“How did he obtain your Hereford address? It appears to be given in full on the envelope.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Fred Marshall was the next witness. He was sober and exceedingly nervous. He had been made aware during the past week that public opinion condemned him utterly. His old cronies refused to drink with him. Mrs. Atkinson had dismissed him; he was a pariah, an outcast, in the village.
His evidence consisted of a disconnected series of insinuations against Kitty’s character, interlarded with protests that he meant no harm. Mr. Stockwell showed him scant mercy.
“You say you saw Mrs. Pickering, or Betsy Thwaites, as she was at that time, seize a knife from the table?”
“I did.”
“What did you think she meant to do with it?”
“What she did do—stick George Pickerin’. I heerd her bawlin’ that oot both afore an’ efther.”
The man was desperate. In his own parlance, he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and he would spare no one.