"Now, when Mr Durnford returned from Wandsborough that evening, you were asleep?" "Yes, sir. I had just dropped off." "Where?" "In the coffee-room." "And where was Durnford standing when you woke up?" "In the door." "The door of the coffee-room?" "Yes." "You mention a clock in the passage. Where does it stand?" "It stands--you've seen it, sir." "No matter, my friend. The jury haven't." "Well, sir, it stands about half way between the front door and the door of the coffee-room." "So that Durnford, to reach the coffee-room door, would have to pass that clock?" "Yes, sir." "And you did not wake till he was standing in the coffee-room door?" "No, sir." "How high is the face of that clock from the ground? Can you reach it without standing on anything?" "Oh, yes. Quite easily." "Was Durnford a taller man than yourself?" "Yes, sir. At least a head taller." "Does the face of that clock open easily?" "Quite easily. I open it every few days to wind it." "Did that clock keep good time after that evening?" "I don't remember, sir," answered the witness, after a moment of earnest thought. "No matter. Jane Flinders swears it was a quarter-past ten by her watch, when she heard Durnford come in. You swear it was five-and-twenty minutes to ten. How do you reconcile the difference?" "I don't know. She must be mistaken." "But so may you be." The witness was silent. "Now, has it never occurred to you that that clock may have been tampered with? The hands put back half an hour or so, while you were asleep?" asked Mr Benham, bending forward and fixing a piercing glance on the witness' face. "Oh Lord! sir. No, it never did." "But still the thing might have been done--while you were asleep?" "It's not impossible, sir." "It's not impossible. And now--look at the prisoner." The light was full upon Roland's face, and again his eyes met those of the witness. Grainger started and stared. His face was a study. He looked like a man upon whom a new and unexpected light had irresistibly dawned. "Oh Lord?" he ejaculated dazedly. "Now," went on Mr Benham, in his most inquisitorial tone, "will you stand there and swear that the prisoner is not the man who was staying at `The Silver Fleece,' under the name of Robert Durnford." "M'lord!" cried Mr Windgate, "I have made a special note of the fact that the witness has already distinctly sworn to that very thing. I must protest emphatically against my learned brother trying to intimidate the witness into making a most unwarrantable contradiction of his former statement." "And I must equally protest against these repeated imputations," retorted Mr Benham. "The prosecution is quite in order, Mr Windgate," ruled the judge. "Let us continue." "There is--there is a look of Durnford about him," blunderingly admitted the witness. "A very similar look? On your oath, mind." "Well--he stands like him, and--and--his head--is like him," stammered the unfortunate man.