“’Very well, sir.  Very well.  Answer me this question then.  Is it the fact that your wife has instituted divorce proceedings against you?’

“‘Look here—­’

“Court surging with sensation at this dramatic disclosure.  Humpo mopping his face, keeping the great forefinger going.  Sabre clutching the desk like a man in asthma, Twyning tugging at Humpo’s coat.  ‘Yes, yes,’ says Humpo, bending down, then launches at Sabre again.

“’Is it the fact that in these proceedings the deceased woman is named as corespondent?’

“‘Look here—­’

“’You keep asking me to look here, sir, but you tell me nothing.  I ask you plain questions.  Have you nothing better than, “Look here”?  Is it the fact that these papers were served on you at Brighton on the occasion of your flight?’

“‘Flight—­flight—­Look here—­’

“‘Is it the fact?’

“’Yes.  Brighton, yes.  But, look here—­flight! flight!  Holiday, I tell you.  Holiday.’

“‘Holiday!’ cries Humpo.  ’Do you tell me holiday, sir?  Holiday!  I thank you for that word.  We will examine it in a moment.  This was at Brighton, then.  The business of the witness whom we have recently seen in the box was to serve the papers on you and on the deceased.  Now come back a little.  Let me ask you to carry back your mind to the summer of 1915—­, and with his wagging forefinger, and his sloshing tongue, and his mopping at his face, and his throwing back of his mane as though it were a cloak from under which he kept rushing in to stab home another knife, he takes the unhappy man through all the stuff he had got out of old Bright—­Sabre’s apparently uncalled-for interest in the girl, first getting her from her father’s house to the neighbourhood of his own, then under his own roof, and all the rest of the unholy chain of it.  Then he has a chat with Twyning, then mops himself dry, and then hurls in again.

“’Now, sir, this holiday.  This pleasant holiday by the sea!  Did you make any preparations for it, any little purchases?’

“‘No.  Purchases?  No.  Look here—­’

“’Never mind about “Look here,” sir.  No purchases?  Did you hear the evidence of the witness—­the Alton chemist who declared on oath that you made a purchase in his shop on the very day before you started, a purchase you have admitted?  Remembering that, do you still say you made no purchases for your—­holiday?’

“‘Nothing to do with it.  Nothing—­’

“’Nothing to do with it?  Well, sir, we will accept that for a moment.  Do you often go shopping in Alton?’

“The poor beggar shook his head.  No voice in his throat.

“‘Do you shop there once in a month, once in six months?’

“Shook again.

“’Are there chemists in the Garden House, in Tidborough, in Chovensbury?’

“Nods.

“‘Are you known in all these places I have mentioned?’

“Nods.