Baldry stared at the lawyer, then rubbed his eyes, and then stared again. “Draw it mild, old friend,” he said quietly. “Don’t think for one moment that I want to pry into your private affairs, but I certainly thought there was no harm in my mentioning where I met you last night, especially as you seemed to make no secret of it yourself.”
“I tell you again that I don’t understand what you are driving at,” said Hoskyns, testily. “I tell you again that I have not set foot on the Thornfield road for months.”
“Look here,” said Baldry, and an angry flush overspread his face, making it redder than before, “do you mean to stand there and tell me in cold blood that you didn’t stop me on the Thornfield road last night, as I was driving home between ten and eleven? That you didn’t shout out to me, ‘Hullo, Baldry, is that you, old boy?’ That I didn’t stop the mare for five minutes, while we talked about the weather and such like? That you didn’t offer me your box, and that I didn’t take out of it a pinch of that identical snuff which nobody but you in all Duxley makes use of? Do you mean to stand there and tell me all that?”
“Baldry,” said Hoskyns, “for you to make such a statement as that is to prove that last night you must have been either crazy or drunk. Last night I never left the house after eight o’clock: as my servant could certify on oath. And as for the Thornfield road, I tell you once more that I have not set foot on it since last Christmas.”
“Ned,” shouted Baldry to some one inside, “come you here a minute.”
The summons was responded to by a yellow-haired youth of sixteen.
“At what hour did I reach home last night?” asked Baldry.
“The clock had just struck eleven as you drove into the yard,” answered Ned.
“Did I tell you, or did I not, that I had stopped and spoken to some one a few minutes previously?”
“You said that you had just parted from Lawyer Hoskyns. That you had had five minutes’ talk with him, and a pinch out of his box,” answered the lad without a moment’s hesitation.