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heir intended victims into their clutches. The question of the prisoners' previous records (so far as they can be properly weighed against this class of criminality) will receive due and separate considerations, should you decide that their guilt is proved."
He had gone on to impress the jury with the gravity of the crime of which the confidence trickster is guilty, its increasing prevalence, and the reluctance of its victims to prosecute. All of which was true enough, but utterly irrelevant to the question of his guilt or innocence, and could only dispose the jury to convict him without too scrupulous weighing of the defence he had offered.
After hearing the summing-up, he had had no doubt of what that verdict would be. His most active resentment had been against the tone in which he had been told to stand up to hear the judgement delivered. Tony Welch had had five years. Well, he supposed he deserved it. And for him there had been fifteen months in the second division.
Before that, he had been asked whether he had any reason to offer why sentence should not be passed upon him. He knew that it was nothing more than a mockery of formula, but he had looked at the jury as he answered: "It only shows how useless it is to tell the truth," and he had seen one of them drop his eyes uncomfortably.
That had been an hour ago. Barely that. And then he had been hurried from the dock, and there had been a moment's confusion when the Inspector had knocked over the carafe in the room below, and -- he had walked out. It had been as simple as that.
It must have been observed in five seconds, and his liberty would have been of the briefest, had he not noticed the street door standing unlatched, and the card APARTMENTS in the window, as he had turned the corner at a quick walk, which did not dare to seem hurried -- and, at the moment's impulse, he had stepped inside and closed it.
No one had noticed. The street had been too full, and too busy.
He had stood in the little hall, after