Ch. 12: Judge Juggins

We got down to Newnham, where the 'Sizes were held, on the morning of September 20th. There we discovered that we had an hour or two for refreshment, and I may say that both Philippa and I employed that time to the best advantage. While at the hotel I tried to obtain the file of the Times. I wanted to look back and see if I could find the account of the magisterial proceedings against the truly unlucky William Evans.

After all, should I call him unlucky? He had escaped the snare I had laid for him, and perhaps (such things have been) even a Newnham jury might find him not guilty.

But the file of the Times was not forthcoming.

I asked the sleepy-eyed Teutonic waiter for it. He merely answered, with the fatuous patronising grin of the German kellner:--

'You vant?'

'I want the file of the Times!'

'I have the corkscrew of the good landlord; but the file of the Times I have it not. Have you your boots, your fish-sauce, your currycomb?' he went on. Then, lapsing into irrelevant local gossip, 'the granddaughter of the blacksmith has the landing-net of the bad tailor.'

'I want my bill, my note, my addition, my consommation,' I answered angrily.

'Very good bed, very good post-horse,' he replied at random, and I left the County Hotel without being able to find out why suspicion had fallen on "William Evans".

We hailed one of the cabs which stood outside the hotel door, when a heavy hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice, strange but not unfamiliar, exclaimed, 'Dr. South, as I am a baronet--'

I turned round suddenly and found myself face to face with

Sir Runan Errand!

My brain once more began to reel. Here were the real victim and the true perpetrators of a murder come to view the trial of the man who was charged with having committed it!

Though I was trembling like an aspen leaf? I remembered that we lived in an age of 'telepathy' and psychical research.

Sir Runan was doubtless what Messrs. Myers and Gurney call a visible apparition as distinguished from the common invisible apparition.

If a real judge confesses, like Sir E. Hornby, to having seen a ghost, why should not a mere accessory after the fact?

Regaining my presence of mind, I asked, 'What brings you here?'

'Oh, to see the fun,' he replied. 'Fellow being tried for killing me. The morbid interest excited round here is very great. Doubt your getting front seats.'

'Can't you manage it for me?' I asked imploringly.

'Daresay I can. Here, take my card, and just mention my name, and they'll let you in. Case for the prosecution, by the way, most feeble.'

Here the appearance, handing me a card, nodded, and vanished in the crowd.

I returned to Philippa, where I had left her in the four-wheeler. We drove off, and found ourselves before a double-swinging (ay, ominous