“Dear old dog,” he murmured to himself. “Dear, faithful old Roy!”
Chapter Forty Five.
“Is he Robert Durnford?”
When the Court met again next morning there was no abatement in the attendance of the public; if anything, it was increased, for it was pretty well known that the verdict would be given to-day.
Mr Windgate was in his place, smiling, cheerful, and cracking small jokes with the juniors, as if he would convince everybody—judge, jury, audience, and prisoner—that he considered his case already won and the remainder of the proceedings a mere formality, unhappily necessary to ensure his client an honourable acquittal.
As for the case for the Crown, he said, it was fortunate they had come to an end of it at last—but fortunate in this sense only, that from beginning to end it had been a sheer wasting of the time of the Court, and specially of the valuable time of the twelve intelligent gentlemen before him. That being so, he proposed, himself, to be as brief as possible. His defence would be very short, so short indeed as at first blush to appear inadequate. But what could be more inadequate than the case for the prosecution! He would simply remind the jury of two things. One was that his unfortunate client, actuated by the most considerate of motives—the delicacy of character of a true gentleman—had chosen rather to impair his defence than to drag into this Court friends or relatives to whom such an attendance must necessarily be most painful. The other was that the whole case turned simply upon a question of identity. He would hardly so much as mention such trumpery points, which were not even circumstantial, though they might seem to be. What are they? A matchbox, a time-table, and a bit of paper. However, to put such trivialities out of the account, we have left only this question of identity, and that I shall have no difficulty in disposing of, entirely to your satisfaction. I shall call—
“Joseph Grainger.”
The public, unaccustomed to the persuasive powers and self-confidence of forensic eloquence, began to think at the conclusion of Mr Windgate’s speech that the result of the trial was not such a foregone thing after all, and there was yet more exciting uncertainty in store for it. It, therefore, prepared itself to listen eagerly.