“I am not aware of anything of the kind,” said the witness.
“Very well. We will drop that then. But such was your evidence, whether important or not important. Of course your lordship can take what time you please for recollection.”
Lord Fawn tried very hard to recollect, but would not look at the newspaper which had been handed to him. “I cannot remember what words I used. It seems to me that I thought it must have been Mr. Finn because I had been told that Mr. Finn could have been there by running round.”
“Surely, my lord, that would not have sufficed to induce you to give such evidence as is there reported?”
“And the colour of the coat,” said Lord Fawn.
“In fact you went by the colour of the coat, and that only?”
“Then there had been the quarrel.”
“My lord, is not that begging the question? Mr. Bonteen quarrelled with Mr. Finn. Mr. Bonteen was murdered by a man—as we all believe—whom you saw at a certain spot. Therefore you identified the man whom you saw as Mr. Finn. Was that so?”
“I didn’t identify him.”
“At any rate you do not do so now? Putting aside the grey coat there is nothing to make you now think that that man and Mr. Finn were one and the same? Come, my lord, on behalf of that man’s life, which is in great jeopardy—is in great jeopardy because of the evidence given by you before the magistrate—do not be ashamed to speak the truth openly, though it be at variance with what you may have said before with ill-advised haste.”
“My lord, is it proper that I should be treated in this way?” said the witness, appealing to the Bench.
“Mr. Chaffanbrass,” said the judge, again looking at the barrister over his spectacles, “I think you are stretching the privilege of your position too far.”
“I shall have to stretch it further yet, my lord. His lordship in his evidence before the magistrate gave on his oath a decided opinion that the man he saw was Mr. Finn;—and on that evidence Mr. Finn was committed for murder. Let him say openly, now, to the jury—when Mr. Finn is on his trial for his life before the Court, and for all his hopes in life before the country—whether he thinks as then he thought, and on what grounds he thinks so.”
“I think so because of the quarrel, and because of the grey coat.”
“For no other reasons?”
“No;—for no other reasons.”
“Your only ground for suggesting identity is the grey coat?”
“And the quarrel,” said Lord Fawn.
“My lord, in giving evidence as to identity, I fear that you do not understand the meaning of the word.” Lord Fawn looked up at the judge, but the judge on this occasion said nothing. “At any rate we have it from you at present that there was nothing in the appearance of the man you saw like to that of Mr. Finn except the colour of the coat.”
“I don’t think there was,” said Lord Fawn, slowly.
Then there occurred a scene in the Court which no doubt was gratifying to the spectators, and may in part have repaid them for the weariness of the whole proceeding. Mr. Chaffanbrass, while Lord Fawn was still in the witness-box, requested permission for a certain man to stand forward, and put on the coat which was lying on the table before him—this coat being in truth the identical garment which Mr. Meager had brought home with him on the morning of the murder. This man was Mr. Wickerby’s clerk, Mr. Scruby, and he put on the coat—which seemed to fit him well. Mr. Chaffanbrass then asked permission to examine Mr. Scruby, explaining that much time might be saved, and declaring that he had but one question to ask him. After some difficulty this permission was given him, and Mr. Scruby was asked his height. Mr. Scruby was five feet eight inches, and had been accurately measured on the previous day with reference to the question. Then the examination of Lord Fawn was resumed, and Mr. Chaffanbrass referred to that very irregular interview to which he had so improperly enticed the witness in Mr. Wickerby’s chambers. For a long time Sir Gregory Grogram declared that he would not permit any allusion to what had taken place at a most improper conference—a conference which he could not stigmatize in sufficiently strong language. But Mr. Chaffanbrass, smiling blandly—smiling very blandly for him—suggested that the impropriety of the conference, let it have been ever so abominable, did not prevent the fact of the conference, and that he was manifestly within his right in alluding to it. “Suppose, my lord, that Lord Fawn had confessed in Mr. Wickerby’s chambers that he had murdered Mr. Bonteen himself, and had since repented of that confession, would Mr. Camperdown and Mr. Wickerby, who were present, and would I, be now debarred from stating that confession in evidence, because, in deference to some fanciful rules of etiquette, Lord Fawn should not have been there?” Mr. Chaffanbrass at last prevailed, and the evidence was resumed.
“You saw Mr. Scruby wear that coat in Mr. Wickerby’s chambers.” Lord Fawn said that he could not identify the coat. “We’ll take care to have it identified. We shall get a great deal out of that coat yet. You saw that man wear a coat like that.”
“Yes; I did.”
“And you see him now.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Does he remind you of the figure of the man you saw come out of the mews?” Lord Fawn paused. “We can’t make him move about here as we did in Mr. Wickerby’s room; but remembering that as you must do, does he look like the man?”
“I don’t remember what the man looked like.”
“Did you not tell us in Mr. Wickerby’s room that Mr. Scruby with the
