“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
first—his solitary habits—his unresponsiveness had already made him the subject of discussion and criticism on the part of the other second-cabin passengers. It would have needed very little to make him the object of suspicion as well.
Micky lit his pipe and shook his head. No matter how he projected his mind forward he could see no way out of it for Cloud. He would be under arrest before the Pavonia was off Fire Island, and safe on a steamer bound for England inside twenty-four hours. And then what? A quick trial in which there would be no defense, but where the court room would be crowded like a royal levee with peeresses in their own right and all the importunate distinguished women in London society—come to see Cosmo Graeme caught and killed, like a cotton-tail dragged out of a hole with a ferret clinging to his throat—and cracked on the back of the neck with a gamekeeper’s stick! Oh, they'd be there, and all the pompous panoply of the law would be invoked to impress the jury and the public that English justice struck swiftly and with an iron hand—peer, peer’s son and commoner alike—that in fact141
