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Data Mashup
with Microsof t
Excel Using Power
Query and M
Finding, Transforming, and Loading Data
from External Sources
—
Adam Aspin
Data Mashup with
Microsoft Excel Using
Power Query and M
Finding, Transforming, and
Loading Data from
External Sources
Adam Aspin
Data Mashup with Microsoft Excel Using Power Query and M: Finding,
Transforming, and Loading Data from External Sources
Adam Aspin
Stafford, UK
Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xix
Chapter 1: Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel���������������������� 1
Power Query��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 2
The Data Load Process����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
Why Use Power Query?����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7
The Queries & Connections Pane�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
Displaying the Queries & Connections Pane���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
The Peek Window�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
Peek Window Options������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 10
View in Worksheet����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 11
Deleting a Query������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 12
Understanding Data Load������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 12
The Navigator Dialog������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
Select Multiple Source Tables����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15
Searching for Datasets���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15
Navigator Display Options����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 17
Refresh���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 17
The Navigator Data Preview�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 18
Modifying Data���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 19
The Power Query Editor�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 20
Data Sources������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 20
iii
Table of Contents
iv
Table of Contents
v
Table of Contents
vi
Table of Contents
vii
Table of Contents
viii
Table of Contents
ix
Table of Contents
x
Table of Contents
xi
Table of Contents
Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 379
xii
About the Author
Adam Aspin is an independent business intelligence consultant based in the United
Kingdom. He has worked with SQL Server for over 25 years. During this time, he has
developed several dozen reporting and analytical systems based on the Microsoft
Analytics Stack.
Business intelligence has been Adam’s principal focus for the last 20 years. He has
applied his skills for a variety of clients in a range of industry sectors. He is the author
of Apress books: SQL Server 2012 Data Integration Recipes, Pro Power BI Desktop (now
in its third edition), Business Intelligence with SQL Server Reporting Services, and High
Impact Data Visualization in Excel with Power View, 3D Maps, Get & Transform and
Power BI.
A graduate of Oxford University, Adam began his career in publishing before moving
into IT. Databases soon became a passion, and his experience in this arena ranges from
dBase to Oracle, and Access to MySQL, with occasional sorties into the world of DB2.
He is, however, most at home in the Microsoft universe when using SQL Server Analysis
Services, SQL Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Integration Services, and Power
BI—both on-premises and in Azure.
A fluent French speaker, Adam has worked in France and Switzerland for many years.
xiii
About the Technical Reviewer
Karine Aspin is a principal consultant with Calidra Ltd., a UK-based data and analytics
consultancy. A mathematics graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology,
Karine has worked at a range of IT companies including IBM Global Services.
xv
Acknowledgments
Writing a technical book can be a lonely occupation. So I am all the more grateful for
all the help and encouragement that I have received from so many fabulous friends and
colleagues.
First, my considerable thanks go to Jonathan Gennick, the commissioning editor
of this book. Throughout the publication process, Jonathan has been both a tower
of strength and an exemplary mentor. He has always been available to share his vast
experience selflessly and courteously.
Heartfelt thanks go to Jill Balzano, the Apress coordinating editor, for calmly
managing this book through the production process. She succeeded—once again—in
the well-nigh impossible task of making a potentially stress-filled trek into a pleasant
journey filled with light and humor. Her team also deserves much praise for their
efficiency under pressure.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my wife, Karine, for her time and effort spent
reviewing this book. Being a technical reviewer is a thankless task, but I want to say a
heartfelt “thank you” to her for the range and depth of her comments and for picking up
so much that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. The book is a better one thanks to
her efforts.
My thanks also go to Ann Gemer Tuballa for her tireless and subtle work editing and
polishing the prose and to the team at SPi Global for the hours spent preparing the book
for publishing.
xvii
Introduction
Analytics has become one of the buzzwords that define an age. Managers want their staff
to deliver meaningful insight in seconds; users just want to do their jobs quickly and
well. Everyone wants to produce clear, telling, and accurate analysis with tools that are
intuitive and easy to use.
