“Well, sir, I told him a little about the young Squire being in difficulties with his father—not meanin’ any ’arm to anybody,” went on the man piteously, and with a penitent glance towards the dock.
“No, no. Of course not. People do talk of these things,” said Mr Benham encouragingly—then waxing impressive. “Now, did you mention a girl named Lizzie Devine?”
“Oh Lord, sir,” cried poor Grainger, horror-stricken, staring open-mouthed at the placid face of the inquisitorial counsel and wondering how the deuce he had ferreted out all this. “I didn’t mean no harm, but we was just a-talkin’ quietly like.” Then little by little Mr Benham inexorably elicited from the unwilling and terrified witness, the whole of the conversation that had passed between himself and Robert Durnford on the subject, and how he had told the stranger that Hubert Dorrien had blackened his brother’s name for his own advantage.
“Now, when Mr Durnford returned from Wandsborough that evening, you were asleep?”
“Yes, sir. I had just dropped off.”
“Where?”
“In the coffee-room.”
“And where was Durnford standing when you woke up?”
“In the door.”
“The door of the coffee-room?”