Part 36 (1/2)

'I did, acting on my client's instructions.'

'When he was in Newgate. There were present two other friends of the prisoner. You then offered, if he would sign the doc.u.ment, to withdraw the princ.i.p.al witnesses?'

'I did not.'

'I put it in another way. You promised, if he would sign, that the princ.i.p.al witnesses should not appear?'

'I did not.'

'You swear that you did not?'

'I swear that I did not.'

'You say that you have no power to withdraw witnesses?'

'I have no power to withdraw witnesses.'

'You have no power over the case at all?'

'None.'

Mr. Caterham sat down. Serjeant Cosins stood up.

'You might be the better by the prisoner's death. You are not however in any way concerned with the case except as an accidental observer?'

'Not in any way.'

'And you are not in any way acquainted with the witnesses who are chiefly concerned?'

'Not at all.'

Mr. Probus sat down.

Mr. Caterham called again, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Carstairs.

'My Lud,' he began, 'I must ask that none of the witnesses in this case be allowed to leave the court without your Luds.h.i.+p's permission.'

The Bishop entered the box, but with much less a.s.surance than he had previously a.s.sumed. And the cross-examination began.

I then understood what Jenny meant when she talked of making the case complete. He swore again that his name was Carstairs: that he had held preferment in the county of Dublin: he named, in fact, three places: he had never used any other name: he was not once called Onslow, at another time Osborne: at another Oxborough: he knew nothing about these names: he had never been tried at York for fraud: or at Winchester for embezzlement: he had never been whipped at the cart-tail at Portsmouth.

As these lies ran out glibly I began to take heart. I looked at Probus: he was sitting on the bench, his fingers interlaced, cold drops of dew rising upon his forehead and nose. But the Bishop held out bravely, that is, with a brazen impudence.

'You know, Doctor, I believe, the Black Jack?'

'A tavern, is it? No, sir, I do not. One of my profession should not be seen in taverns.'

'Yet surely you know the Black Jack, close to St. Giles's Church?'

'No, sir, I am a stranger in London.'