Jim Baker held out his hand, his right one. As the policeman advanced, ready to snap them on his wrist, Baker snatched them from him and struck him with them a swinging blow upon the shoulder. Granger, yelling, dropped as if he had been shot. Although he was not tall, his weight was in the neighbourhood of sixteen stone, and he was not of a combative nature.

"If anybody wants some more," announced Mr Baker, "let him come on."

Apparently someone did want more. The words were hardly out of his mouth, before Nunn, the detective, had dodged another blow from the same weapon, and had closed with him in a very ugly grip.

There ensued the finest rough-and-tumble which had been seen in that parish within living memory. Jim Baker fought for all he was worth; when he had a gallon or so of beer inside him his qualifications in that direction were considerable. But numbers on the side of authority prevailed. In the issue he was borne to the lock-up in a cart, not only handcuffed, but with his legs tied together as well. As he went he cursed all and sundry, to the no small amusement of the heterogeneous gathering which accompanied the cart.

CHAPTER XVII

[INJURED INNOCENCE]

Mr Baker had some uncomfortable experiences. When he was brought before the magistrates it was first of all pointed out--as it were, inferentially--that he was not only a dangerous character, but, also, just the sort of person who might be expected to commit a heinous crime, as his monstrous behaviour when resisting arrest clearly showed. Not content with inflicting severe injuries on the police, he had treated other persons, who had assisted them in their laudable attempts to take him into safe custody, even worse. In proof of this it was shown that one such person was in the cottage hospital, and two more under the doctor's hands; while Granger, the local constable, and Nunn, the detective in charge of the case, appeared in the witness-box, one with his arm in a sling, and the other with plastered face and bandaged head. The fact that the prisoner himself bore unmistakable traces of having lately been engaged in some lively proceedings did not enhance his naturally uncouth appearance. It was felt by more than one who saw him that he looked like the sort of person who was born to be hung.

His own statement in the coroner's court having been produced in evidence against him, it was supplemented by the statements of independent witnesses in a fashion which began to make the case against him look very ugly indeed. Both Miss Arnott and Mr Morice were called to prove that his own assertion--that he had threatened to shoot the master of Oak Dene--was only too true. While they were in the box the prisoner, who was unrepresented by counsel, preserved what, for him, was an unusual silence. He stared at them, indeed, and particularly at the lady, in a way which was almost more eloquent than speech. Then other witnesses were produced who shed a certain amount of light on his proceedings on that memorable Saturday night.

It was shown, for instance, that he was well within the mark in saying that he had had a glass or two. Jenkins, the landlord of the "Rose and Crown," declared that he had had so many glasses that he had to eject him from his premises; he was "fighting drunk." In that condition he had staggered home, provided himself with a gun and gone out with it. A driver of a mail-cart, returning from conveying the mails to be taken by the night express to town, had seen him on a stile leading into Exham Park; had hailed him, but received no answer. A lad, the son of the woman with whom Baker lodged, swore that he had come in between two and three in the morning, seeming "very queer." He kept muttering to himself while endeavouring to remove his boots--muttering out loud. The lad heard him say, "I shot him--well, I shot him. What if I did shoot him? what if I did?" He kept saying this to himself over and over again. After he had gone to bed, the lad, struck by the singularity of his persistent repetition, looked at his gun. It had been discharged. The lad swore that, to his own knowledge, the gun had been loaded when Baker had taken it out with him earlier in the night.

The prisoner did not improve matters by his continual interruptions. He volunteered corroborations of the witnesses' most damaging statements; demanding in truculent tones to be told what was the meaning of all the fuss.