the butler’s story, or find out what game he was playing, because of the assiduity with which the principal witness for the prosecution had been “nursed” by the police from the moment he made his confession.  Crewe bit hard into his amber mouthpiece in vexation as he recalled the ostrich-like tactics of Inspector Chippenfield, who, having accepted Hill’s story as genuine, had officially baulked all his efforts to see the man and question him about it.

He had come to court with the object of witnessing Birchill’s behaviour in the dock and the efforts of any of his criminal friends to communicate with him.  As a man who had had considerable experience in criminal trials he knew the irresistible desire of the criminal in the gallery of the court to encourage the man in the dock to keep up his courage.  Communications of the kind had to be made by signs.  It was Crewe’s impression that by watching Birchill in the dock and Birchill’s friends in the gallery he might pick up a valuable hint or two.  It was also his intention to study closely the defence which Counsel for the prisoner intended to put forward.

It was therefore with a feeling of mingled annoyance and surprise that Crewe, looking down from his point of vantage at the bevy of fashionably-dressed ladies in the body of the court, recognised Mrs. Holymead, Mademoiselle Chiron and Miss Fewbanks seated side by side, engaged in earnest conversation.  Before he could withdraw from their view behind the pillar in front of him, Miss Fewbanks looked up and saw him.  She bowed to him in friendly recognition, and Crewe saw her whisper to Mrs. Holymead, who glanced quickly in his direction and then as quickly averted her gaze.  But in that fleeting glance of her beautiful dark eyes Crewe detected an expression of fear, as though she dreaded his presence, and he noticed that she shivered slightly as she turned to resume her conversation with Miss Fewbanks.

His Honour Mr. Justice Hodson entered, and the persons in the court scrambled hurriedly to their feet to pay their tribute of respect to British law, as exemplified in the person of a stout red-faced old gentleman wearing a scarlet gown and black sash, and attended by four of the Sheriffs of London in their fur-trimmed robes.  The judge bowed in response and took his seat.  The spectators resumed theirs, craning their necks eagerly to look at the accused man, Birchill, who was brought into the dock by two warders.  The work of empanelling a jury commenced, and when it was completed Mr. Walters, K.C., opened the case for the prosecution.

Mr. Walters was a long-winded Counsel who had detested the late Mr. Justice Fewbanks because of the latter’s habit of interrupting the addresses of Counsel with the object of inducing them to curtail their remarks.  This practice was not only annoying to Counsel, who necessarily knew better than the judge what the jury ought to be told, but it also tended to hold Counsel up to ridicule in the eyes of ignorant jurymen as