'Oh!' said Mr. Chaffanbrass; and as he uttered the monosyllable he looked up at the jury, and gently shook his head, and gently shook his hands. Mr. Chaffanbrass was famous for these little silent addresses to the jury-box.
But not even yet had he done with this suspicious loan. We cannot follow him through the whole of his examination; for he kept our old friend under the harrow for no less than seven hours. Though he himself made no further statement to the jury, he made it perfectly plain, by Undy's own extracted admissions, or by the hesitation of his denials, that he had knowingly received this money out of his niece's fortune, and that he had refused to sell the shares bought with this money, when pressed to do so by Tudor, in order that the trust-money might be again made up.
There were those who blamed Mr. Chaffanbrass for thus admitting that his client had made away with his ward's money by lending it to Undy; but that acute gentleman saw clearly that he could not contend against the fact of the property having been fraudulently used; but he saw that he might induce the jury to attach so much guilt to Undy, that Tudor would, as it were, be whitened by the blackness of the other's villany. The judge, he well knew, would blow aside all this froth; but then the judge could not find the verdict.
Towards the end of the day, when Undy was thoroughly worn out—at which time, however, Mr. Chaffanbrass was as brisk as ever, for nothing ever wore him out when he was pursuing his game—when the interest of those who had been sweltering in the hot court all the day was observed to flag, Mr. Chaffanbrass began twisting round his finger a bit of paper, of which those who were best acquainted with his manner knew that he would soon make use.
'Mr. Scott,' said he, suddenly dropping the derisive sarcasm of his former tone, and addressing him with all imaginable courtesy, 'could you oblige me by telling me whose handwriting that is?' and he handed to him the scrap of paper. Undy took it, and saw that the writing was his own; his eyes were somewhat dim, and he can hardly be said to have read it. It was a very short memorandum, and it ran as follows: 'All will yet be well, if those shares be ready to-morrow morning.'
'Well, Mr. Scott,' said the lawyer, 'do you recognize the handwriting?'
Undy looked at it, and endeavoured to examine it closely, but he could not; his eyes swam, and his head was giddy, and he felt sick. Could he have satisfied himself that the writing was not clearly and manifestly his own, he would have denied the document altogether; but he feared to do this; the handwriting might be proved to be his own.
'It is something like my own,' said he.
'Something like your own, is it?' said Mr. Chaffanbrass, as though he were much surprised. 'Like your own! Well, will you have the goodness to read it?'
Undy turned it in his hand as though the proposed task were singularly disagreeable to him. Why, thought he to himself, should he be thus browbeaten by a dirty old Newgate lawyer? Why not pluck up his courage, and, at any rate, show that he was a man? 'No,' said he, 'I will not read it.'