“My Lord, and gentlemen of the jury, you perceive there is a finger missing? It is here.”
As the counsel said this, he stepped towards the witness-box, holding the strange object in his hand. Then, quietly raising the hand of his client, he placed the missing finger in juxtaposition with the stump, from which it had long ago been so cruelly severed.
There could be no doubt about the correspondence. The white cartilaginous seam that indicated the scar, commencing upon the back of the hand, and running longitudinally, was continued to the finger’s tip. The jury could not help being convinced. The claimant was Henry Harding.
The sensation in court had now come to its climax; and so had the trial to its end.
The case of “Harding versus Harding” was by an unanimous verdict decided in plaintiff’s favour—defendant “to pay costs in the suit!”
Chapter Sixty Six.
What Became of Them.
Six months after the trial I received an invitation to spend a week at Beechwood Park, and take a share in its shootings.