"Had you any suspicion that your employer was being robbed?"
"I had a suspicion," replied Jasper.
"Did you communicate your suspicion to your employer?"
Jasper hesitated.
"No," he replied at last.
"Why do you hesitate?" asked Bennett sharply.
"Because, although I did not directly communicate my suspicions, I hinted to Mr. Minute that he should have an independent audit."
"So you thought the books were wrong?"
"I did."
"In these circumstances," asked Bennett slowly, "do you not think it was very unwise of you to touch those books yourself?"
"When did I touch them?" asked Jasper quickly.
"I suggest that on a certain night you came to the bank and remained in the bank by yourself, examining the ledgers on behalf of your employer, and that during that time you handled at least three books in which these falsifications were made."
"That is quite correct," said Jasper, after a moment's thought; "but my suspicions were general and did not apply to any particular group of books."
"But did you not think it was dangerous?"
Again the hesitation.
"It may have been foolish, and if I had known how matters were developing I should certainly not have touched them."
"You do admit that there were several periods of time from seven in the evening until nine and from nine-thirty until eleven-fifteen when you were absolutely alone in the bank?"
"That is true," said Jasper.
"And during those periods you could, had you wished and had you been a forger, for example, or had you any reason for falsifying the entries, have made those falsifications?"
"I admit there was time," said Jasper.
"Would you describe yourself as a friend of Frank Merrill's?"
"Not a close friend," replied Jasper.
"Did you like him?"
"I cannot say that I was fond of him," was the reply.
"He was a rival of yours?"
"In what respect?"
Counsel shrugged his shoulders.
"He was very fond of Miss Nuttall."
"Yes."
"And she was fond of him?"
"Yes."
"Did you not aspire to pay your addresses to Miss Nuttall?"
Jasper Cole looked down to the girl, and May averted her eyes. Her cheeks were burning and she had a wild desire to flee from the court.
"If you mean did I love Miss Nuttall," said Jasper Cole, in his quiet, even tone, "I reply that I did."
"You even secured the active support of Mr. Minute?"
"I never urged the matter with Mr. Minute," said Jasper.
"So that if he moved on your behalf he did so without your knowledge?"
"Without my pre-knowledge," corrected the witness. "He told me afterward that he had spoken to Miss Nuttall, and I was considerably embarrassed."
"I understand you were a man of curious habits, Mr. Cole."
"We are all people of curious habits," smiled the witness.
"But you in particular. You were an Orientalist, I believe?"
"I have studied Oriental languages and customs," said Jasper shortly.
"Have you ever extended your study to the realm of hypnotism?"
"I have," replied the witness.
"Have you ever made experiments?"
"On animals, yes."
"On human beings?"
"No, I have never made experiments on human beings."
"Have you also made a study of narcotics?"
The lawyer leaned forward over the table and looked at the witness between half-closed eyes.
"I have made experiments with narcotic herbs and plants," said Jasper, after a moment's hesitation. "I think you should know that the career which was planned for me was that of a doctor, and I have always been very interested in the effects of narcotics."
"You know of a drug called cannabis indica?" asked the counsel, consulting his paper.
"Yes; it is 'Indian hemp.'"
"Is there an infusion of cannabis indica to be obtained?"
"I do not think there is," said the other. "I can probably enlighten you because I see now the trend of your examination. I once told Frank Merrill, many years ago, when I was very enthusiastic, that an infusion of cannabis indica, combined with tincture of opium and hyocine, produced certain effects."
"It is inclined to sap the will power of a man or a woman who is constantly absorbing this poison in small doses?" suggested the counsel.
"That is so."
The counsel now switched off on a new tack.
"Do you know the East of London?"
"Yes, slightly."
"Do you know Silvers Rents?"
"Yes."
"Do you ever go to Silvers Rents?"
"Yes; I go there very regularly."
The readiness of the reply astonished both Frank and the girl. She had been feeling more and more uncomfortable as the cross-examination continued, and had a feeling that she had in some way betrayed Jasper Cole's confidence. She had listened to the cross-examination which revealed Jasper as a scientist with something approaching amazement. She had known of the laboratory, but had associated the place with those entertaining experiments that an idle dabbler in chemistry might undertake.
For a moment she doubted, and searched her mind for some occasion when he had practiced his medical knowledge. Dimly she realized that there had been some such occasion, and then she remembered that it had always been Jasper Cole who had concocted the strange drafts which had so relieved the headache to which, when she was a little younger, she had been something of a martyr. Could he—She struggled hard to dismiss the thought as being unworthy of her; and now, when the object of his visits to Silvers Rents was under examination, she found her curiosity growing.
"Why did you go to Silvers Rents?"
There was no answer.
"I will repeat my question: With what object did you go to Silvers Rents?"
"I decline to answer that question," said the man in the box coolly. "I merely tell you that I went there frequently."
"And you refuse to say why?"
"I refuse to say why," repeated the witness.
The judge on the bench made a little note.
"I put it to you," said counsel, speaking impressively, "that it was in Silvers Rents that you took on another identity."
"That is probably true," said the other, and the girl gasped; he was so cool, so self-possessed, so sure of himself.
"I suggest to you," the counsel went on, "that in those Rents Jasper Cole became Rex Holland."
There was a buzz of excitement, a sudden soft clamor of voices through which the usher's harsh demand for silence cut like a knife.
"Your suggestion is an absurd one," said Jasper, without heat, "and I presume that you are going to produce evidence to support so infamous a statement."
"What evidence I produce," said counsel, with asperity, "is a matter for me to decide."
"It is also a matter for the witness," interposed the soft voice of the judge. "As you have suggested that Holland was a party to the murder, and as you are inferring that Rex Holland is Jasper Cole, it is presumed that you will call evidence to support so serious a charge."
"I am not prepared to call evidence, my lord, and if your lordship thinks the question should not have been put I am willing to withdraw it."
The judge nodded and turned his head to the jury.
"You will consider that question as not having been put, gentlemen," he said. "Doubtless counsel is trying to establish the fact that one person might just as easily have been Rex Holland as another. There is no suggestion that Mr. Cole went to Silvers Rents—which I understand is in a very poor neighborhood—with any illegal intent, or that he was committing any crime or behaving in any way improperly by paying such frequent visits. There may be something in the witness's life associated with that poor house which has no bearing on the case and which he does not desire should be ventilated in this court. It happens to many of us," the judge went on, "that we have associations which it would embarrass us to reveal."