Chapter Twenty Nine. Monsieur’s Opinion.

The spirit was strong within me not to yield to any growing unconsciousness; not to be subdued by any physical or moral influences.

I again became perfectly calm. I was seated in the chair. A seafaring man was in the witness-box. Nugent was not there. Demetrius, sitting below, was looking at me with an anxious and uneasy expression.

“I recognise the accused,” I heard the witness say in reply to a question from the prosecuting counsel. “A recent event has brought me here to give evidence.”

“Have you any doubt prisoner is the man you saw emerge from the doorway of Mrs Inglewood’s house on the night in question?”

“None.”

“Did he appear agitated?”

“Yes; he passed me and rushed down the street as fast as he could run.”

“Did you not make any attempt to stop him?”

“No; at that time I was unaware of the murder.”

“When did you again see him?”

“Not until a few days ago, when I recognised his portrait in a newspaper.”

A long cross-examination resulted in the witness firmly adhering to his story, and explaining that as he had been on a long voyage he knew nothing of the occurrence until many months afterwards.

Demetrius, with evident unwillingness, entered the box. His story was brief, yet damaging.

When he had concluded, Mr Roland, adjusting his eye-glasses, rose and asked:

“You are acquainted with prisoner’s wife, I believe?”

“Yes; she is my cousin.”

“Where did you go when you left England?”

“I decline to answer.”

“You have been the prisoner’s guest at Elveham, have you not?”

“Yes.”

“And what were these suspicious circumstances of which you spoke just now?”

“There were several. Late one night, about three weeks ago, I had occasion to enter the library. The door was ajar, and as I pushed it open I saw the accused in the act of impressing a seal, similar to the ones produced. I drew back unnoticed.”

It was untrue! He had seen me sealing the envelope containing a lease, and believed I was using the fatal emblem!

I waited breathlessly for the next question.

“Is it a fact that on the night previous to his departure from Elveham, some unpleasant incident occurred?”

“I know nothing of it. I have heard that the prisoner had some little difference with his wife.”

“Come, sir,” demanded my counsel sharply, “did you not overhear a conversation in the early morning?”

The witness appeared confused.

“Yes, I did,” he admitted. “I heard my cousin ask him to wait a stipulated period for an explanation.”

“Have you any idea what this explanation is?”

“None.”

“Then, after all, you are unable to throw any light whatever upon these mysterious crimes?” he asked, in a strange harsh voice.

“I’ve told you all I know,” replied Demetrius, a trifle paler than before.

Mr Roland flung down his brief upon the table, slowly resumed his seat, and pushed his wig from off his forehead with a perplexed gesture.

I could hardly realise my situation. What could it all possibly mean? What was the object of this seaman giving evidence when he could throw no light upon the matter, except that he actually saw me following the murderer from Bedford Place?

He had taken a seat in the well of the Court with his face turned towards me.

“Sergius Hertzen.”

As the words rang through the place I started. I had not seen Vera’s uncle since our marriage, as he went to Zurich immediately afterwards.

There was a shuffling near the door, and the old man entered. As he mounted the steps to the witness-box I noticed he had aged considerably.

“What are you, Mr Hartzen?” Mr Paget asked, referring to his brief at the same moment.

“Police agent.”

“And your nationality?”

“Russian.”

The old man a police agent! Dumbfounded, I looked blankly around me.

“You are father of the previous witness?”

“I am.”

“Now, what evidence can you give regarding the charge against the prisoner?”

There was a dead and painful silence.

“We first met at the Hotel Isotta, Genoa, about a month after the murder in Bedford Place. We frequently played écarté together, and on one occasion he paid me a debt with the three five-pound notes I now produce.”

“And what is there peculiar about them?”

“I have since ascertained that their numbers correspond with those now known to have been stolen from the house in Bedford Place.”

The thought flashed across my mind that once, when I had lost to him, I had discharged the debt with three notes. From whom I received them I could not tell.

“What else do you know about the affair?” was the insinuating question of the prosecuting counsel.

“Well; some three months after this I was present at the Central Tribunal at St. Petersburg, when prisoner was sentenced to the mines for complicity in the murder of a hotel-keeper. The sentence, however, was never carried out, for on the way to Siberia he escaped, returning to England.”

“It’s a lie! I was exiled without trial,” I shouted. Amid the loud cries of “Silence,” counsel turned to the judge, and with a cruel smile about his lips remarked, “You see, my lord, prisoner admits he was exiled.”

Mr Roland made an impatient motion to me to preserve silence; so seeing my protests were useless, I sank again into my chair, and tried to conquer my fate by bearing it.

Mr Crane the junior counsel defending me, cross-examined him at some length, but resumed his seat without being able to shake his testimony.

The waiter who had attended to me at the Charing Cross Hotel, and two of my own servants were called, but their evidence was immaterial and uninteresting.

I felt a strange morbid yielding to a superstitious feeling that I could not shake off, and sat as one in a dream, until the Court rose and I was sent back to my cell.