ettle you. I hear you are coming back to
Brighton to-morrow, and are getting out at Falmer. All right; I shall be
there, and we shall have a talk.

"MORRIS ASSHETON."

A sort of purr went round the court; the kind humane ladies and gentlemen
who had fought for seats found this to their taste. The noose tightened.

"I have here also an envelope," said the prosecutor, "which was found by
Mr. Figgis and Mr. Wilkinson in the waste-paper basket in the
sitting-room of the deceased. According to the expert in handwriting,
whose evidence you will hear, it is undoubtedly addressed by the same
hand that wrote the letter I have just read you. And, in his opinion,
the handwriting is that of the prisoner. No letter was found in the
deceased man's room corresponding to this envelope, but the jury will
observe that what I have called the negative of the letter on the
blotting-paper was dated June 21st, the day that the prisoner suspected
the slander that had been levelled at him. The suggestion is that the
deceased opened this before leaving for London, and took the letter with
him. And the hand, that for the purposes of misleading justice, robbed
him of his watch and his money, also destroyed the letter which was then
on his person, and which was an incriminating document. But this sheet
of blotting paper is as valuable as the letter itself. It proves the
letter to have been written."

* * * * *

Morris had been given a seat in the dock, and on each side of him there
stood a prison-warder. But in the awed hush that followed, for the
vultures and carrion crows who crowded the court were finding
themselves quite beautifully thrilled, he wrote a few words on a slip
of paper and handed it to a warder to give to his counsel. And his
counsel nodded to him.

The opening speech for the Crown had lasted something over two hours, and
a couple of witnesses only were called before the interval for lunch. But
most of the human ghouls had brought sandwiches with them, and the court
was packed with the same people when Morris was brought up again after
the interval, and the judge, breathing sherry, took his seat. The court
had become terribly hot, but the public were too humane to mind that. A
criminal was being chased toward the gallows, and they followed his
progress there with breathless interest. Step by step all that was laid
down in the opening speech for the prosecution was inexorably proved,
all, that i