When the trial did actually come on, the Museum authorities began by
proving their case against me in what seemed the most horribly damning
fashion. The superintendent proved that on such and such a day, in such
and such a case, he had seen a gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, the
property of the Museum. He and Mactavish detailed the circumstances
under which the coin was lost. The superintendent explained how he had
asked me to submit to a search, and how, to avoid that indignity, I had
myself produced from my waistcoat-pocket a gold coin of Wulfric of
Mercia, which I asserted to be a duplicate specimen, and my own
property. The counsel for the Crown proceeded thus with the
examination:--
"Do you recognize the coin I now hand you?"
"I do."
"What is it?"
"The unique gold coin of Wulfric of Mercia, belonging to the Museum."
"You have absolutely no doubt as to its identity?"
"Absolutely none whatsoever."
"Does it differ in any respect from the same coin as you previously saw
it?"
"Yes. It has been clipped round the edge with a sharp instrument, and a
slight dent has been made by pressure on the obverse side, just below
the W of Wulfric."
"Did you suspect the prisoner at the bar of having mutilated it?"
"I did, and I asked him whether he had a knife in his possession. He
answered no. I then asked him whether he would submit to be searched for
a knife. He consented, and on my looking in his pocket I found the pair
of nail-scissors I now produce, with a small file on either side."
"Do you believe the coin might have been clipped with those scissors?"
"I do. The gold is very soft, having little alloy in its composition;
and it could easily be cut by a strong-wristed man with a knife or
scissors."
As I listened, I didn't wonder that the jury looked as if they already
considered me guilty: but I smiled to myself when I thought how utterly
Emily's and the ploughman's evidence would rebut this unworthy
suspicion.
The next witness was the Museum cleaner. His evidence at first produced
nothing fresh, but just at last, counsel set before him a paper,
containing a few scraps of yellow metal, and asked him triumphantly
whether he recognized them. He answered yes.
There was a profound silence. The court was interested and curious. I
couldn't quite understand it all, but I felt a terrible sinking.
"What are they?" asked the hostile barrister.
"They are some fragments of gold which I found in shaking the cocoa-nut
matting on the floor of gallery 27 the Saturday after the attempted
theft."
I felt as if a mine had unexpectedly been sprung beneath me. How on
earth those fragments of soft gold could ever have got there I couldn't
imagine; but I saw the damaging nature of this extraordinary and
inexplicable coincidence in half a second.
My counsel cross-examined all the witnesses for the prosecution, but
failed to elicit anything of any value from any one of them. On the
contrary, his questions put to the metallurgist of the Mint, who was
called to prove the quality of the gold, only brought out a very strong
opinion to the effect that the clippings were essentially similar in
character to the metal composing the clipped Wulfric.
No wonder the jury seemed to think the case was going decidedly against
me.
Then my counsel called his witnesses. I listened in the profoundest
suspense and expectation.
The first witness was the ploughman from Lichfield. He was a
well-meaning but very puzzle-headed old man, and he was evidently
frightened at being confronted by so many clever wig-wearing barristers.
Nevertheless, my counsel managed to get the true story out of him at
last with infinite patience, dexterity, and skill. The old man told us
finally how he had found the coins and sold them to me for five pounds;
and how one of them was of gold, with a queer head and goggle eyes
pointed full face upon its surface.
When he had finished, the counsel for the Crown began his
cross-examination. He handed the ploughman a gold coin. "Did you ever
see that before?" he asked quietly.
"To be sure I did," the man answered, looking at it open-mouthed.
"What is it?"
"It's the bit I sold Mr. Tait there--the bit as I got out o' the old
basin."
Counsel turned triumphantly to the judge. "My lord," he said, "this
thing to which the witness swears is a gold piece of Ethelwulf of
Wessex, by far the commonest and cheapest gold coin of the whole
Anglo-Saxon period."
It was handed to the jury side by side with the Wulfric of Mercia; and
the difference, as I knew myself, was in fact extremely noticeable. All
that the old man could have observed in common between them must have
been merely the archaic Anglo-Saxon character of the coinage.
As I heard that, I began to feel that it was really all over.
My counsel tried on the re-examination to shake the old man's faith in
his identification, and to make him transfer his story to the Wulfric
which he had actually sold me. But it was all in vain. The ploughman had
clearly the dread of perjury for ever before his eyes, and wouldn't go
back for any consideration upon his first sworn statement. "No, no,
mister," he said over and over again in reply to my counsel's bland
suggestion, "you ain't going to make me forswear myself for all your
cleverness."
The next witness was Emily. She went into the box pale and red-eyed, but
very confident. My counsel examined her admirably; and she stuck to her
point with womanly persistence, that she had herself seen the clipped
Wulfric, and no other coin, on the morning of the supposed theft. She
knew it was so, because she distinctly remembered the inscription,
"Wulfric Rex," and the peculiar way the staring open eyes were
represented with barbaric puerility.
Counsel for the Crown would only trouble the young lady with two
questions. The first was a painful one, but it must be asked in the
interests of justice. Were she and the prisoner at the bar engaged to be
married to one another?