"Your explanation is highly ingenious," said the magistrate, "and appears to cover all the very remarkable facts. Have you anything more to tell us?"
"No, your Worship," was the reply, "excepting" (here he took from Polton the last pair of moulds and passed them up to the magistrate) "that you will probably find these moulds of importance presently."
As Thorndyke stepped from the box--for there was no cross-examination--the magistrates scrutinized the moulds with an air of perplexity; but they were too discreet to make any remark.
When the evidence of Professor Copland (which showed that an unquestionably lethal dose of morphia must have been swallowed) had been taken, the clerk called out the--to me--unfamiliar name of Jacob Gummer. Thereupon an enormous pair of brown dreadnought trousers, from the upper end of which a smack-boy's head and shoulders protruded, walked into the witness-box.
Jacob admitted at the outset that he was a smack-master's apprentice, and that he had been "hired out" by his master to one Mr. Jezzard as deck-hand and cabin-boy of the yacht _Otter_.
"Now, Gummer," said Anstey, "do you remember the prisoner coming on board the yacht?"
"Yes. He has been on board twice. The first time was about a month ago. He went for a sail with us then. The second time was on the night when Mr. Hearn was murdered."
"Do you remember what sort of boots the prisoner was wearing the first time he came?"
"Yes. They were shoes with a lot of nails in the soles. I remember them because Mr. Jezzard made him take them off and put on a canvas pair."
"Mr. Jezzard took 'em below to the cabin."
"And did Mr. Jezzard come up on deck again directly?"
"No. He stayed down in the cabin about ten minutes."
"Do you remember a parcel being delivered on board from a London boot-maker?"
"Yes. The postman brought it about four or five days after Mr. Draper had been on board. It was labelled 'Walker Bros., Boot and Shoe Makers, London.' Mr. Jezzard took a pair of shoes from it, for I saw them on the locker in the cabin the same day."
"Have you ever heard sounds of hammering on the yacht?"
"Yes. The night after the parcel came I was on the quay alongside, and I heard someone a-hammering in the cabin."