first opened that morning streamed out into Market Place. There were several cases to come on yet, but the great case of the day was over, and all Normancaster wanted to get somewhere to talk over the result.

Ten years’ penal servitude! — well, it was only what any one could expect. And two million dollars — and had John Barr disposed of some of it in such a fashion that he could handle it when he came out of prison?