No rebutting evidence was forthcoming. The maid, a woman married to an
ex-French or Swiss courier, by name Bruel, could not be produced,
simply because she could not be found in Brighton. They were supposed
to be settled there as lodging-house keepers, but they had not resided
long enough to be in the Directory, and their address was not known.
Lord Blackadder's case was that they were pure myths, they had never
had any tangible existence, but were only imported into the case to
support an ingenious but untenable defence.
It was more than hinted that they had been spirited away, and they
were not the first material witnesses, it was hinted, in an intricate
case, conducted by Messrs. Gadecker and Gobye, who had mysteriously
disappeared. So the plausible, nay, completely satisfactory
explanation of Lady Blackadder's visit to Brighton could not be put
forward, much less established, and there was no sort of hope for her.
She lost her case in the absence of the Bruels, man and wife. The
verdict was for Lord Blackadder, and he was adjudged to have the care
and custody of the child, the infant Viscount Aspdale.
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