Microsoft recognized these trends and needs a few short years ago when they
extended Excel with an add-in called Power Query. Once a mere optional extension to
the world’s leading spreadsheet, Power Query is now a fundamental pillar of the Excel
toolkit. It allows a user to take data from a wide range of sources and transform them into
the base data that they can build on to add metrics, instant analyses, and KPIs to project
their insights.
With Power Query, the era of self-service data access and transformation has finally
arrived.
• Reshaping the data (the “data mashup” process) so that the resulting
data is in a form that can be used by Excel. Essentially, this means
ensuring that the data is in a coherent, structured, and complete
tabular format. This is the transform phase of ETL.
These three phases make up the data ingestion process. So it is worth taking a short
look at what makes up each one of them.
xix
Introduction
D
ata Transformation
Once you have established a connection to a data source, you may need to tweak the
data in some way. Indeed, you may even need to reshape it entirely. This is the data
mashup process—and it is the area where Power Query shines.
Power Query can carry out the simplest data transformation tasks to the most
complex data restructuring challenges in a few clicks. You can
• Filter source data so that you only load exactly the rows and columns
you need
xx
Introduction
• Join or split source tables to prepare a logical set of data tables for
each specific analytical requirement
This list merely scratches the surface of all that Power Query can do to mash up your
data. It is, without hyperbole, unbelievably powerful at transforming source data. Indeed,
it can carry out data ingestion and transformation tasks that used to be the preserve of
expensive products that required complex programming skills and powerful servers.
All of this can now be done using a code-free interface that assists you in taking the
messiest source data and delivering it to Excel as limpid tables of information ready to
work with. If you wish to become a Power Query super-user, then you can extend its
possibilities using the built-in M language.
• A worksheet: Power Query can place the data from each source
query into a separate worksheet. Once in a worksheet, it is perfectly
“normal” Excel data. From here on you can do what you want to
the data in Excel just as you normally would using all the Excel
techniques that you have learned over the years.
• The data model: Also referred to, often, as the Power Pivot data
model (which is the term that I prefer to use), this is an in-memory
data store. It can handle many more rows of data than Excel—tens
of millions in some cases—and is normally the basis for pivot table
output in Excel. When dealing with large source datasets, it is often
the ideal destination for data that you have accessed using Power
Query, as it is compressed in memory (and consequently takes up
less space when saved to disk) and can easily exceed the 1,048,576
row limit of Excel worksheets.
xxi
Introduction
The data model and Power Pivot are extensive subjects in their own right, and this
book will not be looking at either of them in detail.
• You can trigger manual data refreshes at any time—and these can be
total refreshes of every source connection in a workbook or refreshes
of a single source if you prefer.
So, as is the case for nearly all your Excel-based work, you are likely to build once
and use often.
xxii
Introduction
of the product. However, it will mean that certain aspects of the Excel interface that you
use to launch Power Query will be slightly different from those described in Chapters 1
through 5. These differences are essentially minor and should not present any
difficulties to experienced Excel users.
This is made possible due to the fact that Power Query is accessed using a separate
interface. It is called from inside Excel, but exists in its own parallel universe. This
ensures a consistent look and feel whatever the version of Excel that you are using. The
entry point into Power Query may change with Excel versions—but the product itself
remains the same. Just remember that the range of available data sources will depend on
the version of Excel that you are using. Some of the “enterprise-level” data sources are
only available in Pro and Enterprise subscriptions to Excel.
xxiii
Introduction
xxiv
CHAPTER 1
• Fast
• Decentralized
• Intuitive
• Interactive
• Delivery
1
© Adam Aspin 2020
A. Aspin, Data Mashup with Microsoft Excel Using Power Query and M,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6018-0_1
Chapter 1 Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel
Using the techniques described in this book, you can discover and load data from
a multitude of external sources. You can then, quickly and intuitively, transform and
cleanse this raw data to make it structured and usable. Once ready for use, you can load
it into either Excel worksheets or the Power Pivot data model in Excel and start using the
tool you already know so well—Excel—to provide detailed analytics.
