Q. Did he make any remark?
A. He said something in his own language, sir, very deep and hoarse. It sounded like—but I really can’t manage it.
M. le Baron (interposing): “It was ‘Non, non, par pitié!’”
Counsel (tartly): I shall be obliged, sir, if you will keep your evidence till it is asked for. (M. le Baron admitted his error with a bow.)
Q. Was that all?
A. One of the maids told him, sir, that his master was asking for him, and he went off at once, without another word.
Q. And he has never referred to the subject since?
A. He would not talk of it. It was too horrible, he said.
Jessie Ellis, parlour-maid, and a couple of house-maids—(they kept no male indoor servants, except the butler, at Wildshott)—Kate Vokes and Mabel Wheelband, gave corroborative evidence, substantiating in all essential particulars the last witness’s statement.
Reuben Henstridge, landlord of the Red Deer inn, was the next witness summoned. He was a big cloddish fellow, unprepossessing in appearance, and reluctant and unwilling in his answers, as though surlily suspecting some design to ensnare him into compromising himself. He deposed that on the afternoon of the crime he was out on the hill somewhere below his inn “taking the air,” when he saw a man break through the lower beech-thicket skirting Wildshott, and go down quickly towards the high road. That man was the prisoner. He parted the branches savage-like, and jumped the bank and trench, moving his arms and talking to himself all the time. Witness went on with his business of “taking the air,” and, when he had had enough, returned to his own premises. Later Mr. Cleghorn, whom he knew very well as a casual customer, came in for a glass. He did not look himself, and stayed only a short time, and that was the whole he knew of the matter.