"Oh, he asked you; and you conveniently remembered it when it was suggested to you?"
"No, sir. I remembered it all the time. That is to say, I hadn't given any special thought to it, sir."
"Oh, you remembered it all the time, though you hadn't given any thought to it. Now I put it to you that you had not remembered about it at all till it was suggested to you by Mr. Murbles."
"Mr. Murbles didn't suggest nothing, sir. He asked me whether any other letters came by the post, and then I remembered it."
"Exactly. When it was suggested to you, you remembered it, and not before."
"No, sir. That is, if I'd been asked before I should have remembered it and mentioned it, but, not being asked, I didn't think it would be of any importance, sir."
"You didn't think it of any importance that this man received a letter a few hours before his—decease?"
"No, sir. I reckoned if it had been of any importance the police would have asked about it, sir."
"Now, James Fleming, I put it to you again that it never occurred to you that Captain Cathcart might have received a letter the night he died till the idea was put into your head by the defense."
The witness, baffled by this interrogative negative, made a confused reply, and Sir Wigmore, glancing round the house as much as to say, "You see this shifty fellow," proceeded: