Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/166

146 “That fellow will save him yet,” said one to another in the sloping seats to the right. “He is fighting splendidly—taking every chance.”

“Yes, yes; he has earned his money; may he succeed!”

The other made no reply.

“Have you no sympathy with him—you, of all men?” asked the last speaker in an indignant whisper.

Nicholas Harding lowered his head. “Hush! hush! He is looking this way. I don’t think he has seen me yet; he mustn’t know that I am here.”

And now the full, true, but improbable particulars of the prisoner’s last interview with the murdered man were laid before the jury by a hostile witness; and the great Culliford smiled again. Bassett had furnished him with a circumstantial statement of what the prisoner had said, whereby those of the witness were checked, amended and supplemented in cross-examination. The great man’s artifice had been entirely unforeseen; his “friend” sat aghast, while the infirmary wardsman perspired for twenty minutes under Culliford’s fire. Here he had exaggerated; there forgotten and filled in with a fancy detail; and “On your oath, sir!” thundered through the court with thrilling iteration. With the release of this varlet, the case for the prosecution closed upon an anti-climax. Culliford then stated that he should call no witnesses for the defence, in the tone of a man who could call twenty if he chose; and sat down with the most confident air, having thus secured the last word.

Counsel for the Crown proceeded to address the jury upon the whole case, beginning nervously but warming to his work. Stung by Culliford’s tactics and irritated