The public was familiar with that piece of evidence; it had gone through every kind of mill of opinion; it made no special sensation.  The evidence of the caretaker who found the formula and of the witnesses who established it to be in young Ormiston’s handwriting, produced little interest.  Mr Cruickshank, in elaborating his theory as to why with the formula in their hands the depredators still found it necessary to pick the lock, offered nothing to speculations already current—­the duplicate key with which they had doubtless been enabled to supply themselves was a clumsy copy and had failed them; that conclusion had been drawn commonly enough.  The next scrap of paper produced by the prosecution was another matter.  It was the mere torn end of a greasy sheet; upon it was written “Not less than 3,000 net,” and it had been found in the turning out of Ormiston’s dressing-table.  It might have been anything—­a number of people pursed their lips contemptuously—­or it might have been, without doubt, the fragment of a disreputable transaction that the prosecuting counsel endeavoured to show it.  Here, no doubt, was one of the pieces of evidence the prosecution was understood to have up its sleeve, and that portion of the prosecuting counsel’s garment was watched with feverish interest for further disclosures.  They came rapidly enough, but we must hurry them even more.  The name of Miss Florence Belton, when it rose to the surface of the evidence, riveted every eye and ear.  Miss Belton was one of those ambiguous ladies who sometimes drift out from the metropolitan vortex and circle restfully in backwaters for varying periods, appearing and disappearing irrelevantly.  They dress beautifully; they are known to “paint” and thought to dye their hair.  They establish no relations, being much too preoccupied. making exceptions only, as a rule, in favour of one or two young men, to whom they extend amenities based—­it is the common talk—­upon late hours and whiskey-and-soda.  They seem superior to the little prevailing conventions; they excite an unlawful interest; though nobody knows them black nobody imagines them white; and when they appear upon Main Street in search of shoelaces or elastic heads are turned and nods, possibly nudges, exchanged.  Miss Belton had come from New York to the Barker House, Elgin, and young Ormiston’s intimacy with her was one of the things that counted against him in the general view.  It was to so count more seriously in the particular instance.  Witnesses were called to prove that he had spent the evening of the burglary with Miss Belton at her hotel, that he had remained with her until one o’clock, that he was in the habit of spending his evenings with Miss Belton.