Part 36 (1/2)
”It vas not!” cried Mr. Solomon hotly. ”Vy should I not wish him to be captured?”
The lawyer placed both hands on the back of his chair and leaned forward.
”Because,” he said in a denunciatory tone, ”you were the accused's partner; because, having partly financed his scheme, you wanted to reap all the profits by swindling your partner out of his share. I maintain,”
he went on, waving aside an interruption that Mr. Solomon was about to make, ”that your object was to let my client capture what prizes he could, and then, by contriving his arrest, seize for yourself all the proceeds of the expedition, together with any money that might accrue from the Government.”
”It is a lie, a vicked lie!” the witness almost shrieked.
”I will go even further,” pursued the lawyer, ignoring Mr. Solomon's indignant protest. ”I will a.s.sert that the whole thing was a plot, engineered by you as soon as my client had laid his plans before you.
With or without the connivance of Mr. Rossenbaum, the _Arrow_ was brought round to Singapore, coaled, provisioned, and armed by you, and, after you had caused the name _Hawk_ to be subst.i.tuted for _Arrow_, was handed over to my client with the understanding that it was your s.h.i.+p.”
Mr. Solomon attempted to make a reply, but was so overcome with indignation, anger, and other emotions that he could only utter inarticulate sounds.
”I should like to recall the witness, Tilak Sumbowa,” went on Mr. Vayne, and the s.h.i.+p-chandler sat down, biting his nails with rage.
The water-clerk came forward looking very nervous.
”I gathered from your evidence that neither you nor Mr. Solomon were in Singapore on the night the _Arrow_, or, as she was then called, the _Hawk_, left,” said Mr. Vayne.
”No; Mr. Solomon left me a note at mid-day saying he was called away on business. I have it here,” and the witness triumphantly produced an envelope from his pocket.
”Let me see it.”
Sumbowa pa.s.sed the note to the lawyer, who scrutinised the envelope critically.
”This envelope is addressed to Mr. Solomon,” he said.
”Yes. The note was lying on his desk without an envelope, so I picked one out of the waste-paper basket and put the note in it.”
”And this is the identical envelope which you picked up out of the waste-paper basket?”
”Yes.”
”At the time you found the note?”
”Directly I had finished reading it.”
”All of which circ.u.mstance took place a few hours before the _Hawk_ left Singapore and during the time that Mr. Solomon was out of town?”
”Yes.”
”Then,” said the lawyer quietly, ”how do you account for the fact that this envelope bears on it a postmark dated a week after the _Arrow's_ departure?”
There was a dead silence. The witness looked from one to the other with an almost pitiful expression of bewilderment.
”Well,” said the lawyer after a long pause, ”what explanation have you to offer us? I presume you will not suggest that the postal authorities post-date letters?”
”I--I must have made a mistake,” faltered the unhappy Sumbowa. ”Now I come to think of it, I didn't put the note into the envelope till some days afterwards.”
”Oh yes, you've made a mistake,” commented the lawyer drily, ”but not exactly in the way you would have us believe. However, we will let that pa.s.s for the moment. Were you in the office yourself on the night that the _Arrow_ left?”