After the remaining prisoners had answered to the names entered on the charge-sheet, the first witness was called, but not till the red-faced magistrate had intimated that he and his colleagues only intended to take sufficient evidence that day to justify a remand. The first witness proved to be Mr. Sturgess, a London jeweller. His evidence went to show that, accompanied by a trustworthy assistant, he had left home the previous day on his way to Lord Leamington's seat, a few miles beyond Cummerhays, having in his charge a box containing jewelry to the value of several thousands of pounds. All had gone well till he reached Greenholme, at which place he had to wait an hour and change to the branch line; but on his arrival there, he had found a telegram awaiting him from his partner in London in which he was told on no account to pursue his journey without first obtaining an escort of four or five constables. No reason was furnished by the telegram for taking such extraordinary precautions and he could only surmise that an attempt was about to be made to rob him of the box, and that by some means his partner at the last moment had obtained wind of the affair. Fortunately, through the courtesy of the police authorities at Greenholme he experienced no difficulty in obtaining the required escort, and under its protection he resumed his journey by the next train.
The next witness to answer to his name was the driver of the train, who deposed to everything having gone right till he was just inside the distance signal of Cinder Pit Junction, which showed "line clear," when he and his mate were startled by the explosion of a fog-signal. He at once whistled and put on all the brake-power at his command, and could not have gone more than forty or fifty yards farther before a second signal exploded; and then he could just make out the figure of a woman standing on the embankment and beating the air with both her arms as a sign for him to stop, which, as the brakes were on already, he was not long in doing. After that, the police took charge of the affair, and he did just as they told him.
The next witness called was Margery Shook. She had been sitting out of sight behind a large screen which sheltered their worships from any possible draughts at the lower end of the room. As she entered the witness-box she shot a glance of venomous hatred towards Crofton, which would have killed him then and there if looks had power to slay. The nature of the evidence she had to give we know already. More than once her peculiar phraseology caused a titter to run through the court, which was, however, promptly suppresed.
Clara Brooke was the next person called upon. As she raised her veil her eyes met those of Crofton for a moment, while a faint colour suffused her cheeks, only to die out as quickly as it had come. A low murmur of commiseration passed like a sigh through the court; and the eyes of many there filled with tears when they beheld her pale beautiful face, for it had been whispered about that this was the wife of the man who was accused of murder. The evidence she had to offer was given clearly and unhesitatingly; with the purport of it we are sufficiently acquainted already. When she had told all she had to tell, she let her veil drop and went back to the seat she had occupied before.
The next and last witness whose evidence it was proposed to take at present was the Greenholme sergeant of police. He told how he had been instructed by his superintendent to take four men and accompany the gentleman from London as far as Cummerhays. Then he narrated how the train had come to a stand in consequence of the explosions of the fog-signals; and how, when he and his men alighted from it, they had found the witness Margery Shook, who gave them to understand that the train was about to be attacked a little way farther on. How the girl had scarcely finished telling them this when up ran the signalman, who had been released by his wife; and how, under his guidance, he, witness, and his men had succeeded in surprising the would-be thieves and in capturing three of their number; and finally, how the signalman had been severely wounded by Crofton, one of the prisoners, firing his revolver point-blank at him.
"You have omitted one little episode," said Crofton in cold measured tones as the sergeant was about to step down from the witness-box; "you have forgotten to tell these worthy gentlemen that it was I who recognised the so-called signalman as Gerald Brooke, the man charged with the wilful murder of the Baron von Rosenberg, and that I denounced him as such then and there."
"That is so, your worships," said the sergeant.
"We quite understand that already," remarked the red-faced magistrate; "but it is a point on which we need not enter at present, more especially seeing that the prisoner in question has already admitted that his name is Gerald Brooke, and that he is in point of fact the man for whose apprehension a reward of three hundred pounds is still unclaimed." With that the magistrates laid their heads together and consulted for a little while among themselves.
By Picot, sitting quietly among the general public and watching everything with restless burning eyes, all these proceedings were only imperfectly understood. Why Gerald Brooke had been brought in a prisoner and almost immediately taken out again without any charge being brought against hi, was a mystery to the mountebank. Neither could he understand how "la belle madame" and "Margot," as he termed them, came to be mixed up in such a strange fashion with the prisoners at the bar, in one of whom he had at once recognised the man he had gagged and bound to his chair in the house in Pymm's Buildings. He lacked the key to the situation, and wanting that, he could only look on and listen, and feel himself becoming more bewildered after each witness that appeared on the scene. Not that he troubled himself greatly about these things; something of much deeper import lay at the back of all his wandering thoughts about this matter or the other. He had been led to that place, his footsteps had been mysteriously guided thither--he could see it all now--for a certain purpose, and that purpose, as he sat there, was never for one moment out of his mind.
The magistrates having brought their brief consultation to an end, intimated that the prisoners at the bar would be remanded till the following Monday. They were at once removed; and after a brief pause, Gerald Brooke took his stand in their place. Having answered to his name in the usual way, the red-faced magistrate leaned forward a little to address him. "Gerald Brooke," he began, "you stand charged on the verdict of a coroner's jury with the wilful murder of Otto von Rosenberg, commonly called the Baron von Rosenberg, at Beaulieu, in the county of ----, on Thursday, the 28th day of June last. The crime having been committed outside the jurisdiction of this court, all we have now to do is"---