“You’re quite sure you knocked him down?” repeated the parson.
“The divil a doubt on earth about that!” replied Colligan. “I tell you, when I left the room he was on his back among the chairs.”
“And you did not hear a word from him since?”
“Not a word.”
“Then there can’t be any mistake about it, my lord,” said Armstrong. “If he did not feel that his life was in the doctor’s hands, he would not put up with being knocked down. And I’ll tell you what’s more—if you tax him with the murder, he’ll deny it and defy you; but tax him with having been knocked down, and he’ll swear his foot slipped, or that he’d have done as much for the doctor if he hadn’t run away. And then ask him why the doctor knocked him down?—you’ll have him on the hip so.”
“There’s something in that,” said Frank; “but the question is, what is Doctor Colligan to do? He says he can’t swear any information on which a magistrate could commit him.”
“Unless he does, my lord,” said Armstrong, “I don’t think you should listen to him at all; at least, not as a magistrate.”
“Well, Doctor Colligan, what do you say?”
“I don’t know what to say, my lord. I came to your lordship for advice, both as a magistrate and as a friend of the young man who is to marry Lynch’s sister. Of course, if you cannot advise me, I will go away again.”
“You won’t come before me and Mr Brew, then?”