There was an old black servant, quite black, who had been a valet in the Tichborne family. His name was Bogle; and the Claimant was told by the poor old dowager that if he could meet with him, Bogle could tell him a good many things about himself.
Bogle was an excellent diplomatist, and no sooner heard from Lady Tichborne that her son Roger was in Australia than the two began to look for one another, the one as black inside as the other was out. Bogle announced that he was the man before he saw him, on the mother's recommendation, and became and was to the end one of his principal supporters—so much so that "Old Bogle" spread the Claimant's knowledge of the Tichbornes abroad, and, like everybody else, believed in him because he knew so much which he could not have known unless he had been the veritable Roger, all which Bogle had told him.
But in the interests of justice "Old Bogle" and Mr. Hawkins became acquainted, much to the advantage of the latter, as he happened to meet Bogle in the witness-box, a place where the counsel unravelled the trickster's most subtle of designs. The advocate liked "Old Bogle," as he called him, because, said he, Bogle, having white hair, was so like a Malacca cane with a silver knob, white at the top and black below.
Bogle had sworn that Roger had no tattoo marks when he left England. In point of fact he had, and Bogle had to fit them to the Claimant, who had had tattoo marks of a very different kind from Roger's. The Claimant had removed his, and therefore was presented to the court without any.
"How do you know Roger had no tattoo marks?" asked Mr. Hawkins.
"I saw his arms on three occasions." This was a serious answer for
Bogle.
"When and where, and under what circumstances?" followed in quick succession, so that there was no escape. The witness said that Roger had on a pair of black trousers tied round the waist, and his shirt buttoned up.
"The sleeves, how were they?"
"Loose."
"How came you to see his naked arms?"