It follows that this book is written from the perspective of the user. Essentially it is
all about empowerment—letting users define their own requirements and satisfy their
own needs simply and efficiently by building on their existing skills. The amazing thing
is that you can do all of this using Excel without needing any other tools or utilities. Your
sources could be in many places and in many formats. Nonetheless, you need to access
them, sample them, select them, and, if necessary, transform or cleanse them in order to
deliver your analyses. All of this is enabled by Power Query.
Power Query
Power Query is one of the most recent additions to the Excel toolkit. Now fully integrated
into Excel, it allows you to discover, access, and consolidate information from varied
sources. Once your data is selected, cleansed, and transformed into a coherent table, you
can then place it in an Excel worksheet for detailed analysis or load it directly into Power
Pivot (the Excel data model), which is a natural repository for data when you want to
“slice and dice” it interactively.
Power Query allows you to do many things with source data, but the four main steps
are likely to be
• Shape data into the columns and records that suit your use cases.
There was a time when these processes required dedicated teams of IT specialists.
Well, not any more. With Power Query, you can mash up your own data so that it is the
way you want it and is ready to use as part of your self-service solution.
2
Chapter 1 Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel
• Data loading: Select the data you have examined and load a subset
into Power Query for shaping.
• Data modification: Modify the structure of each dataset that you have
imported.
Although I have outlined these three steps as if they are completely separate and
sequential, the reality is that they often blend into a single process. Indeed, there could
be many occasions when you will examine the data after it has been loaded into Excel—
or clean datasets before you load them. The core objective will, however, always remain
the same: find some data and then sample it in Power Query where you can tweak, clean,
and shape it before loading it into Excel.
This process could be described simplistically as “First, catch your data.” In the world
of data warehousing, the specialists call it ETL, which is short for Extract, Transform, and
Load. Despite the reassuring confidence that the acronym brings, this process is rarely
a smooth, logical progression through a clear-cut series of steps. The reality is often
far messier. You may often find yourself importing some data, cleaning it, importing
some more data from another source, combining the second dataset with the first one,
removing some rows and columns, and then repeating these operations, as well as many
others, several times over.
In this and the following few chapters, I will try to show you how the process can
work in practice using Power Query. I hope that this will make the various steps that
comprise an ETL process clearer. All I am asking is that you remain aware that the
range of options that Power Query includes make it a multifaceted and tremendously
capable tool. The science is to know which options to use. The art is to know when to
use them.
3
Chapter 1 Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel
3. Click Get Data. The Get Data popup menu will appear, as shown
in Figure 1-1.
4
Chapter 1 Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel
Figure 1-2. The Import Data dialog when loading data from an Excel workbook
5
Chapter 1 Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel
10. Click Load. The data will be loaded from the external Excel
workbook into a new worksheet inside the current workbook.
You will see the Excel window, like the one shown in Figure 1-4. The external data is
now an Excel table (named BaseData, as this was the name of the source data table). You
can see that the connection to the external workbook now appears on the right of the
Excel spreadsheet data in the new Queries & Connections pane. I will explain this new
element in a couple of pages once I have explained exactly why Power Query is such a
cool solution to data ingestion challenges.
6
Chapter 1 Using Power Query to Discover and Load Data into Excel
I imagine that loading this data took a few seconds at most. Yet you now have a
complete set of external data in Excel that is ready to be used for analysis and reporting.
However, for the moment, I would like to pause and explain exactly what you have seen
so far.
• Import multiple datasets from external data sources at the same time
7
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
rolling relish of the lips, as he prepared, giving a satisfied shift to his
gown, to open his inquisitions:—
Q. You are on very intimate terms, I believe, Mr. Bickerdike, with
Sir Calvin and his family?
A. With Sir Calvin’s permission, I think I may say yes.
Q. You have seen the prisoner before?
A. Many times.
Q. Could you, as a guest, speak to his general character?
A. It has always appeared to me quite unexceptionable.
Q. Not a violent man?
A. O! dear, no.
Q. At dinner, on the night before the murder, did you notice
anything peculiar about him?
