heard Constance say anything unkind to Saville,' Gough said. 'I have never seen her conduct herself otherwise than kindly towards him.' She was unable to confirm that Saville had given Constance a bead ring on the day he died, or that Constance had given Saville a picture.
William Nutt was recalled. Edlin asked him about his 'prediction' that Saville would be found dead, and Nutt repeated the evidence he had given at the inquest: he had only meant that he feared the worst.
Constance's schoolfriend Emma Moody was then examined.
'Have you ever heard the prisoner make use of any expression of ill-feeling towards the deceased?' asked Henry Clark.
'She disliked it through jealousy,' said Emma.
At this Edlin jumped in: 'That is not an answer to the question. What did the prisoner say?'
Emma repeated some of what she had told Whicher: that Constance admitted to teasing and pinching Saville and Eveline, that she was not looking forward to going home for the holidays, that she felt her parents favoured the younger children.
Clark asked if she remembered Constance saying anything else about Saville. Though Emma had told Whicher that she had once reproved Constance for claiming that she hated her half-brother, the girl made no reference to it now. 'I do not remember any other conversation with her about the deceased child. I have only heard her slightly refer to him.'
'Have you ever heard her say anything more with regard to her deceased brother?' urged Clark, but Edlin intervened.
'I submit that this is wrong; the examination is most unusual and improper . . . It seems to me to be a most unusual and unprecedented line of examination.'
'I have only endeavoured to elicit facts,' Clark protested.
'I give you credit for a sincere desire to do your duty,' replied Edlin, 'but in your desire to discharge it, you have unintentionally very far exceeded it.'
Now Henry Ludlow interrupted to defend his clerk. 'Perhaps you will say in what way. That is rather a strong expression.'
'I most courteously express it,' said Edlin. 'I think Mr Clark has exceeded his duty; he seems to have misconceived it. He has a school-fellow of the prisoner's before him, and instead of confining himself to questions, and being satisfied with the answers, he has pursued the examination rather after the method of a cross- examination, and not in the manner examinations in chief are generally conducted, still less in a case of this important nature.' Applause broke out in the hall, which Ludlow angrily hushed.
'If another demonstration of that kind is made,' he warned, 'the magistrates will order the court to be cleared.' He turned to Edlin. 'Perhaps you will make some specific objection, Mr Edlin, instead of advancing those of a general nature.'
Clark added: 'If we get a witness that does not understand what you ask, I do not know how you are to get at the evidence, unless you ask the question again.'
'But after you have got an answer,' said Edlin, 'you must not repeat the question after the manner of a cross- examination.'
'I have been putting questions according to the rule of evidence,' said Clark, 'and if I do not get an answer, I must put the question again.'
'Then you have asked it again and again, and therefore your business is at an end.'
Clark addressed Emma. 'Have you heard the prisoner say anything with regard to her deceased brother?'
'This question has been put again and again,' said Edlin, 'and it has been answered in the negative, so there is an end of it.' Edlin was doing just what he accused Clark of doing: using repetition as a means of intimidation.
Ludlow took over from the clerk. 'We wish you to state what actually took place,' he told Emma, 'any conversation between you and the prisoner – not hearsay evidence. We do not wish to bring out anything not strictly legal and right. Perhaps you were never in a court of justice before, certainly never on so solemn an occasion; now I ask you if ever any conversation took place between you and the prisoner at the school with regard to her feelings towards the deceased.'
'I do not remember anything more.'
In his cross-examination, Edlin asked detailed questions about Whicher's visits to Warminster. 'He called once at our house,' said Emma, 'and another time at Mr Baily's, a private gentleman; he is a married gentleman. I know him; he lives exactly opposite. Mrs Baily, seeing me in my mother's garden, sent for me, and I went and saw Mr Whicher, I was not surprised at seeing him there because Mrs Baily had taken an interest in the matter, and asked me about it.' She testified that Whicher had shown her a breast flannel.
Edlin's line of questioning cast Whicher as sneaky and insinuating – to elicit evidence from Emma Moody, he implied, Whicher stalked her, sent a decoy from a house across the road to reel her in, showed her a piece of female underwear, coaxed her to work up her recollections into a damnation of her schoolfriend.
In the course of this, Whicher interrupted to address Emma directly: 'And I impressed upon you the importance of telling the truth and nothing but the truth.' He hoped, with this prompt, to encourage her to give the testimony he wanted.
Edlin tried to defuse the appeal. 'We take it for granted,' he said to Whicher.
'I would rather have it from the prisoner,' said Whicher. (Emma was not a prisoner but a witness – Whicher's slip reflected his frustration with the girl.)
Emma agreed that Whicher had admonished her to tell the truth.
Ludlow once more asked her if she recalled any other conversation with Constance about Saville. She said not.
'The question has been asked again and again,' said Edlin, again.
