Behind Charles, a man said, “You could have fooled me,” and went on laughing.

“I apologize to your lordship,” Savidge said with a bow. He turned to the witness. “Mr. Gould doesn’t sound like a foreigner to me, Mrs. Battle,” he said mildly. “He sounds very like a Londoner. Was his one of the foreign voices you heard and recognized?”

Mrs. Battle looked confused. “Well, maybe ’e wuzn’t one of ’em, then. Or maybe ’e wuz there but wuzn’t talkin’.”

“I see. It does seem to me, though, that if Mr. Gould were silent, you could not know whether he was among the men-the three men-you claim to have overheard. But never mind. Let us focus on the others. You must have frequent contact with them-enough to know what their voices sound like. Are you on friendly terms with Mr. Mouffetard and Mr. Kopinski?”

Mrs. Battle bristled at this suggestion that she might be affiliated with Anarchists. “I sees them most ever’ day. I’m sart’nly not friends with ’em.”

“And do they make a practice of engaging you in conversation?”

Mrs. Battle considered. “No, they us’ally ignores me.” She sniffed. “Hoity-toity like.”

Savidge turned away from her and spoke in a low but audible voice. “How is it, then, that you are able to identify their voices?”

Mrs. Battle leaned forward, the robin bobbing frantically. “Wot’s that ye said? Speak up, if ye please. I’m a little ’ard o’ ’earin’.”

The significance of Mrs. Battle’s response was not lost on the audience, which chuckled. Members of the jury exchanged smiles and glances. The prosecutor was sitting quite still, his lips tight, his face set.

Savidge turned. “You couldn’t hear my voice, Mrs. Battle, when it was perfectly audible to members of the jury and, I daresay, to his lordship. And yet you testify that you were able to identify voices you heard through a wall?” He stepped around to the front of the table, his expression fierce. “And that you heard the very words these voices were speaking, so that you could report the information to the police and be paid for it?”

Mrs. Battle reddened. “Well…”

“Justice may be blind,” the judge remarked sternly, “but it is not hard of hearing. You can go to jail for perjury, Mrs. Battle. And giving false information to the police is a crime.”

Mrs. Battle shrank back, her eyes growing large. “I…”

“Perhaps, now that you have had time to think about the matter,” Savidge said, “you are not certain that these three men are the men you might have heard through the wall.”

Mrs. Battle swallowed hard. “I… I guess maybe they’re not,” she said painfully. “It wuz hard t’ tell. Through the wall an’ all.”

“And perhaps,” Savidge persisted, “given your difficulty in hearing, you are now not positive that you heard anyone even mention the word bomb. Is that possible?”

Mrs. Battle’s pockmarked face was dully mottled. She lowered her head. “It’s possible, I ’spose,” she said in a low voice. “S’pose I might’ve misunderstood.”

“And perhaps it is even possible that you heard nothing at all through the wall?”

“I…” Mrs. Battle applied her handkerchief again. “Yes,” she whispered.

Savidge, his lips tight pressed together, his eyes narrowed, glanced deliberately at the jury, as if to ask, You do understand that this witness lied, don’t you? He turned back to the bench. “I have no more questions, my lord.”

The judge’s jaw was set, his expression angry. “The jury will disregard the testimony of this witness,” he growled. “Mr. Sims, do you have any other witnesses?”

Sims rose and shook his head, his face nearly as red as Mrs. Battle’s. “This completes the case for the prosecution, Your Honor,” he said. Charles could almost feel sorry for him-but not quite.

“The defense may proceed,” the judge said. “Call your first witness, Counsel.”

“Call Adam Gould,” Savidge said.

Adam, sworn and under Savidge’s questioning, testifed that he had been employed by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants for five years. He was not an employee of the Clarion, but on the day of his arrest, he had come to the newspaper office in order to take Miss Conway to lunch. No, he was not an Anarchist, although he believed in the importance of social change. Yes, he was slightly acquainted with the man who had been killed in Hyde Park, but he knew nothing of any plot concerning bombs. He had absolutely no idea (said with great emphasis) how a ginger-beer bottle containing nitric acid came to be found in his flat.

In cross-examination, Sims inquired pointedly whether Mr. Gould’s belief in social change included the use of the strike as a means to achieve it. “Yes, sir,” Adam replied with great firmness, “as long as the strike is peaceful. I have never advocated violence.” Adam was followed to the witness box by a union leader who testified to his character and hard work and his moderate position as an advocate for change. When he was finished, Charles thought that Adam Gould, at least, had appeared in a rather good light.

“Call Mrs. Sharp,” Savidge said.

Mrs. Sharp, a tall woman with an uncompromising countenance, dressed in widow’s black, was Adam Gould’s landlady. She testified that Mr. Gould had occupied her second-floor flat for the past four years, and had always paid his rent on time. Unfortunately, however, his second-floor flat was not entirely secure, for the lock on the door was of the type that might be opened with a skeleton key. It would have been possible for some unknown person, unobserved, to have taken the back stair to the second floor and have entered the place, either to take something or to leave something.

Under the prosecutor’s cross-examination, however, Mrs. Sharp had to admit that she could not say for a fact that anyone had entered Mr. Gould’s flat. And when the land-lord of the rooming house in Halsey Street had testified to the same effect-that neither Mr. Mouffetard’s room nor Mr. Kopinski’s was secure from entry and that any of the boarders in the house, or anyone from the outside for that matter, might have had access to the rooms-he, too, had to admit under Mr. Sim’s severe cross-examination that he could not declare for a certainty that the rooms had been entered. Charles thought that while the testimony might have raised a question in the minds of the jury as to how the so-called bombs had turned up in the rooms, it had not gone far enough. He knew, however, that Savidge had another trick or two up his sleeve, and that it was time to go after the ginger-beer bottles.

“Call Sergeant Charles Stockley Collins,” Savidge said.

Slowly, and with obvious discomfort, a pleasant-faced man of military bearing, wearing gray tweeds and neatly-trimmed gray chin whiskers, stepped into the witness box, was sworn, and gave his name. He was employed, he said, by New Scotland Yard, where he held the rank of sergeant. This announcement provoked a loud buzzing in the courtroom.

“Sergeant Collins,” Savidge said, “does not wish to testify for the defense. We request leave of the Court, therefore, to treat him as an adverse witness.”

The prosecutor rose to his feet, stood indecisively for a moment, then sat down again without saying anything. He leaned over to confer with his associate, who shook his head with apparent puzzlement. It appeared to Charles that Sims had not recognized Charles Collins’s name, which had been properly entered into the witness list. Inspector Ashcraft, seated behind the prosecution’s table, was staring darkly at Sergeant Collins, who seemed to be avoiding the inspector’s glance. The judge rapped his gavel. “Let the record so show.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Savidge replied. “Now, then, Sergeant Collins, you are, I believe, an expert in dactaloscopy-in the forensic science of fingerprinting.”

“I am,” the sergeant said. “I am the head of the Yard’s fingerprinting department.” Collins appeared more comfortable now that he had been declared an adverse witness, Charles thought, as if he could not be blamed for anything he might say. Charles hoped that were true, at any rate. He respected the sergeant and did not want him to suffer any professional disadvantage from his testimony today.