“And you believe that, Mr. Mayfield?”

The broad smile broke concentrically in ripples over the great lawyer’s face.  His smile was Mayfield’s main feature.  He shrugged his shoulders and expanded his big hands wide open before him.  “My dear Hubert,” he said, with a most humorous expression of countenance, “you are a professional man yourself; therefore you know that every profession has its own little courtesies—­its own small fictions.  I was Yorke-Bannerman’s counsel, as well as his friend.  ’Tis a point of honour with us that no barrister will ever admit a doubt as to a client’s innocence—­is he not paid to maintain it?—­and to my dying day I will constantly maintain that old Prideaux poisoned himself.  Maintain it with that dogged and meaningless obstinacy with which we always cling to whatever is least provable. . . .  Oh, yes!  He poisoned himself; and Yorke-Bannerman was innocent. . . .  But still, you know, it was the sort of case where an acute lawyer, with a reputation to make, would prefer to be for the Crown rather than for the prisoner.”

“But it was never tried,” I ejaculated.

“No, happily for us, it was never tried.  Fortune favoured us.  Yorke-Bannerman had a weak heart, a conveniently weak heart, which the inquest sorely affected; and besides, he was deeply angry at what he persisted in calling Sebastian’s defection.  He evidently thought Sebastian ought to have stood by him.  His colleague preferred the claims of public duty—­as he understood them, I mean—­ to those of private friendship.  It was a very sad case—­for Yorke-Bannerman was really a charming fellow.  But I confess I was relieved when he died unexpectedly on the morning of his arrest.  It took off my shoulders a most serious burden.”

“You think, then, the case would have gone against him?”

“My dear Hubert,” his whole face puckered with an indulgent smile, “of course the case must have gone against us.  Juries are fools; but they are not such fools as to swallow everything—­like ostriches:  to let me throw dust in their eyes about so plain an issue.  Consider the facts, consider them impartially.  Yorke-Bannerman had easy access to aconitine; had whole ounces of it in his possession; he treated the uncle from whom he was to inherit; he was in temporary embarrassments—­that came out at the inquest; it was known that the Admiral had just made a twenty-third will in his favour, and that the Admiral’s wills were liable to alteration every time a nephew ventured upon an opinion in politics, religion, science, navigation, or the right card at whist, differing by a shade from that of the uncle.  The Admiral died of aconitine poisoning; and Sebastian observed and detailed the symptoms.  Could anything be plainer—­I mean, could any combination of fortuitous circumstances”—­he blinked pleasantly again—­“be more adverse to an advocate sincerely convinced of his client’s innocence—­as a professional duty?” And he gazed at me comically.