"At last, Mr. Atkins, the solicitor, being unable to get the estate I have mentioned administered, for want of proof of Griffith Gaunt's decease, entered heartily into this affair, on mere civil grounds. He asked the prisoner, before several witnesses, if she would permit him to drag that piece of water by the side of which Mr. Gaunt was heard to cry for help, and, after that, seen no more.
"The prisoner did not reply; but Mr. Houseman, her solicitor, a very worthy man, who has I believe, or had, up to that moment, a sincere conviction of her innocence, answered for her, and told Mr. Atkins he was welcome to drag or drain it. Then the prisoner said nothing. She fainted away.
"After this, you may imagine with what expectation the water was dragged. Gentlemen, after hours of fruitless labour, a body was found.
"But here an unforeseen circumstance befriended the prisoner. It seems that piece of water swarms with enormous pike and other ravenous fish. These had so horribly mutilated the deceased, that neither form nor feature remained to swear by: and, as the law wisely and humanely demands that in these eases a body shall be identified beyond doubt, justice bade fair to be baffled again. But lo! as often happens in case of murder, Providence interposed and pointed with unerring finger to a slight but infallible mark. The deceased gentleman was known to have a large mole over his left temple. It had been noticed by his servants, and his neighbors. Well, gentlemen, the greedy fish had spared this mole; spared it perhaps by His command who bade the whale swallow Jonah, yet not destroy him. There it was, clear and infallible. It was examined by several witnesses; it was recognized; it completed that chain of evidence, some of it direct, some of it circumstantial, which I have laid before you very briefly, and every part of which I shall now support by credible witnesses."
He called thirteen witnesses, including Mr. Atkins, Thomas Hayes, Jane Bannister, Caroline Ryder, and others, and their evidence in chief bore out every positive statement the counsel had made.
In cross-examining these witnesses Mrs. Gaunt took a line that agreeably surprised the court. It was not for nothing she had studied a hundred trials with a woman's observation and patient docility. She had found out how badly people plead their own causes, and had noticed the reasons; one of which is that they say too much, and stray from the point. The line she took, with one exception, was keen brevity.
She cross-examined Thomas Hayes as follows:
[CHAPTER XI]
"You say the pedlar was a hundred yards behind my husband. Which of the two men was walking fastest?"