“So you know me?”

“Yes.”

“It is strange.  I have never previously met you to my knowledge.  Am I still a celebrity?”

“To me—­yes.”

“A sort of distinguished criminal, eh?”

“No man could be such a judge of tobacco and remain commonplace.”

“’Pon my honour, Mr. Brett, I think you deserve your reputation.  For the first time during eighteen months I feel hopeful.  Do you know, I passed dozens of acquaintances in the streets yesterday and none of them knew me.  Yet you pick me out at the first glance, so to speak.”

“They might do the same if you spoke to them, Mr.—­”

“Hume, if you please.”

“Certainly.  Why have you dropped part of your surname?”

“It is a long story.  My lawyers, Flint & Sharp, of Gray’s Inn, heard of your achievements in the cases of Lady Lyle and the Imperial Diamonds.  They persuaded me to come to you.”

“Though, personally, you have little faith in me?”

“Heaven knows, Mr. Brett, I have had good cause to lose faith.  My case defies analysis.  It savours of the supernatural.”

The barrister shoved his chair sideways until he was able to reach a bookcase, from which he took a bulky interleaved volume.

“Supernatural,” he repeated.  “That is new to me.  As I remember the affair, it was highly sensational, perplexing—­a blend of romance and Japanese knives—­but I do not remember any abnormal element save one, utter absence of motive.”

“Do you mean to say that you possess a record of the facts?” inquired Hume, exhibiting some tokens of excitement in face and voice as he watched Brett turning over the leaves of the scrap-book, in which newspaper cuttings were neatly pasted, some being freely annotated.

“Yes.  The daily press supplies my demands in the way of fiction—­a word, by the way, often misapplied.  Where do you find stranger tales than in the records of every-day life?  Ah, here we are!”

He searched through a large number of printed extracts.  There were comments, long reports, and not a few notes, all under the heading:  “The Stowmarket Mystery.”

Hume was now deeply agitated; he evidently restrained his feelings by sheer force of will.

“Mr. Brett,” he said, and his voice trembled a little, “surely you could not have expected my presence here this morning?”

“I no more expected you than the man in the moon,” was the reply; “but I recognised you at once.  I watched your face for many hours whilst you stood in the dock.  Professional business took me to the Assizes during your second trial.  At one time I thought of offering my services.”

“To me?”

“No, not to you.”

“To whom, then?”

“To the police.  Winter, the Scotland Yard man who had charge of the business, is an old friend of mine.”

“What restrained you?”

“Pity, and perhaps doubt.  I could see no reason why you should kill your cousin.”