Limekiller!

But someone else had heard it. Felix removed her water-overmangrove-bark-dark gaze from Limekiller’s eyes (but what have I done? he cried in his heart; she did not seem to have heard it), and turned to — almost on — Stickney Forster. “You still hang people here, then?” she asked.

Stickney Forster seemed, suddenly, or once again, a very model of a model English gentleman. With no trace of the old colonial or modern North American tones which had overlaid his accent previously, he said, “Yes. I’m afraid we do. you know. ”

“Yes. I’m afraid I do know'. But isn’t that a very terrible thing to do?”

As an attorney, either for the Crown or in private practice, he was usually capable of speaking crisply and succinctly. Now? Not. “Hm, well, still, hm, you know, I don’t know,” he said, brushing back the tip of his auburn moustache with the tip of his auburn finger, and sounding almost as if he had determined to burlesque himself. “I don’t know, you know. About that. Not so sure. About that. You know.”

“No,” said Felix, suddenly as calm as the eye of a hurricane. “I don’t know. Explain it to me.”

Stickney concentrated. Cleared his throat. “ Well. You are from The States, I take it.” “You may.” “Well, you see. Now you must be familiar with at least one large city in The States. Hmm. Ah, Chicago. You’ve been in Chicago?” Felix had been in Chicago. “Well. There you are.”

“I am where?”

Clearly she was going to give him no help at all. He made a long, slow motion with his long, slow hand, tawny from the tropic sun. Made up his mind to make his point. “Well. In which place do you feel safer? At night, I mean?”

Felix was hostile. But, whether poor or not, she was honest. “Here,” she said.

He nodded. “Exactly so. And do you know why? Because of Murderers. Beg pardon. But you do let them get away with murder there. Perhaps what you call ‘a good lawyer’ gets them off. If not, what then? Found guilty? Appeal. Appeals. Chap wears the courts out, often. Evidence grows stale. New trial? Witnesses have died. Or grown forgetful. Or reluctant. Chap often walks away free. Or. Guilty? No new trial? ‘Life imprisonment’? Out on the streets in six years. Perhaps does it again.

“You see.

“Here. no.

“Evidence. Testimony. Guilty, Sentenced. Three Weeks later. Dead, you know. Result? Very few murders.” He paused a moment, said, “You see…”

Felix, it was clear, did see. But still didn’t like what she saw. After a moment she murmured, “A twelve-year-old boy for stealing a pearl-handled penknife?”

“Ahh —” Stickney’s groan was deep in his throat. “Terrible. I quite agree. Two hundred years ago. Time when George Washington owned slaves. When free Negroes owned slaves. ”

There was silence. Limekiller stared at the flaccid sea. Then Major Deak’s sick eyes drooped. Blinked. Opened wider. “Freshen your drinks?” he asked. “Freshen mine, Stickney, a good chap.”

More George IV gin (and less tonic) added to his glass, Deak, who had listened absolutely silently to Stickney Forster, now said, with the by now familiar breath-breaks and gasps and sighs, “During my years as District Judge I had to pass sentence of death on between I suppose oh twenty to thirty men. Only one woman.” A voice not his: “Ohhh?" A gasp. His. Then, “Mmm. First she killed her baby because child didn’t look like her husband. Then killed her husband. Too.” A gulp of air.

Outside, someone shouted, “Dahnce, everybody? Dahnce? Dahnce!

The joviality note at once rose high. So did the music. Someone’s familiar voice sang out, “ Oh baby, oh, baby; O Baby: 0h!” Jack wondered if it were Alex Brant. and by Felix’s quick glance out the door, wondered if she were not wondering, too; her glance returned, met his, blazed. Suddenly he thought of National Senator Weston’s remark (at which he had then laughed), “Frahnkly, me dear Jahk, my trouble is that my wife understands me!”

Felix asked, “And was she hanged?”

An inhaustion of gin. Of air. “Of course.”

Silence. Felix asked, in a strained voice, “I don’t suppose you took into account her state of mind —?”

„Oh ves.”

The glass of gin and its minuscule dose of quinine went up. and up. came down. came down. Shimmering. Very slight tinge of blue?

and the Hell she must have been in

“Yes.” The thrust-out, hairless, tortoise-head nodded, twice. “First off, she had taken her great knife to be sharpened. Secondly, she had dug up her jewelry and her husband’s savings and placed it all in her travelling trunk. Then killed them both. And left. Found her waiting for the train, ticket in her hand. Premediteflon. Flight to avoid prosecution. Jury found her guilty. My duty was to pronounce sentence.”