case of a deaf chap who'd start up at a step or movement in the house
when no one else could hear or feel it; keen sense of vibration, I
reckon. Well, just at daybreak (to shorten the yarn) the banker woke
suddenly, he said, and heard a crack like a shot in the house. There was
a loose flooring-board in the passage that went off like a pistol-shot
sometimes when you trod on it; and I guess Jack Drew trod on it,
sneaking out, and he weighed nearly twelve stone. If the truth were
known, he probably heard Browne poking round, tried the window, found
the sash jammed, and was slipping through the passage to the back door.
Browne got his revolver, opened his door suddenly, and caught Drew
standing between the girl's door (which was shut) and the office door,
with his coat on his arm and his boots in his hands. Browne covered him
with his revolver, swore he'd shoot if he moved, and yelled for help.
Drew stood a moment like a man stunned; then he rushed Browne, and in
the struggle the revolver went off, and Drew got hit in the arm. Two of
the mounted troopers--who'd been up looking to the horses for an early
start somewhere--rushed in then, and took Drew. He had nothing to say.
What could he say? He couldn't say he was a blackguard who'd taken
advantage of a poor unprotected girl because she loved him. They found
the back door unlocked, by the way, which was put down to the burglar;
of course Browne couldn't explain that he came home too muddled to lock
doors after him.

"And the girl? She shrieked and fell when the row started, and they
found her like a log on the floor of her room after it was over.

"They found in Jack's overcoat pocket a parcel containing a cold chisel,
small screw-wrench, file, and one or two other things that he'd bought
that evening to tinker up the old printing press. I knew that, because
I'd lent him a hand a few nights before, and he told me he'd have to get
the tools. They found some scratches round the key-hole and knob of the
office door that I'd made myself, scraping old splashes of paint off the
brass and hand-plate so as to make a clean finish. Oh, it taught me the
value of circumstantial evidence! If I was judge I wouldn't give a man
till the 'risin' av the coort' on it, any more than I would on the bare
word of the noblest woman breathing.

"At the preliminary examination Jack Drew said he was guilty. But it
seemed that, according to law, he couldn't be guilty until after he was
committed.