“What sort of a gentleman?” the cross-examiner inquired, clutching at this last straw as a mere chance diversion.
“Well, a vurry big zart o’ a gentleman,” witness answered, unabashed. “A vine vigger o’ a man. Jest such another as thik ‘un with the wig ther.”
As he spoke he stared hard at the judge, a good scrutinizing stare. Sir Gilbert quailed, and glanced instinctively, first at the boy, and then at Elma. Not a spark of intelligence shone in the lad’s stolid eyes. But Elma’s were fixed upon him with a serpentine glare of awful fascination. “Thou art the man,” they seemed to say to him mutely. Sir Gilbert, in his awe, was afraid to look at them. They made him wild with terror, yet they somehow fixed him. Try as he would to keep his own from meeting them, they attracted him irresistibly.
A ripple, of faint laughter ran lightly through the court at the undisguised frankness of the boy’s reply. The judge repressed it sternly.
“Oh, he was just such another one as his lordship, was he?” counsel repeated, pressing the lad hard. “Now, are you quite sure you remember all the people you saw that day? Are you quite sure the other man who asked about passers-by wasn’t—for example—the judge himself who’s sitting here?”
Sir Gilbert glanced up with a quick, suspicious air. It was only a shot at random—the common advocate’s trick in trying to confuse a witness over questions of identity; but to Sir Gilbert, under the circumstances, it was inexpressibly distressing. “Well, it murt ‘a been he,” the lad answered, putting his head on one side, and surveying the judge closely with prolonged attention. “Thik un ‘ad just such another pair o’ ‘ands as his lordship do ‘ave. It murt ‘a been his lordship ‘urself as is zitting there.”
“This goes quite beyond the bounds of decency,” Sir Gilbert murmured faintly, with a vain endeavour to hold his hands on the desk in an unconcerned attitude. “Have the kindness, Mr. Walters, to spare the Bench. Attend to your examination. Observations of that sort are wholly uncalled for.”
But the boy, once started, was not so easily repressed. “Why, it was his lordship,” he went on, scanning the judge still harder. “I do mind his vurry voice. It was ‘im, no doubt about it. I’ve zeed a zight o’ people, since I zeed ‘im that day, but I do mind his voice, and I do mind his ‘ands, and I do mind his ve-ace the zame as if it wur yesterday. Now I come to look, blessed if it wasn’t his lordship!”
Guy’s counsel smiled a triumphant smile. He had carried his point. He had confused the witness. This showed how little reliance could be placed upon the boy’s evidence as to personal identity! He’d identify anybody who happened to be suggested to him! But Sir Gilbert’s face grew yet more deadly pale. For he saw at a glance this was no accident or mistake; the boy really remembered him! And Elma’s steadfast eyes looked him through and through, with that irresistible appeal, still more earnestly than ever.
Sir Gilbert breathed again. He had been recognised to no purpose. Even this positive identification fell flat upon everybody.