'You may sit down, Sir.'
'My Lud,' said Mr. Caterham, 'my case is completed. I have no other evidence unless you direct me to sweep the streets of St. Giles's and compel them to come in.'
When all the evidence was completed there was a dead silence in the Court. Everybody was silent for a space: the faces of the rogues in the gallery were white with consternation: here were the very secrets of their citadel, their home, the Black Jack, disclosed, and by the very people of the Black Jack, the landlady and her daughters. The Jury looked at each other in amazement. Here was the complete revelation of a plot which for wickedness and audacity went beyond everything ever invented or imagined. What would happen next?
'Brother Cosins,' said the Judge.
He threw his papers on the desk. 'My Lud,' he said, 'I throw down my brief.'
Then the Judge charged the Jury. 'Gentlemen,' he said, 'it has been clearly established—more clearly than I ever before experienced, that a wicked—nay a most horrible—crime, designed by one man, carried out by three others, has been perpetrated against the prisoner, William Halliday. It is a case in which everything has been most carefully prepared: the perjury of the witnesses has been established beyond a doubt even though the witnesses have been in part taken from the regions of St. Giles's, and from actual criminals. Gentlemen, there is but one verdict possible.'
They did not leave the box: they conferred for a moment: rose and through their foreman pronounced their verdict—'Not Guilty.' They added a hope that the conspirators would not escape.
'They shall not,' said the Judge. 'William Halliday, the verdict of the jury sets you free. I am happy to say that you leave this court with an unblemished character: and that you have the most heartfelt commiseration of the court for your wholly undeserved sufferings and anxiety.' Then the Judge turned to the four. 'I commit Eliezer Probus: Samuel Carstairs alias what he pleases: the man who calls himself Ferdinando Fenwick: and John Merridew for trial on the charge of conspiracy and perjury.'