They did not find one that night.

The following morning they finally reappeared four minutes before midday.

“Have you reached a verdict?” the judge asked grimly.

“We have, my lord,” the foreman announced. He did not look up at the dock; or at Juster, sitting rigidly, black head a little bowed; or at Gleave, smiling confidently. But there was an ease in his bearing, an erectness in the carriage of his head.

“And is it the verdict of you all?” the judge asked him.

“It is, my lord.”

“Do you find the prisoner, John Adinett, guilty or not guilty of the murder of Martin Fetters?”

“Guilty, my lord.”

Juster’s head jerked up.

Gleave let out a cry of outrage, half rising to his feet.

Adinett was set like stone, uncomprehending.

The gallery erupted in astonishment, and journalists scrambled to get out and report to their newspapers that the unbelievable had happened.

“We’ll appeal!” Gleave’s voice could be heard above the melee.

The judge commanded order, and as the court finally settled to order again, and a kind of terrible silence, he sent the usher for the black cap he would place on his head before he pronounced sentence of death upon John Adinett.

Pitt sat frozen. It was both a victory and a defeat. His reputation had been torn to shreds for the public, whatever the jury had believed. It was a just verdict. He had no doubt Adinett was guilty, even though he had no idea why he had done such a thing.

And yet in all the crimes he had ever investigated, all the hideous and tragic truths he had uncovered, there had never been one for which he would willingly have hanged a man. He believed in punishment; he knew it was necessary, for the guilty, for the victim and for society. It was the beginning of healing. But he had not ever believed in the extinction of a human being, any human being-not John Adinett.

He left the courtroom and went out and walked up to Newgate Street with no sense of victory.