A. Yes, sir.
Q. What is your reason for this change of opinion?
A. Because I remembered afterwards, sir, having heard the clock in the master’s study strike the quarter past. I had gone round by then to the back of the house.
Q. And you had heard the shot fired while at the front?
A. Yes, sir.
This witness was stiffly cross-examined by Mr. Redstall, who sought to shake his evidence on the grounds that he was, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to adapt it to what was expected of him. But the poor fellow’s honesty was so transparent, and his incomprehension of the gravity of his statement so ingenuous, that the only result of his harrying was to increase the impression of his disinterested probity. He said what he believed to be the truth, and he adhered to it.
He went, and the usher, tapping with his wand on the floor, called in a loud voice on Vivian Bickerdike to appear and give evidence.
A famous writer has asserted that there are two kinds of witness to whom lawyers take particular exception, the reluctant witness and the too-willing witness. To these may be added a third, the anxious witness, who, being oppressed with a sense of responsibility of his position, fears at once to say too much or too little, and ends by saying both. Bickerdike entered the box an acutely anxious witness. The trend of some recent evidence had left him in no doubt as to the lines on which his own examination was destined to run, and he foresaw at once the use to which a certain conversation of his with the detective was going to be put. Now it was all very well to hold the Sergeant guilty in this of a gross breach of confidence, but his conscience would not thereby allow him to maintain himself blameless in the matter. He should have known quite well, being no fool, that a detective did not ask questions or invite communications from a purely altruistic point of view, and that the apparent transparency of such a man’s sentiments was the least indication of their depth. By permitting pique a little to obscure that fact to him he had done his friend—for whom he had a real, very warm regard—a disservice, to which he had now, in that friend’s hearing, to confess. So far, then, it only remained to him to endeavour to repair, through his sworn evidence, the mischief to which he had made himself a party.
But could any reparation stultify now a certain issue, to which—he had seen it suddenly, aghast—that too-open candour of his had been seduced into contributing? What horrible thing was it which was being approached, threatened, in the shadow of his friend’s secret? The thing was monstrous, damnable; yet he could not forget how it had appeared momentarily adumbrated to himself on his first hearing of the murder. But he had rejected the thought with incredulous scorn then, as he would reject it now. Of whatever sinful weakness Hugh might be capable, a crime so detestable, so cruel, was utterly impossible to him. He swore it in his heart; but his faith could not relieve him of the weight of responsibility which went with him into the witness box. It was like a physical oppression, and he seemed to bend under it. Counsel took the witness’s measure with a rolling relish of the lips, as he prepared, giving a satisfied shift to his gown, to open his inquisitions:—
Q. You are on very intimate terms, I believe, Mr. Bickerdike, with Sir Calvin and his family?