“I ain’t a eavesdropper.  They spoke friendly and went away together.”

Mr. GEORGE GRODMAN was called, and repeated his evidence at the inquest.  Cross-examined, he testified to the warm friendship between Mr. Constant and the prisoner.  He knew very little about Miss Dymond, having scarcely seen her.  Prisoner had never spoken to him much about her.  He should not think she was much in prisoner’s thoughts.  Naturally the prisoner had been depressed by the death of his friend.  Besides, he was overworked.  Witness thought highly of Mortlake’s character.  It was incredible that Constant had had improper relations of any kind with his friend’s promised wife.  Grodman’s evidence made a very favourable impression on the jury; the prisoner looked his gratitude; and the prosecution felt sorry it had been necessary to call this witness.

Inspector HOWLETT and Sergeant RUNNYMEDE had also to repeat their evidence.  Dr. ROBINSON, police surgeon, likewise retendered his evidence as to the nature of the wound, and the approximate hour of death.  But this time he was much more severely examined.  He would not bind himself down to state the time within an hour or two.  He thought life had been extinct two or three hours when he arrived, so that the deed had been committed between seven and eight.  Under gentle pressure from the prosecuting counsel, he admitted that it might possibly have been between six and seven.  Cross-examined, he reiterated his impression in favour of the later hour.

Supplementary evidence from medical experts proved as dubious and uncertain as if the court had confined itself to the original witness.  It seemed to be generally agreed that the data for determining the time of death of any body were too complex and variable to admit of very precise inference; rigor mortis and other symptoms setting in within very wide limits and differing largely in different persons.  All agreed that death from such a cut must have been practically instantaneous, and the theory of suicide was rejected by all.  As a whole the medical evidence tended to fix the time of death, with a high degree of probability, between the hours of six and half-past eight.  The efforts of the prosecution were bent upon throwing back the time of death to as early as possible after about half-past five.  The defence spent all its strength upon pinning the experts to the conclusion that death could not have been earlier than seven.  Evidently the prosecution was going to fight hard for the hypothesis that Mortlake had committed the crime in the interval between the first and second trains for Liverpool; while the defence was concentrating itself on an alibi, showing that the prisoner had travelled by the second train which left Euston Station at a quarter-past seven, so that there could have been no possible time for the passage between Bow and Euston.  It was an exciting struggle.  As yet the contending forces seemed equally matched.  The evidence had gone as much for as against the prisoner.  But everybody knew that worse lay behind.