Now, what do you know of him?"
I told the stories of the Count and of Dr. Fortescue-Langley.
The cross-eyed cross-examiner leant across towards me and leered. "And this is the man," he exclaimed, with a triumphant air, "whose sister you pretended you had got to sign this precious doc.u.ment of yours?"
"Whom Mr. Ashurst got to sign it," I answered, red-hot. "It is not _my_ doc.u.ment."
"And you have heard that she swears it is not her signature at all?"
"So they tell me. She is Higginson"s sister. For all I know, she may be prepared to swear, or to forswear, anything."
"Don"t cast doubt upon our witnesses without cause! Miss Higginson is an eminently respectable woman. You gave this doc.u.ment to Mr. Ashurst, you say. There your knowledge of it ends. A signature is placed on it which is not his, as our experts testify. It purports to be witnessed by a Swiss waiter, who is not forthcoming, and who is a.s.serted to be dead, as well as by a nurse who denies her signature. And the only other person who knows of its existence before Mr. Tillington "discovers" it in his uncle"s desk is--the missing man Higginson. Is that, or is it not, the truth of the matter?"
"I suppose so," I said, baffled.
"Well, now, as to this man Higginson. He first appears upon the scene, so far as you are concerned, on the day when you travelled from London to Schlangenbad?"
"That is so," I answered.
"And he nearly succeeded then in stealing Lady Georgina Fawley"s jewel-case?"
"He nearly took it, but I saved it." And I explained the circ.u.mstance.
The cross-eyed Q.C. held his fat sides with his hands, looking incredulously at me, and smiled. His vast width of waistcoat shook with silent merriment. "You are a very clever young lady," he murmured. "You can explain away anything. But don"t you think it just as likely that it was a plot between you two, and that owing to some mistake the plot came off unsuccessful?"
"I do not," I cried, crimson. "I never saw the Count before that morning."
He tried another tack. "Still, wherever you went, this man Higginson--the only other person, you admit, who knows about the previous existence of the will--turned up simultaneously. He was always turning up--at the same place as you did. He turned up at Lucerne, as a faith-healer, didn"t he?"
"If you will allow me to explain," I cried, biting my lip.
He bowed, all blandness. "Oh, certainly," he murmured. "Explain away everything!"
I explained, but of course he had discounted and damaged my explanation.
He made no comment. "And then," he went on, with his hands on his hips, and his obtrusive rotundity, "he turned up at Florence, as courier to Mr. Ashurst, at the very date when this so-called will was being concocted?"
"He was at Florence when Mr. Ashurst dictated it to me," I answered, growing desperate.
"You admit he was in Florence. Good! Once more he turned up in India with my client, Lord Southminster, upon whose youth and inexperience he had managed to impose himself. And he carried him off, did he not, by one of these strange coincidences to which _you_ are peculiarly liable, on the very same steamer on which _you_ happened to be travelling?"
"Lord Southminster told me he took Higginson with him because a rogue suited his book," I answered, warmly.
"Will you swear his lordship didn"t say "_the_ rogue suited his book"--which is quite another thing?" the Q.C. asked blandly.
"I will swear he did not," I replied. "I have correctly reported him."
"Then I congratulate you, young lady, on your excellent memory. My lud, will you allow me later to recall Lord Southminster to testify on this point?"
The judge nodded.
"Now, once more, as to your relations with the various members of the Ashurst family. You introduced yourself to Lady Georgina Fawley, I believe, quite casually, on a seat in Kensington Gardens?"
"That is true," I answered.
"You had never seen her before?"
"Never."
"And you promptly offered to go with her as her lady"s maid to Schlangenbad in Germany?"
"In place of her lady"s maid, for one week," I answered.
"Ah; a delicate distinction! "In place of her lady"s maid." You are a lady, I believe; an officer"s daughter, you told us; educated at Girton?"
"So I have said already," I replied, crimson.
"And you stick to it? By all means. Tell--the truth--and stick to it.
It"s always safest. Now, don"t you think it was rather an odd thing for an officer"s daughter to do--to run about Germany as maid to a lady of t.i.tle?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE JURY SMILED.]
I tried to explain once more; but the jury smiled. You can"t justify originality to a British jury. Why, they would send you to prison at once for that alone, if they made the laws as well as dispensing them.
He pa.s.sed on after a while to another topic. "I think you have boasted more than once in society that when you first met Lady Georgina Fawley you had twopence in your pocket to go round the world with?"
"I had," I answered--"and I went round the world with it."
"Exactly. I"m getting there in time. With it--and other things. A few months later, more or less, you were touring up the Nile in your steam dahabeeah, and in the lap of luxury; you were taking saloon-carriages on Indian railways, weren"t you?"
I explained again. "The dahabeeah was in the service of the _Daily Telephone_," I answered. "I became a journalist."
He cross-questioned me about that. "Then I am to understand," he said at last, leaning forward with all his waistcoat, "that you sprang yourself upon Mr. Elworthy at sight, pretty much as you sprang yourself upon Lady Georgina Fawley?"
"We arranged matters quickly," I admitted. The dexterous wretch was making my strongest points all tell against me.
"H"m! Well, he was a man: and you will admit, I suppose," fingering his smooth fat chin, "that you are a lady of--what is the stock phrase the reporters use?--considerable personal attractions?"
"My Lord," I said, turning to the Bench, "I appeal to you. Has he the right to compel me to answer that question?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE QUESTION REQUIRES NO ANSWER, HE SAID.]
The judge bowed slightly. "The question requires no answer," he said, with a quiet emphasis. I burned bright scarlet.
"Well, my lud, I defer to your ruling," the cross-eyed cross-examiner continued, radiant. "I go on to another point. When in India, I believe, you stopped for some time as a guest in the house of a native Maharajah."
"Is that matter relevant?" the judge asked, sharply.
"My lud," the Q.C. said, in his blandest voice, "I am striving to suggest to the jury that this lady--the only person who ever beheld this so-called will till Mr. Harold Tillington--described in its terms as "Younger of Gledcliffe," whatever that may be--produced it out of his uncle"s desk-- I am striving to suggest that this lady is--my duty to my client compels me to say--an adventuress."