"'And what happened after he had gone?' the coroner asked.
"'Oh!' the witness replied, 'the Colonel 'e threw the revolver back into the drawer and laughed sarcastic like. Then 'e 'eld out 'is 'and to Mr. Gerald, and says: "Thanks, my boy. You did 'elp me to get rid of that ruffian." After that,' Cambalt concluded, 'I got on with my work, and the gentlemen took no notice of me.'
"This witness was very much pressed with questions as to what happened later on when the burglary alarm was given and the gentlemen all hurried out of the house. Cambalt was in the hall at the time and he made straight for the front door to see some of the fun. He said that the Colonel was out first, and the other three gentlemen, Mr. Gerald, Mr. Rawstone and Mr. Morley Thrall went out after him; Mr. Thrall was the last to go outside; he ran across the garden in the direction of the five-acre field. Major Rawstone remained somewhere near the house, but it was a very dark night, and he, Cambalt, soon lost sight of the gentlemen. Presently, however, Mr. Thrall came back toward the house. It was a few minutes after the shots had been fired and witness heard Mr. Thrall say to Major Rawstone: 'I suppose it's that fool Forburg potting away at the burglar; hell get himself into trouble, if he doesn't look out.' Soon after that Mr. Gerald came running back with the news that the burglar had fallen into the arms of a passing constable and Cambalt then returned to his duties in the dining-room.
"As you see," the Old Man in the Corner went on glibly, "this witness's evidence was certainly sensational. The jury, which was composed of farm labourers, with the local butcher as foreman, had by now fully made up its silly mind that Mr. Morley Thrall had taken the opportunity of sneaking into the smoking-room, snatching up the revolver, and shooting 'Remount Forburg,' whom he hated because the Colonel was opposing his marriage with Miss Monica. It was all as clear as daylight to those dunderheads, and from that moment they simply would not listen to any more evidence. They had made up their minds; they were ready with their verdict and it was: Manslaughter against Morley Thrall. Not murder, you see! The dolts who had all of them suffered from 'Remount Forburg's' arrogance and violent temper would not admit that killing such vermin was a capital crime.
"What I am telling you would be unbelievable if it were not a positive fact. It is no use quoting British justice and dilating on the absolute fairness of trial by jury. A coroner's inquest fortunately is not a trial. The verdict of a coroner's jury, such as the one which sat on the Brudenell Court affair, though it may have very unpleasant consequences for an innocent person, cannot have fatal results. In this case it cast a stigma on a gentleman of high position and repute, and the following day Mr. Morley Thrall, himself J.P., was brought up before his brother magistrates on an ignominious charge.
§4
"It is not often," the Old Man in the Corner resumed after a while, "that so serious a charge is preferred against a gentleman of Mr. Morley Thrall's social position, and I am afraid that the best of us are snobbish enough to be more interested in a gentleman criminal than in an ordinary Bill Sykes.
"I happened to be present at that magisterial enquiry when Mr. Morley Thrall, J.P., was brought in between two warders, looking quite calm and self-possessed. Every one of us there noticed that when he first came in, and in fact throughout that trying enquiry, his eyes sought to meet those of Miss Glenluce who sat at the solicitor's table; but whenever she chanced to look his way, she quickly averted her gaze again, and turned her head away with a contemptuous shrug. Gerald Glenluce, on the other hand, made pathetic efforts at showing sympathy with the accused, but he was of such unprepossessing appearance and was so shy and awkward that it was small wonder Morley Thrall took little if any notice of him.
"Very soon we got going. I must tell you, first of all, that the whole point of the evidence rested upon a question of time. If the accused took the revolver out of the desk in the smoking-room, when did he do it? The footman, Cambalt, reiterated the statement which he had made at the inquest. He was, of course, pressed to say definitely whether after the quarrel between Mr. Morley Thrall and the Colonel which he had witnessed, and before every one went in to dinner, Mr. Thrall might have gone back to the smoking-room and extracted the revolver from the drawer of the desk; but Cambalt said positively that he did not think this was possible. He himself, after he had tidied the smoking-room, had been in and out of the hall preparing to serve dinner. The door of the smoking-room gave on the hall, between the dining-room and the passage leading to the kitchens. If any one had gone in or out of the smoking-room at that time, Cambalt must have seen them.
"At this point Miss Glenluce was seen to lean forward and to say something in a whisper to the Clerk of the Justices, who in his turn whispered to the chairman on the Bench, and a moment or two later that gentleman asked the witness: