Publisher's Synopsis
Jack Glover of Rennet, glover and Simpson does not believe his cousin Meredith killed Bulford. Meredith s father was an eccentric and unless Meredith is married by the age of thirty, his sister inherits everything. She is dead and Meredith, now in prison, is thirty next Monday. Meanwhile Lydia Beale is struggling to pay her dead fathers creditors. When Glover offers her money she is shocked. However, despite the strange conditions attached, it is a proposal she cannot afford to ignore.The hush of the court, which had been broken when the foreman of the jury returned their verdict, was intensified as the Judge, with a quick glance over his pince-nez at the tall prisoner, marshalled his papers with the precision and method which old men display in tense moments such as these. He gathered them together, white paper and blue and buff and stacked them in a neat heap on a tiny ledge to the left of his desk. Then he took his pen and wrote a few words on a printed paper before him.Another breathless pause and he groped beneath the desk and brought out a small square of black silk and carefully laid it over his white wig. Then he spoke: "James Meredith, you have been convicted after a long and patient trial of the awful crime of wilful murder. With the verdict of the jury I am in complete agreement. There is little doubt, after hearing the evidence of the unfortunate lady to whom you were engaged, and whose evidence you attempted in the most brutal manner to refute, that, instigated by your jealousy, you shot Ferdinand Bulford. The evidence of Miss Briggerland that you had threatened this poor young man, and that you left her presence in a temper, is unshaken. By a terrible coincidence, Mr. Bulford was in the street outside your fiancée's door when you left, and maddened by your insane jealousy, you shot him dead.
