Next day we were all back in our places at the appointed hour, and, not
greeting each other much, at once began to bring in bills. We brought
them in, not quite so fast, as though some lurking megrim, some microbe
of dissatisfaction with ourselves was at work within us. It was as if we
wanted to throw one out, as if we felt our work too perfect. And
presently it came. A case of defrauding one Sophie Liebermann, or
Laubermann, or some such foreign name, by giving her one of those
five-pound Christmas-card banknotes just then in fashion, and receiving
from her, as she alleged, three real sovereigns change. There was a
certain piquancy about the matter, and I well remember noticing how we
sat a little forward and turned in our seats when they brought in the
prosecutrix to give evidence. Pale, self-possessed, dressed in black, and
rather comely, neither brazen nor furtive, speaking but poor English, her
broad, matter-of-fact face, with its wide-set grey eyes and thickish nose
and lips, made on me, I recollect, an impression of rather stupid
honesty. I do not think they had told us in so many words what her
calling was, nor do I remember whether she actually disclosed it, but by
our demeanour I could tell that we had all realized what was the nature
of the service rendered to the accused, in return for which he had given
her this worthless note. In her rather guttural but pleasant voice she
answered all our questions--not very far from tears, I think, but saved
by native stolidity, and perhaps a little by the fear that purifiers of
Society might not be the proper audience for emotion. When she had left
us we recalled the detective, and still, as it were, touching the
delicate matter with the tips of our tongues, so as not, being men of the
world, to seem biassed against anything, we definitely elicited from him
her profession and these words: "If she's speaking the truth, gentlemen;
but, as you know, these women, they don't always, specially the foreign
ones!" When he, too, had gone, we looked at each other in unwonted