“Proceed, sir, with your evidence,” said the magistrate to Bruce Trevor. The witness went on with his story.
“‘How then is the lad to forward the jewels?’ asked Harper.
“‘He is to direct them to me under my assumed name,’ replied Standish; ‘but I shall be too wary to claim the box myself. Aunt Jael, whom no one suspects, will call at the office for the jewels, and bring them to us at the White Raven, where we shall keep close till the Penguin sails.’”
“Did you hear anything more regarding the plans of these men?” the magistrate asked.
“No; but I had heard enough to put the police on the right scent on my return to Myst Court,” answered Bruce.
This was all the evidence which young Trevor could give which bore directly on the charge against his brother; but so much of interest remained to be learned, that the examination went on.
“What do you suppose that this man Harper and his accomplice intended to do with you, when they carried you through the wood?” asked the magistrate.
“They intended to throw my corpse into the pond on the heath,” answered Bruce in the same calm tone. “I knew as much from what they muttered, though I cannot recall the words; and I reserved myself for one last desperate struggle for life. As we left the wood, Harper found out, perhaps by some involuntary movement that I made, that I was alive. I was set down under a hedge, and there followed some conversation between the two men regarding my fate, of the nature of which I could guess more than I heard. There was something said about ‘gallows’ and ‘hanging for it,’ so I concluded that the ruffians thought it a more serious matter to be tried for murder than for the forgery of bank-notes. The men lifted me up again, and carried me into the house of the woman hitherto called Jael Jessel, whom I now found to be the wife of the one and the aunt of the other. In that house I was blindfolded, gagged, and bound to a table. Half swooning as I was, I knew little of what was passing around me, save that I judged from the sounds that I heard that the forgers were moving their goods and leaving the place. How many hours I passed alone after their departure I cannot tell. A great storm came on, and at last a fire-bolt struck the dwelling, shattering the door, and setting the place on fire. Then followed the entrance of my sister, who, alarmed at my absence, was searching for me, and who found me in the helpless condition in which the forgers had doubtless hoped that I would have remained for days undiscovered. I was scarcely likely to have survived till the evening, had not timely succour arrived.”
Before Bruce had quite finished giving his evidence, tidings were brought to the magistrate from Liverpool, which excited such interest amongst the crowd thronging the court that an irrepressible murmur of satisfaction arose. The police, following the clue given by Bruce Trevor, had arrested at a low public-house, called the White Raven, three persons answering to the description given of Harper and his associates. The woman, it appeared, had inquired at the coach-office for a box directed to Colonel Standish, which, it could not be doubted, was that which was to contain the jewels. Other suspicious circumstances seemed to place it beyond question that the individuals now in custody were Harper, Standish, and Jael. The first named had been recognized by a policeman as an engraver, who had been taken up before on a charge of forgery, but who had been dismissed for want of sufficient evidence to convict him. Jael, it appeared, was his wife; and Harper had found in her nephew, Horace Standish, alias John Stobb, an unscrupulous accomplice in carrying out his guilty designs. It afterwards appeared that the Harpers and their confederate had taken their passages in the Penguin under three different assumed names.
Vibert still stood as a prisoner at the bar, but he was not long to remain in so humiliating a position. The magistrate, who had from the first doubted the young man’s guilt, was now convinced, by Bruce’s testimony, that the prisoner had never been an accomplice in the crime of the forgers, but in pure ignorance had passed false notes so skilfully engraved as almost to defy detection. The magistrate therefore dismissed the charge against the prisoner, and Vibert once more was free.