who nodded with a bland smile of encouragement. The employes
of the Hotel Cecil gave evidence as to the arrival of Mr. Smethurst at
about 9.30 p.m. on Wednesday, December the 10th, in a cab, with a
quantity of luggage; and this closed the case for the prosecution.

"Everybody in that court already _saw_ Smethurst mounting the gallows.
It was uninterested curiosity which caused the elegant audience to wait
and hear what Sir Arthur Inglewood had to say. He, of course, is the
most fashionable man in the law at the present moment. His lolling
attitudes, his drawling speech, are quite the rage, and imitated by the
gilded youth of society.

"Even at this moment, when the Siberian millionaire's neck literally and
metaphorically hung in the balance, an expectant titter went round the
fair spectators as Sir Arthur stretched out his long loose limbs and
lounged across the table. He waited to make his effect--Sir Arthur is a
born actor--and there is no doubt that he made it, when in his slowest,
most drawly tones he said quietly;

"'With regard to this alleged murder of one William Kershaw, on
Wednesday, December the 10th, between 6.15 and 8.45 p.m., your Honour, I
now propose to call two witnesses, who saw this same William Kershaw
alive on Tuesday afternoon, December the 16th, that is to say, six days
after the supposed murder.'

"It was as if a bombshell had exploded in the court. Even his Honour was
aghast, and I am sure the lady next to me only recovered from the shock
of the surprise in order to wonder whether she need put off her dinner
party after all.

"As for me," added the man in the corner, with that strange mixture of
nervousness and self-complacency which had set Miss Polly Burton
wondering, "well, you see, _I_ had made up my mind long ago where the
hitch lay in this particular case, and I was not so surprised as some of
the others.

"Perhaps you remember the wonderful development of the case, which so
completely mystified the police--and in fact everybody except myself.
Torriani and a waiter at his hotel in the Commercial Road both deposed
that at about 3.30 p.m. on December the 10th a shabbily dressed
individual lolled into the coffee-room and ordered some tea. He was
pleasant enough and talkative, told the waiter that his name was William
Kershaw, that very soon all London would be talking about him, as he was
about, through an unexpected stroke of good fortune, to become a very
rich man, and so on, and so