A. He appeared to me to be upset about something.
Q. And you wondered, perhaps—having only arrived that
afternoon, as I understand—what domestic tribulation could have
discomposed so stately a character? (Laughter.)
A. I may have. I had always considered Cleghorn as immovable
an institution as the Monument.
The laughter which greeted this sally appeared to reassure
witness somewhat, as did the unexpected lines on which his rather
irregular examination seemed to be developing. But his confidence
was of short duration. The very next question brought him aware of
the true purpose of this preliminary catechism, which was merely to
constitute a pretext for getting him into the witness-box at all.
Q. Was your arrival that afternoon, may I ask, in response to a
long invitation or a sudden call?
A. (With a sudden stiffening of his shoulders, as if rallying his
energies to meet an ordeal foreseen.) A sudden call. I came down in
response to a letter from my friend Mr. Hugo Kennett, inviting me to
a few days’ shooting.
Q. Mr. Hugo Kennett is a particular friend of yours, is he not?
A. We have known one another a long time.
Q. Intimate to that degree, I mean, that you have few secrets from
one another?
A. That may be.
Q. And can depend upon one another in any emergency?
A. I hope so.
Q. There was a question of emergency, perhaps, in this case?
A. I am bound to say there often is with Mr. Kennett.
Q. Will you explain what you mean by that?
A. I mean—I hope he will forgive my saying it—that his
imagination is a little wont to create emergencies which nothing but
his friends’ immediate advice and assistance can overcome. He is
apt to be in the depths one moment and on the heights the next. He
is built that way, that’s all.
Q. Was this a case of an emergency due to his imagination?
A. I won’t go quite so far as to say that.
Q. Then there was really a reason this time for his having you
down at short notice?
A. I may have thought so.
Q. We will come to that. Had he mentioned the reason in his letter
to you?
A. No. The letter only said that he badly wanted “bucking,” and
asked me to come down at once.
Q. He gave no explanation?
A. None whatever.
Q. In the letter, or afterwards when you met?
A. No.
Q. You found him in an uncommunicative mood?
A. Somewhat.
Q. Kindly say what you mean by “somewhat.”
A. I mean that, while he told me nothing definite about his reason
for having me down, he did seem to hint that there was trouble
somewhere.
Q. What were his exact words?
A. I can’t remember.
Q. Were they to the effect that he was in a devil of a fix with a girl,
and could only see one way out of it? (Sensation.)
A. (Aghast.) Nothing of the sort. Now I recall, he described himself
as sitting on a barrel of gunpowder, smoking a cigarette and waiting
for the explosion that was to come.
Q. Thank you. Another effort or two, Mr. Bickerdike, and your
memory may need no refreshing. Did you find your friend’s manner,
now, as strange as his talk?
A. It might often have seemed strange on such occasions to those
who did not know him.
Q. Answer my question, please.
A. (Reluctantly.) Well, it was strange.
Q. Stranger than you had ever known it to be before?
A. Perhaps so.
Q. I suggest that it was wild and reckless to a degree—the manner
of a man who had got himself into a hopeless scrape, and saw no
way out of it but social and material ruin?
A. It was very strange: I can say no more.
Q. Would you have considered his state compatible with that of a
young man of good position and prospects, who had entangled
himself with a girl greatly his social inferior, and was threatened by
her with exposure unless he, in the common phrase, made an
honest woman of her?
Mr. Redstall rising to object, the Bench ruled that the question was
inadmissible. It had created, however, a profound impression in
Court, which from that moment never abated. Counsel, accepting
their worships’ decision, resumed:—
Q. Had you any reason to suspect a woman in the case?
A. It was pure conjecture on my part.
Q. Then you did entertain such a suspicion?
A. Not at that time. Later perhaps.
Q. After the murder?
A. Yes, after the murder.
Q. When?
A. The moment I heard it had been committed. I was told by a
groom.
Q. About the woman or the murder?
A. About the murder.
Q. When was that?
A. When I returned from shooting that day.
Q. You returned alone, I believe?
A. Yes.
Q. Mr. Kennett having left you shortly before three o’clock?
A. I fancy about that time.
Q. And at the moment you heard there had been this murder
committed, that conjecture, that association between your friend and
the murdered girl came into your mind?
