"Then you have never seen the room where your father came to his death?"
"No, certainly not," returned the witness, beginning to look a little startled by this unaccountable persistency.
"Has it ever been very minutely described to you?"
Varley hesitated;—more, it was evident, to consider what could be the possible drift of the question, than to search his memory for a correct answer. He finally ventured to say that to the best of his recollection he had been favored with no such description.
"According to my notes of the evidence taken during this trial," pursued Bergan, "the only facts about the room brought out with much distinctness, were the positions of the bedstead and the window near it;—does your memory serve you with any additional particulars?"
"N—o," faltered the witness, with symptoms of growing uneasiness.
"Then," said Bergan, with very distinct and deliberate emphasis, "if, as you say, you never have seen this room, nor heard it minutely described, how is it that you have been able to make so accurate a representation of it as this which I hold in my hand?"
There was a breathless silence, while Bergan held up a small, but distinct, pencil sketch to the view of the pale and trembling witness.
"This sketch," continued Bergan, after waiting a few moments for the answer that did not come, "as I can vouch, and as many of these witnesses can testify, is an exact representation of the room in question, as it would appear from the head of the bedstead;—the very spot in which, it will be remembered, the prosecution has assumed that the murderer must have been concealed; and where, doubtless, he remained long enough to fix all the details of this sketch in his memory. Here is the peculiar double window, facing the east, and wreathed round with vines, which is so marked a feature of the room, yet which there has been no need to mention, during this trial, except in the most casual way; and here, on the right, are the round table and large armchair, where Mr. Varley wrote, and, on the left, an old-fashioned chest of drawers, with a plaster cast of Shakespeare on top;—all in their proper places, just as I saw them when I visited the room, after undertaking the defence of this case. How is it, I ask again," he went on, turning to the witness, "how is it that you could make this sketch, if you never saw the room?"
"Who says he made it?" demanded the opposing counsel, sharply.