Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
General
Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 1
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
Witness: As a medicine, sir, only as a medicine. I suffer a martyrdom
from spasms. (Laughter.)
Mr. White Lush: A common complaint, Mrs. Preedy. I suffer from them
myself.
Witness: You look like it, sir. (Screams of laughter.)
Mr. White Lush: For how long a time did the music continue?
Witness: For five or six minutes, perhaps.
Mr. White Lush: Are you sure it did not last for a longer time--or a
shorter?
Witness: No, sir, I am not sure. I was in that state that everythink
seemed mixed up.
Mr. White Lush: The music might have lasted for half-an-hour?
Witness: It might, sir.
Mr. White Lush: Or for only a minute?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Mr. White Lush: When the music stopped, what occurred?
Witness: If you was to feed me on bread and water for the next twenty
years I couldn't tell you.
Mr. White Lush: Why couldn't you tell me?
Witness: Because I don't know whether I was standing on my 'ead or my
'eels. (Roars of laughter.)
Mr. White Lush: Nonsense, Mrs. Preedy, you do know.
Witness: Beggin' your pardon, sir, I do not know. I ought to know
whether I don't know.
Mr. White Lush: Are you standing on your head or your heels at the
present moment?
Witness did not reply.
Magistrate: Do you mean to tell the court seriously that you are not
aware whether, at the time referred to, you were standing on your head
or your heels?
Witness: I wouldn't swear to it, my lordship, one way or another.
Mr. White Lush: What did you do when the music stopped?
Witness: I flopped.
Mr. White Lush: Did you flop on your head or your heels?
Witness: I couldn't take it upon myself to say, sir.
Mr. White Lush: And this is all you know of the murder?
Witness: If you was to keep me 'ere for a month, sir, you couldn't get
nothink else out of me.
Mr. White Lush: I have done with you.
Mr. Goldberry: I shall not detain you long, Mrs. Preedy. Look
attentively at the prisoner. Do you know him?
Witness: No, sir.
Mr. Goldberry: Have you ever seen him in Great Porter Square?
Witness: Neither there or nowheres else. This is the first time I ever
set eyes on 'im.
Mr. Goldberry: You swear that, positively.
Witness: If it were the last word I ever spoke, it's the truth.
Mr. Goldberry: That will do.
Mrs. Preedy left the witness box in a state of great agitation, amid the
tittering of the spectators.
Mr. Goldberry, addressing the Bench, said that he saw in the Court
three of the constables who had been instrumental in arresting the
prisoner, one being the officer who had first observed the prisoner in
Great Porter Square. It was well known that the prisoner had declined
to put a single question to one of the witnesses called on behalf of
the Treasury. He asked to be allowed to exercise the privilege of
cross-examining these constables, and he promised to occupy the court
but a very short time.
No objection being raised, Police-constable Richards entered the witness
box.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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