The Mystery of the Clasped Hands by Guy Boothby

The preliminary investigation before the magistrate calls for but little comment. The evidence was, with but few exceptions, that which had been given before the coroner on the Monday and Wednesday preceding. If it were remarkable for anything it was for the number of spectators in the Court. The building, in which the coroner's inquiry had been conducted, had been crowded, but the police-court was packed, not with the poorly-clad spectators which one usually meets and associates with that miserable place, but by well-dressed and even aristocratic members of society. When Godfrey recovered from his first feeling of shame at finding himself in such a place and in such a position, and looked about him, he recognised several people whom he had once accounted his friends, but who had now schemed and contrived by every means in their power, to obtain permission to watch, what they thought would amount to his degradation and final extinction.

Pulling himself together he gazed boldly around him, and more than one person there told himself or herself that a man who could look at one like that could never be guilty of such a crime as murder. Mr. Rolland, the counsel who had been retained by Codey for the defence, was a tall, handsome man, and of others, little above middle-age. He was the possessor of a bland, suave manner which had the faculty of extracting information from the most unwilling and reluctant witnesses. Near him sat Mr. Codey himself, keen-eyed and on the alert for anything that might tend to his client's advantage. The curiosity of the visitors was not destined, however, to be gratified, for, when certain of the witnesses had been examined, the case was adjourned for a week, and Godfrey returned to Holloway by the way he had come.