The courtroom filled earlier than usual.
Harrow noticed it only when he entered and found the benches already occupied, the murmur of conversation tapering off as he crossed toward the bench. The air carried the smell of damp wool and coal smoke brought in on coats. A few reporters sat near the aisle, papers folded neatly on their laps.
Whitcombe placed the docket before him and stepped back.
"Thomas Bell," the clerk called.
Bell was broader than most men who stood in the dock. His coat strained at the shoulders. A cooper by trade, if the file was accurate. His hands were thick and scarred, fingers marked by years of barrel hoops and iron tools. He kept his eyes lowered.
The charge was read in full.
Bell did not interrupt.
When Harrow asked if he understood, he answered quietly.
"Yes."
The prior record followed.
Disorderly conduct. Assault reduced. Public drunkenness dismissed.
A few murmurs moved through the gallery at the length of it. Harrow let them subside without comment.
"You do not contest the charge," he said.
"No."
The sentence came without pause.
Six months' hard labor. No reduction. No allowance for admission.
Bell nodded once.
The constable nearest him shifted slightly, preparing to escort him down from the dock.
"I struck him," Bell said.
The statement was unnecessary.
"That is already recorded," Harrow replied.
Bell swallowed.
"I struck him last winter as well."
Harrow looked up fully then.
"You were not charged last winter."
"No."
The word seemed to lodge in Bell's throat.
"I did," he said again, more insistently. "I struck him."
A faint stir passed through the benches. Not loud. Just the sound of weight shifting against wood.
"You are sentenced," Harrow said evenly. "The matter is concluded."
Bell's fingers tightened around the rail. The knuckles blanched.
"I took money from the till," he said abruptly.
The employer seated in the second row lifted his head.
"That's nonsense," he muttered, though without conviction.
Bell did not look at him.
"Small amounts," he continued. "Over time."
The clerk hesitated with his pen suspended above the page.
Harrow regarded the man steadily.
"You are not charged with theft."
"I know."
Bell's breathing had grown uneven. A sheen of sweat gathered at his temple.
"I lied to my wife," he went on. "About the drink. I told her I'd stopped."
A woman somewhere near the back shifted sharply in her seat.
Harrow leaned forward slightly, resting his hands on the edge of the bench.
"You are not charged with dishonesty in your household," he said.
Bell's eyes lifted at last. They were bright and unsettled.
"I should be," he replied.
Silence settled across the room in a way that felt deliberate.
The prosecutor glanced toward Harrow, uncertain.
Bell drew in a breath that seemed to catch halfway.
"I think about hurting men," he said. "When they cross me. I think about it even when I don't."
The words fell awkwardly, without theatrics. He spoke them as though describing a flaw in a tool.
"I thought about pushing Alden into the river last year," he added. "I didn't. But I thought it."
A low sound moved through the gallery — not outrage, not approval. Something closer to discomfort.
Harrow did not move.
"You are not charged with thoughts," he said.
Bell's grip on the rail tightened again.
"I can't stop," he said, almost to himself.
The clerk looked up at Harrow.
For a moment, the room felt suspended between two outcomes.
Harrow made his decision.
"Let the record reflect the voluntary admission of additional violent conduct and theft," he said.
Whitcombe blinked once before lowering his pen and writing.
Bell exhaled sharply, shoulders sagging as if some interior weight had shifted.
"In light of the defendant's repeated violent behavior and admitted dishonesty," Harrow continued, his tone unchanged, "the court revises sentence."
A stillness spread through the benches.
"Eight months' hard labor."
The gavel struck.
Bell flinched, not at the sound, but at the words.
"I haven't finished," he said hoarsely.
"You have," Harrow replied.
Two constables stepped forward and took hold of his arms. Bell resisted only long enough to try to speak again.
"There's more," he insisted, voice thinning as he was guided down from the dock. "There's—"
The heavy door closed behind him.
For several seconds, no one moved.
The next defendant was called.
He hesitated before answering when Harrow asked if he understood the charge.
"I did it," he said at last, voice unsteady.
The proceedings continued.
But the room no longer felt the same.
Where there had once been curiosity, there was now something tighter — something that kept men's eyes lowered longer than necessary.
When court adjourned, the benches emptied slowly.
In chambers, Whitcombe shut the door behind them.
"Sir," he began, choosing his words carefully, "Bell appeared… distressed."
"He appeared guilty," Harrow said.
"He was confessing to matters not before the court."
Harrow removed his gloves and set them on the desk with deliberate care.
"He volunteered them."
Whitcombe shifted.
"Should that alter sentence?"
"It clarified it."
Whitcombe hesitated as though considering further objection, then thought better of it.
"Yes, sir."
He withdrew.
Harrow remained seated a moment longer, listening to the muffled sounds of movement in the holding corridor below. Voices carried faintly upward — low, indistinct, layered over one another.
He rose and extinguished the lamp.
Outside, the street had settled into evening quiet. A cart rolled past. Somewhere distant, a door slammed.
Inside the courthouse, the air felt heavier than it had that morning.
And by the time the next session began, several defendants would enter the dock already speaking.