ook them in hand. With some he was curiously perfunctory.
Of the caretaker, a meagre old man, with shifty eyes, who appeared
very uncomfortable, he asked but four questions.

"When you found the body what did you do?"

"Ran and got the policeman, sir."

"Where did you get him?"

"On Lexington avenue and Twenty-third street, sir."

"Did you find him at once?"

"No, sir, I had to hunt a bit."

"Between the time you found the body and the time you got back how
many minutes would you say had elapsed?"

"About ten or fifteen minutes, sir."

"That's all," said Orr.

It was not much. Yet with the policeman, a fat man with a red face and
a blue nose, he was even briefer.

"When you reached the park with the last witness, how did you get in?"

"Walked in, sir," the man answered with a grin.

"The gate was open was it?"

"Yes, sir."

"That will do," said Orr.

It was not much either. But with other witnesses, notably with the
experts, he fought, he fought with them, fought with Peacock, fought
with the Court, would have fought with more had there been more to
fight, fought pertinaciously, step by step, reducing testimony to
nothing.

Meanwhile the court-room shimmered with silks. Wanderers from Fifth
avenue who never in their lives had been in the General Sessions
before begged and badgered their way there. It is great fun to see a
man tried for his life. But when you have known him, when in addition
elements supersensational blend like a halo about him, what more could
be decently asked? Yet one thing disappointed. It was regrettable that
the prisoner was not in chains, that he could sit there and yawn with
every appearance of being at a matinee, a keeper for lackey behind
him.

Otherwise the fun, if not fast, was furious. Peacock would ask a
question, the lips of a witness would part but before more than a
fraction of a syllable could issue Orr would hold him up, hold up the
prosecution, hold up the Court. Generally he was overruled. But no
overruling abashed him. He arose from opposition refreshing. There
were times when Sylvia thought him bowed to the earth, utterly
routed, hushed for good. But not a bit of it. At the moment when his
ammunition seemed exhausted and his defeat assured, from an arsenal of
books before him he pulled weapons wherewith not merely to renew the
fight but to win.

In the course of one objection he was commanded by the Bench to sit
down. He protested. The Recorder declined t