A storm of applause greeted the squire as he sat down, but it was checked by Doctor Syn, who again reminded the assemblage of the sad event that had brought them to the courthouse and begged them out of respect for the dead gentleman in the next room to abstain from any further acclamation.
XIII
The End of the Inquiry
The lawyers now asserted themselves, and for some three hours questioned and cross-questioned everybody. The squire left things in their hands, seeming to take small interest in the proceedings, while the captain, with his chin resting on his great hand, obviously took none at all. Doctor Syn, however, was at great pains to follow through the whole business, making notes of anything he deemed characteristic upon a scrap of paper before him.
But with all their cleverness the lawyers were greatly at sea, for they only ended up where they began—namely, that Sennacherib Pepper was dead, and by violent means; that a foreign sailor was missing, and that this same sailor had stolen at a short period before the murder a certain harpoon from the house of Doctor Syn, and that from the nature and size of the wound upon the body sudden death was most certainly caused by this same weapon. To this false though obvious conclusion Doctor Syn, to Jerk’s intense surprise, unhesitatingly agreed. Jerk couldn’t understand this at all. Why had he been called to the trial if the vicar had not believed his story? for he found on being summoned to the witness box that all he was required to state was whether or no he had seen the mulatto enter the vicarage on the previous night and leave it a few minutes later with the harpoon in question in his hand. Having sworn to this, he was on the point of taking matters into his own hands and exposing the schoolmaster, when he was peremptorily ordered to “stand down” and only answer what was required of him. Returning to his place, he plainly noted the relief on the face of the schoolmaster. A warmer time of it had Mr. Mipps. There was something about Mipps that would always be called in question. If a great crime had been committed within a fifty-mile radius of Mipps, he would most assuredly have been detained upon suspicion. His quizzical appearance of injured innocence was quite enough to label him a “likely one.” On this occasion he acted upon the attorneys like a red rag to a bull.
“If I’m to be kept standing through this examination,” he remarked on his way to the witness box, “I must beg of you to be more brisk and businesslike than you have shown yourselves already. Perhaps in your profession you are paid for wastin’ your time, but in mine you ain’t, so please remember it. As our worthy vicar knows, I has a lot of work to get through; so the sooner you get on with this here dismal business the better temper you’ll keep me in, see?”
“You keep your mouth shut, my man, till you’re questioned,” sang out one of the attorneys sharply.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut for nobody but squire and Doctor Syn,” retorted the sexton, “and in your future remarks don’t ‘my man’ me, please. I ain’t your man, and it’s mighty pleased I am I ain’t.”
When ordered to give an account of what had happened on the previous night, he obstinately refused to open his mouth until they had removed to the other side of the room the two sailors who were guarding the witness box. “For,” said he, “I can’t abide the look or the smell of ’em; they fair turns me up.”
This caused much laughter among the villagers, and indeed the little sexton was so ready with his scathing remarks at the expense of the lawyers that in order to preserve their dignity they were obliged to stand him down.
“Have I now your permission to go back to my measuring,” said Mipps, producing his footrule, “or will any more advice from me be required?”
The lawyers tartly observed that he had been little or no use at all, and turned to the next witness.
After the schoolmaster had been called upon to bear out certain points of evidence, the three hours’ useless palaver came to a conclusion, the attorneys agreeing with Doctor Syn that Sennacherib Pepper had been
