suspicion of the police had in the first instance
pointed, not to his client, but to the other man. That other man
had also quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen, and that other man was now in
custody on a charge of bigamy chiefly through the instrumentality of
Mr. Bonteen, who had been the friend of the victim of the supposed
bigamist. With the accusation of bigamy they would have nothing to
do, but he must ask them to take cognisance of that quarrel as well
as of the quarrel at the club. He then named that formerly popular
preacher, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, and explained that he would prove
that this man, who had incurred the suspicion of the police in
the first instance, had during the night of the murder been so
circumstanced as to have been able to use the coat produced. He would
prove also that Mr. Emilius was of precisely the same height as the
man whom they had seen wearing the coat. God forbid that he should
bring an accusation of murder against a man on such slight testimony.
But if the evidence, as grounded on the coat, was slight against
Emilius, how could it prevail at all against his client? The two
coats were as different as chalk from cheese, the one being what
would be called a gentleman's fashionable walking coat, and the other
the wrap-rascal of such a fellow as was Mr. Meager. And yet Lord
Fawn, who attempted to identify the prisoner only by his coat, could
give them no opinion as to which was the coat he had seen! But Lord
Fawn, who had found himself to be debarred by his conscience from
repeating the opinion he had given before the magistrate as to the
identity of Phineas Finn with the man he had seen, did tell them that
the figure of that man was similar to the figure of him who had worn
the coat on Saturday in presence of them all. This man in the street
had therefore been like Mr. Emilius, and could not in the least have
resembled the prisoner. Mr. Chaffanbrass would not tell the jury
that this point bore strongly against Mr. Emilius, but he took upon
himself to assert that it was quite sufficient to snap asunder the
thin thread of circumstantial evidence by which his client was
connected with the murder. A great deal more was said about Lord
Fawn, which was not complimentary to that nobleman. "His lordship is
an honest, slow man, who has doubtless meant to tell you the truth,
but who does not understand the meaning of what he himself says. When
he swore before the magistrate that he thought he could identify