'You mustn't tell us that. You don't know it was the prisoner. What was it you actually heard?'
The girl now felt and looked ready to resort to tears. She really did not know what answer was safe, and prudently adopted a strictly non-committal form.
'Well, why didn't you say that? You heard footsteps going down?'
The judge took up his pen again and took down the answer.
'And did you notice the footsteps this time?'
'Stop! Not so fast. Answer my questions.'
Mr. Pollard was by this time little less nervous than the witness. He was really utterly at a loss how to frame his next question without incurring Tressamer's wrath or the rebuke of the Bench. At last he blurted out:
'Was there anything different about the footsteps this time?'
Tressamer opened his mouth, but the judge was before him this time:
'Don't answer. Really, Mr. Pollard, you are as bad as the witness. You know you ought not to put a question like that.' Then, seeing that the poor young man was quite unequal to extracting the desired evidence, his lordship quietly took over the examination himself:
'Did you notice the footsteps this time when they were going downstairs?'
'Had you ever heard anything like it before? I mean, did they or did they not sound familiar in spite of this heaviness?'
The judge turned round to the jury with complacency, and smiled as if to say, 'You see, gentlemen, how it can be done by one who knows how.' Then he asked the counsel:
'Now, Mr. Pollard, do you want anything more from this witness?'
He sat down, feeling considerably the worse for his experience, and Tressamer got up.
He looked severely at the young woman for some seconds, and then suddenly asked her:
At once the court was all ears. It was one of those strokes of brilliant advocacy which few men care to venture on. It was dangerous, but in the present case it was completely successful. The witness lost countenance, stammered, and with difficulty got out a lame denial.
'Did you ever have any complaint against her when you were her servant?' (He intentionally chose a phrase calculated to irritate.)
'I wasn't her servant,' was the angry reply. 'I should be very sorry to be.'
'I thought so. Tell me, you said to my learned friend that the first sound you heard on this night was like somebody being hurt, didn't you?'