A. It was wholly preposterous, of course. I dismissed the idea the
moment it occurred to me.
Q. You dismissed the idea of Mr. Kennett’s having been involved
with the girl?
A. No, of his having committed the murder. (Sensation.)
Q. But you still thought the entanglement possible?
A. I thought it might account for his state.
Q. Why did the first idea, associating Mr. Kennett with the crime,
occur to you? (Witness hesitating, the question was repeated.)
A. (In a low voice.) O! just because of something—nothing
important—that had happened at the shoot—that, and the
extraordinary state I had found him in.
Q. Will you tell the Bench what was this unimportant something
that happened at the shoot?
A. (With emotion.) It was nothing—probably my fancy—and he
denied it utterly.
Q. Now, Mr. Bickerdike, if you please?
A. I thought that in—in pulling his gun through a particular hedge
that morning, he might have done it with less risk to himself, that was
all.
Q. You suspected him, in short, of wanting to kill himself under the
guise of an accident?
A. I swear he never admitted it. I swear he denied it.
Q. And you accepted his denial so implicitly that you asked him to
go home, leaving his gun with the keeper. Is that not so?
A. Yes.
Q. He refused?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. Did not much the same thing occur again, later in the
afternoon?
A. Nothing of the sort at all. Shortly before three he came to me,
and said he was no good and was going home.
Q. What did he mean by “no good”? No good in life?
A. No good at shooting.
Q. And again you asked him to leave his gun with you?
A. No, I did not—not directly, at least.
Q. Please explain what you mean by “not directly”?
A. He may have understood what was in my mind. I can’t say. He
just laughed, and called out that he wasn’t going to shoot himself,
and wasn’t going to let me make an ass of him; and with that he
marched off.
Q. And that is all?
A. All.
Q. He didn’t, by chance, in saying “I’m not going to shoot myself,”
lay any particular emphasis on the last word?
A. Certainly not that I distinguished. The whole suggestion is too
impossible to any one who knows my friend.
Q. Thank you, Mr. Bickerdike. That will do.
If witness had entered the box like an oppressed man, he left it like
a beaten. His cheeks were flushed, his head bowed; it was observed
that he purposely avoided looking his friend in the face as he passed
him by on his way to the rear of the Court.
The excitement was now extreme. All attention, in the midst of a
profound stillness, was concentrated on a figure come more and
more, with each adjustment of the legal spy-glass, into a definite
focus. It was felt that the supreme moment was approaching; and,
when the expected name was called, a sigh like that of a sleeper
turning seemed to sound through the hall. The prisoner in the dock
had already long been overlooked—forgotten. He had been put up, it
seemed, as a mere medium for this deadlier manifestation, and his
purpose served, had ceased to be of interest. He stood pallid with
his hands on the rail before him, rolling his one mobile eye, the only
apparently mystified man in Court.
As Hugo entered the box, he was seen to be deadly pale, but he
held his head high, and stood like a soldier, morally and physically
upright, facing his court-martial. He folded his arms, and looked his
inquisitor steadily in the eyes. Mr. Fyler retorted with an expression
of well-assured suavity. He was in no hurry. Having netted his fowl,
he could afford to let him flutter awhile. He began by leading his
witness, only more briefly, the way he had already conducted him at
the Inquest, but with what new menace of pitfalls by the road! The
discovery of the body; the incident of the gun (prejudiced now in the
light of the possible moral to be drawn from witness’s hurry to get rid
of it, and his loathing of the weapon), the marked agitation of his
aspect when seen by the gardener; the interval in the house, with its
suggestion of nervous collapse and desperate rallying to face the
inevitable ordeal; that significant outburst of his at the Inquest, when
he had exclaimed against an implication of guilt which had never
been made; his admission of having bantered the deceased about
an assignation—an admission fraught with suspicion of the scene of
passion and recrimination which had perhaps more truthfully
described their encounter—all these points were retraversed, but in
a spirit ominously differing from that in which they had formerly been
reviewed. And then at last, in a series of swift stabbing questions
and hypotheses, issued the mortal moral of all this sinister exordium:
—
Q. You chaffed the deceased, you say, sir, with being where she
was for an assignation?
