"Yes, sir."
"And do you mean to tell us you didn't notice the change?"
"No, sir. Mr. Burton is the exact double of Mr. Northcote. Even his voice is the same. He was wearing Mr. Northcote's clothes, and he seemed perfectly at home, sir. There was nothing to make me doubt that he was the master."
Every eye in court was now turned on me. Under ordinary circumstances, I might have found such a sudden scrutiny a trifle embarrassing; but I was so interested in Milford's revelation that I scarcely noticed it. I was waiting to see how much of our mutual adventure he intended to make public.
"And when did you first begin to have suspicions about this amazing deception?" asked the magistrate.
Milford paused for a moment, as though to make quite certain of his facts.
"It was the night of Lord Sangatte's dance, sir—the night of the murder. Mr. Burton went off about half-past ten, and he hadn't been gone a matter of a quarter of an hour when a boy came round to the house with a note for me. It was in the master's writing, sir, and it told me to come down in a taxi to 7 Baxter's Rents, Stepney, as quickly as possible. I couldn't make it out at all, having, as I thought, just seen Mr. Northcote out of the house. Still, there it was; there couldn't be no doubt about the signature, and it wasn't my place to fail the master if he might be wanting me. So I looked out Baxter's Rents in the Directory, and then rung up a cab and told the man to take me down as far as the corner of East Street It was a pretty rough neighbourhood, sir, just off the river, and seemingly fuller of foreigners than English people. Number seven turned out to be a sailors' lodging-house. I found the master there—he'd told me what name to ask for him under—but at first sight I shouldn't have known him. He'd always used to be most particular about his appearance, sir, but that night he was unshaved and dirty, and dressed in the roughest of clothes.
"Well, sir, he took me into the little room he'd got—like a pig-stye it was—and he shut the door tight and put the bed against it, as if he was afraid of something."
By this time the silence in court was so intense as to be almost painful. From the magistrate to the policeman at the door every soul present was drinking in Milford's story with a fascinated attention. His strangely simple, unaffected method of telling it seemed to add to its effect.
"You no longer thought that he and Mr. Burton were the same person?" interrupted the magistrate.