"I shot the man--well, I've said I shot him. But that didn't do him no harm to speak of. I swear to God I didn't do anything else to him. I hadn't no more to do with killing him than an unborn babe."
There were those who heard, however, who were inclined to think that he had had a good deal more to do with killing him than he was inclined to admit.
Miss Arnott, also, was having some experiences of a distinctly unpleasant kind. It was, to begin with, a shock to hear that Jim Baker had been arrested on the capital charge. When she was told what he had said, and read it for herself in the newspapers, she began to understand what had been the meaning of the gunshot and of the groans which had ensued. She, for one, had reason to believe that what the tippling old scoundrel had said was literally true, that he had spoken all the truth. Her blood boiled when she read his appeal to Hugh Morice, and that gentleman's carefully formulated corroboration. The idea that serious consequences might ensue to Baker because of his candour was a frightful one.
It was not pleasant to be called as a witness against him; she felt very keenly the dumb eloquence of the appeal in the blood-shot eyes which were fixed upon her the whole time she was testifying, she observed with something more than amazement. She had a horrible feeling that he was deliberately endeavouring to fit a halter round the neck of the drink-sodden wretch who, he had the best reason for knowing, was innocent of the crime of which he was charged.
A brief encounter which took place between them, as they were leaving the court, filled her with a tumult of emotions which it was altogether beyond her power to analyse. He came out of the door as she was getting into her car. Immediately advancing to her side he addressed her without any sort of preamble.
"I congratulate you upon the clearness with which you gave your evidence, and on the touch of feminine sympathy which it betrayed for the prisoner. I fear, however, that that touch of sympathy may do him more harm than you probably intended."
There was something in the words themselves, and still more in the tone in which they were uttered, which sent the blood surging up into her face. She stared at him in genuine amazement.
"You speak to me like that?--you? Certainly you betrayed no touch of sympathy. I can exonerate you from the charge of injuring him by exhibiting anything of that kind."
"I was in rather a difficult position. Don't you think I was? Unluckily I was not at my ease, which apparently you were."
"I never saw anyone more at his ease than you seemed to be. I wondered how it was possible."