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front door, which was open at the top.
    “Leslie!” Thomas called out. He beckoned to Stone and entered the cottage. They walked through a small foyer and into a comfortably if somewhat seedily furnished living room. “Leslie!” Thomas called out again, but there was no reply. “Let’s take a look out back.” They walked through a neat kitchen and through a pretty garden, then down to the beach. A tiny black man in faded shorts and a straw hat was pulling a dinghy up the beach from the water. “There he is,” Thomas said, approaching. “Leslie, how you doing?” he asked.
    “Thomas? Is that Thomas Hardy?” Leslie Hewitt asked, shielding his eyes from the light.
    “Sure is,” Thomas said. “Come to see you, and I brought a friend.” He introduced the barrister to Stone.
    “How do you do, Sir Leslie,” Stone said.
    “I’m very well, Mr. Barrington; and you?”
    “Very well, thank you.”
    “Leslie, can we go into the house?” Thomas asked. “There’s a matter we need to discuss with you.”
    “Do I owe you money?” Hewitt asked, removing his straw hat and mopping his brow with his forearm. He had short, snow white hair.
    “Certainly not, Leslie.”
    “Then this is very surprising,” he said. “It’s been a very long time since anyone needed to discuss anything with me except a bill.”
    Sitting in a small study crowded with dusty books, Thomas Hardy explained the situation to Leslie Hewitt. “What do you think, Leslie?”
    “Well, I certainly don’t like the sound of it,” Hewitt replied, crossing a bare leg over another and dusting off his foot. “All happening very quickly, isn’t it?”
    “Very quickly indeed,” Thomas said.
    “I shouldn’t be surprised if, in the circumstances, Winston will ask for an early trial date. What is it you want of me? I don’t know if I’m up to trying a murder case, not unless you enjoy a hanging.”
    Thomas and Stone laughed. “We need your help for the hearing, Leslie,” Thomas said. “To hold the fort until we can get a barrister in from London.”
    “Ah, I see,” Hewitt said. “Well, I can certainly help you to that extent.”
    “There’s the matter of bail, too, Sir Leslie,” Stone said.
    “Please call me Leslie,” the little man said. “Everyone does.”
    “Leslie, do you think there’s a chance of bail?”
    “It’s not unheard of in such a case,” Hewitt replied. “It’s not an easy island to get off of, especially if you’re a foreigner, so the judge might smile on such a request. Bail might be steep, though.”
    “How steep?”
    “A hundred thousand dollars, perhaps twice that.”
    “Cash?”
    “Does the lady have any property in St. Marks?”
    “An expensive yacht.”
    “That might do very nicely, if the judge is sure she won’t sail away.”
    “That’s good news; I’ll pass it on to Mrs. Manning.”
    “I shall want to meet her before the hearing,” Hewitt said. “May we meet at the courthouse at, say, nine in the morning? That should give us time.”
    “Of course,” Stone said. “Ah, you mentioned hanging; I hope that was in jest?”
    “Oh, no,” Sir Leslie said, shaking his head. “Certainly not in jest.”
    “St. Marks has capital punishment, then?”
    “Oh, yes; it’s quite easy to get hanged in St. Marks. You see, Mr. Barrington, there’s no prison system to speak of on our lovely island. Crimes tend to get divided into three classes: first, there’s anything from petty theft through assault and battery up to, say, multiple burglaries. These crimes are dealt with by fines and short sentences, up to about three months, in our localjail. If there’s no room in the jail, then the fine is increased, and the Ministry of Justice is very scrupulous about collecting the fines. Then we have a second category of offenses, starting with armed robbery and running up through assault with intent to kill—virtually any crime involving violence but not death. These are dealt with by exile, permanent exile