“It is not necessary, sir, that I should waste time and words in referring to the wicked and preposterous charge against my clients,” said the lawyer, addressing Mr. Robert Nicholson. “The one sufficient justification for discharging them immediately is before you at this moment in the person of that gentleman. There, sir, stands the murdered Mr. James Smith, of Darrock Hall, alive and well, to answer for himself.”
“That is not the man!” cried Josephine, her shrill voice just as high, clear, and steady as ever, “I denounce that man as an impostor. Of my own knowledge, I deny that he is Mr. James Smith.”
“No doubt you do,” said the lawyer; “but we will prove his identity for all that.”
The first witness called was Mr. Philip Nicholson. He could swear that he had seen Mr. James Smith, and spoken to him at least a dozen times. The person now before him was Mr. James Smith, altered as to personal appearance by having his hair cut short and his whiskers shaved off, but still unmistakably the man he assumed to be.
“Conspiracy!” interrupted the prisoner, hissing the word out viciously between her teeth.
“If you are not silent,” said Mr. Robert Nicholson, “you will be removed from the room. It will sooner meet the ends of justice,” he went on, addressing the lawyer, “if you prove the question of identity by witnesses who have been in habits of daily communication with Mr. James Smith.”
Upon this, one of the servants from the Hall was placed in the box.
The alteration in his master’s appearance evidently puzzled the man. Besides the perplexing change already adverted to, there was also a change in Mr. James Smith’s expression and manner. Rascal as he was, I must do him the justice to say that he looked startled and ashamed when he first caught sight of his unfortunate wife. The servant, who was used to be eyed tyrannically by him, and ordered about roughly, seeing him now for the first time abashed and silent, stammered and hesitated on being asked to swear to his identity.
“I can hardly say for certain, sir,” said the man, addressing the justice in a bewildered manner. “He is like my master, and yet he isn’t. If he wore whiskers and had his hair long, and if he was, saving your presence, sir, a little more rough and ready in his way, I could swear to him anywhere with a safe conscience.”
Fortunately for us, at this moment Mr. James Smith’s feeling of uneasiness at the situation in which he was placed changed to a feeling of irritation at being coolly surveyed and then stupidly doubted in the matter of his identity by one of his own servants.