‘I have the corkscrew of the good landlord; but the file of the _Times_ I have it not. Have you your boots, your fish-sauce, your currycomb?’ he went on. Then, lapsing into irrelevant local gossip, ‘the granddaughter of the blacksmith has the landing-net of the bad tailor.’
‘I want my bill, my note, my _addition_, my _consommation_,’ I answered angrily.
‘Very good bed, very good post-horse,’ he replied at random, and I left the County Hotel without being able to find out why suspicion had fallen on “William Evans”.
We hailed one of the cabs which stood outside the hotel door, when a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice, strange but not unfamiliar, exclaimed, ‘Dr. South, as I am a baronet--’
I turned round suddenly and found myself face to face with
My brain once more began to reel. Here were the real victim and the true perpetrators of a murder come to view the trial of the man who was charged with having committed it!
Though I was trembling like an aspen leaf? I remembered that we lived in an age of ‘telepathy’ and psychical research.
Sir Runan was doubtless what Messrs. Myers and Gurney call a _visible apparition_ as distinguished from the common _invisible apparition_.
If a real judge confesses, like Sir E. Hornby, to having seen a ghost, why should not a mere accessory after the fact?
Regaining my presence of mind, I asked, ‘What brings you here?’
‘Oh, to see the fun,’ he replied. ‘Fellow being tried for killing me. The morbid interest excited round here is very great. Doubt your getting front seats.’
‘Can’t you manage it for me?’ I asked imploringly.
‘Daresay I can. Here, take my card, and just mention my name, and they’ll let you in. Case for the prosecution, by the way, _most_ feeble.’
Here the appearance, handing me a card, nodded, and vanished in the crowd.
I returned to Philippa, where I had left her in the four-wheeler. We drove off, and found ourselves before a double-swinging (ay, ominous as it seemed, _swinging_) plain oak door, over which in old English letters was written--
I need not describe the aspect of the court. Probably most of my readers have at some time in their lives found themselves in such a place.
True to the minute, the red-robed Judge appears. It is Sir Joshua Juggins, well known for his severity as ‘Gibbeting Juggins.’