Mr. Walters: Then, why did you risk your valuable life?
Witness: In the first place, I don’t think I exposed my life, valuable or otherwise, to any great risk. Why I went down there was because Mr. Grewgious asked me to do so, and because he had been a very generous and considerate employer to me, and I also thought that if I had good results he would reward me suitably.
Mr. Walters: Can you give me any explanation, if Drood has disappeared, why he has not communicated with his friends?
Judge: That is surely a point for final discussion in abstract debate?
Mr. Walters: I only ask if he can offer any explanation. (To witness.) Should you expect a man who has disappeared, and finding all his friends in danger, to communicate with his friends?
Witness: On that hypothetical case, I think I should. But that has no reference to the Drood question.
Judge: I think we should confine ourselves as sharply as we can to bringing out the actual facts, and not to abstract argument.
Mr. Walters (to witness): Can you give us any reason why he should not communicate?
Witness: I cannot: but he has communicated with his friends.
Mr. Walters: Are you going to produce any evidence?