“Very well,” I agreed.
But when he spoke again, I realised that it was as a lawyer and not as a fighter. He had, indeed, been preparing a cautious impeachment of me. We had reached the entrance to the avenue before he began, and the cloister of its cool shade seemed a sufficiently appropriate setting for his forensic diplomacy. Outside, in the glare of the brilliant August sun, I should have flared out at him. In the solemnity of that Gothic aisle, I found influences which helped me to maintain a relative composure.
He posed his first question with an assumed indifference.
“Why didn’t you sleep in the house last night?” he asked.
I took time to consider my answer; I was taken aback by his knowledge of the fact he had disclosed. My first impulse was to retort “How do you know that I didn’t sleep in the house?” but I was determined to be very cautious at the outset of this cross-examination. Obviously he meant it to take the form of a cross-examination. I was equally determined that I would presently reverse the parts of counsel and witness—or was I the prisoner giving evidence on my own behalf?
We must have gone another fifteen or twenty deliberate paces before I replied,—
“I’ll answer that question in a minute. I should like to know first what grounds you have for stating that I didn’t sleep in the house?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You admit that you didn’t?” he retorted.
“If you’re going to conduct your conversation on the principles of the court room,” I said, “the only thing I can do is to adopt the same method.”
He ignored that. “You admit that you didn’t sleep in the house?” he repeated.