And then—was it by some mistake, or in the natural course of events?—the prisoner is brought up between two warders to take his usual place.
He looks tired, dispirited, and for the first time his eyes seem to seek out hungrily, thirstily, the figure of Jean Bower, sitting below him on the witnesses’ bench. As if drawn by some magnetic influence, she turns her head round at last, and they exchange a long, piteous look.
In answer to Sir Harold, the judge observes in a slow, unimpassioned tone:
“I, too, have received what is no doubt a copy of what you term an important communication, Sir Harold. I am exceedingly surprised that the parties in question should have waited till this morning—in fact, till just half an hour ago—to put this communication before me. I have already taken certain steps, and I have no doubt you have done the same, to test, shall we say, the value? of this communication. I understand that both the solicitors for the Crown and Mr. Toogood, the prisoner’s solicitor, are even now in telephonic communication with London.”
The judge’s words are listened to in absolute silence, and no one can make head or tail of what they mean. But it is plain that both Mr. Justice Freshwater and those two great protagonists, Sir Almeric Post and Sir Harold Anstey, are very much disturbed.
All kinds of wild rumours are current, but the low murmur of conversation is stilled by the loud voices of the ushers ordering “Silence, silence in Court!”
Every ear is strained to miss not a word as Sir Almeric takes up the ball in this mysterious legal game. He says in a very low voice:
“In all the circumstances, my lord, I have arranged with Sir Harold Anstey that he shall call Mrs. Cheale, formerly Lucy Warren, as his witness, not mine. He proposes, with your leave, to put her at once into the box.”
A feeling of intense relief sweeps through the Court. Then everything is going on according to plan? True, those with sharper ears than the others had caught the name of Mrs. Cheale. But most of the eager listeners suppose that it is Miss Agatha Cheale who is going to be re-examined. Into just a few minds there darts a sudden, lightning suspicion. Agatha Cheale had always been something of a dark horse; has she any revelation to make which she studiously concealed while in the witness-box yesterday?
Here and there some expert in criminology asked himself or herself whether, after all, Agatha Cheale was not in some way “in it,” an accomplice, maybe, of Henry Garlett?