"Agreed," said Mr. Balfour.
"Very well," said Mr. Cavendish. "I shall call Cornelius Phipps, the only surviving witness of the assignment."
But Cornelius Phipps did not appear when he was called. A second call produced the same result. He was not in the house. He was sought for in every possible retreat about the house, but could not be found. Cornelius Phipps had mysteriously disappeared.
After consulting Mr. Belcher, Mr. Cavendish announced that the witness who had been called was essential at the present stage of the case. He thought it possible that in the long confinement of the court-room, Phipps had become suddenly ill, and gone home. He hoped, for the honor of the plaintiff in the case, that nothing worse had happened, and suggested that the Court adjourn until the following day.
And the Court adjourned, amid tumultuous whispering. Mr. Belcher was apparently oblivious of the fact, and sat and stared, until touched upon the shoulder by his counsel, when he rose and walked out upon a world and into an atmosphere that had never before seemed so strange and unreal.
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN WHICH PHIPPS IS NOT TO BE FOUND, AND THE GENERAL IS CALLED UPON TO DO HIS OWN LYING.
At the appointed hour on the following morning, the Court resumed its session. The plaintiff and defendant were both in their places, with their counsel, and the witnesses of the previous day were all in attendance. Among the little group of witnesses there were two or three new faces—a professional-looking gentleman with spectacles; a thin-faced, carefully-dressed, slender man, with a lordly air, and the bearing of one who carried the world upon his shoulders and did not regard it as much of a burden; and, last, our old friend Sam Yates.
There was an appearance of perplexity and gloom on the countenances of Mr. Cavendish and his client. They were in serious conversation, and it was evident that they were in difficulty. Those who knew the occasion of the abrupt adjournment of the Court on the previous day looked in vain among the witnesses for the face of Phipps. He was not in the room, and, while few suspected the real state of the case, all understood how essential he was to the defendant, in his attempt to establish the genuineness of the assignment.