A. Something of the sort.
Q. Something of the sort may be nothing of the sort. I suggest that
this so-called chaff is better described as a quarrel between you. Will
you swear that that was not the case?
A. No, I will not.
Q. Then your statement was a fabrication?
A. I accused her of being there to meet some one.
Q. You accused her. I am your debtor for the word. Will you swear
that she was not there to keep an assignation, and that assignation
with yourself?
A. I swear it most positively. Our meeting was quite accidental.
Q. On your part?
A. On my part.
Q. But not on hers?
A. I am not here to answer for that.
Q. Pardon me; I think you are. I suggest that, expecting you to
return by the Bishop’s Walk, she was waiting there to waylay you?
A. She might have been, on the chance.
Q. I suggest you knew that she was?
A. I say I did not know.
Q. Well, you took that way at least, and you met and quarrelled. I
suggest that the person you accused her of being there to meet was
yourself, and that the dispute between you turned upon the question
of her thus importuning you? Is that so?
A. (After a pause.) Yes.
Q. And I suggest further that the reason for her so importuning you
lay in her condition, for which you were responsible?
A. Yes. It is true. (Sensation.)
Q. She entreated you, perhaps, to repair the wrong you had done
her in the only way possible to an honourable man?
A. (Witness seeming to stiffen, as if resolved to face the whole
music at last.) She had already urged that; she pressed to know, that
was all, if I had made up my mind to marry her. I refused to give a
definite answer just then, since my whole career was at stake; but I
promised her one within twenty-four hours. I was very much
bothered over the business, and I dare say a bit impatient with her.
She may have upbraided me a little in return, but there was no actual
quarrel between us. I went on after a few minutes, leaving her there
by herself. And that is the whole truth.
Q. We will judge of that. You say the meeting was none of your
seeking?
A. I do say it.
Q. Now, please attend to me. You were on your way back, when
you met deceased, from the shooting party which you had
abandoned?
A. Yes.
Q. You have heard what the last witness stated as to a certain
incident connected with that morning. Was his statement
substantially true?
A. I can’t deny it. It was a momentary mad impulse.
Q. And, being forestalled, was replaced possibly by an alternative
suggestion, pointing to another way out of your difficulties?
A. I don’t know what you mean. It was just the culmination, as it
were, of a desperate mood, and was regretted by me the next
instant.
Q. Was it because of your desperate mood that you refused to be
parted from your gun when you finally left the shoot and returned
home?
A. No; but because I declined to be made to look a fool.
Q. I put it to you once more that you knew, when you went home,
carrying against all persuasion, your gun with you, that the deceased
would be waiting for you in the copse?
A. It is utterly false. I knew nothing about it.
Q. Very well. Now, as to the time of your meeting with the
deceased. I have it stated on your sworn evidence that that was at
three o’clock or thereabouts, and that after spending some ten
minutes in conversation with her, you resumed your way to the
house, which you reached at about 3.15, appearing then, according
to the evidence of a witness, in a very agitated state.
A. I was upset, I own—naturally, under the circumstances.
Q. What circumstances?
A. Having just promised to do or not to do what would affect my
whole life.
Q. No other reason?
A. No.
Q. Did you hear the sworn statement of the witness Henstridge
and another that the report of the shot, which could have been none
other than the fatal shot, was heard and fixed by them at a time
estimated at a few minutes after three o’clock, that is to say, at a
time when, according to your own admission, you were in the
deceased’s company?
A. It is an absolute lie.
The crisis had come, the long-expected blow fallen; but, even in
the shock and echo of it, there were some who found nerve to
glance from son to father, and wonder what super-dramatic incident
yet remained to them to cap the day’s excitement. They were
disappointed. Not by one sign or movement did the stiff grey figure
on the Bench betray the torture racking it, or concede to their
expectations the evidence of an emotion—not even when, as if in
response to some outspoken direction, a couple of policemen were
seen to move silently forward, and take their stand on either side the
witness box. And then, suddenly, Counsel was speaking again.
