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That was pure chance. If the others had been there, I should have done just

the same."

Still, as it happens, the others were not there?"

No, but----"

In fact, during the whole afternoon, you were only alone for a couple of

minutes, and it happened--I say, it happened--to be during those two

minutes that you displayed your 'natural interest' in Hydro-chloride of

Strychnine?"

Lawrence stammered pitiably.

I--I----"

With a satisfied and expressive countenance, Sir Ernest observed:

I have nothing more to ask you, Mr. Cavendish."

This bit of cross-examination had caused great excitement in court. The

heads of the many fashionably attired women present were busily laid

together, and their whispers became so loud that the judge angrily

threatened to have the court cleared if there was not immediate silence.

There was little more evidence. The hand-writing experts were called upon

for their opinion of the signature of "Alfred Inglethorp" in the chemist's

poison register. They all declared unanimously that it was certainly not his

hand-writing, and gave it as their view that it might be that of the prisoner

disguised. Cross-examined, they admitted that it might be the prisoner's

hand-writing cleverly counterfeited.

Sir Ernest Heavywether's speech in opening the case for the defence was not

a long one, but it was backed by the full force of his emphatic manner.

Never, he said, in the course of his long experience, had he known a charge

of murder rest on slighter evidence. Not only was it entirely circumstantial,

but the greater part of it was practically unproved. Let them take the

testimony they had heard and sift it impartially. The strychnine had been

found in a drawer in the prisoner's room. That drawer was an unlocked one,

as he had pointed out, and he submitted that there was no evidence to

prove that it was the prisoner who had concealed the poison there. It was, in

172

The Mysterious Affair at Styles