“Ever been arrested before?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Twice.”
“For what?”
“Stealing.”
“Why weren’t you hung?”
“The judge pitied my youth, and knew that I could not take advantage of the benefit of clergy and so must hang if he sentenced me. I could not con the neck verse” [[note 39]].
And so the questioning went on through every phase of the boy’s life to the night of the crime. Then he was drawn back and forth, in and out, through every sentence he had uttered, but all to no purpose. Every answer he made only served to strengthen his story. Bame felt that his fate was sealed unless his own testimony could offset the boy’s perjury. The case was closed for the prosecution, and the prisoner took the stand. He told of the events of the night the church was sacked and burnt, but he carefully refrained from stating that the man with him at the church was Marlowe, although he was still of that opinion.
From his first consultation with his client, Eliot had rejected this opinion; for against it was the reported coroner’s verdict of Marlowe’s death. Was it not possible that this unknown man was the suspected murderer? Anne had stated to Bame that the person whom he was to meet that night was a friend of her husband. It was more than probable, thought Eliot, that this man was the husband himself, and as Bame did not know him by sight, his confounding him with Marlowe was natural. An inquiry was instituted for Anne, but she had escaped from the sheriff’s house. The identity of this witness lay with her, and possibly the knowledge of his whereabouts; but her whereabouts could not be ascertained. Thus stood the case when called for trial. Therefore Eliot advised that a statement according to the prisoner’s opinion would cast a doubt upon the narrative. The rumor of Marlowe’s death at a time prior to the burning of St. Olave was already public, and it would be said: “The prisoner is a self-convicted perjurer, if nothing more. He depends for proof of his innocence upon one who was dead before the night of the fire. This is his only witness, and besides, the boy Pence says that the man who was with the prisoner in the chantry remained there after Bame came out with dripping sword.”