The windows on either side of the
marble steps were crowded with faces, ribald or blank or censorious, and
Jasper Penny had to force his way into the building. He tried to recall
if there was another, more private, ingress, through which Susan might
be taken; but his thoughts evaded every discipline; they whirled in a
feverish course about the sole fact of the public degradation he had
brought on Susan Brundon. They passed the doors of civic departments, he
saw their signs--Water, City Treasurer, and then entered the Mayor's
chamber.
The latter was seated at a table facing the room with his back to a wide
window, opening on the blank brick wall of the Philosophical Society
building; and at one side the High Constable of the district in which
the murder had been committed was conversing with the Sheriff. Beside
them, Jasper Penny saw, there were only some clerks present and three
policemen. The Mayor spoke equably to the Ironmaster, directed a chair
placed for his convenience, and resumed the inspection of a number of
reports. He had a gaunt, tight-lipped face framed in luxuriant whiskers,
a severely moral aspect oddly contradicted by trousers of tremendous
sporting plaid, a waistcoat of green buckskin cassimere, while his silk
hat held a rakish, forward angle.
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