Of course I could not understand everything that was going on, though it was all very interesting. People kept getting up in the place the Doctor called the witness-box, and the lawyers at the long table asked them questions about "the night of the 29th." Then the people would get down again and somebody else would get up and be questioned.
One of the lawyers (who, the Doctor told me afterwards, was called the Prosecutor) seemed to be doing his best to get the Hermit into trouble by asking questions which made it look as though he had always been a very bad man. He was a nasty lawyer, this Prosecutor, with a long nose.
Most of the time I could hardly keep my eyes off poor Luke, who sat there between his two policemen, staring at the floor as though he weren't interested. The only time I saw him take any notice at all was when a small dark man with wicked, little, watery eyes got up into the witness-box. I heard Bob snarl under my chair as this person came into the court-room and Luke's eyes just blazed with anger and contempt.
This man said his name was Mendoza and that he was the one who had guided the Mexican police to the mine after Bluebeard Bill had been killed. And at every word he said I could hear Bob down below me muttering between his teeth,
"It's a lie! It's a lie! I'll chew his face. It's a lie!"
