The Orange Girl Part 36

'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.'

'Do you know the nickname of the "Bishop"?'

'No.'

'Oh! you never were called the "Bishop"?'

'No.'

'Do you know the gallant gentleman who rescued you?'

'No, I do not.'

'You do not know him? Never met him, I suppose, at the Black Jack?'

'Never.'

'Never? Do you know the other witness, Mr. Merridew?'

'No, I do not.'

'Where were you staying for the night when this romantic incident happened?'

For the first time the Bishop hesitated. 'I--I--forget,' he said.

'Come, come, you cannot forget so simple a thing, you know. Where were you staying?'

'It was in a street off the Strand--I forget its name--I am a stranger to this city.'

'Well--where did you stay last night?'

'In the same street--I forget its name.'

'Not at the Black Jack, St. Giles's?'

He was pressed upon this point, but nothing could be got out of him. He stuck to the point--he had forgotten the name of the street, and he knew nothing of the Black Jack.

So he stood down. The Captain was called by the name he gave himself--Ferdinando Fenwick. He said he had never been known by any other name, that he had no knowledge of the name of Tom Kestever. He had never heard that name. Nor did he know of any occasion on which the said Tom Kestever had been ducked for a pickpocket: flogged for a rogue: imprisoned and tried on a capital charge for cattle lifting. Oh! Jenny, the case was well got up, truly. He, too, had never heard of the Black Jack, and stoutly stood it out that he was a gentleman of c.u.mberland.

Asked what village or town of c.u.mberland, he named Whitehaven as the place in which he was born and had his property--to wit, five farms contiguous to the town and two or three messuages in the town.

When this evidence was concluded a juryman rose and asked permission of the Court to put a question to the witness, which was granted him.

'Those farms,' he said, 'are contiguous to Whitehaven? Yes, and you were born in that town? What was your father by occupation?'

'He was a draper.'

'My lord,' said the Juryman, 'I am myself a native of Whitehaven. I am the son of the only draper in the town. I am apparently about the same age as the witness. I have never seen him in the town. There is no reputable tradesman of that name in the town, or anywhere near it. There are gentlefolk of the name, but in Northumberland.'

'I wish, Sir,' said the Counsel, 'that I had you in the box.'