“Did he get the five or ten pounds?”

“I don’t know, gentlemen.  I dare say he did, for my master was as persuadable as a woman, though he’d fly out a bit sometimes at first.  Mr. Levison departed for London that same night.”

The last witness called was Mr. Dill.  On the previous Tuesday evening, he had been returning home from spending an hour at Mr. Beauchamp’s, when, in a field opposite to Mr. Justice Hare’s, he suddenly heard a commotion.  It arose from the meeting of Sir Francis Levison and Otway Bethel.  The former appeared to have been enjoying a solitary moonlight ramble, and the latter to have encountered him unexpectedly.  Words ensued.  Bethel accused Sir Francis of “shirking” him.  Sir Francis answered angrily that he knew nothing of him, and nothing he wanted to know.

“’You were glad enough to know something of me the night of Hallijohn’s murder,’ retorted Bethel to this.  ’Do you remember that I could hang you.  One little word from me, and you’d stand in Dick Hare’s place.’

“‘You fool!’ passionately cried Sir Francis.  ’You couldn’t hang me without putting your own head in a noose.  Did you not have your hush money?  Are you wanting to do me out of more?’

“‘A cursed paltry note of fifty pounds!’ foamed Otway Bethel, ’which, many a time since, I have wished my fingers were blown off before they touched.  I never should have touched it, but that I was altogether overwhelmed with the moment’s confusion.  I have not been able to look Mrs. Hare in the face since, knowing that I held the secret that would save her son from the hangman.’

“‘And put yourself in his place,’ sneered Sir Francis.

“‘No.  Put you.’

“’That’s as it might be.  But, if I went to the hangman, you would go with me.  There would be no excuse or escape for you.  You know it.’”

The warfare continued longer, but this was the cream of it.  Mr. Dill heard the whole, and repeated it now to the magistrate.  Mr. Rubiny protested that it was “inadmissible;” “hearsay evidence;” “contrary to law;” but the bench oracularly put Mr. Rubiny down, and told him they did not want any stranger to come there and teach them their business.

Colonel Bethel had leaned forward at the conclusion of Mr. Dill’s evidence, dismay on his face, agitation in his voice.  “Are you sure that you made no mistake—­that the other in this interview was Otway Bethel?”

Mr. Dill sadly shook his head.  “Am I one to swear to a wrong man, colonel?  I wish I had not heard it—­save that it may be the means of clearing Richard Hare.”

Sir Francis Levison had braved out the proceedings with a haughty, cavalier air, his delicate hands and his diamond ring remarkably conspicuous.  Was that stone the real thing, or a false one, substituted for the real?  Hard up as he had long been for money, the suspicion might arise.  A derisive smile crossed his features at parts of the evidence, as much as to say, “You may convict me as to Mademoiselle Afy, but you can’t as to the murder.”  When, however, Mr. Dill’s testimony was given, what a change was there!  His mood tamed down to what looked like abject fear, and he shook in his shoes as he stood.