He addressed the Bench with an apology for the course imposed
upon him, since it must have become apparent, as the case
proceeded, that the tendency of the prosecution had been to turn
more and more from its nominal objective in the dock. There had
been a reason for that, however, and he must state it. The inquiries
of the police, and more especially of the distinguished detective
officer, Sergeant Ridgway, had latterly, gradually but certainly, led
them to the conclusion that the motive for the crime, and the name of
its perpetrator, must be looked for in another direction than that
originally, and seemingly inevitably, indicated. This change of
direction had necessarily exculpated the two men concerned in to-
day’s proceedings; but it had been thought best to submit one of
them to examination for the purpose of exposing through the
evidence affecting him the guilt of the presumptive criminal. That
having been done, the police raised no objection to Cleghorn, like
the other accused, being discharged.
He then went on to summarize the evidence, as it had come, by
gradual degrees, to involve the witness Kennett in its meshes—the
scrape into which the young man had got himself, his dread of
exposure, the wildness of his talk and behaviour, the incriminating
business of the gun, and, finally, the sworn testimony as to the time
of the shot—and he ended by drawing a fanciful picture of what had
occurred in the copse.
“I ask your worships,” he said, “to picture to yourselves the
probable scene. Here has this young Lothario returned, his heart full
of death and desperation since the frustration of his first mad
impulse to end his difficulties with his life, knowing, or not knowing—
we must form our own conclusions as to that—that his destined
victim awaits him at the tryst—if tryst it is—her heart burning with
bitterness against the seducer who has betrayed her; each resolved
on its own way out of the trouble. She upbraids him with her ruin,
and threatens in her turn to ruin him, unless he consents to right the
wrong he has done her. He refuses, or temporizes; and she turns to
leave him. Thinking she is about to put her threat into immediate
execution, goaded to desperation, the gun in his hand—only
tentatively adhered to at first, perhaps—decides him. He fires at and
kills her. The deed perpetrated, he has to consider, after the first
shock of horror, how best to conceal the evidences of his guilt. He
decides to rest the lethal weapon against a tree (with the intention of
asserting—or, at least, not denying, if subsequently questioned—that
he had left it with one of its barrels loaded), concocts in his mind a
plausible story of a cigarette and an oversight, and hurries on to the
house, where, in his private room, he spends such a three-quarters
of an hour of horror and remorse as none of us need envy him. His
nerve by then somewhat restored, he decides to take the initiative in
the necessary discovery, and, affecting a sudden recollection of his
oversight, returns to the copse to fetch his gun, with the result we
know. All that it is open to us to surmise; what we may not surmise is
the depth of depravity in a nature which could so plan to cast the
burden of its own guilt upon the shoulders of an innocent man.”
One dumb, white look here did the son turn on the father; who met
it steadfastly, as white and unflinching.
“We have heard some loose talk, your worships,” went on
Counsel, “as to the appearance of a mysterious fourth figure in this
tragedy. We may dismiss, I think, that individual as purely chimerical
—a maggot, if I may so describe it, of the witness Henstridge’s brain.
There is no need, I think you will agree with me, for looking beyond
this Court for a solution of the problem which has been occupying its
attention. Painful as the task is to me, I must now do my duty—
without fear or favour in the face of any considerations, social or
sentimental, whatsoever—by asking you to commit for trial, on the
capital charge of murdering Annie Evans, the witness Hugo Staveley
Kennett, a warrant for whose arrest the police already hold in their
hands.”
Not a sound broke the stillness as Counsel ended—only a muffled
rumble, like that of a death-drum, from the wheels of a passing
wagon in the street outside. And then the blue-clad janissaries
closed in; the Magistrates, without leaving the Bench, put their heads
together, and the vote was cast.
“Hugo Staveley Kennett, we have no alternative but to commit you
to take your trial on the capital charge.”
A sudden crash and thump broke in upon the verdict. Cleghorn
had fainted in the dock.
CHAPTER XV.
THE FACE ON THE WALL
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