The three partners and the pawnbroker were put into the witness-box, and gave their evidence in a lame sort of way.
Tom was invited to ask any questions he desired of the witnesses, and said “Thank’ee, sir,” to each offer. He had nothing that he “knowed of to ask them. He was an unfortunate labouring man that had lost his living, and he hoped gentlemen would remember him.”
He accompanied this last appeal with a knowing look and grin at the occupants of the front public bench, who immediately blushed like turkey cocks, and again dropped their heads towards their boots.
“Have you anything to say about the disappearance of the boat?” said the clerk, shuffling his notes.
“Only, your worship,” said the solicitor, “that on the 4th of June last the Martha disappeared from her berth on the beach, and, as White disappeared at the same time and refuses to give an account of himself at that particular time, the prosecutors are convinced he removed the boat himself.”
In support of this very vague charge a policeman was called, who gave a graphic account of the beauties of the moonlight on the night in question, and of how he had seen, from his beat on the Parade, a figure move stealthily across the sands to the place where White’s boat was supposed to be. He couldn’t quite, swear that the figure was White or that the boat was the Martha but he didn’t know who either could be if they were not. The figure might have been a boy, but, as he was a quarter of a mile off, he couldn’t say. He never left his beat till one in the morning. By that time the tide was in. He didn’t actually see Tom White row off in the Martha but neither of them was to be seen in Templeton next day.
After this piece of conclusive evidence the public looked at one another and shook their heads, and thought what wonderful men the Templeton police were for finding out things.
“Have you any questions to ask the witness?” demanded the clerk of Tom.
“Thank’ee, no, sir; it’s all one to me,” said Tom. “Bless yer! I never knows nothing about it till a young gentleman says to me, ‘They’re after you,’ says he; ‘scuttle off.’ So I scuttled off. Bless you, sir, I didn’t know I was doing harm.”
Under this thunderbolt Dick almost collapsed. Fortunately, Tom’s short memory kept him from recognising him in the matter any more than the other occupants of the seat. He nodded generally to the young gentlemen as a body—a most compromising nod, and one which included all five in it meaning.