The proceedings began. Captain Cockermuth related how the little box, his property, containing sixty golden guineas, was left on the table in a sitting-room in his brother’s house, the accused being the only person in the room at the time, and that the box disappeared. He, himself (standing at the front-door), saw the accused quit the room; he went into it almost immediately, but the box was gone. He swore that no person entered the room after the prisoner left it.
Miss Betty Cockermuth, flustered and red, appeared next. She testified that she was in the room nearly all the morning, the little box being upon the table; when she left the room, Mr. Dene remained in it alone, copying a letter for her brother; the box was still on the table. Susan Edwards, housemaid at Lawyer Cockermuth’s, spoke to the same fact. It was she who had fetched her mistress out, and she saw the box standing upon the table.
The accused was asked by one of the magistrates what he had to say to this. He answered, speaking freely, that he had nothing to say in contradiction, except that he did not know what became of the box.
“Did you see the box on the table?” asked the lawyer on the opposite side, Mr. Standup.
“I saw it there when I first went into the room. Miss Betty made a remark about the box, which drew my attention to it. I was sitting at the far end of the room, at Mr. Cockermuth’s little desk-table. I did not notice the box afterwards.”
“Did you not see it there after Miss Cockermuth left the room?”
“No, I did not; not that I remember,” answered Sam. “Truth to say, I never thought about it. My attention was confined to the letter I was copying, to the exclusion of everything else.”
“Did any one come into the room after Miss Cockermuth left it?”
“No one came into it. Somebody opened the door and looked in.”