I was once, however, in the old days, charged (and fined) before a magistrate in Bow Street for assaulting a Constable, and therefore I know something of how a Criminal Court should proceed. So, without any unnecessary formalities, I conducted the Trial according to Common Sense.
"What is your name?" I asked the Arch Physician.
"Harry Linister--once M.D. of Cambridge, and Fellow of the Royal Society."
"Physicist and Arch Physician of the Holy College of the Inner House."
"We shall see how long you will be able to describe yourself by those titles. Female Prisoner--you in the middle--what is your name?"
"I am the Lady Mildred Carera, daughter of the Earl of Thordisá."
"Come--come--none of your Ladyships and Earls here. We are now all equal. You are plain Mildred. And yours--you girl in the white frock? How dare you, either of you, appear before us in open violation of the Rules?"
"I am named Christine," she replied. "I have put on the white frock because it is becoming."
At this point I was interrupted by a whisper from John Lax.
"Christine's friends," he said, "are gathering in the Museum, and they are very noisy. They threaten to give trouble."
"When the Trial and Execution are over," I told him, "arrest them every one. Let them all be confined in the Museum. To-morrow, or perhaps this afternoon, we will try them as well."
The man grinned with satisfaction. Had he known what a fatal mistake I was making, he would not have grinned. Rather would his face have expressed the most dreadful horror.
"Dr. Linister," I said, "it is a very singular point in this case that we have not to ask you whether you plead 'guilty' or 'not guilty,' because we have all seen you with our own eyes engaged in the very act with which you are charged. You _are_ guilty."
"Your companion is also guilty. I saw her practising upon you those blandishments, or silly arts, by which women formerly lured men. We also saw her on the point of receiving from you the Great Secret, which must never be suffered to leave this Building."
"Yes," she said, "if he is guilty, I am guilty as well."
"As for you" (I turned to Christine), "you have been so short a time in the world--only nineteen years or so--that to leave it will cause little pain to you. It is not as if you had taken root with all the years of life which the others have enjoyed. Yet the Court would fail in its duty did it not point out the enormity of your offence. You were allowed to grow up undisturbed in the old Museum: you spent your time in developing a morbid curiosity into the Past. You were so curious to see with your own eyes what it was to outward show, that you cast about to find among the tranquil and contented People some whose minds you might disturb and lead back to the restless old times. This was a most guilty breach of confidence. Have you anything to say? Do you confess?"