ile Charles spoke, a gentleman whom I had noticed before,
sitting beside White Heather, with a handkerchief to his face,
rose as abruptly as the parson. Colonel Clay indicated him with
a graceful movement of his hand. "And _this_ gentleman?" he asked
calmly.

Charles was fairly staggered. It was the obvious original of the
false Von Lebenstein.

The photograph went round the box once more. The jury smiled
incredulously. Charles had given himself away. His overweening
confidence and certainty had ruined him.

Then Colonel Clay, leaning forward, and looking quite engaging,
began a new line of cross-examination. "We have seen, Sir Charles,"
he said, "that we cannot implicitly trust your identifications. Now
let us see how far we can trust your other evidence. First, then,
about those diamonds. You tried to buy them, did you not, from a
person who represented himself as the Reverend Richard Brabazon,
because you believed he thought they were paste; and if you could,
you would have given him 10 pounds or so for them. _Do_ you think
that was honest?"

"I object to this line of cross-examination," our leading counsel
interposed. "It does not bear on the prosecutor's evidence. It is
purely recriminatory."

Colonel Clay was all bland deference. "I wish, my lord," he said,
turning round, "to show that the prosecutor is a person unworthy of
credence in any way. I desire to proceed upon the well-known legal
maxim of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. I believe I am permitted
to shake the witness's credit?"

"The prisoner is entirely within his rights," Rhadamanth answered,
looking severely at Charles. "And I was wrong in suggesting that
he needed the advice or assistance of counsel."

Charles wriggled visibly. Colonel Clay perked up. Bit by bit, with
dexterous questions, Charles was made to acknowledge that he wanted
to buy diamonds at the price of paste, knowing them to be real; and,
a millionaire himself, would gladly have diddled a poor curate out
of a couple of thousand.

"I was entitled to take advantage of my special knowledge," Charles
murmured feebly.

"Oh, certainly," the prisoner answered. "But, while professing
friendship and affection for a clergyman and his wife, in straitened
circumstances, you were prepared, it seems, to take three thousand
pounds' worth of goods off their hands for ten pounds, if you could
have got them at that price. Is not that so?"

Charles was compelled to admit it.

The prisoner