A crowd of witnesses were heard on the second day after Mr Chaffanbrass had done with Mr Bouncer, but none of them were of much interest to the public. The three doctors were examined as to the state of the dead man’s head when he was picked up, and as to the nature of the instrument with which he had probably been killed; and the fact of Phineas Finn’s life-preserver was proved — in the middle of which he begged that the Court would save itself some little trouble, as he was quite ready to acknowledge that he had walked home with the short bludgeon, which was then produced, in his pocket. “We would acknowledge a great deal if they would let us,” said Mr Chaffanbrass. “We acknowledge the quarrel, we acknowledge the walk home at night, we acknowledge the bludgeon, and we acknowledge a grey coat.’. But that happened towards the close of the second day, and they had not then reached the grey coat. The question of the grey coat was commenced on the third morning — on the Saturday — which day, as was well known, would be opened with the examination of Lord Fawn. The anxiety to hear Lord Fawn undergo his penance was intense, and had been greatly increased by the conviction that Mr Chaffanbrass would resent upon him the charge made by the Attorney-General as to tampering with a witness. “I’ll tamper with him by and bye,” Mr Chaffabrass had whispered to Mr Wickerby, and the whispered threat had been spread abroad. On the table before Mr Chaffanbrass, when he took his place in the Court on the Saturday, was laid a heavy grey coat, and on the opposite side of the table, just before the Solicitor-General, was laid another grey coat, of much lighter material. When Lord Fawn saw the two coats as he took his seat on the bench his heart failed him.
He was hardly allowed to seat himself before he was called upon to be sworn. Sir Simon Slope, who was to examine him, took it for granted that his lordship could give his evidence from his place on the bench, but to this Mr Chaffanbrass objected. He was very well aware, he said, that such a practice was usual. He did not doubt but that in his time he had examined some hundreds of witnesses from the bench. In nineteen cases out of twenty there could be no objection to such a practice. But in this case the noble lord would have to give evidence not only as to what he had seen, but as to what he then saw. It would be expedient that he should see colours as nearly as possible in the same light as the jury, which he would do if he stood in the witness-box. And there might arise questions of identity, in speaking of which it would be well that the noble lord should be as near as possible to the thing or person to be identified. He was afraid that he must trouble the noble lord to come down from the Elysium of the bench. Whereupon Lord Fawn descended, and was sworn in at the witness-box.
His treatment from Sir Simon Slope was all that was due from a Solicitor-General to a distinguished peer who was a member of the same Government as himself. Sir Simon put his questions so as almost to reassure the witness; and very quickly — only too quickly — obtained from him all the information that was needed on the side of the prosecution. Lord Fawn, when he had left the club, had seen both Mr Bonteen and Mr Finn preparing to follow him, but he had gone alone, and had never seen Mr Bonteen since. He walked very slowly down into Curzon Street and Bolton Row, and when there, as he was about to cross the road at the top of Clarges Street — as he believed, just as he was crossing the street — he saw a man come at a very fast pace out of the mews which runs into Bolton Row, opposite to Clarges Street, and from thence hurry very quickly towards the passage which separates the gardens of Devonshire and Lansdowne Houses. It had already been proved that had Phineas Finn retraced his steps after Erle and Fitzgibbon had turned their backs upon him, his shortest and certainly most private way to the spot on which Lord Fawn had seen the man would have been by the mews in question. Lord Fawn went on to say that the man wore a grey coat — as far as he could judge it was such a coat as Sir Simon now showed him; he could not at all identify the prisoner; he could not say whether the man he had seen was as tall as the prisoner; he thought that as far as he could judge, there was not much difference in the height. He had not thought of Mr Finn when he saw the man hurrying along, nor had he troubled his mind about the man. That was the end of Lord Fawn’s evidence-in-chief, which he would gladly have prolonged to the close of the day could he thereby have postponed the coming horrors of his cross-examination. But there he was — in the clutches of the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey barrister — and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!
Mr Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite soft with him — as a cat is soft with a mouse. The reporters could hardly hear his first question — “I believe you are an Under-Secretary of State?” Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact. Now it was the case that in the palmy days of our hero’s former career he had filled the very office which Lord Fawn now occupied, and that Lord Fawn had at the time filled a similar position in another department. These facts Mr Chaffanbrass extracted from his witness — not without an appearance of unwillingness, which was produced, however, altogether by the natural antagonism of the victim to his persecutor; for Mr Chaffanbrass, even when asking the simplest questions, in the simplest words, even when abstaining from that sarcasm of tone under which witnesses were wont to feel that they were being flayed alive, could so look at a man as to create an antagonism which no witness could conceal. In asking a man his name, and age, and calling, he could produce an impression that the man was unwilling to tell anything, and that, therefore, the jury were entitled to regard his evidence with suspicion. “Then”, continued Mr Chaffanbrass, “you must have met him frequently in the intercourse of your business?”
“I suppose I did — sometimes.”
“Sometimes? You belonged to the same party?”
“We didn’t sit in the same House.”
“I know that, my lord. I know very well what House you sat in. But I suppose you would condescend to be acquainted with even a commoner who held the very office which you hold now. You belonged to the same club with him.”
“I don’t go much to the clubs,” said Lord Fawn.
“But the quarrel of which we have heard so much took place at a club in your presence?” Lord Fawn assented. “In fact you cannot but have been intimately and accurately acquainted with the personal appearance of the gentleman who is now on his trial. Is that so?”
“I never was intimate with him.”
Mr Chaffanbrass looked up at the jury and shook his head sadly. “I am not presuming, Lord Fawn, that you so far derogated as to be intimate with this gentleman — as to whom, however, I shall be able to show by and by that he was the chosen friend of the very man under whose mastership you now serve. I ask whether his appearance is not familiar to you?” Lord Fawn at last said that it was. “Do you know his height? What should you say was his height?” Lord Fawn altogether refused to give an opinion on such a subject, but acknowledged that he should not be surprised if he were told that Mr Finn was over six feet high. “In fact you consider him a tall man, my lord? There he is, you can look at him. Is he a tall man?” Lord Fawn did look, but wouldn’t give an answer. “I’ll undertake to say, my lord, that there isn’t a person in the Court at this moment, except yourself, who wouldn’t be ready — to express an opinion on his oath that Mr Finn is a tall man. Mr Chief Constable, just let the prisoner step out from the dock for a moment. He won’t run away. I must have his lordship’s opinion as to Mr Finn’s height.” Poor Phineas, when this was said, clutched hold of the front of the dock, as though determined that nothing but main force should make him exhibit himself to the Court in the manner proposed.
But the need for exhibition passed away. “I know that he is a very tall man,” said Lord Fawn.
“You know that he is a very tall man. We all know it. There can be no doubt about it. He is, as you say, a very tall man — with whose personal appearance you have long been familiar? I ask again, my lord, whether you have not been long familiar with his personal appearance?” After some further agonising delay Lord Fawn at last acknowledged that it had been so. “Now we shall get on like a house on fire,” said Mr Chaffanbrass.
But still the house did not burn very quickly. A string of questions was then asked as to the attitude of the man who had been seen coming out of the mews wearing a grey great coat — as to his attitude, and as to his general likeness to Phineas Finn. In answer to these Lord Fawn would only say that he had not observed the man’s attitude, and had certainly not thought of the prisoner when he saw the man. “My lord,............